 To order, the South Rongjin City Council meeting of Monday, November 8th, 2021 will commence with the Pledge of Allegiance, and Megan, do you want to start us, please? Sure. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. So next is instructions on exiting the building in case of an emergency and a review of the technology options. Jessie. Great, thank you. So for those in the room, as you see there are two exits on either side of the back of the auditorium, you can use either one and then turn left or right to exit the building entirely. I want to remind those who are on the phone that if you are interested in participating and speaking, you can turn your camera on. You can also indicate that to us in the chat. I will be monitoring that. But we are not monitoring the chat for comment at the meeting. If you would like to make a comment, please unmute or on camera and talk to us. And then finally, I do want to share with those in the room and also just for the public for future information that this room is wired for assisted listening devices. So if that is a need you have, please see Andrew or myself and we can hook you up with that so the meeting will be broadcast right into your ears. Thank you very much. Great, thank you. Item three is the agenda review. Are there any additions, deletions, or changes in order of agenda items? Okay, seeing none. I will just note, Tom Chitenden will not be joining us tonight. He had a conflict and we've had so many meetings I guess recently that he got confused about this one, so it wasn't on this calendar. Okay, so item four, comments and questions from the public not related to the agenda. Are there any, Roseanne? And for the public, when you are speaking at the mic, if you wish, feel free to take your mask off so you're easier to understand. Yes? And if you haven't been on that stretch of road, it's a very wide road without any obstructions and it invites speaking. As you come, as you're driving east, go a little hill on Spear. And then there's a straightaway that people, our house is two doors down and we hear it at night time. It sounds like there's rag racing, then there's a very sharp turn and then there's another speedway until you get to the doors of the street. So the wildlife crossed that road. But there were human beings on that road all the time. They're walking, they're jogging, they're biking. Some are on the bike path, some are in the road. There's a real chance of somebody getting hurt on that road, given the kinds of speed that people are going. And now with accelerated development in the southeast quadrant, there's more traffic on that road and they're going at higher speed. So I've seen some dead animals in the road, there's a little possum there that was hit the other day. Last night, somebody ran into a tree so hard, it uprooted the tree. I mean the roots are up, part of that road has curve, some doesn't. I walk it every day and you can see tire tracks on the part that doesn't have curve. And they mean they're going over the grassy part, which is right next to the bike path. I was walking at one time a while back and I saw a woman take that turn and go up on the curve, almost flipped her car. There's alcohol bottles all along that stretch of the road. So your thing is for other purposes too, but anyway. I'm asking you to consider doing something to slow the traffic down on that road before something more serious happens than an possum getting hit. If you haven't seen it, it's worth, I know Tim Johnson's there. It's worth taking a look at that and just watching how fast people drive. The speed limit is 25, they're easily going 45, but easily. And with so many people in the road, it's just a matter of time before something happens. And of course, that's the only cross path for the wildlife to go from the wetlands area to the north to the hubbub natural area to the south. And so I understand concerned about wildlife also concerned about children and people that are walking on that. So I know in the past, Justin has said speed bumps don't work. Whoa, what a difference. Anyway, yeah, right. I know there's this problem with speed bumps, with the plows. And Justin says people slow down when they hit the speed bump and they speed up to make up for the lost time of slowing down to go over the speed bump. Certainly there must be something we can do. Temporary speed bumps, you take them up in the winter. Maybe even a sign, I mean it won't stop the ones that are drag racing. But wildlife crossing area, children playing area, maybe just to bring it to the attention of people as they speed on that road. So I'm asking you to consider that. There may be other streets in the city like this, but because I live close to this, I know what's happening. So thank you. Thank you very much. Are there any comments or questions from the public? Are there any on the line? Not that I have seen. Okay. So seeing no more, we'll move on to announcements and the city managers report. So let's go around to the announcements. Are there any? Tim, well, yeah. It's not important that I'd like to announce what many of you already know that I have children in school, that, you know, girl soccer, boy soccer, girls field hockey, all played in championship games with girl soccer, girls field hockey, being victorious. So that was a wonderful weekend for our high school teams. Absolutely. And UVM Lady Cats, number one, American East Championship today, one to zero against UNH. It's a first. And they have an NCAA birth against Princeton. See, there was an announcement. You remember. I told you, you remind me of that. Okay. Thank you. That's not out of line at all. Megan? No, I can't top that. Okay. Well, I just want to first acknowledge it. I know we all got information about Donna Kinville's award, but she was voted and named best clerk in the state. And that's really significant. She's been with us a long time and serves us very well. For those on the council who participated a lot in the BCA and the reappraisal issues, she's really earned her keep. And we all know that she runs, I mean, election. So we're really fortunate to have her and I just wanted to acknowledge for the public her work. And then I don't have any meetings that I've gone to, but I did want to share something. So I hope you'll indulge me. I guess you don't have any choice, do you? So I will take the opportunity to indulge myself. And I came across a poem written by a member, a resident of South Burlington, Julie Cadwalader-Stow. She's a friend of mine. I've known her probably for 30 years. Our kids went to high school together. We go to the same church. And she's really quite an accomplished poet. And she wrote this and it so spoke to me in terms of the issues that the city is dealing with in our country and our nation and our world on global warming. I think it's appropriate when we think about the purposes of interim zoning and we'll be dealing with that tonight and development in this community. It's called Cornwall Swamp and she prefaced it with some comments from Chief Seattle, who was from the Duwamwamish tribe. He lived from 1780 to 1866, so he lived a good long time. So it's titled Cornwall Swamp. Consider a chimney 22 feet from fire to sky. Imagine that distance descending from the soles of your feet to the bedrock beneath. There between topsoil and rock extend miles of roots, soil, streams, pools, and unnamed, unaccountable creatures that thrive in 22 feet of peat, of sponge, of cushion, giving rise to cinnamon fur, purple night shade, sarsaparilla, winterberry, silver maple, high bush cranberry, northern white cedar. But no, give us the conformity of gravel, the tidiness of concrete, the practicality of straight lines, that's what we like. Not this massive dynamic complexity that we cannot capture or tame. Yet when Superstorm Irene slammed into Vermont, tore bridges from their moorings, flushed cars, houses, roads downriver, carried away barns, swallowed farmland, this Cornwall Swamp absorbed its velocity, contained its ferocity, and said to the towns downstream, this is what I was made for. I am the wisdom of millennia, the multiplicity of tendrils beneath the surface. We flex, we fold, we embrace, we hold. And I think it's very apt to sometimes think about that and how we think about the sustainability in our community. So thank you. All right, the city managers report. Well, from poetry to sports, this is a hard act to follow. I don't have anything as good as any of those things. But I do have a few updates I wanted to share with you all. As you all probably received, we received some complaints about camping in the cemetery along Shelburne Road. That has been cleaned up through our police department with our Howard Center community outreach team. And those folks have moved on, hopefully, to housing solutions. We did want to suggest currently we do not have an encampment ordinance on our books. So that may be something the council wants to consider in the future, considering an ordinance along those lines. I also wanted to bring up that we received, the council received an email from Secretary of State Condos recently about the quarry that was approved for filling on Lime Kiln Road in Colchester with some history about actions that South Wellington has taken in the past, ensuring that those trucks are kept, hopefully, off of our neighborhood roads. And with your kind of tacit head nods, I will explore that again with St. Mike's. I also wanted to just, this is a quick heads up anticipating you will see this again during the budget process. We have, as you likely know, we have a camera system in our police vehicles. It's a system that was installed, a cruiser camera system that was installed in 2014 with a five year shelf life. The technology is no longer supported by the vendor. So we are exploring upgrading that mid budget cycle and also upgrading it with the potential of adding body worn cameras, which is something that I believe this council has considered before and certainly has a great deal of support within the police department, both for the transparency it brings, for the work we do on the street, the safety of officers in the public and the opportunity for training opportunities to use the video. So we will likely be exploring that mid budget year and you'll see that reflected in the FY23 budget. So more to come on that and happy to bring in the chief if you would like to hear more about that in the future as well. And then finally, just as a reminder, tonight ends our kind of, I think we'll end our big run of special council meetings. This is a special city council meeting. We will meet next Monday at a regular council meeting and then we'll get back on for a regular cycle with the following council meeting being December 6, where you will receive the FY23 budget. So I know you'll be very sad to not see us all for a few weeks, but hopefully we will stay back on that schedule. Thank you very much. Thank you. Any questions or thoughts? Okay. Well, we are supposed to start a public hearing at 7pm and we're a little bit early. So we really have to kill some time. Any other? Okay. Okay. Yeah. We could go to eight reports from counselors on committee assignments. Are there any? Yes. Okay. So I've been appointed to the operations committee of the Green Mountain Transit Authority. And, and one, we talked about a lot of things that I won't bore you with today, but one of the things that I think is really important to know. Again, still free fares is that masks are required. Whether you're vaccinated or not on the bus. And it's been a source of, as you know, bus drivers are very hard to come by someone with a commercial driver's license. Commercial vehicle operators. It's very difficult to find them in all professions that require commercial vehicle operators licenses. And they're under incredible strain fighting, not fighting, but having discussions, animated discussions with people riding the bus over whether or not they should wear a mask. Wear your mask, people on the bus and give the bus drivers a break. Okay. Thank you. That was a minute. We need a few more. Any other thoughts? Oh, Paul. I think you read my mind just then. I may have. We'll find out in a minute. Paul Connor director of planning and zoning. I just would like to make an exciting announcement that today our new city planner, Kelsey Peterson started. She comes to us having grown up in Vermont and been to school in Ontario. She was a geography major and then went on to law school and graduated from law school. She's been working for a law firm for the last few years doing work directly related to land use planning and litigation in some cases. And so she brought with her a really neat set of skills that both bring the geographers viewpoint and the attorneys viewpoint and we're really excited to have her on board. So that's my announcement. You will get to see her very, very soon. I'm sure. What a lot was she working in Vermont? She was living in Vermont or she lives and has been living in Vermont in Winooski. But like many people today, her firm was actually based out of New Hampshire main. So she was working remotely back from Vermont. So that's great. Yeah. And just add one more that you did read my mind. Well done. I'm going to add one more sentence about that about Kelsey. She in her academic work has done a lot of kind of community building activities with First Nations populations in Canada and others as well. So we, I think, I think Paul and I both really appreciated the approach she takes to bringing people together during planning processes and having the voices impact planning decisions. So we're thrilled to have her on board and look forward to bringing her to the council in the future. And thank you for allowing us to that is just a reminder one of the positions that we are bringing back that was frozen during COVID. And we are using some of our ARPA dollars to fund those positions and a step down way over the next four years. So say thank you. Is there an update on the Kimball Avenue bridge? After Thanksgiving. Did you want to talk about the CCRPC? There was a forum on Saturday. Yeah, I was not able to attend. Yeah, thank you for that. I should have included that. So Saturday morning, I attended a virtual equity summit hosted by the Jenin County Regional Planning Commission. There are about 80 folks on zoom for about three hours together. It was really fascinating morning. One of the reasons it was interesting was that they were live translating it into both Arabic and Swahili for the participants. So it kind of slowed down the conversation by two thirds because everything was said three times but was really beautiful to listen to during the course of that conversation. There were then a series of breakout rooms with CCRPC staffing those breakout rooms conversations focused around kind of the history of some of the structural racism that's existed within past planning efforts over the past centuries of the United States as well as how land use theories can be equitably used. So they went through some history establishing shared language shared definitions and then broken conversations about looking forward five years really with a focus on housing looking forward five years if we as a community were to have successfully specifically narrowed the gap between white home ownership and BIPOC home ownership in Chinden County. What are the tools we would have put in place to enable that to happen. Right now in Chinden County about 53% of white households own homes and about 17% of by BIPOC households own homes so trying to equalize that wealth distribution. The small groups talked about that and there will be a forthcoming report from CCRPC about actions we could all take. There was a lot of shared conversation about some of the success that the city of Burlington has seen with Taisha Greens Diversity Equity and Inclusion Department as well as who's on a Davis's work at the state level and is there are those models that we want to look at bringing to the the region of Chinden County over the next several years probably housed at CCRPC. So I think that will be recommendations that that's forthcoming. Could you describe those two but those two offices are doing both in Burlington or statewide. Sure. So there are there I I can explain the space just solely on what I've read in the news. I haven't been a part of all either of those things before. So Maro Mayor Weinberger stood up a diversity equity and inclusion I believe it's now called the Diversity Equity and Inclusion and Belonging Department headed up by Taisha Green and his administration. And that those experts on that team are really looking at how to inform policy and staffing and procedures within the city of Burlington City Governance. And their effort has really centered the voices of the BIPOC community leaving government in the back a little bit and really and figuring out systems by which those voices are brought in and and used to inform policymaking. Susanna Davis is I believe she's a cabinet level or her position, which is the state director of equity perhaps is a cabinet level position in the Scott administration and is doing a very similar thing for the state governance. So I think the concept is CCRPC provides a lot of technical assistance and planning support to the communities of Chittenden County. And in the absence of county government, but all of us knowing we need to do more in this area is there a way they could help build up some of those resources and then help translate what that looks like in South Burlington when you scan Burlington that may be different than what it looks like in Jericho, Huntington, some of the smaller communities in Chittenden County. So that's the high level concept. I'm not sure if that's what the CCRPC board will choose to do next. But that's the, that was one idea that came forward. Thank you for asking. It was really fascinating day and I imagine that there will be many more such conversations over time so incur and I will continue to keep everybody updated on those. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, six more minutes gang. Any other. Roseanne. Sure. Why don't you come up to the mic so the people on at home can hear. So I heard that and I read the stat about BIPOC ownership of home versus white ownership of home. Did they give a reason why they did not endeavor to give a reason why I think that there are many demographers across the country that have looked into that. I mean, there are many. I am certainly not an expert in this, but there are, you know, there are really systematic things that have happened in our history that enabled wealth, wealth for people of color was held back. Oh, no, I'm aware of that. You know, from a national standpoint, I'm worried about Chittenden County. Why in Chittenden County. I'm not aware of any current, you know, restrictions that may have been placed in the past. I'm just curious as to why in Chittenden County is that the case, you know, I'm not putting the spot I just think understanding the reason for it would help us to get to a solution. I think Chittenden County is at all unique in this and nor do I think anyone at CCRPC was saying Chittenden County was unique. I think more they were saying because of these structural systems in the banking in the banking world and in the federal funding world and in the permitting world, those things that existed nationally had the same effect on Chittenden County. And because of that, our demographics in that home ownership area mirror a lot of the national demographics in the home ownership area. So I don't think there's anything unique about Chittenden County, but there may be not necessarily unique ways we overcome it, but tools we use to overcome that discrepancy the same way others nationally are doing. Thank you. If I may, since we have a couple minutes. Yeah, I think, you know, some of our, some of our residents in the county who are people of color are recent arrivals to and I know that I've heard that the Scott administration is working on letting people who were professionals in their in their country come here and be professionals and not be custodians right and I think that that is something licensing right right and I think that's a positive step when you you see people come here with real expertise. I think that it not all be, you know, starting from zero again if we were seeking to, you know, promote equity and enable people to gain equity and not only equity but assets. Tim you're leaning forward. I know it I'm the housing ties into this really strongly and you know I don't want to go off on a long tangent here because now we have two minutes but you know that the state failed to pass that legislation last year about having a statewide rental registry and that was an article in seven days cover story this week about a particular landlord out of the area and the poor conditions and many of those units and a lot of them are section eight right and so that that's a really ongoing discussion and even Burlington has its issues right with enforcement right when these things happen and so there it's a very interesting discussion about housing discrimination in terms of conditions of units right when especially when you have new immigrants right coming in and they can't afford anything else and a lot of it is being provided for them with a either stipend or or section eight and there's not a large quantity to choose from right so they're at the mercy of some of those landlords so interesting. And I do know that there are faculty members who need section eight housing. So it's it's I think that in many cases in Chittenden County and maybe all the state of Vermont our salaries are low. When you look at out of state salaries we have a high cost of living and we have lower salaries. So it's it's a puzzle. Okay. Well I think we've arrived at the bewitching hour. Well done teams. So thank you for filling in gang. And it was a good conversation. So I the next item on the agenda is interim zoning application number IZ 21-04 of 835 Hinesburg Road LLC applicant for development of a primarily undeveloped 113.8 acre parcel. The development consists of 24 commercial and industrial use buildings with associated parking and loading areas on five lots and new public streets including one 57.5 acre lot containing 10 buildings. An 8.5 acre lot with four buildings. A 12.4 acre lot containing four buildings. A 17.6 acre lot with five buildings. And a 9.9 acre lot containing one building at 835 Hinesburg Road. So I would appreciate a motion to open the public hearing. Second. All in favor? Aye. So the hearing is open. So I'd just like to summarize for all attendance that the hearing will follow the following order. Disclosure of conflicts of interest and ex parte communications. I'll swear in the applicants and anyone wishing to testify will hear from the applicant. The chair opens the floor to counselors to pose any questions of the applicant. And after this any member of the public wishing to ask a question or provide input may do so. I'll ask people to limit those remarks to three minutes. So next I want to ask are there any, do any counselors have any conflicts of interest or ex parte communications with the applicant or others to disclose at this time? Okay seeing none. A reminder that the Vermont law requires that only interested persons who have participated in this proceeding may take an appeal of any decision issued in this proceeding. A definition of interested person can be found on that table at the back of the room. And if you do wish to retain the right to appeal, please be sure to sign the interested persons signing sheet on that table. It's on the my right, your left. So I would invite the applicant and all representatives wishing to provide testimony and any interested persons to be sworn in. You do not need to be sworn in just to make a question. So all those wishing to be sworn in, will you please step forward? We have certainly the applicant and his fellows. Is there anyone else? Here's another person. Okay. Right. Right. Or make a comment. If you wish to be sworn in and retain the opportunity to appeal the decision, you would need to be an interested person and sworn in. But just as a resident, you're free to make comments. Okay. So please raise your right hand. And I hereby swear that the evidence I give in this case under consideration shall be the whole truth and nothing but the truth under the pains and penalties of perjury. Say I do. Okay. Thank you. And so who is here for you can sit down. Thank you. I think I'm going to go ahead and start with the question. And I'm going to go ahead and start with the question. Can I do that? Yeah. One clarifying point before you get to the applicant. I did want to draw the council's attention to the memo that was provided by staff to this. There was one small typo that I that I just want to clarify, which is in the sentence that says the parcel is located on the east side of Heinsberg Road and obviously per the map. It is on the west side of Heinsberg Road. So those here for the applicant welcome and please introduce yourself and then provide a brief overview of the project and how you find it complies with the purposes of the interim bylaws and the statutory review review criteria. I'm Jeff Nick. I'm one of the property owners. Andy Rowe with Limerow and Dickinson Consulting Engineers. I'm Matt Byrne from the front block room of Prevelle and Shea. Okay. So Andy, Nick and Jeff, right? Okay. Is your mic on? Is there a green light lit up? Yes. Okay. Great. Thanks. Okay. So you have the floor. Please provide a brief overview. So the sketch plane application for this project was submitted on August 30th and we're still awaiting a DRB review which according to staff will occur after tonight's hearing depending upon your actions. The current zoning district is the industrial open space district. As Jesse mentioned, Heinsberg Road is located to the east. Interstate 89 is located to the north as well as the potential future site of exit 12B to the west is city land adjacent to Dorset Park as well as Veterans Memorial Park into the south is city land as well as undeveloped privately owned property. This conference will now be recorded. Go ahead. And a small commercial building. The property is bisected currently by a water transmission main easement and a utility main easement that runs from Heinsberg Road to the end of Swift Street extension. And as I noted, the 12 potential 12B exit would require, would likely require acquiring some portion of this property adjacent to the interstate in order to facilitate that construction. The official city map was amended after the sketch plane application was submitted. So the roadway connection between Swift Street extension existed at the time the application was submitted. Obviously the council took action on the official city map amendment in September, which eliminated that. The proposed street connections that are shown on the sketch plan to the west and the south could be eliminated without substantially affecting the project layout. Pedestrian connections could remain to the west and the south is shown on the current city map. The application is a sketch plan. It's a sketch plan review which is early on in the process. We intended to provide sufficient detail to be used for the purposes of discussions with the DRB. Much more detail would follow as this project makes its way through the development review process. The project as it's shown does not involve impacts to stream buffers, class 2 wetlands, or buffers, or flood plains, as currently defined by article 12 in the LDRs, the surface water protection standards. As I mentioned, detailed design plans and reports will be provided as the project advances through the development review process. That would include estimated water and sewer flows, a traffic impact assessment, a storm water management plan, grading plans, landscaping plans, lighting plans, and so on. A list of potential uses was included with the sketch plan application. It's a wide range of non-residential uses that was taken from Appendix C of the land development regulations. And those land use impacts would vary widely depending upon the particular use that was chosen from that list of permitted and conditional uses. An office use would have higher parking needs and higher trip generation than a light manufacturing use where most of the floor area might be devoted to that manufacturing space but have a fewer number of employees in a lower water and sewer design flows. Mitigating measures would likely be incorporated into the project design as it advances through the project review process. Mitigation measures could include phasing the construction buildout over a period of time, one or more traffic signals at intersections proposed with Hinesburg Road, working with Green Mountain Transit to extend transit service to this area. In addition to other measures that may be identified as that development review process proceeds. As I mentioned, construction of the project in all likelihood in addition to whatever phasing discussions would occur with the DRB, construction is likely to occur over 10 or more years. Construction would incur in phases with segments of the streets and infrastructure to be constructed to serve smaller groupings of buildings on the site, and then construction of those buildings would proceed in accordance with market demand. In terms of looking at the interim zoning review criteria, the capacity of existing or planned community facility services are lands. As I said, the project is at the sketch plane review where really minimal detail is provided at this point, but much more detail is provided as the project is advanced. Additional details would be provided to address specific issues related to the capacity of community facilities or services, but it is worth noting that the comprehensive plan anticipates medium to higher density non-residential development on this property, on the future land use map, and the project is located in the municipal water and sewer service areas. In terms of existing patterns and uses of development in the area, the project is located in what's currently zoned as the industrial open space. The purpose of the industrial open space zoning district is resided in the LDRs is to establish suitable locations for high quality, large lot, light industrial, and research uses in areas of the city was accessed to major arterial routes in the Burlington International Airport. Those regulations and standards are intended to allow high quality plan developments that preserve the generally open character of the district, minimize impacts on natural resources and water quality, enhance the visual quality of the approaches to the city, while also providing suitable locations for employment and business growth. The location and architectural design of buildings should be in a manner that preserves these qualities. I mentioned earlier the two proposed intersections with Hinesburg Road. Again, the projects at the sketch plan level of review, additional detail on those intersections, and what traffic signals may be warranted would be provided as the project advances. Again, in terms of environmental limitations, the project doesn't anticipate impacts to stream buffers, class 2 wetlands or buffers, or flood plains. Utilization of solar would be considered as the project design is advanced. And lastly, municipal plans or other by-laws, ordinances, or regulations in effect. The project does generally comply with the LDRs currently in effect, as well as the 2016 Comprehensive Plan. Again, based upon the level of detail provided at sketch plan, much more detail would be provided as the project is advanced and that mitigation measures would likely be included, several of which I mentioned. And in all likelihood, there'd be a number of mitigation measures that haven't been identified at this point that would be included as the project moves through the development review process. I just mentioned the 2016 Comprehensive Plan. Again, it's worth noting that the future land use map identifies from east to west, from Hinesburg Road back to Spear Street Extension, on the land use map, future land use map, medium to higher density, principally non-residential, moving to medium intensity, residential to mixed use, and then lastly, all the way to the west, lower intensity, principally residential and very low intensity, principally open space. Under the build-out and analysis on the Comprehensive Plan maps, greater than 100,000 square feet of additional non-residential floor area is anticipated, and one additional dwelling unit anticipating that this project would be non-residential. Do you want to take it from there? Do you have something? Any questions thus far? No, continue with your presentation. Okay. Well, we said for... Would you please identify just for that and really speak into the mic so the people... Sure. We can hear you very well. Okay. But online, it's challenging unless you really speak into the mic. All right. Thank you. I'm Jeff Nick, and we looked at this. We've been involved with this process, the interim zoning process for the last three years, and we had not been really getting any decisive answers in terms of what type of zoning we were going to receive at the end of this process. That didn't come to us until September. So we felt like, you know, what is coming down the pike? We had no idea. We've owned this property for 20 years. We originally set out with a plan that largely mimics what you see here, but this is an early version of what we were proposing to the town of the city back 20 years ago. At that point, the city's plan called for this, exactly this type of development for job growth and employment. That's what the town was looking for. We met at that time with the budding property owners in Dorset Park. At that point, we realized that there's going to be some opposition. Those folks were not keen on this idea. So we took a look at, well, what did we propose some residential as part of a transition from this industrial zone to the residential? That seemed to be well received at the time by the city. And we met with staff and had discussions. In the meantime, we did the things that you would do. We did the archeological study, the wetlands analysis, agricultural soil analysis. We did those things. Then in 2012, this plan showed up on the radar screen talking about the future uses and our property was the only white mark on the plan. So there was some question about which direction the town wanted to go in. So at that point, we had further discussions and put forth a plan that showed some mixed use property. This was a plan that we presented to the town in 2015, which is a true mixed use project. And it allows for residential apartments. We had office space. We had some industrial space, a hotel. We allowed for exit 12. We had cottage type developments. We had agricultural use. We had solar array and mixed use. We did our best to minimize the parking impacts. And I have the minutes of the meeting from that meeting. And largely it says here that the members of the planning commission and some, I think some of you might have been there like the concept. So at that point, we had the city's plan changed a little bit. Future land use plan in 2016 showed medium to higher intensity, particularly non-residential. We had basically four zones across the property. Medium intensity residential to mixed use, lower intensity principal residential and then very low intensity principal open space. And that showed up on your plan here. So we thought we were headed in the right direction with the city. Subsequently, the regional plan came out and the regional plan showed this was the ECOS plan 2018, which the city participated in. In that plan, we had a, I'll just point out the maps in here. We had the legend shows employment zoning within the sewer district. That shows that what the regional plan was suggesting was that we're employment area. Another map in here showed future land use mimicked what the town had put out. Enterprise zoning was proposed here or uses. And then further in the plan, there's the forest block and wildlife habitat plan, which did not show anything on our property. There's a lot of green space on this map, but it's all on the outside of, because again, South Bruinsen is an employment and a high growth, a high growth area. So the regional plan was suggesting that those areas be protected outside of the dense employment and economic activity center. So from there, we've walked into the interim zoning process, which we were quite shocked about. We thought we were heading the right direction, but things changed from there. They started with an open space plan that was kind of thrust upon many property owners. And we were shocked at that, at that point that open space plan appeared to be tried, tried to be used as a regulatory tool. Many of us spoke about that. And I guess that the city decided that that would not be used in a regulatory process, but early on it seemed to be. And then we had the habitat study that came about. And that at the time, I think I spoke to you folks in the joint planning commission meeting and I call this the back door taking, which I still believe this could be considered a taking because at this habitat plan shows about 40 plus acres being off limits to development. The authors of the plan have looked at admittedly never, never entered the property. They took a very high level look at, at habitat. I asked a number of questions during this interim process with the planning commission about, you know, why would you want habitat against the interstate? Why would you, you know, be looking for basically roadkill? Never really had an answer. I subsequently went online myself and learned that quite frankly, you don't want habitat against an interstate for the very reasons I thought. But again, that this plan is in place and being suggested that, that we have to comply with this plan. It's doesn't allow for, again, it's 42 acres of our property. It doesn't allow for any private ownership. It doesn't allow for any use such as stormwater retention within the, the block, but again, nobody's, and it doesn't allow for the applicant to come in with their own study. It just takes us at face value and we don't think that's, that's correct either. So that's, that's where we are. So we felt that we had to take this step to come back and present this plan in hopes to basically preserve our property rights. So Matt, I don't know if you want to step in here. Yeah. Would you move the mic over please? Thank you. And yeah, and take off your mask if you will. So I think what you're hearing from a client is a great deal of frustration with the process that's been going on for a very long time. And they've worked very hard to work with the city to try to come up with something that works for all of the residents of the city. If this goes to a legal, you know, situation, I think the city should be thinking about the information that we provided to the city in our November letter. And I'll recap that. Can you speak up or move the mic just a little bit closer please? Sure. And I'll recap some of the contents of that letter, but really the letter is the best source. The first thing is what Jeff was referring to is that the way that the habitat blocks are set up in the ordinance, it's just a flat out taking, which is unconstitutional both under the United States Constitution and the Vermont Constitution. The other issue is that the zoning district that applies to my client's property is just a very specific zoning district that only applies to their property and some other small lots. And it's illegal under the doctrine of reverse spot zoning, which means you unfairly apply zoning to a particular piece of land. And the third reason is that the idea of forest blocks is something that comes from state statute, which is entirely different than what is coming in South Burlington's regulation related to habitat blocks. And if you look at the history of the Vermont legislation, the state legislation, they're dealing with large swaths of forested land. That's not what you have in South Burlington. But even more on the facts, when you look at the Arrowwood report and you see, you go down to the very fine granular details about why they think this is an important block, the main reason is that it's a big piece of land. They don't really look at whether there are any actual species on the land, right? That's not something that they actually did and tried to do that. But other things that are related to forested land, like trees and forest cover, they actually score pretty low on this particular piece of land. So if you look at the very granular details of what Arrowwood did to this plot, the reason it has a high score or high index rating is just because it's big. And that's not a good reason to call something a forest block. So I think when you look at the very granular details and you look at the big constitutional issues, the application of the ordinance to my client's property in particular is a bad idea, but it's also illegal. And we don't think that the city can apply that to my client's property. Thank you. Any other comments you have? All right, I'll open it to the council. Are there any questions? I'm trying to get the timeline down here. So is this the first sketch plan you've ever submitted to either the DRB or to IZ? And you first submitted it to us or to the DRB or to both? Well, this concept plan we submitted, we had an informal meeting, I guess. No, but I'm asking, this sketch plan before us tonight is that the first sketch plan submitted for Hill Farm to either DRB and or an IZ committee? Yes. Okay, so with all the other discussions you've had before with planning and zoning, you've never submitted any sketch plan before the DRB before until now. That's right. And you haven't heard, you haven't been before the DRB yet. We've been before the planning commission, but not the DRB. And do you have a date with the DRB yet? We do not. You don't? Okay. All right. So I just want to understand that timeline of all the, you know, the concepts that you've shown and shared with planning and zoning and the fact that you have never submitted a sketch plan for that property until now. So just want to establish that. Okay. Thank you. Are there other questions? Yes. Go ahead. Matt, go ahead. Go ahead, Megan. No, go Matt. The 2015 plan that you showed Mr. Nick. Was that submitted ever at sketch plan? This concept plan? Yes. No. We were waiting for the zoning to change to reflect this type of thinking. And we were, we were very encouraged when the town plan city plan mimicked our proposal. So this is 2016. This is 2015. We thought we had in the right direction. The city was giving us the nod of approval. Yep. We like what we see. I think the neighbors were pleased that they were going to have residential next to them. So that was, was a good thing. So to bring up the elephant in the room and to hope for some, perhaps some hope for compromise here. The plan that you submitted in 2015, I don't know if you or your partners still feel it's viable. But how would that plan, which calls for housing and commercial use like commercial, how would that be impacted other than the, the habitat blocks, the plan that you have in front of you versus the proposed land development changes that affect in the zoning changes that affect your 113 acres. Could those two be married together in a successful way or their fundamental problems that you see with the land development regulations as proposed that would prohibit even that 2015 proposal for residential and like commercial from, from being realized. The, the, what I understand today is that the PUD type that the, the planning commission has chosen, and you'll probably hear about that in a bit here, is pretty much 100%, maybe 85% residential. It doesn't allow for any mixed use. It doesn't allow for any, I mean, this community in this region has a real lack of industrial space land. I mean, it's, it's shocking how little land we have for industrial and job growth. So, so this current zoning that's being proposed would not allow for any creativity when any mixed use any high density apartments. Everything that everybody thought we thought people liked in 2015 would not just be residential pretty much. Thank you. Megan, did you have a question? It was linked to Matt's. Yes. I was curious also why there was no residential on the, the plan you submitted since you clearly were seeking some kind of plan that would, that would create some transition from the residential neighborhood of Dorset Park. Yeah. We felt that we had a move under the current zoning, which is industrial open space. You've never changed that. We've been waiting, but that hasn't changed. We've been very patient, but that nothing has changed. Just prior, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off. Go ahead. Just prior, you had said that this was simply to make a statement basically that you didn't want this to be a taking. And what I understand is that your, your land will be allowed to have the residential. It seemed to be quite substantial on that 2015 2016 plan. The residential if I mean I'm seeing it from a distance, but it didn't look like the big buildings that we saw in our packet tonight except for maybe one or two. By our calculations, it's almost 40% of our land would be taken by that habitat block. So that, again, in our mind is a taking with no good rationale for taking it because that's one study when the consultant never even entered the property. Okay, so that's your statement. But our seven seems to be actually pretty, I would say would allow you some leeway in terms of development and on gaining some some monetary value in the land that you own. Well, I go back to that study. I did some further research online and found a study done by Middlebury College last year that showed the impacts of human recreation on Bobcat and other wildlife habitat. And it shows I have a copy of it here that when you start recreating and walking paths with dogs, habitat doesn't like that. Wildlife habitat would tend not to go there. So we're going to have recreational paths on this property. There are people already walking on our property. There's a number of paths right across our property. We've seen people with dogs out there. So my guess is the habitat is compromised already, but yet we're not allowed to bring in our own assessment. We're relying on this habitat study when people haven't been on the property. So it just seems a bit unfair. I think the other issue is that the proposed R7 district doesn't have a wider, you know, the type of uses you would need to put the 2015 plan into place. So the, you know, the 2015 plan has a number of different types of buildings and uses, which, you know, if you think about it, it's also something that's important. I mean, if you really are concerned about global warming, you want to have residential mixed in with, you know, places that people go to recreate or to eat or to get goods and services and that sort of stuff. Instead of having to jump in their car and drive, you know, a couple of miles down the road to get that sort of stuff. And that sort of mixed use in a residential neighborhood is the type of plan that they had put forward. I think the R7 district is very narrow in the types of residential that you actually are allowed to have in that neighborhood. And it's neighborhood commercial as well. It's R7 neighborhood commercial. So I should have stated the full, my question was about the residential, but there is neighborhood commercial that has been proposed. I understand that. But if you look at the actual list of the things that are in the regulations, it's actually pretty narrow. You're talking about the proposed regulation. The proposed regulation. Right. Yes. So that's another issue with the regulation. And I think that addressed, you know, from a practical standpoint, right, there's the legal position and we can argue about that all day. From a practical position, what they're looking to do is not something they can do under the proposed regulations. What would the neighborhood commercial not allow you to develop? Well, they can get into the more into more details, more details about that. But if you're, I mean, if you're, if what you're asking for is like a compromise position, we can present something that would deal with the specifics of that in a way that you could act on at a later point in time. This is a public hearing. So if you, if there are specific things that you would like to have in your plan that. But we have to assess this for the plan that they've submitted to us tonight and for no other proposed plan. I just want to keep that in mind. Right. So we have to focus on that. I guess I'd just like to follow up kind of piggyback on that. And what Councilor Emory was suggesting is that potentially in the proposed LRDs, some of the things that you originally had wanted to do. Might be possible. And they are. And you also stated that you've waited a really long time, which you have. You've owned the property for 20 years. There are probably a whole lot of reasons why you've waited 20 years to develop it. And not just because you were confused with the zoning and the regulations in South Burlington. I suspect there's lots of reasons one holds on to property for a while before it's developed. But I guess my question is the hearing on those proposed LDRs will occur in January. That's a month and a half, two months away. Having owned this for 20 years is two more months. An imposition to wait to understand what you can or cannot do on your property. I mean, I understand you have this legal position that it's a-taking. That's kind of separate, I guess, from the LDRs. And that will have to be figured out. But I'm just surprised you came forward with this. With the current LDRs knowing full well that new ones will be explored and, you know, likely adopted in some form yet you want to push this envelope. So is the real purpose just to- The real purpose is to preserve our property rights. And I can say you suggested that we waited for a number of reasons. The only reason we've waited is because of the zoning. We realized back in 2005 when we met with the neighbors that they would like residential. We came to the town and said, would you think about changing this? And slowly, yes, maybe, okay, we get- But it's taken forever. And when we know the neighbors wanted residential, we were willing to say let's do something with industrial, commercial, and residential. So it's been the zoning. And we've waited a long time. But I think it's worth also noting, you know, there was some discussion about a potential compromise in the 2015 plan. Where the zoning is now, it's all commercial and industrial. Where the zoning is going to, there's no commercial and industrial, with the exception of the neighborhood commercial. There's no much different non-residential use than would be allowed under the current zoning. And so, you know, there really are two opposite ends of the spectrum in terms of residential uses being allowed under the proposed, no residential under the current, and that industrial, heavy commercial being allowed currently, but not under the proposed. You know, in terms of that 2015 plan, there's no room for compromise under the existing or the proposed regulations. You know, this is, it's, right now, it's a real missed opportunity to go 100% or mostly residential. I mean, there's a really neat opportunity here for a live work environment. You could live, work, shop. You could be right here. I mean, this would hit all the high spots in terms of climate change, global warming. Right. I understand that. But what's before us is not that option, is it? It's this industrial park that you proposed. And that's what we're talking about tonight. And we really should limit our conversations to that. And as part of that, I can't remember which one made the statement, but that there's really a dearth of commercial industrial opportunity or land. And I presume you were talking about all of Chittenden County. And I don't know. There's industrial parks and several other communities. South Burlington has two. And when I drive through Technology Park and when I drive through the Meadowlands, there seems to me to be quite a few open spaces that have not been developed. So if this is a, if your statement suggests that people are kind of waiting at the door to build a manufacturing plant, it seems to me that there's some opportunities in this community. But you're saying, you know, I want to be the next industrial complex in South Burlington. I came prepared to address that question. Good. So the Allen and Brooks and Minor report, which some of you may know about, is a twice a year report that looks at the commercial real estate market in Chittenden County. I'll just read a couple of excerpts here. One significant factor which has limited industrial land sale activity in recent years is the scarcity of available lots in centrally located parts of Chittenden County. Williston and South Burlington combined for approximately 43% of the total supply of improved industrial property in Chittenden County. However, most of the industrial parks in these municipalities are fully absorbed. The scarcity of centrally located industrial lots has resulted in increased sale and development activity in peripheral settings, such as corporate drive and Essex and other places. So by not having the growth in the central location, you're really creating sprawl and having folks have to drive all the way to Essex to get to their job. And we know what happens all the time. It's the traffic is crazy in some of these locations. So you really want to centralize your growth that you want to and you have the perfect opportunity to do it. But instead you're forcing people to drive to their jobs. And as you can see from this report here, there is not much industrial land left. I guess unless they live in Essex. I mean, the counter proposal might be to have development dispersed around the county so people really can live near where they work and not all have to commute to Burlington and South Burlington just because we're in the middle of the county. But that's another conversation. And that's not what we're about tonight. Are there any other questions? Do we need to ask the question how we think that this application adheres to our IZ principles at all? Yes, that would be good. So can you walk us through that, please? So again, I think as I had mentioned earlier with this being sketch plane level, there's a lot of detail that hasn't been developed yet. A lot of design, some mitigation measures that no detail is provided on because they haven't been fully developed. In some cases, they may not be known. In terms of the capacity of the existing or planned community facilities, services or lands, that's one of those questions. Although it is in the municipal water and sewer service areas and it does have good access on Heinsberg Road, trip generation, water sewer flows, things like that will be identified as the project design is advanced and as the particular uses are identified and trip generation could widely vary between the types of uses. An office use is going to have higher design flows than a warehouse facility, for example, same with trip generation. But, you know, as both I had noted earlier and Jeff had noted throughout the comprehensive plan, it does identify high to moderate density and then moderate to lower density across this property from Heinsberg Road heading west. So while we don't have specifics in terms of impacts, this is an area that was identified for a fairly high level of industrial and commercial development. It is in the community, excuse me, the sewer and water service areas in areas where services are available. And because of the intensity anticipated in the comprehensive plan, I think it's reasonable to assume that there is some capacity there with the provision that this project be built out in order to not exceed those capacities. Do you have a, looking at the plan that you submitted, there's, I'm trying to remember, was it 198 parking slots? It looks like there's more than that. Just sort of 2000 shown. Yeah, 2000, okay. The uses, you know, we tried to anticipate what typical uses might occur in those buildings. Some of those are much larger buildings with much less parking that might accommodate a light manufacturing research use, that type of thing. There's much larger parking areas for relatively smaller buildings as well that might be office or more intensive uses where the parking demand would increase. There's also a fair amount of topography to this site. Depending upon the type of use, structured parking might be incorporated into the building as well, taking advantage of that topography. The structured parking typically is included with a multi-story building. You probably wouldn't have structured parking under a manufacturing or warehouse use, but an office use certainly could accommodate that. Well, I was just curious. The reason I asked is I'm looking at this and I wonder if you have a percentage of the developable lands. I mean, you would agree that you can't build on a Class II wetland. So that, those acres, I don't know how many it is, but it's sort of a chunk of your land you can't build on because of the state regulations as well as our proposed regulations. But what percentage of the developable land is an impervious surface? It looks like a lot. Do you know that figure? I don't know what that is. Well, if you don't know it, you don't have to make it up. And I'm not sure that that was required for the sketch plane application. I don't think we have. Only 45%? The total lot coverage is 38%. 38%. Good. You're not losing your fast forward though. You left out a lot of public streets. Oh, that's right. You have to leave out public streets, but in the whole development, they still are impervious services. Okay. Matt, do you have any additional questions? No, I just wanted to make my disclaimer that I did before you go to the public comment, but I don't want to preempt any other questions from the council. I don't have a question about the soil types. You said you had studied the soil types. And could you tell us what the soil types are? It's mainly, I think, I don't know the soil type, but it's a clay, mainly a clay soil, especially on the upper portions. So what would you do with the stormwater runoff? What is the plan with this plan? So the current stormwater treatment standards have a tiered approach. The first tier is infiltration wherever possible. If there were any pockets of either sandy or granular soils or even some soils that are marginal, but still suitable for infiltration where you don't have a high groundwater level, infiltration would have to be evaluated and ruled out. The second approach would be filtering, which would either be through a bioretention area likely or gravel wetland. And those two practices are most likely the two that would be used throughout the site. In order to move down to the other tiers of practices, you've got to show that the filtering isn't an option on your site. And given this particular site, I don't think we would be able to move beyond that tier. So again, most likely bioretention areas and gravel wetlands would be the predominant two methods used for stormwater treatment. Where would they go? We've got a few areas identified for stormwater management on this parcel. Again, they're primarily identified at this point based upon the existing topography. There is one area sort of in the middle northern portion of the site. And near the wetlands, what would be the buffer that you're proposing? So there's a 50 foot buffer shown around the Class 2 wetlands. And the stormwater management areas would potentially the exception of an outfall if it was needed in order to gain the vertical difference between the stormwater feature and the point where it needed the daylight. Those stormwater features would be outside the wetland and the wetland buffer. I believe that Arrow Woods suggested 100 foot buffers. Is that correct? No. Can I say that again? I don't think it's in the regulation yet. Yeah, that's not the regulations I think are still 50, right? Yeah. No? 100? 100. 100. Depending upon what zoning district you're in. Right, right. And whether you're in city center or not. And that is both for the stormwater but also for there is wildlife along those what we call riparian areas. So it's not only bobcats, but it could be part of bobcats who would be hunting there. But there's also a lot of wildlife, insect life, bird life. And believe it or not, they help us grow our food. So bobcats are not the only concern here. So I am concerned about the buffer area. All right. Any other questions? I'm sorry. You have a quick one. You have a quick one. He wants to do a disclaimer. I want to do my DRB thing. Interim zoning expires in five days. So this is probably the last time we'll do this. But as I've done before every one other interim zoning application came before us, I just want to tell members of the public. Those watching at home because it is, it can be confusing unless you're immersed in it like the city council and the planning commission, the DRB and our wonderful staff that deals with the stuff every day. What we're deciding after we close, after we hear from the public and close and have a hearing, have a discussion is not whether to approve this project as presented tonight. This is to allow it to then go to the next phase, which is sketch plan, a preliminary plot for the development review board, a final plot before the development review board, and if approved an opportunity for neighbors to appeal to the environmental court and if they lose to the state supreme court. Whatever decision is made by the five or four city counselors in the next couple of days, doesn't mean you're going to be seeing construction trucks on, on Hinesburg Road tomorrow. Just want to put that out there because I have heard concerns saying, how are you going to approve this? We're not proving any of this. We're deciding whether it can get to the next phase of review or not. Thanks. Tim, you have one more question or two more? Jeff, can you give us a brief history of the, of the land and like who owned it and what it was used for and how long it's been in the current state that it is now? I mean, it is, I'm sure it was a farm at one point, right? The farm for over a hundred years, I guess. Who owned it originally? The Hill family. The Hill family? Okay. The Hill farm. Okay. Yeah. They owned it for many, many years. Yeah. Mrs. Hill lived in that house which is gone now. Yeah. Until she passed I think in 99 or 2000. And then at that point we acquired it. And so it was in their name for over a hundred years? I don't know for sure, but a long time. So was it a dairy farm or? Yup. It was an old barn that was collapsing when we bought it. Yup. It was a milking parlor. Okay. Yup. So the farmland was mostly used for corn? We've had various farmers, John Belters now, haying it. Okay. Parts of it. So you're haying it now? Some part of it, right? Okay. But all right. Okay. Thank you. Okay. I would now invite, if you have any closing remarks? Last chance. Okay. Thank you. Now I would invite the other gentleman who wanted to. Yeah. I wanted to invite the public to present their information. So would you like to come forward and please state your name? My name is Al Seneca. I am the owner of Allenbrook development, which is the property to the south. I just want to have it on the record that I'm a small time developer. These guys might be the big time developers, but we all pay the same price to try to get our lands developed. And it's quite costly these days to, to build and develop. And I just asked the city council to maybe take into consideration the developer's side of the story once in a while. It's very, very difficult to get projects through the process. You know, a neighbor can come and stop the whole thing after we've spent thousands of dollars trying to get things approved. The new regulations are going to make it even much more restrictive. I mean, we're looking at the city here is looking to go with a, I believe a hundred foot circle around a class two or three. And again, let me drop back just for a second. I was just notified that these changes are even coming through the process that I was notified that my neighbors are developing. The city never even contacted me a landowner that they were going to change my zoning. Now I can imagine that it was put in the paper, some small corner of the paper that a landowner is supposed to be looking for every day of his life to see if there's going to be a zone change. I mean, we invest a lot of money in the city. I own a lot of property in South Burlington, Williston, Essex and Burlington. I would think that somebody would get notified by city council, by the planning commission that, you know, they're trying to rezone a person's property. So it's, there's so much to talk about and I only have three minutes. I just would ask you folks to maybe come up with a rule that would notify a landowner of a change. Again, I'm not sure I haven't been following this development because it hasn't come through and this is the first notice that I've been given about it. And I'm here just to say that I certainly would hope that I would have an opportunity to speak with somebody about a zone change on a property that I own just as I would assume you folks would want to know if they're changing something that you would own. I mean, if all of a sudden they said that you couldn't build houses on a piece of property you own, you can only build mud huts. How would, how would you feel? Just, you know, you'd like to have some input. And the, another thing I wanted to address was the, the planning commission has been working one to three years on this zone change. Is that correct? And they're saying that we're going to have a meeting on January 3rd to talk about it when people might be on vacation around the holidays. It's kind of a stressful time. And the first day back to work after the holidays, we have to come to a meeting and then they want to vote on it. The week after. So we get to have one week. They get to have three years to come. Well, let me clarify. We will be taking, certainly we will have a very lengthy explanation by the planning commission during December. And the opportunity for the public to stay at home and watch and listen just to the part of the agenda they're interested in or come in person is there. So this is not going to, your first notice will not be in January. But we do have time frames in terms of interim zoning. And it ends November 13th. So in order to meet certain prescribed and required deadlines, the schedule has been set up. And I, it's unfortunate that it is close to the holidays, but there will be the several weeks. I mean, we're going to hear something in. It looks like December 6th, the planning commission presents to you folks. Yes. That's presuming majority votes to warn it. Absolutely. The presumption. Okay. And then on December 20th, when everybody's hustling and bustling for Christmas, we may have another discussion about it. Correct. And then after that, we get to come back on January 3rd, right after the holidays to have the public hearing. Okay. Okay. I don't know. It just seems, I don't know, it just seems like we, you know, the public could have been given a little more time for that process, but you guys think about that won't drag that out too, too much. Another thing I just want to make sure that the city has an awareness of how much industrial land is left in South Burlington. And is it really what they want to do is eliminate more industrial land when there is seems to be so much residential land. You put a moratorium in place for three years not to build residential property. And now you want to convert industrial land to residential. Seems a little bit counterintuitive. I don't know. It seems different. Why would you do something like that? So just something to think about. I guess that's about three minutes and I'm not a really great speaker. One quick thing for some humor. Okay. We like humor. Humor. The parable of the 10 men in the bar. I think everybody in the world should read that it's online somewhere. You can look it up. It's a pretty neat little joke and it just, I don't know. It tells a nice story. Anyway, thank you very much. Thank you. Is there anyone else in the public that would like to make a comment? Sure. Come on up. We see in Kowski and I'm on the natural resources committee. Just so you gentlemen know. I also grew up in this whole area. Just so you know. I've seen a lot of changes. They're not all good. I question why you want to put so much industrial in there because there's a lot of open space right now. And my neighborhood is going up against Burton who wants to put in higher ground near us. They wanted to get some late industrial company into their building, which would have been great, would have been wonderful, and they couldn't find anybody. So you've got all these plans for all these buildings. Do you have people who are looking to come into these areas? You're going to build this stuff before you've even got somebody to move into it? What if these buildings end up sitting empty and rotting? There's a lot of actual open space in a lot of places. It would be wonderful to get some late industrial. It would be wonderful to get some manufacturing back in this state again. It would be wonderful to save that farmland because once it's gone, it's gone. And yes, the 100 foot buffers are very important, especially considering the area, the wildlife that's there. Yes, there are people there. They do sometimes interfere with wildlife, but sometimes wildlife does adapt. But I think that's all something you should maybe rethink too. I'd just like to put that out there. Thank you. Thank you. Is there anyone else who wishes in this audience to make a comment? Or no? Okay. Is there anyone online who wanted to make a comment? Who have indicated in the chat. Okay. Is there anyone online that, um, Abby Krocker, do you want to speak? Is that why you're. Sure. Yeah. I just wanted to, um, just, you know, for the purpose of this specific application, I would hope that the, um, the city council would recommend that this, this specific application not move forward and, um, maybe a new one. Um, so I know that there are already some ideas that have been tossed out even by. The applicants themselves. A new one that's more in a line with the pending. Um, LDRs. I'll note that, you know, it the. It's disheartening to see so much, um, parking and industrial. In this area, um, you can't look at that and not think that it will have an impact on, um, the environment. Um, I also want to say that the process around LDRs and. Looking at these things is, is there for a reason, um, really to make sure that development is done with the best interests. It's not. I would, it's not intentionally to make it difficult for developers. It's really for the protection of the, the environment and the neighborhoods. Um, to make sure that it's, it's really the best. Um, to make sure that the world really isn't getting any more. So, um, I'd also just want to point out that it's hard to hear that. Habitat blocks are taken land because it's not like anyone's going in and taking that land. It's really more. They're protecting that land for a purpose. Um, for smart development and being a neighbor of this development. Um, I. I also like the idea of residential. Um, I like that idea of residential and I would hope that. The city, um, recommends that this application. Pause a little bit. Um, and, and wait until the new LDRs. Are in place. Thank you. Did Sarah doubt wanted to speak? I heard a little cheat. Sarah has made a lengthy comment in a chat, but. If you want to, Sarah, if you want to turn your camera on, you can speak. So is there anyone else in the public? Does Sarah want to speak? Cause we're not going to read the chat. We've, there she is. Okay. Okay. Well, I'll read the chat. It's not long. Okay. The 18. It's just for your information, a little history to, to lighten the load here. The 1869. The 1869. The year's Atlas map shows the Hill farm was in the ownership of the Fay family. At the, at that time, that is 1869. South Burlington named a road. Into the development at the bend in Heinsberg road, which is opposite Tilly drive as John Fay road. At my suggestion, by the way, that family originated in Bennington and was active with the Fay was the first postmaster of Burlington. And built his home in South Burlington, which was then Burlington about 1803. It is still in existence and was owned at one time in the 1960s by the Dr. George Wolf family. He was Dean of the UVM medical school. I spent many, many happy childhood hours in that house with my friend Debbie Wolf. The Hill farm land was part of the Fay lands throughout the 19th century. But I'm not sure exactly when the Hills acquired the property, probably early in the 20th. Thanks. That's all. And was it a dairy farm? As far as I know, yes. All right. Thank you for the history. Okay. Any other comments? Oh, Rosanne. I'll make a few comments. I agree with Lisa. I agree with Sarah. I agree with Abby. I would prefer the land not be developed at all, given the importance of land to us in surviving, you know, the climate crisis impacts. This development looks like something out of the past. It looks, it doesn't seem like it's in touch with what's happening right now. There are lots of empty commercial buildings in our city and then the rest of Chittenden County. So to build more doesn't make a whole lot of sense. And I think Lisa said something about who's going to occupy him. I mean, is there already tenants? I remember when they were doing some of the instruction over in industrial park, those buildings stayed empty and vacant for years. So it doesn't just, I mean, it doesn't seem to reflect where we are right now as more people are not going to commercial establishments and working from home. And of course, the big, big, big issue is what this kind of development will do to our footprint, our carbon footprint. How much fossil fuel will it use? How much more carbon will it put in the atmosphere? How much more land will be destroyed that can suck up as the author of that poem said, you know, that's the purpose of the land to suck up, you know, the pollutants that we produce, but if you pave over it and the amount of impervious surfaces that it would produce, it just, it just seems so out of touch with what we need right now in this kind of climate environment. I recommend you do what you have to do to disagree with it. Thank you. Thank you. We have Jean Chalot who is online. Who would like to speak next? Hello. Hello. Hello. Can you hear me? Yes, we can. Now we can see you. All right. I don't know if that's a plus. I am representing myself and I heard several times you mentioned the arrow study on the wildlife habitat and of criticizing it being high level or not maybe very detailed. Did you perform yourself habitat review and what wildlife was on site? I'm not sure. Do you want to answer that? I'm sorry, I didn't hear the question. Did you perform your own habitat study as the arrow wood study did on your property? No, we have not. Okay. But you said you wanted to do one in the future if you could develop it. Is that right? Absolutely. Right now the proposed regulations do not allow an applicant to provide their own study, which is unusual. Usually you provide your own study for everything. In this case you're kind of trying to take that away from an applicant. It seems counterintuitive. Thank you. Any other comments or questions? No. No. Thank you. Thank you. Then next we have Betty Militia. She's online. Hi, folks. Hi. Thank you. I'm sorry. I missed part of the presentation, but this has been land that I've looked at and appreciated for 25 years since I lived, moved into Dorset Park and met Mr. Davis about 15 years ago when we first heard about a road and wondered what was going to be happening on his land back then and then talk to Jeff Nick a few years ago and both times, you know, I heard about the possibility of some mixed use and having residential development down on this side, on the western side of the property and possibly putting commercial buildings up on the, toward the road, which I know is folks are, that's a popular thing with folks is to keep commercial properties or buildings near the road. The concerns I have in addition to the ones I've been hearing in the last few minutes are their quality of life issues that have to do with enjoying our space outdoors as far as the view protection. One of the previous proposals or preliminary exploration scenarios that was put before the planning commission a few years ago by this developer was something that when you saw the, I'm interested in the view corridor from, that would be blocked by a development on this property. And at that time, the land, whatever you call it, the view corridor was basically eliminated as far as from Wheeler from the homestead over to the green mountains. It was basically going to be for the most part eliminated. So that's one concern I have is the view shed or the view corridor. The second one, as far as being in this neighborhood over here in the village at Dorset Park, I have concerns about noise pollution from if there is going to be light industry or whatever, if there are going to be loading docks and trucks, we will be listening to not only the trucks and the noise from trucks, but we possibly be listening to trucks backing up and listening to beefing and all kinds of noise pollution that we would experience over here. And I can't imagine these things wouldn't impact on the wildlife who are able to make their way south north south south north on that little strip of easement that would be there. And also I have a lot of concerns about light pollution, which affects also affects the view as well as our night sky. And so I think those are things to be considered a light pollution. All I can envision is the part of the mall, you know, the lights we see at the mall or the, if we go to Home Depot and Walmart, I mean, this is going to be a big development. And which means a lot of light pollution, noise pollution, vision, view, you know, view pollution. I think you have to consider all those things and they're important, important parts of our quality of life, whether you live, I mean, I guess we're the ones who would live closest to this. But I just see this as a very, very serious destruction of quality of life for our neighborhood and also for the people who enjoy, enjoy being at Wheeler. Wheeler, as I've said before, is our only public area where we can view the green mountains, the vista of the green mountains that some of us can enjoy. That is where we go to enjoy it. We don't have it in our yards. We don't have a view from private space. That is where we go. We have an opportunity to see that view and it will be gone. Thank you. Thank you, Betty. We next have Chris to panic. I hope I'm pronouncing that properly. So if you'll turn your camera on if you have one. I'm trying. It's not agreeing with letting that happen. So, um, let's see, does that work? Not yet. You may just have to, sorry, you may just have to hear me. Apologies on the phone. So I would like to echo Betty's concerns with a viewscape. One question I had was if there's the ability to require the, the, if, if something like this was going to be going in, you could require green space to allow a view, a view scape to continue. Also thinking about recreation. There's a wheeler park as was noted. And there's also access as a cyclist to Burlington on a regular basis down Hinesburg, thinking about the safety as a cyclist in a place that has industrial commercial 2000 and previous parking spaces and parking spaces. And also thinking about, is there an opportunity to make recreational connections between wheeler park, this, this place, um, Hinesburg. I'm also thinking about if it's industrial, um, if there's considerations around highway access. I know there's been talk about, uh, an exit at the interstate there and thinking about the increase in traffic on Hinesburg and how the people access that. Um, and also thinking of water quality. Um, I'm also thinking about, um, a long term plan for, um, the use of water for chloride and thinking about impervious surface and winter maintenance and wondering if there's, um, thought process that would be put in around reduced salt or limited salt of parking spaces to not further impair that stream, both for wildlife as well as, uh, water quality in the lake. As it empties to there. Uh, and finally thinking about, uh, how this was different than the property that I thought I read last week was being considered as residential. And I think what I understand is, um, this is the same property that's being considered to be shifted to residential from, um, industrial or commercial. I do see value in some commercial as a walkable neighborhood to groceries or, um, small shops or something like that would make sense for, um, the neighborhoods along Hinesburg. Uh, but I, but I don't see value in something industrial and as, uh, large as what's being proposed. Thanks. Thank you. Is there anyone else in the audience here? How about online? All right. Um, I would move to close the interim zoning application. She just made the motion. Okay. Chairman, the motion. All right. Yeah. I didn't realize you're making. Okay, you can. Absolutely. Okay. I did it all the time. So I thought I'd just jump ahead and do it. Go for it. All right. So we have a second. Are you ready for that vote? Yes. All in favor signified by saying aye. Aye. So we have closed it. We will be closed. All in favor. Bye. So we have closed it. We will deliberate and we will issue a written decision within 45 days. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. And thank you public for your participation. Okay, moving on, item seven is receiving the draft amendments submitted by the Planning Commission on the Land Development Regulations and accompanying report and set a public hearing for January 3rd, 2022 at 7.30 p.m. We'll have Paul Conner and Jessica, are you going to come up too, Luisa? If you would like, please do. You guys might want to listen, stay and listen. Okay, long time in coming, but it's here. Well, good evening, folks. Paul Conner, Director of Planning and Zoning, Jessica Luisos, Chair of the Planning Commission. As the chair really just said, this has been a long time in coming. Enclosed in your packet are a significant set of proposed amendments to the land development regulations. We provided a brief memo that generally describes it in four categories of some zoning district changes, the environmental protection standards, a rewrite and update to subdivisions, master plans, and planned unit developments, and then a series of standalone amendments that were timely in nature and not necessarily related to the other ones, but still timely in nature. Jesse Baker has provided a proposed schedule for your consideration over the next couple of months. To include some time for you initially to post some questions of us to help us to shape what a good presentation to you would be, what information you might be looking for, additional information on to better understand data, maps, et cetera. That would be over at your next meeting. On December 6th, Jessica being the lead, we would provide a presentation of the full consents of the draft regulations. On your next meeting of the 20th of December, you'd have a chance to begin to absorb that, think about that, what your questions you might have, good things, bad things, etc. On January 3rd, you would then hold your formal public hearing, and after that you have the choice to either adopt the regulations, not take action on them, or if you'd like to make changes, you would have the opportunity to make changes, and then if you make any significant changes, you would warn another public hearing to follow that. So that's the super, super brief version of this. We're happy to go into a little more detail tonight, but mostly this was introduction and process. Are there questions? So remind me about the fact that when we warn the meeting that draft regulations become part of the regulations. That's correct. So under 24 VSA 4449D, once the city council has warned a set of proposed amendments to regulations, and when I say that, I mean once it's been published in the newspaper, then the draft regulations and any relevant portions of the permanent regulations are temporarily in effect. So any application received after that date is to be reviewed under the new regulations for a period of 150 days. After that, if council has either not taken action or has chosen not to adopt the regulations, then anybody who submitted during that time would automatically have the right to be re-reviewed by the DRB under the old rules, and if during that time council does adopt the regulations, then that would continue just on the course that I just described, which is that they would have submitted under the draft regulations. Matt? To follow up on that line of questioning, not warning the hearing doesn't imply that we wouldn't adopt some of the suggestions in the draft regulations. However, at some point, if we are to adopt any of the provisions, we have to warn a hearing, it takes effect in some way. Is that correct? That's correct. So in order for any changes to zoning or subdivision to take place, Planning Commission has to hold a hearing. They then need to vote to submit it to the city council. The city council needs to hold a hearing on any change that you wish to make on the draft regulations and then take the action to approve them if you choose. What I'm getting at is there's no changes that could take place in between now and warning hearing. What the Planning Commission has presented to us is what you wish us to warn. Is that correct? That is what the Planning Commission has requested that you warn, yes. Thank you. Yep. Can I just follow up with 150 days? So if we approve to or agree to warn them, and then when we get more information and have conversations and potentially decide that we want to change one thing or two things, then that has to go back to you. Correct? To the Planning Commission? Do the Planning Commission? No. So the the council can make changes if it chooses. It must warn a new public hearing if it does. Okay. The council must send a copy to the Planning Commission of the changes that it's proposing so that the Planning Commission can update the report that accompanies it for basically the Planning Commission's assessment of its consistency with the comprehensive plan, but the action remains at the council level. Okay. Does that make sense? Yes, it does. So the timeframe then of what's in effect continues, if we agree to have a hearing, would continue until if we opt to make changes then... Correct. So that they would carry through any changes that you make. There's some legal technicalities of if you were to change something, at what point does that change take effect? That's something we would address on a case-by-case basis working with the city attorney. But the broad statement of it, if you were to choose to warn a public hearing say tonight and then you propose a change of some form, the action that you would take this evening would carry through for the 150 days. Okay. Thank you. So how does this relate to us leaving IZ in five days? Well, if we didn't do anything then IZ is over and we're back. If we can't get, can we, we have to vote tonight whether or not to warn for the hearing. I believe so. But we can't get in the paper until... We have organized so that if you were to take action this evening that it would be published in the paper this week. By Thursday. Correct. Okay. So that would be before... Covered. Okay. So there is... We need to change that date later. We could warn that we're changing it from, you know, the day after the day everyone gets back to work after New Year's to a later date. Okay. Thank you. I didn't realize that arrangements had been made to cover the delta between the end of IZ and... Okay. That's all I need to know. Thank you. Jessica? So I just wanted to give a high-level overview if that's okay. Yes, that would be great. So, you know, as you know, these draft land development regulations, we've been working on them for multiple years, including before the three-year IZ period. Because as you remember, part of your IZ resolution included us finishing the work that we were already started on the planned unit developments and the environmental protection standards. And a big point of that work is to kind of move our regulations closer to the comprehensive plan that we had done a big overhaul of in 2016. So as part of this work that we're, you know, giving to you today, it does include a major overhaul of our environmental protection standards, which are now going to be housed in Chapter 12. And we're seeing those bringing us as a city close to the forefront of environmental protection standards for the state, regulating beyond what others in the state are doing. And at the same time, providing a framework for master planning, planned unit developments and subdivisions to really efficiently use the lands that we do develop to provide for our, you know, thriving communities with walkable neighborhoods and block structures and kind of more of a framework so you can kind of vision the development that we would get. So as you can imagine, figuring out exactly how to develop isn't easy to both have, you know, these thriving communities that we envision in our comprehensive plan, as well as significant open space and habitat. So, you know, that's the balance that we've worked to provide for you with kind of efficient community-based land uses and reserving the priority open spaces. So we have heard significant public comments at our regular meetings have been much more highly attended. I think that the virtual option has really bumped up our participation kind of throughout the process. We had our recent public hearings last month with significant public comment as well as a whole separate hearing process focused on the environmental protection standards back in the spring. So following those common periods, you know, we did look through those comments. And, you know, they express viewpoints really spanning the range of our work and with people feeling, some people feeling we've gone too far or not far enough on any particular issue, you know, really showing that we do have a passionate engaged public. We have made adjustments based on those comments kind of through the summer and up until just right before we kind of voted to bring it forward to you. So we have voted 7070 unanimously to forward this draft to you. And I guess as part of that, I'll say that not all seven of us agreed on all issues, as you can imagine, with some individuals still having items of concern, which we have compiled and kind of as part of our bigger presentation, you know, I guess I plan to not only walk us through what's in the draft, but also some things we've done to respond to public comment as well as some items the commissioners have identified as, you know, still not all of us agreeing on. So and I see that as a bigger presentation as part of your schedule you've laid out, which which looks great to me. There's also items that I think we would have love to include, but you know, there's only so much time. And I think two of those are, you know, really working on the the TDR, the Transfer Development Right receiving areas, as well as some of the other PUD types. And, you know, we will be revising our schedule at our next meeting and being able to really prioritize those next next pieces of work, trying to make sure that they're things that really complement what we're giving to you tonight. And so, yeah, I look forward to presenting in more detail and answering your questions. Great. Well, thank you. And I do want to say that I really appreciate how much time this has taken, the energy behind a lot of your conversations, the hours of reading and discussing that the entire planning commission and barked upon. I think people sometimes say, oh, three years and, you know, we're right down to the last moment to get things done. But this was very complicated. People had passionate differences. And, you know, it's like making sausage. It takes a long time, you know, just sort of throw it together and it's done. So I'm pleased with your work. And I appreciate it. And thank you very much. And clearly, there are some additional pieces going forward that you have identified that I think I can't speak for the council. I can speak for myself that I would appreciate you completing. And it sounds like you will. And that will really make the bowl look really attractive on this package of ideas. Yeah, I just want to echo. I don't know if the look of gratitude comes through when we're wearing masks. But there are three planning commission members here present. And you gave hundreds of hours. And it was volunteer hours. And it's for the city that you do this. So I just, since my mask can't show it, I wanted you to know that there's a look of gratitude emanating from behind this mask. And we have asked extremely complicated tireless work from the staff. So I mean, it's just amazing what they were able to do for us and the analysis and everything. So it's been a real team effort. Yes, thank you, Paul and your staff. Finally, it's bigger along with a baby. You have a bigger staff. So that's good. I should have meant I'm doing the math. It's thousands of hours that you gave. Other comments or just just an echo. And I just want to say what a long strange trip it's been, right? You know, when we started this, we had no idea that pandemic was coming. Oh, I know. Really? That's had a huge effect and introduced major delays. But on the other hand, it's also introduced us to go to meeting, right? Right. And potentially more public input. Right. And I appreciate the fact that the commission voted 7 0 to advance these changes. And but there could have been some tension in that 7 0. But still 7 0 is important to me. And you know, I'm so I'm happy you had 7 0. But I'm also happy that there was that tension because there should be, you know, not gross disagreements, but there should be push and pull from both sides. So that's good. That's good. And I'm excited that the the principles of IZ, I think, are honored in these these draft. And all the research has been done and the studies that are being incorporated into it is a major step forward. So I appreciate it. I appreciate your work. Thank you. Okay. Do you want to make a motion? Sure. So I move that the council acknowledge receipt of the amendments and that we warn a public hearing for January 3, 2022 at 7 30 p.m. on the amendments listed. Will are included in the packet. Included in the packet. Yeah. Second. Discussion. Yes, absolutely. I didn't get a chance to echo, echo, echo, echo. Oh, I'm sorry. That's all right. I've got a hop to kiddo. Yeah, yeah. But the work of Paul Conner, the work of Jessica as chair wrangling, what is a enormous process. And Paul and Monica and Duncan and Bernie and Jess and Michael, I participated as an observer into Ed Ted participated as an observer in a couple of the hearings. And I understand how difficult it is to reach consensus to explore all these ideas. And like many of you probably, I have a tea graph of what I really love about what you've done, what I want to change and really underlying questions about what we can do, what can't do, what we should do or shouldn't do. And I hope we breathe and have a chance to discuss that. But when I vote, yes, as I think we're going to, we're going to warn this hearing, I want you to know that I think that is healthy. Just as Tim referenced that you have a 70 vote that you had a robust discussion. And I think we should have the same. So thank you for your work. Well, I will pledge that we will have the same. I like to have robust conversations as I think you know by now. Okay. So we have a motion that's been made and seconded. Are you ready for the vote? Okay. All in favor signify by saying aye. So it passes again. Thank you very much. Good work. There's a question. There's a question, Michael. Oh, yes, it's just comment or statement or something. Yeah, I'd just like to say that you guys can't hold a candle to the planning commission for star quality. Will you take your mask? You can't hold a candle to the planning commission for star quality. I've been to many, many, many meetings, as you know, and I've never been to one like the like the public hearing of the planning commission. This community is truly engaged. There were 46 written submissions and 29 spoken submissions. And I'm pretty sure that has to be a city record. And it's clear that the community recognizes what this commission has done. And naturally, they don't agree with everything and they want certain changes. But I'm gratified that so many people in the community are involved and engaged in this process. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. So moving on to, is there any other business? No, we didn't do it. Oh, well, we did sort of fill, we did a filler of other business. Is there any other real other business? Other other business. Okay, seeing none. I would like us to consider entering an executive session for the purpose of discussing pending litigation to which the city is a party and receive confidential attorney client communications regarding the same. So moved. Second. And that would all in favor. And then the further, do you have the language? I don't have a language. But now that we have voted. Yeah, I know it. No, I know. Yeah. Well, whatever it is, that's what we do and it will include. Having so found, I now moved, we move into executive session for the purpose of discussing pending litigation to which city is a party and receive confidential attorney client communications regarding the same. Inviting with us city manager, Jesse Baker, city attorney Colin McNeill, planning his owning Mr. Yes. And Amanda Lafferty. Wow. Wow. Anybody else? What about Mr. Bull Duck? Yeah. Oh, okay. And we will not be coming back. Bull Duck. We will not be coming back. Okay. All right. We have a second to that. Second. Second. All in favor. Aye. Aye. Thank you very much.