 Okay, good evening and welcome to the Williston DRB meeting of May 23rd 2023 on Pete Kelly, I'm chair of the DRB. Are there any Zoom participants? No. There's been two of our names. This is a hybrid meeting taking place in Town Hall and on Zoom. All members of the board and public can communicate in real time. Planning staff will provide, will not provide Zoom instructions tonight because there are no Zoom participants. All votes taken in this meeting will be done by roll call and accordance with the law. Let's start the meeting by taking a roll call attendance of DRB members participating in the meeting. Nate Andrews. Here. Paul Christensen. Present. Lisa Brayden Harder. Here. Dave Turner. Here. And the chair is present. Five in attendance. We have a quorum. We need four. And that will be applicable when we approve the abstaining from approving them. Okay, so tonight's agenda. We've got, well first, we've got a public forum. If there's anyone in the audience that would like to address the board on issues that are not on the agenda, do so at the sun. Okay, hearing none. We'll hop right into the public hearing section. First up is DP 23-15. This is a pre-app or late side electric. If the applicant would please come forward to the table. And once you get settled in, please state your name and address for the record, please. Mark Leclerc. South Burlington 20 Oak Creek Drive. No, it's fine. Okay. Thank you. Good evening, Darlene Leclerc. South Burlington. Great. Thank you and welcome. That's me. So this, this is a request for a pre-application review to construct an industrial building in the industrial zoning district west. It will be used for contractor storage with ancillary offices and the mezzanine floor. It's currently occupied by a non-conforming residential home. And it is surrounded to the northwest and south by industrial properties and to the east by a sort of mixed-use residential property with a warehouse to the rear. We are recommending approval with recommendations. The DRB should just review the recommendations. In particular, check they're happy with the landscape buffer suggestions and then allow the project to proceed to discretionary permit. We did not receive any public comment on this application. We anticipate compliance with the dimensional standards for the industrial zoning district west in terms of height setbacks and lock frontage. We also anticipate compliance with access and connectivity requirements of Chapter 13. In this case, we're not recommending a traffic study because industrial and commercial uses don't generate many trips. However, we are recommending that they just provide some traffic generation data with the discretionary permit. The applicant is proposing 10 parking spaces. As you probably know, the parking standards for industrial uses provide the DRB with a lot of flexibility in setting them. They give us a starting point of one space of 1,000 square feet, which would generate suggested eight parking spaces, so they are slightly above that, which we find acceptable. We're also including a recommendation that they meet the bike parking standards for an industrial building, so that's for short-term spaces, some long-term spaces, and an end-of-trip facility, and that end-of-trip facility will be available to both tenants. This is a two-tenant building. We've got some fairly typical recommendations on undergrounding the utilities, identifying snow storage, and providing solid waste containers per the regulations. So the landscaping requirement, that's the east boundary, so you can see the existing garage to the residential home on the right, and to the left is the adjoining property, which has the residential home at the front and the warehouse at the rear. So the PREAP plan shows a 13-foot-wide buffer to that boundary, which isn't permissible between a residential and an industrial use. So the narrowest buffer they could have would be a type 2 dense planting, which is 23 feet in width. If they provide a screening fence, they can reduce that by a further 25%, as long as it's five and three-quarters feet high, which means that they would end up with a 17 and a quarter-foot buffer, which wouldn't assess dates and minor adjustments to the site plan, but we're confident they can probably do that. The fence would also block headlights from the parking area into the naming residential property, and that sort of approach of mediating between industrial properties and residential properties is consistent with what the DRB has applied in terms of both the regulations but to other industrial proposals elsewhere that are next to residential homes. Some typical recommendations on street trees. Just to point out, it is mapped as a habitat area, but clearly that's an error because it's a driveway and some lawn, so we're confident there'll be no undue adverse effect on habitat. And then lastly, I just want to make one, because this is a multi-tenant property. The discretionary permit does need to include a master sign plan, and essentially what that does is it just sets out how the signage is going to work for the site as a whole and both tenants. It saves everyone a lot of time if it's done with the discretionary permit, and I've got some, I can always send you a relatively simple example if you need that, I don't know if you've come on before. So what follows is a recommendation to allow this proceed to discretionary permit with detailed recommendations as shown. Thank you. Okay, thanks Simon. Okay, this is your opportunity to comment on the staff report before we open it up to questions from the board members. One thing that I would like to hear from you is your position on the proposed conditions of approval, specifically the landscaping, and if you're in agreement with what has been proposed by staff as a condition of approval. So with that, I'll turn it over to you. That's fine, that's fine. Just take, now just lower your blood pressure, and really the issue here is the landscaping, and what I would like to hear is that you'll submit at discretionary permit a compliant landscape plan, and if you say that then I think the questioning is probably going to be pretty minimal. Yeah, and so that's a yes, a thumbs up. That is a yes. Okay, great, great. So are there any other conditions that have been proposed that you have concerned with, or would like to draw to our draw, have a discussion about? The signage that you were talking about, are you talking about on the building or? Both, so it regulates all signs, so signage on the building, all signs, and if you're proposing to have a freestanding sign of the access, I would also regulate that. But you just said that now is a better time to do it than on the road. You need to submit it with a discretionary permit, but this is a relatively simple one to do it on. That will not be a heavy lift, and staff will provide you with a template to follow, and yeah, and your architect will do that in his sleep. So right, and as far as lighting, what would you like to see as far as lighting? You don't want to see spotlights all the way around the whole place, I'm sure. There's a full lighting section in the regs, and we expect you to follow them. He loves answering those kind of questions, and you don't know about lighting. Okay. And your architect will know what to do. First, identify yourself, please, for the record. And address, please. Welcome. So my comment was, you know, a lot of products similar to these, we usually have them on the front of our elevations, the building, down lights attached to the building, and we have a part of the lights on a pole with down lights as well, so they don't light up the sky, so I'm kind of moved that they're an electrical company, so I think they're pretty much, we got lights. And their motion detects it so they go off at the specified hour. Yeah, yeah. I'll tell people one more thing, and they can stop me for a moment. This building will probably not be occupied at night. There are daytime uses, electricians, mechanical contractors, there's a lot of contractors from the tensile facilities building, so if they come into the morning to pick up their materials, go out on jobs, come back in the day, download the materials, make big materials, those opportunities in the homes, really, they will leave those records to the next morning to go to a job site, so it's sticking up at night, time-oriented things, so if I have to go to the building, it's strictly B for security, and again, time span, motion detector, go on and on. That's great, and, you know, but just make sure that you read the chapter that pertains to it, and comply. The objectives I got were so amazing, they actually gave me the section, though we're not going to talk about it in a second, but they actually gave me the section, in fact, just follow through with the process. Thank you. Yeah, yeah, and just saying the praise of our staff here at Will's, and they're accessible, they're there to help, and the feedback that we get from developers and other applicants is very positive, so use that resource, and that just streamlines the whole discretionary department process. So with that, I'll turn it over to DRB members, Paul. Is there a reason that you're having first floor windows? The only reason I ask that is because being a business like, yeah, being a business like that, I mean, the second-story windows, they might provide a little light coming in, Just like I said, it's an open two-story building with a mezzanine level. We have not finalized the fence, we haven't led into that yet. When that request was submitted, they didn't even send us an application or something like that, I had them for two years. Yeah, I would just mention is that if you suddenly said you didn't want any windows on the first floor, nobody would say anything about it. Okay. DRB members, any questions? This may be a staff question, but in our conditions here, the fence can you describe what type of fence? I think earlier you said a screening fence, which is more clear, but in the conditions it just says fence. Is that a solid or...? Yeah, so it would need to be a solid fence, I think. The one with the strips? Yeah, other developers have done like a tongue and groove. Close-borded is what I call it, so no gaps. You guys okay with that? Yeah. I guess, actually. We're in the yes mode. Oh yeah, that is something to the discussion from the perspective that like a changing fence with slats hitting, would that be permitted as well or no? No, that doesn't sound like that would provide the screening. It needs to be pretty robust. Well, if this is a non-night operation... Well, it doesn't matter because we're not going to restrict the use. Okay, I see. Yeah, and then it could be the business could change. Yeah, in case you're getting an employee that wants to work 24-7. Is there windows on that end of the building on the neighbors? There are windows facing the property. There are? Yeah, but you also, just to point out, you also need the fence in order to have a narrower buffer. So the fence does two things. It blocks the headlights, but it also allows you to have that narrower buffer because otherwise you'll be looking at trying to find additional feet on the ground. So you do have the option of fencing less buffer or just more buffer and no fence? So the fence is for two reasons, to prevent headlights and to narrow the buffer. Both of those reasons are applicable on their own. Well, that's what I'm saying, but my understanding is directly that you can have privacy fence with a lesser landscape buffer for a larger landscape buffer and no fence. You just want to put the option for that. In a situation other than this parcel, yes. It's possible to do what you're describing, but you would need to reconfigure your parking lot in your parking space. I'm just trying to describe this to the options world. Yeah, you could have. That is an option, but it wouldn't work on as drawn now, but that's your choice. That's not the garage side of the house? It doesn't matter. Yeah, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. I don't want to go down that path respectfully because it just doesn't matter. There could not be a window in that house and it would still apply. Okay. There's not a condition, you know, contingent upon headlights going into... That's not the way this works. Right. All right. Any other questions? Just being new at this and just talking since you said I know and people that are in the real estate development, do you foresee me needing any sort of symbol engineering evaluations for any of this for the parking or anything like that? I'm going to let Simon answer that. Normally, we would expect some level of details provided to satisfy public works. You'd also probably want to check with your architect as well about providing that level of expertise to support his work, but we would expect details at public works. Yeah. I mean, we typically see civil engineering drawing drawn say plans with some type of stormwater management, catch basin, inlets defined, snow plowing, where there's no storage, where that's going to be. I mean, that's typically done by a civil engineer and not an architect. Yeah. No. Required. Required. And staff can... Okay. Staff can... Your architect probably has relationships with civil engineers or staff can provide you with some options if needed. There's several of them that we see frequently here in Williston and Simon can help you with that. Yeah. Thank you. Any other questions? Good. Okay. Thank you. DRB members. Okay. It's 7.23. I am going to close DT 23-15. Thank you very much for coming. And I encourage you to reach out to staff because they're very helpful. They have been so great. Good. I guess if I'm going to do this for the first time, can't think of a better partnership with the city. So I appreciate you bringing us tonight. Great. Thank you. So the DRB will approve their minutes in three weeks time and after that you'll get a notice of decision that will just memorialize all these recommendations. Yeah for your discretionary permit and you'll come to another hearing here. So we're going to bring lots of diagrams. So we're going to vote on this tonight but it's not ratified until the next meeting. Okay. And which is June, what is it, 13th? 13th. Yeah. At that point if you're looking to close DT 23-15, you're smiling too much. No. No. So the way this works is it's a two-stage process. There's, we're in the pre-application tonight and then you will ultimately submit a discretionary permit which will have more detail, civil drawings as an example. And basically what this pre-app, conditions of approval, those conditions you need to incorporate into the discretionary permit application. That's coming back to this board. Okay, that's working. Yeah, it's coming back to this board. And again, you know, as you digest what happened tonight, you know, staff can help you through that process. Oh, thank you. Yeah. I agree that you're 15 years old when you're a student. They're not too surprised to think about it. Yeah, we, well, thank you. Thank you, Peter. David. Okay, good night. Okay, ERB members. From my perspective, we do not need a deliberative session. Everybody in agreement? Okay. Do I have a volunteer? Are there any amendments proposed for staff's proposed conditions of approval? I have none. Okay, who's the volunteer to read it? Is the fence thing specific enough? I mean, they know now, so it's fine. I think it's fine, right? Kind of curious going forward. Let's change that. Okay. That's a good point. So the bylaw says an opaque fence. So we could include the word opaque. So it's two E is the recommendation. Yep. So edited as item J on the list of the discretionary permit. Number two, recommendations. I think you said modify E. Oh, okay. Just add opaque. That's even better. Oh, it's there. Just, yeah, just add the word opaque in front of fence. That's it. Okay. So with that, with that amendment, who is the volunteer? Nate, you're going to do it for me? Sure. I got it. So when I make that motion, I just say, what do I do again? I make a motion and then say. You make a motion and at the end of reading, the motion language, you say we are going to modify to E as follows. Okay. That's all you have to read the whole thing. Yeah. Well, yeah, cool. Sounds good. All right. So do I have a motion for DP 23-15? Yes, as authorized by WDB 6.6.3. I, Nathan Andrews moved at the Williston Development Review Board having reviewed the application submitted in all accompanying materials, including the recommendations of the town staff and the advisory boards required to comment on this application by the Williston Development Bylaw. And having heard and duly considered the testimony presented at the public hearing of May 23rd, 2023, accept the recommendations for DP 23-15 and authorize this application to move forward to discretionary permit review with one modification to of the recommendations and motions. Item 2E will read as follows. A landscape plan and compliance with WDB 23, including a type 2 buffer supplemented by a type 3 buffer and opaque fence along the property line with 332 Shunpike Road. Thank you, Nate. Is there a second? I'll second it. Is there any discussion? Hearing none. Yay or nay? Nate? Yay. Paul? Yay. Lisa? Yay. Dave? Yay. Motion. The chair is a yay. Five in favor. None opposed. Motion carries. Okay. Is there a motion to approve the meeting minutes of May 9th, 2023? I'll make a motion to approve the minutes as written on the night in 2023. Thank you, David. Is there a second? Second. Okay. Lisa seconds. Any discussion? Okay. Yay or nay? Nate? Yay. Paul? Yay. Lisa? Yay. Dave? Yay. And I'm going to abstain because I was not a member of the DRB board that evening. So that's four in favor. None opposed. One abstention. Motion carries. Is there any other business to bring forth tonight to the DRB? Is there a motion to adjourn? So moved. Second. Second. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Okay. Thank you all.