 I used to just, but if I still find everything. So Dustin, just to start speaking. To share. One at the pre-eval with the shore and the sorter, the juggler to the mat, the peter to the rotor. How's that? There, huh? 35, 40 years. Yeah. Where's high school? I was gonna say that was my senior high school. Senior high school. In this case, it was Mr. O'Neill. Is that any? That's great. I forgot about June 27th, 2019 planning commission meeting. No, I think we should have it then. It's really working. Okay, everyone. Welcome. We're three minutes over, three and a half minutes over. It's unheard of, but that's okay. Welcome to the planning commission meeting. We have a few items on the agenda. Um, including the, um, delivery of the, of the draft of the ETC next, um, master plan to the commission overview of that real brief overview. And I think Darren's going to give us an overview of some of the regulations that are sitting out there. Not an overview. Somebody's going to give us a brief overview of what we have, what was posted this morning so that we don't go back and look at, um, and we have minutes. So I'd also like to welcome John Alden, who was recently appointed as an alternate to our commission. Um, John. You can tell by the name tag. Yeah. It's, um, it's unique. So it's special. It wasn't written in CRAN. So, uh, before we get going is there any, uh, we got, we got the agenda. No amendments on that. Um, do we have any public comments that anyone would like to offer us any commentary for items that are not on the agenda? All right. Um, going into that, the next piece now is the delivery of the draft master plan. And who wants to give us the intro to it? Is there pieces and parts? Uh, specifically call out. So we're going to pull it up. Okay. Intro. Yeah. There's, there hasn't been much that's changed since the one that you've had for a year or so. I can, maybe I can, if it's okay with the planning commission, I'll give it kind of overview of the changes that have been made. That would be good. Um, so as you may always call last April, we deliver that first draft and, and the sum and substance of this current draft is same. Um, the big changes that have been done and then Darren has something to show is the district boundaries have been adjusted a little bit based upon, um, obviously some feedback from the planning commission through our process path this past winter, as well as kind of looking at some flood map issues and also the relationship between the future ETC districts and the surrounding existing zoning districts. We want to make sure that those boundaries were really clear. So the implication of that relative to the April 2018 draft was, um, adjusting all the maps accordingly to sort of make sure those boundaries were consistent. That was a big thing. We wanted to make sure that the, the neighborhood boundaries as they described in the plan are consistent with the potential zoning districts that, that the regulations will speak to. Um, the other thing that, that this, this version of the draft accommodated is the public works was, was able to give us some commentary, um, during the last year on some of the issues raised in the ATC plan. And I want to just sort of talk about a couple of those things, specifically if I can, one of the, one of the comments that the public works at the department, uh, Dennis had was the concern about, um, the potential, uh, taking a portion of route 15, acquiring of access, access to the town. So for the purposes of allowing for some changes there, as you all know, route 15 is a state highway. Um, the state of Vermont has had a, had a process in place for a while now. Uh, for a lot of communities to sort of take over the road to have more flexibility in the design. Um, that was something that the public felt very strongly about during the, the planning process that having the opportunity to do that could open up some real, um, um, possibilities in the future as the ATC builds out. So, uh, during this last year, bed Dennis and the public works, the department had some, you know, some concerns about that, some legitimate concerns, I should say, you know, the cost implication, which the plan actually discusses and describes, uh, relative to that, there's operational issues relative to plowing and, and the normal work that the public works department did. What we've done is we've added some language in the plan to sort of describe some of those concerns, to make sure that those are captured in the plan, so that the plans, uh, discussion around that recommendation is, is framed against that, most potential community concerns. But we didn't strike that entirely from the plan because, and I think the public commentary was that, you know, that is something that is a, is potentially a very valuable asset. And also, because this is a forward-looking plan, some of those operational concerns, might be different in 10 or 15 years, if the ATC builds out to the level that we're anticipating it building out to. And I'll make an example of that. The mixed-use north district, the mixed-use south, or what will become the MXN and MXS districts. Um, if those, if those two districts now have, you know, hundreds and hundreds of new residential units, potentially, the ability to cross Route 15, with pedestrian accommodations, changes from today. Right now, there's really hardly any need to do that. So, the idea of having an option as a community to go back with the trans, and work through that process, and to figure out if there is a, if there is a legitimate value of taking control over that portion of the road anyway, um, is something we think is still a very good thing to have in the back pocket. Um, the plan doesn't commit the town to doing that. It's a recommendation. And if you look at all the criteria that you have, you could act upon that recommendation at some point if it seems appropriate. Um, the other, some of the other concerns that were, were raised by public works in the, in their review of the plan had to do with, um, you know, the sewer and the water limitations that, um, I think the plan does a pretty good job of describing. And you may be, you may be aware, I think the planning commission has been copied on a lot of this correspondence. The public work has actually done a lot of work over the last year in sort of exploring some of these sewer allocation issues and the water pressure issues. Um, obviously the plan doesn't conclude in recommendations that that's what's going to happen, that the town's going to either invest in that, or it's going to be a combination of public and private investment to fix those situations. It just, it paints the picture of that is stuff that needs to be worked out as the ETC evolves. So I don't think there's a real disconnect between where public works is on that issue and where the plan is. It's just a kind of a mutual recognition of there's more work to do if this, as this thing evolves to rectify those issues. The fact remains is that for the ETC to build out to the level of density and form and all the things that have been discussed thus far, it needs access to water and sewer to do that. That's, that's a, that's an honest fact that we have to contend with. So again, that recommendation, there's some language that's been added into the narrative about the fact that the public works has been pursuing some of those things, that those consistency. The last big thing I think that we've, we tried to do in this, this last draft is, is take some of the building parameters, some of the form parameters that have been kind of been cooking after our conversations with the planning commission over the last few months and add them in there. So if you'll go to chapter seven, for example, that describes building forms, there's a lot of, there's some changes to those forms to reflect the input that we got from the planning commission. There's some new forms that were added, a civic form, for example, so that, you know, if the town eventually decides to put a civic building, there's a place for that to go. There's a general building that's sort of added that would allow for some more flexibility. And I think it did a little, a little bit of work to get to some, flushed out some of those forms that we talked about and made it a little bit clearer. That's really kind of the highlights of the big changes. I mean, there was obviously, I don't know, like a lot, but when you change the zoning boundaries, there's a huge ripple effect on that. The actual build out numbers actually changed by a very little amount because the amount actually, the ETC is a little bit smaller actually than it was in the original draft. I think it's 27% less big than the current, than it was just 24, like percent. So, that's kind of a summation of that. I think if Darren could call up the zoning map thing you've got, which is kind of cool. I didn't do it. And then Lunderville, our GIS coordinator did, and I'll just need to find where I left that. So, it's an interactive map where we can see, so I need to grab that from my email. Thought I had it. I'm blocking everybody's view. Let me just get out of the way here. Apologies. Don't look at my personal email. That email for Shannon about the map. That's all we need. Nope, not that one. Hey, hey, hey. Just a narrative form I can sort of paint. The biggest change, several changes that were made relative to the zoning districts. And the four in play are HC Historic Center, which is fairly consistent with the CTR district today. Coincident with that. The Neighborhood Commercial District and the two mixed-use districts we talked about, N and S. So, we've dropped north and south and just we're going with N and S just to make it a little bit more generic. The big change was in the Neighborhood Commercial District. As you may recall, there was some lands to the north of where that district was that were zoned in the original first draft of this as kind of a residential recreation district. It was meant to be sort of a lower density, residentially focused district. And we found, obviously there was some public comments about that that felt like it was not the right fit. There was some concerns about the change in density and the impact that might have on some properties there. There was also a recognition of the fact that some of that area is, you know, the plan talks about that some of that area is wet. I'm just going to point that out. It's this area here, up in here, right? So, some of that area is wet. You know, as there's natural wetlands that have been identified, which constrains the land in terms of development potential. So, the idea of expanding the neighbor commercial district was trying to capture some of that land area, but it probably won't mean an expansion of some of the uses within the neighbor commercial into some of those properties because they're limited by, you know, natural resource constraints. But the, if you have the swiper, you want to show the magic of the swipe? Yeah, so this is the current zoning and I'm happy to go into detail but it's what we've been known to come to known love So this is a slider that will basically show us what the proposed zoning looks like. And essentially, the new districts are mixed-use north. I'm not kind of know if you can have a better angle on this, but mixed-use north, which encompasses areas on the west north side of Route 15 around Old Stage Road. It's also been expanded to the east of Old Stage Road to include some of those condo developments just south of Willoughby Drive, I believe. Mixed-use south, which is basically from from 289 to at Route 15 to Essex Way, going into the Saybrook development up to the end of Saybrook Road and back around to along Route 15. A couple of the rationales behind that, again relative to the comments we heard over the last year in terms of mixed-use north was there was already recognition there were some of those uses there to capture them and really they weren't residential necessarily, felt like it would make more sense to include them in there. Also capturing land on both sides of the road allows potentially as redevelopment happens to kind of create some definition there. Now we still obviously have the green belt that sort of pushes development off the 15 corridor but the idea was capturing in the neighborhood commercial some land area on both sides of the road whether it be new infill development or redevelopment at some point might be a good way to frame that. Just before we move on we can just take a quick look before and after. So before we had mixed-use plan unit development which had several different sub-zones most of which were business business B1 and then the mixed-use commercial the red area that was the early conception of the town center. So in comparison the town center you know the really central portion of that is expanded but you know more inclusive of places that are better for development. And redevelopment. And this boundary did not change very much at all from the original draft and I just want to point out too and it's something that Darren and I are working on by making this change we basically changed this part this is still mixed-use district which was tied to this which is going away so one of the things we're looking at is what happens and you were going to check on some things about that. Yeah this district was that this is the mixed-use right mixed-use plan unit development mixed-budy or a mixed-budy which right now extends up into here so I could stand alone still is mixed-use plan unit development but as Darren said there's a lot of sub-zones in that so we need to make sure that it still works for this area too and there's a possibility that instead of having a catch-all mix just to orient I can just say because I'm hearing questions that's basically from the village line out to to 289 Lang Farm the remainder of of course Lang Farm it's in the lower right of that gray area Sharon's point and Darren's point points out one of the things as we go from sort of the master planning level into the regulatory level this is one of the things in the byproducts of that process you sort of, when you change zoning districts or look at adapting zoning districts you have to look at the impact on the regulation writ large because there is things that affect them they're all interconnected so Sharon's right this change if this change is adopted there has to be at least some re-examination of what the MX district beauty district is and there may needs to be some fixes to make sure that they don't lose some of what they've got and it doesn't affect other places including the business design control district well that's the thing that's going away too well yeah I think that's discussion to talk about what happens to but that applies mainly to parcels along 15 so that may not be an issue the business design control district is completely included within the new town center zoning districts except for this area between 289 and the town village line so there's a question of what do we do with that so we're still working on exactly how to handle that I think it's the intention of correct me if I'm wrong here, the intention is to obviously find a way to fix it so we're not going to just let it bang there the other is so back to the neighbor commercial so as I mentioned you can do the swiper again so this is existing zoning and so we have really three or four three different districts that the neighborhood commercial will encompass now, actually four so there's R2 areas medium density residential residential business high density residential and the center district so that's current proposed is all mostly two big districts the center historic center and the remainder of the town center area would be neighborhood commercial remember last fall we talked about the sort of the center the new HC district the rationale behind tightening it up was to recognize this is really the historic center it's not that whole area currently not the center tighten it up so that the regulations and the code that could be established should be more centered around that and then the change as you may previously we had this other residential recreation district up here we were trying to find a way to sort of create some buffering between the the ETC districts neighborhoods and sort of the surrounding land and you may recall one of the big ahas in the formulation the current draft master plan is shrinking the ETC at all, I mean right now it was 900 some odd acres it's now 600 some odd acres so that was one of the big things going reducing it from the intersection of towers south sort of tightening it up recognizing A those areas were out of the sewer district anyway B really the community didn't really want to see development happening all in the northern part of it so this I think accommodation does a couple really good things again it doesn't it doesn't mean that the characteristics that are described in the neighborhood commercial neighborhood district itself will find themselves all over there because there are a lot of natural resources constraints which still have to be dealt with in development but I think it will give the properties in that area an opportunity be a bit lower in land area to do some of the creative forms like the cottage forts and some of the other kind of residential uses which may be really helpful to increase the density and one of the byproducts of the zoning boundary change like I said was an increase in some of the build out models or numbers and that's one of the areas where it got a little bit of opportunity to have a little more residential development and we did also try to maintain this growth center area along the boundaries of the sewer core without losing some of the development potential much better for that perspective as well you know again in terms of densities what people really little difference in terms of density changes there again relative to current situation which I think is again there was questions raised during the process about that and I think we got to a place that was an accommodation of some of those realities that we heard so I think that covers the zoning oh the last thing sorry the other thing the last monkey in the works that came up was the flood plain issue so one of the things that the neighborhoods in the master plan didn't really address was as boundaries potentially for neighborhoods was the existing flood mapping along some of the tributaries here so the boundaries that are proposed to sort of do reflect that particularly in the open space district where the town forest is there are areas mapped for flood plain and we wanted to make sure that those were not included in that district even though there's really no density for say for that district it was important but that did also affect the historic center boundary too because there's tributaries that all their growth that comes up there that affects that so that was accommodated in this last round of changes and you can see that if you were to look at the flood plain boundaries they do actually so we could have expanded the neighborhood commercial on the other side of Towers Road between Clover Drive and Chapin Road but we decided that these are town owned properties they're pretty what anyway in the actual development potential there is limited so the flood plain district goes completely to Towers Road for simplicity's sake except for this area that is a FEMA flood hazard area within the neighborhood commercial in the historic district it again follows the flood plain areas around Alderbrook and there is some area of neighborhood commercial on the northeast side of Towers Road because this these properties don't have any historic they're not included in the historic district they don't have listed historic buildings so we decided they fit more with the neighborhood commercial so this is the fine tuning process that you go from kind of a conceptual long range vision plan to more detailed mapping and analysis ultimately to regulation so we like I said at the beginning of this project we said we were going to try to make sure the master plan matched as much as possible as the trajectory where the community wants to get to in terms of zoning changes so we went back and made these changes in the master plan so that anybody looking at the master plan eventually looking at the approved zoning will see some compatibility there will be and no questions that it sort of flowed FEMA qualified wetland flood plain do you want to answer that? not the expert but so FEMA does flood plain mapping based on land elevation and proximity to river corridors so basically if there is a stream and during a flood stage it would reach a certain area and cause it to have standing water that's basically the area that they've mapped and the mapping has gotten more sophisticated over the years so there have been some changes to the boundaries that may have been there before so that's why and that flood plain district the C2 district basically follows those flood hazard areas that say there's a 1 in 100 or 1 in 50 or 1 in 500 chance in a year that this given part will flood this area will flood it's important to stick to those maps because that's what qualifies a town to participate in the flood insurance program so if you want to do that you pretty much have to adopt those flood regulation maps in terms of potential impact in practical terms though in terms of the effect of these minor changes relative to flood plain on the potential built form there's very little because most of those areas are not really developable any as Darren mentioned you wouldn't be able to put anything in those districts anyway so there's a coal group there right right so you're not going to put anything there anyway because it wouldn't be a good location for a development there were some slight changes around Alderbrook within the Mathew town forest area doesn't completely encompass the exact boundaries of the town on property but the idea being that those areas are practically undevelopable anyway either because of flood plain or because of Steve Slopes and the fact they're in the town forest right if they're not in the town forest there are some areas that meet other criteria for putting it as 01 instead of anything else I think that was the purpose of including those boundaries for all the districts though using that overlay and sort of subtracting out the flood areas from those district boundaries consistently you probably didn't need to do it within the forest again because that effect is nothing difference but for consistency across the district that made a lot of sense we wanted to be fair with everybody this is great it gives us something to actually look at from start to finish do you have other high points that you want to call out to us on this draft plan I think on the draft plan I think that's what you've got I think again it reflects there was a pretty robust public process that went there through that I think we've been able with the planning commission to have some really good conversations over the last nine months flushing out some of those things I think the challenges of development are still there like I said the ETCs as it is today has suffered because of its lack of investment and infrastructure to support its evolution the plan doesn't shy away from saying that because I think it's a reality that the current plan has dealt with and this plan will too but I do think one of the things that I'm pretty happy with and I think the public should get a lot of credit for this and the town should get a lot of credit for this it's opened up those conversations about sewer allocation and water pressure and who pays and is it a combination of the public and the private sector how do we deal with that I think there's a lot of good things that came out of this process that you're making some progress on so in my profession it's like you like to see your work actually have an outcome sometimes it has an outcome before it's even adopted so that's even better so I'd like to keep this at the table for a few minutes and we'll see if folks in the audience have some questions I want to check with the folks that are here tonight and try to get an idea of how long do you think you might want to go through this in detail to get to a point of acceptance or changes or whatever what do you feel what's a realistic estimate for your time to be able to go through this because I think that's going to drive a lot of what comes next is when we can get through commission we can get through this plan and accept it or request changes or whatever I mean a couple hours or a couple months what sort of time frame are we looking at I already started so it depends on how fast everybody can dive into it but there's a lot there obviously I would caution us that we don't need to be too superficial on it so I mean you've seen this you've been through this we've been through the meetings reviews and so forth except for John who's only been here peripherally but I want to get an idea of what sort of time frame do you think we might need I think probably the biggest thing we've been kicking this around for a while and I guess the biggest thing for us is to look at the document now and see that they how they have incorporated all the thoughts that have been thrown out over so many meetings how long will it take I don't think it will take a couple weeks and you know I'm sort of anxious to get this closed so okay Josh any thoughts at this stage largely dittoing that I want to get a handle on the chapter seven building form stuff but a month okay I would say that's the one thing that since we've had some changes there I want to make sure I really get it because that's the big new concept but a month oh man we got three John's in the meeting thing now so it's shoe you can call me Fred if you want to Wilma I'll swap names with him John this new to you I mean do you conceptually do you have an idea how long is a document like this you would like to get it I'll remind you that it's not new to me I was on the steering committee and I've been participating in quite a few of these I read actually the whole thing last night which is an unbelievable effort it's very dense if you start to unpack each page there's a lot there so I think I'm comfortable with the timeframe that you folks are already talking about couple weeks or a month the building form pieces and that I feel pretty comfortable those obviously I want to understand a little bit more about how they get translated into actual regulations I see the parts and pieces are there and then that's the beginning for me you know how does it really play out and do we have that on track I think would be important there were a number of questions too from the public and a handful of previous meetings that I attended and I just maybe need to catch up and see how we address those questions just a point to follow up with John was talking about John Alden the as you're looking through this document relative to its purpose I think the idea is making sure that those forms and the information relative to built environments or speak to the vision it's got to come back to the vision the regulations are going to as you'll talk about shortly there's a lot more detail that gets put into those to sort of capture the nuances of those forms as they relate to the code I think what we've tried to do is get enough information here so that the vision and the expression of the intent of the DTC is communicated but not to make it the code the attitude when you're doing the code to get to the specifics that you really want to get to so I'm in agreement that this is the vision I feel that our next step is to agree that this is the vision and agree with what's in front of us so that's why I'm asking the time frame for folks to get comfortable with and the biggest time frame we're looking at now is about a month so that puts us out to say the second meeting in July as a point where we can decide or we should be able to come back if we have comments or questions before then we can feed them back to staff if they're drastic one of the things we were carrying this so-called bike rack of open issues and questions and I guess that pointed back to Darren who's had a better look and we addressed all those in this document so we can say they're closed or we still have things hanging I haven't looked at it in a while and I'm moving away from it but I will give it a quick look and I think just off the top of my head we've pretty much addressed all of them a lot of those comments too kind of straddled the line between where the plan gets to and where the code gets to this has been an interesting project in that regard because we've kind of started this project knowing that one of the end products wanted to be some regulatory framework and structure so some of the bike rack elements you're talking about we don't need to change the plan we need to capture those things what we need to do is like materials for example that's got to go in the code because that's where it's going to have the most value and if we want we can look at the bike rack later tonight or at the next meeting yes, Dana question so if we put this on for the second meeting in July I'm just trying to get a sense from you all as to how the zoning regulations which we've been making I mean they're just about ready to go well, they're getting how you see those intersecting with approving the plan process because I think you've made it clear that you want to approve the plan before you start talking about the regulations is that fair we want to agree that the plan is the plan that we want so whether that's approving it or we bundle them at the end but until we have agreement and consensus that the plan and the vision is we support that vision then I don't see us doing regulation approvals we've got them we've got stuff that was put up there this morning for us to look at so we can have some awareness and as we're going through the plans we can look to see if any of the draft regulations answer questions if then something comes up I think those are effective tools but this is we'll go to the commissioners to get an idea of where you feel we should be heading at this point I know the staff has been working on the regulations to support the vision but I guess I'm sort of at the point that right now I'd like to focus on the plan and get consensus and agreement on the plan and park the regulations to where we get to that level of agreement Ned I'll admit I haven't even looked at the proposed regulations I haven't had any access to anything all day today Would it help to discuss those first before you decide on the schedule of how you want to handle all of this stuff? Well I think we need what I'm trying to get to is let's get agreement on the plan and scope and the vision period and that's the first time frame that we gotta hit what I've heard is that we've got anywhere from a week to a month which puts us at the second meeting in July to a little less than a month but more than a week obviously as a reasonable target to get agreement now if we get agreement without any major changes let's say we adopt it at that point and then roll right into the regulations so this is where I need some input from the commission because I think at this stage it's ours to own to decide how we want to move this forward John If all goes really well and we all agree this is the plan I think if you guys have been working on the regulations all along it could be really easy to then jump right in and the regulations will just line up other than that you know when we have feedback about adjustments to the plan I'm sure they will be making considered changes to the regulations as we do that so I think even though we're doing it kind of in serial instead of parallel I think it could all come together pretty quick in my mind I don't disagree but I think we've got to get this piece done before we can actually start Mr. Shue, what are your thoughts? You can call me John I thought about that or Ned I think a couple weeks is all it would take to get kind of through this thing John your comment about serial or parallel seems like the regulations already happening in parallel anyway quite in a substantial way so you're talking about serial just on our end so I think it wouldn't take long to get through this and get the flavor I don't think I'd get every word in a week but I could get through it in a week and get a sense of it I think maybe my question would be to Mark would be or maybe to staff do you guys see anything that should really be focused on to be alarmed by or do you think that might be contentious that we should be focused on I don't know if I should ask that because you don't want to just focus on one thing but we want to see the whole thing Yeah and as Mark and Sharon are pointing out there aren't that many changes to the plan that you've had for a year that we've been looking at it's the same thing it was presented a year ago then we started working on the rags so this plan should not be a surprise at all and you should be if you weren't committed to the vision as we were working on the plan you know I would hope that you are now because that was a long process and if you weren't committed I think that's something that would have been nice to hear Well this isn't a question of being committed to the vision but being committed to this vision presentation the wording as John said it's the words of this plan I don't think anybody has been in disagreement with coming up with a new master plan and the approach and so forth but now we're actually for the first time I know we had a draft previously but we also since then have been looking at pieces section at a time so we've been focusing on them individually not focusing on them as a whole so this is now the point at which we can look at it is a still a draft in my mind but we have a more comprehensive draft and more one that is basically ready for presentation Josh hang on a second I basically agree with John that I think it's important that we get the order right here's what we want here's how we want it so the plan the regulations but I also don't think that will be very long because we are broadly in agreement I mean maybe it's not a month maybe it's two weeks maybe it's the next meeting but I don't view it as being arduous I think just the order is like okay we're clear this is what the wording is now we can go right to the regulations and we'll have had two weeks to a month to look at those so we should have how they coordinate in our head pretty well so again I think the order is right the order needs to be correct but I don't think it's hindering the process okay John Alden I'm going to skip Ned because he's had to be it was more of on the lines of what's in one thing and what's in the other so the master plan has a lot of elements of the future regulations and I just haven't figured out what's in the vision and what's in the regulation you know where's the line where the regulations get to and where the master plan gets to yeah we could walk through that a little bit with the regulation yeah but there's a little space there and it's an appropriate amount of space I think because again this is a big picture long-term vision and it needs to be it needs to be it needs to be it needs to be a long-term vision and it needs to you know has a lot of things that are presented that are you know out there in time the regulations however I was liking it so this is kind of like the road right the regulations are the guardrails that provide the sort of structure within which you travel and so obviously in that metaphor they need there's more to it so I think you know one of the things I would suggest is the planning commission sort of re-examining this plan in light of that is to be able to think about what needs to be in communicating the vision and the purpose of this plan and what needs to be in the regulatory structure to enable it and there is there is some differences that should be understood so as we've gone around Ned do you have so as we've gone around it feels like everybody's sort of tightening up a little bit on the projection for reviewing the plan is that something that we feel that we should put on the first meeting in July for discussion so then would the commission be supportive of a of an additional meeting to specifically address the acceptance of the plan or we want to wait to the second meeting in July I'm trying to be sensitive to you know we do we do want to stay on track to some degree but we don't want to fast-track it just for the sake of fast-tracking it if we wait until the second meeting in July then we could potentially start looking at the regulations that same night if we have a level of comfort with this we could put another item on the other business for the first meeting in July to do a touch point on what folks are feeling about it that's kind of what I was going to suggest what is that second meeting in the second meeting we could probably get we should have a consensus by then for sure on all of this and by the first meeting in July we should be having some kind of just to check in see where people are at but he has any hard burn or wants to talk about something that didn't seem right my guess is there probably won't be but you know I don't want to carve the thing up but that might be a way to keep moving forward and not interrupt that meeting I don't know that we could modify the agenda to specifically call out and discuss this but could we do under other business to do a I can't remember if we kept the because we've been carrying over that follow up discussion I'd have to check to see if that's on it already we've got it so and if it's not we can add it as an amendment we could use the July 11th meeting a line item on July 11th to affirm our general acceptance of the plan as presented this evening or as presented to us for review because we didn't go obviously didn't go through in detail from that meeting if we have general consensus of that and we already have it on the agenda we potentially could either adopt it or adopt it at the next meeting and go right into the regulation review so we'll have to warn the second meeting before you guys decide on July 11th I think the second meeting can be warned anyways we'll send it to take something off it's a smaller it's ETC plan slash regulations review is that how does that fit for staff perspective how does that fit in the timelines that we're trying to maintain well from our point of view that's perfect so with that as long as it's perfect for a market share well yeah the plan we're a little more concerned on the schedule on the regulations unless you decide to move the ETC to some other place in town that would be that's true so I think this is in keeping with your work plan isn't it Dana didn't we have the second meeting yeah this is really good so I think and yes the discussion on the 11th could lead to greater discussion of the plan on the 25th and less discussion of the regulation if there's if there are items that we need to have reviewed hopefully we can identify them on the 11th get them to staff and you guys so that they can be vetted and be prepared for discussion on the 25th if there are no points that need to be really dug into then we can either adopt the 11th or we could adopt on the 25th I schedule wise you guys can sort of decide that I think but once we adopt it I would feel that we can roll right into the regulation review at that stage yeah and that second meeting or the first meeting where we've had potential discussion on the ETC that's usually been handled by staff so we can probably handle it just depends I don't want them to get meeting fatigue I would agree that I think the 11th isn't necessarily to bring these as in the 11th is a touch base with the commission to determine whether or not we're on board and ready to move it if we have questions and concerns I would think that we could hopefully identify them in that meeting and you guys can then bring them to Sharon and Mark and let them have discussion on the 25th potentially over replacing or bypassing the regulation discussion but that would all based on scope John John M would it make sense if you know between now and the 11th we all at least get started on this and we have questions obviously we submit them to staff and then the plan would be to you guys compile those questions so we can all hear what they are from the 11th meeting and whether we have answers for those or we say those are open action items that we got to get addressed that sounds fine questions like that should go to staff though not to the commission exactly let's let staff be the keeper of those ongoing lists of questions what we can do is compile them together put that in your packet if you are able to get them to us with enough time then you can all see whether there's questions discuss it at the meeting I'm going to ask if anybody has questions in a moment but does this feel like a reasonable approach John Alden Ned, Josh Chiu John M staff I'm going to schedule Nazi so this makes me very happy any good answers we don't matter they work they work for the table finally you get it 51 years later so take a few minutes if folks have any questions or comments we're obviously not getting into a lot of detail other than what they presented this evening you've heard a discussion our time frame is going to be over the next month really to try to wrap this up so questions comments, thoughts, Paula this is actually for staff, commissioners and consultants if you were to come up with a list of some pretty focused questions about the overall plan and then specific areas within the plan that you would want the commission and if the citizens have a say the citizens as well to answer yes to yes yes we think this works yes whatever if you were to come up with five or six questions for each category what would they be I'm not asking you I can give them to you right now if you'd like well no I just think that that might be a good way to focus in to that point it's okay with commission there are some big changes that this master plan spoke to reducing the size of the ETC that's cooked into this plan that's foundational the increasing density in the ETC that's foundational the density under this plan is greater than a density was so the question would be are you comfortable with the and so that's what I'm saying might be helpful for the final vote yes and I think it's really important to that has not changed since last April nor has it changed since last year it might be helpful to revisit that I'm not disagreeing with that at all because if those things don't make sense that has a tremendous ripple effect on everything the other part of it is I think it's really important that the statements for each of the districts are descriptive what become purpose statements but the descriptions of each of the neighborhoods the regulations really took those to bear they're fine tuned as it relates to the regulations to meet the requirements to become zoning districts but those vision statements for each of the neighborhoods we spend a lot of time with the public on those because we wanted to get them right those have a real value to a plan like this the regulations can change and they will and the last thing I would say just in terms of those questions and you'll see this as we talk about where the regulations are looking to get to is and I think I mentioned this briefly earlier there's a lot in this plan but we've kind of picked curated out of it the things that actually have the most value in the regulations side of it to make that step that this plan was trying to do is to allow the built form that happens in the ETC to be more cohesively put together more related to people on the grounds that there's more of a relationship between the built world and the human world in the ETC we've curated out of all the multitude of things that the plan talks about to try to find the regulatory structure and the things you want to regulate that have the biggest bang for your buck relative to those things some things won't be cooked into the regulations at this point like detailed landscaping for example just not something that carried forward it could be and as you guys know in the planning commission regulations are always open for changes over time but we wanted to establish a foundation in the regulations that at least captured that spirit of the vision and found a way to like I said set those guardrails up so that as development happens the most important things in place like buildings have expression on the street there's limitations on the kinds of things you can do and they're specific enough so they have teeth and also that they're generous enough so that the folks that own property folks that want to develop aren't going to be hamstrung into one little box that they can't move with it and I think as you look at the regulations I think we've gotten to a place that's I think it's very fair there's no you know there's increasing density for most everybody and there's a lot of there's a wide palette of forms and opportunities for creative architects and developers to really take advantage of that yes left my left stage left I just wondered Patty Davis I wonder what the brand is because we're three years we've only been here in Essex the ETC how are you branding yourself overall like for example I'm from Malin's Bay Colchester my whole life so I was a laker the lake was definitely cohesive it was like it draws a lot of tourism a lot of people come and sail and race from all over it's our it's sort of our brand but it's not just sailors I mean people have their own interests of course but there's like a visitor center where you can people that come from all over can say what's exciting about Essex where's your visitor center where can I go mountain biking where can I go bowling where are the restaurants where's the restaurant in Essex that's like JCAT because our whole hillside circle goes to Jericho Cafe we need one in the ETC let's actually roll that over to Dana because this is more it's probably a different level of question than this process that's my question what is your brand I don't even know I've been here three years well I think the brand in Essex is community if you're thinking about you know creating you know an image for the gateway and having you know flags on flag poles and saying this is the ETC we aren't there yet I'm not sure we've ever really pursued the brand the plan talks the plan speaks to the you know the value of having gateway and sort of defining brand that obviously doesn't get to a brand I mean that is a process in and of itself I want to add this kingdom with my husband to go mountain biking Kingdom Trails is a brand everything that's developed in their ETC do you call it an ETC is all and I made three copies that's why I'm waiting it shows all the different their commission there they pick they are picky on who they won't say this is what I want to develop I want a spa because I want this I want that I'll be there I want a mountain bike place you can run because what is attractive to Vermont and people that work here I mean we're about to have coming more so even to Essex they're athletic and they want they don't want to work in a place that like dealer has a tennis court and a track and has millennials are being picky they're being picky and if you guys have this brand so make sure you're directing your questions to our consultants only oh I'm sorry because you were answering her questions I'm not saying that that should be a brand I'm just giving you an example so I would point you to chapter 5 of this plan which is about identity because it is an important part of any place making opportunity right as Dana pointed out it doesn't answer all of those questions those are really deep questions that a community has to go through like Stowe's scheme everything all their business is kind of they've nest all the brand together right but there's definitely there is some value to that as a community but again it doesn't provide you with that that's something you have to do it is but I would also just before I forget the train of thought there is to your point I think one of the things that listening to the community during this process the vision establishes greater mixed use environments within the ETC which can allow for live work environments to happen that currently would be really hard to do in much of the ETC so I think it's making there's a significant discussion about what open space means to the community and the connectivity of open space and the connectivity of the ETC to recreational opportunities in this plan so I think there's a lot if you look through this you'll find they're not all answered a plan like this can't get until the week figure out yes we were connected and I think it's yelling to the community to try to take this plan on and I know from the process we've been engaged the Recreation Department is looking at this plan to see how it can align its priorities relative to what's going on in the ETC it's a little frustrating I think it's really important so I want to commission is on to this stuff too so we all work in sort of synergy but a plan has next steps and goals and objectives and so that's a different grain than this first plan and the focus of this has been from the beginning to try to modernize essentially an area that hasn't been corrected in 30 years so this isn't this is the first step and this would be a great entry point for a community-wide effort but this really is not designed to address global or full community branding to use your word yet so let's hang on in the back row actually you had your hand up first sorry Jim she was up first I could probably talk to this better if we had a coffee are we going to get coffee so we're going to have access to a coffee so we're floating around I don't know where it ended up the sally flurry by the way I always forget to say my name but no I would really like a coffee so I could then I'll have more questions I think you can reach out to the staff and they can help you get that during the week we didn't only get it today so we haven't had a chance to turn it around on the website the whole thing with Essex though it's been a bedroom community because IBM grew so quickly we're working on it but that's what we've got good schools yes so the plan especially Darren there's some connectivity with life class trying to get the neighborhoods connected and yeah we got a chance to do something really cool here this is part of it these guys are part of it but Essex is also a much larger and diverse community than what we're talking about well yeah we only have 17,000 in Colchester but I think all communities all of us in Vermont as a brand we're going to attract tourism and smart people are one movie that's where we are so let me interrupt just for a moment please I don't want to keep this conversation is not bad but it's taken us away from questions specifically about the plan Jeff I made and this is an ad joke to this discussion that Jim Berniger I've only been here three years also and one of the frustrations I've had is identifying Essex as a sense of place and that doesn't have to necessarily be defined in terms of a brand but it does to me architecturally have some requirements and that's what I'm looking for out of this plan is to give it physically a sense of place and that defines it within the context of all the other options that are in Chittenden County I think that's where we get into our chapter 7 yeah and I think that's probably it very much so I'm chapter 5 you're chapter 7 6 is good too look at it take 6 4 if I may say it could be that one of the solutions for water pressure could be a new water tower but that water tower should be could well be a piece of artistic work that is unique to the whole concept of water tower and you invest in that because that will be a signature I continually looked for in our efforts and we've bounced this around in the economic development commission because part of our goal is to attract businesses and part of attracting businesses is attracting the employee base that would live here and we've been frustrated in that process because we are a complex community for sure and so what we're trying to do is to find those icons that help define who we are, where we are you know how Husky gets an engineer the plant they're they put in their flyer their magazine there's great mountain biking trails here the air is clean there's all the you know wherever I guess Milton has trails but that's how they got an engineer to move here not this $10,000 I mean I know what the governor is doing but you attract him you build something that has his concept and people will come they'll come and they'll live here and they'll make lots of money this is our field of dreams we will build it and they will come we're on the road to it do we have any additional questions yes ma'am my concern with affirming the plan is that it will still contain an area that's not not complete because of the sewer water situation so with the north district if the plan is affirmed as it is and help me understand if I'm not understanding this right what affirming the plan is going to mean it's going to we still don't know for sure or what the timing is going to be on when we will be able to develop that north district and with us having our property in the north district this is a major concern so timelines I mean I don't think we could give you a timeline and this is like when we do a town plan update you have to get the plan update approved and you have to get regulations to support that update approved we're proposing to do regulations to support this it goes from us it will go to the select board so there's a whole other round of review so the affirming the plan from our point of view is going to be that we endorse the plan we endorse the regulations and we would submit them to ultimately we will submit them to the select board as their process public hearings do they have yeah and it's very much like your process it's just being done by people with a different skill set I think the master plan points out too though that in addition to the zoning and subdivision changes that are going to be recommended there's going to be need to be changes made to the sewer allocation ordinance and the map to kind of accommodate some of those concerns and I don't know if they'll be generated from the planning commission's recommendation to the select board based on the plan or is that something you prefer the select board to deal with on its own I think we have to expect pushback on regulations even in a plan a plan can be accepted but the regulations to support that plan may not be accepted yet so there's multiple layers still to get through for any final approvals this is one of them and really the stage that where we control it is to approve the plan the regulations to support that plan and then we move it to the next stage I could just add to the question it's a good question I think again back to the premise of the the genesis of the plan was to align those things together as much as possible so that the value of development on the north side for example could be enhanced and the plan thinks the plan states that that's an important outcome here relative to making sure that the public investments in infrastructure are there to allow the densities and allow the uses that articulate to happen so I think the adoption of this plan actually strengthens potentially your position on the concerns you have mentioned what my concern is and that is the regulations having the regulations that will match what we will be able to do there because if it's not for 20 years before the water situation happens then that's just more confining to us that just takes away more ability to be able to keep that property functioning staff can probably speak to this more but we've observed just from our vantage point a lot of substantive discussions with public works about the issues around that allocation and it's obviously at the end of the day the select board has got to be the body to take that up and understand that but I think there's at least from our understanding at least the conversations are happening which is really good and they're not being met with complete and utter resistance there's actually some agreement a tacit agreement at least that we've got to look at this because we've been saying that the Essex Town Center needs to happen and need to encourage it to happen and this plan doubles down on that so let's find a way to make that and what's really important about that is those statements need to be in the plan so that if we go and apply for grants exactly then we can go and look in the approved plan and that language that supporting language really increases our ability to get the kinds of grants that will achieve the infrastructure that's needed the other thing just to dovetail with that is the option of this plan and even the current comprehensive plan both together add strength to that voice both plans talk about the ETC in the context of this is a place where growth is important that's all this plan can do really the short answer is to give you an end date but what we can do and what I think we're trying to do is to be thorough give this a thorough review and move it forward and as responsible a time frame as we can and that should ultimately enable better better usage in the future but there are still hurdles to get through anything else thank you all for your comments thank you do we have anything else we need to review this evening we were going to start the discussion with the zoning regs if you want at least to go through where we are on them I if we could go through the project status sheet that we forwarded earlier we'll just at least tell you what's going on in terms of the draft I'd like to be brief on them as we stated earlier as I stated earlier I'd like to get the plan confirmed that's fine and then we focus on the regulations cleaner I'll just do this as a quick update then so yeah the project status sheet we just sent out this morning just so we were all on the same page and this is more for internal but this shows you all the moving parts of this project just the plan and the regs so the master plan we're already talking about that is at the top of the list you're covering that zoning map amendments are pretty much in a pretty solid place right now thanks to staff we do have some discussions going on around that one district the zoning regs again we're doing a hybrid set of regulations so they're not strict form based code they're not quite what you've got but we are eliminating all the current ETC zoning districts including possibly the overlay we need to figure that out yet and then we're drafting we've got some initial very what you've got today was very much a working draft in progress it's basically what we've been circulating between staff and consultants I liken it to sausage making yeah exactly we're definitely at our level away in the weeds right now and so we're working through some of that so the article 3 district tables you've got a version of those today there's some changes in there I will say one of the a couple of things I'd like you to think about as you think about all of this is we're suggesting no more PUDs within the SX10 center again PUDs were evolved in the form of green field development mainly now that most of this area has been built out we're looking much more incremental development and redevelopment and infill development there's a little bit of green field in there but what we're doing now is hardwiring a lot of what you used to do under the mixed use PUD into the regulations so that's one thing but it also means that we're taking away some things that we may need to put back in like density requirement so when you look at the regs you see in the mixed use districts there's a building height what do we call it a bonus a building height bonus for things like affordable housing it also means that a lot of the flexibility that was in that PUD model is no longer there again the standards are going to be much more definitive but as Mark said what we've been trying to do is build in ranges so we have minimum and maximums in a lot of our criteria now to give everybody some flexibility in that regard but anyway so those are the district tables we're working on I've been doing the tables that you'll be familiar with they look a lot like your current district tables and updating those Mark's been working on the form tables that's where we get into all the things like building types, street types and so his shop's been working on that stuff and we have again what you got today was a very initial draft of those forms especially for the building types so take a look at those because you can see how we're thinking about translating the plan and again we can go over that a little bit tonight if you want because Mark did bring some of those but we're also having to do housekeeping amendments again these don't just affect what's in those district cables they affect a lot of areas outside of that in both your zoning regs and your subdivision regs so I've been working with staff we've outlined all the areas that we need to look at and actually Darren's taking the lead on drafting some of those housekeeping amendments so that's also in process and you'll get a packet of those with this things like parking, landscaping and street standards and stuff like that one of the things we've run into is the fact that you basically your street definition you allow public and private streets Dennis has made it very clear that the town is not ready to deal with this many if it got built out that many public streets but your definition allows for private streets but your frontage requirements specify that the frontage for a building lot has to be on a public street so those are the kind of things where again we're really in the weeds saying okay how do we deal with that and so we may be changing some of those definitions around same with the subdivision regs we've outlined a whole bunch of housekeeping housekeeping amendments because your subdivision regs speak to things like blocks and lots and again without the PUD provisions there's not going to be much flexibility necessarily under that and there's also definitions that would apply to that so that's all the moving parts to this project this is about where we are um every time I didn't touch it today yeah don't touch so again these the master plan is pretty much in you know you're reviewing it we'll take the comments the zoning map same thing you're reviewing it we'll take your comments these things are all pretty much in progress still again very much working draft then you've got versions and again these are internal versions of the district and form tables and you've got some definitions to go along with it just to help interpret some of the terms that are in there but we're still working on a lot of the standards in part just to make sure everything that Mark's doing and everything I've been doing based on the and I've been working from the previous version of master plan are consistent um and that we're all on the same page with regard to all the housekeeping amendments we need to do so that's the overview of the regulatory stuff um and again we're prepared to walk you quickly through some of what we've been forwarded today so I haven't looked at anything I haven't looked at anything that was put out there today at all and again there were you'll see and I will say that I was working drafts there's areas that have blanks there's areas that are highlighted that are still up for internal discussion but we wanted to get those out to you to make sure that you all had a chance to see what kind of format what kind of structure we were looking at and again a very preliminary idea of things like the building types because those things are critical to what we're talking about you know in your regs now for example you restrict a lot of things by square footage in the new version those are all going to be gone because now we're going to be restricting things by building type so it's more important that the building types are okay so one of the tables correlates uses to building type yeah maybe we should show that one that's one of the weird things about a hybrid code so part of and I'll defer to the rest of the commission but part of what I've been trying to get to is I'd like to focus on the plan without diverting myself too much diluting myself too much and focusing on regulations that said we're here the commissioners are here what's your thought I'm interested in seeing some of this I got one John M I could go either way you're on you're on you're on you're up so let's talk about how this the way that's going to be structured or could be structured sorry I have issues with the display but should I touch it yeah that might actually work hopefully you get enough so just to make the nexus between the master plan and the regulations right the purpose all of the all of the regulations for the ETC we'll see under one article so it's all going to be self-contained that is one of the things that Sharon was talking about there's housekeeping to do to make that happen to separate it out from the rest of the code so it doesn't cause any problems elsewhere that's one of the things that's happening obviously there's a purpose that the purpose of the districts the purpose of the code is to effectuate vision established in the plan that's a direct connection between those two things obviously the applicability is these districts that we've defined this I would just say one of the the key things there is the fact that because we may be overriding other code that section says that if there's a conflict between regulations and other sections of your regs and the ETC districts the ETC district stuff applies right now that's what it says so then there's two different scales of stuff that's in there there's the district level scales these are the things that define the characteristics for each of the four districts that want to be established out of the master plan all sorts of things uses all sorts of basic dimensional issues all of that sort of cooked into the descriptions of each of those districts then it gets into the so the forms of it gets into the forms that you know you want to touch it I do it's so bad the forms that the code of the vision talks about so again as you look at the plan and it's contained after seven and eight that's really where all this sits that paints this vision of all these elements streets building types how buildings relate to their frontage frontage types roof types and the civic space types this is basically the equivalent of the open space discussion in the master plan these are much more graphical generally but there's still going to be standards around all of these as well because somebody looking at this code is going to go okay where is my property what am I allowed to build what are the forms that I'm allowed to build what are the frontages the types of frontages what are the types of roofs I'm allowed to produce what are the requirements for open space what are my options and as Sharon mentioned as we tried to mention we're trying to build a lot of flexibility in here where we can there obviously is some rigidity relative to making sure that each of the districts does what it's supposed to do but there are like ranges of setbacks so those buildings can have some room to move and that was particularly important as we were putting this together recognizing that a lot of this is infill an existing building that has established setback line we need to make sure it's not so strangely connected so if somebody wants to connect to it they can do that they can articulate the frontage the frontage types are varied and if you look at the draft that's prepared the working draft there's a lot of flexibility we're not trying to lock everybody into one type of structure the plan also the regulations also make it clear and obviously this is how architects and developers would use this we're not telling you how to design your building we're giving you some of the parameters that you need to consider when you're designing your building so if you can look at these dimensional requirements these look to the position of the building on the site the types of frontages are allowed be creative within that context and you can develop some very interesting architecture so that's the structure of it I think that's helpful to understand because as the master plan touches on all of these things at like 10,000 feet this gets down to feet one thing I would add too is the historic center there was some discussion during the public hearing process and some others about possibly going for district designation like village designation so in that district if you look at that table for the historic center it beefs up actually some of the historic provisions and it includes a reference to like the secretary of interior guidelines for rehabilitation not preservation because again we're assuming that it's going to be more of an adaptive reuse of properties and not trying to keep them the way they were back in the 1800s and that aligns with the we talked at the beginning tonight that aligns with making the historic center the HC smaller so it's much more intact since it's the historic structures but we're doing that also because it allows for people to qualify for tax credits and things historic tax credits so I'm not sure if that's addressed directly in the plan but it did come up in the discussions around that district in terms of historic character so if you look at that again as Mark said we're not trying to deal with architecture in the other so much but in that one it does refer back to your old design reports again that talk about gabled roofs that's all good stuff that makes more sense now that the district is actually much more focused on those historic structures and it does also distinguish between historic properties and new buildings so take a look at those when you get to it too if we are ready to get the books a book with a target a discussion at the next meeting on our basic interpretation of this plan any questions or items that need to be individual commissioners feel need to be reviewed further should be sent to staff as you get them depending upon the conversation at the next meeting we'll drive what we do with the ETC next plan and regulations at the 25th on the 25th so they both should be on the regulations should be on the agenda we don't need the regulations on the 11th but we should have both the plan and the regulations on save you get the bike rack resurrected for you on the 11th have it be part of the same questions that come in just have the bike rack piece of that any other things Dana is there any other marks or any added additional comments you'd like to add into this additives I think we've got a good plan I truly hope we can move into the regulations with vigor we'll use the 11th and the 25th both meetings to determine what needs to be done with the plan at that point and I think just everybody should have the awareness that we may need to do more or we may be ready to lock it down so, nope, last round John, you didn't have a whole lot of opportunity to chime in I'm having a good time with the drop regulations now I can see how they fit into the see what we're trying to do really too late to kind of digest them and we're not quite there yet on some of it so if you've got some feedback on those it's fine we're open to suggestions because we're going both off of Vermont models and some national models for some of those dimensions if the Vermont models are Josh Shu, good, Jam good our marching orders, thank you very much this is I think staff and consultants both have done a tremendous amount of effort and appreciate your time on this thank you comment just submit them to the staff any documentation should go just to give things to Sharon so, we will move on and do we have additional minutes from June 13th to have a motion moved by Shu seconded by Ned, does anyone want to offer commentary or corrections to any item, any line items in the minutes hearing none, John Alden I don't know how you all do this if I wasn't actually there, am I voting or not voting you are allowed to vote but you can also abstain in this one we'll talk about that later so hearing no commentary, all those in favor of the minutes as written aye opposed, abstain minutes carry 6-0 any other business do you want to talk about policies and procedures today or is that just for reference that was for reference for the discussion with the select board so I think that's the case I would take a motion I'll second it by Josh seconded by Shu all those in favor opposed, we are adjourned