 Yes. Yes. Alright, we are out of executive session, back into regular session and we do not have any minutes to look at this week. They were from last week. They were received, I think, yesterday or today but we have not seen them so we'll do those when we next meet. So we'll talk At this point, what we just discussed in executive session regarding the wastewater plant operating permit appeals on the agreement, Eric, to give the looking public the information that we have and then we can have a motion. Sure, the village of sx junction appeal to discharge permit for the wastewater treatment plan last summer town of Williston and the town of sx joined on his interest parties and that suit with the Vermont agency of natural resources through a negotiation all parties have come to an agreement for some conditions in the permit regarding copper monitoring discharge into the system. That language is added before the board to consider for a stipulation agreement and settlement for this matter. It also includes a copper survey that would go to industrially users who are attached to the treatment facility so that the board has a motion to consider this matter that would authorize the town attorney to decide it on the town's behalf. Thank you. Yeah, so we do have a motion to consider if someone wishes to make that. I'll move to authorize town attorney Joe McLean to enter a final stipulation settlement agreement and order with the Vermont agency of natural resources on the town of Williston's behalf as an interested party for an appeal of the sx junction wastewater treatment plant national pollution discharge elimination system permit filed July 21st 2021. This is your second. Second. This is your discussion on motion. Just one quick thing I will abstain because I feel I have a significant enough conflict that I should have. Thank you. Any further discussion on the motion? If not, all those in favor of the motion say aye. Aye. Those opposed and abstentions. Jeff, so we have passed the motion and things will start to be working on with the with the attorneys on that one. So I'll move on then to public comment. There was no one here in the audience tonight, but if there's anyone on zoom that wishes to make a public comment. This is your opportunity. Seeing anyone on zoom. Nobody can. Okay, then we can move on to the national public week population and Eric want to talk a little bit about that. Sure. So coming up later this month is national public works week. It's from May 16th to May 20th. And the last few years, the board has adopted a proclamation recommend recognizing our public work staff here in the community. And just to say, working with the men and women in that department, they're a very dedicated group. We're very fortunate to have the staff that we do in our public works departments for highway, water, sewer, storm, water, administrative divisions. They're extremely dedicated and the town's very well served by our staff. And this is filling for the board to consider to recognize their, their hard work as part of public work, national public works. If you'll notice on the proclamation that's before you at the very end, there's a few words that should not be in this particular one. That's at the witness where I have here on to set my hand and the rest of that should be straight struck. So, is there a motion. Oh, before we do, could I just make a comment about? Yes, please. I'm totally happy to have us whatever adopt this and have Terry sign it. I just don't think it quite adequately describes. Right. For instance, it doesn't mention that public works quite often is out there at all hours of the day. Bad weather every day of the week doing things like plowing the roads that type of thing. And, you know, that's a big piece of what they have to do in in Williston. It also doesn't mention a couple other things that they do under the second whereas actually they spend probably the vast majority of the time maintaining our infrastructure. That's not mentioned. It also doesn't mention what we were just talking about wastewater. Again, and you know, another function that they do. I just thought I would bring that up. Jeff, I'll call the same thing because I know for a fact the number of hats that different people wear and jump into different situations and it could be at any hour of the day or night. So I think that is something that needs to be said and recognized for all of those. Because I think they've been understaffed, but they still deliver the services that we all need to the best that they can. And I just, yeah, I applaud their efforts. So I guess the question is, we want to try to modify this, but if we do, we're going to miss the week of the 15th of the 21st. This is really a national proclamation that we would be agreeing to. I guess my comments weren't to ask for a modification. I just wanted to make sure these folks are recognized for other things that they are doing every day. I agree. If we're good, I'd be happy to make that. So I'd appreciate the motion. Yes. I will move to adopt the 2022 national public works week proclamation as presented. Is your second. Second. Very discussion of motion. As presented means deleting that. Last mission. Yes. Okay. Right. Any further discussion of motion. If not, all those in favor of the motion say aye. Aye. And there are no oppositions or no opposition. So we move on to the next item. And that's the tax collection policy amendment and tax sale discussion. Eric. Surely joining us from home this evening. So she'll pop up on the screen. Good. Okay. Join in this discussion. So you've got a couple of materials in your board packet this week. That's identified some possible amendments to the town's property tax collection policy for consideration by the board. A number of these amendments relate to establishing policy thresholds and standards to guide the delinquent tax collectors. Currently the town manager went to undertake a property tax sale for delinquent accounts. The policy for consistency. The town manager went to undertake a property tax sale for delinquent accounts. The policy for considerations then rewritten also included the current policy along with that. So tonight staff seeks direction, whether the board would like to first consider amending the policy. And if so, any feedback on the drafter and policy included in the agenda will go through them in more detail here in just a moment. We had a preliminary discussion with the town attorney's office on the property tax sale process. And should the board wish to amend this, we'd have a legal review of the document prior to an action. I thought I'd use the board. If there's any questions up front on the board, not I can jump into the document here. So essentially we're looking for feedback as to what we would like to see in this document compared to the other one was approved in 2011. So things have changed a little bit with more people being delinquent in taxes for a longer period of time than we had in the past. So we're looking for feedback on any parts of the policy that's been proposed. Just a momentary. It looks like it bumped us off, Scott. I saw Shirley sit in the air. Get her back. I have a couple kind of nitpicky little questions. I don't know if now or if I can just go over those with Eric. Are you over now? Sure. Under abatement definitions abatement when it says third line. It says the board. I assume that's the board of abatement. Yes, it may want to just specify that. And the same question with the law. As I was reading, I was like, you know, I assume that's a Vermont law. And I don't know if it's the one cited below. It just may, that may be worth clarifying. Okay. I think that's. I'm on page two under B. It actually ends up being the last sentence. And it reads amounts under $10, including tax interest and penalty will be written off. And I wonder if we should change that to maybe written off. And, and being the. Being the jerk that I can be, I just, I, when it's will be written off automatically, I'm like, well, I'm going to write my. My check to the town for $9 and 99 cents less than I owe. So in my case, you may want to not write it off. Oh, I'm on and then down below I'm on G. And the first sentence read only pain. I didn't understand the concept or not the concept. Exactly what was meant. The only payment arrangements that will pay the bill in full before the due date of next year's bill. So what, what tripped me up was the concept of due date of next year's bill. That would dumb. What would the due date be? Cause we do it in three installments. Would it be the third installment? I think that I'm getting surely back here. I think that was our intent, the third installment. I'll clarify that. Okay. It worked on the section. And I'm sorry about my nitpicking question, surely. And then moving down to the next sentence, it reads current tax payments must remain current during this time. And I didn't know what this time referred to. But can you repeat the first question? Cause I just got the zoom just reconnected. So I don't know what it was. Okay. Okay. The first, is this the one under G? That's when she just. Okay. The question I had is it states pay the bill in full before the due date of next year's bill. And I didn't know what was meant by due date of next year's bill. And I think that means, for instance, if they're paying. If it's, if it were in fiscal state fiscal year 2023. The fiscal state fiscal year 2024. And I assume what would the due date be? Would that be the third installment date? Um, this was intended to be the first installment date. So assuming, you know, it's August 15th. The rationale being Jeff, we want people to get caught up to get before they get further behind. I just recommend you instead of saying the due date, the first installment date. Okay. Cheers, Bill. Good point. Okay. And then the, and then you got the question about, um, during this time, I didn't know what this time or during the, this time, what this time referred to that's in the next sentence. Okay. During this time. So, um, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. As they're in their payment arrangement. So let's say Jeff, we, we negotiated a two year payment arrangement with them. So they're catching up on their delinquent taxes, but their current taxes must stay current as well. Okay. So again, trying to get help them get caught up, but help make them stay current as well. So we don't have a snowball. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. So that, uh, that first section kind of add the, some of that new language and kind of recaps where we are. Um, if you'd like Terry, I can kind of give a brief overview of the, of the new section here. Great. Any additional questions? So the, the, the, the, I don't know, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Great. Any additional questions? So the, the newer section really looks at the tax sale process. Um, and we identified the process that this is the process of what comes next when to pursue a tax sale. Um, it's not articulated in the current town policy. Um, we're told during, so is the best practice to help guide the link with tax collector when to, when to take that step. And throughout tax collection, our objective is to work with these delinquent accounts to come up with a payment plan to avoid going to a tax sale. Um, but there are times when the next step to go to a tax sale may, may be a necessary step to look at. Um, So one of the main part in what we've drafted here and Shirley, Shirley did the, did the drafting here. Thanks Shirley for all your work on this and consult with some other policies and chat with some other towns. Is looking at section A under tax sale process is, uh, looking what frame or any of the town wants to set to, to move in that direction. Um, So one of these, which we drafted is evaluating, um, the delinquent balance of, of the total tax accounts versus the tax revenue as a trigger for going to a tax sale. Um, our current delinquencies are $350,000 for taxes. The state's back 10 years as their delinquent payments and some accounts that far back and each delinquent payment has interest accruing on it for that period. So numbers wise, 3% of our FY 22 property tax revenue is $170,000. So I'm looking where we currently are for delinquent taxes. If this was the direction the board wanted to go in, then potentially under this policy that would trigger the need to go to a tax sale. And at that point, if this is the direction for the policy, we would look at the accounts. Um, there were accounts with, um, $5,000 or more and no one had made a payment agreement to, to get that resolved. Um, with one year of delinquent taxes, that property would qualify. And same, if an account had two or more years of delinquent taxes, no payment agreement in place. Um, or an agreement in place that hadn't been met with a total amount to greater than 2,500. Well, there's other situations where the property owner has agreed to a tax sale, the complete payment of the taxes. Um, there's a few, but more odd situations that can, that can come up at times. And then the other piece of this we've drafted, if, if, um, this criteria is not met, another mechanism that could trigger a tax sales, looking at delinquent properties that are $20,000 or more, um, the link with other property taxes, looking at our current delinquency list, there's a seven properties that fit that criteria in town, ranging from 20,000 to 70,000, dating back with delinquent taxes over 10 years. Um, and then I, we've drafted language that before initiating any tax sale, the select board would need to, uh, authorize the delinquent tax collector to proceed to get the board, um, final authority, whether the town's going to pursue a tax sale or not under this criteria, given any other situation going on in the environment and in the world and in the town, level that summer board, a separate board wants to take it back. Um, I'll, I'll pause there because that's, that's the heavy policy section of, of this year. Um, I think it gets some feedback on the board on. Um, quick question. The number two. So if I, if criteria one is not meet, it should be met, right? Uh, just type all on that. And then I was on number four. Prior to initiating a tax sale process under the criteria outline and section. This, this would be section four with the tax sale process. And then parts one through three. Yep. I want to make sure I get the concept because I actually had read this a little bit wrong. Is if the total delinquent taxes are at 3% or greater, then a decision will be made whether we want to do we, the town wants to go into tax sales. Or some of the properties or all of the properties that are delinquent. It would be that second criteria. So the threshold would be the $5,000 who are one year delinquent that don't have a payment plan in place. And $2,500 for more than one year that don't have. And when it's the total delinquent taxes, that's not just for one tax year. That's the history of delinquent taxes. Okay. But that's the way we looked at it initially, but that's another option to look at just the most recent year, but we're carrying upwards of 10 years of delinquencies versus projected revenues as well to balance out. Okay. And you said right now we're about 350. Did I hear? Yeah. The last numbers we had. Yeah, about $50,000 with delinquency, stating back to the tax year of a 2011 or 2012. Yeah. Yeah. How many properties or accounts does that represent? You know. Shirley, do you, do you have a, a gauge of what that. Give me a second. I just timed out. So let me roll back. Yeah. I'm glad that's, it's quite a few properties that represent that balance. So you don't have to wait for me to log in here to bring up that, the report that I was working. There's probably 30 to 35 to 40 properties in there. Now I think some of those will clear up because they're just current year. Once we just send that first courtesy letter. And then we'll get to the next one. And then we'll get to the next one. I don't know if it's a good response to them, but the ones that have multiple years. Those are the ones that are the more difficult ones. You know, some of those are on payment agreements already. And they are making those payment agreements, but the payment agreements aren't enough. To even help catch them up because the interest keeps accruing it one. 1% every month. We have people who have gone on payment agreements and they start, and then they just stop making payment. So, and all the payment agreements are requirement is that they do that via automatic ACH withdrawal from their bank account. That way we know that we can get it, but then people will close their accounts or there's not enough money in there to fund it. So, so, I mean, and this may not be something you would know, but approximately then. How many of those accounts do you anticipate that this might apply to. Once it becomes effective. I for a tax sale. Yeah. Okay. I think what Eric said, three, about seven, four, five, six, seven. I'll say seven and one is kind of an iffy situation. Because it's a trailer and they don't own the land that it's on. So that, that definitely takes some legal help. But all of the rest of them, there's another one actually read it. So technically we're talking six. Another one. Is a piece of property that someone bought to bail the house. After several years, found out the house was not on a billable lot. It's not on a billable lot. It's not on a billable lot. It, it, it, it couldn't. It's too wet and couldn't pass. You couldn't make a mountain system on it. So we decreased the property taxes and we did that in 16 and seven 1617 was the last year and then we decreased it. And now we've removed, removed it from the tax base. We have a zero value because we don't know what we're going to do with it. And it's in a really weird spot. There's probably one neighbor who might want the land, even though you can't do much with it. So we'd still probably tax sale it, but I don't know what we'd get for it. I mean, anything we get would be better than nothing because we've paid education tax all those years. So, so there's six or seven. And if we went this way, we would see them case by case presented to us as a select board before it would go with that process. So the process would under statute the link with tax collector. And I would work with the town attorney to follow this process, but there's multiple notifications ones. So every month the treasurer sends a delinquent letter to every account. Recommended is to send kind of a courtesy letter from the delinquent tax collector, reminding the person they accounts delinquent and letting them know we'd be following up with a file notice letter. This gives folks an opportunity to then try to reach out and make a payment plan. We'd then follow up with a final notice letter a couple weeks later saying, if we don't hear from you to create a plan, then we would proceed with tax sale on X date. And then the town attorney would run that. So it would fall through the delinquent tax collector, but I would, I would want the select board's direction and what policy to follow because once you start the tax sale process, you're hearing that process and. Erica, maybe if I could start. If I could answer Greta's question, maybe a little differently, maybe what you're looking for Greta is if we just write a memo, that's a summary. If we just write a memo, that's the first of those properties and the history behind them and why we're going that way. Yes. Is that helpful? Yeah. That would be great. Yes. Thank you. Yes. One. How does a tax, how does a tax sale work? And kind of the underlying theme of me asking that question is, you know, I noticed under one A and B, you know, the 5,000 2,500. So if we just write a memo, if we just write a memo, that's a summary to sell the property, then we will ever get return. I can, I've got some, a broad overview. I just had the board may have that question tonight. There's a handbook for delinquent tax collectors. In general, it's very prescribed and state statute. The properties put up to bid inclusive of the delinquent tax. So if the property is not redeemed at the final price and bidder have been identified, the funds received the property, then first used to pay off the delinquent tax balance on the property. And then generally the balance is then held in escrow for 1 year. During that 1 year period, the property owner can what's called redeem the property sold at tax sale by paying the sale price plus 1% interest per month on the property. And if the property is not redeemed, then it transfers to the bidder from the tax sale at that price. So that's a really stupid process. The odds are if you can't pay your property taxes, the odds are that you're not going to be able to redeem the property anyway. But it basically, I think drives a lot of people out of the process of trying to buy it because you're buying something that you might lose after a year. Which you'd get your money back, but that's not why people buy property so they can get paid what they paid. So this now can use their money for a year? Yeah. And I've actually seen, I've seen cases where the person who buys it then goes to the taxpayer that's delinquent and says, I'll give you $1,000 to waive your right of redemption. And then just sign off all those rights to me so that we can be done with it. I'm sure there was a reason for it in 1850. Right up there with the wire of coal, the viewer of fences. But we still have a tree warden. It's certainly not a process to, in this roles in the tax collector taking lightly, and it's certainly a serious process to look at here. One of those means when you've exhausted the rest of the options to try to work to get something to account for that. And Ted, wouldn't legally we have to hold that money and ask for us. We actually couldn't touch it. Yeah, I think so. I only had one piece of feedback and that was in section H of the age six. The request to sell a portion of the property. I just thought it might be prudent to add. Language that says something like. Any fees or costs costs associated with subdivision process shall be paid by the. Okay. Other comments questions at this point. So in general, I think. Are we. In agreement, we should have a new. A new process to go on compared to the one we had. In 2011. And if so, then we couldn't have this looked over by. Telling attorney and it'll be coming back to us. Yep. Okay. I think we've done that. We're running a little bit ahead of time for the public hearing. So I wonder if we can take up the item number 12, the supplemental insurance programs for staff. Sure. Eric talked about that. Included in your packet from our league of cities and towns and offering. Group insurance options for members. This year, one is a. It's a new thing, a health insurance policy. And some supplemental life insurance policy. So the, for the board to consider is these. We're offering these to staff and making it a hundred percent staff paid for premium. A staff member with elect for this coverage. I was, I was looking how to potentially codify this and in town policy and. Suggestion for the board is looking at a personnel policy. To consider some language. That would allow these types of insurance programs to be offered through the modeling of cities and towns. With. Funded by the employee. Unless we made an adjustment. Should the, should the board one before we offering this staff suggested amendment to the personal policy. Surely did you have anything to add? I mean, you've talked to with Sally about this one a little bit more than I have. Yep. No, no, just looking to offer additional benefits to that the employees might want to take care of. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think it's a little bit lower cost than they could probably do individually because of the taking advantage of the group volumes. And enrollment is in May and June. The supplemental life insurance thing to get. I believe it's 25% of the pool to sign up for it. So depending on. Well, their towns decide to do and what employees in those towns should do is to make sure they're not. The volume of people who. Like to sign up for. Just be payroll deduction. Yes. Questions comments. There is a suggested motion. Move to amend the town's personnel policy is presented. Is there a second? Second. And there's no discussion on emotions. Hearing none alone, it's in favor of the motion say aye. All right. I'm going to. We have about five minutes. Is Matt going to be here on zoom or in person? Be in person. I think. Temporary event permit will take probably more than five minutes, but. I, I'm going to start your manager's report. We do have a March finance reports of, uh, yes, surely I don't believe you had a whole lot in there, but positive to you, if you've got something, any highlights financial, I didn't actually have anything highlighted because the variance is really didn't change. So it's really, I'm going to bounce it back to the board. If you had any questions for me, there was nothing to bring to your attention from, from February to March, that was significantly different. We just did this last week. So it's one more month on the box. Yeah. If you would remember to change the under the water sewer storm like water highlights. The state of my buildings in general services. Set a building in grounds. Oh, yes. Yep. So just change that on your master list somewhere. Questions for surely you're going in the. The report. Okay. Um. Anything else to add to the other item. Chief fully today Friday morning at 11 we'll be swearing in our two newest police officers at the police station. Chief want me to extend an invitation any 4 members that want to stop that swearing in ceremony. It's at a lengthy manager report last week, but nothing else to add. And thank you for the, the email regarding the 50th anniversary of the police department. Very good. I submitted sent back to Eric today. My neighbor is a widow of. I think an original member of the fire of the police department and the fire department for that matter. Back in those days. Unfortunately, he died relatively young. But I'm sure she'd be more than happy to work with the chief from the police department. I think she has. All sorts of memorabilia from other things as well. So I'm sure she has someone from that. So thank you. I couldn't help but notice the chief's comment about the officers at the time were required to provide their own uniform gun. And think equipment for the vehicle. Yeah. Should we go back to that? Good way to claw back their bonuses. Yes, they had their own blue light sirens and where he was pretty good at the beginning so he could put it. Everything together himself and I know he had a pistol. So. So we're just waiting for Matt. I don't think we can take up anything else at this point. That's going to. Let's take a little bit more time than we have. Let me read the warning at any rate. Notice the public hearing on Tuesday, May 3, 2022 at 730 p.m. Pursuant to 24 vsa chapter 59 in section four of the town of Wilson sewer allocation ordinance. Wilson select board is considering the adoption of amendments to the sewer allocation ordinance referred to as attachment a. An existing ordinance pertaining to the allocation of public sewerage. Upon adoption this, this attachment will designate the portion of the uncommitted reserve capacity that will be available for use during the next fiscal year, which starts July 1. 22 2022. So that's where we will be at in a few moments with the brief explanation by Matt as to. The details of attachment a proposal. And just on time. I just read the warning Matt so welcome and. Looking for a brief explanation of what is included or how. Attachment a came about what's included. So the select board has on its agenda tonight. Public hearing for attachment aid sewer allocation ordinance. This is an annual effort by the select board that's called for in the sewer use ordinance. That the select board will make a decision about how much sewer treatment capacity at the s extension plant as it's owned by town will be allocated to various categories of land use across the upcoming fiscal year up by 23. When we met on this. We went over the traditional attachment a memo discussing the amount of capacity available to the town of plant, which is about little over 1 million gallons per day. The amount of capacity projected to be needed for existing users, which has hovered somewhere between. The high 600,000 low 700,000 gallon per day range across the last several years and this year we're recommending using. 672,723 that number. Capacity that's been committed to certain users, but it's not yet online that number dwindles a little bit every year as the sort of legacy capacity is is finally put to use by those who reserved it. Over 10 or over 15 years ago at this point, so we're down to about only 36,000 gallons in that category and then a 7% reserve that is held back for any changes in flow that are otherwise unanticipated about 75,000 gallon. That means that what we're starting with is an assumption that the town of Williston has 295,408 gallons per day treatment capacity. Available to it at the s extension plan that can be sold to users. The select board has for the last many years wanted to take a relatively long term view at that supply of treatment capacity. And generally has looked at that over 20 years. So if you were to divide the 295,408 by 20 you get 14,770 gallons per day. The detachment a memo typically also looks at how much capacity has traditionally been made available for sale by the select board. That's table two on page seven of the report and how much has been traditionally sold or has been sold by the select board across many years, table three on page eight. So, you know, you think that you take what's remaining available to the town. It's about 14,770 gallons per day. You look at what the town has sold each year over the last decade. And, you know, you see a range from as lowest, just a little over 3000 gallons per day sold back in fiscal year 2015 to a high of 17,000 gallons per day sold two years later in fiscal 17. A mean of 11,290. So the question is often posed, you know, does the town have 20 years worth of capacity or more at the s extension plant based on current usage. The answer right now is yes, looks like about 27 years worth. That said, you know, the same sort of constraints and limitations that we often talk about when we talk about attachment a still exist it is a finite resource. It's, it's probably not enough to support all of the development that might come to Williston forever. And there's any number of strategies that the select board might want to consider in its long range planning, as well as in future attachment a statements, including the prioritization of certain land uses or other other limitations on how allocation is sold. The sewer use ordinance contemplates, you know, supporting town goals with the supply of sewer. So, supplying sewer capacity for things like affordable housing or businesses that create jobs in the region. We don't really go that fine grained sometimes when we think about the use categories. For example, we have a commercial category. Well, there's commercial uses that produce lots of jobs and also require lots of sewer capacity. There are other commercial uses that produce lots of jobs or require very little so those are things that, you know, just prioritizing what town has can help stretch that sewer budget a little longer. And at the same time, we do also attempt to align the sewer capacity with what the town's goals are as they relate to residential growth management and the residential growth management allocation system that exists in our bylaw. So, when we when we go into the latter part of the memo, and think about what the staff recommendation for sewer capacity could support. In particular, the residential allocation statement is based on as good a real world number as we can come up with what we think the demand might look like over the next fiscal year. Based on the developments that are online and the outside limits of the town's growth management system. I did want to know, and we brought this up at your preliminary meeting. I initially transmitted a memo with a slightly lower amount of commercial capacity available for sale. I had it at 10,000. And I've suggested in your hearing draft upping that 13,000 gal per day. It's well within sort of the historical norms of what's been sold. We had a couple of years where we went as low as 7,500. And we just we're finding there's more demand for commercial capacity as some of our larger development developments build out and use up what they had reserved. And also as we see interest in repurposing existing buildings. So we had a we had a recent user that was repurposing a warehouse for a medical clinic and and did not have enough commercial capacity to purchase to do that. So, being able to support commercial growth, but also things like adaptive reuse retention of jobs in the region. And those sorts of things. It can be important to try to match expected demand with the allocation number. So I did discuss that change with the planning commission prior to this meeting of a couple of weeks ago. And, you know, no big concerns with doing that, just trying to match what we think demand is. So, finally, the end of your attachment a memo and you're hearing for tonight identifies the numbers of gallons per day that could be made available. And the various categories as well as maintaining that 7% reserve. We come out to, I believe it's 118,000 gallons per day total in the budget for this year. Of which, 42,400 gallons are what would be available for sale in the various categories. And I'm happy to take questions. Good. Thank you. So this is a public this part of it is the public hearing and anyone in the room or zoom is welcome to ask questions or make comments at this point in time. Anyone in the room is to make any comments regarding attachment. Don't see anybody in the room. How about on zoom. That's a few minutes ago. Terry didn't didn't get any comments on so nobody. Okay. Since there's no one wishing to make public comment on this, we can close the public hearing if we have a motion to do so and then discuss whether or not we will adopt the amendment as the board. So, I'll be looking for a motion to close the public here. Move to close the public hearing and proposed sore allocation ordinance amendment to attachment a. This is your second second discussion of the motion. Hearing none and all those in favor of the motion say aye. Aye. And we have no opponents. So we're now on item number eight and the sewer allocation ordinance amendment and consider adopting the amendment that was we just heard. Are there any questions or for Matt from the ward. Sorry. First of all, I apologize for missing the meeting where this was discussed. And I'll try to be brief, only go over the highlights. I continue to like the process we use. It's appropriate. It's robust. It's a good process. I'm on page. And I also might have found in her. Point out to you, I apologize doing that publicly. I'm on page four under determining existing flows. I hope I was the king of Willis then my preference would be to use as our existing flow. The high number we've seen in the past, which is that 705 that would be make our resulting estimate a little bit more conservative. I don't know what's changed between when we had that high flow. And now we could see that high flow next year. That's why I would prefer to use that. I'm under the next item, which is capacity committed that is not in use and on the last sentence it says as of January 2022. There are 40,058 gallons per day in this category. But when I go down to table one, the third line, the number there is 36269. I'm wondering if that's a conflict. It is the number in table one is the correct number. Okay, so it's the 40,058 that's okay. Okay, good. Thank you. I'm glad it didn't affect the calculation. Moving on. Okay, I'm on page 11. Sorry, this is the next and it's a very minor thing. Table five on the bottom, the total number of dwellings. Oh, comes up with. Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't see the second part. It says 30 dwelling equipment units. So that that is correct. So apologize for that. The last one, the last one I have is still in page 11 under the reserve. I know we've used 7% forever. I just question whether that really is a good estimate of the risk we face. I mean, to me, the reserve is basically there to hedge any, any problems that come, come up like a failed system, a failed community system that has to connect to the system, to our collection system. And just having a hard time envisioning how we could have a sufficient problems that we would need anywhere near the 75 600. In other words, are we reserving that when we most likely won't ever need it. Again, it's conservative to use a high number but I wonder if it really reflects the true risk or liabilities we might face. And then that's it. Brief response that the 7% reserve is the number recommended by our engineer. Yes, we trust their professional judgment on that. And, you know, I have not ever identified thinking about the level of risk that's covered by that reserve as one of those points of what could you do as as capacity dwindles. But I do think, you know, asking that question every few cycles saying, you know, with with changes of technology with the degree of monitoring and maintenance that is done. And then also thinking about that liability of just how many, you know, most likely outside of sewer service area community system. And I think that the developments are there in Williston that might, you know, ever request to connect to the sewer system as an alternative to redeveloping their own soil based system. Right. And, you know, I'm looking at, you know, that table five where where we have, you know, a little under 5000 gallons per day supports 45 dwellings. And we were to imagine just what number of dwellings outside of the sewer service area might be on community systems and have those systems ultimately fail in a way that they were asking to connect to the town system. Right. It's probably more than 45 total units in developments like that I would hazard a guess it's probably fewer than 300. You know, it's not an infinite number. So those are good things to good things to think about. And I appreciate your, you're looking at the math. I'm glad I got the residential units right. That's usually the one that that throws me. Your first question was about a 705 gallon per day 705,000 gallon per day high mark and, you know, why not use that in in making the estimate. It's a perfectly valid number to use to say, you know, we did have a year when that much sewage flowed through the system and it was a couple years ago and there's been some development sense that the, the traditional decision has been either to use the, the five year average if it was higher or the past year's flow, if that was higher. I would say that, you know, that was 2019 flow. And when you look at figure two, which is my very, very rough attempt to correlate how different was the rainfall each year and how different was the sewer flow each year. We've sent deviation from the five year average. So it's a little bit of a weird number, but you can, you can measure that deviation for both rainfall and sewer flow and just see if the lines track together. And they do track together fairly well in that 2019 year, suggesting probably some of that high number came from inflow, higher rainfall, certainly something you might see again. So it is a more conservative estimate to use that higher number. You certainly could use that just as a, you know, to generate, you know, you might generate a number of 12 or 11 or 10,000 gallons per day every year over 20 years and then you might be thinking, well, gosh, are we selling more than that every year and, you know, the sense of urgency might be greater if you use the higher. Okay, thank you. Any other questions for Matt? Matt, then I'll be looking for a motion. I'll move to adopt the amendments to the sewer allocation ordinance attached a as presented. Any discussion on the motion? Hearing none, all those in favor of the motion say aye. Aye. Opposed. So we pass that and don't move a muscle because we're going on to the bylaw amendment for tap owners, a foreign based code transmittal and I'll turn it over to Eric for an introduction and Matt and planning staff. I see Emily Hamon here and planning commission chair, Megan Scott, Megan Colt is here. Is that Chapman behind the mask as well and some of our developers here as well. So welcome all and Eric, I'll turn it over to you. Good evening everyone. So the planning commission is transmitted for consideration, a draft amendment to the unified development by law to establish a foreign based code and a delineated area within the growth center of tap corners and to adopt the townwide efficient. This is transmitted before the select wards, the culmination of nearly two years of work by the planning commission and planning staff consultant Jeff Farrell associates and the Chitton County regional. Planning director, Matt Belanger is here and in conjunction with members of his staff, the regional planning commission, Jeff Farrell and planning commissioners here and you'll hear a presentation on this transmittal. We have planned over two evenings. It's quite a bit to go through for the board. So Matt will go through a transmittal memo and in an overview here shortly for tonight's meeting. There's, we kind of looked at it as chapters of the book here. So going over the board, this work, first part this evening, the next part on May 17. And then from there, we've sometimes heard on for public comments on. So I just want to recognize everyone who's had a hand in this over the last couple of years. It's a, it's quite an endeavor for the town to look at for its land use policy. With that, I'll turn over to our plan director, Matt Belanger. Great. Thank you. I want to start by also acknowledging the incredible effort by the staff that's worked with me on this, our consultant Jeff Farrell. The assistance and the incredible uncompensated volunteer effort of our planning commission and many, many, many citizen participants in this process as well as our owner stakeholder community, some of whom are represented here tonight. It's rather auspicious that we're beginning this review on May 3rd 2022. It was May 3rd 2021 that we were concluding our week long charrette process and and our consultant was giving his initial workshop report on our major public input and push on this project. So that was over a year ago. And that workshop report is incorporated into and became the basis for the tap corners vision plan, a document that is included in your binders tonight. And that was reviewed by the select board back on July 27. So what's happened since July 27, the consultant team went to work developing an initial draft of the code itself, as well as by law amendments and maps as you have in your binders today. And since about October, the planning commission has been on a chapter by chapter effort of reviewing, adjusting and editing those bylaw chapters, and then running its own public hearing process through February and March, ending with a work session on March 15th and then transmitting the code as you have it today. So we've, we've really asked the Williston planning commission to do an awful lot more work than they are normally asked to do. And just from the staff perspective, it would be not possible to bring a project like this to fruition without their effort, their careful consideration and attention and their willingness to stick it out through an awful lot of, you know, internal discussions and debates about the elements of the code as you see them here today. So really extend very deep gratitude to the community and our volunteers for their work on this. I have in the binder in the front pocket of the binder that everybody received two documents. One is a cover letter on town letterhead. And it's me saying to you, here this is. And giving a few highlights. And I just want to mention those one is that this is a major evolutionary step proposed for how zoning is done in the tap corner area. Another is that this is zoning. And it is also something called an official map, which we're going to talk about a little bit later on tonight and has some other interesting components that are different from zoning as it's handled today. I believe it represents the most assertive and comprehensive set of tools available to a municipality in Vermont. And those tools in this case are applied to Williston's longstanding goal that taff corners become a design conscious downtown with a strong pedestrian orientation. Those words or one version or another of them have been in your town plans for over 30 years since at least the 1990 plan. And lastly, I want to acknowledge for myself and the planning commission that the visioning process and the development of this code identifies that there is more work to be done to bring the vision for taff corners to fruition. And in my cover letter, I identify a few of those efforts, including the need to update public work standard specifications to identify new types of streets. That will result in the creation of a true multimodal transportation system that can be walked on and biked on safely and easily in taff corners. That's some work that's in process. That the code itself contains a framework for collaboration with stakeholders on future amendments and set some procedures and boundaries for those. This takes in a master plan for a really big area that's going to take a really long time to develop into that vision and it will evolve. And there's a really strong recognition both in the document and in the conversations I've had with planning commission members that continuing as a town and a commission to take an active role in the evolution of this place is really critical to its success. That's the letter. The other document which is punched so you can put it in is a cover memo and it really goes over the nuts and bolts of the review that is before the select board tonight and on May 17 and also identifies the public testimony meeting the select board as planned for June 7. So, brief overview here preparing for this meeting we gave the select for a link to something on the internet called a story map, which is a quick scroll through guide to the evolution of taff corners and the code would encourage anybody listening in here who hasn't gone and seen that to do so. All the materials I'm talking about tonight are available on the project website, which is my taff corners.com and we're going to continue to use that to update everybody on the progress of this project. So we have the story map. There is an online interactive map that lets you zoom in and out and turn on zoning and streets and other things to clarify how this code might impact particular piece of property in the district. We've given in the transmittal package public written testimony that was given to the planning commission throughout the process as well as some staff responses and clarifications to that testimony. The intent with the staff responses there was simply to identify facts in the plan or be clear about decisions the planning commission made or didn't make in response to the testimony. We also included prior correspondence to the select board. I think there's one memo missing there which is the one you reviewed on January 4th. If you don't have that will give it to you again it was an overview of the development of the draft code. We can get that for you it is also on the my taff corners page. And of course you can go to the website and watch PowerPoints and videos of planning commission meetings and really see almost any element of the public process that's brought us here tonight. And that's on that webpage so there's something in particular anybody's looking for reach out to me or my staff. We can direct you to the appropriate link for that. So May 3rd and tonight and May 7 or sorry May 17. I have a typo in my memo are our opportunities to go over the elements of code in a little bit greater detail, and I sort of divided these things in half. And I think the section numbers go out of order. And that's because I'm really trying to use a little more of a geographic and programmatic order to discussing these items. So, we have our introduction tonight which I've just finished. We're going to talk a little bit about the boundary of the overlay district and what what parts of Taft course would and would not be included in the code under the current draft map. So I would recommend to the current bylaw to take this new code and fit it in and identify how it works within Williston's existing zoning and most often just where it's the controlling code now so you have a section on parking in the existing bylaw for example that says if you're doing parking in the form base code area. They'll read about parking there so we can talk a little bit about the mechanics of that public realm and the streets map. This includes a map of both existing and desired future streets and identifies them by street type. Some of those street sections have cycle tracks or separated bike lanes, some of them do not. Some of them have a little bit different setbacks for buildings the distance between the building and the sidewalk something we call the door yard, and you'll probably hear door yard a lot or have seen it a lot in the code. So we have the regulating plan was which is effectively the zoning map. So if you think of a traditional zoning map you think of a map of an area with large blocks of color, say you know you can do these things this way in the pink zone and these things this way in the orange zone etc. The plan is the zoning map for tap corners in this trip. And the only difference is instead of big watches of color, it's the streets that are colored. And what you can do and how you can do it is based on what color the street is where you're building will be located. This is all about the relationship of buildings to the street create that walkable environment. And so the way that different parts of the area are regulated differently is based on the street frontage of the building as opposed to location with a larger area. And then finally tonight. I hope we can talk about the official map. The official map is something special. It's a tool that is in Vermont statute. It's unique to Vermont. It allows Vermont municipalities to identify planned public facilities within its borders, and to ask that future development accommodate those facilities. And the official map adds an awful lot of strength to the part of this plan and code that is about wanting an interconnected grid of walkable streets and manageable block sizes within the city. Because it says if you own land and there's a plan street on it, and you want to develop that land, your development needs to accommodate and maybe required to build a portion of that plan street. So that's the really broad overview of the plan. There's a bullet point for each of these discussion items both for tonight and the 17th on the following pages of this memo and those are as good a jumping off point as we have. I hope some select board members have had a chance to at least skim through that and might have some questions they'd like to ask. Finally, I still I said this to the planning commission. I've probably already broken my goal. My goal is really to not speak the whole time tonight. But to let the planning commission members come up to the mic and have a dialogue with the select board with questions. On any of these topics. So I'd suggest taking them in the order I have them, but it's it's up to the board how you want to. You've got a good online go right ahead. Sorry, I cannot exactly see what's on the screen, but Emily's here today. Sorry, I cannot exactly see what's on the screen, but Emily's here to do some screen sharing as needed to bring up images of code. So the first thing on your list is the district boundary. And you can see this in section 10 the zoning district map and official map. And the one we're talking about is I believe the second map in that page showing the zoning districts will listen. And on that map. There's a yellow hatched area, which is the proposed form based code over. This district as proposed is entirely contained within Williston state designated growth center. But it is not the entire state designated growth center. If you if you've read some of the architectural and building form standards of the code. You know that it calls for a different sort of development in most of task foreigners than has traditionally been constructed. It requires all buildings to be multi-story. It limits building footprints to an upper limit of 20,000 square feet in some areas and 7,000 and others. Those are not development standards that would accommodate the traditional single story single site. What I quote big box type of development. And so early on our consultant recommended and the transmittal draft shows that the most big box of the big box areas of the growth center where Walmart Home Depot and the food science building as well as some adjacent land around exit 12. Is excluded from the overlay district. And there's there's a couple reasons for that, but I think one of them is to continue to accommodate that development pattern somewhere. And also to recognize that we're dealing with a relatively large area of the growth centers about 987 acres. We're planning for a lot of it to get quite dense. We don't need all of it to get that dense right away to achieve the goals. And so there's a there's a place where that sort of more traditional retail can continue to develop and redevelop. Near tap corners, but not quite as critical as the rest of the growth center area. So that's the boundary. That's why it's a little different from the overall growth center, which was the area that we started with when we were working at this. I'm trying to understand the, the area you're just talking about and why. Why is it not included. I'm not really quite getting it. I don't know how to correctly phrase that I guess I know at one time it was included. I think it got, you know, taking for lack of better words taken out. And I'm trying to understand, you know, what's the benefit of doing that. What's the liability of doing that. Because I, I question maybe there is more benefit to keeping it in than there's liability. So the history of it being inner out is related to its inclusion or exclusion from the state designated growth center. This goes back to 2004 and 2005 when that designation was being contemplated. And I believe there was an initial quote of the downtown board not to accept the growth center with those areas included in the planning commission felt that they should be in. And it was kind of a similar conversation to the one we're having now about the code, which is what is the potential of that particular area to evolve into something that would meet those goals. So, you know, both by being a little bit peripheral to the rest of the growth center being adjacent to the highway exit and in an area where. You know, the town can kind of preserve things for sort of travel services uses and other things that that might be a little harder to do under the form based code. I think that's that's a lot of it. I don't know if anybody on the planning commission would like to speak to that that boundary. I think also in terms of proximity to the interstate as well, both for convenience, travel service orientation, and obviously a lot of consumer traffic. But then, you know, a lot of what we are posting for top corners is really dense residential areas. And being closer to the interstate is not a little sorrowful for that kind of use. I guess my own feeling is that it's entertaining and we it's going to take a long time for this vision to come to fruition. And so, you know, if you have spaces on the edge, you know, proximity but not within the overlaid district. That talks about the transition zone. So other uses that maybe wouldn't be compatible with the residential push in the in the center. You know, support it in some ways by those, those engines. Sorry. Yeah, I'm being asked to have folks who are speaking to come up and be near. No. Just for a second. And I at least accepted that as a sort of predecision by the consultants on what was made sense. So I don't have an answer to your question, Jeff, but we did carefully look at based on developer request, whether we should allow more similar building to what we have now. In the south of Marshall Avenue between there and the area that's excluded. And we decided we should keep it in the growth in this new code, because over time, we expect the amount of parking lot to diminishing the amount of buildings to increase. And we think it should be in keeping with this code. So we didn't look at that one much, but we did look at between there and Marshall Avenue closely. And I'll just follow up. Did I hear correctly that the Walmart and whom depot and I forget what the other building is referred to as. Thank you. Is that not in our growth center. It is in your growth center. Okay, it's not proposed to be regulated under the form based code. Okay. But it is part of the growth center. Yes, we did win that argument. Yes, if you will. Okay. All right. Good. Thank you. Well, now that we know where we are talking about the bylaw and it's a little bit. My apologies. As we were putting this package together. My staff came to me in section nine and said, do we really have to print out all of the bylaw chapters that are changing. And I said, yeah, it's, you know, something that may become a hearing draft at some point and you have to have it all there. We have this, I don't know, nearly half inch thick section in nine that shows all of the things that will change in the bylaw to accommodate like this. Luckily for you and me, staff's prepared a really nice summary table of those changes on the first couple pages. And it explains the chapters that are not changing. And in many of the columns here, you're going to see that the chapter is superseded in the form based code district. So design standards, as I mentioned, parking access standards, a number of other things are going to be covered by the form based code that would be covered in various chapters of the bylaw today. As well as some of the zoning districts. So that said, I do want to mention a couple of more substantive changes that happen to the bylaw to accommodate the form based code and its administrative procedures as they're contemplated. The first big one is growth management. The residential dwelling unit limits in this part of town, which is the, which is the growth center remain in place at 50 dwelling unit equivalents per year. However, a big component of the form based code is procedural efficiency. And so rather than the process we've had for many years of the once a year competitive hearing. The proposal is that in the growth center allocation would be awarded at the time that a permit is issued for a residential project. That permit is called a certificate of conformity by the way, and it's an administrative permit that follows a staff review and publicly accessible review process, but not necessarily a development review board here. So, if you, if you truly have an approval site and building and project under the form based code, this, this draft change says your name will go on the table. To get your growth management allocation as a part of that permit, you don't have to wait until next March to go through that process. Another more significant change is related to our zoning districts. Some members may recall that not that long ago you considered some by law amendments related to the retail sale of cannabis should the town of Williston ever vote to opt into the retail market. And you know, we're seeing that play out in a number of places. Part of that by law amendment that was approved identified a zoning district within the growth center and within the form based code overlay area partially where that sort of sale would be allowed the mixed use commercial zoning district. So, we didn't want to disturb the boundaries that the select board had just established around that retail sale. And thus end up leaving some of those old growth center zoning districts underneath the overlay district, if anything at all just to say, you're still following the DRB permitting process that was developed and meeting the standards and buffering from one another standards in the zoning for cannabis retail, should that happen so the short version is we had to make a lot of edits so that nothing changes about the way cannabis retail happens as it was most recently adopted by the select board. So that takes us from the zoning map in chapter 30 through the through the districts in chapter 41. The last two changes that are substantive are related to the impact fees. I've talked a little bit about official map tonight and I've talked a little bit about how the proposed official map regulating plan in the form based though district call for the creation of new streets and new parks and conservation areas. That comes from a vision goal of making sure that if there's going to be lots of people living in tap corners that they are all within a reasonable walk of a decent outdoor space and we have a map somewhere in this that that shows you the sort of two and a half minute block shed around the green spaces that are planned for. And what the edit to the impact fees says is that those things that are called for on the official map streets, parks and green spaces are considered projects on the project list within the impact fee chapters. In other words, the town could spend impact fee money to obtain or construct those streets or green spaces and also that if an applicant were to provide them as a component of their development, which is what you know the plan really wants. They would be able to offset their impact fee liability against the cost of doing so. So, you know, this this would allow applicants to pay their impact fees by building or providing infrastructure rather than dollars. So that's a that's a significant change in terms of adding all of those facilities. You know, there was a there was a time in Williston pre finish crossing and pre Zephyr Road. When the posture of the town was well if you're developing land and you need a street. That's just that's just on you. And the truth is streets and certainly the streets that are anticipated by the official map as well as those green spaces are understood as achieving important town goals. And so the idea is to strongly, you know, require in many cases and strongly encourage those things and, you know, not not tell somebody well you went and built us a street and gave us a park now please give us, you know, a quarter million or something dollars in impact fees. Those are the bylaw amendments. So the question on the impact fees I have is and I'm trying to think of how to frame this question is, is the will the requirements in order to do development under under the form base code. Will the cost of doing putting in the infrastructure required whether it be parks whether it be streets street modifications, whatever, which will be greater the impact fees or the cost to essentially the developer. In other words, is it a tender one. I mean, how do I think of that. In many cases with the street, the cost of building the street is greater. And to some degree that speaks to that sort of fairness question that has floated or as like well, you know, you need the street for your development we want the street because it connects to other ones and provides benefits and meets town plan goals. But, you know, our, our experience in our call, you know, Chris is here the offset of the cost of Zephyr road. The cost of constructing Zephyr road will never counterbalance the amount of development that's taken place the cost of Zephyr is far greater. Okay, then the impact fee liability of the vehicle trips that are created by the development infinity process. Okay. Thank you. Other questions. Okay. Well, if I don't, if I'm trying to think trying to take that to the next step. So we have our, our, our pattern now where a developer might build a part of road or input impact fees. How drastically does the form based code or if at all, it may be zero, it may be completely does form based code change how we pay how infrastructure required in town is paid for that might be the way to put it transportation public spaces. What else can I throw in there? I guess it's primarily streets and open spaces. Yeah, did, does that question make sense. It does a couple ways. I think the first thing is where you have this master plan for street connectivity. It really allows somebody who wants to develop a site to build a small section at a time to provide themselves with access. So, so part of what's sort of hoped for here is that you don't have to go in and lay in something as big as a set the road or a place in order to just get started with the development, but rather you're working off of the existing pattern and maybe you need, you know, 200 feet of new street to access a lot or something like that. Before you're going and connecting to the next one, that sort of thing. So, in that regard, it's an attempt to have that build out happen more incrementally and have the cost happen more incrementally streets in Williston are mostly built by developers to provide access to their land to allow them to do the development. That's not to do that. You know, that has been the pattern in Taft corners. It's been the pattern out in our residential districts with subdivisions. Some of those streets become public. Some of them don't. The general pattern has been streets that connect to something else become public and streets that dead end don't all of the streets on this map connect almost categorically to something else. And the anticipation would be that build out would be public, but it would happen incrementally and it would happen in concert with the addition of, you know, a whole lot of new development and new new brand list value to help offset that cost. Okay, I don't recall Jeff if I ever quoted the nine mile number to you. Nine mile. No, nine miles. I think I'd remember that is the result of a back of the envelope calculation in our office based on how much of the grand list goes towards road maintenance by the town. And where that grand list value is generated. And so the growth center as it sits today. And again, this is back of the envelope. This is this is staff and I just sort of sitting down and writing it out. So take it with a big grain of salt. And that our conclusion was the growth center as it sits today pays for its own road maintenance with its grand list value and also pays for about nine miles of town road outside of its batteries. So there's a disproportionate amount of value already in the growth center and the idea is to continue to build on that pattern. Yeah, you've got more streets coming in, but you've got a mechanism to fund their maintenance. And you're maintaining less street to maintain more grand list value in that more compact pattern. Okay, and that value is illustrated. There's a there's a map and we put it in the story maps where Williston is yellow. There's these very tall blue spikes in the taft corners area. That's a dollar value per acre map rendered in 3D for Williston showing proportionally how different that is in the growth center from the rest of town. So the idea would be to build on that. So thank you for the cost information. It leads to another concept I need to have a better sense of and that is how static or how I'm going to use the word Amy ball is form based code to change over time as development pattern starts to get established. New development patterns are deemed more desirable, you know, thinking progresses that type of thing. So, first of all, does that question makes sense. And is there an answer. Sure. It does make sense. And my answer is getting a little tired, but it's the Lego set metaphor. This is better, better, worse than the nine mile. This is better. I think it's more fun than the nine mile way. The way this code is organized, the way that it manages new development and categorizes it and plans for it. You know, we're talking about building form in terms of how many stories tall. And then we're setting some numbers in the draft. You know, you don't have to change much to say, well, turns out there's there's not demand for four stories or turns out there's demand for six and actually, you know, 50 years from now, we can accept that. Similarly, the framework of the map of streets and green spaces is we want green spaces within a short walk from where people are going to live in this district. We want streets that create a block pattern of around 300 beaten size. But within that there's, there's a lot of ways to accomplish that. And the ways to change this code are through the bylaw amendment process, you know, process with the planning commission public hearing by the select board. But, you know, the other non Lego metaphor I've used throughout is to hold up the regulated planner official map and say the only thing I can guarantee anyone is this district will not build out exactly like it looks on this map. It will be amended it will be adapted. Some streets will be built, some streets will not some streets will be located in different places. So to for green spaces. Some development standards will stay in place for a long time. Some will change. So the framework by going in instead of talking about what use goes where, or exactly how many houses or apartments go on an acre of land but instead saying, what kind of building, where does it go on the site. What does it look like. What is the streetscape that it's on. It gives you a much more rigorous framework to adjust those things over time. Okay. So I could raise it's slightly different. I shouldn't be any more worried about this code form based code and its ability to change or adapt over time that I am with our current zoning approach. No, in fact, I think it's easier because the levers that can be pulled are much more obvious in this one. Okay, oftentimes there are results we see in the current code that are really the result of interactions of whether in a bunch of different chapters of the bylaw plus reality plus the DRB trying to figure it out and all that. That's really sort of exploded apart in a code like this where you can say, well, the challenge we're having is that door yard depth. Let's change the number. The challenge we're having is that story height. Let's change the number or it's or it's that maximum footprint. You know, we actually started the draft with a smaller maximum footprint around 15,000 square feet and we talked with some folks got some testimony about if you want to park under the building that gets really tight for maneuvering vehicles. 20 works better. Not a big, not a big difference walking down the street between, I would struggle to know what was walking past a 20 or 15,000 square foot building, but it makes a difference to the developability. So there's a lot of ability to go in and change those metrics in response to me. Okay. All right, good. Thank you. The change in the impact fee. Being basically being able to be subtracted out from some of the improvements that that considered a major. Incentive for developing or is that. I mean, what, what do you think the impact of that is going to be. I would consider not having demanding those facilities by official math and not having them offset impact view liability as a major disincentive to developing in this district. And in fact, we had a very early conversation with Rick Chelman, the transportation engineer who was part of our consultant team and he was asking about the town's impact fees. And he said, can you send me the impact fees for transportation? I said, sure. And he said, so you charge the same amount for a vehicle trip, no matter where in town it's generated. And I said, yeah, he said, what's the incentive to building your growth center. So the idea is where we have that offset ability in the current bylaw. You know, if you build something on the project list, you can offset your impact fee liability by the cost doing that. It's just that today the project list is quite short. This would expand it and say, we think all of these things either serve the town's recreation needs in the case of a park or mitigate congestion in terms of transportation facilities and all of them deserve to be counted as things that can be built rather than paying into that fee. I think that the town might use to bridge a gap somewhere or fund a land purchase if it was recreation that, you know, the town might take a more active role at times in making sure that those public facilities do happen in town forms. Thank you. Next. So let's talk about streets, public realm and the streets map is next. This is section five and the binder. You can't imagine a design conscious downtown with a strong pedestrian orientation without talking about the public realm in the streets. That's, that's the part of the place that those of you who aren't going to necessarily live in an apartment in tap corners or work in a retail store in tap corners. That's how you're going to experience the place. Similar to walking around in any other city. And so what this section of the code does is it talks a lot about what we want that public realm to be like and it really starts at the toe of the private building. It begins again with that front yard setback between the building and the sidewalk, what we're calling the door yard area in the code that's generally called for between five and seven feet in width. And then you go into your sidewalk, the area where the trees are planted either in wells in the sidewalk or in a green strip, which we call a tree lawn. And then do you have on street parking? Do you have an at grade bicycle lane or an above or off grade cycle track? Those are elements of that public realm. The little bit of private space that's in between the building and the sidewalk and then everything that's happening in the public right of way. So if you were to go into this code, you would find discussion of things like street furniture, grass cans and benches, street lighting, lighting in alleys, the ability to integrate other public facilities, the provision of public open spaces in and on those streets and some elevated standards for the planting of street trees to make sure that they survive well and become a really key component. I mean, most very beautiful streets that you think of have some kind of street tree canopy over them. Provide noise mitigation, provide shade, habitat and other important values. So that's part of this chapter. There are some specifications for those trees and then there are specifications for the streets. So as you get into the illustrations in section five, you start seeing these diagrams on page 74, showing the buildings, the door yard, the sidewalk, tree lawn, street parking, bike lane, et cetera. And each of these kinds of streets that's contemplated in the public realm chapter also exists on the street specifications map, which is this colorful map that looks kind of like the regulating plan but is about the actual design and layout of the existing and future streets in tap corners. So this map for the planning commission began with a much simpler one that you can see in the story map and a couple of sketches. And the general idea here was you ought to be able to bike and walk from one place to another in tap corners safely and pleasantly. So we have streets with bike lanes. We have streets with cycle tracks. They connect to one another and they connect the four quadrants of tap corners. So if you were to build new streets and rebuild existing streets to this plan, you would have the entire growth center connected and walkable and bike. So that's the goal that coordinating all of those street types achieves. The street types are also related to the types of buildings that are imagined in the regulating plan. So you have smaller, calmer residential streets in some of the outer areas where we're talking about buildings between two and maybe three stories, more of a roll home pattern. And you have streets that are really more major arteries that are going to need to continue to move a lot of cars, but also might move a lot of bikes and a lot of pedestrians. I'll also note lastly on the street specifications map that there are specifications included for the state highways. They look very, very different from what those state highways are today. They're predominantly in their inclusion of bicycle and pedestrian facilities and in no longer using a ditch section for drainage along those streets. You know, two and two a are truly, you know, rural state highways that run through the heart of tap corners. This sets out a goal to potentially evolve those streets into something different. From having several meetings with the trans that those things will not happen without those streets being taken over by the town under the class one highway program. That is not an absolute requirement for the adoption of the zoning that's in front of you or the package that's in front of you tonight. But it is something that's critical to achieving the full vision that's imagined. And on which this code is based. So, you know, over time, the idea that you would evolve those highways to continue to move cars like they do today, but also to move people and also to provide access to an in filled grid of new streets. So that's street space. My question was is, is, is how did the two major roads between two a work. You mentioned the four corners you mentioned walk ability by capability. So I've gotten a partial, you know, concept of how works town needs to take over those roads from the trance. When does that need to happen and what is in a sense I'm asking what does that mean. I mean, I think I have a sense of what it means but I'm sure I don't understand all the nuances of what that means. So, we received some technical assistance from the Chittin County Regional Planning Commission, trying to give the town a sense of generally the price tag on doing that. And I have a draft of that memo. I don't have it ready to ship and select board tonight. Despite the fact that if the town takes over a state highway, the state pays some money towards its maintenance and continues to participate in its maintenance via repaving. There's an added cost. There's an added operational cost to taking those roads over that the state's compensation does not cover. And, you know, we've tried to sort of wrap our arms around what that number might look like, least within an order of magnitude. We're thinking about what kind of a place tap corners might need to be if it was going to pay for that sort of added, added attention. So, that's part of the questions we're thinking about it and we are preparing to have that conversation with the select board in an informational sort of way, probably more this fall. The other part of your questions when does it need to happen. The signals we've gotten from the D trans staff is that, first off, any any reworking of the street section into those things that adds all of those trees sidewalks bicycle lanes it needs to happen for any of that is likely to happen at all. Probably a little more imminently, it needs to happen before any of those new streets that are imagined on that street map come in and interact with the state highway. Some of the new streets on that map are laid over existing driveway accesses that have a right in right out configuration, but might end up needing to be changed into a different configuration and or signalized in a way that the trans would not support without class one highway designation. So, what I would say from what we've heard from the trans is the longer the amount of time between the adoption of this code and the town taking on control of those state highways, the fewer of those new streets probably get built through the state highway. So you end up with streets that have to turn around or tea out or otherwise terminate where they reach the state highway, and you lose some of that alignment and interlacing of streets around the state. Yeah. Okay. And I'd want to mention because Megan's here. I talked about a lot. You know, one of one of the things we thought a lot about in developing this code was there really ought to be a main street for Williston somewhere in Taft Corners. Where do we want to put that. And there is a spot identified on the current draft. It's right Avenue. We can talk about that a little bit later when we get to regulating plan. But Megan and I talked a lot about the section of root to from the taft corners intersection to Cottonwood. And our consultant recommended against that as a priority, partially because the existing development pattern on both sides of root to is relatively new. And some of it is the Shaw's parking lot might not go anywhere for a while. And also because it's a state highway that adds another layer of challenge to making that some kind of a mainstream configuration, but I don't know Megan if you want to add to that a little bit. Yes. Thank you. Yeah, this came out of one of the vision sessions when one of the interactive sessions. The group that I was in was tasked with identifying our ideal spot for a main street and the four or five of us however many were in our group. We're pretty enthusiastic about that section of root to and it's interesting to me. So that was over a year ago or yeah, over a year ago. It's interesting to me that now driving or cycling down that section of road. In fact, it's already shifted with the building of the LL being and related buildings as well as the kind of fleshing out of healthy living. And my enthusiasm for that was that it, it already has a very sort of appropriate amount of traffic, like to a is a little heavy in my sort of just very visceral sense of what what should be a main street. But, but that section of root to is feels just sort of manageable enough, like you could, you could pull into a parallel parking spot and run into a shop and get coffee. Or you could park your bicycle on the street side of a business and and go in and get something there. And, you know, that that's a little harder to imagine right now to a although maybe someday. So, so we were all enthusiastic and then very disappointed when we were told that, you know, pretty much the the state highway thing was one of the big things preventing that from happening. So, so just something for you to know as far as kind of citizen feedback and envisioning really and thinking about what what the town could look like. Interesting mainstream. I was thinking you were talking about something like with the Disney role for the mainstream with no marching down it with the bands and stuff like that. Interesting. Yeah. That's kind of an interesting idea Terry. We ever have our parade on the main street that's Megan just was referring to. Yeah. Interesting concept. Just thinking about the trees. I was looking at the list of trees and they look like a good interspersing of different varieties, which is good because as we know what the the ash trees over all of them are probably going to disappear for too long and that sort of goes in cycles with the various things that we do so if we could get a good mix of them that would probably be the best thing we could do. Terrific shape. I could add to the things you didn't ask. First is key to the street cross sections is the concept of allies and on the regulating plan you'll see there's allies in every block. And what it means is as much to me value to pedestrians and bicycle use as bicycle paths and so forth because it means there's not a driveway every so often. And as we increase density we wind up with things like happen in the Hamlet where you have so many driveways that the sidewalk you can't bike on the sidewalk safely and you have trouble with where to put snow. So in this regulating plan that concept of allies which is not public space it's private space but it has some specifications is really key. And once you do that, you can imagine how the streetscape becomes much more pedestrian friendly. Because you're not being interrupted all the time. The other thing I want to share is that to me. Actually, an example of that along Zephyr road where the townhouses are and the parking and garages are behind. It's sort of that feeling. The other thing is on group to a and to. To me, those Boulevard approaches with a divider. You know, with trees in the middle is much like what South Wellington did on Dorset Street where Dorset Street handles a lot of volume, but the middle section of it where they put the divider in and left turn lanes and so forth. I think that's what we're looking at more. And finally, I didn't say I was going to say this, but when you ask the question about impact fees and cost to developers of building roads. This development pattern is so dense that it will increase the value of land being developed. And so there's an inherent advantage to building that grid of roads. So, thanks. Thank you. Sure. And I'll just mention that that concept of alley access for most things for parking for deliveries for loading, etc. Is is key to maintaining that continuous streetscape as Chapin mentioned, and you'll see that come up again on the 17 when we talk about building form standards and how when you put the building on the street. You have space behind it for something like an alley surface parking trash loading dock, etc. And how it divides the functions of what's going on in the in the zone. That's a way that the streetscape remains the sort of pleasant public space to be in and through. Yeah, so Emily's just reminding me that the official transmittal regulating plan doesn't show the alleys. We do have them rendered in on some of our vision maps and they are required in the code. The other thing I'll say is, whereas the regulating plan says these are the streets and this is where where they need to go. So all it says about alleys is if you have a block, it needs an alley. So if you're developing a redeveloping a part of block. That's the time to accommodate that alley and provide your access from it. So, everywhere else where we say that somebody has to have a driveway in order to have access to the development here in this code we're saying alley but it really means driveway. That's the shortcut to the street. So, we've gone through a lot. The last point that we have listed for tonight is the official. And this is in section 10 the same place as the zoning map. And there's a couple of things I want to identify in 10. One is a particular memo from myself and Taylor Newton at the regional planning committee. I want to give Taylor a lot of the credit for this memo. He did a really nice piece of work summarizing why this tool is proposed to be used as part of the form based code in tap corners. And I've talked about this a little bit. And this memo talks a little bit about the need to get this walkable grid of streets and dispersal of new green public spaces within tap corners. And then the memo discusses official map, its application in some of our neighboring communities. And as compared to zoning, the relative strength and some of procedural differences that exist when a municipality chooses to use official map as a tool. So, when you're thinking about how this tool would work, you can you can jump to the bottom of page two of that memo, which is titled official map development review process talks about what happens when somebody who wants to develop a piece of land encounters an official map element mapped on their land. So option option one for that landowner is what we see as the easy and desirable one which is they can accommodate the public infrastructure as part of their development. I have, I have a piece of land, the official map anticipates a street say running down one side of that piece of land. And I'm going to make that street part of development. I'm going to use it to provide access to my development builds to where the town says it wants it. Option two is the landowner says, you know, I have a different idea. I don't want to build that public street or I don't want to build that green space in the location where it's called for on the official map. Maybe I don't want to build it on this property. They can choose not to do this and I've skipped all the way down to the bottom of page three to talk about this process. And essentially in summary, it triggers a process where the applicant is saying to the select board. Okay. You want me to build the street in this location on my property. You want me to build this park or accommodate this park in this location on my property and and I have a different idea. I don't want to. Would you if you really want it select board, would you be willing to acquire it from me and the select board has 120 days under statute to make that decision. So the idea of maybe not building one of those streets on the map or maybe not having one of those screens on the map is presented to the select board. And the board has a timeframe in which to make a decision and if you if you don't have any money, it may be a fairly easy decision. Or if you have limited funds, say in the rec fee or in the transportation impact fee or in some other budget mechanism you've created and say, I just this facility is really important to us. We really do really do want it. That that can happen that you go into negotiations with the applicant about the price about doing that. And if that falls apart, it leads to a process that looks a lot like essentially, you know, a taking with a compensation. By another parties in in the legal realm. So. It's a very strong tool if the board wants to use it that way. It's also a tool that's really set up to not have to be used in that really strong most of the time. And the experience of our neighboring communities is that most development that subject to official map does accommodate the facility. And I'll also sort of mention that if somebody with an interest in developing in this district had a plan to do something that was different from what the official map showed. They could also approach the select board via the planning commission and say, I have a plan to change this map. I'd like you to think about and I'd like and I'd like you to consider that as a zoning by law. And that process could happen prior to the development proposal. You know, the official map in this code is understood as an adopted part of zoning under the zoning enabling statute and can be amended the same way zoning can be amended. So, you know, this is a draft code and a regulating plan and an official map based on a vision that's thinking about development that might happen in Taft corners over the next 50 or 60 or more years. And as I said before, the only guarantee I can give you is that something on this map will change. There are a number of ways that can happen. And there are some large areas of land that this plan takes in that are not currently developed. Where somebody may very well under this framework come to the board and say, I have a different idea for what the official map should say here. Let's talk about that before I come in and propose my development before we enter into this more formal process that's discussed in the in the bylaw. The other thing I want to say about official map real quick and then we can talk more about the less fun part is you'll notice that this is a map of the entire town. And I want to pause for a minute and acknowledge the efforts of an ad hoc citizens group that we work with mostly before it mostly in 2018 and 2019 of mobility projects group. These were folks that we invited in Williston citizens to talk to us about a more refined and unified plan. For especially bike paths, bike lanes, primitive trails and new residential streets throughout the town. Illustrating the general desire that places in town be connected in ways that achieve important town goals. So the draft official map you see actually covers the whole town, but it is much, much, much more detailed. In the form based code district. There's a few dotted lines in the residential district that illustrate the general concept that streets in different subdivisions in the rcd on a connection with another. That's something we do today by the access standards of the bylaw. There are some, there's some encapsulation of bicycle and pedestrian facilities that have been planned for sculptor long desired in Williston like facilities along Mountain View road, or industrial Avenue sidewalk, as well as some facilities that we're seeing come to fruition as component of development, like sidewalks along the south side of Williston road in the Brown L road area. So just be aware of the official map also identifies some existing and desired bicycle and pedestrian facilities throughout the town as well as primitive trail connections, but is much more detailed and much more focused on the form based code. But we're able to take that work of the mobility projects group and through this code development process say, you know, if Williston really decides that this is how it wants to have corners to build out. It should, it should integrate this tool into that. So that's the official map. I get. I get the process if somebody says. Somebody says no, I don't want to rebuild those streets. What we're calling option to is that there's kind of a. Offer to be made to the town. If that doesn't, if that isn't accepted. The next step of that is that the project goes back before the DRB. So, if, if, if the negotiation was successful. Well, it's successful. Oh, what if it's not successful. So if, if the negotiations fail and I'm in the middle of the bullet list on or. The sound, the town could seek to acquire the property by proceeding. This is where I was talking about, about takings. However, as we say in the memo, this is an expensive legal process, not anticipate the town, but frequently use the court system to acquire land. If ever. This, this is similar to the ability that exists for municipalities and statute. Anyway, today. Yeah, but I was talking about the first filled paragraph under the bullets. The select board may choose to not acquire the property after denial development, et cetera. In that circumstance statute states that the landowner may resubmit their development proposal, which shall be reviewed quote without regard to the proposed public facilities. I mean, like. We act like that plan streets not there anymore. So, so the DRB. Yep. The DRB would look at it and say, you know, essentially. It's as if that plan street has is no longer there on the official map. So anything the developer wanted to do that was in conflict with that street could now be approved. So, doesn't that void the entire idea. So, like, they go for the DRB. So, I don't want, I don't want to build your street. Select board and the project owner. Negotiate that negotiation. Then the landowner developer can then go before the DRB and say, okay, analyze this without regard to the streets that you that you're zoning wanted me to put it. What that just happened a lot. Isn't that kind of like a chutes and ladders like the way that the way out is right over here. I mean, right, negotiate with the town. They, you know, say no. And then, but then. So, I mean, that that's one question. It's like, won't that happen a lot? Secondly, is that a bad thing? And third, is the DRB going to be looking at these resubmitted or submitted things say don't. Don't don't analyze this with regard to the proposed public facilities. Are they we expect the end to say, okay, you know what, that's, that's fine. We're just going to do it. Not penalize you for thumbing your nose. Well, yeah, you, you functionally can't penalize somebody at that point. They've gone through the process. The town's had its legal opportunity to attempt to acquire that area to have that street bill. The town either has has failed in that endeavor or, or at some point stepped off of the process and said, no, you know, we're not going to do this. And so, back to your questions. Won't it happen a lot. Experience in other communities has been that it doesn't happen a lot. Is that a bad thing. I think it's a good thing that there's an escape valve from such a rigid map. And we can talk a little bit about the there is some administrative flexibility built into this map, but it's 75 feet. It's, you know, you can shift the street as realities come into play. But you can't delete one or completely relocate it without either amending the map or going through this process. So, is it, is it necessarily a bad thing that this out exists? No, I think, I think this out has to exist. Just to to avoid taking without compensation. It would be almost a de facto administrative taking. Yeah, you didn't have. Yeah, you have to have a way if you can't come to terms on compensation, you have to have a way as the town to say, all right. We tried, but we give up. You can go ahead and develop without building. And I would say it's, you know, normally it's going to be like this piece of a street. And, you know, opportunities to achieve this vision and this exact design contained in your binders. Come and go and shift all the time. And, you know, we are currently as a planning staff reviewing and helping the DRB review and usually approve projects in tap corners. Some of which, if constructed will preclude some of these streets from being built that that goes on under the current process until it is changed by this or some other amendment. So it's, it's regulatory and it's rigorous, but it is still aspirational. And, you know, there are conversations the select board might have should have choose to adopt this tool of well how, how do we want to be prepared to back up financially when when we really want the street and somebody really doesn't want it on their property when we really want to green and somebody really doesn't want it on their property that that position for the board may evolve with experience. How often do we need to do that, or are we getting a good track record of some communities the way they use official map. They try to align it more with their fiscal capacity. The board has some street connections that are really planned for to come come to fruition as part of private development. They also have some public spaces that they anticipate on their official map, but they don't put everything they've ever wanted in every district on their official map they put the ones on that they have in their capital plan. So, you know, there's an understanding I think that lives behind the adoption of a tool like this. That it's it's only as good as those other mechanisms, including funding that the town wants to adopt to reinforce it. Maybe we should develop a relationship with Deutsche Bank. I understand they give loans up to people who may not be able to pay. You know, this is as good a time as any to just sort of summarize something that comes out of a vision and which is making all of this happen does anticipate a sort of a different way of the town relating to the tap corners area. And I would summarize that as saying a lot of the way the town relates to tap corners today and in the past as well we're going to make the rules and you private sector go go follow them. And we'll get what we get. This this code and vision fully achieve requires a more active participation in tap corners. I mean, when we're looking with the planning commission at the idea of wanting public green spaces in tap corners. It's worth remembering that we have zero public publicly owned green spaces in tap corners today. We have private green spaces. We have areas that we regulate a little bit differently like the borough know where we preclude development by a member we don't own. We don't manage it for public recreation. We rely on the creation of private green spaces as a component of development under the current bylaw with varying degrees of utility and and success. And you know that's one of the things we started with our staff and consultant team was walking around tap corners and sort of looking at those quasi public spaces that have been created the current development standards and thinking about if I was going to live in, you know, this building or that building or this site or that site. Would would I find that that public space or plus the public space serve my needs or not what would I want my town to be doing for me if I was a resident of cap corners. And the results of those conversations are on that official map and encapsulated in the in the plan and the code. So I want to follow a little bit of. Heads question. So in that same paragraph and the concept of. You know, if the negotiations fail. And I assume that's primarily a monetary. Negotiation. The concept or the word says without regard to the proposed public facilities. Would that exclude. The town being able to say, okay, we haven't come to agreement. But you still need to, let's say, keep space open for a road that we feel is a critical road that has to go here. We just can't come to an agreement with you over. You know, how to pay for that. Does that question make sense. In other words, does does that. That statement without regard to proposed public facilities mean. That through the review process. Land couldn't be set aside for, let's say, infrastructure or road, maybe open space. That is considered important or critical. So that, you know, the first sentence that paragraphs like work may choose to not acquire the property. And what that says to me, and what I think I see in that is. What the applicants being asked to do is accommodate the future public facility. It may be to their advantage to build it, either to provide physical access to the property or to meet needed requirements for things like open space, but it may not. It may simply be put an easement on that that goes to the town or offer and leave that space such that the town can come in at a later date and. You know, develop it further. Right. How that might. So, so number one, yes, that's, that's, that's considered a positive resolution of the of the tension between the private land or the official map. Sure, let me build my building. I'll stay out of the way of that road you want and I'll, and I'll give you the airboat blocker, but I don't need that road right now. As the developer, so I don't want to build it. Now, the incentive that comes in is. Well, I might get the value of that land against my impact fee liability. But I'm, but I don't get my cost of building that road against my impact fee library. It's not building at the town's going to need to come in and spend funds to build that road later if it wants it. Making space for and building around or building as if that street or green is going to be there is is every bit accommodating it just as building it as part of the project is in the eyes of official map. Does the concept of the specific plan go away with one base code. It does. There was vigorous conversation with the planning commission about that Megan under Chapin. I don't know if you'd like to come up. But we talked a lot about that and for folks who are don't have specific plan on the tip of your brain specific plan exists in the current by law it's applicable anywhere in town. And it's essentially a proposition that somebody with the development that's not fully compatible with the town's bylaws can propose to modify those bylaws to the extent necessary to accommodate their development in balance with the conveyance of some kind of a defined public benefit to town and those those types of public benefits including things like job creation job retention affordable housing or important infrastructure are listed in the bylaw. So, one of the conversations the planning commission had was we have this really, you know, very perspective code that has a lot to say about how new development will be built. Do we want to keep the idea of specific plan in this district. If somebody, you know, somebody could sort of say well I don't want to follow that code. I won't all this other code that I have developed in exchange for one of those benefits and the planning commission arrived the answer no, remove the specific plan operate option from this district. And you might want to talk a little bit about that conversation and why. I think a really big reason behind that is that the form based code kind of is all of our desires in place so the things that specific plans usually have to compensate by kind of going above and beyond in order to get some things that the town wants. Other than going through that sort of very circular process, we laid out on the table and say, these are the things we want. And this is how you do your work in this space. And, and so it just really seemed, you know, essentially form based code is the master plan for tap corners. And so it seemed very comfortable productive to then say, Oh, sure, you can do a specific plan as long as you give us a bike path. Right. When bike paths are already in the plan. So that's why we came to that decision. That's a great question. Okay, I guess, and I'm not disagreeing in any way, partly because I actually have some conceptual difficulty with the specific plan process but that's either here or there. I guess just to query that a little bit further some of those non infrastructure related benefits that a developer could provide through the specific plan process like job creation like I don't know what would be affordable housing affordable housing right those goals wouldn't sway the planning commissions feeling about whether specific plan should be allowed and those benefits to the town. aren't enough to sway your opinion about whether specific plan should be allowed in this new form based code area. So I think it's important to understand that the form based code already will be generating, you know, a lot more housing. And in a fairly concentrated area. And our hope is that it will be diverse types of housing so that single person households. So it through families can can access it and we have begun the process of looking at some other mechanisms to expand the requirements or incentives for affordable housing within this district. So I think that the potential achievement of affordable housing in form based code is higher than it would be if we had lots of patchwork specific plans that required this and that and the other for affordable housing. So I think, you know, again, it's sort of baked in to to the the process of form based code that we are. Although there's not, you know, specific inch inclusionary zoning at this point. We're sort of creating the conditions under which a great deal more affordable housing could be generated. Similarly, I think we're the form based code creates the conditions under which a lot of job expansion could happen. Now, one thing is that we already have a lot of jobs in most. And I'm not saying we don't need more. But if we are interested in having people able to live close to their jobs, then what we need right now is actually additional residential capacity. So, when you have a density of residents, you're also going to have new opportunities for small businesses. You're going to have new opportunities for things like restaurants or entertainment spaces for, you know, yoga studios or whatever it is that people want. And so in the sense of not just job creation, but kind of stimulating even business formations that we're again is creating the conditions for those to happen. And, you know, with specific plan, there's also a bit of weakness because an applicant can, you know, do a do some kind of a study and make a bunch of promises about number of jobs that might come past and then a pandemic hits for whatever they get bought or, you know, businesses are not static. And so, um, hinting a lot of the value of the town on the uncertainties of what might come to pass under a specific plan is actually kind of risky. The form based code takes a lot of that out of play. I have to. Sorry. I don't mean to be, I'm going to be a little bit negative. I apologize for that. I don't quite get how the form based code would encourage affordable housing. You've got, you know, a developer. He's interested. He or she's interested in building a building complying with our code. You know, the 1st floor, maybe 2 1st, you know, the ground floor will be retail apartments on the sex on the whatever stories or above that. What would be the incentive to do affordable housing versus higher rate, whatever market housing. Well, I will, I will turn to Matt in a second, but I think one of the basic pieces to consider is that multi story housing, of course, has a lot of economic and environmental benefits. So, material costs, energy efficiency, you know, an extra story in a on one particular footprint is much less costly to build than a completely separate building. And, and then has ongoing, as I said, ongoing benefits in terms like energy use that higher level of density of residence also allows efficiencies of things like public transportation. Public transportation is a really key element of providing affordable housing. And so when, when it's more economically feasible to, to build that 4th story, or 5th story, whatever we end up deciding. And it's in a concentrated development pattern that allows for public transportation. Those are 2 really important kind of ingredients or again, creating conditions for affordable housing. But I'm going to turn to Matt because I think he's got some more specific details on that. Sure, the first part is I would second everything Megan said about the form based code setting the table for a density and development pattern that would enable housing to be created that is. So, you're sharing the high cost of land access infrastructure across a greater number of units that increases the potential that those units can can come to market a little more fortably. The other part is I'm going to agree with you. It doesn't do everything to create affordable housing. And, you know, a lot of our affordable housing conversations and I'm sure some of the ones this group has been part of start with that. Well, what kind of affordable are we talking about here? Are we talking about affordable to a family making 100% 80% 60% or something lower than that of the median income. And so, the focus of the 4 base code has been very much on getting the building form and the development pattern right. This is an area that is more accessible to transit than than any other in town. That's more walkable to more employment opportunities than any other area in town and it's more connected to the rest of the region than any other area towns. Those things are all really important for affordability to. That said, there's a recognition from the planning commission and it's in the overarching issue section of the vision plan and talk about a little bit in the transmittal that the town still has work to do in terms of achieving its goals that will listen be affordable. It's more for everybody in the region. And, and I think more pointedly, it often gets talked about, you know, I want the person who's, you know, working behind the cash register at Shaw's to be able to live in the town they're working in that that's quite an affordable level to be looking at. It's going to involve partnerships with people like the Champlain Housing Trust, it's going to involve accessing, you know, federal funding and tax incentive programs and economic development and all kinds of things that are of a greater complexity than has traditionally taken on. And we're going to look at some other regulatory tools as well. So in our work plan with the Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission for the upcoming fiscal year, we're talking about having a housing needs assessment performed for Williston. I don't expect it to reveal a whole lot of surprises. It's really expensive in Williston and in the region and there's a need for affordable housing. But the reason to do that is because statute says, if you want to do something in your zoning that actually requires some percentage of certain projects to be affordable. In other words, what's referred to as inclusionary zoning, if you want to even consider that tool, you need to have done a housing needs assessment. And that in our work plan, because we did identified as an outstanding issue in the development of this code, so that the town and select board in the near future would be in at least the position of considering adding that tool to its toolbox when it comes to the creation of affordable housing here and throughout town, but here is here in tech courses really where the opportunity is. So it sets the stage, there's more to be done. One of the things that there's more to be done. We're already. Right. Good. Thank you. I am somewhat, despite my negative comments somewhat encouraged there might be tools that can be used to facilitate affordable housing. So thank you very much. I think it's time we can wrap up tonight anyway, and we'll look forward to two weeks from tonight to continue the story and our education on this. And then the third meeting will hear from those who have different opinions. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. So move on then to the police retention and send out 22. I was in the 22 funding and Eric's going to give us a short presentation on that. Thanks, Terry. Just get the notes back out here. The board might recall it's March 9 meeting improved the hiring retention incentive for swarm police officers that's scheduled to occur over the next 3 years. The first payment is scheduled for this month in May and prior to each disbursement, the funds that select board is asked to approve the source of funding. Staff has analyzed the police department fiscal year 2022 budget and projected spending to the end of the year. For June, this analysis, staff anticipates the current budget can cover the retention incentive payment to only $40,200. This includes payroll tax and retirement contribution. For the board's consideration, the other option would be looking at some ARPA funds or a combination of current budget and ARPA. The suggestion staff has its current budget can support it looking to move in that direction. If that's direct, the board may want to move in. If the board wants to move in that direction, it's in the budget. So I, the board would need a motion and move the staff to look with for consensus. Otherwise, to look at any ARPA funds a motion would likely be at work. Thank you, Eric. And so the staff recommendation is to use the funding that's available in the budget. Or this for the, at least this round of. A payment, is there any objection to that? Nope. This is just leftover. This is the funding that we, we have from not having people eat staff from the year. Exactly. Sure. Surely did a lot of work with the chief fully and lieutenant more to look at how spending was and fairly confident that there'll be enough to cover this. And then they'll still be left over in the department that will eventually follow the balance at the end of the year here as we try to figure out where our spending is going. So there, there should be adequate funds there. Sounds like we have no problems with that. Very good. Okay. And then I'm moving on to the temporary event permit. This is our. Maiden's wedge on our brand new policy and. We'll be looking to see whether we have questions on this error. Why don't you. Give us a little bit of a brief rundown on this. Sure. So. Got these materials beginning of the week. So I printed everything out for the board. I had sent someone yesterday and then I got the chief always comments today. So, as you might recall, the new ordinance is going to be in effect as of June the 4th. The 60 day period after adoption for any reference of referendum to pass. So, this event is our 1st 1 to look at from planning their grand opening coming up on June 9th, June 12. So, I think that Aaron Dickinson in the manager's office are putting together this permit application to follow from the ordinance. So, this was good for us to try to taking the elements of the ordinance. Then we would need to consider and have the applicant put this together here. Given it's over multiple days and the scope here, there's discretion, the ordinance, whether the manager would approve 1 of 1 of these applications for the select board and. Given these elements staff fellows appropriate for the select board to consider. You also have an outline of what it would look like over the events planned for those few days for the grand opening. And then you have comments from fire chief Colette and police chief fully on this event. Staff recommendation is to consider granting the permit, but with these conditions that both of our chiefs have outlined primarily with spacing of tents. For example, a stove demonstration, making sure there's adequate fire protection and physical barriers, putting in place. For the motor vehicles. So, a couple of other comments that are that are passed. I have to answer any questions the best I can in the application and staff's comments. Otherwise, the motion suggests for the board to approve this permit with conditions as proposed by staff. So, has the company seen the conditions that the pirate apartment and the police department have recommended. I was going to play the pass around to her this morning or tomorrow morning. Rather, I preview that felt these were essentially substantive, but the dissipated that there would be some comments of police fire. They're aware that those would like to be becoming questions or comments. Okay. You're looking for a motion to approve a temporary event for the LL being brand open. Your second. Your discussion on the most. Nice job. Yep. Good company. Exciting. All those in favor of the motion and say hi. Hi. Hi. There are no opponents. Moving on then to other business and we have a kid rain permit request. Just bear with me a second papers. This is a wedding. I should family barn. In June. From waterfront yogurt and sandwich company catering group out of Shelburne for a wedding reception. I should family farm on June 18 from. 3 to 10 PM to spend 125 persons. To the board approve this for catering permit. I'll remind them of the conditions that they have for any, any noise. Use there with these given this is permitted for wedding receptions have any objections to this. No question from staff. Any questions for. Eric on this. I'd be looking for a motion. It's just like a second. Discussion. All those in favor of the motion say hi. Hi. There are no. No, no is any other business to bring forward tonight. Thank you for your attention tonight because long meeting, but we'll. Do this again on the 17th. So thank you and we are.