 And so I want to thank all of the contenders for that attention. As Deb said, we do have a remote site over at the Unitarian Church, and they are actually well-attended there, too. So there's a lot of people interested in this today, which we should all pat ourselves on. Are we ready to go? Okay. So I want me to introduce Joel Page from Scott and Partners, one of the principals of the firm in, as extension, okay, and once you get over the mountains, my geography gets hazy. They have now a, you know, yet another version. After Joel's presentation and questions, we're going to take a five-minute quick break because it's a long time to be seated, but we want to get us back in the seats relatively quickly. So Joel Page. Thank you. Thank you, everybody, for being here and taking time out of your afternoon. Our presentation will be a tough act to follow, those guys before us, but there's a lot of similarities and the biggest part of what makes this, and I'm also a resident of East Monterey, what makes this such a challenging project is to how do we envision going to a net-zero world and still keep the quality of life that we have. A lot of this comes down to community. It's much more than energy. And in our design, what we're trying to do is tie together the various parts of the city with a bunch of neighborhoods. The neighborhoods are linked, you will see, by a green space, and the basic premise is that we can replace the underutilized parking areas and underutilized spaces within the downtown area and create a more vibrant community. Getting to net-zero requires basically trying to remove our use of fossil fuel, creating a lot of energy conservation, and making up that difference in renewables. We have a lot of information on our slides, and we have a lot of slides. I'm not going to be able to get through all of them. So what I would suggest is if you have the time, please go to the website afterwards and take a look at it closer. What we want to do is create a green space that can tie the entire downtown center of Montpelier together. The green space would be linked with various transportation opportunities, including a light rail system, a paved roads, buses, mass transit, walking paths, and bicycle paths. We also want to bring in and re-engage the river for too long. For too long we've neglected the river, and we have an opportunity now to enjoy its aspects, to create recreational opportunities, and to, such as boating, kayaking, and to also bring an access down to the river and walk along the river and enjoy the green spaces, potentially have flower gardens, bee gardens, and other enjoyable aspects of river life. We're going to try to link the civic and public spaces together through the use of the green space in our walking paths, as well as our other transportation paths. We have an opportunity to create 15-plus acres of green space. The green space provides an opportunity to reduce the heat island effect that we have in the summer, keeping it cooler, reducing energy requirements for cooling. It also acts as a filter during overactive rain events and flooding to help us not have so much nutrients coming off of the earth into the river, and it provides opportunities for engagement with nature. As you can see down below here, down below in the red, this is the whole area of parking that we want to replace with green spaces and other useful architecture. Imagine this is the area behind the French building, the French Rock building, taking the parking lot and turning it into a creative art space with artisanal buildings created out of storage containers and other creative opportunities. To get to net zero, we need to basically imagine an environment where all of our new buildings basically are net zero. I can envision that all buildings will be designed to be fully accessible, universally designed so that people of all ages and abilities can use them, and then we'll need to take our existing infrastructure and try to improve that energy efficiency, which is a bigger discussion and it's more challenging than what we may think. What we're proposing is taking these underutilized parking spaces and parking areas and filling them in with mixed use buildings. Buildings would be commercial use, residential apartments, we're proposing a new hotel and a food hub and as well as some satellite parking, we'll get more into that later. We wanted to break down this big complex picture into simple, biteable chunks, and that's why we've chosen the neighborhood concept. Each neighborhood would be designed to complement the area in which it is located. In this case, we want to enhance and activate and be close to the river. We could, this is a bridge, a view off the Bailey Bridge where we have right now a mix of very low height buildings with shrubbery and we're going to replace those with a new multi-use building. Here's a view along State Street. As you walk out the building tonight, you will see this parking lot or what was a parking lot. Here we have an opportunity to put in what we'd like to try to do is develop a multi-use transportation plan and a phased approach to reducing our use of the car. One of those is to remove parking from the central part of the city, utilize parking garages, and in this case, we can take and create a green space and scalable buildings on top of that green space which can complement the existing buildings on the other side and we have an instant neighborhood. Downtown, there's been discussion in the multimodal transit facility which is in process. We were proposing that we can relocate the Shah's grocery store and the hardware store to the building across the way which would also be a mixed-use building that would allow folks who can use the mass transit systems to come into the city, do their shopping, have easy access to it, also use the city and enjoy the amenities of the city and still be able to use the transit to get out. Farmers Market is a huge event every week and it's an important part of our relationship to the environment around us, to our farmers, to our organic farmers, to our creative artisans and we want to enhance the farmers market area, create solar canopies for shading, create a new building adjacent or in the same area that has a large open multi-purpose open first floor that can be used for winter farmers market and other events throughout the year. So there's some schemes of the potential farmers market changes. We also realize that the Main Street Bridge is sort of the hub or the major gateway to the city of Montpelier. We envision removing the Shah's store and replacing it with a new hotel and conference center. This hotel and conference center then could have easy access to the water. We connect through with our green space through the French block to a pedestrian bridge. Let's skip that. And here you have a sort of a view back where we have the Gateway Hotel, the French block park, artist area, the farmers market area, multimodal transit and then a nice connection to all parts of the city. We're also showing a food hub close to transportation. Winooski has a similar food hub and what they do is they take gleaned foods and then process them and distribute them to people of low income and other needs. We're also envisioning ability to engage the organic farmer markets and other local farmers and trying to create an opportunity for canning, processing and educational uses. Montpelier is in a flood zone. We have to realize that and pay attention to that. Buildings will need to be designed to be resilient. How do we get to net zero? Reduce, reduce, reduce and then rely on renewables. We also want to tie all of our new buildings into the existing biomass facility, which can then provide buildings with heat and hot water. There are other options in addition to solar, we're proposing the possibility of wind if it's feasible. We'd also like to explore some sort of more out of the box thinking where we could look at can we capture the flow of the city water that comes from the Berlin pond and turn that into an electrical, turn it into electricity. Can we create a pump storage facility at National Life where we pump water up into a large storage facility and let it pump down in the evening to create electricity? Also could we take the existing sewage treatment plant and turn it into a bio methane plant? We currently do that with cow manure. We use it human waste in the same way. So we believe that we can, as we incrementally go through the process of change, we can document it, review it and continue the process. Here we have, we did an experiment where we estimated the amount of solar panels we could put on a roof, the roof of our new buildings and where that would get us in terms of annual energy production. We can probably power about 787 houses. That's not enough, so we need to figure out ways to reduce our consumption and to find other renewable resources. Indulge me for a second, so this is the National Life complex. If we could reduce the use of cars, we could possibly convert the existing parking garage, which is the big rectangular building at the top, into a water storage facility and then top the roof of that facility with solar panels, look at taking their existing parking area and cover that with shading solar panel system, use that to provide and supply power to fill the storage container, storage space for the hydro and let that run down at night or when we need additional power during the day. Transportation, this is the parking, we want to replace it. We've come up with a phased approach where we utilize satellite facilities, parking facilities for the short term and try to improve the mass transit existing, build upon the existing mass transit system that we currently have, CCTA, Green Mountain Transit, they have roots in the area, if we can continually improve that, we can reduce the desire to use the car. The car is the biggest piece of the puzzle that we need to figure out how to work around. This is a big broad picture of Montpelier, we're proposing that the rectangular building is the parking lot behind one of the state buildings right near the high school. We could build a parking garage there, there's already existing infrastructure, rails, roads and walking paths that can allow us easy access into town. Multi-use opportunities for cars, bikes, mass transit and light rail. Modifying streets to improve green space and to reduce car parking. Phasing, this project can be broken into parts that can be phased. In conclusion, we think that through a phased approach, biting off small chunks that we can achieve our goal of net zero. And to close, I want to thank my team, Julio Noriega and Catherine Lange from the office who are out here in the audience, Sophie Oros who helped us last summer is back in France, Rick Bove, our mentor and segue specialist, and Mike McCarthy from Suncommon for helping us with our solar. Thanks very much to the team for all of your work. We did have a question about the alternative to the satellite parking. We know how hard it is to convince people to park outside the city and then how would you get them into the city in a fast and convenient way? Fast and convenient. Well, the facilities aren't that far out of the city. So you can look at it as an opportunity. One, at each facility we would propose having bike storage, long term and short term, rentals, potentially segue use. We would also have the facilities we're proposing, the one that's out by the high school has access to rail. So if we had a light rail system, we could implement that. It's also right on the road. So if we can tie in a regular CCTA bus to allow that to happen. And there's also a right next door to it is walking path and biking path that currently already exists. Joel, we have a question from the floor is why do we need a new hotel? Why not make it housing? Well, we could, but I think there is an opportunity in Montpelier for another hotel. And if we have guests coming from out of state or out of country, why not provide them with that chance? Also, it could be a conference center. So a conference center brings in people from outside to enjoy our community and to learn and engage. And if we could, I'm a big fan of Mont, the food hub that Montpelier really is. We have close connections with our, with our organic farms. We have artisanal breweries. We have cheese. We have bread. And we have all of these, these resources that we, we don't, I think we take for granted. A lot of the country doesn't have those. We could bring people in to celebrate that. Very good. This is about parking and how the allocation of parking is among different areas and covered versus not covered. How many parking spaces would remain in the downtown zone in the new garage and remaining surface lot? We have a number. And I don't remember what it is off the top of my head, but there would be, we, I think we were able to equal the amount of parking that are pretty close that we had within, that we were replacing. This one is about rail and a concern about the rail crossings in downtown and how to make it safe without distressing pedestrian traffic. Well, they do it all over the world. Amazing. And, and, and I think, you know, with, with signaling and with familiarity, we can do it too. How do we transform the land dedicated to gas stations along the river to housing or other uses consistent with a sustainable lifestyle? Eminent domain, revoking licenses? What works? Well, I think in to, to make this vision happen, we all have to work together and we all have to get the stakeholders to become a part of it. And that includes state, local citizens of the town. And if we create a vision that people believe in, I think we can get cooperation. All right. Do you have any thoughts on retrofitting existing dams for hydropower? That's a tricky question. I think this was actually a very good question. Yeah, no, I need more thought. Well, I believe I'm a fan of hydropower. What I'm not a fan of is blocking rivers from their natural processes. And somehow we, there might be a way to find a balance there. This might be the same answer for this one, which is, please expand on the plan for green space and riparian buffer. So, well, the concept is to replace the hard surfaces with soft surfaces that can allow absorption and, and, and a reduction of problems from over, from rain events or from a catastrophic event like a hurricane. The, the, these, the process to do that would be as each area is developed, we would, we would sort of develop a long range plan that could be implemented as people develop. Good. Did you consider the likely growth of driverless cars as we planned for fewer cars and less parking? Well, I think driverless cars sort of bring us in the wrong direction. Which we, you know, I think that's a big conversation that we need to have and what drives us to think one way or the other. If we truly think that our infrastructure, the road infrastructure and our vehicle infrastructure is contributing to global warming and is contributing to a non-sustainable world, then we need to discuss that. Good answer. I'm not sure I understand this. Please explain continued street development. Oh, the transition that we showed. Yes, can you explain that a little further? Well, this is not, there's a possibility that as we, I don't know where I put it, as we look at how we want to develop our, our downtowns and, and our opportunities, we can replace a lot of the pavement on a street with green space or usable walkable spaces and do that and still allow some planned transportation to happen. And I want to find, so here, here's an example. We, we happen to show a specialized route for the public transit. And then we have, because the state street, if an opportunity state street would, we would remain as a, as a connector to get to different parts of town. So what we're saying is that you can take a look at a street and there's an opportunity to modify it, its scale and to bring it into a more intimate and usable, environmentally friendly state. Good. This is a really good one. And I think probably a lot of dialogue around here, this one will be needed. But we purchased 105 pounds of salt from the hardware store today. And without parking, how would we carry that by foot, by bike or by bus to our car, particularly on icy surfaces? Yeah. Well, I think we would have to plan to, one of the parts of that that we, we had with a, as was sort of a quick parking concept where you could come in, bring your car in, load it up and go. We're not, not a huge parking lot. So having some parking close to business so that people can get in and get out. Do we have any other questions? I think hearing none, any from the other location? Thank you very much. Please let us know. Okay. As I promised, we will be having a re-break. Before we break, however, I want to recognize some people who have joined us today. Sue, don't leave yet. The, we have, back in the room, we have former gubernatorial candidate Sue Minter next to Mary Hooper, former mayor and our climate caucus champion in the state house. Near them, back in the corner is Allison and Don Hooper of Vermont Creamery, one of the sponsors who made this whole effort possible. So thank you very much. Is, is Jay here too? No. Okay. Down here, we have David Blitterstorff of All Earth Renewables, who was another one of the sponsors who made this possible. So we want to give a shout out and thank to him. And literally, we're going to take a, oh, and our new lieutenant governor has showed up, which, you know, gives us a foothold in the state house for people who are believing that, you know, this is more than just a matter of cost, you know, and dislocation. It's a matter of actually imagining a future we all want to live in and there will be dislocation. And that's okay. You know, that's life. We, we are in the position of actually making something good happen. So let's keep it that thought rather than saying, oh, and what's going to take this, what's going to take that other, we're gonna, we can do it. We can really do it here. So take five minutes. If you need to run to the bathroom, come back and we're going to have the last two.