 Okay. Well, I will call this meeting to order. It's 7.02 p.m. We have a meeting. First thing on the agenda is reserve for any changes to the agenda items. Do we have anything? Kathy Ann, are we going to change number five? I think that we, given our small quorum of committee members tonight, it might be a good idea to continue discussion of five to the next meeting. Okay. I agree with that. Do we need to vote on it or do you agree? No, not necessarily. No action. Anybody have a problem? I just have a question. How come mobile food units wasn't on there? There's actually going to be a much longer list than this. These were the ones that I had intention of having actual text for by this evening. So the list will probably change by July 18th because I'll have had more time. So the idea tonight was to put the ones on here that I had text associated with it. But the mobile food units haven't dropped off the list. I wasn't going to have any language for you tonight on that one. So is it a priority in terms of, I'm just thinking it's summer. It probably won't happen by summer, but it just seems like it, I feel like there's such a revenue source. If we can collect a local option tax on them, try to move them along. So mobile food units just quickly has a little bit of reference. They're sort of governed under two things. They're governed under our development regulations. They're also administered in part under the peddler's ordinance. So there is something in place now with the peddler's ordinance, which is also undergoing some revisions. So they are allowed right now. I think the goal for us is to make them, make the permitting process quite a bit easier and at least more clear. Right now, there's not a consistent set of standards. So what applies to a mobile food unit at one place doesn't necessarily apply to them parked in another place. So we're trying to work on some consistency. But it doesn't mean that they cannot operate now. So they can still operate. There's not any other changes. Any comments or questions from the public? Not on the agenda. All right, then we'll move to number four, which is a request for supplemental amendments to the Colchester Development Regulations. There's a request SR 2301 of Benjamin, and I'm sorry I'm not going to be able to pronounce your last name, to rezone a single parcel of land here in Colchester from R2 to GD4. This would be the opportunity for you to come forward and we wanted to discuss your request. The bar, yes, and just state your name. Benjamin Ng, NG. I had to buy a valve to make an ING sound. So you want to tell us a little bit about your request? Yes. I prepared originally a kind of one-page request form. I assume you have read it, so I don't need to repeat that detail. Okay, great. Before I start, I just want to thank you all. It's the evening time. You're taking the time to hear my request and give me the opportunity. I appreciate that. And also I want to acknowledge my wife, Christine, my son, David, and I value the support team, so I just want to cover the basis. Now, I think in that script there is a map of the zoning. I think that would be helpful as a reference. Right, I think that's the one. Okay, if you move up a little bit, that would be perfect. I know at this moment, this parcel that I was referring to, which I acquired recently, belonged to using your 2019 city plan or town plan, is in the Clay Point area, which is rural residential, low-density area. But also the one I have interest in, actually, is I think on page 18 of your plan, and that is the exit 17, which is an interstate exit 17 neighborhood area, which you have designated to make it into a village mixed use and have commented that it hasn't been able to develop location, whatever economic reasons. And so I know for every city, the interstate exit areas are valuable resources for city development. And you have only two, exit 16, which is well developed, and exit 17. The interesting part is usually in most exit areas, both sides, for example, exit 16, also intersects routes too, as in this case. And both sides of route two are zoned, that kind of development region. But in this case, only the north side, as you will see. And I did some homework, and I realized that at some point, route two went through the narrow street above route two. It's called Jasper Mine Road. So that was the, you probably know more, that was the old route two. And then at some time, a more, I guess, direct route two came about. So it's lower now, it touches this property that we are talking about. And I think that the key question for, I guess, for the planning committee and for the city is, how best should this parcel be part of the exit 17 area planned, or should remain as the K Point residential rural plan? And I want to suggest that to help and develop this area, it makes sense to include this parcel that we are talking about, or maybe even those parcels on the east. So there is a continuous area, both north and south of Highway 2, that can be a more area to develop. And my proposal actually is that looking to the future of the glowing city of Cochester and also the stick of Vermont, want to have green development. In fact, I was looking at the, I guess, page 18, where exit 17 area, they actually was mentioned, I'm quoting page 18, to be developed as a village mixed use area to consider opportunities for development, such as alternative energy facilities that would not negatively impact economic growth opportunities in the neighborhood area. So my thought for that parcel and looking to the future is to build an EV supercharge station there. And you have many rules about gasoline stations, have to be within 3,000 feet from the exit, and this will fit basically if it can be resumed as the exit 17 region, which is GD4, which were allowed. And so the proposal here is that for the planning committee at some point to look at this and to see for the future development of this part, exit 17, if that will help and kind of kickstart the development of such a project. And not only the station, but also the plan is to have a solar farm, to have sufficient energy to support and serve the supercharge station. So again, as you're mentioning the alternative energy facility, both the super station and the solar farm work towards that renewal energy kind of efforts for the state and for the city. So basically that is the quick summary of the reason behind the request. I know that there's a staff from, I guess, your planning committee. I mean, there's a write-up already, and they refer to a few things. One is that if we only look at clear point neighborhood, it may not fit because it's low density, rural, residential, and my point is maybe we should have a fresh look now that the route two has moved and whether we should look at another kind of a way to see if it will help making that area, exit 17, to further develop. And I know there was another concern or there was an accident recently, I think last year, a lady unfortunately came out of one of the spur and got hit and was really unfortunate and the staff was saying, under that scenario maybe the Vermont Transportation Department may not want to have even more spurs coming out. So this is contradictory in the sense that if we are going to develop this part, there will be more traffic, there will be more coming in, going out, excess roads from retail, from whatever. So unless it's an unfortunate incident and I don't know what was the reason, how it happened, but that is sometimes maybe lead to a lower speed. I don't know what, but there may be other ways to address it and not kind of stop development as enough because of that, we just don't do anything. And also I think one other concern, not just from memory, I think you're right that the staff are saying that it's quite busy already. You have many projects, 46 and all the other things this year and we'll not have time to look into this and so my suggestion is if that's the case I don't mind next year or if you plan a committee that is worth looking into and to schedule something in the near future next year, I can wait, no special kind of, in fact to really do such a project with all the permitting requirements. This is a three to five year exercise to go through the local level, the state level, I have no idea whether they require a federal level and from the date that you say okay, it's resolved, you can go ahead. That's all I could think of. But I'm open to, if you have questions, I'm happy to respond the best I can. Okay. So Kathy, do you want to go through the staff notes or do you want us to dive in? I also wanted to just give you a little bit of supplemental information that's come up since I worked on the staff notes here and I don't know if this is of any interest and I'm happy to follow up in a separate email or phone call. But as I was talking through about this project with some other people in our administration, I was reminded that VTRAN, so they monitor our state roads, is working on a park and ride immediately in the area. And I think it's just a cross, I think it might even be on Jasper Mine. A parking. A park and ride, so like a spot where people can carpool from. Oh, I see, okay. Yeah, and we reached out to them to ask them if they have any interest. So they're on sort of that other side of the road where there's already some of the industrial and commercial uses and asked them if they had any interest in starting any private partnerships, as a common sense location for this. And the early response from just one person, again this is very, very premature, was that they have not done that to date. But if there is potentially someone interested, they're willing to explore the idea of a public-private partnership at a facility that is already in the design phase, or not design phase, I think they're in the scoping phase. So what that means is they're starting to look at what the costs would be, if they have to acquire any land, what does the engineering look like, how much does it cost. So the state of Vermont division of the Agency of Transportation is starting to look at that. I believe if you go through our select board meetings, there was an update on that this year. I'm sorry to put you on the spot, Pam. Last year, okay. So if you found your way around our website, and I'm happy to send it to you as well, there is a presentation about what their general idea is, and we could make some connections for you. Again, I don't mean to... That's news, yeah. Over at the discussion here, but I do want to say that there's potentially an option that could meet some of these energy goals, some of the serving the population that needs these chargers, acknowledging that the interstate is a place where they would be extremely popular and needed, but potentially giving a different location and most importantly, a controlled access point. I think what I didn't necessarily say as clearly as I could have in the staff notes is that while there was one recent fatality, this is a high crash location. The state has identified it as a high crash location, and there is a study that is ongoing right now. I'm not directly involved, so I don't know all the details, but there is a study that is looking at what measures can be undertaken to reduce that. I don't know if it's reduced speeds, I don't know if it's any sort of road slimming or any sort of physical adjustments, but in light of that accident from last year, that work was started, and it's my understanding that until that work is complete, until they've got a good understanding of what that means, they don't want to make any situations worse by creating more turning points. The state of Vermont is always very hesitant to give curb accesses from, they consider this one of their highest levels of highways and a limited access highway, and they're always very cautious to do that. So just to address the traffic piece there, that's sort of the information that I have. The other concern that we didn't really talk about too much is just the general idea of avoiding any sort of spot zoning. Any time you change the zoning on just a single parcel, you open yourself up to considering whether that's the case, especially when you have a parcel that is surrounded on at least three sides by a different zoning, and so any look at zoning in that area shouldn't look at just a single parcel. We talk about that fairly often here, but I think if you do have any considerations of that, I would keep just those three points in mind. But again, with that new information, if there is any interest at all in connecting with the Vermont Agency of Transportation, I am happy to make those connections. If you can email me. I don't know the exact location. I'm pretty sure. Does anybody in the room know? No, I haven't heard about it before. Yeah, so they're looking at a parking ride. So I can find the information on that, what's known already. They're in, I don't say early stages of development, but if it's a 1 to 10, they're probably at a 4 in terms of the work there. I would love to make that connection and better understand what they are trying to do. And hopefully if we do that, maybe they can understand what, and maybe there's a way, even hurt to build bridges and connections. Yeah, from what I understand, they've never done this, but they are intrigued by the idea. So the state manages quite a few facilities that do nothing more than allow you to park and get into somebody else's shared vehicle. And I know that there's quite a few that have like a basic 120 outlet, a level one charging. But they may consider a different level. And that technology is changing. Now it takes maybe half an hour. Who knows? One day it may take five minutes. That would be great. So I'm looking forward to that. So not to step on the presentation that you've made here, but I do want to just let you know that that has some potential. Great. Thank you. And you send me that email. I will. Okay. Appreciate it. Okay. We've got some discussions here. You want to start, Sarita? Go ahead. Do you want me to send someone else to start, since I always do? It doesn't matter. I think we're all going to be talking on this one. Okay. So I just want to tell you how innovative and full of thinking your idea is. Thank you. Thank you. It really is. You know, I'm a member of the caucus, climate caucus in Mongolia. And you know, transportation and thermal energy are the biggest contributors to greenhouse gases. And this is very forward thinking. So, you know, I just think I'm very supportive of pursuing it. You know, I mean it may be that there are too many challenges, but I certainly would support, I think it's number B, you know, when we talk about what the options are, I certainly wouldn't support just saying, you know, that we could, like when the town plan, you know, just because I think that definitely has, when we update that as well. But I, you know, I would, without taking it, and then there weren't a lot of staff time or finances or anything, I would absolutely want to pursue this, you know, for you because, you know, it's at exit 17, it's like getting off, eventually people are going to have to charge their EVs. Right. It's a good location. Yeah. But I mean, there's going to have to be a lot of these across the state. Correct. I'm assuming it's a level three, you'll be putting a level three chargers? In fact, in fact, I've been looking into all, I think, given the timeframe, because we are talking about rezoning, and then the three, five years of planning, permitting, I have a feeling it will go beyond that. It will go beyond that. Right. Right. Because I think we may see that it will be as, right now, guests, I mean, reviewing, it may take two minutes, and this may be a five minute, much better than today. So I think it's moving to that direction, and I'm looking, and thank God we have sufficient land. So if need to be one megawatt, we'll make it happen, so that you have sufficient energy to support it, and when the winter comes, then we may have to purchase electricity from the grid, or whatever. But I think that the goal is we would like to make it work, and it would be good employment opportunity, tax-based opportunity. It's good development, and it's green, and I think it's something that... How far is it from Exit 17? Do you know how many miles it is? No, we are at... You're at Exit 17. Exit 17. That's the reason. I think the original memo had a footage in it now. It's just off the exit, the west exit, probably we are talking about 2,000 feet to 4,000 feet from the exit, at least our frontage. So it's very convenient for if that is to be stationed there. Have you considered any retail or restaurants or anything? No, I've learned that if you're not good at, don't venture into it. But I am... We live in Texas. We have a summer home in Sheffield, Vermont, here. That's where we are at this moment. We are actually building a warehouse. So there's another concept. I don't want to overload the... Sometimes we're trying to say, oh, I'm going to do this, do that. One is you over-promise. And secondly, it confuses the key issues. But there is a possibility that there's a new concept what they call flex space, which is basically... You have... We'll build 15,000 square feet, one-story structure. And it's flexible in the sense that if someone wants to lease 3,000 feet, or 5,000 feet, the space is flexible. And secondly, it will be easy to convert from warehouse or office. So someone may be... If someone wants 50% office, 50% warehouse, it can be done. Or 100% office, or 100% warehouse. So it's very flexible. And especially in a new location, because you're building and you're hoping tenants will come. So the first building, maybe you plan for a different phase, but first this one, and you wait and see if... So there's another possibility is that we may... We have a very large frontage and we may have certain sections, again, but you will need GD4 instead of R1 or R2. And that could be a possibility so that we can have that also. But that is secondary. And... I'm always looking for revenue sources. We're on the stage so I'm always thinking of people charging their cars, eating in a restaurant, buying products, just generating... Since you are in the climate committee, I'll throw one more. Again, I don't want to confuse the issue. And I believe that when we have access to electricity from the solar farm, and we usually have to sell the net... net building to remark the power of the weather. And usually it's a very low rate. If there is a gap between... If someone comes in, another potential development client that you want to encourage to access 17 to develop, and if they are a heavy energy user, and the commercial rate that the Green Mountain will charge, and if there is a gap between what they normally would be, and as long as... Since I'm selling to Green Mountain anyway, they set the rates, so... Exense or whatever, I'm just putting out a number. And if the commercial rate is 15 cents or whatever, then I think we as an additional incentive to attract future development is we have this kind of electric power available, especially in some time. And maybe when someone is looking for locations, South Burlington, whatever, they may even want. I'll pick this because it will save us 100,000 whatever a year. And so that will also help attract future development potential customers. So that's another possibility. But again, I don't want to... Because there may not be a gap. I have no idea. But I think there will be a gap. And then something can work out where the solar farm can a few cents more and they get 20% discount, which could be a sizable incentive for someone, a special heavy electric user. So that's another angle that we can down the road. Well, anyway, I... You know, I'm just speaking to myself as... I'll five numbers on the board, but I just... First, I just want to thank you because I think we need more of this. It's 20 years from now, 30 years from now. They'll probably be all... What you're talking about, even though it's a new idea to us, they'll be everywhere. So I would be supportive, again, balancing, you know... And I'll work... ...the capacity. Sure. And I'll work with the city to make it work. Mindful of traffic and all those other issues. And I'm more than happy to... Kathy Ann, you're honest. Sorry. I just wanted to... Since Sarita had brought it up, I just want to remind you, and again, I don't mean this to question anyone's motives. Absolutely not. But I do want to remind you when you look at a zoning, as I give you every time, sometimes you hear one particular use and it can seem very intriguing. I just wanted to remind you when you look at a zoning change, even if it's an area where you're supportive of the change or the work, that you're not doing it for one particular use, that you do it for a whole slew of uses. If this area was... Or this particular site were to be rezoned and it was no longer of interest or viable for this particular use, I wanted to remind you that there's a great deal number of uses allowed in the GD4 and they may not be what you have in mind at the moment. You could be seeing a... Without picking on a particular establishment, a fast food restaurant with a big M out front, or the next Starbucks, or a shipping facility sitting right in the backyard of a residential neighborhood. These are all allowed uses in the GD4. So I ask that you keep that in mind, not just now, but any time you look at a rezoning because, again, anything that's an allowed use would then become an allowed use with a zoning change. And it may not be the exact thing you had in mind when you were thinking about it. And GD4 has a very wide range of uses. So we are due to have a full renewal by 2027, which means that we're probably... I'm a conservative person in terms of making sure I have enough time kicking it off by 2024 next year. Doing some of the background work now. I talked to you guys often about some things, but really start lightly in 2024 so that in 2025 we're really doing a lot of stuff. In 2026, hopefully working towards a wrap up. Okay. I would say, keeping that in mind, you just said about GD4, that it's not just this use, which I agree, I like the use that you're presenting, but not so much the other GD4 uses in this area. I'm very concerned about spot zoning. We do not like that. And unfortunately your parcel is right between two residential developments. And then to the south is a state park. So it's very rural. It's going to stay open. And you're kind of caught between that and Route 2. So to me, it's going to be a big spot zoning that it's going to be hard for us, I think, to get over that. The other thing, I wondered, have you surveyed the land? Have you looked at it for how you're going to access it? Yeah, there's a survey of the parcel. Boundary line though, but I'm talking about surveying it because... Topography and... Soils, ledge, how you're going to access the site. It's a catch-22 issue in the sense that if I know that this is viable and also to address the GD4, I think it has a lot of... I don't mind if there's agreement that there's restrictions. These are things you don't... I have no intention to do something strange or crazy that really contrary to the neighborhood's kind of a character. And I don't know whether... The issue is, you already grant GD4 north of 2 and to the site. Actually, I know there's a strip of residential, but next to, I think, they will also GD4, I believe. So I hope they don't do those things. I guess Kathy was concerned about. But I'm more than willing to... I have no intention of... What do you call the phrase? Switch and... Say something good and end up doing... It's not my intention. And I'm happy to accept reasonable restrictions that I want to develop in healthy and proper manner. So I know a spot change is usually planning committee from a point. But... Well, I don't know the history of Route 2. I know he's correct that Desperamein Road used to be the old Route 2. What I don't know is, did that development proceed our development regulations? Because they've been there for a long time. I don't know specific to this one. I know it's fairly common across Colchester for zoning to represent what's there more so than what's desired. It's not uncommon to come across that. I don't know if that's actually the case here. I could look into it if you'd like. But I don't know the history of the zoning on the north side of Route 2 there. But there are, I think I've got an image hanging. There are some scattered sort of mix of industrial, commercial retail mixed in there. Again, I don't know. I think that this neighborhood here was built, I looked it up maybe in the mid 90s. But please don't quote me on that. I don't know. I don't even know what was there really, to be honest with you. I always go down the other road. To the park. That one and further down we go into the park. Yeah, I'm here. Oh, not there. Yeah, there were the green little thing with the, yeah, that's the parking lot at the end there. So I'm concerned about access. I mean, I would residential the access as you pointed out to me, Kathy Ann is that it'd be off that cold and drive. I think if you can't get it off Route 2 there's, you may know this. I believe there's an approved site plan for just a couple of residential units on the site. That found it all familiar? I saw that there is the prior owner thinking of, I guess, Phase 2 of that development and he gave me the actually the layout of all the information and said, hey, if you're interested take it to home for so I, but Yeah, anything? I purchased not to develop, I mean, not for residential I understand. I need, usually for solar farm you need a large space and you need sufficient barrier to kind of a green space between the residential and so, and it's not like those windmill thing. Whereas solar, it was further enough, the trees, they probably don't even know, it's not, I saw it. Yeah, no, my only point that I was trying to make is that I believe when they were looking at permitting that they were not able to get a VTrans access, they were instead told that the only access they could have is through this neighborhood, there's a spur that is intended, yeah, off of cold and there's a, I think it's just about here, it doesn't show very well up there, but there is a spur in this development to provide access here, and I believe when that application was reviewed by the local board, the direction was the access was from Golden, not from Route 2. Right, well, what I recall is there's a lot of ledge along Route 2 and on this side. Yeah, I think it shows up in some of the imagery. Yeah, that's what I remember seeing. That might be another reason my VTrans doesn't see any access to this site off Route 2. I think that's my comments. My biggest hurdle is the spot zoning. Wendy, do you have anything to add? I was just curious to see this proposal, what would be the amount of traffic that would be going in and out, like how many employees would be working at this place if the traffic would be the cars going in and charging, but is there... You mean the vehicle count or you mean... Just, like would this employ a lot of people this venture? Well, there is two main pieces forgetting about other warehouse remember the Superchar station that's one and you need because it's 24-hour seven days so you need and depending on the technology the maintenance there will be certain staffs I don't know whether it is two, three, four, five it all depends on whether there's another analysis to be done, would that come with a convenience store whether it be just like a gas station of the future where people would drop and pick up something and so if that's the case it probably would double the employment and then there's maintenance of the solar farm so luxury is not a full time but it will employ service around because it needs to be maintained there's a large area and it needs to be cleaned so it will enhance employment and these are green based employment I hope that's the best it would depend on a lot of things considering the cars that would be coming out there for charging but that's so feasible as soon oh yeah I think if assuming that this was zoned today for any use that allowed that one of the first things that would happen in any sort of development review is to look at a traffic management plan an access plan and that would include getting a count of vehicle turning movements and determining whether or not that's possible on any given road it's standard with any review and often it's either there are conditions associated with it improvements that need to be made or it's just not granted but it's usually the first thing that would happen in a project that can generate significant traffic thank you yeah, Sarita so just in my ignorance I'm just going to throw this out there so what if there was an intersection there with the light so that people could go right or left into that I'm just saying if that's a possibility and if does it have to is there any way to make conditional that in terms of the zoning in terms of the spot zoning if it's a business that is energy friendly or supportive something like that when we do the town plan is there any way we can kind of support industries that whose goal is to lower greenhouse gas emissions I'm just to ask I know this maybe I just wonder if this is looking 20 years ahead are we able to look at our head I just want to separate your questions into two just to say that just to say that spot zoning applies in any case where you are looking at a single parcel and you're not necessarily looking at an area and regardless of the uses within it but I think to address your second question which I think was maybe more important to you is what incentives can be given to certain types of uses and I think that one opportunity you may have is to create a new use this use as Mr. Ng has said is most closely correlated with a gas station use right now we don't have a use that specifically refers to any sort of vehicle charging that's separate from you know that's separate from that other use and one thing you could potentially do on the whole whether it's that would apply to more than just this property or this zone is to create a new use and say this is something that we don't want to see as many barriers to and we would like it to be its own use and we would like to decide which districts it's allowed in and that I think is a solution to that I think I would like to add a couple more areas allows you to pull it out as its own use and away from all of the others so if there are areas where there are more limited amount of different types of zones than a gas station would be allowed I'm not necessarily saying I advocate for that but as an option I'm not saying I don't either just to be clear but as an option you could create a use a separate standalone use for this type of vehicle charging and you could decide that these are the zones we would like to allow it in and either as a permitted use or conditional use like certain other things are that are sort of favored by the town or by municipalities in general you will often see certain uses that are seen as a community good daycares for example obviously religious institutions tend to be allowed in more districts than their commercial counterparts so I don't did that and help at all Serena I think like you said I think this is a long term there's a lot of hurdles you know but I'm thinking of the town plan again not changing it because of this but again re-looking at where we are kind of currently in many different uses but I just would hate to just say no to this without getting more information that you know trying to without again impacting the capacity of your office so you know balancing you know that we're slowly slowly working towards getting some more information about this but I mean but I think we you know we have two people members not present and I certainly would want to hear their voices as well but that is really helpful that what the second part that you were yeah and again your options for that is to either discuss it as part of your town plan as future updates in terms of regulations or again I mean I bring you very long lists of supplements not just my lists obviously whatever anything you wish to pursue as a commission you just got to tell me and we can look at things I know the use table and actually I think it was on our last meeting the conditional uses I think is on my list of things to look at because they are very overused we brought a lot of discussion to our commission here I think there's a strong opinion that we don't like spot zoning but it sounds like there may be an option that we define a new use and we decide as a commission how we want to use that use and I think we'll end up having further discussion on this so there's no answer tonight I'm not expecting but I just want to be here to at least you can see the person and the sincerity and I'm more than willing to work with the planning committee with Vermont transmit hopefully something good will come out and overall to the people of Cochester okay so we need to take an action you don't have to I think it's more about direction you can take a vote if you'd like you can provide direction to me you can simply say hey we may circle back around on this but we don't yet know what form it'll take or the time it will be but we're not dismissing it out of hand so we can table it for future discussion if you'd like to okay I think that's what we'll end up doing a lot to think about if there's not anything else is this the can we exit you can exit unless you have more to say thank you for your time thanks for coming talking to us very exciting thank you and good night so next on the agenda was number five was the discussion for supplement 46 and we decided we're going to table that for the next meeting once we have more information and hopefully more members probably a bigger list I'm sorry it'll look worse than it actually is though I promise you okay some of these are very small and very simple that's what you said last time a lot of them were so item six is informational items and staff updates you want to start in on that Kathy as soon as I can read what I wrote let's see yep so I did want to let you know that on oh I didn't put a date I believe it was May 22nd Kathy Walker O'Reilly who is our economic development officer and I attended a meeting of the Vermont Downtown Development Board for renewal approval of our new town center our new town center as a reminder is the Southwest Quadrant that's the one that's mostly built out by SDRL and McGillicuddy's if that helps to orient you so that is our new town center either a new town center village center or downtown so we don't get that we don't have a growth center so it was very critical for us to get this approved we had a wonderful meeting that we addressed some I think excellent questions and it was approved so we are good for that I have to read my notes here until 2030 longer than our town plan so it was very exciting we will have to do a renewal or a check in at some point and then a renewal of our larger growth center but for now breathing a little sigh of relief on this one and then we'll come back with the growth center work next I think by next year sooner than I think but yeah so we were very excited about that just share with you quickly because sometimes it's fun to geek out about planning stuff so I wrote this from Charlotte North Carolina I was attending a really wonderful conference there's a group of mixed professions that participate in the congress for new urbanism their founding principles are sort of about creating what do they call it creating places people want to live I think is sort of their tagline and it's usually a mix of predominantly architects some people who are in the transportation especially pedestrian transportation fields and planners and they get together once a year and talk about all kinds of cool new urbanist stuff the idea of new urbanism is recreating sort of a lot of what was done and the good parts of what was done in the 40s, 50s, 60s where lots were smaller houses were close and comfortable things were oriented to walkways and sidewalks created some lasting places so this conference was really cool had some amazing keynote speakers there was some climate resiliency work that was presented on how planning affects climate resiliency everything from like heat islands that get created with too much parking to how planning for parks is critical in climate change and sort of a really fascinating discussion about what local planning can do as opposed to large scale federal interventions and it was a really fascinating report I have to email it to you guys the keynote speaker was amazing I cannot remember her name but she really made that link between planning local planning especially and sort of resiliency in a very practical kind of way that appeals to people who are afraid of the very big changes or the expensive changes or that we must build 9 million solar panels and focus is more on just how we design places so I thought that was really interesting I was largely found this appealing because of the form based code services the time you get together with a group of new urbanist architects you're going to talk form based codes everything from some really radical ideas there are a few communities that are using pre-approved plans like house and building plans and basically they are buying them from architectural firms depending on how much money they have 10 types, 20, 50, 100 types and if you build one of those that the municipality owns you get like a 3 day review process it's easier than getting a fence so the appeal is that this is pre-approved and you can do it as long as you do one of these ones we've already said is good as far as like doors and windows and I think they described it as it's sort of like an all card option or like a five course dinner option where you can have very basic buildings versus talking about very specific fenestration and stuff so there are a few communities in the country that are sort of rolling that out saying cold chester is it all ready for anything like that but it's an intriguing idea to see where the future of form based coding is could go I think that one of the communities they cited was Spokane, Washington I think they have and it's not mandatory it is purely a an option if you want to fast track your approvals so that that was really interesting I don't know what it cost the community to pre-buy this many plans but it was new I'd never heard of that had you ever heard of that Rebecca? no I haven't I find it intriguing I think it's very, very new I think they could talk about less than 10 cases in the country it's so new wow and it was interesting so is that in one of these books? no there were people that were selling some of their plant sets I bet and actually I didn't think they were too badly priced I mean they were like $60 a building or something I don't know what that got you if that was like the here's the basic ideas of this building but if you want the floor plans it's going to cost you an extra lot well you also have to take those plans and take it to your zoning and to this here in our state yeah and your engineer too what are the chances in Vermont that you're putting it on a flat piece of land not just the plans you're buying hopefully I'll have some more to share with you I just returned this week I didn't have too much to put together but if you could put together a quick presentation of what you learned and what you cleaned from it that would be great some really interesting things some really interesting people and I you know I think my biggest take away is that communities of all sizes are having the same issues they're just on a different scale which is what just that they're all have a lot of us are having the same issues just on different scales on different scales you know everything from like how do we make sure people have the space to park without creating enormous parking lots how do we make sure that our designs are nice not just because they look nice but because they tend to last a little bit longer much to really fascinating there's a guy that does a blog called revitalize or die but basically he makes the argument that pretty places last longer because people want to take care of them it's an interesting argument but he's he's got some neat thoughts out there so it was good and you know hopefully by next time I can share a little more visuals with you as well had a lot of great takeaways some really a lot of interesting just tie-ins everything from like equity I sat down accidentally and was talking to this guy at a table and found out as I was talking to him he was like the mayor pro tem of the city of charlotte and I wouldn't have guessed it he was probably ten years younger than me but also because he was dressed fairly casual and looked like he was more likely to very athletic more likely to maybe go play a game of football than lead a city council meeting but fascinating and he shared his story about how he got involved in politics because of you know some of the diversity and race challenges that the city was facing at the time and it was just really really interesting but how he connected that with you know how he designed places and stuff so great conference thanks anyway moving on of course you can ask the question so when you do the presentation can you also just point out what are some things you really like five top ideas and maybe the five ideas that you would be concerned about that didn't seem to make sense to you yeah I think that the biggest disconnect for me is that there are a lot of people who have really great ideas but nobody seems to understand and some of this is you do work outside of Vermont maybe New England there are a lot of communities that they don't regulate wetlands they don't necessarily regulate a lot of certain resources and so they can't and they're flat land so everything that looks brilliant and beautiful on a piece of paper isn't necessarily going to work here because we have wetlands and we have endangered species and of plants and topography and hills and and so you can see a lot of stuff that looks gorgeous and it's hard to adapt the other thing I think I take away is that you can have this great idea for sort of this nice dense or urban cores or even some infill of some small some small neighborhoods but without sewer capacity it's a pipe dream even if everyone loves it you still need a way to treat the sewage that's being created and there's limited capacity with on-site septic but I did talk to a few people who were also in similar you know communities and basically said that what they're really working on is trying to figure out if you have somebody who comes in with a 50-acre parcel and they're like well we can only fit 10 on here because that's what our capacity is for sewer to work with them to say do you really want to take up this entire thing with your 10 units and you're never going to be able to add more because you've spread it out in such a way that your roads and your sidewalks and your driveways and your houses and their backyards are taking up all 50 acres of that or can we find a way that we're planning for the future and saying those 10 shouldn't consume all of that we should bring them in so that at such a time if we're already agreeing that the whole land can be used let's bring them in so that in the future if there is advances in on-site septic or there is municipal sewer provided that we haven't preempted that precluded that from happening which I thought was really fascinating I've never really thought through that so it's I think there's some cons to that of course but I think it would be a very good conversation to have as a planning commission because it's so it's not an easy question but you know the idea of sort of planning ahead and saying let's not use it all right now may have some appeal to at least talk about because I do believe that we'll see advancements and even if it's just treating on-site septic so that we're not precluding if you're going to build on the 50 acres you're already going to take it out of your forest blocks or your wildlife corridors you're already making it used are we using it efficiently um do we want to use it more efficiently maybe you don't maybe you're like 10 on 50 sounds perfect there's no need for more ever I don't know but at least to have the discussion a lot of times it's the developer making the calls yeah unless as a planning commission you write the rules that say you must cluster there's the bottom line is the number is going to work for them hopefully it appeals to them because the numbers mean that ultimately they're going to get more in the end they just have to be a little patient yeah you would think that I don't know if I've ever met a patient developer though you would think also the home buyers if they were more in a secluded area and the rest was park area that was their park area absolutely a big selling point anyway we yeah so October here so I think it's just it brought a lot of thoughts and even some things I'd never really thought about lastly one cool thing that I'd heard from the climate expert was she said she doesn't like the term global warming because she's like then everyone thinks that if you're not warming you're not global warming so she called it global weirding which I thought was awesome because she just thought it it didn't turn people off and maybe had a few people who were unless I don't know I don't hear new things a lot but that one was new to me and I kind of liked it global weirding anyway so there is a planning and zoning report we do these every month I don't always remember to give them to you but when I do here they are the nice thing about this one from May is that it's only one month shy of the full fiscal year so you can get an idea of our year to date numbers I think the take away is that we're doing less permits and less building this year than we were even last year it surprises me a little bit but it doesn't take much to throw the numbers off you get one 60 unit building out at Severance Corners and the numbers can be really skewed we just don't do enough that a little bit can't change it so don't read into it too deeply and that's it I like those reports I noticed that I think more commercial development little commercial development I mean I'm looking at South Burlington and Wilson I'm like what's going on anyway I'm just curious it's not like I have any thoughts about it the only question I had was about the school district I'm just curious I'm not like just about putting in about four or five more fields it looked like oh I don't know you know more than I do I'm like Elaine it was right at the end it was the last thing at the end oh okay I'm just curious where they're going to be I don't know Zach put the notes section together for me because I was out of town but I assume they're at that entrance okay you guys know the property much better than I do I'm sure I don't know I was just curious where I missed that one I missed that one I didn't get it all the way to the end is it in the little box with the notes it's at the very end of the report it's the last one oh on the Colchester Planning Zoning Department Monthly Report let's see construction of five athletic fields including four multi-use fields and a baseball diamond, Laker Lane which one is it it's a nice one let's see because just through a 36 point oh are you okay you're on the 50% of it's complete it doesn't bring a bell with me it's on the last page yep I was just curious about where they're I'm excited because I love athletic fields yeah I don't know I don't know these are I don't remember this one it did not be across from the high school you know Laker Lane the high school is on the left on the right it's a lot of fields yeah I know Amy when she was in here with us two months ago or so mentioned something about that and then potentially a new building an administrative services building or something up front yeah I don't know I hadn't seen that one either I'm not familiar with it anything else on the report okay not I'm going to talk about our schedule did you guys note that we have two interns who have started that's very exciting sorry I just wanted to point that out they will be joining me at a future meeting maybe in July so you will meet them just like you did Jake before look forward to it yeah they're great so meeting schedule I think it doesn't look any different than the last one we talked about okay so our next meeting would be July 18th 18th so we're skipping the second meeting this month the second yes and the July 4th meeting alright then we have the minutes from our last meeting on May 16th what I need is a motion to approve a motion to approve a second any discussion all in favor to pass high that's easy there's not anything else I'll say it's 8.15 and do a I don't need to make a motion for that do I? or do I? you know I have to I need a motion motion to adjourn second all in favor high meeting's over