 Check all the mics already? Yeah. No, do you mind? Does everybody mind just hitting the button on their mic and speaking into their mic? And then tell me what you have to practice on. No, we're going to be here a little bit late. But I don't think that matters. I had Cheerios this morning. Check one, check two. Check one, check two, check one, check two. You hearing any of that? Yeah. What's the other microphones? Mic check one, mic check two. This is Aiden. He's our new field producer. He's a very nice fellow. He's been collaborating with Channel 17 for a while. He's got the note that he is not going to intervene for any reason this evening. So I'm just going to get the proviso ahead of time. And sincerely, if we can do it, and people could really apply themselves to using our mics in it. That's why I still say that. Thanks a lot. Nice to meet you all. Thank you. And honestly, if you've got a breakdown or something like that, we can pause and stuff like this. I just don't want to do tweets in the process in the middle of it. Oh, good. We're going to give it a couple of minutes. John is running about five minutes late, he said. So we're going to hold off and wait for him. This is the time to start recording. I'll back that up. Here's your mic. Try to have it. Yeah. All right. Here. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Here we go. Here we go. Sound check. Everything? I'm here. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. How are you? I'm here. I'm here. Hi. Hi. Hi. Thanks for coming tonight. I'll crank it up to ten. I know. It's such a happy place. It can be zero or ten because when you're using a shot gun. Well- The shot gun doesn't know anything about new ones, because the shotgun is always on the ten. I don't know, I could have gone from ninety to seventy-eight. But it's going to get back up there again. That's what I'm. I know. I know. I think I heard you do. I heard you had a little bit of a scratch on your neck. And you made it. I used that to suck it. I was more sensitive to my voice. I was like, what's the brand name? I said, I don't think so. And I said, I'll go check it. I went out and I turned my eyes. It's a little bit of a scratch. Mark, we're not allowed to even cover the wall. Yeah. Well, you know, it's funny. It's like a science-fiction system. So we all agree that I was like, oh, hold on. Stop, will ya. So then it got, I mean, I live a show a lot. Everything is from our general about to fail or failing. So when it rains for a million biblical proportions, we all start freaking out about our systems. I don't want to start talking about my septic system. I really don't. I know. That's what I'm getting at. I know. I wish I was there. I know. So now that it's been so dry, I've been like, yay. What's your name? I may have a well-propelled, but I don't care. A septic system. Are you filling in just a little bit? You can't ever really get those in the rural areas. Right, right, right. From the last nation. Yeah. No more well, you know. I dream of it. If the power goes off, you can't flush the toilet. Yeah. I think I'm headed that direction. I think I've had enough. Girls. I have a driveway that's like a 20%. You know, hairpin, turn. I think John's still moving up. Over it. Hey, I'm sissy. I can't do that stuff. Yeah, I can still shovel my own driveway. I can't do that. Sign your license. If I were still on Las Naciones. We never did. We always hired somebody to do that. Yeah. That's pretty level of glass. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Too long to do by hand. Yeah. I wouldn't even want to do that. I wouldn't even want to do that. Oh, see, I actually like it. Oh. You got hit, sir. No, my friend. You're on there? Although I did. I did tear and viscous doing it. You see? This is what I'm talking about. But it did heal by itself. Oh, really? Yeah. It did. Yeah. How long did it take? Well, it happened late winter. And I didn't know where you would see how it did until the next time I shoveled. It was twerking to go through. So you recognize that? Yeah. Oh, that's what it did. That's when I figured out how it did. And it happened late winter. And the next fall, which was when I was supposed to stand by with my surgeon. Oh, snap. Okay. I was texting me and thinking, oh, how could that happen to us? Because when I was working, I was thinking, oh, that's what it did. And I was like, oh, that's what it did. And that's when I figured out how it did. And interesting. I put that in. I have this question. I go down to crew. Again, again. You want to move where? In the operating procedures. But you're going to call the line. So you want to move the corners to I? Yes. Okay. So what if you have an update that's going to be last year? That was three years ago. Are you on 12 decibels? Yeah. And then the other one? Yeah. The other one? Yeah. The other one? Yeah. No. Yeah. Thank you so much. It's a really easy thing to send that out. And then that has to come back to the commission for an action and a fair amount of work. So I think that just protects us and covers us. I just wanted you to know that if you don't believe me, if you don't believe me, we're not ready to give you the time. I think we'll give you the time. Okay, guys. Okay. We'll see you together. Thank you. You're welcome. Can you see what we got here? Oh, he's just pulling it, so we're good. Okay. This one. Michelle, wait. You have to rest. It's right. I took it. Oh, you had it, though. You're doing it. That's kind of funny. One, two, three, four. I'm going to change the battery noise. That's the energy. That's the energy. Karen, are you hearing any better? No. I accept the word five. That's good. Last two times. Thanks, Mike. One, two, three, four. Thanks. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. Free man. Free man. That's great. That's great. That's great. That's pretty much what he says, too. September 28th, 2017, planning commission meeting. We're on. Yeah. I'd like to welcome everyone to the meeting this evening. We have really one item on the agenda, and I'm going to make a few amendments here. To begin with, underneath the site plan public hearing, we've added language to after the word public hearing that John Somerville doing business as Somerville LLC and UVM Medical Center. And it is also located at two and eight SX way. Also, we are striking item four this evening, which is the discussion of minutes from September 14. And under other business, we have a discussion on notice of a 500 kilowatt net metering solar project at 251 River Road and the PC file folders. That it, Sharon? That's it. Okay. So, first item on our agenda is opportunity for public comment. If anyone in the audience has an item they want to bring to our attention, it's not on the agenda, then this is the place to do so. Fairly. I hear some public comments back here. Yeah. Okay. That's our other sound engineer. So, before we get started, I would like to have everyone who's apt to offer any comment or question this evening to please stand, raise your hand or swear you in. Do you swear that any testimony you present this evening will be truthful to the best of your abilities? This covers questions as well. I do. Thank you. And the other item of business that I need to bring up to the commission and the audience present is I need to bring out that I am an employee of the UVM Medical Center, UVM Health Network Medical Center. Take the picture. And they are one of the presenters or applicants this evening. I do not have any direct connection with the facilities department, nor do I have a... I'm not in the reporting structure. So, but I do want to offer because of this, if anybody sees this as a potential conflict of interest, please let me know. Commissioners or members of the audience... I'm sorry. What did I do wrong? So, as long as there are no concerns at this point, I will stay on this application. Okay. So, Darren, are you presenting on this evening? Yes, I am. Okay. So, give us a run, Joe. I'm going to give you a brief run through the sort of center where everything is, but I will let the applicants do a lot of talking. So, UVM Medical Center would like to... Do we have the other second TV? Is that available to be turned on? I tried to get it to work, and it couldn't get it. So, my apologies for those in the audience. So, the UVM Medical Center would like to build a primary care facility to Essex Way, which is on the corner of Essex Way on Route 15. This is in the NXT PUD zoning district. So, it is also subject to the business design control overlay district. So, we'll be looking at some of the features of that as part of the application. Generally, staff has no major concerns with the application as presented, but one of the issues that one of the applicants will speak to tonight is that the access through Eight Essex Way at the existing driveway is under some potential changes due to an easement issue with the U.S. Postal Service, which actually owns part of the land that the driveway goes over. So, that the engineer and the applicants are trying to figure out how to address that and they can speak more to it later. So, that's all I'm going to say. Bill, were you going to take your way? Good evening. My name is David Keltham with the University of Vermont Medical Center. Part of the University of Vermont Health Network. I thank you very much for having the opportunity to talk with you. We have a rather robust primary care mission within the University of Vermont Medical Center. We try to site our primary care facilities in the communities they serve. We've been in Essex right across the street over here as a junction for 32 years. We're at the brickyard. That site has served us really well and now we've used everything that we can possibly use up there. We have, with the advent of population health management that you probably all heard about, team-based care. It's not just a doctor anymore. It's a team that kind of wraps around. We need more space. That space over there is outdated. It's not efficient or economical to renovate and wouldn't meet our needs. We want to obviously make the site, the building more accessible. That suffers from really kind of a funky entrance and narrow doors and so on and so forth. So we want to do a site that would meet the current standards for healthcare occupancy, doctor's office. Our plan is to build on that site. If we are working with John Somerville to do the final negotiations on the real estate, a lot of this is contingent on us being able to get access to the site. But we wanted to complete the permitting process here. We just get that out of the way and then we're moving ahead. We want to be in Essex. We think it's a good project for Essex and we will have the ability to serve the community even better than we do now. Thank you. I'll turn it over to you. So the building is designed with the design control standards in mind. It's a one-story building. The overall height is about that, the building adjacent to it, John Somerville's building. It has horizontal cladron siding and most of the windows are fixed on the case of the windows. And we have a shingle roof and basically a 7-12 pitch roof pitch. Fairly straightforward. We tried to break it down in scale so it's broken into smaller parts as you can see by the entries and by just the modifications in the front of the design there. So fairly, you know, it's not dramatic, but I think it fits into the neighborhood. Works in the same vein that CVS or John Somerville's building would. So I don't think we've tried to keep all that in mind. This, what you're seeing on the top here is actually an employee entrance on that side. So the left side of that gable, you'll see a small gable and then that goes along the bottom. So employees have a covered entry from the parking lot. But if you go to the previous slide, I think, or the other... The same plan? Yeah, not the same plan. The other elevation? The other elevation. That's it? No? It's another tab. There you go. So this is the main entry, the one on top from the parking lot itself. So the main entry to the building is on the left side of the main gable there and then the waiting room, because lots of glass in it is just to the right of that. So that's the idea. But all the elevations, we're trying to get all the elevations to have some face towards the street because it's a quarter lock so that it doesn't look as though there's a back door or a front door in the building. So that's been our interest throughout this. That's about it, really. Any questions? So... Not yet. Let's go to the staff report. If we can. Let's start going into any issues or concerns there. Darren, first, take a swing at it. So the plans as submitted in general are perfectly within the zoning regulations, no issues with staff. There is a wetland. This is a storm water pond and it's mapped as a wetland, but there's also another class 2 wetland on this side that the applicant will need to resubmit plans for just showing that it's there, but they're not building in that area, so it's not an issue as far as the approval or review goes. There's a multi-use path that runs along Route 15. That's already in place. The town already owns that easement, so this actually connects really well because they will be adding a sidewalk here along Essex Way. Public Works has also requested a solar-actuated pedestrian crossing at this intersection here, which is those lights that... Crosswalk lighted intersections and pedestrians can activate by pushing a button in it. Flash is showing cars that there are pedestrians crossing. We think that would be good connectivity to the rest of the town center, which is often this western block. Again, the only real issue that stabs these at this point that's being resolved by the applicant is the access issue. So just to give you more sense of what that looks like, it's in the addendum that you use in your packets, but USPS actually owns land. This is the boundary line of the USPS property, and they have not ever granted an easement, a right-of-weight easement for the John Somerville to access this parking area here. And this has been an unresolved issue ever since this was built. So because UVM Medical Center wants to use that access, which is a safer and less intrusive access than coming through Essex Way, Public Works has already given comment on preferring a consolidated access along this entrance here. We need to resolve this access issue before this plane can be approved. Right now, the applicant has a tentative easement agreement with USPS, but John can tell you a little more about that. Essentially, the agreement is not going to work because they will reserve the right to rescind this easement at any point unilaterally without any negotiation, unless cutting off access to the property. So, the alternative plans that have been conceptually brought forth and Public Works has met with the applicants who have worked through some of these issues and Public Works has supported above. One is to redirect this entrance road off to the side a little bit, so that it's completely off the USPS property. In that way, it would be the intersection would not be aligned the way it is now, and that was the original intent, and one of the only options at this point is to have it cut across where the property line actually needs the right of way. The other alternative is to have a shared access newly built on the property line between 8 and 2SXW, and that would ranch off to either parking lot. The problem with that is that it is closer to this median on SXW that is supposed to block cars from going into exit only lanes and they would also cause some traffic backups potentially up along SXW Route 15. Plus, getting out of that and turning left or even turning right could be tricky given the traffic that builds up on SXW. So that's all that staff has to say about the project and we would advocate for continuing hearing, in order to allow the applicants to have all this access issue and have it be thoroughly done by public works, but we'll let the applicant speak more to that. So, and no issues from staff's point of view on the elevations, no issues other than the parking? Correct. Any questions for staff at this point? Do you folks want to address anything within the staff report or do you hate it all? Okay. So, at this point I'd like to open the public hearing. So moved. Seconded by John, seconded by Josh. All those in favor? Opposed? Motion carries. However many we are. Five to zero. Public hearing is open. If anyone has questions on this, please raise your hand, be recognized, state your name for the record and let it fly. Yes, sir. Jim Berger, I have a resident that's running Carmichael Street which is directly across from this site. The first thing I want to say and I reveal that I am a member of the Economic Development Committee and as such, I certainly applaud this development and thank UVM for their level of commitment to this community and so I'm delighted by it. Some of the concerns I have really do rest with this whole transportation issue. We live, we observe that intersection almost on a daily basis and it's becoming more and more of a concern even in its current form because we constantly see A speed limits violated for sure. You see the congestion and so I understand this is an issue that needs to be resolved and further discussion. One of the solutions that I would put on the table and honestly looking at a stoplight because that would give pause to the traffic flow and for the quad crossings the other concern I have is the population that lives in that immediate area. We have a fairly significant senior citizen base. They have significant limits the options that are available to them so walkways are terribly important to protect and to assure that there are safe crossings on a six way. As we've looked at that empty spot over the last year and a half what I was envisioning and was certainly going to propose as part of the discussion on the town center development is really looking at that plot of land as a possible for the park and recreation area for the senior citizen population. So I question in the mission that UVM has so capably defined which is the wellness of this all in looking at your site whether there's any chance of compromising the commitment to cars on that site to a greater population space for potential park area some utilization of that land that would invite the senior populations in that area to enjoy so that's one point that I would make. Beyond that I think the issue on the table really is the traffic flow and that's something that certainly I think we all have to be concerned about. So thank you. My question was answered when you put the lot plan out. Okay. Sure. Did you get something? I think obviously the access is probably the principal issue here I don't really have many dealing with one way or the other architecture in the building and all I have to raise the objection from my life because she can walk to the existing license she's going to have to drive now but that's it you know I'm just following orders from home. She could have a chauffeur. It's not that far from along. That's it. Josh? Yeah access is the big one and present thinking and it's done. It's all pretty big. It's all done. It's all done. It's all done. I love the I love the this project is because the access is it's the big issue it's the big thing I wouldn't be willing to pay until we have that resolved whether it's an easement or the Postal Service or you know it's a tough spot congestion traffic all the things that have been said so far so it's kind of where I'm at. I do have a think a change I want to make too minor change big change that's in here. Almost identical to John says things that stood out to me too was architecture because I think it will go really well with the adjacent building the access issue is the biggest thing. To look at the two access alternatives that were sort of presented I tend to feel that probably the public works preferable one which was relocating is probably the best one and we have to use a lighter of something to limit access and back onto as a way that would be best. I'm not sure I totally buy the fire department issues because they can get in there one way or the other pretty quickly I don't see that as a bar to go in the other way. They can access most of that site from Essex Way they have to. I think traffic light is not going to work there no matter what. It's just going to be too easy. It's too close to the corner. It's not going to work. It's going to have to be some other clever traffic flow. I think from my point of view I don't even want to contemplate the traffic options. I think it's an issue that needs to be resolved by engineers I don't think it's acceptable you know it's an open issue and I don't want to even offer options on it. I would rather have the engineers come back with something that works and I would look primarily the public works on this one. I think they know what they're willing to do as far as easements and honestly I don't see that being out of purview whether Dr. Somerville agrees and likes what the USPS is offering to my mind it's immaterial to us so I don't even I would agree with the continuance of what gets in support of that. I see no issues with this project other than the access and the one thing that I would like to request for consideration is depending upon what we do with this I'd actually like to see a second pedestrian access from the path further in up across to Essex Way the boundary line of 82 I'd rather see that's a request it's a thought process because it's actually going to be for connectivity from further down 15 it's going to be a much shorter path walking distance wise to get over and migrate safely across that parcel there is no way across to officially a little drainage soil that's on the backside of that parking lot or go all the way down past the post office to the end so that would be a request if we're redoing portion of this I'd love to see a connecting path sort of roughed in from the established multi-mobile path across not across necessarily the full parking lot but right along that line between the two parcels actually there's already a warning path from people getting off of the safer path and just going to that point I've used it myself anytime it's just walking down and around the drainage pond adds a significant amount of distance and the fact that there's no sidewalk along that stretch anyway so that'll be a big improvement all by itself so back to you folks bringing this application forward I think the commission's consensus is we don't see any issues with other than the traffic, the access do you concur, do you have other thoughts or questions or concerns we would concur with that I mean we're working this issue very hard imagine dealing with Washington DC this issue we think it's a relatively simple thing it's sort of 400 square feet of space you know our preference would be to have an easement or have John get an easement for his property which we would use it would be the best for traffic circulation messing around with that intersection there you know probably is not the ideal thing to do so we support working through we won't be able to develop this site unless we can solve the access issue so that's a very high priority for us do you feel a continuation to date uncertain is what I would recommend tonight and that would give you enough time to or give you basically a time to work this out do you feel that do you feel that you're close enough or do you feel that you're close at all so do you want this to date certain let me tell you what we're going to do and then we can talk about the date so we can work with the United States Postal Service on the easement that's our preference and as a contingency we are looking at other options one of them would be if that road was access road to the property was offset around the property that may be an option the other option is to take a look at is there any opportunity for a curb cut and maybe a slight change in the geometry we're going to have our traffic consultant do traffic studies you're going to come out and observe traffic along Essex Way we're going to take a look at a little different geometry and then depending if we get the post office easement solved great if not we'll come up with a scheme that we'll want to be considered and bring it back here so I don't think it would be date certain I think we should know within a month or so which direction this is going in is we don't have unlimited time to wait to get this solved we can't we're going to need to go look for another site so it's very high priority for us to do so not date certain I think would be the way to go I would like to think we could come back in the early November timeframe or something there I don't know when your next meeting is I think we would defer to staff at this point okay next available is yeah it's usually next available but if you think of us as a sense of when you might be coming in then we can pencil it in well you don't mind having we'll have an open conversation what do you think gentlemen we can always do pick a date tonight we can certainly let you know far enough ahead of time if things look like they're not going to happen we can certainly just continue it again would that be the preference of the we can't pick a date because we want to keep it for the panel so if we continue to the next available hearing we have to come back and open it with the applicant then it keeps it open works for us so that would be essentially the next available as you said the next available will be staff and applicant or staff and applicant that's the motion continue this to the next available as agreed upon by staff and applicant second any additional discussion we're not those we're not going to go off sorry just talked about thank you all those in favor I closed motion carries 5-0 so we're continued we're good and we're still active thank you very much for your consideration and guidance yeah I'd like to not really not really I mean it's a very sorted history and the town actually required me to put that entrance drive where it's presently located I had it located on my property previous to that and they wanted to square up the intersection and dealing with this for 29 years notoriously crossing over the post office property I would like to clear it up because I want to have the ability to get on to my property as well as 14 tenants in my building and actually have it so they could be affirmed that they can get into their building so I really think this needs to be resolved here I've lost a lot of sleep over this over the years and it was not my doing I'm serving it up to you thank you very much I'm basically an optimistic guy but I worked with the post office spent a lot of money trying to get that easement back in 89 and 90 and and that never happened and now we've actually gotten a little step closer because now we're dealing with Washington I was dealing with Massachusetts but I'm just I'm not at all confident that they're number one they don't respond and I think secondly they don't even care so as far as ingress and egress I think that'll probably stay there I don't think they're going to gate it I don't think they're going to dig it up so just you're aware we were at a conclusion we don't have any of that on record other than what's on tape and so forth well you've got it in your minds anyway we've got it in our minds and we're there and I think we're all on the same team I think it would be worth a call to Mr. Trock and I think we're good on this one so when you guys have some additional progress on the access work with staff and get back before us thank you very much have a great evening bye Tim boy I wish they could I wish anybody could Post Office is their own entity thanks John well it works like a property so at this point the only other item we have on our agenda which is the solar project and cloud folders solar project we got one coming yeah I mean this is just an FYI I mean sometimes in the past when we have gotten some of the you have asked staff to write a letter and expressing your concerns about the performance of the town plan and so if you want staff to write a letter this will be your opportunity we don't be working with the public utilities commission until we do some analysis of the town plan around the solar site and stuff they're going to control like they always do usually our letters don't really but when we get citing standards and work a little bit more on energy planning with the regional planning commissioners and we get more sophisticated and involved and towns are going to have more say we're not quite there yet okay did you have a comment or a question? the only question I have always had is that it's a fairly sizable project where's that power going does it generate? well it's a net metering project I would imagine it stay here okay I don't have problems with stays in Vermont I hate to see something like this on there settling the power down in Massachusetts or somewhere else I think it said green mountain powers and I think that the way the public utilities commission permits these projects is that net metering projects have to stay the energy has to stay in Vermont or has to be sited in Vermont I can't see why I'm going anywhere else except during maybe peak hours for Montreal and it won't be used here anyway I don't know I personally don't have any see a need to offer comment on this I was trying to figure out where it was exactly it's a chemo parcel isn't it? yeah so so here it is River Road, Sand Hill Road Chemo Drive or maybe it's a print strategy I can't remember how they've done with it now this is the Saxon Hill Alicinicals Yeah, the Allenbrook Development this is the parcel in question so that's the barren reclaimed land yes and it's not seen from anywhere it's not in our senior resource the Raleigh District if this was proposed in a sensitive area you would hear more from staff on this but we're cooling this first time I walked up on that site this is going to be quicker for solar and wind power man and I'm surprised I took this long to get to here I've got no concern I don't either it's a great spot but are they going to have to take this? I do now they won't the only thing that I actually saw with this and this is just my personal take on it is the way you should have a copy of the plans in your folder my apologies was it put on the FTP? sorry about that guys so real quick it's the coverage of the panels is going to be roughly where this open land is they're going to clear a little bit of the trees out here just to expand enough but my only spot was they're citing the power lines off in this direction over the potential new industrial parcels I don't know why they're not going along the road but as per the public utilities commission to decide questions about it my only thought that comes to mind is is there any potential of it in the animal pathway but it doesn't look because it's pretty small it's just that very edge five houses are zoning in here so I don't know if the public keep their name you can see looks at that yeah they do so we good on that? the other item brief discussion follow up on our open meeting law questions that we ask Darren to look into yeah so I you had asked me to look into the issue of creating subcommittees and what's the rules are for that following the meeting law I reached out to cities and towns and got a response back but you do have in your packets I know for sure and essentially it's still a pretty great area if the planning commission officially designates several members to be on a subcommittee and it's officially created as part of the meeting and part of a motion that it has to follow the meeting law but if several members of planning commission decide on their own to go off and work on an issue report back to the planning commission and as long as they meet and they are not quorum for your fewer then there's no requirement under open meeting law so my suggestion before the meeting was that we add some language in our policies and procedures operating procedures basically stating that the commission wants to delegate some work outside of meetings then a non quorum can be delegated to do that as long as no action is taken and any that work can then be brought back to the main commission and have actions taken we put that in our policies and guidelines and there's no questions about it going in the future and then if we want to dump work on Ned or John we're good and we can do that offload it, delegate, perfect empowerment and it just covers us I think it's going forward I would move that we can't move we're going to prepare it and give it to you in draft I think we can do that at any point in time with our operating procedures so this is well within our guidelines we just have to make sure we don't make a motion to say this is going to be a committee if we want to do that to make sense to do that and then that group just follows the meeting does that make sense? anything else to cover for us? no I'll take a motion I will be adjourned Ned and John you guys got a second in cereal I'll lose in favor we're done adjourned 713 excellent but it's dark out are you off? I'm off I want to make sure our camera man is off shut off your mics please