 This conference will now be recorded. Great, thank you. Good evening. Welcome to the South Burlington Development Review Board, a special meeting of April 11th, 2023. My name is Dawn Philbert. I'm the chair of the board, and I'd like to introduce other board members. We have a new board member, John Muscatelli, Mark Bear, Quinn Mann, John Stern, Frank. Talking about memory. Cokeman, thank you. And our staff members, Mickey, no, sorry. Marty Gillies, I'm sorry. And Marlekeen. Thank you all for being here. This meeting is being recorded. There are a number of ways to participate in tonight's meeting. One way obviously is to attend in person. You can also attend online virtually. And if you do so, please in the chat box indicate your contact information. So we have a record that you're a participant and people who are here in person, please make sure you've signed the attendance list by the door in case you wish to appeal any actions in the future. You'll be considered a participant. You can also attend by phone. And if you do that, please send an email to mkene at SouthBerlingtonVT.gov to let Marle know what your contact information is. Again, to be considered a participant. Let's see. Let's move right ahead. Emergency evacuation procedures. If there was an emergency, you could exit either of the two back doors and turn right or left and you will be outside of the building. Agenda item number two. Are there any additions, deletions, or changes in the order of agenda items? Hearing none, I'm not surprised. There's only really one major agenda item. Are there any announcements tonight? Hearing none. Let us, are there any comments and questions from the public that are not related to the agenda? Hearing none, let's move straight ahead to our one project for review tonight. And that is site plan application SB 22056 of Beta Technologies, Inc. to amend a previously approved plan for a 344,000 square feet manufacturing and office building. The amendment consists of adding 261 parking spaces at 154 Da Vinci Drive. Dawn, if I may give a little exposition on this. Sure, go ahead, Marl. This item was scheduled to be heard at the last meeting of April 4th. We had, we did not have a quorum for this item. Life happens, it's fine. The board in recognition of the applicant's patience in getting to this item on the agenda agreed to a special meeting if it were legally allowable. Our legal counsel has advised that while a special meeting is potentially allowable, they wanted to make sure that the public had the opportunity to weigh in and because the special meeting was not announced on April 4th, but instead intended to be postponed, this item was intended to be postponed until April 18th. Legal counsel has advised to go ahead and review the item fully tonight, reach whatever conclusions you would like to reach and refrain from closing the meeting tonight for the limited and sole purpose of taking public comment on April 18th. And so April 18th should be pretty quick unless there are public comments that bring up issues that the board has never considered. Even if there are public comments, doesn't mean there has to be a big discussion. The board's role is to take the public comments, not necessarily engage on the public comments, so the meeting will be held open tonight. And by the 18th, we should be able to close and quickly issue a decision. Great, thanks Marla. You're welcome. Are there any recusals or disclosures before we get into the applicant? Okay, who is here for the applicant please? Hi, Art Clugo, Beta Technologies. Chris Gendron, Stantec. Anyone else who will be testifying? Yes. Jeff Hodson, Wagner Hodson. Hey Jeff, anyone else? That should do it for tonight. I'd ask you to raise your right hand, please. That's my left hand. Do you solemnly swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth under penalty of perjury? I do. I do. Thank you. Okay. So you have seen the staff report and I'm wondering before we go through the staff comments if you have anything briefly that you'd like to review with us. Well, first, thank you for holding the special meeting. I understand that these things can be challenging sometimes and we appreciate you trying to move us forward. Expeditiously, it means a lot both to Beta as a company, our customers, our investors, as well as the project because we're deep in construction. As you know, construction season is short here in Vermont and so anything we can do to leverage that is greatly appreciated. Relative to tonight's effort, it feels like really we're at the tail end in reading through staff's report. There's several just updates and really from our perspective, just maybe one issue that we need to work through and that would be the first comment on the staff report. Other than that, it feels like it should be pretty straightforward. Okay, thanks Art. Let's just go ahead and move through the comments. The first comment relates to the cross-lot connection and I think that there's some thoughts on the part of staff that we should require either a driveway or an easement. And I understand you have concerns about the grading but I think- It's less about the grading but we can go into that. Before we get going, I did print out larger copies of some exhibits that will help answer forward tonight's discussion. Okay. If I can just bring these up. Do you wanna walk us through these, Art? Yeah, so the exhibit that we'll be looking at first is one right there on the top which is the more of a practical discussion on the cross-lot connection. There's really two items of discussion around this. One is a technical item and the other is a practical item. Excuse me. Is there a way for the public to- I did not bring an electronic copy of that. I don't know if it was part of the- Yeah. Would that work, Marla? Art, you said this is just a zoom-in of something we already have? No, that's my copy of notes from just that I brought with me that might be helpful. It's not anything that was submitted. I don't think we submitted those, Chris, did we? Yeah, it's just so that you had something to look at as I was describing it. So let's find out if there are any members of the public who really wanna see these documents. There are folks attending, there is at least one person attending online and how many TV broadcasts live, so we don't know how many people are watching potentially. Also, it's recorded, so. Okay, we'll put these up definitely later. To the degree, we can look at an exhibit that we already have and kind of use your mouse to show what Art is saying, so that'd be great. Did you wanna say something, Tim? Yeah, I guess it depends on how it goes. If we feel like it's really critical, I think that's a good thing to do. So in terms of the information, yeah, in terms of the information that you have tonight, the diagram on the second page, which shows the silver cells, that was previously issued as part of the overall application. The snow storage area as shown, I think that's on page three, that was previously submitted with the original SD application. The information on the last page that shows the rendering of the landscaping and the buffer area, that was previously submitted as well. So Marty, to whatever degree you can pull those up, those are available. The only image that was added to this that hadn't been submitted as an application, that was really put together as a way to describe the cross-lot discussion, or facilitate the cross-lot discussion, is the first image that we're gonna see. The other three images are images that have already been submitted in one form or another in the previous work that we've done together. Thanks, Art. I think I can zoom in to the same area that's shown on this plan. So I'm actually gonna show the screen and Marty's gonna take over leading the discussion. So I think I can zoom into this area on the screen and largely point to it as we have the conversation. You wanna walk us through it, Art? Yeah, so the first part is the technical part. This parking is part of an industrial application for manufacturing and assembly facility. Under the regulations 13.02 F, when requiring cross-lot connections or access management, the exclusions are provided for residential, agricultural, and industrial uses. So from a technical perspective, this tonight's discussion should be moot in that the cross-lot connection is not required, but more from a practical perspective, happy to talk through that. So what you have is a diagram in front of you and there's a couple of key dimensions on here. You mentioned the slope and as it turns out, actually, in the area that would first show up as a cross-lot connection, the slope is not that great of an issue. It's less than 10%, which I think we would all consider fairly flat, fairly navigable, something that we should be able to resolve. The bigger challenges are when you start to overlay the other requirements in the land development regulations. The first being that if you wanna have a curb cut, the proximity to an existing curb cut is a minimum 200 feet and a maximum of 400 feet. And so the blue line right there, that shows you where the 200 feet would land in the master plan that was approved and how that would impact the project where the proposed childcare building is, how it then becomes a cross connector, the pathway that we're providing there, the public path that goes out to the viewing platform would get bisected by that easement if a future driveway was put in place. From a childcare perspective, which is what this building would be intended for, there is some park space that's designed to happen behind the building. So now you have a cross-lot connection that would bifurcate, cut that park space in half. We could talk about moving the building forward, but one of the last things that you wanna do is have a childcare center on a roadway and have to deal with that noise and the safety issues that are accompanied with that. So you can see at that blue line, the challenges that come into play when you overlay the other regulation requirements. If you take the 400 foot and say, okay, we're gonna continue to move this back because we can go back as far as 400 feet, you can see how the grades start to get steeper and how we start to really impact the balance of the design and the master plan from the community perspective. And what's not shown on here are some of the utility requirements that are in place that run parallel to both the public pathway and the new roadway that we're installing. So at a technical level, we believe that the cross-lot connection is not required. As a practical, at the practical level, it's unclear how we would implement that if the board did decide that the interpretation and the LDRs was not correct and that the cross-lot connection was required. From our perspective, it seems that the master plan, as it was closed, I won't say approved because we're not sure what the conditions are yet around the decision, but as we discussed and closed a couple of meetings ago, this would change and require a rework of that master plan. Thank you. Questions or comments from the board or thoughts? John. Explain just a little bit more detail while you think technically it's not a requirement. You mentioned that at the start. Sure, because the language in 13.02, make sure I get this right, 13.02 F access management requirements says, all commercial lots, and then it says in parentheses, retail restaurant, I'm sorry, yes, retail restaurant office service uses, those are required to have a cross-lot connection, excluding residential, agricultural, and industrial uses, located adjacent to other commercial lots. So we're adjacent, so clearly we have to look at the language, but because we're in industrial use, we're excluded, not required to have that cross-lot connection. And that's, thank you, Marla. It's in starting at all commercial lots there. And you can see very clearly there, it says excluding residential, agricultural, and industrial. And the project that we have before you is an industrial manufacturing and assembly use, assembly facility use. So, thank you. Marla, what's your take on arts interpretation? I'm gonna let Marty answer that question. Okay. Yeah, I think that we understand that one of the uses on the lot is industrial, but we just wanted to open it up to the board, feeling that it wasn't completely black and white on account of the fact that there's several different uses, including office space and other things that would be falling under the criteria requiring a connection. Okay, thank you, Marty. Thoughts from the board? If I could just interject one last thing. I understand that the topography and the other land use requirements might make the installation of a driveway somewhat onerous. The language here does provide kind of the back door of you can provide just an easement. No one's saying you have to build the driveway, there just has to be an easement in case things were to shift over time, beta gets sold, the property's in new hands, Pete's RV's is in new hands, the two new owners decide to make sense for a connection to exist. That easement of this standard should be in place as per the standard. Yeah, that's a good point, Marty. My comments were based on providing an easement, not providing a driveway. That providing that easement creates an undue burden both on the project and the parcel. The parcel in some ways becomes not developable if you have to put that easement at that 200, you can't go any closer than 200 feet because of the other regulations. So now you've got this very strange parcel and if you look at the blue line as it relates to Pete's RV parcel, which is to the right on screen, you're not only bifurcating the parcel that we've outlined in trying to maximize the highest and best use, but you're doing the exact same thing to the parcel adjacent. Marla, could you put that, the language from the LDR back in that section again? And Chris was just saying, if you're looking for this diagram for public, he just emailed it over so if you wanted to put that up, you could do that. Thank you. As I read it, I think I have to read it the way Art reads it. I mean, it's pretty clear. They're exempted from what is otherwise a requirement of this paragraph. If we agree they're an industrial use, they're simply outside the scope of that paragraph altogether. Easement, driveways, nothing. Yeah, I'm kind of in agreement because if this slot ever gets sold and they change the use to more commercial use, they're going to be coming back before us anyway and we can require the easement at that time. I agree with you actually, yeah. And I think if the lot gets developed with the childcare center and it's successful and all that, which further precludes making a cross-lot connection in the future, even with an easement in place further up, kind of so be it. That's then the lot has been kind of fully developed out. But I think that if the change of use occurs then the ability to put in an easement then becomes a requirement. Any other perspectives to add to that? And I don't disagree with either of you I think, yeah. Okay, can we move on then? Do we think we have what we need? Okay, good. So moving on to staff comment number two, staff recommends the board require the applicant to comply with the comments of the fire marshal as a condition of approval. The applicant, we have provided the requested information to the fire department and we've responded to their comments and I believe there's an email that says that they have the information that they need. There should have been as part of the packet I believe or supplemental information, Chris. That's correct, yeah. So you're fine with complying with the fire marshal. We're great with that. Perfect, thanks. Okay, moving on to number three. This is about needing clarification about the curbing. Yes, the question was are the landscape islands curbed? And yes, they are curbed. So we're good with that. Okay, number four. This is about complying with number two of the landscaping criteria, number two of the landscaping requirements. So replacement or amendment to a depth of 1.5 to two feet in island trees are to be planted in should be specified. Oops, there's some word missing. No. Are to be planted in. Whoops. Right, so there are really, there were two key points here that staff wanted to make sure were covered. One is that there were silver cells in place which we had talked about during the original application and the second piece was that the appropriate soil amendment was happening to give the plants the opportunity to thrive. The second image that you have there shows where the silver cells are located. Those are the green rectangles and the details for soil amendment have been included in the documents that was part of the original submission. So that information is there. It's part of the project. Just note that those green rectangles are shown in the area that we call the great lawn that great lawn is part of phase two of the buildout. Questions from the board? Comments? Marty? No. Okay. Number four, comment number four. I guess we just addressed that, yeah. Number five, this is regarding snow storage and how it, what kind of assurance can you give us that it won't impact the landscaping? Well, we can't give you any assurances from Mother Nature but what we can do is do what the city arborist asks which is make sure that the snow storage areas are at least 10 feet away from the trees. We do expect, this is Vermont, we're gonna get some pretty heavy snowfalls. We will have an agreement with the airport to move snow off the site. Once we get to that point and the airport is managed and we've cleared the roads and those things that for parking purposes, which is really secondary, travel and the safety of travel is primary. But you can see here in graphic number three that for those periods that we need to have what we'll call long-term snow storage just as you get a two or three or four inch or five inch event here and there as we do, then these are the areas that have been identified which were also part of the previous submission and met the requirements. We understood they met the requirements of the LDRs. So. Questions? Board, do we have enough information to help us? Okay. Comment number six is we need to review the landscaping plan and does the board feel it's adequate to, and this is regarding, just paid back, the screening and I guess we have an image of what the Arbivitee and the deciduous trees, how they would be spaced to provide screening. Yeah, there's really probably two points here and Jeff might be able to fill in any gaps that I create on this, but it's a layered approach, right, you have the sidewalk and the landscaping that is adjacent to the sidewalk. It's nice green, it's lush, but it's not high. It doesn't create any safety issues for the public that might be walking on that short stretch of the sidewalk to get to the future bus shelter. And then you've got this intermediate zone and then you've got the zone that happens in the distance, which is where you see the Arbivites that shield the parking from the road until the future development is in place. And that's the concept that we talked about during the previous application. Nothing's been changed from that. This is just pulling that forward more as a refresh than a request. So, Board, what do you think? Is this adequate to provide the screening? In view one, I'm looking at page four. View one, what are the five or the six green circle, the eight deciduous trees? I apologize, on the fourth page of your handout, in what you've called view one, what are the six far as green colored circles? Are they just deciduous trees spaced at that approximate distance? Yeah, the ones out near the road. So those are the street trees that were required to plant per the zoning regulations. And I don't think that provides any material screening at all. That's nothing. No, it's mainly the Arborvite hedge. The Arborvite behind it, is what you're counting on? The smaller green circles? The smaller green are just in front of the park yard. Yeah. Yeah, that long green line there are the Arborvites. Are they, right, Jeff? And is it the picture or representation of approximately what that would look like? Is that the idea? So what are the smaller green circles? Those are the Arbitra against the parking lot? No, you mean on the right hand side? So I've got the strip of green here. Yeah, that's the Arborvite. And then there are large green circles and there are smaller green circles. The large ones are the existing trees? I see, thanks, Jeff. The smaller ones are the proposed. I see, thank you. Okay. Questions? Board? What's to the left of the Arborvite, Vita, 10th grade Latin? To the left where it starts to create open space, there's a stormwater retention basin, just about where the hand is, a little farther up, I guess, it starts to feed up into that basin and then there's an existing parking lot. So you can see the outline of the existing 3060, the mirror bells building, as we call it, and that's all parking in front of that, up to that solid line, which is where we're proposing the north-south line, just to the right of the hand, that will bring the landscaping up to that line. I see. That's a separate parcel, the parcels changes you go across that line. Yeah, I don't have anything else on that. So that long rectangle with the zig and the zag at the bottom, that's the mirror bells and the vacuum city building? Yes. Thank you. Board questions? Okay. Oh, and I think that's it for staff comments. Before we move to public comment, does anyone have any questions before we conclude tonight? Thank you. This is our motion for tonight. Pardon? Are we moving to keep it open or? Yes, we're gonna keep it, but let's get public comment first, okay. So are there any members of the public who wish to comment or provide input? Artie, do you see any online? Okay. So I would entertain a motion to continue this hearing, allowing public comments until April 18th. I'll make a motion. We continue Cypeline application, FSP 22056 of beta technologies to April 18th to allow for any additional public comment period. Thank you, Frank. Any discussion? All in favor of keeping the hearing open until April 18th? Say aye. Aye. Oppose? Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Just a quick question on procedure. If public comments do come in, is that something that you will package and give us a chance to provide some additional information should the board need it prior to Tuesday or how do you see that working? Yeah, so if we get written public comments, we will provide them, gosh, normal packet publication day is tomorrow. So if we get anything before tomorrow, they'll be published tomorrow. If we do not get any before tomorrow, but we do get them before the hearing, we'll probably send them to both you and the board day of, just so we don't send a million emails rather than sending them piecemeal. And then of course, if there's any public comments during the meeting, it'll be during the meeting. That's great. And as you get the comments, should they come in, if you look at them and you think they may require a little additional attention, don't hesitate, we're happy to take more than one or two emails. Okay. So, awesome. Thanks again for making this happen. Much appreciated. Thank you. We all said. We have minutes. Are you anxious to get out of here? No. Okay. Pardon? Yeah, we have deliberations too. Minutes. I don't recall which minutes. Are they all there? March, February 22nd and March 7th. I would be happy to pull them up. Though, it's probably not very helpful to read them on the fly. No, that I've read them. Any comments about the minutes of February 22nd or March 7th? Does someone want to move to adopt the minutes? I'll move to adopt the minutes of February 22nd and March 7th. Thanks, Quinn. Second? Seconded. Thanks, John. Any discussion? All in favor of approving the minutes, say aye. Aye. Opposed? Well, I was prepared to do that. No, I, February 22nd, there was one that I missed. Okay. So they're approved. Abstain? Yeah, John's probably gonna abstain. Yes, okay. Thank you, John. Yeah. Of course. Okay. I guess that brings us to the end of the meeting and we will now move into a deliberative session. Thank you all. All right.