 I'll order this meeting of the Popular Planning Commission on October 28th. First thing on our agenda is to approve the agenda. I'm going to take a look. Do we have a second? Second. Okay. All those in favor of approving the agenda say aye. Aye. All those opposed? Okay. The agenda is deemed approved. The next thing on the agenda is the comments from the chair. The only comments I have is, you know, it's been a little while since we've met. So just as a reminder, we'll probably, as far as the timeline and the near future for our meetings, we'll probably vote on the regulations we'll be discussing tonight and on the map we'll be discussing tonight at next meeting so that everyone's aware of that. And then at the meetings after that we're going to tackle the city plan and we'll probably start trying to do maybe about three chapters a meeting from then on. Kind of the ambitious plan. We'll be looking at the information we get from committees. We are going to get information from committees that fast. Mike's been gathering it. He has some, I think we have enough at least for one meeting already, right? Yeah, we'll have enough for one. We'll take us a couple meetings to get through those, but we can at least get those rolling for the implementation plans. Are you including energy one? I have not. I've got to meet with you guys. Probably your subcommittee to see where you guys are at. All right. Provides it in light of our MPG grant application discussion. It kind of helps to narrow down the scope of it. Actually makes it easier. Okay, good. That's all I have for the comments. So the next one agenda is general business. And I don't believe we have any members of the public here. All of the folks in attendance are from the short preservation committee. Is committee, right? Or the commission? Sir, preservation commission and then design review committee. Okay. So that's easy to keep track of. All right. So it looks like other officials are in the audience. So we have any general business. So the next on the agenda is to consider the minutes. So it's another housekeeping matters to move through. So folks can take a look at the September 23rd minutes. Let us know. I just have a quick question. So at the bottom of the minutes, I wanted to ask about this anyway, but I was reminded there was, we did talk at the last meeting at the end about like, potentially having like a working session. I just want to make sure nothing happened in between this last meeting. Okay, I just want to make sure it wasn't like left. That's a good question. I had assumed. Yeah. Okay. So perfect. Did you have a quorum? We did at that last meeting. Okay. September 23rd. Yeah. But as far as early October, there was not a meeting. No, right? Yeah, because there was a holiday and then we had thought like, we'll get together for a working session the week before, but then nothing ever materialized and I wanted to make sure that that was in fact what happened. I think our next meeting is a holiday. Do we want to talk about that real quick? What's the 11th? What holiday is that? It's Stutter and Stutter and Stutter. Will you be here, Mike? Usually that's a holiday for this city. It is. There's no cities on this holiday. Next year, by the way, almost all the holidays are on different weeks. This year was a particularly bad one for every holiday. Okay. So dealing with this real quick, and we can take it back up at the end maybe, but if people need to think about it, can we meet on the Tuesday? Will that conflict with anyone the Tuesday after? So we're going to need Mike, because it's going to go over the city plan material. So we're going to shoot for November 12th instead. That works for me. It will be the second Tuesday, so it would conflict for you. I'll have to check on the availability of this room and whether or not it will be recorded or not. So we'll have to query a few things to make sure. Would it be better to put us on a different Monday? The other Mondays are all occupied by... DRB. DRB, right. DRB. Unless you're not having a meeting. As far as I know, we're having DRC still? Okay. DRB. But that's later, so that doesn't really help us. Okay. Well, I'll double check whether the 12th, how available that is. Do we need to post notice for it? Yeah. I would just put notices out early. Okay. It's not too late to do that. No. No. Okay. So let's tentatively plan to meet the same time on the Tuesday instead. And then, if Mike tells us otherwise, we'll have to audible. And Marcella, you could choose to come for the beginning or... Okay. So that brings us to... We didn't. I don't think we voted on the minutes. No, we didn't. Sorry. Oh, do we have a motion to approve minutes? Or any more feedback on the minutes? Those in favor of approving the minutes? No. Any opposed? Okay. The minutes are approved with a motion by Aaron and a second by Marcella as all of us. Yep. Okay. Mike, it said that you sent the statement, the vision statement out previously before this meeting, before the September 10th. There was a way before. He sent it in the summer. Yeah. You want me to re-send it? Yeah, he would. That'd be great. Thanks. Do we... We don't... I guess we don't have copies here tonight of that. I could go print it out. It's on the agenda. It's something to possibly discuss. Yeah. But we don't... You know, we don't... We don't have to if we don't. So we'll move on to the next item on the agenda, which is just a summary of where we are so far, so that the goal for the meeting tonight, the main goal, is to review for the public where we are in reconsidering the city's regulations on design review and the accompanying map that goes with the design review boundaries and where the design review applies. So to catch everyone up, if anyone's seeing this for the first time, the way this process started was that the historic preservation commission drafted with... Working with the design review committee, as I remember, works. Is that right? Sorry. No, we're all hearing this noise. There's a ceiling fan over there. It's breaking us up. Sorry. So the process started with those groups working on some proposed regulations together, and then they brought those informally to the planning commission. And so we had a meeting where those were presented to us, and we had another meeting where the planning commission itself reviewed those regulations, and we ended up producing feedback kind of informally out of that meeting. At the same time, about the same time that happened, the planning commission started looking at the design review boundary for the city, and kind of on its own has presented a preliminary boundary for others to review. So that's where we are, and that's what we're going to discuss tonight. We're going to discuss where the regs are, and we're going to discuss where the map is. And as I said earlier, the planning commission will plan to vote on those two things next week. So with that, we can invite Meredith, who's the staff member for the commission, the committee to talk about the regs. And I don't know if we don't need to go into great detail. Yeah. And that's at this point, I don't know if you want the full presentation or in history, or if considering we don't have a lot of public here, we should just go forward with HPC's most recent input. I don't know. I don't know what you want. I'm prepared for any of it. I think just in case there's public that end up watching us that are interested in the topic, maybe a very general five-minute, ten-minute overview of the major things in the regs. The major differences are also the history. I think just a summary of what these regs will be doing to those who they apply. Is that okay with everybody? And then we can talk about specifics between the commissions. So just as a refresher for people here, you went over and sort of summarized the true history that HPC took up this task in 2017 and started drafting. They used a lot of different resources, both within Vermont as well as nationwide, to come up with a new draft of the design review regulations. This really is a, in a lot of ways, a brand new draft incorporated things that were in the current regulations that seem to make sense that were very montpellier-specific, but really elaborated on the language. You can't really run a red line from what's in place now to the new draft. And then it was a public process. There was a big kickoff meeting in spring of 2018, a variety, a large number of public meetings held by the Historic Preservation Commission. There were some public attendees, as well as input from guest presenters and also a community open house in the summer of 2018. And as discussed previously, there was cooperation with other committees here in the city, especially the design review committee, since they will be who will be implementing these regulations. And then also administrative input from Mike Miller and myself to make sure that the new regulations can actually be administered. And these are the major goals for this new draft. So improve the predictability and consistency, make sure that when we come out with decisions, they're defensible. There's something that backs up the decisions, especially any specific conditions that are laid in. One of the big picture ideas was that the Historic Preservation Commission really wants to keep this a design review regulations and not limit it to just historic. So that comes into play later with the exact changes that were made. A lot of these changes had to be consistent with the National Parks Rehabilitation Standards to meet the certified local government standards. And that's important because being a certified local government allows the city to take advantage of certain grants. And as it says, more flexible for applicants, as well as making sure that there's clearer exemptions and making it easier to provide options for administrative officer review. So some design review things can now just go through the planning department and get zoning administrator approval instead of having to actually go to a design review committee. There's right now almost everything has to go through the design review committee, which is just a longer process. So these are the core changes added, very specific standards. So right now the current regulations really have about a dozen kind of vague criteria, as well as a few specifics for a couple of zoning districts. It really felt like that was hard to defend. And so they've created really specific standards for when alterations or additions are made to historic buildings versus alterations or additions to nonhistoric buildings or brand new buildings. So there's those two very specific categories in the new draft. The application process has been clarified, as I said earlier, there's now options for the administrative officer to review certain things and approve them without design review and having to go to the design review committee. And we've also increased the number of exemptions. I think this is all, this is more detail as to what that means and gives section references for people at home. We can look at that with the draft. One kind of very large takeaway though is that with these regulations there's things that go under design review and there's things that go under historic preservation review. No, no, it's all design review. It all goes through design review, but there's specific standards. If you're coming in for design review of a new building, there are specific standards that the design review committee will apply. If you're coming in and you're making changes to a historic building, there are other things that will apply. There are also standards that apply no matter what your project is. So you have your global design review standards. You have a design review subset if you're dealing with a historic building and then you have a design review subset for if you're dealing with a non-historic building. Those subsets are what I was getting to. Yep, yep. And it'll also, that helps administratively so that you can come out with different worksheets and also tell people, okay, these are the sections you need to look at and make sure your project meets these. If somebody's coming in, it's going to be a lot easier for people what applies to their project. And easier for us to just pull these and say, oh, let's do a checkbox. Have you met, have you thought about all of these things? Yeah, I think most of the rest of this is stuff that it makes sense for people to take a look at or they can call our office if they have questions. So, these are exemptions. That's some outstanding questions that are things that, you know, you're talking about the design review boundaries, district boundaries, we already brought that up. And one thing that is unanswered in here, there's a definition for what that is in these regulations, but whether or not the Planning Commission wants to really limit that and make it specific to views of the State House or something else at this point in time is a question that you might want to deal with because it's a little vague right now. It's very similar to what's in the current regulations, but I know Mike would like to limit that and make that a little more specific to make it a little more defensible. Do we know what page? So, that's the very end, the definition of viewsheds. Page 15, we're no longer in alphabetical order. Page 15, number 30 at the bottom, definition of viewsheds and vistas. It's really more of a general definition in here. It's a very open, it is a little bit limited when you get to, hold on. So, it's used on page 6 as a design standard that applies to all projects. And so, page 6, Roman numeral 6, we're applicable, development shall be designed to respect view corridors and significant vistas. Of course, we're not using the right terminology there. That needs to be fixed. Generally, including gateway views of the city and state house specifically. So, it's still pretty vague. It's narrowed a little bit with that language. But as I said, we need to do some cross-checking and making sure we're using the defined terms where they apply. Why was the definition written so broadly when this is pretty specific to locations? I think that we, and somebody else can discuss here if they need to from HBC, but I think that the Historic Preservation Commission didn't want to limit what might be considered viewsheds in the future. That if the definition of viewsheds is really, really limited, then it doesn't give, it's easier to limit that, I think, in this provision here than in the definition. I think, but at least that was my takeaway as to why they defined it that way. You could narrow it in either place, I think. If it's kept broad, is the concern that it's too difficult to administer or something else? I think it's, you know, you do went into the, does it start applying everywhere? Are you talking about just a view of the dome? Are you talking you can see some little, teeny, tiny corner of the state house? And what do you, you know... Yeah, and I think looking at the definition of the view quarters and vistas, it's anything that's forested or anything that's open space, and you end up in a point where it's like, wait, if it has trees, we can't develop it, and if it doesn't have trees, we can't develop it. Isn't this just saying you can't develop anything that isn't already developed? And then the second piece is if it gets too vague and it gets challenged in court, then you end up with applicants need to have a reasonable expectation of what's expected in their application and what their requirements are going to be. And a requirement that's just too open-ended really doesn't work well. The more appropriate way to address this would be to be very specific about what you want to consider a view shed. And if in the future we want to consider other things and we do a view shed analysis and we do a public process and we adopt rules that then go and say, you know, view sheds include views of the state house dome and views of forested hillsides as identified on map A-1. And then you have a map that identifies what those are. I mean, that's what you see in places like Stowe. They have a ridgeline zoning. They draw a map and they have a map that says any of these that are on the map are there. It's gone through a public process. And therefore it's kind of defensible because it's got a basis. It's not vague. An applicant does know they're going to have to meet these rules when they apply because they look at the map and say, my project is in or my project is not in. Yeah, so this standard was originally just for the western gateway. So people coming down off the interstate from that area. But I know that the Planning Commission really wanted us to get rid of these district-specific sections that are in the current zoning regulations because a lot of that was duplicative of the new set that was drafted by the Historic Preservation Commission. So really the only, you know, this standard and the following riverfront standard with the two items that really seemed unique and that we pulled into this list of all projects standards. So one possible solution, considering that, would be in that sub-six to specify that provision to the western gateway and possibly the river. We could, before that was just western gateway. And the one below it, sub-seven, was just riverfront. For sub-seven, I don't know if that makes sense to keep that to just riverfront anymore. But it's something to think about. I mean, you could do that. It's still your definition of what a view-shedded is pretty. I mean, it's narrowed that way, but it's still fairly broad. The issue is that the definition is so broad and we're trying to narrow it in these two sub-sections, but maybe not effectively. I think by taking out the vague part of that definition, I think we could fix this. Where is this include but not limited to? Limited. Limited to the things that are said. And if we specifically know what we're, if we know in our head what we're looking at, you know, it's the land that's owned by national life on this side of the river. Well, then just draw a map that shows that and it kind of clarifies these are the woods we're talking about in this view-shed that this should be protected. And if there are other view-sheds that meet that, then it really is, I'm a big proponent of regulating to the map. It makes it a lot easier to, it's easy to defend, very easy for us to decide what needs to meet the rule and what doesn't. Yeah, I mean, that would be basically, because this whole chapter is really, this is just a section, but the chapter itself is overlay districts. It'd be pretty easy to throw in something that says, you know, view-shed overlay districts are as defined in, you know, a separate map and map out a few areas. It would be a lot clearer to have it mapped because it might change even as you drive along the river. Things, yeah, it seems like that's so variable but it's dry to define the words. Yeah, or references either. Yeah, I mean, you can put a thing around it and I mean, from a map and a regulation standpoint, you could have four different areas that are view-sheds and simply go and circle them and then put a number in there and say, this is what we're trying to protect here. This is the critical piece of, you know, the character that we're trying to protect of section one, section two along the river. It's being protected for this reason and we're looking to make sure that these characteristics are maintained in the future and then we can then use the development proposal and kind of put that against this to go through and say, is it going to have a negative impact on that? I guess I'm a little fuzzy on, when you go to map something, are you restricting for the entire design review district what can be built based on the view of the thing or are we trying to map only here do we care about how you build? You know what I'm saying? Like only from the western gateway do we care about views of the state house. I mean, of course we care about other ones but that's the prime one. I feel like, I don't know. It depends where you're, it depends. Yeah, we're not being clear right now about how broadly we want this to apply. Yeah, are we trying to conserve something the way it is or are we trying to preserve a view of this from here? Right. Where, from what location? Yeah. Because that could make a huge difference and it makes me think about, you know, one Taylor would this impact that? You know, because it could have changed the gateway view into the city. So, but certainly not in a negative way. So it's, it seems like the only way we can do it is with the map identifies areas and talks about views from where. So how do we deal with it? I would probably tackle things one at a time and decide start with the state house dome. We want to protect that. And then the question comes up. Is it just state house from State Street? Is it Memorial Drive? Is it Taylor Street? How far out? Is it all the way up East State Street? When you get up East State Street, you've got a kind of, you've got another view where it comes back. Does that happen? Does that, you know, and then you can go through and put lines on a map. And the Regional Planning Commission has talked about the fact that they now have with the LiDAR, they were going to do some buildings, getting our buildings put on potentially. So we could do some of these viewshed analyses. It's not perfect, but it'll get you a pretty good idea of. So is this a big enough question where we need, where we could pop, maybe take that project on later then and not try to handle it in the next week? Oh, yeah. I mean, my, there is a viewshed analysis of the state house dome that I have on the shelf downstairs. So we do have a study of that question. It may not be as comprehensive of what we're looking for, but I think it was done in 2002. But I think in the future, whether it's the state house dome or any of these other viewsheds, my thought would be that we do, we take it out of here for now, knowing that we can put it in at a later date when we have something that is defensible, rather than try to put something in that's vague, knowing that it's going to cause us problems. So, sorry, Mike. Do you mean take the whole viewshed thing out completely or just limit it to the state house dome on this one? Well, I mean, we could just... Yeah, we could probably leave the state house dome in because we do have an analysis on that one. And we have been enforcing it for a number of years. I mean, Eric has something to say about this. We want you to come up to a microphone. Sorry, I can bring it to you. Yeah, feel free to take it to the seat if you want. I'm Eric Gilbertson. I chair the Stark Preservation Commission and sit on design review. And I was just thinking about the state house as it shouldn't only focus on the dome because I believe it's probably the only state house, but I think it's the only state house in the country that has a wooded hillside behind it and it sits in a residential neighborhood getting less and less residential with the buildings in the residential. Come up Court Street and not too many, well, I guess a few years ago now there's a proposal to move the Pink Lady and put up a 10-story office building at that juncture. So I think it's important to put something in there so that you can deal with it. I mean, I'm thinking about you drive in Elm Street, you've got that whole hillside behind the Nature Center. I don't know what anybody would be planning on doing there. I think building buildings along Elm Street probably doesn't impact the view shed. But every way into town, one of the most impressive views of the state house is coming down Berlin Street to come down from the hospital. There's the capital sitting right there so a house on Berlin Street could really block that or a bigger apartment though it could really block that. And I think the view setting for the city, which comprises the view sheds, really important component in general appearance of the city and the impression you get of it. I mean, the state house really, you see it every way you come into town, you see it. So that's probably one to call out. I don't get messed up with the year. I think it's certain that we need to be very careful and be very smart about this because it's not a little thing. So for me, the question is, can we do it, can we even do the state house justice? It may make sense that we actually look at this protective views of, we'll just use the views of the dome as a catch-off for now. As a separate overlay district that we would then map out where it's located. I'm just thinking, Eric points out that you can see it from Berlin Street, you can see it from East State. These are both areas not in design review. So once you're outside the box of design review, the design review rules don't apply. So if we wanted to protect the views of the dome, we may need to just go and do its own overlay district that says we can see it from here, we can see it from here, we can see it from here, and we can see it from up here. Getting what we were talking about earlier, it's like design review is about what you can build within that area, which it doesn't seem like a good match for this. Yeah, I mean, if they overlap, then yeah, we could, they overlap pretty well, but it sounds like there are going to be a number of places outside of the design review district that's going to get missed. So it may be one that we pull out, but I'll add to my list, I'll send out that 2002 report and we'll see how helpful it is. I haven't read it, I just know it's sitting on my shelf. Is there anything done in the cityscape with views, view sheds at all in the original? I'm trying, I can't even remember off the top of my head. I can't, I would have to look at it. I thought it was mostly streetscapes, but... I think it is mostly streetscape. Right here, the cityscape study. Yeah, did that have anything about viewsheds in it? One of the things about being an backdrop of the state was one of the zoning... Isn't that how it works? There's some laying off behind Cliff. Yeah, there's this wedge in the middle by the state. There's a piece to the west that is owned by Gilbertson. There's a piece to the right that is behind Cliff Street. There are a number of private owners of some land behind there who, my understanding is they purchased it because they didn't want to see that developed. So when it became available, the property owners came together and bought it up. But it is still technically... In private ownership. Do regulations allow development there? Yeah, they could. There's sewer lines up there, so the fact that it's really hard to develop up in there doesn't actually prohibit the development in there. I think it is one area that was down-zoned in one of the few areas. So it was down-zoned in the last seven years. Yeah, I think you're right. Well, so what's the playing mission on the viewshed question? Is anyone going to handle in the near term I think that's kind of the threshold question. What do you mean by near term? At the same time as we... Do we want to partially or fully try to address that in design review now? Or is it something we want to tackle as a separate issue later after looking at the studies that have been mentioned? I mean... I think we should look at it later and it's potentially something that we want to see included in the city plan. Yeah, because it could affect any kind of developable areas. I wasn't even thinking about the area along Memorial Drive previously. Anyway... Anyone else have anything to say about it? Given the current schedule, I think we would have to. Yeah. Unless there's a map already waiting for us sitting downstairs in the 2002 State House Dome Report. So that means the two provisions here about View Shed maybe have those removed and have the definition removed for now? But yeah, there's only one of these is a View Shed provision. For parcels with river and street frontage that's a river frontage issue that's about making sure that river sides of structures are equal in character and quality to those on the street side. Because the river side you can see in a lot of these buildings just like you could from the street. But Sticks you said you're regulating this now? Yeah, this is... So if we take it out that doesn't sound like a great idea. What is... How does that change how you're regulating now? I mean, it will completely take it from out of design review. There won't be that criteria anymore. Right now it only applies to people within that area. Right now it just applies within Western Gateway. This is still just within Western Gateway? No. So this would expand it to the entire design review district. I thought it was written in here it's already the full district. Yeah, now it's... Yeah, this would expand it to the whole which could be a stop yet measure for right now. Right, so I think taking it out might be... So currently the standards and this is generally applicable not just Western Gateway recognition of and respect for view corridors and significant vistas including Gateway views at the City and State House. That is currently what is one of the major design review criteria applies to everything. But that's all it says. It's very broad. The Design Review Committee typically will take a look at you know where the property is what what kind of impact they think it's going to have on those views. And a lot of times it's a height issue or a massing issue. You know, is it blocking the current view? I haven't, you know, they came up in the parking garage and the hotel and they came up in the transit center. I don't think it came up anywhere else since I've been here. Mike, can you think of any other big projects where it came up? The biggest project that it came up in was the bank Daily's Credit Union. Credit Union was the biggest one which is why if you're driving on Memorial Drive you'll see the building continue to step down as you're going around the corner because it's designed to keep the dome above the building so the building would not block the dome. Or at least so I have been told. And it was a big issue for the garage the parking garage. It came up a lot public, brought it up a lot. Will it block the view from the bridge? Will it block the view from Memorial? Will it block the view from Berry Street? Okay. So, I mean, it might be a... I mean, it could be kept in just simply narrowed Yeah, that provision narrowed Just to go through six where applicable development shall be designed not to... I mean, it could be as direct as not to block views of the state house and the dome specifically. I mean, it could be just really kind of we want to keep that protection in there From public vantage points? Yeah, from public vantage points would probably be... But eliminating including gateway views of the city. Is that one in there too? Yeah, because we don't know what that is. I think that's the one that needs needs some definition. Is that a hill full of trees or is that an open space? And then work on the Viewshed Overlaid District as a separate project to try and give this more teeth. Yeah, flesh out. I do think it's important that we get that in, but I think in light of the J.A.M. Golf Decisions and some of these other legal precedents that are out there, we're going to be held to a standard at some point somebody's going to take us to task for not having enough guidance in our design review. So what's higher risk taking it out or moving it in there generally until we fix it? I would probably leave in, as I said, not to block state house views of the state house dome specifically, or the state house dome whatever it's specific. From public vantage points? And that at least gives us something it actually has expanded it in one sense. It used to be just Memorial Drive and now it's actually going to be applicable in other places in the design review, but it won't be citywide. And if we do a design review study that shows we could protect this in Berry Street and Berlin Street then we would probably take it out of here and put it into the other one. So Eric, that's what I'm going to say. Just quickly, the second phase of this project is developing a set of guidelines and actually stuff that could be handed out to the public about what's going on and I think it probably viewsheds could be could easily be part of that. Can I add something in too? Sure, yeah, please. Jamie Duggan, I'm Vice Chair of the Historic Preservation Commission and I guess I would agree I think at the moment it would be best to perhaps maintain the status quo and leave it in to afford that protection and to work on it but I think it is something that does need to be clearly identified and even beyond our local review process for example these viewsheds are clearly defined in the city plan they're not really defensible in aesthetic arguments in Act 250 and so this is the place where if we're concerned about the impacts of future developments on any of these viewsheds identifying those clearly and putting them in the plan to be protected will help not just with the local process but also I think so I think you do need to look at it I like the idea of the overlay and looking at because it is going to be areas vistas and even places that are outside of the design control district so in order to capture all that I think that sounds like a good plan So you're proposing to modify six but then what happens to the definition? I don't know if we need it It's problematic So how much of a pain will it be to amend this later just for this when we do an overlay district? It would be a separate section if it was a whole separate overlay district right? If we were adopting an amendment to add the overlay district we would simply have strike So we would add the overlay district Because it's the same zoning, it's the same regulation We would change this regulation and we wouldn't create a new regulation for that Correct It would be another part of the zoning you have the base zoning districts then you have a design review overlay and you'd have a fuchsiaed overlay That's separate, it's all in the same regulation If we were going to be a separate regulation then we could try to make a sunset or something for this but we don't need to get into that fancy stuff So we're going to have a definition Yes My understanding was yes We're applicable, development should be designed not to block views of the state house dome from public vantage points I think we don't I would prefer state house Mike was going towards state house dome Because there's so much that's already blocked I mean from Memorial Drive building Already From the 2002 study was that just the dome or the full state house? I thought it was the dome but as I said I haven't read it all Carefully I'll send it out Whatever that view shed analysis It should match Exactly, that's the starting point that we're going to use That's the best information we have Mike can take a look for next meeting Please and for us to vote on a specific language now Because we're voting next meeting Yeah So Question At this point would you like me to go into what historic preservation commission is pushing back on since your last set of edits? Yeah with no one from the public here I don't think there's anything else for us to talk about so we can just start time doing that But we could also get into the map later we should probably try to set aside time So these are Yes because I wasn't sure if we were going to even talk about this today So these I'm passing around right now edits per October 15th historic preservation commission comments So this is a red line So it's a red line based on our last Yep Yep it's a red line to the one that was circulated previously No No this is Right This is based on that one Right this is a red line to Apparently a red line and a blue line Well right the blue line are additions red lines are deletions Aha there we go So The changes on page 5 are just minor It was a fix it was fixing a tight So The first major change is I guess it's not major but the first really substantive change is on page 8 7 is not last line of 7 Oh yeah sorry Thank you So there was a a pushback about talking about changes that have over time that have acquired historic significance in their own right that was some language that was in a prior draft And so we've pulled it up into this generally applicable area Before the way it was included it didn't really work as a standard It was more along the lines of something that might be in the lines was sort of an opinion statement So adding it here is a clarifier as to what What are historic materials There's something the historic preservation commission would like to do so it's right up front that Historic materials that should be preserved don't necessarily have to be something that was put on the building when the building was first built Right Because often times you're talking about something that was put on the building 30 years after it was first built but now it's 200 years after it was first built They don't want people to be stuck in a particular era If that makes sense But this is about materials Right Well this is about additions and alterations to historic buildings So development shall not destroy historic materials that characterize a historic building And materials that characterize a historic building can be things that change They can have changed over time The building can have changed over time and you're not just preserving the first creation of the building There's nothing in the definition of historic building that suggests So I think the initial concern that I had was that the phrase has acquired historic significance in their own right My concern was having that included as a part of being historic So from an applicability standpoint, as we're looking at things we get an application and we're going to look at our GIS data layers and other information to go through and say, is this a historic building and we're going to look at the historic register yes or no What we didn't want to have is a strange qualifier at the end that said Or things that have acquired historic significance in their own right So things that aren't on the list but are historic How are we going to administer that How are we going to enforce that How is an applicant supposed to know if their non-historic building has now established historic significance over time And so I pushed to kind of pull that back I was like, it's historic and we keep that register updated or it's not historic So you're either we have to decide are you going to meet point B or are you going to meet the requirements in point C And we have to be able to have some way of knowing that and not have a vague thing that sits out there that says, or if we feel like it we're going to stick you into the historic But this This is being applied So we took it out We had a discussion in the past on that So we took it out of kind of everything And now that I think there's a push to put it back to go through and say We're not talking about the question of whether something is in B or C What we're saying is we know it's in B because it's historic and we're going to qualify You shall not destroy historic materials that characterize a historic building including changes that have acquired So we're still talking about a historic building We're not talking about applicability We're talking about something as a specific instance And hopefully I haven't completely curved everybody around There are definitions for character defining features and historic materials in the back But I think the worry is that when somebody is reading this people don't always go back to the definitions And so having this here as a qualifier when you're talking about material, when you're looking to change materials on a historic building to have that qualifier up front makes it even though it may seem like with more words you're going to confuse people I think it's actually going to make more sense to people so that they, or at least they look at that and they go, wait I need to ask more questions versus they just assume what's going on My reading is that there's not really much risk that someone can make an argument that historic only means when it was first built And like that Well it was put into a different place or it was in a different place before and now it's been kind of Now it's being specifically applied to materials So if materials were added to the building after, as you said, 30 years after it was built things could be considered historic but might not Right, I mean that's the a listing on the National Register usually has a lot of detail about what is characterizing the building and that is often what is looked to and it may talk about additions and changes, things that were changed and if they're in the listing now they're often considered okay this is now another character defining feature Eric has something to add which would be great I think that what this was designed to deal with was a building say in 1840 really simple Greek revival building that had been updated with a porch from 1880 a bay window and I think those become contributing pieces of the historic building I think that to say yes this is historic if you want to take the bay window out it's part of the historic character of the building Is there a date on that that would define is it more than 50 years old I mean I would I would look to as Mike said to the National Register documentation just see if it's listed on the description on the National Register what the photograph is with the National Register good baseline to deal with it would it clarify if we added the two words in materials so development shall not destroy historic materials that characterize a building including changes in materials over time that have acquired historic significance does that make it a little clearer there might be historic a little bit of a sighting I'd like that Mike would you remove the word historic at the first time including changes in materials because I think a little bit of the confusing is because it we talked first about historic materials that characterize historic buildings and then we have the qualifier the qualifier isn't to historic buildings the qualifier is for the earlier historic materials I think that makes sense just referring back to including changes in materials over time so you're adding including changes over materials in materials anyone else have anything I don't see the harm in having the clarification as Mike just proposed to I don't think it's clear I don't think legally it does but I don't think there's any harm though I don't understand what I don't understand what the sentence is I think it's a construction material so I get that a bay window could be but I don't know about a porch that's just wood but it's made out of construction material right so it would be a porch itself really the porch seems more significant than a material exactly a window is a material you put a window in the wall but a porch is a specific material well a window if you're going to look at it from that standpoint as an element a porch is an element that a window is an element to because it's not just to look this one way it's not like a piece of clabber that is defined by it's it could have many appearances that's interesting yeah part of it is also that you're looking at layers of definitions so they went to historic materials in this particular item historic materials are things that are part of character defining features so character defining features can be the overall building decorative details so you're talking about particular style of molding or cornices and what those materials are made out of so if it's currently a stone, cornice whatever you have to replace it with you want it to at least look like another stone or cornice does that make sense sort of just let me know when you're ready to move on so do we have any further this is there's different this subset depending on the historic building depends on what would be a historic material that characterizes a historic building in certain cases certain historic pieces are more important than others to establishing that historic character and so development shall not destroy historic materials that characterize a historic building so it doesn't say you can't destroy any historic material at all just the ones that there are going to be certain pieces that are very important if we're looking at a Victorian building there's going to be a lot of historic elements and materials that define that style of historic building others are going to probably have less the question is if a foundation collapses under a building and it's laid up granite is the laid up granite foundation a character defining feature of that Greek revival building or is it just the foundation the building itself is the important piece and if we do something how do we fix the foundation that's meant to design review and historic preservation is going to come in and make cases to is that granite foundation actually a historic designing integral piece or can we remove that and put in a real foundation because it's in the flood plain and it's got erosion so even if we redid this or do we have to take the concrete and make it look like or do we have to do the concrete and put a historic facade on it but that's the question that comes up is we can't when we get in here that they have to deal with so if you're looking at the register that might have the original materials but that would also have those significant changes so I think Aaron's point is therefore that comment isn't necessary if you're looking at if you're looking at that as the metric anyway which you would be doing regardless and it's already contemplated into the definition it wouldn't change anything in how you're actually reviewing it it gives the DRB the ability to make this analysis on its own already and that's where it was before it was struck because it made more sense to have it be an explanation of the guideline should it be added to number 11 in the definitions instead and then that would clean up the requirement would just be you shall not destroy historic materials that characterize a building period the definition of historic material says construction materials of a historic building structure are part of a character defining feature including changes over time that are acquired I think the definition of historic materials as is is sufficient there's nothing in that definition that changes that are made subsequent to the original construction of the building can't be part of the character defining that can't be a character defining feature it gives the tribunal the ability to figure out what's the character defining feature and that includes historic final sign that's where the end of go I don't disagree with you that was one of the ones that I pushed to remove before but I could see the value of why they wanted to put it back in it was less problematic putting it back in here as a qualifier to historic materials I don't think it's a necessary piece but if it's helpful do we have someone from historic preservation that would like to make the case for keeping it for the to have this clarifying language about significance of their own right or would or you guys find if we just end up with that clarification okay so you're not going to bat for it sounds like okay okay so who asked to have this put in this location it was a historic preservation commission change we can take it out I don't think the historic Eric can override me if he wants the historic preservation commission it's not like the historic preservation commission is going to out vote the planning commission and say this has to be so in that case we'll plan to not have that in what we consider next week because I'm not getting from the planning commission I'm not getting the vibe that people want that so are we talking about taking out everything in blue everything in blue okay or just not changing just the way I was saying that and then so we can move on so we do have a few more and we want to in about 25 minutes be done with this so we can actually talk about the map for a few minutes because in case we have feedback about that okay so page 8 number 6 there was a question on whether or not new on historic buildings needed to be compatible and respect both the character of the primary building just the character of the primary building or the character of the primary building and nearby properties HPC decided to throw in and nearby properties but it's a it's a little bit of a big picture compatibility question I interviewed district right now if you're looking at a new building going up you care about whether or not it's compatible with surrounding buildings so if you're talking about an addition on to a historic building it should probably be compatible with both the historic building that's being added to as well as nearby properties that was the way historic preservation commission came down yes so this could possibly preclude development if you already have a large building and you're trying to add something that would maybe be compatible with that building but maybe not the others it might be a bridge I mean in terms of you know if you already have a building that's that whatever you add on to it should at least be sensitive to the nearby properties so that you don't add an addition that's also equally uncharacteristic so I think the problem with this one I mean you've got two situations here one is that you have a property that you're looking to add new development on that is compatible with the surrounding properties so the suggestion is that it is compatible with the one that you are that you are building on you should be fine but that opens the door to have other properties that are otherwise consistent with the one that's being built sort of saying no, no, no the other one would be is I think that's a pretty low risk the one that I'm worried about here and I think is possible or possible is you have two properties that are not particularly compatible with one another that just happen to be next to each other and that's just the way that it is and the new development on the property is consistent with the one that it is being built on but by definition it is going to be it would not respect or be compatible with nearby properties just by random chance and it just seems like it seems like the point of this was that they want we want to differentiate between old and new right like if it's an addition we want to show that it's a new building and like we've we probably have this like 14 times in our ordinance for things to be compatible with massing size scale we like just tack it on to everything after we say something so I'm not sure it's necessary I don't think this is actually addressing that point but in reference to what you're saying Erin could we say and respect nearby properties? I just don't think we need it like this whole section we're opening ourselves up for I think the potential to develop additions that are not in character with the neighborhood well I think it's what John was saying though we have a whole bunch of other places that's the whole point of this thing there's a whole set of over metrics that DRB is going to use to evaluate the appropriateness of any proposed development and I think that those are appropriate I think they'll still operate effectively it seems like there's actually some risk that maybe nearby properties have become more modernized over time and this new addition is not compatible or can be argued or perceived as not compatible because of changes to the other properties stuff like that like an unforeseen consequence like right the page before additions to existing buildings shall respect be compatible with the size scale materials detailing the character of the primary building in its environment which part are you looking at right now um page page 5 so yeah that's the very I mean I guess then I mean then the important thing to keep here is that any new development differentiated from the old like this is that's the new thing that's here on sub six on page 8 okay is to make and yes there is an overarching standard um design standard um page 5 at the very bottom so a roman numeral I 1 it's about additions to existing buildings that does apply globally to everything um character of the primary building in this environment I mean ultimately you could I guess you could the only quasi new item here is that about four historic buildings your new development has to be differentiated from the old and you're applying that global compatibility the argument is against the nearby properties isn't it on this but on page 5 it's saying it has to be compatible and this way of saying differentiated and compatible well wait no it has to it has to be differentiated you can't have you can't have something that copies the historic era of the original building because then it looks like you're trying to have the new addition immediately counted as also historic even though I'm building it today right okay so you have to if you're talking about a historic building your new addition has to differentiate from it somehow but it does still need to be compatible this goes back to the whole Kellogg Hubbard library edition you can tell that the Kellogg Hubbard library edition on the back is something new but it still echoes the front right so they're compatible it's respectful but it's clearly different from the front from the original with the only just because I've had a limited time here with the parking garage design it was a brand new building but they needed to make sure it was respectful of the architecture that was in place in that area right now so there's a it's a couple of different things like it's hard to have the Kellogg Hubbard library to use the Kellogg Hubbard library as an example because it doesn't look like anything else around it you mean the library itself so if you're trying to compare it to its neighbors that doesn't really work for the edition that would be like a concern about this change would be that the funeral home is like wow that addition to the library doesn't look anything like our funeral home where it doesn't or we don't think it goes with our funeral home right but but so I would right but then there's also so just a sort of an example that's not here oh Eric do you remember the example they used in White River Junction do you remember what the two different eras were of the building where they had a new build there was a building in the middle that they were going to renovate to the left was some like art deco building and to the right was do you remember what the other type of building was art deco was to the left to the right was some other like classic style and the building in the middle had originally just been some blah like 1950s one-story building and they renovated it and they brought in architectural elements from both the building on the right and the building on the left I made a really cool funky building that looked like nothing else in the area but it still was quote-unquote compatible with because it sort of echoed them both this is not something that I think is going to come into play very often when it does come into play I think it's going to be important for some big new design like the parking garage or something like that usually it's not going to be a modification to a historic building there's not going to be that many of those where they do some big addition this is the class that would pertain to having to develop the facade of the parking garage more comparatively in scale this wouldn't be the parking garage this would be an addition on to a historic building it would only be and that was a question that I was going to have we're going to need to move on real quick I'll take like a straw whole thing but we'll let Eric say a quick comment the secretary of interior standards which is all kind of based on it said you shouldn't create a false sense of history you're not putting in a bill this discussion about what's compatible and what's not compatible that's exactly why you have the design review commission and different people are going to make a different call on it you're hoping there's some boundaries on it but that's why you have to rely on people to make a judgment and a call to try to define it all in regulations right we are trying to minimize ambiguity that's part of that sorry hang up on that the one sense I was just wondering it doesn't even though we kind of know what it's trying to say it doesn't actually say historic on six so it's to differentiate new development shall be differentiated from old doesn't say historic just as old so if we're adding a porch on the side of my 1982 raised ranch that's adding something new to something old do we really need to respect and compatible the massing scale and architectural features and detailing so any this is all you probably do because it's in four other sections it's all in additions and alterations to these dark buildings to reuse the same words all over again but you can just say any new development on a historic any new you can rearrange the character of the primary building could be the character of the historic building if it was meant just to apply to historic buildings and then the other question was and nearby properties is that again are we referring just to nearby historic properties or if my neighbor has a raised ranch am I required to be taking my historic Greek revival building and now making sure that my addition on the side of my Greek revival building is actually compatible with my neighbor's ranch not compatible but I mean differentiated your raised ranch and then you've got a three story Greek revival building and you want to add an addition onto it so you want to put a three-story addition to your Greek revival building then is that compatible with the neighbor's ranch I want to do a quick straw poll like if there's any interest in any type of concept of evolving nearby properties if you're interested in doing it in any fashion raise your hand okay so outside I'm asking without getting into the weeds of it just for this question this nearby properties language if you're interested in trying to do anything in any form related nearby properties raise your hand because if people are this provision are you saying to eliminate in nearby properties well to not accept that addition okay are you interested in doing this in any form this nearby properties idea in any form or are you okay just not doing it and moving on so are you interested in doing this at all non-binding resolution yeah do we tentatively support that's what I'm saying I think people understand what I'm saying raise your hand if you're interested in them I think Barb is the only one interested if you're interested in leaving it as it changes for any version of it yes okay so we're going to move on and not do that but Barb next week you're welcome to like propose something as we go okay yeah okay so we're going to move on to the next one sub four on this page this is language that this is language that had been somewhere else and I honestly can't remember where it was before it was on the next page yes so it was stuck under projects that do not involve historic buildings and it just really didn't make sense there and so we've moved it under materials related to historic building changes um anyway so that got moved there I think you guys can just to be clear it only applies to additions of alterations to historic buildings I see what you're saying I probably wasn't here when we discussed this the first time I mean that sentence makes sense because it doesn't really make sense I didn't understand it when it was there before but I don't understand it now so I'll keep my mouth shut maybe we should circulate old technology unless it's like something no it just as they have materials old materials it feels like it's trying to say something and not just saying it okay that'd be great the brick cladding the building that is structurally brick that is being using brick as a support material oftentimes people like to come in and they don't want to affect the outside right so they're going to add an interior partition an interior and add insulation to it okay without understanding that if they do that they may destroy the brick facade because the characteristic of the bricks facade is that it's expecting to allow moisture to go in and out of it not to get that moisture trapped if moisture gets trapped the brick disintegrates so I mean that that one has come up multiple times in various renovations to historic buildings and it's something that would I know it's not necessarily very clear here as to what it's all about that's something that would be clarified and elaborated in guidelines that we just can't the HPC isn't going to try and write those until we've come to agreement on what the regulations are actually going to say I only concern with this is it doesn't get into the degrees it doesn't get into maybe the new things still more energy efficient okay so then maybe it's it could still happen but you just want to make sure you understand there's no regulations about it you just have to identify whatever a existing energy efficient characteristics of the building so maybe it shall be identified comma and also preserve to the extent possible or put something in there I don't okay you guys can play with that language I think that making sure that there is a way to identify those that those have to be considered and presented to the design review committee so that they can review them is important and leaving it up to the design review committee as to what extent it makes sense to preserve them I think it's up to you know common sense as I said this HPC is putting forward its wish list every time this is its wish list so if I where does the existing energy efficient characteristics if I took out energy efficient from that and just said before implementing any energy conservation measures to be to enhance the sustainability of historic building the existing characteristics of the building shall be identified and preserved that makes it significantly clearer in my head because we're not are we just talking about is there like a handful of things that we could just list because I have no idea what this means it's going to change though every building will be different it's going to change depending on what through studies we Mike does it make sense to circulate that that article I mean I think we're getting hung up on this that's just but that really that article is really looking at why you shouldn't demolish and rebuild just preserving the characteristics and efficiency that changes the meaning though that changes the meaning completely we're like trying to stop people from doing like stupid things right and there's probably like a list of stupid things that people do it's a lot more that would be something I think to lay out in the guidelines putting it in here where then to modify it when you learn something new and go through the whole process of amending the regulations doesn't make a lot of sense to me I don't know I mean we could put some examples as long as we're clear that they're examples well sometimes the examples help to I don't know what existing energy efficient characteristics that was the example I gave you the existing energy efficient characteristic is the fact that the building rests on these brick walls and these brick walls have to have to be maintained in terms of how they operate and those are the efficient energy efficient because they are the outside wall of the building okay but that's still just a characteristic of the building no because actually if you look at characteristic definition the characteristic could be the type of brick because we don't have just characteristics defined it's the historic character defining features which is a little different aspects and physical features but is it what we're trying to protect here is the character of the brick facade not necessarily it's we're trying to prevent it from degradating based on improvements so the like I'm thinking right now like if I want to implement an energy conservation measure to enhance the sustainability of the historic building I want to put in a heat pump put it on the back side of the house does that mean I have to identify and preserve the radiators those are inside we don't care about those it's an energy efficient characteristic but it's inside we're on the same way do I have to first prove that the water baseboard heat is not in fact more energy efficient you're going to leave it in place anyway so that's kind of a moot point my concern with this one is the fact that it's up front usually we're talking about development we have a specific development before implementing any conservation measures to enhance the sustainability of a historic building so that's what we're talking about if I went through and came in and applied to Meredith and said I'm going to be replacing the front door because I want to add more security measures I don't have to meet this requirement I don't have to evaluate it because I'm not doing it for energy conservation reasons I'm doing it for security reasons so the way you're leading into this before implementing this specific set of stuff so all I have to do is not say that's why I'm doing it and then I don't have to meet if I don't meet the if I don't have to meet the then but a door is going to fall into something else it's going to fall into something else but I'm just using that as an example but most of these things are going to fall in somewhere else so but if I replace a window do I call it an energy conservation measure or am I just replacing a window well if you replace all the windows in the building with new windows but if I do it for a reason that's not energy conservation it isn't you won't get the cost and savings and energy savings for the cost you won't gain back in savings the energy so I'm doing it for aesthetics and its noise and its functionality I'm not replacing it for energy efficiency because I don't trigger the if part of this statement I don't have to meet the then requirement so you're saying we should take out the if this also goes to the question of and this was been the concern of a couple of ours here is this just is number four just the hidden club to beat people to go and say you can't replace your windows and if it is let's just go and say you can't replace your windows no the first time I read this I said oh yeah that's exactly what happened when people added aluminum siding to the outside of clabbered building and aluminum sided their building and then they couldn't understand why their building was falling apart I mean is that accurate I get your example but I don't understand how the walls themselves are an energy efficient because the existing wall operates a certain way then you add on insulations and siding to the outside which keeps the moisture from going through so instead the moisture rots your wall this is actually I don't think how it works is great I get what you're saying but isn't the character I don't understand why the characteristic we're trying to preserve isn't just the brick wall yeah I don't think anyone's calling their brick wall an energy conservation now energy efficient character but what I get the brick wall foot of insulation I get that how is the brick actually an energy efficient characteristic where it's just a characteristic we're trying to preserve energy efficient we're attempting to preserve the brick wall we have to change our characteristic definition then um I mean you could probably still say you could probably still say the existing character defining features of the building as well as maybe structural integrity you know because I mean what you're getting to is structural integrity the things that end up happening would and destroy the building that changes the entire meaning of the sentence they just say don't destroy the structural integrity of the building but people don't always well she's talking about definition well not necessarily I'm not changing the definition don't you want to add that to character no no I was changing the whole clause of this sub four but maybe this is something that just maybe it's something that we need to outside of here to try and what was the scenario that sort of being contemplated you're also I mean is there something specific it's really I think a lot of it goes to what Barb was saying but do you have another just because I wasn't here from the very beginning that some of this language got started with so it's the concern do you see what I'm talking about I'm following along actually there was somebody who testified in some other situation about why can't I do that and in fact he had already done it but he had no idea how that was going to destroy his building is the concern that you want to have the DRB have the ability well to get in front of somebody saying I'm going to do this because it provides energy efficiency savings for me that's why I'm going to be I want to be able to do it with this I'm looking at an application I'm putting in like a heat pump and it says identify all the energy efficient characteristics of the building so I'm going to go through and be like I spray foam my basement I've got you know I these are all like the things that I've done I've got a water panel so I just like go through a list of things that heat pump is not necessarily energy efficiency you know it is a different type of heating system which is more efficient but that's not an energy efficient characteristic the first clause is very broad before implementing any energy conservation measures so I'm seeing that as an energy anything you do to your walls I would think would be related to that anything you do to your walls is an energy conservation measure plus the heat pump plus a bunch of other things sorry but the heat pump is not because you could do that without modifying anything else in your building but it's an energy conservation measure no it's not it's a different way of using energy it's more efficient you could call that an energy efficiency measure wouldn't I be conserving energy if I was being one of those? Yeah so I mean I guess my real core question though is is the purpose of this to give the DRB information like what information are we giving to the DRB considering these projects why is it important? This is information to give to the applicant because this is what the applicant needs to do in order to submit the application So do we have a version of this that's less problematic? No but I mean I do think that I think it was speaking to some of the issues that had been brought up that in the past there have been times when people have been promoting a particular treatment as an energy conservation measure as it's written here and there is science out there that shows that perhaps that's not an energy conservation measure though there are other benefits to it that could be windows it could be insulation it could be other it but I think what the goal was was for there to be an understanding when these types of things are going to happen to look at the building holistically and so and to just you need to understand what's there in order to figure out whether you should keep it or not so it's sort of taking an inventory is the building oriented towards the sun is does it take are there are there is there a cross ventilation through the design that allows natural ventilation so that it maybe doesn't need to be so conditioned and it's looking at understanding those things to then figure out what's the best way to approach the situation of wanting to conserve energy so for example if someone were to come in and say well I want to replace my windows because I want to get a better energy rating well there's science out there that says that you can retain the historic window and with the proper air sealing and weather stripping and a high quality storm get similar energy performance while still preserving historic material that's understanding it there may be situations though where because the windows are so deteriorated that looking at them the cost of rehabilitating them is so great that it doesn't make sense and that actually allowing that would allow the DRC to replace it so it's looking at all of those factors but coming in and saying well I want to replace the windows simply to have a better energy rating that's not that doesn't really add up is the DRC looking for something that's like squishy like guidance or are you looking for something as powerful as what this language says which is shall be identified and preserved which is a pretty you know that's pretty stringent yes I would agree that's sort of stringent sorry to interrupt you just to give us an idea if we want to try to turn this into something that we think is more workable sure the first thing one of the things we said is even just losing the word preserved at the end because you may do this evaluation and realize wait this isn't the best route we can have this element be replaced or you know it may say no this is important but to mandate it to be preserved might I mean that would give you more flexibility but I think there's value to understanding what is trying to be done none of this happens in a vacuum and I think placing it in context you have to understand certain changes by tightening up the building you need to provide better ventilation or else the building will have mold issues and air quality issues simply by trying to take advantage of energy conservation measures would everyone be okay with if this just said the existing energy efficient characteristics of the building shall be taken into consideration or is that so squishy that you think it is worthless or what well I think it's not specific to before implementing energy conservation measures in addition this is in the material section and it goes to materials and well taking out the energy conservation measures means that phrase would apply to all development whether it's an energy conservation development or not so and that was my comment was that I think limiting it just to environment energy conservation measures means as long as I characterize my development project as not being an energy project then I don't have to meet the second half but wording it the way you did it everything whether it's an energy conservation or not an energy conservation project we should take the buildings I could be wrong but I feel like the windows is a big one and we maybe we should be just clearer about it if that's something we want to you know address and then because otherwise this feels squishy and all-encompassing when I could be wrong but it seems like a large percentage of the time we talk about windows right people are replacing windows that they may not need to and they may not know like that they can rebuild them and they'll be just as efficient and that's what we're trying to like educate people and preserve those windows but here we're clouding it or I still don't understand so the thing I was proposing would be just a hook for the DRC to use so that they can include in their guidance not a mandate but just guidance and about windows and further information I don't even think it's windows are the major piece of this but it wouldn't result in any kind of mandate so what it sounds like is we want to get the DRP an inventory of characteristics out of the building no we want the owner the applicant to understand how the building before they come in and just say I want to add this insulation for energy conservation reasons that would be an inventory of characteristics only the well in this case only because if you're going to add energy conservation measures you better understand how the building works from an energy standpoint now just quickly a couple of things that the whole window thing in energy conservation gets into a lot of highly technical things Barbara's pointed out how you think you're doing something good for the building you're tightening it all up all of a sudden the paint comes off and that's because you've trapped the moisture in the building and you're rotting the building and you're losing energy that way but I think that this is probably a good thing to maybe write these rags in such a way that we are going to do some guidelines and this is where the guidelines discussion could come in about windows I know talking to Efficiency Vermont they had an application I've done all the obvious things like replace the windows and they said no that's the last thing you should do in terms of energy efficiency both on a return in investment and actually doing it but I think that some of this really technical stuff we had discussed about having requirement in a stark preservation person be put on the design at one person at least one person for stark preservation is on design review to deal with some of these technical issues so but trying to resolve all the technical issues and regulations it's not going to work I think we have a sense of the goal here for this but we're not super close to getting the exact language right so can we kick this to next week and discuss exactly how we want to part of the difficulty is that every building is different if you're doing new construction you can make a rule saying the problem is definitely more than windows we'll discuss it it's really not we'll discuss it next week sorry this is taken so long there's really just one other change definition of historic buildings page 14 previously Planning Commission and Mike had taken out some language that had let historic building also be something that was determined by the Historic Preservation Commission so you guys had argued to push historic building back to just buildings listed on the state register or national register of historic places the Historic Preservation Commission would kind of like to push back on that to allow an opportunity for the Historic Preservation say the applicant or somebody else has a question it's not technically on the register but somebody's arguing that a building is historic to have the HPC testified before the Development and Review Board and the Development and Review Board is the one who makes the call Mike brought up J.M. Golf earlier and I think this might be a good textbook if you're kind of teaching golf it's where like does this apply to me we'll decide when we feel like deciding if this applies to you I mean that's what it feels like, what do you think Mike? Yeah, I mean this was when we talked a little bit earlier that was what my concern was is when everything is on the list and anything else that we think is on the list Anything that's on the list it has been evaluated historically within the district this is only for design review has been evaluated so would we even have that kind of a situation? Does the DRB have the authority to make those determinations? Does the DRB have the authority to make those determinations? Well this is authorities based on the testimony from the Historic Preservation Commission so I mean in theory HPC would have a responsibility for demonstrating it I think the issue is that it's kind of post-fact from the applicant standpoint the applicant comes in in good faith and puts in an application assuming the rules because they've looked at the national register and noticed they're not in the national register and therefore they can do this and then after the fact it's been altered that they now have to meet these rules I think they would, if they went to the environmental court I think the judge would probably go through and say that for example, why they wanted to do this so you're thinking this wouldn't even be much of an issue I can't see where it would happen sorry just so the public can hear you as more historic students I'm Bob McCullough the surveys go out of date very quickly and questions may arise whether a building that was formerly not included as contributing because of its age may have become historic there may be other situations too where where debate occurs about where debate occurs when change has has occurred with the building through reasons that are a little bit hard to sort of visualize but if a building has been damaged if it has been damaged now damage is the one example that comes to mind there could be situations where it's necessary where there's debate about whether or not a building continues to be historic and I think that having the historic preservation commission giving them the ability to testify that yes or no a building has either retained or lost its historic significance here's an example there's a a little garden shed behind the building at 159 State Street it was probably built in 1920s 1930s and it has collapsed does the building have historic integrity probably not if not then its historic significance has been lost but how do we establish that and what process to reestablish that and I think that giving the commission authority to testify is a good thing to do this only allows the commission to add not remove anything not to add it's simply offering testimony to the development review board when the development review board makes decisions about whether or not to deny a permit or approve a permit the preservation commission is not adding anything to the survey it's simply testifying and adhering as to the historic significance of a resource right but it's in the definition of is a building historic is it on the state register yes is it on the national register yes or if a non-surveyed property is determined to be eligible by the DRB based on testimony or historic preservation commission so you get to like this point and you go down this path if it's considered historic or you go down this path if it's not considered historic so there's no opportunity to unlist a property award to have it considered I think the DRC can say can certainly offer I think the DRB will probably follow any advice on the regulations and how that's dealt with but in terms of the definition of what's historic they can only the way it's being proposed add to what's being considered historic I think the guardianship that Bob was talking about is listed on the national register it's listed as contributing it's listed as a contributing billy but now that this case and the determination has been made now it becomes a public business perhaps and the owner wants to take it down so there has to be if you went through the formal process with the national register of delisting maybe five years you'd be this doesn't help you though that's all I'm saying the better example is going to be up on the college and it's now moot because it's past it's it's stuff that but one of the buildings up on the college was 48 years old not on the national register not on the state surveys but it was built and constructed in such a way that it looks historic and the question came up through an Act 250 is this building on the green historic and they made all their plans as not historic and proposed a number of things because they assumed they were not historic because they're not on any of the registers Act 250 lets you make these adjustments and so there was a proposal from the state that even though this is not a historic building it's not 50 years old it's not on the register they proposed based on testimony that it should be treated as a historic building and in that case I believe they won and what they're looking at is for us in our case of administration and doing things we need to as people come in the door they're going to ask us what are the requirements I need to meet with with respect to design review and Meredith is going to have to say you have to meet requirements in subset B or you're going to need to meet the requirements in subset C and I think while the state has been given a little more flexibility I think with these things that decision kind of boxes us in a little bit more at the local level to be a little bit more specific about I mean I think there are some risks in here from a legal standpoint I think that the design review commission is part of the city so it would be the city saying haha we're actually going to change the rules on you part of the way through so I'm not comfortable with that are the surveys done I was only impression that it was at least it varies it depends on funding that's available whether our preservation consultant is hired to do a survey it varies considerably it's like 5 to 15 years we just updated the survey 2 years ago yeah it had been amended in the 80s but it hadn't been updated since it was written in the 70s and would you say the city or the state there's some buildings that are listed on the state register in Montpelier that aren't part of the national register but that's stuff from the 70s so that it's we include both here yeah just one thing too is that the it could work both ways in that for example with the structure that's collapsed that was listed one way this could be expediting or streamlining things in some way would be it has to go for the to clear the parcel it would need a demolition permit but it's listed currently as a contributing resource on the national register I believe I think part of our intent was that this could be a mechanism where we can then say well it's it no longer has integrity because it's a pile of sticks on the ground and the HPC could provide testimony supporting that to the DRB which could then say that it is no longer considered historic and then they could get a demolition ordinance without having to go permit without having to go through the full historic preservation process in one potential way where it could be helpful but it also is just calling for eligibility it is not changing the listing at all which is just the threshold that's needed even in state or federal review it's just needs to have those characteristics the other factor too in your response to your comment that this isn't helping us the historic preservation commission doesn't have authority to designate a building that's historic we don't have a role in any kind of regulatory context and I think that by establishing the ability to testify at least then that at least gives the preservation commission the opportunity to offer their expertise to the development review board that's the purpose of this I feel like if we wanted to do that the better avenue would be for us to just dictate without using these registers like create our own list to regulate that that's that's a huge the proper way to go about something is sometimes the hard way the other option would be to have gone through and say any building listed on the state register, national register and any other structure more than 50 years of age then you've got a black and white line that goes through and says anything that's 50 years old becomes historic it's a shed that's where the question is it's a shed and how do we know when we get an application in whether that building or that garage that was built do we have to look back and assessor's cards to see I mean there's administrative hangups to that but I was just saying there are ways that are more defensible in court there's a black and white line and as time goes by more buildings will move into historic because we have declared anything more than 50 years old that's historic but some things may not actually be enlisted or even as contributing and they could be over 50 years old that's the point so I don't see how an age is going to be the right bar the 50 years was developed by the national register to say this is when you start looking at a building that's historic it's not doesn't say when you hit that 50 year mark you're historic it says you should look at the building because a lot of are not contributing are more than 50 years old to answer a little bit of your question the national register update was originally the register was done in 77-78 there were some updates through the 80s and it just was completed two years ago so it's like a 20 year gap it's not going to happen again for a while one of the things the historic preservation commission is looking at is having a plan for adding to the state register the national register sections of the city the feds have said the national register district in Montpelier is too big you can't add to it anymore 630 buildings but you know if you start thinking about areas that could be added look at the meadow college street now boundaries have to be set one of the difficulties in Montpelier is that neighborhoods sort of blend into each other's building so to say here it is but we're working on developing a plan to do that but that plan is not going to be carried out for 20 years if it's lucky is it possible to add every few years to add a few buildings to the state register it would be and that's one of the things being a COG the state has a grant program that the city has to match it but usually it can match it with donated time from city staff but that's exactly the plan to say okay what do we want to do we want to put this on the state register much easier than the national register just to have a plan to do that in like an incremental fashion in incremental fashion exactly because you couldn't accomplish my guess is that less than half the historic buildings are in Montpelier are actually in the national register district but all you got to do is get into the state register and then it qualifies for protections under this as long as it's also in design review district as long as it's already in the district okay so we're out of time so we're gonna have to we'll tackle this more fully next time it's something that we'll do although we've discussed it quite a bit one last piece I would like to just mention is that we didn't get to the map so I'd like to ask the DRC and the HPC to put first of all will they meet before our next meeting I don't think they would they've stayed out of the lines on the map question I think so why don't you give them the opportunity I'll let you maybe fill in I don't have any committee or commission wide comments I think any comments you got on the map would be member specific I'm just asking if they do meet before our next meeting if inclined please feel free to send us in writing comments on the math we've proposed so far because we'll be voting next week and we'll be sending it along does that make sense does that work does the historic preservation guide my impression that you get to sorry my impression was that we were actually going to sit down together with the planning commission and look at those boundaries with the historic preservation commission so in that case please come to our next meetings we'll be doing that and we're going to do a sort of drive the change the one change I can really think of right now is taking that section and saving pastures off it's now owned by the it's now owned by the college so it's being samped anyway but the new owner is proposing some significant development there and it's also a gateway so in that case yeah please come to our next meeting and give a comments then love another meeting okay soon are we your next meeting is next week so so I say next week that's the number 12 yeah note that tentatively it's going to be a Tuesday did you get that everything that's HPC's actually November meeting is there next week well that could work out very well then have a combined meeting yeah that would be great HPC attendance here alright that's great okay we'll be talking about the regs too but hopefully we'll get through those alright so with that we will do we have a motion for adjournment