 Excellent. Thank you everyone for joining us this evening. We have one amendment to the agenda and that is the a sketch public hearing for Gutma is been postponed. So we have on the agenda tonight the continued site plan public hearing for Rick Boeve doing business as HDI real estate. Before we begin this evening, I would ask that anyone who is going to be presenting testimony like you to please swear in and that is a simple acknowledgement or any testimony you present this evening will be truthful to the best of your abilities. You're online, just either wave your hand or something if you're muted, that's fine, but. I do. All right, thank you. We good in the room. Excellent. Does that mean anybody who wants to contribute? Anybody who's going to say anything to us tonight. Well, that's not the way to put it. Anybody who's going to speak to us this evening, if you could please swear in and present that or confirm that affirm that any testimony you present this evening will be truthful to the best of your abilities. All right, thanks Paula. It's good to keep me on toes, on my toes. We've missed you. So first thing, we have an opportunity for folks to give us public comment for items that are not on the agenda. We don't often get them, but if you want to speak to us for something that's not on our agenda tonight, this is a perfect time. Yes. Please. Yeah, at least say your name loudly. Paula Duke. Paula Duke. I would like to recommend that the Planning Commission support the idea of the town of Essex hiring a full-time building inspector, even if we have to go in with another town to accomplish it. That's it. It's semi-related to this evening's experience in the past. Say that again for me please. Which part? The whole thing. I'm a little slow tonight. I would like to recommend that the Planning Commission support the idea of the town of Essex hiring a full-time building inspector, even if that means going in with another town to accomplish that. OK. I'm not going to put words in your mouth, but I don't think you mean building inspector. Yes, I do. No, I don't think you do. So, building inspector inspects building codes during construction. We don't have those. The state has building codes. The state has. And the town is expect, all towns are expected to follow at least the state's building codes. OK, we can take this up for debate. That's not how Vermont works, but. That's OK. You've made your pitch. Thank you. I could just say there's a lot of hands up. I think your hands are up from the oath. If that's the case, could you shut your, turn your hands off? Lower your hand. All right. You have one on teams who I believe is actually wasn't a comment. OK. I don't have that up yet, Darren. So if you could call it out for me. Sharon Zarkowski, she just put her hand down. OK, no, I didn't. Oh, I didn't put my hand down. I think it's your work. I think I'm guessing I can't put words into Paula's mouth is she is speaking of a building inspector inspects rental properties. I know that I have a duplex in Winooski and every three years and I really appreciate it. They go through and tell me if code has changed, if I'm using the wrong smoke detectors, if there's any hazards like I didn't have the apartments marked well enough for emergency services. I think that's what she's talking about. And it does exist in Vermont in both Burlington and Winooski. And there's a fee for like 200 books, you know, every year, unfortunately. But I think that's what she was talking about. So it does exist in Vermont. That's OK. Thanks. So I think that would be something that we would route to probably think, Paula, you might be referring to a code enforcement inspector. Both. Because building inspectors, like in Massachusetts, inspect during during. Yeah, I'm talking about both. OK, but so so we will have to bat that around because Essex doesn't have building codes. We can talk about that. I think it's it's it's a legitimate question. And we can move on from there. OK, they they they don't enforce. I they don't enforce local codes, these local building inspectors, because the problem is the state people don't have enough time. Like, you know, you almost have. Respect all the money. We're going to think I think it's you're echoing Paula's comment or question or concern or recommendation. And I think that's all that we can get into this evening. OK. We don't have enough information and it's not something I feel we we can or should debate this evening. Yeah, but I think it might be relevant to the upcoming application. So maybe it'll be brought up again then. OK, thanks. All right, thank you. Just if I may. Yes, I have somebody who just signed on with a telephone number of three, three, eight, eight, five, six, one, could I have your name? That's not. So also, I'm going to make a request that if you're not speaking, or haven't we haven't recognized you to speak? If you could please make sure that your mic is muted. And let's move on from here. So the agenda item that we have this evening is the continued site plan public hearing for Rick Boe doing business as HDI real estate. This is a proposal for a. Or two residential buildings, totaling 30 apartment units in the. Located at Commonwealth and Carmichael Street. Ned, as we discussed, I've I've had another relationship outside of this kind of work with Mr. Boe, so I am going to use myself from my planning role tonight and sit in the audience for a while. OK, thank you, Ned. I told you, you didn't have to work. I'll do both. Carry your load. OK, so commissioners, I'm I'm going to go a little bit outside of our. Normal low. And I'm going to go directly to the applicant. We have a. A very thorough, very comprehensive site plan, and I say plan staff report. And I feel that the staff has pretty much laid out all of their concerns, questions, comments and positions in that staff report. So I don't I'm in the in the interest of. Really getting to the heart of the matter, I'd like to go to the applicant and find out what exceptions they take to the staff report, understanding and inspecting that there will be some. And I'd like to go right into that. So I'm not sure who's going to be presenting, is it? Brian and I, but I'd like to. No, let's look at the staff report. Let's look at what we've got and where we're differing. Well, let me know if you need plans on the screen. And commissioners, for those of you online, if you this is John Tom, that it on a Tom Josh from here. OK, you guys have something and I'm not seeing your hand or something like that. Please shout out when we get to going back and forth. I don't miss anybody. No, no, just do what you're going to. So, Brian Courier, Paul, Larry, Larry Burke, the associates representing Rick Boeve, doing business under HDI real estate. Before we get into aspects of the staff report, this is a continued hearing from June 10th, 2021. At that meeting, HDI proposed three buildings as part of the overall town center plan. A similar layout and master plan was approved in 2017. That application consisted of building G 15 units, G one of 15 units, building H at three stories. It was 22 units and six thousand square feet of commercial space included underground parking. As part of our amended proposal, the essence of it is building G is still 15 units. G one is 15 units and building H is now four stories and 30 units and contains 7600 square feet of commercial space and underground parking. In addition, our new proposal includes includes the construction of the first phase of the town green. As part of that original meeting on June 10th, there was a lot of discussion about what was good for the town, town center moving forward, and we asked for very specific guidelines to move forward with the project. And the Planning Commission did provide us with very specific feedback on what they would like to see. As part of a continued hearing, you asked us for more density and would support a height waiver to building H in order to conserve commercial space around Carmichael Street. We've added a fourth story to building H. There's all commercial along Carmichael Street, which total 7600 square feet. The remaining first floor on building H is just amenities for the apartment units above. The fourth story increases the unit count on building H from 22 to 30 units. And the fourth story requires a height waiver of 54 feet. I believe our application requested 66 feet. It's actually 54 feet for the record. And that's all the changes for building H. You asked for more variability of buildings looking at the architect's rules. Scott and partners have revised the elevations to change the roof lines on buildings G and G1. They've changed the color palette on the buildings, trying to satisfy a more of a mix and not a solid building as you would look at it going down Commonwealth. In addition, buildings G and G1, we don't need a height waiver for. We did request one as part of our application, but they will be constructed less than the 40 feet required in the district. You also asked for a more attractive street scape. We hired TJ Boyle architects to look at the street scape. They changed some sidewalks, reoriented the parking lot, in the back added some green areas, some green islands. They added street trees, many shrubs and many plantings around the buildings. Rough numbers is about 50 trees, 15 shrubs and over 300 grasses, perennials and different types of ground cover around these buildings. The addition as part of this proposal, is a portion of the town green. We're proposing to put in street trees on the south side of Carmichael Street benches and put in a green of about a quarter acre, over a quarter acre, on the southeast corner of the development. And finally, you asked us, or you asked for approval conditions to be drafted as part of a continued hearing based on the 2017 approval and as part of our cover letter, we have provided those approval conditions. And we're here to answer any questions you may have about these amended items that we've tried to satisfy the Planning Commission from the previous hearing. Okay, so we had a lively meeting in June, as you recall. And we asked specifically for direction and you gave it to us. And I mean, I can read the minutes from the last meeting, but the minutes were clear as to what we had to come back with. In fact, the last line of the meeting minutes says, Chairman Brusso asked staff to rewrite as an approval incorporating the comments made. So this type of report is pretty similar to as it was back then. So the staff report is pretty similar to as it was back then. I really haven't changed too much. I really haven't added anything. They've strengthened their argument a little bit. They certainly haven't written an approval. So we've held up our part of the bargain. We redid the buildings, hired the landscape architect. We looked at the streetscape, re-looked at the height on Building G, added the town green features across the street. We did, we've done everything you asked for us on our June 9th meeting. And so we're back today looking for approval. Now, if you have specific questions about something in the staff report, water issues, density, we'll be glad to answer those. But essentially, it's a very negative staff report. It was the first time, continues to be. And we're not, we don't really think at this point in time, we need to go down through that staff report point by point. Because frankly, I don't think they did what this board asked them to do. Am I wrong about the meeting minutes? Thank you for your comments on that. I think that's irrelevant to what we're here tonight. We have a staff report, and it's not, at this stage, it's for the commission, as you stated a number of times, it's for the commission to decide. So we have a staff report in front of us tonight, recommending denial. And there's clear fix, both in the conclusion at the beginning of the staff report and the conclusion at the end of the staff report that provide clarity for recommending denial. So every meeting, the process evolves, the review evolves, and the review enhances, changes, whatever. When I read this, I find quite a few comments from staff about information that was requested that wasn't received. And I would defer to Darren and Aliso for specifics on that. So we are looking at this staff report this evening. All right, I'll make some comments about the staff report. One issue was public work talked about needing a revised traffic impact report. All right, so we prepared the original traffic report back in January of 2021. And this project, with the additional four-story, added some additional units. We went from 54, I think, to 60 units. We added a little bit more commercial space. Long story short, we added 11 PM peak trips. So public works came back and said, well, it's 11 more trips. We want to see you redo the traffic report. And we responded back to staff and the public works that well. Since January of 2021, Barbaruso has changed. The original January report included Barbaruso in their original spot. Now, as we all know, they're moving to the cinema. So their trips are still in the mix, but the cinemas come out of the trips. So we're losing somewhere between 100 and 150 PM peak trips from the cinema. So we responded back to staff and look, there's no reason to redo the traffic report because we have roughly 100 trips less than what we had in January. And that's where that stands. There's no reason to redo it when we have less trips and obviously the impacts are going to be less than they were in the January report, which, by the way, was found to be satisfactory by public works. There's the issue of water pressure. So the staff says, looking at the ETC plan, which envisions a large build out that there's an issue, potential issue, with water pressure in it. So we built the building right across the street building, which is the three-story building and there's no water pressure issues there. And we basically got back to staff and said, look, the static pressure at the street on the first floor is 60 pounds, which means that on the fourth floor, the static pressure, if you're taking a shower, it's going to be 45 pounds. Plenty of water. Any of us who have a well know that you typically have a 30-50 pressure switch in the basement. And on your second floor, if you've got 40 pounds of pressure, you're pretty delighted. So 45 pounds, 40 to 45 pounds of pressure on the fourth floor is plenty of pressure. There was talk before about codes. The state of Amant does go by the international plumbing code. Minimum allowable pressure in the international plumbing code is 20 PSI, all right? We're at 40. Fireflows. We don't expect there's any issues with fireflows. We pull staff that look, in order to get a permit from the Fire and Safety Division, the state of Amant, we have to have a mechanical engineer to were sprinkler design and show that there's adequate flows. If we can't show that there's adequate flows, we don't get a building permit and we can't build. But we're confident that we can do it. It's just no reason. We don't design the system until we have a building approval and act to get approval. So we're fine with the condition that says that we have to provide those calculations to public works. We just haven't done them yet. We typically never do them at this point in the process. The issue about density in the regulations, well, going back about 10 or 15 years ago, the board had a former committee to look at density in the town center. I was one of the members of the committee and we made some recommendations as how to modify the regulations. One of the things we modified specifically was the 400% density bonus for multi-family housing. Even back then, we realized that the density was way too low in the town center. So basically, what that says is you get a 400% density bonus if 25% of the units meet the affordable criteria. So that's the basis we're asking for density. The town goes into a long-winded discussion about block density, but we think it's relatively simple. If the allowable block density is 10 per acre and you get a 400% bonus, that means the allowable block density jumped to 40. If I have a zoning regulation that says I can do one unit per acre and there's a bonus provision that say it gives me two units per acre, then if you don't go back to the original and say, well, that's fine, but you don't have enough square footage to go two per acre. I mean, so that's kind of ridiculous. If you're going to give me a bonus of 400%, everything jumps by 400%. Mr. Boeb currently has 24 of the 44 units are affordable in the Whittier Building. We are agreeable if you move us forward that we will make all 44 units perpetually affordable in that building. We have no issue with that. There is questions about whether or not we can actually change those currently from being affordable to being a market rate unit. So at this point in time, we have no reason to pursue that. However, if the board decides that those units for some reason don't meet the affordable criteria, then we might pursue changing them back to market housing if we don't get any benefit for that. So ETC plan, a lot of stuff about we don't conform to the ETC plan not to put you on the spot, David, but at the last meeting, there was a clear statement in the minutes that you said that New York City and the ETC plan didn't apply to our master plan and this project. So we haven't tried to design it in accordance with the ETC plan. And now it's just a vision. There's nothing specific in the zoning. There's nothing that says what the street width should be, what the sidewalk width, that there's a generic thing, but you haven't moved it forward until it's part of the zoning regulations yet. And until you do that, I think there's very little for you to hang your hat on on that topic. Any other big things that you can think of? You know, the building size where a little bit over 10,000 square feet that doesn't require a waiver, you just allow it to grant that. If the height waiver, we've said that actually now we think that G and G1 don't need the waiver, only H needs the height waiver at this point in time. We have designed the whole project with eight foot walks. It was eight foot last time. Staff is looking for 10. Eight is just, eight's a lot of walk. We just don't think that there's enough foot traffic out there to get to five, 10. You know, walks are expensive. The town's got to maintain it at some point in time. You know, we don't see that that is required. The last two approvals that you gave us on this corner had seven foot wide side. So we've gone to eight to try to placate staff a little bit, but we don't want to go to 10. We're pretty happy with the work that T.J. Boyle did. Move some things around. Did some nice landscaping. We think the work that Scott Partners has done to change the look of the buildings, as you probably noticed, if you look at the architectures, originally G and G1 had flat roofs. Now they have a peak roof. It's kind of changed the style. A little bit mixed of different buildings. Little bit of work on H to make that look a little bit better. Big topic of conversation back in June was commercial space. We agreed to make the whole first floor of H commercial space. So you've got commercial space that fronts on to Carmichael as well as Commonwealth. And the big thing about this proposal is we agree that we will fully construct Carmichael Street in Commonwealth to the intersection. As part of this, along with a start of the Town Green and that we will complete that construction before we ask for any of the units in G1 for H. So we're going to get 60 units of market rate housing, very similar to what we built across the street in Building O. You're going to get Commonwealth built to the intersection. You're going to get Carmichael completed. We're going to start to develop the green. The consultant, TJ Boyle, thought it was best not to do the whole thing until we had a better feeling as to what the uses were going to be from the residents. So we're just going to grade it and seed it and establish the street trees along the front. Thank you. You're welcome. Commissioners, any questions for the applicant at this point? Let's go around the horn. I don't have any right now. No questions. Just a comment on a small point that nobody mentioned. The green moving from the south side of a building to the north side of a building, worries me a little bit that it won't get enough sun. So I'm not sure why it moved. I don't know if you guys want to talk about that or not. Well, we moved it because the corner across the street is an odd corner for the building. We call it the old master plan. That's kind of an acute angle in that building. And with the way the bank came in, it just seemed like that corner made more sense. Well, one thing, the sides of the green increased by about a third by moving it across the street and just seemed to make more sense to us to be on that corner than where it was originally. Okay. So it's bigger. And then there is a parking lot to the north, to the south of part of it. So it's not completely blocked by the side of them, completely blocked. Okay. So yep. That was my comment. Oh gosh. Yeah. Very, very quickly. I'm on page 12. This gets to the affordable housing and then density bonus issue in the staff report. We see I'm in the second large paragraph. In any case, the applicant has failed to support the claim that there are, in fact, 44 existing unit number, petrally affordable housing in the PUD is defined the regulations under state law. I just want to hear from staff and then the applicant, I guess, or whichever order is appropriate and what exactly the bone of contention is here at the present moment. I may have missed it a little earlier. Thank you. Do you have a line number on that? It's actually page 10, line 344. Josh, would you, who would you like to address that first? I was thinking staff, since you put that comment in here, just explain what you were saying. Under the proposal submitted on June 10th and for every proposal submitted by the applicant for over the years, it has been represented that there are 44 units of permanently affordable housing within building K, which is the Whittier Building for Carmichael Street. It's also presented that there is already granted a density bonus for that affordable housing. Staff in researching the actual approval from the Whittier Building found that density bonuses were granted up to 15% for things other than affordable housing and not for the affordable housing specifically because it did not meet the requirements that it be deeded to a land trust or other non-profit that it guarantees perpetual affordability. So, if the applicant had made that claim in the narrative as a current proposal, we wanted to clarify that that was not actually true. As Paul mentioned, they are willing to create that deed that creates that permanent affordability in those units that were purported to be. Staff are concerned about using already existing affordable housing, especially one that's had a number of fire and life safety violations and they're over the years and they're just concerned about the quality of that housing. And again, the bonus has been granted and we were troubled to find that this was slightly misrepresented by the applicant. So, we wanted to set the record straight and convey to the Planning Commission that this is a new bonus that would be granted under conditions that can be imposed by the Planning Commission. We also had a chance to review any deeds that would guarantee permanent affordability that haven't been provided by the applicant. They haven't indicated that they are working with a land trust or housing non-profit to guarantee that affordability. So, we don't feel that that can be approved at this time. And we'd like to see that details of that before we consider that. You guys like to offer comment? Yeah, we don't have too much different to add. The witty railing goes back to 1997. Long time ago. And I'll be honest, I always thought that all 44 units were affordable. But there's only 26 that are guaranteed. They all essentially rent for the same rate. But only 26 are guaranteed. Darren mentions there's possibly a bit of an 8. Thank you for that. But those 8 actually apply to another project. So, there is only 26. The 8 doesn't get added in. So, what we are willing, if we get approval to write paperwork for approval to the town attorney and to the staff, that would make all 44 units perpetually affordable. No issues on our part whatsoever. Josh, anything else? Nope, that answered my question. Thank you. Mr. Schuch. No, just to clarify for me, you said that you would make all 44 affordable. But then towards the end, you said, but you would depend on market rates or something like that. Can we clarify that? No. Go back and look at the video before it's a little confusing. It talks about the original, some of the loans funds that after 15 years, but if the property is sold or offered for sale, there's a lot of legalese there. But it sounds like that maybe they don't need to remain perpetually affordable, that they could convert to market housing at that point in time. And my only comment was if we're not going to get, we're not going to get any credit for having affordable housing and get a bonus, then there's very little reason for us to continue to maintain these as affordable housing. Okay. All right. So if for some reason the board decided not to move Mr. Boeberhead or not to allow them to use those as affordable units, then I'm just saying there's the possibility that we're going to investigate whether or not we would be better off to bring those into market rate to house. But provided we can come to agreement and move forward, we're fine with making all 44 perpetually affordable. Commissions, they say I'd like to turn now to staff and is there anything that has come up you want to comment on before we go to public? I think we've covered a lot of the issues. We do want to reiterate, you know, there are still some outstanding problems that are some outstanding information that needs to be submitted. I don't want to talk about our dealt with cases of information because this has been such a long and storied project, we wanted to try and get everything tied up and sorted out before we actually give an approval because it's very easy for things to get lost after the planning commission looked at it. The other thing we want to talk about is the livability of the units in buildings G and G1, particularly on the ground floor. We've expressed this concern a number of times to the applicant about the fact that these are private residential dwellings but on a very busy public space or what is anticipated to be if the ETC next plan comes to fruition. We've expressed concerns about where or the angled parking, the actual usability of the porches that are included in the plan because we just don't see anyone living in those units wanting to be in an exposed public space when they're looking for a safe space and a home to live their lives. We've also expressed that we are willing to work with the applicant on designs and changes that would actually create a sense of enclosure or a sense of privacy for these units but there hasn't been a lot of cooperation on that. We've suggested moving the buildings back a little more, maybe creating a forecourt or some sort of small pocket park. I've suggested using parallel parking instead of angled parking to avoid the headlight layer. And one of the issues with that also is that overhang from angled parking will actually reduce the effective width of the sidewalks, which is why we're pushing so hard for 10 feet as opposed to 8 feet. An overhang of 2 feet on an 8 foot sidewalk means that it's actually 6 feet wide which is far less than anywhere else in the town center. So we're concerned just that that won't create the public space that's called for an ATC Next plan. As far as the applicability of that plan, we understand that zoning regulations haven't been changed to reflect that. We would love to get started on that. It takes a lot of time to get those things right. We express that to the applicant that we want to get there and we want to work on that but we have to evaluate this project under current regulations to the extent that it conforms with our municipal plans as well. Because the ATC Next is an update to the 1991 town center master plan, that in our mind seems that why would we follow something from 1991 when we know that that may be out of date even though that's what's referenced in our zoning. We're looking forward to the future and trying to create a project that will actually have vibrancy in the community going forward not for what's today. Current foot traffic not being not justifying the need for wider sidewalks doesn't hold up. We're looking at 50 to 100 years in the future to see what can we create here. So I'll leave it at that unless Suisa wants to add any other comments. Suisa, I wanted to ask you, Pacifica, thank you, Darren. One of the previous meetings, we had a discussion about the viability of the ATC Next plan since the plan itself has been approved and you had referenced some enabling concepts that made it still be an active part of our planning process. That's why I wanted to touch base with you on that. That ring a bell? You want to go somewhere else on it first? And I'm also not sure at what point we need to address violations that are on the property. The context, if you remember the context for the commissioners, it was discussed that we actually, I believe you'd say that we could use that and it was applicable since it's been approved. Fighting concept. Specific design requirements in the MXDC district and the portion of the BDC district would overlays the MXDC district. The general purposes of that district shall apply. In addition, the general concept and specific policies and recommendations for this area set forth the town center master plan, parenthetical in 1991 and the Essex town plan shall guide all future developments. Because the 1991 plan was replaced with the 19, with the 2021 plan, I did not find the exact, I mean, I didn't look for the exact section but generally, there are provisions made for the promulgation of existing plans to be replaced and by adopted and adopted by reference as that former plan if the plan is updated, just so that we don't have to go through all of the documents and make sure that every plan, every place where it says 1991 in the ordinance and in every other reference. And then because the 2020 ETC 21 plan has been approved and is active even if we haven't enabled regulations, it is still a viable planning tool and it is something that we measure again. Tours owning regulations. Darren. And just to add on to that, when you're considering waivers, you might want to consider whether those waivers, even if they are deviating from the current zoning regulations to some extent within some parameters, a lot of those depend on being consistent with our overall plan and overall goals for the community. So we'd like to make sure those are considered when you grant waivers, if and when you grant waivers. Thank you. And then we'll go on. So commissioners, we still have to, we'll go to the public soon. Coming on the ETC plan, we have a master plan and master plan has been approved multiple times and the master plan, as I reminded you last time, serves two purposes. It gives the board an idea of where we're going forward. Where the project is going as we go down through. And it also gives the applicant some assurances that he's going to be able to go forward in a multi-based plan. So I understand the ETC came but we have a master plan. It'd be different if we were coming in with a clean sheet, brand new project, never seen before. ETC would certainly carry a lot more weight. But in this case, we're coming in with an approved master plan. You can look at the block on the right. It goes back to 1997. It's been around a long time and that certainly carries a lot of weight, a lot more weight than I think the ETC plan does. Now I understand the master plan is considered to be a sketch, there's no guarantees. But there's a reason we do a master plan. All right. Okay. Thank you. I would just make the note that just as they make revisions to their master plan, so too can we make revisions to our regulations, including going through a three-plus-year process, public process, vision and layout, our intention for our town center. Okay. Commissioners. Is there additional questions or debate that we would like to have right now? Or is that an issue because of separation? Or is that a new issue? That's kind of a reach in our view. As we all know, the town of Essex has an agreement with the village to provide share fire equipment and provide fire services. The village has a lot of truck. The village station is actually closer to the project than the town station. So does the town own a lot of truck? No. Does the village own a lot of truck? Yes. Okay. Justi, the town manager actually happens to be in the audience. And he might be able to speak to some of the process of separation which has nothing to do with anyone. I'd like not to introduce the separation into this discussion tonight unless we absolutely have to. So I think it is worth noting that the staff and by staff I'm assuming that it includes fire chief, town officials. It basically more than just you, it includes the entire staff that reviews these. So commentaries we have on that come from more than just the community development staff. Is that a valid assumption? Yes. Okay. This concern came directly from the fire chief. And it really is just an unfortunate circumstance and it is something that we will have to work out over time. It's just a problem at this point in time. Okay. So I'd like to just, I think commissioners, would you agree that we just acknowledge that that is a statement of from a knowledgeable individual and staff member that we don't think we debate that. And these were brought up during the UTC next planning process as well, water capacity and fire. Yes. Okay. So we'll recognize that there's a difference of interpretation on that. Anything else at this stage? Tom, John, Josh. Nothing for me at this stage. I'm good for right now. All right. Thank you. David. Okay. So I'd like to then turn this over to get public comment. At this point, a few ground rules please. Is questions, comments, concerns should be directed to the Planning Commission, not the applicant. We'll decide whether or not we entertain it, we turn it to staff, or we engage the applicant. If somebody has spoken before you and they have said something you've already, you want to agree with, it is completely acceptable and actually prefer to get up and say ditto or I echo the statements of some of the people before me. We don't want to spend a lot of time with the same statements being repeated. So it is valid. You need to make sure that when you speak, your name is, you clearly present your name so that it can be recorded and that'll put you on record as far as being agreement with statements or whatever. Not quite a few people in the audience from what I see, so we're going to try to do this. Okay. So we've got some folks online if you can just go ahead and mute. I see a few unmuted lines and if need be, I'll ask Darren to do that from this side. And you can use the raised hand feature in Teams or turn on your camera and raise your hand or if you must use the chat to indicate that you'd like to speak and then we'll call on you and then you can unmute. So Darren, can you sort of keep track of that because I can see the hands raised but I'm not going to be good with the chat? Yep. And I also want to mention you have some written testimony that was sort of written public comments that were submitted and we're happy to talk to you. Okay. So with that, I would entertain questions from the public and anybody that's here and tonight that wants to speak, please raise your hand. We'll recognize you. Yes, ma'am. If you could come up to the table, speak your name for the mic. My name is Katie Ballard. I am here as the chair of the Essex Housing Commission to share the recommendation and feedback on the proposal from our commission. Dear members of the Essex Planning Commission, at its November 17th meeting, the Housing Commission discussed serious concerns about the development proposal for the town center buildings G, G1, and H, currently under your review. The Housing Commission does not support approval of the most recent proposal because the design includes residential uses on the ground floor of a commercial corridor which negatively impact the inhabitants' quality of life due to lights, noise, and a lack of privacy. The ETC NEXT plan calls for this to be mixed-use commercial zone that specifically dedicates the first floor to commercial use. So the proposal must be revised to reflect this. If an exception for ground floor residential is allowed, the developer must revise the proposal with a redesign that includes proven mitigation strategies for first floor residential uses in mixed-use commercial zone development. Furthermore, the Housing Commission does not support the Density Bonus Request which relies on existing designated affordable units which currently have no guarantee of perpetual affordability to justify additional market-rate units. The Housing Commission is also deeply concerned that these units have a history of fire and life safety violations that impact the quality of life for their residents and we would not support the project unless existing violations were rectified. Livability and dignity of housing is a core belief of the Housing Commission. It is our intent to lead further conversation about the quality of housing in our community and what can be done to better meet all residents' needs. We welcome the Planning Commission and the developer of this project to the conversation. Thank you. Thank you. Next up is Brian Sheldon. Brian, you're on mute and your hand's raised. There you go. Hi, Mr. Hi, Chair Bruce. So thank you for recognizing me and giving me a chance to speak. First off, have you seen the I'm here today as the Chair of the Essex Economic Development Commission and have you all seen our letter on the topic of this of today's topic? I'm getting nod. So, yes. Okay, then I don't need to read it into the record but I will so I will just summarize. The Essex Economic Development Commission believes that the Planning Commission should enforce the ratio of commercial and residential that is in the ETC next plan on this project. I appreciate that there is first floor commercial in building H but there is not in buildings G and G1. Economic development requires a place for business to occur. We don't need to choose between business development and residential development because mixed use development is a great way to allow Essex to have both. So we request at the minimum the Planning Commission require first floor spaces to be at least retrofitable to commercial standards so that we can so that we can so that we can grow Essex in a way that is more of a walkable community. Thank you. Is there anyone else that would like to offer comments? We'd like to talk to the staff and provide that. We will forward those. These came in relatively within the week Paul. Well obviously they must have been on their agenda that they're going to talk about these topics. So let's continue. Yes. We're going through questions right now. Well we can circle back and you can try it as well. Hi there. My name is Tracy Rochester. I live in the Whittier Building. I've lived there for 22 years. It was actually owned by EP Management when we moved in. It was a beautiful building and I have this is what we're living with now. We we're comfortable in our apartment. I raised my daughter there. In the past year the roof outside my apartment was leaking for weeks. There was a five gallon bucket put in the middle of the hallway that I had to empty. I inquired about it and they said oh well evergreen roofing hasn't gotten back to us. Like that was the only roofer in town that eventually did get fixed when I expressed concern about my my closet on the other side of the the main part of the leak. The storage unit where I have my belongings in another room leaked all over my things last year. So a lot of stuff got ruined. That got fixed this week. A lot of stuff is getting fixed this week after the Seven Days article and it's a shame that it took that to get things fixed. There are broken locks on the doors. It's supposed to be a secure building. Anybody can come and go as they please. I can't prove it but I believe that there's some drug activity with people coming in the back door going to apartments and then leaving almost immediately I've seen it. Screens are punched out. The amount of insects in the building this summer was ridiculous when I asked about replacing the screens. I was told they'll just get kicked out again. There's a pothole in the parking lot that's been there all year. It'll swallow your car. They threw some dirt in it. It's back. The laundry is unusable. The machines are broken. We've started doing laundry off premises for the past over a year now. The stairway is just I'm waiting for somebody to trip down the stairs. Those metal things that they put in the front of stairs. There's one that's loose. We looked at it tonight. It's still there. It's been there for months. The sidewalks on the residential side. We have a man who lives in our building who's in a wheelchair. I don't know how he gets around. We all use carts to bring our groceries in for ease of getting all this weighted stuff in. You have to dodge around sometimes go onto the onto the lawn to get through. In the wintertime the sidewalks are not cared for. They're thick with ice. They're thick with snow slush. The parking lot is barely plowed. I'm sorry. There's just so much in this one building. We have no control over our heat. I have my thermostat set at 68. I got up this morning. My apartment was 79 degrees because the heat just stays on all year long. Very uncomfortable. And I was kind of laughing when they were talking about all this wonderful grounds keeping they're going to be doing for these new buildings. They have not so much as raked our lawn and done the gardens or anything in two or three years. There's dog feces all over the place. So I'm just really discouraged. I'm disappointed. We're hoping that we don't get retaliation by us saying anything. But after 22 years of, you know, I think for the first 10, 15 years we were there it was really fantastic. But since the both brothers purchased the building, it has gone way downhill. And it's, it's, it's, I'm embarrassed to tell people where I live, where I used to be so happy to tell them where I live. The building was beautiful. We all knew each other. But now I'm just embarrassed. So unfortunately, I feel like we're just being treated as a rent check rather than humans. We are not part of the affordable housing. We've been in the, the regular, we were never part of this section 8 housing or whatever they want to call it. But it's, we're just really discouraged. And I think that he needs to, both brothers needs to, Rick needs to take care of what he already has before he builds anything else. So thank you very much. Brian, your hand is still up. Do you have additional comment? I do not. I just can't figure out how to take it down. I'm sorry. I can help you, Brian. There you go. Thank you. All right. Gina Helpen Barrett. Hi, I'm Gina Helpen Barrett. And I wanted to agree with the last three speakers. I would hope that the boves take care of what they've already done. The seven days article, it's kind of the elephant in the room and that was disturbing. We have a great employee in Oviso. She is such a gem for our community. She has so much experience in a master's degree in architecture, a master's degree in community development, years of development experience. If she and her staff and Darren wrote a report like that, I would hope that the board and the community listens to them. I also hope the community listens to the last speaker. That area has been so great this summer. I have taken my kids down there. I go grocery shopping there every week. It's so dynamic. There's so much potential down there. There's great parking. There's great beer. There's a great maple latte. There's shoes, toys, bookstore, pet store. There's so much happening down there. It's been so vibrant. And I hope we carry that forward and we build a dynamic inclusive community that everyone can celebrate and be proud of. It sounds like it's kind of falling down hill. And I would hope we lift it back up and I hope they take care of what they've already done before we move forward. So I hope you listen to Oviso and Darren and take the recommendation. Thank you. Thank you. Any additional comments? Yes. My name is Taylor Rochester. I've lived in the Whittier apartment since before he even owned the place. It's rare that you can actually watch the place you call home fall down around your ears. But my mom and I have had that distinctest pleasure. To start with, I've had to make it a habit of checking to see if the front doors are locked. And I actually have a picture of how the front door was two days ago, I believe. Nine times out of 10, they aren't. So I have to flip the lock back in place. It probably shouldn't matter because the emergency stairwells door is always broken and fairly easily accessible. Speaking of stairwells, our banister had been broken for literal months to the point where I was shocked that it had been fixed. It turns out a firefighter had nearly taken a header because of it. And while I do feel bad for him, I'm also grateful because someone with more power than I was able to force both to change things. As you walk through the communal area, avoiding the many stains on the carpet, you need to be sure to close the two windows that don't have screens because bugs will pour in. In fact, there's been a dead moth hanging on the wall for so long that I'm planning its anniversary. Jumping outside, his apartment definitely isn't a place you want to be in the parking lot of as a woman at night. It's poorly lit to the point of having a burned-out lamp for months. And both doesn't really do background checks as long as people have the money, so there's always something sketchy happening. In the daytime, you feel safer, but then you get to see the amount of dog feces and trash strewn about the place, and you need to avoid both the cracking sidewalk and the massive pothole that he tried to fix with water-soluble sand and a plank of cardboard. What hit me the hardest, however, was finding out that he's living his life in a multimillion-dollar mansion when I'd just be grateful if the leak in our storage room hadn't destroyed items from my childhood. I mean, I knew they were well off, but it felt like salt in the wound to learn he could almost single-handedly repair their over 400 units out of pocket if he only kept back. But he only seems willing to cut back when it doesn't affect him personally. So, ma'am, I'd like to keep it here. I understand it's an emotional response, but let's keep it focused on the local. That's starting to get outside of known entities and so forth. That article has put some fear into the Boe brothers. Rick has started doing some basic changes like repainting the holes, fixing holes in the stairwell, and fixing the aforementioned leak in the storage room. But Aleppard can't change their spots, and he's going to go back to his old ways the second people stop actively caring. I wear this shirt to remind you that I'm human, that Rick Boe is forcing me and those like me to live in subpar conditions while he plans on spending money on benches and trees. His tenants are human, we deserve better, and we won't get better if he gets approval. Thank you. So, thank you for your input, and it's noted. I would like to ask that if we have additional comments concerning the quality of the other buildings that we limit them to being kiddo. Because we are looking at an application in front of us. I think we haven't actually gotten to the point now talking about the infractions and so forth, we will. But I would like to avoid speculative comments on Mr. Boe outside of the application process. That's not for us to comment on. So, I'm respecting it what people have for personal experiences, but we are somewhat limited and we're not judging him outside of this application process. And the buildings that we're looking at to some degree at this point. Next, anybody else? Yes. Again, my name is Katie Ballard. I'm a resident of Essex Junction. And I just want to encourage the Planning Commission to consider before they approve or deny this proposal the reality that the more we allow developers and people who rent properties, especially to those who struggle financially or may not have the ability to speak up for themselves. People have to matter more than somebody who is willing to pay for a town green or anything else. We cannot let the benefit of what something might bring to our town, our community economically outweigh the benefit of what it gives or brings to the humans who live in our community. We are better than this. And I just want everybody to remember that until someone speaks up and stops accepting less and stops letting anything else be more important than humans, we miss a lot of the important pieces. So I just encourage you to really be thoughtful of the value of the dignity that we deserve in our community and not let all of the fancy other pieces outweigh that. Thank you. Allison Levy. Hi, thank you for letting me contribute. My name is Allison Levy. I am a member of the town. Essex Town. I also am a member of the Housing Commission. I want to respond to your comment. I believe your name is Estia. This is I'm new to the Planning Commission. But the comment that you just made that we cannot consider anything about the applicant beyond this particular... Not what I meant. So I want to jump in just for a second. I led that impression that's fine, but we are evaluating an application in front of us tonight. So let's keep focus on that. And not what bothered me was that the statement was going on to where Mr. Bowe lived, what he was doing. And that's not what I was going to be talking about. No, I don't have anything to say about that. I would just tell you that how fortunate you are that this is not a new applicant. This is someone with whom you have experience. Please don't throw away the experience that you have with how he has conducted his business in our town. Thank you. Thank you. Anyone in the room at this point like to offer additional comment? Sir, please. Ms. Lee, I'm a resident. Twenty-two cells on it. How much time do I have? See where you go. A couple minutes. Sorry. Okay. In the spirit of snowflake Bentley, I'm a carpenter. And if you have time to listen to my story, thank you. I believe that the answer is right in front of us. And I'm speaking to Mr. Bowe and I'm speaking to his tenants. And I'm speaking to everyone in this room, surrounded by this drywall. We've known since 2013, a Danish researcher figured this out. All three kinds of drywall. The recycled paper is bundled up and left uncovered behind Walmart and Biglots. It is inoculated and grows all of the mold spores to kill us. We make drywall with it all three kinds. We put it in kitchens and baths. Drywall is where we start. We move inward. We go to the plywood. So bring us to the application, please, sir. I'm bringing you to poisonous materials inside of our homes. Is it specific to this application? And I'm speaking to Joe Biden right now. Is it specific? And I'm speaking to Donald Trump. And I'm speaking to any donor who doesn't have the going concern is an accounting term. And if you don't care and you don't live there, this is how this lie is told in America. Sir. Drywall. Sir. And I'm sorry, but there are all alternatives. Sir. We're talking drywall. In the spirit of snowflake Bentley, if you want to build in our small community ideas, then build ethical ecological walls. Build walls that absorb CO2. Build walls that are fireproof. Sir. And we can do this. Sir. As outside the scope of this hearing. It absolutely is not. Where do we stop? Do we keep building mold building machines? Carcinogen. These are carcinogen materials that we're building with. Sir. And right now we're continuing to do it in sky rise fashion. Sir. Please relax your seat and let's move on. I'm sorry for my emotion. But it, my father just died of small cell lung cancer and he worked in drywall. And he also lived in a drywall house. We are not speaking about drywall this evening, sir. We should. We not. Well, it's clearly wrong that we're not speaking about the health issues in these dwellings. We're only talking about, I hear words like bonus and I hear words. I want to hear the words about taxation. If you, if I ask a question about that at this hearing. No. No. Oh, okay. We're talking about an education this night, this evening, sir. Okay. So again, I'm sorry for my frustration. You want to speak of drywall and poison and poison toxins and so forth. But we are talking about this application this evening. So I would ask that you relinquish the seat. Disrepentance of lives in the same house that you do in that regard. If you want to speak with us sometime about this and more expense, please come in. Speak with the staff and they would be, we would like to hear concerns about building and so forth. 20 years I've lived here as a resident. I am concerned in my own house. Okay. All of our houses are. So let's move on. Let's move on. Ms. Levy. Commentary to me. Okay. Offer comment. Somebody has their phone ringing and their mic on. If you could please mute. Yeah. Phone number 802-338-8561. I've muted you because we have the noise coming from your phone. If at some point you do need to unmute because you're able to speak and called on to speak. Press star six. Thank you. So next hand raise is Lorraine Zoom. Zaloon. You almost got it. Dusty. That's all right. It's a weird name anyway. Thank you for calling on me. I have a couple of concerns. I took the time to watch the June hearing and I had concerns about Mr. Leary's presentation because it felt pretty angry at certain spots. So it felt like a part of the procedure between your work and the applicant and the staff. Like there was a gap there in terms of having to avoid any of that in the first place. It felt like Mr. Leary was almost doing an end run because so when I hear him again today my concern is that one of the things that was brought up as a kind of compromise was because he said I believe and I don't know that I'm quoting but the commercial is dead. And of course we know we're going through COVID and through a big sea change in our community. So to declare commercial is dead is I think a little hyperbole. So to me like to be flexible. I kind of liked what you guys were you know kind of came to at least as an option was to build the ground floor for commercial specs and make it a little bit more flexible to put residential potentially in there. And when I hear today about the presented plan I didn't hear any of that. And that was something that was pretty clear how you guys left the last meeting. And I didn't hear the new plan updated with any of that. Sounds like it's still all ground floor residential. My other concern about ground floor residential as we pointed out last time when the college in Battery Street was brought up as an example. It was it in my view is definitely was a missed opportunity because as you watch how well commercial is done in Burlington as you go down toward the lake I grew up here. It has only gotten better and better and better and more of those commercial buildings have become very stable. And so part of the equation to me is what type of commercial you put in there. You put in food like we have Black Plannel. Black Plannel is very sustainable. It's done very well. The Phoenix bookstore is still doing well. There's a lot of vibrant businesses in there. So to to dedicate space to ground floor residential to me is quite limiting in terms of what you guys work so hard on for four years to look toward the future and make this walkable. And also I didn't quite understand what the eight foot sidewalk is because it sounds to me like when you're talking about eight feet that means going to the road not necessarily all sidewalk. So I don't know how actually wide the the sidewalk is. I also have major concerns about because of where I live. I live right on Route 15. We have noise issues all the time and it's only gotten worse. So it's a quality of life issues and the headlights. And when I look at the plan and I see that those ground floor residents are going to be surrounded all by parking it looks like. It doesn't look like there's any green space. When you look into master planning there's a clear correlation between vibrancy of communities and trees and parks and public space. And that is I've heard it echoed by the commissioners a number of times how important it is to streetscape. So one of my concerns is is the applicant and his past history and certainly we've all seen seven days article and some of the testimony here today is that I don't trust that we have a system set up that has that enforcement of enforcement. So how what kind of guarantee can we have as citizens that everyone all the humane human rights are followed up on and enforced. That's my comment and thank you for listening to me and thank you guys for holding this hearing. Thank you for your comments. Anyone else from the audience. All right. All right. Go on. Well I wasn't going to speak but I guess I am as a select board member who was very aware of all the work that went into the ethics town next to plan I would encourage this board to follow it because we're not going to make progress if we don't follow the plan that we've agreed to. You all set. I'm good. Thanks. Thank you. I'm going to bring this back. Do we have any additional comments right now. Gina help and bear it is your hand is still up. Is there a new comment or is it. Yeah I forgot to ask one of my other concerns that I haven't seen brought up is as a resident of Essex. The units all seem to be I think it was 45 or 47 one bedroom and 17 two bedroom and if I if I want to see a diverse type of people moving into our community I would hope maybe less units with three bedrooms some with three bedrooms so that we can get if it's 45 one bedrooms that is a limiting kind of housing to me so I don't know if that's ever been addressed. Thanks. Okay thank you. Lorraine your hand is up. Darn it sorry. So I'm going to suspend the public input for a moment I'm going to bring this back to the table and I'm going to go around the commissioners again and staff and applicant for additional commentary. I'm going to start in the room this time. John what are your thoughts at this point? Questions? I don't have any now. David I don't think I do either. Josh I've got nothing new right now no. Tom I have a question for Darren. Have you gotten input from the housing commission on how to remediate residential on the ground floor? We discussed that at the meeting yesterday and we didn't get into a lot of details because it wasn't there wasn't time. Staff have also looked into ground floor residential designs there are certainly ways to mitigate it a lot of it involves a little bit of extra space between the sidewalk and the public realm and the units themselves it can involve raising the base of the entry and the windows above the public realm so that it's not you're not staring right into someone's bedroom or about living room. Landscaping can help to some extent and again creating a space that is semi-private. These are constantly discussed in the ETC next process as well. Again we haven't delved into the details of putting that into zoning and design standards with the planning commission but because you have a proposal in front of you we wanted to bring those up as something that's been discussed in the past. So anything that you think is promising for this built-in buildings? So right now we don't see a lot that is creating that sense of semi-privacy and we've recommended some of the things that I just talked about to the applicant we didn't get a lot of of interest there we mostly got we can they can add landscaping and they've added the porches which again don't have any sense of enclosure so that's as far as we got we still don't think it's very meeting what we were looking for in the ETC goals. Okay thank you. John. I'm good I'm good thank you. Staff any additional comments based on what we've heard at this point? Paul. Not really disappointed we weren't invited to the Housing and Economic Development Committees or I can see the staff presented their proposal their side of the equation so we won't allow to present our just find out that those meetings were publicly warned and the agenda items were specifically noted. We did again try to work with the applicant on addressing some of these issues we didn't sense a lot of interest in that. Take an email to let us know so we're on the agenda for those meetings. So so let's let's acknowledge that might have been done differently but it is what it is. I haven't seen. It just doesn't have that much weight because there's only one side to that. I'm not sure that it has that much I'm not sure it presents any new information beyond what the staff has already presented in the staff report. So so at this point I want to bring us around to the other elephant that other folks have brought up and I would like to read one section of the summary that staff prepared for us and while all the talk about the waivers the landscaping the green and so forth I'm kind of hitting on this and the line is while some aspects of the project may advance the ETC next master plan vision other elements are wholly in conflict with it and the project still cannot be approved as presented due to a lack of adequate municipal infrastructure and conformance to the current regulatory requirements. Furthermore the applicant has outstanding violations on the property that must be resolved with demonstration of continued compliance before any additional approvals are issued. Now I have never in my recollection at the time that I've been on this commission had so clear a statement and direct a statement from us to end within a staff report and I feel that staff went through and provided significant documentation to that to support that summary. So commissioners I'd like to bat that around a little bit and see where we stand on the staff report and that's in my opinion right now that's the crux of the discussion before us this evening is we have a staff report recommends denial so where do we want to go with that? Now the public hearing is open at this point but I'm not entertaining questions from the audience yet. I just lobbed a grin at everybody's mitts so somebody take a sword. So Dustin I'll chime in I agree the staff report's very clear very strong it sounds like there might be some paths around some of the objections but I think at this point there's not much choice for us but to agree with the staff report. But to agree with the staff report. Yeah okay the Tom just hit it back who's going to take a swing at it now Josh? I will just ditto Tom I think the staff report is well written and it it presents its case very clearly and I haven't I haven't had any reason to disagree with any of its findings so I mean a long way of saying ditto to Tom I'd say ditto I just would add that seemed like a lot of the issues of which there are quite a few and ignoring just the the violations in the history but just with this report in general seems like if you took each one of these things you could probably address them if you just really dialed into it but it seems like that's not worked so we have a whole bunch of issues that are all stacked on top of each other that's it's creating this weight that's my own comment John? Apologize for the background noise but I agree with the staff report and the violations were a big concern of mine as well so I'm glad that that has been brought up but yeah I don't want a lot of what I want to say as ditto but I'm in agreement with what the staff is recommending David? I mean I think my my short responses is probably a ditto you know I want to acknowledge that I do think Paul's right there there's been a bunch of changes from June many of which stylistically I personally like so I mean if this if we were at the table to get into the meat and potatoes of some of that I would probably have a lot more to say but for me I think the the violations point is sort of a non-starter for me so I you know I spent a lot of time in this staff report and do acknowledge the changes and but it's about as far as I could go with it yeah Acknowledgement of the of a lot of the changes that have been made is also it's important to recognize if you guys try to address our concerns we appreciate that aspect of it I do anyway so what I believe we have in front of us is a recommendation to deny I know we have a recommendation to deny you know we go to line 927 and staff is recommending that that site plan and master plan amendment be denied I'm not sure what value the words denied without prejudice imply and that I'd like to hear from happy to address that so tell me what that means yep deny without prejudice is a term that means the application and the proposal could still be presented under conditions that we could support and approval for but things will need to change it's not saying this proposal is completely unworkable there's no way this could ever be approved we don't want to see it again that would be denial flat out or with prejudice so we are willing to try and work on some of the issues that have been identified with the applicant or looking to find compromise that fits with the communities to find vision and some of that may involve changing some regulations that you know fairly hip and brought up as potential barriers to achieving that vision and that will take some time but deny without prejudice means this could come back with different design different proposal different details and could be approved one of the fundamental issues though is again compliance with codes and curing of violations so that brings us back up to the paragraph that begins in line 922 which addresses the violations Mr. Daley has raised his hand and I'll go to him in a moment so commissioners we've gone around the table and I've heard pretty much universal agreement or acceptance of the staff report so while we're sitting on that for a moment I will go back to the public and entertain additional public comment and Mr. Daley you're up first I get the point here listening to the back and forth and I look at two it really at two issues here you know one is the way the existing buildings are managed and run by this person which surely calls for just call a quick point of order sorry I must stick around this go ahead you've technically I hate to be a pain in the ass you've technically recused yourself from the app so you kind of can't Dave I was going to say the same thing our operating procedures and regulations well if you don't want well no the reason is the opinion is fine go ahead and do your thing the reason is that a recusal is a declare a declaration of a conflict so then coming before the body that you're a part of to then present your opinions on kind of puts you in an uneven playing field so recusal is typically just a flat out usually a leave but it's all good sorry that I'm I'm I've got to question that a little bit though as we've had folks and I've been in select board meetings where they've gone into the audience and been able to comment as a as a member of the public yeah when once wearing the hat always in my opinion and on the boards I've served on once wearing the hat always wearing the hat when you identify the conflict and recuse most boards require you to not participate in the deliberations the testimony anything you're Dave is correct I've seen that too we have it actually documented as such you're technically supposed to leave the room but with COVID there's no there's a room as could be virtual these days but it's documented that you're supposed to leave the room and have no interaction well aren't you Mr. Secretary I'm glad he is you started it I will have to go to the commission at that point I still would challenge that to some degree without having confirmation I think if they've declared themselves a member of the public on this they potentially have to refuse and tell from future commission discussions on it yeah I'm just I mean I'm glad John found it in the thing just going off of the other boards I serve on on what the operating procedures require let's hold on that for a minute John Alden you had comment I'm just in support of letting Ned talk because I often recuse myself from public meetings in order to be the presenter and and I do physically leave the room and come back in with a new hat and and that is acceptable in most jurisdictions if if you're worried about it and you're trying to make sure you make no mistakes it's easy to make a rule that says no you can't say anything but I believe that the rules actually allow you to recuse yourself leave the room come back in and be a member of the audience and participate we're gonna we're gonna go with the secretaries if he's got it if it's in our operating procedures we're gonna follow them so John's got them they are not yeah I just read this somewhere I was looking something up something else up and I found it as a matter of fact it was because I wanted to recuse myself on the discretion of development near my neighborhood that's when I saw it okay let me just do a quick buzz on this because I haven't have a copy of the planning rules of procedure and conflict of interest policy sitting in front of me I don't I don't Dustin I don't know if exactly which one it was it could have even been you know Roger's meeting laws are for you know it was somewhere I I'm trying to find it right now I don't think it is I because I just I have the memory of of having people come to the table but it wasn't for an application it was for a conceptual discussion in my memory is when Lowe's was coming to town everybody nobody liked that so I mean our definition of recuse not to beat a dead horse means to remove oneself from a particular commission proceeding because of a real or perceived conflict of interest means no participant and I'm looking up if you look up state statutes on recusal I think that's where I saw it mentions leaving the room and having leaving the room during non-public deliberations the state that and that's all true because as if you're not a member of the commission and as soon as you recuse yourself you're not you you have to behave like a member of the public so you're not entitled to sit during any of the closed door sessions but you should be allowed to speak as a member of the public you've given up your commission seat and become somebody else and and that's how that works and you do have to leave the room and come back in but that should be allowable I disagree there's a there's an inherent power dynamic that's at play when you're a member of a board and you you don't get to take that hat off there's no such thing Greg has his hand up Greg do you have comment on this Hi everyone you have the the benefits of working from home I pulled up your rules and regulations for the planning commission which is online and your website section 13 if I do my no roman numerals correctly section 18c a recusal a commission member should recuse himself or herself for conflict of interest section two under that a commission member who has recused him or herself from a proceeding shall not sit with the commission deliberate with the commission or participate in that proceeding as a commission member in any capacity though it's okay I should read more closely I'm not sure what it says about I don't yeah I don't think that our policies require him to be absent from the public portion of the meeting yep okay yep I'm reading too quickly sorry so I mean I'm fully respecting this you know opinion and so forth but I don't think we have the ability for the right to to reject him from the public portion of the meeting from the deliberative sessions and deliberate deliberations absolutely okay thank you Greg that is the that is the portion that I read so I was misreading it I don't agree but I'll let you let you go as you see fit well let me let me ask Mr. Dailey if you speak before us will be you be representing yourself as a planning commissioner in any capacity or will you be representing yourself as as a private citizen I would just planning to speak to the private citizen I'm not planning to speak anymore okay issue resolved for a moment Paula so with that we're back Paula do you have additional comment you'd like to offer question okay can you hear me I can hear you no Scott can't so I need a boom mic Scott they just floats around like the NFL it's in those wires just speaking of the NFL Patriots are playing at 830 I was just curious about the extension of the they keep referring to the as to the green and I suspect that it's nothing like the original one that was proposed in 1991 but I think that's what people are probably picturing people who've been here since then anyway so I was curious if there's a representation of where and what this green would look like and pull up the plans I'll see if you want to go to that or or I can stop by the office why don't we do that okay all right commissioners is there a desire to continue with the public hearing at this point I'm not seeing a lot of questions from the audience hearing none I would take a motion to close the public hearing so moved I'll second that moved by shoe seconded by Josh all those in favor of closing the public hearing hi hi hi I heard three so that's six motion passes six zero public hearing is closed commissioners next step we can continue discussion we can make a motion or we can go into deliberative I did not hear a dissension among the around the table about deferring with the staff reported or contrasting or conflicting with the staff report so frankly I'm I'm I believe we're at the point where we could entertain a motion to accept the staff report the only thing that I would offer is for consideration is that the motion to deny should also include a sentence that if we're going to do it without prejudice that this should not come back until violations have been demonstratedly resolved and processes in place to maintain that or to prevent them from occurring whatever the record of compliance that the last senate starting on line 925 the comment on that in fairness to the applicant do you want to put some parameters around a track record of compliance and sort of what conditions you want to see met before you review this application again I don't know enough about how they would be monitored maintained or tracked so a recommendation could be provided by staff or to staff by the applicant I would look to the rest of commission if we feel that that is required then we would have to strike it from the commentary and leave it as part of the planning commission finding but I don't know enough at this point be able to specify what and how other than violations resolved would you like to delegate that determination to staff I would I would say yes if the commission commission agrees to that that's a component we should have in the denial and I think that would be within it's in this it's in the staff report highlighted pretty strongly so I think that if we just accept the staff report that kind of goes without saying I don't think we have to add anything okay okay thanks Tom the major issue that's at play is the violation of the settlement agreement if that is being resolved by the courts we can work with that as the criterion does that Karen since you're taking leave on that does that seem yes does that address the conditions that were reported to us this evening David you're you're you're working on this no I'm just wondering if it's quite enough or if it's just that gives enough direction to both staff and the applicant I mean we're not really actually giving them direction at this point we're denying or or that would be potentially what we're doing you don't normally attach 50 late correct so we could potentially just use the site the staff report is written yep and just say therefore the planning commission denies the site plan master so I will make that motion modify line 927 the state that the planning commission denies this this site plan and master plan amendment proposal with the rest of the paragraph I believe has written does that work from a staff perspective does that work from a PC perspective sounds good Tom is that a second I think what's sure is you're making a motion to deny and to modify the staff report to have line that line say that planning commission nine line 928 is that what I think well I had it okay mine's off in years so 927 staff therefore the planning commission denied I don't think we need to say therefore but the planning commission denies I think if you just did a motion to deny the staff report right as is I think you're fine okay then the motion is to deny with the staff report has written second so we have a motion by myself second by Tom additional discussion it's denying without prejudice right it's as written as written yep okay all those in favor of the motion to deny I I I I those opposed motion carries 6-0 we're moving on now for the next item on the agenda thank you all for your participation thank you all for your attendance for those of you online for this application thank you for your input tell where is mine next item is the minutes from October 28th I don't know that's what's on them that's what's on the what minutes did you give us Sharon yep and 28 two sets of minutes so let's do them both concurrently I would take a motion to approve the site visit minutes and the minutes from the meeting the regular meeting of 828 so moved seconded moved by David seconded by shoe does anyone want to offer changes to either sets of minutes hearing none all those in favor of the minutes as presented signify by saying I I opposed motion carries 6-0 other business none I saw that there's a present presentation in our folder who's going to be zoning yep so we also want to point out because the application review is over you can have mission really rejoin the commission Ned can come back Ned come back I think like that I'm going to stay out here just a bit you don't need me okay um there are so in your other business folder on the Google drive there is a presentation the housing commission made to the slack border party inclusionary zoning we just want to point out that they are looking to come to the the planning commission to start discussing what inclusionary zoning implementing an inclusionary zoning policy would look like address some questions at the outset and get you into it we're tentatively scheduling that for December yes at least yep so if that's coming towards you but that's some background information okay um we have the rules of the rules of procedure and conflict of interest policy that we need John to stop by and sign at some point as a clerk that within run John I can stop by tomorrow okay other than that we don't have anything else assigned and you have a I did yeah but you know you should have a a letter there too the denial letter from the last meeting I got none I'll run out I'll run out so we're gonna hold for a minute but I'm sure I'm gonna go find a letter and um well you can sign the letter after you adjourn I'll run out before here so wait a minute I'm gonna check that here it is okay thank you so do any of the three of you know what Paula was referring to building codes when or building inspectors yeah so I think a lot of lines you were thinking sounds like that would be a inspector to enforce building codes which we don't have okay locally I'm not familiar with the state and how they enforce stuff that's the anardons obviously you might so I mean the state has code inspectors so if you build a commercial building so the only codes that the state of Vermont has and I'm speaking as a builder now is commercial codes that deal with fire safety electrical and plumbing so you pull any of those three permits under a general construction permit state has code enforcement officers with the exception of Burlington is a handful of towns that have local adopted local like for instance Burlington's always had building codes so Burlington has building code enforcement officers so they have building inspectors all of Massachusetts has building effective right town of Essex has no local building codes you can build a single family home and you can screw it up as much as you want so you just want to make sure you can put you can put sheetrock much to the sheetrock haters we did have Dave Sheeran who took a new job but he was working as a part-time with Jesse Dolbecki the fireman he's the state firmware yeah and I don't know that they made a new liaison yet to take Dave Sheeran's place and that was to help their social it's handed themselves yeah a bunch of towns have have done that like when you ski Burlington so if you do a time of sale inspection the state fire marshal kicks it off South Burlington does it too to the local yeah code enforcement officer I just want to make sure the language we're using is I think what she's looking for is someone who enforced like life safety codes and and health codes which makes a lot of sense and she'll be in we can have the discussion so I see before we disappear I know we're we're not doing public John John Alden your hand is still up do you want to I just wanted to weigh in on the state building inspector issue there are a handful and maybe as many as 14 local jurisdictions that have made arrangements with the state to have their own state fire marshals or local fire marshals that essentially do the same thing as the state fire marshal now that still only applies to commercial structures there's there's no enforcement really of single and even two family dwellings at the state level so if somebody has that for example Burlington they're doing it in addition to the state rules and it's it's possible I haven't spoken to Paula but there is there seems to be an ongoing effort to create some position that that extends that jurisdiction and inspection practice to you know at least rental housing of some you know whatever form that's in it wouldn't maybe carry the weight of a fire marshal but it would be more of a and I think it's possibly an appropriate term to call it a building inspector because the state fire marshal is not necessarily called the building inspector except you know colloquially and we kind of call on that but but really he's enforcing the state building and fire safety regulations so it's a little bit different than some of the rental properties that you know once you get above three rental dwelling units now you're a commercial structure so you do get the fire marshal in there and we know there are lots of accessory dwellings and other rental properties that don't fall under that even a single family home if it's just a rental won't fall under the fire marshal's you know his jurisdiction yes one thing they might be discussing or thinking about are the section eight inspectors who go into properties that are rented to section eight tenants who go in and they have to inspect for a certain livability standard per section eight for the landlord to be eligible for them to receive that funding so there is an inspection that has to happen and you do have to pay a fee for that I don't know if it's annually but but that might have been what was being discussed any yeah the section eight housing is a completely different you know it's it's regulated by state and federal guidance because it gets funding from them so it's not really the same it's not coming down through the this the fire marshal it's coming down through other funding sources okay okay last check on with staff anything that we need to know about in the near future okay at some point in the next meeting let's have an update let's let's talk up regulation updates just just to get us back onto that cycle again you know we've been kind of beat up the last few meetings let's let's get back to that cycle missioners anything we only have one more until the new year right yeah we only have one meeting in december let's make it a really big one don't worry I think it might already be there all right we have a number of new development applications I would let's take a motion to deny then unless you guys want to talk about that motion to motion to to adjourn I move we adjourn eyes second didn't want to leave all those in favor all right all right adjourn 820 motion carries 6-0