 I'm gonna start anyway, I do use Teams all day long, so I'm not too concerned. But I can see if somebody raises their hand or makes a comment, I just can't see who's in the meeting. So. Yeah, if anybody wants to comment and we're not sure who it is, they have to give us their name first. Okay, all right. So welcome to the Village Planning Commission meeting. Good evening. Let's see here. I've got, bear with me here. I've got some files open. Village Planning Commission work session for January 21st, 2021. I think right now we have with us. Was that Mr. Alden? Yes, sir. Patrick, you're here. Yes, I am. And Robin. Do we have anybody else, Robin? Not at the moment. People may just be a little bit late coming in. Okay. It's a little weird. The link on the documents, if you open it inside Google isn't alive. So you have to go back out to the Village website and come in that way. It's fine. I have David mentioned it. I have it two ways. I have it where I was invited by Tami and accepted. So I've got on my laptop. And then I went on to my desktop, went into SXVT community group and put the link there. It brought me straight in the time meeting TV link. So, like I said, I can see all I see is me. I can see all I see is me. I can't see anybody else that's in the meeting right now. I can hear all you guys. I've actually heard about you David. You can't see anyone else. Does everyone else have their cameras on? I don't. I never have because you break the lens. So it creates the signal. That could be it, but I should still be able to see the participants, whether you're a camera or not. I don't know. And I don't see that. So I apologize. I apologize. I apologize if I miss anybody. But let's get started. So I'm just going to pull up the agenda here. The first thing that I think we should tackle, and I'm not sure if. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I'm not sure if. So we don't have a quorum, right, Robin? No, not at the moment. Not at the moment. So I'm going to wait on the minutes. Because in order to. To get those approved. We need a quorum. Excuse me for December 17th. Types of stuff in the minutes. So you could, you know. Put them off till the next meeting or take a look at them. Let's just table them if we get a quorum we can do them tonight. Yeah, yeah, that's fine. We can get back to it later. So is there anybody on the call who is a visitor at this point? Because I want to make sure that if somebody has something they want to talk about that's not on the agenda. We don't really have an agenda, but if they want to talk about something that they bring it up. David, you should be able to see participants. I can't, John. I'm telling you. I work on teams all day long. And for some reason on this call, I'm not able to see participants. She won't say anything with me. I've tried it a million different ways. So if you, if you guys see anybody, please let me know. For sure. The only non the only one besides the planning commission and Robin is our town meeting. TV folks. So I think you're okay. Okay. All right. Thank you. All right. Robin, you had a few things you wanted to talk about. And I think Yeah. I'll let you get into that right now. Okay. First thing is I'm meeting with the CCRPC next week. To discuss, they're going to be working with us to do the update of the land development code. And they wanted me to bring in a list of. Categories matter ideas we have for things we want to change over and above what's mandated, you know, by the region of the state. And I'm guessing John has that one or two notebooks on that stuff. But one thing I would like to discuss, I thought about the law. What brought it to mind for me was when you want to go to McGillicuddy's. You have to go into what I would call a semi private space. It's really the lobby for the apartments above to access the bar. I think that's less than optimal. And then I started to think about what it says for the Billy Centre district that the entry level of every building shall be retailer commercial. And then I started to think about urban spaces. And, you know, John has been in a lot of urban spaces and it should be familiar to him, but under bigger cities. I'm thinking about being on Belfast or Glasgow, New York. You're going to when you walk through, you know, the central business district. Quite often in a block, there's an entrance to an apartment complex. It's not all retail commercial. I think retail commercial in the entry level speaks more to suburban architecture. Than it does urban village core architecture. And I think would make for a much better mix and a much better layout. If I'm still thinking in the Gillicuddy's one, if it was possible in a building to actually have an entrance and a decent lobby to welcome people to their home, rather than having them walk through a lobby with people are going to a bar. It just seems that it's more keeping away. I'll just chime in on that Robin, as you know, I would. The entrance to McGillicuddy's doesn't allow you to come in directly to McGillicuddy's it brings you into the building lobby, which also serves the apartment. And, and, and whether you're coming in from the back where the parking is or you're coming in from the street, the effect is the same. The door is minimal. It's not well marked. It's hard to find. And, and you're, you don't feel like you actually have a main entrance to McGillicuddy's from the street side, which I think is the real point to the urban architecture concept. Well, the building does face the street. It's on the corner does a lot of great stuff, but it doesn't actually have a formal public entry into the main public space of McGillicuddy's from the street. Yeah, what I consider to be the semi private space, I mean, it's semi private for the apartment dwellers. And it'd be nice if they were separated and people could come and go without come home at night without bumping into somebody, you know, they've been in McGillicuddy's for six hours or whatever. And then it's worse. It's worse that the, that the general public can't go into McGillicuddy's without going into some apartment lobby. Absolutely. And it's worse that you can't, you can't go into McGillicuddy's from the main public space, which is absolutely. I think it, for me, it's a negative for both the people in the apartments and for the bar. To have to walk around the back of a building across the parking lot to access it and you go into a lobby that's for people going to their homes. It's just not for a similar reason, but, but it has the same effect is the railroad bar and grill, which what do we call it main street bar and grill what's the name of it. Railroad main railroad and main. They also have a semi private space facing the street and the main doors on the side. And you can never tell that the places is really open because nothing alive on the main face. Back to McGillicuddy's. There's nothing we can do to rectify that currency. No, I'm just talking about more so about looking future. So that building that's going in with the. Wood fire pizza restaurant. What is the entrance to that one look like we have an opportunity to. It's closer to what we're talking about Patrick. Yeah. I just think I'm thinking about in the code going from anything that's approved. I think it's coming in too bad. So sad. I just think it makes for a better pattern on the street. There's more of a meter to the street, you know. And it just makes sense. You know, it's more urban, not suburban. You go out and you look at the, you know, the. What were the outlets. Storefronts everywhere, you know. I've never been in an urban space where every single opening was a storefront ever. Yeah, no, I'll second you on that. I mean, it is, I always thought it was a little odd that you had to walk into the lobby of the apartment building to access the restaurant. So I mean, moving forward, if there is a way to, to say. That all commercial spaces must have an opening to the sidewalk or to the street or something like that. To avoid a situation. Like in Gila Cuddy's has with their entrance. Or residential entries will be separated from public entrances. Something. Yeah. And then they can, you know, because even having a different door wouldn't be helpful. And that, in a way, you know, that building is kind of. Interesting because you do want a way to let people into the building from the parking area, which is in the back as we had, you know, as it's supposed to be. But, but the unintentional consequence of making them. The main facade doors secondary seems to be needs to be fixed. We need, we don't want to do that. I don't care how much volume of traffic goes in one versus the other, but, but you should have a ceremonial main entry to a public space coming off a main street. Yeah, you would, you would have to make an exception for hotels. Why? Because, well, number one, they're not residences. So, but in in most bigger cities to when you the situation with a hotel is that a lot of times the hotel operates the restaurant or bar. They're trying to drive traffic from the hotel into the restaurant. There's not always the room on the street either. For that type of an entrance. So, you know, you might want to consider some sort of an exception for some but something that's non residential, so to speak. I can, I have been in a lot of situations like that where if there's a restaurant that's off the hotel lobby. But, but, but you still, you still kind of have, you know, a major entrance on the street, which is the hotel and there's usually some, you know, secondary tier of signage or information that that lets you know that's where that you should come in to go to the restaurant. It's pretty common. A lot of times they do have their own entrance. Sometimes they don't hotels are tricky. We go to one in Montreal a lot. It's on Sherbrooke and it has barely any street frontage. But what it has is its main entrance right there. And all the cars in the parking and everything else is, is got to be dealt with kind of carefully but they put the main entrance right on the street. I think, I think there's some places where we on a case by case basis could allow things. But I think what we're, what we're all saying is the better design puts a public entrance that's not there for show but there for use. And, and, you know, right there without going through a building lobby to do it. I think that's a lot of wasted space as well. You know, it's, there's so much area there if you think about it, either from Park Street or from the parking behind just to access, you know, McGillicuddy's. Yeah, that is true. I mean, you could almost have just said entrance to the apartment block only from the parking area and from the underground parking and taking that whole thing from Park Street and just folded it into McGillicuddy's. Yeah, in the big picture, Robin, I think you should give us an overview of what we're trying to do tonight as a work session. The way I'm structuring my notes is that this is an interesting discussion but it belongs in our, you know, a list of things that we want to add into or modify in the LDC. Yeah, I think that's what we should be doing tonight because it's the list I'm going to have to give the CCRPC next week. So why don't you back up and tell us why you're giving CCRPC a list next week? Can I just, let me just interrupt for one sec. Sorry, is there anybody else new on the call since we started talking? I don't see anyone. And just for the purposes of Patrick, because he is learning and absorbing a lot of information, if you could elaborate, Robin, you know, on why it's important, the CCRP, that, you know, what we're talking about with the grant and, you know, how it relates to the code, redoing the code and all that kind of stuff, that would be helpful. Well, the code has to be redone every five years. We're coming up on that time period. CCRPC. Are you familiar with the CCRPC Patrick? How is that possible? We just, I don't know it is. Okay, we've last updated in 2016. It has been a long time. Oh my God. Chittin County Regional Planning Commission. Yep. They are, for one better phrase, many things that are the intermediary between the local municipalities in the state. They produced the, I mean, the ECOS plan, which looks at pausing all sorts of things in Chittin and County. They worked with us the last time when we updated the land development code. Part of their remit is to work with municipalities to upgrade the code. It's interesting when you work with them because they're also going to be reviewing it. When we have our draft land development code, it will go to the CCRPC into a committee called the Planning Advisory Committee, which I am on. And it includes all the planners from all the municipalities in Chittin and County. And we review each other's land development code as we do each other's municipal plan. And you will push things back and forward. You know, Paul Connors is very good from South Burlington. What we think that they've done is work for him that we may not have. So we will discuss it and see if we want to include it. But it's something we need to have. We need to have the land development code and the municipal plan current so that we're eligible for state grants. Yes. So it's important that we keep it up to date. It's also important that, you know, as things change as we move that we make sure that the code is robust enough to accept those changes. I don't want to go into details, but one of the last meetings you were saying, Patrick, that you were worried about the equilibrium in the village because there seem to be a lot of studios and bedrooms going in. Yes. Whereas from my perspective, until four or five years ago, all we really had was three and four bedrooms. So maybe the studio is efficiencies and one bedrooms coming in is what's creating a more balanced stock. We don't know that we don't really have all the details but between a rock and a hard place that VHFA do. Sometimes gives good information on that. Even though it's applied rather than but it's really it's good to get that sort of stuff. But for tonight, my hope was that we come away with a list of what we had wanted to address at the land development code. I think it goes without saying that we want to address anything the state in the region requires us to do. That's a nice thing about having a CCRPC their resource for that. They will tell us what's coming down what's mandatory and what's something they'd like to have happen. But then what we come up with is what makes the village the village makes it different from Colchester and Williston and everywhere else. And what do we want to put in it's going to address the issues that we that we have. So if we can start thinking about that and I'm guessing John might have a few things already. Yeah, I might have a couple. In the literal sense, we will schedule work sessions where we start tackling the code and we go, you know, chapter by chapter. And the CCRPC will provide support during that time and we actually do get a lot of useful information that helps guide us in the process. So so as we go through it, they will be joining us with more information, which is very helpful. So that's kind of great. Who do we have? Is there a specific contact person with CCRPC? I'm the contact person. No, I mean from CCRPC. I've worked with a few of them in the past. It looks like one might be two people, one person Regina Mahoney. Yeah. And. Si. No. I'm thinking Marshall Distile. No, I don't know that one. I know Regina though. But what I'd like to have tonight I was thinking about this today is a list of groups would like to come in. You know, there's not a housing committee in Essex. Maybe somebody from the housing committee, maybe some from the development committee. The last time we had somebody from Wiccum Farms. That somebody from the development committee. Or the development, not so much committee, but the development group. You know, people who are investing and developing in the village center. Oh, like a non municipal. Yes. Gotcha. And maybe somebody from. My minority groups. So there's six right off the top of my head. I'm not sure. I thought Diane would have been here and she probably has people she thinks we should bring in. I thought more was very helpful last time around to with the information that she brought when we were working on the comprehensive plan. Yes, more is deeply involved in the stuff as the VHFA administrator basically. Yeah, she's the executive director now. Yeah, I mean, yeah, bringing her in somebody from the housing community. I mean, I think all those things are great just quickly in response to what you said before run but some of the things I was bringing up about equality and equilibrium of housing. The report that was sent to us had mentioned that according to the market study, this was the housing that was needed and I thought it was just interesting as you just said that. That maybe the one bedrooms in the studio is our what's creating the balance we don't know. But according to the report that market study shares shown that so I just feel like that's one of those things that maybe we need to. Anyway, you know, I'm just trying to understand my role and responsibility, ultimately, as a planning commission member and that's what I'm hoping to get out of a lot of these working sessions as we go through all this stuff and get a better idea. And then the other thought just real quick as you mentioned, the South Burlington new city center you said Paul Connor has been really good with someone's land development code I mean I'm just curious and wondering as a village with what we're trying to do with the design five corners as we were just talking about with some of these urban facing buildings, you know, main streets and commercial. Like what is what South Burlington doing with their new city center what type of development codes and is there anything there that we that we might be able to mimic and be useful as we look to redevelop. It's worth looking at I haven't looked at for a while they were talking about form based code and John can certainly tell you what I think about form based code. I think it's old wine in the new bottle. I don't think the way it's been done in Vermont or I've seen it that it lives up to the standards of the past. I think there's no truth in architecture with it who it's been used here and it blends out a lot of the modeling and details on a building just to try and make buildings fit together and you know balance doesn't need symmetry. In fact it needs the opposite. So I don't think the tools been used very well. I think if you have a strong design review in your village center district we do have design review in the village center district that talks about context and massing and scale. And a phrase that John really likes to use sometimes you know are the buildings speaking each other. Which I think is important and are they playing off each other rather than copying each other. Are we create you know I sell the time you know planning and design in some ways is about walking backwards into the future. That way you can see the decisions that we made in the past that stood the test of time while those spaces while those buildings cherished. What is it about then that makes it different. What about that decision that gives it longevity. Where's a lot of buildings built in the 70s were demolished you know in the early 2000s. No totally and I think that I agree that's what gives you know that'll that's what will give our village character but I mean I was just in terms of like with like I don't know very much about this aspect of stuff. You know how did they write the one or two sentences in there regarding openings to commercial space we don't necessarily have to copy their entire form based code but the way in which that they yes great. I think we should absolutely look at that and take from it. You know glean those types of pieces that we want but also keep our own character by not adopting the entire thing. Right. Absolutely. Because they're building theirs from scratch so they're you know they're writing all this stuff with nothing there so they're going to be you know there's probably something there for it you know interested to see how they're how they would be planning it. Yeah some of the some of the buildings I see going up and I'm not going to say municipality but reminds me of the old phrase you know doctors bury the mistakes architects plan vines. So are you talking about in Burlington, Robin. I'm not going to say where I'm talking about but there is one building that was designed by somebody who knew very well that I liked very much very recently. I'm not sure if it's getting built or not but I thought it was excellent. I will chime in a little bit on that the the the the issue with the form based code is is a fascinating one. It's just another attempt in the long line of different planning and zoning approaches to be more proactive about what they want instead of allowing developers to come in with, you know, maybe less of an idea of what the municipality wants to do it their way. So our challenges that if we don't tell them what we want then we get what they want and then we have our bars like well if it makes it over these these minimum or maximum requirements that that don't tend to tell us about what we're looking for then just gives us the parameters of what it can't be. Then we don't know we don't always have enough information there to tell the developers what we want. So the the form based code is trying to improve on that. It's perfect but I think it is doing a better job we've we've gone through the Burlington process couple of times now on some buildings and you know you really are required to work more directly with their planning department and and to meet some of the basic criteria for how the zoning addresses the street and what frontage means and what detail means and what setbacks mean and you know it's it allows it allows people to know a little bit more about what you really want and then the tradeoff is that if you satisfy the criteria as they're laid out in the form based code you actually don't get planning commissioner judgment it's a done deal. So you know you're basically able to bypass a lot of the subjective opinion that might happen in a other you know situation and and that it limits the amount of things that the planning commissioner the DRB can actually make a determination on. So in a way there's two issues one is you don't always know what the developer is going to do you don't always know what the commission is going to do because at any given time over history the planning commission is a group of volunteers that change on some kind of you know unknown basis you know that I don't feel like doing this anymore I'm you don't have anybody left to you know that remembers what happened five years ago. So it's it's a it's a strange process where you're allowing typically lay people and other interested parties. You hope they know what they're doing to make decisions about the development that's going on in your community based on rules that were written by other people. So in order to get a little bit more control and clarity and direction you know people have tried doing a lot of things and some of it depends on the longevity of the planning commissioners or the DRB members themselves like how long if they've been around to see all these things and some of it depends on how well they can write the directions into the land development code to sort of guide the development process is really hard. I think I think that's a really great point John that you make and you can see you can see the changes that have happened. I hate to say this but over the last 10 years it's been that long but you know with the comprehensive plan and you know heart and soul and sort of the feedback that we've gotten and the things that we've changed and improved on. I think it's you know it's headed in the right direction. I always think there's a feeling that you know not to bring up a source bot that that we approve we feel like we approve certain things but we don't always have control in the end. So you know one of the things that I'd like to address in the in the sort of rewriting of this is is there something more we can do. You know I know we have we have certain control in the village center district. But is that it you know is there something more that we can do. That's one of the things that I'd like to see. Yeah I would say the village center district it's really about metrics set box lot coverage. There's no real sign controller. Right. But guys if you if you wanted to rewrite that there was more control and extend that downtown area to a wider area there was discussion in the past about extending the downtown center to include the Pearl Street shopping center. So, um, and I would point out the stove seems to have design review throughout most of the town, or at least it feels that way. Yeah, I was thinking maybe the trunk roads. Coming into the village could have design review on all properties that but up to the village right of way. And that goes back to the way actually form both form base code used to be when it first started. That's what when you ski is doing to with their entry into the driving into the village. Yeah, school up. So John some control over the design of them. I think that's important. It's an important statement to make. John. Yeah. Did you miss anybody else that joined the call. I was waiting for you to say that. Before Diane chimed in, I was just about to say, and by the way, Diane joined. David, David, can't see. That was John, John Field again in this task. By the way, Dan, before you came in, we were talking about, I'm meeting with the Chittin County Regional Planning Commission next week who are contracted to help us rewrite the land development code. They asked me for a list of stuff we want to do and I've said from tonight's meeting maybe you can put in groups or individuals would like to come and talk to us. We said the Essex Economic Development Commission, the Essex Housing Commission. The Wicom Woods, the farmer down there, minority groups. I think it'd be interesting to bring in some people who are developing in the village to get their perspective on the code. And, you know, do we have a list of any any others we'd like to, I thought you and John might have some names. How about some contractors. I had a lovely discussion with one contractor last week. His first name wouldn't have been Chris, would it? No, I think it was Stephen. But he was telling me that that a lot of the construction projects seem to be very vanilla that there's not a whole lot of a change from one building to the next, that there isn't a lot of excitement when the exterior of the building. And it's kind of like, I've heard that comment from some general public, too, that everything seems to be looking the same color, the same designs, the same fashion. So, you know, when you're talking form-based code or my proposal of possibly looking at extending design and review, I would say, hey, let's talk to some contractors who are actually doing it. I mean, it's, these are people who are actually putting that siding up or anything else. They have to deal with our rules, too. So why not let's get some input from them. Sure. That's a pretty interesting idea. And I'll just echo, or I'll expand that a little bit in that the way our rules are written now is that it says, if you can't do, here's how big it can't, it can't be any taller than X. It can't be any farther away from the street than Y. It has to appear to fit into its neighborhood. And the definition of that is by looking at the surrounding buildings. It has to respect the historic character of the village, right? It can't be Frank Gehry drops into Essex Junction. It has to be something that has a fairly good rapport with its neighbors. That's in our code. It says that already. So if we want to allow something more than that, it's a whole different way of writing what we want. As I said, like to have someone come in and knock our socks off, I think the building that wasn't built that we approved in the Hinstiel site. I remember in my staff report, I said the design of this building raises the standard for every other building that comes into the village center district, then it wasn't built. It might raise it, but it was still, if you squint your eyes, it was still a brick building with a flat roof of some number of stories and storefront along the bottom. So, you know, I can see where people would say, hey, it's a lot of the same thing. I will say that the black rock developments over where we haven't, we're seeing the first one go in now on 117 Maple Street there. That's going to be different. All right, that will not be more of the same, although there'll be some facades that look similar. There's a lot of much more adventurous architecture involved with that one. And so with the other two buildings that they proposed. I would see even more so with the other ones that'll be along the connection. I think you guys are all hitting on something that definitely a lot of people talk about. But I also think there's a story to be told about some of these new projects that have already been built and some that are in process about some of the different things that are sort of, we have a unique village center district and we're kind of with the infill development goal, you know, we're shoehorning buildings in and doing unique things. I mean, I would like to just refer to what makes the runoff containment system unique for the 8 Pearl Street building. You know, that's something that a lot of people don't know about, but it's pretty neat when they brought it out to show everybody. So if you, I think for me, it's always about the story of some of the unique things that developers are doing to try to make this work. So it's not always just about, you know, okay, it's another building it matches the historical sort of perspective. And I'd like to see more conversations around some of the unique things I'd like to hear from developers and contractors about some of the unique things that they use techniques that they use these days, in terms of, you know, the trees that they talked about putting the unique, you know, system in under at the street level to prevent them from dying and you guys remember that right. So, you know, those kinds of things tell a story about that's unique about some of the things that are happening. And I'd also like to see more of a discussion around what types of energy saving techniques are being used, or what could we, what could we encourage to be used, whether it's solar or, you know, there's all kinds of things out there that can be used. That can be incorporated into modern construction. I don't think we talk enough about them. And, and one of the main things that one of the main goals that we have is that is saving that is energy savings. So I'd like to see more of a conversation or or possibly something written into the code around that. It's interesting. Energy use energy conservation and different approaches to that is, is a massive topic at the state and national level right now. The state has just adopted a brand new energy code 2020. They have a plan to get us to carbon neutral by 2050. They're, they're saying 90% renewable energy or 90% carbon renewable by, it's almost like 2030. That's like tomorrow, you know, like it's close. And, and so there, there's some significant competing concerns right now about how can we even do that when you know we can't get people to stop burning wood or oil or propane or you know all these things that they may be renewable but you're still burning them. And that's bad you know and you're in Vermont how are you supposed to tell somebody not to burn wood. It's a big question right now the state has just appointed a climate council to look at how we're going to deal with our impact on the climate. They just started meeting. It's a appointed group of 20 some people and they've all got something to say. The energy state energy goals are ratcheting up every three years so we just had our 2020 energy code will change again in three more years and again three more years after that to try and hit a target that's established for 2030. Federal. I'm not sure if the government's doing it yet but the federal a is is got a challenge for energy, reducing energy and hitting certain energy targets by 2030. So it's big it's it's how do you fix the climate how do you fix the world how do you stop doing things that are that are bad for the environment and we got to start now because if we don't where we're never going to get where we're supposed to be and the legislators love this stuff it's going in, you know, to legislation that that is almost impossible to make happen. So, it's a big issue. We're all struggling with it. We need we as a community shouldn't be struggling with it. So that that needs to be part of our. In that group, John. No they actually it's all like political appointees and members of, you know, chairs of other committees and dignitaries of one group or another and the AI Vermont is kind of trying to point out that you know you might want to have some, you know they have some professionals they have efficiency Vermont they have in other people but it's but they left out sort of architects and engineers. You know, one of the one of the challenging things with this conversation to is at the end of the day, these developers are building projects that, you know, they're they're they're not here to, you know, I'm not going to lose money right so if it makes the if it makes the project more expensive. That's a challenge right so they want to do the right thing and they want to make it work through from the business sense. And in my business would always works are incentives so in a practical sense, if you want change and you want to see some of these things incorporated into these projects, you got to give them a reason to do it. And, and, you know, whether it's whether it's a, you know, a tax incentive or whether it's a who knows it could it could but we have, I think we have some of that capability, if I'm not mistaken, to try to write that into the code. Is that correct Robin. Yes, you're correct. Yeah, I would certainly think so that we like you guys have been talking about you're able to put all these parameters around development and we can can we always just issue a waiver. I mean around certain things. Yeah, you know Patrick, that's funny you say that because we can do we can do waivers for all sorts of things I mean we can do waivers for parking for, you know, all kinds of stuff and we do because if the if the project merits it. The challenge is that we get. We, there's a little bit of that can be negative feedback about that right because you know, then you get into a well you did it for him sort of thing or her whatever this project you did if here but you're not going to do it there and so you kind of want to try to make it consistent across the board. So you're 100% correct. That can work, but we want, we want to let a developer or a builder or a homeowner know right away that this option is out there without having to, you know, attract them somehow. Dave I think in the past we've used things like density bonuses it ends up being a bonus. As opposed to a waiver, because we listed right out and say if you do X, we will do why and let you do zoo Z. And we've done those in the past. We of course density bonuses that one right now. You got to have density bonds would make you go up a lot of these products projects because they don't have out to go. And we've been curtailed by up. Yes, absolutely. At least in the five quarters area, which of course is where we want all the all the building to go on right now. Right. So the first thing you do is you figure out what the incentive would be. And the second thing you do is what type of energy savings would you like to see? Would you like to see solar panels? Would you like to see, you know, smart homes? Would you like to see we'd have to figure out exactly what you're targeting right through for energy savings? Would you like to see a better window or whatever it is? So you kind of go from there. But we could we can make that part of the conversation for the upcoming rewrite. Yeah. And what I'm thinking maybe for us to get a jump on the rewrite. It may take CCRPC maybe a month to get up and running with us. But we could maybe with these people that we want to invite in. We could maybe have them in before the CCRPC on board because we don't necessarily need them there to have our discussion with them. The Economic Development Commission, Housing Commission, some of these groups, a bit reticent to say it, but I think it might give us more time. But also for the first time in 12 years, I can't make the first Thursday in February. I got something that I it's it's not negotiable for me. So I won't be there, but I could set up a meeting for you guys to talk to. I'm on the housing committee and well, I staffed the housing committee and I along with others and I staffed the Economic Development Commission along with others. So I could probably set up two people from those two groups to come to the first Thursday in February. If that's something people think they'd like to do. I think it's worth it. What's our schedule on this Robin overall? We got a year to pull this off. I think it's November. We have to have it done by November. But it doesn't hurt. You know, if we if we can, if we can extend it by a meeting or two, it never hurts. Like a draft submitted or a final copy submitted. Final copy. Well, yes, should be approved by then. I mean, it has to go to the CCRC has to get through the advisory committee. It has to be through the trustees. So have you put a schedule together that sort of backs us in? All those approvals. We were going to meet tomorrow, but didn't work out for them. So we're meeting next Friday. So we'll be doing that then. And it'll back us into it. So we'll get all that information. Also, it looks like the third Thursday in February. We will have an application coming in. Okay, so not to get ahead of ourselves, but I would say I'll say right now that I would like to have two meetings warned for February. So, you know, the first and third. So, and if you wanted to schedule those folks to talk to us on the first week. We make the first Thursday. What are we calling this one? Work session? Sorry. This. Yeah, because it'll give us flexibility if we want to talk about some other things too. Yeah. And then the third meeting will be the applications coming in. Yeah, I like that. Yep. Good. I apologize. I kind of dominated the conversation with my energy speech. But is there any other, are there other topics that we wanted to include, you know, just some brainstorming about things that are. Yeah, one thing I'd like to think about. I don't know a lot about it, but I do know act 250. And I know that the governor is the second time second legislative session in a row. So what's being pushed is that act 250 gets exempt for village in downtown designated centers. Well, it's already sorry. It's already exempt in the village center because we've got a neighborhood designation neighborhood designation exemption from active 50. Oh, okay. Well, I don't think we don't have. Okay. Well, I mean, I guess what I was going to say was there is there knowing that that might be going away. Are there elements of active 50 that we might want to use to enact a little bit of control around the development? Essentially, because my understanding of active 50 is that's kind of what it's supposed to do, but it's a very costly and lengthy endeavor, which is why it's It almost duplicates what we do. It's like Johnston who don't really have any planning regulations. But there's not a lot that it brings to the table that we don't really have. No, that's just what I wanted to basically be heard on that. Interesting. There's benefits from the neighborhood or a designation that can come if they meet the standards of the neighborhood or a designation and nobody's taken that up yet, which surprises me. Well, could that be one of the incentives that we discuss with folks, you know, making sure people are aware of these designations and what everybody's 100% aware when they bring the application and nobody is not aware of that. Okay, what other topics do we want to include? I've got a sort of a running list here, but I think John, John, did you just write a message real quick? I hate these things that as soon as you hit enter, it actually sends your message. Yeah, I know. I do that all the time. So the list, which is supposed to be bulleted, can't be, but I just attached the list of people that we should be considering inviting to this. Yeah, I just did it too. Not as many as you, John. I typed faster maybe. Anyway, I just wanted to put that in the record since, you know, if I write it to you some other way, it may not be the best. It's a great list. It's a really good list. Yeah, that is. And I'm not saying that's the whole list, but those of us that have been on the commission for a while will recall that actually when we did the update to the comprehensive plan, the village comprehensive plan in 2019, we interviewed a lot of these same people. We did. It's great. It's very good. So I'll just remind you why we have a land development, well, a municipal comprehensive plan. I'll remind you that we have Vermont green streets here. I remind you why we have design five corners here. We have a lot of green streets courtesy of the. Yes. We've got sky compliance thing. There's all kinds of materials with the Ecos plan, as Robin pointed out, which if you try to download it, don't bother, you know, you have to get a reading paper in two volumes. It's, it's massive. I do have an old copy but there's a tremendous amount of planning material available to us if we want it. And some of it has been incorporated into our design guidelines already like design five corners has been given to us by the trustees who are on my list of people to invite that it hasn't been exactly incorporated into the land development code yet except by reference from the trustees. So somehow we need to figure out how that kind of that's an overlay that ends up needing to be in here. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Good idea. Very good idea. What else. And let's, how do I get all this, I gotta get my people back again. Patrick, if you need something to hit yourself over the head with while you're trying to get to sleep every night you've got about 1500 pages to go through there. All right. Yeah. This will be your second time right Patrick. Yeah, exactly. Sounds good. This is all, this is all good information. I will put a handout to everybody in that group, John, and I'm sure I put the railroad on there because, you know, they basically own property right through the middle of town, right through the middle. They might be the second, they might be the second biggest property owner in the village actually. Yeah. So in some spots it's 99. Yeah, we actually rent railroad Avenue Austin. Yeah. We used to rent railroad street Austin, but we bought it as part of the connected road. It would be nice to know if they have any plans or how they react to the plans we had for their property because we've, we've designed and redesigned the the railroad station and and platform and some of that space along railroad Avenue about three times now and we actually have a requirement from the feds to kind of fix up the accessibility to that area. And that's, that's that. Yeah, that's on track. That's not any CR, but either way, I'm using loosely the railroad like we don't remember who owns it or who's in charge of it just exists in the middle of our community and has one of the major multimodal hotspots in the state is right there. Was that the Royal Weaver John? But I will say, I did resubmit our design for the train station just two weeks ago. Nice. You see if I can get some money. It's in waiting, but people didn't say no. So I'm hoping something will come with that. Doesn't the train station still have to meet ADA requirements, which they don't? Yep, that's on tracks requirement, not any CRs. And they're working their way up these coast apparently. So our good friend and Senator Patrick Leahy is now, I don't know what is he the ranking senior member of the majority so we maybe we can get some traction on all this finally. Our new president is a train buff. Just saying. It's supposed to be the head of the preparations. Yeah. Did anybody know that Joe Biden's cousin plays rugby for Ireland? Rob Kearney, when Ireland won the Six Nations Championship, Joe Biden as he was then texted him, well done cousin. And when Joe Biden won the presidential race, Rob Kearney texted him, well, well done cousin Joe. So that was sort of sweet. Nice. So do we want to try and tackle any of the other stuff that was on Diane's master list there of topics that are, you know, something that we should be thinking about or what do you want to do? If we can either tackle them or I'll get Diane's email and bring with me to the CCRPC because it'll just be part of our list of the things we want to address. I'm easy either way. It's a pretty good list for ideas for the code, for sure. You know, plus some potential questions for some of the people we plan on inviting to the work sessions. Yes, absolutely. And did you, did everyone, I should say everyone, the people on the call who decided to show up tonight. I should say Phil emailed me this afternoon and said he won't make the meeting, but he will watch the recording. Okay. I'll give him a pass. The bike, the Robin, you want to talk a little bit about the grant for the grants that are available for you. I think you guys saw the email for the bike from the bike walk committee about the pedestrian improvements and bike path improvements. Yeah, I said, I said that the market. I'm actually working on a grant at the minute, which is due tomorrow. And it's the first of it's the first of what might be an annual grant. It's called Better Places. Nice. There's the maximum money is 20,000. Sometimes you can, when you're applying for grants sometimes the grand tour wants to really make a splash. With the money they gave, you know, we're talking about a project that might be $400,000 $20,000 is more like a drop in the ocean. But still it's an important project. I think, you know, over the past few years, for instance, or Pearl Street we had we pushed that building back 15 feet from the property line on the Perlin Park. 11 Park Street, we pushed it back 10 feet more or less from its property line. The one that didn't get built where the old Hinsdale building, we pushed him back five foot from his property line. So we're asking people to come and invest in their community to give up some of what they could have to benefit, you know, the collective, so to speak. So I think it's important that we do the one main street park to show that the village, the trustees, we're putting our money where our mouth is and showing everybody else, you know, visually in a concrete form that we're doing it to, we're just not asking others to do it. So I think it's important. Yeah, I agree. So that side should be remediated by spring this year. With Hendo, I've basically finished the corrective action plan. And they use the design that come out of the last charrette for the corrective action plan. And my understanding is that the funds coming from the CCRPC and the Department of Environmental Conservation will pay for the for the remediation. Then we will move in and create the park if we are successful getting this grant, which is due tomorrow. I haven't quite finished it yet. We have to have the work done by the 31st of August this year. So it's a tight schedule. But it's doable. And the trustees just said they'd give money from the economic development funds to do it because that is money that that's penny on the dollar money that was given to be used only in the village center district. And you want to talk about some other stuff that sort of bit off the table or do you want to put it this way I wrote a memo to the trustees for the meeting next Tuesday. And maybe if you want easier just to look at that rather than talk about it now but if you want to talk about it now I'm happy to do so I did mention it to John because I'm looking for people to get master classes and I wonder if he would as master Alden if he'd be willing to do that. He seems to volunteer for everything in the village every meeting is there so I think he's really I think he's really a nomad these days. But what's next Tuesday. It's the trustee meeting. So I there's a memo I don't know if it's up yet we don't we don't carry or I don't have the ability to post something on the website. So I'm not sure if it's posted yet it may be but certainly it should be up by tomorrow. Okay what are they doing at this meeting because I got a school or meeting at the same time. I don't know what you're doing I'm just telling you about the memo I wrote. Okay, so. And the memo is. I called it. Potential Phoenix events. I liked it because it's PPE. It's my little Irish joke in there. But nobody laughed. Okay, but it's setting out some ideas. You know, if the CDC are to believe and if people, you know, adhere the way they should to the COVID protocol, we should maybe be able to do things in the village center. It's summer early autumn. So I've come up with a few ideas just to get the ball rolling so to speak. I noticed the little parking area between the village offices and the fire station. The Las Exjunction parks and rec use that over the last few months they use it when kids couldn't be at school all the time. So when they were out of school they were over there and eating and so on in that space. And I suddenly realized this is quite an enclosed space, you know, if we had picnic tables which we've gotten abundance on. Parallel with the road that goes past the library and with some sort of simple little fence. where the front of the fire station is into that space. We could create a simple little courtyard there. We're going to be on Friday and Saturday nights, we could have bands playing and maybe before that there's no mic, you know, for John to sing a few songs and it just seems like a nice thing to do. Maybe we string lights from the privilege officers to the fire station, just those Christmas lights, just to give it a sort of a bit of an atmosphere. Maybe that happens from six until nine at night or something Friday or Saturday night. So we can get people interested, just, you know, a little something. And then the masterclass is maybe barbecue class, basic bicycle maintenance, basic design ideas, home brewing. And some may be held in the business, maybe picture framing. Some may be held in the businesses of the people who are the masters at that task and some may be in village property. Some might be underneath the new pavilion. The library might be able to provide some services there. Just community gathering events more than anything else, just to get people out of the house after being in it so long and maybe give them some help as well. Maybe there's one where people can come in and fix things that are easily fixed around and have them, you know, go on a landfill. They do that in Charlotte once a month. They'll have, I'm not sure if they called a fixed garage or something like that. And people will come along with something that's broken or something that doesn't work anymore and people who know how to fix it will have volunteered and they fix it for them. So little things like that. Maybe you, maybe everybody in the planning commission has a skill that I'd like to share with them. It's not a bad idea. It's just something to get people out and, you know. Yeah, I think that's, you know, I think that's a really great idea. People need to get back out. I think there's a lot of that. Well, I mean, I wrote late summer, early autumn because that seems to be, if everything goes according to plan, the timeframe CDC have set up for being safe. Well, you know, along similar lines and if you guys have any ideas, you know, please share but one of the things that, and John, I know you're, and Diane, I know you're both passionate about this. You know, this is, I can't remember how many times we've done this. We did the comprehensive plan. This is the second time we've done the code, right? So, you know, we put a lot of work into these and we have very little attendance, right? So I remember a conversation pre COVID when, you know, we were speculating that wouldn't it be great if we could do, you know, remote meetings so that maybe more people would join and participate because everybody's so busy, it might be easier for them to join from home, right? Well, here we are and we have that ability and we still don't have participation. Now granted, we haven't had that many opportunities but if you have ideas about how we can improve on that and attract more people, this is the perfect time. I hate to say it, but we're in a situation where we can get more folks involved, you know? Well, in the past, before you were on the board, Dave, there we had a listing of people that were invited to speak to the land development code and the comprehensive plan. And even though we had a schedule and people could show up, we got very little participation then. However, I think people are more accustomed now to remote interaction. And I think if we put out the schedule and said, here's the topic of the day and if you can't make it, you guys, you can watch it but on the other hand, drop us a letter, okay? And drop us an email, something. We might actually get more participation that way. I think people are ready to participate. It's just sometimes they have to be invited. And unfortunately, communication out isn't the best but I guess we got to use all the vehicles that we possibly can. If it's from Port Form, if it's the Facebook, it's got to go out and try to get it, you know? And yes, I think we'll have to actually invite some people. I think it worked really well down the last time we invited people, everyone showed up. Well, all the invitees showed up, okay? But we didn't have, we didn't fill the room, Robin. No. And we get lots of people who will make all kinds of noise when we get an application that's next door, okay? And in this case, it's kind of like, you know, it's nice to have them show up before it's next door, okay? We do have the neighbors in the downtown area who are do seem to be stepping up more than just when something, an application shows up. I mean, the NAFES last meeting we had, and I hope you changed the spelling on that in the minutes, because it was wrong. The... We haven't done the minutes yet, Dan. What? We haven't done them yet. Oh, okay. And well, I noticed that it was born from six o'clock versus 6.30. But anyhow, can't be in two places in one, sorry guys. So, you know, it's, I think if we, if we, you know, quite frankly, if we get Annie to make some notes and she seems to get out everywhere, that she might, I think she's what, Economic Development Chair or something? Economic... Yeah, you'll be hearing it at the meeting. Yeah, she just got, she just got installed as the Chair of the Economic Development. But it's trying to get that out to say this, we really have to let people know that now is the time to do that impact and not wait until it's next door across the street. And try and get that... I understand most people don't pay attention to that. So, you're both right. And to your point, Rob, and that's exactly what I'm getting at. So, we got to a point, you know, we used to be told, well, we can't do it remotely. We just can't do that. It has to be in, you know, it has to be, everybody has to be present and we have to, you know, we have to do it a certain way because of the open meeting laws and this and that. And now here we are. This is my point. So, we've gotten to this point and we've been able to do this. But I think, and this is just an idea, that it's the way that we inform people that's the issue. And what I mean by that is, I don't know if any of you have heard of these tools and we use them quite a bit. So, Teams is great. But the thing is, if you don't remind somebody, and when I say remind somebody, I'm talking on their phones, you know, an hour before the meeting happens, they're gonna forget because everybody's busy, right? They're doing all kinds of stuff. We're all busy. We use tools like Slido, which is a question and answer kind of forum where you can remain anonymous, but you're still logged into Teams or something like that. And we also use another tool called Scipio, which is, I'm sure there's many different versions out there, but Scipio is basically a thing where if you have an email and you're, say, signed up to receive notifications from the Village of Essex Junction, you get a reminder on your phone, hey, it's time for the meeting in 15 minutes or 20 minutes. Here's the agenda for tonight. So, I'm not sure if we can have permission to do that, but I think it's the way we try to approach people that's the problem. Does that make sense? It does. The one thing, I believe the one thing we have to do is we have to have a record if we reset the meeting and we have to know who spoke. They can't be speaking now, honestly. They can be from the last- That's just a general, that was just something generalization that I was saying. With this particular tool with Slido, you can require that they tell you their names. That's just how we use it. We allow people to ask questions of our CEO and stuff like that. So, my point is it doesn't have to be those tools, but there's a lot of tools out there that we can use to maybe try to communicate to people differently. The way that they get information today, right? I think that might cure some of the problems we've had in the past that people can do it remotely rather than have them come in. Yeah, really, because especially with the interviews and so on, I think that would really take a bit of pressure off people. I don't know, does anybody have any other feedback on that? I know that Facebook, the Village has a Facebook account and that I'm not sure how many people are signed up for it, but Essex Community's got a larger population and you can put on or get whoever the moderators are to put on a Facebook event. And that event would then actually do exactly what you're saying, Dave, is you could get, the event would be out there, it would be presented and I think you can sign up for a reminder. So we'll say, hey, the event's in an hour. Make sure you're online. This meeting was posted on the Essex BT Community Facebook site. I actually checked it before the meeting started to make sure you could get access to it from the Facebook account and you can. Right, so, excuse me, but to Diane's point, it's not, it's great that we're, the information's out there, it's posted, but we're not reaching out to them to remind them. That's the difference. If you, if I just say, anytime you want, you can go on Essex Junction Facebook site and all our information's out there and you can join anytime you're ready, right? But if you're reaching out to them, that's different, right? So that's kind of what I'm thinking would be more effective. And I know it sounds funny. It's like, if you want to be involved, you should make the effort, but I don't think it's intentional. I think people are just so busy that they, if they got a reminder, they'd be, oh yeah, I do want to join. I do want to hear what they're talking about tonight. You know what I mean? Well, I agree with you, David, but they need a reminder. It's not so much that they're busy, although that depends, busy has its own definition. It's that people also in this remote environment right now have also pulled back, okay? And that they do need that invitation because they've literally quarantined themselves from a lot of different things. It's- True, yeah, true. So it's like a one-hand when we first got quarantined, I saw lots of neighbors on the street, now all of a sudden I don't see them anymore. They've all, I know those dogs have got to go out for a walk, okay? But I'm not seeing them, so where did they go? Maybe it's in the backyard. Well, I think the first thing we would have to do is we'd have to find out, Robin, from legal, what we're allowed to do and what we're not allowed to do. I can't imagine there's any problem with what we're doing at the moment and it could be 50 people. And just as long as you know who it is and that would be about it, I don't think there'd be any interest at all. It's an open meeting, people can, there's no restrictions on who can listen or chime in, but I won't check. Okay, that'd be great. I'd just like to, I'm trying to figure out ways to make it more attractive for people to want to participate and easier for them. I know how they did it with Heart and Soul, they had biscuits and stuff for people. They had lots of meetings and fed people. There you go, you're bringing up exactly what I talked about earlier in Sentem's work, right? Yes. One of the things they did was they went to people instead of trying to get people to come to them. That's what I'm saying, John. Yeah. Well, I don't know if they'll remind them, but they actually went there. They said, oh, you guys are having a high school open house, I'm gonna set up a table in the hallway. Oh, you guys are doing soccer signups. I'm gonna go set up a table right next to you. You know. Yeah. Good field days or the village street party, we're gonna set up a table. So that, you know what, that's not a bad idea. So in a virtual environment, what does that look like? Because we can't do that now. It's not as easy to do that now because there's nothing happening, right? So in a virtual environment, what events are happening that may or not, they may be semi-live, they may be something virtual that we can participate in. So we're still going to them. We're still setting up our table. It's just virtual. I mean, I can't think of anything off the top of my head, but it's the same idea, right? Well, I'm thinking, you know, you can't go on any of your media sources without getting 1,000 popups. What if when you signed on to the village website, you know, you got a popup reminder that said, hey, if we're interested in the land development code rewrite happening now, you know, check here. That's a perfect idea. Great idea. Derby used to do something like that. And we really haven't had anybody doing that stuff since you left. So here's where the planning commission and the economic development department should join forces and make this happen somehow. It's just a couple hours of some, you know, tech wizard figuring out how to make it happen, but it happens all the time. Yeah, there are people who can do anything with tech and technology. I don't want to know who they are. I'm saying we could make this happen if we just apply some pressure to the right people. We have the ability, we just need to do it. Yeah, I mean, the other thing I'm starting to think of too now listening to you guys is with the code due to a CCRPC in what November Robin and you said there's a possibility we might get that extended a couple of weeks or so, but, you know, listening to your idea Robin about some of these community events that you're talking about this summer, you know, I think those are great opportunities to do the tabling that you just discussed, David, you know, like, you know, get out and start just letting people know at those events, maybe offer a little bit of food. But as I started thinking about it more, you know, it's being virtual the way we are and then all of a sudden, once we're allowed to congregate or once it starts to feel safe, it's gonna probably take a while for people's comfort level to come back for them to start going out. But if us as a planning commission, as a community, as a village, are hosting community events to try and draw people out, people might appreciate that. And they might start to engage and wonder, you know, and want to potentially get involved in little things like that. And then the other thing in terms of making some of, you know, getting people involved, you know, we see, we have large projects going on, but, you know, the small park that we're talking about in front of Firebird Cafe, you know, seeing small, just seeing things moving forward, people start to get excited about those things too. So it's, you know, having some of those small successes and rolling them into community events and showing people, hey, this is what we're trying to do. This is what we're trying to accomplish. We're in the middle of writing this land, you know, this development code right now. We would love your input and how things are going, how it's looking, you know, I think there's some potential there. I think you're right, Patrick. I think these are all great ideas. And I think what I'm trying to get out the big picture sort of thing is, again, I've been through two of these rewrites, you know, and I would like to see this be successful because I don't know if I can sit through another 15 minutes of John saying how disappointed he is and people not showing up for meetings. So, you know, and really seriously, I think we have an opportunity to do some good things with the code, but we also have an opportunity, it's an opportunity to really try to involve the community in what's going on. And because we always hear about it after the fact, we always hear, well, no one let me know this or I didn't know this was, when did this happen? You know, I don't want that to happen again. I want people to be excited. And so any ideas we come up with to get people involved would be good ones in my opinion. Yeah, I mean, part of my understanding of the better places thing that you're applying to Robin is they also like to see little pop-up events and some of these small successes and some potential like revitalizing ideas that communities have, like you can almost use the better places grants as like a test and be like, well, you know, what would it look like if we did close down this street and we turned it in and we had these restaurants bump out and have outdoor seating and better places will help you like kind of test that and see what the feasibility and see what the reaction is. And then you can kind of build off that momentum and continue to move things forward. So, you know, yeah, I mean, I think using the park that we're looking at down in front of Firebird, I think we use that success of building that and showing people, you know, cause eventually, right? Part of the redesigned five corners is to shut down Main Street and turn that into more of a pedestrian way. So we start to show people that this is what it could look like, this is what we're going for, please get involved. I mean, it's why I got involved, why I joined you guys on this commission is cause I like the idea and I like seeing some of those plans and I wanted to be a part of that development and see it through, so. I think that's a great idea, Patrick. If you have, and somebody correct me if I'm wrong, have we ever tried to do, cause here's what I noticed, everybody shows up for the free food, but then nobody comes to the meeting, right? So have we ever tried to do an event where the event is the same night as the meeting? Where we just- You have to attend the event before you get the food? Yeah, you go to the event. It's right there, and then you call everybody and say, hey, it's time for the meeting to start and everybody comes in. I mean, have we ever tried that? Right, Dave, how about the idea of dinner theater? Okay, that the dining and the meeting happen at the same time? Cause that way you can't leave until you finish your dinner. Right, right. And you gotta listen to us talk while you eat, yeah. I don't know, well, you know, we're talking about some stuff that, you know, number one might not happen for a while, right? Cause we can't control the social distancing and all that kind of stuff, but it's definitely something to think about. I mean, as summer hits and we start to have more of these guest speakers and things like that, it's something to think about. Yeah, I mean, the more I think about it too, you know, it's, if we can position ourselves with some of these events when people start to get comfortable, I mean, I don't know necessarily who would be if it's our role as a planning commission, if it's, you know, downtown, the village center district, whoever, I don't know if it's for the ones that manage it or, you know, parking recs or who might it be, but, you know, having more community events to draw people out once some of these regulations around social distancing are starting to be relaxed and helping people renormalize into that, whether it ties into our land development code or not and writing it. I just think as a community, people would really appreciate the village being making that push forward to try and engage, just engage people in community again. Just a period, let's become a community again. We've all been tied up in our homes and let's just get outdoors and let's have these events, let's have these public gatherings and I think momentum will just naturally, I personally feel the momentum will just naturally build from there, people will begin to appreciate what the village is trying to do and might want to try and get involved. That's definitely a good idea. So any other ideas, you know, we should just definitely, and also something we haven't mentioned is tapping the trustees to help with the conversation, right, so they have a bigger stage than we do. They have the ability to mention, you know, what's going on with the code and participation, so tapping into them would probably be worthwhile as well. Well, there is a big push about various people who are speaking to merger and whatnot, but the point I want to make is that there's this push that says the identity of the village is going to disappear and I'm going, it's only going to disappear if we let it disappear, if we want it to remain, I mean, come on, who doesn't know why River Junction? You know, that's in the town of Hartford? Yeah, yeah, there you go, okay. Yes, I know where it is, I know about Hartford, but quite frankly, why River Junction is a lot more known than Hartford is. Absolutely, you know, there are five villages in the town of Hartford? Okay, you're pushing it now. I knew that there were at least three that I know about. What a good point you're making. But it's kind of like it, and that's what we're talking about. Okay, we're talking about people coming out, we're talking about people getting involved with their community and how it's now designed or will be built out. The part that we keep hearing from a lot of the neighbors is that it's surprise is being built out, here's the application. And then it's not so much surprise then, it's like six months later, the building goes up and then it becomes a real surprise, what's going on? So the constant talk on Front Porch Forum is what's going up at Three Main Street or Three Maple Street, I guess. And so you've got that chatter and it's kind of going, are we missing something? Cause we're not in front of that? That's what I'm saying is, we're not just trying to attract more people to the meetings to be there, to be bodies in the audience, we're attracting them so that they gain knowledge and they know what's going on in the community. Dave, you get success stories you talked about earlier. Why can't we start marketing some of that stuff? Sorry to cut you off, but you talked about the wastewater or runoff or something that really impressed you. Yeah, I think why not get ahead of some of these stuff? And maybe, I don't know if it's a newsletter, it's definitely gonna be work, but and I don't know who for maybe we share it in some fashion somehow, but like almost like a monthly newsletter project update is there's gonna be a lot of development happening very quickly. And just giving people like the way our legislatures, local reps do their front porch forum updates on items. Why can't we do that for development projects going on in the junction? Yeah, it's a good point. The more you get in front of somebody, like you're saying Diane, the more that there are apps to engage with it and be aware and be knowledgeable of what's going on. Yeah, I mean, again, it comes back to sort of what I was getting at for a point, which is we put information out there, but we don't push information out there. It's available, but we don't go out and show it and tell it. There's a big difference. Absolutely, yeah, we gotta tell our own story. Yeah, so Robin and John, you're being awful quiet. Burned out, ready to make a motion to adjourn. Is it past your bedtime? Yeah, that's my dinner time, starving. Yeah, I mean, I'll second you. I mean, this has been very helpful. I just wanted before we close out, maybe I suppose apologize for my rant at the last meeting. I was feeling a little frustrated. I'm sure that probably came out a little bit and I appreciate you guys listening and engaging with me. Part of this is it's a learning curve for me. That was the second meeting we've had in however many months, a year and a half or so, I've been on this and I just felt like I didn't understand my role and my responsibility as a commission member and what I could and could not do. And I'm really hoping as we have more of these meetings and more discussions like this, I'm gonna learn and I'm gonna understand what it is that I'm doing it. I'm excited to get involved with this land development code and like I said earlier, the whole reason why I joined the commission and volunteered is because I saw all these development plans and redesigned five corners. And I got really excited about the development and the potential that this village could have and wanted to be a part of that. So thank you guys. Patrick, I mean, we're all just learning as we go through. Sure. The thing is, as I find with government, having worked in the private sector before, sometimes things move at glacial speed and you just have to regroup and move forward again. But thank you very much to you and everyone else for volunteering. It's hard to get people who are good at what they do and wanna give up their time. Yeah, and COVID, COVID definitely put a dent in our momentum, but you're here for an exciting time. I guess if you consider that, but the rewriting of the code is, I mean, it's a big deal and it doesn't happen every year. I'm looking forward to seeing you guys put the papers down in the new park. We'll have the papers by planners morning at some stage. John likes that idea, I can see. Either that or his eyes open. I'm not sure which it is. All right, so thank you very much. I will get a word out to as many of you who want them all for the one night, maybe pick four to six groups the first Thursday in February. That's fine with me, whatever you guys think is worthwhile. I know there's three or four, we can probably get very quickly. The others might take a little bit longer. I know George Tyler's a bit like John, he's always available for a meeting. Okay. I personally would like just because I believe in affordable housing and all that, it'd be great to have the housing committee come on and just understand how we as a planning commission are gonna interact with the housing committee and moving forward. They were at the town planning commission last week, so they'd be very keen to be at the village one too. That'd be great. One more thing, guys, before I let you go, do we wanna do the minutes real quick? I thought you were gonna table them because... Do you just wanna get them out of the way or do you want guys wanna table? Well, we managed to just have a quorum if we wanted to get them out of the way. We have a quorum, so. We have a quorum. John, are you still awake? I'm trying to find my minutes here. Here, I can, if you want, I can share my screen. No, that's all right, I got them. All right. Could you, David, you don't know who's here, but now you're sharing your screen? Well, I can share my screen, fine. I just can't see anybody else. Sometimes you have a little interactive bar there with the little people on it that look like Mike. I do. I do, and when I click on it, it shows me and nobody else. So don't worry about you, David. I knew that the first time I met you. I've never had this issue with teams before, it's weird. I can tell you guys are all here just by the chat, though, because I see what you're saying. Well, okay, I see, sometimes I'll see who's speaking, sometimes I don't. Okay, I've got the little circle icons across the bottom. Mm-hmm. Yeah, that on teams here, I don't see, and I don't know that in others, you get the mosaic and you can get the grid of people, which I don't see how that happens in this one. I like the fact that you can speak without moving your lips. Yes, well, here's a picture of your lips aren't moving, but I can hear you talking. That's a good trick. Well, it is interesting with teams. It's not one of my favorite platforms, actually, but I hate to tell you how many platforms are on my laptop. So what do you guys want to do? Do you want to do these minutes or do you want a table? I mean, it's a simple thing. If there's a couple of corrections, we should just do it and get it done. It's mostly typos, I think. It's mostly typos. All right. All right, well, Frank and Judy Neff's name is misspelled. It should be N-A-E-F. N-A-E-F, hold on. That's throughout the document. I'm just highlighting, I'm going to highlight it on my document. So I have, you know what I mean? Yes. Okay, what else? In the first page, this would be, I guess the first, second paragraph and number two audience for visitors. People's is already plural. So it doesn't have, it's E, apostrophe S. People's lawns. Yeah, I see it. If there are others, I just got beyond it and said I'm just moving on. John, did you have anything? No, I think we talked about how they were going to achieve the additional lighting around the sidewalk that was lit less than the code required, but I don't think we really have to tell them how to do it. I think they figured it out when we were talking to them. So I'm fine. Just go with the typos and the amendment changes. There's a whole bunch of stuff highlighted. That must be the stuff that was added to the conditions. Yep. That was our stuff. So you guys covered the typos and whatnot. I'm fine as written. So I'll make a motion to approve them with the corrections noted. Excellent. Do I hear a second? Second. All in favor? Why? All opposed? Okay, we're done with that. All right. And do we need, it's a work session. Do we need a motion to end this? Probably not. You can't put that on a gavel. You always need a motion. I need a gavel, David, I know. All right, do I hear a motion to adjourn? So moved. Second. Okay, great. Thank you. Thank you very much. Robin, you're all done recording, right? I'm going to, hold on. I'll stop the recording now. All in favor, say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. So, now you can say what you really think. No, you're still. Wish you all a good night. And thank you so much for your work tonight. And I'll email everyone with the link.