 Do you have a quick question? She was supposed to be here for the whole meeting or just come to the end and our other meeting and show up when she gets here. You know, I know everybody's busy. So if she just wants to, I think I see on the agenda her time slot is eight o'clock. Yes. So, you know, depending on how things go, if she just wants to hop on, I think that's perfectly okay. Oh, it seems like Robin's telling her too. All right, I'm sorry to interrupt you. I'll be quiet now. Thank you, David. All right. So everybody is here and appears. So I'm going to call the meeting to order. We're a couple of minutes behind, but in order to give everybody some time tonight, I'll call the meeting to order for the village of Asks Junction Planning Commission February 4th, 2021. This will be a work session, but we do have a few agenda items. So we have guests tonight that are going to be offering some advice and suggestions concerning the rewrites we have going on. But before that, I just want to make sure that there's... I want to open it up to anybody that's on the call and please identify yourself that has anything they want to talk about or discuss that's not on the agenda tonight. Go ahead and raise your... Okay, Regina. We're supposed to be here. I just didn't see your name on the agenda. Yeah, so nothing that isn't on the agenda. I'm here to listen because I think as you folks know, I'm going to be helping you out with writing here, doing the amendments to the regulations. So I'm just here as a fly on the wall to listen. And for those folks who don't know, I work for the Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission. Excellent. And Regina is a great resource. If you guys have any questions for her, please. She has a lot of knowledge and very helpful. Okay. Anybody else? Excuse me. Go ahead. If you're not catching my attention, raise your hand. Just hit the little raise hand button at the top of your screen and I'll notice it. But if there's nothing else at this time, let's dig right in. So we don't have the minutes for the January 21st meeting. So what I'd like to do is I'd just like to have somebody make a motion to table those until the next meeting. So moved. Second. Okay. All in favor? Aye. All right. That's good. So we'll deal with that the next time. Diane, I apologize. I didn't see your email. I was on the road all day and I spoke to Robin but I didn't notice that the minutes hadn't come through email yet. So we'll deal with it next time. Yep. Okay. So let's dig right into the work session part. So what I have an agenda here and I don't know if everybody has a copy but I'm a little confused because originally, and you guys correct me if I'm wrong, we had, hold on. I'm just looking through some notes here. Robin had mentioned that he had reserved a slot for Brett. Are you on the call, Brett? I think that's the next meeting. Is it the next meeting? That was confusing. Yeah. It's the beginning of the agenda for the next meeting. So we're starting with Rick, Jones and Hamlin, correct? Yes. Okay. So who wants to go first? Rick Hamlin? Sure, this is Rick Jones. I'm gonna make Rick Hamlin go first. Gotcha. There you go. Here's Rick Jones and Rick Hamlin and Rick Jones wants me to go first. So here we go. So with regard to the public works section of the land development code, especially the written part of the text, we don't really foresee changes or if any they're very minor. If there are any changes to be made, they'd be in the technical drawings, the standard details, the village standard details. And in the last roundup of the revisions, we caught most of the ones that brought us up to date with some of the latest construction techniques that the village has been using for a couple of years. So I don't see really any big changes. They're just going to be some maybe minor polishing of those details. And I don't think at least in terms of the nuts and bolts of the public works standards, that portion of the code will see any change from kind of the street and utility piece. Now, Jim Juterus is following us and I know he's got some things related to stormwater and the new stormwater regulations. So that'll probably, that there will be some significant changes, but from the kind of meat and potatoes, public works, standards and specifications and drawings, we're in pretty good shape. So one of the things to be helpful for us to know is, when are you trying to wrap up all of the changes so that we're sure that we can get any of those minor revisions to the details taken care of and submitted to you for inclusion in the new document? That's a good question. So Regina, what's the absolute drop dead date? I know there's like a date, an official date and then there's a real date, so to speak. So there really is, your land use regulations don't expire, your town plan expires and needs to be updated in a timely, in a eight year timeframe. The zoning regulations, technically the only, there's no deadline at all, it just technically they should be in line with your town plan. So generally town plan gets adopted then planning commission starts working on the zoning regulations. So in terms of statutory requirements, there's no deadlines per se. What's the commission's goal in terms of when you'd like to get this wrapped up? Right, this is the end. And I was understood that the goal was to have this to the trustees by December. So ranching it back, I guess you could say the drop dead at anything gets to considered is probably September and October timeframe as the last time we could do something before all the approval processes was at the start. All right, perfect. I mean, based on what I think we're talking about, we should have no problem at all meeting that kind of a deadline. In fact, we should have things submitted to you if there are any revisions to the standard details well before then. So that's great to know. And we also like to give the trustees time to send it back to us if they have other changes that need to be made. So that's why that December deadline is a good goal. Yeah, I think we could easily get things to you before September, at least in terms of the standard details. Does that sound right to you, Rick Jones? Yeah, that'd be a funny time, Rick. Thank you. So does anybody have any questions to Rick Hamlin? This is John Alden. Rick, do you have any policy suggestions or other things that are sort of not technical but would affect sort of more globally how the process works or what we should be asking for? I think that the biggest parcel of those is gonna come in the stormwater world from Jim Jutris, who you hear from next. In terms of our, if we set that aside and that's pretty comprehensive and Jim's got a pretty lengthy document on that. If we set those items aside, I really don't see us changing too much in the actual code itself. Our plan reviews are, it's not like we're seeing things in the plan review over and over and over again that we think that ought to change or are confusing to the applicants. Mainly what we see is that people just don't read the regulations. And then once they do, they get back on track. But that's, if there was a change we'd make, it would be to require everybody to read the regulations before they submit the plans. But sometimes that just takes a little bit longer for people to catch up with that. But other than that, we don't see, that was one of the questions that I talked to Jeff Kirchner about who does the plan review in our office, were there things that he saw that were over and over that were confusing or that people weren't understanding that we could clarify and his thought was not really. So I think we're in good shape there to answer your question. Great, just a one follow up. Every once in a while on these applications you'll make some kind of a suggestion as village engineer or leave something, send something back to the planning commission for us to make the decision. And usually that's something that's within our purview like you can grant the waiver for this or you can choose to have a curb or not have a curb or whatever the case is. Does that process between us as two bodies trying to do something right for the village? Is that working pretty well, do you think? Yeah, I think so. I think there are certain cases where either the rules aren't 100% black and white or the applicant is asking to do something that may not be completely in line with the rules but given that development or given what they're proposing to do actually makes sense. And having that flexibility of saying, here's what we're seeing but this is ultimately we recognize that we provide guidance and suggestions and the actual regulatory act falls within your commission. And so having the ability to allow you to do that is good. So we think that's a good, the give and take that we've had so far I think has been very productive. I would agree and I appreciate that you guys will point things out to us when that's the case. So thank you. Anybody else with questions? I actually have a question. And I usually ask this of most departments. One of the things that I talk a lot about is G conservation but more so efficiency. In your world, do you see opportunities around us doing anything to encourage or improve on that kind of stuff in your area? So because the village doesn't really have a building envelope code that I think defaults to the state. So we really don't view things in terms of the review plans with regard to the building envelope. So what we're talking about is everything outside of the building envelope. So water, sewer, stormwater, traffic, roadway, circulation kind of things. So in terms of kind of things you would think of as standard energy saving, energy conservation measures, probably not too much. I'm trying to think in terms of our roadway systems now when we rebuild roads where our roadway cross section is kind of unique compared to our neighboring municipalities. And I think that's gonna go or has gone a long way to preserve our pavement, make it last longer. So there's some energy savings there just in that we're not having to buy more bituminous concrete pavement to overlay our streets for those ones that we've rebuilt. We're getting better lifespan out of them. In terms of water energy, we don't really control the pumps. That's Champlain Water District. And so we really don't have a much impact on energy conservation and pumping of water. Most of our water is distributed from the water tanks. So that's all gravity. So once it gets to the tanks, there's not a whole lot there for energy conservation in terms of the water. Sewers, gyms, Bailey Wick. I know the plants done a lot of things to do a lot of energy conservation at the treatment end, the sewage treatment plant end. And I know Jim could talk for quite a while about that. And so that's probably been the one place within the public works world where the most energy conservation and innovative thinking with regard to how energy is used to happen, which is great. So, and I'm sure Jim can answer lots of questions about that at the plant. Excellent, great. That's great feedback. Does anybody have anything else for Mr. Hamlin? Oh, Rick, do you want Rick Jones? Do you wanna, I'm trying to allot everybody 30 minutes here so everybody gets a chance, but Rick, do you wanna chime in? Yeah, I won't take out 30 minutes. I'll do 30 seconds here. Everything's, everything's, I agree with what Rick said. And I'll hang around for Jim's presentation too, because he due to the stormwater with those folks. Just a real quick thing with the, which is an energy conservation stuff and the new projects you guys do. You know, the simple things of the tree placements, you know, stuff like that, maybe garbage pickup around there. You know, little things like that, something to keep an eye on that we see down the road makes a big difference for us. So I just wanna let that, but I'll hang around here, Jim, if you listen, I'll hang around for your presentation if you want me and I'll be here. And nope, we're looking good guys as a junctions looking beautiful. Excellent, thanks, Rick. Anybody have anything else for Rick or Rick? All right. All right, who do we have next? We have Jim. Jim. I'm here. There you are. Okay, thank you for having me. If I could add a point to comment Rick made, Rick Hamlin made about the applicants not reading the regulations. The first stop on that is to provide guidance and reject them. If we're going to end up designing the project by comments, things have been significantly better, but I think some projects have a long way to go. So I used to work in the application side and I've had my share of applications rejected for being incomplete. That's the quickest way to learn instead of trying to guide people through. So that would be one of my suggestions. And again, it is quite a bit better than it has been, but there are still some that come in with even the wrong names on plans and things like that. It happens in the cut and paste world, but at the same time, it can be kind of kickback and revise so that we have a much more effective review and so do you. I'd also like to add with the energy side, as we go through the code, we'll take a look, but even with the requirements that the state has, the state's probably a leader in some of the building codes without requiring LEED certification for energy and things like that, quite a few years ago, they did change the energy standards for building envelopes and even with the 2012 to 2014 wastewater facility upgrade, we had to meet those standards. So things are a lot better with the state overview for those of us who do not have a physical building code for the community and all the related costs to that. Okay, and I have a question for you before I go into the quick overview. Did Robin forward you the LDC update memo that I sent to was a two pager? I'm believe we've done. Yes, we did. Yes, okay. Now, I'm not a 30 minute guy either. I'd like to keep it much shorter than that. There are quite a few things we're going to have to do and I'm not going to get into the weeds on all of them. But as Rick pointed out, we do have permit require things on stormwater that we're working on. Number one is a flow restoration plan which has already been approved, but now we have some design criteria and some particular projects earmarked that we may, depending upon how it's reviewed and approved again in the next round of permits, it may require a little commentary on the fringes of some zoning areas. So that's something we're going to have to look at as part of it. We also have a phosphorus control plan which the planning commission with the last LDC review was very generous in allowing us to try to ask the applicants to maximize stormwater infiltration on the site. That's a dual benefit. Number one, if you build a project without considering stormwater, you're actually taking away stormwater capacity that the rest of the residents have to pay for an upgrade. So by taking a project or projects like the ones that are ongoing around five corners, most of those sites absorb all of the stormwater around a 25 year event storm. And that is a benefit to the entire community. And as we've discussed many times operationally, the cheapest time to install stormwater infrastructure is when you have a hole in the ground, when you're building a building or planning to build something. So that has put us a long way towards compliance for all of these rules that keep changing every time the legislature launches a new biennium. Last year it was the three acre rule. Now we're looking at a half acre impervious rule by 2022. Again, I think we're already meeting that standard to a large degree by the fact that we already have that requirement to maximize infiltration on the site. We'll be looking at that. And now we have some potential wetland rules changes coming to us. That shouldn't affect us too much but it does impact areas where the municipal runoff goes across the Whitcombe farm and some other small pocketed wet areas, wetlands within the community. That's kind of an iterative process because you basically have to bring one of the wetland specialists in to make a determination because a drainage ditch that's been used for stormwater runoff can now be considered a wetland. And you have to get exemptions on that in order to do certain maintenance or construction activities like we did at the corner of Mansfield Avenue and Brickyard Road. That was considered a wetland even though it was a drainage ditch and we converted it into a constructed wetland for both flow control under the flow restoration plan and phosphorus removal under the phosphorus control plan. So we're trying to utilize the assets, the open space that we have, do some improvements and utilize grants to minimize the impact cost. And it's been very effective. We are meeting the criteria for flow restoration on Indian Brook and we have already exceeded it by over 200% on Sunderland Brook which starts about the area of Champlain Valley Exposition and flows through the town to the Colchester line. The next area we're gonna have to work on is the Winnowsky River because that was never really a major consideration until recent years. And there may be some zoning requests down in that area to try to enhance some of the stormwater runoff so we can comply with those permits. And that could be either a municipal project or if somebody redevelops a chunk of land having those areas established as part of a zoning map or within the regulations if we can then that would be an ideal point to carve out as common area or not public space but common area as part of a redevelopment so that it can be utilized to manage the stormwater controls. Within the wastewater facility we're in my world, unfortunately, we're also getting whacked in wastewater permits and land application of biosolids permits. The big thing for us is PFAS, perfluoroalkyl substances. That's the, if you use those of you who aren't organic chemists and I am definitely not one, that's the material of contamination down in Bennington that they've been remediating over the past 10, 15 years. And that material is known as the forever chemical and Vermont has some of the most stringent regulations in the country. PFAS and PFOA, the two major groupings are in everything, they're everywhere. They're in the ice caps, they're in polar bear fat, they're in our environment everywhere. And with a stringent standard, I always have the concern that a lot of the work we're doing for stormwater and wastewater captures that material and puts it places that may become regulated down the road from a state perspective. We can't really design around that but we can certainly prevent by a universal ordinance that restricts and regulates materials that come in as a manufacturer might produce and end up discharging down the drain to the wastewater facility. We can certainly put some monitoring requirements and restrictions for that to preserve the balance of the community and its users. So we're trying to work on a universal ordinance for the wastewater facility that would apply to Williston, Essex town and the village and incorporate that into an update for the land development code at the same time. And it'll probably be an incorporation by reference for specific things that are in the wastewater facility discharge permit. And then under sanitary sort, we'll also be going through that as well, trying to modernize some of those standards and work with the village engineer as well as public works to ensure that we have some flexibility within the system and to evaluate its capacity to ensure that we can have the infrastructure where it's needed at the time of redevelopment may occur. And part of that is just by at least having some early assessments, we've already received some proposals to do that, do that assessment. We got one in from Jeff Kirschner and we're just kind of holding on it until we get through this budget cycle and planning into next year. So we're trying to look at the overall infrastructure. We've done a build out analysis years ago for how much sewage would be required for the community that was done with planning and regional planning at the same time. And that may be warranted for an update as well. So again, there are a lot of moving parts that could fit in to this, but this is not going to happen by the September timeframe we're talking about. So what we'll do is prioritize and get things in that we can achieve. And then just ask the planning commission and staff to consider additional amendments for sections, not minor amendments, but specific sections once we receive the reports for phosphorus control and some of these other regulatory things that we're working on. So I know I kind of rolled on with an awful lot of stuff there. So I want to open it up for questions if anybody has any. Jim, this is John Alden. I'll piggyback on the energy piece just for everybody else, but the state has just readopted new regulations for both commercial building energy standards and residential building energy standards. As of 2020, they're brand new, they were put into effect in September, last September. So if you haven't had a chance to take a look at them, they ratchet up the requirements yet again, quite dramatically. So anybody who's developing new projects or even additions or anything newly constructed is going to need to look at those and they're pretty interesting. And wide spread effect on envelope construction. So be aware of that. The village ought to be telling people that they exist and that they need to be followed where the scope requires and just add that to the list of wonderful regulations that people need to start reading. Thank you. Good point, excellent. Anybody else? Well, Ms. Diane, I want to thank Jim for writing his memo. It was as usual thorough Jim, thank you. And you had some good points. Some of these things may be the ordinance issues as opposed to land development code. I seem to recall some of them when reading the ornces way back when. My question to you, because you mentioned it, is do you get the project checklist that's supposed to be going with the application? Do you get to see that it's in active use? It is being used. Some of those are subject to interpretation. As I said, they have been significantly better applications over time, but it's still something. We guide the homeowners through it a little bit more than we might a developer, but it all depends on the project. And again, some people work in the community quite a bit, so it's kind of routine for them. Other people, it's again, significantly better, but we used to get some applications that you could put a 15 page commentary back as a response to the plans. And a lot of them would just, they didn't read the sections and comply with them. There's still a little bit of that, but again, it's significantly better. And we do get the checklist, but if something's checked off, sometimes it's a matter of interpretation. Okay. Again, I can't repeat enough that they've done a much better job in kicking things back and getting more complete applications for review. Great, thanks. All right, anybody else? All right, Jim, thank you so much. You're welcome. John, did you have something? I thought I heard you. No. Okay. So next up, we have Mr. Hagen. Hey, Mike, are you here? Oh, I see you. Yes, I am. Right there. Hey, how's it going? Yeah, I certainly have far less regulation knowledge than the former speakers for me. So I'll do what I can here, but I may come out of this with more questions than answers. And I guess I'm kind of looking to understand a little more about how this could work for the bike walk committee's goals. I mean, when I think of what our committee's about, we're talking about protected paths, striping on existing roadways, enhanced crosswalks, things like that, and long-term goals of safe access to Williston, Winooski, interconnecting with the other towns in the area, and most of those to seem to me to be kind of funding and project-based goals and not necessarily things that we'd achieve through regulation at this level. Am I overlooking something that this plan could do for those goals or are there specific edits or areas of the plan that you would like the BWAC to be reviewing in greater detail? This is John Alden. Other communities have pretty stiff regulations for interconnectivity, bike paths, walkways, whatever. So I would not sell it short that we could require any project on, that's in kind of certain locations or where we decided we want connectivity and bike paths to put them in. You wanna develop, you put your piece in. And we're doing it now. What happens already, you might notice some things along 117, the last project bottom section of Village Walk, I had to put in sidewalks that basically connected from the existing sidewalk down to the edge of their property. And when we saw Williston doing this 10, 15 years ago, seemed kind of odd that certain walkways and pathways would show up and seem to go nowhere. But you require the developer of whatever parcel to put in whatever piece they're in control of and ultimately, they all come together. So we would love to know more about what you're thinking. We know there's a number of plans out there that show where the walkways and routes that we're seeking to reinforce or to strengthen exist. They're there, they're on paper. And we definitely wanna include those as things that we require developers to put in when the time is right. Oh, that's fantastic. I haven't even considered that option. John, correct me if I'm wrong, but is this a good place for we had talked at one point about requirements for a number of bike racks and bike and that they have in other places, would that be a good, would they be able to speak to that or is that something that we could grab? Yeah, no, that's in a lot of regulations also. Certainly when it's a commercial establishment and you're expecting people to sort of show up by bicycle, places like multimodal transportation centers, other communities are way, way down the road on this with very specific, South Burlington is incredible with what they ask for, specific types, the latest trends, enclosed bike shelters, there's all kinds of stuff. So, it's not a matter of whether we wanna do this, it's more a matter of sort of how far do we go with it. So getting the pathways in place is probably the biggest issue. And after that, the various amenities and requirements for bike racks and other things kind of follow. You'll notice that right at basically five corners by where the railroad tracks cross, there's a bike station. I don't know if people have seen this, but there's like a repair center there that just has a couple of screwdrivers and applyers or something. There's all kinds of amenities that happen around these transportation modes that we could be providing as a community. Phil, you had your hand up. Yeah, I was gonna say this is Phil Battalion. Something also I think with the bike walk committee, you guys have probably your finger on the pulse more than we do. So, getting information from you guys, whether you have studies or like surveys of how people are coming to Essex Junction, how the modes of transportation, are people biking in from other areas. I think that sort of exchange of information is really helpful to us on how we move forward with the LDC this year. Yeah, and Micah, that's a really good point, Phil, and I would like to add that, I guess the question is, doing what you're doing, what's your biggest pain, right? Like what would be the thing you would like to see be better as far as walkability and bikeability and stuff like that. And so we can build on that and include that into the LDC because for the first time, when we rewrote it last time, we talked about walkability, we included overlay maps that actually, address the situation that John was talking about with connectivity. So, we do have a lot of leeway to include that and encourage developers to include it in their plans. Yeah, I'd say in terms of the biggest impediment that I see right now, especially to bike travel, it really comes down a lot to five corners that these conduits are very narrow. I ride them on my bike, but as an adult that rides thousands of miles a year, I'm nervous on a lot of these areas. There's not protected pathways for a lot of it. And I look at, you're talking about efficiency and one of the great things to do would be able to get more people off of cars into these modes of transportation, but it's really hard to convince somebody to get into it when you're riding three feet away from trucks, vehicles, all this stuff out there. It's not a safe feeling I've been hit before and taken out, it's rough. Yeah, so five corners is definitely an issue. It's definitely a challenge. You're right. Annie, I saw you had your hand up. Yeah, in an exciting twist, I happened to be on the Bike Walk Advisory Committee, new LISO with Micah, but also I'm the chair of the EDZ. And recently a business had reached out to me to ask me about the bike repair situation that's in front of the nest and how that happened and how that came about. And I happened to know that that was a matched fun situation from, right. And so another business was curious about that. And then interestingly, so right now just, and then the word connectivity from David, like I'm just enthusiastic about just this flow right now that we're having here and the trees and everything. And so during the pandemic, I was jumping on my bike a lot, which I didn't even have a bike for a long time. And my favorite part of my loop that I did was the lovely bike path next to the train tracks. Very short-lived opportunity to have that enjoyable time that I have. And while I was doing that, I enticed Oviso and Oviso Makuku, our development director in town. And then Darren Sheeblo who lives in the village and works within the town to go on a bike ride with me and Diane F. Fuchs, a resident of the village. And we started at the dam and we rode up to the town outside the village. And exactly what Micah is speaking to that ability to navigate for kids going to school, for my kids, my kids were alone a lot. I'm a single parent and during some very difficult times they had to walk, take a bus or ride a bike. And we didn't really have bikes, so they really walked a lot. And they can tell you how challenging it is to jump on your bike or walk through certain areas. And so this idea that we are having this conversation like this and this idea of connectivity and this idea that bikes and walkways and form water and, you know, it's a housing and business that we are all together in this conversation just got me so excited I had to jump in and say that. And I realized I have actually no information. So sorry. Now that's, you bring up a really good, some good points. And Rick, I saw you had your hand up but I just wanna make one point in case there's some folks on the call that are not aware of this. But one of the things that Micah, you had asked, you know, sort of how what your mission is could relate to the code. We, you know, it's not necessarily written in there but we had a situation where when that building went up at the corner at five corners, that new building, we actually, you know, we negotiated with the village negotiated with the developer to make the sidewalks wider. So they gave up a bunch of their real estate and actually gave up parking spaces, potential parking spaces in order to make it safer. So those are the kinds of things that we're trying to do as these new, you know, buildings come along but, you know, we definitely could do more. So I agree with all of you guys. Mr. Hamlin. So I'm happy to share that some relief is coming. So as an alumnus of the bike walk advisory committee, this is a topic that's close to my heart and the Crescent connector that's under planning now and we hope to go to construction within a construction season is going to be a new link, of course, between Park Street and Maple and then Railroad Street will be completely rebuilt as a part of that project. From Park to Maple, we'll have bike lanes on both sides and sidewalk, but there'll be a 11-foot lanes, four-foot dedicated bike lanes on both sides of that street. So all the way from Park across Maple and to Main, there'll be bike lanes on both sides of that newly constructed roadway. In addition, Maple Street, as you know right now, if you're headed to the five corners when you hit Railroad Street, the bike path, the bike lane disappears at Railroad Street and there is no bike lane to get you from essentially there to the five corners. As a part of the Crescent connector project, the left turn lane that now exists at the five corners is going to move back to that Railroad Street Crescent connector intersection. And so if you're gonna go south on 2A, you'll turn left at the new Crescent connector intersection just before the tracks and there'll be a single lane then that goes to the five corners, which will allow bike lanes to be put on both sides of Maple Street all the way to the five corners. So that efficiency now that where you just taper out and then have to merge with traffic at Railroad Street will now take you all the way into the five corners. And if you're on Park and you're headed let's say you're headed generally toward Colchester or old Colchester Road, you'll be able to go down the Crescent, cut across Railroad Street, down Ivy Lane onto the bike path and that opens up a whole new connection between essentially the Park Street area and then the route to a area north of the five corners. So keep your fingers crossed, we're still working on the last bits of right of the way for the roadway, but the plans are 98% complete and hopefully the next thing you'll see is work on the railroad and the railroad signals and then right after that will be the roadway work. So that'll make a big difference in the five corners area for connectivity for bicycles and pedestrians. Cause right now if you're on Maple and you want to go to say Rockies for a creamy, you either walk all the way up to the five corners and over or kind of cross private property, kind of back way of the Lincoln Inn to get there. And now you'll be able to actually walk right along the Crescent connector and there'll be a new traffic signal at Maple Street and a new traffic signal at Park that will have pedestrian accommodations. So you'll be able to push the buttons, walk across the street. So that'll make a big difference for pedestrians also. So I just wanted to share that with you. It's coming. That's excellent news. Really excellent news. Very cool. Okay. So Micah, do you have anything else you want to add or does anybody have any questions for Micah? No, nothing further. I think based on John Alden's comments, we should probably be taking a look at what South Burlington and Williston and those guys have in their plans and maybe using that to kind of drive in any suggestions we might make. Excellent. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you for your time. All right, up next we have Mr. Mayer, Nick. Are you on? Oh, everyone, can you hear me? I can hear you. You can hear me, okay. Nick, turn your mic down or something you're a little over, over mic'd. I got a lot to say, John. Maybe not so close to the mic here. All right. How was that? Is that okay? That's good. Yeah, that's good. Well, it seems like the last time I met with you was when I was doing this, when I was a member of the planning commission. So it's old home week. David, can you, I wanted you to just take a few minutes since we have a little time to just talk about what the tree committee does? Sure. Yeah. Since there are new members there and we really, and I really appreciate the opportunity to bring committees together. I think this is something that should be done on a regular basis with the various village committees. So how we form was probably in 2014 people saw a real need to look at the forest canopy in the village, recognizing the value of trees and the environment. For beautification, they provide shade, reduce soil erosion, they help manage stormwater and all kinds of things. So a group of us got together and petitioned to the trustees to form a committee and we developed management plans. Did it hold inventory since the village had no idea what trees they owned in the right of way. And we did that and then also looked at planting opportunities within the village to expand the urban canopy. So we began by, we had our planting program focusing on the five corners area and working out on the various road spurs there. And you can kind of see the work we've done on old places like the federal building. We can do a public-private partnership too in planting trees. If we find the better location is gonna be on private property adjacent to that road. And Main Street was done, Maple Street, the train station area, see Lincoln Street and Central. And we sort of maxed out the opportunities in the downtown area because of potential development, not knowing what projects we're gonna be going in and other constraints. So we've moved out to Brickyard Road, West Street, Old Cold Chester Road. The committee works with schools and today we planted about 155 trees. And now we've reached a partnership with Branch Head Burlington and we are raising our own trees in a nursery there where volunteers are working from the village to take care of them till they're ready to put out in the streets. So this is a win-win for the village in that we can get good nursery stock at a much reduced price. We're now dealing with the European ash borer and ash trees make up about 200 trees. And most of them can be found in the Southwest Quadrant where the development of the hoe 1990s went in. And unfortunately, when the planning commission reviewed the project, they didn't note that it was a solid mass of ash trees in both sides of the road, which we were ready to repeat the American Elm story. With Dutch Elm disease, taking out all the street trees. So we have a management plan for that where we're beginning to inter-plant between ash trees and then also starting a removal project. Unfortunately, when the ash trees do go, they can break apart very quickly. The borer hasn't arrived yet in Essex, but it's in Richmond, South Hero, and it's all around us. And it's only a matter of time, I'm afraid. So we're working on that and trying to minimize the visual impact of losing all those trees at once in those neighborhoods. So that's what we've been doing. And I would say probably the most challenging part of any new plantings is the Village Center District. And I think if we go back and look, in terms of what heart and soul did residents place a very high value on trees, sidewalks, green spaces and pocket parks and any redevelopment of the Village Center District. And this was also seen in the Design 5 Corner study. They're seeking inviting environment in the Village Center and not just massive hardscape, but achieving this is really challenging in that environment. So what do I see as some of the issues in the code right now, what our committee sees? I think one of them is that within this district, we're allowed 100% lot coverage and it limits the potential for green space opportunities. I think developers will attempt to maximize lot coverage to for a better return on their investment. I think not requiring developers to develop green spaces shifts the entire financial burden onto the municipality for creating these spaces. And in turn, Village taxpayers end up putting the bill. We can also not forget all these new residents who are moving into the buildings and shouldn't they have some outside green space. The guidelines in the LDC need to be much more specific regarding planting requirements and with better oversight during installation. Close attention to what is going on below ground like soils and drainage are key. Simply planting a tree in a four by four hole is not enough and probably in time a recipe for failure. I think the Tree Advisory Committee can help review the landscape portion of an application and then assist the PC in their decision-making process. It should not be limited to just trees planted in the right-of-way. I think too often in reviewing projects, the PC has accepted a project with minimal or no landscaping and instead require them to contribute to a fund that the village can use for landscape improvements look right-of-way. For new construction projects from 250,000 to a million, they're required to spend 3% on landscaping of the total project costs and 2% if it's above a million. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be any such fund nor is there a process in place to determine the fee in lieu of landscaping nor is there a specific landscape fund line item in the village budget. There's no framework as to how the fund is used and who oversees it. It's not working and I think it needs to be addressed. It's not fair to the village. There are two projects where these funds would be helpful, public projects, tree planting along the Crescent connector and the proposed pocket park at five corners. The definition of what can be included as a landscape cost must also be better defined in the code. After I reviewed the new 11 Park Street application and saw that there was minimal landscaping for such a large project, I assume they would contribute to the landscape fund. I was told since they are putting in a new sidewalk on Park Terrace, they had met the landscape requirement. Should the sidewalks be a general requirement on all projects in the village district and not fall under landscaping? We've done a quick review of section 719 which is the landscape portion and tree planting requirements and would recommend some changes. Generally, better definitions in section, in that section, better oversight and enforcement of projects, clear language on the warranty of trees and plantings. And we think the parking lot planting requirements may be very outdated and should be looked at. We'd like to be notified, the tree committee would like to be notified in a timely manner on projects that they are supposed to review as dictated in the present LDC. For example, the tree committee was never informed or invited to the early planning of the proposed pocket park, a site that has many limitations because of soil contamination. We could have offered some suggestions on design before the proposed soil remediation application was filed. So in closing, I think the future development of the village could be amazing, especially if all interested parties work collaboratively. Bringing together all these hardworking committees have the best interests of the village and listening to their vision for a better village but also listening to their concern is a great first step. Too often committees operate in a vacuum. Committee meetups should happen on a much more regular basis. And in closing, the tree committees here to help. So please reach out. Excellent, thank you, Nick. I'd like to open it up to questions for Nick. This is Patrick Scheld, Nick, thank you. I'm one of those new planning commission members. I really appreciate you giving a little overview of what you guys do. I heard you flipping papers. I don't know if you have any potential notes or like a memo or something that could be submitted and then shared so that we didn't ensure that we don't miss any of those great points you made. Sure, I can put it together and send it to the planning commission. That'd be great, because I enjoyed your little overview. It was good. And I agree with you as one of the new planning commission members. I think more collaboration would be wonderful. So I'd like to at some point discuss that with the planning commission as to how we might be able to where it would be appropriate to do some of that collaboration on some of these future projects. Great, yeah. Nick, make sure you send that, send that whatever your notes are to Terry, please. I will, yeah. Thank you, Nick. I appreciate you sharing those notes. Sure. I can't remember who, John, I see you have your hand up. I saw Annie had hers, but I'll go to you first. I think you're on mute, John. Hold on, I'm gonna unmute you. There, how about that? Did you repeat that? Yeah, not all of it. Anyway, Nick, thank you very much. I know from sitting together at the table and now we're still on, still at the table, we're all trying to get to the same thing. And I agree that it's been sort of inconsistent how the whole landscaping thing gets reviewed and determined and met and so forth. And I agree with pretty much everything you said. Again, I'll keep going to other communities where I do work and the landscaping piece can be exciting for a project and fairly aggressive. And we need to find our own comfortable spot there, but what you say about what the community has told us is very true. We've been told that green and trees and the streetscape and how it appears in the village is extremely important and we should be doing a little bit better job with our ability to ask for and get those things incorporated into our bigger projects and frankly every project. So thank you. Sure, yeah, yeah. Yes, thank you very much. So anybody else with, Annie, there you go. Go ahead, Annie. Yeah, sorry, I couldn't tell it. I get so enthusiastic all the time that I leap before I think and I was not sure if I fit into the realm of who could be talking to Nick and I got excited and pulled my hand down because I thought John had more value in the conversation and I should be quiet a minute, but I'm too excited. So thank you for the opportunity. Nick, it's Annie in case you couldn't tell and Nick, it was Nick's deep passion for interconnectivity of organizations and committees that had me start talking about it. I don't remember, Nick and Bridget and I were on the phone one night for like 40 minutes while Nick and Bridget talked about this, the same exact thing that we're talking about now, this interconnectivity, this, and then when Nick referred to the heart and soul values I flew over and started rereading those and I think just with tears in my eyes right now I wanna say that after all this time and all these years of all the things that heart and soul has tried to do we're staring it in the face right now the way we're all talking right now, the way we're all planning right now it's just extraordinary and I'm so grateful to be here for that and I look forward to hearing more and Nick, I'm just thrilled with the effort you put into what you're passionate about and how the greenery can affect all of us and thank you for that work. Thanks, Annie. Yeah, I think that sometimes this work may take a little more time, it may slow a development down too but I think that's okay. You know, we've gone full bore for the last three years and this is gonna be a big framework for the village district of what we're seeing now and I think that I love so much of it. You know, I want that density in the downtown area but I also wanna remember what residents asked for and we've gotta do a better job trying to meet those expectations that were laid out. Anybody else have questions for Nick? Agreed and thank you, Nick. Sorry, David. Yeah, that's okay. Thanks, Annie. I have a question for Nick. We've had some comments from the public dealing with dogs or lack of places for dogs to do their business and how could that be incorporated with trees? I'd go for fire hydrants. Well, they're not the best for trees. Well, I'm trying to figure out how to, I guess you get the regulations. I'm recognizing that the ask for that's those spots. Okay, could be because there isn't necessarily the green space or the green space is shrubbery as opposed to a grass plot. So I guess I'm trying to figure out how, I understand both connections and it's possible for the tree advisory to do like a landscaping consulting sort of thing. I mean, if we're passing applications by that committee or by your committee with that consulting for trees or fire hydrants or whatever that animals need to relieve themselves. Is that something that the tree committee is up to or is that not there? Well, certainly the tree committee is up to reviewing plans. Again, we are an advisory committee. And you can take our advisement on a particular project or not. But I think hearing some people who are deep into trees and other things and know a little bit about soils and all those things, because we're looking for something that's going to be successful. And I hope that language has changed in the review that such that you will reach out to us. And it can be done in a timely manner. I know once you start adding another layer it may slow things down, but I think it will not slow it down that much. And it can serve you well in making your decisions. Regarding the dogs, I don't know. Well, I guess I'm kind of bouncing off and it's about land, I mean, here we got sidewalks being landscaping, which is new to me. Well, so I'm kind of going, well, well, there's, you know, I'm frustrated, okay, that this landscaping fund is not designated. And it sounds like we need to reach to the trustees to make sure that that happens. As part of the downtown effort, I'm surprised at this point in time that that was never, it didn't come to fruition because it's constantly spoken to, but I guess we made some assumptions that it had appeared and I'm frustrated at this point, but thanks for listening. Yeah, yep. Strangely, I have an opinion on this about the dogs because I'm fascinated by the idea. I don't know that the tree, obviously Nick is not down for the trees being the depository, but that is not wrong, that this is a thing in the village. And so I was like, had this imaginary idea, this idea of like pit stops, like little areas where they were, maybe not a dozen people because then you gotta, once you're putting out that thing, someone's gotta empty that trash at the time. I'm not talking about that, but maybe some little areas reasonably put where that's what happens. I don't know if that's a bike walk advisory committee conversation because that's walking or I don't know, but I'm games I am to have that conversation further with you. So happy to have that outside of here too. Well, it's kind of like if we're gonna build things out which we're doing and people want green space and the comments we've gotten in the last, oh, last six months, I guess, we're about dogs. And I can read all I want about dog owners not being up to the task of making sure that their dog is picked up after, but it's kind of like, yes, how do we get that facilitated? Because if it's going to become more then we should be encouraging the correct behavior. Yeah, I don't know the answer, but I'm game for you and I to figure that out and see where to put it. Sounds good. Thank you. Does it fall somewhat on the developers of these buildings when they are gonna have dogs, they have no space outside, there should be at least minimal dog bags available for people who are walking their dog trash dispenser because it is impacting some of the residential neighborhoods, no doubt that are next to it. Definitely something to think about. So, yeah, sorry. It's definitely something we can look at options. Does anybody have anything else for Nick? I'm sorry, George, just George, you raised your hand. If you're talking, you're on mute, George. Let me unmute myself. Yeah, I'm sorry to digress. I just want to address the, I don't know the ins and outs and the details of the landscaping fund, but I would point out that the village does have an economic development fund, which we also call the penny on the tax rate or fund. And we have a very significant amount of money and we're anticipating spending some of that money to develop the pocket park in front of the Firebird. And I don't think there was ever an intention to not have the Tree Advisory Committee be involved in the process, but I think any kind of a coherent landscaping project for the Village Center that came to us, we would probably be able to expend economic development funds towards that project. So I'm not saying we shouldn't have, also have a landscaping fund, but we probably would have more money in the economic development fund. So I just wanted to make, just make it clear that we do have those kinds of funds available for improving green space in the Village Center. Thanks. Thanks, George. That's good. Good stuff. All right. Anything for more for Nick? Okay. Nick, thank you so much for taking the time. Thanks for hearing. Okay, take care, guys. All right. Is Katie on? Hi, Ann. Hi, Katie. Hello. Thanks for joining. I know you're busy. Thank you for having all of us here. It's been really great to be able to hear all of the other committees. And I would echo what everyone said about collaboration. I know the Housing Commission, we really look forward to that. So for those of us who are new and maybe not familiar with exactly what your committee does, could you, you wanna take a minute to get into that? Sure. So first, my name is Katie Ballard. I'm the chair of the Essex Housing Commission. Our commission was formed this past summer. So the summer of 2020, we started meeting in October of 2020. So I think we're going into our fourth month. So we are very new and we're still really in that education priority setting mode, but we will be looking at advising the select board and the trustees and the planning commissions and various other municipalities on kind of the housing needs of the community and including reviewing various proposals. One of one that we're talking about right now would be inclusionary zoning, which is something that our commission is very interested in looking at in the near future. We also recently just reached out to seven different other housing commissions or task forces in other towns like South Burlington, Winooski, Montpelier, Shelburne to name a few. And we're really looking at what they have done and how their group collaborated within their town to begin to move the housing priorities and initiatives forward and kind of how they looked at their five-year plan. So I will be very open and transparent that we don't necessarily have a great amount of feedback to provide to the land development code at this time. Robin spoke to us a little bit about it yesterday and all of the commissioners were given a puppy of it so that we could look over it. And our goal would be to be able to really get any feedback from you guys around places that our housing commission might be helpful. And then for us to take some time as a commission to review it and be able to provide a little bit more thoughtful input to your group in the near future. Excellent, excellent. Questions for Katie? Okay, I've got a question for Katie. One of my questions when I posed the get-together with the speaking with people, one of my questions was, do we have a survey of how many, what the housing types are and how many apartment types and sizes do we have? One of the comments that we did get at one of our planning commission meetings was the perception that all we have are single bedroom apartment buildings going up. And given that housing can be for quite some time, 50 years or more at some points, is the housing committee going to be looking at what types and styles are out there? What's the dynamics of how the mix is going to be between single family homes and apartment buildings, et cetera, et cetera? So that's a great question. And I would say absolutely. Right now we're currently working off the housing assessment that Darren did for Essex. I believe it was in 2019, which gave us a lot of information about some of these questions. But I would say that's something that we're definitely going to be getting more involved in. We're very much interested in trying to figure out, are there enough different types of units in our community for the people who are trying to move into our area and are they affordable? We're kind of looking at all of that. I imagine we'll be getting more in depth into what types of units are available and what we need as a community. I just don't necessarily have a timeline for when that conversation is happening, but I can find out and get back to you. So one of the things, Katie, that I was thinking about for your committee was, and maybe Regina has some feedback on this, but I was talking to Robin the other day because I'm referring to Diane's comment from the last meeting. You know, there may be grants available to help do a study and create an inventory and get more information about exactly what type of housing we have and where the needs might be. So that might be something, I don't know if Robin's talked to you at all about that, but that might be something that you could look into in terms of funding some sort of a study. Absolutely, I know that just this past meeting, we were discussing different grant avenues that we could look at to get some funding to our commission to begin to look at some of these. We did also, as I said, Darren did a very comprehensive housing needs assessment in 2019 that does capture a significant amount of information. I think at this point, we're really trying to review what's in that and create a plan for what we would need more information on specifically as we're looking at grants moving forward. Excellent, that's, you know, one of the things we always talk about is for almost every project that's in the back of our minds is, you know, what type of housing is this? Where do we need to try to encourage projects and things like that? So that's good. Anybody have any other questions? Sorry, go ahead, Regina. I'll just add to that that what Darren looked at in that 2019 study is pretty much everything that is available data that's out there. The next level of what the Housing Commission might want to get to is probably more in the realm of like primary data gathering. So just putting that out there. So folks, no. And there's also housingdata.org is, housing data website that was just redone by, um, VH, VH. I think for some reason I've had a problem with the hair. Actually is one of the people who's doing all of that data and the website. So we're very fortunate to have that person on our commission and she's been an invaluable resource when it comes to data. Awesome. Awesome, that's great. So I see somebody, Alisa, you have your hand up. Yes, I have my hand up because I just had a conversation with the census, with the census guy in our area. I can't think of what his name is off the top of my head right now, but census data should be coming out in April, I believe. And he outlined a number of different sort of subsets of information, including housing, which I think all of us will find invaluable. And they're working with different formats to figure out whether or not, I mean, to try to find something that's more user friendly because they do realize how off-putting a lot of the census data is. Where do I have my notes? Sorry. Yeah, they're having a data summit and they've got 130 different surveys and programs that outline information such as housing studies and economic data. An economic census and I think a lot of that information will be really useful to all of us and it's coming down the pike. So we have that to look forward to. That was it. Excellent, would you be able to email that information to Terry at the village office? Yep. That would be great so that we could have access to that. That's great. Okay. Good information. Mr. Alden. Hi, I'll just echo what other people have said, but the whole housing issue is a massive issue. It's one of the key topics across the country for the American Institute of Architects. It's one of the key topics across the country and across Vermont for any of our regional planning folks. We keep getting presentations from the experts and leaders in the housing field in our region, specifically Chinden County, about how many housing units we are missing or short. The housing market across the country since the beginning of COVID has gone crazy. You just can't have enough housing. It's really a situation that we should do our best to help wherever we can. Housing of all types, affordable housing, urban housing, downtown village housing, wherever we can promote the good development of housing we should be doing, we should be doing this in conjunction with the town efforts, it should be a big campaign. And we can really offer incentives, we can do a lot of things in our land development code to urge people to continue to build housing. A lot has happened in the last five years, 10 years and a lot's on the books that hasn't actually shown up yet, but you can see it under construction. So we are doing our part, we need our developers to come to the table and continue to invest in projects. We need to do what we can to help them and it will be a wonderful thing. So this should be one of our priorities. Great, Phil. Yeah, I was gonna say, I second everything John just said. I think this is probably one of the most important parts as we look at the LDC that will be in effect for the next five years. And as we develop the downtown area and making sure that we don't price people out of S-Extension making sure that we are able to maintain the people that are here. And I also wanna bring up, I think also where the housing committee can help is also with addressing ADUs and how those can be successful in communities that can be helpful for residents, that can be helpful for providing more housing and just how we move forward with those. Obviously, there's a lot of controversy surrounding ADUs in many different places, but that's something that we can address and hopefully do it successfully, so. Absolutely, I just wanna say very, very clearly our commission is fortunate to be built jointly with the town and the junction. And we have a lot of people on our commission who have expertise, whether it's because they're in the housing field themselves because they've struggled with affordable housing or because they've been a part of being a land owner or a landlord. So I think the best thing I can say is this commission is very, very passionate and very excited to get into the housing conversation for S-Ext and to really be a part of how we can support these conversations moving forward. ADUs are definitely something that are on our radar. As I said before, we've really been in this education mode where we've been inviting people from the school, we had someone from the school district, we had someone from various other committees in the area, we've had someone come in from Champlain Housing. So we've really tried to make sure that we're starting to get that information. And now that we're moving into strategic planning, ADUs, inclusionary zoning, and the land development code will obviously be priorities that we discuss. Great, great, Stephen. Yeah, I guess Phil and I must be on the same wavelength because that was actually what I was about to bring up, the idea of exploring that or talking about that and bringing that into the conversation I thought I had. Great. Okay. Yeah, and I would just like to reiterate, Diane beat me to it right at the very beginning, but I just want to echo it all. I think types of housing, having that proper mix of diversity of housing, whether it's zero bedroom, one bedroom, which I feel like we just approved a lot of. So I'd love to see that different mix of two, three bedroom, family housing, and the affordability piece I think is huge. So I look forward to getting all the data to statistics and working collaboratively with the housing committee moving forward on applications we get so that we have our own homegrown data that we can potentially push back on some developers with. Absolutely, thank you all for the questions and feedback. We'll be sure to follow up with you all and give you an update as we can. Excellent. Thanks, Katie. Thank you. All right. Who do we have next? We have, oh, it's Annie Cooper. Hi, Annie. Everyone's going to be like, no, thank you. Go for it. Hi, my name is Annie Cooper. I'm a resident of the town of Essex and also in the Village of Essex Junction, and I raised my three children here in Essex and I'm currently the chair of the Economic Development Commission. It's a new role for me. And so my goal this evening is similar to how Micah came in and how Katie's coming and that I came here to kind of grab a little more knowledge to bring back to the Economic Development Commission and then come to you again with stronger recognition from us what we think. And I felt good about that because this is apparently your earlier stages but I hope that that's okay. That's the way I plan to do it. Here we are. In the meantime, I thought I'll tell you what we're doing and then see what you might want from us. So we started off, we've been trying to work on a master list of all the businesses similar to what you guys were talking about, not similar, it's different, but to have all known recognized business entities in one list. And I don't know if you're familiar with Out and About in Essex. There were two grants, Oviso and Robin both applied for grants, $10,000 each, and then joined together to create something that was launched off of Robin's original idea of the open and outside event in the village where musicians and there was a really stumbling through my words, I'm sorry, it was an event intended to put money in the hands of residents to go in the form of coupons or gift cards to go to businesses and inject money into local businesses while also having entertainment out on the streets to have a kind of socially distanced appropriate way to bring some life back to the downtown during the pandemic, Robin's idea was so successful that it grew to this thing called Out and About that we did in October, you might have seen bands over by the Firebird or up at Essex Experience or over by Nest, and then we gave coupons out, gift cards out to people from the grant money so that residents using up to $15 per household could go and spend their money in the participating businesses. While we were doing that, while the businesses were coming toward us, Tammy Getchell created an input system with Civics Plus where businesses could type in their information so that we could reach back out to them and have them be a participant. The minute that I saw that information coming in, I got super excited because Darby had a business list that needed some updating, and so I started to pull that information right out of there and throw it into the list, and that list started to grow, and then Greg Morgan from the EDC had a previous list, and now we've now got 1,700 businesses in a master list for a contact sheet. So we're excited to have that just pulled together now, and we're currently about to start initiating conversations about local options tax to see how businesses will feel if Essex were to adopt a local options tax. The subcommittee and the boards decided to wait until after merger was on the ballot to have that discussion and ballot idea of local options tax, but in the meantime, we're doing some homework. So the first course of action that we so suggested is that we find out from neighboring communities who have local options tax within this, so we're starting to have that conversation. And so what I'm thinking is we're creating a survey and we're about to send this information out to these 1,700 businesses to find out things about the local options tax. Maybe this is also a great idea for me to find out what kind of input you might be able to glean from something from businesses. Like maybe there's a question or two I can put on there that helps you guys understand. But I think in reality, businesses are so diverse that I don't know that there's any one thing that what you're gonna do can be helpful or not. I know that businesses bumping into things like their plans versus like, I don't really know what, how we can best support businesses and you guys so that all of those things can work harmoniously. And I look to you for any guidance about how we can support you. And then you, in that conversation, I can take something back. Am I making any sense? Not really, right? So- You're fine, you're fine, Adriana. I appreciate all the work you've done to try to get people out and about and spending money in assets. As it relates to the LDC, I don't really have a question, but what I do have is maybe some of the other commission members can chime in. But one of the things that concerns me is we have these great projects going on. And once they're up, I mean, the idea of economic development is we want businesses to come here, right? We need jobs, we need people to be here. So how do we encourage the vacant places that we see in these buildings that go up because there's still vacant businesses. And we have this code where we do retail on the bottom and we do residential above. But we have all of this vacant retail space. So if we could figure out a way to incorporate some sort of a fee or a something in the development project itself to help incur, it goes to the Economic Development Committee who in turn uses those funds to promote coming to Essex to do business. You see where I'm getting at? So it's kind of, I'm sorry, you had, yeah. Well, it's kind of a way to encourage, Right. You know, to fund you so that you can encourage businesses to be here, essentially. So is your, I guess, is your suggestion for, is your suggestion for that we're asking this of you that we do put this into the coding that there are fees involved in a little bit more structured manner exactly what that looks like? Right. So a lot of projects, the development project itself has a lot of fees associated with it. And certain municipalities will add those fees in to help support certain initiatives in the community. So for example, we could do that during the project build. We could do it somehow afterwards as an incentive. But the idea is that these buildings are going up and they may be full of people that are renting or buying units, but there's no retail. There's no growth, right? So how do we encourage that growth? Then you put, yes. So thanks for, thank you for literally presenting the idea I should have come in the door with but I will bring that back. Thank you for the, thank you for the lob of the ball. And I'll step back, but I'm confident that that's a yes. I agree. Thank you for that. So Diane, I saw you had your hand up. Okay. So I got a few questions for Annie. I was reading some potential legislation and stuff. There's supposed to be some mini TIFFs that might be possible this year. Would the economic committee be looking at if we, as our downtown should go for a mini TIFF to get some of the downtown activities going. The other question I have is that we in our, in our land eventment code, we have some restrictions as to where certain types of businesses can be located. Right. And it, we've had discussions potentially about one of the things we'll probably discuss is should we be shifting or enlarging various zoning districts or redoing that? Okay. If business is seeing that it might be beneficial with the location, would it be better for some locations to have business versus solely residential as we're looking potentially to expand those or change the zoning districts? And my last question is one of the things we, as David so eloquently talked about having, business downstairs and housing upstairs. I do know that one of the buildings on the Brown L block is actually business downstairs and business upstairs, that it's actually apartments or sub small offices. In fact, the Pearl Street post office square at one point in time used to be business downstairs and businesses upstairs. So we don't have a lot of that, but how would our business community view that? Is that something that I know in some communities it drives economics? Is that something that our local business community would find growing and enlivening and striving for better business? So that's my question. Yeah, so I think Diane, if I'm understanding you correctly, that are you, I don't think you're asking me to answer those right now. I think you're asking me to bring those back to bring those back and find those things out. Yes, I don't think it's not. Right now, maybe. Oh yeah, there we go, there we go. I'm over here, it's my mother told me not to leap into things too fast. No, those are great questions, those are definitely great questions. Go ahead, Yanny. Well, first of all, I'm grateful that I know a lot of you and that also I feel pretty comfortable because really I'm in over my head a little bit here, but I feel okay. I feel like if I hang on tight enough, it's gonna be fine. And I'm fascinated by the conversation. And so I would like to take David and Diane's stuff back to the EDC and then come back again, if I'm welcome. You can give me a minimal, you can only let me in for the short amount of time. I'm gonna talk and throw me out again if you need to. But I'm fascinated by all of this interrelated connectivity and conversation. And I do think that the business piece is so complex. There are so many threads to current businesses, to locations, to, I do need to take this back to the EDC and have a larger conversation and then find out what we wanna reach out to. And I think that having the local option tech conversation, maybe we can put this together into a fuller package to find out more from our business community, which also by the way, then flushes out the spreadsheet that we have, not just the spreadsheet, but the information and the data that we're able to to bring in and gives us a stronger sense of our own business community. So this is great. And I'm sorry that I interrupted you David, you were saying something. No, I think that's a lot of information. I appreciate you going back and getting some information for us. So, but I did see earlier that Stephen had his hand up. Stephen, you still have? No, I was, yeah, I struggle with this one because it's, I think in some ways when we talk about the mixed use buildings where and how they're empty in the commercial spaces and pull in the residential spaces. A little bit, I don't know. I feel like commercial spaces tend to lag behind. You need the density of people to bring in the businesses. But the other thing we're fighting is kind of economics and commercial real estate rents in Vermont are just insanely low. I mean, it's, I'm glad that we promote the spaces because eventually they will get full but that they don't get full right off the bat doesn't really surprise me all that much. Because of the low, no one's making a buck really on renting commercial space in Vermont. But I was thinking as we look forward towards promoting economic development, the things that we can focus on are, okay getting the people here and then also how do we transport the people to and from the businesses once the businesses are here when they eventually get here. So things like, I mean, it goes back to the things like the providing bike parking and making sure that there's the perception of parking matches the actual parking that's available. But that's just a tangent. But that was one thing I was thinking as everyone was talking. I don't think, to be honest with you I don't think it's a tangent at all. I have the same feelings and thoughts. And so I think that without this conversation it's not, I'm sorry, I'm actually crying. It's not possible to talk about business and housing, they're not separate. It can't be separate. It cannot be without the interconnectivity in a healthy fashion in the right size in the right format. And I go back to the heart and soul values that Nick brought up, the heart and soul of Essex values and that we want civic engagement amongst our community and they talk about parking and they talk about when you put something here what's that mean for parking or dogs or anything? And the fact that we're all here having the same conversation and planning in a mindful way who also goes back to the heart and soul ethics. And so not only do I not think you went on a tangent I think this is exactly the conversation we need to be having with the Economic Development Commission with the Housing Commission, with Nick, with the Treasers and Micah, with the Bike Walk. This is all stormwater, who do I leave out? Ricky Jones, it's all important. And I don't know what the right answer is about like even while everyone was talking, I'm like, where do I want the business upstairs, downstairs? Where does the commercial space go? I would really, to be honest with you, I feel better that Robin and Oviso could for a moment speak about their understanding of how they do because we're just over here supporting them. So if I can for a minute invite Oviso and Robin to speak to this for a moment, may I? So Robin's not here tonight but Oviso actually has her hand up so I'm gonna call on her. Yeah, so Oviso, please would you mind? Hi, yeah, so the concept of interconnectedness is one that is vital for any community to take into account as it is developing or redeveloping. And I'm pretty sure that if Robin were here on the part of the conversation, to the part of the conversation that where you were talking about ground floor commercial in a mixed use building, especially in the village when you have a dense village center, one, it's almost impossible to maintain residential at grade when you've achieved the vibrancy that you actually want in an area. People don't wanna live there and if they do then they need to be completely closed off from any activity outside for them to be able to live adequately in an apartment at grade in a busy commercial center. And the interconnectedness comes in with the fact that businesses are attracted by residents. Residents are, I mean, people choose to live in a place because it's vibrant. Businesses choose to locate because there are a lot of residents. If you don't have the residents then you don't have the businesses to serve them. Then, I mean, it's such a delicate balance that. It's all connected. You have to, but I think that you do have to commit to ground floor commercial in your most urban zones because they're going to add to the vibrancy of the community. And I think if you look at the historic settlement patterns in Vermont, any of the traditional downtowns whether it's Martins, whether it's the block where Martins is or whether it's downtown Bristol they all have at grade commercial and apartments up above. And I think that it's a model that people have. Well, I don't know. I feel as though it's a tried and true model. And I think that there are ways to look at your land use code to make sure that that sort of delicate balance is achieved. And we saw you just brought up the point that I want to make real quick because I know people have their hands up but everybody tonight has talked about some aspect that attracts people to be here, whether it's to start a business here or to live here. But how can the CDL, how can the code encourage the kind of development that they want? That's what everybody should be thinking about, right? So there was a comment, I can't remember if Diane made it or somebody at the last meeting about how our front entrances look, how easy are they? Do we have front entrances to commercial spaces located inside of buildings rather than on the street? So these are the things that we can take a look at parking to Steve's point. So there's all those things that we should consider to help make it more, the only where I can think of is likable to people for people to be here. Well, let me just throw out something really quickly and that is, so I went to architecture school and John Alden can back me up on this, that you can have the most beautiful building in the world and if people don't know how to get into it, it doesn't matter. Exactly. And so you have to, entrances have to be really clear, entrances add vibrancy because they add more, they add the life of people coming and going to have all of your entrances off of your parking area is a mistake to not have bike racks and places where it's obvious, where people can park their bikes and sidewalks, where continuous sidewalks, where people can walk and be part of the life of the downtown. If you don't provide those opportunities for people, you're absolutely not going to get them. And I think that I may be one of the planner anomalies. I actually really like zoning. I think that it's amazing to have words on a piece of paper actually manifest themselves in the built environment. And I think that if you just take time and care with your zoning ordinance, you'll find that if you really think about what it is that really create a vision with your zoning ordinance, you'll find that what you're describing in your ordinance is what you want on your streets and what you want in your built environment. Very good point. So yeah, this is all good stuff. So I'm gonna go next to, I think Patrick you had your hand up first. Yeah, thank you. Funny you mentioned the ceremony entrances. It was from our last meeting since then when I drive into Williston, I've noticed some of those ceremonial entrances on some of those buildings, you know, like where Panera bread is, they don't even shovel the sidewalks, but they have the ceremonial entrance that faces the road. And it actually, it looks aesthetically, it looks nice. So it's, it was interesting. Thanks for even bringing that up. I think that's a great thing to think about moving forward. Annie, what I wanted to kind of ask was, I know we've been having an extended conversation. I don't know if you mentioned this before, but are there businesses that are potentially even interested in like locating to Essex or into the village, maybe the downtown area, but they speak of deterrence, things that make it challenging for them to move in and things that we might be able to consider to potentially assist them. Like, is there a list of businesses that want to do business in Essex, but for whatever reason don't have the ability to move here is one question. And, you know, thinking about the mixed use with the commercial on the lower grade and apartments above, I think we absolutely want to keep that. I echo what Elisa was saying for sure, agree with it. But do we have to say that all anything above grade, second, third floor, fourth floor has to be apartments or can we do certain variances to maybe enable a business to take the first, second, third floor of certain buildings? Obviously we don't want the entire downtown to be all commercial in business. We want that mixed, but to maybe think about that with the code too of how we might be able to encourage certain businesses to maybe open up additional office space on that second floor of this particular block. But now that we have that office space that kind of we can't really maybe allow for a second variance because we want the apartments or something to that effect. Hi, I'm sorry. Well, I mean, I just looking at my notes. My last thought was, you know on some of those empty storefronts, I don't even know if this is discussion here or whatnot but what about like window covers? Is there a way that we could like put something over the window to make it appear, you know it's like essentially like a picture or whatever but like your business could be here and this is what it could look like. And then we're not staring at an empty storefront and an empty window as we drive through town. That's great. And then, you know along with that with this out and about, you know, some pop-up spaces there a way to kind of encourage temporary businesses to potentially open up temporarily during these out and abouts to say like, hey, this is what it potentially could look like or shared rental space where a couple of businesses could share a certain space that maybe individually they don't have their the means to open a space but they'd be willing to put a line of tape down the middle of the store and be able to share the space and share the rent or whatever it might be. So those are my thoughts. Thank you. Those are really exciting thoughts. I know like I remember as I grew up, I was born in 1965 and in New York City when I was growing up they were trying to build out the area over near the previous World Trade Center. I don't know if I'm supposed to let, I don't know. We lost a lot of people in 9-11. So I don't know how to talk about that without doing some kind of like religious songs. You know, I don't know, I'm kidding, but I'm not, I'm very moved by that. But there was a thing that started at that time that was you'd be in traffic trying to go through the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel. And it was, you know, if you lived here you'd be home by now. It was brand new and I was very young and I was like, oh my God, they're right. I remember being like just my mind was blown, you know? So I think that we could really get cute and sweet and nice and make a very efficient look to that idea you have. And so I'm super enthusiastic and I'm reading your last name so I say it right when I keep complimenting your idea when I bring it back. So I think that would be a really sweet way to do that. So yes, I'm gonna take your, right in the pop-up shop something. Who is it that's typing in this? That's very smart that you're right. Who's typing in there? Are you with John? In the chat, someone just wrote. I just put that in there. This is the we so I don't know why it didn't come. Oh, there it is. So as the pop-up shop is something that hasn't really exploded in Vermont, one of many great ideas. Yes, I was just really, I could see it Patrick while you were saying it. I could envision that happening. And so that those are really exciting thoughts. And I really did feel pretty dopey that I didn't have enough to give but I feel like I did it right. Shockingly that I have a lot out of. There's no way that I could have, there's nothing that I could have done previous to coming here with the commission that would have netted me this kind of conversation. So I think coming in kind of dopey and not as confident has given me, you've given me so much to bring back and you've stimulated so much conversation and we so I'd like to thank you because you know, the whole time you were so enthusiastically and confidently speaking. I was like, she's with me. So that was really great. That's great. I would like to take, I would like to thank you as though I would like to take that back with me. And now I feel David like I've overrun you and it looks like George is trying to ask me something maybe. Yeah, I was gonna ask George to chime in. Go ahead, George. Yeah, well I'm probably, I don't have anything to ask. I was just, and since Robin's not here, I don't wanna put words in his mouth but I was gonna maybe discuss a little bit of the issue you're talking about right here about businesses and the ground floor businesses. And but my feeling is you really have to look at them at a case by case basis. If we look at the 4th Pearl Street building, we all know this is a great big empty floor space on the Park Street side. And I don't wanna say I absolutely know for sure but I have a pretty good hunch that the reason it's empty, it's not because people haven't approached the owner but the owner does not wanna pay for the fit up and of that great big space until he gets the right tenant that he wants. And he's probably not gonna get the right tenant, the right business he wants because right now there's very constrained parking at 4th Pearl Park Street. And so that's one of the reasons why the trustees purchased 33 parking spaces in the garage of the building that's going up right now that on Park Street, we thought it would kind of loosen up the parking situation there and might kind of help stimulate that the growth of the business and attract, act as an incentive to attract more businesses into those ground floor buildings that are going up on Park Street and in that neighborhood. And that's why I'm saying you, what works in one building may not work in another but that's why you really need to be working with the developers and the investors on a case-by-case, right in a face-to-face basis and there's no substitute for that. That's really all I wanted to say and I didn't have a question for you Annie, thanks. Well, I appreciate everything you've said, George, because while everyone was talking, I agree. It's a fine balance of recognizing each individual business and what those needs are. And I don't know, luckily I'm not the one writing the codes, I'm just gonna come and say a wish list. But I do wonder if maybe there has to be some flexibility for those scenarios, the way that we've been talking about, like can you have business on more than one floor? Is there a possibility to have? And so I have been thinking about that too, George, and I agree with you wholeheartedly and thank you for the information. I frequently am fascinated by that empty space and curiously wonder what will go there. Yeah, yeah, get to it. I'll just add one thing, in terms of the planning commission and I think all of the planning commissioners are aware of this. We have kind of a dynamic tension. We have, in the land development code, we dictate how many parking spaces are supposed to go with these buildings. But I think we also know, we don't wanna increase that because we don't wanna turn the Village Center into a parking lot on the one hand, but on the other hand, when you're trying to bring businesses in, as much as you want those businesses to essentially rely on the residential, the idea is that you would have businesses that basically cater to the people that are living in the Village Center. But I think the reality is that businesses are also going to be wanting to have people drive in. And so that creates a kind of a problem in terms of the tension of how many parking spaces do we need to alter the code to require more parking spaces? I don't really, I think there are other ways of creative ways of getting around it. So I wouldn't like to see that. I wanna have a legitimate downtown. I don't wanna have more parking. But on the other hand, it is something, at least at the trustee level, we hear about all the time, the constraints on parking. And that's why we have you, brilliant folks on the planning commission that'll wrestle us through all these things. Yeah, it is definitely a balancing act. We're always looking for solutions. This is a good opportunity to re-evaluate that whole situation. I think we'll have probably quite a bit of conversation around it. We've always used the waiver process in the past, right? To, because each, like you said, George, each project is unique. So we have to kind of be adaptable to what the space is gonna be like. So definitely something that is gonna be a large part of the conversation with this rewrite. If I may, it seems to me that we're in, I think we're in a fascinating moment of growth in Essex. I'm so fascinated by it in a real way. Our schools are such a beautiful space to be in. It's such a kind, caring, supportive community. When I think about Scott Faye getting our entire community fed and his team, and his team over and over and over again and what our rec departments are doing and even the fight about merger, because that this many people passionately care about what happens to Essex, I'm fascinated. And so I do think that we're right for businesses to wanna be here. And it's like Patrick said, I don't know if you're a Pat or Patrick, which is it. Patrick is fine. Like Patrick said, I feel like if we just hit this wave, the tipping point in just the right way, I think that the world is our oyster. And so I'm so excited to be just in this ground floor conversation with you all and how open-minded and thoughtful you're being about your planning and your codes. I'm just fascinated. And so I really appreciate and value the opinions and I will bring all of this back. As a matter of fact, the homework is gonna be there. I'm gonna queue up the YouTube video. And thanks to Channel 17, Town Meeting TV and have everyone watch all of this because I don't think I can do it justice anyway nor do they take any notes. So to me, the commission watching this interaction is the best ingredient I have for a successful and stimulating conversation that I can then take notes on and bring back to you. That is great, Amy. Thank you so much. Does anybody have anything else for Annie? All right, well, thank you so much for your time, Annie. Thank you for having me. All right, so I don't have anybody else on the list but I would like to open it up if anybody has any further comments or just things they wanna mention before we close. Also, if anybody has any things that they wanted to just comment on, I am gonna be warning a meeting, excuse me, another work session. I can't recall if Robin said there was an application or not but there will be a work session. If there is not an application, there will be a work session the first week of March, if that works for everybody. Dave, I thought we had an application in two weeks. Yeah, I thought- I believe we do, but I just wanna make sure everybody's clear that we will do that application but we will also be having the work session. Oh, okay, great. Okay. And there was a comment from, well, not a comment but Diane had mentioned, because it seems to go back and forth that we do these things at six or 6.30. I just wanted to get everybody's feedback. Do you have a preference? Because I can, you know, is it later, better or earlier? What works for everybody? We'll take a vote. Six. Six? I was gonna say 6.30. 6.30. This is what happens. So now we're talking. So John- I won't bow to democracy. John doesn't have anything going on. I'm a little bigger fan for 6.30 but I've been meeting with the town planning commission at 6.30 for a year and it just feels more routine. I know that six is nice for some people because they kind of just roll in from work or they go straight to it. But it's, I'm flexible. I can do either one. Six, usually at six, I'm still working. So 6.30 gives me a little more of a chance for maybe a bite to eat or something. Well, why don't you guys just shoot an email to Terry? You don't have to copy everybody. Just say what your preference is and we'll go from there. We'll figure it out if that's okay. And that's all I've got, unless somebody else has something else. I'll just chime in on the parking situation for Pearl. When they came to us, we knew that they were a little light on the parking and yet that particular location is not where you really want a lot of parking. It's right in the center of your downtown and ideally you want a little bit farther away. So I think the solution that's underway now with additional parking kind of in the next lot over is going to really be nice. And I appreciate that the village is stepping up to assist the businesses in being able to have more municipal parking. Good point. Yes. Anybody else? So if there's no, go ahead. I know I've taken up a lot of your time and I just, I did want to say two things. One is that I had this shuttle idea before, which you probably already thought of before, but I just started to think about where do we have parking and can we, you know, when we get successful enough, would that be useful? And I do want to go back to Diane's dog idea. I would be happy to, I just have this idea of like pit stops or just some kind of semblance of order so that people started to take on an idea. So anyway, I just felt like they were important and now that I've said them, I feel. Excellent, thanks, Annie. Okay, so I really want to thank everybody for their time tonight, really good information. I think we have a lot to talk about and think about. So this is just the first of a bunch of these meetings. So we're going to get feedback from, and please, you know, as you're out and about, encourage people from the village and the town to join the meetings and give their feedback so that we have a real conversation. But if nothing else, can I add a motion to adjourn? You got a motion. Who did it first? Phil, do I hear a second? I will second. Excellent, all in favor? Aye. I'll oppose. All right, guys, have a great night. Thank you very much. Thanks. Thank you very much. Thanks everyone. Thank you, everyone.