 Hi, and welcome to What's Up, Wilson, the town's monthly TV program, we take a closer look at things going on in our community. I'm your host Eric Wells. This month I sat down with Senior Planner Emily Heyman to discuss the Village Zoning Bylaw revision project taking place and the public engagement process to share thoughts on the draft being reviewed. I'm back here with Emily Heyman, Senior Planner and Wilson Planning Department and we're going to talk about the Village Zoning Bylaw amendment project that's underway. Emily, welcome to the show. Thanks for having me, Eric. So I thought to start out, we could take a look at where we are in town if you wanted to describe this area. We're an historic district, we're in the Disney Village Center, what's that all about? Yeah, so we're here in the Williston Village. It's the heart of Williston Community. It is the Civic Center as well as the municipal center with the town offices and schools. And it does contain a historic, a national historic district, as well as an additional review area where there is more care and more standards around historic preservation of older homes and structures in the district. It's also a designated village center where certain commercial properties are eligible for state and federal tax credits if they repair or restore a historic property. There's a lot of layers here to work through as we look at this project. So another thing to let viewers know or talk about the Historical and Architectural Advisory Committee, what does that mean in town? Yeah, this advisory committee is often referred to as the hack, and they serve two main roles. In this role with the Village Bylaw Project, their advisory to the Planning Commission on writing and revising the zoning code, as called for by the town plan. And in their other role, the hack provides design review and historic review guidance to the Development Review Board when a project is proposed to make changes to a historic structure or build something new in the village. So with all that in mind, we're going to talk about the village zoning bylaw amendment project and start out. Where do we get, where do we start to get where we are here? It all started with the Village Master Plan. Community visioning took place in 2016. What are the goals and the village for the historic village? What are the goals and policies for the historic village in terms of adaptive reuse, encouraging residential and commercial vibrancy in this district? And the Village Master Plan is a town's roadmap for updating the zoning code to encourage vibrancy mixed use and historic preservation. So it really started with community visioning in 2016, adopting this document in 2018, and now working on a bylaw revision based on the master plan. Okay, that kind of laid the groundwork here in the historic district and we're in this village center. We've done some master planning and now we're looking to do the zoning bylaw recoding. Yeah, putting the rubber to the road as they say. Yeah, so you just kind of jump into what's the project or what's the scope. Yeah, so the hacks started working on draft provisions for historic preservation standards, materials for existing and new structures, and how new sites and designs are laid out so that uses commercial and residential are right size to the historic fabric of the village. So in 2020, we were awarded a municipal planning grant, and that gave us a unique opportunity to bring a consultant on board. Our consultant is Michael Allen of Regrowth Planning to bring, you know, life and vision to the zoning bylaws with illustrations and diagrams rather than written word to communicate the standards and the goals for this zoning district. So I think there's a draft proposal that's put together with all this work that's led up to it and now we're looking for public input on what's been drafted. Yes, so it's not a done deal yet we're trying to collect as much public input as we can from residents and businesses in the village, as well as the broader Williston community. So I think what will be used by the planning commission, as they work on final revisions to the proposed zoning bylaw chapter, before they warrant and hold a public hearing to consider adoption of this. So we're encouraging lots of public input on this proposal. Yeah, a lot of steps in the process where the hack will work on this and then be discussion with planning commission and ultimately discussion by the select board to look at it along the way. Yeah. So I know there's a walking tour going on right now than one of the ways people get engaged in this project and back. We want to share a little bit more about that. Yeah, the walking tour was born out of the understanding that people's time and interest is really limited and can vary from the highly engaged to not having much time. So rather than having people read through a 50 page document. I set up a walking tour that goes through the main views of the zoning proposal. So throughout the village there are 12 themed posters, each to a topic of the zoning bylaw update, and each one links to a unique survey question set about that topic. People can do one module they can do all 12 modules of the survey. And I've also offered and last week held an in person guided tour of this walking tour survey module. If you can't make it to the Willis in Village to see this heightens and find a brochure in person as also mirrored online with a story map that uses video and sliding presentations to interact virtually with the village bylaw update. Okay, I'm wondering there's 12 stops on this walking tour what are some of the things that are that are looked at and that relates to what's drafting the code or some items and issues. Yeah, I'll start with the first tour stop which is at town hall, where we look at materials. Here you'll see photos of town hall and the annex and Old Brick Church in the 1970s. And this topic is about materials, particularly slate and windows. The current standards are really vague for the historic village, which creates a lot of challenges both for the committee, the hack administering the rules, and for property owners because they don't know, am I going to be required to retain the original or the original windows. When can I make changes or modifications. And the purpose of this zoning bylaw is to bring clarity and detail to those standards and balance all types of goals historic preservation cost energy efficiency to balance the unique needs of the historic village. And certainly a lot of pieces when I just think about different examples with roofs being one of them and some of these other elements that ties to a lot of different pieces here. So I know folks are probably thinking about another project that's been going up a while the my tap corners project looking at form based code. This is a different district in town, but still looking at some zoning bylaw work and someone's wondering, you know how, how is it similar how's it different. Yeah, there are similar but they are very different form based code is really about creating a people friendly place in tough corners. It's sprawl retrofit between big box stores and parking lots, whereas the village bylaw is focused on retaining the existing beloved place we don't want strip malls and shopping malls in the village. We want structures and businesses to be right size to the existing fabric that's already here. So our form based code is about creating any people friendly space. This is about preserving and enhancing vibrancy in an existing beloved place, both few similar zoning tools that look at the size mass and scaling of a building, how it relates to the street materials that are used common instances between different uses. So they use different the same tools, but on different scales to meet the needs of tough corners versus the village. Every zoning district has its own elements to look at. Where can folks go to learn more. Yeah, like tough corners be created a unique website for this project. People can go to Williston Village BT dot us to find the draft zoning code chapter. All the survey modules, the virtual walking tour, as well as FAQ and the option to reach out to me directly if people have questions or comments or want to provide input to the planning commission. I just want to remind folks that the tour for the village and survey is open through the month of July, maybe a little bit into August, they can pick up brochures outside town hall, and it's not a finished project yet. Once the planning commission receives their initial input, they'll make some revisions to the draft before they wore a public hearing, and at all moments the public is welcomed and encouraged to participate. Thanks Emily. Thanks a lot for coming on the show in our next studio. Thank you Eric for having me. I'll wrap things up for this month of what's up Williston. I'm Eric Wells and I'll see you around town. Take care.