 Recording in progress. Good evening. Welcome to the South Burlington Development Review Board of January 17th, 2024. My name is Dawn Philippert. I'm the chair of the board and I'd like to introduce the other members of the board. Stephanie Wyman, Charlie Johnson, Johnston. Johnston, thank you. Frank Cokeman, Mark Muscatelli. I have a tough time with John, sorry. Well, you're both in red. Come on. Mark Bear and Quinn Mann. And to my side here are our staff members, Marla Keane and Marty Gillies. I have a little trouble with names tonight, so and other names. This meeting is being recorded and there are a couple of ways to participate. One is to attend in person as you are doing. Another way is to attend virtually and people can also call in and listen to the meeting. If you are here, please make sure you sign up at the sign in sheet in the back of the room. If you're attending virtually, please send us your contact information. We have a record of you participating and if you're on the phone, please send an email registering your participation to, I don't have my notes, what's your email? I'm Keane M-K-E. Thank you. My microphone wasn't on at all. Try that again. Let's try that again. With the microphone on this time, send an email if you're participating by phone or virtually if you prefer to myself, Marlekean M-K-E-E-N-E at SBVT.gov. Thank you, Merle. I feel lost without my notes. So, what am I forgetting tonight? So we'll start with emergency evacuation procedures. Sure, thank you. I don't have my agenda in front of me. So let's talk about evacuation procedures in the event of an emergency. There are two exits at the back of the room. In case you needed to evacuate, you would exit those doors and go either left or right and you would be outside. Are there any announcements? Hearing none. Are there any changes to the agenda? Hearing none. Are there any public comments that do not relate to one of the applications being reviewed tonight? Okay. I think we're ready to hear from the applicant for the next, I'm sorry, I feel lost without my agenda. So, Marleke's pulled it up on me. Oh, good. Thank you, Marleke. All right. Thank you, Marleke. MP-2301 and I will read that. The continued master plan application, MP-2301 of John Larkin, Inc. to establish a master plan for an approximately 40 acre existing PUD consisting of 270 residential units in eight multifamily buildings, a 20,000 square foot movie theater, a 22,500 square foot restaurant and medical office building and a 3,500 square foot restaurant with a drive-through. The master plan includes four phases and consists of adding approximately 92,105 square feet of commercial space, including a 110 room hotel, approximately 281 homes in multifamily and mixed use buildings, six homes and two family buildings, approximately five acres of programmed and passive open space and extending a city street at 1185 Shelburne Road. Who is here for the applicant? I am Greg Dixon, the civil engineer on the project from Krebs and Lansing. Okay, thank you. The bright green light. Ella Breiko with Wagner-Hodgson Landscape Architecture. Thank you. And Jeff Hodgson with Wagner-Hodgson. Okay, thank you. Thank you, Joe. I'm going to swear you in. Would you raise your right hand please? Do you solemnly swear that the information you're about to provide is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth under penalty of perjury? I do. Okay, thank you. Good to see you again. Yes. Before we get started, I'm recused. Pardon me? I'm recused from Stephanie. Okay, thank you, Stephanie. So you know the drill. We go through the staff report and we address the comments that are highlighted in red and we ask, you've already seen them. We ask for your thoughts about them or your answer or whatever or your commitment in some cases. And we are allocating an hour to this hearing. If we don't get through everything, we'll reschedule another meeting date to complete it. So I'm wondering before we start going through the staff report, are there any introductory comments you would like to make? Okay. Okay, I've got to call up the report. Give me a minute, please. This is not my night for technology. Do you want me to just start pulling up the red comments? That would be great. That's great, yeah. I will have mine here. And just so you know, Marty is the staff person for this one, I'm drawing on the screen. Several pages in, huh? Before we get to number one. It's page five. All right. Well, if anybody has anything on pages one through four, just go ahead and shout. Okay, number one. Staff recommends the board review these comments, those comments, and if board concurs that the submitted application material is either incomplete or incorrect, require the applicant to modify their submission as indicated so that the submission can be considered a portion of the approved plan for the project. Your comment on that? Okay, sure. No comment. Okay, good. Thank you. Number two. Staff recommends the board confirm with the applicant whether any such projects are proposed. So I believe this has to do with stormwater and we will continue to coordinate with the city stormwater and like we have been the entire time. Okay. I don't think that really answers the question. Are there any projects impacting natural resources proposed? Not from our project. I did ask a little bit about the stormwater project that is also going on, but I don't have any information about that. Okay. Yeah. You might want to pull it a little closer so we can all hear. I now have my notes, so. So there are no other projects. Our project is not affecting natural resources. I believe that is the answer or the question. Does that answer the question for us, board? I mean, I think our thought is just if there's flow restoration projects in the area, you would have to either be working with those ones or taking them into account. I'm just wondering if you're aware of any flow restoration projects planned for that area in your coordinating. As you said you've been doing with the stormwater section. Have you heard of anything yet? We have had preliminary conversations with them, but they do not have a design yet. So I don't know if there's any natural resource problems with that or not, but we are going to continue to coordinate with them. And at this time you're not anticipating that you would have to like alter the design of your master plan to accommodate any proposed city flow restoration projects. So our first meeting was sort of to at least outline where we had planned to put improvements and coordinate with them to have our improvements be separate from the stormwater improvements so they kind of collaborate. But I envision there'll be continued collaboration. Sure, okay, thank you. Yep. Okay, number three, we need a conceptual subdivision plan. So we are not proposing any subdivision at this time. So we don't have a subdivision plan. I think we were talking about that. We think you have to, like the real road parcel right now ends at the stub and you're proposing to continue it all the way down to sound property line. So the subdivision, not the subdivision, boundary line adjustment that we did in 2017 extended real road. So it is on that plat. Yeah, and the other one that we flagged was the proposed duplexes are right now just on one lot, which is no longer permissible as per the LDRs. So that would have to be, they have to be subdivided on their individual lots. Could they not be condomized? They can't be. Under our current LDRs, unless it's a single user complex, so like a, I don't know, a garage and a home has each structure, each principle structure has to be on its own lot. The same would be true for the main body of the development area. Yeah, I think that most of the development, most of the phase developments like within Lark and Terrace are already on individual pieces, but the duplex kind of section, and maybe also the micro units might be just buildings proposed on existing lots, which would need to be subdivided out just to put the building in as per like the new LDRs, which are requiring like Marla said, primary structure to be on their own lots. Oh, okay. So can we expect a conceptual subdivision plan? Okay, thank you. Thank you. Questions from the board? Okay. Can you turn your mic on? I have a question to you about that. I'm a little, do you want to discuss for now? Well, that's the next one. So let's go ahead. This is about whether we're gonna waive preliminary plat review. Yeah, my inclination is not to do that. Master plans usually don't contain the same kind of detail as a preliminary plat does. And we're fine with that. Okay. Other comments from the board? No? Okay, number five. I'm gonna read this. Staff recommends the board waive preliminary and final plat for projects not involving subdivision of land and instead allow site plan review for the implementation of the described phases with the caveat that sketch plan and preliminary plat shall be required should a subsequent application be inconsistent with the findings of this master plan approval, including substantial deviation from approved plans. Approved plans. If the applicants subdivision or site plan applications differ substantially from the plans submitted as part of this master plan application, the applicant may have to formally amend this master plan prior to approval of these substantially different applications. We're okay with that. Okay, thank you. Well, you're okay with what? I mean, what is the board okay with waiving preliminary and final plat for projects not involving subdivision of land? Well, we're okay with not waiving it. I think if the, if it sounds like the board from your last comment is not okay with waiving those two, those things. So we're all right with that. Okay. Well. So you will come back to us with a preliminary plat. Correct. Well, I think this is too separate. Yeah, these are two separate things. Yeah. There's. Staff recommends. Turn your mic on. Like this whole microphone thing tonight. No, I mean, the staff is recommending to the board that we do waive preliminary and final plat for projects, you know, and instead allow site plan review for the implementation of the prescribed phases. And I think we just discussed that a plat and is required. Therefore, I don't think we can waive it. Frank didn't want to waive it. Okay. So, okay. Well, just to jump in here. So we're saying that for the subdivision of land that that was comment four, and we were recommending the board discuss whether to waive preliminary plat for a subdivision of land. Frank indicated he didn't want to do that. The rest of the board agreed. You said that's not a big deal for you. That's fine. Question five, comment five is all amendments to a PUD are technically subdivisions or they need to be reviewed as Plats. And so we're just wondering we would have to go preliminary plat, final plat and then site plan. And we're saying that because we're doing this master plan process for those technical subdivisions which don't actually include subdivisions of land for the plat applications. The question is to the board, not related to the applicant, is it okay to waive preliminary and final subdivision for things that you know are coming in as site plans, given that those things won't include a subdivision of land. That's the applicant. That's the question for you as a board to discuss. Unless they are substantially different than what's in the master plan. Correct, yeah. That's the second sentence. And I again have essentially the same objection. Master plans simply don't have the level of detail that a preliminary plat does with respect to buildings, for example, site plan. If a master plan is sketchy, says five story building, I don't know, for the sake of something. And they come in with a site plan that shows five story building and then skip to a final plan that has all sorts of detail on it that involve other aspects of the project, other aspects of the LDR. Don't we have an interest in knowing what those other aspects are gonna be before we get the final plat? That's one way to frame the question. That's what I'm getting at. That to say a site plan doesn't different material, it doesn't matter much if there's not enough detail in the master plan itself, which they're frequently isn't, to be meaningful. And I don't know, is the board, anybody, I'm open to different feelings about it, but that's how it seems to me. Board members? I don't know, I mean, I'm kind of inclined to say that typically the master plan does include quite a bit of detail that you can sort of take and do the, I guess the smell test between the master plan and what they're submitting for final site plan to see that it is kind of apples to apples. And if it's apples to oranges, we say you gotta go back and submit for full review and amend it. Well, you know, there's a master plan show is building for size, for example. Yeah, I guess the risk is really on that, right? They come to us at something completely different. Right, well, it's not a, okay, I'll say one more time and I'll be content that I made my point. A master plan might have something as nonspecific as five-story building and still past muster as a master plan. If they come in with a site plan that says five-story building, then they're complying with the master plan, right? And all the more involved detail that might be that would be shown in a preliminary plan is skipped over. Right, but at that point, that's their risk because we're then reviewing the elevations for compliance and if there's any changes, they've invested the design time that by going straight to final and it's really at their risk to jump ahead. I'll go with that. We're not removing any review criteria that we inherently have authority over. All right, I mean, you know, that's- You don't need my- Well, I'm just- I'm raising the issue, but I'll go with the sense of- I'm just saying we've always as a board given the applicant's guidance and direction to combine preliminary and final together at their risk because we're still gonna review it with all the level of review. And if we have substantive changes based on our review, they're taking the financial risk that they have to go and amend plans that they've already spent quite a bit of expense on. So therefore, we're not losing any review authority and it's all on them. So it behooves them to present something in master plan that they are planning on proceeding with that's gonna be in compliance with our regulations for each of the subsequent phases. Well, they may not know at this point. That's, yeah, I mean, I think we're- And they have- That's the intent of the master plan. Well, let me put it to the applicant. How do you feel about it? Do you benefit from a preliminary plan from a preliminary plan or would you just as soon skip it and roll the dice on the final? I think I thought that the whole reason for the master plan was to give the board kind of a blueprint for the whole development so that we could go right to site plan. Right, that's the big advantage of a master plan. That's sort of the carrot that goes with the stick. And so if you choose to not request anything like that, then I guess there's a couple of carrots. One is the sort of getting pre-approval for certain aspects of the project, investing in the regulations applicable at the time you got your master plan and the other is getting process waivers. And so if you're not requesting any process waivers, you're leaving something on the table. But you don't have to. Quinn, you look like- Yeah, so I'm just, is the idea, if we say we would waive sketch, and preliminary, the applicant could come in if they wanted to still. Like if they saw a benefit to it and they had some changes and they wanted to come out preliminary, they could, like us saying we're waiving it gives them the option not to, but they could still if that was gonna be a benefit to them at a certain phase. Maybe that's implied, but I just wanted to- No, that's a good point. I think if one particular parcel, we had a lot of questions about it might make sense to come in. So if we could choose, that would be great, but. Does it allow for us granting a waiver? Yeah, you just be waiving the requirement, but you wanna be waiving the whole process entirely. Right, I mean, that's what I would, I agree that the master plan process has benefits. I think the applicant understands the risk of jumping ahead in that way. And as long as they keep it in mind that they have the option to come to us with a preliminary, I think that's kind of the best of both worlds. So that's where I would be on it. Okay, are we ready to move on? Number six, staff considers that the applicant has not made a request to, pardon me, proceed directly to zoning permit for any portion of the proposed development. Staff recommends that the board and applicant discuss this process waiver and whether the applicant would like to request such a process waiver from the board. I wasn't quite sure what a process waiver is, and I will admit that I didn't look it up. Sure, it's just the same thing as what we did earlier. Like skipping the step or two, this is the same thing. I think beta circuit advantage of this in their master plan where they skipped straight to zoning permit for some certain minor items, like the ones listed here. So it's available if you want it, but I believe process dictates that you have to request it from the board and the board has to grant it. We're not requesting it, okay. Thank you. Number seven, staff recommends the board revisit this section for concurrence after reviewing the remainder of the staff report, identifying any further aspects of the master plan that should be vested. So I guess we'll come back to that. So this is the other big thing that the applicant gets from a master plan. And I think that, you know, because this is only our second, third master plan under these rules, I just wanna emphasize that vesting of certain elements is sort of the big deal of master plan. And it's important to get those things so that both the board can feel comfortable that the things the applicant proposed are fixed and the applicant can feel comfortable that the board's not gonna question things that they proposed at the master plan level. So this list that you see on the screen is was developed by staff of stuff that we thought is kind of locked in and sort of non-controversial kind of black and white, but it's certainly the list is flexible. And if you wanna add things to that list or remove things from that list, either the board or the applicant, I mean, it's your document. So just wanted to kind of put that out there as comment seven just kind of flagging that as sort of like Marla said, one of the big carrots of the master plan and hoping to take full advantage of it. So at the end of this review, we wanna come back and see if we wanna add anything or remove anything from this list. Okay, thank you. I have a question. My general understanding of the vesting doctrine is that there, at least as to anything they're showing, well, no, my understanding is across the board, they're vested according to the regulations in effect at the time they apply and that would apply the building heights as well. Whatever is allowed by the May 15th, 2023 regulations is what's allowed. Curious. I don't know how you justify the distinction. Like in certain zoning districts, there's like a maximum difference between, for example, between like stories, like neighboring parcels within the same zoning district can't be more than one story different. But because this is a PUD, there's some latitude to kind of wave or amend certain regulations. And so we would just be sort of, I don't get it. I think what's happening is we're basically saying that with the approval of the master plan, we're vesting the overall project with the regulations are in fact enforced at the time of the approval, which we're saying is May 15th, for the LDRs adopted May 15th, 2023. So when they come in with subsequent site plans for various phases on the project, they are under the admonishment of the LDRs in a force at that time, not ones that may be changed in later time. Like if the project takes three or four, five, seven years, they are under the LDRs of May 15th, 2023, not LDRs of June, 2026. And I think that's the law, I think, but it has to do not with, by the way, when we approve the master plan, but when they apply, have you applied? Is there a master plan in front of us? It's under the application when they get in. So that controls, that controls, right. That's under the current LDRs. That controls everything. Exactly, there's been a new LDR since then, but it's fine, we can go with that one. One's in the noted, fine. That controls everything, not just certain aspects of the project. And specifically it includes, it controls building heights. I think there's two things being conflated here. One is the regulations that the application is vested under. And one is aspects of the project, characteristics of the project that are approved. So if the, so vesting may not be the right word, but the project involves a proposed street layout. And if the board says that the master plan approves the proposed street layout, then the applicant can rely on the board not questioning the proposed street layout in phase three or whatever. And the board can rely on the applicant not changing the proposed street layout in phase three. You don't have to say the master plan approves the proposed street layout, but we're recommending because that's an item that there hasn't really been any concern about from either party, that that's one of the things you say that, yeah, that looks good. Yeah, basically we're getting a big overall picture look at what the applicant's proposing for a very large area of South Burlington. And with our review and let's just say, ultimate approval of the master plan, the applicant has confidence that they can propose, move forward with their business plan for developing these lots over a course of several years without concern that we're suddenly going to change our mind and say, you know, we don't want that building in that location. That's what the vested rights we're looking at granting these areas. And what the staff has given is about eight or seven or eight, nine items. And we may add more to them before we ultimately approve the master plan. We seem to be speaking at odds and I only need to say it one more time and then we can let it float along. The law in effect at the time they map, they make the application, which is the LDR is of May 15th, 2023, controls the project. We don't get to pick and choose which aspects of the project that controls in my view. You're right, I think we're talking in circles because when we ultimately approve the master plan we're approving a conceptual design for the overall development that the LDRs might lean towards but we ultimately as a board and the applicant submits, we ultimately approve and the applicant submits that we're signing off on. So there's, if you don't have the LDR, yes, the LDRs have a rule of law of the land, but then why have a board to review and sign off on things? We're reviewing and signing it off in accordance with the law in effect on May 15th, 2023. That's what I'm saying. Right, I don't know if this is helpful, but so like the LDRs that they're vested under is the umbrella and then elements that they've proposed under the master plan are more detailed things under that umbrella but they still comply with that master plan. So this list is the things under that umbrella that are more detailed than just the LDRs but they comply with the LDRs. So we're not getting rid of that, that highest umbrella. These things just are more specific under that that they've presented in their master plan. Does that help? We don't need to flog it anymore. I think the horse died a while ago, but yeah. All right, let's move on to number seven. Staff considers that reduced front and side setbacks are likely appropriate in this case and recommends that the board and applicant identify a distance to which each of those minimum setbacks should be reduced. Have you had a chance to think about that? Yes, we're requesting to waive the internal side yard setbacks, which is, we have a central spine pedestrian corridor where we might have some landscape walls and so we just want those internal side yard setbacks that have been waived. And then in terms of front yard setbacks, we are proposing 10 feet minimum along Shelburne and Fayette Road with the intent to still be to do what we showed, which is to kind of match or align with existing buildings, which might be more like 18 feet, but we're just asking for 10 to give ourselves some flexibility. And then along Real Road, we have some pinch points. So we're just, we're asking for a one foot setback with, again, with the intent that we would provide some variation along that. And then the external side yard setbacks we can abide by. Ward, what are your thoughts? I'm fine with them. So there's a maximum setback waiver. A lot, right? Or is that gone? Am I remembering an old set of the rules? I'll have to double check because I know that in certain circumstances, the board can waive like in article three, the board can waive setbacks down to a certain point. You can't waive it to zero. But in outside of article three, if we're talking like master plan stuff, I'm not certain if it defers to article three or if there's separate language that allows it to go all the way to zero in the board's waiver authority. So given that this is gonna have to be continued to get a subdivision plan, my recommendation is to understand their request and provide some feedback on it. Sure. Okay. Does the board have any questions about their request before we research it? Before we research it? I didn't have any concerns with the items, they outlined. So we'll put a pin in that. Okay, number nine, staff considering crease front setback is likely appropriate in this case and recommends that the board and applicant identify an amount to which this maximum coverage should be increased. So we would like to increase that to an allowance of 90%. So I'm okay with that 90%. It just seems a bit extreme compared to the, what is it? The district is typically 30%. I mean, I'm okay with the 90 because it's in line with the building that's out there, which I think is an extremely successful building. And I know the intention is to continue with that pattern of development. I'm just wondering where that split has occurred from our LDRs and what we're actually encouraging and wanting to see. I think it's because we're bringing the building so far forward, you know, like normally if you had a deep setback, there would be quite a bit of green space. Right. So, and it's, I don't think we'll actually get to 90%. It'll probably be more like 70, 75. But we just want to kind of have maximum flexibility. Yeah, we had 90% written into the state storm water permit for that area as a maximum. We don't believe we'll get to that level, but we were just trying to find consistency with that storm water permit. Comments for questions? So, Hang on a second. I mean, Mark, are you concurring with the applicant's judgment because I intended to defer to your judgment? Yeah, what I'm saying is that, my only question wasn't questioning the applicant was more questioning our regulations call for 30%. They're asking for 90, which I can see why they're asking for 90. And I agree because I think if they're using the first building that was developed as sort of the standard for what they're going to be doing, I can see why 90%. I'm just questioning, you know, why is that split between our regulations and here? And do we want to look at making it so that the applicant doesn't have to come in and ask for, you know, 90% or 30% of the regulations? Do we want to look at adjusting our regulations for specific targeted areas? I think the difference, like they're proposing almost kind of like a city center market street vibe. And there is no, as you know, there's no front setback coverage here. The front setback coverage applies to the C1R15. And because of the nature of their PUDs, that's why they would ask for the waiver, but typically we're looking at like auto dealerships and kind of bigger box store type things. And you kind of want the front yard vibe. That's what the rules say. So the reason that they wouldn't want that is because they're doing something in a PUD. It's a case by case basis. You presented why and we as a board or- And it's also the same, basically the same area, right? 30% of 30 feet, nine feet. Right, yeah, that's true. 10 feet is nine feet. You've done the math, okay. Yeah, okay. I'm fine with the request. Number 10, staff considers that increased overall in building coverage is likely appropriate in this case and recommends that the board and applicant identify an amount to which this maximum coverage should be increased for individual lots within the PUD. It's a very similar to sort of my last comment that will be some areas that we're gonna ask for the 90% allowance again for this. And Marla had reminded me just a couple of seconds ago that if the board isn't comfortable with the blanket waiver at the master plan level, you can defer and you can go through this on a site plan by site plan basis. But if you're happy with 90%, that's totally fine too. Just wanted to make sure we were aware of that option. I think the 90% also is tied to the master plan application that they're submitting which is not showing 90%. So it's like we're giving them up to 90 but we're seeing on the master plan site plan review that the current plan that we're seeing that is definitely not a 90% building coverage. So I mean... So are you saying you'd be more comfortable with granting a waiver now that represented what's shown on the plans and then considering a higher waiver at a later stage of review? That's probably a safer way of saying yes. I mean, honestly, I'm fine with what we're seeing and if the applicant's just asking for a number that gives them the flexibility of not having to do the calculations on a lot by lot basis, you know? I mean, we can still give you those calculations when we come for site plan. Why don't you give us those calculations, yeah. But what we're saying is that some of those buildings close to Shelburne Road could be up close to 90%. Right, so couldn't we do just site by site instead of the entire application? Yeah. That's what I would prefer, right? Because I think there are some places that... Obviously aren't going to be even close. I mean, basically, we're going through this as a master plan review and I think, you know, what I'm saying as we go through the review, we have to be all comfortable. But what I'm seeing in the plans we've reviewed to date, I'm okay with and we need to refine that. So, you know, whatever the changes and waivers and the adjustments we need to do, I want to make sure that we do them, but we do them so that we're approving it to what we're seeing, not giving sort of like a blanket approval that takes away from the control we see on the screen before. I'm looking at the plan, not the words. That would be my preference as well. Okay, fire it lot by lot for this particular waiver. And just to clarify, the previous waiver were okay with the blanket? Yeah. And this one we want lot by side by side by side. Yeah. All right. Because I think that's a different type of criteria than what we're going to get from a site plan. Sure. Yeah, I just want to make sure I have my notes right. Okay, thank you. Number 11, staff recommends the board include a condition of approval that the applicant update sheet C-3 to include existing and planned transit routes. Okay. Thank you. Could you roll it down to number 11? Yeah, I was going to try and do a little side by side. Just a second. That's not a good side by side. Are we ready to move on? Yeah. Okay. I think we should pull up a better plan meanwhile. Number 12, this is about the vehicle drop off area. And the staff sense was that its present is not in keeping with the intent of the LDRs and the rest of this master plan proposal. Yeah, I think the plan that we're showing right now is just a concept and we'd be happy to revisit it. We just think it's a site plan review issue. Okay. So you'll understand the concern. We understand the concern, yeah. Thank you. Comments, questions? Yeah, I think just that this kind of goes to the nature of I think probably kind of Frank's concerns in my hopeful plan for this is that just showing a kind of a concept at this stage compared to wanting to approve a final master plan. These are some of the details that we kind of want hashed out that more meet the regulations so that we don't see something so different that it is inherently different than what we're approving of the master plan. Yeah, I mean, our understanding is that this doesn't violate the regulations. It just is maybe not the intent of the regulations and it might be a question of scale or we just might have more information once we understand the occupants of that building too. Yeah, and once we have an architect on board to actually design the building with us, so. Yeah, so it sounds again just to kind of repeat what's said but at this point in time, you guys understand the concern and we'll be prepared to answer these types of questions when you come in for that particular parcel and yeah, okay, great. Okay, great. Number 13, it relates to slopes and wondering your thoughts about the staff comment. Yeah, I believe the majority of the steep slopes kind of surround the natural resource, which we are avoiding as part of this project as discussed in earlier sections. I think as far as protection, our biggest protection is avoidance and then further protections would probably come from the erosion prevention and sediment control plans for each individual site plan, which we can address during site plan. Okay, questions, comments? Yeah, I think on that one, I just was noting like you had, I mean, so the city regulations identify like a certain number of environmental hazards and natural resources and you had identified each and every one of those that were on your property except steep slopes and I just, you know, maybe it's a little bit redundant to have you call out the steep slopes if all the steep slopes are within the river corridor, but it is an ask of the land development regulations and I just was wondering if you had done the analysis and realized, oh, that we don't have any or if you just hadn't done the analysis yet, so that was the point of this comment. No, so we did the analysis and it was pretty much all in that area and the plan was starting to get a little messy, so we were gonna add a note, maybe that note just got deleted, but all those steep slopes are pretty much in that river corridor. Sure, and if you wanted to add a supplemental sheet, that way we can just take our box and say the applicant did assess this natural resource or slash environmental hazard and then you could just do like a C-101 and we could append that or whatever, just that we have it for the record. Staff and the board feel that. Yeah, I would, sorry, I would just echo that as well because when we were talking about the elements we might vest, it was natural resource impacts, right? So if that's something we wanna vest as far as your impacts moving forward, just having that really clear, I think is helpful. So if you guys have the analysis can provide the sheet, I think it'll be good, helpful to have. First, great. Number 14, this is regarding street name approval. We're okay with what was suggested. Number 15, this is regarding the bike pad connection to the west. Now, I have a question about this. It's the last few words are and the proposed development to the west. I assume you were referring to the development proposed development where we went in a site vision. Farrell, yeah. What is it? The Farrell waterfront. Farrell, thank you. Allenwood. Is that really to the west or to the south? That's a good point. I think the development area is kind of more south, you're right, it's down the road a little bit, but technically the whole parcel. Okay. But you're right that the development area would be more south than most probably. Thank you. So what are your thoughts about this? We're happy to have that in road be informally used as a bike path and pedestrian path. I don't know if that fully answers the question. I think I brought this up just because at Sketch and also at the Farrell Sketch, we were sort of focusing kind of honing in on this. You know, maybe a bike path connection between the two. And based on comments from our DPW and from the applicant here, it seems like maybe it's not the most feasible. And so, I guess that kind of kicks the can a little bit, but it does seem like it's a tricky spot where the river corridor goes across the entire length of the property and you can't develop new impervious and a natural resource like that. So they would not be able to build a new separate non-connected bike path, kind of leaving usage of the existing paved in road as the only sort of access. It's not kind of what had been brought up in Sketch. Kind of Sketch was sort of a little bit more idealistic, but DPW doesn't want to maintain another railroad crossing and the applicant is constrained by the existing natural resources on the property. So I know that that was something that we had talked about and just wanted to make sure that you had the opportunity to review sort of the newer, less formalized plans that people could still bike that way. I just want to be on a protected bike path. Violet, could you orient us on this site plan you have up there, another one? We're looking at the in road, right? As the only. Right, should I go back to the one that's more zoomed out? I mean, the inroads on this one, it's kind of the windy gray road through the neighborhood park. Yeah, so they're proposing kind of parking and then a vehicle turnaround on the east side of it. And then it would be private access only like for the one house that's proposed on there right now. So. Yeah, I think actually the drive is gated at the railroad tracks though. Yeah, I think my understanding, I mean it's preliminary right now, but I heard the gate will be moving to the other side of the road tracks. But I guess that if the development goes forward, so that's. Okay, number 16, this is regarding utility improvements and we're interested in what kinds of above ground infrastructure may be required to support this development. Yeah, we don't right now foresee the need for like a large substation, like electrical substation. We do imagine there will be some pad or fault mounted transformers that will be kind of located during site plan when we evaluate where those are needed. I kind of maybe some other sort of communications vaults and stuff like that would probably be the above the limit of the above ground. But nothing at this time, you're anticipating that you would put on the plans and we would say, whoa, go back and redo your master plan. This is crazy. I don't believe so. As long as you're okay with like a transformer vault. Questions? I see shaking heads, so that's good. 17, are blocks proposed? So we are not proposing any blocks. There is sort of by definition of blocks an existing block that is on the, in the project and that's sort of blocked out by Shelburne Road, Phant Road and what will be real road and then slip road. But we're not proposing any. That kind of already exists. Questions? Number 18. Can we just hold up on that one for a sec? Yeah, I guess just when Marl and I were looking at it, we were thinking, you know, since Lark and Terrace doesn't exist all the way yet and slip road doesn't really exist at all, we were thinking maybe this does constitute the creation of maybe two blocks, being Phant, Shelburne, slip, Larkin and then slip, Larkin, Phant, real. I mean, because if they're not proposed to exist, they don't really exist today in the sense that you can't circulate and just wanted to flag for you at this stage that probably we would consider those to be new blocks and that new blocks would have to meet the subdivision standards for blocks which are listed above. So just more just kind of putting this on your radar is hey, we know you said you weren't creating new blocks but maybe we would technically disagree and if we were gonna technically disagree, we would require the new blocks to meet the standards and I did some quick measurements and it looks like they're fine but I just wanted to make sure that you were aware of that requirement. Yeah, we went back and did the same calculations and it seems like it works. Yeah, which is, it's just good intuitive design I guess. Yeah. Okay, good. Moving on to 18. A little comment above. The applicant appears to have, pardon me, included neighborhood park in the non-buildable area row. So this really is about asking for a correction. Yep, we can correct that. Thank you. Number 19, trip generation data. We will need that, please. So I think this was actually asking about existing, what's existing on the site. And we did provide that probably back with the original submission before COVID but we can update the plan with the 549 that is existing. Okay, is that good board? Okay. Number 20, staff recommends the board require the applicant to estimate a maximum wastewater system demand or clarify that the estimated water and wastewater demands are identical. These are very preliminary numbers but they would be identical at this time. Thank you. Number 21, staff recommends the board include a condition of approval in this decision that stormwater treatment be evaluated on a phase by phase basis. We're okay with that. Okay. 22, this is about stormwater treatment and the analysis, is it sufficient? So I think this is maybe coming from maybe not completely realizing that sort of that block upfront is already part of an existing stormwater permit. So buildings one, two, three, seven and portions of six are actually already on a stormwater permit. They go to that pond and it's 90% development of that area. So that's why there's not a whole lot of little blue shapes shown in that area but we do feel that the shapes we have shown on the plan is sufficient. Are you gonna be able to retrofit that pond to meet the current standards, stormwater standards? I don't believe we have to because it's up to date. It is, the pond is currently meeting the current stormwater standards. Yes, it's got a 90-50. Because from a city perspective it's considered redevelopment so it would have to meet fully meet our standards but so if you're saying it does, then that's fine. Yeah, it fully meets the state standards which are consistent with the city. Okay, mostly. Mostly. Number 23, this is regarding park space and is it adequate? Staff recommends that the board and applicant discuss which, if any of the features included in this illustrative concept should be required to be included in the application to construct the park. Yeah, and I think we would just prefer to discuss this site plan when we've have more information about required landscape budget and things like that because that might impact what we include in terms of, okay. Does that work for us? I'm fine with that because it's pretty much giving us another bite at the apple, so yeah. Okay, good. Sorry, can I just ask a question? What phase is this park proposed in? It's split between phase one and phase two. Okay, so it's not like they're gonna paint themselves into a corner and say we're not gonna be able to do a part, okay. Because we've been there on other projects. Okay, number 24. This is the dimensions of the blocks. But you're saying there are no blocks, correct? Well, I think staff is saying that there are blocks. Okay. Yeah, and I think we said that, yeah, I think both of us did calcs and they meet the dimensions. I didn't hear the last part. I think both Marty and our office did calculations in retrospect and they meet the criteria dimensionally. Okay. Number 25. This is in regard to, pardon me, minimum lot size waiver. If the applicant elects to request such a waiver, to what size should the minimum lot size be reduced? Yeah, so this changes now with my realization on the first part. We can put a pin in it for now and if we're gonna continue this. Yeah, and we can come back. I mean, we have to supply you with the conceptual subdivision anyways. So I'll have a better idea of the exact number at that point, if that works. Good. Number 26. Staff recommends the board and applicant discuss reasonable limitations to building heights as informed by the preceding paragraphs. Yeah, so I think for the townhomes, we were thinking about giving ourselves a range of maybe 22 to 44 feet. And then for all other buildings, we were thinking 44 to 76 feet. And I think 76 is the maximum allowed. What is the current height of the building that's out there? One, you have some vertical elements on it, that's why I'm asking. Yeah. We can look into that. Yeah, I just be curious to see, you're asking for up to 76 feet. How much higher would that be than that one to see, you know? And what is the setback from public roads of buildings that would be as high as 76 feet? Are you gonna, I would want to delimit that in some way. Is there enough coherence in the plan to be able to answer the question yet? Well, we had asked for 10 feet along Shelburne and Fayette, but then we were asking for one foot on real road. And, you know, we don't intend to cover that entire road, as you can see, like right up to that one foot setback, but. So you intend the buildings on real road to be 70 feet high? Not necessarily. Up to that. As much as 70 feet high. How high is the building on the corner of Fayette Drive? That's what we said. We're gonna check in and bring it next time. So we have. I'm sorry. I would speculate it's like in the mid fifties though. That's what I'm guessing. I guess I would, I would want it, I don't know, Mark. I'll take instruction. You know, I would kind of want the height limited by the corner building. Potentially, but I mean, I guess if you're asking for, you know, if the zoning districts, what, up to five stories? Yeah, five stories, a hypothetical maximum of 76 feet. Okay. You know, and if the building on the corner, it's four stories, but that, that vertical helmet is basically a fifth story. You know, you know, I think, I guess I'm just, not, there's no concerns. It's more just curious how would 76 feet potentially fit within that development and where would you be proposing and how would it, because the scale that you've established, and that's kind of the basis of everything I'm reviewing has a really nice feel to it. And I'm, my only concern is to approve up to a certain height if it's going to change the feel of the development compared to what's already been sort of, we have a built element out there to go with, which gives me confidence to approve some of these waivers and lot coverages and things like that. So I kind of, I'm, I'm a little concerned about approving something that's much higher than what's out there. That's all I'm saying. Yeah, and I think from, from our end, we haven't hired an architect yet, so we don't want to like get too, too narrowed down, but we can, when we come back, we can bring the height of that existing building. And if we want to address this then. Can I make a comment from here, of course? Sure. I think our interest was to make sure we had the ability to use height where, where we thought, and where this board thought was appropriate. Show that in 76 feet. Feel 376 foot tall, but it's insane. Yeah. But, so maybe there's a way we can do it in certain areas. Right. Okay. I'm not saying I'm opposed to it, I just need more information. Yeah. I think staff, just for what it's worth, was kind of coming at it from the opposite side as well. Like if for whatever reason mark conditions changed and big box stores were back, we would be a little bit bummed if we did all this work to permit this. And you went one story on everything. So we were kind of wondering if maybe there's a floor as well that is sort of necessitated through the level of investment. That's what's meant by the lower numbers. You said 44 or 76. 44 would be the minimum. Cool. Yeah. Okay. Just wanted to find that. Pardon me. We're almost at time. Let's do one more question. Number 27, this relates to parking spaces and the lack of a turnaround. So we are showing or we have striped out a spot for a turnaround right at the end of slip road before you would have to exit out onto Shelburne Road. It is not a turnaround that would facilitate a truck or a fire truck or something like that. But I do not believe that was the intent of the question. The intent of the question I believe was if somebody drives down there looking for a parking spot, they would have enough space with a normal car to turn back around and look somewhere else. You're talking about just that little, like, 10, 20 by 20 car? Yeah, because that's an exit only. So I think the worry was if somebody drives down there looking for a spot, they wouldn't have a place to kind of make a quick turnaround and come back. But we do have a little one there for your average car. Yeah, I mean, it's not a requirement of the LDRs. I just was reviewing the plans and I was like, I wonder if they've thought about this but I just missed it in the plans. And we couldn't put a sign there. Oh, I mean, fine, I just didn't see it. Okay. Sorry that I did want to add to that. The new park alignment also helps out with sort of a hammerhead. And our intent is to eventually make that compliant with town regulations. Okay. I think that's where we have to end it tonight. Pardon me. We will ask for a public comment and then, pardon me, set a date for you to come back. So let's take a pause and I'll ask if there are any, pardon me, members of the public who would like to provide comments, any online? Not seeing any at this time. Okay. Do we have a date? Normally we talk about this in advance when we kind of didn't today. Just a moment. Sure. Bear with us, please. Marla just said that we have availability at the next meeting. So that'd be the second, no, sorry, the first February or the first March, but second February is taken. So first February would require that some like updated materials and research is into us like in a week and then be heard in two weeks from tonight or I guess a week and six days. Oh, that's right. The first meeting of February. So just to be clear, those items were the conceptual subdivision plan and then the updated plan for three and the updated plan with the steep slopes and then a height on the existing Larkin building. That's what I have in my notes, yeah. The block calculations too, right? You talked about them being blocks. You did calculations for that, but they're not included in them. Oh, true, yeah. The block size calculations. Oh, yeah. Which we both did, but are not reflected in the staff report. And then keep in mind some things can be conditions of approval too, like the showing the steep slopes and corrections at tables and things can be conditions. They don't have to be, if everybody feels good about them, they don't have to be shown before closing. So our next meeting is the seventh of February, the sixth of February. Sixth, I'm so used to Wednesdays. The sixth of February and you can do that? Yes. Okay, thank you. So I would entertain a motion to continue this hearing for MP 2301. I'll make a motion. We continue master plan application MP 2301 of John Larkin, Inc. to February 6th. I'll second that. Any discussion? All in favor? All right. All opposed? Nope. Thank you. We'll see you back here in a few weeks. I am accused from the next. All right, moving on to number six. Those who are here for the Habitat for Humanity Project, you can come to the front where the microphones are. And our normal chair, Dawn, is recused. She's on the board of Habitat, so. Good evening. Good evening. Welcome. So I'll just start by reading the project description we have here. The variance application VR2401 of Green Mountain Habitat for Humanity for approval to modify the dimensional standards applicable to an existing residential building lot. The modification that consists of the minimum that will afford relief from the unique conditions that preclude development in strict conformity with the land development regulations 58 Wright Court. And are you gonna be the only one speaking on behalf of this application tonight? Yes. Could you state your name? Sure, Robin Pierce. And raise your hand, I'll swear you in. Do you swear to tell the whole truth, nothing but the truth under penalty of perjury? I do. Excellent, thank you so much. So to start, I think you were in the audience, so you saw a little bit how this worked. We have the staff report. There's some items that we wanna chat through. And I just gave a brief overview of the application, but did you wanna start with a little introduction? We can bring up the initial site plan as well, kind of showing the variance that's being requested as well if that's helpful. I'll give you a little bit of background. I'm sure we're familiar with Green Mountain Habitat for Humanity. We provide affordable home ownership housing to people who work for this, generally to 400 hours of volunteer time. We sell the houses at our cost. We're not developers. We consider ourselves not just house builders, but community builders. We take people out of rental housing, the vagaries of rental housing, where every year the rent can go up and give people stability. And that's what we're looking to do. In a state, in a country that's crying out for affordable housing, this is one way to do it. And the reason I'm on the other side of the fence the first time I was Community Development Director in Essex Junction for 14 years. So this feels a bit different, I gotta say. But what we're trying to do is bring good people into good communities and have them integrate into the communities. And this is our first attempt. We're very happy when the land was purchased that seemed like we don't have a single family home and it was more expensive than we'd normally pay for a piece of land for a single family home, but with Act 47, we cannot have a duplex. So that's what we're hoping to do, although each of our units can't be more than 1,300 square feet. So we're not building big houses. And this duplex will have the scale of most of the other properties along the road in on the site and feed fairly well into the urban landscape. Excellent, thank you for that overview. And we can dive into the comments. The first one, staff recommend the board discuss this criterion with the applicant to assess whether there exists a unique physical circumstance or condition that both A is peculiar to this particular property and B creates an unnecessary hardship beyond those hardships created by the LDRs as they apply to this property. So I will just start the discussion by saying I think this meets that criteria as far as the shape of the lot, the orientation of the other homes in the neighborhood around it. Other thoughts from the board? Excellent, we'll move on to number two. Staff recommends the board discuss this criterion with the applicant to assess whether there is a possibility that the property can be developed in strict conformity with the LDRs. And so specifically we are looking with the LDRs would allow for a building envelope of five feet depth by 170 feet length. So that's without the variance, right? Correct, yeah. Okay, so I think similarly, we're just going through the threshold to here, right? Yeah, like a little bit of, I guess, process backgrounds. Oh, sorry, yeah, you can. No, no, you're fine. So I've only been here a year and a half, but there hasn't been a variance done in my time. And I don't know how far back, Marla, we'd have to go to find another variance, but they're very infrequent, not common, because as you can see in this report, the standards criteria for granting variance are very strict, very high. Like it says here, there's no possibility that the property can be developed in conformity with our bylaw. And so the idea is that municipalities bylaws are, they cover pretty much every scenario. And even if homeowners don't always get what they want, like that's the point and that you're limited in reasonable ways to create the community that we wanna see. And every once in a while, there's a situation in which the bylaws don't wanna apply in a way that is reasonable. And so that's where this comes from. Like I said, it's not super common and these aren't standards from our LDRs, these are standards from state statute. And so for that reason, we kind of stuck really to the script because whereas Marla and I are super familiar with our own LDRs, we're not as familiar with these state standards. And so we just kind of copy and pasted them and then let you know like whether as staff, whether we thought the applicant, whether their project met these criteria, but ultimately the decision is up to you. Excellent, thank you, Marty. So I think I also just repeat, we're looking at a high bar here as far as meeting these criteria. Sorry, Frank, did you have something? I was just wondering what, does the lot meet the statutory minimum lot size? It's an interesting question. Under the LDRs today that, no. However, the lot is pre-existing and so therefore it's developable even though it doesn't meet the minimum lot size. And also with Act 47, requiring a minimum of five units an acre, our minimum lot size is too high anyway to be compliant with the new state Act 47. So our minimum lot size would be superseded anyway to something I think in the high eight thousands. So this would be allowed under Act 47, but that's just a curiosity. It's a moot point because this lot has developed since prior to the time noted in the staff report. And so therefore it's developable because it is a pre-existing lot. Any other questions before we dive back in to this? Okay, so I'm just gonna repeat number two again. Maybe we did come to a conclusion on this, but discuss this criteria with the applicant to assess whether there's a possibility that the property can be developed in strict conformity. So without the variance, if it could be developed, I think I accept staff's kind of analysis here of what would be possible is not a reasonable proposal. I concur. I agree. Excellent. Number three, staff recommends that the board discuss this criteria with the applicant. Oh, sorry, they're worded similarly. A hardship has been created by the applicant. So this is simply a requirement to say that the applicant did not create this for themselves. I think we're in agreement on that. And we will move on to the next criterion. Number four, staff recommends that the board discuss this criteria with the applicant and assess whether the variance, if authorized, will one, alter the essential character of the neighborhood or district in which the property is located, be substantially or permanently impair the appropriate use or development of adjacent property, see reduced access to renewable energy resources or be detrimental to public welfare. If I could just jump in here. So this is kind of the point of the review where things get a little bit more subjective. So the first three criteria are establishing whether or not the property is eligible for variance. And now that we've established by your concurrence with the first three points that it is eligible for variance. Now the board is, it's up to the board to determine what that variance is, what it looks like. There's guidelines from the state. I mean, not guidelines, the criterion. And so you have to ensure that the variance meets the letter of the law for four and for five. So it has to be the minimum variance necessary to allow use of the property and a variance that won't alter the essential character of the neighborhood. So just a little bit of background, I guess in sort of giving a little bit more weight to the idea of a, the minimum variance necessary allowed to, necessary to allow use of this property. The applicant had proposed and staff brought us to you. Just the idea of flipping or rotating and doing nothing beyond that, just rotating the front lot line to be west. And that way the house that's built on this property would be in a lot of ways, very similar to everything that's here already. Just because the applicant has suggested that and staff has sort of recommended it, doesn't mean that that's where the board needs to land. Just that's what we have in front of you. But given that you've concurred with points one through three, it seems that there does need to be a variance approved here. We just are working through what that looks like. And like I said, the applicant has presented something. Does anyone on the board have an alternative kind of proposal or are we all kind of on board with the proposal that's been put forward? Good. I was just gonna say, I don't have, I'm not in opposition to the variance requests. I'm just wondering if we're granting the lot line or the setbacks to allow for a construction of a residence on this lot, why does it matter how we delineate front, rear and sides? Is it just to minimize the size of the variance request? Yeah. And also a new residential construction as per I think article 317 has to be oriented to the front. Right. But oh, I see what you're saying. So if we kept the front as it was, the house would still have to look. Cause we don't have house plans. So what they're basically saying is that the proposal, the house is gonna be oriented to the left. Correct. Yeah. And that was my question too, is have you given any thought as to what this duplex is going to look like if the front is going to be facing north, that you would want to maintain that as a front lot line and we could give you variances on the setbacks. I think we do because there's a narrowness of the lot. If it faced the other way, how would you get vehicles onto the site? What would that do? And also, I don't think we'd want to build a house that is looking straight at the neighbor, you know, the front door looked at the neighbor. I think we'd want to look out just as the contiguous properties do to the west. It's the best way I can work out to make use of the site. I know it's an anachronistic site, but it's a 1967 approval. So that's what happens. Okay. So I just want to make sure that that worked best for you. Is it going to be following sort of like the setback, like the front of your house? Is it kind of kind of be in line with the front of the adjacent house? I don't think we can move back that far with 20% lot coverage. We're good neighbors. We'll make it as far back as we can and still build the house. That's what we've proposed that I met with someone today on yesterday from the neighborhood. And I made that promise to them and we keep our promises. I think, you know, part of that is like Robin's saying, there is a 20% building coverage in this zoning district and then 40% total lot coverage. And technically they're already somewhat restricted in their total lot coverage by the amount of road that's on the property. Technically the variance is supposed to be the minimum waiver necessary to allow construction on the lot and allowing an increase in lot coverage. Maybe you could argue that's above the minimum necessary. However, that may also generate an outcome that's preferable to both the developer and maybe to neighbors as well if the house is able to be set for the back on the lot. I don't know, but that's just something maybe they... Yeah, so reorienting it allows them to meet their front and rear setbacks and they would still need additional setback waiver for the sides as well. No, they can go to five feet as per the LDRs today. Yeah, on the sides. Yeah, we oriented the building envelope to meet today's code requirements, exactly. Did, I understand you correctly. You're saying that with a waiver on lot coverage they could put the face of the building in line with the face of the other houses. That's the... No, I'm sorry. Specifically there wouldn't be enough room out the back of the lot. You'd be elongating the driveway and that would up the lot coverage and we don't know the size of the building yet. So that could have hurdles down the road that we can't anticipate at the moment. But we'll place it in the best position we can. Absolutely, I also need the regulations. So I think the point is without the lot side or the lot coverage waiver, they would be maybe restricted to keeping a shorter driveway to eliminate extra lot coverage. Right. And I guess what I'm thinking if it's a relatively small increase in lot coverage, I'd be inclined to grant them that waiver to let them put the house more in line with the rest of the kind of keep that setback, but that's just me. Do we have to decide that level of detail now as part of the... No, this is just the hearing. The hearing is where you intake information from the applicant and from members of the public who are here. And then you close the hearing if you feel that you have enough information and then make a decision. It does not have to be made tonight. What I'm saying is does the specific application require determination of setbacks at this time? We don't have a building plan yet, right? We don't have a house. Right, but you're not gonna get one because they're asking for a waiver of the... You don't review single-family homes and duplexes. Okay. But you do, right? I do, yeah, right. So you'll make the determinations at that time. We don't have to do that now. But administratively, we don't have the authority to grant a lot coverage waiver. Yeah, we can't waive stuff. To come back, right? So if we wanted to include a lot coverage waiver as part of this variance approval, we can write that into the decision. Is that what I'm hearing? Yeah, and staff can't do that on their own. And also you could, I guess, only do that if you, as a board, felt that that was in line with state statute requiring that you only allow the minimum variance necessary, right? Do we think we have enough information to decide that in deliberation as far as if we feel the minimum necessary would just be the change in orientation or if we would want to consider a change in lot coverage? Well, let me ask, let's ask the applicant. Do you feel you need additional lot coverage, building coverage to make this building in line with the rest of the neighborhood? I mean, that's... I mean, are we talking about more than what the applicant is asking for? Yeah, number one, number two, just looking at the aerial view. To pull it back would make the front of the building about 44% back from the front property line. You know, I'd rather just get approval of the variance proposal and if we can work something out that needs to come back to the board and say, look, we're doing this for really good reasons. We talked about it. We didn't know that we could make the standards, but we've worked through it with the architect and we can make the standards. Then I think we have enough information. Anyone else on this point? They're not asking for it, I don't think we should offer it. Yeah, it's the minimum. Right, let them come back and ask if they feel they need it. Okay, I'm gonna go back to number four. I feel like this is kind of like four questions in one since we have four criteria listed here. So assess whether the variance will alter the essential character of the neighborhood or district. I think we asked some good questions about that. No concerns there. Substantially or permanently impair the appropriate use or development of adjacent property. I don't have concerns about, okay, we're there, there. And the third one is a question I'm not really sure how to analyze, so maybe staff or board have thoughts about that reduced access to renewable energy resources. Do you know what height building you're looking at, putting in? It'll be a two-story building. The one next to it looks two-story by the picture, so it should be a problem. If they're gonna put a four-story building in next to it, shade it out. Shade it, yep. Is that the extent of kind of renewable? That was the only thing that came to mind is for me as well as solar. Yeah, I mean, like I said, these are state regs and I'm not 100% certain. I do know there's a whole separate variance process for renewable energy generation features, and so I wonder if maybe this is just a nod to that. Yes, okay, good point. All right, so no concerns there, and then, or be detrimental to public welfare. No concerns there. All right. Can I ask a question? Yes, of course. In front of the lot, there's already road access. Yes. Is that going to be continued or are you looking, I mean, is that supposed to be there? Is that connection supposed to be occurring? From a staff perspective, this is super weird. I don't know why, like we wouldn't even have to do a variance if the front lot line for this one were just in line with the one to it's north, this would just be standard. Right court extension to the best of my knowledge is a private road, right court, the other way is public to the best of my knowledge, right court extension, that chunk there is private, and then even though it's paved and that access has been taken, given, used for a long time, probably longer than the 15, I don't know why it's like that, but that is functionally like a through way right now. I don't know if it's allowed to be used or what. I guess that would be a good question. If it's currently used as a private road, but there's essentially it's operating as kind of like a public pass through, is this property going to be granting an easement for the continued use of it? I don't know. Okay, you know. It's something we thought about. I mean, when we, again, being good neighbors, when we work out, I mean, priority number one is the two affordable homes. Right. If we can get that and make it work, then we'll make it work. I guess my question is by granting this and allowing the development, are we going to be potentially cutting off what has been historically an access, even if it's private and not a public road? Yeah, it's interesting. I mean, I looked, you can see up there, there's a head on car against the garages. It's not striped. So I'm assuming that they're not official parking spaces. Right. So I mean, I've driven it. There's a couple of little red marks in the ground before it's known. So I drove through to see if I could get through. And you do drive a little bit on the grass, just where it terminates below the word row. Right. And there's also a sign up there that says emergency vehicles only. When you're going north, you can get through. It's, you have to slow down. I'm not sure that's a bad thing in a residential neighborhood. But if we'll accommodate as much of that as an official, a lot of facial, I pass through as well. This isn't, it's been surveyed, right? This is from the state website or from the... Cory, this is just from our town, parcel viewer, that's why the green line doesn't match up with the front lot line there is because the deed has, this has like a square lot and our parcel viewer, for one, doesn't even separate the house to the north from this lot. And it also, it has a weird angle there. So you're right that this is... It might be shifted. Right. Everything has shifted. Right, this isn't a survey. So access to this lot is going to be from right court extension? Yes. Everything I've looked at tells me that right court extension stops. At the property line. At the property line. Okay. Anything else? In number five, the last criteria is that the variance represents the minimum variance that will afford relief and represents the least deviation possible from the LDRs. I think we're good on that. We haven't have, excellent. So that were, was all the comments. Do you have any final? No, I'd actually like to thank staff because they've been great at moving us through the process and we really appreciate it. Excellent, thank you. And I will just check to see if there are any public comments on this one. Yes. And there's a little push and just make sure it turns bright green. Can you hear me? Yeah. Okay. Thank you for allowing us to have public comments. I'm Zach Smith. I'm the homeowner of 46 Right Court, which is the neighboring property to the north there. And likewise, I'd like to thank Marty for just being helpful and getting this information in prepping for this. So I'll just say upfront, I'm in support of Habitat for Humanity. I think it's a great organization. And honestly, it's my opinion that this lot is just not practically sized for a single family home and much less a duplex in my opinion. And so I'm not against Habitat for Humanity as an organization. I am against this variance because I think the fitting of a single family home or duplex in a 50 foot lot is really squeezing it. And the point of my comments that I want to try and focus today is on number four there, specifically the part of A where it says will alter the essential character of the neighborhood and D where it references the welfare of our neighborhood. So I did a little bit of digging on like why did this lot come about? Why is there a 50 foot lot that's just kind of squeezed amongst other lots? And it looks like when it was sold to the Dumont brothers who are developers in 1966, there was a provision that when the Dumont brothers transfer the deed, they have to give the opportunity to Richard Gracie, which is the former owner of my home at 46 right court, the opportunity to buy an 80 foot lot next to his home. And it appears as if that was an opportunity to provide a little bit of a buffer zone from the apartment complex that the Dumont brothers built on that lot. For whatever reason, he didn't buy an 80 foot lot, he bought a 50 foot lot. So it appears as if he just bought it as a privacy easement on the south side there of 46 right court. And that is the purpose that has served for the last 60 years since it was transferred to Richard Gracie in 1967. Sorry, 55 years, I guess. So in light of that, I just bring that up to kind of talk to the, I guess the character of the neighborhood in that it appears as if the lot was originally sold not with the purpose of building on that lot, but rather providing a privacy buffer to the apartment complex. That is next to 46 right court and right court extension there. So a couple of comments on the essential character of the neighborhood. In point four there, Marty laid out basically that my home and our neighboring home were allowed to have five foot setbacks. In reality, we have a 15 foot setback towards the 58 right court property. So we have 15 feet and then they would be allowed to have a five foot setback in addition to that. So I bring that up because the average setback in our neighborhood is 17 and a half feet, which allows 34, 35 feet between houses. And so some of those are narrower than that, but many of them are wider than that. And if this was, this variance was allowed, then there would be basically a five foot setback from the habitat property against our property line and a total of 20 feet between our principal structure and the habitat structure as they're allowed to build it there. So in the sense that the average setback in the neighborhood is 17 and a half feet and this variance would allow them to have a five foot sidelot line setback. I think it does alter the essential character of the neighborhood and in the density of the neighborhood as it is established now. Additionally, if we look at the uniformity of the houses, my house 46 right court has a greater than 50 foot setback from right court extension. And then our neighbor has a 40 foot setback from right court extension there. And then if the variance was granted here, the front lot line extends into that paved portion that was shown on the screen there. And with a 30 foot setback, which is allowed by the LDR, that would basically allow habitat to build all the way up to the paved portion. And then that would be 40 feet in front of like the average front line of the houses on my side of the street there. So in that sense, a building that's 40 feet out in front is visible to the other buildings on my side of the street, but also is not in the essential character of the neighborhood as it stands now, in my opinion. Lastly, I'll talk to point D of note four there, detrimental to public welfare. The passageway there has been used ever since I've lived there and ever since Mr. Russell, the neighboring property owner has owned the property for the last 30 years. Ever since he's owned the property, it's been used by emergency vehicles, snow plows, utility trucks, USPS, UPS, FedEx. There's all sorts of traffic that goes through there. And so I looked into some of the deeds and I think it's clear that there is included a right-of-way. It says in common with others over and through right court. This was included in the deed that was transferred to the Demont Brothers that included the clause that basically this lot be subdivided. And then the deed itself for 58 right court does not contain any verbiage about a right-of-way. However, it does reference the previous deed, which was transferred to both Mr. Gracie and the Demont Brothers as including a right-of-way. So for that purpose, I would say that there is a right-of-way there and then that would basically eat about 30 feet of the lot thereof because it's my understanding that the setback couldn't start until the right-of-way. So if there's not a right-of-way, then basically Habitat would be able to build all the way up to the asphalt. If there is a right-of-way, that's my understanding that the setback would have to be another 30 feet back from that, which would further reduce the lot size to less than the minimum lot size in our district. You're looking at me, just to jump in, I think there's a difference between right-of-way and easement. I don't know what the verbiage in that deed is, but if it's an easement, then the right-of-way would still be, the property line would be the property line, but if it is a true right-of-way, then the property line would start there. So there's a slight technical difference. Yep, I have copies of all the deeds if you'd like to look at the verbiage. No, no, just you were just looking at me to jump in, so I just jumped in. Got it. I just looked at you regarding the minimum lot size. Could you mention Article 47? I don't know what they've established it to, but if you established that there is a right-of-way there that would reduce the lot size to about 7,500 square feet, which is, I believe, less than the proposed new. Well, that would depend on whether the right-of-way reduces the lot size, which it doesn't. Well, it's whether it's a right-of-way or if it's an easement. It doesn't reduce the lot size at either of them. Are we clear that's where the property line is? Because you do go online to the viewer, right? Yeah, we've looked in the land records at the deeds, and the deeds specify the property dimensions. Specified what, I'm sorry? The property dimensions, as Marty has shown them, in the blue and red, rather than the... I think probably what you have is, well, it's like 180 by 50. Right, and what I'm referencing for lot sizes in the LDR is it says that it's the lot dimensions apart from any right-of-ways that exists amongst those lot dimensions. So I think it's in the definition of a lot area. It is the size of the lot exempting any right-of-ways on that line. Is that right? I don't know if it's down my head, but it's not like it's not our duty right now. It's not your duty right now to do that. If we receive a zoning permit application on a lot that's too small to develop, we would deny that application. But right now, the application is the task before you. It's just that you're not title searchers. You're just processing a variance request. If I could just summarize, I think it does alter the essential character of the neighborhood by allowing a setback that's significantly less than the average in the neighborhood that's established already. I think the ability for Habitat to build significantly forward of the other houses on right-court extension there also alters the essential character of the neighborhood and then detrimental to public welfare. I think most of the homeowners on right-court and right-court extension would agree that most trucks have to go through there. It's really tight to get down the single lane of right-court itself. And when I've seen utility trucks or emergency vehicles go down our road, they always go through the right-court extension right-of-way there, because it's impractical really to use right-court itself. And if there is a truck parked there, it's impossible for us to get out unless there is a right-of-way there. Very good, thank you. Thank you very much. Are there any other public comments? Yep, go ahead. And if the bright light isn't still on the microphone, just click the push, and it should glow. And state your name, press. Hi, my name is Amy Trushan. I live at 34, right-court. Our house faces south down across right-court and onto right-court extension in the existing right-of-way. I'd like to echo some of the comments of Zach and also publicly state my objection to the variance application. And as Zach did also to thank you all for letting us participate in this process. We have close to 60% of our property owners from right-court that are represented here tonight, either in person or online. And I have some questions, too, that we're starting to surface in the discussion. And some of those are related to the dimensions of the lot because there do seem to be some inconsistencies with what is in this packet in terms of the way the lot is in a site plan is presented as a rectangular lot. But then when you look at the parcel viewer, and I can see some of those lines here in the diagonal line and I'm looking at the deed for the lot, it does show that it is not a truly rectangular lot. And so I have questions about what the actual dimensions and the square footage, what these inconsistencies mean for the proposed site plan that's contained in here, how it impacts the right-of-way and the setbacks of this lot. And I think those things then greatly impact the items that are referenced in the state's statutes, specifically in section four that say the variance of authorize would not alter the essential character of the neighborhood or district in which the property is located, substantially or permanently impair the appropriate use or development of adjacent property, reduce access to renewable energy resources, or be detrimental to the public welfare. And I'd like to suggest that if the variance is granted and the west lot line becomes the front lot line, there are implications for resident safety, public welfare, impairment to the appropriate use of the adjacent property, which is 300 Heinsberg Road. And the site plan would, in fact, alter the essential character of the right-court neighborhood in the northwest quadrant of South Burlington. Reorienting the lot line and subsequent development is described in the application depicted in the site plan would have implications for access to the street and right-of-way. It is our concern that if the road is disrupted, discontinued, which is that extension, because the front lot line would then be sitting in that space, emergency vehicles would not be able to gain the necessary access or have the appropriate ability to turn around or exit 300 Heinsberg Road or right court, which is now currently possible. We witnessed the challenges that large utility vehicles, emergency vehicles and waste removal trucks encounter almost daily on the street, which causes them to drive on our median, removing branches from our trees on a regular basis, and this is not in emergency situations. Pedestrian safety, the east side of Route 116, which I realize is a state road, does not have sidewalks nor does right-court. And there are no crosswalks to assist in crossing Route 116 to gain access to other South Burlington streets and eventually resources like the bike path from right court. For this reason, I and others use the right court extension right-of-way on an almost daily basis to create a safe route to other neighborhoods and portions of our city. What I originally considered to be a luxury has become a necessity in recent years to avoid having to walk on the shoulder of 116 to get the nearest neighborhoods on the east side of Heinsberg Road, essentially Proudie Parkway and Mayfair Park, and the nearest crosswalk, which is also across from the mouth of Proudie Parkway to get the sidewalks for recreation, walking and biking to school, et cetera. Our neighborhood does not receive high scores for being a pedestrian neighborhood and allowing for this variance would further impede this. Impairment to the appropriate use of the adjacent property, 300 Heinsberg Road. If lot orientation is adjusted, 300 Heinsberg Road would not be able to maintain appropriate use of its buildings and facilities, namely the maintenance garage office that is a part of an existing structure and sits due west of the proposed front lot line, like within maybe in some of the pictures you can see there's that car that's parked there. So essentially from the aerial view, it looks like a car in change. Let's see. Alter the essential character of the right court neighborhood in the northwest quadrant of South Burlington. In a short period of time, I familiarized myself with the array of definitions related to this application. Although the word character or characterize is used throughout the newly amended LDRs and the Vermont state statutes, nowhere is it defined. By reading named neighborhood descriptions or regulations for proposed large scale developments, it can be ascertained that essential character is defined by conglomerate of considerations like architectural features, orientation to the street, access to the street, green space, recreational amenities and historical significance. Right court is a unique with its tree line median and border to the northeast of Resurrection Park. Many who live in South Burlington have never frequented the street. It is quiet. There's not high turnover on right court. It was originally agrarian land and maybe one of the oldest streets in South Burlington. It is part of the northwest quadrant, which is referred to as a historical portion of the city. The approval of the variance would afford development of a site plan that would allow for architectural and situational anomalies relative to the other 10 structures on the street. Two-story duplex, lot location, lack of street front, lack of access by pedestrians that would not be in keeping with the essential character of this neighborhood. And one last question. The application refers to right court in this lot being in a habitat overlay district. And I'm wondering if you could say more about that. Yeah, that's appropriate. Yeah, so there's habitat block. The application shows that right court is part of the habitat overlay district or block, maybe it's block. And so I'm curious about what that means for right court and the positioning of this lot because on some of the maps, it appears that land very close to this lot, which has recently been completely cleared, are quite close to habitat overlay. Yeah, so the habitat block overlay, there's also a habitat corridor overlay. And they kind of identify like the forested or otherwise naturally significant areas in South Burlington. They have heightened levels of protection from development, but those protections don't apply to habitat block that is on lots of less than one acre. So it's just noted as like a formality in the application because there is habitat block overlay that spills onto this lot, but the regulations specifically exempt lots of less than one acre from having to comply with the standards of the habitat block overlay. I have a question for you. I gather, well, let me just ask the question. If the variants were conditioned such that the current width and access for the right-of-way were preserved, then that concern would be eliminated, right? Some of that concern could be eliminated, but it impacts where then the right-of-way is there. How does that then impact the rest of the setbacks for the street that then begs some other questions about positioning of the home? What does the positioning of the home have to do with the essential character of the neighborhood of the public welfare? Essential character would be similar to what Zach was mentioning, how the placement of the home would not be in alignment with the other homes on the street or positions such that it is kept. Okay, so that's essential welfare as to the placement of the home, but public welfare wouldn't be touched at all regarding the replacement of the home, would it? No, the public welfare would not. Thank you. No, sorry, essential character. Can I, what somebody have touched on? Can I just ask that kind of question? Do you have, you're saying you don't have any proposed architectural plans or anything like that, but you've clearly built a duplex, what do you envision the depth of the duplex being? Probably no more than 35 feet. So it's gonna be probably 40 by 35. It's gonna be the box, the footprint. Max. Max, okay. So I mean, this goes to the question I raised earlier when I said, is there a right of way is the pass through, because the way the lot is, it looks like it terminates. And if you look on anything you look on, Google Earth, Google Maps, the street view, that road that the right court extension seems to be pretty well established pass through, whether it's a legal pass through or it's an established pass through. And the one concern I have, and one thing that I would want to condition on this is that that is maintained. And that if you have 135 foot deep building envelope, you could certainly locate the building envelope of a 35 foot deep by 40 foot wide footprint such that it would not impact that pass through and maintain it and still have enough of a front yard setback, such that maybe you're not in line with 46 right court, but you're certainly not pushing up against the edge of the existing pavement. And any support of mine would be conditioned upon the building envelope not floating within that 135 foot deep envelope, but more constrained to a location that it does fit within the pattern of the existing neighborhood. I don't think we have any problems with that. I'm looking actually second house north of our lot. And it's certainly if that line is consistent, it's certainly if the bunch north of us is 30 feet from the road, then that one's 12 feet from the road. So there's not a consistency. Right, I think, I mean, I hear the neighbor's concerns. I think your concerns where there's not control over where the house gets placed is valid. And I agree that it would if we don't put some controls on the location of the building envelope within that 40 by 135 foot be very easily could impact the essential neighborhood characteristics. I don't, I tend to disagree that just putting anything here would affect the overall neighborhood characteristics because I think there's, you can talk about average, you can talk about what's there and this and that. I think that it's, you've got a mix of houses. You've got some larger houses with deeper setbacks. You have some denser, the apartment building, you've got a garage, you've got, so, I mean, my concerns and my controls over my conditioning of an approval of our variance would be such the location of the house minimizes the impact of what a preexisting condition is already out there. Absolutely, okay. My only concern is the one I expressed, which is that you need to preserve as far as I'm concerned, you need to conserve the pass through. That's mine too. Where it goes, I have less concern than Mark does about the placement of the building. Well, no, that's my placement of the building. Well, it would affect that. It's, yes, my placement of the building. Except to the extent that affects that, obviously. You can't intrude upon the pass through. That's exactly where I was saying this. But I think you should, so you understand we're on that at least, I think you should preserve the pass through as it is. Yeah, I mean, I've had a few conversations with Jack Russell, as Zach mentioned, and it wouldn't be our intention to stop people driving through there. My only concern is that we retain enough profit to build a house that also complies with your regulations. Yeah, I think that with the depth of the lot, you're gonna, we're potentially talking about and you're, you know, the statement that it's about, you know, about 35 foot deep. You've got more than enough room that we can accomplish both. Well, I do have one more question about that pertinent to that, how about the topography of the lot? Isn't there anything about the topography that limits where the location of the house can be? No, it's almost completely flat. Well, it ought to be manageable. Dude, I have one question. Who currently maintains that right court extension? I guess this is one more for the folks testifying. I mean, potholes, is it just a dirt track? The city plows the right court extension to a certain spot and then the owners of 300 Hinesburg Road approach it from their property and they plow all of them. Any, anything else right now, board? Okay, do we have more public comment on this? Any online? So if you're, if you're gonna make a comment, you do have to come up to microphone and just state your name, please. Yeah, so there's a push button and it's your turn, right? Yeah, better. Robin? Yeah, could you, sorry, just to state your name. Yes, my name is Nate Ealy, 40 right court. Thank you. There are, you mentioned at one point that the parking spaces there are not delineated. There are painted lines there. Those are parking spaces and one observation that I have is my understanding as a habitat builds houses and somebody lives there so habitat doesn't maintain control of the property. Somebody owns the property. It's sold to someone. Correct. So you may not have an intention to impede that right away or not allow the continuing use of that right away. But whoever buys that property might say, well, actually we don't want people using this coming by our house. Well, not if the variance needed to happen. So unless, right, unless the variance does specify that that right of way is not impeded by future owners, then that would be right. And I agree with you about bringing the house back further so it does stay in line with the other houses in the neighborhood versus allowing it to be then almost creating a dead end situation. If that right of way isn't maintained, that road isn't maintained where the building envelope comes, the building envelope would basically end at the pavement like Zach mentioned that would almost create a visual dead end instead of a circular road. So that's just another thing. I hear what you're saying and whatever conditions if we so are inclined to put on the approval, I think that goes to us in agreement that this would not alter the inherent characteristics of the existing neighborhood. So any conditions that I would be supporting and proposing would put that, you know, restrictions on the lock right in there. Okay, all right, thanks. Thank you. Just to make a point, I don't know whether Mark and I are dies or not. And it's not gonna matter. It depends what a majority of the board does. But speaking for my vote, all I'm concerned about is free passage for the right of way. Your concern about alignment with the other houses is not a concern to mine. I don't think it touches a central character of the neighborhood. So the setback needs to be consistent with making sure that the right of way stays clear but not from my perspective, alignment of the houses. One thing I'll just offer is that, you know, we've talked about how rarely we issue variances in the city. We've been on the board now. And I know that some of the few variances we have issued have been on front yard setback variances for when someone wants to put either an addition, covered porch, something like that. And we've always gone to, as long as it does not go beyond the established line of the neighborhood. So, you know, like, you know, if you're trying to put a front yard, you know, covered porch that goes beyond the line of the, you know, rest of the neighborhood, it's not something we typically would support. So that's one of the reasons why I said, maybe it doesn't have to be directly in line because there's not like a line running down, you know, for all the setbacks. But I think that where it's, you know, it can't inherently change the characteristics. So it can't be right up on the pavement line kind of thing. Yeah. And then this is just a general question because I don't really know much about how these work, but Zach did point out that the paved portion is an easement or a right of way. And then you mentioned that that was, it didn't affect the lot size. So before you guys vote on this, how do you determine if that right of way has to be subtracted from the lot size or not, whether it's an easement or a right of way? If that does in fact by regulation have to be subtracted from the lot size and then the lot size ends up being less than what you said the state minimum was, which was in the eight thousands, then does the variation application automatically get rejected? And how do you determine how you proceed before you take a vote? I think we ought to reserve any comment on that. For deliberations, I agree. Okay. That's a harder question. I don't think people should be speaking from the head. Yeah, yeah. Sure is. I appreciate the question though. So how do we have more public comment either here or online? I'm just trying to get a sense of how many other folks, if you planned it, yeah, come on up. If you plan to speak and you're in the audience currently and haven't, do you mind just raising your hand? Anyone else? Okay, I'm not seeing anyone else in the audience. Anyone else online? If you're planning to speak, can you make that known? Are we seeing anyone else? Okay, great. I just wanted to get a sense. And we've heard a lot of good feedback. So I will just say, try not to be overly repetitive of anything that maybe your neighbors have noted. Yeah. Definitely say your piece and then you can always submit written comments to us as well. But you can also reference what folks said if you're in agreement and, you know, be. Okay, thank you. Yes, I'm Jody Dubuque and I live at 27 Wright Court, which is where the pool is and the fence there. I have lived there since 1996. And plus I know myself and all our neighbors are pro habitat for humanity. I just want that to be noted. I have seen fires at the apartment buildings. I've seen trucks and emergency vehicles. Try to get, it's tough. You can't see where you have to turn around there to the one way and turn around. It's impossible for large trucks to turn around on right court. They really have to use the extension. If you do preserve the extension and then what is the setback from the lot line? Is it going to be enough room for a house? And to Zach's point, I do think it would look odd if the house sat 40 feet in front of his house. And I'm just concerned that this lot isn't large enough to build on. And I'm worried how with the traffic, if you're having a duplex, you're gonna have at least two cars if not four. So the traffic will increase. Yeah, and I don't think the city maintains the potholes. I don't know, they plow, but it's going to be maybe detrimental to that area too. So yeah, I'm just more concerned about the safety and where cars will park and how many cars there will be and how that's my concern. Thank you for your comments. Oh, did, sorry, didn't anyone on the board? Okay, thank you. I'll say thank you. I think that was our last public comment or going once, going twice. I think we have enough to close. Board, yes? Okay. So we can wait for the deliberations or we need to get them on the record. Clarity about the lost cars. So if it's publicly available information, something that we can look up in the land records, you can add it to your bucket of knowledge before the hearing is closed. So you don't have to keep the record open. If it's testimony. If we need to determine, was a good question the guy answered. Yep. And if it's information like the deeds and language that's publicly available, we can. I'll entertain a motion. I make a motion that we close variance application of VR2401 of Green Mountain Habitat for Humanity. Any discussion? All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? Stain. Okay. Thank you so much for time tonight. Thank you. How do we find out when you're, what's next? Sure, if you signed in, you will get a copy of the decision. And the board has a state statutory requirement to issue a decision within 45 days. They usually do better than that. Good evening. Hi. Welcome back. Thank you. So while everybody's getting settled just by way of introduction, this next master plan sketch plan application, I know you saw these folks just a couple of months ago, they have decided to scale back their project. And because the layout of the scale back project is significantly different than what they had previously proposed, we did direct them to come back for our second sketch plan application. Because the comments would be significantly different. If they were to modify their project in some other way that was generally consistent with what you heard tonight, we wouldn't advise them to come back again. It's just, this is so dramatically different than what they had proposed. Good evening. Okay, good evening. Okay. Our next applicant or application is master plan sketch plan application SD2402 of WGM associates to subdivide an existing approximately 10 acre lot development with three homes into seven single family home lots ranging from 0.67 acres to 3.0 acres and one 1.0 acre open space lot at 850 Hinesburg Road. This is a sketch plan. So we don't have to swear you in. Okay. I think it's six lots, isn't it? Yeah, I think my syntax got screwy. It was seven lots and I should have said six single family home lots and one open space lot. So sorry about that. Yeah, that was my syntax, but the plans are consistent. Are there any conflicts or recusals? No, okay. Please introduce yourself to us again. I'm Keith Wright, one of the Wright family members that live up on the property. And I'm sure you remember us from last time. We learned quite a bit at the last meeting. And so we kind of changed things. Who are you with? I'm sorry. Oh, this is my wife Nicole Ray. Okay. And my sister Nancy McGovern. Okay, thank you. And so we learned quite a bit at the last meeting and you were telling us that if we would have gone with all the lots you have to five or seven years to do them or they more or less go away, right? So with discussion with us, they have no plans of doing anything in the next 10, 12 years. So that would take away putting lots on theirs. And we also learned that we can do five foot setbacks or site setbacks. So it changed up the lot structure that I wanted to divide up. It would put the house that's currently there on its own lot and then the garage and the first unit would be one. And then you would have two more building lots down below that would be accessed by a private driveway to those two lots. The main road from 116 to the back of that parking lot is right around 200 feet. So that would be your private road, I believe. And then the continuation to the other two houses would be a private drive. And also on this map it doesn't show it but because of the five foot setbacks when we do bring in the next drawing the lot lines between Nancy's and Sharon's those will be straightened up quite a bit because you don't have to have the big 35 foot setback. So those would be straightened up quite a bit. Okay, as you know what our process involves is going through the staff report and focusing particularly on the red highlighted comments and have you respond to those and we will ask questions. Sure. So thank you for that little overview. The first comment I think we need to affirm that this area is served by municipal water and sewer. Yes, you did affirm that last meeting. Right, I just want to make sure that because it's a different application. Okay, I wanted to get that on the red. It feels the same way. Have we gotten any guidance from the committee that was working on determining what areas wasn't planning or some other committee working on guidance on what was served and what wasn't? The planning commission is still working. They have had their initial high level conversation and hasn't affected the conclusion that the board came to. They're not heading in a different direction. Okay, so moving on to number two. This is regarding open space. Which type of open space is proposed? So I think we were determined, we had determined that it made sense to use it as a community garden. I think that was an option in our regulations as a community garden. Okay, questions anyone? Thank you. Number three. I'm going to read this. Staff recommends the board ask the applicant to describe how the proposed civic space lot. Number four will be accessed from a budding street and how that access will be visible, apparent and accessible from the street. Staff considers access must be from Hinesburg Road since the property does not enjoy any other frontage or easements. Okay, access to the community gardens you're talking about, correct? Yes, civic space, yes. So my proposal would be the private drive that is going to access the two back lots will give a right-of-way to all the properties on route one, building lot one, a right-of-way to the community garden. And I will extend the driveway all the way to the community garden. Show me on here on the map where the community garden is, please. The community garden is the back rectangle. It encompasses all three lots. And what I will do, you can see the driveway ended, I will continue it to the community garden and give the three or four lots, whatever there is on lot number one, right away to use the private drive to access community gardens. Okay, questions anyone? And the idea, I guess, is that when each lot is conveyed, what would be conveyed was an interesting common with everybody else in the community garden. Yes. So in other words, you're not retaining, okay, that's enough for me. Right, the driveway would be accessible by every lot there. But I'm talking about the civic space itself. It's not really a civic space, it's a community garden. It's a community garden for the people in this particular development. In the 10 acre lot, yes. All right, thank gosh. Okay, move on. Number four, staff recommends the board discuss whether the applicant will adopt this or another solution to the problem of building lots. Excuse me a minute, I'm sorry. I just want to be clear because the term civic space threw me a little bit. This is not a civic space. Do we need a civic space here? Because if we do, the community garden is not a civic space. As I understand. It's an amenity. As usual, you have gotten to the heart of the matter. I just started having a little anxiety about this because I think our current regulations are somewhat convoluted in this regard. And to be honest with you, I cannot recall the details of whether it has to be a civic space that's open to the general public or just a site amenity that's open to members of this community, this subdivision. So I'm gonna have to make sure we clarify that before the next formal stage of review. Okay, do you understand the problem? I do, and I think you brought that up last time because somebody asked if they could go and have a picnic there. And it was said no, it is for the 10 acres only. All right, so we are, you'll need to leave here without that question answered, at least for tonight. Okay, that would be fine. We don't know. I understand. Okay, all right, we good to move on? All right, staff recommends the board discuss whether the applicant will adopt this or another solution to the problem of building lots facing, fronting on streets. What are your thoughts about that? Well, I guess you would like the front of the house facing Hinesburg Road is what you're more or less talking about or facing the drive-thru. So this gets to sort of the bigger question that was discussed in another comment as well about homes have to face on a street or on a civic space. And so if you go to the plan, please, that middle lot doesn't face on either because it faces on a driveway. Can you point to the middle one for me? Yeah, that one. Well, what would happen if we turned the house so it did go to the civic space? So it's not about front on, I guess, I'm using the word face, but it says the word front, which means it has to be touching. I think we had corresponded a little bit about another solution that you guys had thought of if you wanted to introduce that now, that might be the right time. Okay, the one I sent that you responded to, do you have that? I didn't put it in the packet because I didn't, I guess, I think you can kind of describe it in words, right? I can pull it up quickly, though. I guess if you look at this, and aesthetically, it is on a slope there. So the houses are gonna be at different levels. So even if they did, actually, the view to the east is unbelievable there because it's absolutely gorgeous. So if they did face that way, even though there might be a house on the next lot, you're pretty much gonna be overlooking it. And the view to the east is just unbelievable there, especially in the morning when the sun comes up, it's absolutely beautiful. You really can't see Heinsberg Road, like I said, because of the slope. So I mean, we're open to whatever you wanna do there, obviously, but as far as aesthetically, it would be very nice if they could face the east. But I mean, it doesn't have to be the front of the house because the living space or your family room is probably gonna face that way anyways, so you do get the beautiful views. Marla, what's the difference between a private street and a driveway? So a private street has to be 20 feet wide and a driveway can be like 12 feet wide. A private street would have to have 18 inches of gravel sub-base. I'm sorry, would have to have what? 18 inches of gravel sub-base, but it's mostly about a little bit of extra width. Can you make your driveway 20 feet wide? So that was the one solution that was proposed. To just clarify things a little bit, when I do put it in, of course, I was a farmer in my younger years, so I tend to over-build everything. We will go down. There will be a rip-rap base. It'll have three inch minus and then an inch and a half minus covered with a dirty pee over the top. The minimum width I would go will be 14 feet because I have a 10 foot snow pusher that I plow with. So obviously I can't have a very small driveway. I have a lot more. But you could go to 20 if Marla says you need a private street? I guess if we had to we could. Right, so most of these staff comments are tied together. So let me introduce the bigger picture. The bigger picture is the LDRs are set up to contemplate streets going to property lines. If, and there's lots of unpack here, if the board says you don't have to go to a property line, you can have a data in the street, they have to find that it's not feasible to go to the property line. And that dead end street has to be limited to no more than 200 feet long. On the plan that's on the screen, the first purple line from Hinesburg Road is about 200 feet away from Hinesburg Road. And so in this configuration, that would be the end of the private street. The problem here is that homes on new lots, new lots, I'm sorry, not homes, new lots have to front on a public street or on a street could be private street or a public street or on a civic space. So in this configuration, the existing home on the left, fronts on Hinesburg Road, the second home, the new home would front on that private street, the home on the far right would front on the civic space and the home in the middle doesn't front on anything. So the solution that staff proposed to both of these things, the LDR is being set up to have streets go to property lines and to lots having to front on streets is to continue this private street down to the third home in the back and then have a future right of way, reserved for a street at such time as the lot to the south is developed similar to what the rights had proposed before. They don't actually have to do anything. They just have to not, they have to specifically not do anything on that land. They can't build on it. They can't put a house on it. They'd have to reserve that land for a future right of way going north to south to the property line. That allows all of those lots to front on the street. It would be a private street. We would never intend to take it over but if the lot to the south were developed and those other two lots at some future time wanted to do a big subdivision, that would be available and they could do it. I think Nancy, you came up with another solution. Nicole. Nancy. Sorry. That's okay. That's okay. I can't even see you over there. I think Nicole, you came up with another solution which I do have up on my screen if you wanted to share right now. Okay, sure. Okay, so Marty, I'm gonna take over sharing the screen. Let me see, share her. Nope, I can just override you. So this was a new solution that you come up with. Do you wanna explain what you have here? Sure, so our, I guess last sort of thought was if we adjusted the property line on lot one to be obviously just the house on Heinsberg Road Frontage to allow the lot one two be a larger lot with a house that would be serviced by that private street and then there's only two homes serviced by I think the private driveway. So where is the 200 foot line in this drawing? The 200 foot line would be, well the flight area is like a big parking lot so it would be right along the edge of the map. On the back. So in this configuration, how does this lot front on a street? Well, it actually wouldn't. So I guess what we would have to do is like you said, continue the street down and then agree that if they ever wanna develop those other two lots that it allows the street to follow the community garden property line is what you were talking about, correct? Right. You know, I'm just trying to be a team player here. So what if you the lot line for a lot between this lot and this lot where this lot were weird shaped. Oh, okay. Now our regulations do say lots should be rectangular and shape not must be. So this is what I kind of tried to explain to you guys by email and I've been saying to the board this is sort of we are finding that there are often situations where you can get to yes but it is sort of a bunch of hurdles and getting to yes is more easy, easier if you do the thing that is contemplated in the regulations extend the street to here and then have reserved land for a future street down here. But there may be a path forward, another path forward. It's just gonna involve a lot of careful thinking and questioning and go ahead. Can I have a question to happen? You, I mean, there is plans obviously perhaps in the future for subdividing the remaining land. So wouldn't it make more sense to provide a right away now to allow that to occur rather than having to go through the hurdle in the future? My two sisters have no plans of doing anything. In the beginning you said though in 12 to 15 years there might be plans. Well, because when we first, our consultant, when we first came here he goes think down the road and anything you want to do do it now. So they go, well, maybe, you know it was like a well, maybe, you know Okay. It was something that maybe down the road maybe one of the kids might want to come back from Florida but it's in that five to seven year window. So it's not gonna happen in that timeframe anyway. So it would kind of be null and void anyways, correct? Like the length of a master plan is six years, yeah. Right, I was just getting at future. Right, I understand what you're saying. Right. I mean, to answer it better one, it would take a lot of money to do that. They have no plans on developing or doing that. We've lived there all of our life. Our family's been there for over a hundred years and we just want to continue raising the generations there. So we have no current plans and like you said, generations down the road might change their mind. Well, then they'll have to come forward and meet whatever criteria you have for them on that. But as far as we're concerned, this is about it for us. You know, we went with the other plan and to be honest with you, the consultant firm came back with they wanted a hundred thousand dollar budget and I'm like, wow. You know, this has gotten way out of hand. You know, we're not interested in doing something like this. We just want to do a simple family thing here. You know, I don't have endless pockets and my sisters don't either. You know, we just like to continue our family little compound that we have, that's all. It's relatively simple. And I can't speak for generations down the road but if they do want to develop then they'll have to come in and they'll have to meet the current criteria. So to circle back to the staff comment here. Would another possibility is if we go back to the plan that was in the packet, you don't have to necessarily extend, turn the entire driveway into a road. You only have to turn the driveway in front of lot one, two into a road. And then one threes adjacent is fronting onto that. Effectively the same game you play with kicking the property line out on the other one. And then you could have the driveway continue. Now, whether you'd want to change the size of it halfway down or not, but practically you only need to extend the private road. And then we obviously need to give the waiver to make it deeper than 200 feet. But we're looking at that if we go all the way down to the end. I mean, I have no problem making it 20 feet wide. I have no problem with doing that whatsoever. Okay. Comments, questions? I guess I would just say it's sketch. The, you know, I don't think that either of these solutions necessarily would necessitate a new sketch. Would the board agree that? Thank you. Okay. All right. So you've heard some feedback. Think about what you want to do. Okay. So we're just so I'm clear. So we're discussing continuing the road down, making it to the regulations of what you want for a road as far as gravel, base and width. And then the lot one, three, the house could face the driver, the private road, whatever you want to call it. That's where we're headed, correct? Okay. That's fair enough. Okay. Comment number five. Staff recommends the board discuss with the applicant whether they can reduce the setbacks on the existing accessory structures to improve compliance with the requirements for generally rectangular lots. I think we've addressed that. Yes, we did. We're going to clean that line up quite a bit now that we realize it's only going to be five feet. And then number six, it's about modifying to create a West East roadway. But you, that's what you're proposing, isn't it? Right, we kind of smushed six together with four. Yeah. Marla asked if we could just keep a spot open along the community garden in case they ever do want to develop there. Okay. That would have to become a road. And down the road, if future generations want to do that, that's one of the hoops they're going to have to jump through. Okay. So staff comment number six outlines sort of this third alternative, which is to go as a PUD, because PUD allows modification of standards that are not dimensional standards. I think that's going down the same road that Keith was mentioning that they were finding isn't working for them, which is making this a really complicated project for a relatively simple family subdivision. So yeah, we weren't really suggesting that, but it is an option. I'm going to go with whatever you're telling me. I mean, you know what I want to do. So just guide me in the correct direction. Okay. Number seven, what street type? We've really addressed this already, I think. Yes, we have. Yeah. Okay. Number eight, in light of the necessary roadway modification staff assumes the applicant, pardon me, will propose a two phase project with the second phase to consist of connecting the roadway to the adjacent parcel to the cell. Staff recommends the board discuss phasing with the applicant. I guess we did discuss that. If they ever do want to develop, that would be the second phase, correct? There's, yeah. And there's no plan. There is no plan. For development on those lots right now. I think the only thing I want to make sure we do is I know we're talking, you know, the conceptually with the idea is to split the property into three pieces. Correct. The two sisters maintain their two lots. Correct. And you're going to take your third and develop it to whatever potential we can with no plans down the road to make a connection to the two additional lots to the south. Correct. I think the only thing I want to make sure we do is that anything we do on these four proposed lots that are along the north. Yep. That doesn't impact the two lots of the south allows for that we don't shoot ourselves in the foot that if the two lots of the south down the road decide to develop, we don't have any controls on those lots of the north that allow us to make those connections. Correct. I think that's where my list said that she wanted the right away for the street. Yeah. And that would also give you the right away for that private drive, correct? Yep. Yeah. So you can maintain the two lots of the south without any impacts. But if down the road, yes. To be completely honest with you, I think what we're gonna do is me and my sister Sharon will make that road a little extra wide. I border her lot. So the road may end up on her property a little bit too. So it can be shared by the both of us. Right. You see what I'm saying? It would only make sense to do that, correct? Okay. Let me just, that just triggered something. Well, is there anything that that would preclude if you hit a certain number of houses off of a private street? No, that standard's gone the way of the dodo with the 200 foot maximum. The idea being as many homes as you can fit on 200 feet, you can have. Okay. So the next comment is number three, but it actually is number nine. And this is the question about a PUD, but we've already kind of resolved that that's too, too much. And that's it for the staff report. Board, do you have any questions or comments? No, I just want to say that, you know, someone who drives past your property pretty much every single day, I live south in Butler Farms. I love the idea that you're gonna be doing, you know, some development, but still maintaining the character of keeping the three lot sort of houses and then go deeper into it. Absolutely. Yeah, I mean, we love it. I mean, yeah, I've never lived anywhere else. So let's see if there's any public comment, any members of the public, anyone online? I don't, there's no one here. That's for sure. Okay, so do we have enough information to close, do you think? It's sketch, so yeah. That's good. Do we need to see, can we just require something of a reconfiguration of the road, you know, or is that all of just a diagram, you mean, when they come back? Do we need any more drawings, in other words? Yes, I can submit, you know, an update and I just wanted to kind of get an idea of where we're going. No, hang on a minute. I'm asking Myla. Oh, okay. Can we just, let's assume for the sake of discussion that we approve the thing. Can we approve it as it stands and just write our conditions about the road into, in language, or do we need to have a revised site plan that shows something more? So they need to, this is a sketch, so they need to come back for the next stage of review anyway. Okay. This is not a binding conversation. That's right, I'm sorry. And it'll be, will that be a site plan? What will that be called? No, it'll be a combined master plan and preliminary plan. Right, this is a sketch. Okay, we'll see them two more times under our current regulations. Okay. Fair enough. You're gonna get sick of us. Not at all. By the way, I did watch last week's meeting and I like the way you guys are approaching the whole South Burlington thing. Good, thank you. I've lived here my whole life and you know, if only the board would have done that before they built all around the airport, it might have saved a lot of hardship down the road. And I really respect all the things you talked about last week and it was pretty interesting. Thank you. So I would entertain a motion. Nope. Because it's sketch, I don't have to entertain a motion. You can just tell them, have a nice night. Have a nice night. Thank you for coming. Thank you so much. We'll see you again in the future. Thank you. You'd think I figured that out by now, but. So we have one set of minutes that I did not have a chance to review before I published but I sort of did this quick skim and I did note there were some errors. I also wasn't at the meeting. So you guys have any comments on the January 3rd minutes? Do you want to pull them up? I think I might have ranted and raved a little more than was conveyed in here. So I'm glad that it wasn't. So I'm fine with the minutes as is. There were, I mean, not having been there, I don't know exactly what was said, but there were some things where people like maybe names seemed wrong or like there was a this or that that seems like it didn't make sense to me. I don't do ranting and raving. Good, thank you. You've learned to filter that out. I get paid extra. I just want to point out my last name has a T in it. Your last name is what? J-R-H-N-S-T-O-N. Okay, entertain a motion to approve the minutes. Move to approve the minutes with Mr. Johnstone's name corrected. Are there any other correct? Is there a second? Second. Any other corrections? All in favor? Aye. Aye. Opposed? They are approved. And the meeting is over. Thank you, everyone. Long night.