 special board meeting to order for March 29, 2021. Currently with the board, we've got John Schoen, David Sawyer, his flow on, I don't see her on his. She was, yeah. Okay, we've got flow and myself. Any additions or changes to the agenda that we're aware of? None. Okay. I do have a change. Okay. Okay. I want to remove the approval of license permits and vouchers. I don't have any payables for you. Right. Can we remove liquor licenses as well? Yeah. Vince, Vince use the regular meeting agenda that we kind of have formatted. We can remove liquor licenses, license permits, vouchers, and we can also probably remove minutes. Yeah. Okay. Any public comment? All right, hearing none. We have first on the agenda, we'll remove the treasurer's report as well, right, Diane? Yeah, yep, might just as well. Yep, yep. So the community rating system update, here we go. So the planning commission met Saturday morning and they approved the draft language change to add a foot of free board for utilities. And they sent that through Vince to the select board. And Vince has scheduled a meeting for the select board of public hearing on April 12th. I think it's at 7 p.m., but it's just a reminder to the select board that you will be having a hearing on that on April 12th. Anything else on it? No, it was pretty. Were we having this special meeting to meet the warning so we could have that public hearing? Was that the reason? That's correct, yep. So to get the credit for the CRS to get us from a class nine to a class eight. All right. Anything else on the board? All right. So next on the agenda, we have the new town center discussion. Yes, I believe Vince sent around to the select board the conditions that the agency staff placed on the town of Berlin's new town center application. And some of those conditions have impacts not only on the town of Berlin, but also the partners that we have. Many of the partners are here tonight. And Simon from the mall, Jim Alvarez from CBNC, Julie Curtin from Down Street Housing. There's probably Jason's here to Lazar as well. So I think that what the planning commission would like to do is go over those conditions, make the select board aware of impact to that. Once we get through these conditions, if the partners would like to talk and address any items, we'd ask the partners here to weigh in on it. So there's for eight conditions, one of the conditions had numerous parts. But the first three conditions deal with the boundaries of the new town center. You may recall that we plan for really probably since the inception of this to include parcel owned by CBNC south of Fisher Road and a good portion of their medical campus north of Fisher Road. The state is recommended, the staff is recommending to the downtown board that the properties controlled owned and controlled by CBNC be removed from our designated area. And what that does, how that impacts the town of Berlin. And again, we'll let CBNC talk about how that impacts them. But you may recall one of the main features of getting a designation is the town's ability to seek a tax increment financing district which allows you to the town in effect to pay for much some of the development that's anticipated in the new town center. An example of this is that if the senior housing project that's going up now would have been part of the TIP district, it has an estimated value of $12 million. If it was in the TIP district, the town of Berlin would likely see about $200,000 of that revenue to go towards projects. $200,000 in revenues pays for about $5 million of infrastructure improvement. So the town losing the capacity to have as robust the TIP district has financial impacts on the town. So with quick question, with central Vermont not paying property taxes on a lot of the properties, obviously, does that doesn't impact the TIP district? If they would build, and if you looked at the concept design, they had a medical building which would probably be exempt for property taxes, but they also had a cluster of income producing properties that would be for the TIP, that's correct. Did you send the board or Vince a copy of the new boundaries? I know Vince had it, I didn't personally send it to the board. Brandy, can you pull that up on the screen? I'm gonna ask Brandy to pull that up. I can, just give me one moment. Hey, Trace. And it also eliminated the coals parcel as well. That's the edge of the mall, basically. On the, and the car locks. So it should be up on the screen now. It is, yes. You know, it really impacts the, I think the functionality of the new town centers we envision that it adversely impacts the town green. That was there, we lost you there, Brandy. I'm sorry, I was gonna try to pull up the site, the full site plan so you could see. Yeah, so this line bisects the development that was planned down there. So it interferes with the street layout and such as well. So it is a bit of a technical problem, that line. So functionally, I mean, it does interfere with those other properties. I'm just curious, I mean, we can still design and lay out as we'd like over there potentially, right? With the good partnership. I'm just curious overall, I mean, we're gonna design around the new town center, but you can also design around future development, like over on the central Vermont property or over on Lambert's property, right? Part of the design that we do is gonna be planning for development in those surrounding areas, correct? The Lamberton property was discounted just because of the wetlands issue. Right, I understand why it's not, we've already established why it wasn't in the town center, but you understand what I'm saying, I suppose. Any development on right now under designation TIF, the only properties that would be eligible for a TIF under the designation would be in this orange shaded area. So that, but didn't you just, correct me if I'm wrong, didn't you just say that the elderly, the assisted living wasn't in that, but it falls right to this, in this shaded area? It's not in it, but it was an example of what it could have brought. Well, it's not in it, because we don't have the TIF district. We have to get the designation first. Okay, but it's being built prior to the TIF. Right, it will not be eligible. So looking at that shaded area, if you're coming in from the 802 property, that line is about where that entrance is down in that lower end, correct? Yeah, this is the access road that goes behind the mall is right here. Yeah, okay, that's what I thought. Yep, and then this is the, it comes across here, straight at the edge of the parking lot, and then the line between the mall and the hospital properties. And so the challenge that the town would face here is that the new town center plan envisioned a continuous street network extending into this property, which theoretically would, and the PATH network as well and sidewalks. Some of those elements would be to some extent supported through municipal funding and or the property owner may want to turn them over to the town. And if they're not in the TIF generating, revenue generating portion, then you're looking at facilities that you're not generating revenue off of to offset the costs of. So that's the challenge from the town's perspective. How much did they actually cut out of the original thing? Did that incorporate the 802 property and armory in that whole area? Not the armory. Yes, let me pull up the full map. Actually, I think that up here, it might be up here. I mean, I think I've seen it before, oh, a year or so ago when I moved that with you guys. I remember it was quite, it seemed like it was quite bigger than what I know. Yep. I guess, oh, okay, I see. Yeah. So the line that they're proposing basically cuts it in half. So it comes through here and then comes down here. So it's only the Southern half. What's the reasoning behind that? Cutting that down like that? They had a concern that Fisher Road was not as pedestrian friendly as requirements, as required by the Newtown Center. You may recall that before your time date, but the select board applied for a VTrans grant to study Fisher Road, and particularly that pedestrian crossing at Berlin Mall Road and Fisher Road. And just, it was either Tuesday or Wednesday of last week, we found out that we were awarded that grant to do that study, but that was after the fact of the staff recommending that the CVMC campus north of Fisher Road be taken out. So they want that road to be more pedestrian friendly. I personally think it can be done, but we have to do the study and look at all the things that go into making it more friendly. And they also are looking for the hospital's master plan to be complete and want to be able to see that presented here and will then do a similar review of which they did not do of the zoning standards to see if they meet. And based on their feedback to some of the zoning pieces, I think that may require further negotiations down the road between trying to balance what the state will want and what the hospital needs. Yeah, we had some very extensive talks with the hospital. They have specialty needs with medical campus with respect to roads, access of their clients to their buildings, parking, and a lot of time went into developing those regulations and those negotiations, which we eventually arrived at and then how baked into our zoning regulations that were adopted in January. But again, the staff, they didn't even review those regulations because they redefined that line taking the CBMC properties out of the new town center. Well, but I do think that they viewed the zoning in that area as not compliant with the town center, what we had done, right? I mean, isn't that accurate? They didn't provide a detailed review of it, but that is my sense as well. So to go forward, let's just, what is, so we don't get hung up on this, see the end, to go forward, what are the other boundary requirements, number one and number two, is it possible that in throughout the process to bring that into the TIF district in the future if these requirements are met or made to state standards? With respect to bringing it in the future, you, I spoke to the new town center coordinator for city of South Burlington today. And she advised me that once you set a, the boundaries of a TIF district, you can not expand it. So if we wanted the TIF district to look as it is portrayed here on the map, it would probably delay us a couple of years of applying for that TIF district, or you could begin applying sooner than that, but you lose half of the potential value of your TIF district. So that's a, go ahead. Can you just back up and explain that the idea is that we would be adding back the hospital? I don't think we've talked about that. Yes, I mean the idea would be we'd add back the hospital. To the new town center. You can expand the new town center area. And so they've provided some guidance on what they would want us, what we would have to do to expand first south of Fisher Road and get, so Payne-Turk Pike would be the, I mean, Fisher Road would be the boundary. And then beyond that, the medical campus. Right, and then it would just be excluded from the TIF district. That's all, right? Or we'd have to wait to apply. What was the hospital's reaction? Jim Alvarez is on the call. Yeah, I guess for us, the real issue is the 12 acre parcel. You know, we've stayed in determined not to develop it because there's just too many constraints on it. But in partnership with the town square, then it has some possibilities. We probably would not develop it ourselves. We'd probably sell it to a developer and then lease back part of it. And so I think that's probably the most, you know, interesting part of this whole thing is that that parcel on its own just doesn't have the access that we need. So it really needs to be looked at as part of the town square to ever be a functional, developable parcel. So, you know, right now we just use it as a utility yard, you know, so it holds our gas storage and some conics boxes. But we have no intention of developing it because when we studied it, there was no access from Fisher Road that would make it feasible to build anything there. So it really needs to be connected back to the town square to be a parcel that could be used. Randy, can you just outline that, their lot? This, yes. He's here. So how did they arbitrarily come up with this, I mean, this line that they, as a new town center, seeing as that you guys have done all your work or the planning commission has done their work, how did they eliminate this bigger picture and just randomly come up with this boundary? How was that arrived at? You'd have to ask them. So there's really no good answer of why they did what they did, I guess. I think in their minds, I think in their minds eye, there was, but I can tell you when these conditions came out, we had no inkling that the removal of the CBMC properties were even being thought about. Okay. Well, I guess, okay. Well, I guess we need to hear some more of the other conditions. We've got the boundaries, but we'll find out what the other troubling issues are, I guess. So, Brandy, you wanna pull up those conditions again? Okay. Which, let me see. We're at number four now, four. I'll put it back on, yep. This is Eileen from CBMC. I just wanted to add that one of the other complicating factors for us as we move into the master planning process is, you know, we would have to make a decision to either consider that parcel in our master planning or not based on a hope or a dream that it would then be included in the town center. That they would then accept it for inclusion. So that's gonna be, that would be a difficult thing for us to navigate when we really get to the point of our master plan, whether or not to take that risk, adding that to the plan. Thank you, Eileen. So, Brandy, you wanna walk through the number four here? So, condition four has eight, I think, some parts. And these all relate to the zoning. The first three, A, B, and C, relate to the C street standards and the standards for on-street parking. The requirement would be to eliminate the C street classification from within the town center. Right now, that's an allowed street type. It has a certain set of dimensional standards that go along with it. And each end of the Berlin Mall road is classified that way and potentially new streets could be classified as C streets if that worked within the overall plan. Then the A and B streets are in the core area. So in front of the mall and in that new block area. And those are of a much more urban, what I would sort of classify as an urban built form. So they're meant to encourage more sort of commercial block buildings or those larger residential buildings that are shown in the plan. And they're set up with the dimensional standards to produce that form of development. So the state is requesting that all streets in the new town center area be essentially A or B streets. The P streets is that pedestrian street option, which is sort of like a church street type option that would be just not be vehicular. So basically A or B streets, which dictates the types of buildings that you could build in the new town center. They're going to be larger buildings. Slightly smaller detached buildings aren't going to be possible to build. So the last one then also deals with the on street parking. So C deals with on street parking. They are going to require that you mandate on street parking on A and B streets. So anytime a street is built or is reconstructed it would have to include on street parking. And there's a few places on the site plan where that doesn't really make a lot of sense because in many ways that circulation is around a big parking lot. And so if you're putting in on street parking you're basically taking parking spaces out of the parking lot in order to make room to put parking lanes on the street. So it's just a shifting and a shuffling around of parking. And it would probably reduce overall parking. But in any event, that's the requirements for A, B and C. D, E and F, D relates to curbing and stormwater. Treatment, we think that the regulations already do this. They don't. So it's a matter of trying to figure out what it is that they think it needs to say that it doesn't say it's not obvious to me what that is. And E and F deal with development envelopes and also here the same thing is true. They're trying to get to the point where you're not where they're ensuring that all buildings are fronting on a street and there's not any rear buildings. They've been pretty distressed about the state reviewers about both the hospital and mall being kind of campus type developments. So multiple buildings on the lot whereas they're really looking for sort of a lot with building on it, each one, one to one relationship. And so these are some language around that. We're not even completely sure what it would take in the regulations to change wise to meet these rules because we don't really understand how they've come up with these or how they have interpreted the rules to think that it is possible to build a building that isn't on a street. But in any event, that's D, E and F. G relates to adding a little bit more streets to your official map that you adopted. This is doable. It's not going to really be that meaningful because in reality, all it does is give you in the town the right to buy that right of way should the developer wanna build on it. And you have to do that really fast. So it's actually not really that effective. So putting that on isn't a problem. So it's really A through F that are issues. You mentioned that it might be difficult to navigate some of these regulations because we're not really sure what they're asking. So how could we possibly accept these new conditions given that? I'm just curious. I think that that is a challenge. We did meet with them on Friday in hopes of trying to get some clarification and maybe better understand what it is they're looking for and come up with ways to achieve that. That both worked for the town and got what they wanted at the end of it. They were not interested in having that conversation with us. And so it's our understanding at a take it or leave it with what's presented here. Right, so when you said some of these conditions, I guess I'm confused. You weren't really sure what they were saying or asking. They'd give us further clarification down the road. That would be have to be the hope, Justin. I mean, have we agreed to it that that's what would happen? Yes. And basically what Brandy's saying is her under, the way she interprets the regulations, these requirements already exist, but they somehow are reading it differently. So we'd have to just clarify, if there's specific language they want in there or if they're just misunderstanding something. But like she said, they weren't willing to discuss the conditions on Friday. Okay. In a post COVID world where we could all sit in a room and discuss this, do I think a more common ground could be found? I would hope so. But again, you don't know, right? You don't know at the end of the day. Right. What other conditions are we facing? So five and six are straightforward and are not issues. They are what we would anticipate, the types of conditions that would be typical on these applications. So five and six are non-problematic. Seven and eight, they've attempted to write conditions. Can you go over five and six foresters so we understand it? Okay, five is just the stuff that you're going to need to do at your four year review. So the Newtown Center applications get, they're good for eight years. If you get approval and every four years at a minimum there's a check-in, there's a midway check-in. And so they were requesting that you do an update as to basically where you are on all the various elements. So an update on the capital improvement program, an update on development review, what's occurred, what you've permitted, et cetera, within the area. An update in your case on how you're progressing on the municipal facility requirement. So that's all standard and normal to be expected. And then six, I mean, this is we sort of understand that this is sort of a de facto statement of fact. If the mall has to seek an active 50 permit amendment, if that fails to happen or if there are conditions on their permit that affect the development of the Newtown Center as envisioned, you would have to go back and seek an amendment of the Newtown Center from the board. We expected language along those lines. So seven and eight, they attempt to tie the property owner's hands within the Newtown Center and prevent them from using the designation as a basis for trying to get changes to their existing permits. So basically aimed at the mall and their need to go in and get a permit amendment to remove some of the no-build areas from their original 1985 approval. These two conditions, while their conditions placed on the town, they really are actually an attempt to place conditions on the property owners within the Newtown Center. I think they're a dubious legal validity, but they're there. Okay, so I mean, what does the board think of it? I mean, how's the mall feel when we get some input on these areas and how it'll impact them as well? Well, we've heard from the Jim Alvarez in the hospital. We also have the folks here from Downstreet Housing because that's the project, which is really ready to go. So I thought, yeah, Julie's here. Do you wanna talk about this from a respected and Nicola's here? Or do you wanna talk about these conditions and impact on your project? And you're on mute, Julie. Thank you for that catch of the mute. And yeah, thanks Tom for inviting us to speak about our project. So we have our Fox Run project. It's a 30 unit residential project that's been under development for several years now. And we're on the threshold of getting the funding that we would need in order to build the project, applications in to Vermont Housing Finance Agency for Tax Credits and Vermont Housing and Conservation Board. And our funding applications are understanding that the funders are looking to the new town center designation to happen before we get funding. So, and we see the project as part of the new town center. So we very much want the designation. We're building housing, this will be affordable housing, a mix of family and individual households. But really we feel strongly that the project is putting housing where people can walk to jobs, can walk to services. They're going to be living in the place that they go to school, they're close to the school. And so, we really see our project as a component of the new town center. So we're at a critical moment where we're really wanting to see the designation. And we think we're also, the region really needs the housing. So we're hoping it'll move forward. Would this project not go through if we didn't get the designation of new town center? That is our understanding where all things are, things are so in flux with funding for housing now. And we don't know what, maybe there are new sources that could come along and that it would be different. But I think our funders really prioritize development in village centers, in downtown areas, in place where people can walk to work and to services. And because we're housing very low and moderate income, people who may not have a car or easy access to getting around. So the funding sources prioritize in there, sort of their competitive process being in village downtown centers. And so they're looking at the new town center as sort of a way of confirming that the Foxtron project will be in that type of development, that type of area. So I'm hearing without the designation, this project probably will not go forward. It is serious risk of that. Okay. John, you're on mute. Primarily because of funds, Julie? Yes. So in the fiscal year 22 budget with all the stimulus money or ARPA money, is there money in there for housing that can potentially be used instead? It's to be determined. We have not heard of capital funding in the ARPA money yet, but I think all of that is still being worked out. Most of the funds that have been announced that I'm aware of so far that are for housing are for rental assistance, so helping people pay for housing. So that is an unknown for us at the moment. Okay. I was on a call today with Josh and Chris Cochran. There was a webinar being hosted by Chamber of Commerce and they were talking about these funds, John. And it's really what Julie said, there's monies for rent, but the anticipation would be that there will be capital monies coming available, but they also stressed that high priority for that will be in these designated areas, either the downtowns or village centers or they didn't say specifically new town centers, but that's also one of them. I assumed because of the short timeframe on the money that shovel ready projects would be more towards the front of the list. Yeah, I think that's probably, I know with some of the, with the first round, the CARES Act and the CRF funds, that was absolutely the case. There's still some of those funds that are being allocated for projects that could be completed and occupied by the end of 2021, even in some cases. But the RF funds, again, that's another one, I'm not sure. I see Matt Moore joined here. Matt, do you want, we're talking about your project here. Do you wanna add to it? It's not my project, it's Downstreet's project that we're working on with them. Nope, sorry for being late. I had a family dinner to attend to, so I'll just follow along. Thank you. Any other questions of Jolie and her team? Looks like Ken has a question. I just like to clarify in my mind, are you saying that you, that the designation is important to you, you feel it's critical to your funding? And are you saying that you, that is why you would suggest going along with this project, regardless of what the conditions are? Well, the current, let me put it this way, the current questions as proposed. Is that what you're at your position? We'd like to see the town go forward with the, with the designation, with the conditions, understanding as I've, you know, as, I think Tom and Brandy have explained that that's this, that, you know, the status, said that to move forward, it's accepting the conditions. May I ask Jolie or Matt a question? Would be helpful to know what your timeframe is for applying for a municipal permit. How quickly do you think you could do that? Well, I spoke with Tom a bit about that today and also with Ken. And we think planning for the May, the DRB for sketch plan is realistic, whether it's the fourth or the 18th, we're not sure yet. We wanted to try to get in in April, but that's too quick to put things together. So May is what we're targeting now. So the reason I'm asking that is that there is a window between now and when the town would need to go ahead and adopt new zoning changes, where if applicants come in, they're still under the zoning that's in place now, it's gonna take several months before the town would be ready to move forward with doing further revisions to the zoning and running back through that adoption process. So that is something that the partners in the town could work on and negotiate with a little bit and get that timeline to work best for all involved. That's an interesting point. I think the question then is, does an application for sketch plan, does that lock us in? Yeah, once you've submitted a complete application, you're good. I haven't looked at the application contents, but I had been a long time, but I'm sure they're typical for most communities. So we're thinking May, that's our schedule that I think will work well for us for a number of reasons. And if it happens to be advantageous for that as well, then perhaps we do that. Ken and Jason, this is where we need to coordinate and we'd like to put two applications in, separate applications for two projects, but have them reviewed concurrently because we'll share an internal driveway and we're both gonna be involved to some extent in what happens with the reconstruction of the mall access room. Yeah, and that makes sense. So under Vermont law, once you've submitted a complete application, that as long as you stay within the timeline and schedule of the rules, even if the rules change while you're in that process, you continue to be regulated under the rules that were in place when you started. Matt, I know I'm hitting your team cold here, but you've done a redesign. I don't know if you're able to share any of that with a share screen and have people take a look at what you're thinking. Happy to do that. It'll take me a couple of seconds to call it up, but we haven't even given this a full internal review, which we're gonna do this week. Excited to see it, I was gonna say. Nicola, you've seen it. Yeah. And we've shared this with Ken and Jason as well. A few clicks away here. Folks know that we had to, unfortunately make a tough decision to change from a mixed use building with a childcare to solely a residential building. But we were able to keep the same unit numbers, so we'll still have 30 units. Okay, I can't, I'm not finding right away the civil site plan. Sorry, that's what I'm working with here. But what I do have here is the architectural site plan, which is pretty darn close in terms of concepts. This is a good, okay, share screen. I'm out of necessary eye of the civil site plans. Oh, do you have it handy? Yeah. Okay, thank you. Yeah, let's do that if you've got it. Could I have permission to share a screen? Yes, you do. There we go. This is good because it's overlaid on the Newtown Center plan. Can everyone see this okay? Yeah. Yes. So yeah, we just, this shows, this is just our civil site plan. So we're just really showing right now our building and parking, you can see this road. It'll go down, it'll go into our parking lot and this also would be shared with the mall for that additional plot, the restaurant. Also staying outside of the wetland buffer and just dealing with some of that, those issues there as well. We do have community garden and green space on our site as well. And it's three, we're at three stories. Yep. And it is raised there, it's up to a higher level. So, yeah, we won't have stairs at this, we won't have an entrance right from that mall road to the, to the, to Walmart, just because that would actually mean we'd need like 20 stairs going up there. So we have a side entrance with parking at the side and then our main entrance will be around the back. Randy, with the requirements that this, I think, so the affordable housing has been giving a, been given a relief from the conditions of the state. If this was a non affordable housing project, there would be required to have an entrance on that. Well, the problem is that the state's condition says dimensional waivers. And actually as the zoning is written right now, I don't know that you can get out of having an entrance facing the mall road, which from a elevation point of view is clearly a challenge. Oh, really? That's interesting. So it might take, I'm just looking at this. You need to have an entrance facing a street. So the question is whether your drive where the parking is can be made to meet the street requirements and therefore an entrance off of that side would be meet the requirement to have an entrance facing the street. But that's actually in the design standards is not in the dimensional standards. We do have a side entrance. Nicola, can you move your cursor over there? Yes. It was already there, right? So that is a secondary entrance. And the, what we call the entry drive would be an internal street, private street. That design is not firm. We have to work that out with the mall and making that more of a street, i.e. angled or parallel parking, green strip, sidewalk, et cetera, is certainly in the cards. So. Thank you. You might want to look at that piece about the design standards component. Thank you, Matt. Ken, can Simon's here? You want to talk about the mall and... I can stop. I'll stop sharing now. Thank you, Nicola. Yeah, of course. Sure. Brandy, could you pull up the shared screen of the conceptual plan, the colored plan that shows? Not only... I'll do that. Yep. They'll take me just a second, but I'll get there. It also shows the overlay of the existing Berlin mall. Yep. It's good. Why don't you go ahead and start talking what you were and I'll pull it up. I'd rather... I'd rather open it. I'd rather wait. Oh, okay. I've got to find it here. There's 30 units. That's going to be in one building. What are they? One, two, and three bedroom units? Or what do they consist of? Matt or Nicole or Julie? The program is the majority are two bedrooms with, I think we have two three bedroom units now. One three bedroom, 16 two bedroom, and 11 11 are 13 one bedroom. I knew I should have waited and just let you answer. Yes, 13 one bedroom, 16 two bedroom, and one three bedroom. Like I said, it's down streets project. How many floors is this? Is it here? Three floors or three floors? That's good enough. That's good enough. Okay, so let me let me just say, this may be old news to many of you, but as you know, since we bought this mall over 10 years ago, we have considered ourselves as integral parts of this community. And we have tried to conduct ourselves with the utmost respect and concerns for the char trade area, and particularly the town of Berlin. You know, from the time, you know, from the early times from, you know, from the big art, little art sessions to giving community access to our hub space, to events in the parking lot, to events for charities, to bending over backwards to allow the hospital to use our vacant space for COVID testing to make it more convenient for central Vermont residents to get these urgent, urgent COVID shots. We have always been on the side of the community even when it's not necessary to our advantage. And this is one of them. Okay, regardless of how this turns out, I want you to know that we are totally in line and in unison with the town, and we'll defer to whatever the town wants to do with regard to this project, one way or the other. Now, how does this affect, how does this affect the mall? Naturally, most, if not all of the, most of the, except for additional lands for perhaps with the school property and the hospital property, most of this new town center development is on our land. Where it affects us most, we and Downstreet and Matt have really come to terms and worked together for quite a while, and it's been a great relationship. And we really treasure the, treasure the relationship that we've established. And this is literally a shovel ready project. And some of the things that I'm about to say could impact that shovel ready aspect of this property. So if you can look at this, you will see that the current configuration of the Berlin Mall Road, okay, which wraps around which is wraps around in that direction. I'm sure you're all familiar with it. And we all know that it's unfortunate that the Berlin Mall Road is in terrible shape. And it's our intention, along with the Fox Run people, the town, we've had numerous, numerous discussions with Tom about this. The Berlin Mall needs to be repaired. It needs to be repaired quickly in order for this to function or for this all to function well. And you will also see that this Berlin Mall Road is going to be, if the dream of the town comes to fruition, this more, the current Berlin Mall Road is going to be relocated, right? If you can see how that relocation will take place. And Tom is working diligently to make that happen sooner rather than later. So right now we have a situation where we have a deal in place with Fox Run with a few, requires a few tweaks. We have a deal in place that is ready to sign with the restaurant that everybody's going to, I'm sure that everybody's going to like. But what the conditions now dictate is that we would, in addition to merely repairing the road, which will become obsolete soon, we will have to widen the road to allow on-street parking in an area where no one is going to park because there's nothing, there's no reason to park between the restaurant, between the entrance to Route 62 and Walmart. There's going to be no reason to park on that road. That road, so that involves changing all the lighting, changing all the drainage, widening the road at a tremendous expense with no way to recoup the expense under the financial conditions that are already agreed upon. So what we would like to suggest that if the town is amenable to all the other conditions that are being imposed by the downtown board, we would like to suggest that they add, go back to the, they go back to the board and request a temporary relief for the obligation to change that road, the current road to meet their requirements. And when a temporary, you can negotiate what temporary means, whether it's at the four year look back or before the four year look back or whatever it is, but that would make, that would truly make this project something that could get started in the next few months. So I think that with that I'm happy to answer any questions, but I just want you to know if you agree to that, that'd be great. If you don't agree to it, we're still in total support of what you want to do. Kenny, from your perspective, what, if we decide not to move forward with this, what changes for the mall? I mean, what changes for the mall? I think if you decide to go, not go with it, we would, I think that, I think that Fox one would have to talk to talk, decide for themselves whether they want to go ahead with that. My assumption is from what I was told that they would not want to go ahead with that. And we would have the, we would have faced the decision of going ahead with the restaurant application and a revised master plan that would not include the new town center. Because the new town center would not be something that would be on the, you know, be on the drawing boards. We have adopted, we have adopted it as an effort to go along with the town to include the new town center concept plan, the total plan as a part of our master plan. But if that's not, if you decide not to go ahead with it, we would just have to revise that application. Right. So it's my understanding that we need a final decision to buy tomorrow morning. Is it a straight up yes or no to the stipulations? No negotiating. And, you know, the caveat or the way the email was written, it doesn't, there's not high hopes that we're going to get this designation anyways. Well, you know, I guess I've been a developer for a long time, longer than I like to admit in public. But I think if you ask, if you don't ask, you don't get. And if you ask for something that this one change, which is a temporary change, you know, what do you have to lose? Okay. I would agree with you there, Ian, but again, if we agree to the stipulations with, I mean, with this temporary relief on that one incident you're saying, and we do not get this designation as new town center, you're saying that Fox Run probably would not go with this plan? I'm not saying that you have to ask Fox Run with that about that. Oh, well, I thought you indicated that if it wasn't a new town center designation, they may not. Is there anybody here from Fox Run? Dave, Dave. That's a dad. Sorry, Tom. Go ahead, Julie. It just, yeah, the project I was speaking about is Fox Runs, the affordable housing development that Down Street and Ever North are working on. And then you had said earlier that if it didn't get the new town center designation, that you probably wouldn't get the funding to be able to proceed. That's our concern, yes. Okay. Karla, what are your thoughts on this? I just haven't heard you weigh in at all and I want to hear what you have to say. You may not want, no. So we've thought a lot about this, the planning commission, because we were pretty disappointed with the conditions. But my, the consensus, I mean, I spoke individually with the planning commission members. I didn't, we didn't have time for a meeting. And we all agree that we would like to see us accept the designation with the conditions because we feel that, you know, it's getting a foot in the door. It's getting, you know, we'll have to work hard to get the, you know, the conditions met so that we can, you know, it can be official, but we feel that that not accepting the conditions and not going forward now that it may not happen at all. And we are very concerned about losing, about possibly losing the Fox one project. So I think, and I'll let other members speak, but you know, my sense is, is that we, we just think that this opportunity may be the only opportunity to move forward. So there are not any, if I can put in postponing in any way, shape or form until we can see about the, maybe the section on the mall side of Fisher Road for CBMC or any of that that you can see. I mean, cause I would expand the TIF district potentially, which would allow for additional revenue to the town. But again, it's two or three years and I know there's a concern about timeframe. I think there's one TIF district currently available maybe left in the state. Is that accurate? By county. County. By county, sorry. It's true. This is not the ideal situation, but I'm going to be brutally honest and say that I think this conditional approval has a lot to do with Fox run. And I'm afraid that if we don't move forward now and we don't have that Fox one project in the works, we may not ever get a designation. There are some, there are a few groups out there that are quite opposed to this project. Yeah, I would agree with, with Carla as well. I think the reason, I got the sense that the board would like to provide the designation with the conditions and mostly because of Fox run. They want to see the housing. And they, I think they want to see something happen in this area of the town, but I'm, there are some groups that are not necessarily against our application, but they're against the program. And I think there's a danger that the program could die in, you know, in a couple of years, in which case we would never get the designation and we'd lose the benefits. So I think I believe we can get our foot in it. I were also worried about losing momentum. The residents in the town are really anxious to see this go forward. And I know there's been some talk about what's happening and, you know, if we kind of come to a halt at this point, it's going to be very disappointing for a lot of people. Yeah, I mean, to me, I would pretty simple mind to try. It seems like we're basing this whole decision on just Fox run on what, you know, that's what it feels like in this probably not the case, but it feels like we're making this decision so we can either get these 30 housing units or not. It's more, to me, it's more about making the decision because that's the gateway to the designation. I believe that this, that the housing is the only reason why this is even happening. And so it's not just for Fox run. It's that my, I believe, I mean, I believe we have very good intentions with this town center and that we want, you know, listening to some of the board's concerns, you know, I wasn't concerned because I know what our intentions are, but they were looking at it differently. And I just think that if we can get the designation, get to work, that we can show them that, you know, we really are trying to do this right and we really are trying to meet the, you know, the intent of the statute and move forward in a way that they would approve that we can get the rest of the land in and that we, you know, the CVMC land in and that we can get to where we want to go. I just think it's going to take longer than I ever anticipated, but that's, maybe I'm being Polly Anish, I don't know, but I just, you know, we've worked hard and I'm afraid that if we stop now, it's just money that we threw out and we're never going to get the designation. So what is the impact if they, what is the impact? I mean, how does that, so if we said, okay, we accept these conditions and we go ahead and we get the new town center, is there any negative? I mean, it's all, are you saying it's all 100% positives that come out of it? Well, no, it's negative in that we have to go back and we have to, you know, we have to make some changes and we have to do studies before we can get the CVH, CVMCN, sorry, I'm telling my age, but again, I think it's doable. You know, I don't know, I think we can do it and the negative, I mean, really let's face it, if we don't do anything, so be it, we have the designation and we don't do anything, but if we don't have the designation, we can't do it. So that's my view. I would say that if you accept with the conditions you've got on the table, you'll, in a month or two months, you'll know the outcome of the funding decision. I don't think you're going to get the attention of DHCD to work on these conditions and these zoning changes very quickly anyway, at least not to the legislature's done. And they've also got, I think as Tom alluded to, a lot else going on and this is not a high priority for them. So I think you have some time before you have to actually meet those conditions. And so, you know, this is three, four months, something like that, five months. If the two projects that are in the pipeline now can get into the permitting process, they come in under the current zoning, ameliorating some of the concerns that are raised about the changes that are being requested, including the one that can raised about the street standards. So Ken, if you can get an application in before the rules change, the street, you wouldn't have to do that level of change to the street that you're worried about, which is a reasonable concern. I agree. Yeah. So, yeah. One potential fly in the ointment of that strategy, Brandy, and I commend you on your strategic thinking, is that we will need to go through Act 250. You will. Yeah. And that's, I mean, that's sort of the next, that's the next hoop. And I would suspect that through the Act 250 process, the same groups, the NRC and the agency, the planning department at the state, and everybody that cares about this, is gonna want a road with parking and everything that's supposed to be in that road with the Newtown Center. I think that's a big risk that we would take and we would need to, I don't know how we would get, sign off from Act 250 agreement that they wouldn't make us do that before we apply. I mean, this is coming down to the road and can I totally hear what you're saying is basically, why are we gonna dump a million dollars into rebuilding a road in its current location when we're gonna have to relocate it when the municipal offices go in? Right, exactly right. So having said that and having been through Act 250 twice and getting approval from what I understand is record time for both Walmart and Coles, all I'm asking for is that if you have to get back to the board tomorrow that your designated representative simply ask the chairman of the board, Josh, okay? If they could accept a temporary relief from the obligation to make, to add on-street parking and whatever else is entailed to the existing borough and mall for a period of time, I think and explain the reason why because it's just gonna be obsolete. It's just as Matt said, you can spend a million dollars and then you're gonna change the location which means that if you accept the conditions as presented, you risk winning the war and losing the battle. So I don't think there's any harm in asking before the town makes its final, final, final decision with a telephone call to Josh to see if this is something that they can live with. Which makes 100% comment- I personally don't see any, I personally don't see any harm in asking. You know, I think probably at this point, I think everyone's made a lot of good points and I have no problem with going forward but I do think that, you know, we should ask, at least ask for that time waiver for the road. I agree, yeah. I think it makes sense personally. Let me just ask the question here. After this is all developed and these roads are put in and if they're requiring on-street parking and stuff, who is gonna be responsible for maintaining these roads and the plowing and all that for these roads here? Because if they're gonna require, well, I'm just saying, if they're gonna require on-street parking and it's in there, the town of Berlin doesn't do any plowing on, where there's on-street parking, like, you know, Montpellier and Barry and we're not equipped to do the snow removal at this point for those roads. That's the only reason I'm asking. Very good point. We raised that one already. Great question. What's the answer? They don't care. They just want the parking. It's your problem to figure out who's going to maintain it. So after it's developed, do the towns get, the town takes responsibility for these roads? That's something that would need to be negotiated, Dave. That's correct. I'm just... It would be with the property. Yeah. That's a great question. We've always been a good citizen and we will continue to be a good citizen. Yeah, no, you guys have been everything I've seen. And I would like to see this go forward myself personally. They just kind of weigh in everything out and, you know, just ask them the questions. Will figure it out. There's a lot of work to be done. A lot of work to be done, but we can figure that out. So, John, what was your thought? You were talking about making a phone call, obviously. If we had a deadline of Tuesday morning, is what we heard from the secretary, then what were you thinking? I think, you know, as part of the motion, we'd ask Tom to ask for that stipulation. In our conditional yes, or we're giving them a yes. We'd like to move forward, but we'd ask for a conditional waiver of a certain period of time that Ken and Tom can talk about. I don't know exactly what that is, but just, you know, bring it to Josh Hannaford, the chair of the board and say, you know, this just doesn't make sense to do it twice. Just give us some time here. All right. And what is, I guess, based on interactions, what we've had so far with them, how do you feel they'll respond? I think it's a common sense question, ask. It's a reasonable answer. Just because it's common sense, I guess I don't know that we always know what people are gonna say, so. I don't know. If you don't ask, you don't get. Right, I will speculate on what the chairman may say, but they can't hurt that ask. Right, okay. We're supportive of that ask, Ken. Good, I appreciate that, Matt, thank you. So you can, when you talk to Josh, tell him that we're supportive of that and that we agree that that makes the most of it. I'm gonna talk to him if you want me to be on the phone or available, I'll be happy to do that. We're asking, we're applying for funds to Josh, the same Josh for 250,000, probably 500,000 for improvements to the road. So maybe the argument to Josh is, do we really wanna put state money into a road only to go and tear it up again? Absolutely, absolutely. Matt, does Josh know about, sorry, does Josh know about that yet? Do you think? He will tomorrow. His staff knows. Yeah. He should know. I haven't communicated that with him. I don't know if Eileen has, but. I don't think Eileen has. I'm not sure that the board fully understands that this is a temporary request. Ken, by board, you mean the downtown board? I mean, downtown, yes, of course, I'm sorry. Downtown, thank you. Anything else? No, I'm just figuring out exactly what the motion should be. I think it could be pretty simple here. We've already discussed the Ken thing. So to be clear, that's not a fall on our sword, it's just an ask. So with that being said, I make the motion to move forward with approving the conditions set forth by the downtown, downtown committee. What is it, Carla? Downtown Development Committee. Sorry, downtown board. It's actually the staff recommendation and the board. Move approval of the downtown development board, staff recommendations and, yeah. I second that motion. All right, any further discussion? Well, don't you want a request that's a waiver, a temporary waiver? That's a given. Well, yeah, that's something we can do. That was my point about not falling on the sword. It doesn't have to be part of the motion. We're going to ask that in the morning, but we're giving it a yes approval either way. Right? If they say no, we're still giving the yes approval. So we left it, we left it out, but we'll ask. Any additional discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Thank you. Thank you, guys. Thank you, everyone. Thank you. It's a tough, tough situation. Yeah, this is not gone as we, as I expected, but let's just say that. Even so, it behooves us to move forward with the conditions and I'm glad we're going to make that ask. And I'm just so appreciative for all of your perseverance and all of the hard work you've all put into this. And I would like to really thank the partners. It's been a coalition, been together for a very long time. Absolutely. Thank you. Yeah. But yeah, the partners, so. And I, and I just want to put a plea out there to CVMC to we hope that you're hanging there with us. Yeah, because we're going to bring you back in. Absolutely. Yeah, we're we'll still, you know, as we do the master planning, assume that the with or without being in the town center, we'll still want the connection to it. So thank you. Thank you. Anything for round table? Anybody? All right. Do I get, can we get a motion to adjourn? I'm making a motion to adjourn. I second that. All in favor. Aye. Aye. All right, we're adjourned. Thank you. Thank you very much everyone. Thanks everyone. Good night. Bye.