 Okay. Good evening everybody. My name is Rob Goodwin. I am a chair of the MobHillier DRB. I'd like to call this February, April 4th, 2022 meeting to order. And I will introduce the members, introduce them from starting on my right. Do you have an old column? Board member. And Catherine Burgess, board member. And on the Zoom platform, we have Abby. Hi, Abby White, board member. And Jean. Hey there. Hi, Jean Leon, board member. And Joe. Hi. Joe Kiran. And that's it. That's it. Yep. Okay. So, out further ado, I will turn it over to Meredith. She will update us on our remote meeting procedures here and take it away. Good. If you need a printed packet, there's one in there. I got it all. Okay. All right. So, I am going to share my screen here. This is especially helpful for those watching via Orca Media, but the, for the share screen part, for everybody else who's on remotely, please just pay attention to what I say. All right. So, for those of you viewing this meeting over Orca Media, you can participate in tonight's development review board meeting using the Zoom platform. You can either take this link and type that into your browser, or you can call into this phone number and use this meeting ID. If you call in on your phone, you'll be able to hear everything. You'll be able to make comments. You just won't necessarily see what we're doing with a share screen. If anyone has problems accessing the meeting, please email me at mcrandle.pillier-vt.org. I'll be watching that email throughout the meeting. For those attending via Zoom, note that turning on your video is optional. For everyone that's attending, please keep your microphone on mute when you're not speaking. This will reduce background noise and let the rest of us hear what's going on. Please reserve the Zoom chat function for troubleshooting or logistics questions only. If you have something substantive to say about the meeting, about any of the applications, please raise your hand either literally. If you've got the video on or using your raise hand button on the Zoom and the chair will call on you at an appropriate time. I'll also be keeping an eye on that and we've got a couple of different people trying to snag that and make sure that we catch everybody. We have several people on today, but not too, too many for comments, so I think we'll be okay. We don't have to restrict comment time. If I find out while keeping an eye on my email that somebody is having a hard time accessing the meeting, public is having a hard time accessing the meeting and we can't get them to get through. We will have to continue the hearing to a time and place certain because we have listed online access as a viable option for getting into the meeting. I will now hand this back over to the chair. I think that just a couple real quick points on that. So as we progress out of this pandemic, my understanding is that these procedures will be changing in some way or another and I think over the next couple of weeks will be a conversation among board members about what that looks like, but also I think that if the public has strong feelings about the way things have been happening and moving forward, they should contact information is there for Meredith and we'd like to make sure that your thoughts on how we address this reopening are incorporated. So without further ado, the approval of the agenda will now entertain a motion. Second? Second. Okay, motion is us not on vacation right now. Look at all my friends. Caitlin, can you move yourself please? Thank you. Okay. So we have a motion for the approval of the agenda for tonight's meeting and a second by Catherine. Kevin, how do you vote? Catherine. Yes. Abby. Oh, Joe. I still have her. Yes. Jean. Yes, I'm here. Sorry. Okay, Abby. Gotcha. Thank you. Yes, from Abby, Joe, Jean, Kevin and Catherine and Rob myself. We have an agenda for tonight's meeting. So yeah, I don't have any detailed comments from this evening. I did just return late last night from traveling abroad. So Kevin has been in touch with Meredith on some of the details about this meeting. So please excuse any slowness. I'm a little tired, but I'm here. Next item would be review of the minutes from the March 7th meeting. I had one minor typo here. Should be a comma between Jean and Joe in the lists, just in case there's a copy and paste, which I would do. Anyway, so we got that one. Any other comments or changes from the board? No. All right. We have a motion for approval. So moved. Motion by Kevin. Second. Second by Catherine. Kevin, how do you vote? Yes. Catherine. Yes. Abby. Yes. Joe. Yes. Jean. Yes. Rob votes yes, unanimously approved. We have minutes for March 7th. Okay. So the first order of business at the core of our meeting here would be the 114 River Street application. And I'm guessing we have two people here tonight. Would you guys care to come up and introduce yourselves to the public and the board? Hi. I'm Ben Jenkins. Jesse Harper. Yeah, make sure you try. I know it's hard because it's one microphone and there's two of you. Just do your best. Okay. Okay. Okay. So I know there's a number of people on the Main Street project. We'll just, that'll be a while. Yeah. Well, yeah. We have to swear them in per hearing. That's two separate hearings. Right. It's two separate hearings. Just as a double check, is there anybody on remotely tonight about the 114 River Street project? I don't think so, but I'm just double checking. Nope. Okay. So would you guys introduce yourselves again? Yes. I'm Ben Jenkins. I'm Jesse Harper. Perfect. Thank you. All right. So we're going to swear you in for this meeting. And I've got that right. So all those interested in providing testimony on this application, would you please raise your right hand to be sworn in as a witness? Do you solemnly swear or affirm that the testimony you are about to give is the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth under the pains and penalties of perjury? I do. Thank you much. Okay. So we will now get into the heart of your application. I think first, Meredith will provide a brief overview of why this application is before the board. And then you will have an opportunity to sort of discuss your project in detail and we'll sort of go through the staff report and answer some questions here. Okay. So this 114 River Street project is here before the development review board for two, well, really one reason is because part of the use I determined was a conditional use. There is some, I had to go through the site plan aspects of this and that's in the staff report, but they're not changing any of the site plan. There's nothing being changed on the outside. So that's sort of in their pro forma because we have to go through it. But the real meat of this is the conditional use. The business is a cannabis cultivation business. And that really, we don't have a specific category that goes into that. It's not just the growing. There's also a drying aspect and then trimming those plants after they've been dried and harvested and then putting them in some degree of packaging. It's not going to be sold out of here. So it's not retail. And so trying to figure out where it was going to fit, it really fell into two categories. There's the greenhouse aspect and I've put the specific definition in the staff report. And then the only other place really to fit the other aspects was in this light manufacturing where they're processing the plant to a degree. Very mildly. There's no special water. There's no special fuel. There's no special waste. Like there would be for brewery where you have all that waste that the sewer system has to figure out how to manage. There's no big special outside equipment. And so the light manufacturing really seemed to be the best place to put this and really the only place to put it. And under the state statutes, we couldn't just list it all as agriculture. And so that's where I put those. So the light manufacturing is a conditional use. So it has to be here before the board. And then going through that conditional use analysis, we had all the different city departments take a look at it. There was one comment from the police department just saying that they really want to make sure that the business has tight security in place, which makes sense. And applicants have addressed that in the application, but that's one thing to look at. And then really the only other thing I spotted is maybe an issue for discussion is potential impacts on neighbors from like noise, light, things like that. I have a little bit of a oops in my staff report because I forgot to compile all of those comments into one place in the staff report and I just sort of put my conclusion. So feel free to discuss that a little more than you might normally because I forgot to summarize that. Yeah, that makes sense. So I guess I'll maybe give a further question. Summarize real quick. Would it be fair to say that the proposed sort of activities don't fall squarely within a listed use? Correct. However, by going through the conditionally used process, we get to sort of play it safe and do the analysis of like what type of sort of. So the zoning administrator has the authority to make a determination that a user uses are enough like uses that we have in our table to fit them in those blocks. Technically, because this is coming before the board, the board can override what I made a determination of and make their own determination separately. You know, if you decided no, it's not like manufacturing, it's something else that's not even a conditional use. You could basically boot it back to me to issue an administrative permit. But yeah, it's here because I determined that part of it is a conditional use, which requires board approval. All right. So Jean, you had a question about this. Did your question get answered yet? Has this been approved by the state? That your question was about the uses. Well, because I think Meredith clarified because it's not a listed use. You guys just clarified it right now. Okay. Yeah, great. So yeah, if you all want to give a sort of overview of your project and what you're envisioning and give us some background here. Sure. Do you want to jump in so you can kind of develop the security as well? Sure. That would be helpful. Yeah. It's basically a cultivation space for cannabis where it'll be trimmed and dried and trimmed and packaged for the sale to retail as far as the... It's pretty straightforward. Is that close enough? Okay. And as far as the concern around security, that's important to us as well as state regulators. So there will be video surveillance. There will be access control on all entry points with individual unique user codes. So we will be able to audit anyone that comes in or out of that building, both visually and by unique identifying number. There will also be an alarm system that is central station monitored, UL listed, five diamond rated central station monitoring, basically the pinnacle of central station monitoring, which would contact owners, managers, anyone on the call list if there was an intrusion, as well as dispatch of police forces if there was a break in after hours. So there'll be motion detection, door contacts, any windows would be protected as well. It would be very difficult, if not impossible, to be in that space undetected. What about the standpoint of the restaurant, which is underneath? How do they get incorporated into this security blanket? They're not, I would say. Other access points or weaker points with that interface between the restaurant and the farm for less of a better term. There are no interconnected spaces. So there's no way to get between those two buildings, except by exiting the building and going around to another entrance. So they're really sort of distinct physically. And House of Tang currently is operating as takeout only. There are no guests there, haven't been. And my understanding from, you know, the owner is there, there's no intention to bring that back. Can we throw the, you guys submitted a amended site plan, 114 River Street. We've set up the page towards the end of the application. This is the parking plan? Yeah, I just want to like to just get an image up there for you guys to sort of describe where things are going to be. I'm going to pull it up. If I may just also to address, you know, the question generally around security, you know, it's very important to us that the place is secure, that we're able to control who's in and out of that space. And also understand our own employees that are in there and just have full transparency and auditing of that process. All right, so this is the building, obviously. So you'll be occupying a portion of the building. It's like what portion of the building, maybe it's on here, but just for clarity, can you? Yeah, so between the arrows that are not pointed towards a shaded area, yes, between that arrow and yes, that arrow, all the way back. Yes, so essentially that quadrant is pretty much the space. Like the river, the half of the building that's like closest to the river. More in the middle, middle back, middle back, I would say. Yep, on the second floor. Second floor. Got it. Okay. And so it's like what sort of equipment, like what's going to be in this area, so like the layout, just so we get an idea of the specialty equipment. It's mostly going to be lighting. You know, we'll have tables to catch any runoff water and stuff like that. So it'll be plumbed. So there's no looking going to the second floor, to the first floor, of course. But yeah, just lights are going to be the most specialty equipment in there. It's not going to make noise. No lighting will escape the building. We're going to have every window and every entrance sealed off. So there's no light leaving or entering the building. And as far as noise, there's the lights don't make any noise. So as far as those kind of impacts, it's going to be very minimal. Smell, they do make charcoal and specialty filters to kind of really reduce and clean the air, to kind of take away some of the smell that's going to be exiting the building. So is this just growing or is it going to be sort of drying and processing also going on? Yeah, the whole array of start to finish, basically. We'll be growing the plant and processing it there and packaging. Yeah. Yeah. Or any flammable substances. It's really just the natural drying process. So there is no sort of second layer of processing. That's an entirely different license and application that one would have to file to do that. As far as the volume of, you would say, but can you just provide a sense of scale for this? I mean, what about like, what are you thinking like, with regards to like traffic, like how often just like the amount of material coming in and out? Are you asking for how much product will produce annually? It's to be determined in the space, but I mean, we have some projections. Yeah, I don't know. I'd have to pull up my numbers. We just kind of reconfigured the whole up. I guess maybe the easiest way is like, when a truck comes to pick up the finished product, how frequently and how big is that truck going to be? Well, we'll be harvesting probably every two weeks. So we're going to have like rows of lights and we're going to have it set up. So we're at least harvesting probably every two weeks, at least one row. So I would say not a truck. I mean, we're talking, yes, small amounts. We're applying for a thousand square foot cultivation license, which is the bottom. It's the smallest gear there is. So I would say it's pretty small scale. So like every two weeks, a personal vehicle load would be taken to a wholesaler retailer, some other location, some other business. For it to be retail, correct. Precisely. All right, go. Sorry, Rob, I have a question. Yes. Can you talk a little bit about order control? It sounds as if you are not going to be having fans that you're going to be doing passive drying. So is that true? Can you talk about both the drying process and the order control? Yes. I mean, drying, we'll be using fans. We'll be regulating the humidity levels in the atmosphere for that. And as far as smell, yes, anything that's exiting the building, we're going to have going through charcoal filters and they have other kind of microns filtration for smells and different debris just cleans everything up. So we'll use those as we need to to really clean up the air. And so is that something, is that detectable outside of the building or is it not? It can be. Yeah, you can get it with. I don't know if there's ever been complaints from the dispensary that's up the road by the trading company. Nothing since I've been here. I've been here for about four years. I used to work there and every once in a while I'd get a whiff from outside and those weren't even, the air wasn't even scrubbed that well. So it will be smelt, you know, the smell will be there. I don't think it'll be anything too invasive. Okay. Great. And also curious just about energy use and how you're approaching that, trying to manage that? Well, the equipment we're using is all LEDs, which is, you know, 40% more efficient than the HPS and other lights that they had previous. That's one stab we're taking at it. Yeah. I mean, we're going to try to be as efficient as possible. I don't know if you know weighing on this. Yeah, I would say as well that like the method of cultivation is very low impact on water as far as other methods. So there's not a lot of water waste. Most of it's absorbed into the plant. So, you know, we're taking, you know, we care about these things ourselves and are definitely taking those steps. I will say that LED lights are a lot more expensive to buy, but we believe it's the right thing to do and we encourage anyone getting into the space to make that choice and spend that money because it's the right thing to do. Reduce your energy costs down the road too. Exactly. Also, yeah, all the above. Thank you. That's helpful. You have a question too when you're there. Jean, go ahead. I'll be just asked what I was going to inquire about. I'm just curious how many LED lights in this space? The way we mapped it out, it's going to be right around 45, 40 of the 45 lights. Cool. So, I guess I think I'd like to sort of move back to the going through that, make sure we get the issues here in the staff report. It's a great overview of the questions and whatnot. And so, I guess just poll members of the board, you know, we had a little bit of discussion about, you know, this being a required, that the use being required to have conditional use in this district. I very much agree with the staff report on that determination. Any other thoughts from board members on, you know, how we got here on that determination? Okay. I'm seeing nods, yes. That we're good there. So, we talked a little bit about the security, which, you know, was sort of a comment from the police department. To board members feel like they got enough information on the, you know, questions about security to, you know, maybe feel that the police department's concerns are addressed. Yes. We have any more to do on that? I think you explained it very clearly. Just to confirm, since we're sort of on that topic of the staff report, so it's, this is an entirely sort of internet based system that you're using or do you anticipate having any sort of security staff there as well? Or this is all, it's all the remote censoring and access point monitoring. Well, when staff are present, there'll be staff there. Okay. But there will always be access control. So, even if staff is there, it's still a locked, you know, place. You can't just walk in, even if people are there. So, control from that standpoint. And again, always, you know, video monitored 24 hour recording, as well as, you know, unique user code entrance for authorized people. In terms of the monitoring type, it would be a dual path. It would likely be communicating over cellular as well as IP. There would be two ways for the alarm system to signal out any issue. One of those being cellular where there's no wire to cut. There is no way to disable that. So, I feel that it's a really strong plan. So, yeah, I think you've discussed the security and I'm satisfied and I feel confident with your plan. I'm just wondering if we require as a condition for something sort of like detailed sort of about security. Well, the state issues certain parameters that we have to follow through the application process. So, and I'm guessing just give that we'll probably overstep and probably implement more regulations that are being deployed. Yeah, I'm not sure as we need to do that necessarily. You know, it's not the the the DRB's evaluation of it is to make sure that the project is not going to have a disproportionate or unreasonable burden on the city's ability to provide police fire protection and ambulance service. Yeah. Given that, you know, not that they have the highest degree of security possible, but that they're not creating an undue issue where there's going to be an undue number of police calls, which, you know, they have their own system. They have their own pretty robust system that work. That makes sense to me. Thank you. You're welcome. If it's helpful, I will comment that this I find that the that the state of Vermont, the cannabis control boards security requirements are, you know, more than adequate and but not overreaching. I mean, I think they did a really good job of finding that right balance of what's needed and not, you know, over regulating and providing, you know, just an expensive burden on, you know, business owners that are just starting up. So I think they've done a really good job with their requirements of making sure that those needs are met as a requirement for licensure. So I guess in this, you know, I'm just thinking the same way if we get another one of these, it's just nice to be having an easy box of check to say like, okay, they were like we say, new developments, like they're going to have to get a wastewater permit. You know, it's like, yeah, I mean, they have to, yeah. So but what do you, I'm just wondering if we should say the condition is that, you know, they have to obtain appropriate approvals, you know, from the Vermont cannabis control board. I mean, you can, but we don't, we actually got rid of our, we have our thing where if they get that state permit, we say, okay, you've automatically met our standards. We no longer have the you have to get that one because they ran into problems with that. I mean, you could probably ask for a copy to be put in the file. No, I'm good. I'm just curious. I'm curious of, you know, just this is new. Trying to find parallel standards to, you know, make sure that, you know, and so far it seems like it's a pretty low key kind of exercise, which is good. Yeah, we're going to see more of these. I'm sure. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's totally reason. And then we want to make sure that, you know, what we're doing is a good precedent for, you know, moving forward, like, um, it's next Kevin lost security. That seems to be the number one security. Do you want to just go through the, do you want to just go through the conditional use standards at this point? I mean, like I said, the site plan stuff is all basically not applicable because they're not making any changes. We've, we've, we've taken a dive into this. No alarm bells or so ringing. I think it makes sense at this point to go through the criteria. I'm sure there's going to be a couple of, you know, some things we want to look at in a little bit further depth, but they actually no reason not to proceed to that. So page 10 of the staff report is, you know, sort of listed out the conditional use standards. First is section 30302, which is the community facilities and utilities. We talked a lot about security. I think we're good there. From the information you provided, I think that becomes the water and sewer. We're not seeing any much of a change from what's currently happening at the site. So not much of an issue there. Section 3303 is the next one, which is traffic. You know, I think we talked about the loading and the volume. I'm satisfied there. And so maybe the last part to, you know, about that is there a little bit of discussion about parking spaces. Yeah, well, they meet the criteria. Yeah, they totally meet the criteria. That was, I mean, that was one of the few things in the general standards that had to be evaluated. And there's more than enough parking in that parking lot, existing parking spaces to meet all the needs of all of the existing businesses, including one that's listed as existing, but I guess is not actually doing business anymore. So yeah, they're fine for the parking needs. So plenty of parking, traffic issues. We talked about security. The character of the neighborhood. You guys want to talk about that one? I don't think there's any residents within, you know, site or smell or anything really of what we'll be doing. So I think you have to go across to in order to get across and left or right and up and away. Very much commercial. It's mostly commercial there. It is mixed inside. Yeah, on that side, it's all commercial. Slow style is over there. Vermont security is on the other side. You know, insurance, Noel Johnson, and you know, there's it's pretty commercial over there. And I also like the building. It's, you know, pretty nondescript. We're not going to have a sign up there saying anything. I mean, I mean, this is about as public as it's going to get what we're doing right now. For that space. So I think it should have very little impact. If I was to make a comment about anything that the city might do, you know, on that line that you were saying like to add on precedents and things to think about would be, you know, lighting, like on the street. No, no, like, like efficient lighting. If the city has any efficiency standards, you know, we do for the outside, you know, because there are there are actually standards for exterior lighting. If you were wanting to do exterior lighting, trust me, I'd be asking for all sorts of information from you. But you didn't propose any changes, so I did not dig into it. Lighting is a is an issue with a number of applications on that strip. So, you know, if lighting is part of the plan that has not been addressed here, we should get that on the table. Yeah, nothing at this point. And actually, the lighting I was referring to was the use of the lighting in the cultivation. Yeah, from an energy perspective, the city might, you know, think about that as something as of a requirement, if you're allowed to do that, to make sure that, you know, LED is the method that's used because it is so much more efficient. There are cultivators that want to use different types that are way more, you know, energy intensive. Yeah, we don't usually get into stuff inside the building for the zoning. That's building permit. Okay. So, we try to try to not dig too deep inside people's buildings. Yeah, maybe that's maybe that's an overreach. I don't know. But yeah, that would just be the only thing that came into mind. Yeah, you know, that would be just a positive impact. I know efficiency. Yeah, I think that also the costs usually sort of benefits you for making that choice. Yeah, long term. Yeah, you're short on money up front. There's so much more efficient than the alternatives. Your payback is probably not that Yeah, agreed. I don't know what the price of the initial unit is. I know how efficient they are and how quickly you recoup your investment. Yeah, so economics are on our side. Yeah. So the next issue under a character of the neighborhood, you know, sort of an area about architectural compatibility or no, like he said, not even lighting, no changes to the exterior. So I don't see that as an issue. And so yards, block coverage, landscaping also were no changes to the exterior. Okay, there. Character of the neighborhood in general, I think we're seeing like no flags. Yeah, I'm not seeing anything from Abby or Jean or Joe. Everybody's got a new chill. All right, sounds good. I would think entertain a motion to sort of move this meeting along to the next item. So the whole move to close the public hearing and move to deliberative session after the close of the public meeting. That's correct. Yes. And with that being so elegantly stated by you, Meredith, I will make that motion. Okay. Second by Jean, I believe. Kevin, how do you vote? I vote yes. Catherine? Yes. Abby? Yes. Joe? Yes. And Rob, it's yes that unanimously is approved to take this up at the close of this public meeting and the public hearing is closed on this application. So just as a translation, that means that the board isn't going to take any more testimony from anybody on your application after we finish all the other public aspects of the meeting, the next application, the board will have a deliberative session privately with nobody present, no Zoom, no nothing to make the decision. Hopefully tonight, I'm assuming tonight. And then we'll have 45 days to get you a written decision aiming to do that much, much sooner as long as the everything happens tonight. Okay. Yeah, great. Thank you. Yeah, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. You're welcome. Two minutes break. Absolutely. So it's been requested for a two minute recess here. So we'll just round up and convene at 745 45 call this meeting back to order. And our next order of business on the agenda is for 149 Main Street. And applicant is OM Fisher Home Incorporated. And who will be taking the lead on presenting this application in the meeting? Well, we've got a whole bunch of people if you want to look to who to swear in. Yes, no, absolutely. I just was trying to identify who the lead person would lead person would be sort of going through the app. Well, Don's on as the applicant Don Palowski. So she's on tonight. We have Brian Lane Karnas from DeWolf Engineering, who often speaks a lot on the projects. And then there's the architecture team. Tom Bachman, Dan Wheeler. And then when we get to, I mean, there's, it depends on what part you're talking about. Thank you for the transition. It's a little hard to see it in the defy who everyone is when you're in the room. Thank you. All right. So first thing we have to do on this is we have to swear anybody in that's going to speak on this project, which in many ways, how do we best do this? Well, yeah, so Catherine Gordon, I think you were on about this application. So maybe if you can turn on your video so that we can just see you. So we've got Diane Soffron and Lou Friedland, Dan Hassan, James Finley-Sheris, Brian Lane Karnas, Don Palowski, Tom Bachman, Dan Wheeler. We're all planning to either talk on this application or at least be be here and involved in this application and potentially talk. So we should probably swear all of them in. Okay. And Meredith, don't forget we have James Finley-Sheris, the landscape architect here. I think I said that, but maybe I said it too fast. Dan Hassan is the development consultant to OM Fisher. He may or may not speak. We'll see. Okay. Okay. Well, anyone that might possibly provide testimony tonight, would you please raise your right hand to be sworn in as a witness? And do you solemnly swear or affirm that the testimony you are about to give is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth under the pains and penalties of perjury? Awesome. Alrighty. Thank you very much. So at this point, Meredith, would you give us a very brief overview before turning it over to the applicant for their presentation? We'll do. So I'm going to keep this as brief as I can. This is an application for an addition at 149 Main Street on the back of the current Gary residence, which in addition to being a resident, it's a historic building. There's some complications with that that the applicant can speak to, but those aren't really complications that the board needs to worry about. So this triggered major site plan because of the size of the addition. So that is the number one main reason that this is before the board. And the number two is because there is a request for a waiver, a very slight waiver, a quarter of a foot of the left setback distance. The site is constrained in part by the current site design because of that historic building and the current access driveway location all up at the front of the parcel. So there's been some jiggering around in the back. And that's one reason they're requesting that left setback waiver. There's some other points that are raised in the staff report for discussion are stormwater, some landscaping points and lighting. So there's there's a fair bit to talk about, but the major things are that setback waiver and that this has to go through the board for major site plan. So you're going to want to make sure you touch on all of those site plan sections and at least have a brief discussion on each of them. Absolutely. Okay. Someone from the applicant like to give a overview of the project and if they address any items that you may feel like you can prior to the board having some questions. Hi everyone. This is Dawn Plowsky, the executive director and of Owen Fisher Home. And we're very excited to present this project to support the community with a great need of continuing care for the folks with cognitive loss. We want to continue our mission and vision that we have started over 103 years ago. We've been working on this project since 2016 and we have a great team on this project. And I'm going to pass it over to Brian because he has done a majority of the work for this permit. Great. Thank you, Dawn. Meredith, is it possible for me to share my screen so I can and talk at the same time? You should you want to share your screen, right? Yes. Yeah. Go right ahead. I usually have that available. It seems to be working. Yeah, it is. Hopefully I've picked the right one. Is everyone seeing the overall site plan? Yes. Yes. Big old hand here. So this is the proposed site plan for the project. The existing Gary residence is with this sort of diagonal hatching here. Main streets over here. The existing driveways to the south of the Gary residence here. If anyone's been down the sidewalk here, probably one of the most noticeable things here are some of these very beautiful large trees right along the frontage along here, which are all being preserved as part of the project. So I'm just going to give a general site overview and then I'm going to hit a couple of things that Meredith mentioned in terms of items that were highlighted in the staff report. So one of the things we're doing to sort of improve the site access as much as we can given the existing configuration and a lot. Right now when you come in, the parking is against the south edge of the parking lot. So we're flipping that around to the north edge. So you have a straight shot to come in and out, which will improve any deliveries that need to come in and out of here and also access for emergency vehicles without having to come up and around the parking spaces. Honestly, given what we're working with, that's about all we can do on this project. And because it's in the UC three districts, it's actually exempt from parking minimum parking requirements. Although I do acknowledge that the rules say that if we provide parking it has to meet the other requirements for parking in the regulations. This gray area here is the proposed addition, 11,300 square foot footprint, single story. The majority of it's a single story. This portion of the building right here is both a connector entryway and then a connecting ramp because this the finished floor elevation of this new building is up quite a bit above grade in order to meet the requirements of the floodplain regulations. So in order to have an at grade accessible entrance, we need a fair amount of ramp inside then to get up to the grade of the actual residential portion of the building. There's also this portion right here will be a new stair tower. The existing egress from the back of the Gary residence is an old iron fire escape. It's inadequate for current building code and certainly for this particular use. So one of the goals of the project was to improve the egress from the existing Gary residence. So all three floors the Gary residence will have access to the new stair tower and elevator. Correct me if I'm wrong there Tom, but I think elevator in the in the stair tower. Okay Brian there's no elevator. No elevator I'm sorry stair tower only. There is an existing elevator in the current Gary residence that serves those three floors but there's no elevator associated with this project. Okay thank you egress stairway. A couple other site highlights. We're proposing a maintenance storage building at this location screened dumpsters at the back of the parking lot. There will be a walking a concrete sidewalk walking path around it and there's two sort of patio areas this is like a memory garden and this will be sort of screened from the parking lot a kind of little private outdoor gathering area for the residence and then an open patio with some granite benches out in the back here. So that's the general site overview and let me just get a couple of the things from the staff report that Meredith had called out before. The first being the the setback waiver we're requesting so it's a little hard to see on this plan but on the left side of the building here this dashed line is the 10 foot side setback. So you can see right at this corner of the building here basically the face of the building just just clips over the setback it's it's less than the three inch waiver that we're requesting quarter of a foot three inches but the reason we're requesting the three inch waiver is because you know this building has to relate to an existing building and there's always a little bit of challenges in being out to work so we may exact location of the building maybe like an inch or two different by the time it gets laid out in the field just on the you know relationship to the existing building. So the more than anything we're requesting that waiver just to give us the flexibility to have if the building moves a couple of inches to the north during construction that we're not creating a problem with the setback but you know even at 9.75 feet instead of 10 feet it's going to be you know really not noticeable to to anyone who's in the neighborhood it's kind of behind all of this is behind the existing building so the the main view of the property from the public vantage points is going to remain the historic residents and these large trees from the front and then secondarily this patio and then tertiary the building back here where we're requesting a setback waiver so we believe it has minimal impact you know we've we've addressed our the actual waiver material in the application if the board has questions I'm happy to address that some more. I think the the site lighting question is pretty easy to address so we didn't have let me just quickly bring up the site lighting plan the site lighting plan inadvertently didn't include all of the cut sheets for all the fixtures but essentially almost all of well all the lighting is either building mounted or mounted on the underside of pergolas that are proposed at the the two patios so in the building mounted lights there's three types listed here sw1 through 4 so sw12 and 4 are all the same and we did have a cut sheet on there they're they're downcast fully shielded led lights sw3 is actually the same thing only smaller so here is the cut sheet we've updated this legend compared to what was submitted but this is the cut sheet for the larger sw12 and 4 lights so this gives you a sense of the distribution you know vertically of lighting from that fixture this is the sw3 fixture which as I mentioned is really the same only smaller than the other two so that hopefully addresses the question regarding lighting and obviously we can go through the lighting in more detail if there's there's more questions I think the other major thing that Meredith mentioned well let me actually let me talk about one thing that Meredith didn't mention down to the next site plan so this is the utility plan for the project there's this this line right here this gray line with the de notation there's an exit brick arch culvert that the city owns that runs through the property here and Meredith had pointed out in the staff report that dbw has some concern about the impacts of the project on this on this culvert so I just wanted to update the board that we did have a meeting with Kurt monica last week to discuss this and the applicant is is definitely willing to coordinate with dpw to make sure that this culvert gets rehabilitated during the construction of the project so we talked to Kurt about how to work that into the plans how to make that happen with the bidding and the contracting and we're on our way in terms of coordinating that effort with the city so this can happen at the same time and then I think the other one was landscaping which James if I could ask you to just address Meredith's comments on landscape staff report and then then I think we'd open up to questions from the board and and I'm sorry about the errant sentence this is I meant to say this at the beginning there is a have a little may a culpa in on page 15 of the staff report and then anybody who picked up a hard copy here I've actually crossed it out the first paragraph the top of page 15 the last sentence is actually from an old staff report that somehow and all of my proofing I missed but it's clearly from a different application so there's there's no frontage on granite shed lane for this project got it all you James okay so I'm just going to walk through the landscape design as we have it as we've discussed this building is a beautiful example of historic downtown Montpellier architecture we also find that the landscape that front that building up onto main street is also wonderful and we are not going to mess with it at all as you come down the access is drive towards the east we've created a sort of a drop off sequence with a couple of granite chunk seating benches from there as you move west we go past the fence in memory garden which you won't see but that would be a space for residents to sit outside and enjoy the perennials and shrubs that we have in there moving further east to the north of the parking lot we have called for a series of grasses and then also Boston IV to be trained up on the building that will the idea for that is to cover the extended foundation due to the flood plane level we have to be out that to the south there you can see the existing silver maples there are two almost three essentially one is a giant double trunk silver maple they are huge beautiful trees and we'll cast ample shade down on the parking lot from there as you had further east you can see the cedar screen that is existing it is our intention to keep the cedar screen and we will be walking the cedars with an arborist and come up with a management plan and with the contractor and work through whatever needs to happen to preserve these as best we can any cedar that is harmed will be replaced by construction if you've had a chance to look at it it is essentially a cedar hedge that has grown up so it's not a series of individual tree planting there's almost like 90 trunks coming up there so we feel very confident or I feel confident that we'll be able to maintain that screening and in fact you know enhance it with fertilization and other steps as advised by the arborist as you can see just to the west of that cedar row there is a sidewalk or a path that we have circumnavigating the building for residents to walk along as you come west on that path north of the building you'll come to the sort of our area of open patio, a blue stone paving, granite chunk seat benches and shade tolerant perennial we think this will be a really beautiful asset for the residents and we are also above our required landscaping minimum quite quite easily so I think we covered that as well so I think that covers the landscape. Alrighty excellent presentation I think you guys have seems like you guys have done this before once or twice what do you think public comment first here we go through the stuff I would go public comment could we take off the share screen brian or james thank you okay this time we're gonna I guess entertain our first public comment session here who is in the queue to go first um diane and lou so diane soffron and lou freedland have been on since very beginning cat catherine i see you have your hand up do you need to get off shortly diane and lou have been on since about 20 minutes before the meeting started okay thanks catherine hi am i on yes yes you are if you could just make sure to reintroduce yourselves and what property you have sure so i'm diane soffron and i'm lou freedland and we live at 24 saint paul street pretty much directly behind the gary hall we're the little diagram that's right up against the hedges and the dumpsters and the dumpsters thank you okay so um so shall i just repeat the things that i wrote to you there it is um well the the board has the board has read your email um and they've also had um i summarized some of your comments so i i don't know as you have to read the whole thing you can summarize them and and maybe um if you have any specific questions or things items that you want the board to address or things you want answered from the applicant just clarify those okay so um well i think oh oh go ahead okay sorry technical glitch here we're good go ahead okay so um there were four basically four questions that we had or issues that we uh wanted to bring up we did take a look a pretty good look at um the various documents and drawings um the site plans and the renderings um so the first thing was that there is a reference to a construction fence along the line of disturbance and we're assuming and we'd like to just i supposed to be clear have a clarification we assume that that's going to be temporary being put up during the time of construction and um it obviously it should be on the gary home side of the cedars to protect the cedars from the construction um as well as protecting us as well on being on the other side of the cedars so there was that issue of the construction fence that we just like those clarifications on and then we did notice in the landscape plan but not in the other architectural plans that there was a reference to a proposed six foot ipi ip defense and dumpster enclosure so the dumpster enclosure we understand and that was clarified at that meeting of the design advisory board that that was going to go around the entire dumpster and that's that's it great um but the plan of the landscaping shows that the six foot high fence is going to be running all along the cedars on our side of the cedars um in the rendering the fence cuts through our house and goes up against one of the corners and so it does not appear in any of the other renderings and so we wanted clarification about the location or whether in fact it is going to be a six foot high fence running along the cedars um it really can't be on our side because it will completely make the back of our house inaccessible to us if we want to have it painted or any kind of work being done on our side of the line so we did want some clarification about that so one reason uh that this idea of a six foot fence um immediately up against our house doesn't work is that we can't get to the back of our house and the other is that the whole point of having this very nice cedar natural fence which I'm very appreciative that it's going to be um maintained and taken care of uh it won't be of any use to us if we can't see it if there's a six foot fence on our side of it so we you know that was probably the thing that was of most concern to us um and we would like a clarification about that and we're registering our you know that we really don't want that on our side of the cedar fence and it was only in the landscaping uh plan it was it did not appear anywhere else there we are it's hard to tell who was talking here no that was Lou that was Lou and Diane perfect um okay so Lou I mean Don or Brian do you guys have any comments thus far on very quick answers yeah this is James landscape architect um I I'm gonna admit there's an error on that drawing I have that fence is drawn on your setback line and um it should have been drawn on the property line um that is a mistake on my end so the the fence will absolutely not be on your property so yeah if you're going to have I'm sorry go ahead I'm sorry I was just gonna also speak to the construction fence that is the temporary fence for tree protection and that'll come down so the temporary fence will be on the seed on your side of the cedar side assuming yeah and the only question about a six foot fence being on your side well first of all the maintenance building is going to be directly behind our house so I don't know where you would have a cedar fan a six foot fence on your side of the cedars um and then also how could you maintain the cedars if you've got a six foot fence running along your side of them um so what traditionally happens is when we we are designing properties and we're considering a fence on a property we want what happens is we show that fence on the property line and then we have to get um onto site and with the subcontractor actually find out exactly where that fence will go um so there's the process would be we would meet up there and lay out that fence and make sure it wasn't in any way impacting the cedars and we had room to fit it between the maintenance shed and so forth in terms of maintaining the cedars you know what would happen there would be primarily root injections and that would probably want to happen on both sides of the property line both sides of the cedars so those roots are properly taken care of and any uh sort of trimming or arbor uh work would be done before the fence went up and then you know that that sort of work wouldn't happen for a long time and could happen with ladders so I think we could maintain the cedars and have that fence um but I do agree uh the fence will not be on your property okay but the so is it understood then that the the fence will not be on our side of the cedars well not necessarily on our property I mean obviously it won't be on our property but it won't be on our side of the cedars it'll be on the garrison side of the cedars my understanding is those cedars and as I was saying they're a hedge so the trunks kind of have there's about a four foot width even more where those trunks are kind of coming up and my understanding is that um straddles the property line uh so we would have to do it on our side there's actually a double there's a double row of them behind most of our house yeah so you know there's there's maybe about a three foot space in between the two of them yeah yeah that's right so I I in my I just went actually there this morning just to double check because I hadn't looked closely um since the snow had started melting and it seemed you know very difficult to put a fence between those two rows and any sort of so it sounds like it sounds like you got several questions here and it sounds like you got some answers and we weren't quite finished though okay so Mr reminder so so just a reminder you're having a good conversation which is great usually we try and direct the conversation to the board instead of you guys having a conversation with each other sorry um no that's okay um we did have one more question though yeah we can direct it to the board yes well um because currently as as the cedar hedge goes right now it's very very tall but actually quite thin I mean we can easily see from our kitchen we see right through them and we see the dumpsters and we see the parking lot and it might be that the maintenance of them should be that they are shorter but more dense and and I think that that's pretty important to us yeah just to have a nice green dense hedge between us that that's that's quite it's a little it's a little bit easier to understand that when you're on our end because we're so close when you look at it from the gary home side from some distance it looks it looks great but it is really lush up at the top and as Lou said very spare down at the bottom mostly because of the um the snow that kept being pushed up against the base of the hedges in the winter but we understand that will change because of the building that will be there so that's fine all right the only other question that we have what do you want to ask about that uh the it seemed like on on the various um drawings the architectural drawings it seemed like from how we read it and maybe we didn't read it correctly the uh the pad for the dumpsters was actually a little bit over the uh the end of Montpelier is the setback over the gary on setback at on the end of not on our line but at the at the corner of well where the dumpster is going to be and uh so we just thought someone clarified that the only reason we bring it up is you know uh we just don't want things to be inadvertently damaging whatever foliage there is in that corner I think we yeah we still understand the concern here Meredith has a quick response to that um next question yep so you know the just a general note is that the dumpster enclosure doesn't have to be within those setback lines right those setback lines are for the primary building okay um and so I think that that was a a space issue and a condition of the permit is going to be the maintenance of those cedar hedges um and you know I think there's I think there it looks like there's gonna be enough room there to accommodate both of those okay and with the dumpsters being enclosed there's gonna be less of that shifting around also with the fence there so I don't think you'll have as much issues with that okay thank you thank you very much we'll mute ourselves now okay um can I can I just make a response on the fence I'd like to just back up for a second and clarify a couple of things go ahead Brian um so um just to sort of back up to our thinking on the fence is you know we as much as our intent is to maintain the cedars the intent of having that fence was to provide some additional screening between the project and the neighboring properties on the other side of the cedars um so the the placement of the fence is is right on the property line which probably effectively when you're standing there is on the neighboring property side of the cedars if you were going to say it's one side or the other but um because the intention was to provide additional screening um the applicant is willing to remove the fence from the project if it if it's preferable to the neighbors to have the cedars as screening rather than having the cedars and a fence as screening so I just wanted to clarify those those couple yeah I don't think it's required by the regulations the the nice side of the fence so it's it's a it's a natural wood fence it's ebay wood which you may be familiar from like decking and such yeah the finished side of the fence would be facing the joining properties if it was included in the project well the board the board will review this you know based on the landscaping and screening requirements um I think we got a lot enough information to move forward um and I think that uh it seems like the major concerns were we're addressed here so I think we gotta move things along and um Catherine Gordon did you have uh any comments uh yeah I did thank you um I had are we talking about just the landscaping stuff now are we talking about the whole building anything on the application that you want to talk about your concerns okay um I guess I had a concern because we're part of the historic district also and if you look at the historic thing um I mean it historically we've not had a building abutting our property and we're um you know like the only historic building I'm at 15 brown street so we're directly behind the cedars on the other side um on your left as you're facing the back the back of the property um so I mean my main concern is that it's a one-story building but in looking at it in reference to the gary home itself it looks like a two-story building because of the flood plain so I think that that is going to make a big difference to our views from our upstairs windows and downstairs windows or although we see the hedge which is good um but the upstairs windows and then also I have concerns which I brought at the other informal meeting about the noise because it sounds like the um mechanics of the building are going to be right at our property line so that was a concern probably more so than the lighting because it looks like the west are pretty carefully there um and then also just looking at the plans um like if you look out our back door the gazebo is actually pretty close to the property line but the building you're purporting is going to be even closer to the property line and I don't see actually honestly how you're going to fit a hedgerow a sidewalk and the building itself in the allotted area because a hedgerow right now is pretty wide on its own but I just concern about just the closeness of the building to the um the property line and then also I'm glad you addressed the um the water runoff issue one thing we've been in our house almost 30 years and um they redid the road on brown street a while a long time ago but when they did it we um it was not my understanding is it was not done correctly so that when there is a heavy rain the drain in front of our house actually backs up and runs on either side of our home and land somewhere I don't even know where it lands but I'm assuming it lands on Geary Home land so my concern is not only for your building but our building if everything's pushed back toward the property line even further so I really think that something needs to be looked at either correcting things in front of our house or making sure that things are not shifted in the building of the proposed project because I think that really is going to impact the water situation for both properties and you guys may be above the flood plain but we're on it and your building it's going to you know could cause other erosion stuff at your foundation even if you're above the flood plain um and that's also my concern is just that it's raising everything up so that it's very tall even though it's a one-story building supposedly um and then I guess that's mainly it but I guess that's mainly my concern so my understanding is the building proximity the building to the property line and the runoff for your two major concerns that you would like us to dig in and review proximity and just the I mean if it's if our building's in a historic building their building's a historic building and then you have this big new structure I feel like I'm getting penalized as a historic building when I have limitations on what I'm able to do and but yet the surroundings can be impacted however you know things right up to the edge right absolutely well thank you for your for comments a you know perspective will certainly help us in our um review is there anyone um else that wishes to speak on this application yes Catherine hold on one second yep so Diane just wanted to have one thing to say in response to what Brian had talked about about potentially removing the fence yep Diane you can unmute yourself okay thank you so um since we have the um the ability to say that we'd like to wave that fence we wanted to say that we want to wave that fence so we do not want the cedar hedge we just want to have the natural cedar hedge nice and dense behind us we don't want any six-foot IPE fence behind us at all yep so you know anywhere no since it sounded like that was uh that was our prerogative as the abutting um homeowners to wave that I wanted to be clear that we want to wave that I don't know who's it's your prerogative to wave it but it sounded but the Brian had said that that might be an option so it's ultimately the DRB's decision on how to deal with that um but it's good to get on the record that you if you have the option you don't want the fence there behind your house it did seem like that uh the two different people were saying slightly different things so you know uh the landscaper was saying that that wasn't going to be there and as I understood it and then the other gentleman said that it was and we couldn't and it was it sounded like it was there more for us than for them and that we dropped out so well your comment your comment from your perspective on you know what would be appropriate screening is helpful for the DRB to sort of look at the evidence and what's been proposed to figure out what best fits the regulations and we also understand applicants willing to amend uh amend things uh based on some of your comments so uh I think we got the information to move on here thank you Diane thank you um is there anybody else that wishes to speak on this application before we dive into the um review um Kathy and Caitlin were both on just viewing so board members can go back to questions if they had them um is that it from the standpoint of the public comment uh unless you had something you want to say okay so let's um let's go go through the uh the criteria yes and um I guess before the first item with the stop part was this issue a little bit of discussion on the setback waiver which you know I don't they have any issue with approving I'm curious whether 0.25 is really what you want to be asking for whether we don't you know you can go up to five feet I would hate to be back here uh if something you know something changes or we have it on the record it's so specified yeah and about a five foot waiver is a lot no I'm not saying point this is just a that encroaches on sure follow the setback and yeah it's four inches but I think if we if say in the future it was the roof was replaced and uh it moved an inch by the direction I don't know if we really want to get into that level of uh of detail yeah I guess my point was that you know maybe we round it to a foot or something like that but uh that's the that's the choice to the applicant not us that was just sort of a comment that I had um is that we you know you're asking for a little bit of a buffer and then maybe maybe we want to um you know do that but um we can we can move on if that's not something that needs to be discussed just a reminder we have the application that's before us we aren't required to we aren't being asked to improve upon the application for them thank you Meredith she'll keep us straight sometimes when I don't take you on a long and winding road first you do you do a good job okay okay so the site plan criteria is where we're at I think we addressed many of these issues but we'll make sure that we site plan are just the general standards yeah I mean I don't know if you want to go into the general standards uh that's where the storm water stuff is but right so but we have you're starting to lose I'm sorry to lose it yes um we have like a three-minute recess here to read um we're gonna you have to call it I would just can we have like a five minute recess before we well we chart the rest of this meeting um to try and make it a little more efficient uh sorry for the disorganization there's a quick five minute recess yeah see in five minutes thank you all right thank you um so I guess two remaining issues here um you know we would like to discuss uh one is uh drainage and one is the design review criteria um did board members get a chance to review the uh sort of minutes from the design review committee yep so in your packet were the design review recommendation forms and I had meant to include the design review minutes but I circulated those via email as well just to make sure you had a clear understanding of all the items that the design review committee discussed um um and and went through and approved during their process um they reviewed pretty much everything on the exterior um including the landscaping all the fencing um the screening for the mechanicals on the roof um the you know the the specifics of the the finishes on the side of the building um all of those things were looked at by the design review committee and approved their only recommendation which is something that the board can include as a condition of approval if it wishes is the requirement that the cedar hedges be maintained um as adequate screening perfect um that is an applicant uh accept the recommendations and suggestions of the design review committee yes thank you okay um so the next item um is uh just talking a little bit about the drainage on the site so if you just provide a quick summary of where the water's flowing um and uh you know I think we do have a concern about um you know some water flowing over to brown street so maybe if you could just talk a little bit about that and uh get that sorted out yeah absolutely um so uh essentially all along the north and um east sides of the building there is a front strain strip there so right now um comes either down from the adjacent building to the north um I think that perhaps some of it does then drain to the east currently but we're going to intercept all that surface drainage uh in a front strain on the far side of the sidewalk um and that'll be directed to the municipal drainage system um all the building roof is internally drained um so that will go directly to the to the underground stormwater system and in the parking lot there's a couple catch basin um and also is noted in the application um then this is sort of a different topic but the DPW requested that we control the peak discharge from the 25-year storm so as not to um overwhelm downstream drainage facilities that are owned by the city so we've provided underground um stormwater storage uh so that and and we provided modeling that shows that we're not um we're in fact decreasing the peak discharge from the 25-year storm uh to the city's drainage facilities Board members how many questions on drainage? I just make a comment that I think the proposed uh application has an improvement to the existing water handling. Absolutely and yeah we thank your coordination with the city on that um that pipe I think that that's you know it can be a great addition to uh the infrastructure that we are at within the city so thank you um so that's all I have is any additional comments applicant have any closing comments here before we move this meeting along? Satisfied I think that concludes our presentation. Thank you any any comments from the board? Joe, Abby, Jean, any outstanding questions? I'm here now to an exceptional presentation thank you. Then um then I'll entertain a motion. So I'll make the motion to uh adjourn the public hearing on this application and upon the adjournment of the board's business for the evening move to deliberative session for discussion and potential action. It's a motion by Kevin. Second. Second by Jean uh Kevin how do you vote? I vote yes. Catherine? Yes. Abby? Yes. Joe? Yes. Jean? Yes. And Rob votes yes um the motion passes unanimously. Um okay there is no um other uh business except for that our next meeting is scheduled for April 18th yes Meredith? That is the next regularly scheduled meeting if we had an application but because none of tonight's applications were continued we actually will not have an April 18th meeting which unless the board for some reason wants one for training I think we're good. Good. So the next meeting would be Monday May 2nd. Monday May 2nd. Alrighty Monday May 2nd. Okie dokie. Oh boy time flies. And I'm I'll send around an email with our deliberative session link in a couple minutes I've got so wrapped up in tonight's meeting I didn't set one up. All right thank you um so I would uh entertain a motion to adjourn this meeting. I'll move to adjourn the meeting. Thank you Abby. Second. Motion by Abby second by Catherine. Kevin how do you vote? Yes. Catherine? Yes. Abby? Yes. Joe? Yes. Jean? Rob votes yes. Meeting is adjourned. Thank you all for your patience this evening and uh we will we'll see you soon. Thank you. Thank you very much.