 Well, I would like to call to order the special meeting of the South Drone Town City Council Monday, October 30th, 2020 pretty. We will not have the normal pledge of allegiance because we don't have a flag in this room. So we'll move on to item two. Instructions on exiting the building in case of emergency and new technology. Thank you. So for those in the room, thank you for joining us. If there is no emergency, you can go down to the pulmonary staircase right here behind this room or all the way to the left down the hallway down stairs. There is a place of refuge at the back of this room. There is a place of refuge at the end of that hallway if you need to wait for somebody. For those participating remotely, we have quite a crowd. Thank you for joining us. If you are interested in speaking on an item on the agenda or during public comment, please either turn your camera on and then the chair will call on you or indicate you'd like to speak in the chat and the chair will call on you. Otherwise, we are not monitoring the chat for content. OK, thank you. So move on to item three. Are there any additional installations or changes in order of the agenda? I would suggest or ask that we add to the executive session. I would suggest you add a new executive session to the end of the Council agenda. So I think you're going to do the initial executive session mid-meeting. All good. Oh, OK. It's like item 9A. So 9A, we will add an executive session. OK. Move to approve the agenda. OK. So are there any other changes? OK. So I'm going to ask you to approve the agenda as amended. So moved. Sorry. OK. All in favor? Aye. So we have that added to our agenda. Then I'll move on to item four, which is comments and questions from the public. It's just not really that are not on the agenda. So we do have a lot of people in the audience. So I'm assuming you want to tell us something. We're all ears. I will start. I'm going to play for the whole day for you. Here we go. We get a little break. It's going to start again. Today, this is where I live for you. And you approve this? My daughter, she had a big push-up. I picked her up from school on Friday, down at Skidmore College. I picked her up. And you know what? I told her I could bring her home and hopefully accept the sunny day in 71 degrees, that the builder said that they wouldn't pow that day. But you know what? They did. I called three times. She had a big push-up. For goodness sakes, I couldn't bring my daughter home in a safe, quiet place. She had to listen to this all day long. A magic winking up, and this is what you hear. I am shaking. What kind of high-tech money can show up? He said, you're a naughty son, but I am a naughty son. You are a prudence. You are absolutely a poignant fact that there was a noise for goodness in this town. And this is ridiculous. I will leave it here for other comments from anybody else. And this will sit here, and I will continue to repeat it for as long as this meeting is today. I would like to comment, but could you turn it off while I comment? That's for you. Not for them. Not for them. Thank you. It is obnoxious. Actually, they should be hearing every comment with that. That's why I wanted to know that. know I want to be sure they could hear you know that's fine point this is why we're here I think you've made your point do you think I have because it's still happening and this is like month number six or seven well I don't want to have an argument what I meant was I can anyone not just that is can anyone hear me hello can anyone hear me Judy we can hear you and I need to say something because I fully support what this woman is doing but I have long COVID and I will not be able to attend the meeting with that going on because I have extreme sound sensitivity which is why I'm attending the meeting tonight and I fully support what she is attempting to do but I and I really want to attend this meeting that's fair we'll keep it off that's fair I I too excuse me pillow Cooper six-park road I choose support this we will hear everyone we have a lot of people in the room and typically we come in there's one more chair we typically will go through everyone in the in the room and then make sure we hear from everyone online and what we do so that people aren't just but my heart is yelling out or speaking out is going on as much as I think it's a great idea I can't I'm feeling ill we're going to try it won't be on again Judy so if you want to listen to the other people you can't I'd like to have this in a orderly way so we can both hear each other I did not get your name because of the noise fine yes Lisa Angwin thank you okay and John okay we stay here not you know small enough to sit up here do we I think you can can they stay there I think this is very sensitive yeah I'm very quickly thank you for everyone know who you are we John Boson 579 golf course road thank you this is the second time I've been through this the first time was I think two years ago when black rock was doing this on the same and I couldn't believe it started up again because it went to black rock we asked they said we're not going to do that anymore here I don't know if they're building that project or not but when I started to hear this I pulled out the audience thinking there'd be something there and I read through it and you've read it many times and it said noise shall be deemed unreasonable when disturbs interest in dangers of peace or health and I cut unreasonable in peace and health safety and welfare for me what that how I define that is unreasonable is the length the frequency and the volume and that's not defined in the ordinance somehow and we've got to figure out a way to do that because really this is subjective and there's no teeth to it I then looked at the memos that we receive October 16th from the city and appreciate those the first one was on the 16th recognize that property owners have the right to develop and that didn't really do it didn't learn anything that I'm assuming they satisfied the LDRs so that memo didn't create a clarity the next one we received was a 23rd that said the city's regulations permit construction noise between 7 and 9 7 a.m. and 9 p.m. I couldn't find that anywhere in the noise ordinance so maybe I missed it but that's something we need to think about two bookends for this but the biggest thing for me to deal with length frequency and sound and volume from late to measure decibels that's lacking and that's probably the best way to look at this when you look at other ordinances they do have decibels in their amount I don't know what the amount is but somehow you have to have that in there so that there's a way to govern those three things and I would ask you to really do that to give the some more teeth and guidance for developers as well that's it thank you okay thank you who else would like to speak I'll speak hi my name is Amanda Hannaford I have an MRI scheduled on Thursday so I'm trying not to get sick so I just want to get a third what the two previous speakers I live on 37 butler drive so I'm on the other side so it's everywhere and so I would say since June 2020 this has been ongoing it started at 9 17 this morning and usually it's sometimes it starts promptly at 9 it used to start earlier in 2020 it started early it goes till 5 p.m. so we've experienced all-day jackhammering for months every year the first two years of the pandemic when my work was de-densified and I was asked to work from home from time to time it was a bit of joke with my co-workers because when we were in a meeting I would have to go downstairs into the basement bathroom which faces the other way and has a very small window because I was the only room where I didn't disrupt meetings and I could hear people with earphones but the minute I got off I got off mute to participate all people could hear was the jackhammering so earlier this year I broke my knee and I've been if I was in a full-leg cast and non-way bearing for 12 weeks during that time I needed to get help going up and down stairs I can only ride in the back of the car so I worked from home and there were many times when I was unable to participate in meetings as I was expected to do because the noise was so loud that I disrupted people because I couldn't go into the basement bathroom so the noise impacts my ability to perform my job to make a living and my health and quality of life I watched the last video of last city council meeting on 1016 and during the meeting Councillor Chalnyk read from the South Burlington noise ordinance and said he thought the noise violated the noise ordinance I agree I imagine if well I have a question for you if I purchased property next to Adam Hergen Rother or Tom Hergen Rother and produced 90 jackhammering noise in a loud speaker with this big a violation of the noise ordinance and do and if and that's question one and if so with the South Burlington police in force the violation or would planning orbit South Burlington allow me to continue making noise while Paul Conner and planning and zoning met with me to discuss it for weeks on it so those I you know that did it if that is the case that it that I as an individual citizen would be held accountable to the noise ordinance and I don't understand why businesses are not doesn't seem well sorry that was okay thank you anyone else in the audience who would like to say something yes I understand hi counselors fellow residents my name is Christina Griffin I live on golf course road I am off skip restating the points that the part many of our other neighbors have eloquently made my home does not directly about long drive I'm approximately 0.2 miles away on golf course road the noise from the ledger removal was extraordinary and disruptive at my home all day every day for many weeks during the initial site work in 2020 and is again currently during the individual home sites preparation it also has the potential to continue for many more months for the seven remaining home sites I don't begrudge anyone's dream to build a home however unfortunately there now exist conflicting conditions that is to permit building that requires extensive ledger removal and noise it violates the interest and rights of others so to that end I'm here with wonderful South Burlington fellow residents with a call to action the first is to please define what is the enforcement for this violation of the nuisance ordinance for excessive noise and to please halt the ledger removal until there is a mutually respectful path forward including considering approving home plans that do not have basements or pools this would not be unprecedented in the neighborhood in fact the majority of all of the homes on golf course road on both the east and west sides north of long drive do not have basements so it's not unprecedented thank you for all of your hard work and for leading the best intent and also from listening to us tonight thank you is there anyone else yes we're only 23 o'brien drive I'm an avid golfer up the course I hear the noise it's great point about the decibel level what is somebody measuring them and what are them I'd heard there's no blasting allowed up there has somebody looked into if they did blast for a short period and now we get away from the jackhammering and shorten the duration shorten it significantly is blast something to make the neighbors happy and get it over with quicker and again I've heard that blasting is not committed up there so just bringing that point up and it's a huge nuisance the noise is really unbearable if you haven't been up there to hear thank you I think the blasting issue was one of the conclusions from the last time that they couldn't blast I think it's the vibrations I think it's too close all of O'Brien hillside farm one was done by blasting with a special agreement with all the story to circle people and affirm that the blasting came in did video recordings everybody had assigned a document right it took extra money extra time but it was a quicker demolition of the ledge right but there's anyone else yes yeah thanks I've been zoomed 338 golf course road I spoke at the last meeting I think my comments are still available online I just want to comment on the idea of blasting blasting is not permitted on that site it's my understanding because of the tree protection requirement there are protected trees on that site therefore blasting is not allowed the tree protection area has been violated numerous times I don't know what the enforcement mechanism is and that's another point that I wanted to make tonight it doesn't seem like if you rerun the tape from the last meeting it doesn't seem like there's any clarity in the city in the city hall among the counselors and on his city staff about who has the power to enforce what do the police enforce the nuisance ordinance last time we last time we were here we were told that the planning and zoning office had enforcement power with regards to the nuisance ordinance does Jesse Baker have the ultimate executive authority on the council in an email exchange with one of the city counselors that's what I was told that is contrary to everything that I understand about the city government the the hired city manager from another town does not have executive authority over how the ordinances in this town are enforced that's my understanding of it so what I'm saying is that there seems to be just a general lack of communication or clarity among the members of the city council and the city staff on who enforces what who has what type of power what recourse to the citizens of the town have when the ordinances are not being enforced is our only recourse to hire an attorney and sue the city so these are some of the issues that I think are being unerified as a problem and I as a as a member of this town now for four years I personally would love to have some clarity on those issues and also I support everything that was said in this room this this this woman over here Lisa anyone one of my neighbors I appreciate the fact that you brought in the speaker and played that noise imagine that noise I tell you I measured it on my back deck now mind you I didn't hire a noise professional because the price quote that I got for that was $1900 to have a professional come in and measure the noise from my back deck I measured it on an app on my phone it was reaching 90 decibels which is the limit that OSHA sets for having to put in your protection so I appreciate you playing that imagine that at 90 decibels 80 to 90 decibels for eight hours a day every single week every single day of the week. Thank you for listening to me. That's all I have to say. But I think it would be helpful for just to respond. This is public comment. Oh, okay. All right. But in terms of your role as the chief executive. Yes, she's no matter where she lives. She's not an official. She's not a chief executive. We have a city manager form of government. She is our chief executive and I just want everybody is very clear that is our form of government and we are a legislative body here. We certainly and Andrew and I are looking at the noise ordinance. But that is a long term solution. You're looking for a short term solution. So we're looking for a long term solution. There are seven six to seven lots left to be developed. Right. That's maybe 10 months of this. Fair enough. Fair enough. Can I ask you this in 2020? What's changed? So we thought we had some agreements, I guess, number one, but let I think we want to hear from you. And then we have a conversation and a discussion. We're going to have a little bit of one in the executive session in terms of understanding some of this, but we will be back with the public to hopefully come up with some solutions. If I think it is trickier than it appears. But I totally understand your your concern and frustration and how long, how loud and we kind of mental to our health. I understand that you're kind of patient to the choir here in terms of be able to make a decision to stop it. Like I don't, I guess I don't understand. I think that's why I think it's a little tricky. Let's have the executive session and hopefully go final clarity. I would appreciate it. You know, I think everyone has legal rights. So we have to manage all of those when you make decisions. So you would like to speak only because you use the word tricky. And I wonder what that means. I mean, I think that we the public can we have your name first? I'm sorry. Just for the while I was only here in support of others speaking, but I don't understand what is tricky about this. Because you share it, Ron, when done, I'm at 50. Thank you. Well, I just think things are more complicated. I guess that's where there's complications. Does the public know what those complications are? I don't know if I know all of them. But I think there's some legal ramifications when someone is given up a permit to build and then you suddenly make changes. I think there's a process for that. Can I just now these laws for most of us, I know everyone follows them, but I'm just concerned that everybody must have known there was ledged. I don't know how to answer that because I don't have a lot of ledge in my yard. So that may be a kind of solution. Identifying where ledges and making decisions about building. That's why I think it's a little more complicated than just coming up with a cease and just I don't know what can I guess there's a speakers list as a member of the public. I'd like to participate in public forum. Yeah, we will get to people on the on the who who have entered electronically. We're dealing with the people in the audience right now. And then you we have a list of people have indicated to Jesse who would like to speak and I will call on you when the order I receive that. So we will hear from all of you, I promise. Okay, we have someone else to read. Yes. In Moscow. So I'm on the front line of mental health. In the state and in the state of New Jersey where I'm licensed both states. And so I work remotely. So I it's very hard to have clients right on the phone. And I'm talking them down from whatever they're needing to be on from. And I can't like focus or hear myself. So on I'm still remote. So it is a problem in terms of my employment. So that's one thing. The other thing is I'm wondering, I'm actually fearful of the other eight or 10 lots. And I guess I'm wondering, who would know the answer to the question? Have those lots already been okay? Permitted would be the term. Yeah. Could you tell me yes or no? I personally don't know that we can. So can I make a suggestion? Yeah, I think these are great questions. And I think it would be really useful to me if we could get all the questions on the table. And then we I will respond with direction from staff tomorrow in writing to everybody. And I will put a piece of paper out for email addresses. If you haven't already contacted me, and I don't already have your email address. Okay, great. So that will answer. Can we use the back up? Can you get me a piece of paper please? Thank you. Thank you. I'll ask you to say one more question. Christina Riffindale of course wrote again. I thank you for committing to responding because over the last three weeks, I've called and left three voicemails, and I've emailed your office and I've gotten no, no email back, no phone call back. So a communication back would be really welcome. Thanks. John, just one moment, clarity. Seven lots are an issue. But I think we know coming in the golf course road on the Wheeler property of 32 more homes, they're rebuilt and across the way 14 more. So the intersection there and that is all edge. We've been down that it's all edge on the ridge there. So you got 32 lots and 14 on top of those seven. So it's it's something we need to know ahead of time. I know you know, it's it's a lot more in the future. There's immediate problems, but there's something that will need to be clarified in the future. I would I think that's a critical piece. Yeah. That's all. Thank you. If there is nobody else in the audience, we'll go to the screen. And then it's Oh, okay. Yes, Monica Farrington for Green Dolphin Dry South Burlington. Been there almost 50 years. Long story short, would you give me an interpretation of number four please? It says comments and questions from the public not related to the agenda. So if there's something on the agenda, are we not able to ask that you make your comments when we're having that conversation? Okay. Thank you. That's what that means. Sorry. Yeah. Okay. Hi, Amanda had it for again. I just wanted to follow up on john's ledge quickly on john's ledge comment and ask a question, which I'll also write down. But my understanding from about lasting with dynamite is that it really isn't an answer. It might happen a little more quickly, but it sounds like the permit for the Wheeler Park parcel is three months of blasting every day. And so that's like 90 days of blasting. And then there's the chipping up of the rocks and putting it and it's that it fits in a dump truck. So I don't really it doesn't seem like, like, oh, we could just dynamite, then we wouldn't have a noise problem. So I think that's an issue. Thanks. Let's go to Judy, we already heard from right? Yes. Judy, did you want to speak again or no? Okay. Yes. Okay, I do. I want to take a moment to represent the disability community. Everybody has spoken wonderfully about what's going on, just from the perspective of somebody who has long COVID. You know, I went through 2020. And it was bad enough because I was already ill with dysautonomia, which causes extreme sound sensitivity. I have long COVID long COVID causes heart problems, sound problems. And I can only work a couple of hours a day now. When the sound goes starts, I cannot function at all. It makes my heart race. And it caused I have severe head pain. And I've even I emailed about this. So I lose the ability to do any work when I can work. So it's affecting me economically. But the other thing I want to point out, and I do appreciate that that sound was stopped. And I thought it was important that you all heard it. But the minute it you know, when it went off, I had to stop and I had to take emergency medication. I just want to give you a feeling of what it's like to live with that is my nervous system is unregulated because of long COVID. And I'm living with that every single day. I live in fear of what's going to happen with Wheeler, because the blasting is going to affect specifically, it'll come through Fox Run lane, it's part of the blast zone. And I just ask you to step in the shoes of someone who's already ill, living with the impact of the sound. I know someone else here has a daughter with concussion. It's a nightmare. It's a living nightmare to live with that sound. Because it's, oh, okay, soon as it starts, I have a migraine, my heart starts racing. It's not, and you know, it's just like it's, it's I can't go to my office. I've been telecommuting for three years. And I'm trapped here, because there's nothing I can do when it starts. I can't drive. So I can't leave the house. I don't have a way to go and just get away from it for a little while. So I wanted to share that when you're thinking about it. Thank you very much. Thank you. I appreciate it. My daughter with long COVID is getting better, but she had quite a few months of that kind of medical conditions. So I'm, I'm well aware. It's been two years. So, you know, it's, and it's, like I said, I'm living in fear of the wheeler development too. Appreciate them. Dennis Barton, I think he's up next. He moved away from this table. All right, well, then we'll go to Jim Leece and come back to Dennis. Hello. I'm sorry. That's okay. So I've read this noise ordinance, and I think it very well defines and provides power to the city to take anything. And it says that it shall be unlawful for any person to make or cause to be made any louder or unreasonable noise than it defines unreasonable noise. Noise shall be deemed unreasonable to be unreasonable when it disturbs, injures, earned dangers, the peace or health of a person. I'll stop there. So we've got undisputed testimony today that it is unreasonable because it's disturbing, injuring or endangering the peace or health of a person. So now what about let's first go to what the ordinance provides for enforcement. It says police that for a violation of this ordinance, the violators are subject to an $800 fine for each violation. And each day of violation continues as a separate offense. And police officers of the city of South Burlington are authorized to act as municipal officials to issue and pursue before the Judicial Bureau a municipal complaint. And that's what it's called a municipal complaint. So we have a mechanism of enforcement. And the the fees increase up to $800 by the time of the fifth day of the offense. Now we have in the United States something called equal justice under law. And we have all kinds of court decisions prohibiting selective prosecution. You can't just have a law that you decide not to enforce. If there is a law, and this ordinance is a law, it must be enforced. It isn't a matter of well, we don't feel like it. I don't understand that. We have a constitution that you have as city officials pledged to honor. And it requires equal justice. You can't just say, well, they're a corporation or they, we all are persons and we have to have enforcement of the existing law. I don't think any word has to be changed in this to get this noise immediately put to a complaint, a municipal complaint. And then it's up to blood, it's up to the people doing it to decide whether they want to pay the fines. And even after the fines, even if they ignore the and pay the fines, the city can then still bring them and ask for an injunction as the court to enjoin there. So we have the law, and we have the enforcement mechanism, and we don't need anything else. So let's just ask the police to walk into the office of this perpetrator and give them this what the police are authorized to do, provide the municipal complaint. Thank you very much. Thank you. Dennis Barton. Walk away again. Oh, there he is. So I don't justify I'm here and just just just an advocate for some folks that we know that are neighbors and have been deeply disturbed by by this constant noise that's created by this development. And this one individual has a disability. And he needs his rest during the day. He's in long term treatment for for a physical condition. And it just seems like this is just a tremendous burden for not only him, but all other people that have been affected by this. So I appreciate the opportunity to speak. I'm not a resident of South Burlington, so I will abstain from further comment. Okay, so our protocol Dennis is to have your microphone on mute. Otherwise, yes. It means you want to speak. Yeah, I had it on mute. I don't know how I ended up there because I just signed in a TV. That's okay. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Oh, you're good. That's why is there anyone else here? No more. We have a Yes, I have something to add. Is this Paula Cooper? Correct. Yes. Thank you. Okay, so I'm on Six Park Road. I'm directly across from this disturbance. And I I have hyper I have hyperacusis from chemo that I received from head and neck cancer. We moved back to Vermont, the end of 19 and in 2020. The year proceeded with the bang bang bang. So the noise level is very unbearable. And it's definitely affected my mental health. And Christina has spoken eloquently on the situation. I appreciate that. And that's all I have to say. Thank you. Thank you. Is there anyone else up there? You call her four and five, but their mics are on, but I guess they don't want to speak. Okay. Can I speak? Who is Fred O'Neill? Yes, you may. Hi, I live on Park Road, and I've been a resident in the Burlington. Can you hear me? Hello. Yes, I mean, Fred O'Neill has my John. Yeah, I've been a resident of South Burlington for 23 years. I lived in Butler Farms, and I live in on Park Road now. And I just want to say that ever since the long road development has gone into effect, it's been nothing but a problem. The trees, the developer was fine for the trees. The, you know, cutting down too many trees. I got a email, a couple of emails that said this, this banging would be done last week, and it continues to be go on when, when is somebody going to hold these developers accountable for the disruptions in our lives? Okay, thank you, Fred. Is there someone else now who would like to speak? Yeah, hi. This is Laura Waters. I've got the black screen. Hi. I just want to express my incredible sympathy for all the people who have called in. We're, we live in Queen City Park and are struggling with the potential noise issues from the higher ground development that's going to be at the end of our road. And I would like to share this information with the folks if they're interested. We have somebody who's been giving us a lot of advice on noise and it's his name is Les Blomberg. And he runs what's called Noise Pollution Clearinghouse out of Montpelier. His number is 802-229-1659. And he's an amazing resource and hopefully if, if anybody wants to reach out to him that he can be helpful to you guys. That's it. Okay, thank you, Laura. Anyone else? Oh, Janet Bellavent? Pardon me? Oh, I'm sorry. Well, he didn't have his. Okay, John, sorry. That's fine. I had my hand up for a while. Not to repeat. I agree with most everything that's been said so far. Just a couple of points that I wanted to make. Just as clarification. You are a governing body, not a legislative body. The executive works for the city council. So while you can't directly give Paul Connor work instructions, you can give Jesse Baker work instructions. She works for you. So if you want to do something, you can tell her and she will make it happen. Or she will tell you why she can't. And then you have to decide if you accept that. But she does work for you. Second point, I looked at currently there are two permitted properties and two built properties on long drive. If you pull the permits for all four of those, you'll see the two that were done that have now been completed that were done under. Oh, what was the lady's name? Delilah. She actually had a piece of paper in there that said, you have to follow the tree ordinance. You have to follow the tree ordinance. The two permits that were recently issued didn't have that. There's nothing in the permits that speaks to ledge at all. Which implies to me that it wasn't considered. I find it hard to believe after everything that happened over the last couple of years. That that was missed. Now they were signed off by the law. I work with Marty on the DRB. I like Marty. Marty's a good guy. I don't think anything malicious happened, but I do wonder whether he was aware of the problem. My ask. Is as we're issuing more of these permits, there are six more of these lots that can be developed. Can we minimize ledge? I don't know. I don't know. I think that there are six more of these. The four spots that can be developed. And we minimize ledge. Don't allow in-ground swimming pools. Don't allow basements. Cross face and slab are perfectly valid building methods. If they need to trench for utilities or something, maybe that's something we can't get around. So, if we could look at this ahead of time, then the developers would know and we can come to some sort of agreement and maybe there is a way to do this. Allowing the development and not torturing the neighbors. Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else. Oh, Janet fellow events. Maybe she doesn't want to speak. Okay. And I just respond to what John said, I think, I think he raises a good point, but I think that we already have a law and no building permit can be written that allows violation of the law. How does the DRB get the authority to allow somebody to just flagrantly violate the law, they don't have that authority. So the law is there. And everyone must follow it. Otherwise, who will respect the law, how do we have the rule of law. If you don't have to follow it but you do. If you're a poor person. Oh, yeah, we really nail you with the law. What if you're a corporation. No, you don't have to follow. No, this isn't how it's supposed to work and it sure certainly shouldn't work that way at the local level. So, I think we've got a rule here. We must enforce it. And it doesn't matter. When you go and get a permit, you get that permit, not just with regard to the terms written in the permit but also with respect to all the laws that exist. So you have to follow the rules of the permit plus the rules of the law. And if the city council really needs to learn basic things if there's even any question about that. So, the rule is exist. We should be definitely having the police come in and in and do what item seven enforcement of this noise ordinance says to provide the complaint to the person who's responsible the perpetrator and play out the enforcement and that should be the very first thing we do at eight o'clock tomorrow morning and I demand that the city and I think we should all demand action by the city under law and not just make complaints to the city. When we speak, we should always be asking for something we should be demanding action. Thank you. Thank you. I just want to clarify that according to Vermont statutes we are a legislative body. I just really want that to be very clear. Thank you. Okay, any other comments. Yes. Don Anglin golf course road. This is 2023. And we are not some 19th century political machine. So we need the government of South Burlington to work. We can't have the city council point their fingers at the DRB of the DRB point their fingers at the planning commission and then have the planning commission point their fingers back at the city council. You need to do your jobs and somebody needs to make a decision and make this right. Thank you. I was just going to offer if you would like our future communications put your email address on this piece of paper if you are online and have not already provided an email address to myself or Paul Connor. Please just either email me directly and ask for those future correspondence or put your email in the chat if you feel comfortable with that and I will record it from the chat face. Okay. Thank you. What about all the voicemails that people who never got this kind of phone call from just wondering, is there any documentation of them because I know several people who left voicemails about this issue and never got a call back. But was it else for just a bigger Paul Connor, Marty, never got a call back several people. Just wondering is there any, is there any accounting of those voicemails. Yes, all of our voicemails are recorded as sound files and that is all part of the public record we have received and those folks should have gotten on the distribution list for the public notice that we've been putting out. So we will double check that and make sure it is. But yes, those are all recorded as part of the public record in addition to that. You can delete those after you get those if you don't require to keep them. No, as a municipality, all of our correspondence is a public record and we are required to keep it. So staff do not delete those voicemails. Thank you. Okay. Well, thank you very much for coming here sharing both the noise to help us. Last time I heard it this year I did not for whatever reason. And I think that certainly made it very clear how disruptive. It really is all of you and for that I'm, I'm, I'm really sorry and we hope that we can figure out solutions so this won't be a never ending cycle until all those houses or future houses for that matter. So thank you. Yes, Christina. Yes, I know that you're busy in your lives outside of the work that you do for the city, but if you haven't been by to golf course road or golf course road and fairway drive meet that you please just in the course of your day coming back from Hanford or something. Just take a drive by while this while this rock drilling is going on and actually stand on the sidewalk and listen to it just to experience like the, like how excessive it is because it's really unbearable, especially for the thing you know, like I said I'm point two miles away but for the people who are directly adjacent to it, it is unbearable. I had visited four times and I had video. Thank you so much for you're doing that. Okay, thank you very much. I move on then to item five counselors announcements and reports on committee assignments and the city managers report. I've also been by both I know I'm very sympathetic to what I heard tonight, and I hope we'll have more answers again. In terms of the couple of weeks, I attended the normal meeting of the school's Climate Action Task Force. It's a really good group. We're going to be focusing on three areas curriculum, transportation, getting our kids to school in a more climate friendly way, and facilities, how can we make facilities more climate friendly. Folks may know this is important. The new federal law, the IRA, will actually allowed our schools to build solar at 50 cents on the dollar. It's a 30 cent base credit, 10% credit for domestic content and 10% because our schools except for orchard have to be located in what the federal government considers to be low income census tract. You get an extra 10% bonus from that. So we at 50 cents on the dollar. The electricity from that array would be much cheaper than from GP would help schools budgeting. The schools can actually get this money back as a check from the federal government. It's also a new thing and I recall direct pay. So we're going to be working on that and have a meeting tomorrow with Tim Jarvis and attorney who is a volunteer to do this problem for the schools to work through this for us. So I'm very hopeful. Yeah, I also attended the renewable energy Vermont conference. Lots of interesting discussions with our reps about our renewable energy ordinance and possibly getting that an active statewide. So we had a discussion with the director of the PUC DJ forum about our 500 kilowatt cap and can we get that changed. Lots of other good discussions really, really good conference and I think a lot of good connections are made. Great, you've been busy. Tim, I've been busy at all but I have six things to know. I went to the conference and went to the second day. I was disappointed that there were no geothermal vendors this year. It seemed like there wasn't a lot of discussion on that which I really would like to see this building that sport will perform geothermal energy. I did attend two panels. One talked about new technologies software that has been developed to help balance demand and load and bad restored across parts of Iceland, England. And also part of the panel we talked about regulatory issues and conflicts between I think it's active 50 and one of the public commission regulations. That was fascinating. I also went to the pension advisory committee. The quarter was down but we're here today we're still up. There's one element of fixed income in the core properties which is not performing well because commercial properties are not doing very well. We had increased our exposure that to 5%, I think a couple years ago. And then, you know, commercial properties have seen a drop off, especially the problem of back to work. So there are major cities where vacancies are running in excess of 25% work previously before the pandemic, these, you know, these office buildings were full. So we're looking at that a little closer. So I attended the environmental justice community forum series on biodiesels for Vermont clean cities in partnership with the greater Washington region clean cities coalition, it was right here in this room. And since then I've been doing some reading on biodiesel renewable diesel and how those two fuels can help us, you know, migrate off of dirty petrol diesel. We have cleaner emissions. It also has less of a greenhouse gas effect. The only problem is that, you know, the current engines and these diesel engines in large machinery and in trucks. They can't take 100% biodiesel this point. Renewable diesel is a drop in fuel but you have to mix Petro with bio because of problems with low temperatures and others other issues with the way that biodiesel affects the felines so we learned a lot just in the last week of doing a deep dive on that internet. But I think it really is essential, because we're not going to be able to turn over all of the heavy machinery engines over to electric in a snap like that in our attempt to like, you know, electric by everything so this could put ease that transition. I also went to the tech jam at the hula and interviewed with a lot of different sites, I spoke extensively with Brunton telecom and asked about what they were thinking about working with communities and developments that had underground conduits and they said it's hard for them to work in those areas that don't have poles. So I also went to the ZEM, which you were at to the ZEM opening for the school district right here in back of us, some really beautiful classrooms nicely outfitted. The buildings are nice. I did check. I believe the windows are triple glazed, which is nice. Two giant heat pumps outside of them. Teachers all seemed happy. It was the opening day and there was a lot of very nice airflow going on. So it seemed like they're well ventilated. So I was pleased and it was great to be there. And lastly, if you haven't noticed, there's an art show downstairs that is comprised of past and present teachers from the school district and excuse me for a little bit of nepotism, but my son might have to play on the counter. Don't miss it. So that's all I can remember that I did in the last two weeks. Well, you didn't choose the artworks that are done. No, I do, but I tend to be opening. I tend to be opening. Thank you for the delicious appetizers, by the way. Always helps. Okay, Megan. Yeah. So, welcome back Helen. We've had a busy two weeks. I've been trying to fill your shoes and communicating with parents about school zones. I, in response to concerns about Shelburne Road with my husband, we went on a field trip down there just to see how the lights worked on Baldwin Avenue, as well as down by Fayette Drive and McIntosh. And I just wanted to provide to the school board members and the superintendent my feedback based on concerns that have been expressed that the lights are working well, that there is enough time to cross those streets obviously those that is a major street it is a state highway. It is, I would say more of concern the curb cuts when we're thinking about young people walking on Shelburne Road so I just provided that feedback to them, as well as just to convey to you all that we currently have two school zones in our city one is on white street in front of Chamberlain school the other is on Market Street, right in front of Rick Mark central school, the third one is being considered there's a traffic study that is ongoing on Dorset Street. So that would be in front of the middle and the high schools. So that leaves orchard and the state highway adds a little extra crinkle. And so I've been in communication with residents as well as with the superintendent and school board about those things. What I have to say, just as someone who sometimes drives I do use the bus to get to work. I do drive and I try to walk and bike when I can but when I do drive. And I am very aware that the amount of traffic over the 20 years that I've lived here has increased people on again major roads. And I could point out Williston Road because that's the one that I do tend to try to get out on but also on Hinesburg Road that when there was a backup people block the intersection and the rules of the road. Require that you allow people to turn out of that intersection. You cannot block intersections so I might actually write something about this for the other paper around front porch forum because it is not just once. It's happened a lot. And I think that for everyone's just the smooth use of our roads really being reminded of that key key thing I'm not trying to jump in line I'm just trying to get out. And actually go the other way. So, back to my console is on ship. I wanted to report to the Council that the formal housing committee is going to be coming forward they would like to have a place on our agenda. That's the first meeting in November where we would use some funds to increase the housing trust fund right now we have $50,000 annually in our budget to to give to affordable housing projects. The committee is recommending $150,000 that would be adjusted for inflation. So, that is something that I would like us to consider as well. Seed money for a land bank so that Green Mountain Habitat for humanity could take land that the city has has helped them purchase, build on it, sell it, and then use those funds to buy another parcel of land and it would create kind of a circular self, you know, perpetuating cycle where more home ownership and affordable housing units could be developed in the city so that is something that will also come before the city council and the third point that they would like us to consider. There are impact fees for various things police recreation, etc, and they would like us to consider waving those for affordable housing. So, just wanted to give everybody to heads up on that. And I think, I think that was it. I am working with counselor Sonic but he has taken the lead on looking at the noise ordinance. But I just wanted the public to know that two counselors are looking into it. So, that's it. Okay. And as Megan acknowledged, I've been away I was on a trip. And I think she filled my shoes better than I feel them. All the work that and the effort responses that you gave out it apparently was a very, very busy two weeks. And that said, I did manage to do a few things right before I left. And one was I got the chance to tour the three elementary schools, and got to walk in and look at the Zems at Mark Hot. It wasn't, it wasn't the grand opening. So it was just the workers doing the finishing touches. But I have to say I was really impressed with how sturdy they were when people were calling them trailers. I had a very different image in my mind. And these are really substantial and they look like they'll be beautiful classrooms. So I feel like that was a good decision in the short term to meet some of the enrollment issues and it does not, did not appear to me that it was at all negative to be stuck in the Zem. It looks like it's one of the nicer rooms in schools. So that was interesting to see the three schools. And I would just note that the one school that's not getting Zems. Just it was clear that in the other two schools where they were waiting to move in and it was all this kind of moving around temporarily until they were done. I certainly had an impact on what you felt walking through those schools. Excuse me. And orchard was what I always imagined or knew to be true of all the schools, the elementary schools in South Burlington that they're great and everything is exciting looking in the hallways and the classrooms and it was clear that waiting for the Zems had a little bit of a toll on those schools. But once they move in, I think they'll be back to really supplying an excellent education. So, yeah, I'm sorry. Go ahead City Manager report. Just a few quick updates. So, yes, thank you, Councillor Emery for standing in for the last two weeks. I think you both equally do exceptional jobs, but really appreciated all the work you put in the last two weeks. So, we have a summary of our incremental work in partnership with the schools to ensure all of our kiddos are safe. There is, if folks want all the details and writing that Councillor Emery just talked through. If you go to the press releases section of our city news page about halfway down on our homepage and click there that letter is there in totality so folks can read the progress we've made today and what we're hoping to do into the future as well. So, thank you so much for the meeting, but just to say it one more time because we're really excited about it Adam math started today as our new director of Parks and Recreation. We're really excited to have him on the team he will be here, along with our new it director at your next meeting to meet you. We are very focused on budget development. The department heads have been working really hard to submit their FY 25 budget submittals we got them the end of last week so now we're going to the citywide perspective on the budget as submitted and we'll be working with leadership team over the next week to finalize that to bring to you in early December. Part of that of course is the climate action plan implementation plans you saw the transportation implementation plan. Your next meeting you will also see the government operations portion of that implementation plan. Also at your next meeting you'll receive the next update about the rental registry and options for you to move forward. That's what I have. Thank you. Item six of consent agenda there's only one item that's the disbursements. Second. Is there any discussion. I am all in favor of accepting the consent agenda signifies by saying I, I, and it passes. We move to item seven. Just really the reason for the special meeting to appoint a city counselor to fill the vacancy through town meeting day 2024. We have a tiny bit of table setting here, especially for those participating in our meeting today or watching from home. At the last council meeting council outlined process to appoint to fill Tyler Barnes as vacancy he and his family are moving out of state for professional opportunity. So we issued a press release about that we posted it and a number of places including an online ad in the other paper. We're going to get 10 folks expressing interest in serving the names of those 10 are in your council packets and online for the public. Tonight you can have whatever discussion you would like about those candidates, Council memory and Councilor Chalmick did spend a lot of time interviewing thank you for that time. And then have that conversation and executive session if you so choose. And of course, any vote will need to be done and just a reminder to the community. Our charter indicates that the council has the ability to appoint an interim or a city counselor for a period until the next regular meeting so at town meeting day. This position will go on the ballot to fulfill a one year term, the completion of that one year term. Okay. It might be helpful to to sort of articulate the process we use in terms of. I think Jesse did in part with the advertisement. And it may seem a little rushed, but it was my hope that, and it seemed like the council's agreement that it would be really important to have someone fill that vacancy sooner rather than later. In light of all the work that we have before us that really having five seats filled would be helpful. So we developed a small subcommittee, Megan and Andrew to interview those candidates. And we're going to as a council remaining remainder of the council. So we live in an executive session will discuss their findings or their reactions and have a discussion and determine or decide who we think would be the best appointment and then come back to an open meeting and share that with you and the reasons. We have received quite a number of people writing in or calling on occasion to advocate for a particular candidate me appreciate that and I believe they've all been read through by all of us so all of that effort by the public has been received and I think will be helpful and part of our conversation. I think it's important to think about. We're looking for the someone with, I think we agreed that it would be nice to have a little more geographical distribution. It would be good to have diversity of all sorts of factors. I think, importantly, we're also wanted someone who would be quite familiar with city, this city's government and the issues that's at hand. It's basically a four month appointment, and there's a lot to do between now and then. We are looking for and hoping for people. And I think that that's what happened with people who applied will have have brought with them. I think significant city experience and that's really helpful that's something that we're looking for, not just sort of someone out of the blue saying, Oh, that might be fine. But that is our process for tonight and going forward. So, I will keep. Well, if there are people in the audience who would like to speak, we can hear that now. That would be helpful. So, Monica, you would like to Madam Speaker, I rise in favor of Paul angles. He ran for the office. He received 1300 votes from city residents. I have been here. I'm 82 years old. I've been in this city 52 years. I've seen this man work his butt off year after year after year on every committee here in South Burlington form based code design review board everything. And in the four months that you have, you need somebody who as you say who's ready to go up and running right now. It's not time for on the job learning. We live on the shoulder road side. So we'd like to see our side represented to other than that, I guess, I just would say he was the only other that there were three candidates in the race. And I don't know where these other 10 people came from and it's nice that they're interested and it's great. You have hard choices. But we just definitely want to see Paul take that seat. Thank you. Thank you. Any other comments, thoughts, anyone at home. All right. Well, thank you. So, Tim. I would like to move that the city council enter into executive session under one to say 313 a three for the purpose of discussing the appointment of a public officer. We would be inviting Jesse Baker, Steven Locke and Colin Neal to the session with council for discussion. Second. All in favor. Let me call back into order. The special meeting of the cell phone city council Monday, October 30 2023. And we have just come back from an executive session where we discussed who we wish to appoint as the next city councillor the killer. That left by a title farms. resignation. And after a lot of discussion. And back and forth. We determined that Larry government would be the best decision or the best selection for the next four months. And I'm going to ask him to share his summary because it was really, I think, quite good and really reflective of what we were thinking. So just a little bit of background, I mean, I've searched since 2016 and unfortunately, we lost Pat Noack in 2017. And at that point, we appointed a Dave coffin. So we were tonight looking for somebody that we that we respected who has served in the city for a given amount of time. Who's shown fairness and good judgment in in the committees that they've served on. And I just want to remind everybody that it's a four month appointment. And our intent here is to is to have somebody fill those four months because Tyler left and to do it in a fair way and pick somebody like Larry and I think Larry's a great choice for this job. So that's how we're right to that. Okay, so Larry, hopefully we'll join us. Is Larry on still there. Oh yeah. So congratulations Larry, we look forward to serving with you for four months. Congratulations Larry. Thank you. I'm just trying to come aboard. Thanks very much. Looking forward to it a lot and we'll actually be back in town tomorrow. We're away right now but. Stop into city hall at some point tomorrow and get sworn in you might be sworn in by somebody in costume. I'll be later in the afternoon. Great. We'll do. Does Larry know how often the city council meets. I think, I think quite often right now, I think you've got up. You've got. You've got a good workload ahead of you. So, okay, I'll get up to speed, but when we're back tomorrow, I'll check in with Jesse. Okay, we hope you can join us with a joint meeting a steering committee meeting. Thank you very much for your willingness to serve. Thank you. Thank you. And thanks to all the candidates for their willingness to serve. It wasn't a hard decision. I have to say. We had a lot of really excellent candidates with. Pluses and minuses amongst all of them. So. That's who we selected. So thank you for your. Your interest. Okay, moving on then to item eight. This item may go for a while. Can we take a two minute break? Okay. We're going to take a two minute break. I'll back to order. And should we get the pleasure of all Connor. And a discussion of this city plan for 2024. You can sit wherever you would like, because there's no Mike. The whole room is Mike. Take this because it's got the hot mice in place. Yeah. But it's probably easier on the table together. That's great. So if I can just say a few table setting things for this conversation. So just as a reminder to those participating online and in the room. That this is really meant to be a work session of the council. There is a public hearing worn for November 16th, which is very intentionally worn solely for the purpose of hearing public input. So we'd encourage the council to really keep as much as possible. This is your opportunity to talk amongst yourselves. To that end. I would recommend that you not take any votes tonight. You certainly can have conversation and get a sense of where each other is, but because you are still very actively in the listing process of the community. Hearing their feedback before you take any official votes. Is a good idea. Kelsey and Paul are both here tonight, both to hear your conversation and understand what your perspective is for future changes that may be. They're also here tonight as your professional planning experts. So if there is a question about implications of policy decisions, they certainly can provide guidance on that. No one from the planning commission is here tonight to specifically speak on behalf of the planning commission. If there are areas where you would like to know more about why the planning commission made some choices. They made some decisions. That's certainly something they could take up at their next meeting and bring feedback back to you. We do have a member. There's three. Yeah. Are they on? Oh, I see. I didn't see Lori. Okay. And Fran. There's three. Good. The commission did not assign a person to speak on their back. Okay. With that, I'm going to shut up. Okay. So. Can I just start off? Yeah. Sure. So I suggest we flip pages maybe just like start. No, just kind of do this in order of the. Yeah. Starting at the top. Yeah. I don't have that many items just so you know. Okay. Just the first item. And you're going to hate me for this, but. I. I really don't. I don't like the orange at the top. The color orange. No, I don't like the whole paragraph. It's redundant because it's pre-reduced it. Because it's pre-reduced. It's pre-reduced. It's pre-reduced. It's pre-reduced. It's pre-reduced. It's pre-reduced. It's pre-reduced. It's pre-reduced. It's pre-reduced. It's pre-reduced. That's pre-reduced. Now, let's take it to a different side because it's pre-reduced. You say existential threat like throughout the whole document. We don't need this preamble. In my estimation. That's my honest opinion. I think it's like I've said before, it's a little bit of armor. You've already stated several times the document. What we need to do. Why we're doing it. And I think it just, I think I agree. It's also re-estated in the second paragraph. Yes. In the second sentence says the same thing. One thing that this first paragraph does I don't think is said otherwise in this document for more or less is the less sentence. Action on climate change is the most important goal in this plan. That's a real policy decision that is important if we think it's correct and we should state that if we think it's the right policy. It's the last sentence in that fourth sentence, I think. But it's in the fourth paragraph, the overriding guiding principle of this plan is to make every policy decision through the lens of climate resilience and reduction. Oh, so we're in that. Yes, emissions. In the fourth paragraph. Black paragraph. Oh, yeah. I think that says it. I do too. It's not quite as important. I'm okay with that. You're right. So I would agree by eliminating orange. Although I would call that red. You're a colored one, right? Am I getting older? Is that what's happening? I thought you had said once you would call a blunder. I can't hear. Oh, okay. Thank you. Are we done the first page? Yeah. Okay. There's more? For me on the first page. I wrote a whole counselor corner about it. So the third guiding principle, and as I explained in an email when Jessica and Paul came before the city council with their slides in the PowerPoint presentation, I did not realize that the human focus was going to be taken out of there. And I find that what we find on the next page where it talks about people-oriented environment is not stated enough. When we had our initial meeting in September of 2022, both Paul and Jessica had voiced the goal that it wouldn't be the built infrastructure that would be taking precedence, but rather the, and I wrote it in my own words here, but rather a focus on the people and that the plan would be focused on problem-solving concerning the people's needs responsive to their lived experiences. And I think that's really important. I'm having spoken with a planning commissioner who had understood human focus to mean that just the human desire to build and to develop and to enrich themselves was gonna be the goal of the plan. I found that to be really regrettable because I think that if we lose the people-oriented plan, we're losing why we're building a plan, to be honest. We could sit in an engineer's office and we could develop a really beautiful plan, but if we don't get engaged with people on the ground and to know their experiences, to know how they want to have their neighborhoods look and feel when we're putting pocket parks or dog parks or bike lanes or new sidewalks or whatever it is, we've lost. And so I really, really would like to have either people, people-oriented. It's an actual word that was acceptable to the plan commission on page five, perhaps people-oriented environment because that's the term that's used on page five, just the next page. And what I liked about the original definition in the people, the human focus, was a focus on belonging, a focus on diversity, a focus on place. And I think that that is lost. So you're suggesting that substituting thoughtful and sustainable built environment with people-oriented environment. What do the rest of you think? So I think what you said, Megan, about folks who are on the place and the aspects of community are really important. When I hear the words human focus, it sounds to my ears, I know, other ears that I've spoken to, other people as like a little arrogant, selfish, placing us above very dominion over everything else. So I understand what you're saying. And I think the concepts that you're articulating are really important. The words human focus or people focus just feel to be like a little cringy. That's what we're dealing with, with the pounding that's going on, right? That's what we deal with when we talk about noise. And all those values are really important. I just think maybe it's just the words though. I think, so you prefer thoughtful and sustainable built? Yeah, and some of the other concepts that you're articulating as are important. But it doesn't discuss a built environment. It discuss the human experience of that environment. And that's the value that I think is being lost in the substitution of built environment for people-oriented environment. And by people-oriented environment, people enjoy trees, people enjoy open meadows, people enjoy walking trails in our open spaces. So I think that it is very much... I'm a humanist and I'm gonna go back to things that I said to this planning commissioner. But if you take human beings out of the equation, you'll get engineering plans that don't take into account human beings. And that's where it gets scary. You need to express all the values for sure. It's a word thing. Are the words of people-oriented built environment? People-oriented environment. And it is an oriented environment. It's the third line on the next page. Well, the other living creatures. Well, we've got all the other living creatures. We've got them there. We've got them there. And I think that we have to realize that we are building a plan for where to build, how to build, where not to build. And all of that is gonna be made by decisions, are gonna be made by people. And we want to include diversity in our decision-making. And so we need to reach out to people. We need to reach out. Certainly, as I said, my perspective would be we should include those words, diversity, and other words that affect. I just personally don't like- But diversity means nothing if we don't talk about people. To me, again, it's just words. I personally don't like the words human focus or people-oriented. Sounds arrogant, but that's just me. I find it more human and humane. And I think it's important. I really, I find this language to be an engineer's text, as opposed to someone who is going to be living in a neighborhood and going to be weighing in various major decisions that this plan is announcing. And I'm not saying that people should have the total power over the needs for us to mitigate for climate resiliency, but people need to be taken into account. And if we are going to be developing, where the solar fields go, where the sidewalks and multi-use paths go, we need to hear from people. And we need to have taken into account, so I attended an online seminar on inclusive transportation and it was people focused. It was because some people need more lighting than others. People of color need more lighting than others. For instance. Well, so we're never going to get through this if we spend this much time on every single page. So we'll look up on this page separate in several places. Pardon me? I have a comment on this page, but it's all wrong. Okay. And I said around about it. Well, I'm just trying to reach, is there a consensus that I know you have trouble with people oriented? Well, how do you want to phrase? Is it just the bold thought one sustainable environment? You want to change that phrase? Or are you wondering? Yeah, I do. And then I'd like to add the words diversity, sense of place, sense of belonging. Those were things that were in the original wording. Okay. So somewhere, yeah. Cause I was going to say, if we change the bullet to people oriented environment and then we don't, we have so much language around a built environment. It doesn't flow. So I think you probably need a little more. Yeah. Word smithing in the text of that. And in June, just of this year, they didn't have wording. They did. That was replaced. Tall, Connor. I mean, I'm sorry. Angles. We had a discussion about this at the end of the planning commission last week and about Megan's counselor's corner and about the discussion that was Lori. And we were all over court that the language that we used is the language that we wanted to use. We spent months on this, you know. Yeah. Wrangling about it a bit. We spent hours, you know. So, and we agreed that, you know, this is the language we decided on back in June that's been vetted, you know, in public meetings all through the summer. And we felt that this was more precise language than just saying human focused or, you know, people focused to anybody. We felt we were being more precise within that. And I think maybe as Kelsey even pointed out, of course the entire plan is human focused. I mean, that's what we're doing here. We're writing a plan. Okay. Well, what if we added people oriented, thoughtful and sustainable built environment? Or all of it? Yeah. I simply want people as a guiding principle. I want, yeah. I'm happy with that. Can we think about that? And then some other language around diversity and sense of place and belonging. Isn't diversity in with justice? No. No. We're here to honor Commissioner Robert Erendy. See, he's been on the commission now for 16 plus years. Just to remind you, you don't need to fight it finalized language. I think you're batting around some ideas tonight. So that's an idea for both teams to have some. Okay. So two things on this page, which page? First page, the same page. We use the term housing crisis. And then on page 16, we use a term unprecedented housing shortage. I would like to use the terminology chronic housing shortage. I know people sometimes refer to this as a crisis. It's a market imbalance. When I bought my house at 15, there was an oversupply of houses. Things change in the market. I have a feeling with mortgage rates going so high, we will see a change, maybe pretty soon. I think chronic housing shortage is a more appropriate, more appropriate terminology than crisis. We're just housing shortage. Housing shortage is fine too. I've also deleted the words and nationally. So we're exactly, I don't have a word. Hello, can you see my markup? I should have printed out for everyone. It says in the second paragraph. On the very top, under your door, okay, I was looking at the guiding principles. Okay, yeah. Okay. Then this plan says we're facing a housing crisis nationally. There's a lot of debate about what's happening nationally. I think there's a lot of good research. On both sides, I attached this little article not to talk about housing generally, just because of the stats that are in here about the national housing situation. I don't think we need to talk in this plan about what's happening nationally and giving it the date. I don't think we should. I disagree. This is a major priority of the formal housing committee that made an appeal for the new crisis to be put back into the plan. We have three crises listed in that second paragraph, housing crisis, and it is in addition to the climate crisis, but also we are facing a crisis of community stemming from physical and mental health challenges, disconnectiveness and loneliness and increasing income disparities. I think all of these things go together. And I really think we are in a state of crisis. We have homeless. You've been reading the emails we've been receiving over the past two weeks. People are feeling unsafe. People are feeling that they need to have a response from our government. And I think providing housing is a response to a crisis that people have communicated to us. And I realized that the land trust in South Brownian has given direction for both human-focused and housing crisis. And I respectfully thank them for their input, but I think it's important for them to realize that people who work in other areas of crisis have equally important needs that they are advocating. And housing is one of them. I don't know if you're implying something about the land trust. I have not communicated at all. They've been writing to us because after the land trust. Okay. I've not seen those. I've not at any communication point. In June, last year, the human focus was removed. So it, as was the housing. This is a conversation among us. Yeah. Well, it's public conversation. Yeah. Well, what's the sense? I mean, I'm okay with having three different crises identified. I think it's hard to say there's... We're here to honor commissioner Brownlee a climate crisis, and then the housing is a critical shortage. Or a... That's the case. That is the case. But it is a crisis. And we have... It is a homelessness crisis. It's not a housing crisis. No, they're called unhoused, actually. They prefer, and it is a crisis. Well, but then the other crisis, if you will, is the physical and mental health challenges. I think that is a crisis. And that's raised a second time in here as well. Good to have three crises. Crisis. Crisis. Crisis. Yeah. I mean, it does create a kind of negative introduction, but or a panic introduction in a way. Well, it just acknowledges what we know. Right. Well, that's why... Well, but it sets a tone. Right. I mean, you didn't like the first red-bold, which was too much of a, like, my God, everything is... But that's why I would add that this plan is focused on problem-solving. And we are focused on responding to needs and being sensitive to lived experiences. I think that's a positive. And I agree that it is negative that was actually raised in the counselor applicants' interviews. And I think that we need to, just like under the something about, let me get there, under the population and people, there's actually a section on people, no statistical or demographic, this is on page 14, or demographic analysis can sum up the diversity and variation amongst our community members. In order to meet the challenges we face, South Burlington needs to be a place where neighbors know each other and will help each other in crisis. And I think that we need to say at the very outset that the government is also gonna be responsive to people who are experiencing crisis. So we are focused on problem-solving. We are focused on responding to people's needs and to people's lived experiences because we are going to be going through in the next six years, right? We're 2023 almost 2024 by 2030 already. It's going to be severe changes. And this council, whoever's on it is gonna be needing to answer to people. Other comments? How about page four? Have we got any on that? We just did, right? I thought we just did a page three. You have, I have an older version, but the only, oh, you don't have a city planning line? Okay. It's pretty close, I can help. Okay. Well, I guess I can go online. I just work with paper better. Sorry. I can help with that. It's just not the branded version. Oh, well, I can bring that. I'm sorry. Oh, yeah. Under notable changes, I would also include... What page, Reagan? So it's page eight. So we're talking about the notable changes in the city. I would also, so the plan increases the city's emphasis on the climate crisis and takes a stronger stance on how we need to both mitigate climate change itself and counter the effects of a changing climate. The plan also places greater emphasis on inclusivity and equity throughout, including through governance structures, through how we undertake daily decision-making. And this plan speaks more directly about building community by increasing connection opportunities and building a South Burlington identity. These things were built up repeatedly through the community outreach. And that is also really, really important. I almost find that to be a paragraph that could go at the top. I find that to not be a notable change, but kind of like the state of the union kind of thing. So I just, if we're looking for a way to bring people and problem-solving into that first page, that paragraph is really a nice paragraph. And I don't think it's a notable change. I think it's more of a state of the city, so to speak. So I'm sorry, where is that page? Second paragraph. One page. So it's the page. I'm on yours, the page. Introduction, page eight, notable changes. Second paragraph. For war eight, NPA day being October 26th at 7.03 p.m. A notable change. So you're thinking that I ought to go somewhere else? At the very beginning. The whole paragraph? Yeah, I think it's a nice introduction. I think it's a nice introductory paragraph. That just, I guess we're dealing with these crises, but this is what we want this plan to do. And I think that's an important statement. Do you want to just take it from the plan also? This plan also places greater emphasis on inclusions. You started at that part? Because we've already talked about climate change and the first sense has already taken care of and made previous sense. Yeah, sure. I mean, there would probably need to be some kind of transition, right? Because the also was referring. Yeah, sure. Well, you take the also out, just put the plan in places, greater emphasis. I'll just add it under where we're talking about the climate crisis and mitigation climate change. Encountering the effects of a changing climate, I think the mitigating has to do with people. So people. So this you would put in the introduction. It's not a notable change. I think that's what this plan is trying to do. And I like that it sums up these themes were brought up repeatedly through the community outreach. I think that's a really nice, you know, we've heard you. And this is the people oriented. Well, I think if we go with that, that fourth paragraph, talking about city plan 2024 is an expression of our values. It's a community of goals for the future, blah, blah, blah. And the overriding principles to make every policy decision through the lens of climate change. I think this paragraph needs to get integrated more than just getting plopped on. Right, right. Otherwise it's gonna sound a little funny. So we can let staff work on that. Yes, I'm just, that's my guidance to the staff. I think you might want to rewrite that fourth paragraph in the introduction to include this for a lot of it. I think that was so better. Other than sort of a cut and paste job. Could have any other, can we move on to? Yeah, I might need to cover this page 16 or whatever I think before. Nope. Okay. So 16, go three. Yeah, let me get to it first. Yeah, let me just select all my notes too. I did something on page 14, but let me find it. We can go to 16 first. Okay, so we're on 16 housing. I think goal three was intended or should be limited to rental housing. The vacancy rate, increased the rental vacancy rate has never been five for homeowner. Right now it's 0.7 national, it's never, people talk about vacancy for rental and I just think that was an error in goal three. Still a tough goal. Very tough goal. Very tough goal. But they're correct. Like the homeowner is not a reasonable goal and never something in any interest. Which paragraph, Andrew, I'm sorry. Goal three, 100,000 goals. Thanks, okay, yeah. I mean, that's a real stretch goal. Even for rentals, a stretch. That's a rumor. Yes, that's what I mean. It's a homeowner, it's a homeowner. We couldn't build enough. I mean, there's a lot of stretch goals. Right. Well, yeah, that's what I mean. It's a plan, it's a... Another stretch goal, goal eight. I don't see how the city has any more than extremely indirect influence. I mean, we could say here, you know, work toward world peace, right? But that's how goal eight reads to me, honestly. I mean, I agree with it, but it doesn't feel to me like a goal that this city has enough influence on to retain here. Well, if you've got the vacancy rate to 5%. I certainly want to keep these things as goals. I know that, again, the four of the housing committee just felt really, really... Well, I did. They did feel, they wrote a very detailed long section that's for sure. Yes, they did. Right. But it's a goal, right? It doesn't mean that it's easy. Just like... If we have, I guess my perspective is we don't have levers to influence this. Like we do others. So what are the actions that go along with how the partners have levers? These are about jobs and income. This is about minimum wage and, you know, I mean, I just don't think... Economic development is definitely something that... Building 5,000 units of rental housing by that time. So that there's so much competition and all the rents come down and then that's not 50% anymore. But I also think it has to do with developing economic opportunity. I also see it as potentially something that the four of the housing community would be involved with us in partnership. I'm not saying that we're gonna choose a number that we're gonna get to. I mean, this is something that one of our applicants wanted, he wanted a report card to say how many of our past goals have we truly achieved and it would probably be very few, right? So we have to give ourselves a direction. I think, can't we just say reduce the percentage of households has been more than 50%? Yeah, just... Rather than say, buy housing. Yeah, try to say reduce the percentage and then say buy facilitating more housing. So can I... Well, it could be economic development too. Sorry. Well, this is the housing community. This is not economic development. So I just want to clarify a little bit. No, no, no, I don't think you're getting granular, but I want to clarify a little bit what I perceive this goal to mean. So by reducing the percentage of households who spend more than 50% of their income on housing costs, that's talking about AMI, right? That's talking about the folks who are at a lower level of AMI and therefore are subsidized to not pay more than 30% of their income on housing. The levers you have to... That's, that couldn't be economic opportunity and more housing and whatnot. The levers you really have to pull around that are about inclusionary zoning, about housing trust fund around as we grow, are we keeping up with housing growth across the income spectrum? Which is I think what you have repeatedly voted to do anyway through the LDRs and through funding the housing trust fund. So I do actually think that it's not just about like more rental on the market. That might help. There are economists who think that, but it really is about that AMI and AMI level and how we are investing in subsidizing affordable housing development. You can take it out. I just want to put a few more words on that. Typical targets in the affordable housing community is to strive for households to not spend more than 30% of their income. So here it's talking about producing those who are spending more than half of their income. So that's really, as Jesse said, disproportionately the lower income for our community who are spending half of all their money in households. So the solutions go towards that. I think we would broadly advocate that where you can have a numerical target in the plan it gives us the community something to strive for whether that's the right number is up to you but it would generally. Oh, I would agree on that. Yeah. There's something I can say. We did, you know, we've made this progress towards versus not having a number instance. Well, by half is a lot, but we can have that number. Well, fortunately, it's not the majority of our residents. So, oh, for sure, right? We're not looking at 20,000 people. But I mean, well, nine and 10 are very, very ambitious. Well, we get there most likely not because we don't have those kinds of resources to weatherize 600 homes annually, right? So, but let's keep the number there because that's what we need to do. Right? We have lovers. So that we don't have companies. We don't have workers. So Google tends as a liqour by, can we clarify what that means? Just because we don't know that we're here. I mean, I know what you need, but we should maybe just spell out a little bit more. Clearly, the unlimited fossil fuels from. We'll just say that, you know, convert electricity homes to, yeah, to electrical. Immersion is the word that I've heard regularly, yeah. Okay, that sounds good. Perfectly comfortable with doing that. Just note that electrify is the word from the Climate Action Plan, but you shouldn't feel that you need to stick to it, but I'm just noting that becomes a slight change from the Climate Action Plan. It might be better wording. Let's keep it going to the Climate Action. Okay, okay. We'll keep it a little bit more comfortable. Why can't you improve something? I mean, this is sort of a different audience. Electrify, IE convert. Well, yeah. I mean, if you'd like to. I wasn't trying to dissuade, I was just giving a notation, but if you'd like to have a little parenthetical, but you have to do that, that's fine. So we're not going to change it. So what you're saying? Okay, maybe it's something on 14. That's good, it's good, it's good. It's good, okay, yeah. So what's next? 18. Did everyone get my markup? Yes, it was in our packet. Okay. So first is I just have a question around in paragraph two, the 18,000 jobs. Really isn't- I'm just not looking at your, I'm not looking at the fact. Hell's thing is when I went on closingdata.org it seemed to indicate 11,470 something. So I just wanted to check that number. The 18,000 is the second paragraph. In the second full paragraph, the one that begins a housing shortfall, restricts economic growth. I thought that paragraph needed, this plan is funny. It's like do link sections, right? They don't speak to each other that well. And I thought that paragraph needed some tempering that spoke to the rest of the plan that talks about the challenges of building more housing. So I drafted an insert, I can read it. If my fellow councillors don't share that online. Okay. So I would add an insert after the words, this is another reason we need to think regionally about housing goals in the second paragraph. We must also be cognizant of impacts on natural areas. As we address the housing shortfall, the climate action plan adopted by the city, and these are the words for the plan, attempts to resolve potential tension by recommending dense development areas with easy access to walking biking services and conservation are remaining after resource areas. Rapid growth in residential housing may also strain city resources, including the capacity of our school infrastructure, our roads and municipal services. As we plan for growth, we must be mindful of our carrying capacity. That's a lot. It is a lot, but I think it's sort of... That's in the climate action plan. Yeah, well, it's in the climate action plan. Why does it have to be in here? I mean, it is sort of looking through the housing shortfall through the lens of climate change. I just think that, well, again, I thought that these words needed to be template, that this section is very, it doesn't connect well with the rest of this document. And we do say everything should look through a climate lens. And the insert that I drafted is intended to provide some of that. The petition. This paragraph is talking about housing in general and globally and in regional, right? And about commuting distances and how if we don't have, like several businesses have stated, if people want to live here, but they can't, but they want to work here. And so very quickly growing businesses, right? So really the first sentence which says, flying out, housing shortfall restricts growth, hinders our ability to meet climate change mitigation goals. I think that sentence needs to be tempered. I personally agree with one of our applicants who said, where is the open space plan? Why is there no link to the open space plan as an appendix or an index? And I would think that instead of just saying, paying attention to something, we have spent so many human hours, volunteer hours and resources on developing plans. And so let us develop according to those plans, as opposed to just this open being sensitive to, we have really focused and we have developed maps, with corridors and we have actual parcels in the city that had been identified. And so having that open space plan to determine where those different housing developments should go is something that I know our planning and zoning staff are very familiar with because they put together those LDRs that we passed in February of 2022, where they determined where those neighborhood PUDs could go versus the conservation PUDs versus all these things. And so I think that we have a plan. I don't think we need to leave it open to what is kind of a vague cognizant of impacts on natural areas. We have plan for that. We have LDRs that prepare for that. So just having some kind of link perhaps to our open space plan does make good sense just for people who wanna know how we're making those decisions. And maybe that's something that should be, let me just see if it's included. I'm sorry, I didn't do this before. I'll have to do that to this one because I'm not looking at your comments. And that was on page 14, I think, no, no, no, no. It was on page nine and 10 implementation. And so maybe we should, I mean, we have the land development regulations, we have the official map, should we put the open space plan on that list? That's great. I don't think it addresses my concern about this sentence standing as it is without some qualification. The sentence, which says a housing shortfall restricts growth and hinders our ability to meet our climate change mitigation goals. Why? Because we say that these are areas where we can develop housing according to our plans. So how does it contradict our open space plan? We have developed our land development regulations in accordance with our open space plan. And therefore we are- It's not what this sentence is talking about. Anyways, the sentence reads, a housing doesn't refer to health. You also pretend it says housing shortfall restricts growth and hinders our ability to meet our climate change mitigation goals. I think that sentence on its own is misleading, should be tempered. I like that sentence. I think that it leads to why we're having infill. It leads to why we're doing more multi-units. It leads to why we're building for students and young residents without families. I think it leads to all of that. And I think that's an important statement that our business community has clearly indicated to us. We cannot hire because we cannot find housing for our new employees. That's super- That it leaves a gap for interpretation that would displace all what we've done on habitat blocks and forest blocks, open spaces. So what you're implying here. Because I mean, there's other stuff in here that talks later about, you know, trying to import, you know, again, I think that these are kind of like, almost a Jekyll and Hyde plan in some sense, right? You've got to all Jekyll and Hyde. They don't speak to each other. And, you know, listing the open space plan over here doesn't help people understand what this paragraph is addressing. And the insert I drafted, we can take it or not, is intending, my intent there was to try and make these things speak to each other a little more. I think it's fine as we're talking just about housing here at this point. And I know that that's a problem. Well, I mean, that's right. That is the exact problem. But they're going to be part of our 16th plan. Like people can take page 18 and use it to say X if you will take page 90s, say Y, that page to speak to each other that well. That's why the maps. The maps are issues. The maps and plans. And the words are important too. But this is section on housing. And I really think it leads to discussions about infill and the need for more multi units and building up in that out. I think it's there because it says our ability to meet our climate change mitigation goal. It's intending more housing into commercial areas. Yeah, exactly. That's why we're putting right mixed use. Well, and that is what the plan says. Those are the words that I wanted to bring in. So yeah, a couple sentences. They're in there. The next page is 19 for me. Let me just make sure. Hello, we're here. We'll see you on the TV. Let me just, hold on. We're having a wait here. Just get there, sorry. All right. All right, so we are talking about... Page 19. Yeah, let me just make sure it is page 19. It is. And it's under existing housing stocks. That starts on page 18. It's the second full paragraph on page 19. Since 1980. It has significant aging housing stock. South Bloomington experienced its first wave of residential development after World War II with construction of primarily single-family homes. All right, so the homes from that era may have some challenges with insulation, energy efficiency and building materials. And if you wanna say may lack insulation, I find challenges, we're very, very wary of urban renewal. I'll put it right out there, okay? Very wary of houses being torn down and then being built up again, right? So I think that the challenges is a word that is too vague. It can be seen as something that needs to be fixed in a way that is not... So you wanted to say just may lack. If you want to, what I had suggested is, and it is not here, I thought it had been here. Oh, okay. These homes should be reinvested in. The last sentence is what I had suggested in place of that challenges. These homes should be reinvested in, including options like weatherization and updates to the homes themselves and investment in the neighborhood infrastructure community gathering spaces and aesthetics. And I think that if you wanna say may lack, at least that says something. Challenges, it leaves open to my mind may lack. Yeah, may lack insulation. I mean, that makes it... Well, just say have deficiencies in insulation and energy efficiency and building materials. That sounds better than challenges, thank you. It's more specific. Okay, deficiencies, that's fine. Yeah, thank you. Yes. Okay, next. Page 21. I think page 20 for me. How many pages is this thing? I don't have that many. What the last one. I really don't have that many. Okay, so on page... Oh no, let me get this. This is important. It is, I'm just looking at the time and looking at the pages and page 20. This is true. This is our only bite, it's a sample. All right, so I am coming here with some feedback from members of our community who live in these post-war neighborhoods. And this plan specifically identifies post-war neighborhoods as those where infill are gonna go in. And you are gonna have a mini riot. Which part? Where are we? So we're at the top. This is at the top of page 20. 20, all right. So lot sizes in the city's post-war neighborhoods are typically larger than similar neighborhoods regionally and nationally, which presents opportunities for small-scale infill and investment in neighborhoods. And I would suggest... I'm not sure where you are. You're on page 20. It's very tall. Very tall. It's been doing paragraphs. The Senate's right above board, so it sounds small. Okay. Older community, commercial? No. Recently several former, last sentence. Lot sizes. No, the last. Lot sizes. Okay, yeah. You see that? So it is only these post-war neighborhoods that have been identified for small-scale infill. Or it's also called infill that is context sensitive. And it is something that again, that's on page 17 and page 77, that context sensitive. And I would encourage us to really look at where we want to put in more public transportation. If we are forward-looking for the next 10 years or 20 years, we should look beyond those post-war neighborhoods. We should look... What is a post-war neighborhood? So it is Chamberlain, Mayfair Park, Orchards, right, Eastwoods. Pretty much most of the town that's single-family home, that, okay, it's built after 1945. Right. Yeah, right. After 1953, either one, but most of them are... Everywhere except the southeast corner. Right. Yeah. And there is interest for people who want to take the bus. What's your point? What's your problem with the sentence though? This is saying that it would be great. I think I'm implying that ADU infill on some of those large lot single-family homes would be an important way to... Near roads where present and future public transportation. Well, we can't control where... So these homes are spread out, right? Right. And some of these neighborhoods, and some are right on lines and some are not. The important thing is that if there's available land and it's desirable to put an ADU there, let's make that possible. But some people would like to see that land be used by the municipality to put in a community center or... No, no, no. We're talking about individual people's lots. I know. Right. So if they have a half acre lot, or a third of an acre lot in their houses on a very small part of that, and they have the ability to put an ADU out back, let's explore that. Then why only in the post-war neighborhoods and not throughout the city? They're telling you about the ones that have the larger lots that it kind of accommodates. Right. But there are houses with large lots throughout the city. So why... Even if these are all clustered together in very tight neighborhoods, that's fine. But we need to maybe build other tight neighborhoods elsewhere in the city. That is the point. Build other tight neighborhoods. Through infill. Well, no, I mean, that's future development. We're talking about existing homes right now. But people have, like... I'll just say, I can't think of his name now, but people have complained about this, that we're picking up neighborhoods. I don't want to change the sentence. I'm wondering if I'm hearing in the conversation here, is the concern around the term post-war neighborhoods with large lots and large lots and large lots and large lots and large lots and large lots and large lots are concerned around the term post-war neighborhoods because I think we were intending to describe typically single-family home neighborhoods regardless of their location. So whether that's built in the 1980s or it's a pheasant way or it's a big bear park, I think. So why don't you just say single-family home lots instead of post-war? Because the post-war reminds me of the GI Bill, reminds me of those houses that were built for all of the soldiers that came home after the Second World War. Certainly, we can raise more for it. Yes, that's all. Yes, the only change. Thank you. All right, that's fine. Okay. In many of the city's neighborhoods are typically larger. Yes. Because I think the reason that it was written that way was probably in acknowledgement that a neighborhood like Clean City Park is very, very compact. So the very, very first ones work on that and then afterwards not. So many of the city's neighborhoods would that be more enabled I think people would like every neighborhood to be. Next candidate. Page 21. I would like to. I don't need to cut you off. No, no, no, no, no. A lot to go through. I think I'm at the end, except for one more thing. Oh, good. New housing. I'm sorry, what did you say? This is a report that we're citing here, the cost benefit for a report of new housing. I think it's fatally flawed. It didn't take too long. What page are we on? I'm sorry. How do you want the three bullet points in your house for resources? The second bullet. The second bullet resources. The student report. The study that was done by the school was not included. And I think because that this report is fairly flawed and I don't think we should cite it. You don't think we should cite it? Yeah, I think we should. Yeah, should not. We should cite it. No, he's saying not because the data is flawed. So what's, how does it help? Oh, it's a misleading report. It's a fairly short report that was done fairly quickly. It had value, but I don't know how accurate. Yeah, I do agree. I think it was an obedient report that did not have the true test of some. So do you not want it as a resource? But I do like the strategic plan of the school. I'd like that being the decision. I'm not going to talk about the second bullet. Right, but I would replace it with the school district strategic plan. I think that's appropriate here in the housing. But okay, I don't know. Because I don't know. I don't know what the school's because the section for schools later on. Yeah. Under community services. Yeah, okay. Well, we can certainly. So we're recommending striking that second bullet. Yeah, but not replacing it with the school report because that will be in the school section. Okay. 22. 22, the economy. The word integrated, it says. Where? The city will explore allowing integrated housing in some currently commercial areas. I can't. Where are you? 22. Which paragraph? Okay. If I wrote down the number. I'm looking for integrated. There is a control ass. Is it in the second paragraph? Oh, it's on the 24th. I think it's on page 24. Yeah. 24. Yeah. Oh, I'm sorry. Okay. So I'll wait until we get to 24. Unless we're going to go to 24 now. I'm going to go to 24. Okay. So let's go to 24. So the problem with that sentence is that this was for allowing integrated housing, right? So we just need to change that. So you would, we'll explore. I'm sorry. Integration housing. Integrating. That's the third paragraph. Yeah. That's just what we talked about immediately. That was the intent. So thank you. I have a comment on that same paragraph. The last sentence. It says when housing available is often not, often not in South Burlington. The stats on that are that the commutes for people community to South Burlington are actually shorter than in Vermont as a whole. And very very few people have long commutes. And the ones that do probably choose to do that because they want to live in rural areas. I don't, I don't think the facts support is from housing data.org 2021 day. Well, it's actually in the packet. Okay. I'm sorry. Do we deal with Tim's question? Cause we jumped it. We did. So what do we do? We're changing the city will explore allowing integrated to the city. We'll explore integrating housing into some critical. Okay. All right. I got it. Okay. And Andrew, what is your? I want to delete that last sentence. And that same paragraph. It's accurate. But I think it's generally true that if people can't afford, if they have a job here and they would like to live here, but they can't afford to live here, they're going to live outside. But when you look for actual commutes, right, right, right now, the stats are that our commutes there's very few people. I know a lot of people live. People have an anecdotally. St. Albans to swan to Highgate that come down to Sound Burlington from Georgia, from Milton, but all over often. And that's not the stats. Well, if we're not going to be declared, declared without at least mention that, you know, there is a, there's a correlation. All right. Housing is cheaper, further away from Chittin County. Right. All right. Or I can say, less expensive water. This is a very complex issue because we are so desirable. People come from out of state. We heard from a lot of people who have home offices and work from their homes here tonight. And they come from out of state and buy homes here and they're working in New Jersey or Massachusetts or and it is, it is a real challenge. I don't know how we solve that. I'm just thinking about the words. So, I mean, if folks like the sentence, it should be softer. They should say something like, housing may not be in Sound Burlington. It may require something. I could go with that. It should be softer because I just don't think the stats support that sentence. And I think it is significant to see that there are telecommuters that live in South Rowlington. And I would even add that that we have become attractive to telecommuters. And therefore people who have to drive to their work are competing with telecommuters for housing. And often, they lose out because people who make their salaries out of Vermont make more money than people who make their salaries in Vermont. Let's be really clear. Yeah, help them with their climate action mitigation goals because they're not driving their car. But they're not contributing necessarily to our economy. They're not... They're paying a lot of taxes in Vermont. I can tell you that much. Well, they're paying. They are doing that. But they're keeping other people out of our city who work here. And that's a concern. It is something that is a factor. I mean, I'm certainly not turning anybody away, but it is a factor. Is there anything else on 24? My next comment is 25. Can I just get a sense of how much more time we're going to be spending on this all night? I can go through this in 10 minutes. Well, yeah. As long as no one comments on it. But I think the rest is going to go faster. OK, so if there's not... And you're done, right? I have one more thing. Well, how about if we work on this till 10? Because we still have a rather prickly conversation in executive session. Let's do it in 20 minutes. 10 sounds good. Goal, 20 minutes. Yeah, 20 minutes. OK, so let's dive in. Page 25, the theme of connectivity. I don't have... I did learn something that ties the paragraph about the airport to our climate action. So I could read that, or folks could see. Would you read it, because I just... Sure, I'll use the paragraph. No, it's a sentence. This says that... And where are you putting this? Yeah. Under a late New York Times International Airport. But it's in the airport, need to work together. This should include utilizing the land for projects for the community, support airport-aligned businesses, approved transportation. And I wrote and worked together to show that the airport is reducing it. Screen house gas emissions consistent with the city's goals. I mean, they've got their own plan in. They have their own plan. From LinkedIn, right? But they're in our town. I know, I know. And their plan, I will tell you, is not really including airlines, per se. Which is fine, our plan. They're looking at their own... That's scope three, and so that's fine. And that would be consistent with our plan to exclude that too. So, I mean, that is what it is. It's a problem, a whole airport, so I can say a problem. So, do you... I mean, they have a plan. Do you want... That's what a reference. Are you expecting that that plan, if there's parts of it that don't line up with ours, that they should change it? Or do you just want to know what the plan is and see... I just want to say we should work together. And, I mean, maybe they're doing a great job, but there are a few comments. Well, and work together and collaborate with climate action plans. I think maybe the... I'm okay with that. Private air, the private plane community could work with us, perhaps, or that part of the airport's business. General aviation. General aviation. Get into that, Clagmark. If you want to say, you know, we aspire to work together to make our climate action plans collaborative in some way. I just want to just speak to each other better. We need to reference the climate action. We could say, collaborate and communicate. I have nothing against that. They're aligned. I mean, we're already losing just blue and delta was reducing also. So, delta was reducing. So, I don't want to play along with... Play around with the commercial, but I'm willing to do that with private. Okay. My next comment's on page 35. So, anyone on page 435 now? I have a 27. Okay. Let's go to 27. Go to 27. Second paragraph. Green Mountain Power's low-carbon electricity supply. Now, again, you can look at Iceland, and it's not low-carbon. Where are you? Second paragraph. Third line down. Green Mountain Power's low-carbon electricity supply. All right. So, I don't want to argue about this for more than 30 seconds, but if you could just say Green Mountain Power's supply, electricity supply period. I mean, I know there's a lot of other details within that, but I don't want to just say that Green Mountain Power is a low-carbon electricity supply, because then you're talking about, are you talking about energy credits? Are you talking about actually generation? Are you talking about how much they're importing from Boston? Because when Jerry Silverstein gets on his pedestal, he's going to say, it don't matter where you are, the electrons are all coming from all the same nodes. And then in February, when the diesel generators fire up, and they're using fuel oil to operate and throw in at $130 an hour, right? Yeah, it's low-carbon. Okay, 10 seconds are up. I mean, what do you want to say instead of low-carbon? No, it is low-carbon. I guess, 10 seconds. The reason why it's wrong is when we in South Berlin move from fossil fuels to electricity, that new supply by GMP will be carbon-free, that new increased supply to the grid. That's the important thing. We had an exporter twice this year of power for probably a small period of time on a nice cool sunny day in May. And we are going to grow more power, okay? But Green Mountain Power's responsibility is to keep the state fully electrified and supply, right? Most of the time, they are not low-carbon when we don't have enough supply. 100% of their new supply to the grid is carbon-free. That's the important thing. Yeah, that's the important thing. But not the incremental. But their current supply. No, but that's the important thing. This is about transitioning. Then say future fossil fuels system to electricity. I said put future in there. Green Mountain Power's future low-carbon electricity supply. Future's not the right way. It's not. Okay. I don't want people like Terry to get a misunderstanding of who. I think it's important to be really accurate here. I think it's accurate to make sure you understand how much carbon's coming out of the Icelandic grid, period. Okay. How about increasingly low-carbon? Increasingly low-carbon electricity. No, there are 100% carbon-free new supply. Unless we go into demand mode. That's such an important concept that when we transition from fossil fuels to electric, that new supply is 100% carbon-free. That's the basis of the climate action plan. The basis of a whole theory of electrification. It's really important to state that clearly. So how do you state that here? Let's say Green Mountain Power's, it's got to be something that says it's declined. But why don't we just say, instead of such as that low-paragonical, we should say in South Africa, we're fortunate that all new supplies sourced by Green Power will be 100% carbon-free, all new sources. Okay, that's better. Sure. Okay. I'm willing to go with that. That sounds good. All right, good. That was 27. What's your next one? 20. No, 35. Kravonis. It's lapping. I'm sorry. What page? On 35. Whoa. Goal 34. One is a typo contiguous. I think that's a U. 35. 35. Goal 35. No, no. 35. Goal 34. Oh, excuse me. Protect. And I would like to change the word, protect to permanently conserve. On page 35. Goal 34. Goal 34. First goal. Yeah. Is that really doable? I mean, I don't know how we can. We're free. What I'm saying is already protected. Oh, okay. Right. So what's our goal? So this is turning the protected lands into permanent. Yeah. I would support that. As long as we're not talking about. You know, gold that says we're going to protect your land. Whether you want it. Oh no, no, no, no. It's already protected. Well, you're wrong. Bad choice, but. For example. Let's hear the background. I want to hear the background to this goal 34. Can Kelsey or Paul, you provide the background to that goal? Sure. So goal 34, the 51% of the land area is correct. That is something that has, that's the amount of land that has some. Type of protection on it. It does include private conservation, permanent conservation, but also regulatory conservation. So it includes things like the SQNRP, Habitat blocks. Are there other big condo association lands? Condo association lands will be private privately held land. That is developed or that are not to be developed on. It's, it's, that's the tricky thing. So 51% includes all of those things. So it includes like, if a condo association has HOA land. That is designed to be open and designed to be common space for, you know, green space or recreation or whatever it happens to be for. We can't protect that. Right. So in many cases, it probably used the density. Yeah. At the time we didn't go and look for every, you know, 10 square feet of grassland, but in developing this number of the data we have is not good enough to say, Oh, in this instance, there's not the ability to have 10 more. We can't make a statement that. Significant about what we can say is the DRV approval or planning that's been approval for 30 years ago. Identified that as open space, whether they could come back and under different rules proposed to amend it as an association. It's that's too granular for what we were able to do. But if, if we're just, if the goal is. To permanently, permanently protected, you could work with a private landowner to get them to permanently. So if it's a condo association or whatever, maybe there's a tax break. I don't know. But maybe the planning commission was trying to do was to, that they were wrestling with the same thing that you're wrestling with here, which is, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know what you're trying to do was to that they were wrestling with the same thing that you're wrestling with here, which is, they wanted to say, here is it's current status and. Using Helen's example, it is the objective of the city to make more permanent, where not permanent. And they were sort of trying to find the right words. But that's, Permanently protect at least 51% of the lands of the city's land area I use we're permanently conserved Permanently conserved is fine. I don't get but and that's the goal if we can't do it because it's privately owned We can't do it. So we can't read we can only get to 48% or something. I don't I don't want to scare anybody Yeah Yeah, I think it's finally if it's privately owned land. I certainly don't want to say we're gonna Well, we're not saying that we're just saying We are No, I mean we wouldn't have the ability to do that. Well, that's why we're stating it. So you don't want to scare five Landowners They're not living in a vacuum I like it I I tend to Not be ready to face that question. No, we're two to two. So We'll have Larry come in and Get on the board tonight What's next We haven't sworn in yet. I'm okay 36 Just at first action 43 create city tree wordness. Um, I think we mean If it's what came before the planning commission Create, um An ordinance that addresses tree protection and connection with development activity capitalized city tree ordinance is Confusing to me because we have a city tree ordinance, right? So I think we just need to clarify action 43 a little bit Yeah, and this was also just for clarification drafted before the nrcc got some additional legal guidance that a tree or like an ordinance To accomplish what they wanted to do we need to charge. Yeah Um goal action 40 It says periodic review environmental protection standards and the lbrs To implement the goals of the plan In the climate action plan We said something much more precise and I copied it. We said revise our lbrs In fact, our remaining metals forest grasslands and farmlands from further encroachment as permitted by law and I think that what is in the climate action plan is A better and more powerful way to say action 40 We're It looked like you're both thinking okay Oh attorney, I know At least you needed the after goals of right Well, are we okay with using the same language as the action plan? We all of these things are supposed to be in the lens of climate action, right? So using the same language would jump from that lens or focus Well, why don't you look at that? So my one recommendation if you do go down that path is to take a look at maps three and Nine three is the landscape level conservation Area in the map nine is the future land use map And so we would recommend that however you decide to phrase that statement That It's internally consistent with your land use Especially the land use the future land use map. So if you have Some of those resources that are listed in there and then your future land use map says and this should be Housing commercial industrial whatever you wind up with an internal conflict in the plan Which becomes challenging for future policy makers. So I think that's a statement that you may want to Be mindful of either Possibly adjust in the future land use map or possibly adjusting the statement so that they are Connected to each other and internally consistent so that two years not we're saying wait a minute Why does he do things that are counterfeit? Yeah Right Next page 49 real quick Again in the in the airport thing just Reference to the climate action plan. I just I'm on 49 I'm not going to read it. So I said something like Sydney airport most continue work closely together to reduce greenhouse gas emissions In that air transportation section I I see that really for yeah the zoning questions around the airport. I totally support Page 55 Oh, yeah, go back to page 45 is a little type over there. This is logically connect action 66 Path and lane network. Do you mean the bike path? What are you looking at? page 45 action Okay You do mean the suddenly a bike path and wrecking plane network to networks This is supposed to be I was going to say it's a little bit tricky because we call them shared use paths And and it's generally bike lanes. So we just sort of collapse those to be kind of path and lane as as alternative Okay, thank you. That's clear So we we did the Air transportation thing. What's next 55? Um An ultimate full paragraph it talks about needing seven and a half acres per thousand residents 20 acres or natural areas per thousand Could can we get some stats on where we are so we know How far we are or not from those goals? Yes, thank you Make a short discussion by just saying yes and we'll get back to you. Thank you page Three is my next comment I want you to start that sooner All right, mine's on 78. So I'm gonna jump in here All right, I just want to make sure Um Learning from our city fronter and this is action 127 The developed vibrant streetscapes and public gathering spaces to enable events and community gathering That is action 127 Okay, that That truly is going to happen because that was something that was you know potential here on Market street and they could opt out um by doing something that I would say wasn't as um place Producing or a sense of place was not gained by by how They the choice they made so I really want to make sure that that public gathering space Um could happen. I just is that so is that an ldr change? Or or form-based code or what are elements in the I mean the It's a scale question. I think so I think you know depending on the scale of the development There may be the ability for a new neighborhood or development to accommodate a gathering space, but often if it's just you know the The Pizza hut that may not have a gathering space. So there's likely a city investment component as well of creating large gathering spaces may be city investments in new parks or And I think that we could You know not necessarily have conservation PUDs on shelvin road, but that Any new development should have A playground some I mean there should be our requirement subdivisions over Six acres in size And then the smaller ones that scale to site amenities for each for each type of development But that and so that is maybe a micro scale gathering If you're talking about large scale gathering, there's likely a city investment Right, right. Okay. So that I can be sure that it's not There's no loophole somewhere that they're truly will be Gathering I would just say the action 127 includes both ldr Things that are in the ldr is that that bind new developments and new and developers and also city planning and city investment one of the things that's upcoming is Like a parks master plan would be coming in the next year or so So I think 127 is phrased to include both of those things And part of what what the role of the plan is is to be able to make policy statements that enable changes to the ldr So if additional changes to the ldr's Are required this action 127 allows it to happen Okay, it's quarter of Yeah Stop here Well, how many more are there? I don't have any more What does some need How many You know what? No I mean, we're gonna have more time to do this another Another time or like what's I mean, we don't have to do it. Well, what's your plan? It's quarter of 10 if you want to like slide through But we still have You know or our executive session that's not going to be slow and then that I don't think will be real slow So Yeah, so how many You know tell me what's your pleasure we can come back to this we could have What do you think? Half an hour at the next Yeah, your next thing is is very intact You do have a special meaning on the 16th for the public hearing that we are not putting anything on but for the public hearing So you could hold the public hearing and then have an additional Council conversation. You should do that anyway Okay, so you will have time so let's do that. Is that okay? Yes, how many I mean here everyone has my comments Yeah How many public hearings you'll have a minimum of two Okay, so You if you make changes after essentially after you've warned the final one, right then you need to hold another one Okay, so that's what we'll do sometimes let me just say some some of this paul We just talked about I couldn't square The numbers in here about solar or other things with numbers in the climate action plan Then we just talk offline and try and organize some of that um, if that's okay with What's the council? We I just saw the notes in there and that may be conferring with melanie about is there a different source because yeah The climate action plan uses one data set and the state mandates a different data set But certainly we're happy to if that's if the council is comfortable Not any policy just getting these numbers to speak to each other Solar gain of why there are two different numbers from the climate action plan says we have like 20 megawatts renewable This is 32. It's like the things are not speaking to each other Okay, but did you catch the comment on page 84? You wondered if it should be without instead of with I think that's important So that's page 84 That first full paragraph Six line down The city has allocated certain areas of the city to remain unbuilt and it says with significant development Or and he's wondering if it should be without and I I don't I don't know what that sounds like I think it's supposed to be without significant development Good catch It's an acknowledgement that there are some Rural homes in rural areas, so it's not 100 percent. Absolutely nothing, but it is Effective it is it's a conservation Okay, yes, um, I'm happy to have an online conversation, but I think I understand you I mean if you if you do, I mean yeah, the things I circled were the things that didn't speak that didn't coordinate, so yeah so if there's anything that um that We'll be happy to reach out to you if there's anything that is okay I mean and the plan, you know specifically focused on putting So on a pervious not on agriculture. It seems to like flip it So I think it's too big to speak to each other some of the challenges state mandate to become an enhanced energy plan You have to talk about it in certain ways We know recognize that and we did that with Melanie in the clown action plan Yes, anyway, we can talk some more. Okay Yes, just so one I just want to say I I know that this was kind of a heated conversation Which was not heated but an active conversation, which is great one well done for reading through the City plan and spending so much thoughtful time with it. That is a huge That makes me feel really good at how invested you all are on all are in it to I think even though it was a Robust conversation. I think you really are focusing on typos focusing on A few policy changes here and there. I think generally that reflects a huge amount of positive work that I don't want to lose how proud I am Yeah, we're on page 84 and an hour and a half After yeah, how many months you've been doing this? Yeah The planning commission doesn't live through quite as well What were the circled things on this map at the end here? I thought I mean, this may not be the appropriate time, but I know we were so close It indicates roads in places where I even think they don't belong or will not be built and at some point we should talk about this stuff Which map are you talking about? Oh So, I don't know this is the opportunity That same map I would say I would love for skewer streets become a place where we could eventually have a bus You just a gmt bus line. Okay. I mean, so I don't know when we as a council get an opportunity to talk about maps like this But that's why I started on this. Yeah It was the same plan that I I had Like to I would love and I think people would like to be able to take the bus going north to south That's what that conversation with Michael Scanlon that you always think was found He's doing a spang up job by the way. Yeah, I can believe it He was on probation, right? Yeah Nice country Okay, so moving on we now Like a motion Oh, is there any other business? I thought the other business was that So Yes, so, um, I moved to the council make a specific finding that premature general public knowledge of the council's discussion Confidential attorney client communications made for the purpose of providing professional legal services to the council We clearly places public body and a substantial disadvantage second All in favor. Hi So I now move to the city council enter into executive session under one dsa Three hurricane a1f for the purpose of discussing Confidential attorney client communications made for the purpose of providing professional legal service to the council inviting jesse bicker Steve walk all counter comms gill social to council for the suspect a second all in favor And we are not we are not making any decisions and we are not coming back