 We will convene our 2023. We have our forms. I think for, we do for the planning commission. And I think on the city council ordinance committee, we have two members present, Joan and Zariah. And I understand that one or two more will be joining us shortly. So welcome to everybody who's here. This is the first time we're meeting in Contois in quite a while and we've started meeting in person. So it's, this is the first time I've been here in person for a while. So nice to be with everybody tonight. First item on our agenda is the agenda. Are there any changes to it? So we have our agenda as presented. I just wanna go through it for a second because it's a little bit different than our normal agenda. Normally we go directly from the opening of the meeting to the public forum and then we continue from there. Tonight the main items that we're dealing with beyond opening the agenda is the neighborhood code matter. And we're going to hold off on the public forum until, and we have two of them scheduled tonight. The first one will be after we hear a presentation on the neighborhood code, we have a presenter here tonight. And then once the presentation is done, then we'll open it up to the public for comment so that way we could hear public comment to what's being presented. So when it comes to our deliberation as the committee, we will know what at least some members of the public think. And then we will have a general public forum for items beyond the neighborhood code at the end of the meeting or towards the end of the meeting. So with that, let's move on to item two, which is the neighborhood code, corresponding recommendations and discussion. All right, great. Thank you, Andy. Before we get started, I also just wanted to introduce JP Palatelo, who's with us. JP is part of a consulting team called UTL that's based in Boston. And JP has been working closely with us on trying to help right size some of the recommendations that you're gonna see tonight. So welcome to JP. It's a pleasure to meet you all. And he and I will really be co-presenting tonight. Thank you. All right. So we will start by talking a bit about what we're aiming to achieve with the neighborhood code recommendations. And you've heard some of this background in our meeting last week, but we wanted to start here and just elaborate a bit on what we're aiming for as we start to get into the technical details of the proposed changes. Before we do that, we thought it was also helpful to just remind everyone about how the areas of the city that we're talking about fit into the overall context of where housing is allowed in Burlington. So specifically within the context of the neighborhood code, we're talking about the five residential zoning districts in Burlington, which you can see on the screen here right now, either in blue or gray, however it appears for you. But that doesn't tell the whole story of where housing is allowed and some of the other land use constraints that impact housing development across Burlington. So we've talked about this before, that there are other areas of the city that are planned for growth of different scales, particularly the districts that are in the gold here on the screen that are the linkages between the residential neighborhoods that we are going to be talking about. These are areas like our downtown, other mixed-use zoning districts, the institution's campuses, places that allow housing development and in some cases allow housing development at a fairly high level of intensity, especially when compared to the kind of housing development that we're gonna be talking about for the residential areas. Another major aspect of the city's existing land uses are these areas that either appear green or really dark gray on this map. This represents about 40% of the city's land area that is in some kind of conservation district, park, or other area that doesn't allow most types of development, including residential development. So really the point of all this is to share that the residential areas of the city, while they are an important complement to the other areas that allow more intense residential development, are an important part of the mix because we are a landlocked city and we have prioritized a fairly high percentage of our city's land area for other, like natural areas, parks, and open spaces, which are important to the overall health and function of the city. We've talked before about the aim is to allow more of these middle housing types, ranging from duplex through four-unit development, as well as some other creative housing types throughout the city. Based on some of our discussion at the last meeting, we've also added these small multi-unit buildings for your consideration for the discussion tonight, really representing buildings that could be between eight and 12 units in their overall scale. We've talked pretty extensively about the fact that most of these are not allowed today and that what we are aiming for ultimately is for this grid to turn almost completely green. We want to allow these housing types city-wide and to remove some of the barriers that either outright prohibit them or effectively prohibit them. So we wanted to walk through really quickly a couple of visuals of what this would actually mean for the city. These slides will be posted as well so that you can see them after the meeting. But ultimately, when we talk about the types of housing that we are proposing to allow, we wanted to start by talking about duplexes. These are one of the kind of most straightforward and simplest forms of density when we think about how we add new homes in existing areas. But our existing policies make it nearly impossible for many lots in the city to actually accommodate a duplex. In this case, the minimum lot size requirements in our low density district and our density limits work together to prohibit many lots from having a duplex. Is my mic cutting out? Okay, great. The upshot of all this together is that you need almost a quarter acre of land in the low density residential districts across the city in order to have a duplex. But the median lot size in these same places is actually closer to 8,000 square feet, or almost 4,000 square feet smaller than what we require. And the interesting pattern that you can see here, the difference between the green and the red represents on the left lots that are actually large enough to accommodate that duplex theoretically. And you see that in some of the kind of core neighborhoods, the neighborhoods that are closest to our mixed use zones, downtown, to our corridors that are served by transit and multimodal transportation, those lots are actually among some of the smallest lots and would have the hardest time accommodating a duplex in the future. Where conversely, some of the lots that are theoretically large enough to allow those duplexes are on the furthest edges of the city. You can also see that some neighborhoods such as five sisters that were historically built with buildings like duplexes wouldn't allow new duplexes to be built in a lot of these places. So the aim through the neighborhood code is to eliminate a number of the barriers that are preventing duplexes on the vast majority of the city's lots so that the map looks more like the one on the right that's almost completely green in our residential areas. Skipping ahead to four unit buildings. This is a building type that we've also talked quite a bit about and we've talked about the fact that allowing three and four unit buildings is a new requirement under Act 47 for the city. However, we know that there are many barriers preventing more of these types of homes across the city. First of all, in our low density residential districts, our RL zones, we don't even allow three and four unit buildings unless you have a lot that's 2,000 or two acres or greater. And if you can think about the city's kind of layout that's pretty rare. Further in places like the Old North End despite the fact that three and four unit buildings are allowed and despite the fact that you may find them, maybe many of them, our current density limits of 20 units per acre actually don't allow many three and four unit buildings because the lots in those neighborhoods are too small. The density limits just don't work in those cases. So what we're showing here again on the left are the lots in red that would not be large enough to accommodate a four unit building under our existing rules. The map on the right shows what would be the outcome if we just met the minimum requirements of Act 47. Act 47 basically says we have to allow three and four unit buildings but we can limit them to five units per acre which means to have a four unit building you'd have to have a 35,000 square foot lot in order to have one. So you can see on the right that the outcome would be minimal if anything. What we're proposing is actually to allow fourplexes on lots that are as small as 3,500 square feet. So a 10th of what the state would otherwise require in order to make sure that many more lots within the city could be home to a fourplex. And then finally, just a quick kind of overview about cottage courts and townhouses. These housing types are a little bit more complicated in terms of how we facilitate them across the city just given the dynamic of how they would be built. They're bigger buildings, they require larger lots in order to really design them well and accommodate all of the kind of features that those development types would need. So under the current kind of understanding of our lots, we see that these lot types will be much easier to build in the sense that we are eliminating standards, we're proposing to eliminate standards that outright prohibit them such as a prohibition on having more than one home on a lot. But we know that there's still gonna be, at least for cottage courts, some more limited uptake unless people maybe merge lots or think differently about how they utilize larger lots across the city. And then finally, when we look at townhouses, these are a housing type that can be permitted in some areas if you're able to get through all of the sort of intricacies of our zoning ordinance. We are ultimately proposing that these be much more permissible along the major corridors, North Ave, Shelburne Road, Colchester Avenue, as well as in the residential medium and high density districts. And we'll talk a little bit about how we can help make those a little bit more accessible. So as I said, this is what we're aiming for ultimately. And we'll turn it over to JP at this point who we're gonna start to work together to explain the specific recommendations that we're proposing tonight. So we've been working with Megan and her team to change what you're seeing on the left, which is the current toolkit that the city uses to control development and to switch it to a more mass-based set of rules such as floor plate size, maximum height, maximum number of stories. So we'll go into a little bit more detail about this, the general shift that we've been looking at. So, sorry. So there are sort of four categories we've been studying with them. One is the actual massing rules. So again, floor plate size, number of stories, maximum height. We've also looked at updating some of the setback and lock coverage rules to control how buildings are placed on lots and how they relate to each other. And the two categories on the right have to do with how do we subdivide some of these larger lots in the city as we were working with Megan and her team. There's a lot of really large lots that we could potentially subdivide to increase development opportunities. And then working on trying to understand what sort of standards do we have to put in place to increase the amount of typologies allowed, increase or allow cottage courts and townhomes and what those standards should be. So we wanna start with the issue of density and regulating using density versus regulating using a building mass and height standard like what we're proposing. What's interesting you may not know is that in our 2019 comp plan we actually have a policy recommendation to replace density-based standards with more specific and predictable ways of regulating what can be built in these neighborhoods. So this is one of the specific ways that we're hoping to implement that comprehensive plan goal. And ultimately density limits are one of the central issues that affect what can be built where. And while they have some upsides in terms of particularly allowing housing types to scale up or down depending on how big a lot is, when they're not paired with other standards that help actually implement that level of density they can actually become somewhat limiting and problematic. Ultimately these density limits currently regulate the number of homes that can be built on a lot based on the size of the lot. So we wanted to start with a really quick quiz to illustrate this point. Looking at the three buildings that are on the screen, which of these buildings do you think is the most dense from a homes per lot area perspective? We encourage audience and committee member participation. The one in the middle. All right, Andy says B, the one in the middle. Any other guesses? We had some people at trivia, right? So they already know the answer to this. We had a trivia night last fall. The answer is A. Actually this two and a half story duplex is the most dense of all of these existing homes in Burlington because essentially the size of the lot underneath that duplex is barely larger than the size of the home itself. Which means that this essentially would be illegal to build. We've shown you other examples. Density limits can actually start to prohibit the repeat buildings that we already know are common in neighborhoods and might think are the appropriate scale because they just wouldn't be able to fit on a lot. So this is a graphic study of what Megan was just describing. So here we took footprints of buildings throughout the cities and arranged them based on a single family to multi-family and then size of the building. As you can see, if you go to the next slide, on the right we can see there are some outliers when it comes to the mass of the building that the density calculation Megan just described allows even though they're really not contextual to a lot of these neighborhoods. So we're proposing rules that would basically take that outward line category out of the mix and introduce more contextual, more mass-based buildings that still get density, still get any increase in housing opportunities. And really the kind of combination of density limits and other factors that we'll talk about later is a primary reason why in a lot of RL zones today, you see either single family homes or larger kind of townhouse condo developments but nothing in the middle. Our density limits have effectively made those impossible to create. So to get into the details of what we've been studying when it comes to some of these actual standards, on the left we've been looking at setting up a footprint rule or footprint standard of about 1800 square feet to 3600 square feet for primary building on a lot depending on which one of these districts and the districts depend on or are defining the intensity of that part of the city, the building fabric. This would also be paired with the number of stories. So two and a half stories to up to three and a half stories ranging from the lower intensity districts to the upper higher intensity districts. And then building heights ranging from 35 feet up to 50 feet, again, depending on the intensity of the urban fabric in the district we're looking at. Across the city we're looking at a four unit max per building for all districts. And then we wanna make it as of right for secondary buildings to be allowed on lots. So these secondary buildings would be between 900 and 1100 square feet. They would match or could not exceed the height or number of stories of the primary building on the lot that they're paired with. But they would still allow up to four units per that building. And ultimately as you see at the top what we're proposing ultimately is that we decouple how many homes can be built on a lot from the lot size. So we would allow up to four units per building regardless of the underlying lot. In a lot of these values came from a rigorous study of constantly testing can you get a two unit bill or two unit apartment in these square footages in these heights? Like we worked with Megan and her team looking at what's on the ground already in the city and then drawing floor plans, drawing a massing through in 3D modeling some of these buildings to get these values. So here we have a chart sort of these are the existing values for the different neighborhood or the different districts. We have RL on the top, RL on the RRM on the bottom. And so here this is what we're proposing. This is a summary. So you have an 1800 square feet footprint max for RL. We would have an 1100 square foot max for that secondary building in RL. Two and a half stories. Cause again this is the lower intensity parts of the city and four unit max per building. Up in the RL area again 1800 square feet, 900 square feet for the secondary building cause these lots get a little bit smaller, a little denser so the building can get a little smaller. Three stories max for RL and again four units. For RH and the corridor zones which would be a new district. This is the existing rules. And because RH gets significantly denser the lots are a lot smaller we would remove the limit, the lock coverage limit or sorry the max footprint limit because lock coverage and step backs are really gonna set the size of this building cause those lots are a lot smaller. The max story would be three and a half stories so we're giving a little bit more relief at the top of the building and no limit on the number of units. For corridors which again these are meant to be a higher intensity level of development so 3600 square feet would be the max footprint cause this is what's gonna allow town homes and some of those multifamily units up to 12 units et cetera some of the so smaller scale multifamily buildings. Three and a half stories and then no limit on the number of units. So we wanna talk through other standards that relate to how successful we might be at removing these density limits and enabling these buildings. And this really has to do with things like lot size, set back and lock cover. I think one of the things that is important about these limits is that they help contribute to the overall pattern of neighborhoods and how buildings relate to one another, how much open space is available, et cetera. But they also have a major influence on how large a lot you need in order to create even one new home let alone a building with multiple homes in it. So we are proposing changing some of these standards in order to help facilitate the implementation of the different building types that we have just talked about. One thing that's important to note is that of all the zoning districts in the city and we have several dozen, the RL zoning district is the only district in the city that has a minimum lot size requirement before you're able to build a home on it. We'll talk in a little bit about what that size is. We actually not only require a minimum lot size but a larger minimum lot size for certain housing types. These larger minimum lot sizes can limit the opportunity that we have to create new individual lots for the creation of homes. I think this is something really important to point out that it's not just about helping fit things like duplexes or townhomes or other building types in, but we talk a lot about the city's limited land area and limited capacity to add to even our single family home stock. So having smaller minimum lot sizes and allowing the subdivision of existing lots in sometimes more creative ways is gonna be important even to help us add incrementally to that type of home. And we'll then also be important helping us add more of these middle housing types as well. We know today, based on our experience and a lot of conversations that we've been having with some stakeholders that setbacks, particularly the rear setback, can be very limiting in terms of how we utilize some of the existing lots, even if they're not to be subdivided. We have pretty deep lots in some parts of the city and there are strict limits on how they can be utilized to add more homes. And then further, the lot coverage limits in some part of the city would preclude even modest additions to existing buildings to create more homes within those buildings. This is gonna be really hard to see on this screen, but what we're trying to show here is just how different lot sizes cluster around the city. Within neighborhoods like the Old North End, actually the whole kind of Old North End and East of Willard Street, neighborhoods like Five Sisters, these neighborhoods have very small compact lots, less than 6,000 square feet as the predominant lot size. You move into some of the kind of older core neighborhoods, neighborhoods that were developed around the turn of the century, parts of Five Sisters, Birchcliff, the addition, even some parts of like along Staniford Road and parts of the New North End, these were built post-zoning, but still trend between 6,000 and 10,000 square foot lots, so kind of what we call like a mid-sized lot. And then on the edges of the city, you see that we have larger lots starting to get to 10,000 square feet or even a half an acre or more. This helps us understand just where within the city, there could even be the capacity to have a lot that could be subdivided to create new homes on. And then, I don't know if this is even worth trying to describe how visible it is at this point, but we've also, along the lines of the studies that JP has mentioned, we've been looking at things like existing lot coverage so that we understand, even as we implement changes to this ordinance, are some of these neighborhoods actually zoned correctly in terms of what's been built and what's on the ground. And we think that lot coverage limit is gonna be a major factor that will preclude the implementation of the changes that we're recommending. So here we're looking at a study we ran of the existing rules and what would be allowed on a lot versus what we're proposing. So on the top left hand, you're seeing a single family home and it's requirement in the RL district. You need a minimum 6,000 square feet to build a single family home and a minimum of 60 feet for your lot frontage. For a duplex, you need a whopping 10,000 square feet with again, a minimum of 60 feet for frontage. It's just a lot of real estate in a city that is landlocked that doesn't have a lot of additional land to build on. So we're proposing dropping the minimum lot size down to 3,500 square feet and minimum lot frontage of 30 feet. And part of this is also making it the same for all of the different typologies that you might introduce to the city. So we're looking at single family homes, four plexes, duplexes, et cetera. And part of that is compliance with Act 47. But this would really increase the amount of real estate that's available for homeowners to take advantage of for building on. And then coupled with those standards we talked about for controlling the actual size of the building and the intensity of the building. We looked at updating the lot coverage and the rear setbacks. So we think the front and side setback rules are working just fine. So we're leaving those alone. But the rear setback, because so many lots in the city are really, really deep, we wanna standardize that and drop it down to 20 feet for RL and 15 feet for RM to allow homeowners, developers, landowners, et cetera to take advantage of all that real estate at the back of some of these lots. And then because we're now proposing that second lots or second buildings can be built on these lots, we wanna increase lot coverage that's allowed so that once again, homeowners can take advantage of that real estate. So far in RL, we're proposing up, is this cutting out? Yeah, mine's doing it too. Sorry if it's cutting out. But for RL, we're proposing increasing it to 45% to capture some of that area in the back of the lot. And then for RM, which is a much higher intensity of building, we're increasing it up to 60% of the lot can be built on. And then just again, to summarize the changes we're proposing for the different districts. So we're proposing a change of 3,500 square feet for the minimum lot size for RL, with 30 feet being the minimum lot frontage. 45% would be the increase up from 35% for RL. And then 20 feet would be the standard rear setback for RL to once again, capture that real estate at the back of a lot. For RM, there's no standard for a minimum lot size. And we're increasing lot coverage up to 60% to really increase the amount of real estate available. And we would give them 15 feet for the rear setback because some of these lots start to get a lot smaller and shallower. So we want to make it a little easier on the backside of these lots. For RH, the only change we're proposing is that standardized rear setback just to make it a little easier. So it would be 15 feet. And then the corridors would be a max of 20 feet for the front setback to give a little bit of flexibility depending on where in the city you're building. And then again, a standard rear setback of 15 feet. So we're also looking at, and we won't go into too much detail with these, but again, the lot divisions, we're working with the team to figure out the right set of standards to put in place to make this easier to increase the amount of real estate available for building. So we're looking at zero lot line divisions to potentially make it easier for fee simple housing structures to be a lot easier. And then again, because there's so many deep lots, especially in RL, how do we make standards or put standards in place that would make flag lots possible? So you really capture all of that real estate in the back of some of these lots. All right, and then bringing it all together, the last thing we want to share with you are the proposed changes to the zoning district boundaries. We did present this to you, kind of our early thinking about this at the last meeting and we have made some updates based on additional feedback and conversations that we've been having. So these are the boundaries of our existing districts today. As we mentioned earlier, we have five districts. The first change that we want to make is just to eliminate the redundancy that exists within the waterfront districts. So we have both a low density district and a waterfront low, a medium density and a waterfront medium. In the case of the low density districts, there are actually no differences today in terms of any of the requirements that apply within those districts, except that we have a deeper setback from the lake and the river. So we think that there are other ways that we can require that setback that doesn't require us to have entirely different districts. So we're proposing that these areas revert to the underlying district of low or medium. As we start to talk about some of these other changes, I think it's important to just note that in the bottom left, the legend on these maps talks about these districts less as what we know of them today as low density, medium density, high density and talks about them more in the sense of what we're aiming to allow within these districts. We've been saying that this is about intensity of development rather than density as we understand it to be about regulating the number of homes. As we start to kind of digest what all these proposed changes do together, really it starts to flatten the difference between RM and RL in particular and makes the differences between those districts more about the amount of lot coverage and ultimately about the height of buildings more so than the number of homes that could be created on a lot. So the map proposes a couple different changes relative to the district boundaries to achieve different goals. The first goal is to make sure that the district boundaries when we start to think about intensity like lot coverage and building height that it more closely aligns with what's on the ground today in some of our neighborhoods. We alluded to this at the last meeting that there are some neighborhoods that have been zoned RL for example that were largely built out before the RL zoning applied and has made essentially all of the lots in those neighborhoods non-conforming. So neighborhoods like the area between Willard and Mansfield Avenues in the eastern part of the Old North End we're proposing to change from RL to RM. There's also an area along South Union, South Willard and Shelburne Road. The sort of neighborhoods between what we think of as like the hill section up on the hill and neighborhoods like five sisters that we propose changing from RL to RM. Again, for that same reason to make sure that we're aligning kind of what's on the ground and the characteristics of these lots with the intensity of development that would be allowed. Oh, and then there's one small area it's very hard to see on this map but there is a small cluster of properties that's just south of Maple Street near downtown that is entirely surrounded by our form districts but is still zoned RM. So we have the planning commissioners will remember that we've occasionally had some questions about this neighborhood in the past and whether or not something like RH would be more appropriate so we are proposing to change those lots to RH. This then represents the corridors so this is a new district that we are proposing be created and this corridor zone is really about how we implement other planning goals that we have which is more about greater flexibility for housing types and intensity in some areas. So we've talked about this quite a bit. This is consistent with our comprehensive plan which talks about more intensity along these specific thoroughfares. Another lot that you'll notice falls into this category is actually the Champlain Elementary site. In Plan BTV Southend, that site was actually among several sites that were called out as places where we allow housing today that we really wanted to encourage be developed in a different way to help add to the Southend's housing stock. That is currently zoned residential low and we are proposing that it be zoned residential medium if we were ever to be successful in seeing housing on the back side of the Champlain Elementary lot. And as we've said, ultimately our goal is to allow up to four units citywide, focus the difference on these districts more about the intensity of what can be built and to make more flexibility in the sort of walkable core areas of RH and along our new corridor zone for more housing choice and intensity. So then here we just ran a few studies if you take the rules that we're proposing and apply them to the neighborhoods, what might it look like? So here we're looking at an RM neighborhood in the city and if you apply the massing and setback and lot coverage rules that we're talking about, this is what you might get. You might get additional duplexes, foreplexes, some additional back lot buildings but you're getting more intensity in a part of the city that's already fairly intensely built. If you apply it to the RL, so here we've got an RL area of the city, you get a lot of back lot buildings, you get some additions to homes and you get a few duplexes here and there. So it allows you to predictably but also flexibly build into different parts of the city depending on where you are. So that's the core of our proposals. There are a lot of other things that we'll wanna talk through with you but we thought that these were the basic standards that would be helpful to outline what we're proposing and to ultimately get your and the public's reaction to for discussion tonight. Great, thank you very much. Before we open it up to the committee discussion, we're going to have our public comment on what we just heard or anything else that might be related to the neighborhood code. Again, after we're done with the discussion on this topic, we have a public forum scheduled for later for more general topics. So Charles, do we have people who want to speak on this? And if we could just get a sense of how many just to see if we need to put any time limits on. Sure, so it looks like we've got a number of folks in the room. If you'd like to speak, can you just raise your hand? Yeah, how many of you would like to speak? Okay, and we also have eight folks online, at least three of whom would like to speak. So we could start in the room or we could alternate. We could alternate, but let's try. It seems like there are a number of people, and we do want to get to committee discussion. So if we can, let's try and limit it to two minutes per person. And I'll let you know when you're hitting about two minutes. And for those, for the groups who's sitting here, I'm not sure if you're all going to be, if you have different things to say, or if you have similar things to say, if it's similar, you don't need to repeat what somebody else has said. Just let us know that you agree with what somebody else has said rather than saying the same thing. That could help a lot. So with that, Charles, since you're controlling who's the online people, why don't you just take charge of who's going to be speaking to us, whether it's from someone here or someone online? Okay, first we'll start online and then we'll alternate and we'll go to in person. So we're going to start with Sharon Busher. Sharon, the floor is yours. Oh, thank you. Good evening. Thank you for this presentation. I'm not enamored with the form-based code approach of that eliminates density and uses the other criteria. Two minutes to talk about what was just presented is probably not reasonable and I'll have to reduce this to writing, but I was concerned about the 3,500 square foot as the minimum lot. I think that's too small. Maybe 4,000, I know what that looks like on the ground. Also, 35 feet or 30 feet wide is also too narrow. I have a lot that's 50 feet wide and it's pretty narrow and really difficult to navigate or do anything with neighbors. We constantly are having difficulty with that so I want rethinking of that. I mentioned to Megan at our neighborhood planning assembly that I'm concerned about as we move forward, as we create more not permeable space that we'll have more runoff, how are we gonna address that? How are we gonna preserve trees, which are our lungs? I am concerned about development overall. It needs to be well done and it can be controlled, but these criteria don't address any of that and I'm concerned about that. I also think that the reason a lot of what we see on the ground right now that is non-conforming works is because it's a mix of intense use and not so intense use and yet now we are going in one direction and I think that, once again, you need breathing space so your maps look okay, but the reality, I've learned that pictures and reality are not one of the same and so I am concerned about the intensity of use and we need to have some open space for maybe a small community garden area, but I am concerned to develop Burlington correctly so that we don't actually erode what we have. Sharon, is that too minute? Yeah. Okay. If you could just wind up quickly. Well, I was just gonna say that I do get concerned that we move here because we love it here and then we immediately change it to what we left behind. Thank you. Thank you. All right, we're gonna go to folks here in Contois. If you could just state your name before you speak. Gordon Dragoon, resident of Ward 4 and in Burlington for about 11 years now. I would like to start by saying that I greatly appreciate the word city staff has put towards this proposal and my criticisms are meant to convince you to go as far with this as I feel like you want to go with this. I very much like all of you want to see Burlington succeed and I'm just saddened to say that I don't think in its current form that the neighborhood code will lead to Burlington's success in the way that we could see. There are plenty of things in this proposal that I enjoy. The removal of the waterfront housing district clears up the zoning code, which is great. Removal of the density breaker limitations and the upzoning of areas like North Avenue are great changes and more changes along these lines should be encouraged. It's my belief that this proposal is enacted. We'll see a mild boost in density which I do not want to take away from but we are in the midst of a housing crisis and I don't think a mild boost in density in five to 10 years is going to achieve what the city needs. There are a variety of specifics I'd get into but I'll just start with a few. A separate max footprint for primary and secondary buildings encourages a very specific type of density combining the maximums for RL for 2,900 square feet allowing owners to split things as desired will lead to greater environmental efficiencies things like HVAC and electrical work and still have the same density. The story limit of 2.5 fuels a floor too low. In fact, if you use the size of floors in a home like mine, it's actually a downgrade. RM and R8 should have a 4.5 and 5.5 story limit respectively at minimum in order to meet our housing demand. This is to both provide more housing to make it easier for that housing to be built. The developer is much more likely to see a return on investment for 5.5 stories versus 3.5 or something like that. Finishing up, more density helps the environment. It prevents sprawl, it allows for public transit to be economical, it allows for walkable and bikeable neighborhoods. If we are serious about solving the housing crisis in the incoming environmental catastrophe, we need to realize that a slight change of the status quo is probably not sufficient. We should allow Burlington to be the success it wants to be. Final point, the fact that the country club comprises 165 acres of prime real estate and pays $274,000 in taxes is a little messed up. Thank you. All right, next we're gonna go online to Bob. Bob, if you could state your name and the floor is yours. Good evening, it's Bob Duncan. Sorry, my voice is a little off. So I think that you've made a lot of progress here and I can see there's a lot of hard work. I have a question when you change building height to only 3.5 stories, for instance, in the RH zone. A project that's currently under construction right now on Main Street couldn't be built and that was allowed to be built because under inclusionary zoning additional height was allowed. And so my question has to do with are you proposing any changes to inclusionary zoning? Do the inclusionary zoning of course now has density bonuses as well as height bonuses, but if we're eliminating density as a criterion, then I wonder what your thoughts are about inclusionary zoning and the bonuses that are allowed for that, what that would do to height? Excuse me, I also have a slight concern and this requires just some rethinking about typology, but when you do talk about lot sizes that are 30 foot frontage, it's a pretty tight lot. I don't think there are some examples, certainly in Burlington, but not a lot. But one of the things that if you maintain the existing side yard setback requirements as a percentage of frontage, in which case they're 10%, then you have a three foot setback. So according to zoning you could build a building three feet from the property line, but I want people to be aware that the building office will not allow you to put new windows on that wall. So people need me to be mindful of the building code implications that will tag on to the zoning changes. I'm sure I'm approaching my two minutes. I have some other thoughts, but I can share them at the end of the time I'm ready. Thank you. Thank you. All right, we're next going to go back to Contois. You're welcome. My name is Evan Gould. I'm a 15-year resident of Burlington. I've owned my home in the South End in Ward 5 for 11 years. I live in the Red Rocks condo complex. Those condos I think were intentionally built initially as starter homes. The building that I live in is three stories tall, so not be able to be built with these zoning changes. It is in RL. When I walk into Red Rocks Park, I pass another phase of Red Rocks that is also all three-story buildings above a garage in a townhouse style. I can then come down the hill in phase 3A and also encounter buildings that are three stories. As I walk to Oakledge, there is a building, there is 209 and 219 Austin Drive, which are also three-story buildings in residential low and large lot overlays. If I go the other direction, one of the only quadplexes in the addition in my neighborhood is 112, 114 Home Avenue, which is two-story from the front, but has a rear garage, a friend of mine lived there in college, so I'm familiar with that building. That building would not be allowed with the current proposed changes. I think it is very prudent to maintain the current height limit of 3.5 stories in residential low. I think it's important to raise the heights to 4.5 stories in residential medium and 5.5 stories on the corridors, because otherwise we're maintaining the status quo and we truly have a housing crisis. I've had friends who have not been able to take jobs here because they cannot find housing. I've lost people to the city. The young people in the city are leaving and I think that this needs to go much further than what I've seen. In addition to that, just small side note, I spent time canvassing at the farmer's market this past Saturday, requesting kind of the opinion of people in the city about mixed use in residential neighborhoods, which is something that was talked about in the last presentation. I received over 150 signatures standing there from people all over different wards of the city. If you could start winding up. Yeah, so I would like that to be reconsidered as part of the proposal. That's all. Again, I agree with the positives that have been noted. I think this is a step in the right direction, but I agree setbacks side and front should also be altered slightly. Thank you. Thank you. If you're online and you would like to speak, please use the raise hand icon. We're gonna go back to Kontoise. So whoever is next in the queue here, you can come up. Hello. Two minutes is kind of tight to get through something this consequential and to kind of frame the discussion ahead, but I'll do my best. So just to kind of, my name is Jack T. I know I live in Ward 5 on St. Paul Street, but so basically from this presentation, it feels like the guiding principle has been to maintain the existing aesthetic character of neighborhoods of a suburban single family style of development and eking out as much density as possible from that form. But I don't think that that form is the right size for Burlington in today's reality and hasn't been for some time. I don't believe that maintaining the suburban context of these neighborhoods is equitable or reasonable, and I'm no longer convinced that the low end of the missing middle housing at the center of today's conversation is gonna make the impact that we want it to. I think we need to be enabling a Burlington of 100,000 people, not a Burlington of 50,000 people. I wanna like run through some specific things. The changes to rear setbacks feels like a targeted change to just allow back lot buildings instead of like actually reassessing the purpose of setbacks. I think we should eliminate all setbacks, fire safety, ventilation, light. Fire safety ventilation handled by building codes, natural light and views are handled by architects of market pricing that shouldn't be part of zoning. Reducing the minimum lot size acknowledges the problems with lot sizes, so I keep them at all. We've already eliminated prescriptive things like mandated parking minimums, so we've gotten rid of that. We shouldn't have lot sizes either. We've acknowledged that individual projects can adjust for what they want. If someone can creatively build something that meets code and passes development review in a thousand square foot lot, why would we tell them now that that's not allowed? That just doesn't seem like it fits with what our goals are. We also take this like low, medium, high density of residential zones for granted, but as far as I can tell, having these different intensities does nothing but stratify the city on social and economic lines. We're already consolidating some zones. I think we should go all the way and just have a single residential zone. Given all this, my proposal would say give us one residential neighborhood of mixed use. We could call it urban village, which is 40% permeable lot surface requirement and a 35 foot height limit, that's it. I don't see a need for anything more than that. We should also add a transit oriented development overlay which we could call urban corridor with a 25% permeable surface requirement and an FAR of five. Could you start winding up your comments? I see a benefit of a reasonable building footprint maximum as long as separate buildings are allowed to touch. This would make it really easy to assess density in the future and keep things simple for developers and people to understand what is legal. I know this is a bit outside of the discussion of what we've been talking about, but I just wanted to be on the record saying that what we need to simplify to permissive zoning that can get us to a place where we can have 100,000 residents and have neighbors and residents actually shape the future of their own neighborhoods. Thank you. Thank you. And if you'd like, and if anyone would like to provide us with written comments as well, we're more than happy to accept those. Andy, it looks like the rest of our speakers are here in con toys. So if you would like to speak, come up. Welcome. I'm Colin Larson. I live in ward seven. I probably know most of what I'm gonna say. I agree with a lot of the other speakers. I just wanted to make a note specifically about minimum lot size as a regulatory rule. My understanding of lot size is that the real purpose of it would be for like rural areas for septic and leech fields and in an urban environment. I don't really see a purpose because of building codes and fire safety codes. It's not like we're gonna get Tokyo style tiny apartments or like tiny homes on the same lots. And we do still have sepax, lock coverage limits, all of these other things. So I feel that minimum lot size is redundant as was mentioned, like if you can carve out a code compliant lot and a code compliant home that someone can live in that's like 800 square feet, you should be able to do that. It would make it more affordable. I'll say that there's gonna be such a lag time in between when these changes are made and then when housing actually gets built that unless there's like a future project that's gonna be more aggressive than this, I don't really think that this is gonna explode Burlington in the way that I think some people might be afraid of. But also we have such a housing lag that we do need to be more aggressive. So I kind of would like to hear from committee members about what they think the purpose of this neighborhood code process is. Is it just to bring us into compliance with Act 47? Are we just going like a little bit further than Act 47? Are we actually trying to address affordability in housing supply? Because I think like we should all agree on what we're trying to do here. And then based on that, we should move forward with the proposal. Because like if we're not trying to build affordable housing and like increase the housing supply and address the housing crisis, then I'm kind of skeptical that what's on the table right now is gonna, if we are trying to do those things, I'm skeptical that what's on the table now is gonna do that. So thanks. Thank you. Do we have any others here in contours who would like to speak? I'm Traff Fryer, a homeowner and work too. First of all, I wanna say, I agree with Mrs. Busher's concern for the trees. I wanna make sure this increases trees. I didn't hear any mention of that. I think this is awesome. I don't think it goes quite far enough. I agree with the density concern. I think a goal of a more dense, even more dense Burlington is wise. And I heard you mentioned patterns a couple of times and I wonder what references you're making to the book of pattern language. Alexander, Christopher Alexander's a pattern language. I think if references to the patterns in that book could be made, then you could better articulate the improvements to life in the city. Related to that also, I heard you say that you're not looking at lowering front setbacks. And I think that could help better define the public space and the negative space if you're open to that. Thanks. Thank you. Hello, good evening. My name is Ryan Thornton. I'm a resident of Ward 2. I just wanna say I really do like what I see here. I think it's exactly what we should have done in the 1990s, but today this type of incrementalism is just not realistic for the severity of our lack of housing. I wish that we could be more incremental and gentle, but we need to be bold and we need to move quickly to address our housing shortage. I agree with all the comments we've heard here tonight. I also had the privilege of speaking with over 100, something Burlington residents this weekend at the Farmers Market and the support I heard for having mixed use neighborhoods where you could walk to a coffee shop or a bodega or to take your child to childcare was overwhelming. Virtually no pushback on the concept. People want this, so thank you. Thank you. Welcome. Hello, my name is Carlos. I live in the Old North End. And yeah, I just wanted to echo what my friends said before. We are in the same group and that's obvious enough already. I'm a young renter. I've been trying to buy a house with my partner for the last six months. And everything is very expensive right now. I don't think we can afford anything. And yeah, at the same time, I wanted to say that this is just gonna change the law. So it doesn't mean that it's gonna happen. It's just gonna allow other people to build whatever they want is necessary, which again, it doesn't mean that they are going to, right? And again, for people that just wanna live in a single family home, they have all, most of Burlington and most of Vermont to do that. That's not something that we should be enforced. People like to just live, build and buy single family homes. I think that's a very important thing. Oh yeah, before I forget, this is something that I feel like most Americans are like missing on, like just Sunday morning, like with your pajamas and going to your neighbor's house to buy tamales or like to a bakery place. I think that's, like we're missing like the mixed use development here. I'm a little bit disappointed that we haven't really even talked about it. That's something that like we all are missing here. And yeah, thanks. Thank you. Do we have any others? It looks like that is it, Andy, and we did not have any others online. So I think that concludes your comment. Great, well thank you to everyone who spoke to us and shared your comments with us. We'll close the public comment period on this. And again, there'll be a public forum later on for more general items. And with that, we will bring it back to the committee discussion now. Megan and JP, how do you suggest we dig into this? You went over a lot of things. I'm sure people have a lot of comments to be able to keep the discussion going and maybe what would people like to do? Do you wanna just have general discussion or do you wanna have a focused discussion on different topics that were brought up? Do we start with questions? Sure. And it sounds like a good idea. For channel 17, would it be possible to change the view so that we can see all the participants on the screen? Thank you. For the counselors that are online and commissioners that are online, you should be able to turn on your video if you would like. We'll be able to see you here. So yeah, I think actually that's a great idea questions. Let's start out with some questions and you could add some comments to it, but yes, let's start with the questions. Soraya, was that you who asked for questions? It was, sorry, that's just a voice to the ether. Yeah, I guess my first question is along the lines of some of the things that folks said, which I think I understand the frontage requirements, especially, but I'm not sure that I understand why we're keeping minimum lot sizes when the 11th era of, I guess what is the purpose of keeping some of the minimum lot sizes? We'll keep that simple. Well, I'll say that this is something we debated a lot internally. And in fact, JP and his boss, Tim, that we've been working with asked us if that was something that we wanted to eliminate entirely. So I think this is fully within the purview of this committee to discuss whether that's where you would want to go. Ultimately, because we assume that and have heard in some neighborhoods that while there's an openness to more housing types and a greater intensity of development that not everybody wants all of our neighborhoods to become exactly the same as some of our most dense neighborhoods. And so lot size requirement is one of the tools that we can utilize to help kind of control the pattern of development in some areas. So we think that 3,500 is a very small number, particularly in some of the further neighborhoods where lot sizes trend 6,000 to 10,000 and even larger that would allow for significant potential for subdivision, but would still maintain some kind of fabric of open space to build area. Right, and then thank you for that. I won't add my comment to that unless. And he wants me to. And then the other question that I had is around and apologies maybe I just need to go back and look at the presentation, but I don't know if you did the same comparison of like what is there versus what's proposed for building height. So I guess I'm curious what, yeah, like how much we're still not allowing what is currently there with the proposed types. Yeah, great question. We did not do that because we do not have a city-wide data set about building height today. Do you wanna talk about some of the studies that you've done, JP and Sarah though? Around the building height, sure. So I mean, we're looking at the current limit of 35 feet and what that number may wanna be and we're looking at testing out if you introduce townhomes and some of the higher intensity buildings, what those numbers need to be. We haven't landed on a final number yet, but if you're assuming certain floor-to-floor heights of like 11 feet to be comfortable, 35 feet to 40 feet depending on the neighborhood feels like the right area to land, we just need to figure out exactly what the right number is. If I could just add to that question on the height, what is a half a story, like two and a half stories or three and a half stories? So yeah, to clarify that one, the half story, it's not literally a half of the floor below it. We're trying to work with the team to figure out the right way to control mass at the top of the building but still allow buildable area and we haven't finalized what those rules will be yet, but it's not literally just a half of the area below. So it's either a setback rule or a gabled, or like an angled roof, some combo of controlling the mass of the building at the top. And again, I think this will be something that detail we didn't include in the presentation because we wanted to kind of get your initial reactions to what we're proposing. There are a bunch of different ways that we could approach the height limits technically once we understand your perspective on that but ultimately if you like, I think the simplest way to describe it is the difference between two and a half and three stories would mean that the two and a half story might ultimately be about the same height to the tallest part of the building as a three story building but it might just need to be gabled for example versus a full three story could be like a flat roof building where the full third story is three stories tall. Is that right? Yeah, and then just my last, this isn't more of a request but for a lot of these it says limited by lot coverage and I don't know if that's a single number, I don't know if that's a range but if we could, you know, for the RLRM height or I guess I'm not 100% sure for the proposed things is it still limited by lot? I guess I'm not sure what the interplay is with lot coverage for the proposed versus now and also if it's being maintained I would just like to see those numbers in line with the proposed. I think, I don't know if it would be helpful to bring the presentation back up or if you wanna wait. I think what we meant by limited by the lot coverage in the charts that we're comparing the existing zoning to the proposed was just saying that right now we don't actually have any standards that regulate the overall footprint of buildings other than however much lot coverage you could achieve on a lot and so we're trying to make that more permissive and explicit that you could have buildings up to a certain size and simultaneously increase the lot coverage to make sure that people can build closer to that allowable footprint, if that makes sense. I'll just also add in some of the studies we were doing we were finding some of the lots in the more intense parts of the city they get so small that it doesn't make sense to have a building or a maximum footprint anymore because the setback rules and the lot coverage rules were defining the building more than any footprint rule would have. So that's another reason that we eliminate some of those footprint rules. Okay, sorry. I'm now seeing that there was a second section where you did have most of them and I do, I think to the point of conserving green space as we change how many buildings I think that bumping up lot coverage is the right. Sorry, and I'm going to comment is the right move and since I'm left comment on my first question which is I think I would not even for like I think just for simplicity sake so that we don't have so many standards still I would, I think I would be in favor of also removing minimum lot size. Thank you. So one of the, thank you, Zariah. One of the things I'm thinking about for how to keep this organized and on point is to continue going through people asking questions and with having general comments and I'm starting to put together a list of the questions people have and there are a number of different issues that JP and Megan talked about. And I think at our next meeting continue with the questions tonight and at our next meeting we can have a list of all the different specific points like the lot size, the building height, the districts and then we could go through them one at a time and have a more pointed discussion and in depth discussion on each of the different areas and we could talk more in between meetings just to figure out the best way to do all of this. But I think these questions are really helpful. And I think just for the purposes of us being able to fully bring together there's a lot of questions that are being asked tonight that have to do with standards that we can't really land until we know sort of at the base what your level of comfort is with the core proposals that we shared tonight. So if anybody does have feelings about what we've proposed tonight it would be helpful so that we can help answer questions and share more of the standards that would help implement these. Perfect. Okay. Perfect. Who else, Michael? There's some up there too. I think you've been before me. Why don't you go because it's a quarter to eight? Oh, it's okay, I can stay a little longer. Okay, that takes my way. Then I think Alex, I saw your hand go up. Andy, you did. My question is also about a lot of coverage and in RML and RM and I think you answered part of my question, Megan, by proposing to zone parts of RL to RM but also is if you're gonna change a lot of coverage like it's sort of, you know, I've been here since 2016 on this committee and it's still hard to conceptually see how all of these different standards work together. And so one of the question about that coverage is 45% enough for RL. Should you increase that? That's really my question. So I mean, yeah, I'll quickly address that. We ran a number of tests, both massing in Rhino 3D models, various buildings of 1,800 square feet plus the 1,100 square feet and varying sizes as we were deciding these numbers. And testing what size lot would you would need to accommodate that building at various coverage requirements and 45% was comfortably getting every scenario possible within the RL district. So we worked with Megan and Sarah, got the typical lot size for RL and then started testing buildings on them in what you would need to change the coverage maximum to get these buildings built. Okay. I also thought one of the people who spoke during public forum about their combining a lot of more flexibility instead of establishing footprint sizes for the primary and secondary buildings but making that an aggregate, that was a good suggestion I thought. Thank you. Julia. Did you wanna go for it? Okay. Yeah, thank you so much for the depth of work that went into this. I really appreciate it. I'm excited to dig into the slides afterwards. I may have missed it but in the beginning portion of the presentation there was a breakdown of each housing type and I may have missed the 8 to 12 unit building one. I was wondering if we could just take a look at that if it was there. So we didn't propose specific standards related to that building. What we, I mentioned this at the last meeting that those housing types along the top of those slides are not meant to be like specific building types that we will regulate in all cases but they're meant more as a guide for us and particularly for JP to see like, would this fit within the box that's created by lot size, lot coverage, setbacks, et cetera of the new standards we're proposing. So in RH we would allow multi-unit buildings. We're not suggesting any limit on the number of units within a building itself. And then on the corridors, same thing. We're proposing that there isn't a limit to the number of units in a building and we're also proposing that you can have up to 3,600 square feet of a building's footprint. So that could allow I think to the point that Michael raised at the last meeting that could allow for four to five townhouses in a row connected to one another or that small multi-unit building. JP has talked about it as a 12-pack building and four units per floor kind of thing. So those are the things that we've been testing for when thinking about proposing the court or standards. That makes sense. Thank you. Okay, so I'm wondering about that four-unit max per building. And if you could just explain that a bit more and I'm having trouble thinking about it as a max because it seems like it's sort of behaving as a minimum in some cases. I'm just a bit confused about that figure for those, I think it's RL and RM, is that correct? So yeah, I'm just wondering if that's not itself kind of a density limit. I'm wondering why that number four, if we're trying to move away from those like, just flat numbers for a particular lot and move towards those massing standards. Right, so that is essentially what we're saying here. It's not functioning as a minimum, it is functioning as a maximum. So what we've said is like, you can have a building that's up to this big, it can be one story, two story, two and a half stories and then within that footprint, you can decide. Is it one unit, is it two, is it three, is it four? Like you have that choice. And so that's the approach that we're trying to take to just enabling all of the housing types and people can choose then what they're putting on a lot within that footprint. And I think one of the things that we've kind of heard some confusion about is like, what does this mean and are we just regulating density? And so I actually have some numbers here if you're interested in hearing them. If someone were to actually try to build a building on the minimum lot size that we're proposing of 3,500 square feet, if there was just one unit in it, that would actually be a 12 unit per acre density. At two, 24, at four units in that building, that'd be 48 units per acre. So you can see how just even within the same building itself, the density of the building can vary widely based on how many units somebody might choose to put in that building. If somebody keeps kind of a general 8,000 square foot lot, which is the median lot size today, one unit in that is five and a half units per acre, two is 11, so on, if they put four units in that, that's 22 units per acre. So we're trying to be more agnostic about that and just say four units are allowed in buildings up, up to four units are allowed in buildings up to this large. And that's that. And then to layer on top of that just a little bit on the architectural side, it was a weak thought about it also, if we're setting a max footprint and basically a max size for these buildings, it's a way of ensuring that these units that are built are livable and can accommodate multiple types of families so that you can't pack in a ton of units that are only gonna accommodate one person each. It's a way of ensuring that multiple types of families in apartment sizes are possible in these buildings. Okay, thank you, that's really helpful. One thing that I was thinking about during the presentation that I was thinking about as well during the public forum was just the possibility of deferring to international building codes for a lot of these standards and whether there's a need to invent our own there's something that is applicable from the building code particularly with regard to setbacks, things like that. I really agree with a lot of the public comment on the height allowances and I think I'm wondering what went into those specific numbers and gradations for those different districts. And I think if the concern is just like a neighborhood feel as you're walking along the street, I wonder if upper floor setbacks could be appropriate. I mean, I know you were just talking about some of the other ways to reduce building mass at the top through gable roofs and things like that but I wonder if those upper floor setbacks could be useful particularly in a more of a neighborhood setting as opposed to on the corridors. I don't think it really matters at all on a corridor setting but I agree with the public comments that those heights should just be at least one story higher for all categories and I just want to highlight, we've heard a lot of support in the public comments for mixed use in neighborhoods. So I think, I see no reason why I wouldn't be compatible with the things that are happening in this proposal but obviously, that wasn't the focus of the presentation today but I hope that we can discuss that in the future and I also wanted to just highlight that I hope we can discuss as a committee the impacts of this proposal on, I think Jack used the term economic stratification of the different neighborhoods because I do think that is an implication of the types of changes that we're proposing here and ideally this, the impact of this proposal would be to enable more opportunities for both renting and ownership throughout the city. Obviously more units in all places is the best way to do that and obviously that supports a slew of other goals just creating more blockable neighborhoods and a climate friendly community in general. I didn't bring this up in the last meeting but I thought about it afterwards and wanted to. I think there's a strong reason to focus on Burlington itself in this whole discussion but I think we should be thinking about this proposal and its implications for the whole state because there really is no other community that can fulfill the state's housing need the way that we have the potential to do through this proposal. So I would love for committee members to think regionally and statewide as well about the potential to provide housing for like the greater Burlington area which is basically Vermont. Thank you. Joan, if you wanna go. Thank you, Annie. I'm a little bit curious about what Julia just said about no other community being able to meet this need. So just throw that out for further discussion but I talked to a developer recently who said something that I have not understood and I'm wondering how it applies here and that is he was saying that building actually building taller structures has a higher cost per unit than building lower structures. So when you're building downtown there's a very high cost per unit and so when particularly in the current environment with rising interest rates, there is kind of a double whammy impact of the cost to the builder going up and the ability to pay going down for anybody who's getting a mortgage and not paying cash for a quarter property because if you're qualified for a $300,000 loan at a 3% interest rate, when that interest rate goes to six, seven, 8% your buying capacity goes way down. The cost for the developer when those interest rates do the same thing the cost for the developer is going up and so there's going to be an increasing cost for building inclusionary units and he was indicating that where you can build the inclusionary units, like more townhouse style rather than apartment building style makes it much easier to build those affordable units. So as we're moving towards kind of more density across the board, I am wondering how I think that there's an assumption that buildings are always more efficient and affordable as you go up but he kind of raised my awareness that that's not really true. So maybe this doesn't exactly apply to what we're discussing and I'm sorry for the ramble but have a little bit of concern that what we're doing is increasing the value of these lots for developers making it harder to compete as homeowners and are we still, where do we think we will build those affordable units? And I do understand that our current zoning requires them to be built included in any development but we also have to be cognizant that that in and of itself can stifle development and there may be more flexibility required in the future for that and wondering if our planning staff had any thoughts about that. So I'll let JP speak to the first, I think question about whether or not that building cost consideration applies to what we're talking about. Yeah, so I suspect that developer was referring to the high rise code which is part of the international building code when a building gets to a certain height certain additional regulations are placed on top of it that do drastically increase the cost of the building but that's at 70 feet which is nowhere near the level of building that we're proposing here. So I don't think that's a concern at least for the neighborhood code. Or I think we also talked about this within the context of the south end innovation district that sometimes it can also depend on the building materials where when we're talking about the building buildings of the scale we're probably talking about buildings that could primarily be built out of wood and therefore have a lower sort of construction cost versus getting into concrete or steel. So I definitely think that we're talking about a different building scale than that specific concern that you were hearing about from a developer. But we have done some focus group work before we got here and including folks like Bob Duncan have encouraged us to try to be straightforward in terms of how these regulations would apply to new buildings so that we aren't inadvertently adding a lot of costs for the complexity of implementing these regulations. In terms of the other, like I heard a concern but then more of a specific question about and there was one in the public comment about how this relates to affordable housing in terms of our specific inclusionary zoning requirements that is also a bit outside of the scope of what we're talking about. Inclusionary is required when people build buildings of five units or more. So certainly some like the small mixed use buildings or small multi-unit buildings that could be created in some places might be required to create one of those units as an inclusionary unit. But generally when we're talking about one to four units across the city we would not be looking at mandating those inclusionary units. And we are looking at how all the bonuses and other development intensity allowances that we have in our other parts of our ordinances would be translated to this. So that'll be a discussion that we talk about in the future. And also I'll just add on the minimum lot size. I think that the minimum lot size is really problematic for some existing lots. We certainly had one in my neighborhood that had to go for a zoning variance. They got it and the house they're putting a duplex on this postage stamp lot and it's beautiful. So I do think it's worth considering also a little bit concerned if there's been consideration for stormwater management and things like that. If we're, I think that the increases you've suggested in lot coverage are modest enough that that's not gonna cause a wholesale problem. And that probably, that may make up for any need for minimum lot sizes. The fact that you do still have these setbacks. So you have to make, you have to have a lot size that makes these setbacks work and able to put a building on it. So maybe it's not necessary. Thank you, Joan. Michael. Yeah, I had three questions. One, and I apologize for not asking them maybe at the last meeting, but one, I was just curious on the thinking around the Annex, it shares a lot of characteristics of the five sisters, for example, and just maybe a little background on that. And then given that the corridor is kind of a, it's something I think we're, I'll play it and forget it. I think it's something we're seeing new tonight. Just thinking on, for example, I think that the height feels very good to me to answer some of the questions. I think part of what we're doing is bringing up the code to reflect what is actually on the ground and with that comes a lot of opportunity. But in the corridors, perhaps there's an opportunity on height. And so wanted to just get some more information on that. And then finally, we talked about this quite a bit on Trinity, but with regard to the 20 foot setback on the corridor, is that from the center line? Remind me of where that's from, just thinking about not wanting to have things like a good street frontage industry, well, and all that. Okay, so the annex or the addition, maybe? Are we talking about the same place? South of Flynn Ave. I don't know why I called it that. Yes. Okay, that's all right. So we have been looking at that area. At this point, we haven't suggested changing it from RL to RM, kind of counterintuitive. We're happy to review that in more detail. Bottom line is we think through the changes that we're proposing, there could be a lot of opportunity there. And we are looking at a few more details to make sure that that's true. I think we're gonna find that there's a couple neighborhoods across the city where we could be right on the fence, whether you might wanna increase the allowable intensity of development to make sure every lot has the same potential, or if you think that there's enough kind of momentum there. So we can talk about that a little bit more. In terms of the corridor height, we have been talking about allowing higher building heights than what is permitted today. As we've been talking about this three and a half stories for those locations, JP has been helping us think through that that probably means a building height approaching 50 feet in order to get a modern building in those locations, especially if you want the ground floor of the building to be allowed to have commercial uses, which we will talk about at an upcoming meeting. And then the 20 foot setback for the corridors, we actually are proposing as a maximum setback, where in other places, the setback is a minimum. And in these locations, it would be measured from the front of the property line. So in a lot of cases, that's like the edge of the sidewalk. So we would be saying that buildings could be anywhere from the edge of that sidewalk up to 20 feet from that. And that's consistent with particularly some of the zoning districts along North Avenue, where we have more recently considered the setback requirements. We've implemented 20 foot max. Okay, so quick follow up. Sure. For JP, do you feel like at 50 feet on the corridors, the three and a half story is appropriate? Yeah, we've been, I mean, we're gonna continue to test about 50 feet felt like the comfortable number to get that potential mixed use ground floor and then three stories are the three stories above. Okay, maybe that was my misunderstanding. So the three stories is, so that's four, right? So the three stories is really the residential component? The half story and half stories may be misleading. There is, it would be a four story building, but that top floor would be smaller in some form, whether it's an angled roof or a setback or a stepback of some form. But that would include four habitable floors. It's just how big the footprint of the fourth floor would be. And it does include the commercial? Yes. In particular, we had JP look after the last meeting at whether 50 feet in that framework could allow for a commercial ground floor. Yes. Okay, so I guess for the committee, my feeling would be to explore an additional story on the corridors, which is given like the, you know, I don't know what a traditional retail bay is 15 feet or something like that. And then like 11, 11, 11, so you're like 33, whatever. So you get pretty close even with four stories, I guess would be my point to 50. Thank you. You want the green light to go on. Okay. Thank you all. Thank you public for your comments. I have three things. The first is, I found it slightly challenging to take notes and watch the presentation. So I don't know if there's a way to have a printout or send us the presentation first, just so we can follow along a little bit easier through some of the density. Maybe that's just me and I can email you guys separately, but I think that would make it easier. What? It was online. It was? That's okay. It was posted yesterday online. It was posted yesterday. Okay, because my second one was just, you know, what I read in the past couple of days and I did not miss that, but the neighborhood code report that the team put together in June is just like excellent background on all of this thinking. And I think it's like, as we look at this, or as I look at this presentation again and kind of lean on that, I think it gets, it's like a good footing on where you all are going and the thinking behind many of, not many, but some of the questions we've been asking. And then the final thing is just going forward, I appreciated you bringing it up and also the public comment, just mixed use in especially, not just the corridors, but how mixed use as we look for denser development, how we can encourage that and maybe are there places where it's being done well that's not here and I would be interested in hearing more about that and how we can encourage commercial for small local businesses on the first floor and then residences above. Great, I don't think there was a question there. So I wrote down your comment, but I think just because mixed use has come up so many times, just a quick preview, we currently allow certain types of what we call neighborhood scale commercial, like, you know, a laundromat, a coffee shop. In historic buildings in residential areas and that's primarily been an incentive to help preserve and reuse historic buildings. We are thinking about particularly for the corridors allowing the same types of neighborhood commercial uses without the restriction that it's a historic building so they could go into new buildings. And I think ultimately for the committee, it will be up to you to give us direction on whether you want that to be more expansive to be allowed anywhere in residential zones. So just a preview of what we'll talk about in a future meeting. So you've had Ben for a while and I think- Sarah, why don't you go and then Ben will get to you next. Sure, I'm not quite sure how to articulate this when you were talking about the corridors and the need for more height. And I philosophically agree with that, but the North Avenue corridor, which I'm most familiar at, is quite different in the south end of it than the north end of it. The north end of it is not very deep. It immediately butts small residential homes. So what you can do in the south end of North Avenue could be very different than what you might want to do in the north end of that corridor. So I'm just bringing that up because it's different. And that's a little bit true on Pine Street if that's what you're talking about. Again, the south end of Pine Street is different than the north end of Pine Street. So even though they're truly busy corridors in terms of traffic, the abutting neighborhoods are different. And I don't know how we look at that, but it's something I think we're gonna have to consider. I mean, many of the lots on the north end of North Avenue are quite shallow. So it would be awkward, you know? Right, and maybe just for our point of clarity, we're only proposing the corridor zone go up to the intersection of Plattsburg. But I think you're right, even kind of south of there, there are... The west, between St. Mark's Church north, it's a pretty single family. Right. And I think it should be more dense. I'm just, you know, do you go for... The height transition? Yeah, right. A lot of the homes that abut that are single story. There's a lot of ranch homes there. And would you go from a ranch home to five stories? Okay. We'll happy to discuss that, yep. All right, thank you, Ben. Oh, Sarah, did you have anything else? Okay, Ben. Thank you, Andy. And apologies for being a little bit late to the meeting at an REIB committee meeting before this. But I think I caught most of the presentation, most of the notes that I have here echo what other folks have said. So I won't repeat it for the most part, except to say that for the sake of staff that I agree with many of the comments that have been stated here in terms of sort of where I am on the proposal, I agree with a number of the public comments that I'm thrilled that we're heading in this direction from my perspective. I think this sort of presents a minimum and would be more than open to considering how much further we can go in terms of expanding housing opportunities. I, Andy, appreciate your idea about future meetings sort of being clear about diving in in more detail on particular questions here. There's a lot more for me to digest in terms of lot size and setbacks and so on. And if we were specifically diving into that issue as an agenda item, I think it may present more opportunity for us to again further digest those issues. I appreciated JP's comments with respect to the four unit maximum, a part of that wanting to promote different unit sizes for different type families. It would be helpful for me to learn more about by establishing a four unit maximum sort of what housing opportunities we're potentially giving up in terms of if you were to build a building to the maximum size permitted by the proposal, how many units could theoretically be in there? How large would those units be? If we keep it to four units, how large are those units as compared to others? My gut reaction is that particularly in the RM zones, why not allow more than four units there as compared to the RL zones? But that's just one thought. I agree with Michael's comments with respect to height limitations, particularly along the corridors, at least one additional story makes sense to me. We just did the South End Innovation District that in parts allows up to eight stories, six stories, at least four stories. So it would make sense to me that along these corridors we would at least allow what we've now permitted in the South End Innovation District. And then for a future meeting, and maybe this isn't a question for tonight, but could use some additional feedback on it either offline or at the next meeting, but it would be helpful for me to understand how we define the proposal as to what would be the so-called corridors here. You know, just for example, looking at Colchester Avenue in Pearl Street, I'm questioning why on the north side of Pearl Street, some of that would be residential medium as opposed to a corridor. I'm wondering around some of the institutional areas like on the west side of East Avenue or on the north side of Colchester Avenue, whether or not there's opportunities there to classify that area as a corridor. I suspect that the intention was that, the areas that are currently not labeled as a corridor, but are currently neighborhood activity centers like the shopping plaza near Letty Park along North Avenue as well as the neighborhood activity centers along Shelburne Road and Flynn Avenue that those and the Market 32 shopping center would continue to have the same standards apply, but I think they would appropriately fit as being classified as a corridor. So perhaps it's worth considering adding those to the proposed changes here. And then the last question that I have around corridors is at least looking at the proposed map. In my ward, ward five, it appears that a good number of areas in the South Meadow neighborhood are being proposed as classified as a corridor zone. I don't necessarily oppose that. I think that there's quite a bit of density there already and a number of housing units. The follow-up question I have though is that it is in effect a condominium development in area and wondering whether or not in other existing condominium developments around the city, including others in the South End, why would we propose sort of upzoning in the South Meadow neighborhood in particular and not for other similar development areas along those lines. So in short, we'd love to hear more about how we've defined the corridor areas at a future meeting. Great, and I can just note really briefly that the corridors as we've proposed them so far, I think there are a couple of questions in there that we'll definitely wanna check in on. But we were primarily looking at places where there are lots that are zoned either RL or RM today that have frontage on the major thoroughfares that were called out in our comprehensive plan. So I think the reason we presented at the beginning, the kind of map of where other housing types are allowed is because it can look like there are big gaps in the map. Oftentimes when we're talking about the corridors, that's because there's a zoning district that allows some other type of housing development along those corridors or even mixed use development. And I was starting to open up the map to sites like Market 32 you mentioned or the Hannaford Plaza. Those are in neighborhood activity center zones that actually allow much greater intensity in terms of housing development than what these corridor standards would allow. And so that's a big part of the reason why we didn't propose to apply them where RM or RL aren't already the kind of underlying districts, but we can talk more about the map as well. Michael, did you have something? Yeah, quick follow up, Ben, jogged my memory. Actually, before you go, Ben, I'm sorry, were you all set? Okay, sorry. Ben, jogged my memory with the four units. I was also really curious on that. And it does seem like I was curious, one data set we probably have is via the rental registry in RM and what that overlay looks like in terms of how many units do we typically have in a building in RM with the existing rental stock? Yeah, we can definitely look at that. We've been looking at it compared to what our zoning allow today. And in a lot of cases, it would be hard to even get a four unit building on some of the lots in RM because of how small it is. But to your point, that doesn't mean that there aren't buildings that have more than four units. And so we can look into that to see what exists. But I do really support what you're doing because I think oftentimes we're really focused on just putting as many units as possible in micro units. And I think those have long-term questions about their sustainability as a form of habitation. Given they're so small, but it would be interesting to know. Right, and one of the things that Sarah and I looked at at one point was trying to understand where setting a four unit limit could actually represent a down zoning from what's allowed today. And we think that that would be very rare, but we'll be happy to follow up with you and show you what we found. So that actually dovetails on one additional comment that I have beyond what was already said tonight, which is all of the new regulations that we're looking at put restrictions on what's there already. Some of it may be like on building size. There may be some buildings that are bigger than what's being proposed. There may be some buildings that are smaller. There may be some lots that are smaller that have buildings on it. And the way that we've traditionally dealt with those kinds of things is through grandfathering. But grandfathering has a lot of limits to it. And what we may want to do here, rather than saying it's simply grandfathered if it's too big, too small to this, to that, is to say if it is bigger than this, if a preexisting structure is bigger, if a preexisting structure is smaller, if the lot is preexisting, lot is too small if the preexisting setbacks don't match. Rather than just saying you're grandfathered, be specific, here's what you could do. Because one of the things that we don't wanna do is if something is too big, too small, to this, to that, to say, ah, that means you can't do something that we're trying to encourage in the new regulations. And so let's make sure that the new regulations don't limit what preexisting people could do. Preexisting structures, lots, whatever could do because they don't match the code that we're trying to put in place wherever we end up landing. So that's just one place that I wanna look at. Make sure that we're not having basically an adverse impact on existing things and that we give all the flexibility to them that we're trying to put into the code to begin with. Is there anyone else who has anything to add for tonight? So I'll work again with Megan between now and the next meeting, but I do think that with the conversation that we've had tonight, people are really honing in on some specific issues. And I think probably the best thing to do or really productive thing to do would be at our next meeting. I'm sure Megan and your team are going to be coming up with more refinements to what was done. But then, and so you probably begin with the presentation of what refinements you've done, but then to come to the committee and to go through specific items one at a time. Let's talk about the lot sizes. Let's talk about the building heights. Let's talk about the zones, the districts. Because I'll just step back for a second. The one thing that I haven't heard tonight at all is people saying, no, this is the wrong direction that we're going in. It sounds like by and large, everyone is saying on the committee, yes, this is direction we want to go in. We're in the right direction. People have comments and concerns, perhaps, about the details of it. And so if we could, I think stick with the structure that we have, I'm not seeing any reason to change that, but to go look at the details of some of these is two and a half or three and a half store is the right. Is the lot size where people want to land? Are these different things where people want to land? So I think if we go through those one at a time, we'll have a much more clarity on where we want to land on these things, but I think all of it will fit in really well with the direction that's going in already. Great, yeah, happy to. I think that the questions and just general comments that we've heard tonight are actually really helpful to your point that this is, we're not talking about going backwards. Not, you know, we want to let four units be built in fewer places. I think that's really helpful guiding direction and we were trying to find the right balance tonight in giving you more of the details without overwhelming you. So definitely happy to follow up more specifically about the, like in the weeds, questions and comments. I have a question for the committee in terms of how we can best prepare for the next meeting, because our next meeting is just one week from now. If we produce written responses to some of the questions you asked tonight, will that be something that you're interested in taking a look at? Okay, I'm seeing a couple heads nodding in the room for those of you online, would that be workable? Okay, because what I might suggest is that we try to answer some of these, and then if there are ones that people want to pull up and flag that we talk about more, we could focus on those ones just because I'm cognizant too of all the related things you brought up, nonconformities tonight. We haven't talked about commercial yet. I think there's a lot more that will naturally start to get into as we discuss these details more deeply. So happy to provide that background for you. Okay, and a tough question. We're obviously at some point soon going to need to go to the written proposal. Yes. Where is that, and when would the committee? We were thinking that we would introduce that at the next meeting, for the next meeting. And one of the things that actually in talking with Andy about is that we're thinking that at least initially we're going to present that to you just as like clean written language that represents what we want this ordinance to look like after we've made all the changes rather than giving you like a really complicated red line version. We're going to have to do that because that's what we have to do, but we're thinking that that's probably going to be the easiest way to like read through and understand what we're proposing. So thanks to Andy for that suggestion. Does everyone understand what Megan was just saying? Normally we'd get these as red lines, but in talking with her it just didn't make sense to do a red line on it because there's so many changes that are going to happen. And really I think what we're trying to do, and we've talked about this before, is not something that's just incremental, but something that's transformational. And so I don't know how closely aligned it's going to be to the original, the existing code. And so trying to do a red line on it, I think we'll just make everybody really confused. So having a clean draft of what we actually want will probably get us a lot further and a lot closer to it than trying to compare it to what there is already. Good. All right, thank you. Good, anything else before we close out this item? All right, well great, thank you. And we look forward to the next meeting on this. We're not done yet though. We still have our regular public forum. I don't know if there's anybody here who wants to speak to that, not the public forum. Charles, do we have anyone? We do not. We do? I think that that may actually just be the standing time that had been scheduled for all these meetings. So we'll make sure that we update the schedule for the next one for, yep. Yeah. Okay, thank you very much. Have a good night. Thank you. Okay, thank you. So Charles, there's no one to speak. We do not have anybody online. Okay, great. Then we will move on to item four, which is minutes and communications, even though it doesn't say communications. Do I have a motion to approve the minutes and accept the communications? Motion by Julia, seconded by Michael. Any discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor of the motion, please say aye or raise your hand. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? That passes. And then our last item is adjournment. So motion to adjourn. We have a motion to adjourn in a second. Second. That's how I mean it. Because you do. All right, we have a motion to adjourn. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. We stand adjourned. Thank you. Thank you all. Thank you. Thank you. Because you're the one I can count on.