 All right, thanks everyone for joining us this evening. We have four commissioners in attendance myself and Ned are in the room, Dave and Tom are virtual. We will be doing one consent agenda item. Then we're gonna be having a bit of a planning workshop. And when we get to that, we'll do another round of introductions so we are all on common ground. With regards to the consent agenda item, I'm gonna be asking for public comments in a moment. And before we do that, anybody that will be commenting on that item, if they would, Patrick, you've been told not to say anything. So you're good. I can email it to you. So within public comments at this point, we will have entertained any discussion points from the audience on items that are not on our agenda or items about the consent agenda. So with regards to that, are there any questions or comments from anyone on the consent agenda item? I have a question or wanna bring up a topic. The easement for the trail access. Darren, staff recommended not including that. Recording in progress. Sorry about that, go ahead, Tom. Yeah. So wouldn't it be better just to leave it in there even if it's not used? We can certainly do that. And that can also be reviewed again at preliminary. But if you wanna change it in sketch, that's fine too. I would. I understand it's probably not gonna be used, but it doesn't seem like it's gonna hurt anything either. Sure. Part of the reason, just to give you some background, when I was in Korea, we went to a lot of little out of the way trails that were built up in unlikely places. And it just seems like there are possibilities and that would be something that somebody in the future might want. Yep. We can include that. So Tom, what condition are you talking? There's a whole section. Section and line 240. Yep. And 256. So are you proposing to eliminate 240 through 258? Not the whole thing, but just somewhere I said, we would recommend removing the trail easement. Why don't you strike the part that says, remove the easement, leave the rest of the findings out of PC finding that you wanna keep that easement and then we'll deal with it again at the preliminary. Yeah, that'd be great. Question for the chair. David. We typically don't tweak the consent agenda items unless we plan on pulling them from the consent agenda. You were headed to where I was. I had a comment. In a minute. Yep. Okay. So. So Darren, can we just make a note that when it comes back that we want to. I think it's better to be addressed at preliminary, unless you wanna pull it off this agenda. So. We can open up a public hearing. So let's refresh a little bit right here. The, and Darren, I'm gonna look to you, the easement in the sketch, the easement was recommended to be removed. That's what's in the sketch. That's what we're re-approving tonight. This has already been approved once. Right. So noting that we may wanna revisit it in preliminary is not inappropriate. But I think this is, Tom, we're at a point similar to what David just said, we're rewriting this, moving it out of consent. There is a line that says, the conclusion of this trail easement should be reconsidered for the preliminary submission. So even though it's kind of going in the inverse, it's still there and noted as it will be all the preliminary. It's like before. Yeah, I don't wanna hold things up for the applicant. So if we just make a note that we wanna reconsider that at preliminary. Yeah, I mean, what's been warned on the agenda just as a procedural point of order here is that we're being asked to, to basically, sorry, I've got too many things open. We're being asked to re-approve an expired sketch plan. So I'm not sure if that opens up the door. This is already expired, right? It's expired, yes. And I think Tom, Darren did just read lines 254, 255 where it says you can reconsider it at preliminary. So I think your concern is covered. Yeah, so just for the applicants to note that we might be reconsidering it and not to take it off the maps, I don't know. And I see that his engineer is on line too. So I believe he'll get that message while I'm cutting here. Okay. So this is discussion. It's kind of up for them, but if commissioners are agreeable to it, there's a request to have us open up our cameras. I happen to be in the room, so I'm gonna use Scott's camera, but. Patrick, did you wanna add something? I actually know if we're gonna do it at preliminary, then I can look back on my note. I know this was a while ago, and I don't, I'm going on a memory right. I know that we were always supposed to have the trail because there was supposed to be the recreation area for units, but they said the feasibility staff was like, feasibly having a trail going up there for people to recreate. Let's have them recreate down here on site. So we've actually adjusted that in plan how the recreation area is down there on site. And that then instead of that being a recreation area, we had to pay and have it do a conservation easement and we're setting that aside for wildlife. That's why, and then I can't remember who, I'll have to look at my notes. There were commissioners that get rid of the trail because we don't want people going into the wild. In a nutshell, what I remember. That was why that was done, but I would have to. So this is, in my mind, we can and should re-approve the sketch and then make, have it noted that trails and easements will be part of preliminary. The minutes will capture that. Yeah. Tom, was that suffice for you? Yeah, that's fine. Like I said, I don't want to hold things up. Well, I think it's valid to keep it on there and it's good to keep it noted that there's a concern. Are there any other comments on the public comment or consent agenda? I would just make a recommendation that if, Tom, if you're going to make a motion to approve the consent agenda that maybe you memorialize your comment in your motion. Okay, thanks. We have a participant in the room. Okay. You could, for your name, say your name for the. My name is Betsy Dunn. I'm on this conservation and trails committee. And I'm just, this was done in 2011 and I was nowhere near the trails committee. And I'm just wondering what trail that is there. It isn't a trail. Not an existing trail. Let me see if I can pull up the plan. If we want to go into that. Whatever. It's access into the open space. That's what the intent was to be able to generate access into a closed open space. That if I remember correctly, is a cliff on one side and water on the other. And we were trying to work with Patrick to find a way to provide future access. Wasn't necessarily going to be a trail yet. But it was to make sure that we didn't have a, just a landlocked area that didn't ultimately have the ability to get into it. Excellent. Where is that? Doesn't say where this pillow is on this room. Well, if Darren can bring a map up, we can call it is up. Okay. So the PUD development portion is here. This is Colchester Road 2A. So north is to the right of this plan. Okay. Then you've got Genties Road coming off here, going up to Highview and Lamor Road. Sorry, Lamor Road and Genties Road, Highview, et cetera. So the development area is down low. There's a ridge here along the contours. The trail is within this 100 foot area. Shaded in green that connects all the way down to the rest of the open space, which is 150 something acres. Is that the 2A? So the property is accessed off of 2A, but the trail easement is along 289. I believe we did a site visit on that and walked it and it was rough. It's rough. I mean, it's rough. I think this is really, and I think to Tom's point, this is to memorialize an access if we could figure out how to do it. But we didn't have to go back and then renegotiate. It was really with agreement to put something down so that if we figured out how to do it, it would be there. Against Colchester. No, it's not Colchester upon. This is that area adjacent to the Cirque Highway. I can brief you on another point. Okay, good. Thank you. This will come back for preliminary. Yeah, we're not done. Okay, anything else? I'm looking for hands. All right, then let's move on to the Consent Agenda and I would look for a motion to prove or deny the Consent Agenda item. I move that we approve the Consent Agenda, noting that we want to revisit the discussion on the trail. I can't get that. Okay. Hey, I gotta do it once in a while. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion carries for zero. Okay. All right now, next item on our list. And that was gonna be a little, this is our discussion on regulations. This is our work, this is more or less our work group. So now we're gonna become a little less formal to the point that it's, I mean it's still our table and our meeting and so forth, but we're gonna open things up and ask folks to, as possible, join us and for a little more open discussion. Do you have, let's figure out what we wanna talk first. Before we get going, I'd like to have the folks that are online introduce themselves so we know who's working with us tonight because quite frankly, I have to admit that I don't think I've met a good share of the folks that are involved. And I would ask, there's a phone number, 802-391-0193, if I could have a name, that number. And if you're muted on, oh, it looks like it's a telephone call, so. If you're muted on a phone, you can press star six to unmute and then mute again. If you're listening in, if you're also connected on a computer, I'll let us know that way. So what committees do we have, commissions do we have? We have trails. Let's introduce anybody from trails here to introduce themselves. Yeah, I'm Alan Botul on the chair of conservation and trails. Excellent, Alan. That's he done, I'm the sort of chairman. Excellent, thanks Betsy. I can rellow conservation and trails. Who else we got? Zoning. Anybody from zoning? Who the heck are you? You'll be Norton. We have somebody online too. I see Nick Martin. I see TJ Yando on there. And Tom, yeah. Well, yeah, Tom Yando from zoning and the energy committee. Excellent. But I was gonna let Nick go before me, but. Well, I don't know these names, so. Oh, also, if everybody is comfortable doing so, if you've got a camera, it would be nice to see you. See you so we actually know who we're speaking with sometimes. Okay, can you hear me okay? Yes. There we go. Okay, this is Nick. You can merge my video with my phone number please. But this is Nick with the Zoning Board. All right, Nick. Thanks. We got Nick, Tom. Anybody else from zoning? How about? I am expecting Mike Blakeman. Okay, maybe. But who else? Housing. Katie is here, but you're... Could be Katie. Sorry, just got unmuted. Katie Ballard from the housing commission. All right. Welcome, Katie. Thank you. Who else? What else? Energy. Energy. Thank you. I'm Donnie Burgandall, Dorothy Burgandall from the energy committee. I'm Phil March from the energy committee. I'm Mike Fink from the energy committee. I'm Natalie Braun from the energy committee. Thank you. David Scopin from the energy committee. Hey, we got a full crew. What else is? Are we missing any groups? Did anybody not be called out yet? All right. Well, thanks everyone for joining us on this. This is kind of a first for us in that we're looking to really engage and set up these groups to engage with us and members of the public to look at different zoning requirements and initiatives and so forth. So we can have more inclusive effort. And we started with a... We started with a... I don't have it in front of me. Darren, if you can, if you can bring up the work plan. We started with a spreadsheet with work plan of items that we had identified for the planning commission that we wanted to get to within maybe not realistically within the next year, but this is what we wanted to attack and start with. And we had the full expectation that that list is somewhat fluid. And excuse me if I stumble a little bit because I had to actually pass Josh with being the spokesperson for a lot of this and he's left me high and dry tonight, so. Josh just unavailable this way. Yeah, that's true. Now, Josh has done a real good job so far of starting to collate things as we get into this and act as the sort of the middle person for all the commissions and us. But we had a number of items that we identified that we wanted to work on and ones that realistically you folks can help with. Some of this is the zoning. I've been doing this for quite some time and I don't recall another time that we asked the ZBA for their thoughts on uses and zoning changes and so forth at the beginning of the process. Usually we put some stuff together and then we ask them for commentary. So changing it around a little bit, we're asking for things up front. We initially were gonna be focusing from the PC perspective on the ETC Next as a project and a goal. And there are some challenges within infrastructure and so forth that we've gotta really work out before we can drive the ETC Next as a whole unit. But we can start working on things like form and design and start enabling some of the zoning changes that we're gonna need to do anyways where they make sense and make sure they make sense. In addition to that is the initiatives as I mentioned of uses, what uses should be allowed? Should we change the uses in all the areas? Not just a list that somebody gave us of what we wanna do or what they want us to do, but looking townwide at the use table, what makes sense? We were at a period of time where we need to make some positive economic effort. Effort is things change are coming up so we wanna make sure we don't lose economic opportunities, we wanna make sure we're doing things in a constructive way without losing natural resources. There's wherever we can, housing is a big deal. All these things everybody says are important and we gotta deal with them. So we're sort of trying to get you guys on the hook with us. And so we're not, our approach wasn't to necessarily go to you and say what do you think about anything? We really tried to start from the list. It doesn't mean that list can't change and it already has changed to some degree, but we need to start someplace. And I think we've spoken, Josh or I've spoken with most of you and at some point in time. And the idea was that we would have, try to have somebody from the PC liaison with you to participate and be able to bring back major concerns or ideas back to the PC. So nobody is caught up by surprise at the end or something along those lines. And that's all still a work in progress. How your commissions and committees work and process these and come up with recommendations is really kind of up to you folks. You wanna set up small subcommittees and task a couple of your members to go off and come back with recommendations and have your groups come together. Really it's gonna be what works best for your team. Sorry, your group. I'll probably slip and use the word team more than once, but that's just the way the team work. Yeah, that's it. Collaboration is the key. Josh has made quite a bit of ground, covered quite a bit of ground so far on trying to help provide a framework for all of us to work with. And if you can go to his most recent list, he isn't here tonight so he wanted to, he provided us with where he's gotten what he's tallied up so far. Probably not, it just came out today and I didn't wanna start throwing things all over the place where we're sharing it tonight. It's a work in progress, it's not written in stone. That's even been added too as of today. So these are some of the big topics that we wanna try to get folks to engage with. One, I'm not gonna read all the detail on it. We'll spread, we can share this out. But one of the items is the ETC Nex Zoning, the design standards, the old historic center placemaking, rezoning, the Seneca and Ealer lands off from Vermont 15. So these are big topics that have been brought up. We have a bylaw modernization grant, allowable and conditional uses. That includes Saxon Hill. We're looking at performance standards. What are the pros and cons of this approach? What can we do with this? Inclusionary zoning, both in the ETC and throughout the town. And we still are gonna be referring to the ETC because that is still a goal. But we're trying to get some of the groundwork done, some of the enabling zoning changes and the enabling basically framework in place so that when infrastructure wise we can move forward, we're ready. So we have the Saxon Hill master plan which is another topic that a lot of folks have expressed some interest in. We have the town plan update, which realistically the 24 town plan update has become probably our top priority because that document has to be done. It's not a want, it's a need. So for the planning commission, that more or less has become our top priority. Doesn't mean we don't wanna work on all of these things. And this is where you folks are gonna come into play is what can you do? If you look at the list of things that we have on here, what can you do? What can you help request? What can you have work with us on? The town plan update, you've talked with some of the ones that are about the fragmentary portion in those forests, high fragmentary, and then connectivity for the animals and everything. So that's one thing that has to go into the town plan by law. And quite frankly, we've had that in every single major planning effort for the last probably five, six years. Fragmentation has been a consistent theme. So we'll cover that. Those are the sorts of things that your group can focus on. Yeah, exactly. And the Saxon Hill, that would be one of the other things to cover. So the town plan update has a number of items on that. We need to focus on the separation with that six junction because we started to go the other way. Now we have to go back and clean that up. There needs to be a major overhaul of the trails and the paths section. We continually run into conflict between established trails that are on the plan and established trails that are not on the plan but are on private property. And we fight for those, but there's only so much that we can do because they're not part of our established, our formalized trails network. So these are sort of the things that the trails committee definitely can help with bringing some of that to the forefront and how can we capture the information that we don't have. Fort Ethan Allen rezoning is a topic that's been on the table for quite a few years. You know, again, the infrastructure has been a limiter there, but what can we do to help that area become more vibrant? That's just maybe this is an economic development committee effort primarily. Well, we've started a poll and it is going to be in an hour. Beyond that, now we start getting into these specifics of what we want the energy committee for. Energy efficiency, how do we start getting, you know, accommodate solar or electric charging? Charging stations are coming up in every single application, but to our knowledge, there isn't still a consistency in technology. So putting a charging station in that nobody can use doesn't do much. So how do we start, you know, getting to the point of having it be a standard item? These are the, again, these are things that we're looking for the commissions that work on this all the time to be able to help us bring real changes forward. And frankly, we don't want, our expectation is that when these recommendations come to us, number one, we still have to approve them, right? I mean, this is still the process, still goes to the planning commission, and goes to the select board. But we're hoping that the additional public review that's gonna be able to occur in these subcommittees, secondary committees or whatever work groups, however this works out, that there'll be more opportunity for public review and collaboration so that when a recommendation comes to the planning commission, it doesn't really have to be tweaked much. I mean, where our hope is that it's ready for prime time with very little effort, very little adjustment, it may not, right? I mean, anytime you put a request through, it's either gonna be accepted or rejected. But we're hoping that everything will have worked out. Issues will have been brought back to us by our liaisons with you. So maybe we have an advance notice of some of the concerns and we don't get caught by surprise, nobody gets caught by surprise and you don't spend a lot of time working on something that maybe won't go through. We do it right. We try to just keep the communication open so that again, your recommendations will come through and make sense and we'll just hopefully be able to embrace them and move them forward. And the added, another added benefits of when these advance up to the select board, they will have had a greater visibility. When it hits to the select board, we wanna be able to say then, energy is looked at this, trails is looked at this, zoning is looked at this. It isn't just the members of the planning commission pulling something out of the air. It is definitely a collaborative effort that's gotten to this point. I used the right word. You knew what I was thinking. So we have this list that Josh was working on and I think Darren's been working on it. And we have, do we have his list of assignments yet? We do. It was in your packet and like you find it. Electronics is on the web as well. It's gonna be just a make-up session. Find that. Okay, so we do have a collaboration maintenance, matrix that he's setting up. And again, that one of the things we're looking to have Josh is sort of acting as the point person for the PC with the other commissions. So if you have questions, you wanna have changed people, you wanna get different involvement. You know, we're asking that you just give him and I'm his backup on this to notice. So he'll, he can coordinate that and make sure that we don't have any gaps. Who's Josh? Josh is the, is the vice chair. Josh would not. Okay, thank you. So we have on this list already, we have a number of items and we've got folks that have reached out and indicated they wanna work on this. So the next step really is, I think the next step, in my mind, whatever your commissions want it to be. But I think the next step is to be able to have the commissions and boards start looking at these items and deciding how they wanna work at it. Do they want to, you know, you've got ideas on 171 already. So do you wanna get your group together and have it as a full commission, full group? Or do you wanna break out and have two or three people on your team, boards? Okay. Bring back a recommendation to your group. So really the recommendations to the planning commission should have a seal of approval by the full commission that's working on it, whether it's energy and trails, whether it's zoning and energy and trails, everybody in those commissions ultimately should say, we endorse these changes and send them to the planning commission. How you get there, we got a lot more room to play. You know, we embrace the idea of work groups on the planning commission. We often will have, you know, two commissioners will go off and digest an idea or issue and come back and bring that recommendation back to the commission itself. So we have folks that can go off and do some of that work and bring back. Doesn't necessarily make things go faster, but it allows us to do a deeper dive a little more efficiently instead of trying to do it, you know, at six or 630 on every other Thursday, every second, fourth Thursday. Let's see. One of our next step was gonna be to work on a work plan calendar. And that was sort of when we start setting timelines on what we'd like to see and how we wanna do this. And I don't think we're ready for that just yet. You do have a calendar in your packet that can start to lay some of that out, but it's fairly detail-oriented. Okay. I don't know that without the full commission, I don't know we should get into it. And it's worth noting that we just, we have a new community development director that will be starting at the end of the month. So some of this process may evolve, but I think, yes. Do we get a packet so that we know? So this, the packets are posted online at the, on the agenda center. The work, the charges were not published because they just came together today, but we can send that out and we'll be included in future packets for each of these commissions as well. Okay. So the packet was on the Google drive. I didn't see that. It's not on your Google drive for conservation and trails. It's on the planning commission's packet on the agenda center of town. So we realized that this is the beginning. No one got to find out. Oh, I just online. We're figuring out how to do this now. And your question about getting the packets is a good one and a timely one. How do we get the information to your commissions and your boards? And I think that is, Darren and Sharon can work that out and find out the best way to get it to you so that you have all the information. None of this is like only zoning can see this and only energy. This is one packet of stuff. So we've got to make sure we don't have lots of different copies flowing around. But I think I'm going to defer to Darren and Sharon and let the staff figure out the best way to get that distributed. I will ask you now, our administrators, I mean, you know, I hope that you can sign up on the agenda with the agenda count on packets. So you'll know how to get there. Great. Thank you so much, Sharon. And again, to the extent that we can, the staff will also be giving you this information through your commission's packets as well or whatever process you have set up. So I think this is again, if whatever is needed, we'll figure out how to get there. This is not a short trip. This is, you know, this is, if this works, if we can all make this work well, there's no reason that this is a one-time shot. This is going to be a new way of operating. But so it's going to take some trial and effort. It's going to take some folks saying this works for me. It doesn't work for me. And we figure out how best to keep things moving. I think it's great. You may not, once we start throwing the stuff out. Well, that's okay. I mean, we'll tweak it as we go along. If we want to be productive and we want to get the right so that it makes it flow better to the select board. Let's then work on it. Actually, in my mind, I'm going to take the select board out of it. Me, it's makes the flow better so that the community gets the changes that they want in the timely fashion. Because our changes right now can take years to put into play with all the cycles we have to go through. So one of the things we're really hoping to be able to do is to respond to community wants and needs in a more timely fashion. We don't have to wait for a town plan update. We can do this. If it works, we're going to be more agile. Let's see. So as I said, we're working towards a work plan calendar. And what our expectation with that is it's going to be that we have an actual literal calendar that we're going to try to get things through. And we're going to set some targets and timelines. Hopefully we can get some of the stuff delivered back. And your commissions will be able to tell us, we can do it in that timeframe where we need it. You know, it's going to be up to here. Again, we're making this up as we go and we're not limited to what we used to do. We're going to see if we can make this better all the way around. So I'm about ready to shut up now for a few minutes and let anybody else start chatting. Darren, you can go first. Yeah, and I did want to mention on the calendar specifically, there are some dates and deadlines that have to be in there because of statute and some of our requirements for how plans and zoning updates are noticed. So those are in there and those are firm, but outside of that, there's a fair amount of flexibility in how the work groups operate and what timelines they do. And the other thing is that not every element of all of these projects need to be done by the town plan update or the time we do zoning regs. You know, get as far as you can and move it as far as you can with consensus. And then things can be revisited. Yeah. And then, like Katie has her hand up. Y'all set? I'm all set. Dead? No, not yet. Okay, Katie, you're on. Thank you. I just wanted to start by saying my apologies that the housing commission hasn't been more involved in some of these conversations with the separation conversation that changed a couple of months ago. There's been a lot that we've been trying to navigate in terms of that piece for our work moving forward. But I did just want to share, as you're aware, we do have an inclusionary zoning sub work group that is part of the housing commission that we kind of help kind of facilitate through Mia and Mark. But we do have someone from, I believe your planning commission and the village on that. And I know that they would be more than happy to help join that group. That said, I will definitely be bringing this to my commission and sharing to be able to kind of provide some feedback. But I definitely know that there was a lot of interest around being as involved as possible in some of those housing conversations. So I know there's a lot of interest and I would be happy to help in any way to kind of figure out who for my commission might be able to support the various conversations. And lastly, I did just want to share since we will be looking at separation in a year, the housing commission has kind of decided to read big priorities for the next year, which would include the inclusionary zoning in the town and the village. The other one is a housing trust fund conversation, which is kind of connected to inclusionary zoning as an avenue for where the money might go. And that is something we're really working on in the town as well. And lastly, we're working on the rental registry and community outreach for you. So just to understand those are kind of our priorities for the next year that we're figuring out the separation piece and if there's any way that those can not talk to kind of your plan and those that we may not talk to, we would be happy to engage in any way possible. Thank you. Anybody else? Just Ned? Well, yeah, well, we're on the housing. I hit, you know, one of our items is inclusionary zoning. And I had sent Josh a note which probably got lost somewhere that I would work, you know, I've sat in on a lot of housing commissions meetings and inclusionary zoning. And, you know, I'm willing to, you know, keep down that thing. I guess a general comment and you had a great introduction is so much of this, what we want to do is interrelated, you know, we're charged with providing energy efficient housing. We're providing affordable housing, reasonably attractive housing, which sometimes is a bigger challenge in the town than we like to admit performance, energy performance standards, you know, how do you raise the energy performance standards and not drive the price of that housing off the chart? You know, these are where a lot of these work items are really kind of interrelated and that's gonna be the puzzle for everyone is to balance all of that as we work together. I see that when you're developing a housing area as well as how does that affect our forests and are we doing any fragmentation or what are we doing to avoid messing up with connectivity for the animals as well? And is it near wetlands and how are we protecting those when you're making housing as well? So I think all those go into it as well. And he sounds like great conversations for you guys to have and bring to us. Give me. Yeah, I only heard happy of what Katie said, sound like she was talking from the Grand Canyon somewhere, you know, I, these Zoom meetings are, I could go on about those things. Anyway, inclusionary zoning, I've heard that over and over and over again, new term, you know, not a lot about it. Even I got a booklet about some good, solid information stuff about inclusionary zoning. Now it's to me, like it's a, I'll say the word controversial topic because it's different. Different. Okay, so I, so you have something, Darren. Yeah, Hubey, I can send you some of the stuff that has been put together by that working group and sort of general information as well as any of the details you want. The basic premise is simply that when new development happens, a certain portion of it is set aside for a certain income level. Folks, you know, households of a certain income level. There's a lot more that goes into it than that, but the basic idea is making sure that the whole community has housing that provides housing for all income ranges so that it's not simply all on the high end, all on the low end, and that it's integrated as much as possible rather than segregated. So that's the basic premise. Okay, I guess I understand, you know, the basic premise is the guidance that goes with that. Right, there's a lot of details. That's where I can see where those could be some interesting hills to climb. Yeah, and the interesting collaborative conversations. Yeah. Fuzz words. Anything else you'd be, what are your thoughts on this? No, no, that's for the moment, that's good. Okay, I'm gonna start going down the list just because that's the way I do things. So what the heck? Hey, Nick, you're up, you're topping my list on here. What are your thoughts? How's this working? Let's just look for you at this point. It's looking good. I am interested in learning more and actually getting our boots on the ground and starting the actual work. The zoning board met earlier this month and we divided and conquered all of these topics and signed up for our points of interest. So QB has a couple, I have a couple, Tom has a couple, our other member, our only other member right now is Mike. He has a couple. And so, yeah, once those meetings are announced, I would really look forward to seeing that master calendar so we can get going on there. Well, I'm gonna push back on you a little bit and say, don't wait for us to set up a meeting because we're not, you are. So the master calendar is one thing, but I would really look for you folks to start deciding how you wanna work these, how you wanna work with us a little bit because it really is, how does it work for your group, team? How does it work best for you folks? I mean, do you wanna do this as a single commission? Do you wanna do work? We really need you guys to help feed us, feed back into this process. So I guess I would say don't wait. Let's just pull the trigger. Okay, why you digest that. But see that master schedule and we'll go from there. That's step number one. Well, no, actually, I'm gonna, again, the master schedule itself is gonna take some time. So I really encourage everyone to take the step now, figure out how you wanna work these and come up with a meeting process for yourselves because I don't wanna tell you how to do this. I don't wanna tell you how to meet, I don't wanna tell you how to look at these items. I want you guys to tell us how you're gonna do it. That's it. Yeah, no, no, I meant hold. And that really, Nick, you know, will help. I'm not, I don't wanna tell you how to do this. And that really, I think you know your stuff, you know your purview, you know your team, you know how you can meet, what tolerance you have for meetings and so forth. So I'll work with you on that. I mean, I think I told Josh I'd be happy to work with the zoning board as a liaison. So let's pull the trigger and move on some of this. Alan. Hey, actually Patty had her hand up first. I might rather let her go. I'm going down the list right now. I saw Patty and Betsy's also had her hand up. So everybody. Thank you. So do you envision that these working groups will have a member of the planning commission on them for the entire time at the beginning? How do you see that working? Cause a lot of these working groups are not composed of planners. So we're not gonna really understand the process. It's gonna be difficult for us to get going without some guidance from your commission directly. Yeah. And I'm hoping that we'll be able to, my goal is to have a planning commissioner be able to work with you because we have a limited staff. Staff's not gonna be able to do engage in all these work groups. We can look to staff to have some guidance on what we need to work on. But we have a list of items and like Katie had a list of working items that she wants to work on, the housing committee wants to work on. The slate's kind of clean right now. If you want somebody to come in like I'll volunteer myself on this. If you want me to come in and sit with you guys and say what has worked for us, what we think we might deliver, I'm absolutely happy to do that. I think we want to try to get your commissions to engage on these topics, whichever topic you feel you can engage on and find out and decide what you feel you can output. You know, if it's a question, we don't have enough information on this and that feeds back to us and or staff and we get that information. I'm not looking at a firm process at this point. I'm looking to try to see where we go, what steps do we all need to make and what you guys learned or what we learned will help us all move this forward. Okay, so I guess my input then would be at least in the beginning, if somebody from the planning commission could sit in on that group and participate to get things going, I think we'd be able to get going a lot faster and in the right direction right off the bat. And my intention is also as a member of staff to help get some of these working groups going as well, give you sort of the outline and the resources and then let you drive the conversation as much as possible with or without us as needed as available. And I just wanted to just that maybe some of these groups work together to help each other get off. If you have elements, it's common that you're both interested in. And I think that's one of the items that Josh had communicated, that there is overlap in a lot of these working groups. So there's not, it does not need to be limited. So the folks that reach out and Josh has that group, this is where they're driving. So we can, we'll circle back on this. And I think to take your point is maybe the next step is when Josh is available, we actually, we can work with staff and set up the first round of meetings. And see if we can put something on the books to actually make this go forward. And then from that, it should be self-regulating. To keep going, I'm coming back to the room for a minute. Ken. I'd suggest that you be as unambiguous as you possibly can be in terms of what you're expecting from each of these work groups. You said you wanted to get something from each that you could run with, I think was the term you use. That means that planning commission participation is an option that needs to be there or staff. Otherwise what you get will be blurry and not so easy to work with, I'm pretty sure. So that's the first thing I would definitely recommend. Specific recommendations, I think are very, very important. My commission for my committee, for example, has charge or admission is wide, historic, architectural, archeological resources. I mean, that's a lot besides the natural resources that we typically talk about, whether recreational resources that we typically talk about. There's a lot we haven't done yet that we're trying to start to do. So there could be a lot of detail that could come out of that. I'm not, I don't know very much about planning or zoning. So without somebody there, make sure that what we produce makes sense. I'm going to echo what Alan and my chairman was saying. Yeah, that's really problematic. This meeting alone, I thought we were going to be making recommendations today. I heard some, but I'm realizing now that, no, no, no, I think what we're just doing today is saying that there will be separate, and help me with this, there will be separate work groups. Not sure how many or who's on them, but that's what we're talking about. We are trying to set up a process of multiple work groups to be able to be able to approach this from multiple angles, yes. The point about what we're looking at is our starting point is the work plan that the planning commission came up with originally, which Darren, that Excel spreadsheet that Darren put up. That's our rough working target is the details on these items. So understandably that energy and natural resources and trail covers a lot of area. We had identified a number of areas or pieces that we needed to focus on due to the recent development initiatives and or ETC NEXT or so whatever. So it's not a blank slate that we're looking for, although if your groups have items that you want to have included because you know that they're hot topics or you know that they're gonna be very important, this really is the time to introduce them as well. Agrivoltaics, things like this. Right, and so it's hard today to be able to give you a very definitive, anybody, a very definitive bullet list of what needs to come out of your groups because we haven't done this before. So I mean, we're looking for some guidance back from you is what you feel you can do. And we had some really good feedback tonight. So I mean, this is specificity and what we're asking for is one thing that I don't think we can walk away from. And let me just throw in a few things that I'm particularly interested in. I'll try to be general about it. Certainly some newer technologies. You know, we do solar farms a lot nowadays, but there's a lot of experimentation going on with solar farms that are much higher off the ground and spread farther apart and they work more efficiently and provide grazing and other uses at the same time. Things like that. Historic preservation is something that it's really important, I think. And that, I don't think enough attention is being spent on. And what else do we have here? Talking about the conservation and trail. So I'm trail mapping, but the GIS. Well, the trail mapping's certainly something we are, and that was already mentioned. So I don't really need to go there. That's already on the list, I think. What water quality is. Water quality is becoming a huge issue. We've had a number of outbreaks. And you know, the thing about water quality is that it's not a point source. So the whole water basin impacts water quality. So that's very, very interesting and hard to deal with topic. You know, we have had the blue-green outries that India and Brooklyn. We'll probably have them again this year, for example. So there's quite a bit. And yes, I agree. You're not going to be able to put every single thing on the list. We have to do that. But the questions might be, you know, what additional things do we need to focus on in terms of that might affect planning as an open end? And ideally, as well, of us, the Planning Commission giving you a charge. This collaborative process means that if you hit to a point that you're not sure about, you let us know as well. Not just a Planning Commission, but this is an open process. And if there's a representative on either the Commission or staff there, we get the gun. So we may not be able to do that, but yes, that's it. So I've done this kind of thing. As a nurse, we've got change in CQM, which is total problem management. And... CQM, CQM, yeah. Yeah, we don't think it's all part of the same thing anymore. But we had a person, the team that's planning for the Fusil Planning Commission, the Planning Commission is there. And you have a person who is taking on each one of those major pieces. And they attend that meeting and you get people from energy there, housing there. You often look at the problem and from different points of view you can come out with the right answer. Yeah, and what I don't wanna do is I don't wanna limit this to say that you have to do it in a certain way. No, no. Right, and if your group, let's say you don't have your people, your team can't meet regularly or they can't meet easily off times, off your schedule time frames. Well, you might decide that a work group of two people can go and do task A and come back with a report for your bigger group. And that's what I don't want. I want people to be able to be creative in some of this. There always should be some public presentation and public discussion of what you're advising. That should, that's a win for this, for the town because we're providing an additional opportunity or opportunities for the public to engage in the discussions before things come up. So I don't wanna limit, I don't wanna tell you to say only do it this way or only do it that way. What I really would like to see is your groups come up with a creative way to get a discussion going. And you may have a list of things that's a hundred pages long, but as we start going into this, it may be that two pages gets done for this year. And we often use the term low hanging fruit because it's something that is easy to do with the parameters that exist today. Other things get put into a parking lot because we don't have the infrastructure or the knowledge to deal with them yet. So I mean, this is really all what our groups do anyways. And it's a process. And if we all work on this, we make the process work better. And I think, Ken, your point of having specificity and Alan's idea of knowing what we're looking to do, they're dead on. They're, we can't work in a vacuum. Do you want recommendations that you can work with? We'll need to have that participation, I'm afraid. Yeah, well, don't be afraid. I mean, this is an afraid thing. This is a positive set and that allows that collaboration back and forth. And that's, we are envisioning that as well. Oh, your point is there. It's not a burden. It's an expectation. Hang on, Paul. I want to make sure all the committee members have a chance to speak. That's what I'm trying to get through. David Scopin, see you at one of the... Energy. Yeah, energy, David. Yeah, did I raise my hand? No, you did. I'm going down the list. I'm Mr. Billamere for people who went through the Essex school system. I'm volunteering people as we go. Well, I certainly look forward to getting going on this with my group. And I believe we have all the names in place. It's certainly a daunting task for my point of view because I know a little to nothing about planning commissions operation, but I certainly understand everything that has been said and agree with it. And I'm ready to go when the rest of the group is setting up times to get together and looking at the problems or tasks that we face. Excellent. I have to say. And David, I would say don't feel you have to limit yourself to the way that the PC does things. Oh, no, I won't. So Dusty is now designated me and Mr. Billamere. Yes. I see Will Dodge has joined, but I also see Phil March and Dottie Burgandall and Natalie. So Will, I'll start with you as the chair, but then try to get to everybody in your energy committee. And Will, you're still muted if you are talking and able to hear us. Okay. Not hearing from Will. We'll go to, who was it? It was probably. Phil, go ahead. Yeah, again, I'm Phil March. Yeah, I'm looking forward to working with the planning commission. I sort of echo what Alan said earlier. Nice to have sort of a liaison to start with someone who is a planner working with us to give us some direction. But I think there's a lot of mutual interests as far as I'm concerned. For my part on the committee, I focus more on weatherization and keenly interested in the residential building energy standard and all the challenges that go along with that. As long as, as well as aspects about having newer buildings, solar-ready is a big interest of mine as well. So there are definitely mutual interests and I'd like to start working on that soon. Excellent. Dorothy, you're doing it, Dottie. And Dottie, you're still muted. Gotta find the right off switch or on switch, whichever one you want to call it. Well, I am looking forward to trying to help with this. There's a lot of stuff I don't know because I don't know what building standards are at the current time. With weatherization, we're basically dealing with buildings that already exist and depending on their age are in dire need of bringing up their standards. So I don't know what the current standards are. The main thing I would bring to this is someone who already has solar. I've had it for seven years. Okay, you have some expertise. Hey, thanks, Dottie. Natalie. Yes, yes, yes. Oh, boy. You're muted. Natalie, you've muted again. Try unmuting, I think you almost had it. Yeah. Sorry, David, I'm not. Use one computer. Sorry. Are you able to hear me now? Okay, great. David and I are sitting in or we're sitting in the same room. So yes, all I can do is ditto what the other energy committee members have said. I'm very interested in this. I also happen to be a climate activist as well. So I bring that delightful skill and interests to the committee or groups. Thank you, Natalie. Thank you. Well, it looks like you've just rejoined. Are you able to speak now? Yeah, sure. Thanks, everyone. I'm sorry I came into the meeting a little bit late, but I get the gist of what you're looking for and I think the thing that I have to offer is I re-upped, I did my interview last week with the select board to re-up for the Essex Energy Committee. And I think it went well. And part of the reason I think it went well is because my sense of it was that the select board is interested not just in improvements in energy, improvements in transportation, improvements in weatherization, but generally in reducing the amount of greenhouse gases that are emitted from Essex. They asked us if we knew what the number was. We don't know what the number is. That's part of the task of our committee. But as far as I'm concerned, part of our mission here should be to go beyond the strict confines of each of our subject matters and be thinking more about what the role is of Essex in relation to Vermont, to the country and to the planet. So I leave you with that. So it sounds like you're volunteering a lot of time and help. That's what I heard. I'll do what I can. Certainly committed. Excellent. Thanks, Will. He's got the energy. Yep. And then Tom, I didn't forget you, but I loved you for last since you are on both energy and zoning board. And I know you've already spoken, but did you want to add anything else? So from what I've heard from Dusty, that you want us to get going. But the last time that I participated in the updated town plan through the planning commission, there were documents that you gave us to go through and to edit and then not only edit, but put in our thoughts from, and at that time I was just a regular taxpayer, putting my thoughts into the renewed town plan, the new planning commission documents. This is great that you've got all of us different committees on this and you want us to move forward, but we're running blind just like without any documents. What is there for us to start commenting on? The existing business. Because then you need to give us that stuff. Yep, that's fair point. I mean, I think Tom, your ideas in the past, and this is sort of a, see if I used the word right, a paradigm shift. Right, oh, that's fine, but you want us to move forward, but we're sitting blind with a blank piece of paper and that does no good to anybody because then you're going to get it, garbage in equals garbage out. So you need to give us something to start with. Agreed, and that's part of the packet that the staff will figure out how to deliver. The existing regulations, the existing town plan, but we're our starting point, which I agree that it's not precise because we don't know how to be precise on it yet, but our starting point is the work list that we came up with and that Josh and I have shared with all the different commissions. And that is a Excel spreadsheet with maybe a dozen items on it that are our targets that we're trying to do for town plan, grants, and regulations that we no need to be updated. So the idea like the town plan itself, in the past, we've done the town plan, come up with a completed packet or section and then given it to somebody for discussion and review. We're actually looking this time for folks to say, I wanna redo the energy section in the town plan. I wanna redo the housing section in the town plan. There's a set of trail maps. Those need to be updated. And the town plan isn't the only piece that we're looking at. I mean, the zoning regulations have used tables. How accurate are those? Are they, what should they be? Is the Planning Commission the only ones that can comment on that? I don't think so. You know, I'm looking to folks that have some knowledge in the community. I'm looking, the Planning Commission is looking for some input. And maybe the recommendation, maybe what comes out of the commissions, isn't hard recommendations. Maybe what it ends up being from a particular topic is that we want this to be included. We don't know how to move forward on it. I mean, this is the part of the communication that comes back. And to Ken's point, to Allen's point, the Planning Commissioner can help facilitate some of these discussions. But I don't think it should be just the Planning Commission's goals that we're aiming for here. This is a community-wide effort. So I know I've had discussions with Hubee before about different zoning things. And I'd like to hear those. I don't wanna hear them after we've put in a year's worth of work, and then let's do something completely different. I'd rather hear them at the beginning before we do a year's worth of work. Ken, you ran through a number of items that are important to you. Maybe they're not all on the table for now, but it's a whole lot easier to hear about some of these things at this point than it is when we have a completely-formatted document and we're going through and just doing edits. So it really is, and Tom, I'm glad you brought up the town plan as a document because it is a starting point for the town plan exercise, but it's not the only thing that we have on the table. Sharon? So the town plan is, since the Planning Commission has changed their focus, primary focus right now to the town plan, that's a good place I think we need to start and look at and do exactly what you said. Review that. And if you wanna propose a change in a chapter or a paragraph or something, that's the type of documentation the Planning Commission is looking to see back. So create a work product. They get, they might not. The ETC next, I don't know if all the groups got them. I know some groups got them. That's another great resource, which is gonna bring a big change to our town center area. Even though it's secondary now, it's still gonna take a lot of work and that's gonna take a lot of time. And that's the biggest thing I think for everybody to understand is to not get frustration because planning is time for each time. And by the time you get something done, it might be all undone by the time it gets to where it needs to be. So I hear everybody's concerns and they're all good, but I wouldn't be freaking out too much. Darren created many memos on different topics that were on the list. And I know that I distributed them to my group and I don't know. I believe they went to a lot of other groups, but that's a good example of what you guys might create with the topics of your passion. And I'll add to that, Sharon, you've covered a lot of what I wanted to say actually. So we are starting to be some refinement of scope for each of these projects partly through staff, sort of putting suggestions out there, partly through the planning commission, talking about what needs to happen from their perspective, but there's certainly opportunity for, like Bestie said, input from everybody. And it's an iterative process. So we'll start with what we've got right now. A few months in, you might realize, you know what, we started talking about permanent and conditional uses, but really this is going to end up being an economic development issue and we got to look at it from this framework. So that doesn't mean there can't be a change in how you, you know, go forward with this as you discover things with the understanding also that you want to avoid some mission creep of, you know, try to stay focused as much as possible, but it's, you know, it's, like Sharon said, a process and a time consuming one and iterative. So we do have some materials ready. We've just been waiting for the groups to convene and get organized before we start dumping information on you. So now that this is happening, get ready. So I think you hit on a key point, Darren, and I think everybody, Ken, Ubi, Alan, anybody in Tom, anybody that thinks we'd do this differently, please, we're looking for you to comment on that and provide input. This process, I fully expect this process to be to evolve and to change. It may change monthly, hopefully not, but it may change every few months. It may change that we have to change a focus or maybe membership isn't available, whatever. And this is where, you know, the process will even flow a little bit on this. Planning is a long-term effort, as Darren said, and it allows for some flex in the way we work. I've got two folks online here who want to speak and I'm going to start with Patty. Patty, go ahead. Yes, I like what you said in the beginning of the meeting, Dustin, when you said that we need to discuss uses maybe for all areas, but what I really wanted to say after listening to all of you is that the CCRPC, there might be somebody on that committee, you know, our Regional Planning Commission that could possibly come to one of these meetings and everybody said such good things. I like what Mr. Yando said because the public, if they have ideas and want to contribute, we would like a copy of it too if the staff is making a copy of the list. The reason I would like a copy is I like to do research and I didn't research the CCRPC, but I researched the WRC, Wyndham Regional Planning Commission. They provide a lot of help to groups, especially the zoning bylaws specifically to facilitate the creation of affordable housing. I researched it, not knowing what inclusionary zoning was and I didn't know if Essex had an inclusionary zoning ordinance, but you don't have to answer. I just, I'm trying to research all this stuff because I don't know a lot about planning. What I do know, and I'll throw it out quickly, each town out of the nine towns of the WRC got money and they apply by November 1st and their bylaw modernization grant is by November 15th. Brattleboro is getting a walk bike master plan. That's what they came up with to evaluate pedestrian and bicycle system to create a prioritized action plan. Vernon created an outdoor recreation master plan to assess and prioritize how to innovatively use current recreation assets, develop underutilized assets and identify potential areas to create new diverse opportunities. As for the energy, John Castongaway is vice president and chief innovator officer. He's chief of innovation at Green Mountain Power. He says that there are webinars at Green Mountain Power. Any of our groups could go to attend even the planning commission, where you learn about energy storage, learn how battery storage programs can help you stay powered up while also reducing carbon emissions and lowering costs for all customers, Green Mountain Power customers, of your regional planning commission. Anybody on the regional commission or individual commission that is interested in learning about improving your home's resiliency while cutting costs and cutting carbon because now in Vermont resiliency zones and adaptation is the name of the game. We're already in climate change, it's no turning back. Thank you. Paula, thanks, Betty. Back when you were talking with Ken or maybe it was somebody online at this point. One of the advantages to having the various committees and commissions have a public piece of what they're doing is that it gives the whole community an opportunity to find out what's important, where things are leading. And one of the things that was driving this was we had to get the most recent town plan done before we could then address the regulations. And so one of the things that the people should be considering on the various committees is looking at the town plan, but also looking at what regulations might affect what they want and putting enough teeth in the regulations so that they can, so that whatever the regulations are, they're accomplishing what we want them to accomplish. Yes, good point. I just want to clarify that we have a town plan in the ETC Nets Town Center master plan. And I believe you were referring to the Nets. No, I was talking about the town plan. The town plan. At last, I mean, normally we make town plans and so forth, and this is all really good. But I'm going to take the next, say 10 minutes, because we're going to wrap up, targeting and finishing up at eight. I'm going to just sort of discuss some next steps. For I do that, David, Raphael, Tom or Ned, do you guys have any commentary you'd like to add or can add to this? Nothing for me. Bill. I have a question. As usual, I signed up for the Saxon Hill master plan. So I would like some guidance as to what the product should be in terms of scope and complexity. Or you can just, I can get the group together and we can propose something. I can bring it back and see if you guys are OK with that. I'm kind of leaning towards that approach. OK, and so if we were to wait to have a defa, I'm sorry, go ahead. I didn't mean to catch up. That's fine. I think that's my answer. So then my next question is you said public participation was important. So my thought is that the other members, we would pick one of their committees and we would try to get public input through their regular meetings. That seemed appropriate. And it doesn't have to be a single committee. Right. But we have to pick one. So like for a Saxon Hill master plan, say trails committees is part of it. We would use the trails regular meeting to collect public input on the Saxon Hill master plan. Is that right in line with what we've been aiming towards? And to further that, it doesn't have to be just the trails. So Saxon Hill master plan could be vetted with a couple different groups if it made sense. Yeah, I think there are there are other Darren wants to chime in here. Oh, I'll play to your downtown. I just want to make sure. Yeah, well, I say. I agree, it's not just trails, right? Whoever whoever whatever committee signed up to be part of that, they would be part of it. And we can meet with their full board for sure. But somebody it has to be part of a regular meeting to get public input is my thought. Agreed. And one thing I'll add to that is it doesn't have to be at a regular meeting of any of those committees. It can be a specially worn meeting that is, you know, representatives from all the groups, et cetera, you can do it however you want once you get the working group set up, just like any planning process that we've done. For instance, the firearms ordinance touched a bunch of different things and it had its own meetings and its own public input and its own, you know, review process. So all options are on the table as long as there's participation by those committees, because those have been designated representatives that select boards appointed to work on these topics and their input should be represented in the final product. Okay, so yeah, this is all what I thought. I just wanted to make sure you guys are nodding your heads. Yep, no, this is fine. This is the sort of input and feedback that should come from every group as we start going through this, is what works for that group and what, you know, what do we need would confirm this. So I'd like to propose the next steps and as for Josh and myself to work with the staff to set up the first round of meetings based on the list that Josh has been putting together and reach out and get those working groups up, running and at the same time, we'll have those in those discussions to see what sort of clarity is needed. And I think, you know, Alan and Ken both brought this up as what is the mission, what is the scope? I think we can decide if we have enough information on certain topics to move forward or if we need to come back and say, planning commission, what do you want us to deliver on this? Let's have this discussion. Let's start digesting what we have and see where we can go with this. Yes. I have a quick question on timing. Has there been any recently passed legislation that needs to be addressed soon that would impact some of the decisions that might be made with some of these committees? Good question. And I think that was what we're, that's one of our next steps is also going to be to look at this timeline and Darren referenced that there are a number of regulatory and or legislative items that have to be addressed at a certain timeframe. Once those are fully clarified, we would then be feeding that out to the, all the groups as well. And that would help fine tune some of the process. Yep. And I can give a quick summary. So Act 171 was passed in 2016. It says that in the next time a town does their town plan, you have to consider forest blocks and wildlife corridors as they define them. That's one of them. Enhanced energy planning isn't a requirement, but the town has created an enhanced energy plan. And so we want to incorporate that by reference in the next time we do the town plan update. What else? We got the bylaw modernization grant that Patty was talking about in Southern Vermont. It's also, it was a statewide grant that requires us to do some level of changes to the zoning regulations to encourage more housing and smart growth areas and walkability in those areas. So we're already doing that work. So we'll just be committed to doing that on their timeline, which is roughly in line with the town plan update. And then again, the town plan itself has to be updated. There's a lot of statutory requirements that go into that just on its own, like updating census information, anything else that's changed, that the town plan has to cover since the last time we did it. And one other thing I wanted to mention is that the regional planning commission and staff are definitely going to be focused on those specific requirements in the town plan update. And we'll be making sure that those get addressed, providing the information and the data that you need to have those discussions and put together the work product. Can you say anything specific on the whole cannabis thing, sales and so on that there will be adjustments as well? Yeah, that's something that so far staff have been able to handle fairly well within our existing zoning, but there are a couple of small areas that we'd love some feedback on in terms of how it's handled. And part of the problem is there's some uncertainty with what the state legislation says and how we interpret it. So basically they're leaving it to us to do a smoke test on. Exactly, and leaving up to individual towns to figure that out and go through their own. Trickling from the legislature. Did you say that? Did you say you're gonna do a smoke test? So to circle back on this a little bit, I think to put this in the other world that I work in, these first round of meetings are essentially gonna be scope discussions with the people that are involved. What do we feel can be done? What do you need? I mean, let's work with each other to find out what the scope of the request is. What you feel can be done with the people that you've got and what's missing. And we'll figure it out from there. Do what resources we need to add and how we go about it. We'll have this hand up briefly. Diddy? I just wanted to ask, Darren, if you had a theory one way or the other about is an update to the enhanced energy plan a requirement of the town plan update? No, enhanced energy planning is optional. Energy in general is still a required element in the town plan. So if there's any data that's changed, we'll update that as we're required to do that. It's the mapping out your renewables generation and your EV use and all that stuff that is the step above and what that gets a town, if you go through that process, which we did is substantial deference in the public utilities commission process of citing these larger renewable generation facilities. So we've already done the work, we just have to add it into our town plan and say we did it. Well, and we have to disaggregate it from the- Correct, yes, because it was a joint plan with the village, now we're separating. Thankfully the RPC, well, I think the RPC will have to help us separate that data because it was aggregated originally. So I think we beat the heck out of this so far. I'm extremely pleased with the amount of people that engaged on us tonight. So it's, I mean, it's very encouraging. And I think we're heading in the right direction on this. And I think obviously people have very astutely pointed out we need to fine tune some things and help bring some clarity to what the requests are. And we'll get there with your help. So with that is any last minute comments on this before we got a couple of business items to touch base at the end of our meeting. But I'll take any last minute notes or anything. Yes, sir. Quickly, what would help me is if we have, okay, Scott. What would help me is if we focus on tasks rather than work. I can do a lot of work without producing anything, but if I have a task to do, I can focus. So if you can express things, like even if it's a general task, like provide recommendations for update to part X of the town plan, fine, but it's a task I can now focus on. I know exactly what I need to accomplish there. That'll be helpful for me. And I think we're potentially just using different terminology and this is where the scope is going to discussions come into play. It's not just the planning commission deciding what those tasks are. It's the planning commission and your groups deciding on what the scope is and what those tasks could be. So I think you're really looking at this in a very productive way and I appreciate that. Thanks. Yes, ma'am. Les, go ahead, Patty, if you hand's still up. Yes, I would like to suggest that when somebody puts together the idea of having a meeting, they give us a choice of possible times and dates because I don't know who's organizing this. Well, who can certainly let your, I mean, I was suggesting that the staff and myself and Josh put the first meetings together, but I would absolutely be willing to let your groups and your commissions put this first one together and reach out to us for... I'm just saying, just don't pick a day and a time and think that everybody's going to be able to come. No, that's, yeah, understood. That's meetings. You go for, try to get 80%. So can we get experts in there looking at it as well? People who have expertise in these things. Like what? Well, I took a webinar as well, the fifth week class kind of webinar on town plan. And the fellow who ran the webinar said, I am free and you can use me and I'll look at the plans and I'll help you out what you need to put into it that's not theirs. So I would be careful of doing scope creep and I'll use that term because the ask, even if it's not detailed yet, is going to be more narrow than update the town plan for us. So a section. So if your group wants to reach out and see if somebody can come in and talk to you about it, absolutely. There's experts that people know a lot about this stuff and bring them in. You want to talk about architecture? I would invite Paula to a meeting. And presentation and so forth. So absolutely look for using additional resources. This is where I don't want to tell you how to do things. I will tell you at some point probably that we're going outside the scope of what we're trying for, but that goes to Ken's point about coming up with some tasks. So once we've established the scopes, we're going to try to stick to them pretty closely. We can always adjust, but we're not going to just go randomly right and left and backwards and upwards and forwards. So I think a number of you folks, Tom, Alan, Ken, you've all talked about, let's be specific about what we're looking for. And I think that's we're going to try to get there and we'll be looking for you guys to help making sure that what the ask is is understood. Sure. And with that, I'm going to, oh, Patty, you had one more, do you have another quick comment? Yeah, I think you called Dorothy Patty. Dorothy is on the committee. I'm in the public. So I didn't speak earlier. I'm speaking now. I mean, I spoke way earlier. I have a question for the planning commission and I tried to research it, but it's not answering my question. Inclusionary zoning. So I want to know what the hidden taxes that developers don't like when they approach you. So I understand better. What is it about the hidden tax they don't like? Because I read that even with this hidden tax, the zoning, this zoning ordinance, this inclusionary zoning ordinance has never stifled development. And I don't think it will in Essex. So Patty, I'm going to actually defer that a little bit because right now the inclusionary zoning work is being worked on by the housing committee, not by the planning commission. So I'm not even going to. Oh, okay. I thought it was a planning commission question. Okay. I apologize. And quite frankly, right now, we're still talking about our work group process. So that would be a good question to maybe submit to the staff at some point and let them do some research. And we can address that in a public form at a later date. That work for you, Patty? Oh yeah, I just thought it was a quick answer, something you just knew. So don't be geeky. All right. So with that, anybody who's joined us for talking about work groups and stuff, you're free to go if you'd like, or you're free to stick around, appreciate it. Nick Mark and Martin. No, Nick? Okay, go ahead. Sorry. Yeah, a quick question or suggestion. I'm happy to reach out to the people in my group if I have their contact information. So if I need to connect with Sharon, Darren, or somebody else, would you reach out to me and provide that information? Yes, we can do that. And Josh has a good comment. Okay, thank you. Because he's putting a list together. Right. Okay. Excellent. Thank you. Okay, thank you. Appreciate your time and your engagement on this. Okay, your hand is up. Yep. Okay, so let's move on to the next item on our agenda is minutes from April 28th. Well, we approved the minutes of April 28th. David or Josh? Not Josh. David or Tom? Can you give me a second? Second. Moved by Ned, seconded by Tom. Are there any adjustments to the minutes as presented on any of the pages? Hearing none, all those who approved the minutes signify by saying aye. Aye. David, do you there? Did I hear you? Yep, I said aye as well. Okay, opposed? Minutes passed 4-0. Other business? Darren? Yes, so that's promised or threatened. We are gonna try and move ahead with the Biola Modernization Grant RFP for a build-on model. So you have the draft RFP in your packet. I've already made some changes to it, just touching up format mostly, but just wanted to give you a preview of what that will look like with the goal. And the goal here is, as I mentioned earlier, we're trying to do these zoning updates that reflect the intent of the grant, which is to do smart growth housing and walkable neighborhoods everywhere in town that we can, not just in the town center. So since we're already doing that, the extra money from this grant can be used, hopefully to give us a better sense of what the infrastructure needs might be if we wanted to increase density in the way that is proposed by the state or requested by the state. So that's what this is for. I just wanted to run it by you as a FYI. Let us know if you have comments or questions, but otherwise we'll be putting that out relatively soon. Okay, great. Darren, I've got a question. Part of it was to address municipal services. What about other services like power and gas? It's a good question. Since the town isn't responsible for managing those, we're not necessarily gonna look at it in our scope. We can certainly, when we go through the process of looking at those zoning updates, if we do implement them, really what this will give us is a picture of what's possible. The limiting factors tend to be sewer, frankly, in traffic. So power and gas can usually upscale a lot more easily than we can upscale our sewer. But we will certainly, it's a good suggestion, Tom, to check in with them as well as to what those needs might be. Yeah, I mentioned it because I have run into power issues before with. Yeah, no, it's a good point. We'll continue to be an issue, particularly as the grid starts, as we start going towards electrification and the grid gets more burdened. Thanks, I will add that in there if I can. Two other business. One other is we received notice today that Athens Sonic is going to be the new community development director. She begins on June 29th. What's her name? Catherine Sonic. Catherine was our former planner years ago. Yeah. And so we'll be back up to staff full strength at that point. So that actually might help with if she's able to engage in the committee process that we're looking at. She's another good resource, I think. And I think that was it. Katie, you had a comment, your hand is raised. I'm going to circle back to you real quick. Thank you. I just wanted to mention that I'm not sure if an email went out in that red that Josh has been kind of coordinating about the work group of the section tonight, but if so, I didn't see that. Can we just look for the housing commission who is still on that? And secondly, I just wanted to mention, I know that some of the groups that are listed in the packet that you're talking about kind of scheduling and starting those discussions. I know that the housing commission hasn't given names or contacts yet. I'm just wondering how's the best way for all of you as the housing commission to know when they're scheduled or provide to the group names and contact information so they can get engaged? Well, I mean, the communication from Josh didn't go out across the board. That was just this afternoon. So we'd mentioned that earlier. That was not forwarded out to anybody yet because he wasn't able to be here tonight. As far as communication on the meetings, as I said earlier, we are looking for the different work groups to set the meetings up. This first round, I was basically volunteering staff and myself to help set up the first meetings. And then it would be communicated out to those folks who were on. And Katie, if your folks haven't engaged on it yet or write anything to Josh, Josh, I think we would probably just work to you directly and allow you to communicate that down to the rest of your group. And if we don't have other commission that have engaged, we would still be working through the chairs and the vice chairs. So and expect or allow you to communicate that down as works best for your group. How's that? That works for me. We have a meeting coming up and I will make sure that this is on our agenda to kind of try and get you some of the names for that. I just want to make sure that as you're scheduling right now, we don't get kind of lost. So I'm happy to be that contact and help coordinate that for my commission if that's helpful for right now. And quite frankly, the contacts may change over time. So I mean, if you could be the point person to begin with, you can decide who and what needs that, how that needs to change. That would make things probably easier. And we can let Josh know for the time being that Ned, the housing. All right. Do we have anything else that we need to touch on tonight? And I'll take a motion. Okay, we adjourned. Second. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? We are adjourned. Aye. Aye.