 All right, we're going to call the meeting to order. Colchester Planning Commission, it is 708. First thing is, agenda considerations reserved for changes to the agenda items and order. We're going to go right in the same order tonight. We have comments and questions from the public not related to the agenda. All good? All right, let's get started. Request for supplement amendments to the Colchester Development Regulations. We'll start with SR 22-01. Send it to you. Happy in. I'm sorry, I didn't set up a table. How do you want people to come and talk with you? Well, it's more comfortable to sit up here, talk at the mic, whichever works. That would work. Absolutely. I'm sorry about that. We just need to, as you know, stay churning. Yeah, maybe not tonight. Excuse me, Harold. High Point Center, I'll be all in the way. There's just a bill that's going south on Route 7, half-tough total underneath the interchange. It's the commercial property on the right-hand side, just past the entrance. It has the Ust-Avoli Blue Line Diner on it, has the two larger commercial buildings on either side of that, and has one vacant, I think it's about a .92-acre footprint up behind the southernmost building. And this request started back in March of 2017. That's when I submitted for this. So five years later, I'm here. And at that time, the owners, even back in 2017, were experiencing issues as far as the commercial use, that's just not the demand. Since COVID, the demand's really gone. And in my opinion, never coming back. There's just a glut of commercial properties. And I think that this request was reasonable when I made it and I think it's much more reasonable now, given the likelihood of what's gonna happen. Moving forward, period. So what they had asked me to look at back in 2017 was, can't we do any residential out there? And I said, no, you can't do any. There's no permitted use. There's no conditional use for strict residential, your commercial zone. But then I looked into the regulations and there's several items in the regulations as listed in my 2017 letter that are commercial, their residential uses that are commercial in nature. So the request is not a zone change request. The staff report suggests it's a zone change request. It suggests that it's in conflict with the town plan that it would require all kinds of time. I disagree on all accounts. All this is, is a request to add apartment building greater than 10 units and or multi-family building, which I assume either one of those is what's the GD3 district for Severance Corners is being used. Those uses, I'm asking that those get added to the existing zoning district as conditional uses. Conditional uses will allow more scrutiny by staff, by the board, by neighbors. So I don't think it's a big ask. And I think that if the town doesn't keep their eyes open, they're gonna have a lot of commercial properties that may just continue to go downhill because if you don't have people in them, you're not sinking money into them. They did have an architect look at upgrading. Did the cost, they spent the cost to have an architect look at upgrading the building that was kind of, the second building might have been kind of modern when it was built. It's a lot of that reflective glass kind of to see if that would generate interest. This was pre-COVID and that didn't generate any interest so they didn't sink the money into those upgrades. But I think it's pretty clear to me that that property and other properties will go to downhill track. So the ask is as I stated in the 2017 letter, it's not a zone change. It's a request that one and or two uses be considered to be added as a conditional use to the existing zoning district. And I think that they're reasonably similar. It's commercial in nature. So in that district now, some of the conditional uses are halfway house, congregate housing, hotel motel, extended stay, hotel, trade vocational schools, colleges, universities, community college, all which are residential, commercial in nature. And that's where my request is multi indoor apartments greater than 10. I think maybe the multi could go away because that could be confused with, I think it needs to be kind of the greater than 10 to be commercial in nature. So that's the request. And like your consideration to have it move through the process to see if it has support. What do you envision building itself for the use? How you talk about floors, style? Well, as a conditional use, it would be, it would have to come in obviously, it would be subject to the conditional use criterion and that higher scrutiny for the existing building. I think it would depend on, I'm not sure that there's a user in the existing building now, the second building. It was the last time it was used at any capacity was when UVM had some space there. And that was close to five years ago that they actually, so I could see that the main level would be the most attractive for the commercial use. And in that one building, the main level is, when I say the main level, I'm saying the main level from the back parking lot side and maybe the lower level, which, but the lower level is a little difficult because it's underground on the backside. I would think the upper, I think that's once four floors, I don't think the upper two floors would be more conducive to residential. I haven't discussed any of that with these applicants. They don't have any, they haven't spent any time or resources other than on myself for this request. It's really just a matter of, so it's not even necessarily that with these owners, that residential apartments greater than 10 will come, but it's just something when they're looking at vacant property for years on end, not them, that it seems reasonable to them. And some of the stuff that they thought was reasonable, I did not think was reasonable, and that's why I limited this as a conditional use and kind of a commercial in nature, like those other conditional uses. All right, does anybody have any questions for David? Well, this is just the commercial zoning just for that area. Are we talking about... I can't ask for any, I can only ask for... No, but Brad, if you're asking for conditional use for commercial zoning, wouldn't that be across the board for all commercial? Yes, correct. That's where we ran into problems. Take a look at it then. Yeah. That's where we ran into problems. I don't know that you do run into problems, because again, the uses that are already in that district, my argument is that the apartment greater than 10 is very similar to uses that are already there. So you've had that scrutiny on anything. I don't know what other parcels I do know that I... Well, I shouldn't say I do know. I do expect that office space is not gonna be in demand. That is our problem. That's what those buildings are. Yeah, we'll just go right ahead and jump right in. So I think we're about 10,000 housing units low in the Burlington area. So I tend to lean towards any, even if it was your appeal to build housing. And I'm just wondering how many units do you think you could get? What would the price point be possibly? And then would you think at all about coordinating with Winooski? Because Winooski is creating a gateway there, a huge project. What do you think the clients would think about coordinating with them to kind of... Yeah, I don't think they have an issue with it. And anything greater than 10 units is gonna trigger active 50. Winooski as a direct-a-butter there would be part of the process regardless if they wanted it. So even if the owners weren't, as far as the other questions that they haven't gone there on it at that, obviously the good thing about commercial is it's got municipal water, it's in the sewer core, it has sewer right there, it's on bus service. So it's well-suited for residential use. I, right now I can't tell you what each floor is. I mean, basically if you took each floor and once you take out hallways and stuff and used a thousand-square-foot per unit as the high number as far as units, that would, you know, I can certainly come up with a high-end number. We need to put you on the spot. I'm just really concerned about our housing shortage and from on and especially in this area. Yeah, and the goal is not necessarily to build a housing need. That's a secondary thing. I think the goal is you do have commercial properties that these two buildings, the one is still pretty active, the ones to the north, with, you know, Dennis has one floor, I think still medical might have one floor. And those type of uses, the other building is mostly general office. And I think the general office are the ones that are having a harder time coming back or they will come back to the level they were. I mean, my office today, I had one guy out and it's unusual that we don't have at least one guy out for some reason and they can work from home. You don't see any other trends for the commercial use out there for the future, for buildings like that? The trend that I see that, well, many storage, it's certainly a trend, but it's kind of going back, it seems like it's reversed back to the building with the overhead door and a thousand to 3,000 square feet that the plumber needs and in some cases, it's a downscale from what they currently have. So we do a fair amount of commercial and those are the two uses that we've been working on lately. Other than, you know, you still get some large industries, we've done everything up in the Saxon Hill area, the Outriner foods and a lot of those type of uses up there that are big users, but they're putting in the huge warehouse buildings. They need the, you know, what's what this parcel, what the High Point Center's not conducive to, it's not conducive to reuse on anything like that because it's set up as an office. There's no loading docks, there's none of that. It would basically be, do you change the facade and then it's internal changes, and then, you know, otherwise you wouldn't notice. The fundamentally thing that was wrong with High Point Center when it was done, I can say that because I didn't do it. It received about a, I think it was a 26% shared parking bonus and then what went in was Office in Libby's Blue Line Diner and even without that footprint that wasn't built when it was active past the, there was always parking issues because they were light uses. You don't do shared parking when you have all Ops, but the footprint that is left, the last approval on that, I did the last approval on that footprint, it never happened, but that was approved for a four-story extended stay hotel and then Jim Antel and Skip Farrell bought it because they wanted to control the whole High Point Center. So the building never happened. Parking hasn't been an issue for about 10 years now, but residential isn't gonna coincide with the office space that's still there, so it's worth a bit for shared parking. It's extended stay, not a thing. Extended stay could be a thing again, but it was approved and the owners of the Rest of High Point Center didn't want to see it and purchased that footprint. Got you. Was that in 2017? Before, I think it was before 2017. So, probably closer to 10 years ago. Yeah. So we still run into the same problem, unfortunately. Even though this is from 2017, we're just firing up again. We're just getting started, really. We're still looking at finishing the Mallets Bay thing, especially with the sewers going. So I think we're still at the point where, as Rebecca stated, we will get in depth. We wouldn't do this just as a throw on for one property. We'd study it all. That's just the way we've been doing it regularly. So it would take us some time. Not that it's not a bad idea to study, but. So the comment on time to see, okay, what could happen out of this. Exactly. That's how we've. How the jury of the board doesn't like the idea of apartment building screening. It also has to work with our town plan. It affects our town plan. That means a whole look in at our town plan. That's another big tackle for us. Yeah. The town plan talks about zoning changes, which to me is, if I'm coming in on a R3 zone, R1 zone, I'm asking for R3 zone. I don't personally see adding a use in the conditional use of zoning. It is a zoning change, but in the context of the town plan, I don't think that's what the town plan is talking about. Rich. So specific to this district, that language is up there. It doesn't just talk about no zoning changes. It specifically says no extension of residential uses into that zone. I think it's very specific without getting into the merits of whether it's a good idea. Sure. I think that the plan itself is very specific. And if you did want to make these changes, you really should go back to the town plan process. DHCT would probably require you to the first time you submit your changes to your regulations and they see this contradiction. Yep. That's one of the reasons we had the town plan that spent so much time on it back in the day. Unfortunately, it has to grow. Everything has to move with the town plan. And then the next time around, then we make all changes. As you know, nothing's simple. I wish I could say it was. I don't. Now, are we going to make that decision on this right now? Is that all right? That's up to you guys. You could save them for the end. You could save them for the end. You could save them for another meeting. I'm just curious if everybody is on board. Go ahead. This is our first round of this type of format. So I am very concerned about housing. There are people that are homeless that are going to be in a month on the street. And again, Vermont is way behind in housing. I mean, it's costing Vermont is a lot of money for rent that they can even find a place. So my thinking has shifted since we did the town plan that there's a huge need. And I do wonder if we should look at that again, even if it means looking at the town plan. This isn't going to go away in a year. I know there was a bill that I don't, you know, I think we're waiting to see if the governor signs it. I don't think he's going to sign it. He's going to veto it, but it would expand options for infill or housing for residential. If I knew you were, you know, or your partners were going to put in some residential units in there, you know, I personally, I mean, I'm just one vote, but I would be personally much more interested in the project. Well, there are certainly interests. That's why I started in 2017. I don't know of any timetable and how much resources do you spend so you know that there's something on the other side. I mean, I did read that and I'm just reading it again. It talks about rezoning mostly, you know. So that's where I wasn't, I told them back in 2017, it's not worth going in for rezoning. It's not worth doing this, it's not worth doing that. This is not that. So it's an attempt at trying to make it pretty simple. Mr. Schecter, what do you think? We have some rules and rights for reasons and part of it is no residential and commercial. We do have to look at the town plan and everything. It's not like we can put a rubber stamp on it. We also have a look at deciding. If we do this, what is going to happen to other places as well. It's not like we can just go, oh yeah, this is a great idea. And yes, housing is a problem, but do we want it in commercial places? Will it be a fit? Right. All right, that's what I've said. Yep. I think this is something that we need to table and review it later time as we focus on a lot of things right now. Yeah. I agree. You agree? Mm-hmm. I think I have to agree with that also. I think we're not ready there. When you do take it up, when you say table, I mean that could be a year, it could be whatever you'll get back in touch with us. Correct. That's exactly what it's. Yeah, so this format we're doing tonight, this is brand new. So we are actually getting our feet right here with you, making sure you're getting at least any answer right now to where we think we want to be. So you're right, this could be a year we would get in touch with you so we're now looking at this closer. We have time to look at it. We have time to look at it, we'll have a discussion on it. Okay. So it's not a kill. And as I said, please look back at that March 22nd, 2017 letter. Just on this comment, as I said, conditional uses in that district include halfway house, congregate housing, hotel, motel, extended stay, trade, vocational schools, college universities, all of which in my opinion, are commercial residential uses. And apartment building greater than 10 is a commercial residential use. So it's not that there isn't residential uses in your district now, in this district. Okay. Thank you. Great, thank you. Thank you. So just to confirm, you want to leave it on the list, that's the goal of the tracking number. So when we do look at it again, it's the same number, it's the same request, we'll just keep it. Yep. Does that sound? Absolutely. Did you want to do any votes or you're fine with just the direction? I don't think we need to. I don't think we need to, I think we're good. I mean, if it gets to, we're all arguing about it, then we'll take a vote. We're all shaking our heads in the right same direction. Sounds good. Yeah. All right. No, we won't need a motion for that. All right. So we've got SR 2202 is next. If we have anybody on that one. Patrick, I think that's you. All right. My name is Patrick O'Brien. And before I get started, I was raising my hand when I was listening to David. I was wondering if you were going to take any public comment on his suggestions. So if I may just. Absolutely. I'm sorry. I should have looked around. I'm not used to having somebody sit over here. It's fine. Just real quickly, this is not on behalf of SDR. This is on behalf of Patrick O'Brien. Sure. Lifelong resident of Vermont in South Burlington lived in Cochester for a while and been in the real estate development world my entire career. And ironically, I'm familiar with the High Point Center because it's been for sale for a number of years for the reasons David outlined. And ironically, just last week, I was driving by there coming from Severance Corners. And I said, it's too bad that there's not, that residential is not allowed there. So it's just the irony of me here tonight in listening to David. But more importantly than that is I do sit on an affordable housing committee in a neighboring municipality. And one of the things that we have recently encouraged the Planning Commission to do, they haven't taken it up yet, but we're encouraging you to do that, is to look very closely at the commercial centers of their town. So some of these areas could incorporate residential into their zoning districts. Even in some instances into the industrial zoning districts. And the reason is simple. As you mentioned, housing is the need for housing of all, for all income levels is an all time high. But just as important, if we can place employees close to their employers, it also does another thing and that is, it stops the need to drive here and there, et cetera. So when you do take this up, I encourage you to look at this change favorably as it relates to residential being in a commercial district. Okay, thank you. Now, my name's Patrick O'Brien, I'm here on behalf of SDI Ireland. And as you know, this relates to the foreign based district, GD3. And I have been with SDI Ireland for several years trying to help the development of two of the corners, both Sunderland Farms Community and Severance Corners. And several years ago, I approached the former planner and encouraged her to recommend it, encouraged her to let us come forth to the planning commission with some recommendations and alterations to the code. And we were met with, well, we think they're fine, but we kind of kept, my former coworker and I kind of kept the pressure on and thankfully throughout the years, as you may know, we did, we have gotten one or two changes and thank you for that. But it has become clear and clear and clear as I've started the infrastructure at Sunderland and tried to develop the other quadrant that there are just too many planning hurdles to overcome the way the current zoning is worded. And that's one of the reasons why the quadrant hasn't taken off as quickly as it has. As I understand it, what you're asking or what you're trying to figure out tonight is the importance of putting this on the agenda come late summer or fall. And I for one, being lived my life in the world of zoning, I think that that's not soon enough, but certainly if that's the time, we will be here to help you all work through that with a whole bunch of suggestions. And I'll leave it at that. I can answer some questions, but on a side note, I did receive an email this morning from Mr. Simon in regards to the Northeast quadrant and he was kind of asking me if I felt he should drive up and represent his request tonight. And I didn't, I said, well that's your decision, but I certainly will do what I can to make them understand that if you don't choose to drive up, it certainly isn't a reflection of the need or his desire to get to be heard when the time comes. So I just told him I would say that, don't take it as not being here as not being important because it is. We looked at that quadrant recently and decided that we were not interested because of the current zoning. And not only that, but our existing holdings. But unless you want that quadrant to stay open, something's gotta be done. And hopefully sooner than later, again because of the crisis that we are in. I guess I'll answer any questions. So definitely the growth center is important. Top priority probably after we finish off what we've started. There's no doubt about that. The whole idea and all the sewer that's there and all the time and effort that's put into getting that growth center took years and years. So now we're at the point where it is time to look at detailed things and make it move forward properly. We are, I personally am concerned to make sure it does move forward properly because I was at the beginning of some of this and it's not being built as it was presented. And at the time I've said it before and I've said it again, I don't know where the disconnect came. From what we saw, what we told people we were gonna have built to what we're looking at today. So I think for it to look at changes there'll be a detailed look. I think that's important. So at the time that'll again take effort and time but I do believe myself it should be next in line. Yeah, I believe it was if maybe the first or one of the first forum-based code districts adopted. And I think that we can learn through you have experience in your former position and we have some experience developing forum-based code in other districts. And so I think that we've all learned a lot in the last 10 years and we can all put our collective minds together and as you say work together and make some adjustments. Sure, Serena. I just made some notes when I was reviewing it. It looks like in April 21 the members agreed to add a review of GD3. I wrote down in my notes to just I wanted to hear Rebecca's input on it. Oh yeah, at the time we were talking about the garage. And the parking spaces, right? And a number of parking spaces, yeah. And then when I did the ABCD it looked like happy that A and B were okay. That C, this doesn't conflict with it. This does not conflict with the town plan. C being... I'm sorry, when I went through the littles I kind of... Oh yes, yes. So that's in the memo. I don't think there's nothing in there that contradicts with the plan. In fact, it sort of aligns with, as Rich said, setting the growth center as the number one priority for work along with anything on East Lakeshore and I think at the time all of Lakeshore. So I agree with that it will be a detailed work because there are some changes that are occurring, especially in the parking number of parking spaces. I think that some of the goals that I read earlier and that I would recommend is that if you're working on the Four Maze Code you take a look holistically and not do it. I think Patrick agrees with me and I was talking with Mr. Simon and he agrees with me as well. You don't do one offs. You don't just do garages and come back next year to talk about on-street parking. It's the time to look at everything together because they do feed into each other. And so this on the agenda is separated from number F, letter F, but they're really the same request, just different specifics within it. As Patrick said, I also talked to Paul and I'll just address that when we get to that one. If I may, I'm not sure how the, like for example, I have three or four requests and hopefully when we do dig into this together, does it matter if the request is actually listed tonight? Does that preclude it? Okay. No, no, no. Okay, great. Was your concern mostly for these garage setbacks? You know, frankly. Now that we're talking about it. The garage setback is certainly an issue from a practical standpoint. But ironically, one of the things that we would like to do is increase the number of units that we can build at Sunderland, which would mean that we probably would not be building three plexus and four plexus. We would like to build probably slightly larger building, maybe some 12 plexus. So I will still advocate to make that amendment from a practical standpoint. It may not be applicable to what we may or may want to do. Tony, I know it's a bit of a detailed thing, but are you talking about the big block building again or are you talking about? No, well, more specifically, it would be something in the middle, something just two stories tall, big enough so you can have underground parking that still makes financial sense and doesn't raise the cost of the, because what we're trying to do is we're trying to, we'd like to get some for sale product out there and we're trying to figure out a way where we can do some for sale product that isn't in three or four story buildings and we have a similar product and built another, we've built another municipalities and it's a very, very efficient land use because of the parking, you can put the parking underneath. Oh, okay. Well, I'm good. No questions on this one? Yeah, no questions. No questions, all right. Looking forward to it. What's that? Looking forward to it for the discussion. So it's just gonna be affecting all four quadrants there in the growth center? Yep, yep. Yeah, I think that you'll have some recommendations as well from the DRB in some of the reviews where they have felt like their hands were tied and that maybe that there were some better solutions. Bays come to mind. Yeah, yeah. So I think it might be a soup to nuts look at that entire subsection. That's a good time for it actually. Yeah, it was. You have one quadrant built out three quarters, maybe. You're starting on this one and then we have Paul's on the other side. So it's definitely, when we started with former base zoning, it was an exciting idea. We weren't sure until now. Of course. So, yeah. So we're all nodding our heads, yes, for the next supplement still. Well, when you say the next one though. So we're still looking at finishing off non-spay and fixing what we did in 43 to 44. So 45 and this would happen, we're hoping we start that at the end of the summer. One thing we definitely get detailed, we'll go for a field trip this round. Fantastic. We'll have some hands on. We'll make it right. Great. Thank you very much. Thank you. Table on this till 60. After he's like, sure. Yep. All good? All good? Yeah. All right. All right, so this one here is SR-2203 for David Haslett. I don't believe David is gonna be here. Okay. So you wanna go through it for us? We've opened them ahead of when this was scheduled in April. I think his letter, I think he asked to just stand for itself. He's shared that he, his ask is in the spirit of being a good neighbor to a neighbor who is having an issue. He believes that this request, he believes that this request might help clean the bay because of a sewer issue on the campground property next door. That's his driving force, I think with his owning change. So at this point in time, we have sewers now. Yeah, so this request was made ahead of the sewer vote. He understands that. How he can connect. That basin, yeah. Yeah, those properties with both the campgrounds that is having the wastewater violation and the Haslett property will be able to connect to the public sewer once it's solved the problem. Yeah, they have to be. So this one we can, and let's see if anybody has any questions. We can next. Yeah, and I think Westlake Shore and LS1 and LS2 fall into the category of statements about we just did this. Yeah. When I was reading that I was thinking, I didn't know even if we had to deal with this now that the sewer has been passed. Yeah, I did connect with him to see if, because the original request was made before the renewal of examination of it was after the vote. He asked for it just to stay on. He didn't see any harm in it, but I'm not sure. I'm not sure there's necessary a lot of, there's not a strong will for this. I think I vote C on his part. Yep. Decide not to pursue the requested. Did you say D? You said D. C. C. We're at A, B, and C. We might as well use C. I agree. Everybody agrees? Yeah. Yep. Okay. Next up, SR2204, Elias Irwin on behalf of Cody Rice. Nope. I'm Elias Irwin of Landmark Engineering and Design and my partner Jamie Simpson also from Landmark Engineering and Design. We submitted a zoning change request latter back in April. Does everyone have a chance to read that? Great, I'm glad to hear that. And then also, hi, we haven't met before. Do you have a copy available electronically? Do you want me to scroll down to you? I thought maybe I set up the easel. Was that acceptable? Absolutely. I believe you had a map as well. We do. Is that all? That's right. Yeah, three. Let's set up. Just give us a moment, please. Oh, absolutely. Thank you, time. And so it's a visible camera as well. Would you like the letter up or the plan? Whatever you suggest, we can start with figure one. So we're representing our client, Cody Rice, who purchased the 86 acre parcel on Blakely Road and figure one here clearly shows the location. There's about an 800 foot section on Blakely Road, this parcel is unimproved, okay? It's currently undeveloped. Immediately adjacent to Blakely Road. It's just this small stretch here. And then this type of wing here that you see, this angled approach is set aside for access for a future emergency access to I-89. Yep, and a potential exit, potentially, of I-89 as well. So really ask the location. And then in accordance with your current zoning regs, and as you know, the zoning maps. So the parcel is identified being almost right in the center of the map here. It's showing yellow. Again, an 86 acre parcel, and it's currently zoning this agriculture. And we're just simply hoping, we're asking for your approval to change a portion of that property from agriculture to R-1 or residential district one. We can wheel three of that on the next figure as well. One thing I just want to mention though before we move on. I just want to mention that the subject law is in fact kind of bound by other properties of the same zoning designation. And I made that clear in our letter as well. And so as you can see what we're proposing, it's just a portion, the lower portion. Oh, that is, oh, I can't see that. No. There's no way to turn it in. Yeah, just the lower portion, the portion that's level, the portion that's somewhat flat, the natural boundary being an existing stream that bisects the property. And so we're just looking to modify 28.3 acres of that 86 acre block. And that's what this shaded. We've gone ahead and shaded this portion in to kind of illustrate how that would look with the rest of the zoning in the area. Yeah, making it contiguous. Exactly. Unified. And to eliminate spot zoning. And the upper portion will remain agricultural. Yeah, 57.7 acres of the parcel will remain unimproved or in the ag type jurisdiction or district. So what do you envision for buildings here? Well, we haven't explored that necessarily, but the intent is housing. I can tell you how many, but single family residences, complexes, multi-plex buildings, but wherever that need is, but we're trying to fill that for you. You guys see that a little better? Yeah. Is the same graphic? That's right. Yeah. Yeah, one thing to consider is that those with all planning is, we need to have the area available for storm water treatment and waterways water treatment. We haven't gone through the entire process. We haven't done that yet, but that would also give indication of what kind of impacts you need to have upon this revised portion of this parcel. Even that's only 28 acres, you know, there would be, there's only a certain area that would really be amenable for development on that 28 acres, and the rest would need to be used for access or storm water treatment or waterways water treatment. But we haven't gotten that far into- Any of that yet. So, and this property also borders agriculture too, from the back. This is owning, yeah, this is agriculture. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, that's also ag, however, what is it, right? Yep. Some of it does wrap all the way down to poor farmland, which is now actively being used as ag in the back. Yeah, again, this would remain agriculture in this upper half, yeah. I wanted to put that up there just really briefly to make another point. And then, you know, something else to consider is that you have a very small portion that's actually adjacent to Lickley Road. That would be adequate to provide easy access onto this lower portion. And then we have a natural boundary that's right along this line that we've chosen which is a stream that is easily divided into two separate uses. Which implies with the zoning regs as well, utilizing natural boundaries. And how would you have access to the agricultural film area and make the front? Well, we could explore potential easements or potential options within the demeanor. It could be reserved area. We'd be looking for your input as well as to how to let this be that ag property used. Currently, it's all wooded. It can be a little difficult to access. So from an agricultural purpose, maybe it's more appropriate for a civil culture in ways. But there could also be, you know, a separate access for agricultural purpose, which is different than the residential access. You know, those could be divided. We have different means of it. It doesn't need that access. That's right. It doesn't need a residential force and then it doesn't need an agricultural. We have it through the property. So what happened here was growth center. So when the town plan was made, all our focus was on residential and the growth center and leaving more open spaces. And that's why that land was, and at the time, nobody had any injections to that, to leave that open in agriculture. So to make that change the different thought process, considering we wanted more of the focus up above and leave this just for that reason, open spaces and hopefully active agriculture if possible. I realize it has not been used for that, but that's why it was left open at the time. It's a lower portion. That whole piece, all 86 acres. And matter of fact, the top that's all the way up, because that was a 101 acre piece. That top all the way up has been left alone. It was bought just the way it left open. Yeah. Well, we thought it's a great opportunity for additional development. It's adjacent to I-89. It's the last undeveloped property on Blakeney Road. Joining landowners have also come through the similar zoning change. So that's good for them. It's good for us. I don't know if that doesn't apply. But and not to mention, the soils are good. I mean, yeah, we've done some preliminary research, but we haven't gone out there to actually look at and actually evaluate. Throw that a little rough on the corner. As you get towards the interstate, now you're talking swamp. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That turns all, that's all, other than that first piece you roll in there, everything that left is swamp. You're gonna, you can't go down two feet in your head water. Sure. It does get wet. Oh yeah. Certainly, certainly. And then not to mention, there's a quite a utility corridor from there too. Absolutely. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. So again, it just seemed to fit nicely. What we're proposing is not the entire lot. Just the area that would be most suitable for residential development. Sure. To fill the need and to support the community and provide an important resource and a valuable commodity. It's the need, the housing that we need. Yeah, sure. For sure. And we'll consider additional residential options going down the road. If we don't, if we can't qualify for R-1, then we'll remain at R-5 and we'll continue, or add graphic and we'll continue other options. Okay. I think it's one of those things where we look at it and then like today, maybe seven, eight, five. Thank you, sir. Yeah. Just out of curiosity, how come you didn't ask the whole piece to be changed then? Again, just for congruency or continuity, for uniformity, we didn't want to ask for too much. We didn't feel the need and plus we didn't feel as open to have that value being all wooded and being elevated and pretty rugged terrain. It's undulating with a lot of exposed ledge. It might be difficult from a development perspective, from an access perspective. It wasn't that. Just having this portion as the reason portion just having a overall less impact on the parcel itself and also putting two to four houses all the way to the entire parcel. Let's limit it to one section. It's the accessible and then. Some level, yeah. Already open, divided by the stream, just seem to make sense. And it corresponded nicely with the surrounding residences or the so many areas around here. You know what I mean? I guess we could have, but didn't. Or you could come in five years and do that. Or you could come back in five years and ask for that. The whole lot, the whole lot, yeah. You felt this was appropriate. Okay. Made the most sense at this time. Yeah. You think, Serea? You just had a couple of questions. Five years ago, I would always, I would not give up that. So I'm asking the residential. Now, it's competing priorities. You know, open space versus housing. And housing is, is really weighing heavily on, at least my priorities. But I'm just wondering, again, just, this is just thinking, could the other 57 acres, could that be set aside to stay agricultural forever? Certainly discuss that with the point. Yeah. So that's a possibility. Sure. Just a possibility. Sure. And the intent is for that to remain as ag. We're not asking for its own change in that regard. This is to remain as own as it is ag at that portion. But whether or not it's to be maybe deeded or reserved in the future or preserved rather, maybe that's something that we can discuss from your point. Okay. You know, maybe it's a give and take kind of thing. So that's a consideration. Yeah. A possibility. Maybe, maybe. Yeah, I know. I'm just wondering if it's like this, there's no way we can do that or that is a possibility. Who would definitely consider it? There are lots of tools that you would have, once you consider something like this, there are a variety of tools you could choose from. Everything from conservation subdivision design, to TDRs, to that stuff. What about offsetting the, I think it's common, wasn't for the residential, how many acres? 48. 48. Like offsetting that with another parcel, parcel, and parcel, or land or land, you know, that would be set aside. So yeah, there are, that's basically how TDRs or transfer of the government rights work. Which we have not made use of in this town. Yeah, it's very weird. And we try it before it gets very complicated, very fast. It does, yeah. Very complicated, very fast. It's very hard to make that equitable. I'll tell you right now. Yeah, we looked at this before, even for our own land, when we did agriculture mix use. I think as you, if you were to approach this by starting with the town plan, looking at those areas that you would like to see increased residential growth, you could also start to consider in a very broad perspective, what the trade-offs are, if any, and you could discuss them at the broad level via the plan. And then when you get back to the regulations, you would start to identify different tools, which may vary in different areas. But I wouldn't get into too much of that detail with you tonight, but there are a lot of options. And it doesn't have to be a one-size-fits-all across. Absolutely. Even though we do want housing, we wanna make sure we have quality housing of whatever we're doing. We're at the phase, we're building a lot of new stuff in the growth center again. We want it to be nice. We don't wanna just put anything up there. And this project may be nice, but there is not even an idea yet for what to put. I mean, if you're just gonna put a bunch of duplex condos out there, I personally would love to leave it as open land. You know, that's why we had it originally, because I got it. But what I'm saying is that the reason we have open land is because once you build on it, it's no longer open land. And when we did our town plan, we tried to find certain areas. And that's a big deal for the state. They're all about it. Yeah. For affordable housing, they want the complex. They don't want the cost. Seven, five years ago, it was decided to keep it open for its agriculture value or for agricultural use. What was that value then? Maybe you can tell me. As far as the use to have open land and be able to grow anything on it, that back in the day, that would have been multiple, just like the farm we have up the street right now. You have a multiple use farm, the Mazd property. You have one across the bridge on the other side again, with multiple crops. Yep. Yes, it was. Yes, it was. It was used for both things, plus that one time when we had cow farms, it was used to grow crops for corn. Then it shifted over to the multiple use. So, yeah, it had use. Yep. Actually, at one time, two different farmers used it. Yeah, the front and the back property. Yeah. I'm not going to speak to the client and what he wants or what you guys are at this time. If you want to compare the complex agglomation with you here. But at the same time, this area really does lend itself to condensed housing. It's not to say that it'll be 10 flex housing, but at the same time, even the terrain that's there, you're limited by the topography, you're limited by the wetlands, you're limited by the stream. Yeah, exactly. So, it's going to be a fairly condensed development, as far as the design goes. Again, like I said before, you still have to have those other features for state permitting, needs and stormwater and waste work. Absolutely. So, whatever that need is, we'll be looking to fill it. Right. So, we have R2 across the street. Do we have R1 down from this piece that they're talking about? That's all R1 was going to say. Right now, this is the ag portion of pros and cons. It's not R1 across the street. I don't get lost in this one. That's not R2. That's on the other side of the interstate. Like or not, that's a barrier that doesn't match. And that's actually R2 across the street. Across the interstate, that is also R2. That's right, the darker blue. Right. R2 is over here. So, just so we're understanding to switch anything, the first thing we'd have to look at is continuity. So, R1 might not match for one. And for two, we're going to look at spot zoning. So, those things kind of come into play. And we don't want to get into something that, we end up saying you can't do it anyways. Right. You know what I mean? And that was the purpose of this figure that we know. Because right now, this ag comes down and this is all ag current. But we're showing this portion that we're proposing as this change, the zoning change, and to show this continuity in how that would look in overall uniformity. And not to mention, I mean, you guys can speak to this more, but in looking through your rules and regs and the history and the previous decisions made, there were two adjacent parcels that also went through the same zoning change that were currently replaced. Alpha of our poor farm road. I mean, I mentioned them both specifically in my letter. Right. In the parcel identification owners. Right. And the land owners. So, again, we just felt like we had a lag to stand on. A lot of it's in the timing. That's no doubt. Gross Center is now coming up fast. And this is more town plan material. From my perspective and others, we're going to have a decision on that. So far tonight, we've been able to make a decision right now. So the thought. So again, the competing priorities. You know what I, again, I don't like taking X away in open space, but since it's close to the growth center, and I feel like the conversation, I believe at the state level, I don't, again, I don't know what's going to pan out with bills being signed, but it seems like the movement is towards more residential growth around growth centers. So people don't have to get into cards. You know, people don't, you know, can walk places. So, you know, the possibility for me is that it's near a growth center, you know, and I'm sure there'll be more conversion opportunities up at certain corners. So again, this isn't like in the middle of, you know, a huge field that isn't close to anything that people could access. So your thoughts? I'd like to learn more. Okay. So that's table. I'd like to hear more about how many units would look like in kind of here with your concerns. Okay. Well, okay. I'm fine looking at it, but we have to wait a while, correct? We can't jump right in this. That would be, yeah, that would be two supplements for now. Yeah. For myself, where am I going to address this? This one also has the town plan restriction about changes. So, It'd be a discussion. I would encourage you to not take up a specific zoning change here without having amended the future land use map at the very least, but also looking at what sounds like you're building towards is looking at what are the future housing needs holistically across the town. You'll want to do that, I think as part of a town plan update, which you're not locked into your cycle. You can do that on your own timeline, because you have eight years to do it. You don't have to wait for eight years. Do you hope that the number of units and what the houses look like and what's proposed doesn't sway your decision? We just want that opportunity to present that to you. We're just looking for the zoning modification. Right. So again, we're not prepared to discuss that aspect of this project yet, but it is something that we consider when we've got the road and we'll be looking for your input. Okay. So what are we thinking, Rebecca? It sounds like we're on agreement that we want to table it. We're not all on agreement, but we were the majority rules. So we're not all on agreement, majority rules. So no, that's fine. I don't know. I personally think it's got time before we get into that, but I'm happy to table it. I have no problems with that. It won't be for a while, unfortunately, go ahead. I believe my senses is a lot of funding and grants that are coming to possibly help with some of these projects, help the town or the municipality. Is that something that you kind of keep up to date on in terms of opportunities for funding? No, absolutely. I mean, most communities, when they do a town plan update they're going to hire additional help. Yep. I've written maybe five or six now and almost always with additional help. They're big undertaking, not necessarily in the writing, it's all about public outrage. Yeah. It wasn't about the town plan, it was more about the project. You know, the town, state funding, and federal funding, you know, the ARPA funding. I mean, again, it's not a short window, but I wasn't on commerce. Most of your funding is going to be to designated, to state designated areas, growth centers, village centers, town centers. All of those state designations are where the priority funding is going to go. And to support you in this regard. Right. Yeah. This is outside of that. Okay. To any of those designated areas, but. Okay. Let's start it. Yeah. Nope. I love that. So this is, we want to table it. This is new discussion is, when would we look at it again? We wouldn't be able to look. This is, would be a little more complicated. It's now diving into town plan territory. I agree with that. And we wanted to take care of growth center on 45. 44 I'll take care of what we need to fix on 43. So 45 growth center, that will not be simple. So we're talking about, hopefully 46, just so you have an understanding of where we're looking at. Yeah. You're talking about a year. You're making a workload in what's in front of you. Exactly. Because this will be another discussion. So what I want to again. What I'll probably recommend you do, not specific to this project is, probably the first of the year, set a work plan. So when we get to, so this will get us through Eastlake shore, get us started on form based code growth center. And then by the first of the year, you know, sit down, look at everything that you've considered up until then, look at how far you've made it on another project and set a work plan for that year. You may say we're ready to take on the town plan. You may say we're not, but you'll have a better idea, I think by the first of the year. And I always encourage work plans. I think they help to set your focus and they help me to understand where you want to go with the limited time that we have. So I don't know that you would necessarily have to set a hard time for looking at this or any of the other ones you've heard tonight. You could say let's evaluate. So do we want to keep it, we decide every six months on looking at new requests. Yeah, so I'll hold on to these. And when we sit down, you know, it's going to be like slotting things in. We're going to sit down in January and early January and say, here are all the things that you've sort of tabled for the year that you haven't quite ready to drop. And you get to, you know, maybe we put all stickies on a board and you can move them around and figure out where your priorities lie and for anything that you haven't said no to. Right. I like that idea myself. Rebecca? Yeah, Bob? You had something. Yeah, I thought you wondered. I have a quick question, which is, you know, if you're going to table these requests and others up to a certain point in time, which I'm not sure when, we might pool all these together and then look at them all together and see which ones make the most sense. Does it mean that the project that was the most furthest developed or the most information provided against priority or how does this continue? It would help. I think what we're saying is that if you're looking at priorities in the first of the year, the commission's going to have to figure out if they want to take up a town plan rewrite. If you talk to any one of them after they finish the last one, they said, thank goodness we have eight years. So I think that's going to be the big discussion. I don't know that it's about specific projects, other than that specific projects might be dependent on a town plan and what the appetite is for. That is a good point. A town plan update, which sounds like there's definitely some appetite. It's just how focused is it? Is it just on housing? I don't know. Yeah. And that was my question was basically, would this project be overlooked perhaps because we came and we presented an idea versus we wanted 28 units or whatever that number had to be overpulsed? Right. So what I've shared in my notes that I think is really important to keep in mind is that anything that directly conflicts, any zoning change, any change that you make to your by-law regulations, I'll not just call them zoning changes, has a statutory obligation to be sent to surrounding towns to be sent to fill out a report. Part of that report also goes to the Department of Housing and Community Development. They look at that to make sure that any zoning change you make does not conflict with your town plan. You have to prove that in your report. You have to call it out on every little item. It gets really annoying. Reports end up being multiple dozens of pages long as you have to say, conflicts or meets. This commission can't send a report to DHCD that says this contradicts, it'll get sent back, I've seen it happen. And so if there's ever a desire to do something that's directly in conflict, then that happens. You write plans, things change. You change your mind, different commissioners, different select board members. But you have to follow that process and respect the people who followed the process before. And two years went into writing that plan. And if you wanna change it, you have to follow that same public process. So, I think the commission knows that most of you, by all of you, maybe were involved in that at that time. And it's not a small undertaking. And it may very well be a worthy one. I don't know that you guys, I don't know that the commission is prepared tonight to say when they wanna take that up. In January, they might be prepared to say, absolutely not, yeah, maybe. But I think it has to start with the town plan. Again, it may be a valid thing. It may be ready, but we don't know that yet. The difference with those other properties, just so you know that was at the town plan time. The time frame was right. Yeah, prior. Correct. Yeah, so they kind of slipped in if you will. You don't, when you do the town plan, you're adjusting for this. Now, so the next town plan comes up, these properties are all looked at again, including this property. And you're right, at that time, you're back here saying we have ideas. This is what we'd like to see. This is the direction we'd like to go in. Whatever's on the commission at that time, takes all that in because we know the town plan is something we, again, it has to grow. Like I've said before, it takes time to get, yeah, yeah, it takes, look at. The communities changed over the town plan. Exactly. Bill Gehrig's have done the same thing very recently. Sure. Sounds like you guys are gonna table it. It sounds like it's something you're gonna consider for it. We will talk about it one more time in January. Absolutely. Supporting cases and arguments is the word of this. Yep. Anything else, Serita? No, I think your question, Kathy, about housing. That would be helpful to know. I mean, I think the last time we talked about housing, I was pleasantly surprised to hear that Colchester's kind of doing our responsibility in terms of providing housing. So I'd be curious as to where we are now when the Berlin did the greater and it's all on it. Very timely topic. Yeah. Okay. Rebecca, anything? No, no. I'd say anything affecting the town plan is a big thing. Yeah, for sure. Bob? Curious how long has the person who owns the property have owned it? Is it recent purchase, five, 10 years? Just curious more than anything else. I'd say no more than six, six months. Yeah. Previous owner had it for a long time. I understand. And maybe he can pursue a similar zoning designation at work more often. Yep. And we're all in kind of, we're treading some new water ourselves here with some new documentation and figure things out. Also our meetings have been far and few in between over the last year and a half. So we were gonna try to get ourselves motivated to answer a lot of this stuff, but it is taking us a little time to get our feet wet and get back to the motions and getting things done, I think. Much of anything else for us, I think we will be good. No, I think just in closing though, all right. You know, if this isn't approved, we're still gonna look to pursue the development of this parcel. Absolutely. That's the word, you know, do it go with these things? It still allows you, that even as it sits now, you still have opportunities. There are opportunities. That's right. Absolutely. I understand that. But we're considering this one. Gotcha. Perfect, thank you. All right, thank you. Favorite coming in and spending some time tonight. All right, so we're moving on. We have SR-2205 of Rich Gardner to request a zoning change. Come on up. All right. Pick your favorite spot. Do I get a chair? Absolutely. That sounds great. I don't have any fancy displays. All right. Would you like this drawing now? Sure, that's great. That's a good one to start with. That's a good one to start with. Hi, my name is Rich Gardner. I'm the owner of this parcel on Millpond Road. It sounds like you guys have been talking about potential zoning changes for a bit tonight. So I'm going to add to the pile. I own a rather large piece off of Millpond Road, both to the north, the south, and west of the parcel. It is zone R1. And if you've looked at the drawing that I provided, although it wasn't highly detailed, I'm really just looking to create a small sliver of the overall parcel that I own to rezone that piece so that I could build a few houses there. The size of the rezoning was really just to try to make it a little bit more consistent with what's already existing around it. A couple of points that I wanted to make so I've read the town plan and again all the adjacent parcels to my piece are currently zone R1. I've done some soil testing there in the town plan. A lot of this area is described as having marginal soils. I'm lucky enough that the large portion of the parcel that I'm looking to rezone is sand. So it's beautiful soils. I already have a current wastewater permit in place for an on-site typical traditional septic system at grade. So it does lend itself to wastewater systems as well as the area that I'm looking to rezone. The back portion of the plan is beautiful. I don't intend to change that. There's also a description in the town plan of it being a relatively rural area with rolling hills. That's to the north of my property. There's some topography there. You can't actually see any of the meadows or fields. On my parcel the topography just doesn't lend itself to that so if you really help get the feeling of rolling hills or meadows as far as the overall view goes. Where as you do is you get a little bit further north of my parcel. What else did I have? What were some of the biggest points I had? Especially if you read the little letter today I dropped it out. How many acres again? On deed it's 97 acres. I think it's larger than that. But on deed it's not 97 acres. And you want to do 20? 20. How many acres did we talk about for our one again? About 14 to 15 acres. Okay. Pass this before I ask again. Did you have any vision of what you wanted to build there? I sure do. Colchester residents have been my entire life. I've never left Colchester. I actually have a single family home that's permitted on this lot which I will be hopefully starting in the next month or so. My intent was to create a small little neighborhood with a few houses that I could sell people, individual land, individual lots so that they can own a very traditional single family lot with their own home or their own farm, their own driveway, plant their own gardens and do all those things. I'm not really looking to touch the back portion of the parcel. I love it the way it is. But I'd love to be able to develop a very small neighborhood. Question on that one? No, it sounds like it's one of those things that falls into the rezoning and changing the town plan again. So... Yeah, we're moving it together with a couple others we've heard tonight. I'm hearing something different. That is the problem we keep running into. I know. Go ahead, Sarita. So for me, this is different from Newton because it's not your rural center. The other problem, one is in a commercial center where people could walk, ride a biker, not have to get into a car and drive somewhere. The one we just heard about is again so close to our rural center this would begin to start now taking away from our open space. We really want to condense housing and residential within our rural center and maybe allow some in the commercial space. For me, it spreads it up too far. How close are we? Can you just show how close we are? Yeah, I think this one's closer than the one you just saw. This one's actually closer than the last one to the rural center. It's in the middle area. We're very close. There's actually a sidewalk. The Milpont condos is there's a sidewalk that cuts right across there. We actually, Donna's way is directly across the street. So there is connection to that sidewalk that goes right in front of the Milpont condos. We're right there. I was having, for some reason, I was imagining you somewhere in the zone outside of the rural Disney. So, yeah, we're actually very close to the project that Ireland currently has. As we drive by my kids, I was like, look. So that makes a difference for me, yeah. So I've got to ask the same question. How long have you had this property? I don't know why, but it's something that we can... So how long has it taken me to acquire this property? How long have I had it? I've been talking to the farmer for years. I've owned the property for a year. It's a nice location. It's a great spot. I've been talking to the farmer for years. Actually, a friend of mine is still hanging the back fields. You can't see them from the road. Actually, you can't see any of the fields from the road at all in this parcel. So I hope it continues to pay the fields. It's a pretty piece. So this is between the village center and the growth center in that area? Yes. Well, we don't have a village center, but between the village. Yes, very close. If you want me to orient you to anything on the map, let me know. No, I know. It's easy to lose the streets. You have enough parcel lines and zoning colors. So this is the Essex line. That's why stuff stops showing up here. I believe that's one of the post office maybe or the postal distribution center maybe right there. Yep. Exactly where it is. That's Mill Pond here. Right where the sharp corner is. Severance continues. So you take the left, it's right there. Getting better at Michael Jester. So we run into the same problem. We run into the same problem. We zone this for the same idea at the time back in the day. And I was definitely one of the ones that don't want to do a master plan again. It's a lot of work. So, and at the time, because the farmer you had this property, he didn't want to change it. We went piece by piece to a lot of these and they wanted what you bought for that reason. And putting one house in there was probably all it was going to be designed to do because of the land, right? At the time, what it's owned right now? Yes, unless I shifted gears and went with which is allowed in that parcel, which would be a PUD. I could actually develop that parcel and still build around the same number of houses. Right. It just gets away from people owning their own land. Which then I end up with a project that probably I would try to make it look the same. And would still do the same thing. It's just I'm not selling people their own piece of land, which is what I would love to be able to do. I grew up in a neighborhood where my parents owned their own lot. I work in real estate. I sell one of the real estate companies here in Colchester. And I'd like to create another neighborhood where people can have their own little garden in the back and not have to ask their neighbors for permission to put up a shed or neighbors for permission to have a garden or do any of those things. Is that really the case? I don't know. Call me. We'll sit down. For an HOA? No, PUD. For how PUDs work. I don't think it prohibits you from creating lots. I don't either. It would allow me to create something that looks very similar. But I still would have the open space piece which would give everybody else the access and rights to potentially the back portion which is not really, I'd like to I've worked hard to acquire the property and I'd like to keep it that way. I don't believe you. I'm just curious how and why that works and if that's a problem. I'm happy to sit down with you. I'm redlining a lot of things as I go. If I have to add this to... If I can do something different with the PUD and I'm fairly talking about increased density you're really talking about a small piece of how a PUD works and I believe it's probably a conservation PUD required because of the agland? Is that what? No, I don't think I'd have to... I don't think so. He could take everything that's there but it has to be the whole parcel. That whole parcel is part of that PUD. He can build his houses. You could still build them the way you want to lose the ownership of the back and that's going to go into a joy or whatever you want to call it. Which is something that I would like not to have happen. I understand that. I'd like to be able to tell Bob that he can continue to hate the fields and I don't have to talk to six other neighbors about Bob's permission to hate the fields. We have a few of those larger properties in town, some up in the north community. To me the traditional neighborhood is very well there and I'd like to be able to sell that traditional neighborhood. So for you to build what you want on a quicker time frame is the PUD. For us to change the zoning on this time time and a lot of effort which doesn't say anybody here is against it we just looked at the property before you but that will be the difference. The town plan was able to pull out and go point for point with what the current I know you said you have to submit a document to explain why this parcel went against what the current town plan was or if I went point for point with that because I did read the town plan and I have walked through this again there are a lot of points in the town plan that I think describe a lot of the parcels to the north and the small piece that I'm looking to chuck off there are a lot of points that it just doesn't fit and I thought that would be helpful in moving things I mean part of it when I first read this town plan you don't often see ones that very specifically say no rezoning and this one says it I haven't done a count but it says it a lot and when I noticed that it said a lot to me in what the towns thing I wasn't here obviously when the last town plan was written and it's a very strong statement when you see that it tells you what the people who did write it were really feeling and thinking at the time and it's a very very strong statement that seems to want to protect that work obviously things change and so the plan changes with it but when you read that it's such a strong statement that it says if you do change this be very methodical and careful when you do the reason that is growth center again but the growth center was everything then the state was all over us but the growth center if we put a growth center in you will not build anywhere else you will shut down everything I really wasn't on board with the deal I'm going to tell you at the time but that's really what it was about that's why you see no zoning it's all about open space you have to accommodate in order to keep a growth center and all of the benefits that go with it you have to accommodate 50% of your growth in the next 20 years right there so you need to limit so if you look at the total number of units expected at severance corners you have to make sure that you're not exceeding 50% of that and the entirety of the rest of your community and so when you write the plan and you write the map they're going to review that plan density, that plan's use against that with the growth center for better or worse that's so that's what that's what they're looking at when you do a town plan they're doing a lot of behind the scenes work too there was probably multiple build out analyses that went into the potential growth in any of the future land use districts and those numbers have to come out under 50% so anytime you're changing that you have to justify that in relationship to the growth center tricky little things yeah so what are we thinking unfortunately I think we have to table it until the first of the year look at it again still on board still on board go ahead so this is where again the competing priorities for me is I'm thinking if you can do a PUD you know what I mean and give up some of your wish to not have the restrictions on the open land I mean I think if it was me I'd consider that instead of waiting and I realize I have two little kids and I think my parents actually were some of the ones that developed the milk pond condos, my parents bought that land when I was three actually I ended up selling some of the units there so I understand the time frames that some of these can take and the life cycle that the town goes through yeah and sometimes things just need to move forward and there's not enough, I realize time is important but sometimes there's just not enough time to sit and wait, especially in trying to time the market these developments when you start planning them out and when you start developing them it's almost like letting a bowling ball go and then having something with the pins at the end of it by the time the development's done if the market's not there to support the product that you end up building and the time, energy, effort, and money that you've invested in that project from the developer side if the market's not there to support the sales of those units it can be catastrophic I've seen it happen unfortunately too many times so yeah, no, you're right I've considered all angles my overall role would be to hopefully have some direction in the near future so that I can start planning and making adjustments but I have also considered going the PUD route that's just not my preferred route I'd love to be able to control the back portion of that land if my kid decides he wants to sort of tree farm or have a vegetable stand I'd like to be able to say, go for it there's your field, go play go up so you're a realtor the market is pretty unbelievable right now to sellers any idea of when it's anticipated that that's going to cool down a bit I wish I had a crystal ball I can tell you right now in Chippin County this morning when I looked in a balanced market we normally have around 800-850 houses available to look at in all of Chippin County we had 83 this morning and that's in all price ranges from the seasonal camps all the way up to, we've got a few properties in multi-million on the price range I had a fire consultation this morning I sat down with them their overall budget is about 300,000 in Chippin and Franklin County I had seven properties that they could look at none of them were single-family homes or condos or townhouses there is a massive lack of available inventory some of that's also you've got sellers that have properties that they love to move but they'd be competing in the same marketplace right now so they're staying home they're choosing to stay in their house so that trying to find the replacement house is just not there I mean I'd be happy to come and chat with way more detail we are Chippin County is actually most of Vermont but Chippin County specifically has a significant lack of housing inventory and there's not enough new housing starts to come anywhere close to satiate the need that and overall the costs are through the roof unfortunately we've done some things that people definitely want to be here there's no doubt about that I never left I'm a product of that I don't want to leave I don't want to leave so it looks like we'll table this one so you'll have at least another shot at it again January I don't know if January will be a specific discussion of each item I think it'll be like what is the work plan for the year and does the work plan include back to some of these so you might not have to come in for the shot we'll get to you at that time if we really wanted to pursue it we'll have a I leave you fully able before January 1st if you guys would like to change your mind and make adjustments I'm open to that I don't think everybody can tackle it you guys have to over I'm excited to see things that are happening I appreciate it just to continue to grow catching up inch by inch all good all good thank you thank you again alright so now we have the SR-2206 of Paul Simon and you want to take that yeah so so Paul is quite a distance away I left it up to him whether or not he wanted to attend but I did let him know that the plan commission has expressed that the growth center is a priority that it's probably the time to be tackling the form-based code because the issues have accumulated enough to take another look we've got more experience he's got to send me a short list it's a as you can see not very short that's what you said this? yeah this is his short list you know I haven't gotten into the very specific examples of each of them whether or not they're good ideas individually but I think as a whole it's the time to look at that entire subsection of the GD-3 form-based code district lots of lessons learned we sit down we write these things we envision a nice big square plot of land with no topography no natural resources no grid system it's wonderful and then you get out there in the real world and you realize how do you have this frontage met when you know there's a wetland that already takes up 50% of it how do you have 80% frontage build out the DRB is putting together a list they've reviewed now several they've had the experience of reviewing several buildings some things have popped up that even staff scratching our head on saying I don't know how we solve this I don't even know what we recommend to fix to meet this standard so I think we just look at it top to bottom I don't know that it's something that's going to require an outside expert I think we know where the problems lie and I think we can probably come up with fixes provided you know the you're able to give the policy direction on it I think we can find the language alright make sense yeah I wish I knew how long it would take but we'll see hopefully I'll give you a better idea before we kick it off yeah the master plan oh the form base yeah I was there McCulloch Tom McCalley Rebecca were you part of it no I wasn't either even if just the two of us came in for some kind of training for information I think what communities around the state are finding is that a full form base code doesn't really work you look at hybrid codes, you look at form base code lights, I mean you look at what the general goal is and the overall purpose of doing one and that's exactly why the trigger was pulled on form base code at the time there was only so much time and again this growth center had to be there was always time frames on this growth center how big it was I personally would have did it from Mill Pond he would have to come in for that all the way down to Blake to this building I thought that was the best case now we're running a sewer pipe right through here exactly what it did back then and this would have been a different look but anyways now where we're at we were given excellent time you can only do so much work in gd3 and commercial and residential so form base code at the time answered a lot of those questions so we're at the perfect spot now to take a closer look at what we've got for what it's worth I'm a big fan you just have to be really careful with it to not be so specific in design that you lose the overall aesthetic right yeah so we're just at this point so we're on board has a board continue on fix 43 with 44 yes and after that we'll discuss on the 45 the girl's center will be at least our priority next so 44 east lake shore and then the remands yep 43 45 well there's some staff things we'd like to bring to you that we've noticed is problematic in the rigs put those together I think they'll all be fairly simple yep yeah I think they're really straightforward, they're policy they're not just grammatical issues but I think they're fairly straightforward where in everything we've tabled we will be looking at at the end of the year at the end of the year we'll be looking at our work plan when you get to the work plan there's going to be a list of other things that we'll give you to figure out we're hearing a lot about signage which hasn't been touched in a very long time so this community is looking for changes there yep the impact of the sewer does that impact anything? no I think that I think that east lake shore and west lake shore has really that was going to happen anyway west lake shore was done it was done with the anticipation that there could be increased sewer there so I don't know if there's any immediate changes needed okay in two three weeks we'll talk about east lake shore I think barring anything that is really concerning I think that moves along fast I think I've heard from you I've heard a lot from people in communities that's what they want it's just a matter of writing it and looking at it and talking about it good all looking good alright first thing we need is a motion for the minutes of May 3rd I'll make a motion to approve the minutes second discussion all in favor aye alright Bob next I'll make a motion to adjourn second aye I'll approve we need to sign thank you all