 All right, so we'll call the meeting to order and any changes to the agenda from anyone or Eric? Not from me. Not from anyone I guess. Doesn't appear to be. Okay, public comment is there anyone from the public either they're live or on the Zoom meeting? There are no public here. Okay, so we'll move on. Previous minutes, approvals for the previous meeting minutes. Draft minutes were included with the agenda materials for your consideration. We move for a motion to approve any edits in a second to that then we can discuss. I'll move. Is that Brendan? Brendan, yes. And said like Joe. Are there any edits, corrections to the minutes? Here we go. We'll take a vote almost in favor of the approving the minutes. Please say aye. Anyone opposed? Anyone abstain? Perfect. Mike, just, you know, Abby just joined us as well. Oh, I see. Yep. Great. Have you ever seen Connor working almost as a guy? Hello. So now we go on to item five, which is continued discussion on article four. Sections four, one through four, 12. Yep. Thank you very much. So in your agenda was the updated draft of article four, with it includes comments from our last meeting and also the section on parking. So as part of this, I also sent with the email, not included with the agenda, I sent with the email the language from, I believe it was actually from the 1981 zoning regulations that talks about design review. So I did flag that under section four, four for, for a potential option of future discussion, I guess is what I'll call it for now. So I didn't, my intent was not to get into the, the language that was in that previous design review, design review district, but to provide that information. So you have it in case that's a path that we want to consider going forward. I flagged in article four in the draft for section four, four. If we look at doing incentives, that would probably make more sense to move that into article five. And then we could reserve section four for, for design review, if the intent is to bring back some level of design review. So I wanted to provide that more as a reference. And I'll talk more about that when we get to that section of the, of the document. So I'm going to go ahead and share my screen here. So that folks in the room and online can see what we're looking at. And give me a second to reconfigure all my screens so I can see what's going on. Okay. Is that, let me, one second. I'm just going to focus the projector a bit. That's as good as it's going to be. Oh, that's good. Yeah, I think it'll be soon as well. Can you guys see that okay? Okay. Great. So I'm just going to roll through the, roll through the text here and just note any changes that were added from the last meeting. But otherwise, for the most part, things are generally the same as what you reviewed last time. So we do have, as I mentioned earlier, we do have the new language for, for section 412 on the parking standard. So hopefully we'll be able to get there and start moving through some of that language also. So any questions from anybody about what we're, what we're trying to do? Should be pretty straightforward since this is what we've been working on. So, okay. Starting in section 4.1, nothing new here. And please, I'm going to just move through this quickly. So if there's anything you want to talk about, please just stop me and we can, we can discuss. So nothing in 4.1 that's changed. Nothing in 4.2 that has changed. I will flag, let's see. I will flag for you all under item F here. We had talked last time about the standards and specifications. And I believe, Mike, you asked about the width of driveways in relation to some of the, the graphics. So I did talk with Public Works, the standard that they have, which here is their standard for driveways. And in here, they have a minimum of 10 feet and a maximum of 20 feet for driveways. So their standard gives us, allows for up to a 20 foot wide driveway, nothing more narrow than 10 feet. So there is a standard. And I think that's a pretty good, pretty good standard to utilize so that I don't think we need to add anything into our regulations about that. But do we need to amend what's in there though? I don't think so because it references the standards and specifications as identified by the Public Works, which is what that, that cross section would be. That's what this, this section would be is there. This is for residential, correct? Correct. Yes, this would be for residential. And I believe it's the same, it would be, it's actually, so this specification from Public Works is for all driveways. So I believe the, this is called out twice I think in here. Yeah, for residential and for the multi-unit and non-residential. Okay, because the, the multi-unit non-residential, the diagrams is maximum 25 feet. Right. You're right. Okay, so that will probably need to be updated then or removed or somehow otherwise changed. Good, good catch on that. Do we really need to have those drawings in there to set that value really if we reference the Public Works standards? Yeah, that's a good question. I sort of like the idea of taking them out. Yeah. Yeah, we can definitely remove those. And maybe put the, that graph or that those, that illustration that you just showed us in the addenda or something or a appendix of the regs or in, I don't know where it might go. Yeah, I can, I'll talk to Public Works to see how often they update those just so that we're not, so that we're not, hold on please, that looks like Abby got kicked out here. Let me bring her back in. Hello Bruce, thank you for joining. Actually really quick, I'm going to stop my screen share here so we can introduce Bruce Wilson. He is, Bruce is the ambassador from the Commission on Inclusion and Belonging to the Planning Commission. So Bruce will be joining us on the odd numbered months for our meetings and they will meet on the even numbered months for their meetings. So Bruce, thank you for joining us. Welcome Bruce, thanks Bruce. Bruce, do you know the members of the Planning Commission? Or should we introduce ourselves to you? You don't need one. Yes please, yes please. All right, let me start with Tommy. You can introduce yourself and then Abby and then the three of you that are in the room. All right, Bruce, it's nice to meet you. My name is Tommy Murray and I live on Pleasant Street and I'm just delighted to have you join us. I think it's going to be a valuable communication. Thank you. Abby? Sorry, I'm joining on my phone. I'm having some technical difficulties on my computer, but hey Bruce, nice to meet you. Abby Biding, I live on Russell Street. I've been on the Planning Commission for a few years now. My background is in planning and sustainable transportation. So it's great to have you on board. Thank you. Sir, do you want to start? I'm at Sarah Van Ryker-Borsel and I live over on Wunuski Falls Way. And just so that you know, this commission is probably going to be meeting more than once a month coming up. So you're welcome to jump into any of those extra ones if you feel like it. That won't be a conflict to your other meeting. Thank you. Good evening, Bruce. Hi, I'm Joe Perrin. Served on this commission for a few years. I live up on Union Street, so only a couple blocks. Up north from City Hall here. Thank you. Nice to meet you. Good to meet you. Hi, Bruce. I'm Brendan Sage. I've been on the commission for I think a year and a half. I'm the first alternate and I live on La Fountain Street in the relatively new planning unit development that gets talked about a lot on this commission. So it's great to have you and appreciate you being here and looking forward to working with you. Thank you. I plan on learning a lot from you all. I'm assuming you know Christine, the mayor? I don't think. We haven't met before. I'm the mayor of Christine, Matt. Yes, I know her very well. Thank you. And Bruce, could you tell us a little bit about yourselves and fight? I've not met you. Okay. Someone Bruce Wilson on the cornerways of Chicago came to Vermont in 1989. I'm a new service provider, primarily youth advocate. I sit on a lot of different boards like this one commission. I'm only a Vermont state, well, since I said Vermont state police, free and partial policing. I'm a commissioner to the human rights. The governor's appointed me. I sit on a different regional planning. As a board of director, we amount to just that university training. When you see school district, entire racism, a lot of things. And so I just have an art gallery in the University of Vermont. So wonderful. And we have a lot of, we do a lot of art in communities. And you might see a lot of murals around Burlington. And we created art, so wonderful boxes. So a lot of those boxes, you see a lot of state work around, around Chinatown. I mean, it's something we created in 2010. I know I'm going to graduate from Northwestern University, and ever sit on a noise. And I don't, I think that should be good enough for you. Thank you. I see. Thank you. So Bruce, just so you know, as we, you're more than welcome to join the discussion anytime you want. So feel free to jump in if you have something that, that observation you want to make or a question you want to ask or anything, okay? Yeah, I think it's just another thing that I do live on East Allen Street, in Lewinsky. So, I live on East Allen Street, I've been in Lewinsky one, one time in nine years and I moved away. And I moved to another part of the state now. It's been four years back in Lewinsky. So I love Lewinsky. So I won't do anything. I can't help but make it better. I don't think our Honorable Mayor knows that. And even though he's so bright, so that'll be it. Great. Thanks, Bruce. Thank you. Yep. Thanks for, thanks for joining us. Okay. So I'm going to share my screen again and we can get back into the discussion. So at this point, yeah, so it sounds like we want to delete the graphics. I think so, yeah. Okay. And then figure out if you want to put in the public work in here, just how we want to handle that. Right, right. Let me just make a note here quick. So there are graphics on a lot of parts? Mostly just in this, in this section between here in the parking section. Yeah. That's really the only space that we have this level of graphics included in with the text. So I'm not sure why they're in here. I mean, obviously they are intended to illustrate some component. I believe they were incorporated as kind of an addendum to the previous regulations. And I think they were just pulled in to these various spots to try to illustrate some of the... I mean, I assume that these kind of graphics you can find in other locations for other... If we need them, yeah. Yeah. People want visuals. Right, right. So, okay. So eliminating those graphics and presumably we'll want to eliminate these as well on the next page. And basically all the graphics out of this section, I would say. I think so. Yeah, is any... I agree. Yeah, I think we should leave it to public works. Yeah. Yeah, I think that's a good idea. Kind of like the graphics, but I don't even understand why. Okay. Yeah, I'm a very visual person. Me too. So we'll get rid of those. That would be helpful. I wanted to be accurate, but I... Get rid of those. Hey, Eric? Yeah. Because I'm thinking about it, aren't there graphics in the Formaze code section? I mean, there's some there as well, but they're really... Because some of the regulations in the Formaze code are so specific, the graphics are actually part of the regulatory mechanism and not just there as a visual representation. Yeah. But I was just wondering like the sidewalk width and stuff. Is any of that in the Formaze code that we could reference or not? For sidewalk width, no. That would be included... Again, that would be a public work standard. Okay. All right. So you are... Do you know that people ever use them? I mean, do you find them helpful to have? I've never used them. In my interpretation of the code, I've never referenced them. So... Right. It's... I'm fine either way. And Abby, what do you feel about graphics? I think they're helpful and especially if they're accurate. So what I guess I'm not clear on is the inaccuracies of what's in here across all of the images. And whether all of the images are inaccurate and whether we have standards for everything that's here. Yeah. And Abby, I don't know if you were still on or if you had dropped off when we had talked about it, but the... Joe had mentioned that the under Figure 1, the middle graphic is inconsistent with our public work standards. So, yeah, I think... I know these are older graphics from a design project that was done I think in the 90s maybe. So it's possible they are all out of date, quite frankly. Before we remove Figure 2 and 3 and 4 and 5, can we confirm we have a design standard, a DPW design standard for them and determine whether these are in conflict with them? Because I think what they're trying to illustrate is helpful information about not creating huge curb cuts going into driveways and making them consideration for pedestrian and overhang with the car. So I guess I would be a little hesitant to remove all until we're sure that there are clear standards, DPW standards for each of these things because they're kind of... They're not like commonly cited, like corner clearance and intersection stacking space and overhang for pedestrian sidewalks and parking areas. Those are really common. I don't commonly see guidelines around that. Right. I think the... Yes, I think that's a good point. I can check with DPW on these standards. I think the... Well, I don't want to say in a lot of cases, but I think some of where these items would be regulated will end up in DPW's hands just because they involve curb cuts and streets and locations and placements. So it's really going to be a lot more of their realm. But yeah, I will confirm with them that they have standards or there is a standard that they would follow before eliminating these. You know, the one thing I would say is if we do keep like figure two and three, I'm wondering if instead of undesirable and desirable, be unacceptable or acceptable? Because it seems like when you read it, it's really not saying you can't do it. Just saying we don't like it. Yeah, that's a good point. Yeah, and if you look at, for example, item four here specifies how far back from a property the access should be. So I mean, we do have language that talks about some of these items in this section. So the illustrations, I think, are more just visual representations of what we're trying to regulate. So, but yes. I guess my point is like the figure two is talking about distance from a major street intersection or whatever, secondary driveway. But it doesn't give a specific distance like that number four does, you know what I mean? Right. Yep. Yeah. Okay, sounds good. I will confirm with DPW or look at different language or potentially see if I can find some more updated graphics as well. Okay, so let's see. Moving on, nothing else on this section. Again, this is all just language that's been moved from another section. Conversion and change of use, nothing new here. So in four four, as I mentioned at the top, I sent out the previous information on design review. If we are thinking we want to keep some component of design review, then I would recommend that we move this language. Well, let me start over. If there's a thinking that we want to keep some component of design review and some component of incentives for protection of historic structures, then I would recommend moving the incentives to a new section in article five because that's where we get into a lot of the detail and that's where we just did the incentives for the priority housing. And then we leave this reserved for future language on design review. And we have the basis or we had a basis of language of design review from the previous regulations, which I emailed out to folks but was not included in the agenda. So does that seem like a path forward for folks that is acceptable? It is, I'll jump in. It is to me because I personally would like to see that some kind of design review language stuck back in the regs. Yeah, and I think that should be fairly easy to do because there was language previously drafted or previously included in the regulations. And let me bring that one up here quick. So the bulk of the design language, in the document that I emailed out, starting on page six of that PDF is really where we start to get into the design review district. And then page seven is where we really get into the specifics of it. Page seven of the PDF. So this is really where we start talking about the intent, what's included, how it's regulated, what it's regulated based on the makeup of the design review commission or committee and things like that. So there is language that we can start with if that's a direction that we want to go in. So we're not reinventing the wheel, but it is going to require some action by council as well. And I see the mayor has her hand up. Yeah, in reviewing this, it seems to me that all of the guidelines for review are items now dictated in form-based code, which I imagine is why this was removed from the regulation. So a lot of it is in form-based code, but since that only applies to the gateways, the design review piece, there's really nothing right now that applies for design review outside of the gateways. So there's a map included in here as well that specified where design review actually takes place, and it's actually, I think I've got a better screen share for that. Yeah, that appeared to be basically the downtown area. Kind of, yeah. The downtown and just, so I tried to recreate generally what it is. This is not, this boundary is not the exact same as what's included in the map. It's close-ish, I'll say, but it's pretty much all of downtown and just west of downtown and then extending out to East Spring and Hoodscrossing basically, and the O'Brien Center. There was actually an amendment done to the design review language that basically took the downtown core out of design review because I think my assumption, and Mike or Tommy, maybe you have more information on this, but I presume that was done because when design review, sorry, when the downtown went through its redevelopment, it requires design review to be done by council. So there's a separate design review process for the downtown as well. So I believe that's why that was exempted from design review through that one amendment. That's what I remember. And the only thing I, I mean, if we do implement this, I don't think it hurts to keep that in there because I don't know, I don't know if there was a sunset on that council approval for development. It's still happening. Yeah, that still happens. But what I'm saying is, it's happening for new projects. If someone wants to redevelop it, does it still stand? Yes, down the road. Yeah, it does because any project in downtown requires Act 250 approval, which requires the city to sign off on. So the city still gets involved in the design review at the council level for anything in downtown. Okay. I was in something proposed being built. And one of the counselors actually said to me that, well, I don't really have any sense of design, but I think it's fine, I'm moving forward. And I'm not trying to insult anybody, but we might get people who have a sense of design making those decisions as opposed to just city council. I don't know how we go about that. So let me jump back to the article. So basically, sorry, yeah. So there is language. And yes, Mike, I agree. I think we would still exempt downtown from design review. But so in the regulation, Sarah, for the downtown district in article three, there is the ability for council to refer any projects to right now to the development review board. So if we did institute some sort of design review board, that could replace, council could refer to them instead of the development review board for consideration for comment if they wanted to. So like I said, there is language that we can work with. I mean, obviously we need to make some changes and adjustments based on what was previously included in the regulations. But I think at least it gives us a basis to start from to try to reincorporate design review. So theoretically, could DRB and council have a joint meeting if they so desired? So what we've done in the past with Act 250 is invited the development review board to the council meetings to provide. We've given them the information in advance and invited them to that meeting to provide comment. Mayor, has your hand up again? Yeah, I just wanted to raise that this feels very outside the scope of what's been in the work plan and the policy priority strategies. I think if this body is interested in design review, then that needs to be some kind of recommendation to council to consider for the next prioritization session. Well, I'm going to push back on you, Christine, because we've had in our work plan and we've discussed for a couple of years historic preservation. And so that's how at least I'm looking at this is to try to get something in there to help keep our historic structures the best way we can. This is one avenue and I mean, it is, I mean, I think that we as a planning commission have the right to move where we want if we think it's appropriate. I'm saying it's not appropriate. Like design review has never been discussed by the council. And the new set of regulations has never been discussed by council. But what I'm saying is the council doesn't need to approve everything we do. They make a work plan and we put out a work plan that conforms to it. And my interpretation, and I'll leave it to the rest of the planning commission, is that the discussion of design review fits in with what we've been talking about in our work plan because it's a means for us to address historic structures and how to try to keep as many historic structures from being demolished as we can. I'll just remind you that historic preservation was not prioritized at the last session. Well, it's in our work plan. It's still in the list, but it's not in the high priority list right now. It's in our work plan. I don't want to, you and I should go offline and talk about this rather than do it here. I just want to be clear that I believe that this is misaligned with what council has directed in the past, but I'll stop there. And I guess just to be clear, I'm not suggesting that we discuss these previous regulations tonight. I'm just, this is being provided in the context of what we have for design review now and kind of switching this to an incentive program for historic preservation and reserving this section on design review for a future discussion. So that's, and also that there is language we can work off of for future design review discussion. So Eric, I think that holding section 4.4 for the future use for specific to historic preservation is a great idea, which will also allow us to move on. And I would just like to reiterate that the planning commission, having been a previous member and now a current member, historic preservation has always been a high work plan of the planning commission. And I understand what Christine's saying, but I think that we do need to have an avenue to have our historic structures protected in some way. And that would be a discussion I'm sure with council. But for now, holding section 4.4 seems like a reasonable way to start. Okay, thank you, Tommy. All right, so if that is a potential direction to go in, we would, the language in this section now on for the incentives would move to a new section 515. And then this, we would leave this as a reserved section. So really nothing in this first page has changed from our last meeting. The incentive section, I did change a little bit based on our discussions at the last meeting, specifically item B under number one that related to, it previously read, I think it was previously, let me look to see what it said. It previously read 25% of the gross square footage of the preserve building could be used towards the requirement for private open area. Now it's related to the percentage of the building that needs to be built to the, sorry, the percentage of the facade that needs to be built to the required building line. So that we're providing some relief from that perspective of the code rather than the open area to potentially get some designs that can better incorporate existing buildings. So that was one change. There was discussion about changing the percentages. Oh, sorry, I did change the percentage of the, I believe the central business district. Yes, under item three, the central business district. That was at 75% previously. I did reduce that to 50 based on our discussion. I did not though increase the gateway number to 50. And the reason, what I was thinking about is because the language is requires the facade at a minimum, the facade be preserved. I kind of thought of the buildings as if you looked at a building lengthwise and sliced it into basically four pieces, you would keep the facade and a certain percentage of the front of that building that's preserving the facade as well. So 25% seemed still like a good number to keep, again, the facade and enough of the kind of that structural component to be part of the facade. But I'm happy to revisit that number as well if there's any thoughts from anyone. So Eric, you're talking about just in the downtown core? So that would be the gateway. Gateway, I'm sorry. Yeah, sorry, the gateway. The downtown core would still be 50%. The central business district would be 50%. And then in the residential districts, it's still 100% of the building. Got you. And in the gateway, there are requirements anyway, correct? Not for historic preservation. Not for, right, right. I'm sorry, my mind's wandering here. What does it now say? You said you didn't move it up to 50%. Is it at 25%? It's 25%, yeah. Right now it's 25%. We did talk about making them all 50% except the residential at the last meeting. But I left it at 25, but wanted to have the discussion. So, yeah, I guess I like 50%. But again, what was your reason for leaving it there? Well, if I, thinking about a building in long ways, say it's 100 foot long building or 100 foot deep, I guess. You know, if you cut it into four pieces, you're saving, you're keeping 25% roughly of each piece. So, because there's the requirement to keep the facade, you'd be keeping the first basically quarter of the building. Yeah, sort of like functionally. What is it really better? Right, yeah. I did, just going back a little bit, 4.4 to applicability. I didn't really scrutinize this as much last time we looked at it. I just had a question about, these regulations shouldn't apply to garages, sheds, or similar structures. And why is that? I know that sheds are statutory, but like... Yeah, I was thinking that mostly that would be... That's a good question. I was thinking mostly because those are accessory structures on the property and maybe not necessarily part of the primary structure that we're trying to preserve. And if we're looking at percentages, I didn't want somebody to say, well, I'm saving the entire shed, even though I'm tearing down this other massive building. Okay, yeah. So... I guess I only bring it up because I'm thinking of, in some instances where the accessory structure could actually be a substation, normally given of itself, like if there's a large carriage barn or something. Yeah, on Leclerc Street near me, there's actually a really cool barn thing. I don't know if it's an old garage or what, but it's like out behind one of the houses. So I'm not... I don't feel strongly about it, but I think while intuitively the idea, oh, it's a garage that must not be... Or it's a shed that must not be historic, like I think it's possible that it could actually be a reverse. Sometimes the work buildings stay better true to the time period they were built because people don't need to change. And I mentioned it because I actually had met with a couple who had recently bought, purchased a property here in Wojcicki and they had a pretty large former carriage barn that was used as an arch studio. And they were pursuing just the feasibility of converting it into maybe a couple of like accessory dwelling units. And wondering what like, and because it was actually a historic barn, that they could maybe get grant funding for it and what they could pursue. So sometimes those buildings can be considered in the realm of... I just don't know why this was here, but I guess that makes sense. It's a good way we can get that language and cover those some more. That's a good question. I don't, I'm not sure. I guess I was focusing mostly on the primary structures for the protection. Hey, Eric. Yep. I wonder if going up to that language, how about shall apply to these things on a case by case basis? Or if that makes sense or not. So that, you know... I think, Mike, unless there's a standard to evaluate, then it's, I think it's too arbitrary. Can you say something about potentially qualify? I think that kind of gets back to the concern of of the accessory structure being preserved and not the primary. So, but Eric, what if we said instead of shall not, I'd rather just say may apply. And again, I'll say on a case by case basis, if identified as significant or something, I'm just trying to go to Joe's point. How do you, how do you get it in there so that it's not a carte blanche, nothing, these rights don't apply to any of these secondary structures when you have, as Brendan pointed out, that, you know, a nice historic carriage house or something that maybe it is bizarre to keep them. There's some instances where like the accessory structures for larger than the square footage of my own house, like... Well, and that's, that's what I was thinking is potentially we could add a caveat of size to it so that structures that are below a certain square footage, it wouldn't apply to, but... I like that. That's probably a very good rough approximation, like of, if it's small, it's probably not potentially as historic or valuable or whatever. Yeah. And do you think you do that on a square foot basis for the structure or a percentage of the main building? That's a good question. I think we could do either, quite honestly. I can look to see if there's any standards that we could follow in that regard. To give us some, some better... Some better footing, I'll say. All right. But yeah, I can work up some language to, to clarify that if it is a larger accessory structure that it may apply there as well. Okay. All right. So back to the incentive page. Anything else on here? Oh, and also I think, yeah, I added item five here. I don't think this was in last time, that the percentages will be calculated on the exterior walls, not any interior space. I believe I clarified that for the, at least in the gateway and this central, actually maybe in all of them, that the facade needs to be included as part of that percentage. So what you're saying is rather than saying, you know, I've got a 5,000 square foot building, rather than saying 2,500 square feet, you're saying, you know, I've got this building, it's got a facade of 50 feet in the depth of 100 feet. You need to keep up to 25 feet back from this, from the facade. You know what I'm saying? I'm, I will apologize for not doing the math, but I think yes, that's the idea. Okay. Well, I'm just saying if you say square footage, it could be any of the square footage. Of the building as opposed to the front 25% or 50% or whatever it is. Right. But it has to incorporate the facade or has to include the facade. Right. Yeah, the facade needs to be a part of the percentage. Yes. Yeah, but again, the intent is that it's, it's the front 25% of the building are going from the facade back. Sorry, yes. Yes, that's yeah. Yep. Okay. All right. So nothing new under section 4.5. Nothing new under section 4.6. However, I believe I added some definitions. There was some discussion at our last meeting about whether these were defined. And I think, I don't think we have a definition for wall. I believe we have a definition for fence. So I did add some definitions, which we, I'll bring to you at a future meeting because there's other definitions as well that I'm adding. So I'll bring that whole article to a future meeting. But otherwise, no change to the language in this section. Similarly, no change to the landscaping and screening in 4.7. And I don't believe there was any changes in 4.8. 4.9. I did add, I believe I mentioned this at the last meeting. I did add this item 5 at the end of 4.9 for changes of uses in nonconforming structures to basically say that as long as they're not adding any new square footage, really to exempt them from parking requirements, this is on page 14 of the document itself. Yeah. So I didn't know just to say on page 13, 14, so that section. Can we get an example? Sure. So let me just make, let me just read this through quick. Yes. So for example, if, let's see, what would be a good example of this? This is mostly going to fall within our residential districts, I think is where we're going to see it. So for example, I believe Chick's Market is a nonconforming structure because it doesn't meet any of the setbacks. So normally what we would do, and I believe that's also a conditional use in that district. So normally what we would require is that if there's a change of use or something else, it would trigger the need to bring the site into conformance. So in this case, what we're saying is that you, if you're not adding any square footage or altering the building, you can reuse that building as it is. This is a question for me, and maybe I've brought this up before, but like can somebody reference like in theory like a historical use of a property, like back to like, you know, for one of these nonconforming conditional uses, like say for instance, like a property that had been used as a market in the past that has since been converted to an apartment, say somebody proposed like, hey, this was used for a long time as a market and actually suited kind of the needs and character of the neighborhood. And that's not the right word, but could somebody propose that and get like a variance for that? I, that's a good question. I believe, well. And wouldn't that be a good thing? Like, I don't know. In the case of, well, I guess it depends on where it is and how we classify the use currently. So if it's a use that is in our use table, we would have to follow the use table. If it's a use that is not included in the use table, there is a provision that an applicant can go to the development review board and request conditional use if it's not currently listed. So. Because I'm just seeing that like with the advent of like modern zoning where there were like historically neighborhood markets, and they kind of like, you know, as that business model became kind of less viable, they disappeared, but say like, you know, as we become a more walkable city, if we wanted to return to that, if somebody could say, hey, there used to be one here. Right. And we do actually allow those in our regulations now. For small markets or like what we call basically a neighborhood commercial or a neighborhood cafe. We do allow those uses in our residential districts currently as conditional uses. So once somebody turned it into an apartment, you're saying that somebody could turn it back into a store. Correct. In that district. Yes. Within, they wouldn't need a variance. They would not. No, it's currently in our regulations as a conditional use. Yep. Yeah. So we would permit that for it is able to happen. I should say. And I guess that's just one example. I was more like for other types of small scale shops. Yeah. I think for the most part, we've tried to allow for small type of commercial uses in the residential areas. I think pretty much for that, for that reason. Okay. Okay. Moving along. Nothing else in this section. And I believe nothing else in yep. 410 or 411. Those are all the same as well. So that brings us to 412 parking. Everybody's favorite topic. So they're Yeah. Sure, Bruce. What other city departments do you work with to get the answers that you come up with? That's a good question. I think it depends on the topic. So things that fall into streets or kind of in the public works realm, I definitely work with the public works department on those questions for parking here in particular. I worked actually with Abby quite a bit on this section to come up with some of the draft language since her expertise is in transportation. But I think it really depends on the topic matter. I will either reach out to other departments or other folks in the community that have expertise in these areas and talk through proposed changes with them to get some feedback before bringing it forward. So a lot of changes in this section. Some of these are based off of changes that were recommended from the parking inventory management plan, inventory analysis and management plan. Also, like I said, some Abby and I spent quite a bit of time going back and forth on this section as well. So a lot of the amendments that are proposed came out of those discussions. So what we've done is I'll just give you a quick overview first before we get into it. What we've done is expanded the list of uses a bit more so that there's not, so there's a little more nuance in those regulatory, in the regulatory structure for minimum standards. We've also added more specificity under the transportation demand management strategies, which is one of the mechanisms that can be used for reducing minimum parking. We also included a new section on bicycle parking and kind of what that looks like tied to the transportation demand management strategies and then also included some additional incentives to potentially reduce parking as well, so mostly focused on electric vehicle charging and what that looks like. So first page is just some clarification, some additional text for clarification. One item I'll note here and Sarah, this is a comment that Sarah brought up was related to the last line under item C here for there shall be no maximum quantity of parking unless specified, unless specifically identified. I put this in more just to clarify that we don't have a maximum so that if somebody wanted to come in and put in as much parking is there allowed under the dimensional standards of our regulations then they could. I know other communities do have maximum parking limitations so because we're not there yet or at least we don't have any of these regulations this was really added more just to specify that we don't have a maximum but it's purely for informational purposes and can do we want, if it's not I don't know that I want to call it out unnecessarily right the way I would frame it so it's true there's no provision currently that has a parking maximum do we really need to sort of highlight that here do we want to potentially make somebody think about I will let me maximize my parking as much as possible. Where I was coming from is that I know some of the bigger chains they like to put in more parking than they know they actually need because they want people to always have the sense that when they get to the drug store they can have a parking spot so it's sort of an illusion so purposely putting in more than you get that's been my concern. So it's the idea is like it's a way to encourage or make certain commercial establishments feel more comfortable you know that they'll have enough parking so that they'll have more yeah so that you you got to run to the drug store to pick something up and you don't if you think you have to look for parking they put in more so that you never have that didn't yeah didn't that issue come up with like a kind of a conventional grocery store? Yeah and drug stores I know there was kind of a thought that there would never be anywhere that they could fit that in the city but there actually in fact could be yeah and I guess I would say to that concern our gateways require parking in the back so you wouldn't really be able to see the parking from the road anyway our downtown core requires parking either on site or in a shared facility which is another location where we'd see some of these uses the central business district does not have a standard on parking so that could be a place but I don't know if there's any lots that are really large enough that we would see a lot of that we would see a larger that we would see a use that is trying to maximize as much parking as they can possibly get not to say it couldn't happen but we don't have lots that are big enough correct because you know even though they're behind you're still covering the surface you are right and if we don't need to cover the surface right I guess I would say in my experience so far with the city and with working with developers everybody wants to build as little parking as they need to nobody's out there looking to to build more at least this year correct well correct sure but that's I mean that's been my experience with with every project that's come come in front of me is that they're they're trying to figure out how to get the number of spaces as low as possible for what the what the requirements are Eric yes it seems like the lot coverage and the setbacks especially the setbacks in the or the green space if you will in the gateway districts would dictate that anyway there's only so much they can build to meet the density or the the dimensional requirements and etc right that's correct yes yeah I'm just asking for a little more clarity on what I think I heard but I'm actually not sure Sarah are you saying that we're not getting we would be attracting like grocery stores or no I'm saying the opposite so that I guess so then why are we calling out there's no maximum the way that it's called out reads to me like we welcome all of your parking yeah yeah I mean I'm happy to eliminate this this sentence by them especially since it's not actually doing anything in that right it's true there is there already is no no maximum so to me by putting this out there it's just sort of highlighting it I don't feel it's sort of consistent with but we just produce parking minimums for certain types of development and we're trying to become more pedestrian right friendly so I kind of I see the logic behind it though yeah the psychological logic it's saying yeah I mean we're trying to reduce you know what's required but saying you know we're not actually stopping you from any instances where that could be considered beneficial I can kind of see that yeah I mean I I'm happy to delete that and just not not call that out so okay yeah I'm gonna say go ahead Sarah no I was just asking Abby if she that works for you sorry Sarah didn't we hear that so eliminating this section does that work for you that sentence I guess I thought you were saying the reason you wanted it in there was so that places like establishment that wanted lots of like parking weren't afraid to like build it when you see but if that's not what you're saying that was what I was saying no I was I was saying we didn't we didn't want to have somebody put in more parking for the illusion of it being easy to park you know so some of the chains do some of the larger chains are apt to do that yeah so I was saying let's not allow that to happen so then maybe speaking what this sentence actually says because the way that it reads right now is we you can build as much we're gonna make you build a certain amount of parking but you can build as much parking above that certain amount as you want and it doesn't sound like that's actually what you you wanted to say but remember that there are limits by that the setback and open space requirements of the different districts right like just the fact that we're like entirely built out and we have different setback constraints like I don't think we're gonna see like like a price shopper yeah but then that's why I'm on court with what Brent said just get rid of the sentence yep we can do that what that's easy to do you okay with that have you if we get rid of it I think Sarah had sort of brought up this sentence so Sarah how are you feeling about about the sentence and whether removing it would would solve that problem yeah I just don't want like you had an intention when you recommended it and let's either capture your intention better oh so sorry Abby to be clear I added this sentence in and Sarah provided a comment to me off before the meeting about what that is intended to mean so Sarah didn't Sarah is not this isn't a suggestion of hers to include this sentence oh okay then yeah I can't work with her moving on sorry yeah so are you okay with that too yeah I think everybody's in favor of removing this sentence include including Sarah thank you so okay all right right exactly okay so here we get into the table and we'll do this in a couple of sections so you can all see it so as I mentioned we've added more use categories not a lot but added a few more and I also provided with the email of information about the meeting a use table for adjacent municipalities and what their parking standards are just to give you a sense of what other communities are doing so we've added some additional uses but also in some cases we've reduced the amount of parking that was required in those in in the uses as well so we're keeping our single unit and two unit for two spaces per unit multi-unit is still one space per unit and I wasn't sure the phrase geology this is kind of an aside with 1.0 spaces or if that should just say one space or 1.0 space so I wasn't sure if that should be pluralized or not but I pluralized them all so if that's reading weird to folks then anyway that's I don't want to I don't want to dwell on that that point right now so multi-unit dwellings is still one space per unit and then one for every four and then so this new item of multi-unit dwellings in the RA, RB or RC is really intended to capture the planned unit development incentive that we added so that because those would be multi-units they would fall under the one space per unit but because they're in those residential areas we want to keep them at the two spaces per unit as they are now as so that's why this is in here and then accessory dwellings and cottages one space which I believe yeah that was previously included under this top layer yes I'm going to interrupt you because on the what you just talked about the PUDs multi-unit dwellings in a RA, RB or RC in theory am I right if let's look at Brendan's development that's a PUD they're detached structures that would fall under a single unit they have two spaces so what you're saying if it's a multi like a condo project they'd have to have two per correct that's correct yep all right yep to keep the parking the same no go ahead whatever that was stylistic question why the point zero it's the function of that just because I believe there's a couple of items that have a decimal in them yeah okay so I just wanted to keep it consistent throughout the table okay Eric I can't remember in the incentives we just passed for the PUDs if there's a certain number that are affordable or three-putts bedroom is there any like parking is there a way for them to get below the two space requirement if they like if like the whole building it's like every every unit in the dwelling is like three plus bedrooms and affordable or is it because it's in the residential area it needs two spaces so I think yes in this the section on incentives that were incorporated in the parking standards I think yes but that's a good question and I want to make sure that what I've what I've drafted would fall within that type of a situation is there a going to multi-unit dwellings you've got multi-unit dwellings apparently in all districts one space per dwelling in it and then you've got multi-unit dwellings in the residential zones should I say multi-unit dwellings in a PUD in a in those zones well so the only way that multi-unit dwellings are permitted in the RARB or RC is part of a PUD otherwise they're not permitted in those districts so that's the only way you can do a multi-unit in the RARB or RC okay gotcha yeah I'm thinking two units that's specified separately correct yep yep so yeah so accessory dwellings and detached cottages one space and then we added assisted living then under the non-residential personal service retail sales brew pubs restaurant bar and then just a catch-all for all other non-residential uses theater entertainment hotel or bed and breakfast office this is where we've this is one area where we've reduced the parking a bit it was at four spaces per thousand square feet which seemed excessive to me personally yeah so we're dropping it to either one space per dedicated office if it's a building like this where we have actual office spaces or one per 500 gross square feet and then under Civic we've broken out for schools which is something that we didn't have previously obviously well none of these we've had previously so adding in schools community centers healthcare facility daycare funeral home and then other civic uses and then any other uses that isn't listed would be and that may be slightly redundant because we have all other civic uses and all other non-residential uses so I don't know if we need this last one but I thought I'd add it in just in case was the previous standard for office space was that in place for say for instance you have like a counseling business where like you might only have one office but you might have like couples counseling where there's I don't know how like customer parking calls into that so customer parking would be included in in this as well and I think it's yeah I I'm not exactly sure what they all counted in on that okay I guess that's that's right is that adequate? I'm sorry Mike is one space per office or one space per 500 square feet or two per thousand is that adequate to Joe's point if you've got if you've got a thousand square foot office that's got two doctors or whatever and they see patients so that would fall under your health care facility I use I use doctors office but maybe it's a counseling office or you know I'm sure it's yeah an insurance office where people come in every once in a while client parking yeah because if you only have one space per office I mean that's basically covering maybe an employee again these are we go these are just minimums right yeah right maybe we can change the wording on the health care from what two spaces per bed to two spaces per patient a room because that would cover an exam room or a counseling room yeah okay I saw that too Tommy I agree I see the mayor has her hand up my question was actually not about the specific topic I don't want you all to know okay yes I'm getting back to the office the other thing is you've got dedicated office and the intent is if I've got a building with three offices in it it's those three offices correct is is that clear to everybody I mean it took me a minute to think that one over does office mean like yeah I guess because the title office seems to be among the most big in that kind of menu there that's why I'm kind of worried about dropping it from what does seem to be an excessive standard to something so low right because the health care could happen on this right well and I guess I was thinking about this more in the context of like the offices here at City Hall so we have offices in the back I don't see I mean customers show up to pay bills and sometimes they come to see me but I'm not seeing people in my office on a routine basis right so there's no I don't think there's any reason to have extra spaces because I have an office here because I'm not typically seeing clientele I guess and I'm kind of thinking more of like professional offices where there might be like an attorney's office where you're you know perhaps meeting with clients who are so here's here we have a definition for office our definition for office is administrative, executive, professional, research or similar organizations and laboratories having only limited contact public provided that no merchandise or merchandising services are sold on the premise except such as our incidental or accessory to the principal permissible use so so it it takes into account that there may be visits correct and it also I think it goes back to Joe's comment about the word office I mean is office the structure and when you say dedicated office is it a structure dedicated to office or is it each individual room that is used for an individual by an individual for an office you know what I'm saying I just want to yeah sure I see I was yeah I was I was thinking of it as the ladder that it would be for individual office space yeah well actually that's yeah that's exactly getting to like if it's per like I don't know suite within an office you know right that makes sense but like if it's just you know for what could be like the top floor of a building of all considered office right if that's the standard yeah yeah that's that's a good point well we could just eliminate the first part and just do it on a square footage basis so we're doing for everything yeah yeah yeah except for like patient beds but yeah I mean we could just eliminate the first part of that and just say it's a square footage basis and that's what you what you build to yeah I'll make just the general point like I'm an attorney and I go in you know no one at my office goes in every day anymore and almost all of our client meetings are over teams or zoom so there isn't as much people driving in and coming and going as as there used to be in this like roast COVID world too but I what's the what is the nature of your field of practice it's like employment litigation so it's it's a little different from like you know like a trust in a state's attorney or like a family a attorney because I guess like where people come in but even that I think a lot more of those meetings happen virtually now than they than they used to I don't know I mean I think this idea of just making it square footage like everything else seems reasonable to me that makes sense to me but I'm one who I mean I would I would be more comfortable if four is too much to me two is too little per thousand maybe go on the middle three per thousand so one and a half spaces per 500 square feet however you want to do it that's that's just me everyone else but like usual say I'm crazy but that's okay Christine you didn't want to talk about the parking or for this not the office I was going to talk about different uses okay but for parking parking yeah it is about this parking day yeah we may have beaten that part the office to death so well so just looking at the the table of other communities in Burlington they have three different standards they and they have there's two different office categories that are included for other communities general office and medical office so just looking at the general office line Burlington is two spaces in their neighborhood district and shared use district and none in their mixed or sorry their multimodal mixed district so just two spaces total in Colchester it's three and a half per thousand in Essex Junction it's three and a half per thousand in Essex Town it's one per 250 so four per thousand and in South Burlington they don't have any parking standards or minimum parking requirements so I think we're oh I was going to say I think we're more of a of an urban area than some of those communities so I think reducing it from four is appropriate but I would push for three per thousand anyone have any thoughts yeah I do and so are we talking about parking in the back of businesses in their parking lot this would be parking for yes parking for an office use their on-site parking requirements so I would say if as long as they have a handicap accessibility in access that they should be able to put in more any more um more spots that they want if they have the park in the front normally what she's usually on a main street and oh why can't why can't we meet it meet it meet her that area yeah good questions so they're the so this would be this would be the minimum required parking that they would need to have in on their site for for in this case for an office use on street parking the metered spaces we we don't really assign those to anyone use they they're kind of open for the public for whoever wants to use them so they those typically only count well we have a provision that we allow for on-street spaces to count as part of a client portion of parking or a customer portion of parking but not for an employee or residential parking yeah I get that part of this I just I just feel not I honestly they um they're limited you know or um like they should have whatever because I'm like I'm still trying to something about the limited thousand square feet for two or three park to these park parking spaces in their back and I am and I get it I get a name and I'm sure they want their patients or whatever or whatever to show up you know and I also understand why they don't have a lot of parking because the limit square footage that they can use something else but um I'm saying my point is if you get the minimum requirement for thousand square feet for example uh I would think that we want them to park in a fun on a metered space but that's where I think I don't know I get it don't need it thanks Bruce I get what you're saying thank you I remember this there was discussion about this when the project uh went up at the corner of Bellevue and Main was because they were with the Main Street redesign there was some reductions in existing on-street parking and in favor of multimodal as well as some of the bump outs things that were trying to be done and so there was a lot of discussion about what effect that would have for overflow parking for there was I think some mixed office space that was going in on the upper floors and whether that was adequate well to speak to that area you would see that Bellevue Street now has a significant amount of on-street parking well back to you came up with this number and I'm suing it you and I could Abby maybe help with this one as well is this going back to the parking study and evaluation and sort of overview of so the parking study didn't get into specific uses and and minimums for uses it did I believe it did have some language about providing more uses in the table that it was it was just too vague that we had right now so the numbers here in the in the case of office I kind of just use City Hall here as a basis for what the number of spaces we have currently the number of offices we have and just the number of square footage or the amount of square footage we have in the building so it's sort of it's not an educated thing it's more of a this is why I'm I'm not saying that no correct yeah I mean there's and the same way we all have an opinion absolutely right right now so that makes it harder sorry I think the answer is in a way yeah we studied this and we came up with well it's too where we're at if it's let's say we get out the office part and just per square foot there's two per thousand in effect right one point right so right and Burlington is I guess none in the downtown right South Burlington's none and then the other neighboring ones it's like three or three and a half right so it's still it's like two versus three sort of in this city that might sit fine yeah yeah and don't we have we have a provision that that they can reduce that for alternate things shared parking street parking that kind of stuff well I was just going to say we do have the provision where yes patient sorry client or customer portion of parking can be done on with the on-street facilities shared use there needs to be at least it needs to be 10,000 square foot of non-residential to qualify for the shared use provision so yeah I mean we do have the ability to reduce parking further from from what the minimums are if folks are interested in pursuing those avenues so I mean I would I would also say you know in Winooski we have compared to some of the other communities the more rural communities we have significant on-street parking as well so you know the and not to I want to say this without sounding greedy but for the meter we we have meter spaces so if we can push people to the metered spaces that's helping the city rather than requiring them to park rather rather than requiring them to develop an excess parking on a site that could be used for other things because we are also land limited and parking is expensive and takes up space is are we continuing with that kind of path of because like I know like one of the things we kind of just talk about from time to time is like neighborhoods with permit parking and that was discussed like that's really not an expanding pattern so like are we continuing going forward with more metered parking throughout the city we are yes yeah we continue to evaluate where we're seeing the need for metered parking I think our last expansion was down on West Canal Street in front of the old Peking duck house building we installed meters down there and meeting that area the bigger the bigger challenge for expanding the metered parking is just the enforcement and having enough people here to to do the enforcement as necessary but one of the things that came out of the parking study did talk about the resident only parking and kind of getting some potential changes to that and more formalized process and things of that nature so we are looking at internally right now we're looking at what options we might have for some of those programs so yeah there's everything's kind of always being evaluated but I I think I've said this like a number of times over the being so one thing that does linger in the back of my mind is certain places in the city that I've seen where there really isn't adequate like stacking for both lanes traffic I don't know stacking is the word but adequate width right and so there is currently like street parking on both sides where there probably shouldn't be and I guess I this is probably not the venue for it but like I would really rather I'd love to see that tightened up throughout the city is where like okay well this side of the road is a bike lane and this is parking right you know there's adequate well and we do that the most recent example that I can think of is actually I think up on George Street George Street and Manso Street both were I think allowed parking on both sides and we evaluated them and removed parking from one side I would also say that to some extent on street parking is a traffic calming mechanism for just that reason because if you've got cars on both sides you have to slow down and and take it easy so that can be that can be a good thing sometimes yeah I'm seeing it as like a safety concern in some of these instances where because if you had there isn't enough space for two cars to pass let alone but you know somebody on bicycle in there it's kind of a a bad situation and it just seems really staggered and fragmented so in the interest I just want remind folks it's 750 but I did want to I did want to ask are people comfortable with this one space for 500 or two per thousand versus four versus three I know I'm more comfortable at three but that's you know that's me and if everyone else is comfortable with what was proposed then we can move on and we can let the mayor speak since she's had her hand up for about 20 half an hour I don't know about a while I'm comfortable too but I'm just an alternate so that's okay that still counts that still counts so Christy why don't you go ahead I'll be brief I just wanted to ask if we consulted the school on those uses and the second question was about assisted living I saw that Burlington did one for four beds versus this one for two so I wondered how we came to that number while I don't have a strong opinion on the office parking on the assisted living I would agree that that would be a great place to reduce the parking as Christine described other areas are doing so that's an interesting one the assisted living where Burlington being the more urban area oh sorry I was looking at this wrong I think the difference there may be my interpretation is that Burlington actually has quite a few more nursing homes whereas when he has a number of like actual senior living facilities that's kind of how the difference between us an assisted and a senior living an assisted implies it's it's a reimbursement issue that assisted requires to have some healthcare oversight which makes it more likely that you're not going to have folks who are able to try as we're here to a senior citizen where it shouldn't be significantly different than anywhere else okay so like we wouldn't consider like courtyard spring gardens great cedars any of those like those are not in an assisted living realm correct so we also have a definition for assisted living homes and residential care that basically says state license where it goes a state license facility that provides rooms meals and personal care services and living arrangements designed to meet the needs of people who cannot live independently and usually do not require the type of care provided in a nursing home so that sounds like I mean do those facilities have like a I actually don't know this do they have like a nurse on site or like those aspects don't know where they do they they may not have a nurse on site 24 seven but they do have a nurse presence and they do have licensed aides who are assisting the patients or the residents as needed so that the needs for parking there for those residences is going to be very minimal as compared to a senior residents where they may all want to have a car yeah that's well that's what I'm that's I think we're saying the same thing Tommy because I'm I guess I'm considering some of what we have in Winooski might fall under that category yeah except for what is it our Lady of Providence so right yeah so I guess so just so that I understand you're saying that the assisted living number maybe too high maybe too many spaces correct so if we if we did something similar to Burlington at one per four beds is that would that be more consistent with your thinking I think I think that that would be would be fine and it's more parking for visitors I kind of when Eric and I reviewed these I I like to use Montpelier it's like a good comparison to us and was kind of checking how I'm married to suggest sell within their regulations and this was one of them that they had at the point five per bed as well so that's kind of where that's what I was doing as we were reviewing this when I was with Eric going through it to try to see if these because I don't think we're necessarily downtown Burlington I don't think we're full shester right or maybe some sort of small that's between between so the majority of the parking there will be employees and some visitors at certain times of the day would be the majority of patient parking at an assisted living facility and if we're trying to encourage other transportation I think taking it down a bit and whether it's one per four or point one for two would be either one would be fine but I think we can reduce it as well what about one per three that's in the middle sure and I guess I'm just trying to point out if in fact because Wooduski does have a high like a high per capita of senior living facilities I just kind of don't want to be anything discriminatory towards them assuming like oh they're not driving like even though I think a lot of those people are some like somebody independent so I would look at a facility and again like I don't know a lot about it because it was already here but like great cedars for example as like a 55 an over facility I would treat that probably more as a multi-unit residential building than as an assisted living facility yeah okay yes still sort of be clear because it is a little confusing to me would a nursing home a nursing home doesn't fall into assisted living or residential care that's something else if I believe it would it does per our definition yes it does it does per our definition of nurse of assisted living and residential care home okay so so assisted an example of assisted living might be like the bylaw street properties well that's what I'm asking that is exact and and Eric is saying he wouldn't interpret it as such well they're not assisted though they're independent living yeah I'm just trying to think of of what we have for assisted living or residential care facilities in the city the only thing I think of is our lady Providence isn't it okay yeah if somebody wanted to build one I'm just I was going off it would be different our standards might be different I mean I just I don't know the definition to differentiate between nursing home and if if assisted living is something different or residential care assisted living and nursing home are different yeah and so we certainly quick put nursing home in there but I would also yeah I think that it should go in there maybe something different and have the same amount of spaces but list it so that it's clear so the reason this is the reason this is categorized as assisted living and residential care homes is because that's what we have in our use table and that's what we have in our definitions so if we're if we're splitting this up we're going to need a new use in the use table and a new definition okay which is okay but just so you're clear there's some additional steps that need to be taken if that's the direction you all want to go or some additional sections need to be amended as well I don't think I'm even calling for a change I just kind of want to be clear about what when we're making this change what we're actually making it for does that make sense absolutely and I think that the rationale that pointed out makes sense to me how do people feel about Brendan's suggestion of going to one per three beds so a little less than the one per four but not as many as one per two and I don't that's just threes between two and four there's not any anything more in it than that so I wouldn't you know but I think that's fair it's just an incremental reduction versus you know and then we do the same thing for office by increasing it incrementally from what the new one says we're decreasing it from the old one right yeah yeah right okay so so on this one go to to one space per three dwelling unit or beds yeah actually actually no it would be we have to take out interesting if it's it's three spaces per bed is what we're saying no unit across the board where we have whores we should pick one of the other because it's it muddy use the water yeah so for this one just based on what I'm seeing in other places I would get rid of the dwelling unit and leave the bed yeah yeah that makes sense yeah so once three spaces it's the most you figured out yeah one space for three beds yeah you can put one space for three beds that's fine is what we're saying okay and are you going to change office up to three per thousand now no we were going to leave that at two based on the consensus of the group oh I just turned Tommy support me on that but that's all right I can look with either one I'm not going to either one two but I would suggest three and I could that's me so the other question that the mayor had was about the schools if if the school was consulted on on these numbers we did not talk to the school I wanted to get input from from you all first to see how this was where these numbers ended yeah it sounds like you got you and Abby like got these numbers from somewhere though yeah I mean we looked at what other communities were doing and I think this was based on actually looking at Burlington's numbers Burlington yeah for the they had one and a half for primary school in their neighborhood and shared use and then seven in their neighborhood and five in their shared use so we basically just split the difference at six so it's probably good though to reach out to to Sean up at the school to make sure that these aren't going to cause an issue remember what happened when they did their their expansion right and and remember these are just minimums so no no I I understand that yeah I just to make sure that they meet the minimum today right yes that's correct yeah that yeah I was actually gonna I was gonna look back through the plans for those to see how much new space they added and kind of what they had compared to the number of parking spaces they ended up with so this isn't going to affect that anyway this will not no so this would be for correct because yeah they they've gone before DRB for a very yes yes they did they did because we didn't have a use category previously for schools I wonder if you should ask them anyway because if they are successful in introducing busing that might impact the need like their future projected need right yep yeah I can I can reach out to them and see it just it seems to be kind of a good courtesy regardless yep yep so Eric it's 803 or 804 I can't read my own clock 803 on my on my phone do you want to are we close to a place to stop for the night well we could get through the rest of the table there's only a handful more uses here and okay just call that if y'all are comfortable at that point so like I said the only other thing is whether or not we need to that I had the question about was whether or not we need to keep this other uses not listed because we're capturing or get rid of the other non residential uses and the other residential or the other civic uses because they're all all three of them are showing the same number they're all at one or one space per 500 square feet so why don't you just put that leave the last line in and take out the civic and the other one yep that's what I was thinking and then Eric on the I looked at the language for other places under the theater and entertainment since up another area we have by seat or by the footage and the language that I saw was or if no seats one space per 500 sorry say that again if no seat so like the theater entertainment just looking at what other municipalities have for that the ones that have like either by this footage or the seat have in there it would read like 0.25 spaces per seat or if no seats one seat per five so it accounts for like the higher ground type entertainment facility that's not seated right but there are places that have seats so it makes sense at that point to count by seat and then I'm just looking to see if we have that anywhere else yeah I think that was I think we've gotten all of it square footage or bed or space or whatever it is I think we'll figure it out okay so hey Abby and Eric does does it make sense on something like that you brought up higher ground right and so if you have a venue that that has no seating but it has a capacity to to look at the capacity or or tie it somehow to capacity because one space per 500 square feet how many people can you fit in there and how many cars might they need you know what I'm saying the fire marshal capacity is probably what you want to be capacity can be tricky because they usually don't do capacity until the building is constructed so we wouldn't know how we wouldn't know what the site needs to look like until the building is finished because they'll typically to measure capacity at least I know when they do restaurants here they need to see the tables they need to see the layout of the space they need to see everything in the space before they can measure and determine how many people can fit into the space but I wonder if there's some way to figure out you know say higher grounds has I don't know say 2000 square feet and they can they have a capacity of a thousand people I don't know if that's even close but you know what I mean so that it's like okay well in that case is once there's two spaces per thousand enough for something like that and and I don't know the answer that might be a crazy you know packing them in but yeah I think they must have a precalculating capacity or like a dance club because there wouldn't be any metric on tables or seats to measure that off yeah so I'm thinking at Montpelier they have one per six seats or one per 60 square feet of assembly area if no seats one per 60 is that what you said 60 one per six seats or one per 60 square feet of assembly area if no seats of assembly area okay so that's that's specific to just the area of assembly not to the gross size of the building right yeah and that's like entertainment like dance theater could be yeah right right right they could right yeah they can well and they can always build more that's that's that's how I say there's always you know like higher ground which is a commercial incentive to have right parking right well and you know where we might locate a use like that is probably going to be somewhere near downtown where we've got a 800 space garage people can use as well yeah yeah yes okay all right I would we want them to use that in those events exactly right yeah but it does have the opposite effect though you have a lot of like non permitted neighborhoods around it is that people will actually do the opposite and they'll see those out and then come down rather than they should be seeing the garage first and using the garage yeah I think I think you're okay I know you what you're saying Joe but but that's kind of that I guess there are ways to there are ways to try to alleviate that through parking regulations I think okay yeah no I I just think it's more of a case for having right parking in certain neighborhoods but yeah yeah okay any other comments or questions on the parking table here okay Eric and and first Eric and Abby thank you for working on that absolutely I have to give all the credit to Abby she did most of the I started and she did all the review and told me what what to change let me take it back thank you Abby for all your work no I just appreciated the opportunity to review and Eric was very patient going back and forth on a lot of this good okay let's move now to city updates Christine or or Eric any updates I'll let the matter go first I don't know that I have anything particularly substantial next Thursday in the municipal infrastructure and finance commission our meetings you talk about the capital improvement plan that could be included in the budget we're having our first budget our general fund's budget review on the December just city capital meeting the city is looking for somebody to serve as a representative to the town meeting tv local access board so if you have any friends looking for a volunteer opportunity we actually at our last meeting we awarded ARPA funds to some community organizations who have been helping support residents with COVID impacts so the food shelf Somalia Matthew community association the Winnieshe parents and students project and dream program and Champlain Valley Office of Economic Opportunity I think that's it oh and the Winnieshe hotel group popped up again on Monday Sarah was there which was nice I was on a zoom call you were there too that's right once you let me speak are there any changes in the proposals so there's nothing changed Joe they came back to present so they haven't been in since February 21 so the new two new counselors had not seen their stuff before they didn't really present much though we're in litigation with them right now because they haven't actually addressed the stuff that we initial like from the last meeting the staff is working through that with them so nothing new has changed happened so is this is I'm for this is not Lot 7D this is the the group that's that's correct this is Lot 9 which is in front of the Champlain Mill yeah and is there any is has anything moved on 7D or the there was yeah they're making progress but it is moving forward okay and any has anything arisen again from there was I'll leave redstone and propose a hotel for each staff they're they're not doing anything yeah yeah that's there's nothing happening there and Christine you can address this after but kudos to your staff the city staff for the election it was thank you for working in Mike well it was a very interesting and I won't say complicated but it was there was a lot of new things happening and it was handled very well by Jenny and Janet and the other volunteers I'll throw myself out of that because I just was there for the heck of it and if Connor was here I would thank Connor for he was just there volunteering as well that's right yeah yes yes I don't know what the final okay when I did the math I thought it was 71% turnout but I got an email from Jenny that it was 51 I'm unsure but either way that's higher for sure than normal it's interesting because on the Secretary of State's website yesterday it said 71% and today I'd look the city and it said like 50 something percent I think what happened was some of the votes for a CSWD got double counted probably that's what I wondered yeah okay yeah I think 71 is it's safe for like yeah any American election especially a midterm I think I heard Jenny say today there was about 3,500 ballots okay that would be yeah so that's close to 70% 60 60 somewhat percent yeah but yeah it was I'm not sure what our voting population is but our it's that's less than 50% of the total population I was gonna say 51 it's somewhere in that area it's it's going up she said she was registering new people too so yeah I think she said she registered a couple hundred yesterday that's what I thought she said too yeah yeah it was great or yesterday Tuesday today's Thursday yeah I'll pass along the note of thanks though yeah okay thanks Christine thank you the only item that I had for city updates was just to let folks know that city hall be closed tomorrow so if you have any business you need to do don't try to do it tomorrow at city hall because we'll be observing veterans day I don't know Mike if forgive me for if I'm overstepping but I don't know Bruce if there's anything you wanted to provide from your commission since you're here as an ambassador first of all I want to thank you for let me be an ambassador to planning commission it's very important that all our inclusive and belonging group commissioners be a part of every city department they help work together and make the decisions on how cities should look on inclusive and belonging and so I learned a lot you know I'm still learning I'm glad so glad I'm most of my board directors are developers so I know a little bit but so the things that the questions that I will have it's going to be I'll bring back to my inclusive and belonging commissioners and see what what they have to say thank you again great thank you Eric you know you're never overstepped just making sure yeah okay any other business how about next meeting Eric yeah next meeting since we decided to just do one meeting a month with given the holidays and everything coming up our next meeting will be December 8th that's that'll be Thursday December 8th at 6 30 we'll do that hybrid again so for those of you that want to join us here in City Hall feel free otherwise we'll see you on the screens great anyone else have any other business they want to bring up again thanks Abby for your work on the parking stuff Bruce thanks for thanks for joining us tonight Christine as always thank you Eric thanks for everything you do to support us and get us information and through these meetings so I'll be looking for a motion to adjourn I'll move I'll second great all those in favor please say aye aye aye I'll anyone opposed