 Okay So I'll call the meeting to order And of course are the minutes minutes of March 20th 2018 Sir emotion I've moved to approve the minutes of March 20th 2018 with any amendments there, too Is there a second second? age one age two Minor thing on item number five at the top of the page To be consistent what it says voting unanimous it should be in parentheses five zero page three so Terry on the Actually at the bottom of page two Page three the motion by joy in the second by Ted Yeah, is that a Because we we basically move to table the discussion right we did at the end of the Number eight it talks about the motion at table. We didn't get a second actually on the motion So the motion really wasn't Play so then we had the discussion. We had a motion table, which oh well it says here There's a motion and a second So that that's why I was well The table the action on the green out Masonic Center there was a well actually there's a motion That joy made that actually was seconded by Ted But then the motion to table takes precedence over the motion that's on the right, but I just wondered So there's no note on what we did as a result so that you had the discussion and then we Okay, so that's how that I wasn't this is the first time maybe I've seen that documented this way so okay All right, I understand so yeah, I had read the rest of it I just didn't understand the way it was was written out so okay So when we have a motion that isn't followed up on We have the mother if it isn't followed up on and there's not a motion to table Sometimes we just by consensus say we'll take it up at a later time. Okay, but this one Actually, I think I asked for the motion to table all right. Yeah, okay, so there was basically no vote There was no because usually when you make a motion don't you in second it Don't you have a vote as a result of what except in the case of this because the motion the table takes precedence over at the original motion the mother the other motion just dies Okay, very I think what had happened is we had the vote and then we had this now We had the motion seconded we had discussion It was during that discussion that we decided that it was best to table. That's right. Okay. All right This will come back to us tonight Thank you. They also on page three page four other Corrections all those in favor of approving the minutes of March 20th 2018 that's corrected say aye So move on then to public comment Is there anyone in the audience who wishes to make an a public comment at this time and any item Either on the agenda or not on the agenda Seeing no hands raised we'll go on to interviews and appointments and tonight. We have three people here Seeking the position on the conservation Commission So I'd invite G Miller John Nittler and Connie LaVegetcher to come to the table and pull up on our chair if you wouldn't please and if I Massacred your name. I'm sorry So tonight I'd ask you to introduce yourselves give us a little brief outline of Your history and town and events in town and why you'd like to be on the conservation Commission And I'll start with you John. I'm John Nittler. I've lived in Willis-Ton for seven years now I moved back to the states about 12 years ago I've been here in in Wilson for seven. I still engage on environmental issues overseas I Work for tetra tech ARD as vice president for operations. And so I oversee all their programs and new business activities I guess I want to give back That's why I'm here I've worked my entire career advising national governments municipal governments Communities on how to do governance work and related to environmental issues and I would like to practice it. I Haven't had that opportunity. So that's why I'm here Thank you Thank you My name is Connie Clavitt at your and I've been a Willis-Ton resident for four years I'm a native Vermont or and lived in Vermont for most all of my life By trade I'm a teacher Though the last five years I've worked for the state's employee assistance program working on worksite wellness Programs and in the mental health field Though myself. I'm not a mental health practitioner. I do a lot of the business management for our organization But to that end I certainly seen the importance of People being out in green space and enjoying time outside and what that does for our health and well-being For the past five years I've served on the board of directors for the Center for Health and Learning Which has a strong focus on health education for our students and also more recently a specific task of Working on suicide prevention in the state and I've really enjoyed that I've taken on a number of leadership roles on that board as I've said I've done it for five years and at this point. I'm very interested in getting and spending my time that I allocate for Volunteering and service on something more geared toward something very local in my town I'm very interested in local government and when I saw this opportunity it seemed like the perfect opportunity to Pursue that my husband and I have a dog and an 18-month-old daughter and we are certainly We benefit greatly from the trail system and will have spent a lot of time outside when we decided to move here four years ago Williston was just the perfect balance for us of being close to work close to commerce But having a lot of green space to enjoy and that was very important to us Yes I'm a two-plus year resident of Williston. I Was when I was in Essex I was on the planning commission for a number of years and chaired it for a couple years and it was also on the board of the Essex technical school and So that gives me a little background in public and engagement And I As you know, I also put an application in for the planning commission. I put my I gave you my Right up for that for this position, too. There's one thing I wanted to address in that one and that is my statement of the balance between development and conservation because I feel that a Position on the conservation is more Advocate for conservation. So I feel like In this position that balance although has to be maintained. I think that's important for The committee to also be an advocate for the conservation for conservation, so As everybody here, and I'm sure your next ones from next week the next session I want to get back to the community too. I think that's important So I'll just ask the same kind of the general question What what unique skills will you bring to the table and what you know? What do you think your place will be on the conservation commission? I guess to everyone. I think my unique skill is I've worked With multiple stakeholders and multiple settings and multiple issues I have a Background and doing environmental assessments and developing environmental mitigation and monitoring plans We have to do them for all of our projects and I get involved in doing a lot of them I think you know as far as my role on that on the committee is bringing technical depth as well as the ability to Bring stakeholders together and to understand different stakeholders When I talk about stakeholders here, I'm talking about government private sector citizens community groups whatever they might be and I've worked very close to On on many projects with multiple stakeholders, so I think I have that skill and I can bring that to the table. I Think the value I would bring to the commission would be adding to the diversity of the group that's currently serving being a young female professional Growing family You know for your with Williston resident, but lifelong Vermonter. I think would Be a nice contribution to the board just my perspective of you know family and getting out and using The trails and the space Also my background in human services and Accessibility for people with disabilities. I think certainly would be a value to the board or the commission rather And you know my general interest in commitment. I think a lot of times Municipalities benefit from someone who's dedicated interested in being there And and committed to learning about the challenges that are faced of the Commission And those are all things I'm very interested in Thank you in my job I'm a business analyst for IT projects and I do a lot of analysis we deal with problems and It's important for us to be able to Analyze a situation and come up with the best solution for Whatever problem happens to be there or for enhancements that we do for our projects so I think that analytical mind is Although maybe not unique strong point for me. The other thing is is Impassionate about conservation. I An example would be recycling My wife I'm maybe they know about it. Okay, yeah, I want to get every little piece of Recyclable into the right bucket but not put things in that don't belong there And I'm really passionate about being able to maintain the natural environment as well While we're developing the town The questions I've actually got to Starve with the first one and It's it's the easy way to say it is what are we doing right in Williston and what could we be doing better a little bit? More explanation to that question would be have you had a chance to read the town plan? How the town plan outlines some of the goals? Have you had a chance to? talk with the Environmental planner or attend a meeting just help me You know Explained a little bit if you could I haven't Engaged that much with the town. I'll admit it. I have gone through the Last couple years I guess that are on the web And so I've looked at some of the issues that I think you know bringing catamount family center into the fold is a great Success Issue is great. So I think there's a lot of good things going on I see that you do or the Commission deals with a lot of Building sites and things like that and it seems like you're hitting the right targets and looking at waste water and easements and things so While I haven't I don't have a holistic picture of the town I Admit it. I do think that the issues being addressed are important ones and and that you're hitting them right Mainly what I understand of the town plans are Trying to build a sustainable Williston and a number of different regards And also I notice I know that will extend for a long time now has been trying to Allow for development for business and residents kind of in targeted areas and limit Development and other parts and just try to really focus on having somewhat of a downtown area and build out from there I Also had reviewed and just learning about the opening on the conservation committee reviewed the last number of years of notes and the trials and tribulations of acquiring the Catamount Center, which I too am very curious about as far as You know the the Sensitivities around endangered animals and species in the in Williston But also really to expand on the trail network and to preserve that large Lot of land that would otherwise may may need to be developed to meet that family's kind of financial obligations from what I understand It was interesting to me. I did get to have a nice long conversation with Melinda when I expressed my interest Melinda Scott the I Don't recall her exactile about the town conservationist or environmentalist And you know, I had mentioned that as of a voter that may represent many of our residents that don't Necessarily get to review all the select board plans the town plans and you know, you're presented as a voter with These questions on you know, do you want to vote yes or no? And I said to Melinda, I you know, I won't be surprised if you get a no vote on the Wenuski conservation issue because of the way that it's phrased and so she had kind of said yeah, they were aware You know, even though this commission has had recommended to to continue on the way the language was phrased I thought I said if I were uneducated not even reading these notes I think I might have naturally just said no because that's almost kind of like a recommendation It was the way it was worded and she said, you know, we're working with the observer and Some of the local media outlets to just try to try to provide more information about this commission's recommendations and and why Why we're going about that so again I think that just speaks to my where I sit on the board is feeling like I represent a significant portion of Williston's residents In young families and not always having the time or the availability to read through and really get all up to speed On issues and how we could put out information in a way that is easily accessible to folks I would say that they're having just read over the Conservation committee's minutes that there were a couple things. I think their advocacy Authority there was very It was good that they supported it. They really believe what they Were doing and do that support was good. I was a little bit taken back by The suggestion that was in the minutes that this let for not revisit this issue. I thought that was a little I Think it's always on the board that that any decisions that are made Should be Revisited one that's appropriate. So I would have disagreed with that decision by the board Okay My second question is I for some reason this falls on my shoulders all People who interview for a position get asked this. It's a conflict of interest question and There may be a very small to no chance there'll be a conflict of interest But I think it's still important to ask. So the question is is How would you recognize a conflict of interest and what would you do about it? And don't know who should answer that first I think it's a little less Relevant in a committee setting like this as opposed to the select board or planning commission But I think it's still important to make sure that it's known If you do have a conflict of interest and therefore I would definitely Express that I think that a conflict of interest for me is if I had if I was a Investor in Snyder company or something like that and something we were dealing with Land that they were trying to develop or something that then I think that that would be important for me to either recuse my recuse myself or to You know at least let it be known that I do have that interest That's a very important question. I'm happy to hear that that's asked. You're like the first one Yeah, I mean you might feel on the receiving end is on the hot seat, but at the same time It's very important particularly with this commission What I would understand what I understand conflict of interest to be Particularly in municipal government and volunteering on a committee that may make Decisions related to development plans or not or easement plans or not Would be you know if In this case myself or any individual Would gain to benefit from the decisions that would be voted on would gain financially relationship-wise or otherwise Either directly or indirectly We in human services you work with conflict of interest all the time so You know just being genuine with your interest to do that What's right for the municipality and not one's own self-interest? and To just to be honest and to name that when it is an issue I pretty much agree with what's been said We deal with conflict of interest interest quite often in the work that I'm in And I think as long as you're transparent and honest and and bring issues forward to the appropriate authority whether it's Richard or the commission's lead You know, I think as long as you're And Good thank you for the questions and we appreciate you coming in tonight willingness to serve and Hopefully in two weeks and we'll make a decision. I hope at that time and we'll be in touch. So thank you very much. Thank you Yeah So moving on to the catamount license agreement will do that and the planning commissions has has asked that we take up the Unified development bylaws after this so we'll go a little bit out of order Not that we're necessarily you know it or anything but anyway welcome Kate and Melinda With the board's permission, I'd like that actually have Okay, a little bit of presentation because they're I think it was Recent asked for kind of Overview We struggle to put it together and then Eric has put something together It's all let him describe what he's done and there's any questions Hopefully that will help kind of frame the issues So including the board packet is a diagram I put together ages here and Eat Melinda the jump in if I miss a detail or something's I don't capture right here so tried to look at this a complex transaction a lot of actors and You see a lot of this flow will likely it will take place out the closing on paper As things are exchanged but just to get a visual of kind of how this is the mechanics of it So we think we've got two parcels the McCullis land 376 acres in the pages land 17 acres the trust or public land is going to acquire those properties Create a new parcel of 393 acre town for us At that point they're all they're going to put a conservation easement on that new town forest parcel And then transfer the conservation easement to be held by the Rotland Trust and not housing conservation board They'll hold the restrictive covenants on that conservation easement So that's easement piece. So the property piece is what the town will be acquiring Kind of the second half here from arrow down from the trust or public land The town will acquire what they call restricted fee ownership and To acquire it the town has to follow some certain conditions of sale And that'll kind of pull on the second page here as I kind of zoomed in look here You'll see the conditions of sale box brought in here And the sum you can think of us as it's kind of the punch list for the board these items to get worked out before this would go to closing So part would be the purchase and sales agreement It's going to be acquired from The trust or public land at this point. So what the financial piece is going to look like The money flow and the conditions set forth one of the major condition is the conservation easement Which is being which is going to be held by the Land Trust and the housing and conservation board the town needs to Agree to the restrictive covenants put in place on this easement And this is something the board saw I believe last last fall some point of first draft of this So pieces of the conservation easement are the forest management plan Which the catamount committee has been working on over the past several months and will be taken to the board for review this spring and Then that's a required condition of the conservation easement Then of the management plan the license agreement we're discussing some more tonight is ancillary to it It's an appendix of the management plan. It's a component of how The lands can be managed how the uses are going to take place So that's why I've kind of got the town forest parcel We've got the management plan in a box embedded there in a license agreement embedded in a box there Select for approval for all these would need to take place So everything's in place for the closing to take place that point because they're conditions for the transaction to go through Hope that could be helpful if you take questions be able to folks here too. What kind of timeline are we on? What's that look like now? We're hoping to close by the end of June if we can work out a couple issues and close up our fundraising but we're not We don't know whether we can make that it might be too ambitious, but that's what we're shooting for if you don't make it are the repercussions or it just it Extends the time frame It's the end of our quote our fiscal year and trust public lands fiscal year. So there's repercussions for me personally But not any repercussions for the land. We do our option agreement with the McCullough's still go through the beginning of next year There was one of the large grants the 80,000 curig Green Mountain Grant through the Nature Conservancy They like us to close by the end of this calendar year so that is a Deadline with one of the funding sources We set right now at a point where the town Needs to spend the extra 200,000 as far as the town's timing we actually would prefers maybe a week after July 1st would work better for us, but we can make it work before Money's available right But right now the art do we think we're going to have to spend the money or do we have grants to cover? You're talking about the 200,000. Yes. Yeah, like actually that's a question, right? That's that's one thing I wanted to bring up tonight is you know We have shaken all the trees of all public and private grants and as I explained to the board Was that January? last fall The the land and water conservation fund stateside grants the state gets federal funding every year to Grant out to municipalities to focus on recreation type properties and facilities and because of staff capacity at the state and because The the grant pot isn't that large they choose to do it every other year So this project is kind of right in the middle of two grant rounds So one thing that you're allowed to do is request a waiver of retroactivity from the National Park Service, which says you can close and then apply for the grant after Closing after the town takes ownership of the property And then you would basically be refunded that extra 200,000 assuming we get the grant and trust publicly And is happy to work with you to apply for the grant in February 2019 I served on the committee for the state that judged last year's grants And I'm very familiar with kind of what type of projects. They are looking for this is pretty much spot-on for their goals And the state coordinator of that grant program also thinks it's it's very appropriate request They're gonna have about six hundred eight hundred thousand available in the next upcoming grant round and I Definitely a reasonable request Okay, so we will use the town money up front because of your cycle situation and Potentially we could get that back after the fact. Okay, so that's my request for the town to put in six hundred thousand at closing with the intent and Of getting two hundred back to put back in your conservation fund to use on other Future projects Was that always the plan Rick is it is at the right the right magnitude? So we always plan four hundred thousand with an option for an additional two hundred based on the grant situation Of course one of the questions I have is you would just distribute this little Accounting of all the fundraising and it's amazing all the different sources. You're drawing up on that's wonderful But it appears that you're still about 200 Little over two hundred thousand dollars short. Yes, and we have a great fundraising committee That is working with us on We're in the quiet phase of the fundraising right now and reaching out to some larger donors all around Chittenden County and beyond We actually just got a really great gift this week from New Hampshire and then hopefully in The beginning of May is when we move to the public phase of the fundraising And that's when you will all and the general public will hear a lot more about it we'll be reaching out to all Previous catamount outdoor family center members to all members of Richmond Mount Trails to members of front Fellowship of the wheel To members of Green Mountain Audubon all the people kind of that love the property and That's kind of when the regular community can kind of participate in that in the larger We we hope we think we can get that 200 between now and and June So show you on then to the before we do Kate You might have it's okay. I've asked a couple questions about this We just received it so so I haven't had time to really digest my fault. No, no, no I didn't mean it like that. I just it's why I have questions as opposed to had I read it. I might not I'm on on page 2 and it mentions the 79% fundraising to date Then down below that it lists pending or anticipated and my question is is though are those pending and anticipated? Included in the 79% or not included no 79 is what we have totally secured Okay, it does not include the extra 200 that we just spoke about okay, so That's a very good sign then as I read this I'm looking for confirmation on that Do you mind me asking a couple questions about the expenses? I'm not challenging. I just would prefer to understand The first the second one is staffing and I'm just curious Which entities that staffing refer to that's just for public lands. So that's all my time our attorneys time, okay? and and then down below Indirect what would be some of the indirect type cost because it it's a little bit higher than I had anticipated it might be so sure So the way our organization does it as which is similar to a lot of other nonprofits is we put 15% on all private gifts that come in towards a project and that goes to indirect for the kind of organization as a whole to keep the lights on and and programming and and Staff that aren't directly associated with a project budget. Okay, so that's 15% of the That's 15% of the private gifts that come in okay, we don't take that off of Okay, okay, I think that was about it good. Thank you But so let's go to the license agreement We had I think three areas that we were asking you to take a look at and come back with Some recommendations. So if you proceed with that So you had asked us to Try and tighten up the language and make some revisions on the license agreement And starting with the with the term and and how So we made a revision or that we're hoping will be Acceptable So it says basically we've Crossed out the notice In the first sentence and Conditions with any mutually agreed to amendments For successive 10-year terms and crossed out which shall be renewed at the option of licensee Provided that the licensee is operating the property Consistently with the terms of this agreement and the town consents to such renewal And then crossed out the part that said which consent shall not be unreasonably withheld And then and then the last sentence I crossed out there after I just wrote the parties agree to work in good faith to Negotiate further licenses Any questions about the revisions It's not a it's not a contract if it doesn't have where for it Yeah, whatever you whatever you Okay So the next You'll go to Page eight So there is a question about the insurance and we just under section 13 Just simply stated licensee shall maintain general liability insurance Reasonably acceptable to the town and make shall make the town additional insured and lost pay on such policies and then crossed out All this stuff about altering or terminating coverage And then the amount and types of coverage shall be reviewed by the licensee in the town on an annual basis as part of the annual plan And then we added in clause Liability and indemnity And that clause came from a previous draft And had been inserted by the lawyer the town's lawyer Joe Fallon So I just simply took it back reinserted it into this agreement and so If you think that's that clause is or that section is acceptable And then before you are I'm sorry Before we move off a page eight, and maybe you're not done with this issue But I'd like to talk about the part that appears to be inserted by I Guess the owners of cat amount. Yeah, and I was going to go to that next. Okay. Sorry. I wanted to Finish it in sort of a sequential No, that's all right. So so After we made revisions we sent the agreement Back to the other parties to get their input and so the cat amount outdoor family center added Letter under letter e above that insurance section Saying if after the date of this agreement There is an expansion of the use of the property due to adoption or revision of the land management plan That creates the possibility of greater cost or liability on the part of the licensee in parentheses such as allowing horses or dogs on the property The town agrees to be responsible for any additional cost or liability so We had a conversation about this Rick and I and Eric and and felt uncomfortable about that clause and and I think that We're we're recommending that that be taken out because basically that is already covered under the Section dealing with the management plan and maintaining and amendments to the management plan in other words Any amendments to the management plan that that have an effect on the cat amount, you know that restrict their operations Have to be you know vetted with them and and negotiated. So there's already a process for negotiation And we could simply add You know a clause under that section Just saying I think now it says if it causes any if it restricts the use their uses in it or operations in We could simply add a clause just saying Or results in additional costs or something like that to that effect So that's The discussion we just had still I still have the general issue doesn't feel like We're spending you know, we're spending upfront six hundred thousand dollars potentially of town taxpayer money and I feel like We have to now negotiate with another group on the town town's use of the property and What I heard before was well, it's the town's the select board's decision Which is really the residents right the residents like the select board It Really should be the town and the residents deciding how to use property that they pay for with their dollars, right? We shouldn't have to negotiate with a third party It just feels like we're giving them too much say I mean if we we want to use a particular group as a management group, I think that's great I think we should have the the ability to choose though who does that management and We as a town we should be setting Down the guidelines as to how we want to use the property, right? You're going to give us some recommendations I think at some point and From those recommendations we decide, you know How Why you just spoke it's it sounded like you're telling me that we've for instance this dog issue Not taking one side or the other but if if the town's people wanted to have dogs I think what you just said and correct me from wrong that we'd have to negotiate with the catamount family center if We wanted that to be a use of the property for people won't say for people walking dogs and some part of the property Is that what I heard? Well, I mean I think that If you look under This where's that section I guess it's before The section community forest plan and conservation easement So Yeah, we there is a negotiation on page four You're right that there is a Negotiation process in that and you know you're you're right that they the catamount Outdoor family centered Does sort of Have like an amount of leverage in this don't think they should though. Well, should they that was That was from the very outset other project one of the goals of Protecting that piece of property was you know for all of the Values that they bring to the table and for all the things that I I attended all of those meetings I mean, I religiously I attended those meetings that we Certainly there was a lot of discussion about Potentially using or wanting to use The catamount family center. I don't I'm not using the correct term I'm sure for the group that does this the nonprofit, but There was no discussion that one of those meetings that it will be it must be This is a condition of and this was just new news to me The first time you brought this up, so It was actually a surprise so and then to have them in there for ten years and And I'm not an attorney, so I apologize for if I say anything wrong here, but when it says In terms of the tenure tenure terms Successive ten-year terms, so I don't know if that means something The licensee shall have the opposite renew this license blah blah blah for successive ten-year terms provided that The licensee is operating the property Consistently with the terms of the agreement To me it sounds this I know they took out some things, but it sounds the same as it sounded before That they have the right to continuously manage this and the town's at a position Purchase this property and you know with taxpayer money to negotiate with It as a representative of residents, I don't feel comfortable with us, but I guess we're a team. That's why There may be a different way of looking at this and that one section just talked about does include the wording that the town Would have to consent to such renewal But the way I'm looking at it is a little bit different And I understand that this commits to a specific group which I Prefer not to have seen as part of this. Yes, right, but it is It is a requirement that the McCullis have set down, but the way I look at it is they're providing a service of Operating this facility with all the different Programs that they they offer from mountain biking to the running cross-country running and cross-country skiing and I think that the citizens in town want to see continued activities and programs and So rather than have the town hire a bunch of staff. I think it kind of makes sense for us to contract that out In the future regardless of whether it's with this group or another group And so whatever group we're going to contract out with we're going to have to negotiate the terms of whatever We want them to do And that's exactly the point was There what they're asking is not Unreasonable you may not like the fact that that's the group that's doing it But whoever you contract with you're going to have similar stuff Yeah, I don't think I don't I guess I don't as a business person myself and doing contracts on a continuous basis for a lots of money Usually, you know The person you do the contract with is the person that's doing providing a service for you at the terms that you set Or the terms that we would set They usually don't have for instance have I asked for a Semiconductor with XYZ. They don't come back and say well, I'm going to give you one with EGD and let's negotiate that It's like well, no, it's it's XYZ and that's what we asked for and that's what you can provide or I'm gonna go to vendor B Or vendor C provider owns the property that you want. They won't we they will not They don't have to sell it to us they can sell it to the developer 27,000 houses on it if they want to I don't think So you may not think but that it's also a light that's a reality So if you want to have this work then the best thing is to try to negotiate it with them with terms that you can all accept Sure. No, I agree. Well, and that's I think That's what I'm trying to get to so So I mean it is a valid point I get your point it happened last time when I was I didn't realize that there was only one Entity that we were for lack of better words negotiating with it, but that's the reality of this situation if we want Cat amount to be preserved. We have That only that option of of working with this one entity. I think it's a good entity. Don't get me wrong But I don't believe but in a whole nother thing too with this I mean we've asked for some things and you've come back and they've been accepted and they've been in there So I also think They're trying to bargain in good faith And there's something to be said for that I mean we were asked for some very specific things and I'm looking at and seeing them I've got one comment as we get to page 10, but so far they've done what we asked And we don't I would agree with the town on this one. I don't like section E. I would have that I would ask that that be taken but Just hopefully quick follow-up question this this discussion about use to me It would be in an inaccurate if that discussion did not include There's going to be some restrictive covenants on this land that in themselves are going to restrict use of this land And those will be permanent restrictions on use Okay, just want to make sure those would be it for development. I think it could be I assume motorcycle Not allowed But I think those things I mean that's yeah, I mean I was looking forward to the Williston mud bog in a mud bog, but I Don't think that's going to happen Sorry, I digress. I think we've covered everything except the one the last one on page 10 Okay So the under section 23 termination Wanted to tighten up the language on that and So what we did was just at the very end and see so All right, I guess I'll read the whole thing either party shall have the right to terminate this license at any time if the other party fails to comply with the Conditions and requirements hearing Following a breach of this agreement written notice of the breach shall be sent by the non-breaching party to the breaching party and The breaching party shall have 30 days from the date of such notice to cure such breach Provided however that if the breaching party commences good faith efforts to cure the alleged non-compliance And such non-compliance cannot be cured within such 30-day period such non-breaching party shall have An Additional reasonable period of time that is mutually agreed upon by the parties to cure same So you fixed it and then they ended it So I don't like the last sentence. That was exactly what I didn't want in there So you guys fixed it with your with your with what you did and then when they edited it They put it right back in in different language I don't want the reasonable time period in there because that just leave that just leads to litigation Quite frankly, I mean I liked your 30 days is great But that's what I would be sticking for is that if you don't cure it You don't fix it. It's not a reasonable amount of time take for us to keep coming back saying fix it You have a cut-off date for when you have to fix it. Um, but I have a question though. What if Do you know that thing you argue that for forever? We've both done it. I just don't like that whole mutually agreed upon reasonable time period thing Sorry Well, I think when we were discussing this We did think of a situation. Well, what if it's the town? That's the breaching party and what if we can't? cure the breach within 60 days or whatever amount of time it is and and just like also Yeah, I mean we definitely struggled over how to revise this and what is a reason what is a reasonable amount of time like what should it be Another 30 days should it be three months? I don't know it's in the one thing to consider here is weather and conditions that you don't if something is wrong with a particular trail or System and it's in the middle of mud season. You don't necessarily want them to go out I get that and I write that all the time and stuff that I'm doing. Maybe there is some tighter language Ted that you can think of it goes. I totally get it if you can't fix this until May 1 which happens to be 45 days after your 30 days There's got to be a way we can word that succinctly so it's not a mutually agreed upon a reasonable thing. It's a I'll come up within a second Don't have to do in the second, but we would like it soon I'll come up with something as you guys continue the discussion and there was one other Edit that cannot made on page seven I think they're both very minor and and more for clarification, I think they Everybody did one point it out this Set for the annual plan and then down later similar section 14 of this agreement So section 14 that is referring to is that the Do section 14 or liability? Yes wonder how about this Accept a such breach cannot be fixed within 30 days that upon such date as can be documented for completion still leaves it open a little bit, but Ted maybe you can add something in there that Closes it up a little bit more Except a such breach cannot be fixed within 30 days that upon such date Thereafter is can there's your thereafter as can be documented for completion So in which you got it you got to give me some documentation. That's going to show me how long it takes She's right. It happens in January. You can't fix it till May 1 That's a very reasonable understandable reason for why you have to have it extended. I don't know that your perfect language, but See what I'm trying to do Okay Say the same thing as what's there It's it's it's for me as an attorney. I don't like the reasonable period of time language Because because it's And you can sit there and argue for a very long time about what you mutually agree upon But if you document something I guess I I'm trying to understand if you're documenting it saying we can't fix it in January Because there's frost on the ground, but we can get it done by May 1 because that's the next reasonable date That is a timeline that's doable versus sitting there going well May 1 doesn't really work Let's talk about June 1 and you get into this big discussion that goes on for too long I'm just looking at that from the standpoint if you just let them set a date We no longer have any agreement or disagreement to the date. So I guess Trying to understand what what that would do, but again, I'm not an attorney We'll see this again when they figure out some other language for that particular one and May I don't want to put words in your mouth, but are you getting close? I think you're really really close. I mean you guys did everything else We wanted to do and I may be the only one if you guys just agree with me speak up Well our trust Republic lands contract with my colors Had set some dates for when we would have the license agreed upon by all parties and we've passed that date three times I already and had contract revisions. So we we were trying to get it done by April, but we can get another extension if regardless of whether you did anything with my little clause the two purple clauses I think are that one the one insurance causes a big one for all of us So we'll look forward to the next next meeting we have the language from Okay Good, thank you. Thanks. Thanks. So the Planning Commission has asked that we move up the discussion on unified development bylaws to next and So we'll go item number nine on the agenda and Ken Velovo is here to once again lead us through the the updates and is quickly as possible, but Yes, okay. Thanks, Terry So with me is Matt Belanger. I think you all know and The reason why I want to have Matt come is that he and Some of the other members of the staff in the office did the lion's share of the work on this It's a sort of a big process to work through the entire document But essentially what you have in front of you is there's a collection of what we consider to be minor changes some of them are Typographical some of them are simply swapping out the name of the new town plan for earlier additions of the town plan things like that Some other things that may be a little bit larger than that Changes of a few words that over time we felt were would help the document to Read in a more clear fashion and then there are some things some also some things that we were Requested to put in the bylaw like for example There's this this height language having to do with the the FAA With the approach to the airport and there are a few items which could be summarized under the words of beer barns and chicken Chickens which are are a little bit larger in terms of what what the impact on the bylaw is so But but that's what essentially what you have is is is within that collection of all of those things So we've what we've provided for you is there's a memo which is a very brief summary In addition to that there's the report that we're required to prepare by statute and then we also prepared for you this Kind of summary table Which just shows you all of the various things that we changed within that and then we also provided Access to the entire document. So whatever level of detail you want to drill down into the proposed changes It's all there. So I think probably if you just touch upon the Significant ones that tonight You're out. All right So taking the three biggest ones in the order that they show up in the bylaw The discussion that Ken summarized under beer Has to do with the accessory sales and accessory food and drink sales for food and drink manufacturers in industrially zoned parts of town This is something that the board addressed a few years ago in a smaller way Occasioned by the request of some of our local craft brewers to be able to have accessory food sales Along with the sampling service that they provide at their breweries the ability to serve 60 ounces of beer in one large pint glass as opposed to serving it as a sample flight is in part predicated Upon the ability to also provide food and at the time a few years ago We did not have a provision that would let a beer brewer also have a essentially a miniature restaurant Which would then grant them the ability to go for a license that would let them serve a pipe of beer So at the time the Planning Commission and the select board worked on some changes to the bylaw that did allow Some accessory sales of that manner Provided some fairly strict limits on the size and percentage of an operation that could be Dedicated to that and also was a little bit unclear about what that was a percentage of So if you followed the observer the development review board recently Was dealing with a proposal and the applicant was saying well your language says percentage of the building I'm one tenant in the building I'd still like the percentage of the building to dedicate to my accessory sales and you know We said to the board we haven't administered it that way. We've been more conservative with it What do you want to do in the drb said, you know, we think the plain language is is quite limiting here And that the avenue to change things is really to change the bylaw. So that's what this was all in response to Very briefly What this does is for a food or drink manufacturer in the industrial zoning district where we don't normally allow Restaurants can dedicate 30 up to a absolute maximum of 2000 square feet of their operation To the accessory food and drink sales essentially a miniature restaurant They are also allowed regardless of size percentage relationship up to a 500 square foot Outdoor seating area This is somewhat similar to the proposal one of our craft brewers had put in front of the development review board And was not able to obtain approval for under the existing This is a little bit less than what they were asking for but it's fairly close I should note that this bylaw set of collected amendments was transmitted to you Under a five to two vote by the planning commission There was some disagreement about the changes that were being presented to you And that disagreement was about this particular provision. So there were some concerns on the part of the dissenting members about Having the outdoor service was that too much of an expansion? Was it too much of a restaurant and a little bit about the size as well and just how mixed Industrial and commercial Really ought to be That said it's in it's in front of you with the percentages and numbers I quoted to you I'll pause there for questions before we do chickens or or barns Which is this part of the uh Of the while I change so it's a maximum of 30 percent of the area of the Of the tendency within the building so for they have 6,000 square feet. They could have a 2000 square foot Right drinking and Eating facility correct. So that's a good size restaurant Isn't it I mean that's that's a Site I'm thinking 2000 square feet. That's a pretty sizable Area well, we took a look at the footprints of some of the actual standalone restaurants in town The smallest thing that's close by footprint would be something like mo's It's pretty close to 3000 square feet Your standalone restaurants like chilies or longhorn or texas roadhouse are closer to four four and a half So we we thought a little bit about that. Okay There was a very vigorous discussion about this with the planning commission and what what those caps might be and You may recall it was just a couple years ago where we allowed the restaurant With the the food or beverage manufacturing for the first time And and again it was in response to the emerging craft brewing industry and You know as part of that discussion You know a lot of the members of the planning commission talked about their own experiences and you know either You know with themselves their friends and family going to various You know craft brewing facilities and and what they saw as some of the elements that helped For our facility to be successful I have to admit, you know, maybe I should recluse myself because There are two establishments. I'm aware of in town. There might be more and and I guess I'm asking the question of I'm I'm I'm not sure what the liability the negative aspect of allowing this change to occur is both from its impact on that particular zoning district in town and um Also the impact of of the size, you know, let's just say I said I don't think 2000 is big enough Maybe it should be more. I'm just trying to understand What what the negative impacts could be And and quite personally again, maybe I'm biased here and maybe I should recluse myself but these seem to be, you know, if we're looking for a vibrancy aspect of A benefit to the town you're bringing additional vibrancy to town these seem to be My opinion working quite well One of them is to the point of getting frustrated. I am because We go there and it's too crowded So I guess I'm I'm trying to figure I'm trying to figure this out if you don't mind Does that make sense? Yeah, in fact, some of the language that we worked into the bylaw cites to a couple sections of the town plan And sort of presents this idea as Intention between them. So there are things in the town plan about vibrancy and particularly about economic development flexibility of uses There are also things in the bylaw about or rather in the plan about really wanting to focus the most intense things And the things that are most likely to contribute to a design conscious pedestrian friendly town center in the growth center Which is not where the industrial zoning district is That's the that would be the point, right? So when you wouldn't allow a restaurant to open up an industrial sector, so you The people in the restaurant area, I would think might be a little frustrated if you set up a place I don't know off industrial app That turns into a 2000 square foot bar and restaurant takes business away from Whoever it taps corners. Well, they can't set up a competing location cater to that crowd there so But I don't know if that's And I I I kind of get that on the other hand we don't allow These micro breweries craft breweries to probably locate into the the village section of town to draw the excitement there Or or that are there Places where we want pedestrian traffic. Well, right vibrancy. So there's an issue we say We realize you're you're creating this Vibrant, you know type of atmosphere that people want to go to but we're not going to let you put it where we want that Vibrant seed to be Does that make sense? Well, no, I guess because one you're talking about a manufacturing location So you don't want to put a factory in the middle of your taps corners shopping center area I'm guessing the craft breweries would resent being referred to as a manufacturing facility right But that's that's kind of what they are. I mean, they're they're actually uh, they are commercial Commercial but but yeah, and and the bar section might not be right You know giving giving shots or or you know small glasses of beer But the rest of it is really manufacturing. It's bottling. It's you know, it's I'm getting the point about, you know, we really want our Our urban area to be you know to be where things happen But it's kind of like on the other hand if If it's happening somewhere else because the industry is creating this environment where it happens I guess I'm kind of wondering why not What's the downside? I guess maybe just to follow that's what I'm asking What is the downside? Is there is there a problem with the validity of your zoning? Laws if you start this mixture of things Does anybody else other towns? How do they handle this? We're all we're all wrestling with the same The same difficult situation. Uh, in fact Last fall I was at a statewide planning conference and Myself and paul connor who's the plane director in south burlington were talking with This professor from out in ohio specializes in that What a career specializing in the studying of the production of craft beer It's a but but we were talking about how this is, you know, we don't We're all struggling for what's a good way to deal with that and and in fact What we have done here in our own office and what we've heard anecdotally the other people have done is When we've been searching the most for clarity in administering things sometimes we've had to Sort of make it up or sort of read between the lines to what's implied in the regulations until we're able to Get greater clarity. So we're all out here on the cutting edge on this stuff. Um, it is it is evolving and You know as uh as successful as the the brewers here in wilson have been and some of the others, you know in the region These are still relatively small entities. I mean, they're not They're they're not at the size of anhyzer bush Um, so they're they're they're pretty small and um, they rely on the revenue stream that they generate from being able to sell directly to consumers and the The excitement that they can generate from you know, people who are able to go and they get to talk to the brewer and they get to Take a picture send it back home of here. I am up at you know, burlington beer, which is really in wilson Going to Somewhat like going to nap a valley and going to the wine tasting room and giving the tour of the But it's it is evolving and Uh, you know, this is really this is our second pass at it in you know in about two years And you know, we thought we had a fairly good hand one a couple of years ago And but we had we had some understanding when we did the town plan Um, and we were talking about economic development And one of the things that was talked about was that we needed To try to be open and flexible for not just thinking about sort of manufacturing In a traditional sort of way, but there are these sort of new evolving things Like the craft beer industry, um, which is really, you know, kind of You know on steroids here in vermont. We are one of the epicenters of this In in the country and to try to be open and flexible and Try to adapt to it as it unfolds The statistic I hear is per capita vermont has more micro breweries in it I don't know if it's wonderful not it just what it is. It seems like it's I'm not complaining. I need further questions on this particular item for them Yeah, I guess I just don't understand what the downside is if there's any any at all Well, two things that I would mention, uh, terry one is Um, you know, so the planning commission did have a really vigorous discussion about You know, is it 20% is it 30%? What's that percent and Um At 30% is that the right number? You know time will tell but there was a big discussion about that As part of that and I think this goes to some of your questioning, which is that You know, how does that potentially impact other things? Whether it's in the existing restaurants in tap corners How does that impact the goals of our land use plan? Which is to try to Concentrate that stuff in the tap corners area as much as possible. And then the other would be So even though this applies to industrially zoned properties because of some of the oddities of our zoning map And I know I've mentioned this a few times to you Um We have areas with industrially zoned property that are not that far away From uh residential Areas and so that that represents I think a potential a potential down uh downside Burlington beer for example, you know the backside of Burlington beer is you know, the edge fitness center And it's not a residential neighborhood there But you don't have to go that far up the street and south brown L road and there is you know, a residential land area in there So that's that's certainly another Another consideration that you know, we want to try to guard against to some extent Just one last question. Have you thought about? when Two years from now and Jeff can't get in the door because 2000 square feet are full And we're back here again. I mean, what's the what's the solution? What would be good question? I think it becomes a decision and what are you a manufacturer or a restaurant? So We've got answers will answer it for itself And that's always been a key part of this is that it it has to be accessory To something that's a bona fide manufacturing You know, we um, we've had discussions with folks for example who they wanted to have Uh, they wanted to have a bakery and they wanted to sort of Locate in under under this section of the bylaw And as we sort of teased it out in the discussion What what we found out what they really wanted was they wanted to have you know a cafe where they sold You know pastries and breads and things that are really small scale and that yeah, they make it in the back But they weren't really a commercial scale bakery So what we're saying is yeah, so if you know if you're somebody and you're baking bread or rolls or You know pastries cakes And you're distributing and you're selling them to To retail outlets or maybe you you prepare them for restaurants and things of that sort And you have a small area in the front where you're able to sell directly to consumers That's very different from You're just a bakery and that's all you're doing is selling to consumers And maybe you you you have a little small business where you sell to You know you smell you sell to other retail outlets But the core of your business is retail and that's I think is always the the key distinction there I guess I can see now why the when you think about a manufacturing facility Is now serving That seems like a big big area Like if I think of the wineries in napa Yeah They're pretty large scale and the tasting room is you know No bigger than maybe this room and this would be a huge one for most of the wineries, but and it's capped at 2000 square feet So it's 30 percent or 2000 square feet whichever is greater. So so if you had you know, let's say You know one of these one of these brewers got really big in there in a 20 000 square foot Building they're not going to be able to have a 6000 square foot tasting room So they'd still be that there's a there's a you know two ways in which it's capped there Ken can leave us his phone number for when we have two years from now to We won't have to have a phone number. We just have to go to one of these breweries this favorite one and find them I'd be glad to do some field research for you Yeah What's next on the yeah, okay So in the order of larger changes we would skip into chapter 20 residential improvements. This is where Um, the bylaws piece of any amendments related to chickens resides so Little context where the bylaw sits today on residential parcels that are Um One acre and larger there are provisions allowing for the keeping of livestock Including chickens on what are otherwise considered to be residential properties. So if you you know, you have a residential property It's bigger than an acre You might have chickens. You might have a goat You might have any number of other animals that are not considered normal domestic pets But if you have less than an acre of land, you can't have any of those things per the town's zoning What the proposed change would do is it would exempt female poultry i.e. chickens not roosters From the one acre rule So All of the other provisions that are in the bylaw Including things about you know dust noise odor Things like that would still apply In regards to structures i.e chicken coops This amendment would Make them subject to the normal setbacks that would exist if you were just building a backyard shed So based on the baseline zoning district generally that means 15 feet in the rear and 10 feet on the side yards in the rzd and vzd where this would be most likely to to take place And that's really that's really it in terms of what happens In the bylaw One acre limit goes away again only for chickens There is some language about the setbacks and there's some reinforcing language about the other provisions all still applying regardless of whether you have an acre or less And this is obviously in anticipation of the town possibly taking on some finer Regulation in particular of backyard chickens through an ordinance more Keyed into health and safety and administrative matters related to that So we're going to be discussing a particular An ordinance later on tonight regarding this And what happens if we decided tonight and not to do an ordinance would we not want to do? We would not to want to do the bylaw change perhaps So there would be there would be some added permissivity In the town as it relates to chickens if you were to adopt the bylaw change and not adopt the ordinance That said in the time we've been here the last 10 years I don't believe we've taken a single chicken complaint Is that correct? Well, we've had some chicken calls And they they they they seem to invariably stop short of a complaint they ask for information And But they don't actually formalize a complaint and we don't engage in zoning enforcement Just on an inquiry for information if somebody were to complain we would you know We would look into it and intervene as appropriate it was appropriate, but I guess your question terry Um, you know the select board could do a variety of things one is you could approve what has been proposed here from the planning commission And approve some variation of what eric is going to address later on You could Approve this in the bylaw and not approve the piece that eric is is going to talk about later You could not approve that and you could not approve this So in my view you you have all three of those options available to you Um, you know what matt's getting at is if you were to exempt the female poultry as proposed here in the bylaw Um, I think you'd have to sort of judge. What's the What's the element of risk that we would run as as a town that that would somehow create a problem? Any other questions regarding this I just yeah, did you have any was there a discussion on this in terms one way or the other good bad indifferent? Within the commission. That's worthy of noting But it was it they nobody had a real problem with us I think it's fair to say that the commission was in support that it didn't really it wasn't a good zoning Wasn't a good place for it to be and of course staff was in support of that My my only concern was if an ordinance does not pass in the town and you leave this as it is in your Plan and in your bylaws I think it leaves a door open that you may or may not want open And these leaves you open for challenges Something just to think about in general Well, yeah So today if someone on a lot smaller than an acre was keeping chickens and they were causing a problem and there was a complaint The zoning enforcement would be rather simple because you'd say you're keeping livestock on a lot smaller than an acre That's clearly not allowed. You need to stop With an exemption as this is drafted What you would have to do is the zoning administrator if you were enforcing it under zoning is say You're creating a nuisance as it's been discussed in the bylaw. So the applicable language is there Um, but it might not be as simple as just looking up looking up the lot size So is now the time or is it later tonight to talk about the female versus female chickens versus just chickens and um Um, well, I guess that that's leave it at that right now Yeah, chickens are all females Okay, all right I get your point but the it's more It's it's it's First of all, I wonder how natural that is But we heard when we heard the public health folks come they talked about when you buy chickens There's like an 80 chance Those female chickens you bought are going to turn out not to be all female And and so Part of me is sitting there saying you're putting the person who Purchased these chickens in a very awkward position Because they paid for something something slightly different got delivered and now they are in violation of The town zoning and possibly a town ordinance Really fast solution for them on this though To get out of that trouble We actually you you may be comfortable. Yeah You could do it with the dumplings and biscuits and I don't know You can get my point You know, uh, clearly the the reasoning is is it's easier to deal with noise If what you're being permissive about is female poultry and not roosters We did discover the course of our research that there are um Rooster noise mitigation collars that can be purchased Um Melfro collar that goes around the roosters neck. Oh, oh collar prevents it from crowing, uh, especially loudly Because you're like I'm necessarily restraining the speech of a rooster. I'm sorry Prior restraint in fact, but the the current language prevents this right. It just says chickens Chickens and we don't have to worry about roosters if somebody gets a rooster by mistake I think the idea here is that would not be allowable, right? They'd have to get rid of it Well, we regulate structures So so our by-law right Our by-law regulates structures would be the ordinance that we talk about the other point We'll need a two chat about the ordinance a little later. We'll save it for then then So in other words, you wouldn't be allowing a structure for roosters For the keeping of roosters Okay Well, they'd have to have an acre of land and then it would have to be sited x number of feet away from the It's so it's right. So it'd be subject to all those, uh performance standards So that's actually you're not preventing roosters. It's just on anything under an acre It's right. You have to meet the performance. All right. That that helps. That's that does help So is there one more issue? Okay There's one more that um generated a large amount of conversation At the planning commission and elsewhere and that's related to adaptive reuse of historic barns So a little bit of background on this Isham barn That that's part of the story for sure So In the initial adoption of this by-law in 2008 2009 There were some provisions written in Intended to encourage the restoration and adaptive reuse of historic barns And at the time they had nothing to do with having a wedding inside of a barn What was written into the initial by-law was provisions allowing for multifamily housing to be established As part of a restoration project for a historic barn So out in the agricultural world residential part of town normally you can have a single family home or a duplex But you can't have any greater agglomeration of dwelling units unless you're restoring a historic barn for the purposes of Creating a multi-unit residential structure. So somebody had the idea of well What if one way to get somebody to fix up an old barn was to let them convert it into a number of apartments So the provision in the by-law In the ag world chapter. So we're in chapter 31 since june of 2009 has allowed for that and has said You can you can restore a historic barn For this housing purpose And it has said well, what makes a barn historic? Well, it's either on the national register It's on the state register of historic places or the drb in consultation with the historic and architectural advisory committee Determines otherwise that the barn is historic and that language has just kind of sat Since june of 2009 No applicant has taken advantage of the historic barn provisions as they relate to the creation of housing So another up-and-coming Thing in vermont much like craft beer is is the repurposing of barns as event facilities and particularly what we would think of as wedding barns And we had a barn um the isham barn which was restored and where there was a lot of demand for this type of use And when the owner came to us and said this is this is what i'm doing This is what i want to do with this barn a couple of years ago We really didn't have any provision in the bylaw that would allow that kind of use in that Structure and at the same time we had a couple of developers calling us saying well I'd like to buy a piece of rural wiliston land and build a brand new barn and call it You know my wedding barn incorporated and start having weddings out there Which would be a a commercial use very unlike anything else that you know, we permit in the district That said the planning commission select board worked on some language To piggyback on the existing historic barn Language to also allow this banquet facility use in a restored historic barn Under the same criteria for what would make a barn historic under the same criteria related to the drb's review of Whether something was historic or not if it wasn't on one of the two lists and the restoration plan as well So we had that provision and under that provision The isham barn was reviewed by the development review board Yes, it's on the state list Yes, it's restored appropriately Yes, all the other site plan and bylaw compliances are there the parking is adequate etc etc to allow this banquet facility use The next wedding barn that was proposed was not on the national or state lists and thus The determination of whether the barn was historic or not fell to the drb And the drb was witnessed to a hearing Of involving in part dueling historic preservation professionals arguing whether or not The reassembled barn was historic or not Due to how far gone it was when it was picked up and put back together And the ways it had been modified and everything else and so This as you might imagine can get Very technical experts can disagree about how how much something has changed before it's not historic anymore That application ended up being withdrawn before the drb had to render a final decision. There were some other issues with it It was it was controversial for some other reasons related to just the kinds of impacts that that sort of facility might have on a rural neighborhood And the feedback we the staff got from the drb was that they really felt that whether or not something was historic Would be something better left to the experts and better left to the systems in place That are there to determine whether a barn is historic or not. So, you know by way of parallel The drb doesn't determine whether something's a wetland or not We rely on the testimony of wetland scientists and the confirmation of their work by state wetlands professionals In the case of the barns, we we did seek some input from The state historic preservation folks when this Application was pending and the advice we got was well I hear you're trying to decide whether this barn is historic or not You really ought to follow the same standards We do when we decide whether to list a structure or not and you know the board rightfully I think said Well, if that's what we're supposed to be doing anyway, why don't we just have a criterion that says it Needs to be on the list or not and that's the amendment That's in front of you is it would remove the discretion of the drb to decide that a barn Was historic and say if you'd like to restore a historic barn For one of these purposes in williston, it needs to be on one of these two lists Which means professionals have reviewed it have made that determination already and that can simply be presented to the board Questions So I have a question on I understand what you're doing, but my question is for a business person to buy a piece of land and Put up a barn and make it a banquet hall or a wedding location Is that now not allowed because of The zoning it would have to be in a particular area. In other words, it couldn't be out on off of south road or Correct. Our normal zoning would anticipate a commercial use like that would happen in task borders It wouldn't look like a barn, but Right, you wouldn't want to yeah That this would normally be a conference facility or a banquet facility or a restaurant or something like that So so the intent area of the provision Is that so we have a lot of language in our town plan and a lot of language in our bylaws that talk about what we really want Either to see happen or not see happen as the case may be in the agro part of town which is roughly 75 to 80 of the land area of williston and We want to preserve a working landscape a working farm Something that's been there This is one of the ways you can help a farmer like that Generate revenue and preserve those structures which have been an important part of the landscape for a long time And and that's the emphasis on the historic The historic portion of it. So so you this ordinance would preclude Somebody from taking a historic barn and making it look like a las vegas wedding jepple They couldn't do that, right? They they would have to they would have to follow the state's guidelines for the restoration of historic structures So if the state has a provision that allows that then the answer Would be yes, but if the state doesn't the answer I'm assuming it it's in line with your question And the not maybe not the opposite, but if somebody were to build what Otherwise looks like a historic barn, but in fact is a modern you know Reproduction that would not be okay. Also by according to our zoning in the agro It probably couldn't get approved in taff's corners because Okay That's right exception for that. That's that is true You know, but it raised some good questions for us for example under the current rules Gosh, what if somebody bought a barn from the northeast kingdom and disassembled it and you know drag it down to williston Right, you know, it's it's highly unlikely such a structure would be listable Um because of that change in location Um, you know, so the the intent was really to limit this to encouraging the restoration of barns that are already here in town You know, okay, generally where they are already and and that sort of thing And a good example of that is the aisham barn. Yep Further questions That's a great Who's getting squeezed, right? Or buildings in place So the question before us is will we consider scheduling a public hearing on the Unified development by a lot is Chair entertaining a motion. Yes, I've moved to schedule a public hearing to receive Second second Discussion on the motion Just one quick question. Sure. If if we were to I'm just going back to the chicken thing. Yeah, if we were to decide that we weren't going to have an ordinance Would we be able in that public hearing to strike the chickens? language The board can make changes, but it would probably have to schedule another hearing Sorry, just it was a procedural question more than anything. Thank you Right. So if if there are going to be substantive changes to what's proposed Statute provides that it has to be sent back to the planning commission for comment And then come back to you so Doesn't mean the planning commission has to agree with you But they have to be given an opportunity to comment on it one way or the other So would it would entail an additional Additional step and I think that means another public hearing after that Thank you So if we were When we take up the chicken regulation item We could make a motion at that point in time to remand It back to the planning commission I presume Okay, not that No, it's just a procedural question. Yes, right. So is there any further discussion on the motion? If not, all those in favor of the motion say aye. All right. May I pose? No, thank you very much So can I know that you are going to be here for the sewer allocation ordinance? That's correct for you for anything else I'm also going to be here for the conveyance decision. Okay, so I'm going to be here for a while I'm just trying to figure out the order of things perhaps We can do the conveyance of the existing right-of-way to the developer the discussion on that now and then Go perhaps to attachment day after that Thank you. Thank you So Conveyance of the existing right-of-way Can you're here to do that? Is Eric going to weigh in on that as well? Or And I think we had Ben Avery here as well. Who is the developer? Why don't you go up to the table too? So Ken, won't you lead often? Sure. So what's before the select board is a request from Black Rock construction Ben Avery here on my left representing Black Rock to convey ownership of a 60 by 175 foot right-of-way Currently owned by the town to Black Rock construction for the purpose of Black Rock constructing a private road So the landing question was a right-of-way that was reserved For a possible future road back in the day when the south ridge development was approved by the planning commission in 1993 Under s up 87 34 And So when that happens the developer Prepares we require them to prepare an irrevocable offer to dedicate and that means the town Can take control of the land anytime we want, but we're not under any ownership to take control of it If we don't in this case the town took ownership of it Black Rock intends to use the right-of-way to build a road That would provide access to their project from Metcalf Metcalf Drive now long term There's a high likelihood that the roads within the north ridge proposed north ridge development would be public But in the short run it would be private and it would be private simply because it's only going to serve a small number of dwellings And and it's not going to connect anything else. It's just going to provide Access to that one project and and that's In keeping with language that we have in our public works Ordinance Now long term if the project fully builds out we would be looking for A right-of-way to be reserved much like what was done with south ridge on the north side of this property for a future road connection Because there's a fairly good probability that the land to the north of this property Would come in to develop at some point in time. We don't necessarily know when that would be but it's it's a It's reasonable that that's likely to happen And that would be a time at which we would want all of those roads to become public Which would mean we take over the maintenance liability The plowing of the streets Etc all of those things So the black rock project does have an approval from the drb And they have some additional steps that they have to to Complete We were advised by uh, Joe Fallon one of our attorneys that it would not be advisable to allow A private developer to build a private street over town owned land, which is why you have this request for the conveyance I did in my memo provide you some language about connectivity both from the town plan as well as within our bylaw This idea of of projects connecting and having an interconnect network of street. It is something that's important The fact that we reserve this right-of-way Over 20 years ago. I think it it speaks to the fact that this has always been a it's been a long term consideration of the town and in how we Manage our development regulations So what we would be looking to have happen Is so if if you are so inclined You would convey the land to black rocks so that they could build the road as part of the permitting The the full build out of all the permitting We would get an irrevocable offer to dedicate from black rock to basically to give us all this stuff back Um in the event that the uh, that the road is going to become public So then we can just we can just take it over and then go from there question news for tent Is um, I think I totally get it, but I still feel I need to ask Is there any um Local opposition to this So there there are neighbors to the the the property People that own homes on Metcalf Drive and on coyote lane They have attended the public hearings various members of the public have You know expressed their concerns, you know, whether it's Traffic or what it's going to be like for construction and and those kinds of things So, you know, there have been folks who have raised some concerns Um, the project was just approved by the drb Uh, a couple weeks ago. We one week ago Take the wheel, yeah, right So the decision letter that notifies of the the approval That will take place after the drb approves its minutes at their At their next meeting, which would be that that's already occurred. We have the letter All right, so the letter went out. There's a 30 day appeal period as prescribed by vermont state law Whether or not there's going to be any formal opposition beyond The mitigation measures that were requested and approved by the drb as part of the hearing process That's that's not known at this time And there's a process built in here if the town We have to post notice and so People have objections to this proposal and they can sort of raise them And and i'm sorry. I didn't read this in here. I might have missed it Is this the only access to the property that is correct So again at full build out jeff so this would you get access from the south to this piece of land and that You know, we would be looking at there would be a stop out on the north side And yeah, and then my last this is a this is a comment not a question is The piece of land that the town owns that's considering conveying This has been there for quite a while people who would have bought in south ridge Either would have or should have been informed about this connection This i should call it a connection this piece of public loan owned land that was envisioned to be a connection Okay, actually, yeah, I mean that's true except that It's not i don't believe technically the town owns it We we have a a irrevocable offer of dedication That we've and i believe No, we do own this Bruce said we had we had accepted it, which is why we're here Answer your question jeff. Yes, it's on various plots I'm sorry those those rights of ways are on various plots that have been out there So for example coyote run that was there long For a long time, even though it wasn't built for some 20 years. Okay. Good. Thank you Further questions for ken or ben If you're ready here's a motion is in just one procedural item to note The conveyance would actually be to north ridge willistan llc not to black rock just from a notice standpoint Mr. Chair if I could speak yes, sure, please at this point The board's not being asked tonight to enter formally into this agreement statute requires that we post Notices proposed agreement that's to be out there for 30 days. Yes I actually i'm glad that's happening because of my thought i'd never liked to receive information And have a discussion and then vote in the same evening For various reasons including gives me time to think about things it gets time The public a chance to hear what we said and be like wait a second or gosh, do I support this? I'm very glad that that's actually the procedure So there is a suggested motion if you choose to do that Post the notice of proposed conveyance of lands by the town to north ridge willis llc Of an approximate 60 foot by 175 foot right of way located to the immediate east of 749 metcalf drive Sir discussion on the motion Hearing none, although it's in favor of the motion say aye. Aye me opposed no extensions Thank you both So I think as long as you're still here We'll go a little bit out of order and take the sewer allocation ordinance attachment a at this time and Yes, briefly as you can go over the your memo to us on that sure Thanks, terry So this is an annual review process for what's called attachment a to the sewer allocation ordinance our favorite One of the highlights of the year And um and and briefly what it the purpose of this is That each year the select board has to approve a a A group of the town's sewer capacity That becomes available for the staff to administer to applicants that might want to purchase that capacity To hook up to the town sewer system or to enhance their utilization towns sewer system And so during the course of the year when an applicant comes to Staff and makes a request We have to look up in these various categories of the sewer allocation Ordinance how much capacity we have available and whether or not their request is going to fit within Within the amount that's available So there's some language we have currently about a million fifty thousand gallons of capacity we share With the the village of Essex Junction in the town of Essex. We've been doing this for some time um The amount of allocation That you're asked to make available It's in keeping with policies that are contained within the town plan and part of our residential growth management system Etc and we try to set this up so that We're looking at capacity and what's available over a 20-year time frame I mentioned that uh, we've been in the process of increasing the amount of our capacity we we Completed some of that addition recently. We're still in the process of acquiring some additional When that's completed an fy 22 will have a million 80 thousand gallons of capacity So in terms of The exercise here is we have to look at how much capacity we have how much How much we're using how much we've already committed to people How much is left how much is a good reserve and then there's a math exercise that's embedded in this And i'll walk that through you through that very quickly on page three There's a couple of charts there which we use to monitor both sort of long term and short term trends for how capacity is being utilized About 10 years ago or between 10 and 20 years ago The the view of what was happening in the future looked very different than what we've seen over the past 10 years Where the amount of flow in the system has been Roughly flat even though the number of households has increased the number of businesses hasn't have increased There's a variety reasons for that But it's taken some of the edge off in terms of our making capacity available because of that dynamic So when we go over to the to the numbers on page four Um, it really shows you that how we get to the you know the whole Um How we get to allocation so we take how much we have available We take out how much is flowing through the system we take out how much has been Committed or sold to somebody but it's not online yet and there's a number for reserve I will point out that terry Sent me an email and pointed out that the amount of capacity reported in table two Was different from the amount that was reported in the text and I looked that up today and it turns out the number in the table Is correct. So okay. It's just a matter of correcting the number that was in the text Fortunately, uh, otherwise it would have been all kinds of corrections So we go through that and In this 20 year period it gives us just under 260,000 gallons a day And then you divide that by 20 years and it it brings you to roughly about 13,000 gallons a day of capacity a year For 20 years and that would be is if you were giving that exact same amount out every single year We would have enough to do that for that 20 year period What we do see historically and is reported in the in uh, one of the later tables in the report Is that what we tend to see is the averages is that we actually give out a lot less than that And there is some variation it goes up and down from year to year, but but in terms of What we actually see long term it's significantly less than that and on page six and seven you see table three and that shows Year by year how much capacity the select board approves as well as the 10-year average there on the far right And then on table four out of that capacity that we make available how much we actually literally sell to new users And so when you look at the at the 10-year average and you average out all those categories Um, it's it's just under 11,000 gallons a day. So that's that sort of is the trend So the trend is less than the 13,000 gallons a day on average So That said This year this is probably I think I would argue this is probably the most uh, I'm not going to say difficult complicated Decision for the select board in terms of the amount Of allocation that goes in the various categories And the reason for it is this so when I first got here about 10 years ago Um, the amount of capacity that we were putting in for example new commercial and industrial It was roughly around 2000 gallons a day And several years ago When we came to the realization that we had more capacity available than we had had historically And there were uh, some there was discussion at the select board and decision was made that we should increase the amount of capacity that was in that category As well as increase the amount of capacity that we placed in encouraged specific development And the rationale was if we have it available and somebody comes in Wouldn't we want to have it to be available to them? We wouldn't want to deny them So, uh, so that was the decision that was made and so that's been a policy that's been embedded in attachment a I want to say at least the last five or six years Um during that period of time we had one instance where we there were two instances where we gave out 10,000 gallons a day under encouraged specific development one was last year For the hotel and that was a split vote as you may recall And then the other was three or four years ago when Curig green mountain came in and they requested 10,000 gallons a day out of encouraged specific development So those are sort of two, uh, noteworthy things um, so this year There's another hotel in the pipeline And that hotel has told us that they estimate that they're likely to need about 12,000 gallons a day of additional capacity so, um Based on the discussion that we had under encouraged specific development last year Um, I have placed that 12,000 gallons of necessary capacity And added it to the 7,500 gallons a day In new commercial industrial So over the last several years you have been approving 7,500 gallons a day in that category Um for the purpose of the proposal, I'm assuming you would want to do that again and adding the 12,000 gallons To that now there are other options that you have available clearly, you know, one is you could Uh, you could reduce the amount of capacity instead of 7,500 gallons that could be reduced To some measure. Um, you could also Say that the hotel should come back in under encouraged specific development Now I have not proposed it in that way as I said because you had a split vote last year So, uh I simply want to inform you that this hotel is out there. Uh, it's it does not have an approval from the drb yet Um, but there's a pretty good likelihood that it could get an approval And then they would need to have a sewer allocation in order to build that hotel So, uh, I think that's the question is how is it how is it that we want to handle? Um, handle that sort of, um, kind of outlier of a So, um, we are also I'll also note that we are anticipating Uh, some additional demand for, um New residential this year than we've had, um in previous years, but but that in a nutshell is the Is the crux of the the decision for a decision point So I'm sure you have questions for 10 I'll start. Um, actually I'm I'm good with the idea of Going to the 500 on the commercial I am actually going to argue something on the encouraged specific development. Um, it might be a split vote again Um, the experience we had back in january with a hotel Taught me that There I did not see a difference between normal commercial industrial In that application and specific, uh, encouraging specific Development, I just didn't see where that project was really doing that. Um, or stated differently there could be Many a multitude of Of projects that you could have made the same exact type of argument for And and so my point is is that to me that category encouraged specific development has gotten meaningless So it's kind of like why have it? You know, because we set the ball when I say load, I don't mean that negatively. It's just You know, it was it was a standard commercial type development That met that criteria. So are we really are we really protecting us? Uh, a goal When when we do that and I've come to the conclusion that we really aren't And it's not a negative comment. I hope it isn't taken that way. So I just don't see the need for that category Why not just have one commercial category? And and maybe have it, you know 19 5 plus the 10 and round that To 30 and and sort of in support of that if you will Is over time I I've kind of questioned, you know, should we have some sort of commercial industrial Type growth management in Willis then and the answer is pretty much always come back, you know, no You know, how would you do it really would it really serve a purpose? Which is very different from do we want to have some sort of residential growth? Management, which of course we currently do. So I think that kind of ties into that also Is, you know, having a larger Allocation for the commercial side of things And then my other comment is going to be in I'll just I'll limit to this once again, you know, great job I'm putting this together. I think it's a very good robust Process that we you have fine-tuned might be a way to put it But when I look at what's being proposed the 42,890 And which is over three times the amount that Comes out when we do the math if you take the available capacity and divide it by 20 years It's you know, that starts to raise red flags for me meaning it's it's it's too much I would feel more comfortable if it was a lower Factor, you know two or something like that Would be is is my comment Other questions or comments? If you wanted to move something around a motion probably would be in order to do that to see whether or not we agree Okay, any any further discussion first? I was only thinking that I I suspect the reason we have the special specific development clause in there is because You're trying to come up with a plan for 20 years You can't have 10,000 in there every year So you have this You once in a while you're going to have these big requests that come in regular Average or they don't fit into one of the other categories So for example, we had um, I think it was either the first or second year. I was here We had a request From vkc and they built a dormitory And so we don't consider dormitories to be we don't we don't count them as housing units Like we would count new houses new apartments. They fall into a different category And so They got allocation. They needed additional sewer allocation for those the creation of those dorm rooms Under and they got to under encourage specific development. So, um, it's been used pretty sparingly Um The the other thing I think this is part of the history is is not only does it accommodate Uses that don't fit neatly into the other existing categories But the other is that and this would be something I would throw up a consideration Is that unlike all the other categories in the table It gives you control over whether or not it gets allocated or not So remember once you approve the allocation schedule the decision process is of um bruce prepares the form collects the fee And he checks off that he recommends it and then it goes to me and I check off whether I recommend it and then rick approves it It's all done administratively. It happens very quickly. You don't see it And so that that's something for you to consider as to whether or not It's a value to you to be able to have That additional input into the process Whether it's curing green mountain or a hotel or or some other use that we we can't anticipate You would have to sign off on it first and and I think part of the history Of why that's there is because there was a period of time When the amount of capacity that was available in the system was very very sparse And there was not a lot of leeway and we're in a different era now and things are different And and maybe that that thinking is is passe. I you know, I think that's that's for you to wrestle with and decide But that's part of the history of why that's there and so that You know when a big a big lumpy request like that comes in You get to know about it and you get to think about it and vote on it before that decision gets made So ken if I could ask then so this Hotel that we had that we voted on in january Versus the hotel that you anticipate coming in Down the road the one we voted on on january we voted under encouraging specific development i.e. the select board Should you you might be I could hear there's an argument that we should have reviewed that one The hotel that's coming down the future, which is even asking for more capacity You seem to be arguing that we shouldn't vote on that one because it's under under the commercial industrial category Well Because there was a split vote jeff um Now i'm i'm always I I would hope you would understand that as i'm always paying attention and listening To to what all of you say when i'm here and so I took that into consideration in my recommendation I think quite frankly you could go either way Understanding the history and the sensitivity to big chunks of allocation going out the door I would wonder why you wouldn't want to have some additional say over it before it goes out I would just sort of raise that as a question from a staff perspective You know it it doesn't raise a big fuss for you know, certainly for me in in any way But from your perspective, I think that's part of the consideration is whether or not you feel you need to have some additional I don't know some additional input some additional decision making on that And I think the best way for me to answer that would be in those cases where the use is In our current zoning It's an allowable use in zoning. I feel comfortable with staff In cases where it isn't or maybe it's a question mark whether it is or isn't then That would be a case where maybe it should come I could see it makes sense to have it come before the select board In the case of the hotel, I don't mean to harp on the hotels That's that's already an allowed use. So You know, that's where I would argue. I don't think we we need to see it And on that score, I would say I think that within the process that we have internally to do it Administratively it is pretty rigorous. I mean what it says is, you know, the manager Approves it, but it doesn't approve it. In fact, rick always says I don't want to see this until both Both of you guys over in the annex have taken a look at and recommended it first. So So it's been looked at from both the perspective of the the person that administered the system As well as the the zoning piece. So those things are nice and I would add to that. It's also consistent with my view of Sewage should be there to support the development the town wants to see and not the other way around and I don't know how much that added to the discussion, but it's it's again if it's in ours consistent with our zoning Then the out and we have the we have the capability to Provide that allocation then it should happen through An administrative process not through a select board process Further questions for kinton regarding this Going to make an emotion to I will make a motion. I will waive my one week preference I'll move to schedule a public hearing to receive comments on the posed attachment a of the sewer Allocation ordinance for fiscal year 2019 with the following changes The in table Table table five category 5.2.1 Flash 5.2.2 new commercial and industrial Read 30,000 There would be no Same table no section 5.2.9 And with the amount under No, I need to end it there Because my next one wouldn't work So you're adding You're making it 30,000 for the first Numbers and you're leaving 10,000 and 5.2. No, I'm striking that's like a zero a whole thing It's just not part of the table anymore Is there a second to that motion? Hearing no second the motion dies Other split boat I I just wondered whether we should have We couldn't certainly allow this every year right This kind of allocation because we would run out That's correct. Well be well before the So it seems like we should have some thoughtful Not that you're not doing a thoughtful analysis, but I think the whole reason you put that in there is To propose that the select board make a thoughtful recommendation or review of This Abnormally large Allocation what I see have might be a good thing though Well, what I see happening potentially down the road is if we are using up Let's say the majority of in this case the 42 890 gallons If we're starting to use up most of what is being recommended to us Then the town planner is going to start modifying how much is in future years because If he doesn't then we are potentially going to run out of Capacity before the 20 years is over And that's exactly the situation we want to avoid well A little bit different we approve it every year because history has shown us that we don't use as much as we allocate We don't sell as much as we allocate That could change down the road and and already we're starting to hear that is changing down the road Because we're seeing more commercial interest in Williston from a commercial A side of things commercial retail whatever side of things and So if if if two or three years down the road I I personally if if i'm still on the select board in reviewing this And I see that trend I will be raising my hand much more forcefully saying this just doesn't make sense because The trend that we saw in the Late whatever you call 2000 teams Has changed and thus we need to change this Because of of that change It's very similar to why we changed back after we got off that steep curve and we're flattened out with Yeah Well, that's that's a huge unknown I mean, that's that's not a given By a lot because we Um After this next 50,000 is over. I don't know if we'll be able to get any more Are you ready for to make a motion? Move to schedule the public hearing to receive comments on the proposed attachment a of the sewer allocation ordinance for fiscal year 2019 Sorry discussion on the motion Hearing none all those in favor of the motion say aye Aye Those opposed say aye And no ascension so it passes four to one. Thank you very much Ken So let's move to the keeping of chickens regulation And Eric I think you're going to lead this one I can kick this one off Matt Matt and Ken gave a nice summation when they were discussing the the bylaw. Um, this kind of three pass for for the board to consider at this point I um Look to have the bylaw amendment and that's it look to have the bylaw amendment and also ordinance or So what I would I've done is prepare a draft ordinance for the board's consideration the Maybe best to go page by page through this and we can discuss if there's any questions Is the draft the board has a Questions modifications we can make those if the board wants to schedule public hearing at this point It can do that as well, but uh, oh for discussion for the board tonight. So I'll just kind of say the key areas here thinking about the ordinance on the probing question quantity question housing environmental question Overall public good question and enforcement question are kind of the category Have you modeled this after other Yeah, yeah, what I what I did in this is I looked at um, so the city of south brilington had in place s6 s6 junction Looked at kind of our ordinance template looked at our enforcement language And kind of the structure for the waiver fees and the penalty fees And kind of took consideration. We had this out publicly in january Some members of the public got looked at it weighed in on some As well Looked to take those thoughts and consideration Planning office has reviewed it and looked at it to make sure things lined up from a planning language perspective So maybe before you go through this, can you maybe just say a cup? I assume you're proposing this because you think we need to do this. There's a reason We need to regulate the enclave, you know The keeping of chickens. We need to regulate the How people came forward and wanted to have chickens. So that's this process No, right, but we could just do that just by zoning, right? We could But this is this is implying we're going to regulate now How chickens are kept to keep maybe keep the peace amongst the neighbors and And regulates. What is it health health and safety? It was our understanding that that's the direction the board wanted to go, right? Yep. I'm just asking I don't have an opinion either way. I try to present a document here for the board to work from if it wants to pursue this Okay Yeah, I thought the south burlington ordinance was written well So that's what I think I looked at when this first came up Yeah, there's a time ago a lot of this is lifted from there So you go briefly go through it. Sure. Sure. Do we just want to go page by page? Um, you hit the highlight. Sure. Okay Eric's okay if we interrupt a question. Yes, okay, great Um, so the first section's authority and purpose Why would we be doing this? What why would have we have the authority to do this? Um One one key provision I'd highlight in that section is It does not override any restrictions put in place by a private homeowners association here So that that's that's Next section requiring a permit For the time period I I put draft language in there the same time frame as a dog license Something similar there is an idea in terms of charging fees $20 for the first year and then $10 following that Essex charges $35 for the first year $10 after that and south burlington charges the the 20 and 10 the same structure here Okay Can I ask is there any requirement to post the permit? No, when I say when I say that I'm I'm thinking your neighbor puts chickens in and I guess maybe if you're in good terms with your neighbor, you just ask the neighbor are they permitted? Do you have a permit for that and An easier way might just to have the permit posted and so the town. Yeah Well, that that puts a load on the town then just I'm just trying to understand It could certainly be something for discussion to put in there, too Like on the You're proposing a domicile right out some kind of a structure have a permit on the structure or Just just a thought it would maybe cut down on you having to take calls does my neighbor have a permit Yeah, these chickens that I really need Yeah, I don't I don't unless I have a problem with that piece the piece that might be problematic is The ordinance allows for this so The discretion to the staff level is pretty minimal As long as they meet the bear basic So I wouldn't want to initially have something posted with the idea that people can appeal to the staff and say oh, gee You don't let them do this That that was people but as far as posting it does after it's up there running Next section of the exceptions that was just standard language I took from the two other other ordinance that that were that were considered here The next section the number and type of chickens allowed. This is one That's probably probably one for a main point for consideration here So quantity of chickens, um sx south berlington allows six sx junction allows four What what we looked at here and some feedback have from the community is thinking um You know Depending on where somebody lives if you do you want to have a blanket number of chickens throughout town or would it be Depending on how much land the person has so so what i'm proposing is to consider a Based on lot size a maximum number of chickens And then something to consider a a flock quantity waiver if you would if someone has Falls into one of these categories They want to exceed the maximum number of chickens set they could apply for the town For this flock quantity waiver the town could consider Okay, kind of look at where they're located where what their neighborhoods like does it make sense for them to have a greater number of chickens than is Set here If it's more than one acre don't they get to have livestock anyway I think it would Yeah, this would add the other layer to it to prescribe how many um Quantity of the livestock there so so one one thing with Without the orange in place they could essentially there wouldn't be a limit to the This is going to help prescribe whether they want x amount As it is now And I would ask is that a conflict you know between zoning and the ordinance well the ordinance would trump it it's more specific But So you'd now be putting restrictions on more than just You're you're putting restrictions now and things over an acre Including facilities right because you're implying Keeping of chickens though Is there any ordinance No Nothing in place and and we'll we'll get to um in terms of structure size if something's 120 square feet or over 10 feet tall The triggers requirements have an administrative permit through zoning. So I've intentionally capped the number at 119 square feet Before we get into that Eric if you don't mind And I'm just this is just going to help me understand if there was a farm in Williston that currently had More than 24 chickens And you know, it's a farm. It's 150 acres. Let's say and had I don't know 30 chickens We were to adopt this They would immediately be in violation Well, it would depend if they have to come in and ask a waiver But yeah, it depends if they qualify under this exemption clause agriculture and or practices or structures to find I looked up for a piece. Okay. What's the minimum farming threshold and one of the minimum farming thresholds I thought was most applicable here is if someone's selling in excess of $2,000 worth of eggs the previous year I did some research rough numbers. I figured they would need at least 35 chickens You answered my question. I got it if we consider them a farm Or agriculture then this ordinance does not apply to them. Yeah, that makes sense. Okay, that makes sense So let's talk about the other big question at least in my mind which is the the Ted corrected me, but I'm just quoting what the ordinance says female chickens only And I guess my question is along the lines of I get I get the point and roosters and noise and Everybody loves chickens. I guess doesn't like or likes to a lot less degree roosters But is that practical? is it Practical maybe isn't the best word but For somebody who's raising chickens. Is it easy just to have and I'm not obviously a chicken person yet Is it easy to limit it to just Chickens or female chickens, I guess I can speak to what I've saw In my research for other ordinances I've seen in the other towns that it's just chickens and not roosters But I was I found it interesting with the folks in the health department presented that night in january and say You may not know if it's a rooster when you buy it Necessarily, they don't know it's a rooster when they send it Yeah, put it in perspective this way say six of the of the people here on the main drag decide they each Want to have their six chickens I say I'm so say say I just keep looking at say you're on this main drag of wilson and six houses in a road It's either each one. I have their six chickens It's an awful lot of you and then half of them are roosters And you're going to tell me that's going to be a comfortable thing to be having in town I wasn't saying that is To me we're putting I could see where I would feel uncomfortable to get this delivery of chickens I ordered chickens thinking they would all be female because I ordered chickens not roosters, but I get delivered a A box with five Chickens and one rooster in it unbeknownst to me It just it's it is going to put me in an awkward position Hey, I know you you you mentioned one solution about this, but um, I don't I'm not sure I would care I mean just like I I'm sorry if you want to if you want to do this in the first place You know You you may put yourself in a situation where you have a rooster you're going to have to get rid of Well, you know buy your chickens take your chances Somebody should write that down I I don't I don't know that we can change the ordinance because Somebody might get a rooster by mistake Well, it's it's more than somebody, but I get your point. Yeah Okay section here for non-commercial use only And I add in not the slaughter chickens in public view Then we have a section on enclosures and a lot of this is lifted from what other towns had in place here I'm sorry with the non-commercial use persons sell eggs So I'm thinking of for instance In our office where somebody A lot of people I work with actually have chickens will bring in eggs. They make it known There's a can to put money in and you can take home a dozen eggs So somebody who was Doing that under this ordinance would be in violation of the ordinance Technically as it's written right now And I understand the person who's got a stand out by the side of the road saying You know fresh eggs for sale two dollars a dozen That's clearly not what we're promoting here, but it's more the Somebody who just you know for the hassle of bringing it in ask for small We very well may not Do anything, you know, it's it's like being on the bike path when we had the leash Ordinance Not everybody obeys that but it all seems to work out just fine people to go Investigate the the leash issue Stop, you know, I see there are eggs for sale in your office. Does anybody here live in williston? I Don't see it either, but it is I mean it nonetheless is technically You're in violation of the ordinance Along those lines eric just when I look at your table two In if this is supposed to be non-commercial non-farm, how how many chickens? I mean Exactly. So I'm thinking if you have 119 chickens, you either have really big family Oh, I'm sorry, that's okay. I'm sorry. The max is 24 24 chickens Lay an egg a day Yeah, I think it was an average of one to two eggs a day Um, like I was trying or maybe not One depends on their age too. They their production goes down as they get older. Perhaps people in our audience still answer these questions So it's 24 chickens still at a size of a in the house, I guess for a Family but on 10 acres. It's a farm. It's a whole different deal No, but this is not regulating firms Yeah, that's why well, no, but I mean still 10 acres of land You want to have 24 chickens out there in the middle of nowhere? Have a great time I'm more concerned about the six on the half acre or less. Me too, but that being said, um We're saying that under this ordinance, you can't have 24 you could have 24 chickens on 10 acres of land You just can't do anything commercial with them and that would be kind of silly Well, that's what I'm thinking 24 is a lot I mean is for a family You would have to share or sell Or just share Share The eggs are seasonal because people don't realize so they There's many many eggs in April of May June and if you don't put lights on your eggs and you have no eggs in December November December while So much to eat quite a bit so most people who have more chickens than they need are just Either selling like Jeff is saying like I've got extra eggs. They're in the refrigerator at work kind of thing or just Giving them the neighbors For that you have to do it for 24 unless you eat a lot I would argue technically that your friends or whatever at work are not selling them The can is that for a donation if they said it's two dollars for a dozen eggs or whatever it is Somebody could choose to go take the dozen eggs and not put anything in that can So the difference is whether you I I get I just you know, I'm just and I'm just trying to explore here to make sure I understand and But and it's well anyway, that's one when I came up with these tables I I used the six and then I I took these acreage. I kind of carved it up in that way to start In terms of the the sizing of the facility I was doing some research One one forum I was reading online and some some research was talking about four square feet of floor space per bird So I added a little bit extra for for each one to get those those square footages and bumped it down to 119 Is to have the permanent realm Moving on My only comment on all of this was kind of lines up with what Ted said, why wouldn't we just regulate what's on the small lot one acre and less We could There's a decision for the board there wouldn't be One thing I was thinking about where you know thinking about our agriculture and residential zoning district and I was looking at what the parcels look like on that district. I get an idea of okay acreage wise What or what do things look like to say? This district what's exempt from the ordinance of adoption? I found it 2014 data. There's over 1,100 parcels on that district 259 or under an acre 278 between 1 to 2 acres Then you have 356 between 2 and 10 acres and 282 over 10 acres So trying to think of Okay, what what's fair and equitable? In terms of If there's no regulation on the quantity someone could have under an acre and have X amount of chickens or some could have A large law and there's restricted to a amount of chickens too or it could be one quantity for everyone but Some of the policy issues to wrestle with here The only thing I was thinking of along the lines is you're adding regulations where they don't exist and I'm not sure you would have to tell us whether there are problems existing today With chickens in the town right other than not being able to do chickens and less than an acre I don't know however You guys have any opinion on sorry say that again. So I'm just it's it's really an extension of what ted said earlier Because he noticed that we're now putting regulations where they don't exist right over one acre on facilities structures, so we're now imposing Regulations on all these places including like 10 acre farms who might have this little chicken coop in the middle Now we're going to tell them. Oh, we don't like your chicken coop. It's got to be different than I'm not sure we have any problems today. So should we have Tailored this to be just the below one acre Six birds total Yeah, yeah, basically make it really simple consensus. We could ask staff to Reconstruct these Yeah With your concern, I mean you live in a neighborhood. Oh, I'm not worried about my neighborhood I'm just worried in in general. I don't think chickens belong in town It didn't work in burlington. It hasn't worked in other areas If you I would rather see I shouldn't come up with a chicken coop quite honestly If you want to go do this out there and have chickens, but historical burden chicken coop There you go But my fear is if everybody on this road decided to have chickens And you've got six per house And there's no way you're going to tell me you're going to contain this or contain all of these things Our dogs get loose eat somebody's pet chicken I just see all of these things happening and I just don't see chickens belong in town That's me. I understand what people are trying to do I also think some of this for some people They're very serious and it's a and it's a And it's a passion and things that they do long term other people are going to be picking at because it sounds like a cute experiment That's not going to work. Well, I worry about that. We'll have the experimenters for sure Right. I have no interest in if I were in town and both my neighbors on either side of chickens And if I tried to sell my house I would have issues with it because I know that it would be people that would say they're coming to the Newson's and they don't want it Those I mean those are really good points. Does the ordinance protect us though for the from the smell of the sound There's stuff in there, but you got to enforce it and yeah, who knows and then there's all these parameters for it So I heard consensus on limiting this to six birds and under I'm not agreeing with that, but that's that's okay Yeah Would the board want it then essentially if you own Greater than one acre of land the ordinance wouldn't be applicable to you. That's right. Correct. Yeah Well, because because I think today that Situation is okay, and we don't regulate it and then we don't have a problem at least I'm not hearing we have a problem Well, we just talk about that just sec to make sure I'm clear So you somebody owns one point one acres Are they allowed to have chickens On there under the current ordinance right now We have the ordinance under the current ordinance The current zoning they're allowed to have chickens But if they could become a nuisance under the normal right town What would that be a by-law or zoning zoning could also be a private cause of action So and just to make sure I'm clear what the consensus is is is we don't want to regulate that one point one acre and larger They have 100 chickens if they're not a nuisance they can have 100 chickens if they are nuisance then we have to figure out how to enforce Well, if they are a nuisance and somebody complains about it, that's between the private neighbors and whatever that's not Or we're not we're not trying to do anything with that right well We haven't had I'm I'm just Basing this on we haven't had problems that I'm hearing about yeah, so why put new regulations in place and the burden of You know if you put a new regulation in place is rick and to send out an army of people checking right exactly You add administrative load where it might not be needed and cost and Because I would ask the board um to that extent if we're going to exempt folks who have over one acre of land Would we still want to require folks under an acre of land acre or under to register to go through a permit process? And um, would you want to have a fee associated? Yes Higher than what you've suggested Yeah Those modifications Moving on You got page five Okay, so uh, I'll go next. Uh, we discussed a little bit odor and noise impacts Not percent full of property boundaries noise impacts would then follow our town of wilson noise ordinance reference there Lighting basically so it wouldn't illuminate adjoining properties or disrupt your neighbors Predators rodents insects and parasites I wonder we take all necessary action to bait the the attraction of these of these critters in there Feed them water make sure the clean feet in waters available all times Um make unavailable to other paths that would come in Waste storage removal. Um, all this looks from uh, I think south purlington. No more the 120 gallon container manure be stored at once That kind of ends the the environmental kind of habitual Section of this that the next section gets into enforcement Well before on the on the waste storage and removal so It sounds like this is saying it has to be removed you can store it for a short amount of time But it has to be removed if somebody wanted to compost it Or use it in their garden Dispose of it on on their own property. Would that be allowed? Similar to how somebody might Compose their food waste right now on their own property on it on less than an acre We have all stored manure shall be covered by a fully enclosed container at work compost bin No, but what are you saying is once it's composted We're gonna do it. What do you do with it? Yeah, can you use it on your garden or do you have to totally remove from it? People do that. Well, yeah I'm actually chicken manure is is is high in nutrients And to bring it in from somewhere very short it burns, you know And and so you want to compost it before you use it in something like your garden You know, we can bring it in now from somewhere else and come and fertilize your garden Go purchase. Yeah, yeah hydrated chicken manure So in fact the organic stuff is We put some language in here that allows that Yeah, yeah, and of course the nuisance provisions would kick in if you don't do a good job of it It seems like the this is just trying to prevent them storing huge quantities, right? Yeah, getting a commercial fertilizer operation going Which can I ask a question of our audience member who has the chickens? Ma'am, can I can I ask a question of you? Do you know if you if Do are there any health concerns for Composting chicken manure and then using it in your garden versus what we get that's already been Treated or done whatever through some other large facility that does this I would say Not more than any other kind of composting so any composting that's done at home is not done to the same degree that they're doing a green mountain compost or any municipal facility where Those piles are super hot, right? They're testing the temperature their municipal commercial composting facility at home temperatures People don't usually get their piles up to the same temperature first and that applies to anything food waste or or Right and all of those can run a risk can run a health risk Do you know is there more of one when you start getting? Chicken cow whatever it is manure that you're doing that Is there something more that we would have to worry about that could we potentially be? Spreading to children or whatever because it wasn't properly composted so I would say no because And I used to be on the board for the compost Organization and We looked at this like I I searched I have a public health Background or my position by training so I searched the medical literature for like Outbreaks related to compost piles and they're really There really aren't any and so the thing about chicken manure is that it's usually mixed with shavings wood shavings And which you need because chicken manure is very hot So the wood shavings and the manure go together in a compost pile and you really have to let that Sit and cure and break down before you put it on your garden. I mean you just wouldn't Really touch it so I don't there's no more if if the The person who's managing the compost is typically the person or the household who's also managing the chickens so My actually my concern about the 20 gallons is that you can't compost in 20 gallons It's not big enough. You need three feet by three feet by three feet really did compost something And that process will by the time chicken manure and the shavings are all composted down I mean There's just really not any evidence to suggest that people are getting But also I'm I'm getting that it takes a long time even if you had the right size container It's going to take a very long time to do that For it to compost down. Yeah So composting is probably not the best thing To be allowing on such a of chicken manure for for your garden I'm narrowing this down severely Is not the best choice to be doing with the chicken manure Under these circumstances because you don't have a container big enough to do it Well, you couldn't do it in a 20. I'm 20 gallons is not that much bigger than your kitchen I've had nothing to do with composting. That's just a storage maximum storage amount. I think No, that's no that's the same because Yeah, that's that's how much you're allowed to keep you got to get rid of everything else So you can't compost in that size So ideally you'd have like a three bin system or each is Three feet by three feet by three feet, which isn't huge, but it's bigger than 20 gallons and you'd fill one up And then you'd fill another one up Once that gets fully turn it to the next one Because it helps turn a compost pile and you turn it to the next one and then it would be ready for use And so when you freed up the first one then the new Compost goes in there. So it's sort of a rotating. It's probably that would probably be the best Where does it Where does it talk about composting in here? It doesn't Jeff is bringing it up because he wants to do it There's a written compost bin the first sentence or second sentence It's it's not the way it's where it's not really Oh, I see. Okay. I got it. Okay My concern if I could express it a little bit differently is Folks who have chickens Are probably The tendency is going to be and I assume the vast tendency is going to be to manage that waste on their own property They're not going to be transporting it somewhere else for it to be disposed of And as we consider how we want to regulate chickens We need to take that into consideration too It just it it's just not going to leave the property And so if we write an ordinance that says you have to manage it in a way that it leaves the property We I can basically I would Expect the vast majority of chicken owners are going to be in violation of the ordinance very quickly This section needs Yeah, so with six with six chickens How long would it take to get 20 gallons of chicken droppings that You would still call 20 gallons of chicken droppings because they you know as you compost them with shavings and all this You're creating I assume at some point something else, right? You're Or right before the snow is going to fly like certain times of year and so you clean out the entire hoop With all the shavings in the bottom and then there's always daily cleaning under the roost That kind of just get at it. So It it depends. So it depends how big your coop is so a coop for six But we're talking a coop for six chickens A five gallon pail a week of shavings and manure of a six chickens Okay, but that's I think that's but that's shavings plus manure. Yes It's actually like 90% shavings But Can I add something I live under one acre I buy manure to mix him with my compost And when I'm taking care of someone else's chickens, I bring the shaping the shavings and manure and put it in my compost I compost in the open. There's no odor. I have four four by four Bays they go in one bay and then that gets turned in the next that gets turned the next I use it after two years And I add the manure on purpose and there's no odor as long as you're turning it mixing it with other things You know the weeds go in there with the dirt on them And so I would feel that what you already have in there about noise odor There should be no odor at the boundary of the property if you're composting properly there won't be odor And that's the important thing because if someone told me I had to have it all enclosed I'd have to get a whole new composting system So I just wanted to add that Thank you. We've got two enforcement So, uh, may visit the enforcement section is um really making sure public health is is, um, okay out there So see authority of zoning minister health officer or other duly authorized employee town To check this out if there's if there's an issue that's uh, that's raised administrative enforcement lists provisions that A written notice could be served if if there's a violation here Some of the The pen not meeting the regulations Setback requirements aren't being met or a noise threat to public health Mention manure in here mound nourishment of the birds on sanjay living conditions They're not they don't have a permit It would also state Requirements to complete the adjustments for the work to abate it. Um, a fine would be in there And then it appeals process Because you can have something be a significant nuisance Is not the health threat unless you start playing with well it's loud enough to threaten my health Then this language in here following it if a violation is not expeditiously corrected That threats overall public health safety and welfare to the community Giving authorizations for town agents to enter the property to take necessary steps to abate the violation at that point again And is there a legal definition of um expeditious is there Yeah, I definitely want to see something if you're going to do this that you have very tight timeframes for Correcting these issues and not extending the amount additional 30 days in additional 30 days Okay, good Then the appeal section I I think I modeled this off of our storm water ordinance But it has a very graduated steps of appeal here Let's see first we have Goes to the health officer first Be appealed to the town manager appeal to the select board Hearing held on it by the select board Then the select board is showing its decision at that point So if I read in this there's at least two and a half to three months before anything can be done I that to me is way too long, but it may not be feasible to do anything shorter Is this the way the other towns have done it too? It's this kind of a long process I Have to I haven't looked at it cross-reference it in the last few weeks. So I can I can check that I know uh, we want all the model list to be consistent with the summer Yeah, just per you know given that it's a less than an acre um You have close neighbors and You don't want to have a situation that's going on to the point where somebody's coming in with a shotgun to your chicken coop or You know, I just seems like we should have some kind of a shortcut process and people should understand this up front that you know We're doing this because people wanted to you know Have this ability but also we have to be conscious of the fact that small lots mean close neighbors and you know The tolerance level is going to be low and the the remedy is going to have to be quick And I want to consider making these steps one and two to be down to 10 or possibly 15 days Maybe also, I would have no problems if you took the telemanager You like sorry with that Yeah, if you don't have to have the less steps that you have for this the better You still want to go um health officer route. Would you want it to go quicker the select board? Kind of Person I think it would be good to have one step before the select board. Yeah So the town health officer if it's a public health problem the health officer can write An emergency health order and stop it immediately One step one stop shopping. That's one if it's but if it's a nuisance, you know not for a nuisance, but a public health problem Yes, what would be the path for a nuisance? People will be coming you know from salmon or something like that I would think would be a public health problem It would be difficult, but it could be done Are you are you talking about like a civil nuisance play? Yeah of smell or you know Well, no, but if we could put a nuisance in this I you know step one they Agree to chicken on her. I love that phrase by the way. Agree to chicken owner We'll written this notice of appeal within x number of days 10 or 15 I don't have a problem with it going to the health officer Even if it is a nuisance issue more than it is a health issue because the you know I don't know how Taylor made we can make it to say you know Provided, however, it is a health issue and not a nuisance issue I mean no if the health officer is going to look at it and say, you know, this is more of a nuisance issue Uh, I'm going to keep it in place and let it go to the select board or I don't think that's a problem. Well health health issue was spelled out in the statute Also, I don't have to worry about that Okay, so we're going to try and tighten that Next section is the judicial enforcement. Um, yeah, that's the just the process and that that we use to And you get into the penalties either paying paying the waiver fee, um, which are lower or taking I believe I took these penalty numbers from our store Certainly a perfect changing just for uh reference South Burlington, they don't graduate on offenses, but they charge 160 dollars per day of violation sx 200 a day for violations Anybody else feel So it does so each and every day that the violation exists after the time allowed shall constitute a separate offense Okay Especially with the sentence each and every day Yeah That has some teeth it has to have some teeth Yeah, it's going to get used thinking how it relates to other what I would consider more serious crimes I mean, I realize that's a separate discussion, but Uh puts I think maybe it's that's the right tone It says if you want to have chickens in a small area with neighbors close neighbors, you know It's going to be highly regulated because we don't want complaining neighbors. We want happy neighbors I don't know if you have thought about, you know, if we do all this some information Backage, you know for when people come and get a permit To make sure they know the level and how quickly remedies can be dispensed Literature and public health information too Yeah You want to maybe dissuade the people who aren't that serious, right? No, I think your permit case should be a little bit higher so that people realize it's a serious thing That's just me. I don't know the rest of the board agrees so There's enough changes here. I think we need to Go back and More edits Sure And as I read through this it occurred to me that this is really mostly about nuisance and really not quite as much about Public health so if you really want to have an impact on public health We do need to have education around hand washing so every year there's salmonella outbreaks associated with live poultry from hatcheries such as The hatcheries that send a guy's farm and yard was just probably where most people would get their chicks and These cases of salmonella are associated with people handling the poultry It's typically it's often first time poultry owners and children People who've not been around chickens before and likely have no immunity to the bacteria that the chickens have um, and so that The public health education is out there about wash your hands Don't kiss the chicks. You know, they're cute, but Don't kiss them. Um That their bedding can also be contaminated so wash your hands after You know touching their bedding This information is out there, but it's something that people don't necessarily Think about especially because the chicks are often in their house When they come in as day olds they need to be 95 degrees And so they're often in a basement in a in a cellar. You can't just put them out in a coop And so if we are really concerned about public health, that's where we need to focus our efforts If we're concerned about nuisance, then I think we call it like it is like this seems to me more like a new Like regulations to address nuisance issues. They're both important, but I totally agree with you because I that was my public health concern was the whole thing I started with People are starting this as a cute little project without the understanding of just how serious It can be I listened to the health person when she came and you're absolutely correct The biggest concern was children kissing, you know, the things not washing their hands not having the right shoes I don't know how you get an ordinance That gets that clearly enough across to people that you could be setting yourselves up to get very very sick And not even realizing it because you thought this would be a great experiment That's why I said I think your permit should be higher It's not for the faint of heart to do it's somebody who's seriously wants to do this And it's going to study up everything to make sure they do it safely Maybe they would have a Part of the getting the permit would be uh signing off that you've read a pamphlet that they would have to Yeah Well the department of health the public health vet that was here had some information that was good about hand washing As well that we could could be a handout that goes with the perm Permit application You know when you when people come to pick up chicks maybe The town of wilson or sustainable wilson People who want to work on this we could work with people at the health department want to have a fact sheet to say Here you go. Like you're you know what you should be washing your hands so much over the next You know several weeks that like they should be fairly rock, you know Not exactly saying that but that is where the real prevention Is and and that maybe isn't something that's Legislated or regulated in some way. I mean maybe that's a community. That's something that we can do As a community most people probably are going to put guys from a yard sounds like education Sounds like both we can do it both at that point if you could talk to guys from a yard and get them to prepare You know information educational package that goes along, you know warning or however You would do that plus when somebody comes in and asks for the permit You could provide the same package and like dad says you can have them sign off that they've read it and If you think a video might be more Useful educating people and watch this video or something Yeah, I mean the risks apply to everyone regardless of Your acreage, which is why I keep thinking about like well, what's the point of sale? I mean guys from here in all of the chickens that are coming into wilson people can buy bullets from other farms But in one place where people are buying chicks. So that was probably my my largest overall comment and I've Had email communications with eric and I'm coming at this from both A health and environment and a chicken owner perspective. So I'm really trying to Pull apart all of this really touches on a lot of parts of my life and things that I think about and I'm happy to Be a resource for eric as well as the select board and In the town generally I will I do need to point out that female chickens are hands yes, so Chickens are both male and female And hands are female and roosters are male I I do feel like there are Some of the parts around enclosure that could be really hard to meet since such as rodent proofing the pen so I I think people need to try to road and proof and Predator proof the pens but rodents can get through really really tiny spaces And so I in some ways I sort of feel like I mean you can't want to prove anything really I mean like our cars. I don't want to prove this building's now It's just really hard. And so I sort of I feel like that is It's unrealistic and I'm happy to talk specifics with eric The other Thing to think about is that it is state law when you buy chicken buy chicks that you have to buy six And so if we're saying you can't have more than six Then a person and a person has six chickens and then Mortality is fairly high in chickens. Just they get eaten by other animals or they just die or It's pretty high even among the And especially among the little chicks. So if someone has six chickens and then they're blacklist onto three They're not able to buy More chickens to get back up to six because the state law said you have to use the minimum that you can buy is six So then a person would need to their flock would have to get down to zero Before they could buy another six chickens So How many chickens do you have can I ask? Right now I have seven but That's and that's getting low for me. So I'll get new ones this year I usually have more like 12 I like to have that and and there are animal welfare Reasons for that if you have two chickens in a coop, they really can't keep themselves warm in the winter So you don't want to get too low. You don't want to get too high because of crowding. So there is this There's always this flop list Back and forth in a flock of how many numbers there are and so you just kind of have to decide every year Am I at a low enough number that I can add six more? So I try to stay around a dozen And that's seven right now, but I expect probably the next year that a few will die. So I'll probably get Seven or eight bring myself a little bit over the dozen and then You know, and then I'll lose a few for whatever reason so I'm not sure what the answer is to that Um, you know, maybe it's slightly hot. Maybe it's nine chickens People get down to three and then they go up to nine. I mean the state law is nine Maybe could be a lot for a small size small lot, but The state law is what it is and um So I I think that might need some reconciling Um I mean a lot of my concerns have been addressed based on That this is now only we're applying applying to less than one One acre it was very concerned about, you know, the homesteader that lives Which I include myself in this, you know, I'm seven and a half acres of north wilson surrounded by woods it's great for I mean it's a great situation and Um, and so to have an ordinance like this apply To someone like me would sort of would Be overly regulatory in my opinion like no one's complaining about my rooster so Do I have to get rid of you know, I'd have to get rid of them it with the with if these ordinances apply to me And that address might concern the most and I wanted to add to that that if you are In this situation where you can have a rooster and you raise your own chicks There's much less salmonella and disease issues plus the pad is taking care of the chicks You're not taking them inside. It's a much healthier environment to raise your own chicks And so I was a little bit concerned about the rig out But by keeping it to the under one acre all those concerns went away Another technicality is that chicken Parasite chicken parasites don't typically affect humans and I I actually looked this up today. I couldn't find any parasite that affects humans and chickens It's sort of normal for them to have a certain amount of parasite load in the winter They have a certain amount of mites and so this language is kind of strong for that I mean, I nobody wants the chickens to have mites and there's things that can be done Um to reduce that but it's not a public health threat It can harm the health of the chicken, but it's not a public health threat So it's mainly salmonella and half a pamphlet factor that we're worried about. It's mainly bacterial threats That that chickens. I mean that it's the same thing as cooking chicken in your own kitchen. It's It's salmonella and pamphlet factor mainly Um, there's a couple of viruses, but like it You could get avian influenza from a virus from a chicken, but that's not how we get influenza We get it from each other. I mean there's cases of people in china who have gotten very sick from influenza from their chickens But it's not really happening here. It could potentially because influenza can be passed between humans and chickens, but On a day-to-day basis it's not happening here. So the public health threats are fairly limited In in my opinion, and it's really mainly from handling the chickens and their manure and their bedding Because so we look forward to having you work with Eric and We need to move on to the rest of our agenda tonight. Go ahead and just brief comment Um, I just thought it should come back to the basics It was really good to say the cuckoo in front of the house and that it can't be part of the house That you keep check those things are really important But getting into the rogueproofing and so forth because I know people who have movable Cages they move around the yards and the chickens are always on fresh grass And that would be prevented by the way it was worded So I would just say strip out everything with the basics and the point is you are regulating Under one acre and that's valuable Thank you Make sure your comments Thanks So, um, hopefully we can take care of the next one. Uh, quickly green mountain masonic center agreement we talked about this at our last meeting and Ted asked for some more information, which I think we have Saw the information and I am Good I would do indeed I'd moved to authorize the town manager to sign a grant agreement between the town and the green mountain masonic center for a term starting july 1 2018 in ending august 1 second Sorry discussion on the motion If not, all those in here the motion say aye. Aye. We oppose and the whole extension is good managers report Two things first, uh select board retreat I asked that time of year Last year we are retreat focused Maybe didn't even feel like our treat, but we it was a work session and it focused on the town plan update and actually Plan is been approved so we don't have that as an issue And it's been several years since the board had kind of a general session We're just talked about goals and objectives. So my thinking was that That would be the focus if the board Once I can do a survey like I've done other years to see what the general consensus is, but My I since it just seemed so obvious. I just threw that out as A story like a neat And if that's if there's a consensus around that then I'll And and the other pieces of this which is to have have it start like an early evening and Run through dinner time and we'd have dinner as part of it and arrange for a facilitator to pop the board work through setting goals and objectives That Makes sense for everyone. Yeah, I'd like that. The only thing I'd like to add is at some point, um I'd like I don't know how others feel Some sort of a tour of town facilities Oh, yes, like we've really lost the I shouldn't say lost. It's You know that connection hasn't happened in a while And I didn't know if that could be integrated into the building at all, but I kind of I I'm feeling like I may want to do that separately, but that's totally fine I just this could be an opportune time just to raise it and The spring time is probably a good time to do that. Uh, longer daylight hours. Yeah Okay, we will arrange that as well good Okay, great. And then I'm sorry. No, I said that's great. Okay, good So and the only other item on my report that I just briefly want to touch on is the noise arts update. Um I I'd received some information from the club concerning the number of special events and um I had problems with the numbers because they didn't all line up with my numbers So I asked the club if they can provide some documentation And they said they were working on that so, um I'll take that at face value and uh, hope that we get some additional information from them soon And then once I do I'll bring that back to the board Okay, good So that's all I had from the other business. I know we have some permits and Yes We have two special event permits. The first is scheduled for april 6th And it is scheduled for 329 harvest lane, which is a natural nature natural provisions It's a tasting event Um And uh, let's see Well, I guess that's about all the information I have here The staff has no objections to this Oh, the hours are 330 to 6 The next one is for an event scheduled april 20th This is going to be held at the Vermont technical college a 201 laurence place And again, it's a similar type of event all indoor. There's plenty of parking And the I should have mentioned the licensee name under the previous one was uh, farnham ale and lager Um, the other one you just approved the one that's being proposed here is Grunfeld meterie llc objections No, and the the timing is roughly that it's 6 to 9 30 p.m The staff has no objections Last one is liquor license, this is from burlington beer. They already have a first class license This would be a second-class license which allows them to sell take out or you know, someone wants to buy a six pack or something They can buy it and take it out similar to what they may be able to buy at a convenience store, for example Is this a renewal or a first time? This is the first time Um, just by comparison good water brewery already has a first and second class I'm pretty sure I don't want to go into that First I have experience of bought of course. It wasn't this year but I I bought If it was a growl and they call it but it wasn't this year, so I think questions for Pick on this uh, motion to be ordered There's no motion Most in favor say aye aye any opposed any other business anybody has tonight The only thing I wanted to bring up something so I I'm I'm Obviously bothered by this whole catamount thing and I'm really struggling because I was a big proponent of catamount And uh, although I know one dissenting vote will not crush the this license deal either but I go back to when this was sold to us and in the public discussions Nowhere was it mentioned that this was a condition. It seems like we should have a process rick where You come to the select board for some discussion or some guidance When something so material changes for something so big I don't know um We actually presented before priests pretty much about the same time we learned about it So it's it's not like we had this information at staff level and Oh, I guess mom just referring to I heard melinda say this was like from day one That that's what we're told that we didn't staff didn't know about this until Um fairly recently, but you had um, okay, so maybe I don't know the first time I heard about it Is when I saw the license agreed Materially what we what we thought We had all got on board for and it feels like we've gotten to the point where we're so far down the pipe People feel like well, it's a done deal and I guess I I never feel that way. I feel like you know There's a lot of time to do things and do them right and I don't feel like I'm in any rush on the other hand, I mean um, I certainly don't want to kill the catamount deal, but Um, I feel like this should have been brought to us um To be discussed and and shared about what to do about it rather than Going down the line It was like you're held over a barrel, right? You're basically told that's what I felt too. Yeah, I think the town the the Either melinda or yourself. I guess it would be you because you must have heard from melinda when it was shared That maybe that's one of the things we can talk about in our retreat as well as how that Happens because I feel like at this point people are of the opinion. Well Gosh, we got to get this done though. Well, I want to see catamount happen. Don't get me wrong I'm I'm a huge proponent, but I also want to see the town maintain We're spending, you know, $600,000 of taxpayer money. I'd like to make sure the town Runs it and it represents the town people's interests and not just a mountain bike center, but that's My sense is is from the time You started negotiating over this agreement and when we first saw it was a relatively short amount of time I heard it was months. Okay I don't know it may have been months Just seems to be should have known and had a discussion about it This is not this I understand what you're saying and I just really appreciate it This this whole thing is not following the normal process. Yeah either and it's yeah It just feels bad right now and it, you know, let me let me just add some more on the whole catamount thing so other people have brought this to me and shared the with this carving out this nice area to create a You know the continue the mountain bike center, but we're leaving A strip of land in front for the macalas to develop over time And we have I think we have to be a little careful on how that looks as well. I love Jim mccullough He's a fantastic guy public servant just I think we as Public representatives we have to look at how that looks the only thing I can add to that I'll try to be very quick is Despite being an avid mountain biker I'd like to consider myself an avid mountain biker would be very disappointed if catamount is viewed as only a mountain bike center I think that would be Its potential is so much more. I hopefully we realize that I'm hoping so too. That's why I was excited Yeah, because I said I didn't want it to be just a mountain bike center So if we need to continue this discussion, we'll be talking about the license again Right, but my point wasn't necessarily I didn't want to limit it to that My point was when something so materially changes on something we had discussed and approved to go forward on It seems like before negotiating the agreement. We should have had a discussion It may end up the same way you guys may say well, we don't want to push back, but The one thing I'll add again. I'll try to be quick is I don't view it as a material change It was it was something it was an initial thing that I was surprised at but I don't think it changed It's just that um I assumed the catamounts, uh, the maybe the colors family and and maybe the page family also Their view of how this was going to should proceed forward and my expectation for how something like this would proceed forward We're just two different things And didn't find out about it to the one document that would really spell it out was in front of me and that was like Oh, I didn't realize And that's that's how I view this Great. All right, and then we will adjourn the meeting first night