 Okay, welcome to the Monday, August the 1st, 2022 meeting of the Montpelier Design and Review Committee. We'll let committee members and staff introduce themselves. Marcus Nersky, member. Benjamin Cheney, member. Meredith Crandall, staff. Steven Everett, member. Eric Gilbert, same member. At this point, we will let Meredith review the remote meeting procedures and process. Okay, so I'm going to share my screen here and put up a little presentation that's more for people who are watching via Orca, but there's going to be some pointers that I give about how we are going to work this that is helpful for everybody who's on remotely. All right. So for those viewing this meeting via Orca media, you can participate in tonight's design review committee meeting via the Zoom platform, either through either the video or telephone access options. So for video and using the Zoom platform, there's this link here. You can also dial in this phone number and plug in this meeting ID when it's requested from. Oh, and there we go. Sorry, somebody's asking to be let in. If you have problems accessing the meeting, please email me at mcrandallatmontpillier-vt.org. I will be monitoring my email throughout tonight's meeting. And you also have this option here to get all of the city, all the meeting information. For those attending via Zoom, turning on your video is optional. And if you're having issues with the sound, sometimes turning off your video will let the sound come through clearer. It just reduces your bandwidth usage. For everyone attending, please keep your microphone on mute. When you're not speaking, this will reduce background noise. If you're on via the Zoom telephone option, you can press star six to mute and unmute your phone. Please reserve the Zoom chat function just for troubleshooting or logistics questions. Any questions or comments on an actual application should be verbal. You can raise your hand, either physically or by using the raise hand button on your Zoom toolbar. And then if you're on the phone and calling in for comments, then during a break, you can state your name and say you have a comment. Although so far, everybody we have on tonight is applicants. So we'll know what you're talking about. Okay, I'm just gonna just quick scroll through. Yeah, we just have applicants on right now. So in the event that I find out that there are members of the public unable to access this meeting, it will need to be continued to a time and place certain. And that's all I've got. So I'm gonna hand the meeting back over to the chair, Steve. Thank you. And hold on one second. I'm just gonna double check. Lauren, is that you dialing in from the seven, nine, three, six, six, one, nine? Yeah, I've been on the line for a couple of minutes now. No, just double checking because I didn't have your phone number in front of me. I thought I remembered it. All right, thanks, Lauren. We're gonna let's... Oh, thank you. Sorry for the confusion. Oh, it's okay. We're gonna let Steve open it up and then you'll be up. Perfect. At this point, if many members have had a chance to look at the agenda, do I hear a motion to approve the agenda? So moved to Derek. All second. All in favor of the agenda, speak your names. Martha. Ben. Eric. And Steve. So we'll move forward to the first application for 45, 44 to 50 Main Street, applicant Lauren Andrews for three new signs. Lauren, go ahead and describe your application for us. Hi, thanks for everybody. I'm calling from Portland, Maine right now having a little vacation. I put in an application because I'm going to be opening up Capital Cannabis Company in the former Bailey Road space. And I'm going to be moving Aramedd Essentials from my 8th State Street location to the former Zunith space, which is right next door to the Capital Cannabis spot. And we were planning on painting the exterior of the space and putting up new signs for Capital Cannabis and moving the current sign from 8th State Street for Aramedd to the new space at 50 Main. Did you hear me okay? Yeah, sorry. Everybody's looking at the, giving another look at the printed packets that they have. We don't have any of our D-members remote tonight. Everybody's here in, or DRC, sorry, designer D-members remote. They're all in person, so they're all looking at their packets and doing a double check while you were describing the project. So they're all just reviewing it right now. They're not ignoring you. Okay, okay. I'm looking at the closed picture where you have the painted and all the way over in the right, I see that it's painted all the way to the floor or to the sidewalk. Is that brick now, or is that wood? That's wood. Okay, I can't tell from- We're not painting any brick. Okay, good. Thank you. That was my concern. Yeah, no, I like brick. We keep as much of that as we can. Hi, Lauren. I'm curious about the placement of your signs, specifically the Aramedd sign. Is that, I'm looking again at the same image and wondering if that's the intentional placement centered over the window. Yes, because we thought about, we looked at it centered over the door and thought that would be, I like the aesthetic a bit better, but I think it'd be terribly confusing because it's a door for both businesses. And I don't want people who want to go into the cannabis shop to look up, see Aramedd essential sign and be confused. So we ditched that idea. Ben, when you look at the door, that bay window to the left of the door is a foyer. Yeah. And then once you get the foyer, the door is in that divider to the three windows to the left, which would be capital cannabis. Correct. And then do you intend to move any of the lighting or are you gonna have leave the light to the garden? I'll leave the lights as they are. Yeah, I'll leave the lights alone. You could actually angle, leaving the lights where they are, you could angle the shade over to light up both the Aramedd sign and the capital cannabis sign by moving heads of the goosenecks. Yeah, agreed. That we kind of scooped that out. I had an electrician take a peek up there and that's why we determined there was no need to move them when you can angle them just as much much more easily. And quick question. It looks like the Aramedd essential sign fits in. You have an outline drawn, which looks like an outline for the sign band on the drawing and the Aramedd sign fits within that. And then the capital cannabis sign looks larger than the space in that outlined space. It's a little bit larger just because of the shape of the logo. The capital cannabis logo, I wish I had it in front of me, I don't have that. But I think it's a little bit wider than the, I'm not sure, but it determines the size of the sign is the shape of the logo. Is that a thin yellow or green line outlining sort of detailing the sign band? Correct. We're gonna put, I haven't quite landed on the color. I want something to contrast the dark teal, but I don't want it to be, I'd want it to be just an accent color, nothing that's gonna overwhelm it. We're trying to make it look a little more urban, the exterior with a little more sophistication. So I think that's why we're keeping the, you know, the paint color rather dark. And like I said, the band color, I'm not sure. You kind of put the, I have several brand colors. One of them is a highlight color of a like a, almost like a little lime green that really kind of pops against the dark teal. And we thought that would be, you know, we played around with different band colors and that one seemed to complement the dark teal the most without overwhelming it at all. Right. Now, if I look at the existing signs Bailey wrote in Zenith, it looks like the sign band below the lights is recessed there. Is that the case? Yeah. If I'm understanding you, yeah. Steve. So the, I just want to interrupt for a second because I know where you're going, but I think that visual might be a mistake because when I look at the actual sign application form, it says that the Aramedd wall sign is 36 inches high and the Capital Cannabis wall sign is 34 inches high. Oh, okay. So I think that the visual is an error maybe and that the Capital Cannabis sign is actually going to be slightly shorter but wider than the Aramedd sign. If the dimensions of the chart are correct. And so they should both fit inside that sign band without having to pop out. Okay, that was my only question because visually on the drawing, the Capital Cannabis sign is taller than the Aramedd sign and looks like it does not fit within the sign band. Yeah, I think there's, you've got clarification right there. Probably just not the scale on the drawing or something. Okay. Again. But the actual dimensions should be there or correct. Okay. We just, our recommendation would be that those both of those signs fit within the existing sign band. Inside each line band. Yeah, I think we're planning on putting what are they like the metal frames behind them. Okay. So they don't go right, they'll go against the metal frames. They're not going to go against the wood necessarily if that makes any sense. I think they'll look nicer too, Lauren, they're both very close to the same size. And from what? Yeah. This is telling us that is true rather than this representation, which may be a little off. Okay, yeah. Because our intention was to keep them similar. Okay. And then you have an also, you also, you have an overhanging Capital Cannabis sign. With the blade sign that comes off to the side. Yes, the blade sign. Yeah, yeah. And again, we would recommend that that be balanced within that sign band area as well. The representation shows it higher than the sign band. Yeah, I think the guy who did the quote, he just did it from a picture. Okay. Our plan is to do put the sign in the same spot that the Bailey Road blade sign was. Okay. But her blade sign placement was perfect. You could see it from way down the road. It was good. So it's not broken, don't fix it. You can sort of see it in the photo of the existing just barely there's like a white line that goes down by the middle decorative column. I don't know what you would call that. And so that was the projecting part that came out where it was attached was in the sign band area. So yeah, I think the visual representation might be just a little off on that again. That's all. Yeah, I think when you put that together, it was from a photo. Yeah. So I'm not surprised. I hadn't noticed this on the street before and as I'm looking at these photographs, I'm very interested in what that column is that's separating between Bailey Road and Zenith. It looks to be an old steel column. Yeah, it's painted. I think it's painted black. Yeah. Right now. I guess I'm wondering in your paint job whether there's a way to actually call attention to that because I think it probably is a beautiful thing. And... I hadn't really thought about that. We thought about maybe repainting it black. If I did end up painting those, I probably wouldn't go the lime green route because I think that I like the color but I don't like it that much kind of thing. No, I would not. I would press that. Yeah, I think that with those columns, that wouldn't be appropriate. Agreed. If I did paint the columns, I would probably do a more subdued green that would complement the teal. We've got our brand colors and there's this really nice green that looks gorgeous with the teal. That's a bit more sophisticated. I think that if we did paint the columns, it would go that direction. That has a little bit of contrast and possibly a different sheen to give it a little bit of just difference. I hadn't thought about it, but having the columns be a little shiny would be nice, I think. Good suggestion. I would like to see that column because I think it's beautiful and I've not noticed it before. Yeah, I mean, if you're really... It's hard finding people to talk color with me if you want to come look at color samples with me. Come on by. Yeah, I'd be happy to do that. Yeah. There's also a really rich-looking color called black green that looks very, very nice that would fit in with that color scheme for the column. And then again, you could use, you would want a contrasting color for the detail for the panels below as well as for the penstripe around the sign band. Yeah, I think you're right. I think, Mike, I just want to make sure it's not too busy, you know? I think whatever I do, I have to just make sure that's not the case. But yeah, I like the idea about the columns though. I'll rethink that and see if we can give those more attention for sure. And I guess to that, whether there can be a little bit of separation for the capital cannabis blade sign, maybe that can... The way it's depicted here sounds like maybe not the way you're actually gonna do it. And in real life, it's jammed up right close to it and the Bailey Road sign, but there seems to be a fair amount of space on the zenith arrow med side, whether that capital cannabis sign could slide over there a little bit. That'd be fine. To be honest, we were just doing it because I figured it'd be easier because it's sort of already, I don't know if it's grandfather, just the right term, but I mean, there was a sign hanging there for, I don't know, how long was she there? Eight, nine years. And I thought, well, we'll just do it in the same spot because it was okay for Bailey Road. But if there's another spot that you would prefer to have me hang the blade sign, I don't care where I sign it, it's hanging. I mean, I think if it were... It doesn't really matter to me. A foot or two right or left of that column, I think that that would be great. Okay. When it seems like we'll probably have space for that because you're being conservative in your signs. Yeah, you're not using the same hardware, correct? You're using different hardware? No, we're gonna put a new hanging, whatever you call it, a metal piece to hold the sign. Yeah, because I mean, the current one looks like it's right next to, I just pulled it up on the Google Street View. The current is really, really close to that metal column. I'm gonna pull it up so that the DRC members can see what I'm looking at on the big screen maybe if the visual works. Let me turn off the light real quick. So here's the current hardware right here and here's that column that's right there. The current hardware is right at that column, right next to it. Yeah. Do you think it should be farther away so it doesn't draw attention away from the column? I do, yeah. And full disclosure, Lauren, I've actually been in your space talking to Michael DeGeorge about railings in there. Oh yeah. And so it would also be possible to create something that held your sign inside that sign band that was similar to those railings if that felt. Oh, yeah, we should talk about it. Let's talk. All right. Have you considered painting the panel for sign band and the panels at the bottom of slightly lighter color? Oh, then. Again, we did some potential drawings of the sign guy of putting colors in different spots. And I just think it looks too busy to have, I like the idea of having it one color with just the highlighted colors that around the inside of the, I hope I'm using the right terms for the bands or whatever. I experimented a little bit with some of the lower panels being painted, that highlight color. And I didn't, I just, I thought it looked kind of cheesy. I didn't like the way it looked. And Eric, you'd want the darker color of the sign band with those light signs over it, right? So you were thinking. So there's a difference between the general color of the front and the sign band and the panels. Yeah. A lighter color would probably be darker color would be fine. Just to sort of define it a little more and the sign band a little more definitely. Define the panels on the bottom and the sign band in addition to having the pinstripe. Yeah, inside the pinstripes. Yeah, I think about it. Again, I'd have to, there are concerns about it being too busy looking. Well, I'm gonna have a lot going on in the window too, you know? Just as an FYI, all the stuff on color is just guidance and thoughtful input from people because the design review committee, we don't actually have any jurisdiction over color of painting already painted surfaces anymore. Yeah. So you're just getting some input and thoughts on the color issues. No, I appreciate it actually. I think that maybe we'll play around. And I think maybe I didn't like the inside of the squares being colored in because I was just looking at the wrong color. I'm wondering if we played a little bit more with that idea with more subtle colors, maybe it would look better. I don't know. And now you've got me thinking. So I'm actually going to pay attention to what you have all said and play around a little bit more. Yes, you can. The reason I suggest that would be, it'd be less of a monoliths in the front. Yeah. In terms of color. You can do some, you can do some trial color choices and whatever you and whoever you're consulting with, thanks, looks the best in that. Probably, I'm probably gonna be calling Bonnie Everett stat. Yeah. I've got her on speed dial. I can't say in a different way than the other about it. Yeah. I, you guys, no, this is all great feedback. I'm actually quite appreciative. It's, I've got so much to think about that sometimes, you know, you want, sometimes you just want to make a decision just to make a decision and cross it off the list. So I'll dive back into this. Okay. Yeah. So unless anybody has anything else to add, the recommendations were that each of the three proposed signs be placed within the borders of the existing sign band. And then there was a comment that the steel column, and again, this again, because of colors, this is again at her option. This is at her option that the steel column on the vertical steel column on the side can be painted a contrasting color to emphasize the historic, help emphasize the historic character of the building's construction. Yeah. No, I appreciate it. Yeah. And again, that's an option. No, it's, I think it's really thoughtful feedback. So I think, I thank you all. So are we, are we set? Not yet. Not yet. Steve has to go through, go through some criteria. Okay. Where signs in the design control district. Number one, the size, location, design, color, texture, lighting and material, all exterior signs within the design review overlay district should be compatible with the building and structures of the site and surrounding properties. This is acceptable. Where appropriate signing shall respect the original sign placement and sign bands on historic structures. Again, this is within the sign band. If a building has multiple tenants, there shall be consistency in placement and size among all signs acceptable. It is recommended that sign placement be centered over building entries. In this case, you have one entry for two businesses. So the placement in the main window or the center window as the case is, is acceptable. Sign installation shall minimize damage to character defining materials on the building, acceptable. Sign design color and typography shall respect historic precedence where appropriate and shall be the appropriate scale for existing and new buildings acceptable. Sign support structures should be compatible with the building architecture and must not be overly complex or dominant in and of themselves. That's acceptable. And based on those criteria, do I hear a vote in favor of the application? I vote yes, sir. This is Martha, I say yes. Yes, and Steve says yes. So it's accepted, four votes in favor. Yay, Lauren. So this is Meredith. Because there is a, there's a recommendation on here that says that they all need to be in the sign band. So that's sort of a permit condition. Normally I would have you sign the form before we issued the permit. When are you gonna be back in the state and able to sign a form or can I scan it to you? Are you somewhere where you have access to print it out and then? No, I'm coming, I'm coming home tomorrow. Okay, okay. So would you rather email it to you or do you just wanna come into the office tomorrow and sign it? I will, I'm not gonna get into smart failure. I actually rather you email it. Okay, perfect. Nope, that's fine. We'll email it to you, I'll scan it to you and email it to you tomorrow. And then you can just sign it and then either send back an image which doesn't have to be a PDF scan just so we see your signature on it so that we can then issue the permit. Okay. Okay. Perfect. Great. Thank you, Lauren. Thank you so much. Thank you all. Have a good night. Have a good night, project. Thank you. Thank you. Bye-bye. The next application is for 15 East State Street applicant Dan Sirepress Element Real Estate in replacement of five new signs. So we have Anna Supple on Zoom. Anna, if you wanna unmute yourself and describe the project. Hi, thank you guys so much for having us. So we're doing a pretty straightforward project. Element Real Estate has acquired Heaney Realtors at 15 East State Street. They're still gonna be there, no one's going away but we just need to put in new signs that reflect the new brokerage. And so we are putting all the signs in the same place. They're all gonna be the same dimensions. The only change is the overhead sign is currently in oval and we're just gonna be putting in a rectangle but same dimensions. Same coloring. Yep, same coloring. We are removing the green but we are using the same blue, blue and gold. Are these new signs the same material as the existing ones? Yes, they will be. Good to know. There isn't a like a photograph showing what the new ones will look like up. It just goes into the place. Does anyone have any questions? We got the same colors, same dimensions, same placement. The only thing that the logo has changed to add in the element. Yeah, and really the main reason this is here is because of the shape change on the projecting sign because really if all they were doing was really changing the panel or painting over that's all the content and we wouldn't even issue a permit for that. It really is coming here because of that one, the change in shape because the locations are the same, everything else kind of fits and we can't regulate content. So, unless we had some big issue with the shape of the one different sign. I'm good with it. I don't know if there's much for you guys to do on this one. I'm assuming that change in shape of the sign was to accommodate the additional lettering and spacing. Exactly. We tried to do the oval shape just to see and it looks so awkward. So, okay. Is the bracket staying the same? Yeah, we're gonna be using the existing bracket. We're trying to make this as simple as possible. Unless anybody has any questions, comments or suggestions we can go down through the criteria for this one. The size, location, design, color, texture, lighting and material of all exterior signs within the design review district shall be compatible with the building and the structures of the site and surrounding properties acceptable. Where appropriate signing shall respect the original signed placement and signed bans on historic structures. These signs are acceptable. If a building has multiple tenants it'll be consistency and placement and size among all signs. Acceptable here is recommended that sign placement be centered over building entries. These placements here are acceptable. Sign installation shall minimize damage to character defining materials on the building acceptable. Sign design color and typography shall respect historic precedents where appropriate and shall be the appropriate scale for existing and new buildings acceptable. Sign support structure shall be compatible with the building architecture and must not be overly complex or dominant in and of themselves where again acceptable you're using an existing support for the blade sign. All in favor of the application, speak your names. Okay, yes. Mrs. Martha, I say yes. And says yes. And Steve says yes. So four to nothing in favor. Anna, because there weren't any recommendations or conditions being placed on this, I don't need you to sign the review form and we'll just get that permit out as soon as possible. Okay, great. Thank you guys so much. Appreciate it. Thank you. Have a great night. Thank you and good luck with your project. We can move forward to the next application for 138 Main Street. Welcome back to Sandy. I expected hopefully not substantial change but I'm happy to hold it away because we can hear it with everybody. Thank you. Only two companies that we are aware of themselves, these silos. So make sure you make one repeat in the microphone. There are only two companies. Maybe I should talk about it on that item. Yeah. This is the first item. So you folks were so kind to give a first glance at the bunch of things we're next to asking for for 138 Main Street. Then you weren't here last time. So I'm gonna just go over them again. So for anyone else who might be listening, but the good news was we kind of kind of began to get familiar with it last time. So what changed a couple of flip flops around last week is that we learned that this is to make energy efficient changes to the building at 138 Main Street. I told people last week that during the energy audit, the person said this was by far the worst building he's ever audited. Like a lot times worse than the worst building he ever audited. So currently it's using, I can't remember the number, but more than 6,000 gallons of oil a year to heat the building. So last week I came in with an airlock, which was approved. And this week we were kind of doing this as quickly as we can to try to make the changes this fall. So I only introduced the other changes because they hadn't been submitted in time. And now they're here. So there are two related changes and then three other things. So the first one is we now need to make changes to the boiler shed. And then the second is a pellet silo. Both of those are to heat the building with wood pellets. And the next item is condensers. We also need to insulate the ceiling of the front porch because there's a heated space above it. And then the flood vents are insulated. So the first item is unexpected. The good news that came after our last talk to you folks is that we are able to eliminate the oil tank completely. We don't need to keep it as a backup. I was really worried about finding a home for another boiler next to the old boiler because of piping, but we're allowed to replace it. So then the next problem was that the boiler is 12 inches taller than the oil boiler. And so we have to actually raise up the roof and I want to do it 18 inches just because I'd hate to move it with 12 and have it not be quite enough. So you'll see the first drawings in my application. There's some background information about the floodplain and the site plan, but then there's some drawings for the, is everyone following along with the drawings? Yeah, it's better to use. They're both in the original, but these are the new revised ones. So what goes along with this is the pellet silo. So you've got photographs of the existing boiler shed. It makes a lot of sense to keep as much of it intact as possible. So we're just raising up the roof at the boiler shed. I'm sorry, at the boiler itself, just raising up. And then at the same time, we realized we need to be able to move out the old boiler and put the new boiler in and that might happen again in the future. So we would like to make an access panel. And the thought was to kind of hide it. It's almost door shaped, but make it kind of look like shutters or something. It could be just blank. If you have any opinion, we're happy to follow that. But... Is the boiler in that rear addition? Yeah, it was built in, I think, 2001. And the reason why it's kind of tall is because it has to be above the flood plain plus a bit. So for this in the new handout I gave to you tonight, it's the same, the shed itself is the same as all of the submissions that were given last week, but what's different is the silo. So, oh, yep, right there on the site plan that you see. So I pulled this up on the side. So thank you. Here's the silo location, generally. The measurements on here are a little off because we have the new silo version. And I'm trying to remember, is the black the boiler shed? Yeah, the black here is the boiler shed. So this boiler shed is what's gonna be lifted up. So this was drawn on the site plan from when they added the boiler shed. So the boiler shed is 140 square feet. That currently exists. That currently exists, right? The roof is too low. And the roof's too low for the new wood pellet boiler. The ceiling at its highest point is only six feet, two inches tall. And the L roof that's 19 feet, that's existing, Sandy? All of it, everything else is existing. The porch, the roof, all of that parking lot, the building, there's the old carriage house is the building right down there that Meredith was pointing to. So I'm actually, so my red markings are the new overlay on the 2001 drawing that was approved by this group. The dark areas, the existing shed. Yeah, so it was the addition in 2001. And so all we're doing now is raising half of the roof up 18 inches. Half of the roof, or the? Half of the roof. So that, if you look at the drawing, she just gave you one, two, third drawing. Here's the current roof level, if I understand it. And here's the new roof level, I think, right? So the new, there's the current roof level, right? And that currently goes all the way across you, just raising it in the back. Yep. We're over this new access hall panel. Yep. That would be insulated. Is that a new, like chimney vent thing? We had to take out the old one to be able to put that access panel in. So yes, it's a new, it's actually the exact same chimney. It can be reused, it was the correct diameter. It's just being moved over and it's being raised four feet because it has actually was too short for safety. Now it's looking at the side or the rear view of that shed, where you have two different roof levels, both of them sloping towards the silo. Right. Would you rather have a single roof, shed roof to the back so that you're not dumping water and ice and snow? The plumber was interested in that idea, but there's a huge amount, the hot water heater is right next to it because it also has to be out of the flip plane. There's a huge amount of piping on that part of the roof. So when we put everything together, this is what the plumber wanted to do. Oh, okay. So all that other stuff is attached to the roof. Yeah, it'd just be a huge mess. All the copper piping would have to be removed and then come up. And I'm assuming, A, that the silo is going to be left exposed and visible, not boxed in and... That was the idea and what I submitted last time was this idea, I discussed last time was putting a lattice end panel on the adjacent porch and I submitted some street views and then I submitted a lattice sample for that. So the idea of that would be that it's screened. We had been told we could get a black silo if I can go on to that. Is it okay that you want to stick to the shed or can I talk about the silo? I'm sort of circling back to the shed. I was just... Okay, yep. So we'll come back to that. And then I guess I'm also curious and I'm sorry that I missed the last meeting. And certain there's reasons that are dictating the location of the silo versus being able to kind of tuck it into what's labeled the two-foot mark right there. There's a door there. There's a door there. That's preventing that from getting even further around. I think we have to have the door there for emergency access. It's the only access to the basement. Yeah. Yeah. So it's definitely the fastest way to get to the boiler if there were anything wrong with the boiler. So I wish it could be there. Yeah. There's also a window for an apartment right next to it. So it'll be blocking the window as well right where that little hand is. Yeah. So I wish it could fit there and the owner wanted to fit there but I think everybody agreed that that, I mean, the stairs are old, like granite bulkhead kind of stairs going down. It would be very hard to move those or reconfigure them. So the best plan seems to be to put the silo right there. Yeah. And then you were thinking the black lattice going out this way and then back? Or diagonal? We just had it on the end wall of that porch. Coming out this way? Well, just towards the wall of the building. So in other words, only the width of the porch and then it would be. To block the view like through the porch? Well, because that's where, if you look at the sequence of photographs walking down this tree, you can't really, because of the tree, you can't really see it. And so we thought we were going to get a black silo because that's what they said in Ireland that they make. And it turns out they only have green silos. So, but it can be painted. And so the assumption is that you would like the silo to be black with the black lattice to further hide it, but it could be green if you prefer. Is that the actual color? That dark green? Yes, that's exactly it. We happy just leaving it because dark green. What you can do is you can take the lattice and actually before you put it up, just spray it or paint it. I would suggest the black green. That's a color. And again, that's your choice. Make a lattice green? Make a black green color that looks really, really nice. That's the color of the lattice that I'm building on Baldwin Street. That could, that would be. It would be compatible with that green color there. And yet it would function to hide it as well as, I mean, you can attach your lattice so that's removable to access anything beneath that you need to. Is there a feed tube that goes from the bottom of the silo into the boiler? That's a really good question. I think that, yes. How do you get the pellets to the boiler? Well, the major issue is that the pedestal has to be five feet, three inches off the ground. And so because of the flood brain. And you can't, there's so much weight that you can't just extend the legs because the center part also has to be supported. There are five points of support. So the idea is to just have it enter the building and it can be vacuumed. It's a vacuum suction to get it to the boiler. So I think it will probably enter right next to that access panel. Okay. Will it be protected if there's a vacuum line going from the silo into the boiler room? Is there, I'm assuming there's a sizable tube for the pellets to move. It's only two inches. Only two inches? Yeah. And so it's going to be over most people's heads because of the base. Again, I'm just looking, do you need any protection for that? Not that it's a big issue over that tube to protect it from snow ice coming off the shed roof, which pitches in that direction. So good question. I don't know, we'll have to ask the plumber. I can always come back here with anything that needs to be further. That's pretty inconsequential because it's hidden. It's just a utility access, basically. So looking. I want to look at it in all of them so they don't have to come back. And what they do there is. Thank you. You don't need to come back for that. Protection for the tube. Well, also because of the labor shortage, trying to keep the roof changes as simple as possible. We could go the other way, but there's so little surface area on that roof, it's not a lot of dump below. So I, my hope would be that we could just do it like this and then cover it. But if the design review committee strongly would like it to be sloping in the other direction. That's more of a function of safety and functioning of the silo and boiler room. Okay. Yeah. I can't think of any of it. So the rest of the drawings that I'm handing in tonight, which you haven't obviously had a chance to look at. So this is the picture of the silo. The cut sheet. And the reason why it's bigger than what I discussed last time is they no longer have any more of these eight ton size in the United States for five tons. So there's no five tons. The only other choice would be a three ton and it's a very negative thing to have too small of a bin. Yes. Because you get way too much dust in it. It shortens the life of the boiler. So there's kind of all or nothing here. So it's... Is that a larger foot print or just all or? So in your packet, there are two examples, the low and wide and the tall and narrow. It's actually between them, both in width and in height. Okay. It's a little closer to the height of the other one, which is how it's getting more volume. But those were the two footprint options that I had closed in the packet. If you look up on the screen, there's two footprint options, the one that was in the packet that was submitted. Where there's the proposed silo square showing up against the existing shed building and it has a dotted line for the smaller, the skinnier, taller silo, and then a solid line for the wider, shorter silo. And then what Sandy just hinted us is how it's looked so that it's gonna peek out. It looks like it's gonna peek out a little further from the shed side than the skinny tall silo, but not as far as the short fact is what I'm seeing. It's like the Goldilocks version. Yes. Yes. Awesome. That's the greatest version. The skinny tall one was gonna be really tall. It seemed to me, especially once you added it, think of it as a floodplain. The only other option for outside soil silo is in the United States right now is an aluminum, galvanized aluminum silo that's round. And because it's round, it's much, much taller. It was gonna be, the silo itself was gonna be over 20 feet plus the five feet. It would have been 26 feet. And it's starting to look like, you know, the old grain silos at the end of Main Street. So we're really hoping this one will work because there's only two more of these in the United States. And Vince is thinking he'll buy both of them, one for his house and one for here. Oh, okay. Should go on to the next item. Sure. The condensers, we added to that the lattice around them after the last discussion. And there would be two condensers, one on the roof of the building and one on the side. And that, again, it's limited by the flood elevation about where it can be. I'm not sure what else we could do. We're trying to get that to be a darker color, not white against the brick. The porch roof, because Ben wasn't here last time. As far as we can tell is zero insulation in that porch ceiling, which is the floor of a heated space above. So the idea, the ceiling is almost 11 feet high. The idea is to take it out, stuff it completely full with no void, some kind of foam product, and then put the, just because of the R7. And then if we can reuse the boards, bead boards we will, but probably have to replace them, paint them the same color and put the trim back around the end as long as that can be salvaged. Then the last item is the flood vents. And this building actually does not have to have flood vents, but the engineer highly recommends it because in 92 the water did get almost to the first floor and it's a tremendous amount of pressure on the wall. So the other aspect of these is that the basement windows, quite a few are cracked and they really, some don't have any storm window. And so they're a big hole for lack of insulation. So these flood vents that we can buy are insulated and we would remove all these windows and we would put in a stud wall and insulate that and put continuous foam on the inside of that. So trying to insulate everything as well as possible. And then also at the same time, follow the engineer's advice about putting in the vents. The flood vent opens up with pressure from water pressure. Yes. And the vent is within the window opening or inside. It will be entirely, the window opens are typically 18 inches high by 32 inches wide. And these are eight by 16, but the engineer didn't want us to put more than one in per window because they want them spread around the building. Yes. So yes, they entirely would fit in, I'm thinking in one corner and then the rest would be just all painted black and we could get black vents. I think they're on that cut sheet. So the idea is to try to make it look as much like the old window as possible of just being black. And then I think it was Eric had the good idea of putting some trim around the perimeter to make it look a little bit more like a window and it's completely fine. We would probably use marine pie wood and then just use like epoxy paint. Okay. One quick question, just out of curiosity. If those vents can be opened by the pressure of water what's to keep somebody from taking their foot and pushing it in and climbing into the base? They'd have to be eight by 16 inches large. That's pretty small. Yeah. I think that's why they don't have anything larger because I wanted a larger vent, but I couldn't find any. I never thought about that till now, but that makes sense. Also, we were quite intrigued by Steve's description of what he had done of actually being able to eject water out. And we looked at that, but we can't figure out because we're not adjacent to the river or couldn't figure that one out. So also, if you keep the water out when there's a big amount of hydrostatic pressure on the outside, there's actually more pressure on the walls and Vince is hoping not to do the reinforced interior wall which I personally thought was a good idea but it's trying to, everybody makes different decisions. So the idea and everything's been cleared out of the basement already anyways. So the idea of letting it be a fill area is okay with him. And then he said, then he will use your pump to empty it out as soon as the flood is done. But they're very handy when you've got water in there and it stops coming in. And basically, if you can just take a flip a switch and just watch the water go out. Well, we just coil a hose, like a fire hose kind of thing, right at the basement door then, I guess, keep it stored there so that it could spit out when the flood goes down. Well, basically what you can do is where you put your pumps in a sump in the basement or just on the floor level at the basement. You come off the top of that where we came out with several pumps, each one of them has a two inch inside diameter pipe, PVC pipe that goes up and feeds into a four inch. So we can get like three, two inches into a four and then that four inch just goes through an event opening in the building. Okay. Saves a lot of cleanup. Event after the fact. Yeah, and we'll, I just know from other floods, studying other floods that the primary thing is to get the water out before mold has a chance to grow. So even if it's three or four days, you're starting, because it grows on the wood and you can't, you have to bleach and it's a mess. So getting it out immediately after the water recedes would be key. And turning on barn fans. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, they can't store them in the basement so, but you know, assuming that you could magically have those, but at least getting the water out would be key. Yes. Because it's also not drinking water. No. So we have been working very hard. We are now working with fire safety. So there were, I would say that I'm certain there'll be another visit to you folks and I'm sorry it's coming in pieces, but we're doing our best to get this building off of oil by the fall. And we're also now working, my draftsman actually came home from vacation early to draw this building. They measured it today. We have to have proper drawings to talk to fire safety. And all of the things that Chris pointed out immediately have already been fixed. So we're working as hard as we can, but I apologize for coming in pieces, but as we get the information, we're processing it quickly. Again, one last quick question just to reiterate. What are the locations of the compressors for the heat pump system? The compressors, not the condensers. I'm sorry, the condensers. I drew on the site plan. Yeah. So there's the silo, there's the shed that's gonna be raised. There's the roof condenser and there is the wall sort of condenser location. Okay. It's a little bit confusing that the roof one is above a two-story building on the top of a, it's a flat roof on top of a two-story building. We chose that roof because it's kind of central to the units that it would be serving, but also there is a way out that's easy for someone to go and maintain them. And then the one that's on the ground is as low as we could get it. There is a photograph showing a mockup on just a line drawing. And we're kind of limited by that five foot flood height off the ground. So it would be mounted on the wall with brackets coming back to hold it up. Yeah. Luckily there was a stretch of brick right next to the meters. The meters had also been relocated in the months after the flood. All of the electrical has been raised up to the out of the flood plain. So I pulled up here on the screen where the wall unit condenser is gonna go. It's kind of hard to see with a flashlight, but it's drawn in red where. So basically right here. Yep, and I just zoomed in so you can see it's right next to the utility meters. And I had suggested a bush that was what the squiggly green is, but I think I really like the suggestion the group made of just having a lattice to camouflage it. Right now it seems the only color that's available is white, but I have seen other brands that have brown and black. So if we can get a darker one, we will, but that's actually the hardest trade to get a quote from right now. So it's the least developed of the fonts, but. Well, whatever color you end up with, whether it's a raw wood color or a color of white color, very easy to spray paint it. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I mean, North Branch Nature Center painted there's blue. So I think Vince is happy to do whatever you folks like to keep this moving along. So if you would like it brown, a brick color or whatever. Whatever dark color you choose that makes it blend better into that space. So it's, I mean, a light color, white color, tan color is gonna stand out. So any dark color of lattice that you can surround it with is gonna make it disappear. Well, if it's more or less the same color or at least the same value as the brick, do you still want lattice around it or will that just make it more, assuming the lattice is going down to the ground, will that make it more obvious? Would it be better just to have this mounted on the wall, like the meter? That's a, I'm, I'm building, I mean, whatever you can do to make it disappear or make it less conspicuous. Okay. Whether you paint, paint the, you know. Yeah, I'm with Steve, I think these things are ugly and I hate them. And whatever can be done to be able to like, and especially on this building from such a distance. Whatever screening you use or coloring you use to make, again, to make it dark, so it just sort of goes away. Yeah. Yep. The other thing you could do would be to plant a tall evergreen. Well, so that was the squiggly tree. On the lawn outside of it, so you can get behind it to service it, but yet that would, you know, from the street, if you could plant an evergreen that screened it, so it disappeared. And again, that's just another way of screening it without messing with the unit itself. Yep. I mean, totally. Which is what add blush. The green blush again, yeah. One thing I've noticed, I walked up and down the street many times to try to figure out what I would say in presentation. And I really like the wide lawn between 138 and I'm guessing it's 140. The old camera on Patterson walk building. Yes. It's one of the few places where you get a sense of the scale of the 19th century yards going to the river. And so I wouldn't want to fill it up too much because I think that that's kind of a, it's a one of those quiet lush moments that we get in Montpelier of not being totally urban. And so many are filled, of these side yards are now filled up with parking lots that it's rare. Yeah, I agree with that. If anything I, we do, it probably should be tight to the building so it doesn't interrupt that space between the buildings. Do you think that the manufacturers will tell you that putting Gladys right up against them, they don't like that? Well, yeah, they don't want to impede the airflow through. It's very key. Pat, and you also with the meters there, people have to be able to get to those meters and all of that. So maybe a short evergreen shrubber makes more sense. A shortish evergreen makes more sense, I don't know. Yeah, I want it to be something that doesn't have an invasive root system. And again, it could be placed because of the angle from the street, it could be placed forward of those units towards the, is that a bay or is that to go around? It is a bay and that's kind of one of the issues there. So you could place it behind this window at the edge of the bay before it turns and have something tall, a little taller that would reach maybe the top of the condenser unit, but still be narrow enough so that it's not impeding the view out of the windows, but still would screen it from the... It should probably be something like a cedar that could be chopped at the top. Because I remember when I was working with the Unitarian Church, there are these scotch pines that take forever to grow, but they do grow and after a while they damage the brick. So I'm hearing that painting it would be good, just in case there's some space through so that it fades away, but it would be preferable to have some kind of natural screen there and probably ditch the idea of the lattice, okay? I think that's true. And with appreciation of your comment about the lawn because I do hear that. Something tall is just cutting that view off a bit, not large and wide, because I think what I was mentioning when I drew that large thing was a lilac. No, I didn't. Nevergreen that's got leaves on it and January feels our needles on it. So the folks would be interested in a hemlock, a short hemlock that could just be kept locked off at the right height. Either that or it gets something that's columned or that's not gonna get... Well, that was the Unitarian Church issue. Or the 10 feet, I say it's gonna limit so you won't have to cut it down. We're gonna find one. Okay, I can ask again. Okay. And then I guess maybe you spoke about it in the last meeting, but the line sets that are coming out of this thing, where are they going? The idea we were thinking is that they'll be brown and that they're just gonna run as minimally as they can along lines of the windows or the bay of the bay. They're gonna run level at some point and then go or are they running horizontal all the way along it or are they going vertical also? We haven't had that person on site yet. So we, but we wanted to get this permitted so that as soon as it's available, we can build it. The idea would be that they'll be minimal. Most of them are gonna be going to the back roof. So as few as we need in- You mean the one on the top? As few as possible going to this particular unit where people can see them. Right, I'm doing one now that has five AC unit or heat pump units going to one condenser and they all collect in the basement and then go out as one pipe. So the line sets are all coming down to almost like, it's like the reverse of a manifold and then going out but we can't use the basement. So I can't answer that right now but I do know from getting reassurances from the contractor that it will, they will be pretty small and they can be brown so that they would be minimal on the outside of the building. I think of like the gutter here is being black and the window trim wall being black. Would you black be better? I would think if you could match the window trim and that gutter with those line sets at least it would have. At least where they run up, adjacent to the gutter and the window trim but they have to stretch across their brick, brown would probably be better, right? So black line sets were vertical? If you can paint some black or something. Yeah, it's a covering. So black line sets were vertical and brown were horizontal. I mean, I'm thinking black everywhere. I feel like the brown, that's what I'm thinking. Just like you see the gutter line there like that passes over. I feel like that gutter would look weird if it were painted brown but it doesn't bother me being black. Whereas like, My stance point. Yeah, that's fine. Absolutely fine. All right, I appreciate your thinking about it. Mostly on this side of the building that was pecked on you already you're not gonna, more black light is it gonna like pop out as you're just walking by? But something that's sort of like almost kind of the right kind of brown but isn't. Yeah, I see what you're saying. Yeah. It is. Odd. Odd. A brand new color that isn't on the building. Right. Gotcha. That looks like a cover up. Do you feel that way about the condenser itself? I mean, I would also try to paint if you could paint the condenser to be similar to the window trim and just have it like be a black thing on the building. Okay, not brick color. That would be my preference. It's such a beautiful building. Is there something very gracious about the black trim? Yeah. Yeah, it is. Yeah, it really is. There are beautiful gold and dark green high. It's actually a three color scheme but obviously you don't do that to a condenser but it's really beautiful. Very dignified building. Yeah. Any comments, questions or suggestions? I did just put down a note that the heat pump condenser unit on the north side wall of the building may be either painted a dark color compatible with the brick color and again doesn't have to be a red or an orange color or be screened using a dark color lattice or screened by landscaping to help make the condenser less noticeable from the main street view. Thank you. And then again the lattice for the pellet silo can be a dark color compatible with the dark green color of the silo. And again, you're just trying to make the silo disappear as much as you can, given its size, scale. Be sort of like the elephant in the root. Anything else we should add or any other comments, questions or suggestions? I think a very good presentation and a complicated project. Oh, thank you, Aaron. Very, very thorough. And thank you for being so open to suggestions too. Oh, I appreciate that. And for your sensitivity to an important building. It's quite a challenge. My favorite is the town. I can go through the criteria for the project. Exterior design and materials of new construction or alterations of existing buildings shall be consistent and compatible with the characteristics of the existing building or other properties in the district. The removal of historic materials or alteration of features and spaces that characterize an historic property shall be avoided. Character defining features, finishes and construction techniques or examples of craftsmanship that characterize an historic building shall be preserved. There's no deteriorated character defining features here. And there's no treatment that causes any damage to historic materials. So that's acceptable. Existing buildings shall be recognized as a physical record of their time, place and use. Any new development shall be differentiated from the old but shall respect and be compatible with the massing size, scale, architectural features, detailing and overall character of the primary historic building and nearby historic properties acceptable. Location and appearance of all utilities, mechanical equipment, trash storage and fencing shall be cited to minimize adverse visual impact or adequately and appropriately screened from public view. That's acceptable. Alterations to buildings called for by public safety accessibility and fire codes shall be designed to maintain the character of the construction materials and features to the maximum event possible, acceptable. Height of building additions shall not overwhelm the primary facade must consider varied heights of existing buildings and adjacent buildings acceptable. Proportion, compatibility of relationship between width and height of facades as well as relationship of width to height of windows and doors acceptable. Rhythm, the visual patterns established by the alterations of solid walls and openings, windows and doors in the facade of a building shall create a rhythm acceptable. Roof shape and equipment. Consider similarity or compatibility with roof shapes in immediate area. Conceal rooftop equipment and features on flat roofs from high level view from adjacent public rights of way and from the ground level of any adjacent properties acceptable. Architectural features including but not limited the cornices, windows, shutters, fan lights and tabulator trim and other forms of molding or character defining detailing prevailing on the existing building shall be considered and the alteration of a building acceptable. Landscaping screening and site furnishings. Projects within the design review district and subject to the landscaping requirements in section 3203 shall consider the following. Site furnishings including fencing seating other types of site furniture visible for the street or side yards. Does landscaping obscure or undermine key architectural patterns or elements on historic buildings and mechanical equipment screening? Historic is existing historic and contributing resources such as street trees, fences, gates, walls, steps, gazebos walkways, front and side yard pattern shall be retained or restored when impacted by the alteration of a building. Walls and fences shall be compatible with the site and the building and scale traditional materials and design that reflect the period of the building and or is compatible with the surrounding context acceptable. It's all exterior. Yes, windows and doors on historic structures character defining windows and door patterns placement sizes, proportions and original features such as trims, sash and molding shall be preserved to the extent possible when preservation is not possible such character defining windows and doors must be rehabilitated or replaced in kind. Windows and doors that are not character defining may be replaced but such replacements must be compatible with the historic building style materials and architectural features. And lastly, porches and stairs on historic structures. The location of porches, ramps and stairs shall be placed in a manner that does not impact or undermine the original and significant ornamentation or detailing of the existing building. Stairs, ramps and porches shall employ suitable detailing to connect and be compatible with historic and important design features of existing buildings and new construction. Stairs and ramps shall be designed in a manner with details and materials that provide the most sensitive and compatible structure and that fits to the building design and layout. I didn't actually make any changes to where the stairs and stuff are. Sorry though. That's okay, I'll just call that not applicable. Based on that and with the last two suggestions, do I hear, speak your name to vote for the application? This is Martha, I say yes. This is Ben, I say yes. Eric says yes. And Steve says yes. So four to zero in favor. So if you could come up and sign this and that'll let us move forward with that permit. We have about nine minutes before the other meeting is supposed to start. It would be, oh, you come in, yeah. We have to do the site plan. We'll let you know when you can come and get everything. Yeah, we'll let you know. I'll email you. I'll just put a note here to email you when the rest is ready. It's okay. So we do have minutes that are here, two sets of minutes, but the thing we really need your input on is the city manager's draft proposal about parklet approval. So the city council is gonna be considering revisiting the parklet ordinance that got tweaked during COVID pandemic to reduce the approvals needed to have a parklet and loosen up what could be in the parklet. They wanna move back to the more formal parklets that are structures, not just a fence off area with seating like they have on some of the ones on Langdon street. And the city manager's proposal actually completely removes design review committee from looking at those more permanent type approvals and structures. And so we're looking for design review committee's input on whether or not they still want to have a role in reviewing parklet permits. So this is the ones that are just seasonal and take over parking spaces, up to two parking spaces per parklet. Couple of things I noticed. One is to call these parklets is a little funny because they have nothing to do with parks. Oh yeah. Don't even get into the defined terms in the community on that causes. Because trust me, I've had all sorts of discussions about that. The other thing I noticed is that there's all kinds of dates involved in this, but there's no language that says that either the permit or limit the date. Yes. Limit the dates of when the parklet can be there. Yes. Okay. It may be there, but I read through it a couple of times and couldn't find it. I think the design review of these things is very important. I do too. And again, there's the potential if somebody is proposing something before it's actually built, there's a chance for people with experience with them. I mean, you're on building experience that's considered as a valuable resource. And if they wanna come through without having to pay a fee or I mean, whatever they would like to do to expedite it if they don't want the prescribed waiting periods, et cetera, et cetera. I think it would be helpful for people to have people look at it and again, based on the experience on this committee, we could maybe make suggestions, maybe save them some money building the thing. Parklets are expensive. Good parklets are very expensive. Yes. And you wanna make sure they last and you wanna make the labor putting them together and taking them apart easy. And then you've gotta store the thing off season someplace. So a modular components is the way to do it. And I want people to take it seriously that they're what they're building and putting in the streets and making it look nice. And so I think by having the step to come see us is a... And again, if there's a way we can expedite it, so it's quick and clean. They have no objection on us. If you've been waiting periods. It's the character of that street. Yeah, I mean, it would not be a zoning permit. It would still be some other aspect of permit where there isn't the appeal period or anything like that. But DRC still only meets at max twice a month. I haven't seen it. If they're doing reasonable planning that this time review is gonna hold stuff up. If somebody wants to put it on up, they're not gonna put it up before. What's your release? They can put them up down in the May. I think so. So if they wanna come in CSE in March or April at contemplating putting something up to boost their business in the summer months, again, that we can make it quick and easy. But again, there's too much experience in which I consider to be a valuable resource. You're making all the arguments I've been making. So it's nice to hear. So that's our strong suggestion. I mean, one of the things that I think is important is that they be removed on time. They not be installed early because they do really change the streetscape. Yeah, and that I'll look back through this to make sure there is a specific window in there because that's also really, really important for Department of Public Works. Those windows are often bound by, you know, snow issues, cleaning the streets, all of that. So I'll make sure I'll double check and review it because the manager's office is taking. In addition to your comments specifically on design reviews role, Planning Department is giving a lot of departmental feedback as well. But I'll make sure to double check that. Do you want to vote on this? We don't, I don't need to vote. I just, I needed input from you. We have three minutes. Is it awful if I ask you to delay the, unless somebody has a quick motion? Has anybody had a chance to look at the minutes? Yes, and I have a change on the ones from the 20. I know we'll prove all of both spin it. Okay, well actually, you can turn the change. I'm going to put a change in the ones for the June 20th. We only had that one application, 1818 Berry Street. And right in the middle of the longer paragraph, it says the building shall have a horizontal window installed to visually replicate the double hung windows. What we said was to have a horizontal money in. Thank you. Awesome. That's all. Thank you very much. Okay, so Eric. Would that change? Do I hear a motion to approve the minutes from for June the 20th? I so move. All in favor. Aye. Aye. Martha. And 20th is approved. And how about do I hear a motion to approve the July the 18th? So moved. All in favor. Martha. Aye. I wasn't here. Okay. Wait, who's seconded that? I guess. Okay. That was a quick, quick, quiet second. Everybody's seconded. And I'm in favor. So. So 3-0, 4-0, got it. Yes. And do I hear a motion to adjourn? So moved. Second. All in favor. Aye. Aye. I mean, adjourned. And we had a minute and a half left. Thank you guys.