 And I do have one number that I need to call it out in attendance is a phone number 8814305 if I could have a name to that and I have actually a second number as well. I just got on 238-8238-2268. 8814305 is Steve Morris at 36 Hagan Drive. Thank you. Thank you. And then the other number again is 238-2268. If you're muted, if you could unmute to tell your name. Yep, that's Nancy probably 2268. And what's your address Nancy? 54 first. 54 what? Thank you. Good. All right. So tonight folks, number one, welcome to the planning commission meeting number nine. The first item on our agenda, we have a full house with commissioners. We have three commissioners that are attending remotely, Dave Raphael, John Mangan and Joshua knots. So that gives us a full fleet of members in attendance. So the first item on our agenda this tonight folks is going to be the election of officers. So for this, I'm actually going to relinquish the gavel to we so our community development director and turn over the election process to you. So I don't know whether you've all had. Okay. I don't know whether you've all had a chance to speak amongst yourselves or whether you need a chance to speak amongst yourselves now to nominate a new slate or. Renominate the existing slate of officers. Nominate the slate. Just for the record, the existing slate is myself, Joshua knots and. Okay, so the existing slate Dustin bruceau chair. Joshua knots vice chair and John Mangan. Clerk is renominated. That slate is renominated. Continue with your meeting congratulations gentlemen. Um, may I have a motion to vote. That's two motions on the table. And then I think shoe seconded. Right. So now you need to just call the, call the vote. Call the vote. Since we, um, since we have remote members, can you please identify yourself as your voting. Yes. Joshua knocks. Yes. John Mangan. Yes. Yes. Yes. Okay. It's unanimous. Now there's time for congratulations. Congratulations. Now we can, now we can move on. So. Thank you all. And, uh, you'll be ready for next. The next item on agenda is going to be public comment, but before we get into that, I would like to ask everyone who's going to offer comment today to swear in. Swear to, if you want, but let's just swear in first. Um, and this goes for folks on the line as well. Do you swear that any testimony you present this evening will be truthful to the best of your abilities. So I will. If I don't hear him. You're, you're accepting this. So let's move on. Uh, first item on the agenda is public comment. This also includes. Well, number one, it's for any item that's not on the agenda for folks that want to give us any, any feedback or commentary. It also tonight will include the consent agenda item. So if there's anyone that wants to present comment, including commissioners as questions about the consent agenda item. Which is a minor site plan amendment for Carl and Kathleen Schneider proposal to convert a commercial space into a third apartment. At 3 kilo growth. So public comment Sharon. On your draft letter, I made an error and put condition for from a different application. So I struck condition for. And I made a grammatical change as well throughout. So was it the date 1? Yes. Thank you. Any other public questions or comments? Hearing none. We'll move on to the next. On the agenda dust and I have 1. Oh, go ahead. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. I have 1. This may change based on what Sharon just fixed, but condition 3 as a typo. Where it states. The applicants so it here she'll adhere to fire department comments found in. Finding 5 above, but it should be finding 6 based on. The revision we have, but maybe now that changes. It's just a reference to the wrong number. Right. Okay. Thanks, John. Yep. Thank you. Okay. With that, we'll move on to the next item, which is. The consent agenda item. Having had discussion completed. To. Prove the consent agenda. I'll second that. Moved by. Tom seconded by Josh. All those in favor. Hi. Hi. Hi. Opposed. So the next item on our agenda is a sketch. Public hearing for Pinewood Manor Inc. This is a proposal for 49 unit single family planned unit development. Combined 115. Are you. Yes, I am. I'm having to look at this from afar and try to make sure that everyone can see. Okay. Thank you. So. Pinewood Manor has proposed as we've noted. A residential subdivision and PUD. We are here reviewing it as a sketch plan. You, the planning commission approved this. Approximately a year ago in August of 2020 as a sketch plan. The applicant submitted for preliminary review. Hang on a second. David, did you have a question? Your hands up. Yeah. I mean, I was, I didn't do it after Darren's, but I was just going to try to put in the record about the site visit. So you, you tell me when you want to do that. Why don't we do that right now? So David, you started to go ahead. Okay. I just wanted to, to be on the record is I wasn't at the site. Visit this afternoon, but I did meet Darren who was kind enough to come in on his vacation. He met me at the site on Tuesday. So I am familiar with the project and I did walk the site and a couple of the logging roads. Okay. Okay. And I will just add that separate minutes will be done for the site visit and that will, that was announced at the site visit meeting today. Then we'll capture it in those minutes as well. Okay. Thank you. Sure. No problem. So you have seen this before as a sketch plan, applicants submitted for preliminary review. It was deemed incomplete by staff for several reasons. Most of those had to do with procedural and or missing information that was needed for preliminary review. But we also have had some extensive discussions with the applicants about the issue of sneak slopes, erosion control and storm water management for this project. Staff, as we noted in the sketch plan review is still very concerned about the potential for erosion on these site on the site and on the slopes that are proposed to be impacted, which will exceed 20% grade, which is under the town plan and zoning regulations, the upper limit that is allowed for development to impact. So we've had several meetings with the applicants to try to address this. The applicants have made some changes to this plan since you saw that sketch. And even since it was submitted by preliminary and we do appreciate the flexibility that has been shown thus far in terms of reducing lot sizes for the conventional lots, which are now actually part of the PUD and trying to retain larger open spaces. However, we still see a significant amount of development proposed on steep slopes. I'm going to actually hop over to another set of plans. So bear with me for just a second that illustrates this issue. So for those who are watching at home, this is the east side of the project. And what you're looking at are the higher numbered lots connecting to Timberlane Drive off a new road. Everything that's in teal. Sorry, the mouse is not working here. Everything that's in teal. So for instance, here and here and so forth. And so forth is considered is 20% grade or steeper. Everything outside of that is less than 20%. And so what I want to just go here. Apologies for the slowness of the visuals. You can see a little bit through one of these that there is some significant development proposed within these steep slope areas. Some of these proposed lots are outside of steep slope areas. And we appreciate that. But there's still a significant amount that exceeds what's allowed in zoning regulations in the town plan. We do appreciate that the applicants are clustered having some sections of the development that are clustered as carriage homes. These would help avoid some of the steep slopes by placing the homes on areas that are not steep. But not all of them are. And so again, we've tried to point this out to the applicants. We've asked them to redesign the project in order to avoid all impacts to slopes 20% and greater. And that has not been agreed upon. And we are at a point where we feel that this does not meet the town plan, the zoning regulations. And we want to have the planning commission review this as a sketch plan and rather the applicants have requested to review as a sketch plan to review some of those issues and come back to for instruction on where to proceed. We presented two main materials, two main documents for you. One is a summary memo. One is the other is a full staff report going point by point through the zoning regulations for what information we have available. We also have several attachments that detail some of the stormwater violations in Pinewood section H, which is the previous phase of development. And one of the issues with the driveways along Stonebrook Circle that was submitted to the town by one of the current homeowners highlighting again some of the issues with grades and slopes. I will happy to run through some of the points in the staff report and in the memo, but we presented two motions for the planning commission. One would be to deny the project and request that the applicant resubmit a proposal that has no impact on slopes 20% or greater and limited impact to slopes 15 to 20%, meaning a vast majority of those slopes are left undisturbed with appropriate erosion mitigation measures. The alternative is because this does not meet the town plan and the zoning regulations, the commission could remand the project to the zoning board for a variance. And that would come prior to either sketch or preliminary approval at the planning commission's discretion. A third option that is not specifically mentioned in the report is to continue the proposal or the application hearing to continue discussing the issues around slope or any other issues that the planning commission wants to address. Thank you. Quick comment before we move to questions from the commission. You were apologizing for the slowness. I would like folks maybe to remember that it wasn't that many years ago that we were working out from a piece of paper. So people weren't able to see that. So I think that's a pretty significant advantage that we've started using a lot more effectively. Okay. That said commissioners questions for staff at this point. David, Josh, John. I'm good right now. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Also good right now. Okay. And let's go to the applicant. Paul. Yeah. Good evening. Paul O'Larry O'Larry Burke civil associates 13 corporate drive. Yeah. And if you could bring up the plan just overall, it's the same plan. It's just a little bit easier. Yeah. To see. Yeah. This one. That was one of the three plans on that flash drive. Yeah. That one's, it's called. Oh, the ones on the phone. Yeah. On the desktop. You just grab those real quick. And this is the same information as what you might have in your packet. It's just a little different view of it. I'll start with this one. Sure. I can bring the rest up as we go. Okay. So, you know, I lived in Essex over 30 years now. 34 years, I think. And like a lot of you, when he moved here, Essex was the place to be. You know, it was a, had the best school systems. You know, when you talk to a realtor, everybody wanted, wanted you to come to Essex. You know, when I look lately at what's going on in Essex and I, and I look at your agenda, you know, for the year. And there's nothing happening in Essex. There's no subdivisions. There's no large housing developments. There's nothing going on for, for commercial development hardly. You know, we work all over Chittin County. We look at say like Williston where, where Finney crossing is booming. Snyder is recommending or proposing another 300 units. We've got a 150 unit subdivision and going in on a golf course. We've got a couple of hotels going up. And we look at South Burlington, and you know, beautiful new town center or new town building just open in the town center. It's got this great library. It's got a senior citizen, you know, it's bringing a lot of folks into South Burlington city center. We've got none of that. You know, we've got a town center that's dead in the water. We've got a new ETC next plan. That's likely dead in the water because you haven't come up with any ways to fund it. We've got nothing going on for housing. I think the last housing subdivision of any size was, was the Colbert property. And for crying out loud, it took us two and a half years to get that thing approved. So, you know, I don't understand why things are always so hard in essence. You know, you would think that this project was, which is the next phase of Pinewood would be relatively easy. It's like all the other phases, but no, obviously it's going to be hard. And it's kind of a shame. It's got to the point now where, if you're coming into Chittenden County, you're looking at South Burlington, you're looking at Williston, you're looking at Colchester, and Essex is way down the list. You know, and a lot of it's our own fault. You know, we just, I don't know, we're just not friendly. You know, and if you think that consultants and developers aren't paying attention to the amount of dysfunction that is in Essex right now, I mean, we've got another failed merger vote. The staff and the board doesn't agree on most all projects. They do watch and they do pay attention. And we get calls all the time. What's the deal in Essex? And we give them our opinion. And what, you know, as an Essex resident, I'd really like to see a change at some point in time. It's really sad as to how poor, what a bad situation we're in right now, compared to the other towns around us that are all booming. You know, it's a, it's just, it's just shocking to me. So, so here we are back for Pinewood. We came for you for sketch panel approval, you know, back in August of 2020. We had a good crowd. A lot of folks that participated. We, we essentially had the same plan as, as what's up on the board today, that the same alignment staff raised the issues of steep slopes. We had a little bit of comment on, I think actually the only commission that commented on it was John Alden. John couldn't attend. He sent a memo in saying that, yeah, he recognized that it was steep slopes, but it was Pinewood. And, and he was fine with it. We had a lot of issues to discuss. We came down with sketch. We all knew there were slopes. Everyone's familiar with Pinewood. Nobody on this board can say they weren't aware that there were slopes at Pinewood. It's that got the steepest road in town. I think it's 19% or 18%. I mean, it's in Pinewood. So you gave us unanimous sketch plan approval. And based on that, Brian Marka went back and he spent close to 100 grand so far. Wetland delineations, consultants, our fees produced a full set of preliminary plans that match the sketch relying on what this board said. Not a single comment addressing steep slopes, right? So we produced a set of preliminary plans. We sent them into the town and staff to their credit is still has an issue with steep slopes. They did a sketch that they still do, but staff doesn't get to make that decision. The board does. Now staff refused to let us go to preliminary. Yes, there are five or six outstanding minor items like street names. We haven't provided the staff with street names. That's one of the reasons why when I considered complete pine we'll address those five or six items. A staff made it perfectly clear that they were not going to send us to preliminary until we addressed the steep slope issue. Now I think that's totally improper and it sends a bad message to the development community. It is not staff's job to determine what comes to this commission and what doesn't. All right. It's just, it's just wrong. You know, no other town does it. You've never done it in the past. I don't understand why we have this policy. So all of a sudden I'm going to jump in for a moment, please. I don't normally interrupt while I do, but I think the fact that you are here to talk about the sketch. So the journey to get here, I understand. But I don't want this to be a bashing staff sort of discussion. Let's discuss. We have a lot of those lately, it seems like. So here we go to the sketch. So, so here's our sketch plan. It's on the board. It's almost identical, but not identical. But the alignment and most of the, most of the parts are the same as what we heard for sketch. We, we really like this plan. It's different than any other plan we were opposed in Pinewood. As you can see in the middle and on the left, we have carriage style home. So these will be a condominium style proposal, whereas if you to buy one of these units, you don't have to worry about mowing your lawn. You don't have to worry about finding your driveway. You want to go down south for a couple of months in the winter or whatever, you know, these are an ideal home. It's proven throughout Chittin County that these are tremendous sellers, the tremendous market for these homes. We believe there'll be a tremendous market here. We think it'll be a really nice sub community within Pinewood. And then we have a number of single family lots as you can see that shaded and yellow on the loop road that goes out. So some differences on other Pinewood projects is that we have a number of open space parcels behind the single family homes on the bottom of the screen, you know, butting up to the other single families along Winridge, you can see there's a big open space parcel. All the single family lots back up to open space. There's not a single interior lot on the project. Unlike other sections of Pinewood, you can look at partial H to the left and see there's a number of interior lot. So in terms of open space and being compact, you know, we think this is an excellent layout. Parcel I comprises about 110 acres, roughly. Our development has concentrated on 20 of the 128. So we have 49 units on 20 acres of the parcel. All right. So obviously the bulk of the parcel is remaining open and untouched. We certainly have steep slopes within the parcel. All of Pinewood does. It's been an issue every time through. If we look at the steep slopes of the 100 or so acres within Parcel I, it's about 65 acres that are considered to be steep slopes. We are impacting 10 of those acres. So of the 20 acres we're impacting, roughly 10 of those acres are steep slopes. Now what's the steep slope? Steep slope is a 20% slope. So a 20% slope is a one in five grade. So for instance, we look at this room. This room is about 24 feet in depth. So a one in five slope would mean if you went up five feet up the wall and you do a string line from five feet up to the bottom, that's a 20% slope. That a steep slope? Well, in our view, no. We typically grade your lawn at a one on three slope. A one on three slope would be a 33% slope. At a one on three slope, you can safely go out, jump on your John Deere and mow your lawn when it's wet and not worry about tipping over, being unstable, sliding down the slope. But one on three is a typical slope that we will actually grade a lot. So that's a 33% slope, way steeper than the 20% slope that we're talking about here. We all drive them down the Cirque Highway, the sections from River Road to Essex Way, a large slope there was difficult to stabilize. That's a slope that's about one to two on one. So that's a 50% slope. So again, that's a very steep slope. We don't grade to that steepness. We usually grade to the 33% or the one on three standard. Now, section H, which you've been out on the site plan, you've seen what section H looked like. Section H actually had 12 acres that was greater than 20% slope. So even though there was only 39 lots and, you know, less lots than what's here, there's actually two more acres in section H than there is proposed in section I in terms of the slope impact. Now, certainly section H and the section before were all steep, all very similar. And, you know, as you dive through that subdivision today, you can see, you know, what it looks like. Did we have a few erosion control problems out there? Could we have done a better job controlling erosion? Yes. Is it stable today? Yes. When you go out there. Does it look nice when you go out there today? Yes. So I guess, you know, when you look at the fact that there's no development going on in Essex, if you're not going to put additional housing here in Pinewood Manor, which has an approved master plan and has an approved sketch plan, then where are you going to put it? If not parcel, if not Pinewood Manor where? Does it go on town? I just, I just can't understand what really is going on nowadays. So, so we're here to look at the sketch plan review. We're really here to talk about, about the slopes. So one suggestion I would have is we really don't need you to approve the sketch. What we need to have the board do is stay true to your sketch plan approval and direct staff to schedule us for preliminary plan review. Once we submit those five or six items that staff outline, we're missing. That's really what we're trying to do. We're trying to get to preliminary plans. The only way we could get in front of you was to schedule another sketch plan. Ridiculous as it sounds, that's what it took for us to get back in front of this board. How dysfunctional it is right now in the town. So I'll leave it to you to comment. I'll gladly answer any questions. But in my view, we could cut this sketch plan hearing short if you would just direct staff to move us on to preliminary once we submit the remaining information. And I do believe that this is a plan unit development. And under general criteria conformance section, this board is allowed to waive or modify any other standards in site plan or subdivision. Thank you. Commissioners, questions at this point for applicant or staff. Go ahead, Ned. No, I'm going to, I'm going to wait. I'd rather have too much waiting. David, John, Josh, any questions or comments right now? None. Yeah. Go ahead. So I don't think our regulations. Applied only certain areas of town. So even though playing wood is it's distinct thing, I think the regulations still apply. So I think, go ahead, Paul. So, you know, I just note that, you know, Colbert, which was approved a few years ago had a fairly high percentage of slopes that were greater than 20%. Right. Reinhardt had slopes greater than 20%. Alsenicals parcel out there that you've put had slopes greater than 20% that removed. My building where our commercial subdivision is has had slopes greater than 20% that's been removed. So this isn't a new thing. So be careful. Be careful. If you're going to say no development on 20% slopes, you're probably taking half of the parcels in town out of place. So be careful. Be careful what you set for precedent because it's going to come back and bite you hard. 20% is nothing. It may be nothing, but it is something we've got to understand. We've got to understand more about. Yeah. Ned, go ahead. Yeah. You know, I think walking the site and I look at it and I say, yeah, Jesus, this is a really, not an easy site. You know, but you have to, I think you have to be able to visualize what it looks like before, before they go out and build. I agree that we need develop housing and we need to figure out a way to move it forward. This is difficult. I agree with that, but I, I don't think it's insoluble. Okay. I'm, what I'm hearing, not, not, you know, we built on greater than 20. I know that history has shown that it's there. Most all of Pinewood is, is that condition? But we have existing regulations today that we have to address that they may not have been in place then or, or whatever, but we have to address those regulations today. So that's something we're going to have to understand more about. This is a public hearing. So commissioners, if you don't have a lot of comments or questions right now, I'd like to go ahead and open the public hearing up. So moved. Moved by shoes, seconded by Ned. Open the public hearing. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries seven zero. Public hearing is open. So folks, if you want to offer comment, if you're online, please use the raise your hand feature in teams. If you're in the audience, just raise your hand and we've got one in the back. So if you could state your name for the record. My name is Lydia Wiskowski. I have lived in Pinewood 35 years and I am familiar with this. I'm also familiar with a very high density of wildlife in Pinewood that this design seems to, you know, really impact tremendously extreme area, not only in that build something going extreme area, but we're blocking off a huge area that is a setting area of habitat for wildlife that already has moved up into the extreme, extreme area of Pinewood. We've had bears and bears and all kinds of things, lots of fish attacks that have moved up because of the growing development going on. So one of my concerns is, and I know that land is being set aside that it's going to be developed, but we are really heavily impacting that whole stream area, not just with, because they aren't in the buffer zone, but when you're putting that many thousands, you're having a lot of people that will also be out wandering around in those wildlife areas. And that is a bit of a concern. Now that's just one concern. The other concern talking about slopes is slope impacts from one area also impacts other areas. Something that I never could have seen when the jungle circle was built is that there is a ravine in my house. I've lived in that for 35 years and for the last several years since the jungle circle was built. And I've never had wind problems where the wind from all the trees that have been taken down build that development in the east. It's just funneled up that little ravine behind my house. And in the last six or seven years, I have lost 11 trees, large, massive trees where the wind comes in heavily like last Labor Day. I had four trees, two trees for the top flew out. The one tree just broke off and leaned down. I had to have four massive trees removed because they broke and were damaged because the wind just funneled right up that ravine. That is obvious by trees that are lying down in the ravine that have also fallen into the ravines coming up that ravine. So when we're taking down trees in one area, regardless of what the slope is there, you are taking away a wind barrier that's now going to affect other areas. I don't know, I'm not a wind student, but I do know that when you take down more trees and put in tight housing with me with the way there arranged, looks like it's going to be pretty much wiped out all the trees for the development purpose. When wind comes up along the alder bush and the roots down because the surf is over there for those trees going down, when the wind comes in from that direction, I'm probably not going to have a true laugh and I hope that they don't fall in my house. But there is a wind factor involved when trees are removed from the forest today. So I do want to bring it back because nothing would have occurred to me if we put it back. But if I'm up slow, the wind compresses and I really did, I'm at the top, so wildwood, spread it at the top of the ravine and I've really been hit hard by the wind. Thank you. Those are two things I just want to make people expect for any way to take any channel into effect. No, thank you very much. Tom Williams, you had your hand raised. Yes, can you hear me? Yes. All right. I live at 78 Stonebrook Circle, one of the properties that kind of abuts all the planned development. So a couple of things. I want to talk about slope and I also want to talk about the plans. I'll start with the slope stuff. I don't personally have a big problem with 20% or less kind of grade slopes, but I do want to address something I heard Paul say a minute ago, which is that he said it was safe to push or ride a slope with a mower that was one in three. I'm guessing that's a 33% grade. And I just want to call foul on that statement. It's incorrect. I have a 33% grade in my backyard. Very treacherous to mow. I've rolled a double blade walk-behind mower on that slope before. If you research this on the internet, you'll find that the guidance is 15% grade is the max safety grade for riding mower and 20% grade is the max safe for a walk-behind. And you won't find any mowing company that will tell you that it is safe to mow a 30 or 33% grade. So I just want to call fact check all over that previous statement. Very treacherous. Am I feeding back? You're okay right now. Okay. The second thing, you know, just the slope. And I do agree that there's a lot of slopes, you know, in Pinewood and we need to deal with that. But the plans, originally I thought that the plans about doing the cul-de-sacs and then also having the road was to be able to, you know, capture the number of houses that Brian needed to capture when he wasn't able to actually complete Stonebrook Circle due to, I believe it was wetlands near the river or something like that. But now when you count it up, the density is really, it's really dense. The carriage houses, although a nice idea, and I do agree they probably sell like hotcakes, it's really out of place with the flow of the rest of Pinewood. We bought into this neighborhood because they were single family homes on very nice sized lots, something that was kind of hard to find. And I think that putting a bunch of carriage houses packed together like sardines at the end of that street sticking off the cul-de-sacs really disrupts everything about the neighborhood. I don't see how that would be a good thing. The road, turning the log road, you know, into an actual road and putting houses on it, that seems to be an adequate, you know, compensation for not being able to connect the Stonebrook Circle. Those lots looked decent-sized. They looked like they would blend, you know, with the rest of the neighborhood and not be doing something that's just kind of stuck out there. So those are my two primary, primary comments about the mowing. I would also say that, you know, if Mark Cut and Sterling did a better job with water and erosion control, then you may not be getting such pushback from people on grades. You know, we personally suffered from a yard that was eroding badly, had to spend thousands and thousands of our own dollars to fix erosion problems on our own property. If you look out my front window, there's an orange barrel sitting on a bike track because the water, when they built the house next to me, they channeled the water towards the bike path. It started digging out. We told the builder, this is going to be a problem. You're digging out a hole in front of the bike path. They didn't do anything. They threw some dirt in it, packed it with a shovel. Then the water burrowed underneath the bike path collapsed and now there's an orange barrel sitting on it. It's been there for weeks. I don't know if everyone's fighting about who has to fix the bike path, but you know, lots of water control. I can't believe that we've been building in this neighborhood for decades and decades and haven't figured out how to control the water, especially because we're in a steep slope neighborhood. That just seems insane that we can't figure out the water. We're better at dealing with the water flow and the erosion problems than we probably wouldn't be getting such pushback on the slopes. So with that, I will retire my thoughts. Thank you. Thank you very much. Question? Can you hear me? Yes. Thank you. First of all, I just want to say kudos to Markart family. I think they have built a beautiful neighborhood here. We just moved in here two years ago. We love it here. This is a pretty unique neighborhood with plenty of trees, plenty of slopes, and we love it here. I live on an eight hour green drive here. My house is right next to the new proposed development. And I'm fairly concerned, really concerned about the density of the new houses being proposed here and also about the slope. Regarding slope, yes, like Paul mentioned there have been some approvals with 20% or more slope. Part of my own lot has more than 20%. But these lots were big enough where you could have the house sitting on on a decent grade less than 20% grade type of region. But these lots that are being proposed by Paul, these are small lots that you don't have enough room for less than 20% slope. So I think just comparing that yes, 20% has been approved in the past and the new lots also have 20% they are apple to apple. They are not apple to apple. That's my one point. Second point is that the frontage and the setback that are being proposed by the new homes here are considerably different from the rest of the neighborhood here. So this I think this proposal is going to bring the value down for the rest of the neighborhood. If we see that part of the new neighborhood being compacted, being so busy right next to this beautiful neighborhood here, but I think if it can be tweaked to make it look like the rest of the neighborhood can come with that. But if I see it in the current form I have serious concern about the value of my own house here. That's all I had. Thank you. Anyone else that would like to offer comment? Yes, sir. In Bristol, 16 Windry Road, I like in fact my I'm on the other side of this and it really provides all sorts of things in my experience that if you're leaving all of that open space between my coffee mine I'm going to find it I mean stay there or hold it down together I like it. Thank you. Is there anyone else that would like to offer comment? Yes, I did raise my hand. I wanted to also like thank the select board and the planners for looking out for us and also for making sure that we don't build on steep slopes and have erosion. So I want to commend the planners and the select board for taking care of that for us. I'd also like to respectfully take a slight issue with Mr. O'Leary who's saying that this development is going to mean the future of the economy of Essex. I respectfully submit that it will have a big impact on the economy of Mr. O'Leary if it gets so approved. It's millions of dollars worth of income and I certainly don't begrudge him that but to characterize it as the future of Essex lies in the balance I would differ. I would say that probably a bigger impact were the 5,000 jobs that IBM lost over the past 20 years in Essex may have had a bigger impact on the economy than 50 homes. But also on the I've been back in those areas that land is very steep and the density of houses in the rest of the neighborhood the wooded aspect of the neighborhood is the reason we moved in here and the new development in Stone Ridge really did take out many more trees than what the Marcotts typically did. We've preserved the woods beautifully. We have rules in place in the neighborhood that anyone who wants to cut a tree that's more than eight inches in diameter has to get approval from the association to do that. I also would prefer not to see such dense houses with small frontage variances on the setbacks and packed together tightly I think just bigger and put fewer houses in there not that you can't build on it but let's respect the ecology, let's respect the slopes let's respect the character of the neighborhood and I think Mr. O'Leary can still make some money in that area back there and I'm all for that and I hope he does benefit from the land that he bought back there and welcome him to the neighborhood and I think Essex is a great place and personally I wouldn't say he's not an active farm that's all I disagree with him on that too you are representing her you are not I'm not in line with 1 million So I just want to the engineer on this unless I hit the lottery tonight I didn't realize that carriage houses were part of this. So I agree with some other comments that the size of that footprint for carriage houses and it's not in character with Pinewood or in nature's way that you know where Stonebrook is. So I would like the slopes don't bother me if they're taken care of properly. You know, you can do it with vegetation and other things. But the lots were bigger. I think that would be helpful. I think, you know, they have like roughly one acre lots. Now a lot of them in Stonebrook, they seem to be fine. As far as wildlife, I love the wildlife. I know there was a concern by the previous person. I still have deer, fox, fish or cats in my backyard. So they maybe they pushed them into my area but they still exist and they're still there and I love seeing them. So I'm not sure where they're gonna go if they do this other thing. I don't think that's a major issue. But I think that this project, I do think we need more housing in Essex. I mean, my daughter and her family are living with us right now trying to find a house in Essex and they can't find a house. So we do need more housing and this is a place where there's open space to do that. But it's 20 acres or something on 100 acres, whatever it is. I think that's doing a pretty good thing for conservation which I'm all in favor of. But I think this development can happen and get away around the great issue by just having the lots bigger and properly landscaped. That's my comment. All right, thank you. John. Yeah, that's John Zimmerman. I'm at 42 Stonebrook. I agree with those who have expressed concern about the density. That would be my major concern. Completely out of character with the rest of Pinewood. I won't expand on that. It's everybody else has covered it. I have a question about lot, I think it's lot number one. I don't have the drawing up here. I understand the density and the carriage houses but what is lot number one all about? That happens to be directly adjacent to my house. Just a proposed single family house. Now that lot is significantly smaller than the other single families. Okay, thank you. All right, thank you. Anyone else? Dan and John, oh, we got. Yeah, sorry, I forgot my main point and I was so happy to talk that I forgot my main point. Then some other folks have expressed this. Again, this is Mike Trick, Forage Road. Yeah, and there's some other folks in the neighborhood have asked that we pay attention to the traffic going through this is a 50 additional houses, a lot of traffic in and out on those roads and several folks, Mr. Stocker lives on Raymond Drive and other folks in the neighborhood who would live along the egress from the new neighborhood have expressed concern that the traffic coming out would increase and also be faster and they wanted to make sure that it was appropriately marked with signage for stop signs and Mr. Stocker requested speed bumps on his neighborhood as it tends to be a faster affair. So let's see, Tom, your hand is up again. Are you another comment or question? Yeah, actually I did have a question for someone who knows a little bit more about the zoning rules than I do. So I was told, and again, this is someone speaking to me so I don't have documentation on this, but I was told that for a shared driveway that the maximum number of individual driveways that could hang off a shared driveway was two. And I noticed in the plan that we've got some shared driveways coming off the cul-de-sac with a lot more than two homes hanging off of those. I'll put that, someone may be out there who knows more about that rule than myself. I'm actually gonna turn to Darren. You wanna address that? Yes, Tom, that is correct. Except within the Scenic Resource Preservation Overlay District, which this proposal is not located in that area, you can only have up to two dwellings off of a single driveway under a zoning regulation section 3.1. There may be some, perhaps some flexibility with that in the planning, in the planning and development regulations, but that would be at the recommendation of the town engineer and at the planning commission's discretion. It is not recommended in this scenario at this point. Again, we're trying to address some of the more fundamental issues before we look at how many lots are on one driveway. Okay, thanks, thank you. Thanks, Darren. Dan and John, you both have your hands up still. Do you have additional questions or comments for us? I do not. So, Dan. I do not. It's John. Okay. All right. Anybody here in the audience? Yes, sir. Brian Markoff, owner of the neighborhood and the applicant. I would like to state that we know I'm over the phases there to make it a very attractive desired neighborhood. This next section is no different. We are keeping with a lot of our tradition, albeit though we are going into trending into the newer interests of public and other developments where we're going to include carriage home mix, it's like a hybrid and also our long-time tradition. Some of that is, you know, with the advice and direction here to press our building envelope. So it's certainly a given date. I think we've come up with a very, very well-thought-out drawing neighbor. Fortunately, cutting trees is part of it. I don't like to cut trees anymore but I'm going to have to get to an area that we can ultimately call good. There are construction not so much. We've had troubles on some of that. My own call signing off on a couple of homes is to have them do their own swipe work. That's not going to happen anymore because I lose control. They have a friend of a friend come in and try to topsoil on the path of growth. I do respect people's interest in keeping single-family homes. We are evolving with time. So that's for the most part, it's going to be just more quality homes. Thank you. So I'm going to leave the public forum open for the time being but I'm going to bring the conversation back to the table for commissioners, staff, and applicants for the time being. Doesn't mean we won't take additional questions but at this point, I'm going to keep it here. So before we go to you, Darren, because I knew you're chomping at the bit, commissioners, I want to go around the table, virtual and physical, and get your thoughts as they may be at the moment. Tom? Lots of sizes are a little smaller, is that right? What do we normally do? I was going to say that I agreed with some of the public comments that lots sizes are a bit smaller and I'm just wondering, is that something that we should be concerned about? That wasn't mentioned in the staff report, I don't think. I'm happy to speak to that right now. Go ahead. So the lot sizes are, or at least the non-carriage home dwellings are on average a little smaller than the normally allowed 20,000 square feet per dwelling for the R2 zoning district. We staff did request that the applicant consolidate some of the lots or rather make some of the lots smaller because most of the land that was originally encompassed by those lots under the previous sketch proposal was undevelopable, unusable, and we wanted to see the lots themselves match the building envelope a little more closely so that homeowners were under no illusion that the areas in the back or on the side that really weren't usable or not usable and not meant to be built on. So that was that staff request and that's in keeping with our plan unit development regulations that's called for smaller lot sizes as minimal as possible to accommodate the development proposed. One thing I do want to add because I do hear a lot of concerns from the public about lot sizes and how the proposed carriage homes would mesh with the existing neighborhood is you could propose or that we could have duplexes on some of these lots that would look exactly the same as a single family home but it would be twice the density without looking like it's a lot denser like the carriage homes would be. That's something we suggested to the applicant. Duplexes according to them don't sell quite as well as the carriage homes seem to be at this point. So we understand there's some market concerns about saleability of the lots. We leave that to the applicant to make those decisions but from a permitting and design perspective that would accomplish similar goals of reducing the footprint but still maintaining a similar number of lots without looking significantly different in terms of design than the existing neighborhood. And we concur with Darren on the lot sizes. We've shown what we think of the minimum lot sizes to keep in care to the neighborhood but the biggest reason is to lessen the impact on steep slopes and create a little bit more open space. John. That's it for now. Okay. John Mangan. I'm back. Yeah, I had noted as well density to me just looks a little bit out of character compared to the rest of the neighborhood. Looking at the larger overview of the smaller lots just it seems to me it looks like it's going to look like a different neighborhood. And the carriage houses, I mean as much as I like the idea I'm not 100% sure that fits with the character of the rest of the neighborhood but I'd be curious to hear what others think about that. In terms of the slope, that's definitely a concern. The 20% rule is there, it's in the regulations so we can't really argue that it's there. If the only consideration is to ask for a variance but then we have to ask ourselves all the questions that are required as part of the variance process which I won't go into right now but that's just my thoughts. Anything else John? No, that's it. Ned, how about you? I think we probably need more clarity on the 20% slope issue and exactly where and to what extent. The mix of housing I'm not really against for looking at the larger picture it's going to be able to maybe make some of the housing a little more affordable in town. And I think that's something we definitely need to look at. David. I have nothing right now. Thank you. Mr. Shue. Ditto to I think what's been said by the commissioner so far but I have a question that might seem a little out of place. Do we need to vet it first? Maybe but it's not going to offend anybody. So one of the things that strikes me about this it's all pine wood is this way and a lot of other places that like this too but this particular application feels like you guys are disturbing an enormous amount of soil. So my question is did you guys are you guys removing or are trucking in fill for this? I mean, is the cut and fill even based on what you have here? Because a lot of the steep slope issue is being dealt with like here's a steep hillside we know it's all sand and we're going to level it out. We're going to use the fill over here. It seems like it's a volume wise. It seems like and then maybe I'm wrong. That's why it's kind of a weird question. It just seems like it's a huge volume like many, many, many cubic yards of materials getting moved around. Maybe all pinewood's been that way but to me it feels like the only project that's really been that much disturbance has been, you know, the the CERC highway where stuff has just totally been blasted and filled and that was a that was a major change in the topography in that area and has had lasting impacts in many different ways that we is not part of this application. But is it is it? Have you guys done a study on that cut and fill on this thing? It just seems like it's a lot of material being moved. We haven't run cut and fill numbers on it. We get a good feel from our profile that it's somewhat balanced. It's really expensive to bring material in expensive to truck material out. So we do whatever we can to balance that. Obviously, there's other considerations. There's road slope, the sewer grays, all that stuff, you know, that comes into play. I'll note that parcel H, you know, certainly had similar cuts and fills to this. Parcel H was 39 units on 26 acres. We impact 26 acres in parcel H. This one is 49 units on 20 acres. So this is much more compact than parcel H. So on a perlop basis, there's significantly less disturbance in this phase than it was in the last phase. Okay. And to be honest, this phase, I know it's not a flat parcel, but of the last two phases we've done, this is the flattest phase that we've dealt. As you're up on top of the hill, basically. Yeah. You're just working with the topography there. Yeah. Yeah, I think that the other thing to remember with the slopes is they're not all 20%, they're 20% and greater. That's just another piece of this thing that we have to think about. But that's all I've got, really. Okay. Darren, did you want to add something out to that? Yes. Too bad. Okay. Go ahead. I do want to ask for clarification from the applicants engineer about this being the flattest phase of prime wood. And I recognize that it is at some level at the top of the hill. I'm curious, I'm glad to have the numbers on section H, but I'd be curious about the earlier sections. And I know this particular firm didn't work on the earlier sections, but it does seem like a lot of the earlier sections around Wildwood, Rustic and Creek Road are rather steep. So I just want to ask for clarification, maybe not at this table, because that would require some analysis, but just would love to see the numbers on that. So we've done G and H. G had tremendous cuts in fields. H was a little bit better than G. The early phases, we don't have any issues with, they're steeper in general, when you look at topography map, even as built, they're very steep. I think there's probably less cuts in fields in the original phases would be my guess, because some of the roads are 15, 18, 19%. So even though, today we couldn't do that. We can't exceed 8%. So we're forced to do more cuts in fields. I think on the early phases, Mr. Mark, I just fit it better to the existing topography. So, well, my guess would be probably less cuts in fields on the early phases, in terms of just the general topography of the land, this last phase is the flattest phase that we've done. I have other comments, but I want to give it back to you in case there were other commission comments. Josh. Yes, relative to what's been talked about in public comments just now, I actually have the least heartburn about the density in the carriage houses, and it actually is nice to see a PUD that's unequivocally a PUD after all the back and forth we've had about what's been a PUD and what hasn't been this one, clearly is lots of units and density. So that I don't have any heartburn over. I am like others struggling with the plain language of the zoning is development shall be prohibited on slopes of 20% and steeper. And to sort of variance or to finesse that, like that's sort of where I'm struggling with right now. And relative to the previous meeting, August 27th, I looked it up because I didn't have any memory of this because I was concerned about slopes. My second son had just been born and my in-laws were quarantining with us. And I'll leave it up to you to decide which one of those was more stressful for me. But that's why I don't have any memory of talking about slopes then. But yeah, the slopes are the concern for me. That's all I got. Thanks, Josh. And I guess from my own perspective, I think my concern is much more the technical one. We've got a regulation and I'd like to understand how this fits in. I think over time, as has been said and recognized, Pinewood is, I mean, it's been here, it is what it is. It's nobody expects it to be flat and level and so forth. And I think that the applicant has in his family has been, I think, responsible applicant. So I don't, as far as the development goes. But we have, I feel we've got a pretty clear line in the sand that we have to understand. And even if it was crossed in the past, it doesn't mean that we can cross it today. And that's that I like the carriage house idea. I think that having some diversity within the development is good. And Ned, you pointed out that it might provide some more affordable housing. And quite frankly, Essex doesn't have affordable housing. So overall, I'm the density and so forth. I'm with Josh. I don't have a really any heartburn on that. But I think the issue is really, for me, it's the technical one. How do we, how do we, we got a line. How do we address it? Yeah, Paul. I think the plan unit development general standards give you an option. Basically it says that PUD shall meet all other applicable visions, these regulations except where waived or modified the planning commission under subdivision or site plan review. I think that's a catch all. I think it allows you to waive the slope standard as the site plan and it's questionable whether the site plan standard really applies. We're not asking for site plan approval or asking for PUD approval. So I think there's a mechanism. I think you have a way. I don't believe we need to go to get a variance. I don't think that's not a variance criteria when I'm looking for a setback or something like that that you typically look for a variance. I think you have the ability to use the PUD regulation and make that decision. Thank you. So commissioners have weighed in. Any additional comments from commissioners? We're questions. Go ahead. In the big staff report, you were talking about environmental impact because of the development on the steep slopes. Do you think that's a temporary impact or a permanent impact? It could be both. So you're talking about the language in the zoning regulations as well as what's in the staff report? Is that where I go? Well, I'm looking at the staff for starting line 175. I think I'm not seeing the exact language, but I think to answer the question, it is potentially both temporary and permanent. The temporary is erosion of sediment that goes into the waterways that eludes the waterways. That's something that Vermont has been, and then Essex have been struggling really hard to address, particularly since not because of Pinewood section H, but since the time of that development was approved, there's been a tremendous amount of funding and policy development and general work attention on stormwater and erosion. So to me, it seems like we are starting to address those issues and regulations, but then we are not upholding them. And for the reason that there's erosion into our waterways that goes into Lake Champlain, that can have permanent impacts on the health of the lake, the health of the waterways. It can be hard to recover. When there is erosion of a waterway or of a slope, you can't really put that back. You can refill it, you can try to stabilize it, but the sediment's gone and I don't think it's practical to try and restore that to its original condition because the soil is disturbed and the vegetation won't grow there except to reestablish as if it was blast away. So it's temporary and permanent is both of the things we're concerned about. Okay. Are there conditions we can impose that would help that, but it would reduce the impact, both permanent and temporary impact? I think one of the first conditions would be to, call the existing language, which is no development on slopes 20% or steeper. I do want to address that in another point, but there have been some limited areas and developments in town where there has been a small area of 20% slope. Corporate Drive had one small knoll that was leveled. It didn't have downstream impacts. It was a flat area with one mound on top of it. Another example would be Freeman Woods had an area where there was a grade change between one part of the building and the other. They resolved that with a retaining wall. Retaining walls might be appropriate in some of this development, particularly when there's a significant grade change between one lot and another, because that can lead to erosion issues over time and one landowner is getting the storm water and the sediment from another landowner and that's something we would want to try to avoid so that we don't have to deal with it after the fact as town staff mediating issues. I would advocate for the least amount of mitigation possible and the most amount of avoidance possible. I think, again, duplexes would be one way to go. One other option could be to take the layout and the footprint of the carriage home development in the carriage home section and apply that to the single family home section, which is one thing we suggested to the applicant. I haven't run numbers or details on what that would look like, but if that density of development and that level of clustering is possible, that could also be used in the rest of the development to avoid steep slope impacts and retain the same or even more houses. But I do recognize some of the public has expressed concerns about the feel of that design and the level of density that's proposed. One thing I do want to caution the commission about is when you discuss character of the area, there is a new state law that under conditional use review prohibits a town from prohibiting three and four unit dwellings based simply on character of the area. So I don't know that that technically applies in site plan review, but I would caution you to be aware of that new legislation on anything less than a five unit dwelling. And then the next paragraph, 3182, talks about the burden on the staff to address the violations and the erosion issues. Are there conditions we could apply that would address those concerns? I'm going to defer that question to Annie Custambia, a stormwater coordinator who feels more directly with that. I can answer that question. You could require that the applicant post a bond. Bond is based on insurance amount. It could be $20,000 to $50,000. So if erosion occurred, that the town had to correct, it would be able to come back on the bond. Or if not a bond, you could ask the applicant to post a certain amount of money in escrow just like you do for the construction of the road. You could increase the roadway as escrow to include a dollar amount to cover any potential erosion issues down the road. So easy solution works for everybody. So that would cover the expenditure for remediation, but what about the expenditure just for compliance? Anything that you wanted to charge for that? The staff had to spend 10 hours working on it. I'm sure they have a billable rate that they could use and they could charge the staff for that. Is that something you guys would consider? Again, I want to defer to Annie and that's the issue of the expert. I don't know that we found that unenellable from sort of agreement which we've come to, but I will mention that during the development of the previous days, we were there constantly dealing with erosion control and sediment issues for all of you. There was always an issue that needed to be addressed during the entire length of the project. So it was a significant burden to our office to go out there constantly to make sure that erosion control measures were in place and that sediment wasn't being transported into the waterways. Right. And like you said, you haven't done kind of a bond or a charge back, but this is kind of a unique project also, right? No, because we never really had a development that had told me by the nation. Yeah. Okay, thank you. What's up, Tom? Commissioners, another round the table. Anybody else have additional comments or questions? I do want to make a couple of quick comments responding to a lot of what has been said. So at some point it was noted that Essex is somehow different from other towns and how we review developments. And I want to point out that most towns in Chittenden County have some restriction on slope, on development on steep slopes. It may be 15, it may be 20%, it may be 25%, but pretty much every one of them does. But this is not unique to Essex and I believe this is applied pretty consistently throughout the county and the places where development is likely. I also want to point out that in the town plans from decades ago, the restriction on slopes was actually no more than 15%. So it has actually become more lenient in the time that this development has been in progress. So currently it's 20% or greater is off limits. There is limited development allowed within 15 to 20%. And that's where I'd suggest the mitigation measures be used because those, again, we can't avoid them all. It may be a small area, it may be appropriate to develop there, but we would need to have some mitigation and some permanent erosion control. Another concern about the slopes again is there are some homes on Greenfield Road that the road is flat, but the houses are either higher up or lower down than the road itself. And the driveways that are on there are too steep for people to park on in the winter. So they end up parking on the road, but then they have to get towed because town plots have to get there in the winter. And that's been an issue that's been discussed at the select board table and there's been pretty unanimous agreement that development should not include driveways with steeper slopes. I haven't looked in detail at any of the driveways that have been proposed. I don't know that that has actually come to stop yet, but we would want to make sure that any development in Pinewood section I does not create these steep driveways where it creates an issue of folks needing to park on the road in the winter. Last, and then part of our concern about this particular project, although we want to make sure this is consistent, but because the soils in these areas are very erodible and we've seen that from previous phases, we are trying to apply the knowledge we've gained from that and the experience that's given us to future development to make sure that those don't create additional problems in the future. So to the concern about we've done this before, this is another section of the same stuff in Pinewood, I think everyone can agree we want to learn from past mistakes and that's what a lot of these erosion control and stormwater regulations involve. Last thing on a procedural level, when you talk about waivers in the planning and development process and the subdivision process, the language in the waiver section specifically says, where the planning commission finds that extraordinary and unnecessary hardships may result from strict compliance with this regulations or their special circumstances of a particular subdivision, it may make the minimum modifications to the regulations necessary to afford relief without nullifying or adversely affecting the intent and purpose of the town plan of the zoning regulations. I would... What section are you reading? That's 2.1, page three of the subdivision regulations. I believe similar language if there is any, is included in the planning and development's regulations. I don't believe so. In any case, section 6.0 of B, purpose of PUD says, PUD shall be allowed in order to fill the purposes of these regulations as set forth in article one, to meet the purposes, goals and objectives set forth in the Essex town plan, specifically those relating to land use, fostering a development of affordable housing and protection of agricultural soil and natural features. So my point in reading those is to say, if the planning commission wants to consider waivers, it needs to be consistent with the town plan and it needs to be the minimum modification necessary to the regulations in order to afford the relief that is considered extreme and unnecessary hardship for this particular project. I have a hard time seeing how the planning commission could find a way to allow development on slopes greater than 20% and greater that would not conflict with the town plan. That's all I hear. So let's hold on that for a moment. Can I also just point out that, that language is pretty consistent with the variants, with variants language. And so essentially that's what it's sort of expressing that it is the planning commission. So I wanna, I'm gonna actually look for the commissioners. I wanna continue to get commentary from anybody in the audience and the applicant, but I'm actually gonna lean towards requesting a deliberative, because I wanna get into, I wanna use that to have more of this discussion of what we can and what we can't do and what we should do and what we shouldn't do and so forth. So I think that that is more of a deliberative discussion with between the planning commission and staff than it is between the planning commission, staff and applicant. And that's where I wanna, with the planning commission's agreement, that's where I'd like to lead us to. So in order to get there, we're gonna need, I want to have, I've heard very clearly from the applicant and all made a good case. And what I'm personally hearing is that the slope is an issue and whether or not the PUD language, as Paul has presented, is adequate to allow us to evaluate this. I haven't heard concerns from anybody, really on significant concerns on the other items, density and so forth. I mean, you brought up good points, Tom, about erosion mitigation and so forth, but it really feels to me right now that this is slope, is the issue that we have to address. So Paul, I'm gonna go back to you for a moment. Do you feel that, I mean, do you feel that's it? I mean, slope is definitely the big issue, yes. And I feel that the PUD regulations give you, give you the ability to allow this project to go forward. Okay. And I would note that if you're not gonna allow it to go forward, for the slope, I mean, there's very few things that we can do. You're basically killing this next phase of Pinewood. I mean, you look at the plans and there's very little land out there that you could develop. I mean, maybe we can squeeze eight or 10 units in some place, but it's a drastic change for Pinewood. You're basically saying that Pinewood's close to business. Not only this phase, but the future phase. I mean, you got that big ravine to cross and we're basically saying, I hear you're done. You're done, that'd be a shame, but. Well, I think we need to understand this. And I think that from my own personal perspective, at this stage, I feel this is a staff and PC conversation that we need to have in depth. And I believe deliberative session is our tool for that. Commissioners, what are your thoughts on that approach? I put that up. Yeah, I agree. Figure out exactly how we wanna go forward on this. Okay. You're looking for a motion? Well, I'm not necessarily yet. I wanna procedurally with deliberative. Do we need to close the public hearing? No, I don't believe you do. I do wanna mention there is one more comment from the public if you wanna address that. Okay, we can. It's in Teams. Actually, now you have two, but I don't know that you want to return to the public at this point, but it's up to you. Yep, why don't we do that? So if anybody has any additional comments on Moukesh, you submitted something, but if you'd like to state that into the record, that would be good. Yeah, I submitted that, but what I wanted to just talk about is one more thing. I think there have been enough discussion on the slope issue and I'm happy to see that those concerns aren't being taken up. And the other item that I don't see being talked about was the frontage and setback issue. Just being on the edge of this neighborhood, I'm still concerned about the kind of change in setback and frontage allowed for the new lots and that's gonna change the look and feel for the people who are living in this neighborhood. Okay, thank you. John, you had your hand raised. I did, thank you. One issue that I don't know whether it's been addressed or not, I don't think it has is noise. Some of those lots are fairly close to the surf. How close are they and is town gonna get complaints about developing land so close to the highway? Have your last name, John? Oh, sorry, Zimmerman, 42 Stonebrook. Thank you. Tom Williams, would you like to restate your comment for the record? Sure, for the record. I just wanna be sure I heard a lot of people say, I don't have trouble with the density because the carriage houses seem like a good idea. For the record, I think carriage houses can be a great housing idea. I think it can help with the overall cost of housing and letting the lack thereof good housing in Essex. But they really, they seem like you're being jammed on to this building plan. You know, when the folks of Stonebrook Circle built here, ourselves included, we were the first ones on our strip. We built on good faith from the builder that this was how the neighborhood was going to look. And it was going to be a Stonebrook Circle, that's the name Circle. I understand that that got disrupted with some other things, but all the lots, the houses, they were all going to be approximately the same. And now at the end of the street, we've got a very different neighborhood. Very different look and feel, very different zoning. The frontage is different, the size of the lots is different. Everything about it is different. Again, I think the carriage house stuff is great if you have kind of a carriage house neighborhood where people go into that neighborhood and that's what they expect. In this case, it's basically just bolted on to a very, very different neighborhood and not one that any of the folks that built in Stonebrook were expecting. Thank you. Okay. Yeah, one more. One more. Dan. Yeah, Dan Petherbridge. Go ahead, Dan. Two more. Dan Petherbridge, 39 Stonebrook. I heard people say that the biggest issue was the grade issue, which clearly is a major issue. And it kind of got, and people have now to spoken up again saying that the carriage house issue is an issue for the people that live in the neighborhood. So I don't want that to just be set aside saying the grade issue is the big issue and the carriage house issue isn't an issue. Sounds like the commission doesn't have a problem with the carriage houses, but the people that live here do have a problem with the carriage houses. Not to say that I don't think it could be a development, but just not with the carriage houses. So I think regarding the carriage house, I'm gonna mention this, that at this phase of the review, you know, we don't know today whether or not we even have commentary on the carriage houses. We haven't gotten to that level of review with staff and with the applicant. We're really trying to find out whether or not this can go forward. And so with respect, you know, we're focusing on the item that could prevent this from happening in any form or fashion. So the carriage house would be addressed, a lot of this would be addressed if this application goes forward, it would have to be addressed at a later phase. So it's not getting ignored, but we are definitely trying to hit the big ticket, the item that's gonna be the real showstopper. So just to go that Natalie Braun, your hand is up. Your hand is up. It is, yes, I will, you have to step away, you have to take that away, yeah. Sorry, the feedback, yes. Anyway, I've lived in a number of quote, closed communities in my life where there was land to be developed that wasn't and those communities thrived despite the fact that there was not a continual development of the available land. There were many reasons why they thrived, but indeed they did without continual development. And I am not a strong advocate at all of this development, particularly given the fact that because I'm not concerned that I'm contemplating the demise of Essex as a thriving town, as a consequence of this development not occurring, particularly in view of the climate crisis we're in the midst of, I would be particularly concerned about the environmental impact of the removal of the trees, which are critical for sequestering carbon, a major climate mitigation, a natural approach to climate mitigation, climate change mitigation, and also the erosion, the disruption of the soil, which is also a significant factor in either releasing CO2 or mitigating climate change, which is something we all need to be concerned about. So smart growth, carriage houses, wonderful in certain places because they also help around the issue when you need to develop housing, they also are very good in terms of less disruption of the soil, less removal of the trees. However, in this particular situation, I believe that we can continue to be a thriving town and community without expansion into this area at all. Okay, thank you. Sue Furman. Hi, can you hear me? Yes. That's good. I am trying to understand the major issues associated with this proposed plan. And the slope is one and erosion is the other. And they appear to be intrinsically connected to me. And are they the same thing when you're trying to manage erosion concerns that's really connected to the slope concerns as well? Am I right? Darren? Please. Okay, that's all I wanted to... No, hang on. I was just trying to clarify the priorities because you can't address one without addressing the other. And I didn't want the erosion concerns to be dismissed. Yep. So, Sue, I would agree with... I think you've summarized what is captured in the town plan and these policies relating to slope, the way that I'm just trying to find it exactly. Suitability of slopes for construction. I'll skip the first three or the first four. So sorry, the first 15 and 20%. Construction becomes expensive and erosion and runoff problems are likely. Slopes are unsuitable for most septic systems. Construction is discouraged. And for slopes 20% and steeper, construction shall be avoided due to the likelihood of environmental damage. So I think the point that that's capturing is, yes, construction on these steep slopes leads to erosion and runoff problems. That's pretty clearly captured in the town plan. Okay, thank you. And I just want to say that I would be opposed to a variance, but I'm only a member of the neighborhood. And I really like sticking to the rules in this case because they really seem to serve a purpose. That's it. Thank you. Justin Tuthill. Hi, can you hear me? Yes. Can you hear me? Yes. Oh, sorry. Yeah, hi, I'm at 20 Windridge. And I was just, I guess I had more of a question as to the storm water and where the storm water runs off in the neighborhood. We're fairly new. I mean, we moved to our house within the last five years, basically five years ago. But in the last five years, I've noticed that in the wetland behind our house, it's just between the new development goes downhill and then uphill that, and I don't know if it's due to the wind or due to excessive water running off. There's probably eight or nine giant hemlock trees that have fallen over. And I'm just curious whether we're all storm water on the new development because it seems coincidental with the development in Stonebrook that all happened. And this development is sort of continuing on off of that, part of it goes downhill, behind our house part of it goes the other way down the other side of the road. So that's more of a question. So we're talking basically around, I mean, a lot of these details would be worked out if this goes forward into further things, but you have any additional commentary on that? Sorry, I actually missed the question because we were trying to deal with technical issues. Can you just repeat it briefly for me? Justin, are you looking for basically, runoff controls? Yeah, I'm just, I guess my concern or question is, can the neighborhood handle the stormwater runoff from the new development, Stonebrook? You know, I'm not sure if there's a pond here, you know, if people skate on, seems like a lot of the runoff goes into that pond. That undermines the road, that undermines the valley view road to both sides of the road or the culver of the road, still sort of is not fixed. I'm not sure if the neighborhood runs off into that, into what seems to be a stormwater pond, you know, the upper part of the neighborhood, down from Wildwood and up on Stonebrook and parts of Windridge and Valley View, but it's definitely based on the topography, part of Stonebrook would, the new part of the development, sorry, off of Stonebrook would definitely run down that way, part of it would run off the other way towards the other side of Windridge. I'm just not sure, you know, the stormwater system, how it's sized and how it's capable of handling a lot more of the development neighborhood seems inadequate, but as it is currently, so that's my main question. Yep, I understand the question now, thank you. So I'm going to direct you to Sheet, ST1, the storm management plan. I don't want to go into a lot of detail, because as Dusty said, those are issues that would be worked at, at the preliminary stage, and I would also defer to our stormwater coordinator, Anika Standy for the details, but essentially, and let me pull this up so that everyone can see it, there would be several sections of the development that have their own stormwater treatment. It would be half and half private and public essentially, so there's, you just get zoomed in on here. There's stormwater treatment for each of the cul-de-sac areas, and then also for the more conventional single unit homes, individual lots would have most of their own stormwater treatment, there might be a couple ponds at the edges of the cul-de-sac roads, and then there would be a public stormwater pond that mainly handles the, or the burnout from the public road and a small amount of the floor drains, or sorry, footing drains from the single family homes. But again, we have not reviewed whether it would be sufficient at this point, but most of the stormwater would either be treated on site and run off actually to the north, or be directed into, small portions might be directed into the existing stormwater system on, I believe, Stonebrook Circle. I'll defer to the applicants and stormwater coordinator for details, but. Okay, Justin, are you all set? Yeah, thanks. Okay, so commissioners, at this point, we've got, we've received good information, but input from the public, we've had excellent presentation from the applicant. Procedurally, is the deliberative process just simply a motion to go into the deliberative? Yep, close deliberative session. So it includes staff, would it be the motion? So I would ask if commissioners in agreement with that, then I would like, we'd leave the public hearing open so we can come back to this. Yep. And I would like to request a motion from a commission to go into a closed public hearing to include staff. Opposed deliberative session, to include staff. And we would be able to use the team session that you've got. Okay. Just quickly. So moved. And seconded. Moved by Tom, seconded by Shu. Any additional discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries 7-0. So logistically, what's going to happen for the folks who are remote, the commission is going to enter into a separate teams meeting. So folks are welcome to stay in this one if you want to wait for the commission to come out of deliberative session. We will leave it open. You can come and go as you please. For folks in the room, we'll just close the room and ask anyone who wasn't invited to that deliberative session to wait in the lobby or wait outside. We'll call you back in if and when or when we come out of deliberative session if you want to stick around. So just a point of clarification, Mr. Chair. Yes. Am I correct? When we come out of deliberative, there's no requirement that any further action happened this evening. It could be that out of a deliberative that the commission directs staff to issue a written decision or take further action. So I just don't want people to think they're going to wait around that there's necessarily going to be some great epiphany at the end of this process. I would concur with that. We don't know what we're going to get to until we get through this deliberative session. So it could be a continuance. It could be a decision, but there's no thanks, Dave. There's no definitive output from that deliberative session yet. There should be no expectation that we're going to have a final report. And another clarification, minutes are not taken during deliberative session. Channel 17 is not included in deliberative session, but any action that is taken after that deliberative session will be within the minutes and recorded. But you're saying that we need to stay. No, you don't need to stay. You're welcome to stay. But if you come back out of deliberative session and you open it back up to the public and we're not here. Then we would continue. The public hearing's still open, but we wouldn't. I don't think so. But the question is if you come back and you open it back up, then we need to be here to participate unless you decide now that you're going to go into a deliberative session and you're going to continue it to a date certain. And all these folks that are hanging around for an hour or whatever. Fair comment. We don't know if this is going to be a 10 minute discussion, a 20 minute discussion, a 60 minute discussion or more. So, I guess in acknowledgement of your concern, I would suggest that the commission we plan on continuing this application when we come out of deliberative session. Strap poll, Raphael agrees. Yeah. So that's our, that would be our intent is to basically through agreement, verbal agreement that when we come out of deliberative, we would continue the previous one or this session here. Public hearing would be open sketch. This is sketch. So we would just continue that to the next date. Yes. And that would probably be second meeting on October. Well, a continued usually goes, it depends on what we need out of the adjournment. So we can answer that. It will be warned. We will send a first class notice versus a certified mailing to the butters. So you will get a notice of when it's continued to, but we can't tell you what that date will be at this time. So with respect for the folks on the team's meeting and Paul and applicants here, we would not be issuing decisions or anything after our deliberative session tonight. So we would be planning on continuing. So with that said, everyone is welcome to remain on that team's session. I have a quick question. So does channel 17 have to stay so that when you come back, you capture the end of the motion to continue? Yeah, we'll just continue running. No, that's fine. I just didn't know if you wanted to continue. Can you- We're going to leave it running. Can you continue now and still go into an executive session? We're not going into executive session. I mean, a deliberative session, sorry. You could do either. We're sticking with this at this point. So I mean, we've been bouncing around enough. So I think at this stage, we'll try this. And if we need to do it differently another time, we will remember that. What's the purpose of leaving the teams open if you're going to come back and me like- You know, I'm not gonna- Other than you could- Because that's what we started. It's there. It's there. If people want to see it, it's there. So- Dustin, yeah, Dave. Yeah, so Sharon raises an interesting point. We can modify the motion that we continue this application to the next date, certain, and that we enter into a deliberative session for the purpose of discussing the information presented in the staff, you know, blah, blah, blah. And that would close down the first teams meeting, let everyone go home, give the applicant the confidence that there'll be no further action tonight. So they don't have to sit around worrying that they're going to miss the opportunity to weigh in and the applications continued at that point. Does that fit with staff? Sharon's- Another little thought I had is, I was thinking of this for channel 17, so that as well as the audience and the public, but channel 17's stuck here no matter what, because they need to get their equipment. So if, I guess I would say- Right, but if you continue it, you can take a five minute break. Right. Not him and get his gear out of here and then go on to the executive session. We'll take more than that. So let's, we're done with the logistics right now. So what we will be doing, we can continue this meeting now with the amendment to the motion. Yeah. And then we go into the deliberative session. When we come out of deliberative session, if we are still amenable to do so, we can approve the minutes from the previous session, allow Scott a chance to finalize the channel 17 information and then we can do hardware after that. One quick point of clarification. You could also schedule your deliberative session for after the conclusion of other business. That way a full meeting is done. Scott's out of here. Scott looks to me. Okay. Another twist. Okay, we get- Did you have it, you have it for me to comment? Yeah. How do you want to do this? I don't really care. Yeah. I accept a friendly amendment to the motion. There's so many other things going on. That we continue the application. We go through other business and then enter the deliberative session after a short break to let Scott escape. Here, here, here. Okay. So we got a motion. I agree. So he supports the amended motion. We get agreement. All those in favor, quickly. All right. All right. Okay. So this meeting is continued to the next date. This is the application, next available date. And now let's get to other business before we close off the team's meeting. And the other business, thank you. Your comments were helpful. And we have, where is it? Williston. No, I've got- Minutes first. Minutes. Yeah, I know what minutes. Minutes of what? August 26th, 2021. Thank you. Is that a motion? Don't move. Seconded. Okay. Moved by David. Seconded by Josh. Anyone wanna offer any comments to our corrections on the minutes? On any page? Dave and John, you said? Seconded. Josh. Josh. Hearing none. All those who have approved the minutes signified by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? Minutes past seven, zero. Any other business? Just calling out that packet. FPP packet, Google drive packet. Williston has another round of amendments to the regulations, and we just wanted to put that on the record. Okay. So with that, take a motion to close this meeting. And then, do we need to close this meeting? Your meeting is technically still open. You're just going to close the deliberative session, which you've already motioned and you've already- Okay, so let's take a break and allow Scott to break down his equipment. So Mr. Chair, my understanding is we're going to leave this Microsoft Teams meeting and then enter into the link that's in our calendars for deliberative session only. Yes, correct. Correct. We are gonna close down this Teams meeting for the public as well. Roger that. So I'm gonna hang up here and I'm gonna enter the other one in three minutes. So this seems very disorganized because it is. We're trying to do this and it's a kind of a new thing. If you're making a motion to adjourn, then you're closing this meeting. I haven't made that yet. No, I'm just, I'm just, I'm, I just wanna, you know- So do we have to, my question is, I think this is where you're going, Sharon, if you're not, then let's go there anyways. Do we have to open another meeting for deliberative session? And if not, does Scott, do you need, does he need to be here? Does Channel 7 need to be here when we close the business meeting? If we have the deliberative discussion. No, if you're closing down this meeting that he's here for, he can, he can be done. And we can take a break and let him take his stuff. So we are not adjourning, we are just going into deliberative session. Okay, so then, yeah. So I think Channel 17 can be released because we have closed all items on the agenda except for the new deliberative session. Yep. In agreement? Okay, taken five.