 So let's call the order of the July 13 meeting of the Immaculate Planning Commission. The first thing we have to do is approve the agenda, which people will receive through email. So if you'll take a look at that, please. Do we have a motion to approve the agenda? So moved. Okay. Move by Barb. Do we have a second? Second. Second by Marcella. Okay. Those in favor of approving the agenda say aye. Aye. Aye. Okay. Any opposed? Okay. Agenda approved. So the next thing on the agenda, or the next thing we're doing is a comment from the chair. So the update I have is after last meeting I'd asked everyone for some feedback about how they'd like to see things structured moving forward and going to the city plan. I have received a lot of really great feedback so far. So if anyone hasn't then please pitch in because most people have at this point and I'll be compiling whatever I see for our next meeting and talk about that. Try to bring back to the group sort of the compiled requests and discussion materials and figure out what we want to do. One theme I can tell you that I've noticed so far is that it seems like most people are interested in reaching out to the public sooner rather than later when it comes to the city plan. So that's definitely something that we'll probably talk about next time about ways we can do that. And we'll also be talking about some other things as well. So the feedback was really great so thanks everybody. That's all I have for comments. So the next time we have general business is there anyone present from the public who would like to discuss an item that is not on the agenda that is would they like to discuss something that's not related to the design review district boundary the design review rule changes the pioneer street zoning district change or you know the energy plan implementation anything else. So with that we can move on to considering the minutes from last time. So if everyone will take a look at those that were emailed out. Kirby I have a question towards the end of the minutes it says that you asked if the presentation could be sent out to be reviewed by the commission. I'm not sure what presentation that refers to. It was the presentation we'd received from Meredith before and just one other supporting materials and Mike did do that for our materials tonight. Mike had sent a whole packet. I had also recent some materials but a lot of what I said actually was redundant with what Mike had already sent out when he sent out the agenda for this week. So this is the information that was sent out not a specific presentation. Okay. Yeah yeah so that that that was a that was a request that that Mike did and that we have now. Okay do we have anything to approve the minutes? I'll move to approve the minutes. Okay do we have a second? Second. Second by Barb Okay those in favor of approving the minutes from June 22nd say aye. Okay any opposed? Okay minutes approved and now we get to what we're here for tonight which is the final public hearing on some zoning changes and the first item we need to discuss is the design review district boundary which is what we will propose for the city council for the city council to change and also changes to the design review rules. As a bit of background this is something that has been worked on that we have worked on since last fall starting in September and into the spring and then we were hoping that it would be done by now but of course it was interrupted by COVID and the changes in how we were conducting our meetings. But now we've had finally gotten to this hearing. This is not the only hearing we did actually hold a public hearing previously on this which I'm really glad we did at this point because I wouldn't feel good if our only public hearing was by Zoom but we did have that one public hearing before. We have had a lot of public meetings of the planning commission where we discussed this but you know that's about it for the background. It has been a while since we've discussed this so I think we're some of us will probably be rusty about some of the things that were discussed and some of the decisions that were made many months ago but with that I could turn it over to Meridus to walk us through where we last were. Are you able to do that for us Meridus? Oh I thought I was here for questions. I guess I can jump in too just to go through and say this will really depend on how much input and how many questions you guys are going to have on this. Other than someone who may be watching this on Orca or in watching it on tape later on there's nobody here to provide input so the amount of discussion that you want to have I can go through and summarize what the design review rules are but really it's going to be up to you guys how much and how long we want to talk about the design review rules. As you point out it's been talked about a lot within the group we've had a couple public hearings on it but I could roll out a quick summary and you know if we had members of the public who are interested I know the one person here who is Brooke she's here for Pioneer Street so we don't really have somebody on the line who is going to be giving a presentation to and then they can respond with their questions and comments so it's up to you guys how much you want me to present on this and how much you want to kind of keep it short and move move on to Pioneer Street. I mean I can give sort of a presentation on the process but it's also talking about where you left off last I'm not sure I was even was I even at the last public you know planning commission meeting on this I honestly can't remember because I've been so entrenched in other things and I don't think it's in here when your last meeting was on it. Sure so how about we how about this how about you know Meredith run through the the you know 30,000 foot view for a couple of minutes and then Mike can tell us about the last decisions that were made and go from there. That sounds good so big picture overview and you know this is probably largely for people at home who are viewing beer at Orca is that you know the I staff the historic preservation commission and which we like to call HPC so the HPC took up the task of drafting new design review regulations back in September of 2017 because concerns were identified about how the design review regulations were framed when the unified the general unified development regulations were being rewritten in 2017 and into 2018 so part of the the HPC's process was to look at example design review regulations from other Vermont towns as well as nationwide they were just doing a big let's look at everything and try and create a whole new system if need be they looked at the rehabilitation best practices from the National Park Service and the American Planning Association when they hired a consultant to give them guidance on on which direction to go and big picture ideas and then of course the expertise of the historic planning commission members themselves many of whom are full-time professionals in the historic preservation field so the the HPC's drafting goals and intentions were to improve the predictability and consistency of applications when they came in the door and for the applicants themselves so the consistency of their their approach to the application process for design review to improve the defensibility of the city's decisions permit decisions on design review because right now the current regulations are very sparse they're you know set specific of number of guidelines but really nothing to hang your hat on if somebody appeals a decision um they the historic preservation commission decided to continue with a design review district versus they could have opted to go strictly to a historic review district which has different parameters and would have to be just the historic district boundaries but they went with design review overlay design review district so that's a can be a much broader part section of the city um they also one of the mandates was they had to um uh sorry that went so they also wanted to have more flexible design standards versus the current regulations with clear um exemptions and options for administrative officer review so that's an entirely new new item um sorry one second um they also I just lost my presentation um had to meet the certified local government requirements for the design review regulations um so that the the design review process results in projects that are more consistent with the national park service rehabilitation standard so that's something that they had to do so some of the changes that were made are just they're mandated because the city of Montpelier is a certified local government um and if we don't keep up those that those requirements then we lose options for grant funding um and then finally the final goal was to make sure that the guidelines are really transparent um and to enable discussion of revisions to the overlay district boundaries which is the other part of this process that you're looking that the plan commission is looking at um so the really the the there's no way to run a direct red line between what we currently have and the new proposal because so much of the language was changed but there are really three core categories of changes that happened um one specific standards were set were added um for alterations in additions to historic buildings versus projects that don't involve historic buildings right now there's just some guidelines they apply to everything that doesn't really make sense when you have such a mix of historic buildings and non-historic buildings in the design review district so they've broken those out so that stricter standards apply to historic buildings and non-historic buildings have some more flexibility um additionally the application process was clarified within the design review regulations with options for administrative officer approval right now that's not in the regulations at all everything that comes up in the design review district has to go through the design review committee um and so things like you know changing the color of a building that has already been painted previously that's no longer going to have to go through design review so that's one of those um actually that might be an exemption not just administrative officer approval but some things will be administratively approved at this point and then increased exemptions from design review and clarifying some statutory limitations um just so that there's consistent application of these regulations going forward and you don't have as many things open to interpretation by a zoning administrator um Mike you said you were going to talk about specific changes right um yeah I can jump in I mean that gives an open view without getting into the specifics of what all the the smaller changes are that are in there but um you know I can jump in just to to go to the boundary changes so that kind of gives an overview of what was changed to the rules which is pretty much everything we took the old rules which had a number of issues um and they'll be replaced with a new set of rules that tries to add more detail so that way applicants and reviewers have more information to make better better decisions ones that can be that can stand up the court there's been some Vermont Supreme Court decisions um that require that we have more specificity in our rules and so we really have been delinquent in in not getting these updated so this will help fix that that legal issue but then we also set up processes where these can be more efficient so you don't have to go to the drb to remove a sign right now you do um this would become an administrative permit so we can do a couple of these things a lot easier um and then from a map standpoint we wanted to have a basis in our map that wasn't just arbitrary and really our current design review boundary was was arbitrary in fact it didn't even follow parcel lines in some cases so um part of a parcel would be in and part of a parcel wouldn't be in what we tried to do was follow parcel lines try to match them to neighborhood boundaries as much as possible and then just to clean up the map in a number of places um there were certain rules we had to follow the designated downtown everything in the designated downtown must be in design review so that that's one rule and um beyond that we just tried to follow some make some logical things where we where we followed on neighborhood lines so most of the changes are rather subtle that's on the map that you that you had and that's available online um if you have that map if you're at home and you're looking at the map it can be a little bit confusing there's a red hatched line and there's a solid black line the solid black line is the existing boundary and the red hatched line is what the new boundary would look like so there's you can see just a couple of places where a parcel is added or a parcel is removed and that's those are really what we're looking at in this amendment is to go through and there's also a few subtle zoning changes zoning district changes that were done to match this as well there'd be a couple of three properties on terrace street and I think one on berry street where the zoning district actually changed just to just to clean up the map a little bit so that's a summary of most of the map changes um we did not go through and make large scale changes we talked about those but uh eventually felt we would make modest changes at this point to clean it up and if in the future we felt there were other adjustments that were needed we can go back and revise that add parcels in or remove other parcels but that's the that is the the 10 minute summary of the design review changes so Mike can you remind us where we left Bailey Avenue I'm looking at at the the map that you sent out and it it seems like so so the history in the context for why I'm asking this question is that at a previous hearing on this we we got feedback from some members of the neighborhood around Bailey Avenue about um being removed or or they were concerned about our proposed inclusion of a part of Bailey Avenue in uh in in the new uh design review boundary whereas they weren't in before um so I haven't done this before but let me see if I can share my screen and if you have problems and like I can do my uh just that one property that jets up I we yeah we discussed we discussed removing some and I'm not sure the map reflects it right now so this let me see if I can zoom in a little bit yeah so here's the the here's what Kirby's talking about you've got state street if you had my little hand coming across state street we've got the capital sitting right here um and moving see if I can find it right up through through here is Bailey and here is Baldwin and then it turns and it goes up to Terra Street so remember I mentioned before the red hash lines are what would be in the new district the black solid line is the line of the current rules so these properties would be added including the red stone this is the redstone building would be added into design review new under the version that we had a hearing in January on one two three properties here were also in and we voted at that meeting to say they would not be and they would be removed from design review and we also rezoned them to be part of this blue neighborhood the residential 9 000 so they would be rezoned as well in this proposal okay so that was that was one set of discussions we did hear from some people who I think a person who lived up here who was concerned about being uh you know kind of singled out but it turns out this red line where this is following through here is in fact the historic district boundary so everything in here is within the historic district a national register historic district and these other ones are out and that's why that neighborhood line was drawn where it was and that was why you in January had voted to keep this in so so right now the the proposed map we're looking at it follows the historic boundary it in this area yes and does it also follow the zoning neighborhood boundary it does you'll notice the orange is one neighborhood boundary the blue the light blue is another neighborhood boundary and it's hard to tell it's kind of a red color that's behind this one so this is um a who I don't have off top my head the zoning of that one but um that's probably residential 3000 maybe residential 6000 yeah that must be residential 6000 this is mixed use residential so it's following the it doesn't follow the mixed use residential or else it would keep going but it does follow um to a point that boundary and then keeps going up through here and across behind the urban center one there's some more mixed use so you can see it's following those neighborhood lines this goes into the cliff street area because that's actually part of the designated downtown that's why there's an exception there it follows the again zoning district line up through here again this does not follow this does not bring in the rest of this mixed use residential neighborhood but follows spring street in the same as it does today a parcel was put in here we remember we had a discussion up here so now we're up by main street so this is part of a parcel here so under the old zoning half the parcel was in design review and half the parcel was out and we voted to put it in so that way it now follows to parcel lines and we remove these few over here this is out by the school by the way the um made a few you know a little parcel comes out little parcel comes in you know the rest of it are mostly just minor little tweaks a little bit of um downing street was added in the rest of downing street the rest of these parcels these parcels were all split in half we just continued to reflect that the whole parcels would be in the rest of berry street was added in because it's all part of the designated downtown and had to be put in so that's you'll see these guys up here we removed ccv this is the college campus so the college campus stays in design review but the private parcels have been removed so that those were the changes there just cleaning up this is north field street we added in what we call the gasoline alley down here right now it currently splits it in half so some of the gas stations are in design review and half the gas stations are out well we figured we would put them all in that was what we voted on in january then we just clean these up the follow parcel lines so most of this isn't very exciting through here um so that's a quick scan of what was what was there now let's see if i can get us back out you are sharing screen stop sharing there we go anybody else have any questions for mike about the boundaries or marita for about the rules okay it seems it seems like everything reflects you know where we left it last time and it felt like we were in a pretty good place last time so do you want to vote these separately and just entertain this one now and then move on to pioneer street yeah yeah i think that's a good idea there's i don't see any reason to combine two um okay well let's let's do let's do i mean what do you think mike should we should we do the rule separately from the boundary i don't think so i think we'd be okay voting them both together okay well uh okay so uh does anyone have a motion for voting on the rules and the boundary for design review i move to approve the design review rules and assisted boundaries have a question clarifying question do we need to move that we like the next step is to send it to city council right so do we need to add that in as a step or is that a given probably probably a good idea to to approve these and forward them to city council for consideration with our like recommendation yeah i probably should have asked a leading question i probably should have said something like do we do we have a motion to refer the boundary and rules as discussed uh tonight uh on to city council for their approval with our recommendation for them to adopt them so moved is that different than what erin had already presented so okay we need somebody okay so we've got that then then um erin's motion dies for fail of a second and we can take barb's motion as it stands how's that which was actually really kirby's wording but that's okay yeah that's i should remember to ask the leading questions more often okay so uh do we have a second for barb okay erin seconds those in favor of barb's motion uh say hi hi any opposed okay so with uh i think that was a five zero approval with uh who's john he's this guy i used to see around now he was supposed to come tonight something may have come on this this member that supposedly saw around before you may have gotten messed up because the second monday of the month fell at an awkward time i don't know then again i don't know okay so it looks like we've we're doing that five oh so uh i thought that would take longer mike had the wisdom to include another item on our agenda so we can actually oh we still got pioneer street oh right yes let's see that makes more sense um and i probably caused brook to panic for a second there i don't know um issues paying attention okay well let's talk about pioneer street then um mike do you want to remind us about that or i can give it a go uh yeah or i can i can share my screen again let's see if i can get the second one to come up here let me go back to here really quick turn that one off so just to orient everybody uh this is the pioneer street bridge as it turns um savings pasture up top and river street kind of going along through here um this is the car wash this is montpellier flag works so hopefully that gives everybody a little bit of orientation um this is heading down towards the roundabout and uh the the ford dealership and the grossman's property this is the ford dealership this is a gross old grossman's property um and the winooski river putting through here so and what we are looking at specifically today is um some proposals for the pioneer street area which includes um the self-store units there's um that are kind of along the roadway and along the river there's a railroad bed that bisects the property um and the car wash and this property also includes the insurance companies and the um barenaked growler and the medical marijuana facility so those are all on this same parcel it's a large parcel has a number of buildings um they were looking to do an expansion and it was discovered that most of the many of the uses and almost every building are considered non-conforming under the new zoning so a question came up they would all be conforming if they were in this purple district which is eastern gateway but they're not they're part of the orange district over here which is riverfront and so the question came up as to whether or not this is or was properly zoned and whether we should consider merging it with this zoning district and changing it to eastern gateway to make these all conforming uses um this small patch up top is land that's on the other side of the river and we would simply be changing that zoning designation to be um rural so if you're wondering what the yellow hatch is that's all city owned land parts of the river um it's old country club road basically and it would just be rezoned part of rural but this part here is really the the topic of discussion which is what are we going to do with uh the pioneer street which is really two parcels the parcel that um you heard from at the last meeting and the car wash property both of which in this proposal would be shifted to eastern gateway to make them conforming and be able to change the argument on the other side um is that if we wanted to see these properties change over time to be um more pedestrian oriented and not to continue to develop as um auto oriented which eastern gateway is kind of recognized that it is more auto oriented there are less sidewalks or no sidewalks in these areas most of the buildings are designed with large parking lots to accommodate people driving in with vehicles so the question is if our goal was to force this area to change into the future then you would keep it as a riverfront district but that would have uh consequences for the property owners or you can go the other way so that's kind of laying out both sides there's a little bit um I can answer any questions that people have but that's pretty much what you have Mike what is the section the yellow section um what zoning is that it across the street so all of this was so all of the outside of these crosshatch areas were all or are today zoned riverfront when we decided to cut these out we sliced right down the middle of the river and said everything from the middle of the river south will in this proposal shift to eastern gateway everything from the center of the river north would be shifted to rural right i'm i'm interested in what the zoning is for nine is it nine dash five across um the street from our proposal yes yes that's a residential three three thousand so well mostly these these are these little roads that shoot up the hill yeah scribner street oh is it taplin and i should have them written down there so um it's taplin blackwell yes taplin back to blackwell and scribner yeah scribner's on the over here on the other side that's scribner so these these are all all have little small smallish houses all residential there's no commercial development in here which is why it's been specially cut out as its own district thanks that's helpful yeah and there is a sidewalk on this side of the street there is not a sidewalk on that side of the street and i'll point out that um brook is here brook dingledine who was the attorney that was representing the owners of this parcel she is also on the line if you want to hear from her i don't know what process you want to use kirby yeah i think now is a good time or before the planning commission dives into any kind of policy we're in a discussion to ask brook if she would like to add anything but you know no pressure to do so see you there brook i am let me see if i can get the video great hi i'm here with jim barrett and his son kelly um we didn't want to bore you with any other details but did want to just remind you folks or answer any questions that you might have regarding the request that we had asked for in looking at the charts of the uses in the riverfront district that we've been placed into versus eastern gateway there are a couple differences between the uses that are permitted or conditional uses in the area but what we're talking about here is our building well in 1970 i believe is when mr barrett purchased the property when he purchased the property and it was quite a a dump to use the vernacular they did a lot of improvements to this property over the years there were all sorts of building foundations and it was quite a place that was left in a disarray that really over the years the barrett's have managed to really improve that property now there are 13 total buildings on a section that is under consideration for being placed into eastern gateway 10 of those 13 buildings have been made non-conforming uses that are in violation of the ordinance uh where in the future one could not build those kinds of buildings or have those kinds of uses it's a self storage unit there are nine of them nine buildings on the property out of 12 that's on the barrett's property and then of course the car wash would be made non-compliant with there is now non-compliant on the riverfront district whereas the eastern gateway it would be permitted and that was one of the uses that would be in the gateway division or district so by the change that occurred it placed 10 of 13 buildings on the this area out of compliance with the statute now normally changes in zoning are enacted you know for those planning processes of directing how we want our orderly development to unfold into the future um what we tried to explain to you last time was that these buildings aren't going to go anywhere um they will be maintained they've been there for a long time and the whole notion was uh there was another building that was going to be proposed and then it was discovered that the zoning had changed my my folks were not aware of that when the change was made recently so that's why they're they're coming to ask for a correction and I think that this um what may have sounded like a good place to make the demarcation between riverfront and the eastern gateway it ends up um creating a situation that really isn't going to have the intended effect of rezoning this district to two different uses because this is a company that's been in you know three generations a hundred years and for the many many years into the future they'll be these buildings will remain and so um and they're vital to the use of many many people in the montpelier community or the montpelier berry community as we explained last time there are electricians who have uh units they come daily to get their supplies to carry on their businesses but we really felt that um we're sorry that we were not involved earlier on when the change was made but given the consequences here and also you know if you look at that map eastern gateway is on the left hand side once you reach the barren property and so while there is then the yellow that shows residential before you get to those uh streets that go up into the residential buildings green mountain power has infrastructure facilities there so it's not as if this these are a bunch of you know that it's residential throughout that entire district the other thing is that all of these properties these buildings are really well kept you can't see most of them as you go along because of the the growth of the you know leaf on conditions right now i was driving it the other day and took a couple um ganderers and you see a uh roof of the building here in there so all we're asking is that the zoning line just be moved to pioneer street which makes more sense anyway being being an actual street division and um so that we can remain in compliance there were plans to do one more building and the barrets are perfectly fine in terms of applying for that if it were under eastern gateway with all the conditions that could be imposed the aesthetic screening planting of a buffer trees that would enhance the um the appearance for that gateway areas people come into non-pelior so mr barrett is here he's able to answer any questions that you might have and again we're sorry we were not involved in this earlier and we're just hoping to get a correction here that really makes sense in terms of the reality um and we don't feel like the change that was made really will be accomplishing maybe what was originally intended so any questions that you have about the property or any of the buildings when they were built jim can certainly speak to any of that thanks very much does anyone have a question yeah hi this is darin kofiki two questions the first one is i think i remember the last time we spoke with you uh brook you'd indicated that mr barrett had tried in the past to sell the property and there was no buyers um first question is is that i'm going to remember that correctly and the second question is if so uh does mr barrett intend to continue to try to sell the property going forward alternative to him in just a minute what i understand is that he was specifically referring to the area uh where there's parking now which is the intended location of the last building that they were going to place there the one they won't the last one they want to do that they weren't able to um that parking lot area up near the street for many many years there have been attempts to list it try to find a buyer for it etc which has never come to fruition but i will let mr barrett then tell you any more information that he remembers well good evening for uh brook has pretty much uh said what we uh my son and i follow what she said uh we bought the property in 1970 with a lot of the old green mountain power super structure there tank farms etc the most recent tank farm that we under covered with an 80 000 gallon uh oil tank which of course we had to dispose of the matter of fact the contractor to dispose of it was fell spot and uh over the years uh uh that particular piece or you can build on that that's about the only place left we can build on has had seven or eight automobile sales there and service facilities been a bar and bar and nightclub warehouses and these are these are uh are uh non permitted uses now and they're the only people that we could really sell to um there's not going to be a bank there obviously or maybe you don't feel that way but um um i think we've had every uh every um broker in the state of a lot listing that that parking lot and the only time we had any interest over the years has been one of the dollar general stores and they found out that it wasn't quite big enough for them um but it was a it was a has characterized it as a dump it was worse than a dump we spent seventy five thousand dollars dynamiting these structures concrete structures that held oil tanks big oil tanks there was three of them there so six and all um that 80 000 gallon oil tank that was buried um i don't remember exactly how much that cost because the state did contribute something to that and uh but there's still a lot of money and it's uh it's a pit in the neck although it's gone i just no it's not gone they filled it with concrete um that's that's about so you're not talking about any plans to sell the property now your your plans are to do one lot the last building that you had planned on for storage mini storage yes that's correct we have mini storage all over the county can you hear him okay since he's away from Mike yeah i can okay uh and the answer to what you just characterized as selling now no uh the time we were trying to sell it i was alone in the business now i've got uh two sons that worked there ellie and patrick and my daughter is going to be she's just retired from teaching and she'll be there in a couple of months so it is a family business has been from day one and we've we continue to build storage units because they are the highest and best use of this property and uh to us especially after being involved in it uh is the bottom line as far as we're concerned it it's not saleable however we are going to rent it if it's vacant we are going to rent it to freddie bashera to park cars whenever they get their permits to build down there by the unitarian church and so forth they they have a use for our parking lot which is the only one left in montpey but it's quite a ways a way to be useful for cars but under the circumstances he figures they're going to have 150 cars a month that they have to move back and forth and it will take care of most of it and that's that's actually the best if he ever gets the permits that's actually the best use we've ever had for it that's come culturally to fruition so i'm sorry i can't hear what you're saying yeah we can't hear you but what i'm asking can you hear me now yes yes what i'm asking mr barrett is if we got if you folks changed the zoning and it got went through the city council would he be planning on doing that additional building and if so would he be willing to comply with all of the aesthetic buffering and other conditions that that the conditional use permit would require yeah did you hear yes he said yes did you hear i've i've got a couple of short questions i hope so you're saying that it is a parking lot now that you've spoken about with the bacharis to potentially rent so even if we change the zoning you wouldn't necessarily build on that site is that correct if you change the zoning wouldn't necessarily want to build on that site if you were planning to use it if they're changing the zoning will you change will you build the building are you going to now rent it to freddy bashera for parking well that's only temporary what he does is building oh that was a temporary thing while the buildings being built okay they were inquiring about and then the other question i had was so this property is a single lot is that correct in other words it can't be subdivided without going through you know regulations through review is it a single lot we purchased it from uh green mountain power as a single lot but i i sold to the car wash down there and i think over the years i think that we're not subject to act 250 i think we cleared that up have you ever subdivided the property that you own into different locks or is it one no it's on one we pay taxes to the city uh in a group all together it may legally be two parcels because of the railroad um under vermont law there's some distinction between if a road divides a property it's considered a natural subdivision so the railroad may also constitute and follow that same rule that even though he owns one parcel even though he pays taxes once um that it because it's a naturally subdivided parcel by the right of by the railroad it may technically be two but you may be right i don't know but we've never had any problem dealing with the railroad or the state Kelly says that his when he pays the bill it's what it says it's one property yeah yeah they merged it's merged for assessing purposes but may technically be separate but it that would that was one we would probably run by our attorney because it's a railroad and not a road we'd have to just see what an attorney would say but answers maybe yeah so i so i have a question it was it was one that came up last time but i just uh i'd like to ask again to make sure that i got this straight um would uh would would you be all right if instead of changing the zoning district to make it eastern gateway if we simply amended the four three districts to allow storage units sure that would be fine i mean yeah so um i mean i'll use that as a segue into like you know some of my concerns and that would be that for one thing i think there's a little bit of a spot zoning concern here it's i don't tend to get that worked up about spots but i mean this just it does seem like we're changing the zoning for one particular parcel for one particular issue and it's it's at least around that territory in my mind but i would feel like there would be less of a concern if we made a change that instead of just changing the zoning completely if we just acknowledged a certain prevailing use was happening and made that allowable going forward that would seem like uh just a more above board and and policy supported change because i i got to say that you know i see zoning as forward living and we understand how it's been used and how and how the parcel could be used in the near future but by changing it to eastern gateway uh you know that zoning district is the most permissive when it comes to heavy industrial use or like at least by mob healer standards what would be heavy industrial use and also you know car dealerships and other you know the the most industrial type of uses and so the concern being it it's right up there near berry street that to to move the industrial uses that close to the downtown does seem to be at odds with a lot of what happened in the zoning last time um though you put that together with the spot zoning concern so i'm i'm wondering if if um a less severe you know solution was possible here and i see barb has her hand up what are you gonna say barb i'm actually asking you curbie so are you saying that the and would modify the entire riverfront district then to allow for self storage units specifically second that question okay um or is it just that neighborhood which you know then it does sound like kind of spot zoning um so my understanding is is that it's currently in something called the route to neighborhood or and i don't i don't mean just that neighborhood i i mean um you know whatever category that neighborhood's in uh i don't i don't know i actually i don't know that's up for discussion i don't i don't actually have a strong thought about that um and i think you know one issue that could come up would be um how much um of a parcel you need to allow storage units so there's the things we'd have to hammer out um i was just hoping to ask the property owner if that's a solution that they they could also like an avenue they'd be interested in and also want to know what the planning commission thinks about as an alternative i'll i'll respond just by saying whichever works um i of course the immediate response i had in looking at this was oh gosh we have to avoid any spot zoning i think there are a couple things here one is um this is a result of a very recent change which unfortunately um mr barrett didn't have the opportunity to come and speak to when you're going through the process second derrally this seems very similar to what's going on over in belly avenue the other side of town it's about gosh this is where we drew the line and maybe that's not the right place i think that that is less spot zoning than changing your criteria but if changing you know the mini storage thing in the eastern gateway to a conditional use which i would recommend instead of a permitted use that way you still have control over it and it is limited to just the purple including what would be what the barrett in the auto washing place you know it just extends that boundary just for that section it's not one parcel it's barrett's and it's the and it's the car wash so it's not about one specific parcel or property in terms of spot zoning but i see this as a correction similar to what's going on in the other side of town that it makes more sense to stop the district at a road where there is an actual natural boundary if you will um it seems to me to be uh given the the fact that these are properties that are developed the way that they are it makes sense now this isn't about trying to trick anyone into oh gosh we're going to go build a car dealership if you change where the boundary is you know they've owned the property a long time and that's never happened but i totally understand and appreciate your concerns on spot zoning so whichever way that it that it suits you folks my assumption would be changing that boundary would be much less onerous um with other unintended consequences that's my thought yeah and and and to clarify i mean like my concerns about the use of it in the future are not about like it's not about not trusting mr barrett or not trusting anybody or thinking that you know the worst is going to happen or anything it's just about kind of knowing about how at 20 years down the road things happen was zoning that people didn't think about or intend and then and in this case i mean again the eastern gateways very permissive so who knows what sort of pandora's box this could end up being 20 years from now and again i keep saying it's in my view walkable to downtown so i think it's like an area of a special concern for us that said mike uh what's what's the plausibility of of making a surgical change having to do with storage units as opposed to an entire you know zoning district change so the consequences probably the biggest consequence if you were to leave this in riverfront and simply add riverfront as a use and and we talked about this a little bit as to you know there were two ways you could approach this the changing that would then allow um allow self-store units into more of the downtown area so there's a vacant parcel on granite shed lane that could then be open to self-store units um parts of savings pasture could have self-store units or um so it could come in as a use in a number of places that perhaps today you know we don't have them there there is some precedent though in in in the regulations about having neighborhood specific uses right because i noticed the eastern gateway actually had some of those where this stuff like automobile shops are allowed to orient their the opening toward the road but only an eastern gateway that's a zoning district specific not neighborhood so there's neighborhoods within each district so which are you talking about well either one i mean i'm you know if that's if that's not i mean i'll stand corrected if that's not true for any of our neighborhoods would it help if i pulled up the map you can uh the zoning map itself yeah i mean i can pull if anybody wants it i can pull up the zoning map so we can have us to see what all of riverfront is right now what we're talking about because we can't the the use table is specific to the zoning districts not neighborhoods so we can't apply the warehouse use to a small part of the zoning district it has to be the entire zoning district okay so okay so my question was basically is there any precedent for having a slightly different variation of rules for one neighborhood and you're saying no not for you there are no uses there well there is there is a precedent in the zoning which which we didn't like but ended up being that way which was which involved the crossroads neighborhood what we call gasoline alley and that allows gas stations but the rest of riverfront does not allow gas stations where's that i think it's i think it's a footnote oh that has not come up in my two years i've been here so yeah so that was a footnote that was put in i wanted to have that be its own zoning district it didn't work out that way we took the victories that we did and that just kind of stayed the way it is i still think in the future it would be cleaner and more efficient to go through and say zoning districts have use tables and if something is going to be different then it's a different zoning district um then it is to kind of play play the games like that because it starts to get starts to look like you're playing favorites on things so it is it is possible there is a precedent that says you can i would probably say we'd be better not um doing that but it is possible i mean as far as solving the issue in front of us it seems like a really great solution but i i do relate with what you're saying mike about the cleanliness of of regulations yeah you could put a footnote in that would say warehouse condition um warehouse self-store conditionally use and with a footnote that says only in route two do you want me to show you how big the route to neighborhood is so that we see what that is sure do you need do i need to oh you can share a screen yourself right yep so can you see yes we're seeing good on stone cutters yeah everything here in blue is the route to neighborhood it's a subset of the riverfront so it starts here at the edge of the parcel section we were talking about changing the zone and covers so all of this bottom this little chunk here savings pasture everything through here past granite street um and then it stays here on long stone cutters way and then stops partway down stone cutters way and i'm not i'm not personally afraid of like storage units being thrown up everywhere so i'm not too concerned about the size of it although that means pretty big neighborhood did you call on me yeah yeah okay i i am concerned about how big that and the potential uses for the riverfront district um and opening it up to self-storage units anywhere along that neighborhood i think would be a mistake in terms of thinking about a surgical change and i know mike's not going to like this given the fact that we just looked at that parcel and one part of it that it is subdivided by the railroad is it possible to rezone to keep the lower part or the part that's closer to the river in the riverfront and the part that actually fronts on route two into um eastern gateway since it already has a lot of automotive type uses but that would take one parcel and split it into two zones which i know mike does not favor well it's subdivided by the railroad so it's it can be a clean a clean line is because the thing on the other side of the railroad though yes that's where a number of the buildings and a number of the self-store units are um that's where the the growler is that's where um thank you the insurance company is yeah there you go that's great aerial photo so you can see all those little lines the little white lines those are all the self-store units that are on the north side of the railroad tracks and then as you get closer to pioneer street you've got a couple of actual businesses um the insurance company and um the growler and the um marijuana dispensary building yeah dispensary building then south of the railroad tracks you have the trading post building which is the large large structure there's the vacant parking lot that they've um that that they're looking to propose to put something in and then there's the gas station with or the car wash which is owned separately the the reason i'm asking this is that i walked down the bike path on the opposite side of the river to sort of get a sense of the backside of that property um and yes it is in use now but as a force of self-storage and other uses but it might not be in the future and it's it is potentially a really opportune location as Kirby pointed out before walking distance to town and um certainly beautiful views from there so in the future if mr barrett was to sell this property then it could be developed as res as residential or any of the other uses allowed in in riverfront can i make a comment i just wanted to also um i'm i'm trying to think of this in terms of our priorities that we've just started talking about with regard to the plan and um housing is one of them and you know good locations for housing is one of them i'm not a developer so i'm not positive that you know with the railroad going through and the size and you know that this is ideal for that however um we've the city is making you know investments in um the bike path that's going out that way it feels like it could be a really accessible and mixed use area and then a savings pasture is also our other area for development in the future this could all be um house like residential areas that are sort of mixed use and it could i'm also trying to think through an equity lens um and this would could give us space to put you know people in in better just better kind of it's it's far from farther from downtown but you know if you're thinking about chunks of space where we have you know that can be connected somehow to downtown this is really the chunk this whole area out here and um i think there's a lot of potential for different uses going into the future i mean i i recognize that i recognize that you know what that it's not that now and it's complicated a little bit but i feel like our values right now are trying to get us towards that um you know more housing more equitable housing more affordable housing and this is that zone for it that's where i'm at right now and i can i just respond to to some of the points that were made that'd be okay yeah go ahead i understand that but you know what i feel almost like we're getting reversed spot zoned here now i you know coming in here and trying to explain the reality of this situation i didn't want to go into too much detail because i felt like that was making an argument for spot zoning but when i hear well we want this property in the future for people to walk around and enjoy the river or whatever it is that other people have the notion of you know and i get zoning's about the future but here's the thing this is a property that has been invested in none you know the city of montelers not the only entity that has invested money here the barrage of invested money over 50 years of property it took out at 80 000 gallon or filled in an 80 000 gallon underground storage tank it took massive nasty industrial structures off that property they've improved it tremendously and it's a little bit hard to reconcile all of that hard work investment in a three generations of a family business that will continue into the future to hear about what we want this turned into something different that's not going to happen even if this zoning change remains and it's distressing at times to hear i mean these are great plans and i understand all of that but this isn't going to change for another 50 years and the absurdity of this change is troubling because it feels um like it's not recognizing all of the decades that this family has contributed to the Montpelier city um the taxes that have been paid on these buildings and on the businesses and everything else so it's i implore you to try to help us find a solution here the idea of making the back part keeping that riverfront and allowing that parking lot or that area that's adjacent to root to the actual highway um make that eastern gateway that would be great we we could live with that that would allow that one parking lot area to be um you know to continue the mini storage building there and that would complete you know their their development of this property consistent with the plans that they've had for many years um so i'm i'm begging you to help these folks here because i think they kind of got this is an unintended consequence maybe it's not maybe it's like we want this um you know to be a riverfront and people to walk on it from now on in the future but that's not what the investment has been and can i can i offer a couple of clarifications to the hopefully to switch some concerns um one thing is that you know we're having this discussion right now because of our recognition and and um investment in the property and the importance of the business to the community because i mean really we just went through very recently an entire zoning overhaul in which it was decided that uh you know this this area was best used as mixed use going forward and we're already reconsidering that you know out of respect for the property owners and everything so so i hope you do realize that i mean i do think we do we do a lot of i think a lot of planning commissions would have probably said no that's not worth our time and moved on or something but no we definitely want to work and we and we're still trying to do that the other thing is i want to make a clarification about marcella mentioned the bike path and there might have been some miscommunication there where you thought that the bike path or had to do with like community access or something to do with like how it's good for the community and we want this property to somehow contribute to the community directly in that way what she meant was and i think because it's my thoughts on it um and marcella correct me if i'm wrong uh about your thoughts on it but the bike path the the presence of the bike path means that this parcel is that much more connected to the downtown so it's a it's a matter of being connected it's not a matter of wanting the community or the public to use the parcel or benefit from it so hope hope you understand that it's about it's an infrastructure connected that connection uh what's up marcella thank you that's helpful i wasn't understanding what you were talking about so and i don't mean any disrespect it's just very frustrating to be in the circumstance and we do appreciate you're taking up this matter we're just really hopeful um that we can find a solution that that helps um that makes sense for everybody i don't mean to say you have to fix it for these people that's not what zoning is about and i get that what's up barb yeah so um i think there are some there is a little bit more confusion i mean the bike path is obviously on the other side of the river so but the bike path makes that lower portion of the property much more visible and and uh potentially appealing um in answer to something marcella said um the although the railroad easement is through there the railroad no longer goes through there it's it was relocated to the other side of the river is that correct mike that the railroad is the railroad is still active on but they're building they're reactivating the far the one on the other side of the river right now they're rebuilding that they haven't said what they're going to do with this side yet so currently both sides are active rail lines because but they aren't running any anything on it right and they're uh the problem with the barrett side is that the the trestle as i understand it that um they would have to do a lot more work in other words to make that the usable portion of the railroad so it's possible that although it provides a boundary line it splits the parcel it's not actually likely to be an active railroad and i don't know i can't i can't answer where that's at at that point the issue they're having is that those bridges are not going to be sufficient to continue to run granite over them whether they'll be sufficient for some other use will be another question and that's a question for the state railroad who has been very tight-lipped about in fact they didn't even tell us they were going to replace that rail line until they showed up and started tearing it up so we just uh we're waiting um to see what the plan is for this side of the railroad is it something they're going to throw up that the city can take and connect to our bike path because it does connect to our bike path in which case you could use the railroad bridges as bike bridges but we don't know that but at this point it's still still considered an active rail on this side well i guess it i mean it appears that the property this the portion of the property towards the river has already been fully developed and mr barrett you don't have any intention of adding more buildings along the river um between the railroad easement and and the river do you know right yes so available right right yeah so it's pretty built out so i am i guess this is that's my argument for for dividing it so so mic what do you think what what's a plausible surgical approach barb's approach wouldn't be wouldn't be bad and i have less concerns over the the the spot zoning concerns that you have um of course lawyers can always see things different i'm not a lawyer but um it generally comes down to you want to treat similar properties in similar conditions in a similar way and what spot zoning sometimes does illegally is provide somebody with unique benefits or unique harms even though they're very similar to their neighbors and i think in this case it's it's a property that is uniquely different than its surrounding properties if you were to look across the river across the street and where it does match is to one of its boundaries so it's not going to be carved out as a unique use it's simply going to be moving a line from the the eastern side of the property to the western side of the property and saying we're just going to move this shift this line over um so i'll i'll clarify real quickly because i never elaborate on what exactly my spot zoning concern was but uh it's the element of spot zoning where you change zoning where you're at odds with your city plan just to benefit a parcel like that part that kind of concept related to spot zoning um and so so that would be my concern but that said um you know i don't think it's enough of a concern to you know totally preclude us from trying to address the issue here uh but but just just for the record i mean my concern was that i think that if we were to change it to eastern gateway i do think that that's at odds with our other efforts as far as making a walkable downtown and some of the other stuff that we've discussed um so it could be argued that that that's why it would be spot zoning but you know i'm not saying that's definite at all but go on mike about about solutions oh so i mean i think barb's solution you know would be would be the most surgical solution because we would then be keeping the area that's north of the railroad in riverfront where if there was a future redevelopment that would be you know more tied into you know not having car dealership down there or not having more car washes down there um those areas would have to be consistent with the the riverfront district if we kept it in riverfront down there they would be non-conforming but that's not an issue nothing says non-conforming can't remain their grandfathered as as been protected under state law um so that would be fine and then above that we would adjust to be more um oriented towards the road because frankly that's their only access there is no sidewalk on that side um they are more auto oriented already car wash um so if you're looking for surgical that would probably be the most surgical change um and as you said so we've kind of got three three proposals we can change the whole thing according to what was printed we can do barb's surgical or we could just change the zoning to allow the use in the river a riverfront district and and maybe surgically attaching that in as which was your proposal Kirby so i think there are a couple of couple of ways of addressing this um or not making a change i mean i guess that's always an option out there that would not benefit the Barrett's but is always an option what do other people think about those options um aaron and and Aaron either of you guys uh i'm sort of thinking about uh the idea i'm trying to tease this out in my brain a little bit um the notion of maybe making conditional use within the riverfront district for the establishment of storage units i feel like that gets around the spot women concern and also you know put some guard rails on you know further development within the riverfront district i tend to share sort of the broader concerns about unintended consequences of expanding the eastern gateway into that parcel just given the expansion of the bike you know the bike corridor i feel like development trends going out east of the city i think are going to accelerate and i don't know what that's going to look like in 20 years and so i do think there should be some caution about you know just sort of allowing the eastern gateway as long as to take hold in that part but i think you could usually use for uh storage units on this parcel i think takes care of the problem um i'm just trying to there's probably something i'm not thinking about but that's kind of what i'm standing around in my head so that's kind of leaning on Kirby's idea um yeah thanks for Aaron um aaron do you have anything yeah probably um um would be would probably favor that proposal too i think um understanding that it i guess the conditional use would expand to that whole zoning district but it's still a conditional use so there's some protections there i don't think other people are going to do self storage units in that district but yeah i probably would favor that approach and i'd also to talk on i i do think that this this parcel has some pretty unique features which differentiate itself from the other uh sort of properties of luck within the riverfront district that i think would help us recognize that you know our storage unit is probably appropriate in that spot but probably not in some other places within the district okay uh barb what do you say yeah i agree with Aaron that there are um that particular parcel has some very distinct characteristics one of which is the topography is such that it really divides the property into two you two different zones one of which is visible from route two and the other one is visible from the river i would be very as i said before i'd be concerned about um adding the use of uh self storage units to the riverfront district just because that is much very much in basically in conflict with what we said that our our land use goals were which was to develop the riverfront as a people space whether it's residential or some other use but not not it's self storage to me would not do that and so it really seems that we're opening pandora's box if you will that um to allow that in the riverfront district yeah thanks barb i mean it sounds like yeah we have different different levels of concern for slightly different things i mean i think we're all concerned about some aspects of this uh marcella did you have anything else before we i don't i don't think so i think what i said and i'm kind of agreeing with what everyone else is wrestling on okay uh so based on what erin and arian just said uh it sounds like there's some interest in um a proposal to amend to a to a to amend the uh permitted uses and zoning district for three uh to include a permitted use of um conditionally use conditionally thank you thank you i thought i would think conditional in my head i'm glad you corrected that wow wait for three are you talking about the riverfront district or a neighborhood the route to neighborhood is my understanding is what we're talking about not not the entire district but just for the four three neighborhood is that my understanding yeah that's what i'm thinking about is was that your understanding mike in terms of what we were discussing yes so we would be doing something similar to what we did with gasoline alley yes i see it would be storage in an alley got it does your concern still stand about that being a pandora's box absolutely yeah because there are a lot of other prime um sites along the river in that neighborhood that potentially could be dedicated to other uses and in the future you know the the riverfront of this parcel hundred years from now or however long it is could be dedicated to other uses as well um so i think um i think that's just contrary to what we said we've been wanting to do the one to encourage in terms of housing in or any other uses in our downtown i'm kind of agreeing with you i'm agreeing with you on that i mean for me it's you know we have to you have to make a concession one way or the other if you're talking about the two proposals of either expanding the eastern gateway somewhat or creating this new conditional use the new conditional use is very specific one use the expanding the eastern gateway in any way creates new like a whole menu of industrial uses that are possible so that's why i think it's more likely because there's so many different uses that would be allowed uh i think the chances of something that you're that we're not expecting right now to happen is greater by opening that large of a door um i think that there is a certain supply and demand when it comes to the storage units it seems like that seems to me like that's being met because there's about to be some new ones it would seem in addition to what's already there so i don't i i'm not i don't know but but i mean you could be right there there could be other ones in when that's the thing about this we don't know go ahead barb but i'm i'm missing out on i don't i don't favor either one of the two alternatives that you just suggested the third alternative being to rezone to move the line for the riverfront off of route two and move it to the the railroad railroad easement yeah but i mean my understanding was that that most of the parcel would still be would still be eastern gateway in that case right the upper portion of it the upper portion that's that's accessible off route two could potentially be eastern gateway yeah so that's why i was comparing east like what kind of what kind of pandores box comes in the eastern gateway in that way but there's only one parcel in there then which is the parcel that mr barrett wants to develop that has no development along it i thought there were at least three developments there that would be included yes there's whether it's one it's two parcels that could be subdivided it could subdivide along the access way and then you'd have the trading post and then you'd have the vacant lot i think getting to kerby's so just just to throw a little bit in in each each bucket of of ideas so one thing you know as kerby was pointing out if we were to shift these to eastern gateway then today as riverfront you cannot build a gas station but if this were eastern gateway it could be a gas station or it could be some other heavier industrial use um so that's you know kind of i think one possibility that that i don't think we would want to see here but um looking the other way the concern about this the perhaps the spread of self-store units if it remains in riverfront certain other standards continue to apply including you know a requirement that buildings have a 24 foot height um that initially was a requirement to have two stories um but it was kind of recognize that you could go through like um caledonia spirits did a mezzanine they have a large opening so that was why they because otherwise a two-story building would require an elevator and they didn't want to the expense of an elevator so i i don't think a lot of people in riverfront would be taking advantage of building self-store units if if it happens it's probably going to be a part of something else um somebody may take advantage of that use i can think um uh if you go around pioneer street and go around the corner there's the um wants to s e services um the um yeah the services building which has a whole bunch of bays that they currently use for uh carpeting and and sales and stuff like that they could lease out uh you know a garage which is would essentially just be a self-store unit um it's not really building self-store units because they really couldn't most of that area is built out it would still be a conditional use so if it was inconsistent with the neighborhood it could be denied i mean that's that's the basis of conditional use review is that it's going to be looked at um it's not definite that yes otherwise it would be a permitted use it's uh it depends on the context in which it is proposed if there's a structure all new structures in riverfront have to have that 24 foot minimum height so that would be the one consequence that um the Barrett's would have to look at is architecturally they would have to design their their new self-store units to have um a look it has to have that 24 foot um two-story look to it it has to present as a two-story building um or they could make it a two-story building um and and have two levels um that would be something they would have to address if they remained in in riverfront and that would be true of anyone else who wants to do um to do self-store units in that district um i guess that's what i throw would mr barrett or book like to comment on on that does that change um how you feel about the the different possibilities we're discussing i don't know how you do a two-story self-storage unit and i would argue if you put it as a an allowed use or conditional use i would suggest that that architectural component not apply because i don't know how you do that um unless you want to build some fake facade or something and pretend it's a two-story building um but again i go back to to barbara's i don't mean to call you by your first name i can't miss conres um her idea i think is the least invasive or the minimal change we had not thought about that before um i understand the concern about the the large area distribution or transit warehouse um that couldn't happen with the existing space that's there that's undeveloped i suppose the trading post at some point could be removed or turned into a warehouse if someone wanted to so i understand those issues i think they're very unlikely and then heavy manufacturing as well i don't think you have the space for it um but again i'm trying to step back from it and look at it as a zoning and not a spot zoning situation where i think having that demarcation of the rail line makes a lot of sense because that keeps all the automotive stuff away from the river but you don't want it down there and you already have the car wash in that area that's uh on our on the road side of the um of the rail line i think that's the least problematic for you folks you i would not recommend though certainly we wanted if that's the only way to get it is to add this uh conditional use to riverfront um but just because you don't know of who wants to do what it was in riverfront today that's sort of the problem that that we're experiencing nothing is forever i think that's a can of worms i really do i think barbers idea of splitting it allows you to protect the riverfront back portion while acknowledging the front portion and the use of it right now would be compliant with eastern gateway and you're really only talking about that one parking lot area which is big enough for a self storage building not a major manufacturing plant those are my thoughts on it and i'm being as honest and straightforward with you i probably should say do any of them but i think um the splitting of the lot is the the best choice for the city they all accomplish what my client needs but except for this two-story thing which is kind of weird i don't know how to deal with that okay thanks thanks for i think we're we're running low on time so if if you guys would let's go ahead and um i i'm i'm torn about how to approach doing a vote here i think maybe what we could do is a straw poll to see um how much support each idea has and maybe go from there about a vote so can i ask a procedural question first yeah uh this public hearing was noticed uh for a potential zoning change that would require the movement of the boundary from the eastern district over to the west if we do any if we are considering anything outside of that that change can we can we do that here that's a good question or do we have to read notice what do you think mike pretty sure you're okay i think we just have to reflect the changes in that required report that i put together but if you want to keep talking i will read 4441 really quick and make sure we're okay okay that sounds like a good use of time okay so straw poll i'm going to start with what seems like the two most popular uh possibilities and that's the condition what i'm going to call the conditional use in district 43 approach and the other one being the split the parcel and expand eastern gateway approach um not to be confused with a full expansion eastern gateway but uh okay so so first i'll say just raise your hand please if you would be supportive if you would vote for uh the conditional use in the district 43 approach and keep your hands up for a second and let me okay uh let's just see what kind of support that has um erin do you have your hand up i did okay so that looks like we've got three on that one we've marcella flipping okay so uh what about the split the parcel and expand the eastern gateway maybe surprised that i would be willing to vote for that uh erin do you have your hand up for this one i i think it was i'm not ready to vote for it now but i'm okay a little more i'm not i'm not i'm not ready to pose to it but right now i don't know enough i have to think about well okay so we we do have a bit of problem then because it seems like we only have three supporters for each idea and we need four for a majority um so can we just discuss it at the next meeting um is that would that be valuable are we do we need more of a planning commission members to be with us to discuss it if we if we can't get anyone on board with either idea who's currently not um then i will i guess we'll have to table it yeah i guess just to speak i mean i guess i am concerned about after you know talking through it moving the eastern gateway to that that parcel and i'm potentially allowing gas stations and i thought marcel you mentioned that that actually would be the upper parcel would even be like the the better potential parcel in terms of views and i mean you know not that views are everything but i just i guess i'm uncomfortable with at this point anyway um just expanding the eastern gateway given those other uses even on that upper parcel what can i just ask a question oops my muted i ask a question about the the concerns for those other automobile things is that um i don't understand um i mean first of all it's not planned but you can't ever plan on that but what would be the issue there exactly with is it out that i guess i'm not sure what question i'm really asking the potential for if you allowed that that top portion of the eastern gateway would allow automobile sales or rental establishment that is not currently allowed but automobile repair and service is allowed in both districts so if you're talking about you don't want a service station there it can be there anyway today so i don't think that now can they have one new uh you know sales place a lot to sell cars no so the automobile issues i think maybe um a little bit more refined they're not as i don't want that to be a reason to stand in the way of doing this when it can be done now i guess is the point i'm trying to make my understanding is what might can answer better than me but i my understanding is a like an auto mechanic can can be there now but not a gas station is that right yes that that's one of the and you know in the heavy industry so that would be i was just trying to point out some of the points that Kirby had made on the the difference on the use table between eastern gateway and riverfront shifting to eastern gateway makes a lot of things possible that may be negative but at the same time you know it's a smaller parcel that many of these things may not be appropriately that that they'll end up being located here um and as a condition of use maybe they would be denied but i think the gas station was a permitted use i'm sorry mike i'm not looking at i don't see that on the zoning um chart that you that you sent i'm confused where is gasoline station that allows it in that district my chart doesn't have anything that refers to a gas station uh it's it's on the first page to two dash 33 it's called fueling station and in eastern gateway it's a permitted use and in riverfront it's only allowing gasoline alley or the crossroads oh okay i'm sorry i didn't have that page of it okay i didn't realize that no i mean there's there's not a lot of differences a lot of them are just a difference between one is conditional and one's permitted um but Kirby was pointing out that there are some uses that aren't allowed at all today that if we shifted to eastern gateway would now be allowed mini warehouse being one but also you know tank farms large distribution warehouses heavy industry or heavy manufacturing um right but if you as unlikely as they would be they they would be now potential uses right but if you agreed with barber's proposal you're you don't even have a potential even if they took the trading post down you don't have the potential for those heavy industry or big tank farms because there isn't enough property between the railroad and the and the street so i think i think you have a protection because it's limited physically okay yes and there are a number of them that are also conditional uses and as we we're talking about adding the that used to riverfront the same would apply here those those heavy manufacturing that are conditional uses would also have to meet the conditional use standards which may mean that they would be denied in this case because while it may be appropriate over on gallison hill it may not be appropriate here on pioneer street okay so we're about to run out of time um so i'll um just ask the planning question again uh just just to see if we could get this done tonight is anyone who didn't raise their hand for something before are you willing to support an idea um that you didn't raise your hand for okay and just so you know brook and um mr barrett the the we are we're we have two planning commission members who are not here today so that's why we have to make four they have to get the four votes but being too short has made it a little bit more difficult to get to the four votes it's three votes for one option three votes for the other option um and if we were to table this to the next meeting the expectation is that we can get the other two people and if they support one or the other at least one of them supports one or the other then this can move forward and i think that may be where we're heading there are nine members total seven members oh seven members so you need four yeah and we only have we only have five here tonight so the having only five here tonight meant we had to get four people to agree on the same four out of the five to agree on the same answer and we got three to agree to one and three to agree to the other because Kirby has is willing to support either of the options so just so that i'm i'm understanding the first option was just to add um to riverfront a conditional use for the riverfront keep it zoned as it is but just to add that as a conditional use mic i just have one quick question some of these uh conditional uses on these charts have like little numbers by them like an exponent is there anything that can be like already conditioned or are these see the conditional use demarcations on these uh charts is there some restriction what does this like see and then the exponent three mean uh some of them depend on uh there there are footnotes that are at the end some of them will go and say the use can't occupy more than 20 000 square feet or the use cannot occupy more than um you know the the limit is to maximum of 20 guests so there's a limit to it's allowed but it's a limited allowance um number three says it's allowed only in the crossroads district and that's what they were going to propose was that many warehouses would be allowed but only in the root two neighborhood was the proposal so to clarify brook yeah it's not the entire riverfront that idea is to allow a conditional use for the riverfront portion that's in district four three only and district four three is the same as saying the route to district the route okay i understand all right and then can addition it can there be like an additional restriction that says and you can only have like no more than two buildings or you know something like that to give you folks that that comfort that you won't have these things proliferating in the root two portion of the riverfront i'm just finding trying to find a way to a resolution that would satisfy you folks i don't know maybe crazy idea yeah i mean i think the riverfront district still presents a problem for you in that it does have the 24 foot minimum height um so i think yeah that's true i forgot okay um unless we included that in our footnote unless we included not having the 24 foot height kirby is that what you're suggesting oh yeah unless we include a different height uh like if we were to table this discussion we'll get back to it at the next meeting do we have to uh re-notice the public hearing or are we satisfied that we satisfied our public hearing obligation if you if you voted to continue the hearing to the next meeting then the hearing has been warned and it's been noticed and it would the the table the the meeting would simply continue at the next date certain and to answer the earlier question that that was presented you can make changes the planning commission may make revisions to a proposed bylaw amendment or repeal um and to the written report which is what i would have to do and then submit to the the proposed bylaw to the legislative body so you can make revisions including substantial revisions and this has happened a lot even in the even one has gotten to city council which kirby probably remembers we got to city council and it was getting changed sometimes dramatically bar would remember too she was she was there for that when when we went through the adoption that some some portions changed rather quickly and rather dramatically yeah well it looks like we're out of time so it looks like we will have to table this uh and and micah will it be a problem for us to pick it up next time is that enough time to warn it uh we don't have to rewarn the hearing because it's going to be as long as there's a motion to continue the hearing to okay thanks so do we have a motion to lie 27 do we have a motion to continue the hearing to July 27 we do okay moved by erin do we have a second a second second by marcella okay all in favor of the race to unmute you know all in favor of moving this you know the portion of the hearing of course having to do with the uh zoning change with pioneer street only uh to july 27 uh those in favor say aye me opposed okay so we will pick up this hearing on july 27 uh we will let the other planning commissioners know that that we may then become in and either deciding votes to be our justice kennedy okay all right with that uh do we have a motion to adjourn both to adjourn okay second i'll second okay barb got in that time uh those in favor of adjourning say aye okay we are adjourned and we'll see you guys at 27 thank you very much folks for all your time