 Good evening. We will call this public hearing and our planning commission meeting to order. I want to welcome all of you for attending. By way of introduction, we are the planning commission. John McCullen, who brings us the wealth of knowledge of how to make maps and critical thinking. Dary, who brings us our sweet things for our sweet tooth. Sometimes, sometimes he brings us the sense of common sense to our end historic. Historic, whatever I want to say, the history behind a lot of things that have happened here in Calais. Melanie Keane gives us the expertise of keeping within statute so that we are not renegades to the state. Also bringing a sense of a different kind of critical thinking. And I'm Jan Olson, who tried to facilitate and bring all this together. I happened to think the other day that my first job and one of my last jobs as a product marketing manager was to write specifications for a coder. Now, isn't that appropriate for writing regulations? I don't know. So tonight, we can go to the next slide. Our agenda tonight will be kind of a brief agenda, but it'll cover a lot of things that we start. Oh, I have to thank Ghana, who's taking the minutes. All right, now we'll get going. So what we're going to have tonight is an outline of the overall changes. I would encourage you, there is the required report, which we have to submit to the state. And also to the Central Vermont Regional Planning. And it's done in two parts. I would encourage everybody to take it home and read it. It's kind of intense, maybe. So we're in this is the amendment of what we've been working on since our September 20th first public time. So we're going to go over the overall changes. We're going to look at the changes that were made after the first meeting, first hearing. And then we're going to review all of the shrub and actually river corridor changes. And this is going to be looking at the maps so that you can kind of see the difference. And then just we'll keep our mouth shut and we're going to listen to you. That's basically what we're going to do. OK, so when we started looking at Shoreland, we were looking at the current Shoreland district and found that about 60% of the cottages and houses in the Shoreland district were non-compliant. They were either 0.17 acres, 0.5 acres. They never met the three acre requirement of the Shoreland district. We also found a couple of parcels that were in Shoreland that did not have any shoreland land. They didn't have any access. So we felt that that wasn't quite good either. And so we also felt and heard from many of the residents on the various lakes that they wanted to have some kind of regulation that would match or align better with what the State Protection Act was for Shoreland. So we had a goal as we were looking at all of this to do a Shoreland overlay. And there were some comments about the Shoreland overlay. They didn't like the idea of a Shoreland overlay. They would prefer to have a district. But we decided that we would actually keep it as a Shoreland overlay district, which we call the shrod. So here on in, I'm calling it the shrod so that you know what it means. We also felt that having an overlay would provide a greater control for the protection of water quality, the animals and the amphibians and things that live around the various lakes here. And so we decided to stick with that. The other component is erosion and runoff control. And we added a new section, 3.15, which is to be used for all districts, which apply to how to control erosion and stormwater management when you are having development. Now, the state requires something at one acre. So if you disturb more than one acre, you'd have to apply for a permit at the state. What we simply did is said, whatever you do, even if it's under one acre, we encourage people to use the same standards that the state is using to monitor and prevent erosion control. The biggest problem that we heard when we were doing research with various people in the, I think, Melanie went to the river department or river, yeah. And what they were telling to us is it's not so much the size of the buffer that's the problem. Their concern is erosion control and stormwater management. And when you look at our roads, which are all next to a lake, think of all the runoff that goes all over the road and into the lake, or into the Kingsbury branch or into any of the branches around Peek and Brook. So we put in 3.15. The second big thing that we did in this update is flood hazard overlay was totally rewritten. And we added a river control, river, what do I want to say, river corridor overlay, which is brand new. Now, we did that for a couple of reasons. The town can get an emergency relief assistance fund. Right now, we're at 12%. This means that if a disaster happens, the state will help pay up to 12% in flood relief rather than us as individuals that have a problem. By adding river corridor overlay, we add 5%. And we're going to get to a 17% return on the emergency relief assistance fund. So we're kind of doing it for a monetary reason. But what's interesting in looking at the river corridor is there are a few houses that exist that are in the river corridor. We looked at, should there be any building in the river corridor? And we opted to say there will be no new development in the river corridor. Absolutely none. It's easier for us as a town to manage. And so that's where we're going with that. So that was the other addition. The other kind of larger thing was relative to the Design Advisory Board in section 5.5. There were some things that are in existence today that we, as Planning Commission, felt we were not responsible for doing a lot of things that it said we were. So we rewrote the process of how the Design Advisory Board would work relative to both the zoning administrator and DRB review. And we tried to outline the process so that it would be understandable. Speak more on that later. Then we did a lot of the miscellaneous tweaks. We created a project worksheet to be used for people that are building on agriculture. I don't know whether you know that farms can almost build anything at any time without a permit. But we wanted to know where they were putting the building. And so that's why we developed a worksheet so that at least we would find out where they're putting the building. They don't have to pay a permit. I mean, they're ag. And so we did that. We had put in a waiver, but we couldn't agree on a few things on how to make it work. So we took it out after our September meeting. We aren't going to have the waiver possibility. And I would encourage a lot of people to read the big new chapter on definitions. Definitions are probably one of the most important things around. I think it'll be helpful when DRB has to do some kind of decision making to read and look into those definitions. So basically that's what we covered in our September 20th meeting. Go ahead next time. But I don't think we were very good at explaining what we were doing. So we had a lot of help in looking and re-looking at especially the shoreland regulations. So I want to thank Larry. I want to thank Noreen. David Ellen Bowden and John Rosenblum attended a lot of our meetings. They were instrumental in helping us reach a much better shoreland overlay trod. And we must thank Ann Winchester, who stepped in and helped us before she became a select four member. To write this language in a way that helped us move it through and make it better. So we wouldn't probably be here today without her help, to be honest. What the changes that we made after between September and today's meeting, we had thought we would meet and stay with what the state wanted and have a 20% impervious surface. But our history in Calis is to have a 10% impervious surface. And it was felt important by the Conservation Commission and the lakes and streams that we keep it at 10%. So we will be different in more ways than one from what the state has. We will extend our upland and our buffer that goes over a road that does not stop at a road. If there's a property owner that goes beyond the road, they will be expected or encouraged to use the best management practices on that side of the road. Then we're different with the impervious surface at 10%. The other thing is the state has a thing called 40% cleared area. Is it 40 or 20? 40. 40, thank you. Right. So the state does 40, but our calculation of the 40% cleared land is gonna be only the amount of land in the upland area. And when we do the maps, you'll see what we mean. It's that property that goes from the buffer to the outer extension. And in the case of East Calis and Curtis Pond, what are my things? Curtis Pond, that goes, they have a 700 foot upland because on the East side, they wanted an 800, huh? 800. Yeah, but it's 700 upland. Plus the buffer. And the 100 buffer, yeah, right, bigger part. This is a lull, it sounds like mud, but when you see the maps, you'll see it. There's a lot of non-conforming structures in the shoreland area. So we articulated better, I think, what the DRB is gonna be expected to review to those non-conforming structures. We covered things like bank stabilization, which had not been in there before. For members of the select board, the State Protection Act also has standards for roads that are by the lake. And I'm hoping that as review is done of our road standards, that some of those standards near the lake that run by the edges of our ponds might be subject to some of those standards that we may not have now. That's just a future thing. We also put in that in this upland area, there's specific development. Now, when we compare the difference between a rural residential district and a shoreland district, there's very little difference in what you could do. But there are a few things that we went through that we felt should not probably be developed in the upland, and thus there are some things that could be developed, but they need stricter DRB review. So those are put into the standards for this change. And the other big change is we went from a 20% slope to a 15% slope. There are some folks that still want a 10% slope. We thought we could compromise at a 15%. So those are the changes that we made. Other changes, when you're doing regulations, you have to have not only what you're doing here, but it has to be connected and interconnected to other sections of the regulations. So we had to make some changes to sections 3.8, 3.12, which is natural resources, 3.13, which is slope, and 3.14, which is water protection. So we did some work and cleared up some language on that. Oh yeah, maximum slope is 15%. And then we did a re-total revision of the design review historic district between this time, September and now. And added a lot more definitions. So with that, let's go to some maps so that some of this could be a little bit clearer and I'll open up for questions then. So in looking at this, what you have here is our existing zoning districts around the lakes and our, we have a 50 foot buffer, vegetative buffer, 150 foot equivalent of an upland, I guess. And it's kind of almost a no-build zone. It's almost no, but yeah, but they can build in it. Not really, not according to our ranks, 150 feet from the water. Yeah. Oh, that's the setback from the water. 150. And then we have the lakes. Now, our current regulations are for 28, or yeah, our for 20 acre lakes, the new regulations are for 10 acres. So we ended up adding new lakes that had not been on before and that included things like Watson Lake, Mud Lake up in the northeast area, which is right here. Adamette Pond. And Adamette Pond. So if we, John, let's take off these and let's just first go to the proposed zoning districts. In doing our review of the zoning districts, most everything that this is red, this red checker thing, that's rural residential. That's a three acre minimum, very similar to what the Shoreland District is today. And you'll see here, the red checker, whatever you call this, is right here next to Curtis Pond. So some parcels are gonna be both rural residential and village, sort of kind of what they are now except that the Shoreland District is rural residential. The, right now, the village district goes all the way up through the lake, but they said they would be willing to reduce their village and make their, okay, yeah. I don't, you wanna concentrate on Adamette for a while? Yeah, I'm on Adamette again. Okay. So I mean, I just wanna show, they agree to reduce, this is the way they are now. They have a village district that goes all the way around the lake. They agreed that they felt they wanted to protect their lake, so they stopped their village, they said they wanted everything along here to be rural residential, and their village district would be way down here. It was about a third of the way up the east side of the lake. Jane, are you talking about Sadham Pond? No, no, no, Adamette Pond. Adamette Pond. Okay, so up closer to the music school. Yes, yes. And I thought, okay, then let's go on to North Calus as the other one that had a little bit of a, oh, quite a bit of a difference, actually. Okay, so I'll put on the existing. Yeah, put on, yeah, okay. So what happens now, what you have now is this is the Shoreland district, and their village district is along here. What happened over the course of the year, they wanted to become a village designated center, so that they could have make use of getting some grants for Memorial Hall. And in doing that, knowing that we were looking at a smaller overlay, we made, we agreed with them, and so our proposed zoning for North Calus is this, which incorporates all of this here. Now, in each case, Adamette and the southern end of Curtis Pond, which is closer to Worcester Road, and this area here, the water flows out this way. So everything around this lake will be rural residential, with the exception of through here, which will be village, and that's the way it is. So now, if we go to the vegetated buffer, you can see that here's a 100 foot buffer around the lake. And then if we add the shoreland up, the upland area, our overlay is all the way out to here, so the protection of the lake goes down through here. This is Nelson Pond, and those are some of the basic differences. You want to put Curtis Pond on so we can show the 800 foot thing. So what Curtis Pond looks like, on the east side, on the east side, they wanted an 800 foot overlay, I will, a total of 800 feet as an overlay, of which 100 foot of spirit buffer and 700 feet is upland. Who is they? Lakes and streams and the conservation. And so why is the east side of Curtis Pond at such a wide, and no one else, no other place there? Jan, could I, I'm sorry. I'm happy to talk about both of those organizations, but we weren't the ones who came up with that. This was, my understanding is that they were the landowners themselves. Well, I don't know what you're talking about. I don't know what I'm talking about. Somebody spoke into it earlier, I never heard anything from any of the other landowners. Wow. I just didn't feel that, you know, if lights and 700 feet around all the other places, too. We wanted to conform mostly to what the state had. Are they 700? No, they're 250. So I guess why 700 there? I'm basically because it was a request of people that we heard, that they wanted greater. Could I know who they are? Pardon? I'm pretty in touch with a lot of people on the pond. I don't know, but I can find out how many people have passed for that. Well, it was the people who came in here. It was the people who came to our meetings that we heard. Several times, and I can't remember, but it should be in the middle. It just seems pretty unfair. If 700 feet is in that one spot, which I'm a real property in that area, it just seems that maybe a couple people on the pond, but I'm just wondering about, has everybody been notified on the pond? I mean, I know you have your meetings, but do a couple people get to have the same rather than? The people that have come to the meeting that are from the lake have been pretty adamant about wanting an 800 foot on the eastern side of a purpose plan. And we decided to accede to that wish. Is that real? What work do we have in the process? So what is, like, if Marge wanted to talk to her neighbors and understand this better, where are we with this? We've been doing this, we've been doing this. I will commit Harry Carey. How's that? You will. I will commit Harry Carey. I will just, you know, if seven minutes needed on the east side, one incident needed on the west side, or on Nelson Pond, or any of the other places. We've got a letter from the chair of the conservation commission that wants to see the upland district extend 500 feet from the water instead of 250. On all the ponds? Yes, all the ponds. Yes. Right, that was our, that was our position. Yeah. Ghana's got a question. I just, I don't have a question, I have a statement because I have to listen to these meetings twice a month for the last two years. They have had many meetings and they've been warned of, for example, in all the usual places. And last year, they tried to move this process along and frankly did not get support from the select board. They're going to have this done by this town meeting, right? So it could be voted on. We wanted to have it voted on in March. Yeah. And we could not do the quality of work that we wanted to do by March. So to make it in time for the vote, it has to go to select board and it has, and our history is that we take our standard and our regulations and are voted on by the town. So the process probably would be in my mind is we are going to go forward with this change. And if people want us to redo and revise the regulations for the next go around, we will add it to a list of changes for the next update. This standard and what we've done here includes river corridor, it includes a lot. And when you vote for this, yes, you are voting for the whole packet, not just Shoreland, you're voting for everything that we have been working on for four years. Marge, I think specifically addressing your question about why is it a different size there than elsewhere. I really think, I believe that what it comes down to is the intensity of the development along that side of Curtis Pond already and how many non-conforming structures there are. Whereas in other places that are around other ponds, with a couple of very small exceptions, the places that are intensely developed around other ponds and on other sides of Curtis Pond are now in, are not intensely developed right now and have protection, three acre minimum protection from being in rural residential or particularly on the western side of Curtis Pond are steep slopes and are prevented from any development because of that, because they exceed 15% slope. So when we did a review and we truly did do a review lot by lot around all of the bodies of water and callus, including up and down the river cores, we couldn't really argue against the people who articulated their concern about the eastern side of Curtis Pond as being a special situation in callus, just because of the existing density of development there and the number of non-conforming lots that are adjacent to that property. So that's what they were going for there in order to try to extend not only the same protection as other places really, if we went 250 feet on that side of the pond, the part that right now is in the overlay would become part of the road residential district and the rural residential district has, to a large degree, the same constraints from development. So with the exception of, I don't know, a fuel storage facility and a lawn and garden center and things like that. Which are spelled out. That are specifically prohibited in the overlay district. Really, the upland portion of the shoreline district has very similar regulations to the rural residential district. So when we held all those things in balance, it seemed like it was worthwhile to, to accede to the requests that were put in front of us. So it didn't seem like it was a great burden on you and other people in your situation. And it did seem like it made sense from a density of development standpoint. That's really my take on how this shook down during these hearings. Okay, that's the clear-fine question. You just said that the landowners requested this. Is it the landowners on the eastern side that requested or landowners on the other side of the pond? Because you said they kept coming through the meeting. The most local people that have attended our meetings have been from Curtis Pond. So somewhere on Curtis Pond, but not necessarily. Well, that's where the people live on Curtis Pond. Right, but not necessarily the, she was asking whether they were warned or not. Why? That you didn't hear about it, right? Well, I know what this talk was going on, but I guess I didn't realize that it was gonna be 700 feet that it was. But it is now. It already is. We're not making those regulations more stringent. Right now you're not making one. We're retaining those regulations in that area. I don't know enough of what we can do or can't do now compared to what we have been doing. There's not much difference. We're short of going out and reading the new changes here. John, do you agree with that statement? There's not much difference. I'm sorry, what? Do you agree with that statement? Yes, as far as dimensional standards, the same as rural residential, as far as setbacks and minimum acreage, there is the 40% maximum clearing, where in rural residential, you've probably seen examples around town here and there, people can clear cut basically, you can't. And in this pink cross hatch, it's only 40%. And that includes new impervious surface. So that would be the total amount of cleared and impervious surface that you could add to any of the pink cross hatched area. But it doesn't mean that you can't develop it. In fact, some of these pink shaded areas are large enough to support another building and accessory dwelling, for example, and it would still be completely compliant with the zoning rigs. So the pink isn't like a no-build zone. The pink is exactly the same as your shoreland is now. Your shoreland is. Except for some uses. In uses and setbacks and everything like that. So basically. And I just don't understand why the current climate is on these sides, single out. Basically because people came and talked to us about it. That's all. Loud people. This is where hill on the west side, can you do anything in there? What? Is it where hill on the other side? Yes, very steep. Yeah, and way up on that, that's resource recreational, which is 10 acre, I think, is it? Where is it 25? There's no development potential on the west side. Yeah. Rows and then. Yeah, it's 10 acre. Just because it looks like such a pretty map. Can you like point to the callus, Worcester Road, or where the Maple Corner store is? Yeah. That's Worcester Road, Maple Corner stores this one? Or this one? And Camp Road. Pardon, which one? Camp Road, like near the dam. It's right there, that little point, right? Okay. Okay, so when you drive on the Worcester Road, you really only see that much of Curtis Brown. Yeah, we did this, the road is here. Yeah, and then all the rest is. Right, if you go on the interactive map, and it's on our website. Oh, thank you. Oh, okay, yeah, thanks. I mean, thank you, this is great. Yep. Thank you. I just need to know where I am. You're in line. Yeah. Given this conversation, could you just summarize what the change is? Like what is being proposed that is different? Like what would, like if you were to apply now versus if these changes were to be approved by the town, what would be the difference for somebody proposing something like that? Well, when a permit application comes in, John might be able to answer this better. When a permit application comes in now for Shoreline District. The Shoreline District, the only thing they have is the 50 foot buffer and 150 foot setback. There is no recommendation for what kind of plants to put in, best management practice for what you plant. There is, I had a note here or something. Actually, there are no standards in there relative to mowing in Shoreline, in the Shoreline District. There's, and so we're keeping a 10% impervious surface, which is the same. Clearing is more spelled out. And if you go to the standards within the buffer, there's no new development in the buffer. We've made the buffer of 100 feet to be almost, it's at percent. And the upland area, which in all areas except the eastern side, you can do almost everything except maybe three things and I don't remember them from the top of my head. And a few things extra that have to go to the DRB to be allowed. But the setbacks are all the same because the setbacks in rural residential are the same as pretty much the setbacks of Shoreline. I would say that what the overshadow is doing is trying to control how land is developed around the edges of the lake. And I think what was telling to me was, I don't know if it was John Rosenblum or Noreen who made the comment that we are loving our lakes to death. So I'm asking you to love your lakes to more by having a greater protection around the overlay, using the overlay as that protection method. That's what really, I guess my response would be. I just chime in, one practical reason for all of this is the State Shoreline Protection Act requires that buffer, that vegetative buffering imposes a lot of these requirements already. So we're sort of conforming our zoning to the State baseline and then going a little further on a few things with the help of folks who've been participating in our meetings. So if that makes sense. So what is the 50 foot vegetation planina you're going to make everybody put 50 feet worth of vegetation? It's more than 50 feet that the State has imposed all lakes and ponds greater than 10 acres in area. So we're conforming our zoning to the State requirement. Folks in those areas will still have to get their State permit. But this is the zoning. Medication. I'm so sorry? Medication. Yes, the state allows mitigation. It might be important to point out if it's okay. First of all, the state and now under these regulations, the town has a buffer zone that's composed of two parts. The part next to the pond is 100 feet deep from the mean water line. And that's why in these new regulations I think it's called vegetative buffer zone. After that 100 feet, there's what's called in these regulations the upland zone. And that's another 150 feet. So the total buffer is 250 feet. If I understood the thrust of your question, the, I think Jan answered it or hit on it when she talked about how in the vegetative buffer under these regulations there won't be any more development. What's there is there and can stay there. But expanding it or doing other things, clear cutting the trees or something, that wouldn't be permitted under these. Thank you. Any other part? I'm talking about the 100 foot part and not the whole 250 feet. 250 feet is quite that 40% clearance and 20% impervious. Well, that's for the whole, that's actually for the whole track. But because nothing you can be built in the 100 foot buffer zone, it's a practical matter. And Bill, when we're talking about any other tree, we'll be in that upland zone. And I'll set up, sorry. Just a good question. Well, you've got that map up there. You've got something in 314 that says there's a geologic formation between the dam and the village. Yes. And that there's no, there will be no digging, trenching or excavation. Can you just show you where that is? I'm curious whether that will affect when we fix the Curtis Fund dam. It won't. Okay. I can. I can. Maybe. It's hard to run this map. That actually runs right up here. And see this little dotted line here? Where my finger is? Yeah. Let me turn on the existing shoreland and then the shape of the existing is actually there. Can you see, can you see that line? That's what you're pointing to. And where is the dam? Right there. Right there. So are we gonna be digging right there? But you're in the water, aren't you? In the dam, in the water? The work's been done in the water. It's a lot happier for a few times. It goes to the shore. Right. But you're in, you're under the old regulations. So let's not approve. But I did have a conversation with Jamie about that a little bit, especially when we were talking about bank stabilization. I mean, it was kind of an interesting, but I think they're covered because they're writing their permit based on the old language until this is voted on. The weird thing is, any work in the water can't be touched by a local zoning state. I didn't hear the last ones. Pardon me? I didn't hear the last ones. And any work in the water is the jurisdiction of the state, that the town has no control. And there is bedrock underneath. That's part of the plan. Yeah, there's, well. Because if anyone's putting the anchors there's actually outcroppings of bedrock all the way up here. You can walk, I did walk with a state geologist and he ascertained this line. And then from this side of the dam, it actually comes down this way. And it's visible, it's on the surface. And the regulation is just all about not blasting holes in. Because it's, that's a watershed. Everything on this side of that, the watershed is this way, away from the pond and it gets into the brook through a different avenue than going into the pump. And so any development of these properties that are bisected by that had to stay off of the top of that upcropping. Okay, but aren't we gonna have to excavate into the bedrock to put those, you see where we just heard, into the, yeah, but they're not this kind of sticking it in. Excavate silk to the bedrock. To the bedrock. And then drill pegs into the bedrock. You kind of have to drill a hole, I guess, because you can't disturb the bedrock. Okay, well as long as nobody's going to drag. So I've been sitting on a fork since I've brought it up that if the state approves that we do the repair, the repair of the dam that the part of the environmental conservation approves that that would override, and we could do that in the town when the stop is. No, according to, I think John, the zoning administrator, we have to have that permit from them. Do you even, you know, whatever. Right, and we'd have to. They're kind of managing the permits for the dam. Right, right. And Colleen and I have been, and John said that until we get the DC dam safety permit, then he can't let us starve on that. That's kind of. Not really, you need all the state permits before the town can get it. So I think you had applied for state protection for the state protection act, hadn't you, SPA? I'm sorry, I'm not eight years old. I think you had, I thought Jamie said that you had applied for the state permit. Oh yeah, we were on the. The Shoreland Permission Act, yeah, permit. Yeah, the shoreland and. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. The dam safety and the, right. They're pretty close to being. Right, okay. Are there any more questions about the lakes? Because if not, can we go back to the slide show and get to River Corridor? Yep, real quick. The ponds we have now, they're the ponds that will be protected in the future. Can you do it again? A little mud, Watson, Sodom and Ataman will be added to the list of protected ponds. Oh, so Ataman is added to the list? Yeah, Sodom is added. Oh, Sodom, right. Yeah, Ataman is Sodom. And here's a quick look, here's the 50 foot vegetative buffer and you go 250 feet from the water. And oh, this is existing, 50 foot veg, 150 foot. And then in our current regs in this area here in Shoreland, there are a couple of uses that are different. Otherwise, the Shoreland really doesn't have an impact. And what we're proposing is this one down here, 150 foot vegetative buffer or another 150 feet that development is allowed, but it's controlled for a total of a 250 foot buffer. And this, we forgot to change this to a 40 foot, that's not clear. Yeah, yeah. You can't remember to find everything done on it. But anyway, yeah. And we use this pond as kind of a nice way showing what it is existing. And here's what the new would have. One difference between what we're proposing and what the state has too is all this area south of Bliss Bond, Bliss Road, is protected by our overlay standards, where the state says- The state stops. It doesn't stop at the road. So River Quarter, which looks awful. Can we enlarge this? No, I guess we can. I can in certain districts, I guess. River Quarter is this yellow line here. Go ahead. And these are the rivers that have 50 foot buffers. And what, the yellow one? The yellow. Let me go to the next slide and you can see what a River Quarter looks like. So River Quarter follows the meandering. Yeah, take an average of the meandering path and add 50 feet to the side of it. And that's River Quarter, which is basically had no development as allowed. And the used to call it fluvial erosion hazard area, but it was identified by the status, an area that could be severely eroded, the kind of stuff we saw in Irene, where houses dumped into the water. So in fact, this whole thing came about after Irene. Can we go back to this? Yeah, so the distance between this line and this line is what you see in this, all these yellow areas. Yeah, the yellow area here, is that, okay. But in order to have River Quarter and be accessible to the ERAF to get the extra 5% these little red streams are also considered River Quarter. They're not, they don't have the same fit or not mapped the same, but they are however we wrote it. I can't remember. There's like a default 50 foot buffer on those that's been gotten out to actually study the river to see where the quarter is. So the smaller ones, it's just a 50. The state came up with the yellow area and then said, whoops, we really want to add these little red areas. And the bottom line is that everything in the River Quarter was actually, has been approved by Ned Swandberg at the River District, A&R. And so. Is there a way to access this map so we can actually see it right now? Yeah, on the Calis online web map, it'll be clearer than that. I'm not interested in knowing if the water or my property is having, like if the zone is changing, but I can't see that, it's too small. But I'm on the Calis website, is it on there? Well, yeah, you can get the interactive web map via the Calis website, which is exactly what I'm doing now. John, isn't it also on the A&R interactive map, the Natural Resources Atlas, the River Rivers? So you go to the Calis website and you go to the land records. There's a thing that says interactive. John's showing. Yeah, but I gotta log on to the network. Yes. It's a great tool, I used it all the time. Yeah, right, yeah, all good. That's awesome. I have a question about a river corridor. I have something in my mind when I heard the words river corridor, meaning there's a river. And then there's land on either side of the river. Those red lines in particular, but also the yellow lines, are they actually moving water in all cases? Like how much land is being removed from development possibility by those lines? It varies. The states made the determination. And I'm not exactly sure what they used to do it. This building was a river corridor and we got a river scientist come from the state and looked at it and said, the maps are on. John, it's based on the volume of water going through, that's what I thought. I think it's actually the, how many square miles of water or something like that? Of watershed is serviced by that drainage. Right, and unfortunately, I live on a place that has a little brook. It is mapped red. And I'm going really, it flows very hard in the spring. And it dries up in August. And I say, really? So I questioned the river corridor myself in those red lines. But my property, I mean, I'm not gonna divide it. So I have to buy, you know, and I don't know about other people. You've got the same thing, I think. I have a soil on my property, but it doesn't only conducts water once every quarter of years. I just, but repeat the thing about it. The red lines are necessary for the 5% pump? Yeah. Unfortunately. Those red lines are already protected by 50 foot stream buffers. We have a stream buffer protection that doesn't allow development or cutting. And so the red line stuff really isn't any different. There may be some towns that don't have stream buffer protection. But, and so the state figures that on those red streams, then they'll get it. So you're saying there's no pragmatic change in? Those red ones, there's no difference. No, you're not allowed to cut, you're not allowed to develop along those red streams. And I'm sorry, I can't access the callus web map because I can't get onto the internet here. You're saying this is not a change in the setback for current development? Not the 50 footer. The bigger yellow one is certainly. The bigger yellow one is because you can't develop there, period. It's just that the way they want you to have you identify those little red streams that they think they have speed or so much amount of water going through and they want you to identify that in the map. James, stand up. Pardon? James, look at the map. I'm floundering around with the maps here. And that, you know, are you getting at like what's developable here in callus? Yeah, I mean, particularly with the river corridors, I just know sometimes there, it might be a river corridor but it's nowhere near water, for example. So I'm curious about, if we're talking about land that kind of looks like it should and could be developable but it's actually a river corridor. Because I'm only personal, I have no idea the answer to the question. We have certainly run into mapping errors in the past and there is a mechanism for having that reviewed at the regional and the state level to have a determination made whether the map was correct or incorrect. In fact, right. Sorry, so if you judge that they really screwed up, that they really screwed up, like there's a place on Jan's property that is a field. I mean, it's a wide open field and it gets mowed every year or it used to get mowed every year. And that is mapped as a string. Well, there's no string there. It's a field that water runs in sheets across. So, her option is to have that reviewed by the state and to have a new determination made. And that certainly is available. That's a redress that's available. If I want it to develop. Now, what's interesting is when we first moved into our property, they said our house was in flood zone and that we needed flood insurance. And I said, no, it isn't, the house is up. So we filed for a Loma and we had people come in and do the engineering thing and they approved the Loma so that it said we are not in a flood zone. But it's all because of these crazy little streams that we kind of have moving around the property. So, I guess where I wanted to go with this is more like a general thing is when we were doing our maps for the town plan, way back when, 11% of Calis is wetland. And then you've got over 50% is in current use. And then five, did you say five oh? Five oh, over 50% is in current use. And then you have forest and other things. I can't remember what all we had, but when you looked at what was potentially a developer bull, it's very little. Which is a problem. It was a problem, it was a problem. Yeah, because our village centers are T-R-E-C-B-N-Z. They are just in the Department of Building and any of our village centers, I think. We don't have a septic or water in our villages, right? Right, so on the state level, we have this problem because they were relegated to building in village centers and those aren't appropriate for us to build. Well, historically it was because they were lumber mill towns and they were working. I mean, with the East Calis-Griss Mill, I mean, it was a mill that was workable. And Adam and I think that Corey had a mill on her own. Did they? I don't know. Historically, I don't remember the history, but interesting, the village centers that we're saying are village centers now. North Calis had that big area that was a village center in many ways and what happened is mills went away and not a bitch could ever talk about that, much more from a historical perspective. So, that's where we are. And yes, that's our challenge or opportunity. I don't know which way you want to look at. Okay, we're a quarter. I guess, I don't know if you want to go back to that squiggly map with the reds, but that was a big challenge for us and we rewrote flood hazard overlay so that we could, we made it better, basically, so more definitions as to what you can do and how you can do it, especially like the septic tanks or I mean propane tanks and things like that. And the whole point of that is mostly to protect the people that are kind of living there. There's a flood or something. I think that's about... It's that's it, that's it, my computer's giving up. Okay, I guess so. So, if there's any, I mean, we'll just open it up. You folks have been asking questions, but is there anything more you would like to talk about? I mean, when I encourage you is to read the required report because it really lays out the biggest changes that came in and the other things that are, and the changes that came about since 8th. And other than that, I think we'll just sit and listen and take notes. Can you share the PowerPoint? I can share it. Yeah. It goes on the website either way. Okay, yeah. Thank you. I don't have very many good notes with it. I used to do a lot of notes when I did PowerPoints and this is not, but I'll share. And the map that has the layers that can be toggled on and off, we can share that as well. One word about it is you have to open it in Adobe Reader to get those layers, just switch those layers on and off. I have trouble reading maps, I'm actually better at words than maps. Does anybody else want the copy of the PowerPoint? Can we put it on the website as we suggested? Oh yeah, we can have Jamie put it on the website. Okay. Yeah, I know. Okay, okay. Tegan. Can you fix the typo on page six? Oh my, the church is missing an R. It's a very tiny thing. Church. Where did you find this? The bottom of the last line of page six. Church didn't know it. We put that there just to see if you would find it. You get a gold star. Okay. That's all, that was not only complete. Yeah, let's see, how long did it take you to do this? We have been working on this for four years. We have been around the pod. I worked at the Yale School of the Environment back in the day, and a lot of these water quality issues were, you know, it was just like pulling teeth to get anybody to understand why you would do this in the city, and it feels really nice to live in that community where we're taking such care, but thank you for all your work. Thank you. Well, we have a vacancy on the commission. I have to know all of them. You could share this. You have to do a lot of learning on terminology. You could share the story with us. Yeah, I know these. I do love these. So just so that you know, the zoning regulations are a total of 116 pages now. So that's where we are at. Oh, sorry. I was just trying to wait until everybody else has had their say, because I was just going to say a couple of things, but... I'm just curious about the 10% and earliest surface requirement and what sort of practical effect that, would that not be roads? If a road were to be made, it would include that? Driveways. And driveways? Yeah. Driveways is considered an impervious surface. They have a list and their purpose. They're a big proposed plan. They have a list of all the things they count. What percentage are we currently of impervious surface? Well, some of these smaller camps. No, you said... You're not saying 10% of land coverage. You're saying 10% of the parcel. Okay. Thank you. Late person. So I have a bunch of more editorial comments. Should I just give them to you in different ways separately? Yeah, you can. You were supposed to have caught those, right? Well, not in the shrunk. Well, a bunch of them had to do with waiver. I found where you didn't take some stuff out. You needed to. But we took the waiver out. I know the loose ends that brought it to me. You didn't take it out on page five. Number three, B3, it's still there. And there's another place. There's just some things like that. Okay, you're amazing. Yes, all right. In other words, you're looking at kind of like corrections. I've found a few things that I'll just share with you there. Okay, all right. Thank you. That would be super. Thank you. Yeah. Larry. Thanks. My name's Larry, but you don't know me. I'm here tonight sort of awkwardly wearing two hats, I guess because I'm the vice chair of the conservation commission at the moment. And I'm also a member of the cows, lakes and streams committee. Both of these, both of those groups have participated in this process and monitored this process best we could. For most, if not all of those four years, I'm happy to say that both of those organizations have are going on record, I guess tonight in supporting the planning commissions over all revisions with regard to the shoreline zoning regulations and related matters. We didn't trouble them by following them through all the other aspects of these zoning changes. I have a couple of written things which I submit from one from the planning commission. I mean, one from the lakes and streams committee, one from the conservation commission, which did hold out the possibility that some of these members could complain about the slope requirements and the mowing requirements, but that overall, and I don't see comments from that. Oh, we got one in the email now, I'll read it. Okay. For somebody. But the two bodies support this and Do you have it? Both want to thank the members of the planning commission for the many hours of detailed, tedious work that they've done, and we were privileged to be observers to quite a few of those, so we know about that. I was, I came prepared with a list of things that could sort of indicate why, especially the lakes and streams committee was so enthusiastically in support of this, but I won't, if anybody wants to ask me about it, probably then I'm happy to share it with you. I mean, just to save your time. Right. Thank you. Well, we in turn are tremendously grateful for the participation that lakes and streams and conservation, and particularly you and a few other people, but particularly you have helped us with in making these regulations what I think are the perfect balance between between protecting this valuable resource that we're trying to protect and not trampling property owners' rights. And I think that we've really hit the nail on the head with this one, and we couldn't have done it without you. So thank you. Well, thank you. I appreciate that. The truth is it's Noreen Bryan. Who's got a lion's share of the heavy lifting on this. I'm happy to bask in her glow. Melanie, do you have Stephanie's letter? Do I have Stephanie's letter? Do you want me to go ahead and read it? Do I? No, I was asking. Okay, in an email today, Stephanie Kaplan sent me a letter, but I don't know if she's talking for the commission or for herself. No, it's just for herself. Okay, so I'm going to read this because this is a public hearing and I'll put it in for the account. I'm submitting brief written comments on the shoreline zoning revisions that you have proposed. Most of these comments have been previously submitted to you by the Calis Conservation Commission and you declined to make the suggested modifications. Thus, I am not optimistic that my comments here will have any effect, but I'm submitting them for the record. So I'm reading them for the record. Shoreland District versus Overlay. Instead of an overlay, there should continue to be a shoreland district. The disadvantages of overlay clearly outweigh any advantages. Having a separate shoreland district underlines the importance of the shoreland and its specific standards designed to protect the water quality and other values of our lakes and ponds. It also makes the requirements for developing around the shoreline clear and minimizes confusion that often results from an overlay when essentially two different sets of district standards apply. The extent of the shoreland district, she would like the shoreland district should extend 500 feet from the mean water level instead of the proposed 250 feet, except that the 800 foot district boundary proposed by the Planning Commission for the east side of Curtis Pond should be retained. According to the previously submitted chart prepared by the Vermont Department of Environmental Conservation, a 500 foot vegetated buffer around lakes provides maximum protection for water quality as well as other values. See also with the Lakeshore Vegetation for Lake Protection, Vermont Agency of Natural Resources. And she's got a website here that we can go to. Mowing, I and the Conservation Commission in the Lakes and Streams Committee have pointed out repeatedly and cited expert support that mowed grass is a poor method of capturing silt and other often harmful runoff. And that if callous is serious about protecting water quality, mowing down to the water's edge of streams as well as lakes and ponds should be phased out. In section K of the shoreland standards, lawns within the shoreland vegetative buffer zone legally in existence on January 3rd, 2005, and which are mowed at least once every two years maybe maintained if no new development takes place. Her question is what does legally in existence mean with respect to mowing lawns? I'm gonna answer that right here. We change legally in existence as a new terminology instead of grandfathered. How will it be determined how often landowners are or are not mowing and how will this be enforced? Well, it's the same question that we have had in the past. How do you enforce anything? There we are. Okay, I'll just keep on reading. There's no constitutional right to mow your lawn to the water edge. The Planning Commission has the full authority to regulate this kind of mowing in the buffer zones of lakes and ponds and streams in the public interest. To better protect the water quality of our lake streams and ponds, this should be done. There is a huge amount of information about and support for the types of plantings of native vegetation that can be planted in the buffer zones of the lakes and ponds and streams to best protect the water quality. Landowners who stop mowing should be provided with assistance in planting the appropriate types of native vegetation. Slopes, it is very difficult to control erosion and runoff on slopes as steep as 10%. No slope steeper than 10% should be allowed close to the lakes, ponds or streams. It is not clear what the purpose is of allowing construction on such steep slopes close to the water bodies that we are trying to protect. So that's for the record. Was the chair there once a racing commission? Yes. But I think she was writing for herself because. Right, right. She is stepping down actually. It hasn't taken effect yet because we weren't able to have the election meeting back in March, I guess. But she won't be the chair after tomorrow night. Sorry. Tegan, what did you find? Oh, the last line of page six. It says old list church, but the church didn't have an R in it and both of the. Are you talking about the report or the actual? No, the whole day. Regulation? Did you use the one that I sent here today? I had both. I had the one dated April and the one dated October. I can't find it on my page six. Maybe it's nothing. Maybe I was a bit nervous. Yes. OK. Any other questions? Any other comments? John. Well, we didn't touch on the DAB stuff. Oh, good point. We didn't, but there's no questions about it. Anyone interested? What do you think you touch on it? I think it's something different than the water. I'll make it real quick. Right now there's a process where if a project doesn't need a permit, otherwise, in the underlying district, for the most part, it's rural residential. You're changing your shutters or changing your roofing type. You don't need a permit for that. But if you're in the historic district, you do. It used to be that even changing the roof or painting your shutters a different color meant it was a trip to the DRB. We changed it so that those changes that don't otherwise need a permit would only need DAB approval and Planning Commission approval. And then the zoning administrator could sign off on the permit app. We're changing it now, so it's just DAB and zoning administrator. And it's for all the things that would otherwise be considered in the underlying district. If it's purely aesthetic, then, well, zoning administrator, let's say someone wanted to put an addition on their house in the historic district, I could sign off on that as zoning administrator. The aesthetic impact would be reviewed by the DAB. And if they agreed with that, then I could follow up and complete the permit. But basically, the only time the DRB would be involved then would be if it required a conditional use. And the main conditional use or variance would be if it was in flood hazard. We've got some stuff low down on Old West Church Road that gets close to the flood hazard area. So that's it. We're basically making it a little more streamlined, giving more control to the DAB and the ZA and cutting the PC out of the whole process. But on the advice of our lawyer, that turns out that's legally that's something we can do. And that's what we're proposing. And we did present this to send this to members that are what we had worked on after September into what they're here. We did send these changes to the DAB members. And we heard nothing back. So we assume silence was consent. I got a confirmation that they're. OK. So the DABs, they know what's going on. And they seem pleased when we did talk about it in the initial stages. We were OK with it. The upside is it means that most permit applications can be processed without the time it takes to go to the DRB. Even if the DRB moves as fast as possible, through the warning period and all the rest of the stuff that goes with it, could add a couple of months to the permitting process. Well, if there's nothing else, I will call the hearing adjourned.