 Okay, ready. Okay. Welcome to the paper. Community meeting. I'd like to start by just going around having people introduce themselves. Um, maybe we can start in the room here and then we'll work to people who are connected online. So Keith, do you want to start? Yeah, Keith Billsbury. I live on University of Paris and Ward eight. I'm Tom Darenthal. I'm, I live a Nash place. I'm in Ward one. I am Emily Lee and I am a planning commissioner and I live in Ward eight. I'm Angie Chappell Sokel. I live on North prospect street. Ward one. I'm Carol Livingston. I live in Ward one on Clark, oh court. And I'm on the steering committee. I'm Jonathan Chappell Sokel. I live on North prospect street with Angie. And I'm on the steering. Hi, I'm Cynthia. And we have people online as well. Let's start with Alexander. Hi, I'm Alex friend. I live on Henry street in Ward one and I'm a planning commissioner. Kathy. I'm Kathy. Well, and I live on North prospect street. Ward one. And I'm a school commissioner. And CJ. Hi. CJ Knudsen representing the Vermont lake monsters. I live in Rutland, Vermont. Okay. And Cyril. Are you there? Oh, yes. Sorry about that. I'm Ward one. Thanks for double checking. And the last person is Sam. Okay. Well, again, welcome. I think we're going to have a interesting meeting. The first agenda item is. Is actually a request for future NPA topic. So. If you don't already know the steering committee meets a week after our monthly meeting and. We discussed topics that are generally sent to us via email. And if you have a topic that either came up tonight and is not sufficiently addressed or a topic that just needs to be addressed. We would appreciate hearing back from you so we can get into our into our schedule. And the, so the, are there any announcements that people want to make. Anybody online want to make an announcement. CJ. This would be CJ's time, right? CJ, do you want to go ahead? Yes, that'd be great. Thank you very much for having me here. Appreciate everyone's time. I just wanted to join you guys to give you an update on the Vermont lake monsters and answer any kind of questions or concerns you might have for our upcoming season. Last year, as everyone knows, baseball was unsure if they were going to be returning to Centennial and we relaunched the franchise on March 15th. We had no baseball players at all. We are now a collegiate wooden bat league team. We sent out 1300 emails to various, various colleges and universities across the country. We'd over 65 players play for us. 11 of whom were actually from Vermont, which is the first time really ever in Vermont lake monster Vermont expo history and we won the championship. So it went very well. We are named the organization of the year for the league. Our coach was named manager of the year and I was fortunate enough to be named the executive of the year for league. So it was a really, really positive year for for us. And we plan on having baseball here for a very long time, which is great. And we're fully staffed from a front office perspective. And we have some fun promotions geared towards the community geared towards the kids. And we kick off our season on May 27th. So Memorial Day weekend. And our last regular season home game is August 6th. So instead of playing 38 home games like we did last year and for many years we're playing 36 home games. So two last home games. And the other kind of major changes, instead of playing our games Monday through Friday at 705, we're going to move that game time to 635 to make it a little bit early for everybody. We would like to do three fireworks shows. Those dates are Saturday, June 11th is the first one. The second one would be Saturday, July 23rd. And the final third one would be Saturday, August 6th. The other thing that we would like to do is potentially hold movie nights. We'd have four of them. The first one would start on Saturday. I'm sorry, on Friday, August 19th. And they would run until September 6th. They're all family friendly movies. They would start around 637 o'clock. And people can go on the field, watch the movie, play catch, hang out. And just enjoy a night out at the ballpark outdoors. Okay. Thank you, CJ. Just a reference for people online. There is, I believe at the bottom of your screen, a raise hand function. And if you want to talk. As Gail does, I just press that raise hand function. And that way it's, it's easier for me to see you. So with that. Gail, you're on. Thank you. I'm Gail Rafferty. I live in Ward six, actually. And a bunch of us from our neighborhood are hopping on to public comment for NPAs. Because we want to just alert people to a proposed ordinance change that relates to camping in Burlington's parks. And while the premise around this ordinance change would be to provide more options for people who may find themselves houseless. And while certainly our neighborhood supports Burlington's efforts to deal with that on-campus, difficult situation. Our group of neighbors who lives near Smalley park feels that. This ordinance change proposes some things that would probably worsen. Certainly worse than the situation in parks, because it removes language that says camping in parks would be prohibited. And it also, if it, even if certain parks were, then turned around and labeled as being not appropriate for camping, if somebody were there, there would be a window of 30 days for. Affecting a removal. And additionally, this could relate to recreational camping as well in any of the parks. The way it's written legally. Camping would be camping and. It could open the door to a number of people using the parks in a variety of ways that our neighborhood anyway is, is feeling would be problematic and reduce the options for recreational use of our parks for kids and child cares. And our, our park is used by King street youth center, usually every day. And a number of other kids. We have a children's playground and a basketball court and a softball diamond. And that's about it. That takes up the. The field. I mean, the park. So our neighborhood had a lot of problems with folks living in the park last year. We've been dealing and working with the city quite a bit for the last year. But then on top of that, there is this new ordinance being proposed ordinance changes. So the reason we're topping onto the MPAs is just to make people aware that that proposed changes is in the works. Um, and to say that if people have questions about it or concerns about it, um, you might want to contact the two counselors who are putting forward these ordinance changes, which are Joe McGee and, um, newly elected counselor, Jean Bergman. Um, additionally, the committee that is currently holding public meetings about this is the community development committee. Many of you might be familiar with it. And, uh, Councillor Sarah carpenter chairs that and, uh, Joe McGee and Zaria Hightower are also on that committee with her. That committee is meeting next over zoom next Thursday, week from tomorrow, April 21st at five PM. If anyone. We're interested in going on. We're just really encouraging people, whatever you do. Um, you may think it's a fantastic idea. Um, to, but if you do, or you don't, I think this is something worth, uh, the citizenry, uh, making themselves aware of it. Um, the ordinance can be found. The proposed ordinance changes can be found on the CDO website. If you go to the CDNR committee, uh, on the CDO website and you see their documents. You'll see the ordinance. Um, and then also that's where the zoom link will go up probably 48 hour, at least 48 hours before the meeting next week. Um, yeah, I think, I think that's it. Uh, some of us also have been hopping over to coffee with the mayor. And he's not at this point in support of these ordinance changes, but, um, which we feel happy about, but we just start, just trying to alert people that that's in the works and whether you're for or against it. Um, it hasn't gotten a lot of publicity yet. So. Okay. Thanks. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you for letting me hop on your, uh, your NPA. Cindy. Yeah. Richard. Good evening. Cynthia cook. And I have three things. So I'll try to be, uh, concise. Um, the first two relate to East Avenue where I live. Um, Um, we circulated a petition a number of years ago now and several hundred residents of the area assigned the petition requesting the DPW consider traffic calming. And the good news is that they are considering it considering it actively. Uh, the bad news is that they came up with a proposal. Uh, that we don't feel as well thought out as it could have been had they consulted with the residents. So we've asked for a few things. Uh, they're going back to the drawing board a bit and as I understand, so they're going to be trying to integrate the work that's, uh, proposed for East Avenue with the work that's done at the Colchester East Avenue, uh, intersection. They're also going to look at what can be done so that this work doesn't preclude having a northbound, uh, bicycle lane on East Avenue, which the current proposal would do, uh, it appears. And the third thing we're looking for is more information about the crossing that's heavily used across university road for the folks that are going up to the medical center. So, uh, Chapin promised that he'd be getting back to us in now a few weeks time. Hopefully, uh, we were very much supportive of traffic calming. I really need to slow traffic down on East Avenue, but we're hoping that it's well thought out so it doesn't mean that future improvements can't be made. So that's the first thing. Second thing is East Avenue. A number of people here have been pushing for years to try to get East Avenue, uh, numerous hazards fixed. Um, it's so bad that in the wintertime, oftentimes older folks actually walk in the road rather than on the sidewalk because there's so much ice. There's so many, uh, gaps in the tripping hazards that, uh, my next door neighbor says she sees so much ice. And, uh, the scheduling for working on this, which is a very major arterial, um, sidewalk area has been pushed back for a number of years now. And currently is not on the 2022, um, this year's construction schedule. We're hoping that we can change that. Uh, because it seems. To a lot of folks that, uh, this ought to be one of the higher priorities. Uh, Mansfield Avenue, luckily is going to be addressed, uh, but Colchester Avenue, East Avenue and around the corner to, uh, campus kitchen has not been addressed. So, uh, those are the East Avenue things about one more thing. And this is mostly to, uh, you'd be understood. So I think we're going to get to that. I don't know if anybody is on zoom now, uh, but I'm working a lot with some, uh, some Afghan folks who had to leave the country and are now here. I try to avoid the word refugee. Cause I think it's sort of a bit, uh, pejorative, but I could, I think of them as our new neighbors. And there are a number of 20 something guys. A lot of them are living now on college street area that I would love to have connected with. UVM students if you're interested. So this is just to reach out. Um, my contact information is on the, um, on the sheet about East Avenue that Charlie, which has taken a photo of Cynthia cook, uh, see cook at adamantacourt.com would love it if you, I'm students are interested in connecting with these guys because there's money something. And I'm going to wait. So they call me mom. You know, they really would like to connect with some funny girls. So if you're interested. Please reach out to them. Thanks. Thank Cindy. Uh, Richard. Uh, just one, uh, idea for a future topic. The bicycle safety. It's been a hot topic on front porch forum for the last few days. Um, and we're spending millions of dollars a year as a city on bicycle safety. Yet there are no ordinances as former chief. Uh, Del Poso testified about three years ago when it was suppressed to him. There are no ordinances in the city for the. Go into police department. Even if they were so inclined to enforce. So bad cycling behavior. Uh, dangerous cycling behavior. Uh, which I see every day standing on the street corner. Um, It's, uh, goes ahead with impurity. Um, I don't see any city capsules on here. So it would be worth it. We do need the city capsules to be engaged. Even if just the same. Um, no, we don't care. So thanks. All right. Did you want to say something? Well, I'm going to tell me about the news. Okay. All right. Is there anyone? Um, Elsa wants to speak out. Your neighbor did call. I wanted to speak out, but I just texted him a few minutes ago because I don't know the key news. It was a six 30 start. So, uh, I don't know if we can leave him in. Should he arrive. Great. Thanks. So hearing no other people. We're going to move forward to, uh, city councilor updates. Um, Jack, I think. You are the only counselor here. Um, and we're looking for priorities for the coming year. Sure. Yeah, I can go. Maybe. Maybe the early start time through folks off. I didn't actually realize until today. Um, That it was the six 30 start time. So that could be why the other. I'm not sure. Um, can folks hear me okay? Yes. Yes. Okay. Great. Um, Yeah. So, so we had our reorganization day. Um, And for me in terms of my priorities, so I'm serving on the same committees that I've been on, that I've been on this past year. Um, Transportation, Energy and Utility. Um, I'm the chair of that. And then I serve on the license and local control. Um, Committee as well as the ordinance committee. And this is, I've been on council now for three years going into my fourth year. My priorities. I would say are the same as they were when I. Ran, you know, both times and really that they've been. I think. A lot of the council work is responsive to issues that come up. So that's a lot of the nature of the job. So what I focus on definitely fluctuates based on. What issues are pressing and what I'm hearing, but in terms of my personal priorities and what I. You know, when I have the opportunity to be more proactive and initiate things. Um, it tends to be in the. In terms of confronting the climate crisis, as well as housing issues in Burlington, those are. The top two issues that I. Try to prioritize as much as I, as much as I can. Um, and I think an immediate example of that. Is on at our meeting on Monday. I brought a resolution. Related to public transportation. Many of you have probably been hearing from green mountain transit. That they're planning to cut. Cut service as well as reinstate fares. Um, there's still. Serious opportunity to avoid that from happening, however. And so I felt it was important for the council to weigh in and get involved and try to prevent. Um, these rollbacks. From happening to public transportation. So we did pass a resolution on Monday that. Encourages the state senate to approve. The transit funding that the house had passed, which would avoid both, both the rollbacks and the reinstatement affairs. Um, And the resolution also. Takes this item up in the transportation, energy and utilities committee so that we can. Talk with GMT. Talk with, you know, board members, leadership there and also legislators. Um, On how we can support and expand and improve transit rather than. Then roll it back. Um, So yeah, those are, I think. You know, the climate emergency and housing remain my, my type priorities. And I'm. Eager to keep working on. On both of those issues, you know, In committee and at the full council level. Any questions for Jack. Yeah. Hi, Jack. Um, Hey, I'd love to know more about what you're thinking of doing it about housing. Cause I know you're, uh, the council has spent a huge amount of time on short term rentals. And that's a very small part of the housing stock in the city. I'd love to know what, what, the council is thinking about doing in terms of, um, Fostering new housing and also, uh, working with UVM. As you probably are aware, they were the moment increased by 500 students. So that's a lot of students. And they all had to be off campus because, uh, In on campus housing was full. So 500 new people is a big hit. For the city. Um, so I would love to see the council, um, actively rework the long term agreement with UVM in terms of, uh, what they will do to, uh, supply housing for the students that they're bringing to the city. So any thoughts on that? Yeah. Thanks, Cindy. So. Yeah, I agree with you. The Airbnb issue. I, you know, it, it has some impact on the housing crisis. And I would like to see us not lose, you know, I've been pretty staunch within that conversation of trying to. Reduce as much as possible. The conversion of long-term units to short-term rental units. Um, but that is a small piece of the. The puzzle. And I'm frustrated that we've. Devoted so much time and resources to that because it really is, it really is sort of a zero sum game in terms of the capacity of the city council and specifically the ordinance committee. Um, you know, the more meetings that we devote to short-term rentals is directly pulling away from other priorities and other issues. Um, but yeah, to answer your broader question, the UVM, I mean, one thing I will say, since you're talking more generally about housing, I am really proud of the work that we've done, the council and the administration recently around houselessness. I feel like we've made some huge leap forward leaps forward on that in the last six months. Um, and this, um, this shelter pod village proposal is going to be a very interesting. Thing. I mean, it's, it's not, totally novel. Other cities have done this, but it's definitely a pretty new idea here. And I, I think, um, there's great opportunity there to, to make a dent and, and really help get people on their feet. Um, who are struggling in our community and give them some type of shelter that will. Provide them stability. So I'm, I'm excited about the. And the personnel resources too that we're putting towards, um, trying to end houselessness in Burlington in terms of creating new housing, I think there's a number of things. I've talked to you all a lot about, you know, getting rid of these parking requirements, which are one of the more cumbersome, both economically and space wise requirements. Um, that is almost over the finish line. So I'm really happy about that. But UVM is obviously huge and they are putting a lot of housing development on the Trinity campus. We've discussed it twice. It's been an executive session both times. And so I don't think that I can really say too much about it. Um, beyond what, you know, is said publicly, which is somewhat minimal. Um, I don't have it right off at my fingertips, the number of beds that they're looking to build, but it's, it's, it's, it's, I don't have it right off at my fingertips, the number of beds that they're looking to build, but it would be a large number. And I think it's safe for me to say that I, uh, I really want, I really want that to move forward and I want the city to partner and ensure that UVM is, is moving forward that on housing and housing a greater percentage of students and to, to get at your enrollment point that they're not just, you know, increasing enrollment, um, proportional to the increase in housing from everything I've heard and understood, um, the, the, the new housing, their bill building does far outpace the projections for future enrollment growth. So it would really make a dent in housing, but I see you shaking your head. So maybe you have different data and please send me any data that you have on that. Um, but I, I definitely want to do what I can to see UVM build a lot more housing and house a lot more of their students. And it's, we've all, I think we've all kind of said that for years and we've all believed that for years, but now we're actually having serious conversation with UVM about it, which is something that is pretty new. Like that hadn't really happened in my time on council until recently. So, uh, Jack, a quick follow-up. I don't know if you're aware that the old to go screen. I forget what they call it. Is the zone for housing. So, uh, Say it again, Cindy. I was having trouble hearing. Sorry. Um, the. Um, the parking area. Here. Um, And by the old to ghost me and the near where you live. Um, uh, by the old what? UHC. Okay. Oh, I'm Pearl street. The, I'm just not catching the location that you're saying. And now the audio is just out entirely. Um, we lost the audio feed from Alex. Can you hear it too? Kathy, we can only hear you, Jack. Okay. Yeah. It just cut out entirely. But I can hear Kathy, Alex and I, we can only hear each other. Oh, it's back now. Can you hear me now? Yeah, it's back now. Okay. So we're talking about between the corner of Pearl and, uh, uh, Prospect street over to Waterman, that area. Okay. The parking area there. Like that. Yeah. Yeah. So west of the West of the. William. Yeah. Right. Yes. So it's a fairly big area and it's, and it's right in the center of campus. So it's, it seems like it ought to be explored in terms of, uh, potential housing because it's already zone. Okay. Got it. Got it. I hadn't heard really that idea. Um, but. That makes sense. I have to say something that, um, I think in terms of, um, living on university terrorists, we live next to a campus that has, uh, close to 2000 students. And there are really no issues with us living that close. And it looks to me that Trinity college campus could also handle that number of students. If the university decided to, uh, decided to really develop that as a core campus. They include graduate students and they include a few undergraduate students. If they're talking about 400 or 500 beds, that's really not affecting us. And so what they're really saying is that, oh, you guys can suck it up in the Ward 8 district by taking in more students, which really doesn't do much for the livability of the area. The housing stock is deteriorating because of the lack of interest or caring for the buildings. And that is a very, it's a core part of our city that is very close to the entertainment and the shopping center where I think families, young professionals, service people would really enjoy the urban life. But we've really given it up to transitional 21 and 20 year olds to enjoy the city and then they move on. I can't see how we are morally or anywhere else, any other issues economically, thinking that that's okay for the university. Yet nobody says university has to take some more responsibility, social responsibility that we talk about in Vermont, to house more of its students, particularly those, particularly because a huge majority of them come from well off out of state families. All right, thanks, Keith. Alexander? I just had something in response to what Jack said about the plans for UVM at Trinity campus. And I guess we're off and running on the... Yeah, should we just like transition? It sounds like we're talking about housing and so we want to, I don't know, Alex, do you want to hold on to your thought until we... I can wait. I can hold that thought. I don't know. I mean, you're welcome to talk, but that's why we're here. So... All right, we will be on that topic shortly. But if we don't respond, do I see a counselor? I just have a question for Jack. The first one is, as a steering committee member, what should we do to make sure that all the counselors know what time the meeting starts? Because it's not just the counselor, it's Dave Collie didn't know either. So what is, what's the path we need to take to communicate properly? Well, I think everyone's used to the second Wednesday at 7. Is this going to be... So I don't know if this is just a tonight issue with the move to 6.30, or is this going to be a continuous fluctuation, or is this a permanent change? How long do you see? The library closes at 8, and we don't think it's fair to ask the staff to stay more than an hour after closing. And so if the meeting ends at 8.30, clean the room out by 9 o'clock. That's the... So anytime we meet in the library, we'd probably be meeting earlier. That's why we're doing it this month. And we're still... Okay, okay. So this could easily be... This could easily come up again, then, essentially, if we use the library again. Yeah, right. Yeah, I think maybe just... You know, I think just an email with that and with the subject line, just something to grab the attention. I think we do get inundated with emails, and we definitely appreciate the reminder emails that you've been sending, Carol. I think that's a relatively new thing of sort of sending the counselors an email in advance of the meeting and letting us know any particulars for that meeting. So that's definitely appreciated. I think when the inbox is inundated, sometimes it can be, oh, yeah, that's the reminder. We have NPA at 7, but maybe it was that detail of the time change that folks may have missed. I missed it on the initial pass myself, but I went back today and saw it. So I think it's... You all are doing... You are all are doing well. I don't think it's really on you. I think we need to be more flexible, or we need to be more eyes open for the potential fluctuation in time, I think on our end. But just sending an alert email that maybe has that in the subject line would, I think, be as much as kind of you all can do. Okay, Jack, I think that's good. Thank you. You get going. I was told by someone, Dave Colley, you wanted to speak out about something, and if you do, now's a good time. Thanks, Tom. Yeah, brief announcement, actually. One of the groups I participate with is the Community Coalition. This is a group of students and city officials and some of the counselors attend from often, and it's hosted by the UVM Student and Community Relations Office. I wanted to make an announcement that a couple of years ago, actually it was about 2014, the Community Coalition instituted a survey of city-wide survey of issues that are going on in neighborhoods. And from what I understand, the Community Coalition is again going to undertake such a survey. So it's an opportunity to try to identify what are the current issues that are on people's minds and what's going on. So I just wanted to let people know that they're designing that survey. Their next meeting is going to be on April 22nd. So I think the discussion will be around what are some of the questions that should be on the survey and what it might look like. So anybody that might be interested in participating is welcome to attend. The best way to find out about that meeting I think would be to go to the UVM Office of Student and Community Relations website. You can get the contact information there. Gail Champmoi has been here at the NPA many times before. So also if you have her email, you can send it to her. So just wanted to let folks know that that's an effort that's going to be undertaken. Thanks, David. Thanks, David. Yeah, that just real quick to piggyback off that. That's a great space and a great opportunity for folks. It's in some ways similar to NPA, I would say, in terms of just bringing together folks from the district and talking about issues, but there's more students there typically than there are here. So it's a good opportunity I would recommend to anyone and it's pretty easy to get on that reminder list about those meetings. They're typically on Fridays, I think, towards the end of the month. So yeah, feel free to contact me or just the Office of Student and Community Relations directly if you want to be added to get those updates and try to attend those meetings. And I'm just going to pop in to say, hi, sorry, I have board meetings every second Wednesday until seven o'clock and I didn't realize today's NPA meeting started at 6.30, so sorry for missing the first half hour and yeah, feel free to ping me separately if there's anything I missed that I should be focusing on. Okay, I think we're going to move forward and if we have time, we'll come back. Okay, is that right? Sounds good. We're at school board commissioners. Kathy, an update on the per pupil spending and maybe the high school? First of all, VHS and BTC just put out five different plans for the new high school that are conceptual plans. This is just the beginning to figure out how much money we're going to have to ask for on the ballot. And they are on the website and we would ask that everyone please go look at them. There is also a questionnaire on the website so that we can get feedback as to how the community feels about these different options. And they go from 181 million, I mean, these are rounded off, to 196 million. They have different placement on the lot, et cetera. They are all the same, almost the same size. Some have more open spaces in them than others do, but look at them and please give us feedback because this is all moving pretty fast because we have to get it done. And so we would appreciate as many people from the community as can to fill out that information. Read it, read all about them and then give us feedback. So with S287, which is the waiting study, it was passed unanimously out of the Senate to the House Ways and Means Committee. And it is now in the House Ways and Means Committee. And sad to say, the House Ways and Means Committee decided to totally upend this S87 and they're now proposing that there not be waits, but there now be cost equity payments. And they have again, even though the Senate went back and forth about ELL costs, they have now pulled them back out and want them under categorical aid or grant system. So for me, the problem with all of this is that this has happened so fast, we have been using waits for 30 years now or 20-something years, almost 30. And now all of a sudden they've upended totally with this proposal that is supposed to be voted on this week out of Ways and Means to then go to the whole bore, the whole house. They have totally changed this thing around. And personally, either they're trying to kill this bill or, I mean, I just don't understand that you would have a study done and spend months, a year and a half now on this and now bring in a course of three weeks a totally new funding. We are changing how we're funding education in this state if what they have proposed goes through. And there are no cross-containments or spending thresholds in what they're proposing. So I don't know what that does to the taxpayers of this state. And it's amazing to me that this has gone this fast. And at this moment, that is the most I can tell you because it's still being thrown around there. But it's disconcerting. I think that we probably do need as many people as possible to write. I think pretty much our Burlington representatives are still supporting the weights. And I must also say the City Council, and I thank you very much for having put together a resolution last on Monday at your meeting, supporting the weights and supporting S287, which now looks totally different. So I will get out to you, Carol, before what are things people can do so you can send it out with the minutes because the coalition meets tomorrow night. And so I will once I have the action that we're doing, I will send them to you so you can get them out to people. So that is what it looks like. It's not good, but I, you know, it's how I guess democracy works. Any questions for Kathy? All right, Kathy, thank you very much. Next up, David? Okay, good. I just have to ask you something. Hi, I'm David Shine. I am a representative of an organization called Big Heavy World, which some of you may know which is a music advocacy organization that's been going on for 25 years. And its purpose is to advocate for music in Vermont, all over Vermont. And we've got a project that's part of a bigger project. It's called Make Music Vermont Day. We're changing that around. And it's part of the International Music Festival that occurs all over the world on the summer solstice, June 21. So on June 21, there are musicians in every big country making music in their community. The purpose of the International Music Festival and Make Music Vermont is to get people to play music for their communities and celebrate how music brings people together and crosses borders and differences. So my job is to get music going on June 21st, Tuesday, everywhere in the state. So I'm kind of going word to word, NTA to NTA to Burlington to find out what we can put in, this is one in eight, right? Yes. Okay, so I kind of grew up on Prospect Street for a while and then Maple Street for another. But I'm thinking the extent of one in eight is UVM down the hill to the river. Yeah. Yeah. And where is it and coming down the hill on Willard Street or Maple Street or Union Street? South Street. Okay. Okay. So there's a lot of places music could happen there. I'm just scoping it out. You know, my dad taught at the old medical school. So the steps of Dewey would be a really nice little amphitheater for some music. And of course, you know, the ball field, and then down by the waterfall. And then there's the Megalus UVM. And there should be music outside the medical center, I think, you know, as people are going in and out, like I have too many times to get fixed up. So what I'm asking the NPA here or a member of the NPA is I would love to have one person that I talked to in the neighborhood who I could coordinate different events with. And my contact, I didn't bring paper, but I've got it here. I just want to put my contact information up on the screen here. And whoever wants to be part of it in the neighborhood, and you know, you can do it on your front porch. I mean, if you've got, if you want to do a violin concerto for your neighbors, you know, on East Terrace or something, you could do it, you know, so this is anywhere. It's also for kids if kids want to make music. If you got a musical kid, we want them on the Make Music Day map. So here's my information. Can you, can you come in on it? Or do I have to come up there? Can you read it? Okay, I'm going to give people a second to copy it. And you can always go to Make Music Vermont and get in touch with me, David Shine. And I really want to get, you know, if I got 10 sites in this ward and one in eight, it would be amazing. And there would be music everywhere in the town. So I'm trying to get that with all the MPAs and in different towns in Vermont. So you'll be hearing more about it that we're, VPR is a sponsor. Trump Parts Forum is a sponsor. So you'll get another notice about it. And we want you to get involved. I think that's it for me. I've actually got a question for you. Is this primarily a one day event? Or is this going to be like a crescendo on one day and it's going to smear out across the summer? Well, for every, every, the last 40 years it's been happening on summer solstice day on the longest day of the year. So that's how this operates. Of course, once you get something like this going, people start having fun and thinking, oh, there could be music in the library. We're going to put a harp player in, in Fletcher, or we could have an event that involves music. That's what it's to promote, you know, and all the musicians and everybody's, it's a community event. It's free. But the more music you have going on, usually the more music gets going on. And that's what we do. So it's one day. One day. Yeah. Okay. But we hope it affects other days. Okay, that's good to hear. Is anyone else have questions? I'd like to say something. I had an opportunity to live in France for a couple of years. And for those two years that I was there on June 21, there was this music celebration and people were so happy to be there. Part of it was that it was the beginning of summer. Part of it was that it was just free music from everywhere. And there was dancing in the streets. And there was just a lot of joy because it was a shared community activity. So I'm delighted to hear about this plan. Thank you. It started in France and we're trying to, it's going to be very big in Vermont. It's going to get bigger and bigger. So All right, thanks. Next up, I guess, Cyrus Oswald. Hi, yeah, I'm online. Hey, how are you doing? Well, thank you all so much for your, your allocation of time for me. My name's Cyrus. I see him pronouns. I'm a Senator and Speaker of the Vermont Undergraduate Student Government Association. I've been on it for three years now. I've lived in Burlington now for four years. And I was invited by Keith Pillsbury to come and talk with you all briefly about what the undergraduate SGA has been up to and some of our kind of concerns in quotes about Burlington are kind of our priorities. Yeah, pardon, please pardon me not having been in person there. I should also note the SGA is in a period of transition right now, like this week, we're switching from this past year's Senate to this next year's Senate, our present vice president just transitioned and our senators are switching this next week. So although I can speak pretty well to what the SGA has been up to historically and what our common themes of goals are and whatnot, I can't totally say what we'll be doing next year, because it hasn't happened yet. So firstly, just to give a brief overview of what we've been up to, we of course do a lot of things that are really focused on campus living and student, pretty student specific problems. For instance, there's been a big initiative this year to get expanded section descriptions for students before they sign up for courses, get menstrual products in all gendered bathrooms. There's also been things that kind of blur the line between on-campus and off-campus and relate to the broader community. Right now, for instance, it's Sexual Violence Awareness Month and we're putting on a lot of programming that kind of relates to that area. This year, the focus is less about kind of the impact of sexual violence and the horrific nature of it and it's more about what does good relations in that area look like? Looking at a little broader like community oriented things the SGA does, there's obviously like 42 senators on SGA, so there's a lot of different initiatives that go on. A kind of smaller one that I think is important to highlight is recently we've partnered with a club on campus to do some harm reduction practices for for drug users off-campus and off-campus and on-campus. We acknowledge that drug use will probably continue to happen and we should try to do it in the least harmful way possible. Kind of larger thing we have is Earth Week is coming up. I sit on the committee on the environment so we have a hand in planning this kind of surrounding Earth Week. For instance, this weekend and then I think in three weekends we're doing some community cleanups where which we do periodically and we kind of walk around various neighborhoods of Burlington in an effort to clean them up and reduce the litter on the ground and whatnot. Just briefly in the realm of climate activism, we're also working on revamping the University of Vermont's Climate Action Plan which I think will be seen in a big way throughout Burlington and probably Vermont considering the influence that the university has on the state and the city. The main thing that I think that the UVM students, the main interaction we have for better for worse with the Burlington community is through housing. So I think this is kind of our primary area of concern as students in Burlington. I think it's pretty well recognized that there is a problem with housing in Burlington. We see this through a few reasons. Firstly, sophomores often have to start beginning their search for housing for their junior year. So almost a year in advance you kind of have to be on top of it and looking for housing. People definitely recognize this as a burden not only because you have to plan ahead like that but also just because you have to sort out logistics for housing before you might even know that you're returning as a student or something like this. Similarly, there is a well recognized housing shortage in Burlington. There just doesn't seem to be enough places to sleep for the amount of people that want to live in this beautiful city. Students definitely recognize that as an issue. Beyond the quantity aspect of it as well, there's kind of a recognition that there's a lack of quality for what you are paying for. There's I think a thought that this stems from zoning where things are zoned for a single family and then have many more than what might be defined as a family packed into them. This might be kind of beyond the scope of this organization but who knows it's a concern that students have. Not just to all highlight the negatives though. I think that some of the coolest cooperation that students have with the Burlington community is through this area of housing, through things like Is Good which stands for Isham Street, something, something, something, Brian Cina. Really great initiative. Sorry, what was that? This is Brian Chinas at his project. Yes, sorry for mispronouncing his name there. My apologies. But people recognize that as a pretty cool initiative that's really transformed that street in a fairly short period of time. People both who live on that street and off that street I think recognize that as a worthwhile project. Those are all the items that I just wanted to touch on to give the student perspective if you will. I apologize for not having been I guess aware or at this body previously but thank you all so much for your blocked off time and your ears during that time. I'd love to take any questions or if there's anything that you all would want me to bring to the new PVP as they're kind of forming their goals for their year leading the SGA. I'd be more than happy to do that. Questions? Just a comment, Cyrus. It's great to have you here. We'd love to have you and others from the SGA and the UVM and the broader UVM community be more actively involved because it really is great when we can talk together and work out the sheets. So please come back. Yeah, I also unfortunately transitioned but I was unaware of these but I will definitely put in my transition report to my successor that this is likely a body they should be coming to and periodically giving some updates. We just heard about the community coalition and it sounds like that's another good intersection where some of us could come to that meeting because I think to be honest and it's not your fault but students often we have a tough time because we struggle with the issues around housing and sometimes student behavior but it's made it so that sometimes NPA meetings are not the most comfortable place for students to be to be perfectly honest so that's on us to work on as well. I had a couple questions about some of the things that you mentioned. I'd be interested in hearing you said students recognize that the the quantity of housing is limited. They also see the quality suffering. Can you talk a little bit more about that and how how you know that how it's getting communicated to landlords just you know what's give me some more story behind some of that if you would. Yeah I unfortunately can't provide much like data in that way. A lot of it is kind of anecdotal but you there's kind of the stereotype that a lot of students I would say rightfully hold about the the student housing which mostly stems from just bad landlords I guess they often if you let me give a personal vignette. We in our unit pay for a dishwasher. We have a dishwasher in my house. It's been broken out for about three weeks and after numerous attempts to or numerous notifications to our landlord it remains broken. I think this is a common problem with landlord-tenant relations more generally but students definitely recognize this type of like poor you know landlord interaction as having detrimental impacts on properties over time where you end up with a kind of less than ideal housing situation that you still are paying you know $800 a month for. So that's just a note on the on the on the quality of it quantity wise I mean UVM students definitely contribute to this problem. Every year UVM admits more and more freshmen and thus we're putting a kind of excess strain on the housing situation in the Burlington area. So I'm not saying we're not to blame it's just an issue that we're recognizing does that kind of help answer that question. Yeah I guess I would I wonder about just how students are informed about landlord-tenant advocacy how they can form you know get there are resources available in Burlington for tenants and if there's a way that students might be able to get some of that information to be able to advocate for themselves maybe that's a good topic to talk about at the community coalition but it just seems like it's it's a struggle that a lot of students and other you know tenants have it would make sense that that's a great intersection of support for one another. And if I may follow up oh sorry were you. Go ahead go ahead. Yeah I know that there there has been plenty of there is work done on this uh Oscar who holds community coalition the office of student community relations they they do distribute those materials and have an off-campus student letter that pretty periodically has you know tips and tricks and resources for students to use in landlord-tenant relations but I think that part of it is kind of a supply-demand thing where students need to live off campus landlords just need to provide you know a place with utilities in a bed and and students will pay for it so yeah I think it's kind of it's a problem from both sides. I have a question for Cyrus. Yeah hi I'm Alex Frem can you talk a little bit about the cost of living on campus versus off campus? Yeah I can't I don't know the figures in front of me to super speak to it however I can speak to the culture and my understanding of it. I believe it is more expensive to live on campus. That having been said though you know there are reasons why someone might choose to live on campus. You are closer to your classes you might be surrounded by more students in your age group. The culture of it definitely though is that students will choose to live on campus as recommended by the university for their first two years then choose to move off campus. I know right now the university is looking to expand the number of beds that they have available namely on Trinity campus and also there's been increased forced triples meaning like there's there's too many freshmen incoming where typically the dorm room that would hold two people is now holding three people. This will likely cause even more strain on downtown housing. Living on campus though is definitely something that students continue to do and I think that with any luck the the university will build that housing to meet that increased on-campus demand from increased admissions. Does that help is does that speak to that sufficiently? I can I've just heard some students talk about how expensive it is to live off on campus and how they've been you know as soon as they get the opportunity like when they become juniors that they move off campus because it's cheaper like you know the people who who have who struggle to pay the bills you know it's it's really a problem. That's all that's yeah that's definitely true yeah I'm not saying that like one you know the exclusively off-campus living is is too expensive it's just that's that's the more main interface I guess that UVM students have with their their broader Burlington community. Cyrus thank you very much for coming to this meeting and we I will speak for this council to just say this could be a very valuable exchange over time that your group comes to our meetings but more importantly I just want to say about the cost of university housing and how expensive it is and how limited housing is actual housing in the city and it can be less expensive than the university but affordable for people and it seems to me that it is it is the it is the university who is in in control they have rent control over the city of Vermont the city of Burlington and I just look forward to the city of Burlington and the University of Vermont being able to talk about it at that level that it shouldn't be so onerous for students to be paying for their education in their room and board at such cost to have to come into this city and it's not that we don't welcome students we were all students once and we wanted to live off campus but that it interferes or it displaces people who might otherwise want want or need to live here people who work here or young families who might want a chance to rent an apartment themselves or buy a house themselves and it just seems to me that the university has too much control over housing in the city of in the city of Burlington thank you yeah yes hey cyrus I've got a I want to take the conversation in a slightly different direction that's we have struggled and to find a way to effectively talk to students or students the student population at large and we do put messages out in front porch forum but I don't believe that there's a lot of students that really follow that what would you recommend what's a good way for us to reach out to the students population who's you know I mean they're they're a it's a large number of the community that we're in that's a great question if I knew the appropriate avenues with which to get in touch with students at the university broadly speaking I probably would have been a lot more successful on my time at on the student government students are it's fair to say can be somewhat disengaged but I I would think that speaking with more focused groups like the student government association would be a good way to do that I mean our our job is to represent students and so maybe even just I mean maybe I'm not thinking quick enough or creatively enough but interactions like this would probably be the best way I you could you could always go to campus and just like talk to students but having done that myself for a variety of initiatives sometimes people don't really want to talk um so that's that's a great question I would advise I mean I I know front porch forum and I can say that students aren't really on it um I I think though that seeking out more focused groups uh to talk to would would would prove more successful does that help answer that at all? It sounds like we still have a pretty steep hill to climb. Yeah it's it's fair to yeah yeah I'm sorry I'm not students can be an issue yes. Cyrus I just wanted to thank you for coming and I also wanted to thank you for inviting me and allowing me to speak and when I was a ward 8 school commissioner to the S you know the SGA because I found that your your group was very attentive and their questions were fabulous and got me thinking and so I you know I that's the one way I tried to reach out as a school commissioner is to meet with you it seemed like it was every three or four weeks and you guys were very receptive and I appreciate when you were managing the meeting your meetings are very well run and you're very organized and you are very engaged in asking fabulous questions so I wanted thank you for that and also want to thank you for showing up tonight I really appreciate that. Of course thank you very much for the invitation. A couple more questions go ahead go ahead. Cyrus this is a different is on a different subject and it and it may be not be a fair question to ask you. Why do students own cars? The other aspect of of life as a resident of the city is the number of cars that are on the streets are parked on the streets. It's one of the reasons why students feel a need to have cars in the city and I know there's a lot of good ones and I also understand for example that there's tons of students involved with club sports and there's almost no no way to get to the where you have to work out or practice. So is that something you can talk a little bit about? I can I can make my best guesses certainly. Yeah just make it up. I definitely I mean I personally don't have a car here so I kind of can share that sentiment however all of my roommates do right so you're right. I think that part of it maybe the reason why I want it to be is because UVM students on the whole are fairly outdoorsy and in Vermont the number one way to get into the great outdoors frankly by by personal vehicle. So I think that's part of it. Secondly I think that the the the the kind of the lack of really accessible public transportation accessible isn't the right word. Public transportation in Burlington is somewhat lacking especially considering the climate in that meaning that the the weather I guess a lot of times it's very cold where you know you might not want to wait for a bus. I'm interned for Green Mountain Transit and they have really a pretty excellent network of buses but I think that the climate kind of discourages people from waiting for the bus. I think you there's also some it must be said there's some kind of status aspect to it to having your your car around and there is some some status to that ease of of mobility. So those are those are some of the reasons that I would identify why UVM students have cars and so often push to have cars. As an on-campus student it or and especially a freshman the university somewhat discreet sorry there there's jets gone the university some okay I guess yeah university somewhat discourages you from holding having a car on campus but I realize that off-campus students are likely the ones who are well taking your parking spots yeah. Yeah I just would pass if you would pass on for us to the new the new officers in your organization just that the list of emails that are on our agenda because we really would like to contact them and have them contact us and work forward perhaps a closer relationship than what we've been able to have so far so and just convey to you know the incoming folks that there's real interest in our part to develop that relationship. Thank you. Thank you I can I can say that the current vice president or the newly elected vice president has chaired the committee on legislative and community affairs Sarah Wood she's been at community coalition she's something she's interested as well. Okay. All right. We're going to move on to the housing panel. Kate you're going to run this? Yes okay. When we asked our city counselors back in December what the major conversation was that people had with them a topic about it was housing and it seemed like that would be something that this NPA ought to be talking about if that's the major issue of our residents and we we had a couple months ago we had Brian Pine and Megan Tettle in from the city and we also had representatives from you University of Vermont talking about their housing about housing in the east district. We now we thought we would put together some questions to ask people who have volunteered to be on the planning commission which I think which I know is a thankless job and very time consuming and we we wanted to kind of get some of their thoughts and thinking about the east district and housing and development and we really appreciate the fact that Alexander Friend is here and Emily Lee is here. I'm not sure is is Bruce Russ is Bruce here? Okay I guess not. We we have a set of questions we're going to ask that we're kind of things that we've heard from from various various residents in the war and I just got a reinforcement of these questions yesterday as I was walking up College Street from another neighbor. So I'm going to ask the questions and then at the end we will have facilitated people can make comments or questions about the planning commissions or about my questions. The first question we have is the planning commission involves much detailed work and understanding complicated regulations. Is it it is clearly not a position for everyone? Why have you decided to be appointed to this commission? Emily? I asked myself that question every single day. I've been on the planning commission for I think over 10 years and I the way that I ended up on the planning commission is that I ran for city council about 10 years ago and I lost and I think as a concession I was appointed to the planning commission and I became engaged in my neighborhood and planning issues when I bought a house on Bradley Street and then I worked with the neighbors to change the zoning in my neighborhood around the for unrelated rule which some people might remember that time in Burlington history and so through changing the zoning and working and organizing community members to be able to do that I got engaged in the planning process and and ended up on the planning commission and I think that the planning commission is one of the most important places in the city government and a lot of the issues that we want to tackle such as housing such as climate change you know really manifest themselves in planning decisions and if you think about the quality of life in Burlington so much of it has to do with the built environment and it has such a huge impact in how we live so it feels like an important place to be able to volunteer my time and give back to my community so that's why I'm on the planning mission thank you Alex Alexander yeah Alex is good it's always terrible to follow Emily the reason I wanted to get more involved in city government I I've had a little bit of experience and you know advocating for the city not to sell Burlington telecom and I you know there's something I wanted to do and I I gotta say Keith that being a planning commissioner is much less thankless than being a school commissioner but and also being a city counselor so I also wanted to thought that there was a lot of opportunity to influence the shape of Burlington to come and issues around housing and and what you know what buildings we put up I mean it's more about the zoning than a specific building but that there was an opportunity because to get on the planning commission because the person who's seat I took resigned over the vote to construct the site now known as the pit so I've sort of always been interested in in architecture and planning and I wanted to do something very different than anything else I've done professionally so I was lucky enough to get appointed well thank you we appreciate that you you've decided or you've been willing to take on this issue or this mission as planning commissioners the next question is what do you as an individual living in or near the east district I think the major development and land use issues are for the east district want to go first Alex this time I you know Keith it's it's UVM I mean what what else is there um I mean the the the problem with Burlington and this this this problem this not we can't untie is that you have one actor this one part of the community the university that it brings a lot to the city but it also has this really outsized influence and it's you know it's sort of a struggle to get a number on the number of students with a number of housing units that the students number of student housing that is off campus and it is you know we have something like what do we have only 10,000 renters in Burlington I'm not sure of the actual number of housing units but it they the city has this crazy outside influence because you have all these students who have basically are completely price insensitive they'll pay whatever they ask you to live here um you know there are some who who can't you know afford to pay whatever it takes but most the majority of them you know their parents can pay $800 a month for rent for for one lousy room so it's it that that is the problem I mean as far as you know you have one of the other questions Keith about like where would we put other housing I mean you know I'm not sure exactly there's not a lot of open land and in wards one and eight Emily um well yeah I think in wards one and eight this you know need for housing for students is a is a big issue and it's just the demographics of Burlington I think that we just need more housing all together and it's not necessarily that we need housing specifically for students and I think that building permanent long-term housing instead of dorms is actually going to serve the community better because it's more flexible as we see the demographics of people who are attending college uh as undergraduates is going to change just as the number of people who are choosing to do that fluctuates with you know the demographics of our society I think building long-term housing is actually going to serve our community better and I guess I would add to that that the other thing that I think really drives housing in in one and eight is transportation and cars and you know I know Jack and I and other people have been working to eliminate the parking requirements I think as a community we need to change how we think about cars and how we approach transportation as a community because cars are not serving us and we have we're all in on cars we have invested fully in that infrastructure and in parking and it's not serving our community and it's actually and our love of parking and our requirement of parking has um uh led us to really limit development in wards one and eight I think that we kind of speak out of two sides of our mouths in one and eight myself I've been guilty of this too we're always screaming we need more housing we need more housing but we don't want to build next to our house um so we as a community all need to step up and embrace you know small ad use being built by our neighbors carriage barns being converted to apartments garages being converted to apartments basements being converted to apartments and we have to be open to having students live next to us and with us in our communities if we're going to be successful about handling this um yeah I will give my response or try to facilitate sure so I don't what whatever because I didn't respond um I'll give you any good feelings what do you think about what do you think our impediments to development in the east district to provide more housing for non-student residents you probably already said something impediments well I think Alex mentioned too is just the pricing disparity and the income disparity between someone who lives in burlington and works in burlington and makes a burlington salary versus someone who's from out of state and um has an income from out of state that's supporting um their rent you there's they have more purchasing power than a local resident and it drives up the prices so that's a real challenge um and yeah I think that this the just purely the number of units that are available in burlington is um is making it more difficult for burlington residents to be able to afford um apartments in burlington Alex I have a thought um we haven't really talked about this in planning commission but I get the sense that we're going to talk about it sooner or later and that is you know we need more housing at just about of every level including affordable housing and um one place to create that is to change the zoning in residential zoning districts and that um attitude is probably not going to be terribly popular but it's a discussion that we should have um we've tried to approach that with Emily as Emily said we made the approval process for accessory dwelling units much simpler but you know it those are those are expensive to build and so the the idea that we um essentially that the requirement in the residential districts is that you have only no more than 30 percent I think it's a lot coverage so um you know if we we might want to approach that differently and in there's a way to create more housing what development planning is the planning commission doing with uvm the largest employer and recruiter person students and staff in the east district you want to start Alex where's you want me to can we do it at both at the same time one go Emily ready go um I I know we're I mean I think it's important to uh maybe outline what the planning commission is and what our role is so um we're more of a legislative advisory body so uh the staff and um the mayor's office really um determines the direction of the planning commission and the city council does so we are more likely to get referred something that's already been slightly cooked um to have our input on it rather than to spend time brainstorming and coming up with solutions from the ground up so it's really um the agenda that's set by the administration is what or the city council is are the things that we are going to be working on and right now you know we're working on the trinity campus it's come to the planning commission and we've been asked to um you know weigh in about the pending zoning changes for trinity campus um and I can say for myself that I'm really supportive of there being housing on trinity campus I think it's close to the university and I think if it's built well it can fit in nicely with the neighborhood and uh really improve that area the housing closest to the earth okay go ahead sorry did Alex have something just missing just that uvm doesn't tend to share their plans you know they are not um they're not terribly forthcoming I think we got a lot out of out of them did um did Richard Kate present at an mpa meeting earlier of this year we know he was on a video I think though right I actually got a lot of information about their their their plans from from a meeting that he presented up I want to add in because I I want to say Ann Brenna I got your text and you're right more housing on campus is critical and uvm does have the ability to build more housing on campus I would like to see it be uh you know year-round housing and not dorms because I think as I said before it's more flexible and can serve our community better in the long run okay the housing closest to the urban commercial core is composed mostly of college student rental unit what do you think the planning commission could do to encourage a mix of generations living in the area well we um we did have a proposal come up oh maybe a year ago Alex I don't remember know if you remember this about um making uh low-income units uh have an easier process to through through planning and zoning like avoiding some of the density requirements and I don't know what happened to that if it died in city council do you recall Alex I'd like to know why I don't remember that I'm sorry yeah we spent a lot of time working on a proposal to basically make it that if it was a low-income unit that it could go through planning and zoning easier and didn't have to follow the density requirements or or have parking um and I think uh income sensitivity is a way of you know giving bonuses and incentives for low-income units is a way to provide housing um for people of different generations I think um uh provide you know providing housing for elderly people too I think that um downtown Burlington wards one and eight is a great place for college students because it's close to the campus and it's close to downtown but it's also an excellent place for older people and I can tell you know a personal story about my uncle moved to Burlington from Washington DC when he was in his late 60s and he had early onset dementia and he lived across the street from me in an apartment building and he lived there for about eight years and um it was an incredible thing to watch because if it wasn't for being in a walkable community like ward eight um he would have been in um uh probably an institutional setting like the arbors or memory care but um he was able to live independently for a very long time and walk around downtown and go to city market and go to the ymca and the community at the at city market and the community at ymca really supported him in his independence like he uh used to forget his swim bag at the ymca every single day and every single day someone a staff member from the ymca would walk his bag to his apartment and put it outside of his door and at almost every single day he would forget his debit card at city market and the city market would hold the receipt until one of us could come there and pay it for him and people knew him and we had a community and we supported each other and uh my community and my neighbors supported jeff and i think that he lived uh longer independently than he would have been able to pretty much anywhere in the country so anything we can do to create more communities that have um that variety of types of people living in it that can support each other would be michael as a planning commissioner as a community member alex do you have anything to add i don't but that's a fantastic story emily about just how stimulating that you know it is to live in a normal environment where people know you as an institution when you're older and and you have something like dementia you can't drive a car and if you can't drive a car you can't participate in society unless you're in a walkable community like we have so i hear a lot of people complain about burlington and we're all you know always showing up to meetings and griping but i think it's really important to remember that we live in one of the most fantastic communities in the entire country and we have a walkable uh you know infrastructure and you can live in burlington without a car and this is a fantastic place to be uh keith i'm sorry i i think it's a really good question i don't have an answer for you and and i something i hadn't considered it's sort of like what could the the city do uh policy level to encourage you know other types of housing housing or you know people i mean it's you know it's essentially it's it's college student rentals so you'd have to have some other initiative to encourage a mix of of ages of resident types i don't know what that would be what recommendations from your studies and plans are you providing the city council with for the east district to have more a more balanced mix of student transitional renters and long-term renters and owner occupied living units um well one thing is i'm uh a real proponent of owner occupied uh incentives like allowing ad us for owner occupied houses and uh you know talking about air bnb not allowing an unlimited basis air bnb for owner occupied houses as ad use or accessory units so i think um you know those are ways that we could incentivize uh incentivize that okay um did you want to add anything alex i don't have anything to add on that point thanks okay what are your thoughts regarding housing density housing of students and neighborhoods filling in space over large parking lots with housing units and height of buildings in our east district i um okay that's a big question i'll start with the heights maybe you can remind me about the other point yeah um i think that you want to have a scale of building where the top of a building in the street relate to each other um i think i lived in paris after college and that is an incredibly dense city but none of the buildings are over five stories so i think before we think that you know building one rocket that's uh you know 16 stories tall is going to solve all our problems we have a ton of density uh that we could have on a smaller scale um such as five units it's also easier to build buildings um of that size because you don't necessarily have to have an elevator for all buildings that size so i think in our um in wards one and eight i think you know something around under five stories or six stories would be appropriate and then parking lots you said building yeah parking lot we have quite a few big parking lots yeah well you know i think that we if you look at a downtown berlington 25 of downtown berlington is parking lots and that does not include street parking we devote an incredible amount of our public right of way to cars and over it we need to be building on parking lots and not be uh housing cars um and be housing people instead um alex do you have any point Emily's Emily's right our our post war addiction to cars is is a relatively recent phenomenon and we you know those parking lots are covered with asphalt the all of that the runoff drains into the lake they're they're essentially unused at night i mean it's it's a terrible waste of space that could be you know you could have housing over it and still park cars underneath even so um that's my thought about parking lots as far as density i you know berlington is where we should have greater density i mean i think it's probably more appropriate for for uh places closer to downtown uh than in in wards one percent um so that probably includes part part of ward eight but we have i think this i'm not exactly sure what the form district um for um parts of downtown include zoning that allows up to five or six stories i think that would be appropriate um it would be a way to get better more housing i don't know if that answers your question specifically keith yeah that's that's what what you're thinking about it um in what ways are you cooperating with other regional planning commissions to reduce the use of prime agricultural land and other natural resources outside the city to provide housing for those who would prefer to live in the city but are unable to locate and purchase available living units in berlington i don't know that we as a planning commission have a lot of capacity to you know have joint meetings and coordinate with regional planning and it's not really our purview because we are like berlington planning commission but i do know that um staff definitely coordinates on a regional basis on a on a state level about initiatives like that um so i guess that's all i have to say about that is is andy montrell still on the regional planning commission you know i bet he is i bet you yeah that's a good point i mean you know it's it's partly a function of like vermont's nature of local control that in other states that the control is a is much more exercise at the county level you know i i wish we had that kind of discussion with other other communities like for instance south berlington just voted to restrict development in the southeast quadrant of south berlington which is the wealthiest and least developed part of of the city um is essentially that uh some of the land neighbors didn't want some developers to build more housing developments there so they got that passed and it's um you know those would be you know what those those housing developments would be market rate that you know five or six hundred thousand dollars a house so they wouldn't it wouldn't be terribly helpful that but it's um it was not a very forward thinking rule that they passed in my opinion thank you alex i'm now going to turn it back over to tom and he's going to call on people who like who have comments or questions i know that cindy does and there are probably others that have questions both on uh on president and on zoome cindy want to start us off well sure so um two two themes that kept coming up in these comments were um the uh major power that you can pass and another one was uh the idea of converting apartment areas to uh to housing and um wanting to sort of read those together a little bit and and wondering if you as planning commissioners see any opportunities to convince uvm that they might be uh more proactive in terms of a comprehensive plan for housing on campus and in infill um maybe perhaps converting some of those parking areas um you know there was the uh memorandum of understanding which goes back i think even before your time that laser um that isn't really enforced uh in terms of how the with the percentage of students that uh shipping house yeah i'm wondering if you is have any ideas in terms of how to have that more holistic conversation that would be so useful for us you know i am just like everybody else i'm just appalled at how uvm participates in the housing issue and they have i understand why they don't want to build housing because it costs money and why should they build housing when students can live off campus and it's also a commitment of resources and you know like i said before they have changing enrollment numbers and demographics so maybe in 10 years enrollment's going to be a fraction of what it is now and then they'll have all this housing that they built um so it's clear why uvm doesn't build housing um we've had many different administrations in burlington and it seems like no one has ever really been able to hold uvm's feet to the fire and make them build housing and house their students we've been having i mean we sign memorandums of understanding and then you know you always look back and the enrollment's higher than ever and and there's still no housing or they built new housing but they tore down a dorm at the same time so they've never made a meaningful um uh impact or effort i think to address housing and i think frankly they have no interest in doing that so i don't know how to hold their feet to the fire um they do play an integral part in our community you know 25 000 people come to burlington because of of uvm and we have 40 40 000 people in burlington period and you think about the employment of people at uvm and the students spending money downtown and parents dropping off their kids and you know we are a university town so you know we can't we can't get rid of students we don't want to get rid of students we're a university town and that's what makes us a vibrant town that we are so i think i get back to the idea that we just need more housing period um and that'll house students and also house other people who want to live in burlington and we need more density so i don't have a good answer is there any hope that's available through the trinity college uh rezoning is that is there any way to to get that to have a broader well you know it's it's it's a tricky situation because when you say is there any hook to get uvm to do something different with the trinity campus what they're doing with trinity is developing housing so i wasn't saying different with trinity college uh that area i was saying do something more comprehensive oh is there any hook to make uvm do a comprehensive bigger housing plan no there's not i mean i just don't know how do you force how do you force uvm to build housing encourage i mean there's the payment in lieu the city has a negotiated contract about resources with the university so if we get a really you know hardball uh administration makes them pay more maybe but you know it's we've been having the same conversation as long as i can remember going back a very long time in burlington and frankly the problems only become worse because there's more students than ever at uvm i i think um it would be a question for megan tuttle like legally what could we do if you know an applicant comes to this planning commission and says we'd like you to change the zoning for for this reason you know how could we put conditions on that approval i i'm not sure the answer to that question that i heard that i think it was in a um an npa meeting earlier this year one of my neighbors said we you know we shouldn't give them the the zoning change unless they they will only put more student unless they won't increase enrollment and i don't know if we could put those conditions on there you know it's nice to think that we could but on the other hand uvm the the only way they have of of raising money essentially is to admit more students and probably you know i i think their numbers are something like two-thirds of their students are from out of state which is where they they get a lot more tuition than from the in-state ones i'm i'm not trying to be sympathetic to uvm here i'm just saying that there are some realities that they face um you know i i think it's it seemed richard kate didn't say it outright in the presentation i saw but that he seemed to he didn't he left open the possibility that that they would not be housing juniors or seniors on campus um and my understanding is that a lot of the juniors and seniors don't want to live on campus they have a lot more freedom off campus um i also asked richard kate about developing some of those parking lots at the the uhc campus which is between south prospect and south williams street he said that was possible that was in the future plan somewhere so hey it's not sharon busher had her hand up she's she's an attendee she was an attendee but i thought i saw a little notice is that sharon busher raised her hand also kathy all well i don't see her i just want to say alex the latest figure that we got from uvm is 72 of their students are from out of state and also alex it probably is uh because the culture is to move off is to move off of campus when you're a junior how do we change culture that is a good i think that's the question in our schools we're asking our our elementary and high school students to change their attitudes about being in an integrated school um and it seems like uvm could deal with their students in developing uh residences that are more fun to be near each other than to be downtown so i think students can be really wonderful neighbors and um i've come a long way on this one i think if anybody thinks back to 10 years ago when i started serving on the planning commission i think i was really hostile to students and um the things that changed for me is i my partner eric is a lot nicer than i am and i got a dog and um those two things in my community i was able to connect with a lot more students around me and i have to say that putting the effort into getting to know my neighbors and um introduce them to the community has led to a stronger sense of community and a nicer living situation for me i used to have problems with noise issues in the in the house next to me but um because those students walk my dog and are part of my life and i've invited them in they're really really sensitive to keeping me up at night or disturbing me so it's tough because it does put the onus on us as long-term community members to do the work of creating the community but i found um that students can be really wonderful neighbors um it's just nice to have a healthy mix between students and long-term residents i think is the best thing um and you know students want to be good neighbors and they want to be part of our community too they're not all just here to party and they're not all rich either that's the other thing i think that there's this idea that all students are from out of state and all students are really wealthy and that's not the case and there's a lot of very hardworking um students uh in our communities who are struggling to pay rent just like anybody else that are struggling with student loans um buying food for themselves paying their tuition is the planning commission at all proactive or do you have are you just react to proposals that come to your table um we're mostly reactive like i said before we're like a legislative body um so we make rules right but the agendas are really set by the staff which is really driven by the administration and the city council we can you know as a planning commission we can say we want to do this or we can have somebody come to planning commission in public forum and maybe say like i really need this to be changed because of x y or z and we will uh you know vote as a commission to put it on the agenda and then refer it to staff and say you know we're hearing from a lot of community members that they want you know to allow swimming pools in ward eight we've had that come forward 10 times so we'll refer it to staff and say staff can you please come up with some language around a swimming pool ordinance for you know for residential high density and then you know staff will come to us later with that language and then we will have input on it and and cook it up until we think it's something good and then we set it to city council and they usually kill it right away well there's been substantial developments uh in terms of employers um not in the last couple years but when they put the new building in the hospital i think they brought more employees in all right um the dealer dot com brought in i don't know at least five six seven thousand uh right uh employees uh and now there's a new development on the waterfront or not we've been on the last couple years uh that hulu or hulu yeah when those people come in does the planning commission say where are they going to live where are the employees going to live i mean how do you if you say yes to employers and you say no to or you don't ask the question or where they're going to live well we end up with is the same situation that california has in silicon valley and that's that that they say yes when any employer wants to put up a building but they said no to any zoning that's not single family housing and so now you have people driving you know up to a couple hours to get to good jobs well um i think speaking for myself i'm not saying no to any zoning that's anything but single family housing to start and i think you raised the uh you know hula uh there's a proposal you know there is a push and a proposal to develop uh a big parking lot that's really close to the hula building and the people who are um who develop hula are working on developing that into housing to address exactly what you're talking about which is that as um you know as an employer and as a business um you're bringing people to burlington and there's transportation it's difficult transportation and there's nowhere for people to live and i think that everybody feels the same way you do i don't i don't think there's a lot of people who are involved that are saying we don't want to build new housing and we're working to make that easier through addressing you know parking restrictions and um density and some of you know we've changed form-based code in the downtown so we haven't been sitting on our hands we've been doing things to make it easier to build in burlington but as you can see with this huge hole in the middle of our downtown there's a lot of different factors that contribute to whether or not you can build or not it's cost a ton of money to build anything right now and it takes capital to do that and it's a really high risk investment to build something you know at all so there's strong market forces and it seems like oh why isn't everybody building it's so easy there's so much money to be made but there isn't because if there was so much money to be made we'd have you know some national REITs coming in and building buildings like we were Houston Texas but we don't um Sharon we'll share you've got to hand up we have a question I do can you hear me Tom hi Sharon hi Sharon hi hi thank you so much um I I wanted to say two things one in regards to what what Tom was talking about about missed opportunities um and this doesn't fall to the planning commission this falls to the administration and and um you know the hospital is giving 2.5 million dollars to south burlington to build staff housing now that's a missed opportunity for the city of Burlington that is a huge missed opportunity they could live and walk it would cut down with transportation satellite parking that's number one but that's not on the planning commission that's on us all the administration and all of us um the second piece is as as the planning commission looks at Trinity campus okay I'm going to go down memory lane but not for very long if you go down into Trinity campus on the right hand side there are the cottages that's what they're called and that piece is small houses that were added to Trinity campus years ago but in the conversation this would be once again the administration maybe that portion could be given back to the community those would be perfect long-term houses and they're really on the fringe of that campus and maybe they could stay part of the campus but Emily what you were talking about about the importance of long-term housing that isn't just student housing I think there are opportunities and in the back of Trinity campus there are four small brick dorms that used to be used in the summer for hostels once again if there could be a variety of housing that could be more apartment like housing that could potentially as enrollment changes be converted to long-term housing maybe not just to house students but maybe the the university and or hospital staff since they both share University of Vermont as the header for the hospital and the university I think that these are ways that we as collectively as a community could be smart and potentially meet all of our needs in a more cooperative fashion I think if we still look at isolation and silos of this is their campus and all there is is student housing I think we're going to miss a lot of opportunities thank you so much for letting me speak I appreciate it always good to hear from you Sharon thank you I had a thought sorry can we go ahead which is that what I was thinking about this following up on what Sharon said about the hospital creating some housing for its employees I've seen that elsewhere White River Junction there's a theater company that is going to build housing for 30 people I was thinking that we should ask the university to build housing for its employees and I don't know where where they would do that and I doubt they'd be terribly receptive to that idea but I'm in the midst I'm I'm a employee of the university although I work at the hospital and we're in the middle of a unionizing drive for a non-unionized staff and there's a lot of them who have many stories about being underpaid and underpaid for years and struggling to make ends meet in Burlington so I think that is an opportunity where the university could make you know a little bit of a difference at least in providing some housing for its employees just just really quickly I just want to remind everybody that a few years ago there was a study done the the neighborhood project which really ultimately focused on turning transient housing into longer-term housing and I'm not sure what the progress is on that last time we heard about it it was really in its in its infancy but the whole point was that the city would take a stake in some of the properties as they came up for sale they the rentals in wards one or the wards two three and actually convert them back into condos or multi-units or just longer-term rental type properties so it would take some incentive on the part of the city but that that all that work was done the study was done so I think there's ways without building more that we can convert some of the properties some of the some of the property that exists today into longer-term housing whether it's longer-term rental or condos or back tape owner-occupied single-family residents because there's a ton of that property in the city and I don't know whether it maybe it's outside the commission now it's all in CEDA or you know a neighbor and I bought a house around the corner from where we live and we rented it to the Vermont refugee resettlement program and there are so many people who need housing and need big houses like the family that we rented to is an Afghani family that has six kids and like that's a unique housing stock that doesn't exist very many places and it does exist in downtown Burlington so there are ways as a community I think on a micro level to find ways to you know get families and get people who need that type of housing into the housing and diversify your neighborhood in that way so we talk about a lot of things that the city can do for us and that the state needs to do for us but I think also as community members we need to do it for ourselves and you know really take an ownership stake in our own communities our own streets pick up our own garbage create community and try to improve some of these problems that we face every day you know on our local level and actually extend ourselves especially those of us who have resources you know to really invest in our own communities and helping out our neighbors in every way that we can to improve how our neighborhood feels and how our neighborhoods support each other. Any other comments? I've got just sort of a facetious question. Does inclusive zoning apply to that apply to dorms? No it doesn't apply to dorms and that's come up in a controversial way before when like with the Eagles Landing project you know they were exempt from inclusive from the low income housing requirements because they were affiliated with the school but yet they were building long-term housing and so that ended up being an area of contention and I think the end game was that a certain number of the students or percentage of the students had to be low income in order to meet that requirement so that there is a that is kind of a sneaky loophole that is sometimes uh sometimes used. All right um well thank you very much. Thanks for having me. I'm going to go. Jonathan would you talk about the budget? We really have a hard stop at 830 because we have to. And we're going to quickly go. It's been proposed to have a bunch of coupons for discounts at Burlington restaurants and it's been proposed to hand these out to people who are in attendance. Yeah at least everybody who's here volunteer over. So I would be for those who are here if you can hang out for just a minute and for people who are online drop by your house and hand you one. These are multiple more coupons and it gives you a discount on uh for restaurants in Burlington. And with that I think we're done. Okay. Thank you. Great. Thank you all. Thank you. Thanks everyone. Thank you.