 Okay, well, we have the full board. So, or just about full board. So I'm gonna call the meeting to order. This is a regular schedule meeting of the down to Berlin Development and View Board. We have one application tonight, which is connected circles LLC. It's for a change of use. We have several representatives from the applicant. I'm gonna ask everyone that intends to give testimony before this board tonight to please raise your right hand. I swear to tell the truth. Raise your hand. This is if you tend to give testimony. So raise your right hand. Do you swear to tell the truth? Nothing but truth that matters before this board tonight. I do. I love you. Chris, I suit your hand as an air. It is. Thank you. Who is going to start the presentation for the application? Chris. Chris. Yes. Chris, I think you're on. Okay. Yeah. So connected circles, these folks can speak better to exactly their mission and their purpose than I can. But in essence, they're an educational facility, outfit working for with kids who need a little bit different approach in the typical public school setting. They're intending to occupy the space formally of the, I went by several names, I guess, but it was a significant daycare in the facility. Had previously had 50 students and 10 educators in the daycare facility. It was a project that we worked with, that we at Chase and Chase worked with, with Bernie Shannette on both the sewers disposal and the, what is a public water supply system with those count numbers for the whole daycare back several years ago. But essentially they're going to occupy the same space and have a very, very similar mission. And after looking at the definitions, the distinction between a daycare and an educational facility in the ordinance, there's not much. So I think it's safe to say that from the purposes of a conditional use review for the either, either or daycare or education facility being a conditional use in the zone, not a permitted use that relative to conditional use or use criteria, the impacts are very similar to the point of being indistinguishable. Because the numbers are much lower here with 10 students and 14 educators, the impacts are reduced. Simple as that, the traffic, although we haven't generated any specific counts of what should be anticipated for the 50 student daycares, it should be fairly apparent to the board that the numbers here with 10 kids and 14 teachers is going to be much lower from a traffic standpoint than what was previously being operated on a facility. I don't know if the board would like, if you'd like to go through, Craig Chase provided some written testimony addressing the conditional use criteria. I don't know if you want me to go back through that here. Chris, let me stop you. Just see if any of the board members have any comments or questions at this time based on your overview. Nothing else. I actually have a question. This is Richard. I thought I understood this to be a preschool project, but you're also going to be serving older kids. And I'm sorry for not being up on my notes. Can I speak to our program a little bit more? Your name again. Okay, this is Kelly, Kelly Bushy. Hi, Richard. Fun to hear your voice on the other end of the line. Hi, Kelly. Our mission of our school, right? Our mission statement is that we provide a community where all are seen, nurtured and encouraged to embrace lifelong learning. We serve 12 students. We are approved by the State Board of Education as an approved independent school. And we are the ages of our students range from age 12 to age 22. So no, we are not serving preschool students. Okay, I guess I misunderstood. So that's good to hear your voice, Kelly. Thanks. Thank you. Should we have another person to join us? Michelle Delaney, can you? Yes. Say who you are and what relationship you have to this application? Yes, hi, thank you. Michelle Delaney, I am Chair of the Board for Connected Circles. That's an independent board, governance board? Yes, it is. I'm sorry, I did not hear what you said. This is Michelle Delaney and I am Chair of the Board for Connected Circles, which is an independent board. Okay, thank you. Any other questions by board members? Comment, comment, yeah, Carla? Me? Yeah, well, you're like, you lit up, you lit up, so. No, no, I don't have a question. All right. Tom, do you have anything? I'm sorry, I have another question. Richard, go ahead. And again, I don't know if this is a purview of our board. Please stop me if it's not, but my interest is what the relationship of this school will be since it will be in our backyard with a new school in Montpelio who serves another population that I think is going to be similar. And the connected with that is what is their relationship to the public schools that are feeding the school. Richard, let me answer that. I think that's a good question. However, I do think that's outside of the purview of our bylaws. That's fine. And let's just skip it. Perhaps you have to answer that, but it's really not within our bylaws. Yeah, I appreciate that. That's why I prefaced my statement. So please move on. Okay, Chris, we have a pretty good set of narrative here. If you paraphrase your narrative, I'd appreciate that. So we just sort of move on. Okay. If you just bear with me a moment because I was not the author of that narrative. Well, that's why I thought I'd ask you to do that. Yeah, you did. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So as we've, as prior narrative, we've already touched on the first part of the narrative being an explanation of what Connected Circle is. The building's been used for daycare that once served the Central Vermont Hospital and then other private childcare services. The daycares were permitted for 50 children with 10 employees and the Connected Circle schools will serve the 12 students with 14 employees. We have the site plan. We've got 25 parking spaces identified. There's actually opportunities for more than that, but that was more than adequate for the project and easily demonstrated. There's lighting, there is lighting. There is some lighting provided in the parking lot existing. And along, and then the buildings and those points have been identified on the site plans. And there is a sign. The sign has simply been replaced with one of like size and same location, like size, like appearance to the sign was there for the daycare. So on the front end, there's really very, there are no changes unless the board sees something that's deficient. There's no changes proposed to the site layout. And addressing that, and I presume, Bob, you were talking about going through the actual conditional use criteria. Well, yeah, I mean, we have the narrative, but yeah, just you don't need to go through them all or just paraphrase what you have. I just, I wanna get it on the record. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So as far as the capacity for the existing community facilities, they're really in utilities. As far as the utilities go, the proposal in front of the board represents a reduction in intensity of use. Although those utilities, say for the Green Mountain Power Connection are all private on-site utilities anyway. Again, the reduction intensity, reduction in traffic, that the impacts are less. There's no changes because the impacts are less. There's no changes required to the existing wastewater and potable water supply permits. And again, there's really no changes to the status quo. Relative to the traffic, again, that this proposal represents a reduction in daily traffic numbers. Simply, I would presume that a 50-child daycare would have something on the order of, well, at least 102-way trips to pick up kids, say nothing about educators at the facility. And this is definitely will be a reduction to that. The character of the area, since there really are no exterior changes, there aren't going to be any real, they're not any exterior changes and very little change in the type of use, the intent and a reduction in the intensity of use. The site is not isolated per se, but it's not exactly on top of other uses, other properties that could be impacted by this use. And we don't see any potential for any reduction in the value of adjacent properties or the ability of the adjacent properties to do further development. As far as the natural resources go, since we're not proposing any site changes and everything that is in place as duly permitted, we don't see any way to identify any negative impacts on any natural resources. Energy conservation, again, the intensity use is going down. One would expect that that reduced intensity of use would result in less energy used, not that any specific additional conservation measures are proposed here, but again, the reduction in intensity of use comes with less energy. And we don't know of any other regulation here in the town of Berlin has put forth that would have a problem that would be negatively impacted by this proposal. Again, a reduction in the intensity of use. Our site plan has demonstrated the traffic flows and there's more than ample room for snow removal. We have limited signage and limited lighting is already present on the property and no changes are proposed. And in closing, we think that what's proposed here is very much in keeping what was already there and conforms with the conditional use standards put forth by the ordinance. Okay, questions by members of the board. Tom, any questions? No, sir. I see Chip Lague has joined us. Chip, did you have an interest in this application? Oh, it's my mic on. Yes. Oh, perfect. No, it just was listening as a joiner. I've talked with the folks there and just happened to log on. No issue. I do have a question for you, Chris. It has to do with the conformance with the regulations. One of the regulations that the applicant has to conform with are the site plan regulations. And I think the only site plan regulation that concerns me a little bit is access and egress. So I don't know what the intention is in terms of access and egress for a vehicle traffic. Is that one-way traffic, two-way traffic? I'm not sure what's intended here. And obviously, the other thing that concerns me a little bit, and again, this is an existing facility. It's been there in place for a while. So I'm not proposing to change a lot, but the driveways do not meet the state standards. Yeah, I mean, you mean relative to the transition from the edge of the road up into the drives? Correct. It does not need B71B standards. Right, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I mean, and I don't have an answer for that. The intent is to use it the way it has been used with the, and there are traffic direction arrows, although in the color printed, they don't show up that well. Ingress up the slope on the paved portion nearest the building, egress along the gravel portion, side of the loop, back down to airport road. As far as conformance with those regulations, with the state standards, it's my understanding that V-Trans has jurisdiction over airport road. Is that true, Tom, of that portion of airport road? It certainly is up by the airport. I believe it is, Chris. Yeah, the transition is relatively close there, but I believe that is still their section. Yeah, so, and I don't know the permit history of those drives. And I think I would argue that we don't, there isn't a substantial change of use here that would require a new permit, assuming the old permits are in place. And I'm not sure, I know that V-Trans process has been a little bit in flux with the letter of intent and everything, but if the board thinks we need to go back to V-Trans to recodify something, we can certainly do that. Again, I do not know the permit history. Yeah, let me ask the representatives from the applicant. Are you using both driveways now? We are, yep. There was a period of time it was, Oh, Kelly, Bushie, yes. We are using it as it's intended. Shortly after the flood in July, the exit side was closed because of a big washout, but the property owners repaired that driveway. And since it's been repaired, we are using the full loop. Okay, are there signs indicating that they're one way? No. No. I realize there's limited number of users, but I just, I thought maybe, do you have any conflicts with that? I mean, do you have people going the wrong way? Not usually, no. The people that come in are the same people day after day, right? We have transports that bring kids in from their sending schools, so they're the same consistent people in our staff. So once they get the groove of it, it's all good. That was my only concern. And again, it's been used this way for quite a few years. When you go to Google map, by the way, it does show the other ones, the one first furtherly, easterly driveway being closed. That's what Google map shows. Yeah, I did run up. Tom and I talked about this earlier in the day, and I did run up by put eyes on it myself. It certainly is open now. Yeah. I guess, from my perspective, it's not a big deal. It does not meet standards. On the other hand, it's been like this a long time, and there's not a lot of traffic through there. And most of the traffic is traffic worth familiar with the site. Does anybody have a concern about that? Traffic access and egress? Nope. Okay, I'm the only one that's... Excuse me, Bob. So if they propose an expansion of the facility with additional students, would they have to come in your opinion, come into conformance with the road standards and the lighting standards as well? Yeah, I certainly think if there's a proposed expansion somewhere down the road, I think we would be looking at that, especially if site plan approval was specifically required. This is a situation where it's conditional use approval, which is predicated upon the fact that you supposedly meet all the site plan standards. But again, site plan standards have provisions for accepting some transition from just existing use to the current standards, in other words, for pre-existing uses. So I only mentioned it. I don't know that I expect any action on it. I think it's something you should be looking at carefully, though. You do should consider perhaps a sign saying entrance only, exit only, just in case you end up having conflicts. Okay. That's a recommendation, period. Anyone else have any comments on this application? Any questions for the members for the applicant? Hearing none. Does anyone want to hear any more testimony? If not, I'm looking for a motion to close the hearing. So moved. I hear Polly, second by John. All those in favor of that motion, is there a discussion of that motion? Aye. Yes, Polly. No, I was voting. Okay. All those in favor of that motion, please say no by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. And it's unanimous, this hearing is closed and we will be issuing our findings in the near future. Typically finding, I appreciate all your attendance. Excuse me, Bob, I just want to inform the applicant, typically findings come out within a week, depending on what the board determines. And if a permit's issued, it'll be shortly after that. Then with this type of permit, there's a 30 day cure period. You're not really doing anything. So, so it should be relatively quick. Okay, sounds good. Okay. Well, thank you all very much for your attendance. Thank you. We have one other item on our agenda tonight. And that is the approval of the minutes of our last meeting. Thank you, folks. Thanks, Chris. Night all, it's the meeting of January 2nd. We have minutes of that meeting. It was a brief meeting. Because do I have a motion to approve those minutes? I will make the motion to approve those minutes. Are you Richard? Seconded by John. Discussion of that motion. All those in favor of that motion, please say no by saying aye. Aye. Or raise your hands. Thank you. We have approved the minutes of the meeting of January 2nd. Thank you very much. Tom? Yes, sir. Anything else come before the board tonight? Well, do you get a delivery or no? Let me ask the board members, do you feel we need to go into a little recession? Nope. I got two no's. No. I got three no's. I would say we're not going to deliberate. Are you making a decision now? I'm good with that. I'm good. No, I still want to see the text of the findings, the facts, and the, before we say yes and no. Does the applicant need some indication of where we're going? I apprised them of the timing and they were not anxious about the timing. They've been operating this way for a year, Tom. I fully appreciate that. That's why they're coming in the conformance. I'm wondering about that. So they are already doing it. That's what I gathered, but yeah. What are you looking for, Tom? I'm not following you. Well, I typically like to give an applicant some sort of heads up on the future of an application. And it's typically what this board does in deliberative session. Does anyone see an issue with this application that says nobody wants to deliberate it? No, no issue. I would presume there are no issues. Right. And I think it's safe to assume barring any text issues that it will be approved. Thank you. I would like to do, I personally would like to see something in the text that reflects my concerns about their access egress. Okay. Yes, thank you. Okay. There being no other business before this board tonight. I would maintain a motion to adjourn. So moved. Seconded. No, actually your second, Bolly. First by John. Seconded. Seconded. Seconded by Bolly. Seconded. All those in favor of the motion, please say before everybody say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. And we are adjourned. Good night, everyone.