 The time is now 6.30 and the July 20th 2023 meeting of the Development Review Board for the City of Nuske has been called to order. The ERB is a quasi-judicial resident volunteer board that upholds standards and procedures as defined in the Nuske zoning ordinance. We review and make decisions on subdivisions, site plans, conditional uses, variances, and appeals of the zoning administrator's determinations. We have authority through Vermont State statute and ensure due process, protect the rights of applicants, as well as the rights of the public to participate in proposals for land development within the city. Appeals and decisions made by this board are heard by the Vermont Superior Court Environmental Division and the Vermont Supreme Court. My name is Matt Basowitz. I'm the chair of the DRB. Harlan Miller is our vice chair. Elsie Goodrich is our secretary. She is not here tonight. Other current members right now, Erin Gayet, who is not here, David Weisberger, who's not here, Jordan Matt and Emily Morse. Votes and recommendations are always cast in closed delivery of session that will take place as soon after the hearing takes place as possible. We ask anyone participating in tonight's hearings to swear or affirm that all testimony is entirely the truth under the pains and penalties of perjury. We will ask you to say I affirm before testifying. Online Zoom participants will be asked to testify after all in-person testimony is complete. First up on our agenda is public comments. Vermont State statute allows for public comment at every public meeting. If you have something that you'd like to discuss that is not on our current agenda, this is your opportunity. Sorry, Erin just joined in online. Also, Matt, you skipped item two, changes to the agenda, but that's okay. Oh, I didn't have it there. We'll make that change to the agenda and make it in three. There's nobody online that I am aware of looking to make public comments. There's one person online, but they're here with the hearing. Okay, perfect. So ironically, next up on our agenda is changes to the agenda. Do we hear or anybody want any changes to the current agenda as it is currently laid out? Hearing none, we will move on to our next item, which is approving our previous meetings minutes. I will be recusing myself. I was not at the last meeting, but are there any changes that anybody would like to see made to the previous meetings minutes? I have no comments. I will entertain a motion to approve those minutes. A motion to approve the previous meetings minutes. And second. I will second. And all those in favor of approving the minutes, please say aye or raise your hand. Aye. Aye. All those not in favor, please say no. All those abstaining, I am abstaining. Next up on our agenda is election of officers. Every year, our chair, vice chair and secretary are elected to one year terms. And we do typically that in July. So it is now time. I don't know if I should be doing this. I think you can if you as the current chair, we typically allow the current chair to facilitate this process. You can look to nominate as a slate or individually depending on how you all feel comfortable. As I mentioned earlier, Elsie, who's not here tonight as our serving was, she is our current secretary. She did indicate that she is interested in serving again as secretary. Okay. When did we just, we just kind of out of cycle picked our officers, didn't we? Oh, when Matt, sorry, when Kevin. Yes. When he stepped down, I believe, no, I think this was, he's been off the board for over a year now, I think. So we would have this current slate, we would have elected at our last. A whole year. July meeting. Yes. But I think there was delay. There may have been. Somebody may have had a kid or something. No, that was in April. That was in April. Okay. No, I thought it hadn't been a full year, but I'm not sure. I feel like this is right. Yeah. These, the current officers have been officers in these positions for the, for the previous year. But you're right. It does feel like we just did this about a year ago. I, so as chair, I, you know, I've mentioned in previous meetings. I don't know how long I'm going to be a Vermont resident, but I am happy to help in whatever capacity, whether that be chair or not for as long as I am. So I'm happy to stay on as chair. There is no firm timeline for anything yet. I'll move that we keep the current slate. Are you guys okay with that? Yeah. Okay. That's a pretty contentious motion has been made and seconded. All those in favor of, was there a second? Oh, you say, okay. Sorry. All those in favor of keeping the current slate for one more year, please say, I raise your hand. And that carries unanimously. All right. Thank you very much. Certainly. Next up is our one substantive item on our agenda, which is a public hearing for believe a change of use at 133 Elm Street. And Eric, if you want to give us some background before we jump on that. Yeah. So this is a conditional use request for a change of use or a, I guess a change of use for a part, a portion of the existing building at 133 Elm Street. Our, our current regulations are land use regulations have a use table that outlines a variety of uses. It's clearly not an exhaustive list. So because we can't come up with everything. So we do have a provision in our regulations that says if something is not included, it can come forward as a conditional use before the development review board. The applicant tonight is requesting to establish a commercial kitchen for the purposes of catering or yeah, basically a commercial catering kitchen in a portion of the space at 133 Elm Street. 133 Elm Street, as you may know, is a about 100,000 square foot industrial building. It's been an industrial use for many, many years. It's in an industrial zoning district. Catering kitchens is one is not included as a use in our use table. The next closest thing we have is a restaurant, which is not permitted in that zoning district. So that's why I advised the applicant to come forward tonight as a conditional use. So it could potentially be a be a permitted use in that location. So the applicant is here tonight. And I believe there's a couple of folks online as well. So that's just a general overview of why we're here tonight and what we're here to discuss. Do you know if the people online are with the applicant? I believe so. Do you have a John B with you by chance? Then there is potentially one member of the public and now a phone number, which I. The ones that you should have that's part of with me. It should be Jagger. Okay, so Jagger may be the phone number. So we can do you know his phone number off hand? It's okay if you don't, but. That's why lately everything is attached to my phone. So I have a mobile number of 802-343-1305. Yep. Okay. That's him. So he is on, I will. And he just messaged me too. Okay. So, yes. So we do have at least one additional member with the applicant online tonight. Okay. Well about the applicants, please join us. She's my moral support. Okay. And please state your name. It's Gina. Gina, nice to meet you. Nice to meet you. Would you please affirm that everything you are telling us today is the truth, the whole truth under the pains and penalties is perjury. Absolutely. Thank you. So tell us a little bit about the project. So I have been a commercial caterer now. Just under a year. But I'm growing very, very quickly. It's a good pain problem to have, but it's required me to have my own space. I live in Manuski. So Jagarnetti is my commercial property. He went up and he's like, hey, we have a spot. And it's ideal because it's close to home for me. It's in an area. It's really simple for me to use. It'll allow me to get in and use my timeframe wisely. So this way I can cater to the public, cater to my meals, being able to have things on time and ready. So this way I'm not always falling behind. The current space that I'm in is great. I'm only able to be there three hours a day, certain days a week, and I can get nothing done. Or I'm there all day on Sundays for about 14 to 15 hours. So this gives me a little bit more usage of my time in managing my expectations and managing my customers. And Ganto Kitchen is an authentic Puerto Rican catering spot. I feel that like bringing it to Manuski hometown for me, it adds to diversity that we don't have or that we don't show any substance for. And Ganto Kitchen has grown tremendously today. I had a catering event with Ben and Jerry's that it was supposed to go to two. We ended up at 130 because we had everything already eaten up and taken away. And it's a great feeling to have when you see that happen. Right now I've also rented a spot from the Manuski catering kitchen. But again, it's getting on the calendar, being able to be there to do it. And it's not always feasible, especially when you have people that are like, oh well we have this and we have that. And I can't cater to everybody obviously, but I will love to maximize my time and be able to get out there for people. So that's my project. The project for this site in itself, it's a portion of the kitchen. It allows me a vendor access. It allows me a ramp. It allows me to be able to just have, it's not a restaurant. I don't want a restaurant. I'm sorry. It's not the brick and mortar I'm looking for. But again, what we do is we offer currently one meal a week. I would love to step that up and offer it four times a week to people. But it's an online ordering. They're not coming in. They're just not popping up. They're setting the time. It's both slated. And it's a three hour window. And I will like to keep it that way. Again, managing my expectations. For pickup or delivery? Pick up. For pickup. So no delivery purposes at all. Every delivering agency wants a portion of the delivery charges. Problem with that is, is that they tie into your intellectual property. So the traffic won't be to my website. It'll be through them. I am sorry. It's mine. I built this baby. And everything else, not that I don't mind sharing, but it's again, I'd rather have it come through me, rather than go through somebody else paying those fees. So it's easier for them to come pick up. And my clients right now, my customers had no problem with it. They set their time and their meals are ready. I literally left them. Oh, hey, your order is complete. And you say one meal a week. I'm assuming you mean one catered event a week? No, actually. So my catered events are normally two. What we do is we offer one meal a week out to the public where again, they're able to order online. We put out one meal. It's not like a restaurant. It's not like a takeout. It's a set meal that's there. If they want to buy it, they want to purchase it. They just book in going, I will love that. They click on the box. It's there. The meal gets made. It's all clocked. So like if, if all of you came down here and said, Gina, we will love to have your rice and chicken and everything else, you can click us at what time you want to pick it up. They ordered by Wednesday and it's pick up by Saturday currently at the mill market. Okay. So again, it's setting up the timeframe to be able to do that. But I've had a lot more people asking for, do you have any other days of the week other than Saturday? So again, I'm listening to my clients, my customers. I will love to get to that need. So, and that's kind of where that is. But this is the space in itself. So the whole office area. Correct. Correct. It's an old. Nice to work in there for like eight years. They know the things that works for me. So the part to the right is literally what I'm looking for for the station itself where it says office space. That would be more my office space. And then next to it would be a dry storage area. So we're not really doing any major renovations in that spot. What we want to do is, is remove that center wall and create it just a long workspace station and open work plane. The fryer convection oven range top would be basically on the right hand side. The hood would be there, would go over there. The rate, the drop ceiling currently will be lifted up. And then the hood would go out through the ceiling because it's a wood frame. So again, going out through the ceiling, those are the only changes. The onto the left is going to be a three base sink that we're putting in to meet with the health inspection and the guidelines for it. Okay. The fridge and the freezer currently are mobile. They're nothing set in stone. There's nothing in the works right now for development of putting up a freezer. Everything that I do is at use. So again, nothing is being purchased to go off and be stored. It's being used almost immediately. So there is no overhead. There is no waste on our side for it. Now you mentioned the issues that you've been having getting space in a commercial kitchen to work. Do you envision potentially this ever being used in that capacity as well? Or is it will it just be your business and your privacy? I have no problem opening it up to the community. I love Winooski and I know that there's a lot of need and everything else. Again, as long as they understand that there is no cooler and freezer space that's available, them using the time and the space, I have no problem opening it up to other people. It's not on, it's not the priority of my list. Obviously. But again, I'm not opposed to going off and helping somebody else out. Okay. The joys is, is that I have lived in Winooski for about 20 years. My kids went to school here. I have seen this place grow. The one thing the Latin population is so under represented and I will love to bring that to the forefront by doing this. I've had conversations with the city manager's office. I will love to get more involved, bring the food over, connect with people, bring it to a different level and using that as a doorway and just the means for people to understand. Puerto Rican cooking is Creole cooking. It really is, it's a combination of our indigenous, our Latin, basically our Spaniards and our African roots. So there's a lot of things like with our African community, they're like, so how does that work? I'm like, hi, I'm African. I get it. We use this, like people don't understand that the same vegetables we use are the same that are used in our African culture. And I'm getting more and more people that want to learn. What I would love to do is open up like learn how to cook, learn how to do something different. And again, we all talk about hybrid meetings. I have no problem doing that. You know, I want to bring people in to be able to do that. But if I have to go up and do it at somebody else's schedule, it's really hard to bring back to the community. So, and that's not what I want to do. Hence having this spot. It took me, this one catering job that I did for Ben & Jerry, four days worth of prep and all day was my frying. And that's three hours of time to prep in and I have to be there at eight o'clock because I can't get into the kitchen before eight. So again, it allows me the space to come in, get settled and not have to be on somebody else's agenda. But again, bringing it close to home. I guess it just means a little bit more for me. Winooski is home. Winooski has been a lot of their upbringing, what we do, what we've done. Caitlin walked into the community center yesterday and all of a sudden it's like, Caitlin, it's like, it's there. It's family. I can go up and down the block and say hi to people. And it's like, hey, did you hear? And they're like, oh, no, you really want to do that. It's the goal. And it's like, let us know we want to be there. I've had more community support of wanting to come over. Aaron is my neighbor. So I love just doing what I do. And that's just bringing the community closer together. The only other question that I had, I read through all this earlier, there was an issue with this property two years ago. And where odors were permeating the neighborhood and it was not food. Do you have a plan in place? I mean, I love the smell of food myself, but do you anticipate the potential for neighbors being impacted by the aromas that are created? The aromas that I have that come out of the space is nothing to the point of being pungent. It's when you walk in through the doors, you'll see, you'll smell it more. The most that anybody will ever smell because that's what most of it is. But again, if I can do it in indoor space, kind of like the community kitchen and nobody's complaining about it or they don't have a problem with it, I don't think it's going to impact the neighbors that are 50 feet away, 100 feet away. So you're on the Memorial Park side of, is that what we're looking at? Those entrances on the backside against Memorial Park, which has no neighbors on that side. Yeah, it's not because the Hemp Factory had everything blowing towards when you escape. I believe that's right, yeah. Which was an issue. And then with this, the hood is going to go upwards. That's going to be on the roof? Yeah, it has to be on the roof. So fire and city inspectors, state and city fire marshals needed to go through the roof. That's the only way is that. But again, they were there on site because of the project with Cabot. So what I did was, I am sorry, I am a proactive person. If this is to go forward, what do I need? What do we need to do? How is it going to impact me? I know how it impacts the community. So for us, it's going to go up. So it's not going to be like it's... Because they're doing the roof down there right now, I think anyway. So, and like I said, the only thing that's going to change structurally on the inside is the removal of that wall and the drop ceilings are going to be pushed upwards so there's more room to it. Any other questions from our board or Erin? No, I'm going to straight forward. Well, thank you so much. I appreciate it. Stand by because if there are any people that also want to speak on this hearing, we may ask you to come back and respond. Absolutely. Thank you. Is there anybody else that would like to speak on this project? So the only other person online right now is Jagarnetti who's representing the, I guess, the property, I would say. I think it's a fair assessment. Okay. No members of the public online right now. And they haven't raised their hand? No. Try them with anything. All right. Well, hearing that, and having no more questions, we really appreciate you being here. We will talk and go into a live session probably tonight. We're getting through this meeting pretty quickly. So. Are we taking votes to end hearings? We can. Okay. We'll entertain a motion to end this current hearing. So moved. I will second. All those in favor of ending this hearing, please raise your hand. Aye. Aye. That passes unanimously. Thanks so much. I will just say that with the hearing closed, I have exhibits A through J that will be entered into the record. I will be giving a copy of the exhibit list to the applicant so they can see what it is that will be included in the record. And that will be, I'll do that right now. All right. And next up on our agenda tonight are city updates. I have nothing specific to update you all on unless you have something you want an update on. I guess is what I would say. Any projects going on in the city that you're interested in? No. Can't think of anything. Other businesses are next agenda item. The only other business that I have is tomorrow is our deadline for the August DRB meeting. So if nothing is submitted for that meeting, my intention was to cancel that unless you all have a need to get together in August. I'll probably be out of town. Okay. And I know you're out in September. Okay. Yeah. I know. Might be out of town as well. Okay. So if I will let you all know if we are having, if anything comes in, I haven't had any conversations with anybody that has an intention to submit tomorrow. So tomorrow is the deadline though, but I'll let you know. Okay. And last item on our agenda is to adjourn. And we need a motion and a second to adjourn. I'll make the motion. Okay. I'll second. All those in favor of adjourning for the evening, please say aye. Aye. That carries unanimously. This meeting is adjourned. Thank you so much. We will go into the deliberative session momentarily. That will be closed or, we'll talk privately. And Erin, you have the link for that? Okay. Great. All right.