 Four is going to be out and six is going to be out. So who's going to be out? What are you going to be out? I have no idea, but I don't know who I'm going to be out. What are you wearing? I'm sorry. What are you going to be out? You can sit right here. Is there anybody out? Brian. Brian. Yes. I think just for you. Just for you. You mean, because there's lawyers here? This is far away. I don't want to say who wasn't. So just for you, Joe. Okay, just, good. We're going to be accused of opium. You know, if the thing gives me brain trouble, and if we have some things we review and some things we don't do. Did you review my, uh, did you review the sign of the contract? Did you review the wording of it? I mean, it was like, I kind of, it just, I don't know. Is channel 17 ready? Yes, we are ready. We're going to get started. Okay. This is the, uh, developer review board for Burlington for, what do we, August 20th. So I would say that we take up items in the order they are on the agenda. Um, and when we call each item, we ask the applicant to come up to the table and please use the microphone. It's hard to hear in here. And, uh, microphones are part of our, uh, documentary, uh, official record of these hearings. There's a clipboard on the table there. We ask anybody who's an applicant or everybody who's participating or interested in participating to sign the clipboard at some point during the hearing. And we take testimony and oh, so each time we call an item that's under public hearing, we swear in anybody who wants to participate in that particular item. So, um, saying all that, the first item is our agenda. And we have a couple of changes to the agenda. Um, 221, 223 St. Paul Street is deferred to October 1st. That's correct. We don't need to make a motion or anything on that. That's right. The message came to be from the city attorney's office. Okay. Is anybody here for 221, 223 St. Paul Street? Okay. Um, we also have, um, is it 110 Riverside as also has a request for deferral to September 17th? Is anybody here for 110 Riverside? So that's going to be, we've had a subsequent request to bump that to the second meeting in October. So pending agreement by all the attorneys involved. It will be October 110, 110 Riverside, October 15th. I, are they the issues they're trying to address is that what's happening? Waiting for a traffic study. Waiting for traffic study. So that's going to be deferred until the second meeting in October. That's listed as a request. You haven't opened it yet. There was a request to defer it the first time it showed up on the agenda. So it has not yet been opened. We also have 37 Village Green. Um, that that was on our item. That is also, is that withdrawn? No, they just requested deferral to September 17th. The blue was. Is there anybody here for 37 Village Green? Okay. That's deferred. And we have one other item, uh, 68, Gazzo Avenue. And that is withdrawn. That's the idea. They didn't put that, they didn't request a draw. They just said they're not purchasing. So we're getting a withdrawal request from them. So if they haven't withdrawn it yet, let's defer it to give them the opportunity. The email that we received says, please remove us from the development review board schedule. We had to terminate the purchase. I think that indicates it's withdrawn. Yeah. I think so. I mean, they can pay the fee again. So, um, if anybody's here for 68 Gazzo, that's also withdrawn. We still have a few other items left. So don't despair. Okay. Um, so then communications. We had communications, which had to do with some of those withdrawals. Um, we also have minutes in our packet from. August 6th, which if anybody has any corrections, please let me know. Um, so then our first next item on the agenda is the consent agenda. And that first item is 3090 North Avenue. Uh, Winooski Valley Park District is the applicant here. Do you want to come up to the table? And this is on the agenda for consent. Yes. And have you seen the staff report and their recommendations? Absolutely. And you're okay with that? Totally. Yep. It's a nice project. I mean, what a, what a wonderful thing. Um, I'm sure it's rare that you consider buildings being taken away instead of being put in place. Well, I was biking by there this morning and looking over at it. It's quite beautiful. Um, does anybody on the board object to treating this as a consent item? Nope. Does anybody in the public object to treating this as a consent item? When is this going to happen? Uh, we got our final approval for FEMA funding. So the buildings have come down and sometime in the next couple of months would be starting this fall and probably finishing up in the spring. So next spring we could be out there. Yes. Okay. Can I have a motion on 3090 North Avenue? Sure. On 3090 North Avenue, I move that we approve the application and adopt staff's findings and recommendations. I'll second that. Any discussion? All in favor? Opposed? Thank you. Thank you. Good luck. No. I guess hopping right into it. The next item is 266 College Street, Hotel Y or former Y. The applicant want to come up. Anybody else? So I guess the first thing I want to do is anybody who wants to participate in this item, please raise your right hand. And do you swear to tell the whole truth in pain and penalty of perjury? I do. Okay. If you want to introduce yourself and I will note just for the public, this is something I think we are all learning about as we go through that this is in the form-based code district. So the review is different. It's orchestrated by certain restrictions. And a part of it is mandated that if they follow certain prescriptive things, those parts are approval. There are other things that are more subjective to develop a review board review. So we will try to follow those things as we go through it. Pardon? Yes. Any questions? Okay. Why don't we get into it a little bit? No, no. Yes. Do you have an estimated time where you're going to get to other agenda items? Are you carrying the truth for 132 Street? That's right. Is there anyone else here on 132 Street? It's a wonderful part of the public process. I see it in action. Anyways, Clary, do you want to introduce yourself and take a moment? Okay. Thank you. I'm Clary Buckley with Smith Buckley Architects. We have representatives from VHB, our civil engineer, and traffic consultants, and historic preservation consultants. Unfortunately, our client, Scott Silver, hasn't made it here yet. I'm not quite sure where he is, but he may come through any minute, hopefully. We were here not too long ago for sketch plan review. So some of you at least have seen a preview of this project. It hasn't changed dramatically since that presentation, although we did make some adjustments to the design, to respond to comments that we got from the design advisory board, and we have continued to work to try to make the project comply with all of the form district checklist requirements. I'm working with Mary and Scott Gustin to try to align the project with that and the goals of the city. There are a number of things that we are going to ask you to use your discretion to grant things that are allowed in the code. The first one is the height of the project by right. We can build four stories and 45 feet in this district. There is language in the ordinance that then says the project can go up to six stories and 65 feet at the DRB's discretion, and then there's an additional 20% that you have discretion to grant. So we're asking for additional height, and one of the requirements for you to apply that discretion, this is Scott Silver, our client. Can I just swear you in? Do you want to raise your right hand? Everybody else just wanted to know. Do you want to tell the truth and hold truth under pain and penalty of perjury? Yes, I do. Thank you. Oh, so one of the requirements for the DRB to use their discretion to give us additional height is that the DAB needs to recommend approval, and they did. I think before I get into some of the other things where we're going to ask you for your discretion, I'd like to turn it over to Scott for just a moment to introduce the project from the owner's perspective. Sure. So thanks for allowing us here this evening. As most of you know from seeing the plan, we're looking to develop... You have to keep the microphone closed yet. Sorry. We're looking to develop 142-key Cambria Hotel, which will be six stories. We'll have 5,000 square feet of meeting space, primarily on the sixth floor. 77 parking spaces all underground. As you know, the requirement is just for 61, so we're somewhat over-parked. Yeah, we think it's an exciting development both for Burlington as well as for the Y site. We think it's a great adaptive reuse of the historic building. And I think that Smith-Buckley's done a superb job of not only keeping it within a viable scale, but at the same time preserving the 266 College, the four-story historic building. And notwithstanding the fact that this is a for-profit development, this will have a very significant impact on the city of Burlington. And based on our tax calculation, we will be contributing well over a million dollars a year to both the city and the state in the way of additional revenue as it is a non-tax paying parcel today. In terms of the viability of the project, it is very important to us to have the full 142-keys so that it can really function properly from both a operational standpoint, meeting space standpoint, and venue also. I think it was clearly probably mentioned that we were looking to have a restaurant and bar on the sixth floor, which would be I think very exciting for Burlington, something that I understand will be the only one in the state. And we're looking forward to capturing some of those lovely sunsets over Lake Champlain. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks. It occurs to me that I kind of jumped into some of the things that we are asking for your help with, but it might make sense to give a quick overview because I think not everyone here was present for sketch plan. And I also would say that was a good, it's good to keep those things in mind, but I think the basics of where you are asking for things, I thought it was a good lead-in too, so I hope you will get back to that. I certainly will. So you can see this is the ground floor plan with College Street here, South Union at the bottom of the page, and North is to the right is to the actual south of this room. The plan is to have the vehicle drop off on College Street and then have the main entrance right at the corner of the existing historic Y building on the corner of South Union. And so guests will enter a lobby, a reception, there will be some food and beverage service available within this space. There's an outdoor dining patio on South Union on the east, and then we're also proposing an outdoor dining patio on College Street, on the College Street side of the building. There are hotel rooms that wrap around the project at this level, and then, sorry, that's what I was doing. Well, I'm sorry, this is embarrassing. Well, okay, I'm going to concede defeat on that for a moment. I think that you all have plans in your packet. Great of you. Can you get the exterior views up there too? What's that? Can you get the exterior views up on the... Yeah, okay. So I have the rendering. Well, these are all helpful if you walk through the project with these or renderings either way. I think I can tell you that in staff review, we working with Cleary have successfully worked through the checklists. The things that are outstanding are those things that are under the discretion of this board. There are three areas that the project is looking for particular discretion, and I can be very concise. They can ask first for the height to go from 45 to 65 feet. That's under DRB review. Anything up to 45 feet, we could have reviewed administratively. Going up to 65 feet requires this board's review. The second area of discretion is alternative compliance, and they are seeking alternative compliance in two areas. One is additional height beyond 65 feet, and that is the 20% allowance that Cleary's made reference to. So that is noted in the Article 14 section at the end of your staff report. So the first discretion is up to 65. The second one is asking for alternative compliance, and they have to demonstrate a specific reason. Reasons meeting certain criteria that they need to go higher than 65. The third area of DRB discretionary review is floor-to-floor height on the first floor. In the form district codes, 14 feet is required for to floor on the first floor. The project is providing 12 feet, five and three-quarters inches, I believe, and I'm sure that their project design team will want to go into further detail there. And lastly, the board is looking at major impact and conditional use review, conditional use, because there is a partial demolition of an historic building, and they are proposing outdoor dining within 100 feet of a residential area. There you go. Thank you, Mary. Thank you. So I did manage somehow to get some plans. So on the second floor, you can see that we're keeping the historic gabled roof portion of the Y that's on the corner, and then building to the north. And so we have guest rooms that form a U-shape as we go up. There will be a vegetated roof that's within this U that we're using to help control stormwater and also to give a view to the guest rooms when they're... The floors going up are largely the same footprint. They change a little bit around the existing Y because it changes as it goes up. But the floor layout is largely consistent until you get to the sixth floor where, as Scott mentioned, we're proposing to have a rooftop bar and restaurant and then a number of meeting rooms with some outdoor terrace areas that will look out over to the city to the west. And as Scott mentioned, we really don't have this kind of feature in the city, although they exist in a lot of other cities, are very popular, and we think this will be a real draw here and will provide a place that the whole community will enjoy. So Mary mentioned the height, so I'm going to come back to that. 65 feet. Well, first off, we're trying to align our floors with the existing YMCA floors. The current building has many level changes, which is one of the reasons that the Y has left it. We're proposing to remove a large part of the Y that has those level changes, but still our goal is to have floors that are even and don't have a lot of ramps and stairs, so we're planning to match the Y. Well, let's see. You can see here that 65 feet falls kind of in the middle of our sixth floor, so the building steps back where my pointer is, is South Union Street, and so the building steps back as it goes west, and in order to have a reasonable ceiling height on the sixth floor, we feel that we need to go 4.5 feet, which is just under 7% higher than the 65 feet, and then we would like to pop up an additional 3 feet on the very west side of the building, and this is so that the bar and the restaurant can have a little higher ceiling, a little more glass for the views. It'll give us a little more flexibility to run HVAC equipment up there because those kind of uses have higher heating and cooling loads than kitchen equipment. The rendering has this modeled, but it's so far back that you can't see that bump from any public view or any of the street public views, rather. Can you point out the ridge of the existing building on that? On this? Yeah. Let's see. I think it's probably easiest to show it here. Can I ask a question about your floor plan? Can you go back to the front view? Excuse me? The front view, looking at it where you see the existing historic building? Yeah, that one. South facing west corner of the building, of the new constructed building. What are those? The west side. Oh, the west side? Yeah, west side, right there. What's that corner? Those are rooms, individual rooms? They are rooms, and this is stepped back from the... And if I'm looking at floors, that would be the fifth floor? This is the fifth floor right here. That's the spot right there. You can see here that the proposal is to have the drop-off here on College Street. We think this is the right place for a lot of reasons, but some of them are that College Street is two-way, and it's the street that's connected with Church Street. It's a more commercial feeling street and a wider street. South Union is one way and has a bike lane, and so we really felt like having the drop-off here made a lot of sense. The entrance and exit from our underground parking is here, so people can drop off and then go down and park. You can see that this part of the project... It has guest rooms, but we've held it back to try to respect the historic part of the project. Do those planting bump-outs, do they come out beyond the existing sidewalk, or is that...? They do, but not beyond the parking. So they're within the zone of the current parking. So that's city-owned, or will-be-city-owned, maintained? Yes. It bumps out at the corner as well, which we'll see as the rendering moves up. This is something that we think is very consistent with the Great Streets and Plan BTV Walk Bike. It doesn't reduce the drive lane at all, but it reduces the crossing distance for pedestrians. It's one of the things that, like the planters... I'm sure you've seen it around town. There have been different interventions that seek to make the pedestrian crossings shorter. We think that this is good and consistent with what the city is trying to do to make things more pedestrian-friendly. This is the main entry after people drop off. The current why has an entrance here of some steps, but it's too small. It's really not appropriate for a hotel where people are trying to get in with luggage and lots of people coming and going. The proposal is to open up this face of the existing building, have our main entrance into there. Hi. The idea is that people will make a left if they're coming because it's one way on South Union. The only way to get there is either down college or from South Union, but they'll make a left, park their car, unload, and then go around the corner to that door. Yes, they will unload here, and then it's not very far, but they'll... I mean, I know. Is there going to be anything... I just wouldn't do that. Excuse me? I just doubt I would do that. That's what I'm struggling with. And that's a one-lane road there. So the concern is that you get a bunch of people unloading their cars on a snowy winter night at 4.30 p.m. Right in front of the entrance. Right. You mean right here? Yeah. What about the drop-offs and things like that? Well, I believe that it will be staffed, and I'm sure that we will be coming back for signage as well, and there's been some talk about possibly having a monument sign or something that further directs people to the drop-off. We're going to do everything we can to make that left onto college, because otherwise they're going to go around a very long block to get back to the parking garage. So we want to be as visible as possible. Is that also going to be the entrance to access the rooftop bar and restaurant? Yes. This will be the entrance for that, or one can come in the existing door to the Y. That'll remain active. And there are parking spaces beyond this planting area on South Union. Someone stopping here will be essentially stopping in the middle of the road. And I suppose that people do that sometimes at the current Y situation, but it's uncommon that someone, I think, will block a whole street. Is it not to have, not to flip it, not to have the cutout in front of that main door? Seems like the space is equivalent. We can't get to the parking. Then we've got them having to go around the block to access the garage. It was, I mean, somebody raised the thing about, you know, cabs at Uber. You know, if somebody's coming there, it would be a lot easier for them to drop people off on Union Street, it seems, if they were not going to the garage. I don't know if maybe that's trying to discourage people from going to Union Street because it is a residential street. I'm not sure if that's why that's being avoided. Well, it's a border street, but it is one way. And certainly people negotiate one-way streets, but it will push more traffic into the residential district to get people looping around. Isn't it going to back up traffic at that four-way intersection, though, as a car parks right there? Then you've got three other vehicles, presumably rush hour traffic other times. It's going to back the whole area if there isn't clear markings on where vehicles should be pulling over to access. And I understand you're going to come back for a second. I think there will be clear markings, but we have a traffic study, which maybe it makes sense for Jen to speak about that. But one thing I'll note is that the current use at this corner in the morning drop-off time and the evening drop-off time is really intense. Particularly the childcare programs that the Y is running generate a huge demand for parking and pickup and drop-off at this location right now. And our projection is that the hotel demand will actually be much more spread out throughout the day. And we think that there will be less traffic backup and less problem with that with the use we're proposing. Do you have someone who did the traffic study? Yep. Good evening. I'm Jen Conley. I'm from BHB, and we conducted the traffic study. Just to try to address this comment, there's two different items that are relevant to here. One, obviously, we know that anywhere in the city, if someone wants to drop-off in a space, they're not supposed to. They will. That is very, very difficult to regulate, obviously. There are people double parking all over. However, in this case, whether it is an Uber, a Lyft, a taxi cab, typically the passenger is sitting on the opposite side than the driver and would be getting out onto the sidewalk and this drop-off situation is set up for that. And so that certainly is one thing to note. Unless there's a couple, right? True. I mean, there certainly, there could be more than one. I'm not here to tell you that it is not possible that someone might pull up there, but as has already been stated, instead of it being cars there or potentially, you know, we've all seen the vehicle who kind of double parks and people can sneak around them, with this bump out, they would really be in the traveling. It would be very difficult for people to maneuver around that person, so there certainly would be the pressure if someone were to pull up there. But the point is definitely true that for the people who are coming in their own car to be able to pull and then immediately pull into the parking garage, it is the most efficient movement. That combined with the drop-off scenario where the typical drop-off is kind of diagonally behind the driver and not directly behind the driver led to this proposed layout. Was there discussions with DPW as to parking restrictions on Union Street or College Street relative to these areas that we're looking at? There was, actually, the only real parking discussion that I was a part of, and the site engineer is here with me as well and can weigh in on any other parking discussions, but one of the things that we were asked to look at is the use of the handicapped space out front and the possibility of relocating that handicapped space. But that was really the only discussion. That was really their concern in regards to the number of parking spaces and where they were provided. They did not raise a critique to us about the drop-off. So I'm looking at the traffic setting. It looks like on College Street that the primary accidents appear to be site swipes. I'm just a little concerned that the way that this is, you know, we've got more traffic being pressured into moving this direction because that's where the entrance is. How are we not exacerbating the likelihood of increased site swipes? Well, the locations that had the real heavy site swipes and the critical factor for accidents because they were above the average crash rate were not at this location. This was actually one of the locations and DPW did, and their peer review consultant did review that for us and confirmed with us that at none of the locations that are at a critical level of crashes are we adding any traffic at those locations. But I do understand your concern and that concern ends up, those site swipes are at a lot of locations where someone is attempting to take a left and is queuing and waiting to take the left and somebody does try to pass around them. So I do understand the concern. At this location it isn't a high crash location and isn't as much of a concern. And along those lines are similar on the bicycle safety because you talked about people trying to go around. So I assume there's not enough space for somebody to try to pull into the bicycle lane and then try to go around the other way. One, and then two, going down College Street, have you talked at all with the city about how to mitigate potentially because it's a major bike thoroughfare, how to mitigate somebody pulling into the drop-off without noticing bicycles to there? That actually is a good point that was not raised during the review. That wasn't something that we specifically looked at as far as visibility for bikes. And so I don't have an answer for you on that. I'm sorry, I thought the traffic study was in our packet and I was trying to remember. Does it include traffic generated by the 6-4 restaurant and bar? It does. So the land use code, the Institute of Transportation Engineers provides us with data to estimate land uses, a number of them. And in this case for a hotel, they specifically identify including restaurant and bar space in the hotels that they surveyed. So all of the data points that were used to come up with the rates that I used did include hotels that had bars and restaurants. Is that public bars and restaurants or like the Main Street heading south? Because this land use has so many data points, I would believe that it has both public and potentially private, but I think publicly offered bars, the bars tend to be publicly offered in most hotels. So I believe an odd number of those include the publicly offered ones. If you weren't able to read the whole traffic study, if you were able to, I'd give you a gold medal. I don't believe I included the appendix, which was in the hundreds of pages, so I didn't think you'd get to that. That's right. Exactly. So I'm very grateful that the consultant is present. I did receive an email from our transportation engineer at DPW. This came just before the hearing tonight. I can summarize in saying, we agree that the project is not anticipated to cause unreasonable congestion or unsafe conditions on the adjacent roadway network. So that is the one sentence that concurs with VHB's memorandum dated today. And I'd be happy to share that with you before you get rid of that slide, Clary. What's that? Before you get rid of that slide. Okay. One other issue that that slide points up, which was in the staff report, has to do with the treatment of the historic building at the corner. And this is probably an opportunity to address that as well. Since that's the original brick form there and you're cladding it, and there was some discussion in the staff report about that relative to historic issues. Yeah. The approach that we're proposing is to actually add a cladding over the existing brick structure. This helps to identify the entrance, I think. It also gives it a slightly more contemporary feel. And we think helps to draw people to that spot. I was trying to open up some photos of the existing. Though it's a nice old building, the way that it interacts with the street is not very engaging. And we don't think it's very consistent with the goals of the form-based code and plan BTV. It is generally the windows are high and it's fairly opaque and there's not a lot of interaction. Well, looking at the corner. So I'm getting through the corner. But so the reason that I talk about that is that the experience from College Street, which is really kind of the main connector to the center of the city, is along a building that currently does not engage with the street. Even though there's a wide sidewalk, it doesn't draw you in. And so we feel like having some kind of more contemporary and different treatment at that corner is important to signal to people that this is where the entrance is and that there's an important place to go to. We think that wrapping this existing structure and leaving the brick inside is a sensitive approach, although we are making a large new opening in it, so that's changing it. But you could argue that it's reversible. You could take the cladding off at a later point. And I guess not if you're under the canopy, but from a distance you can still read the form very clearly, and you can see the brick and the window and the slate roof and the cornice above the canopy. I guess just to my eye, I think Mary may cringe at this. To me, leaving a little bit of that brick and cladding the bottom, it's like you cut it off at the knees and it's sort of a silly element at this point. But it's a historic part of the building and not to have it come down to the ground somehow. You've got the canopy there. It seems to me there's other ways where you could at least expose some of the brick below the canopy to see that brick above terminate somewhere instead of floating up in the air. The intent was that you would see that as you moved in through the lobby on the interior. I understand that Mary doesn't... This was part of the historic nature of the building. You're tearing down the middle section on Union Street, which was part of the original building. I don't think anybody's really giving an argument on that piece of it. This was one part of the original building that there is some concern whether it's being dealt with appropriately given the historic nature of the building and that this particular solution doesn't seem as sensitive as it could be to the nature of this element. I agree you're trying to make the entrance get a canopy. Maybe there's other things that you could do. It just seems maybe this isn't exactly the right solution. Okay. I can tell you that we looked at a lot of different approaches to trying to work with this. Maybe we didn't find the best one, but this seemed like the one that had the lightest touch to the existing form, allowed it to read with still giving us an appropriately prominent entrance. I don't want to be to death. It's something we can talk about here and see where we end up with it. Mary, I have a question for you. Were you in the design advisory board meeting? For the South Union facade, was there a discussion around that? Do you remember? I read the minutes, but they weren't very inclusive. Which part of the facade? The South Union and the height of the building on the South Union. Were there new construction? There was. If you read their motion, they did support a discretionary review of additional height. That's quite evolved. Our obligation is only to record the motion and the decision. They are an advisory board. I'm sure the motion is designed to relate to the form-based code, which is what they're obligated. The form-based code applies. For the particular entrance on the corner, and I too do not want to beat this, but this is not what Mary wants. It's what the standards are. And the form-based code specifically says, if properties are listed as historic, and I'm looking at section 4.6.5, then the standards relative to the review of historic buildings and sites applies. And that there should be no understanding that following the guidelines of the form code should damage the integrity of an historic building. I've paraphrased that. So it bumps directly to 548, and 548 says, don't goober up historic buildings. You have historic materials, and if there is an opportunity to change that, then that has to reserve a tent of examination. And I would agree that that's goobered up the way it is at the moment. Can I ask what's being attached to this? I don't think the design advisory board took exception with it. Can I ask what's being attached to the front of the building? At the corner? No. Over the outside seating area. Yeah, over the outside seating area. This part here? And facing college. Or here. Let's see. There's a well-documented problem with snow and ice coming off the roof in this location. A lot of the winter, the sidewalk is roped off so that people aren't getting hit. So we're proposing to add a canopy off the south side of the building that will take care of that problem. And then we are proposing to add a patio along the south side that, again, is a move that's intended to help this building engage with the street, provide a more active streetscape. And we think that this is really consistent and supportive of the goals of the form-based code. There's language in there that we interpret anyway as really actively trying to promote buildings and streetscapes that are porous and that create more activity and more life along the street. I guess I want to make sure that the board has asked questions they want. There's a lot of public that has questions, too. And I don't know if there's more of a presentation that you want to get through. So I'd like to... The issues that Mary raised at the outset, which had to do with historic nature, the height, which I think the story elevation of the first floor, that seems relatively straightforward given the nature of the existing building, the overall 20% issue on top. You're making an argument there for the view and the nature of the building. I believe that's what you're saying. So getting back to the height, I think that this view helps illustrate how the building is stepping back. This is just under 7% over 65 feet and the part that pops up three more feet is you can't see it from here. One other thing that Brian just reminded me that I forgot to mention is that on the sixth floor we have actually created a well in which we have placed the cooling tower for the hotel so that it is actually sitting on the sixth floor rather than sitting on the roof. And you can see that there's louvers here that that's where that would be. Mechanical equipment is not counted within that height limit but we felt like this was a responsible thing to do given that we're asking for more height was to not ask for it and then stick a cooling tower on top. So that's something that we have done to try to mitigate the height. At Sketchplan you asked us for views from South Union Street and so here's one looking through the city market entrance, the vehicular entrance, you can see the building back there. And then you also asked us for an image that shows how the building relates to the church. The church steeple, do you know? Excuse me? Do you know how tall the church steeple is? I do not. So we'd like you to give us some relief on the height. That's one thing. The next thing is the ground floor to floor height. The ordinance calls for 14 feet. The existing Y, first floor to floor, floor one to floor two height is 12 foot. I think it's actually seven and a half. But it's less than 14 feet. We would love to have a taller ceiling in our lobby in all honesty but we are working with an existing structure and that's why we're asking for the relief on that and the ordinance does give you the authority to grant that. And then what was the last, I guess there's the issue on the corner of the entrance and whether, I don't feel like cladding that corner and leaving the structure within is goobering it up but I understand there's some different, some opinion. I'm sure there's more questions to come at this point before we open up to the public. Anything else? You're going to have a chance to come back. The public may have things that they raised to anything you want to say before we do that. So I'm assuming there's people here who would like to make a comment. Come on up and introduce yourself. I'm Andrea Rogers and I'm here at College Street Church, I'm a trustee of the church. I must say I've had trouble trying to comprehend this code and the things have changed all along. Every time I study it there's something different. So I've written something up and express our concerns whether you hear them or they have any effect. I don't know. Thank you for allowing me to speak. The College Street Church as you know is directly opposite the YMCA building proposed to become the Cambria Hotel. I'm raising concerns about scale which incorporates the requested height variance for the building and added number of rooms being proposed and the impact of the occupancy on the neighborhood. I'm raising concerns about safety particularly in the area of the parking lot entrance and the grass. And I'd like to speak to the treatment of the historic property as well as the proposed change in landscaping. So let's start with scale. At the NPA the room number was presented as 110 though the notes don't say that. I took notes myself. But I did understand shortly thereafter that it's now in the 140s. And I guess you're not currently requesting it to go any higher than 144. But those numbers I guess do relate to the height request which is to go from 45 to 65 and then further up another to 72 or 75. I'm not quite sure. But a number of studies have been done seeming to imply that downtown can easily absorb the new traffic. But our experience is clearly that the area is already at capacity and while the hotel would be replacing the Y the Y is just moving half a block up the street. So they're still here basically. So this isn't the no impact building. When we say capacity we mean parking and traffic. As a church we provide a certain amount of parking. We have our lot the evening and weekend use of the law firm on South Union. We use as many spaces as are available by the library. But parking has been a growing challenge particularly for our seniors and our young families exacerbated by the growing number of brunch goers and marathons. We realize the garage is planned and that it meets the required formula for parking spots. And I learned today that there is a plan for valley parking if the need exceeds that. So perhaps my point has less impact. But when you add the number of rooms the conference areas, the employees and rooftop bar and restaurant designed to attract more than the hotel's guests there will no doubt be some stress on the neighborhood including the day care center. We have a day care center which is actually still part of the Y. Our church goers and attendees at concerts, weddings and funerals primarily on the weekends but that's substantial. The garage entrance and exit location raises serious safety concerns. It's directly opposite our driveway which is daily the drop off site for a sizeable day care center located in the basement. Getting out of the driveway is taking your life in your hands. Due to the difficult sight lines up the hill bicycles, oncoming traffic, turning traffic coming down as well as a bus stop and library traffic joining the street going up. It's a weekday challenge and it's a weekend challenge. And the same issues present themselves for our Sunday services. This adds to the other challenges we already faced to provide adequate handicapped parking and drop off. Which as has been mentioned on South Union Street it's an extremely difficult problem because the handicapped people have to get out in the middle of the street and their bollards on the other side to protect the bicycle lane which I'm told are going to go back in. So there's no way to go around the person that's being dropped off in the middle of the street. So I certainly understand the decision to put the drop off on College Street but I do think that the area is more stressed than has been acknowledged in the parking study. Just a minute, I'm trying to find my place on here. But in trying to study the issues, we're particularly concerned about, or haven't added concern about the bump outs which look beautiful but they actually, they've got landscaping on them and they come out through what's currently the parking space and consequently anyone coming out of the driveway will have to drive into the street in order to see what's coming down from up above. So I'm concerned about those bump outs that have, they look great and I know they're part of the great streets or whatever it is we're having but I think that they also create some problems and I think they'll create problems on the corner as well in terms of people turning, bicycles, et cetera. And I think it's more, that's probably more about the city than the developer. In trying to study this issue, we're exploring whether the city would allow us to exit our parking lot through Memorial Auditorium Driveway along with the library and we hope maybe they'll consider an improvement to the uphill sight lines. And we're working with people already on this but we still wanna raise a concern particularly about safety on College Street. As an historic property in the historic district we're sensitive to the overwhelming scale proposed for the hotel building. With all due respect it feels like a behemoth. The rooftop restaurant overwhelms the historic face of the Y with its roof and gables and the South Union Street view is overpowering. We, a modest but vibrant church community, raised a considerable amount of money after a recent fire in order to restore our beautiful steeple and its bell and clock because of its significance not just to us but also to the community. So we care about the historic facade and feel nervous about the scale of what's behind it. Let's see. In addition I understand that the current trees which aren't elms but nonetheless they're sizable trees are being taken out and then there's some new landscaping and some bushes that are in pots around on the terrace. But it was originally a plan of the city to have trees opposite each other and have a kind of archway or canopy coming into the downtown and it softens the urban environment and as I understand it at least from everything that I read all the documents that the landscaping issues haven't yet been addressed by the arborist. So I just feel like we shouldn't necessarily allow a kind of wipe out of trees across the facade and that should be considered. So in closing I hope the Development Review Board will give our concerns some consideration as you conduct your review. We appreciate the developer and we appreciate the effort they've made to contribute to Burlington. We wish to be good neighbors but we want to be heard about before the decisions are final. Thank you. Can I ask you a question before you go? Sure. Do you know how high your steeple is? I don't know. But you can kind of see it on that. I mean it is high but... I'm just curious. It's not like we have tours going up to the top looking out over it but... We did rebuild it. We did rebuild it and we have Tiffany windows. I mean it's an important site but I know they're trying hard the developers are trying hard too but it's a huge project for us to envision so we hope you'll think about that. Thank you and I really am concerned. I mean my husband was in a wheelchair I've had to drop him off in all kinds of places and it's really, really tough. And then South Union, I mean I believe there still needs to be some concern about even a taxicab dropping people off there. I mean it's a concern. I don't know. It'll have to be addressed in some way. Thanks. Thank you. Somebody else from the public? Hi, good afternoon. I'm Sharon Busher. I'm a City Councilor from Ward 1 and this is not in my ward but Councillor Roof who does represent this ward and I met with members of the church and the developer earlier today to talk about some of the very issues that you've raised and have been raised by Andrea. So I'm not speaking for Councillor Roof. I'm speaking for myself. And so my primary concern has to do with the bump outs and College Street as a route to the waterfront and the College Street shuttle. And I use that road all the time. You and those of you who use it know there's parking on both sides. If there is a bus and a car sometimes with parking on both sides the bus and the car, it's tight. And oftentimes people pause and let the bus go by before they move forward. So I'm really concerned about applying. I'm concerned about our city asking the developer to apply the Great Streets criteria to College Street which is not the width of Main Street and the fact that I'm really concerned about the bump outs. I'm concerned about the fact that this is College Street's access to our library. And I really don't see how this is going to work. I was on the street today, looked at those pictures and the bump outs really, they're not like parked cars because when a parked car is not there people can kind of navigate over there if they want to allow something wider to go by. You can't do that with a bump out. You can't do that. The other thing is I'm not a bike, I don't bike and bikers probably don't feel like I advocate strongly enough for them but I do. And when there were some proposed bump outs on Colchester Avenue, Chase Street, Colchester Avenue some of the real bikers said that when you have to navigate around a bump out it forces the bike to move into a lane of traffic potentially in order to make that corner. So I'm really worried about what that does for bicyclists and traffic. I don't see how this works. I'm a pedestrian but I do believe that the distance between those two intersections from one curb to the other you can navigate it. I don't think you need to make it that much shorter. I'm sorry, I'm speaking for myself as a pedestrian and other people. I think people do stop and allow people to go. So that's one issue. The second issue is that when they came to make the presentation to begin with I really didn't understand why the entrance wasn't on Union Street as opposed to college and I still don't understand the drop off. People say number of things that are competing they'll say that in today's world most people don't drive to a hotel they take a cab. If they take a cab and so I take mass transportation to Boston all the time because I have an eye condition and so I take the megabus I take a cab and I go to a hotel and I go to a doctor every four weeks almost religiously. So I'm pretty savvy with where cabs drop you off. They drop you off right smack in front of the entrance. People are not going to if it's inclement weather want to walk around the corner in the rain they're going to want to be dropped off right in front of the entrance. That's a fact and that's how most hotels do it and they have a canopy that protects you from the inclement weather so the distance from the cab so I don't understand why so if most people are going to come by cab or Uber or whatever I don't understand why the drop off isn't going to be on Union Street I really don't and if you made if that sidewalk's so wide you can make the bump out or you can make the drop off into that wide sidewalk so that you aren't putting people into the street. It's a one-way street I didn't do a traffic study but I would think there was probably far more traffic on College Street than Union Street so so if cars aren't really coming that often and if you do bring a car I also heard that most of the time you hand it off to have valet parking so that could be on Union 2 and the valet person could drive around the block they're not going to be the client or the customer so I'm still not satisfied with the orientation of the drop off to where the entrance is and I'm very concerned about how this impacts College Street the church has stated their needs and their concerns and the fact that with that bump out I do agree that the car coming out of the parking area from the hotel will have to be right smack in College Street in order to see anything so I'm really I think this needs I support the project, I want it to go forward I love so much about it but the traffic and the drop off points are my issue thank you Anybody else in public have any comments? Hi I'm Tim O'Brien I'm the owner of 260 College Street which is adjacent to the project I guess for what they've presented so far which I think is a beautiful project I just want to say it up front my only question is by allowing the height are you setting a precedent for the rest of the block to be able to have higher buildings and I guess that would be my that's my only question at this point I want to extrapolate from this project to other sites on the block directly it would be a case by case it would be a case by case situation and most of them won't have the scale of site that this project has I understand but I guess at this point that's my only question thank you anybody else from the public want to come up Mary I have a question and with all the conversation about great streets that is somewhat outside of our realm as being within the right of way I'm really the thunder cloud tonight at the picnic aren't I almost all of that conversation is outside your review you have some review relative to your comfort level with circulation and certainly the adequacy of parking but there is a great deal that's involved in this complex plan that's in the public right of way the applicant and their design team will be obligated to go through that process of getting encroachment allowances through that will ultimately go through city council and we do have to we do have to consider traffic impacts under 5 3.5 right through the conditional use criteria and the performance standards correct that's correct the concern we had relative to street plantings and review by the city arborist I do have communication there is there has been communication between the applicant team and the arborist so I'm aware that's happening but the DRB does not have purview in the right of way and the review of the finalization of the footprint within the right of way you say that goes before the city council that does not involve hearing by the public works commission or anything like that since some of it will involve parking standards drop off areas it's entirely orchestrated by the department of public works if it needs to go to the commission that would be at their direction but the encroachment allowances are city council review and authority so there may be another opportunity to make comments at that point but the particular so what I'm hearing is that in terms of our review talking about where drop-offs happen in terms of circulation that's something that's within what we're reviewing and discussing the exact shape of the bump outs and things like that are somewhat beyond our scope not that we won't make comments but I mean certainly it's important to see the entire project the scope so we can understand those design solutions but you can't really look at the design without those elements so if the applicant wants to come up there were a couple of other particular issues that maybe if you want to come back up and touch on is that one of them was had to with bike parking and whether you're going to be making an application for that to happen within the public right of way I think that was one of the staff comments that there's also some discussion about the hours for the outside dining or on Union Street as being in a residential neighborhood we're also staff comments that were looking for response than any other follow-up you have in terms of the hours for the you're talking about the patio on the college street side it's really Union Street side which is relative to residential area I think on both sides it's going to be they're going to be daytime use because the nighttime activities will really be on the rooftop so there'll be coffee in the morning at that bar there'll be light bites and beer in the afternoon but essentially the lobby will then end up winding down and the activities will move upstairs so it's not going to be a 2 a.m. situation I think that was a concern, thank you and you show bike parking on Union Street at the north end of the project is that it shows up with some renderings I'm not sure it's already in it's hard to tell it is shown on your site plan too yeah we we're proposing to have some bike parking in the garage there's a requirement for long-term bike parking in short-term we'll have the long-term in the garage which we think is an excellent place for it we we propose to put the short-term bike parking here we need 14 spaces and we can fit them here on the site site plan it's a little bit different it's a little bit different than what's rendered here we do have a stanchion where two bikes could fit right here as well so we are planning to put bike parking at the street are there other questions for the applicant that the board has I guess I have a question about since the ward 1 and ward 8 NPA meetings the increase in rooms do you know what that is in reference to and where that is I think with all due respect they think the 110 number is an error I believe we presented 144 rooms at that location at no time did we we've never proposed that it's never been a discussion that might have been the number at which I could not do the project I guess I don't really have any more questions then I want to say I'm really excited about the college street facade I think it looks very nice I think it's great use of historical building plus the sick story look out I think to the max height so far doesn't bother me at all with some of the concerns that I forget the gentleman's name raised but in terms of establishing kind of a new height for south union it does seem like you know that facade is considerably taller than it was before and I wondered if you considered any additional sit backs on the fifth floor or anything along those lines well actually we did have some set backs between four and five and we could make it work with the program aesthetically we thought that it did not look as good actually it looked more choppy and we have some expressions of some sort of vertical elements within this horizontal structure that we thought helped aesthetically so yeah just to be clear is 72.5 feet the height that you're really requesting there were two steps up on the top there is that the upper level or is that the first one do you want to I'm sorry talking about the 72.5 feet that's the upper one because you mentioned a step happening at the west side of the top floor I just want to make sure we're looking at the right number let me just go to the let me go to the roof plan for a moment so it's here for the non-architect these diagonals are just showing roof pitches to drains this is the historic roof below south union is here this is that brick form at the north east corner then the 5th floor then the 6th floor roof this is the well where the cooling tower is set down into the roof and then this area right here is 3 feet higher which happens to match the elevator override bump out it's this portion right back here that's at 72.5 that's what I'm asking how you do that so that is so that's 65 plus so that would be 72.5 feet correct 65 plus 76 yep I just want to make sure we have the right number here correct please make sure you're looking at the revised section because the original section that was submitted in the application packet had a little a few numbers that were off so a revised one was provided I just want to see if there's any other comments that we needed to address here does this anything else you want to add the board has any questions close to public hearing can I take one second thank you that's it at the end of the hearing we'll further out when we're deliberating on this thank you thank you I'm seeing what's provided in your packet here relative to St. Paul Street the deferral of the appeal I think it may be wise to make a motion to acknowledge that deferral 221-223 St. Paul Street deferred to October 1st I move that we defer to October 1st second on that discussion want a favor thank you the other ones we deferred I would if necessary move them as well we have one other item here a very patient applicant who wanted 32 through street I know she's here do you want to come up and I don't know if anybody else is here for 132 Spruce Street yes anybody in the public do you want to raise your right hand raise your right hand please keep it up that's how it works thank you just want to tell the truth and hold truth on the pain and penalty of perjury yes okay thank you if you want to introduce yourselves and present what you want to on the project we have the staff report excellent hello and thank you I'm Chris I'm the principal of Lewis Creek Builders Chris Swayze thank you and we're here to talk about an accessory dwelling unit for 132 Spruce Street to replace a garage that's been demolished by a tree in an unfortunate storm and from there I'll pass it over to Emily who's done the design on this I'll start there Hi there my name is Emily Morse originally this project started out as just a simple replacement of the garage but the homeowners realized the potential they had in this additional accessory dwelling unit so we decided to ask a second story to the garage with a lower roof height than would initially be required to comply kind of with the neighborhood feel of small intimate historical buildings so we have a nine foot garage space on the first floor followed by a seven foot height second floor studio unit with a cathedral ceiling up to the roof we pushed the building forward to comply with setbacks and we're still I believe nine feet below the required roof height and added a few additional windows and decks to take advantage of the lake views on the west side this is being proposed as an ADU not a I want to ask this staff there was a reference in one of the emails about this ADU being used as a BNB that's not before us right now just an ADU just the structure the ADU is the accessory dwelling unit which is a different use than if it wanted to be used as a short term or BNB rental that it's being presented as an accessory dwelling unit and not being presented as a BNB of any kind the primary purpose of the ADU is absolutely long term rental or used by family members you know long term rental being six months to a year what the client chooses to do in the future we that's why we wanted to clarify that we're approving it for the ADU that if we were to approve it it would be for the accessory dwelling use which has a normally I don't get told to talk to the microphones I just wanted to make sure that it was clear that this was being brought to us as an accessory dwelling unit and not as a short term rental Airbnb they are different things and we had some concerns about the differences before us and just so that it's very clear what we're being asked to approve certainly thank you any other questions from the board applicant is a sweet little building it's very nice the just for reference you've got all these specifications attached it's always confusing when it's all promotional material and you're trying to figure out what they're really saying life span solids like the exterior is a wood siding that's pressure treated in a particular kind of way with this brand of material yes that's correct to go out and go through it and figure out what they're really saying it is but it does look good and I think there's other people in the public who have questions or concerns maybe you could take a seat for a minute and we will have other people come up and do what they have to say do you want to come up and I know whoever wants to be first and again sign in the clipboard if you want to get any notification and introduce yourself my name is Laura Macelle I live at 35 Kingsland Terrace it's directly behind this unit I'm here because I received an email from the backside neighbors describing their interest in building a rental unit in that email and that might be what you're referring to it was described to us as a variety of uses including Airbnb and so I have concerns that's why we asked that question I have concerns about this for several reasons but I think I'll address those second because well I'll address them right now I just I want to know what kind of protections we have as a neighbor to the sort of potential Airbnb nightmare which isn't always the case at all but if I understand with accessory apartments by design it's an over occupied situation so the owner is in either one of those two units the large one or the smaller one but I wonder what happens if the owners leave have an extended leave of any kind whether it's a sabbatical or extended vacation or are gone and there's an issue with how does that work with accessory apartments if you have to be in the unit at the same time where it's being rented or can you can someone else occupy it in other words if you left could someone I mean if the owner takes a sabbatical I don't think there's anything preventing them to take an extended vacation technically I will say the other thing you asked about was be it then a breakfast the requirements for an accessory dwelling unit and a bed and breakfast are relatively similar and we have had instances where somebody comes back before us and they do have to come back before us to apply for bed and breakfast to turn an accessory dwelling unit into one so then it doesn't happen without another hearing but the requirements are relatively similar structurally yes in terms of the parking things like that so it's we're not approving it now they're not asking for it what people do in the future we can't say but again it would require another hearing but still is the concept of an accessory apartment that the owner needs to be in that unit at the time the owner has to be occupying one or two of those units the larger the one or the other way okay property has to be owner occupied okay well that's helpful and then presumably if the owner wasn't there then it wouldn't be rented out is that what am I understanding isn't there what do you mean by not there so if they're not occupying the property for whatever reason then does the apartment cease to be able to be rented during that period if somebody decided to take a six month around the world cruise that would not void the accessory dwelling unit but they could not rent out the unit while they're on there that's what I mean I couldn't rent out their unit I think you're asking us questions based on hypotheticals we have to confront what's in front of us I truly am trying to understand what are the obligations of deeding a piece of property into a second use we could ask the city attorney if there's any substance the city attorney is here then she's here you might have to use a microphone there's been another case in the past where there's a question where the owner lived in another part of the U.S. part of the year and so I believe the zoning ordinance owner occupied means being there for 51% of the time tax data thank you that's helpful okay so thank you for that piece of information the second set of questions I have pertain to the historic neighborhood issue I understand that with even though it's a low residential residential area such as these are permitted I think when I look at the design I invite you to ask like I did how many historic buildings have decks that are propped by stilts it doesn't seem like that's in the design norm for the neighborhood it looks a little bit more like the New Jersey shore that jumps out at me I appreciated that the height doesn't exceed the limit that's a good thing I wondered if it could be slightly shorter still have the same studio apartment and not have what is unofficially a second living space which is the loft it's a 84 square foot railings in so it's really a floor studio place with a set of stairs that move to what could easily be another bedroom sleeping area so one chance to potentially bring down the ceiling height that way and then those are the structural questions and design I have another question pertaining to just how much green space, how much lawn space has been converted to hard space whether it's gravel or not and I couldn't do the math I couldn't do all the calculations but I understand that right now the lock coverage is at 23 and the limit is 35 so they're under with the proposed 32% but I wasn't sure if that included things like the slab patio which is 17 by 22 again adjacent on our side on the east north side that's a hard surface the surface underneath the deck is another hard surface the increased of the driveway to accommodate the two cars side by side it was a very narrow driveway originally we were friends with the people who were there before and it's a tiny little you know, whatever 1920 size cars went up and down that driveway and so clearly it had to be some expansion there and I just didn't know if the calculations for the lock coverage included not just the structure but also these supplementary hardscapes thank you so that's the question the exterior lighting wasn't included here and because of the deck feature any lighting that comes off the deck would be much would be high and would be a factor and potentially a concern for the backside neighbors likewise any lighting that would come off the slab structure patio would be a concern as well because that's behind the building wouldn't affect the owners but would affect the backside neighbors so those are my three sort of mechanical technical questions to address and I think that is it but I would say just adding up all the hard spaces that is the patio and under the deck is equivalent to the size of the apartment so there's a 10% bonus to that the overall calculation keeps everything on the site underneath the 35% so they're not even utilizing that 10% bonus for the plants so I see the 32% but have you included the driveway addition under the deck scape and the 17x20 slab I would have it's on the site plan that 1200 square feet which presumably goes right up to the building so it's going to be underneath that balcony at that point the other back patio as well I believe this is in there as well so that's what was presented to me and I that's what the 32% I guess I would just it's one thing to have an apartment building in the back but to have a deck behind the apartment building I would just ask for consideration to put a cement deck someplace else whether it's in the west side by their yard take advantage of that view it is truthfully hard to tell somebody that they cannot use their yard and right now they have a lot of the yard that's open given the deck location to put it on the side would make the yard probably less usable so I understand your concern but it's not really within the realm of zoning to I mostly asked for the technical equation of the math and you've described that you've already included those and I think the lighting we'll ask about the lighting when they come back up because that was not in the packet this is after I presented put the post of the staff report so they do have the spec sheet which is very compliant as far as the thank you very much for your time consideration there's somebody else who wanted to comment would you come back up I have a question there's no external lighting on the outdoor deck is that correct thank you there's no external lighting on the outdoor deck on the second story outdoor deck there is a wall mounted sconce wall mounted sconce just for compliance with code right outside the door do we have a do we have a lighting spec for that I have a copy if you want one too and there's a code requirement for lighting to be next to a door so that's required to be there and that unit is dark sky compliant as well and there were other lights too weren't there just by east door there's those similar lights and there was the gooseneck styles the original plans had shown in gooseneck over the side access door to the garage but we're proposing that that's the same as all the others any other questions I have a question lighting coverage patio location I guess the only other thing I would ask is there's no landscaping being proposed as part of this project not specifically part of our erosion plan is to use some of the sediment we removed from excavating to grade the land into the yard so it's a little more of a holistic landscaping plan but no specific landscaping proposed currently nothing beyond a final grade and seed of the property are there trees next to the existing garage that are I guess no trees on the side are the trees coming down for this the only tree that would have been in the way is the one that fell and crushed the former garage oh how convenient I agree all the other trees are staying mostly on the what is that the east side of the property there is a line of trees on the east side but none of them are within our way any other questions any else you want to add thank you for your patience everybody on persevering we have no other items on the agenda we're adjourned