 This is the Development Review Board for Burlington for October 5th, and we are both live and in person and on Zoom. So we've got a hybrid meeting going. Let's see how this goes. We have some members of the public here, and we assume there'll be some members of the public who are on Zoom. We take up items that they are on in the agenda, and when we call each item, the people in the public will come up here, or Scott will admit people through Zoom, and we ask everybody to provide a mailing address to Scott. So I'm going to go right to the agenda is our next thing. I know we have one item we want to add at the end of the agenda, Scott. Yeah, that'll be an executive session with the city attorney's office for a litigation update. That is at the end of the printed agenda. Right, and that'll be at the end. Any other changes to the agenda? No. Okay. Communications, I know we have some minutes out there, and everything else is posted. Everything else is posted, yep. Okay, then we're going to get right into it. The first thing is 702 Lake Street, City of Burlington. Is the applicant here? Is the applicant there, Scott? We have Lee. So Lee, you can talk to us now if you want. I am here, thank you, Scott. Okay, and is anybody else here to speak on 702 Lake Street besides Lee Perry? No, just myself. Okay, then Lee, do you swear to tell the truth and hold truth under penalty, paying the penalty or perjury? Yes, I do. Okay, and maybe you could introduce yourself and say how you come to be representing somebody. Okay, so my name is Lee Perry. I'm the division director for public works maintenance division. So I oversee the street department equipment maintenance and the recycling program. So I am representing APW for the renewal of our Snowdown Barrier 702 Lake Street. So Snowdown accumulates over the winter in the city streets and on Church Street marketplace. To clear out, we haul down to this location and store over the winter where it will melt and infiltrate into the ground in the spring. Is this the same area that was used last year, year before? Yeah, this is the same area. I've been here 14 years and this is the only place I know that we've ever hauled snow. And are there any signs of damage to vegetation in there from salt or anything? No, actually, I included some photographs from this summer of the area. Vegetation is fine, especially in the sediment control area. There is a settling pond area where runoff can drain to as well as. It's an elevated area with banks all the way around. So water can settle into those and the vegetation is really, really good. Trees, you know, grasses, weeds, everything is going fine in there. Okay. Do any members of the board have any questions for the applicant here? Keenan. Can I just have one quick question? It seems like I find a cruel process. Your memo, you noted that you cleaned the area, the trash and debris out of the snow belts. And I was just curious, is the surrounding area all cleaned as well or is it just a lot that's clean? Well, it's the whole area. We try not to push the snow off the level area into the swales that are off of that area between the bank. You know, and there are other people, you know, it's a lot down to the dump area from the end of Lake Street by the skate park. People do get down in there even after we clean up and we find some debris. But we do frequent it throughout the summer, you know, checking for, you know, maybe homeless camps or something like that throughout the year. Generally in the spring, you know, it's trash that's usually scooped up in the snow piles off the street. We go down there and pick it all up after the snow melts. And is that also true for the pond that collects the sort of excess of the runoff? Yeah, that is on the lower. That would be on the southwest corner of the property as you drive in. And all of the snow is piled at the most northern end of it, which is elevated higher. So the trash really doesn't travel down there per se. You know, it's all kind of contained in the snow pile area. Doesn't really blow around too much because it's wet on the snow. Any other questions for the applicant? So, Brad, I would note Conservation Board looked at this last night and recommended approval contingent on continuing storm water management practices. We have Cynthia Cook with her hand raised in Zoom to speak to this item. And she is on the Conservation Board? Nope. No, she's a neighbor. Okay. Do you want to admit her? Yep. Well, Cynthia, are you there? Cynthia, you're up. He can speak to us now if you'd like. This is an applicant for... She's an applicant for later. All right. She raised her hand twice for this item, so I thought maybe she wanted a comment anyhow. Okay. Okay. There's no other comments. We will close public hearing. Thankfully, we're probably deliberate at the end of tonight's meeting. Thank you. I didn't catch that. I'm sorry. We will probably deliberate at the end of tonight's meeting. We've closed the public hearing. Okay. Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you. Okay. The next item is 716 Pine Street, appeal of a denial of zoning application for new main entrance to the building and change of use to food and beverage processing. Is the applicant here or there? We do have the applicant. Are the applicants representative Donna Church? I'm recused on this item. I'm recused on this. Okay. One, two. Hi, everyone. Is anybody else here to speak on this besides Donna Church, either from the public or for the applicant? I see no one, so. We have Matt Wilson. I'm raising his hand. Okay. Matt, you can speak as well. Okay. So anybody else? Can you all hear me? This is Matt speaking. Yes, we can hear you. So I'm going to ask both Donna Church and Matt Wilson to swear that you'll tell the truth and hold truth under pain and penalty of perjury. This is where you- Yes. Okay. Great. And I also just- We'll quickly add that my partner Rob Downey is here as well, and I'm going to raise his hand in the process. Thanks. Is he sitting with you? He's in on his computer as well. Okay. But he's not out and on Zoom. Okay. So who's presenting on this? I am. Okay. So there are some issues that the city has. Actually, I'm going to back up for a second. Sorry about that. So this is a denial, which I believe that means the city goes first on this. And that would be who is- Yep. Is that you, Scott? Yep. So can you- Sorry about that. Donna and Matt, give us a minute that the city will present their side, and then we have you respond. Sorry, technical difficulties on the laptop. Microsoft Network really wants to show me what's up. Okay. Rob appeared. I assume that's the Rob that Matt referred to. So Rob is live as well. Can you hear me now? Yep. Oh, okay. Rob, just as a formality, I should swear you into- Do you swear to tell the truth and hold truth on the pain of penalty perjury? Yes. Okay. So Scott will present the city's reason for denial. We good? So the quick background here. Well, we'll see if it's quick or not. So we have a number of breweries in the city, including what, four or five, maybe six in the enterprise zone. And within the enterprise zone, these are permitted use food and beverage processing is the category that they're under. And if you look at the definition of food and beverage processing, it basically says that cafes and restaurants are allowed only as an accessory use. So the other layer to this, or I should say another layer to this, is within the enterprise zone, cafes are allowable, whereas restaurants are not. So we have a brewery downtown. It's conceivable that they could have an accessory restaurant. But if we have a brewery in the enterprise zone between the restaurant and cafe, only cafe is allowable. Now, I understand that a tasting room isn't your typical cafe. It serves a lot of beer, but it also includes food service. So as a matter of practice, when these have come through for zoning permit approval, we've made a point of sticking with the 2,000 square feet size limit for cafe. Cafe includes both food and beverage service. It has the 2,000 square foot size limit, and it's allowable in the enterprise zone. I noted a couple of permitted breweries and cideries in the enterprise zone in the staff report, and I looked up a couple more today. Citizen Cider is permitted with about 1,500 square foot food and drink service area. Queen City Brewery, a couple doors down, was expressly permitted for 2,000 square feet food and drink service area. Burlington Brewery, which was pretty recently permitted. I don't think they're even up and running yet, but they also had 2,000 square feet expressly included in their approval. And then Switchback, it's been around probably the longest of those. That actually predates the CDO. I saw where that was approved back in May of 2006. The CDO was adopted in 08. But they have a floor plan that shows about 830 square feet for tasting room, so food and drink service area. So the applicable standards here are not crystal clear. There's definitely interpretation that needs to take place here, but I think part of our responsibility in doing the permitting here is being consistent with our interpretation. So we have consistently applied the 2,000 square foot limit in the enterprise zone. Again, because in most cases that 2,000 square feet fits into the accessory box, which is 25%, it includes food and beverage service, and it's allowable in the enterprise zone. So when these folks came in, zero gravity looking to expand their tasting area to, I think it was about 4,500 square feet, while that fits within the 25% accessory area, it's clearly above the cafe limit. So we denied it, or I denied it, and it's been appealed to you folks. So again, yep. Is there any provision in the zoning regs that has this square footage limitation? The cafe, the definition includes 2,000 square feet. Yeah, but as to accessory, as to defining accessory. Accessory has a 25% limit. 25% has the size, sales, and temporal extent, I believe are the three items. Yeah, I'll leave it there for now. And there's another piece in there with the percentage of food versus liquor, but that's to do with bars, or how does that enter into this? Well, so we have these three different categories that all overlap with one another, but they aren't, I'll say they aren't perfectly matched, right? So we have cafe, which is 2,000 square feet refers to food and beverage, but then we have restaurant and bar, which also include food and beverage service, with no square footage limitation, except that a restaurant, the majority of sales, comes from food service, whereas a bar, the majority comes from alcohol sales. So they all sort of relate, and they all sort of relate, but it's not a clear delineation between the three. Yeah, it does seem somewhat arbitrary in there. Yeah, yeah, it doesn't match up well. But the intention also is that there would not be restaurants in this zone. That is right. So the enterprise zone makes provision for, I'll say, small-scale accessory commercial uses. So a cafe, as an example, if you look at general retail, small size general retail, is permitted, large is actually a conditional use, and I think oddly, it says that the large-scale can only be an accessory use. So there's a few related commercial uses, but the intent is that they'd be small and secondary to the primary sort of production and manufacturing uses. Any other questions for, sorry, you're recused, I'll go that way. Any other questions for Scott Keenan? Keenan has his end up. So I'm just trying to understand what the practical impact on the area is. So that area has, it's got a zero-graphic brewery that has the great order. As a member, as a public member of the public who really doesn't pay attention to whether or not they were, you know, zoned as a brewery or a tasting room or, you know, or a restaurant with an accessory unit, it looked to me just kind of like a restaurant and a bar with a tasting room. So if the public has sort of already, it doesn't look like they're really changing the space really at all of it and expanding the overall size of the tasting room. And the public has already used to using that as somewhat as like a tasting room slash a big cafeteria area. I'm just curious what the practical impact is, if, you know, if we were to grant this expansion. Well, the practical impact from the public might be imperceptible or close to it from a regulatory standpoint. Great Northern was permitted as a separate business and it fit within the cafe box. There was some relationship there with zero gravity, but it was primarily its own business. Are there parking requirements now that would apply in this district? No, not now. It used to be, but there are no longer. Parking is not an issue. Right. Okay. Any other questions for the city before we ask the applicant to weigh in? Okay. So I'll ask whoever it is from the applicants team who wants to speak first. That would be me. This is Donna Church speaking on behalf of zero gravity. So as you've heard, zero gravity recently requested a permit for proposed renovations that would span the current tasting room. And our permit was denied because of the cafe is larger than 2000 square feet. When it should have been approved as an accessory use, taking up less than 25% of the grossed area of the principal use as a pure manufacturer. To give you a bit of history, currently zero gravity brewery, the building is 24,807 square feet. Part of that right next door, the great northern operates a cafe as part of its food processing business at this wholesale catering. The needs of both businesses have evolved, however, doing no part small part to the impacts driven by the COVID-19 pandemic. The great northern wants to get out of the cafe business completely and instead focus exclusively on food processing, including expanding its catering business selling wholesale food. In turn, zero gravity would like to expand its tasting room. And that effect is that zero gravity would operate a larger tasting room that is 20% of the brewery. As we talked about, Barbara Scott talked about the accessory use, you know, it is as defined by the ordinance. No, it has to be a located on the same lot, be clearly incidental to and customarily founded connection with the principal use and see some coordinate in area is not to exceed 25% of the gross area sales or principal use. On the side note, you know, as Keenan brought up, the great northern cafe resides next to the tasting room of zero gravity. And by allowing the tasting room to expand into the cafe area, there'll be a little impact made on the site by allowing this. Even though we're in the multimodal zone, we have our impact parking available to patrons per the old zoning ordinance for both those areas. Along this project, the board will not have an adverse effect to the area. In reviewing the ordinance, the project is located in the enterprise lightning like manufacturing, the ELM zone with the approved use of the food and beverage processing. Please note that food and beverage processing is only fully allowed in the ELM zone. So I know Scott mentioned earlier, the idea of putting, you know, a brewery downtown, but you're not actually allowed. Zero gravity brewery is located appropriately in the city. We are in agreement with Scott that we need the building overall use of the beverage processing as defined by the ordinance. Zero gravity prepares and packages and a beverage product for distribution in order for sale or resale on or off the premises and excludes restaurants and cafes, except as an accessory use. Our tasting room meets this accessory use. Scott has pointed out that the ELM District is cafe only, the ELM District, only cafes are allowed and not restaurants. And that's why our appeal was, you know, we're appealing his denial. Per the approved list of uses in the ordinance, this is where we disagree on the interpretation of the zoning ordinance. The exception of restaurants and cafes as an accessory use is listed in the definition of food and beverage processing. If the ordinance was intending to limit food and beverage production businesses to the size of a cafe, they would not have listed the exception of a restaurant in the definition. We believe that it is listed as an exception, the use of restaurants and cafes as an accessory use, because the limit is not meant to be based on the square footage size of cafes, which is less than $2,000 worthy, or restaurants over $2,000 worthy, but is to be limited by the definition of accessory use, which allows 25% of the principal use. Otherwise, the ordinance is in direct conflict with itself. Scott noted in his findings that breweries commonly have accessory tasting rooms, spaces wherein patrons can purchase beer made on site along with food service, but tasting rooms are not a defined use in the ordinance, but maybe they should be. We understand that Scott is limited by the ordinance and that it has a use table that doesn't mean which uses can happen in the zone. And when reviewing the uses for the ELM district, it says yes to cafe and no to restaurant. And for those standard, and those are for standalone uses, we believe that the exception of restaurant and cafe, which is listed in the primary use for the name of food and beverage processing is what's being overlooked. The tasting room would not be able to exist without the brewery. It is truly accessory to the primary use. We are not suggesting that restaurants can be in the ELM district. We are agreeing to your attention that any food and beverage processing business should be allowed to have an accessory use, that is not limited to the size of cafe or restaurant, but limited to the 25% as defined by accessory use. Also, we acknowledge that the interpretation of the ordinance as a matter of practice has limited these accessory spaces like Citizens Center in Burlington, Burrum to 2000 square feet. And we'd like to point out that in reviewing past projects, accessory uses have been approved that are not an acceptable use for the ELM, for the use chart. For example, beauty and barbershops are not an approved use for the ELM district. Although Salon crews at 688 Pine Street and Sequoia Salon at Sharing of the Pilburn were both approved based on they are retail spaces with an accessory salon. And the cognitions of approval in each case call out that the Salon area is limited to 25% of the space to mean accessory use. We're bringing this to your attention as we believe the current matter of practice needs to be adjusted. The use chart could be updated to call out a conditional use approval of restaurants in the ELM district with the condition being only as an accessory to public and beverage processing use. That would help clarify the contradiction of the use chart and the definition while making it clear that standable restaurants are not to be part of the ELM district. The proposed expansion of the tasting room needs all the requirements to be going itself. It is supported by the intent of the ELM district, which as the ordinance states is the primary commercial industrial center of Burlington and is intended primarily to accommodate enterprises engaged in manufacturing, processing, distribution, creating, repairing, renovating, painting, cleaning or assembling of goods, merchandise or equipment without potential conflicts from interspersed residential uses. Other accessory commercial uses are allowed to support a wide range of services and employment opportunities. This district is intended to ensure the sufficient area, planned area is appropriately designated within the city to provide adequate and diverse economic base that would facilitate high density job creation and retention. The choice to overturn the administrative denial and approve the tasting room as an accessory use gives the zoning staff a clear direction on the intent of the ordinance that the food and beverage processing are allowed an accessory use of cafe and restaurants and that the invitation and size is the 25 percent of the primary use as the as defined duty ordinance. Thank you for your time. We consider our appeal. So I have a question for you. So basically you're expanding your existing tasting room to basically take over most of the great northern front of the house space. Is that somewhat correct? Correct. And you're not doing any expansion or anything of the actual production facilities in this project? Is that correct? And just in operational sense, what's the difference between the tasting room and a restaurant? The tasting room is there to provide an opportunity for the public to come and taste the product. Due to the department of liquor control, you know, food is required at any establishment that is serving alcohol. So there is, you know, food and beverage there as well. But the primary reason for having a tasting room is to let the public, you know, taste your product. I understand. I guess I understand. I'm just trying to understand the difference. I know that in reality, you're thinking that there's a lot more sale of beer than there is of anything else. And that's what would make it the tasting room. But in terms of what is offered to the public and when somebody walks in there, is it pretty much the same as a restaurant or a restaurant that exclusively, you know, highlights one product? Are there other questions from the board at this point? Kenan's got his hand up again, Brad. Oh, Kenan. I'm lost in the shadow of the display up here with your hand up. So the one question I did have is, so the 25 percent rule says that it's not to exceed 25 percent of the gross area or sales of the principal use for structural building, sir. So I mean, my reading of that is that the tasting room would have to also, in addition to taking up less than 20 percent of the gross area, have less than 25 percent of the sales, which I assume that, and this is why I wanted to ask this question, that you're not generating the bulk of your revenue through the sales of tastes at your tasting room. Right. I will close. Yes, far less than 25 percent of our revenue. Okay. Our revenue is, I mean, if you want to take our work for it, you want to know revenue figures, because we have those as well. It gives an approximation would be helpful. Yeah. The revenues are probably eight to 10 percent from the, from the tasting or relative to the production revenue. We're going to double the size and double the income there. So you go from eight to 16 percent, maybe. If we double the size of the production area? No, double the size of the restaurant, the cap, the tasting room. I assume you're increasing this, the sales. It will still be, it will still be far less than 25 percent, right, the overall revenue. Yeah. Okay. The business plan that will be written internally shows somewhere in the three million dollar range. It was, is 50. Okay. I understand the view of thinking that the 2000 square feet is sort of an arbitrary kind of thing. I also believe that there's a lot of efforts being made for this zone to stay as it's intended as an enterprise zone for manufacturing and production facilities and not become a mecca of restaurants and other things. So there is some concern about that, I think, in the intention of the zoning ordinance. That's why, you know, I mean, this, this zone, if they had housing in there, this, the whole zone would be gone. They don't allow that in here either. I make a couple of quick points, Brad. I'm sorry. We had talked internally about that, looking at the intent of the light manufacturing zone to sort of prioritize the creation of higher wage, light manufacturing jobs and create a good mix for the neighborhood and not sort of invite a restaurant zone, sort of lower wage service jobs historically. Although I think that's changing these days. If somebody wanted to come in, the answer to that is somebody wanted to come in and just open a standalone restaurant, let's call it 4,000 square feet, and try and come in under the accessory use rule, right? I mean, because standalone restaurants would still be not allowable. So they would have to come in as an accessory use. They would have to take up a 16,000 square foot building, pay all the rent on that, just to build a 4,000 square foot restaurant. It's not going to happen. That would be a huge, expensive undertaking, probably $250,000 a year in additional rent. So I think the way this is structured with this 25% was quite clever and will continue to prevent standalone restaurants from coming into this zone. It's working. And that you're turning to add. Additionally, yeah, I think I think Keenan actually asked a very important question and that was what the practical impact would be. And it kind of goes back to, I can't tell what the gentleman's name is speaking, this thing says 645 Pine Street, but your whole point about the spirit of the zone as well. And that is that the changes that we're looking to make, in essence, are very minimal and limited to the building. In fact, very, very little of the space is going to change and how it's already practically being used. So in essence, really, it's creating one larger front of house space where front of house space already exists and allowing patrons to sit inside in a more comfortable way than what our previous tasting room allowed patrons to do. As our success has a microbrewery and the region has continued, the size of the tasting room has become a challenge to service those people. So opening up that extra space is going to be critical to our continued success as well as a manufacturer in the zone. So, certainly a point there being is that in practical matters, nothing is actually really changing about this building other than opening up one wall. Scott, you wanted to add something? Yeah, just a couple of quick points. Is there some reason you turned off the video in here? Nope. That happened at Conservation Board last night too. We're all still here. So you were going to add something, Scott? Yeah, just briefly. Food and beverage processing isn't allowed use in all of the neighborhood activity center zones. So there's four of them. And it actually is a permitted use downtown. The label in Article 14 is not the same as in Appendix A, which is its own problem, but it's a permitted use. Donna had pointed out a couple of instances of salons being permitted as accessory in the enterprise zone. And she's right, but I would say that both of those were done administratively, not by the board, by my predecessor, which makes me feel a little bit better. And I think in both of those cases, that decision, those two decisions, inverts the typical relationship between primary and accessory use to somehow shoehorn in a not permitted use and call it okay as accessory. I think that sort of turns the intent of the district and allowed uses versus prohibited uses on its head. So I think there's intent and reason behind what uses are allowed versus conditional versus not allowed in a given district. I have a question for the applicant. The, whatever it was, 4,800 square feet or whatever it is, does that include the outside spaces? No, this is just for the exterior, the interior spaces. So you've got an outside deck, right? Yes. Of some size. And at least the north and use the porch area for dining. Yes, they did. Not so much originally, but with COVID, they definitely, you know, that became a very highly used area. Yeah. Yeah. So, and you would probably use those areas too. Is that true? Most likely, you know, in seasonal, as a seasonal area. Yes. So yet, but you haven't added those square footages into your total? No. Typically, well, the use for tasting rooms has only been internal. So for example, citizen's letters is based on their internal square footage, not their outside deck area. Same with us. It's been internal. After you're part of that, you don't get the full year to use those spaces. Unless you have very, very, very hardy people who want to be outside all year round. But yes. Putting it in practical terms too, the way it works out is during the nice parts of the year, everybody sits outside. During the crummy parts of the year, everybody sits inside. And that goes to almost very consistent throughout the year. It's never, never truly the case for both are totally cool. Okay. Okay, it's, it is a bit of a quandary, which I guess we have to ruminate on. Any other questions from members of the board? Sean? For the, the look that you're proposed tasting room is nearly 5,000 square feet, 498 sticks I'm seeing here. And given the difference and the definition between a restaurant and bars, it's feeling more like an accessory bar. Can you just speak to it about it in most terms, where your thoughts are about that? As far as whether it's an accessory bar or an accessory cafe? Yeah, it's feeling more like an accessory bar, given the size of it and the difference between the definition of the restaurant and the bar. It doesn't feel like it fits the definition of restaurant. It doesn't really fit any of the definitions. That's part of the issue with the tasting room. You know, the tasting room is specifically to a brewery or to, you know, a cider, citizen cider, whether you have beer or a cider, you know, it's about exposing your product to, you know, everybody. It's not about having a bar set up where, you know, people are coming to have an evening, you know, drink. Like people come to taste the beer all day long. It's, you know, it's not the same kind of downtown. You've got music pumping and you're at a bar late at night dancing the night away. Does that make sense? Yes. Thanks. You can't dance the night away here. Make that a condition, Brad. It sounded good. I don't know. Okay. I would like to add a piece there. This is Rob. The tasting rooms connection with craft breweries these days. When we opened that brewery on Pine Street, there were 2700 craft breweries in the country. There are now 87 of them. And the vast bulk of those breweries that are now competing masterly have adopted, well, they rely on tasting rooms as way to all that clutter of all those brands to introduce themselves to the public and establish that relationship with their customers. And particularly in a place like Vermont where, you know, you're really tourist heavy, they come in, they have that experience, they take that experience back to New York or Boston and wherever they came from. And that's how Sierra Gravity has been able to compete successfully in this sea of craft beer brands. I think that that's what makes this model kind of undefinable. The tasting rooms are so crucial to the success of the brewery these days that to diminish its ability to reach those customers that way, ultimately impact its reach as a brand throughout the region. That's my point there. Okay. And I, Matt, as Matt, I would like to make one last point too. So Scott, Scott at one point said that, to use your exact word, some interpretation needs to take place here. And somebody else mentioned that there's obviously going to need to be some deliberation going on. And I think perhaps maybe the most sailing point is with some gray area that does exist without a clear written, you know, description in the, in the ordinances, whether accessory uses also need to be detailed as appropriate primary uses because there's some conflict there and some things that have been approved that weren't on that list versus, you know, our use, which perhaps isn't even on the list at all as a tasting room. So obviously there's some gray area. And I think that is where going back to, you know, the spirit of the zone and we are still maintaining the spirit of that zone. We're creating 75 manufacturing jobs. We're creating a community gathering space in our tasting room to showcase our products. And to say it again, this change that we're requesting is really in practical terms, a very minor change to what's already happening in there. It's really a change that's going to hopefully allow both businesses to survive, you know, through what is the most challenging time we've all faced so I think it's that interpretation needed. It feels like the only real thing that's written is that food and averaging processes processing is allowed in our zone. And that's where use is allowed to that use. And that's what we're trying to do. Okay. Thank you. Unless there's any questions from the board, we will close the public hearing at this point. And we will probably deliberate at the end of the meeting tonight. We'll see what time we get to. But thank you. Close the public hearing at this point. You can stick around if you want to watch the deliberative. But I can't nobody can participate in it. Okay. In person. Wow. This is this is like a unique experience. Yeah. And I have a bit of a cold. So I didn't want to come down here, but I had to because zoom wouldn't let me either use the video on I couldn't I couldn't get to work. So I figured I'd call and that did work either. So this is 166 East Avenue. Yes, it is. And I use Cynthia Cook. I am. You appeared briefly on the screen here. Yeah. Yeah. But I couldn't see any of the controls. Usually there's their start video, stop video, mute. I couldn't see any of that. Anyway, so we will get started. So I have to swear you and you swear to tell the truth and hold truth and to paint a penalty perjury. Okay. So I think you've been here before or via zoom. Yes. Yes. So I believe that there were some dimensional issues with the layout of the parking that have since been addressed. Yes, Ryan hopefully came out and we measured things and I have just over 24 feet of width so I can fit three cars in abreast and then one behind for the two. Yes. So it would help for me to point a little bit. Sure. Would it just get my garrings. She picked up on the microphone, Scott. Yeah. Okay. Okay. So here's the entrance to the avenue. And here's where I put a barrier up to five foot set back from the property line. And then you can get three cars abreast here. And there are two spaces required for my upstairs apartment, even though I just have one very small car. So I could use one behind me and wouldn't need an attendant because I attended myself. So I try to. My cat helps me. Let's see what else. So this I planted with the ground time it's starting to come in because I wanted something that wasn't mold. And eventually I'd like to make that into a little bit more of a landscape garden path. Was part of putting up an edge on the edge of the driving. Yes. Yeah. Landscape timbers. Yep. I think I said you've been here a few times on this thing. So I think. Yeah, but I'm happy to answer any questions there. It looks pretty straightforward at this point. Any questions from other members of the board? You're back on this one. No. I think when you've come back, making all this effort, we should have lots of questions. You should. Yes. It's working quite well. It appears. I think it is. It achieves the goals and meet the regulation. So yeah, let's people have more questions. And I'm pleased that this is speeding up the process of making that little surface path there. Yeah. Because that's something I know one of the intents of the in the beginning of the zoning regs is encouraging pedestrian traffic. Yes. And the people behind me in co-housing informally use a path there all the time to get up to the medical center and UVM. So it's facilitating that and be nicer in the long run. So you guys helped speed it along. Good. Side benefit. Yeah. Okay. Well, appreciate you coming down and participating. But unless we have any other questions from anybody, I think the staff report said that things were addressed here. Did you ask for public comment, Brad? I assume that you would have. I see one neighbor. No hand has been raised. Is there any member of the public who wants to comment on this? So raise your hand and you can speak. All right. Let's just be watching. Sometimes people put something in there. I have chat turned off for DRB. So it looks like it is. Good. We will deliberate at the end of tonight's meeting then. Great. Okay. Thank you for your time. You can watch on Zoom if you want with that. You can try. Right. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. The next application is 483 Manhattan Drive. Is the applicant here? Good. An actual building. That's sort of a rarity to it. Yeah. Something new. Yes. And is anybody from the public who wants to speak on 483 Manhattan Drive? Oh, okay. Good. So, okay. So we've got two people and if you would both raise your right hand and swear to tell the truth and hold truth on the pain of penalty or perjury. Okay. It looked like a fairly complete set of drawings. Yes. So I met with DAB last week. They had a couple of revisions that I had made to the plans and with those revisions they wanted to approve the plans as they were. There was a comment about the front door being visible. Was that from DAB? So we had talked about that at the meeting. We had planned to make the walkway wider and bring the landing closer to the street. If you view the plans, you can see those changes were made. That's the plan there. Got it. You just want to pass it. I'll let you go to the next one. The next one is the site plan. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. So we had made the walkway four feet wide and is now going to be concrete and brought the landing closer to the street to make it a bit more inviting. Landing at the stairs. Yeah. And then that goes into a little vestibule which is outside with the door on the left and the right. Yes, correct. Okay. The interesting design. So you're bringing the roofing down on the sides of the building. Is that right? Metal roofing? No, that is going to be siding. It's just a different color siding. Because it is a big building to give it a little... I want to go back to the... Yeah, that one. So that's... Okay. So it's not the roofing that's coming down. It just looked like there were lines on it mimicking the siding. It's vertical siding, board and batten siding. And out of curiosity, you have no eave detail. So you have this more curiosity question. You just have the metal overlapping. There is going to be a slate eave there. And the siding material on this? Is vinyl board and batten. And the front too? The front and the sides, yeah. And everywhere. Just two different colors. Yep. Was there a landscape plan? Yes, should be on the site plan as well. It's got a garden area in the back, a flower bed up front and then grass area. What's in the front of the voting? Is there a planting bed there? Yeah, it's a little flower bed right there. You haven't detailed specifically what you plan to plant in those two areas? Right now, I think she had submitted a photograph of the existing. So there's a tree in the backyard. Is that staying? That is... On the neighbor yard? That is being removed. Yeah, what's the cost? The house is getting demoed and it's hard to see. Sometimes you have the site plan on the property. Yeah. The area photograph doesn't exactly match the property. If you go up to the top, I think... Yeah. The top? Yeah. Go to the plants out first. Yeah. Yeah, so the building, the driveway will all be removed and we'll start from scratch, basically. The curb cut really stays about the same. It does widen a bit. We had talked with Caleb about the curb cut. Is this your project? Yeah. I'm just curious. You know, is the green belt there wide enough for trees? The front one and the green belt between the sidewalk and the street? Yeah. I'm not used to where trees go. Sometimes, yeah. But I mean, this is part of the city that has a a dearth of street trees. I'm just wondering if that's... I don't think there are any trees in that green belt on that street. Some of them are fairly narrow, which is why there's not a lot of trees up there. Okay. Okay, I'll ask if the board has any questions for the applicant at this point. No. Like I said, I think it's a fairly complete... I've set of drawings going on here, even if I don't know what the eave detail is. That's not really within our purview. Anyways, you know, I always like to know those kind of things. But it is that there are five bedrooms. In one of the units, yeah. Five and four? Yeah. That's what it is. Three stories. Good. Okay, if you want to give us a minute and the neighbor. Yep. I think that's it. You want to come up here and... First, I saw those pictures. Those diagrams don't have a computer, so... Come on, cool. Restate where you live. I live at 489. Okay, just the left. Can you sign in with your name and address, please, so we can send you a copy of the decision? You did? Okay, great. Interesting. The building itself that I just saw a moment ago, it looks like it's going to be fairly tall. And the snow is pretty much going to come down. Where is he going to park? Is he going to park in the brown areas? In the front. Yeah, right. And driving in there. So how many are we going to stack there? Four cars. He's got two tandem cars. He's got a site. We want to go to the site. Whichever plan shows the cars. Keep going. Try to go all four of those cottons. Yeah, keep going. I think there's one that shows the cars. I'll show you this one. This one, okay. I don't see that happening. I mean, I saw very optimistic. That's okay. All right, that can happen. See, basically the front of the house is going to be just a skinny section over here on the right, right? Yeah. Well, yeah, it goes over part of the parking area. Fascinating. The snow removal has always been an issue with that residence. So I don't mention that because if it's going to be pushing over to the left, that's where I live in windows and vents for my furniture there. So it could be a challenge. I think the driveway... By the way, we'll come back and address some of this in a minute. Yeah, he's only a five feet between the building and the property lines on both sides. And you're right, the snow is going to come off the roof and go plow up down there. Fairly high. Yeah. And he would be obligated to keep any snow plowing off of your property when he plows it and stuff. Plowing is one thing. I'm just thinking about the roof. The roof is interesting. I'd look just a moment ago at the property line. Everything looks intact, pretty reasonable, like 40 some odd feet. He's not going to push much back into the backyard. Four cars. Okay, sounds good. No company because already there's no permits for residential parking only. And to my left on the edge is another apartment building. The parking is really challenging. I mean, the residents have a hard time parking because some of the people have put in for residential parking only and were denied. So keep that in mind. The building is basically built to all the setbacks. So it's built to the rear setback front yard, setback side and to side yard setbacks. So it's pretty much as much as could be covered. It's covered and a lot of coverage. Well, like I said, the first time I saw the drawings, it's interesting. Yeah. Commenting again, like I said on snow removal, coming down off that high roof. It's going to pile up on the left. I don't know if you can envision it, but he's going to be pushing all this parking here. There you go. Yeah. It's not that neat. But okay. I understand. Beautiful structure. I mean, you know, it looks really cool. Let's see how it worked out. Practically speaking, was you talked about the green bell up front? Yeah, I said about that. Yeah. A lot of sewers, people sewers go to the center of the street, roof to have a tendency of getting into those. It's just, I mean, when it's possible, it's nice to have street trees. It'll be the first one on the whole street. I've been there since the 80s. Gotta start somewhere. It's not going to happen. Because we're across the street is the homeless communities. Is there, it's just, the city used to rack and stack cars that they towed. There were a chaining fence on the other side. You could call it that, I suppose. Okay. Well, that's pretty much it. Long-tea. He's accommodated four cars in front, which is going to be real skinny over here. And the snow up that high roof, so it doesn't impact. You said setback. It is required to be, well, five feet setbacks on the sides. Properly to the house. His house. We're going to go in on the tree removal. Okay. Tree's not doing well. It can really get out of hand. But I figured that his, the new neighbor would want it down. Mr. Ross was a great guy. He had a garden back there. We never addressed it because it wasn't an issue. It actually helped him with the shade. All right. Okay. Thank you. You want to come back up and, that is something you're going to probably have to make an effort on in terms of snow removal. Yeah. Who are you living here? Is this a rental? No. There is going to be a walkway on that left side to get to the trash. So, I mean, that has got to be kept clear. Yeah. So they can bring the trash out from. Is that shown in the final plan? I know those are in the comments. I can't see a walkway there. You know, I was looking for the trash. You're just going to put it on the deck. Use the decks for the trash storage, correct? Yep. Totes, the personal totes. And so, pull it from the trash and they come around the side. Yeah. So, we've got a crushed stone walkway that you're going to have to shovel, right? Or snow blow or something on that side of them. You know, you're probably setting up some challenging things for snow removal on that side of the house, on both sides probably. Yeah. Both sides. Well, it's a foot in on either side from the maximum that it could be because it was 10% of the width. Right. 5% minimum. Is that back? 5 foot minimum. So, it just makes me aware of that that's. There are narrow lots there. Right. So, it just becomes something to maintain. Would you. So, there was the condition about the front door that was brought up in the staff report to it went against what the DAB recommended as they accepted the what he's proposed. There is DRB decisions in the past that required that the door faces street. What he's proposed is kind of an entrance but it doesn't technically have a door that faces the street and that has been supported in the past. I just want to bring that up and that is conditioned. So, that's something that you want to address at least or have the help can respond to. Well, the drafts about DAB was okay with that. Yeah. I lied in the walkway and made the talk about it deliberative. My feeling was it. Questions? No. I guess the only comment I have is that, you know, it's going to be something to maintain it. That's going to be the biggest question once you do it. Okay. I'm going to close the public hearing and we'll deliver it at the end of the meeting. Thank you. Talking of trees. 130 Mansfield Avenue. Is the applicant here? No. Is the applicant on Zoom, Scott, for 130 Mansfield Avenue? I see a couple of unidentified folks. So, if you're the applicant for 130 Mansfield, raise your hand and I can let you speak. Oh, there we go. Cool. We do have the applicant, Brad. Is there anybody else besides the applicant who wishes to speak on this? Anyone else? Raise your hand if you're on the phone. I think it's star six to raise your hand. No one else is raising their hand, Brad. Okay. So, and this is David Vallejo. Is that the right pronunciation? And I'll swear you in. Do you swear to tell the truth and hold truth on the pain and penalty of perjury? I do. Okay. Are you here for this one? Okay. So, I believe the arborist has looked at this. So, maybe you can just go through. You're cutting 13 trees out of an area of how many trees can you? There's probably 40 or 50 trees in this clump. Most of them are the Black Locusts. We are just proposing to cut the ones that are closest to the driveway, walkways, hand the buildings that are showing signs of deterioration. And this is more curiosity. What do you do with the wood? Tree serves, we'll just take it. It's always a shame because they'll just chip it. It's nice wood. It is good wood, but we just let the tree serves take it. Oh, it's better than just firewood. Good. Questions from the board? I guess. Jessica and Berm, you're not planning on replacing any of the trees, just removing trees within this area? Correct. We're just, there are some smaller trees that are already growing in that area. We're going to be just letting nature take its course at this point. Do you remove the stumps? Do you grind them? No, we're going to leave the stumps. We don't really want to disturb the area. Getting a stump grinder in there is really, we got to cut a lot of ground cover down, which we don't really want to do. So we're just going to leave the stumps in place. We got to, how high above the ground do you cut the stump? We'll get them down usually within six or eight inches of the ground. So that's the whole area is overgrown? Is that what you're? Well, yeah, there's some young growth in there already of other trees. So I think by just removing these trees, young growth will take over very quickly. I'm not seeing any questions coming forth here. No. Okay, I guess this is an area that doesn't lack trees. So it's, and the harvest is looked at, so I think we're fairly comfortable with this. That, and there's no other people to comment on this, right, Scott? No. Okay, we'll close public hearing. Okay, thank you. We have finished the printed agenda. We have one more item. Was there anything you were? I was told to be here for 27th welshry, Burlington. I received a card in the mail. Oh, short term rental. That was withdrawn. Yeah, the application was withdrawn, so they're not going to pursue that any longer. Sorry about that. Okay. Okay. So we have an executive session to go in. So we're going to go offline for a bit. Yeah, you can come back if you want in a few minutes, but or you can watch online. We will deliberate at the end of the meeting. Okay. So I need a motion to go into executive session. Yeah. Yeah, you do. So AJ's not back yet, I guess. AJ's not here. I have language for you. It's going to take me a little while. Such eloquent language. I would happily make a motion with recommended language for it. Yeah, we're going to you want to say why we're going in for can I send this to you? Brad, or do you want me to read it to you? Well, I'm on this later on that part. So the suggestion motion is I moved to find that premature general public knowledge of a discussion of pending litigation of DRB decisions and attorney client recommendations made for the purpose of providing professional legal services to the DRB who clearly placed the DRB in city at a substantial disadvantage because it risks disclosing its legal strategy of disgust in public. So that's the motion for going into executive session to discuss. So moved. So moved. Okay. Do we have a second on that motion? Chase. Okay. Any discussion? All in favor? Opposed. Okay. So is Kim here? Kim is here. I'm going to promote Kim to a panelist and then for looks like the zero gravity folks and maybe Sharon Bush or I'm going to put you guys in a waiting room while we do the executive session and then bring you back out.