 Welcome to the Monday, October 1st meeting of the Multilier Design and Review Committee. I will let committee members and staff introduce themselves. Kenneth Smith. Meredith Crandall. Staff. Stephen Everett. Eric Gilbertson. Benjamin Genie. We are an advisory committee to the Development Review Board. We will hear the applications for the projects that are listed on the agenda. And speaking of which, do I hear a motion to approve the agenda? So moved. I second. All in favor of the agenda, raise your hand. Agenda is approved. And we can go to a person for the first application is not here. So we can go to item number 7. Two others are continued. And we'll go to number 7, downtown light poles and weight-finding master plan for my failure alive. Come forward, have a seat, introduce yourself. Dan Groberg from Up There Alive. And I'm going to call in to John Sealy, who's the consultant we've been working with on the weight-finding plan, OK? And while Dan's doing that, I would like to separate the banners from the weight-finding discussion. OK, we could probably, I mean, some presentation banners last, so we could probably do those for however you want to do it. I just want to separate the two. OK. And just to note that this is informal review, because these people in this lab. Hey, John, it's Dan Groberg. And you're here with the design review committee. Hello, hi, Dan. Hi, everyone. Hi. So this is an informal review, because neither of these projects actually need a zoning permit. But we're bringing it before the design review to get input. Yes, we certainly welcome any feedback. John, just I have the presentation. Oh, I should get it actually on the screen with help. OK. And I guess if you want to just tell me when you're ready to move on to the next slide, I am happy to do that. Sure. How much time do we have? I just want to make sure that we're not going out or? I mean, I think we want to keep it relatively brief, because they do have a big project to discuss after us on the agenda. OK. That's why I asked. OK. So give us just a couple of minutes, because the projector has to warm up. We need to adjust your size. Has Leapop peeping season started yet up in Montpelier? Yes. We're not quite peep quality yet, but I think you have to change the size on that. Before we start, Dan, can you give us some idea of where this project is in the process? Yes. That's going to be as good as it's going to be. But you have it in your pocket. Yes. So we have received approval from the state TIC for the project, which is a requirement for the driver vehicular signage. And we've received approval for the plan from city council. And I'll note that what we're looking for is feedback on the design elements and that it is not final in terms of the specific signs or their specific placement. So we look forward to continuing to work with various stakeholders to ensure that we have exactly the wording on the signs pointing to the venues that we want to point to in the locations we plan to continue to work on that. There may or may not be the opportunity to add signs based on budgetary restraints. And I'll add to that that we are under vehicular signage, very limited by the state regulations, specifically in terms of having no more than three messages on any given sign. So that was a big constraint that we had in terms of how many landmarks that we could point to. We are intending to put this project out for bid later in October to apply for a state grant in the spring and hopefully to have the signage up by the end of 2019, if all goes according to plan. So with that introduction, John, take it away. Yes. OK. Great. So I know the general sequence of the presentation ban, but maybe you can clue me in at the pages as you guys flip through them. But I guess we'll start with the overall goals and objectives to the project. We started this project with Montilier Alive two years ago, actually. The goals really haven't changed. Intention is to provide a consistent vehicle and pedestrian and visitor wayfinding experience for the capital city, for visitors and travelers alike, and for residents to really create a sense of place and create a consistent sign language within downtown area. And then it's really meant to reinforce and provide better direction to all of the parking areas, as well as the destinations downtown, supporting the cultural institutions. And that's really kind of the big picture. Now, the design and everything that's taken place since then has been about choosing materials, typography, working with the TIC on the METCD requirements that Dan briefly touched on earlier, making sure that we're compliant with all those requirements, and then also working on the pedestrian side to make sure that we have information and direction for those who have parked and are walking and exploring downtown to take advantage of all the retail, as well as the cultural destinations downtown. Now, in terms of the big picture on the design, the idea here is that we're creating a sense of place as well, is that we're adding to what is already part of the cultural equity of Montpelier by creating a really sophisticated and positive design that is positive to the architecture in downtown, as well as the streetscape. So keep flipping, Dan. I'm not there, but I kind of know basically what happens here, I think. We first took a big picture outline of all the different sign types, all the diagrams that you're probably seeing right now, that outline all the kit apart, basically. It's the family of sign types. And they all should have a certain similarity in terms of design and typeface. But there's a hierarchy that starts from a gateway, which we've identified at Main and Route 2 leading into downtown, and then a hierarchy based on vehicle signs and pedestrian signs and information signs, as well as signs that support the bike system. So that page you're looking at is really just a diagram of all the elements. What's after that, Dan? Sorry. The signed message hierarchy districts, public spaces, non-profit institutions, jobs. Yeah. So part of what the TIC requirements are in the Vermont statute is that these public wayfinding signs for the vehicles cannot have any private institutions or private businesses listed, only non-profit organizations and cultural institutions, government buildings, and so forth, which is fine, because that's really what the system is trying to do downtown. So when we presented to the public two years ago, we vetted this through Small Business Association downtown. I'm not sure if that's the right correct name for it. I can't remember. But that was one of the groups we met with. And the idea behind the way this system supports not only the public, but also the private, is that at the pedestrian level, at the kiosk level, we're able to create a map potentially with some zones for retail and businesses that could be updated within a reasonable time period. Because those businesses and those institutions cannot be listed in the vehicle sites. So that slide you're looking at starts to set up that hierarchy of what we do with the vehicle signs and what message comes before which one and what that hierarchy is. And as Dan mentioned, we are limited to about three messages per the MUTCD. So that has not been a problem. We've had to leave off some institutions from the messaging hierarchy because of that requirement. But in general, we've been able to accommodate the vast majority of the cultural stuff. You can probably move on to the sign type. Yeah, we're on the Montpelier Live brand page. Yeah, so this is a program extension of Montpelier Live. And we want to make sure that it also has that it relates to the economic development portion of Montpelier and what Montpelier Live is doing for the community. Right about at the time when we started this project, they had just completed a branding exercise of which we folded into our design by using this sort of multifaceted state house image with a color palette. And we kind of tweaked it and played with it and made it a little more abstract. And then that becomes a part of the backside and certain parts of both the vehicle and the pedestrian sign that you'll see in the design coming up. We've moved on to the sign type families. Where would the Montpelier Live brand signs be used? Well, you see the branding represented on the throughout the design language of the sign. So if we're on page nine now, which is the sign type family, you'll see on the back of the vehicular signage in the bottom of information of pedestrian signages. You'll see that sort of abstract state house with the color palette that was developed through the branding process represented on the sign. What's a different color palette that you're showing us here? It's inspired by the color palette. And we have a simple side logo that has, so the colors are from among that group family. Well, those colors are radically different than these colors. They're actually taken from among the bottom of the eye. Yeah, branding people gave us a group of colors, a palette of colors, and that inspired the design. They may not be the exact same color. So the abstract state house and the, yes. Is the palette going to be used throughout? The palette will be used throughout. As you can see, the different signs have some different coloring to them. And you'll also see once we get to the banner, so I understand that Eric wants to keep that separate, but that same language plays through the light bulb banner as well. Dan, you could probably fast forward to page 14. And that'll just support what you just mentioned. I can't really see up there. Yeah, but I can see it. Yeah, yeah. So on page 14, it shows the color palette that we're using. Yes, and those were inspired by colors and those. You don't have any samples of those that don't come off a printed color printer? I'm looking for the accurate representation of the colors. Yeah, well, we'll get into that once we get a fabricator on board. There'll be a whole set of material to middle samples that we're going to review. But the idea is that the back of the sign will have one of these six sort of color palettes with a ghosted state house on there in the front. Correct. Yeah, from the front bottom. OK, yeah. Yes. But also encourage wherever those signs are placed to be respected of the buildings and or environment there in as far as coordinating the colors so that you're not clashing. Yeah, certainly to the extent possible. Obviously, specific stores may change if the lifespan of this signage hopefully will be long. Hopefully the life of the stores will be long as well. If you've got a brick building that's there for 100 years, you're not going to put a baby blue sign next to the brick, which contrasts with it. It's not a compatible color. Yeah, we can certainly look at that where possible. Yeah, I'm not sure how it's being projected in your screen there, but the palette is actually all very muted and this is tended to be organic, natural in color. So there's no baby blues or pop colors. Sometimes that gets misrepresented in projections I've noticed in presentations. That might be a reaction going on. Can you speak to the pedestrian directional? Is it touching the ground? Yeah. Yeah, John, do you want to talk about that? Sure, yeah. Yeah, it touches the ground. It's got a frame that goes across the bottom edge, bolt it into the ground, and then up on one side and the other. So it's open in the center of that, but it's fully attached on both sides. Much like the M, that line that drops down as a piece of some sort of flat stock that attaches to the ground. So I want to go to slide 17 or page 17 on the handout, because that has a good couple of pictures. So it's open. There are sort of legs on both sides, and then open in the open on each side. Yeah, it's a thick fabricated aluminum footing. OK, there again, that's a perfect example. Hopefully the colors are off from what the actuals are going to be particularly in those two locations that are exhibited on 17. One of the things I think people really like to see in downtown is to be able to figure out where you are. And I wonder if some of these graphics couldn't be substituted for a map whether you are here. Sure. So the informational kiosks will have a map with who you are here? Maybe even more than that. I spent quite a bit of time with this, and I honestly couldn't figure everything out. But that may be me. I think any time I've been in a strange community, I'd like to know where I am and be able to orient myself to where things are. I've told several people, Seattle I think had the coolest one was they had the sewer covers on the sidewalk, were cast with a map, and then they had a little brass pin that was built in there so you could just look down at the sewer cover and figure out where you were. But I think those are directional things so that people can look and find out where they are, where they're going. Otherwise you're just kind of left out there with a bunch of signs. Yeah. Have you studied the location plans by any chance? I've looked at them. Yeah, they're just a lot of signs to try to figure out. Well, they're all labeled by sign types, and they're pretty closely located. They've been vetted through DPW and the planning. There are three, we didn't feel like we needed more than three major points for a kiosk that would give you a map on both sides. And then intermediate to that would be the pedestrian signs, which you just saw renderings of. And then above that would be the directional signs, which are the highest quantity of signs. They're all pretty clearly labeled on those drawings. Yeah, I understand that. I worry some about the content in the number. It just seems like a large volume. This is basically a four block section of. Yeah, I mean, I was just looking at it. I'd like to comment. That makes it look. 5, 6, 7, 8. 8 on one side of the street in two blocks. So John, he's looking at stage 23 from Emerald Bering to State Street. Yeah, and so those are different. Some of those are different. I understand, it's different elevations. Different elevations, yes. And some of them are replacing some signs that are there currently. So for instance, this will replace existing parking signage that's there. So some of it is, and some bike signage may be replacing existing bike signage. So I would say that it seems like more signs than it will feel like in reality. Anything to add to that, John? Yeah, I mean, what you're looking at are three different sign types that are all in green. There's the B1, the B2s, and the B3s. The B1s are the vehicle direction signs. The B2s are the pedestrian signs, of which there was only a handful of. And then there's the parking signs that are only located at the entrances to parking locations. So I think what might be throwing everyone off is the size of the bubbles in scale to the map itself. It looks like they're all within 3 feet of each other. They're actually quite spread out. And they're only placed at major decision points for vehicles and pedestrians. So they're really only where they need to be and not in any kind of redundant fashion. I'm going to say again, I think having a lot of maps of the downtown, particularly, was things labeled, whether it's parking, and the major points that you're pointing to the state house, I think that could be done very nice graphically with the image of the state house or an image of the streetscape as you've done here so people can really figure out where they are and what they're looking at. One comment that I made to the city council when I was considering this is that the information on the historic district be included in this designation on maps. I think there could be some informational signs about the history of downtown Montpellier. People are interested in that, I think, to part of that. Yeah, we actually haven't gotten into designing the actual kiosks. We're still in the stage of budgeting this project and locating the sign types. So for instance, with a kiosk, it's a two-sided sign it could have. The map has not been designed yet. The visual of the streetscape has not been developed, will be, as well as potentially any company interpretive information about the history. There's all kinds of opportunities on that sign which really haven't been developed yet. We're at that stage now where we have to figure out what we can afford and how we're gonna do it. John, it might be helpful if you could speak briefly to your credentials and what other way finding projects you've worked on. Okay. The city of Providence, city of Worcester, currently working with the city of Barrington, Rhode Island, Oak Bluffs, Massachusetts, and a lot of other campuses, college campuses. Well, is there a question right now? I say that just to say that we chose you because you have done this before and have a lot of experience with way-finding systems. So just for the committee to understand that this is based on best practices and things that have been successful in other communities. Oh, yeah, yeah, definitely. But I do wanna stress that the map hasn't been designed yet. There's not a final illustration that would probably answer some of the questions I heard earlier. This is still at schematic level in terms of the design. There's a package that we're gonna have to develop that will include all the artwork. And I don't really know what the process is gonna be in Montpelier and that's really up to Dan and the committee to figure out how they wanna proceed. But it's done in different ways in different places. So far, all of the messaging has been vetted through the planning office with Cori Lyne and myself. Cori's in public life. Dan, I think you've weighed in on it a little bit, but so that isn't, like as Dan mentioned earlier, is not set in stone. So none of this is really set in stone other than the design that we'd like to get approved. I, without some of this other stuff, I find it hard to develop an opinion based on not specifics. What's the plan for continuing the development of this? Yeah, so there's a way finding committee that's been developed that will continue working on this. We'd be happy to continue getting input from Design Review, as Meredith mentioned, this project is not subject to approval by the Design Review Committee, both because it's within the city's public right of way and because it's considered a public art project. What you're looking for is kind of a design review blessing, right? We love your feedback in any way and we'll certainly try to incorporate it where possible into the project. What was on the way finding committee? John could probably speak better to that because it was actually almost all developed before I started as Director. The Montpelier Business Association, a member of the Montpelier Live Board, Corey Lyne from Public Works. I couldn't tell you who else. I'm not looking at you, I'm looking at the phone. I'm sorry. John, can you remember who else has been involved in the process? Yeah, we had a representative from the VCFA, Greg Gossin, who's a board member, architect and designer. All were very positive and very supportive of this. I'm very supportive of the idea. And I don't remember her name. She hasn't been involved in over a year. And Ashley, who's no longer with the organization. This is pretty typical to be at this stage right now where we have basically created a package that is ready to go to bid for budgeting purposes. In other words, our next step is to make sure that we can secure the money to fund it. All the final artwork, the messaging, the design of the backside of the signs, the color selection, all of those things will happen once we have that contract with the fabricator. But we won't get that contract with the fabricator until we get through the next phase. So of fundraising and developing the final documents. So that's kind of probably why you're wondering if why isn't everything fully specified. But it's pretty typical at this stage. It goes in phases. We've jumped around a little bit, but we were getting to the landmark if you wanna just introduce that briefly, which is on page 10. Yeah, this went through many iterations. We started with much bigger ideas with the letter M and how we would put that at different gateway locations leading into downtown, kind of distilled it down to this one location. Also the TIC doesn't allow anything more than 64 square feet at one location. So this is where it's going. This is where we think it should go based on traffic and visitor arrival. And also it's a nice gateway into downtown on the memorial side. So it's a vertical, I'm sorry? I didn't say anything, so go ahead. Oh, okay. So it's a vertical landmark that has a stone base. It would be either internally illuminated or from the ground. And that is to be determined. It would be a subtle glow, if anything. And would be double-sided, can be viewed from both directions. And it takes into the same consideration of typography and the material power as well as the state house image at the top. Can you speak to the thought and selection chosen? Yeah, it's a modern typeface. One of the criteria from, well over two years ago when we had, we went through a whole design criteria how to select colors and typography and all that. It all came down to seeing, it's the future of Montpelier, not the historical Montpelier. Not that history can't take place. It should, especially in the kiosk, potentially some interpretive elements which we proposed as well earlier on. But the image of the wavefinding should be, you know, a more progressive, free, kind of future feeling, modern feeling for the city. And pretty much everyone agreed to that. So Futura was the chosen typeface. Our representative from VCFA also helped with that selection. What is VPFA? VCFA, the Vermont College of Fine Arts. VCFA. VCFA, the Vermont College of Fine Arts. I have a question, I'm looking at page 11. Picture the sign with the big red truck in the background. As far as I can see that would only be visible as you're coming from Barrie. Because there's a tree right behind it. And this picture doesn't have many leaves on it, but it probably does most of the year. And there's no arrow on it to indicate that downtown Montpelier is a right turn at that point or a left turn if you're coming off the interstate. That just strikes me as being not as useful as it could be. I think as far as budgeting is concerned too, I think there are two primary ways that people get into downtown Montpelier. One is on Main Street, the other is on Bailey with sort of a third one on Taylor Street. There were additional locations proposed initially. Some of them were not approved by the state, CISC. Well, none of them were approved. And also we have to put them on city property if they're not approved by the CISC and we didn't have those locations. We had several other proposals at one point. This plan has come a long way in two years. The landmark will be visible though from both directions to answer your question. I understand that it looks like it may not be in that picture, but it will be visible from both directions. Yeah. It's nice to say that, but I don't see how it can with a tree behind it. I mean, yes, when you get right up to the intersection but you have to choose whether you're gonna make a left turn at that point or go straight when you can't see the sign. How much time was spent on this particular aspect? What, locating time? No, the landmark. I guess my point is I just feel like that's a really visually valuable piece of property in Montpelier to be able to create something that is really awesome. This doesn't feel awesome to me, but I wasn't there as part of the, sort of all the time spent on it. So I guess I'm just, I don't feel like. So there are limitations related to the size that it can be dictated by the state and then it continues the sort of language design language of the other signage including the cut out lettering you'll find at the top of the pedestrian signage in the same font and the same abstract state house imagery at the top and then utilizing granite based native materials. So the idea was to continue cohesive language through all of the signage. There's a maximum of how many square feet can that sign be? 64 square feet per face. We had several proposals for that location. I'm certain you did. That's why I just was feeling like it wasn't totally fair for me to say that it wasn't awesome without hearing like all the work that went into creating what is there. Yeah. I want to be clear. I'm very much in favor of the project and having people be able to find their way downtown. I certainly have a lot of questions about it. About its effectiveness as I've expressed for some but I'm generally in favor of being able to find their way around. Yeah, certainly beyond this if anyone cares to submit additional feedback or questions we can incorporate it as possible for them to look at all the ideas. A lot of it has to do with specific signs specific location the way it's oriented so that it's again as Eric said that you're coming down Memorial Drive you don't see it because the tree's there and you don't want people sort of driving in it the last minute looking at a sign and distracting them from driving and in particular the downtown Montpelier that's time to be more readable if the letters were smaller so that there's more distinction between the background and the lettering. Also keep in mind that it's not a wayfinding sign. I mean it's a landmark. There are other signs on Memorial as you approach that intersection that are giving you specific destination and turning information. So it's not directing you to downtown. Other signs are. It's meant to be a landmark. My assumption is that this is a fairly expensive installation. If you have other signs and I don't think there's a particularly good location for it if you have other signs and things like that I don't see the need for it. I don't know what information it gives you that you don't or what the attraction that's gonna get people to turn to downtown Montpelier any more than a sign with an arrow that says downtown on it. Thank you. We'll get that feedback. Are there any other pages that we'd like to review? Otherwise we'd move on to the banners. I wanna be respectful of your time. I think we have one member of the audience who wanted to make a contribution. Introduce yourself. Steve Whitaker from Montpelier for 30 years or so. I applaud the idea of guiding our visitors. I would caution that we don't wanna, people like to come and shop and be around Montpelier because it doesn't feel like a mall. So we wanna not create a set of signage that looks like a mall. Keep Montpelier peculiar. I think this is a perfect type project. Right now it seems structured to, they're looking to clear the gate and keep running. And I think this is the kind of project that y'all need to keep a very short leash on and the expertise on this design review committee should have lots of, I know it'll make it harder to quote the price and get the fabricator, but it needs to be restructured such that the design review committee, whether or not the project is exempt from city permits, change the city rule if you have to to get control of this project in this committee. Thank you. Thank you. One thing I wanted to say that been emphasized that we have no authority to review this and I understand the court decision that got us in that position. And I find that very difficult to deal with in a number of things. This is a project that has a huge amount of impact on downtown Montpelier. And no matter how it's done. Now the interpretation from the city attorney a few years ago is that the city projects are not reviewed in the city work. My design review, educational institutions, this is not directly necessarily U.S. Mort bill. But this idea that educational institutions, city property and churches are not subject to review. Those are the most important landmark buildings in the city. And all these street signs are very important in the city. They're gonna create a huge visual impact. And so I mean, sitting here making comments that I like to be helpful and positive, but I don't see that we have any influence on the outcome. Except in a kind of an informal way of advising you. And that's just a comment from my position is that this is, I think this is the first, I looked at the city council and this is the first time I really had a look at this. And maybe I missed some opportunities. Maybe there was some meetings I didn't go to. But this is a fairly serious undertaking with a lot of visual impact on the downtown. A lot of potential impact on how people get around Montpelier. One of the things I noticed is that there's nothing to do with the new transit center. The transit center was, has sort of come to fruition after this process. But we hope to be able to add some potentially an informational kiosk incorporated inside the transit center. And potentially also an informational kiosk with the parking garage project. In addition, there is parking signage that points to the garage was already considered for parking signage. And we can certainly add vehicular and pedestrian signage that relates to the transit center as, yeah. I understand you're warning on this project and I'm asking you questions. No, that's fine. That I'm picking on you. No, and I'll just give you a little bit of context as well which is that the, so this is building on the branding process that Montpelier Live did with the city that had significant public input throughout the project. And then the way finding a project itself, the committee has helped various informational and feedback sessions with various constituencies and stakeholders and included people from various stakeholders. And it's been presented at city council three times for feedback. Again, one of the, some of the criteria that we deal with projects even though we may not vote on this particular project just for our input. A lot of the criteria that are used to evaluate projects has to do with protecting the historical integrity of the town. People come here, one of our greatest resources is the historic downtown. People come here, people come back because it reminds them of the town that they used to live in 50 years ago or however long ago. And some of the criteria in particular that we use to evaluate a project, one here, preservation reconstruction of an appropriate historic style for projects in the historic district. Also recognition of and respect for view quarters and significant VISTAs including gateway views of the city and state house. So that the only thing that we would be looking for would be if those signs number one do not clutter up the downtown and interfere with some of those criteria that we use to judge a project by number one. And just that it be respectful of the historic downtown. We don't want to dilute it so that people don't care because we screwed it up. No, and that is certainly not our intention of anything. I hate to be designing from a point of like concern about bad things happening and being the guy that's like, oh, what about stickers and graffiti? But these things feel like huge flat surfaces that are a lot of stuff. So that we can actually speak to. John, you were telling me that they're coded in that way. They're actually not huge in context. I know that you don't have these signs up right now but they are within the maximum allowed by the MUTCD and the TIC. Now in terms of graffiti, we typically would specify an anti-graffiti surface which is a surface they apply after the paint and that allows for any stickers or spray paint to be removed. We currently did that in Providence. It's been very successful. And there's technologies getting better and better every year offered by paint companies. So by the time we get this in a fabrication, we might even have a better anti-graffiti coating. But that's a question asked by just about any municipality has been addressed. I'm certain. I guess. Who's gonna be responsible for making any of these ones? Who's gonna get up? I mean, I guess it depends on specifically what you're talking to. Some of it will be public works in terms of the updating of any directory signage. We're hoping to do it in a way that doesn't require too frequent maintenance. I think we may actually drop the idea of having specific stores listed because that may get too difficult to keep updated. But Montagueur Live would play some role in that. Well, a lot of places have a system so you can update it. It's one of the questions I had with you. The informational kiosk is designed in a way that it would be easy to update which to update an individual listing. Maybe not to the individual listing, but there are certain zones that can be pulled out without replacing the entire sign. We review enough changes in business locations down here through the signage that happens fairly frequently. Yes, which is why we're thinking of moving away from listing specific business names on the directory and instead pointing towards business districts on the directory because of concern about keeping them updated. In other places, they have been updated twice annually. So that would be the solution if we do have a question. I'm not sure I'm entirely clear about how these signs are mounted, but the idea of plowing the sidewalks? They are compliant with all of public works needs for a plow. Is public works gonna dig them out in the winter when the snow gets deep enough to bury the sign? Well, the pedestrian signage I think would be the only and informational kiosk would be the only one where that would be irrelevant. They're not within the plow, the routes and beside the sidewalks. Correct. So they will get buried? I mean, I think perhaps the very bottom of the sign may have snow, but the relevant information would certainly still be visible. How many of the B1 and B3 locations currently exist as the overlay location for a location or are these all the locations B1 and B3? So which one is that? B1 and B3. So it would replace all of the existing parking directional signage that currently located at all of the public lots that you might think of, the vehicular directional signage, just not, I don't think they're that existing vehicular signage, but you don't hold me for that. We're in terms of work with this. It could, the vehicle directionals actually will replace some could potentially replace some of the bicycle signage because it directs people to the bike trail, which is being, you know, it's under development still. And that's part of the system, as well as there's additional parking signs throughout downtown that are on random posts. And those would be able to come down as well. So it will consolidate some of the signs, but the majority, obviously there is no current way of finding vehicle sign downtown. I think the front end of this, I'm looking at page 27, and I have never heard on the cork, the lower right corner. I've never heard of the east. No, we intend to change that to the river street. River street district. It needs to be labeled as a district. You can't use the name of a specific street. You would have to call the river street district. What we do in time to change it to the river street. And that's a state requirement. That it can't name a specific street. It has to be the district. So that one was said, berry street district, whatever that. Berry street district can say, berry street district, as long as it says district, it can't just say berry street. Oh, oh, oh. Oh, layers and layers of requirements. Don't, yeah, I don't think. The nomenclature you'll figure out as you go along. Yeah, exactly. And there are a few that people have pointed out that would be helpful to add. And if it's possible, you know, it sometimes is difficult with where they would be placed, whether or not it could be possible. The vehicular signage in particular has to be located at the point where the driver makes the decision about the turn or not. So for instance, if we wanted there to be a sign that points down Berry street towards the center for arts and learning and the recreational center, for instance, if we were coming from Memorial Drive, there may or may not be a location where we could put that sign with enough advance notice for a driver. So that's something that will work with public works to attempt to try and figure out if possible. Hitting East on State and just State and Main would be a difficult one because of the way the tunneling is set up there as far as signage is concerned. Yeah, so that we have signage that's appropriately located. And added to the positive price structure. Yeah. So I, like I said, I certainly welcome continued feedback from the design review committee. I'm happy to share updated plans as we have them with anyone. If anyone has a particular interest and would like to be more involved, please get in touch with me. Happy to do that. Certainly incorporate feedback where possible, given like very restrictions and the many restrictions that the state has on the particular signage, the particular. I guess one piece of feedback I would like to offer is that I would like to see the signs. I don't feel like the logo and the color is strong enough and to see that kind of everywhere, I'd like to see less just surface area. Just keep it to the text and the color and a lot less just. Keep it simple. Yeah. A lot less stuff. Sure. The order. That's fine. That's fine. Yeah. I appreciate that. Keep it simple and discreet as the person in the audience said. We don't want it to look like the directions inside of a mall. No, I appreciate that. We also would like to incorporate wherever possible the visual identity that's also used in all of one failure lives marketing in locally and out of state marketing. That sort of is the month failure branding that we're hoping to continue to do even more with and so to establish a cohesive visual identity for all of when you think about failure, hopefully you will think. I think people are more interested in information when they're looking at signs. I encourage you, and I couldn't figure out all what was going on, but whether we have the back of a sign, sometimes it just shows artwork and a logo that maybe you can figure out what kind of information to put there because as people stop by a sign on the sidewalk and go out of the side, I always think I'm on the historic preservation commission, so think about, read about the historic district. Say something about the historic buildings or have a general map that people could refer to to be able to know where they are. Well, our expertise, okay, so first of all, the sign is eight feet up in the air or taller because there has to be a seven and a half foot clearance by requirement, so everything above that. And vehicle signs are only meant to be read in one direction or else they can cause traffic accidents, people looking at the backs of signs on the opposite side of the street. So we don't put information on the backside of the signs that's gonna be illegible for people driving in the opposite side of the road. He was referring to the pedestrian signs. The pedestrian signs, the key asks, I mean, it just, I don't know how conceptual or how detailed this is, but. Right, but okay, but if you look at all the layouts and all the sign locations for the pedestrian signs, there's information on both sides. If you go to sign 33 pictures. I'm looking at page 17 and there is the logo at the bottom just taking up. Space. If you go to 33, the specifics. Yeah, I mean, I guess you guys want that, I get that. Yeah, so that's like part of the branding and the cohesive sense of place and the placemaking that is. Okay, I thought you were talking about the vehicle signs because that's, you really can't put information that is useful on that side. I understand that. Was it anyplace else where you've got, I don't know what FPO stands for. Well, that's just a, no, it's for placement only and it's just an artwork at the stage we're at right now. We haven't actually placed the artwork. So that's just a technical term. Future of location. But I would encourage that. I wouldn't get hung up on that. Yeah, that's basically used for information until it's done. So I'd love to move on to the banner. Okay, good. And all of our in-house products. Yeah, so that is the last page, which is page 36 in your packet. So these are streetlight banners that will be mounted to the existing light poles. They will be manufactured by the same design, the same sign company that manufactured the film festival banners. So they have experience with our particular banners. Currently, there are only banners up for the month of March for the film festival. These will be in those same locations, 30 locations. They'll be printed on both sides. They're on UV protected heavy vinyl signage that's intended to last for several years and be stay out year round with only mild fading of the coloring. And they were again designed to utilize some of the same brand elements that you've seen in other places. The same font that you saw in the gateway sign. In letter B, you'll see that same abstract art from Montpelier Live logo. And there would be extra signs purchased as backup if there were any damage to any of the existing signs. In terms of the mounting, they will go on the existing brackets and they're compatible with the existing brackets in terms of where all of the concerns that you might have in terms of wind and so on and so forth. So what are the dimensions? They are 26 by 16 inches. Thank you. With some additional upleads at the top for where the bracket comes out. So I think they're actually 64, which is pretty tall. For the wraparound, correct. And sorry, I don't usually ask questions, but are you doing all four different types? So it would be the four types and they would be alternating throughout the town. The idea being that there would not be two of the same next to each other, but it's fine with me. There's not enough on the other. I think these are mostly great also. My only question is how much time, if people spent time aligning the letters, it just feels, I like the way the M and the N relate, but to keep that strong or vertical line of the N, the N, the P and the I, like the I being shifted over, like it feels like things could be realized maybe somebody did all that and chose not to, I don't know. And they thought of doing the vertical. My failure up and down or something similar to your gateway sign. Yeah, so the gateway sign had originally been designed actually to look more similar to these standards, but there was concern about the readability on that sign in particular because of, as you're passing in a vehicle, you need to read it more quickly perhaps than if you're a pedestrian and then there's a more artistic sort of piece of. That's not to say that it's not possible. I will say that we're hoping to expedite the project because this has been something, these in the day-to-day graph and something that's been talked about for quite a long time and it's been some desire from city council and other parties that they go up as soon as possible. And you said they'd last for two or three years or four years. That's the idea and we are planning to purchase right now one extra of each sign as possible replacements but they are not particularly expensive. So if there was a need at any point to purchase more of a replacement, that could certainly happen. And obviously in four years, there may be another set of. Some of the bottoms are secured. Yes, there are existing brackets on the light pole that are on the top and the bottom of it. And there's pole pockets that will be incorporated into the damage. So this will check your time, it's interesting. The idea is that this would be the primary design for as long as they last and that certainly it could. Yes, there were some other designs also on design that we could use in the future. We wanted to keep it fresh. The idea would still be to incorporate the language that you see in the weight binding signage. Okay. Well, without anything more specific than that, this is really that thing that we can evaluate based on the criteria we have. Okay. So we'll just, again, that was an informal, so you've got some of the feedback. Great. Thank you very much for your time. I really appreciate your feedback. We do hope to incorporate what we can. And please just keep in touch. Thank you. Thank you all. Thank you very much. Was someone coming back or no? No, and she can't make me 15th, so she'll come on the 5th, November 5th. Poor people, we can't get this slide. But she said that she was going to set up the November 1st anyway. Oh, okay. All right. Okay. The next project on the agenda is for 100 States Street. Come forward. Sorry, we didn't give you guys much time, but we'll do that. The best we can with what we've got. So helpful. There you go. Powered down. Yeah, probably went into hibernation. Once it comes up, then you just set it in there. Well, it should be set to nearer, extra time. But it just ignites. All right. Oh, it's terrible. Why can't you pack that stuff up? Do you want to see the lights? I think if you turn on, I think you can try, but I think if you turn off those lights, you turn off all the lights on the side so you don't get what this VR looks like. That's right. You got it. If everybody can turn around and look at the screen, I guess. Is everyone here? Is everyone's on? Are you guys good? I'm ready. Oh, yes. Awesome. Okay. Ready? Go ahead. Go ahead. Thank you. I know that there are some new members of this board, I believe, from starting this year. This is a complicated thing to understand, so I'll try to help explain it. Great. Can you introduce yourself first for the record? For the record, my name is Greg Rabbit-O from Rabbit-O Architects, the project architect and I'm represented by civil engineering associates, our project civil engineer, Wagner Hodgson, our landscape architects. We also have Du Bois and King who was the civil engineer for the hotel project next door and resource systems groups, our track consultants, Simons engineer, our structural engineer for the parking garage. Last year, and spilling into this year, we went through a permit process for an 84 room hotel and 220 space parking garage. This is the proposed Hampton In Building here. And adjacent to that, we, through this and other boards, received approvals for a 220 space parking garage that essentially extended to about where this dark banding of contours was through the building footprint now. After a lot of back and forth between the original applicant and the city, the city determined that they would like to take over the garage portion of this project and expand it to provide more capacity. And so the application in front of you tonight is part of several things. One is we're going to create a subdivision so that the lot that the garage sits on will be subdivided from the parcel that currently holds the capital plaza and the approved Hampton In. We're also going to have to amend the permit for the Hampton In slash capital plaza to allow for off-site parking as parking will be provided, continue to be parking in this garage. And we're going to have site plan review and approval for the garage as it is now designed. I hope is that we can spend a little time talking about the design, but essentially we took the design that was previously approved, which was a combination of masonry and green screen walls and some other things. We took that same format and extended it to the east so that the overall building dimension is now 208, I believe, by 115. It's 40, 50 feet longer than it used to be. And that will take us up to at least 348 parking spaces in the parking garage, which you see here. The parking garage will rest a part on what's currently called the Haney lot, lands belonging to a very Haney, that the city has a long-term lease on. The back half of that Haney lot, you can see the garage spills over that. Can you zoom in? Oh, if I can, yeah. Here we are, the immediate context around the garage itself, which is our primary focus this evening. The bottom of the page, you can see both the central Vermont Railroad Bridge and the proposed bike path bridge and the associated approaches with that. Those approaches impact this project site right here where the bike path lands on the far end of the bridge and then transfers over to what will become Confluence Park. I know you guys are probably aware that this area is being examined for the creation of a public park. And we're hoping to involve the design of the garage to sort of act as an appropriate sort of backdrop to that. So there is that. Other important features around here, obviously the North Branch of the Waduski River, which you can see here, the main channel of the Waduski River just down here at the bottom of the page. And also this building here, Overlook Associates, always a building here, which is a little garage building. And so their property line is there and they have a little parking lot behind that they have a deeded right to continue accessing that. So you can see the driveway that's coming down here along this side of the property is intended to provide that deeded access. Where is the space between? We wanted to be 20 feet away from the existing building or one more. So at the near point, that's 20 feet. There's an additional 20 foot setback from the top bank of the river and that's what this thing you've done in line indicates here. Although for practical purposes it's just this portion of the right here on the project site. So we've maintained a paved access to that. Otherwise, we're showing paved and removed and this is a free space here. Another critical piece of this that everybody wants to understand is that there is a previously approved the plan had a walkway access that came down between the hotel and the proposed garage and continued eastward to the bike path. That will remain as originally approved and designed. I think what's gonna be different is on the northbound side of that bike path for a little bit there's gonna be a sort of small bit of retaining wall so that we can have this ground floor open to the natural and very outside. And that's for both to try to comply generally with the design guidelines and the regs, although I'm told they don't strictly apply a reason because there's a sort of go by to facilitate discussion. And it's also a part of our flood water plan which is an important part of this. This was not me. Yeah, I'm trying to get back to my zip right here. About the height of the relationship between the garage and that existing building. Well, I'm gonna bring up an image that hopefully shows the validation. Well, we did a couple of visual analyses just today. So Greg, if you can make sure to send these to me tonight or tomorrow morning so I can put them in for the record, that would be great. Yes, I hope I'm wrong with myself. If I could figure out, I think with the plus side. Yep, that would be obvious. So here you can see the approved capital plaza. This tiny bit of brick sticking up here is actually the original capital plaza, the six-story portion where the bank is. And then you can see down here, this is all part of the garage. There's the bridge from the river going over. It came up at the last city council meeting that somebody wanted to see this set of relationships so we prepared this for that purpose. I just want to say that I close out a little slower because it's not my handwriting thing, the house is a brick. And I think, so here you can see on the cover sheet our basic proposal for this garage. As before, we have these masonry blocks and in accordance with this sort of design standards in the regs, there's a first floor, open first floor, some kind of strong banding between the first and second floors. Sort of body of the building and then at the top you see this indication of a strong chorus. What we changed from the original design is we're using the green walls as sort of spacers so that any one chunk of the facade is only about 42 feet long. And the idea is to sort of give the impression of a solid, a green space, a solid and another green space. And then each of these solids is slightly different than the others. In the case of a corner here, you can see that that element would be that kind of in about before that. That sculptural element is still there. Also, you know, daylighting going into the stairwells and then the stairwells are capped off at the very top by these glass elements. City Council challenged us to come up with a little more creative way of capping these off and I do have some product showing how we would do that. But this is a good... Any arch? I don't remember that from the last time. Nope, the arch is also a new thing. Yeah, so at the base of one of these solid masses facing the park, there's this sort of monumental scale arch on the first floor. This wall would be granite with string trims at the top and of course, you know, it would be granite. Coursing cut into a trim piece to go around the arch. And then what you're seeing up here are three large, one on the architectural lines would be blank spaces intended to receive public art. And this is an outcome of our conversation with the City Council. And some of the members of the public who were, you know, I want to make sure this thing has an appropriate material like personality. One thing we see is that it's a full-fledged role to be able to engage the broader public by creating opportunities on the building for some major art. So each of these panels is roughly two stories tall and about 12 feet wide. I was wondering why you didn't do something like this on the other side of the building. More, this is really visible from cars going by on them. Right? Well, I wouldn't preclude the introduction of other art in other places. I think, first of all, we recognize that the significant importance of the south elevation has the backdrop to confidence and honor. But also as the side that's really going to be the most visible from off-site. When we go to the flip around on the north side, apart from a little bit as visible from the gap in State Street, the rest of this is going to be sort of facing, hopefully, ultimately, someday, this is the Christ Church's housing project. So, you know, I mean, I'm thinking the gap proceeds through as you come in. Right. Well, we'll look at all four elevations of the relation and talk about where other art might happen. We still continue the sculpture on the elements. I just don't know if art on that scale works in the kind of intimate space that's going to result between that and most of our art. It wouldn't have to be the scale. Right. But additional art is a great idea. And, you know, we're looking for opportunities for that to happen throughout the design. The ground floor, the floor that's essentially at gray is at roughly 518, 519. It's set in there flat so that it can be used as parking space, but it could also be used for functions as well. An extension of a farmer's market is something that's been mentioned a couple of times. That's a policy level discussion that the city has to have and how they want to operate this thing, whether or not they want to give up income from things like, you know, I'm getting a first one in the garage, I'm burning fat. But I think there was a strong desire that we went to talk to the city council with the ways in which to provide alternative ways of using this thing. And this is sort of a compromise. Explain the arch, it's open to the behind? It's open to the deck behind. So what is going on here? So that is a security grill that, and this is the deck behind here. Yeah, you're seeing like a hardware that's been going on in the far distant beyond. Here's, one thing we want to sort of make clear as we're doing this is the ground floor wants to be open because your zoning rights can, when we talk about design control, and I know this doesn't really apply to this particular parcel, but we're gonna use that as a go-by. You know, they talk about the ground floor being open to the pedestrian environment and some sense of stuff happening in the ground. We want that to happen at the same time. We want floodwater, if it ever does come here, to be able to flow in and then flow back out and impede it. So those large openings provide the kind of visual impact that the land use regulations are suggesting, but they also help us solve the technical problem with the floodwater. I don't fully understand what, did you look at other openings rather than arched in this case? I didn't, and I'm gonna be honest with you, I think it came about because there was discussion amongst the various city council members about how they really liked that form, and they, you know, so I took that as direction from my client to explore it. I think that it has to be appreciated that that element's gonna be viewed most typically from a couple hundred feet away. And so I wanted the art, but also the context of the art, the facade treatment, to be fairly simple and pretty monumental scale. I wanted a big element right from the distance. And these are just gonna be panels of some kind that can or can be added to. Well, if you're talking about where I'm showing the art above, yeah, well, you know, we were quite panels or whatever. Yeah, we probably do some kind of exterior grade, level five suck old finish over a panel so that it can be painted on. You know, it wouldn't want something where a lot of lines going through it. Right. Because we don't want that interest. But the banding, the light colored banding you see going through the masonry was intended to be grander, cut stone. And, you know, we wanted at least one or two places on the building where there's a real exposition of stone since it's such an integral part of Montpelier's history. For sure, we've come up with a history in general. So we were looking for a significant statement in terms of, I don't know, I like the arch form, but do you have concerns about it or is it just? I just, I don't think it's the right language personally. I understand what to be monumental to be monumental. I understand that arch. In this case, I don't think it really jibes well with the rest of the language, you know. All the right going here. Yeah. Shapes in the form of throwing one right in the curve. So the question is, has anything else been explored? For shapes on that? No, no, I mean, when I first sat down and composed that one panel, I, you know, I was looking for some variety in these panels and they didn't read as all the same thing. If you want me to give out some more careful consideration, I'm happy to do that before I come back. I think that the choice of the granite and the sort of openness of the right things that I'm interested in. I think that those are kind of features, so. Can it kind of be a real arch within the stones? Yeah, I expect it would be. We have to build it both ways. I can't see well enough to see the differentiation. Well, in the modeling, you know, you're probably just going to see a map on texture. Yeah, it is really good. I think if you do leave arching and if you really go to have it look like an effective arch, this doesn't look like an effective arch. Because the trim is, the trim is, yeah. Because it's a facade, it looks, it's not going to fall off, but it wouldn't work if you tried to fill the wall this way. I appreciate that. I think the rendering doesn't illustrate the pieces that would take to do that. But as the drawings reach completion, you can make sure that gets included in there, right? Sounds like I need to look at the whole, plus it looks thin as well. Yeah, and that's probably, but as the drawings develop, we can address that. What is the difference in height elevation of this building as opposed to the first one proposed? Not exclusive of the towers, but just the main structure. There's really no change in the basic data malivations. The top of it is going to come up to about the top of the fourth floor on the whole town. The big difference in terms of is how much of that ground floor is exposed, which more is exposed than it had previously been shown. But I think that was primarily to sort of create this ground floor with active openings, but also, again, to address the storm drainage issue. So again, the top of the structure exclusive of the towers is essentially the same. It's almost the same. So there's exact back and forth, four total levels, but they're split, 50 to 50, because it's a switchback ramp. The ramps. The end bays are level, and then the three large center bays are where the floors are sloping. There are some other changes to the elevations. They switch back and forth. Yeah, I didn't include that in their packets because it's not really the design review. I just thought this might have a couple of numbers on it to answer their experience. They have the elevations. So this is a deathout of how many spaces? We went from 220 to 348. The level in relation to the hotel has not changed though at the top. No, and I have an image that helps explain that. Okay, so this image here is helpful to kind of explain the relationship. You can see the hotel in the background and that the 42-inch wall at the top, that highest level landing there is looking right over the top of that to the windowsill elevation on the fourth floor. So those floors are almost, they're within a couple of inches of each other, but the fourth floor of the garage is essentially the same as the fourth floor of the hotel. And then it's all sloping downhill at a relatively modest slope of like 3.6%. It all slopes down and winds its way into the ground. You can see here that the only parts that stick up above those nominal elevations are the top of the stair towers. This one here, which is actually the exit stair on the elevator, and that's why it's a little bit taller. It's got the shaft extension that you're supposed to have. And you can see how far back this panel drops. I mean, there's an almost nine-foot reveal on that first break and then you get a little green wall come around the corner. You have this, the panel with the arch and the arch and another green panel. And the actual construction drawings that are included in the application package show that there are a series of kind of interesting playful circular holes cut into the fabric of this green screen to provide just the occasional unexpected view out. Subsequent issues, subsequent additions of these renderings will include that. It's just we have to do a little more careful mapping before we can make the texture turn around. We have to go a little bit because this is a pod system. Yeah, I mean, it's a modular matrix, this green wall screen or green screen system. You know, we'll just shop modify it to cut some holes in the panels and trace around them. I don't know that. That's the big overview. Perhaps I'll let you guys ask me questions and directly to things you want to see because there's more than I think we have to be out of here at seven. Yeah, we have about 10 seconds. Unfortunately, we've run out of time and I'm sorry that we had a larger than expected earlier project to deal with. So we, fortunately, and there's some people who are interested in making some public content comment as well. And we'd like to give them a chance to contribute. So if you wouldn't mind, we'd love to have you come back to the next meeting if that's possible. Yeah, that would be delightful. I didn't want to spring this on you and ask for about any how I didn't want to get any of the preliminary comments you had. And I have gotten some useful things that I can take action on. But we would very much appreciate being continued to the next hearing and talk more about utilities and stuff at that time. I do have information about lighting and all of that as well. But since we're out of time for that tonight, we'll just thank you for getting caught up and expect to see you all in the future. Thank you very, very much. We appreciate it. So I don't believe we have to make a motion to continue this. We'll just note it in the meeting that it will be continued till the next, which will be two weeks from tonight. Yeah, October 15th. Now, if you can come back on the 15th, we'll give everybody a chance to make a comment. And in the meantime, since we've run totally out of time, we can postpone the minutes and anything else that was on our agenda until the next meeting. Do I hear them? Unless anybody has anything else to hear? Motion to adjourn. So second. All in favor of adjournment. Our meeting is adjourned. Sorry, we needed another hour. Good evening, everyone. I'm going to call this meeting to order of the city of Montpelier Development Review Board. My name is Daniel Richardson. I serve as chair and the other members for my right are Rob Goodwin. Kevin O'Connell. Deb Marklitz. Meredith Crandall. Staff. Tom Kester. Ryan Cain. Clay Rock. All right. The first item of business is the approval of the agenda. You've had an opportunity to review it. I don't know if anyone has any amendments or wishes to make a motion to approve the agenda as printed. Mr. Chair, I make a motion to approve the agenda for this evening's meeting. Okay, motion by Kevin. Do I have a second? Second. Second by Rob. All those in favor of approving the agenda as printed, please raise your right hand. We have an agenda. There are no comments from the chair this evening, other than I will address the process for the last item that we have, which is 100 State Street, which is a sketch plan review this evening, which comes with its own particular set of procedure. And I'll explain because I presume people are either a number of people, I think are here for that application and a number may be arriving after that. But let's move forward. The first item is approval of the minutes. There's a September 4th. I was there, Kevin, Kate is not present, but Deb, Tom, and Rob. So we have a quorum. Does anybody have a motion for the September 4th minutes? Motion to approve the minutes from the September 4th. Okay, motion by Rob. Do I have a second? Second by Tom. Any further discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor who are eligible to vote on the September 4th minutes, please raise your right hand. And we have September 4th minutes approved. The September 17th minutes cannot be approved because we lack a quorum to do so, so we will put those off to the next meeting. That brings us to the first item of business for this evening, which is two moonlight terrorists. The owner applicant is Stephen Kirby and Kathleen Newbrough. Please come forward to the table. So what I'll, you have some... The inscape drawings? Okay. Supposed to be distributed? Why don't you just go ahead and distribute those and then we'll have you introduce yourself and put you under oath. Okay, if you'll just state your name for the record, state names for the record. Steve Kirby. Kathleen Newbrough. Okay, if you'll raise your right hand. You solemnly swear or affirm the testimony you're about to give for the matter under consideration shall be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth under the pains and penalties of perjury. So why don't you just give us a brief description of what you're seeking and then I'll have Meredith give a further description and we'll start with the questions. Okay, yeah. Overbuying a property at two moonlight terrorists and we're hoping to get approval to convert the existing office space on the first floor to two apartments. There's an existing apartment already on the second floor. So we'd like to remodel a little bit and put in some firewalls and so forth and get approval for that use. We've talked with Chris Boyd, just a lot of extent had to visit the site. You know what, I have a pretty good feel for what he wants to see done to make that happen. Okay, so this is just conversion from an office to two one bedroom apartments. Right. And then are there, I know that part of the application is changing the parking area. Apart from that, however, are there any other proposed changes to the exterior of the building? I understand obviously interior, you may be doing some changes, but we're on the ERB, we're concerned primarily with the external. Yeah, well, since you brought that up, I meant to mention it is that we've decided to decline the request to move the parking area in any way and change it in any way. We're gonna leave it as it is. More involved than we guessed. Yeah, yeah. These bylaws can have those surprises. And so there's no request to change the parking area. It's just strictly a change of use. That's correct. Nothing about the external is going to change entrances, exits, pedestrian circulation. Well, entrances, yes. We would like to put in a new entrance as the drawing shows on the north side of the building. So, and that will allow each apartment to have their own means of egress without sharing that means with any other tenants. So, when you've converted everything, it'll be just a residential, at that point no more office. That's right, yeah. Meredith, it might be helpful. I know the staff had written up a number of reports about the setbacks with the parking, but given the applicants shift in position to keep the parking area as is, would you highlight what issues you believe are still relevant for us to discuss? Yep, give me one second to make sure I've checked everything off that does no longer pertains. So, we still need to deal with landscaping. And then other than that, it would be if you felt like asking about it and you don't have to, you can ask about bicycle access and storage under section 3202 on page nine. And then it's really just landscaping. I mean, the main reason that this application is here is because it's conditional use to go strictly residential. And then the, you know, if the landscaping, landscaping exemptions, waivers, are things that I can approve. Thank you. So let's dive in to the landscaping question. I know you've circulated, if you could explain what's on the landscaping proposal and what you're proposing. Yeah, it's pretty well populated already with trees, certainly a lot of mature trees and many, many saplings that are pretty much outlined the perimeter of the property. There's shrubs as well. They're kind of mixed within the saplings on the edges of the trees around the perimeter, the exception of the hydranias that are, you know, the entrance to the apartment too. And some lilacs and honeysuckles on the north side, or excuse me, on the south side of the building. There's quite a bit there now. There was, I think it's densely vegetated, yeah. So are you proposing any new landscaping? Let me start there. I'm not proposing any, unless the board feels that it's necessary, we would comply. Well, I'm noting, so just under 3203G talks about the standards for landscaping and it's the every five feet of building perimeter that requires one shrub and for every 30 feet of exterior perimeter one tree. But that gets, you have the opportunity to count your existing trees. So according to the staff's calculation, and unless you have a reason to dispute this and say, no, it's a much smaller building, the staff has calculated this roughly 172 feet of principal building exterior when they measure all around, which translates out to about 34 shrubs and five trees. So I think based on this and the drawing you gave us, shows in green the existing trees. That's right. And shrubs. Sorry if I clarified that. That's okay. And you have a count. So you have approximately 25 to 30 trees and 20 to 25 shrubs. Yes. So the proposal would be that if you add them up, so if you have, just taking your low numbers, 25 trees and 20 shrubs, that's 45. That's still roughly about six more than you're required to if you add up the trees and shrubs. You're just more evenly divided between trees and shrubs than subsection G would require you. Is that correct? Yeah. I think there's a lot of saplings as well that I didn't even include because well this must be 30 to 50 saplings, trees of 15 feet height that are scattered all throughout. But yes. Any questions from the board about the trees? I think that's pretty adequate testimony. Let's ask about the bicycle storage. Is there any, we simply ask, it's not a requirement but are there any bicycle storage areas or opportunities if tenants have bikes, they commute by bike to store? There's a lot of trees to change. There's no formal bike racks, if that's what you're asking. Well, or even are there. Do they store them in their apartments or? Are there room in the apartments to do so? Yeah, well. I think certainly in apartment two at the bottom of the stairs there's plenty of room. Apartment one also has a mother. I'm sorry, apartment three, our proposed apartment three has a mother entrance there and that has room for a bicycle there. Now the only question might be apartment two where there might be less room for a bike stored inside. 900 square foot apartment, so. Right. Can it get creative? They'll find a place if they want to. But there's no garage or shed for? There is, well. Not for their use. There is a garage, but the fire marshal has advised us to not allow access because she rocked properly. Right. So for now, we won't allow access to the garage. Well, and we're not gonna, okay. And there's no plans to put in a bike rack or anything. Well, let me ask this, if a tenant asked for one, would you be amenable to such a thing? Yeah, I guess. I mean, where does one get a bike rack? I don't know. Any other questions on bike racks? All right, we do have to take affirmative evidence on the conditional use standards. And this is more along the lines because there's two types of allowable use. There's permitted uses, which are just simply uses that are allowed without question. And then there are conditional uses in which we have to make examination to make sure the use you're proposing is not inconsistent with the area. So the first one talks about the capacity of community facilities and utilities, and says the applicant shall demonstrate that the proposed development shall not cause a disproportionate or unreasonable burden on the city's ability to provide community facilities and utilities, including local schools, police fire protection and ambulance service, street infrastructure, maintenance parks and recreation facilities, water supply, sewage, disposal, and storm water systems infrastructure. So this is an existing building. It already is occupied during the day as an office use. You're simply looking to convert it to residential use, not changing the footprint. You'll be adding sinks. Is that correct? Not technically. Okay. It was a doctor's office, so there's a lot of sinks already. There's three total now, and there will be three when we're done. Is this on city sewer and water? Yes. And so you've already spoken with the department of public works about changing. Yeah, an indirect connection and having an engineer make sure it's, you know, fit the engineering. Sure. It would be in process if we're approved. And so there are two one bedroom apartments as well in here. So we're not talking about a huge number of tenants coming into the site either. At most two occupants of one bedroom apartments, whether that's a small family or a single person. Yeah. So I think the evidence is that there's no impact on the schools. You're not changing the driveway and have you talked to the department of public works as far as the width of the driveway? Is it sufficient for ambulance and police to enter? No, we're assuming since there is an existing apartment already that it's in compliance. Yeah. And also because they're not making any changes as it is and with that much room to turn around in department of public works didn't have any concerns about that issue. No impact on street or infrastructure because there's no changes being proposed. Maybe someone who lives there will use our parks and recreation facilities, which is a good thing. And we've already talked about water. So the next section talks about traffic. The applicant shall demonstrate the proposed development will not have an undue adverse of pump traffic in the area including volume type and timing. Traffic generated by the proposed development shall not and reasonably and disproportionately contribute to reduced level of service for affected streets that the reasonable measures have been taken to minimize or mitigate the amount of vehicular traffic generated by proposed development. So your testimony was that the apartments two and three what are going to become apartments two and three were a doctor's office saw regular visits during the day multiple trips and this would reduce down to essentially two residential units. Hearing no further questions on traffic. I think that the evidence shows that it's likely to have no impact to very little impact. The character of the neighborhood standards the applicant shall demonstrate the proposed development shall not have an undue adverse effect upon the character of the neighborhood. So in this, if you could just describe this parcel sits along River Street and 302. Are there other residential uses in the immediate area? On Moonlight Terrace. On Moonlight Terrace, it's all residential. Yeah. Okay. I know 302 itself is more of a commercial corridor but along Moonlight Terrace or other residential properties. On Moonlight Terrace the property in the building set back by the way is from River Street. So it really feels like part of that residential neighborhood already rather than the commercial part. Does this property sit up on a hill? Okay. So it's lifted literally up off of River Street. Yeah. Right. Okay. Doesn't have a line of sight even for River Street really. The next one is yards, lot coverage and landscaping. New development shall maintain a sense of open space as appropriate to the neighborhood by balancing the size of the building footprint with a mass and structure and size a lot. This isn't applicable because you're not proposing any changes to the exterior. The last one is performance standards. I have a question. Yes. On the exterior, are you gonna be putting in a new entrance from the apartment too on the exterior? Yes. That would go underneath. Is there like an existing exterior stairwell? Yeah. That's right. There will be a new entrance on the exterior of the building. Yes. There'll be no lighting for that. Well, they'll be lighting their will because it's required by the National Electrical Code. Okay. Any further questions on the exterior? Hearing none. So we have the yard, lot coverage and landscaping. New development shall maintain, I'm sorry, we're down to performance standards. The board may impose conditions deemed necessary to further the purpose of Chapter 330 including performance standards on whether the project is expected to contribute any of the following to the neighborhood, noise, glare, odors, vibration, electrical or radio interference, waste storage needs, particulate matter or airborne solids or flammable, toxic or hazardous substances or waste. Are any of these things likely to be triggered by your change of views? We work hard to avoid those. It might be something good to put in the lease actually. Those are always good terms to put in the lease. No talks except since don't bring them. But apart from that, I think the evidence is pretty clear that this is a residential use. Will there be a plan for regular trash pickup provided by you, the landlord as opposed to the tenant? That was currently operating. So we'll just continue that service. Again, the evidence is that this is in a residential neighborhood and this is consistent with that. None of these uses seem to be, I mean, you can have noisy tenants, but the use in and of itself is not generating unusual amounts of noise. So, given that, what's the pleasure of the board? Is there any more questions about the application? Or, oh, yes, Claire. I have a question. You mentioned, so will you need a border wastewater amendment for this city? Will you have an engineer certified that the building will. Supply lines are adequate. Supply lines are adequate and so forth. The system that the employer has. And once that's submitted, I think that's how that works by the engineer. The city will review that and give us that permitting for indirect connection. That's suitable for AC, but it has to be an engineer that sends the letter to my understanding. We'll move forward with that very late. Any further questions from the board? If not, I'll entertain a motion. We'll move to approve the conditionings. Is there still an understatement change? Or is that now no longer part of this? It's still part of this. Well, that plan is still part of it. So, mine or state planning condition. With the friendly amendment, with the modification of the applicants to remove the change of use, change of parking area. Yes, thank you. Motion by Deb, do I have a second? Second. Second by Kevin. Any further discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor of the motion as proposed, please raise your right hand. Congratulations, you have your permit. It will issue well. We used to say that all the time. It will issue. I like that you said it. It will issue by paper with usually we're pretty good within a week or two weeks of this meeting. You'll have a written decision, but you have our vote know that it's force coming with the findings that we've made. Okay. The window for appeal. 30 days from issuance of the decision. And that'll be all explained in the packet that gets sent to you along with the Z notice that you'll need to post on the property. If there wasn't appeal, just curious, if there wasn't appeal, the affluent, how would they bring their case forward? I mean, not how would they, but... They have to file their notice with... What would their reasons have to be for it being denied and that sort of thing? Well, I mean, there's a number. This gets into a legal question, but generally what happens is if somebody chooses to appeal, they file a notice of appeal either with the city and or with the environmental court. You have to go in front of the environmental court and say why you're appealing. And that process works out strictly in front of the environmental court. Okay. And so there's limited not everyone can appeal a decision. They have to be an interested party and that's defined by the statute. And that has some particular requirements to it. I think it's a sign that no one is here wishing to speak about this application. Clearly isn't the most controversial thing that's happened this month. It is a legal requirement that somebody who wishes to appeal have participated before this board as well. And so. Right. Good. Well, good luck. Thanks much. Appreciate it. Thank you. Moving along, our next application is 47 Court Street. If you would state your name for the record, please. Yana Walder. Okay. And are you appearing on behalf of? Capital City Partners. Okay. So if you raise your right hand, I'll swear you in. You solemnly swear or affirm that the evidence testimony you're about to give for the matter under consideration shall be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth under a pains and penalties perjury. Yes. All right. Please give us an introduction as to your application. So we are looking to replace the existing jersey barriers in the parking lot with just a more decorative stone wall. That's it. No change in the slope or anything. It's just a simple switch it out. Yes. Where are the jersey barriers located? There's a picture. I mean, I see two of them in the picture too. Yep, there's three. Okay. So three jersey barriers along. Is this the backside of the? Building, yes. And if I look to the left where the, looks like the CRV is parked on this picture. We're not touching those. You're not touching those big blocks. So Meredith, is this technically a steep slope behind these? This does not look like. If you take a look. So if you, I mean, one, if you look at what Yana just recently handed out. This is off of the steep slope map. It's a steep slope, slope overlay. And so it's, I mean, technically where they are is the slope. And that's one of the steepest parts of the slope. There's going to be some impact on that slope. Yeah, but if I'm looking here at this picture, it looks like it was taken in winter without the leaves on the trees. I mean, that does not look like. But if you look. Well, I know, but I. Is this the slope behind it? I'm just looking at the slope behind it. I mean, obviously the wall itself has a vertical, very steep slope. But the slope it's supporting or it's holding up. I just want to be clear. It's not steep under our definition. Or at least it's not greater than the 30%. I mean, even. I think that's right. Okay. It's just one of those. If you take a look at things, I don't think the Jersey barrier is this whole aspect here. And that's what reads as a steep slope on there. It's not like we have a full engineering report on this because it seemed a bit excessive. Sure. To get a full engineering report on replacing those Jersey barriers. Because I agree, part of what reads as the slope is the actual Jersey barriers themselves. Which is the steepest part right there. And maybe I'm odd. I'm simply trying to, I think for purpose of just trying to understand and narrow what we have to do. If we're really just talking about the steep slope as created by the Jersey barrier in and of itself, I think that's a different task for us to tackle. Agreed. Than the slope behind it. And this is really the key issue for our review, right? Yeah. So. No, the key issue is the slopes. That's why this is here. Because unfortunately, technically, it reads as a steep slope. So this is. Correct. Yes. It's where my ability as zoning administrator to use judgment is reined in. I'm interested in the letter that we received that relates to this a little bit where the neighbor in the case that she's really thinks will be improved. And I believe that neighbor is here today, Mr. Blu and if, when you're ready to enter into that part of public testimony. Okay. That's great. We can wait there. And so I'm interested in knowing, I don't understand enough about the virus or the flexibility to be really just that. I'm sorry. So to say that again, it's I'm not clear if we have flexibility to do what's being asked even by the neighbor. And so I'd love some advice on that. Well, when the time comes in the discussion. Well, for the scope here, because at this point, the entire application has to come before the development review board. Yes. Everything within the minor site plan review process is open for you to look at. I have pointed out in the staff report where and how I think this all complies. And I think you can all read that and take new evidence here. Correct Dan? That's your read as well. Yeah. We can take evidence as well as, and what I was really aiming to get the board to focus on is that if there seems to be a couple parts to this application, one is that they're proposing in the nature of the application, not to change the existing slope behind the wall that it stays the same. So do we have to make a representation, a condition? That gets into our discretion. In general, you don't have to because that's the scope of the application. It's like saying somebody wants to build a Dunkin Donuts and you say, okay, but don't process a bestis in that Dunkin Donuts. And they say, we're not asking to do that. And you don't have to make that condition. It's just inherent in the application itself. At the same time, if there is concern, I think given the steep slope, even to the extent that this is not a greater than 30% steep slope, it's a lesser than and we can have that requirement for the purposes of erosion. Now, Mr. Bowen's interest in preserving the slope may be different as far as the way water runs off of his property and those private rights to have water flow off the property in a certain way. That's not necessarily in our jurisdiction here, but we can certainly to the extent that we have any concerns or receive testimony on erosion issues, which is ultimately what the steep slope for visions are intended to protect, we can make conditions off of that if that's helpful. So I think as a preliminary question for the board is, is one of, do we determine that? And if we look at section 3007, what a steep slope is, does that necessarily include a retaining wall, which is always going to be greater than 30% because walls tend to be vertical? Or is that something where we would determine it not to be? And if it is to be determined to be a steep slope and covered by 3007, is this something where the board feels there's more testimony needed as to what's being proposed? I mean, I think it's a very straightforward application. Yes. Mr. Chair, I think the board has a opportunity here to show some common sense with regards to the new zoning regulations. We are simply swapping out one material for a new material. And as long as we make sure that the engineering components are compliant with good engineering practices, I think I would steer clear of getting into the slope issue at all. I think it's an engineering issue and I think we should be attentive to that. But as far as trying to parse, I mean, it's just the thought of taking every retaining wall we have in town and saying, oh my gosh, you're all over 30%. And that every time you make an improvement or a repair, you'd have to go jump through those kinds of things. It's like just evaluating on the merits, not on something official. Rob, I just have one question to I think comes to the same conclusion. And that is the elevation of the top of that wall going to be the same when the new construction is completed as it currently exists? So I think it'll be three feet tall because I think the blocks are a foot high. So it's half a foot taller, but we are flexible. So there will be a reduction in slope. I think I have a foot taller. Right now it's 2.5 feet tall. You answer my question. So the slope behind it will actually be less of a slope. It'll be closer to even because you're raising the bottom a little bit. What's the pleasure of the rest of the board? I think there's, yes, Claire. I had a question. You're just talking about replacing these one, two, three, four. Correct. And then is this the neighboring? That's my problem. Right here. So your concern would be if they did something here, or come off here, come over into. We'll give Mr. Bowen an opportunity. I know who won't testify, but I want to touch upon this threshold question because I think it shapes our questions for Mr. Bowen or for the applicant as well as their testimony. If we're looking at it as a steep slope, I tend to agree with both Kevin and Rob that if I don't think the intent of this, while it doesn't necessarily define slopes in there, there's an indication by the language used that this is really talking about naturally occurring slopes or man-made material slopes that are not the retaining walls because that's inherent within retaining wall is that it's always going to be greater than 30%. And the whole purpose of retaining wall, you need to be able to maintain it. I mean, if this Jersey barrier, it wasn't an aesthetic issue, but it was some structural issue where it was undermining the idea that the bylaws wouldn't allow you to repair that because clearly at some point it was necessary to hold this back. I don't think would not come, it would be an irrational application of rules. That makes sense. Okay, good on that. So Mr. Bowen, I think if you wish to testify or have anything you wish to offer, please, the microphone right there is and just introduce yourself for the record. Thank you. My name is Jim Bluen. I'm the owner of 45 Ford Street. And I met with John at the site. We discussed my concerns with the majority of the grade. There is very little property to speak of between our two properties. The stones that you'll see that are placed on the grass, which is part of my property, have been put there to prevent plowing from that property ending up in our walkway down below. The column that you see on the backside of the house was taken out by a plow individual. Several years back. Probably the most important aspect of this testimony is that that fourth barrier goes beyond the grass. That's my property. Now, I think this is, we've talked about this. I think it's wonderful they want to replace a Jersey barrier, but I'm petrified because I know that John is not gonna be driving that excavator, okay? Somebody gets in there and stuff changes really quickly and then it's done. If they can pull that barrier and put those new blocks on that existing grade because I would bring you to another picture, it looks like this, it shows you that this grade from this point to this point is quite steep. So I'm all ears about how high this is gonna be, but it really needs to be stipulated that it comes off this grade, not this grade. And if it does, I'm okay with that as long as there is a flat flush face that cuts back into their space. So anything that they plow or any rain that comes down continues to move in the direction it's moving for years. Okay. That's all. And I just, I want it to go down the same that as long as they put that replacement wall exactly where that one is, don't touch any of the dirt to the right. I'm in favor of their proposal. Okay. When I'm petrified, I have to say that the previous owners of this building said the same thing. Those block walls that you were looking at, if you didn't want to move, they moved them. No permission, it was a field stone wall. So I get a little nervous and now I show them. I'm glad that she showed us, we've had a great conversation, but I want everybody in the room. So if that wall drops 18 inches and then it's 26 or 25 inches up, but it dropped, the grade dropped with it and the water's going to move. I only know that because I've been there for 33 years. Thank you for your time. I appreciate their efforts. Ms. Walters, I think there's two questions that are raised by Mr. and is it Bluen? Bluen. Bluen's testimony and one is if you look at the picture that looks like there's a little bit of a rise to the actual bottom of the Jersey barrier from the pavement. So is the retaining wall proposed to go in at the pavement level or at that slight rise? We haven't actually gotten that far, but there's, I mean, do you really think that it rises that much? I was just there measuring the wall and it really doesn't rise that much. I mean, it looks like it because the Jersey barrier has like the widening at the bottom. So in the picture, it looks like there's a, you know, like a rise that goes like this but it's pretty flat. You think it's about 15 inches to the bottom of the Jersey barrier? I mean, I don't think so. I'm not sure where you think it's going to look. To the bottom of the Jersey barrier. I mean, it's covered in dirt because they're plowing and they push the dirt onto it so it looks like a grade, but I really don't think it's that high of the wall. I was there when they built it. That was reason why they did that so that the plows wouldn't hit. They would have that dirt for the blades to rise up, strike the barriers, and they would know that they were at the end of what they could push to. So Bill Kehoe owns the building. He was the principal of Associated General Contractors. I think it was Du Bois and King who did this work. And again, yeah, sorry. I just want to go to a microphone. We're going to talk too much more. Sorry. Oh, you are. Oh, no. We just want to make sure it's on the record if you're talking, that's all. So. There is no plan to drop it 18 inches. OK. So essentially you're talking about replacing it at the existing level. Yes. And then on the, I think, one of the concerns, thank you. On, I think on this picture, which looks like it was taken from underneath the deck, walkway area. You know, the jersey barrier, as jersey barriers are designed, just simply ends. And is there going to be an end piece on the wall that you're proposing? No, basically just an end of a stone block. OK. And is it going to extend past where the existing jersey barrier is? No, and we're very flexible. We can even shorten the wall. We should be going to die in the middle. So I think the concern is what the water is going to end up over here by the stairs. I'll try to speak loudly with this picture. My honest concern is that an excavation blade goes here and goes down three and a half, four feet, to remove this barrier. My property has been violated. I don't want that to happen. That barrier can be pulled, and these blocks can be slid in and built up on top, can die right into the exact space it is now. I'm not complaining about it went over. That was agreed two years ago. But it's just that this is how tight it is. Well, I think that's really a certainly you're expressing a private property interest that you're not giving permission for them to build on to your property or to dig on to your property. And so that's less of our jurisdiction as a zoning board. We can approve this wall. And we can certainly, as I understand the representations are from the applicant, is that she's not seeking to expand the wall or proposing it tonight. Now, whether the excavators come and dig into your property and effectively trespass, that's a little bit beyond the zoning. And that's more in the private property rights that you have, because you're saying very clearly to the applicant, I don't give you permission. And I presume you're not going to change your mind. And so, but that's not necessarily what we can put on as far as requirements for zoning. I mean, that's why I asked you to address the grave. Because I thought that that wasn't your property. And it's just nobody. What my concern was was when an email came back and said, we don't plan to do this. The word I don't plan to do things doesn't hold so much water with me anymore. Again, she won't be the one running the excavator. I know what the plan is, but I've had plans before. They don't always go the way we wanted them to. I want to be very clear that I came. I erred my concerns. And if the excavator does get a little aggressive to all that, it sounds to me that, oh, for me? Well, I believe, doesn't your permit? I only know because the deck that you walk in under, I was forced to reduce by eight feet on both sides at another time by this board. Eight feet, I had to take off $18,000 because it exceeded the original plan. So I think you've got teeth to say, as long as it's done exactly the way we say, we agree. And if it doesn't happen the way we did, I have a report. I mean, I'm happy to find out where the property line actually is and just build it up to it or not even touching the property line. I don't need to go like all the way absolutely. I would say it's a practical matter. If we approve the plan as she's proposed it and then she does something different on the property, then it's a violation and you could bring a complaint. So you would have recourse. And then as the chair described, you also have private recourse. So a permit will be based on her application and if she doesn't build it in accordance with that application and our approval, then it's an enforcement matter. Well, absolutely, there's a procedure for enforcement. We don't, you know, there's a, in the zoning administrator there, in the zoning office, there's an enforcement mechanism. But then you also have the ability to have a private, to have a civil case as well. Scared. I don't think I want to do it now. Okay. So any, Claire? Was a site plan submitted, one that's been based on a survey or shows where the private property line is? No, I mean, even when we bought the property, there was no survey or property lines or anything like that. Because I guess I have a little bit of a concern to say, well, where is the property line? And so then having that clear understanding of where that is just so that. I think there's probably somewhere, maybe it's like from the corner of the building to the property line. I'm sure that somewhere it's noted on the danger records. And she tells that you'll find her will be on the right-hand side of your driveway and then I'm going to go on it like that for a couple of months. Okay. I think this is where, I think we have to be careful, which is we're not here to adjudicate where the boundaries are. We're not situated for that. And we have to, we're asked to approve or not approve as far as the zoning by-laws go, the application as proposed. Obviously if she, if we would approve a permit that involved going on to somebody's property, that, you know, think of it, I think the concerns that have been expressed are, okay, you approved this wall, but what happens if the excavator goes a little bit to the right? My point was simply, you know, that's certainly a private property right about trespass, but we're not here to, you know, adjudicate where the boundary lines are. We're just here. I'm asking you to do that. I'm asking you to maintain the grade that exists there today. And I think that's what the applicant staff has presented and that's what we're seeking to approve as a permit. And I'm just clarifying for the purposes of both you and for the other members of the board. So, any other questions? Hearing none, anybody have an emotion or, as much as I don't want to, there was a question about the landscaping, I think. Oh, and then this additional information was provided with some hexes and, I marked down the shrubs. Yes, shrubs and trees. Do you have just an estimate of how many shrubs end or trees exist on the property currently? So, 16 shrubs about, and I want to say four to seven trees, they're all kind of growing together. It's fine. Are there any locations on the property that you think would be suitable for additional plannings that would provide shading for walkways, visual screening for the property or any of the other criteria that are listed in the landscaping section? I think just right up at the top of the property by sort of towards the apartments, right along that road, we could plant some things, definitely. There's no plan for it, but we could that is not in there. We could disturb in a grade. Yeah, well. I could plant whatever you want. But there's other plantings in that general vicinity currently? Yep, so all the things are marked on the map. All the shrubs and trees and what? You're saying you hypothetically could plant additional trees and shrubs in amongst those existing trees and shrubs if you needed to? Yeah, probably just up towards the back of the property. Where do you currently have your snow storage for the winter? I'll actually pay to remove it. So, they'll come in and plow and then remove it at the same time? Every couple weeks, yes. Okay. During the interim, does it store it somewhere? Yep, just we push it against the jersey barriers. Okay. Yana, just to check in one thing. For the front yard area, how is that impacted in the winter by the city plows with the city streets and, you know, Greenwood, I think that's Greenwood Terrace to me sir, that was Greenwood and the sidewalk plows? There's a considerable amount of snow all around the front and the side going towards the apartments in the back because there's a road that goes up along the property line. So, again, if we planted something, then it would definitely be out of snow on it. So it seemed to me, with the photos that there's already significant plantings in the back and so it wouldn't really, would it add to the aesthetics in the shading or would it just be redundant to what's there? I don't have a sense from the photos. I would have probably a person who knows about plants look at it and plant something that would help with, you know, water, cause of water. So would there be space for two or three or four additional plantings, shrubs? I think shrubs, yes. Between a tree along that, is it terrace tree up there, I think, right? I don't remember what it's called. A Greenwood Terrace? Greenwood Terrace, yeah. So along that road there. So if we would, in our requirement, require an additional three to four shrubs, you feel like there's room, actual room for it. Yes. And we'll also make a requirement that any plantings be maintained in a good condition, you know, and replaced if they die and like that. Let me ask a question. So there's been no professional erosion control plan developed, it's a small project. But, and this may go to Mr. Lewin's concern, which is if there was a condition of the permit that required you to follow the city of Montpeliers erosion control practices in the implementation of this wall, would that be acceptable to the applicant? Are you familiar with their erosion control practices and the bylaws? Not, what are they? So under 3008D, there's about 13 different erosion control practices. And they include things such as limiting the site of the construction area to the minimum necessary to accommodate the proposed development, preserve significant existing trees within construction area. You know, a lot of these, I think, are fairly standard requirements, monitor the site to ensure that all sediment and erosion control measures are functioning properly, particularly important to check erosion control measures just before and after a significant rainfall. I mean, technically these are part of the bylaw regulations, but one way in which I think might assure the neighbor that the implementation of this followed the application more than simply the representations of this is where we're putting the wall is are these erosion control measures? Because those seem to really go to the heart of what Mr. the neighbor is concerned about. And if we adopted them as a specific condition of the application, I don't see it as necessarily something more than what you already have to comply with, but it would be very specific that in lieu of an erosion control plan specific to this area, you're agreeing to follow these standards in your implementation. Unless it requires some additional construction of, I don't know, swales or something. I mean, if it's like marking the boundaries of limits of construction, stabilized exposed soil. I mean, I actually think this wall would be more helpful for water issues. It'll have appropriate drainage behind it. I think that it's actually an improvement. I don't foresee there being more water, more issues with water after construction of the swales. Yeah, these only apply to the construction activities themselves. They're essentially best practices so that when people are undertaking construction that there aren't erosion problems while there's being moved around and stuff like that. Yeah, it's still fences and sort of simple common sense, things like that. Right, and limiting the area, particularly given the testimony that was given earlier that there's a concern about any digging beyond the absolute necessary area to slip the jersey barrier in a very tight, I mean, sorry, slip the new retaining wall in where the jersey barrier exists in a very tight area that doesn't disturb other soils. I understand. Does that make sense? Any further questions? I appreciate taking up the issues that I almost glossed over. I'll entertain a motion. I'll make a motion to approve the application Z 2018-0108 at 47 Court Street for minor site plan approval as presented by the applicant, which specifically is the replacement of these barriers with a new stone retaining wall in the same location as the currently existing barriers under the conditions that the construction activities follow the erosion and prevention sediment control practices set out in section 3008D of the zoning regulations. And with the additional condition that four additional shrubs be planted on the property pursuant to section 3203.g of the zoning regulations and that the shrubs be maintained in a healthy condition with dead or dying plants being replaced within one growing season with a comparable plant of the same size requirements. Motion by Ryan. Second? I'll second it. Second by Deb. Any further discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor of the motion as stated. Please raise your right hand. We have all opposed six to one. We have, you have your application approved. We'll issue a written decision presumably in the next two weeks. Thank you. Next application up is sketch plan review of a two lot subdivision by the city of Montpelier. Does anybody need to take a break or can we just plow right into it? Are we ready? Okay. Just so everyone who's here who's aware before the presenter introduces himself. This is sketch plan, which means it's not evidence under oath. This is the first two steps in a subdivision process. The purpose of tonight is to really discuss any issues that may arise or that we may see or that we may have further questions about for the subdivision. Somewhat unique in that our last meeting we also had a sort of preview of this particular application and did very much the same thing. That was more of a general overview. This one is going to be a much more focused on the issues raised by a subdivision application itself. So it may not go into the same, quite the same areas, but it will just look to seek clarification on some of our conditions as to why or why not the parcel should be allowed to be subdivided. So Greg, if you'll introduce yourself and take it away. Thank you. My name is Greg Rabbidow from Rabbidow Architects in South Burlington. Here to present the modifications to the Montpelier City Garage. I don't know if it's possible to kill the lights again. And hopefully everyone won't go to sleep with the lights going off at this late hour. This is a version of the plat plan overlaid out to an aerial photograph and it picks up on a lot of important things that are going on around this site. But the proposal before you tonight is an extension of a previous permit and I'll go through this again for the benefit of folks who weren't on the board then. The Capital Plaza Corporation sought and received approvals for an 84 room hotel, which is this building here. And at the time was a 220 space parking garage. And that proposal has been changed now to where the city is going to subdivide off a lot here. Property line is between the two buildings. That roughly half acre lot will be used to construct a 348 space parking garage, which you see here now extending down into what is the lands of Mary Haney. And if you've walked the site roughly a third of the way down the garage, there's a little bit of a drop from the Capital Plaza parking lot to the Haney parcel. This bunch of contours here represents that. Obviously another very important feature of this map is the north branch of the Winooski River and here's the main channel of the Winooski River. This is important for the project in general, as I know the city is pursuing plans to develop a park right here. We call it Confluence Park. As part of that you can see the trailway of the bike path and the proposed bike path bridge. Here the existing railroad bridge is here. The structure is an adaptation of the earlier approved design with some major improvements. What you see here is the same view that was presented to the city council on last Wednesday night. Essentially what is proposed is a four storey garage. The highest portion of that would be immediately adjacent to the Hampton Inn. You can see here that on the opposite corners of the building there are also these stair tower extensions. But principally the building line is down here. You can see some of the design themes that are being developed as plans are improved. The pattern, the building facade encompasses both masonry and stone facades alternated with panels of a living material grown on a matrix called a green screen or a living wall. Those are sort of brand specific. But what it is is it's a type of trellis and what's being proposed is that growing from the ground up would be a mixture of vines and ivies and other climbing plants that our landscape architects estimate will grow in over time and fill in after about three years. One other distinctive feature in the overall scheme of things is the creation of opportunities as indicated here for some significant public art. This happens to be the view of the project sort of up in the air but looking from the south and the east towards the Capitol Plaza building to the north and the west to put it in a, I'll die, I'm sorry, I'll have to go back and bring this up, okay. So this is a new view that in the previous rounds of approval wouldn't have been available because this construction fencing indicates previously there was a building in this location that's been torn down. But this gives you a view from Main Street and obviously there's Shaw's and here's the railroad track so I've got my back sort of against the building in the corner there used to be a bank. You can see here in the distance, this is the garage. There's one of those pieces of art that I talked about. There's the Capitol Dome to help orient you and then these large masses where my cursor is going. That's the existing Capitol Plaza and this is the proposed or previously approved Hampton Inn. I have a different view of that. It's awkward but everybody can see then. All right, just open the same one. Bear with me. Here's a view from a little farther back. This is actually taken sort of from the edges of the Winooski River behind that Senoko Shell Station. So here's the area in here where Confluence Park would be and you can see again the Trestle Bridge, the railroad bridge and in the background you can see how this building from that particular vantage point sort of fits into the landscape. So you've got the masonry panels alternating with the green screens and I think this is an important image to sort of show you that this thing is not going to have a negative or adverse impact on the looks of town from those key vantage points. And here again you can see the relationship between the top of the garage here where that cornice is and the adjacent hotel which this would be the fourth floor and then up in the roof is the fifth floor so the building really stops sort of at the fourth floor level of the adjacent garage. Well, these are the actual construction drawing elevations. They're a little, they're a little plain to read and I think the renderings do a much better job but this right here in the corner, it can't seem to zoom in, but the elevations, the actual measurements are indicated on the drawings that were included in your back. Just a note, Greg, that those aren't in this package. They are? Because this is just a subdivision so the subdivision isn't really about the height of the new building or anything. I can give you my copy of what's in this actual package. I have both of them but I won't dwell on the elevations, just try to get people oriented to the project. So the board will be asked at regular flat hearings to approve this subdivision of land which would cab off about 0.54 acres of land from the Capital Plaza Corporation to the city and then we'll also be looking for site plan approval for the garage as well as an amendment to the previous approvals for the hotel, one to allow for off-site parking which will be required now that we're moving the garage off to a separate property and any other miscellaneous minor changes to the site plan that are a result of this change. So we'll see you on a number of fronts, site plan approval, subdivision, amendment to previous site plan approval and many other things. Traffic, the traffic report is being updated as we speak. I know that the traffic generation has been estimated to be about 88 cars during the PMP hour which is an increase from the 40 some odd spaces in the original approval. So far as I understand it from talking to the city manager's office, we're gonna make plans for a second egress from the garage out to the Haney lot that operationally may not be open all the time but it's there as a sort of recommended procedure so that should anything ever happen in the primary egress we could still get people in and out of the building. There's also a deeded access to this little parking area here behind the overlook partnership as a building here. We have to maintain both that right away in some form and access to that parking. And I think there'll be a lot of discussion as we go through the permit process to talk about this bike, the ADA accessible route for the state street that goes down through the project and connects to the bike path at that point. So with that overview in place, I guess I would offer myself up for questions from the board and see if there's any specific area you'd like me to go into. One area I'm interested in is the water for this particular lot. In the earlier iteration, there was a talk of a water bane going underneath, I think coming in from off a state street. How is that to be modified with the new design and the subdivision? Well, both in terms of water line and in terms of the sanitary sewers or storm sewers, there's going to be some easements recorded that come along with this application. The plan has been, there's an existing 10 inch water line that comes down through the site and currently cuts across, goes underneath the rectory building or the church hall building at Christ Church and loops back to the buildings along Main Street here. The intention, our work with Public Works is we're continuing to design a system that will bring a water line in here and cut over to Main Street and loop that water system for the rest of downtown. The exact route of that has not been presented to me but I assume the goal is to get it out from underneath the church property building and into an open space to bring it down, come around this building and go over. Similarly, stormwater flows from the Capitol Plaza building and from the Hampton Inn. There's a series of collectors that are sort of, they're catch basins that use cyclonic forces or whatever to remove solids that they're called for, Technic Units is one brand name anyhow. Stormwaters will be collected on the adjacent site but they will continue as they have in earlier designs. Route through the garage footprint and end up at a head wall here associated with the bike bridge and the discharge for stormwater flows will be integrated into that element. So that will involve both the bike path project, subdivided lot we're creating for the Montpelier City Garage and the Capitol Plaza project including the new Hampton Inn. There is plenty of water, 10 inches is way more than is needed for the hotels. The idea behind it having this 10 inch line come through here is to maintain pressure throughout a loop system in the whole of downtown. The parking garage itself won't have any water demands other than it will have a dry sprinkler system in it and standpipes in the stairwells to serve as fire, fires in the garage itself. We've been asked to explore by Public Works the use of district heat for purposes of melting snow in some locations. So that's gonna be a part of one of these applications. As far as the stormwater. As far as the stormwater goes for the expansion of the garage, is there additional stormwater that's proposed for the heaney lots that are affected or is that? Well, there are existing collection systems out there. Some of them are gonna have to get rerouted as a result of the new footprint. There's some catch basins that currently exist. I think this is one of them right here. That we'll have to get reconfigured as part of this redesign of the site. But the flows down and through this corridor are essentially the same. All of this area back here is paved. Right. 100%. So the project site itself isn't really introducing much in the way of new stormwater catchment area. In fact, it's improving it somewhat by increasing the amount of green space in and around these buildings where it's currently parked. The only stormwater that needs to be treated as urban runoff is the top deck, apparently, which we'll have to go through at one of these four technique units or some similar means of cleaning the water. All the interior drainage goes into the sanitary system. You had mentioned a sprinkler system in the garage. How do you prevent that from freezing up during wintertime? There's no water in a dry system. It's a series of pipes and heads. And then, typically, what will happen is if a fire goes off and the lines are maintained in a state of vacuum, so if a head pops, it'll trigger a bunch of valves opening and it won't have a system of flood. Alternatively, the fire department can charge with a pump or truck or they'll have standpipes in each of the stairs, which is typically how they'll fight car fires as they'll run up the stairs with those. But dry systems are used routinely throughout the month. And I'm interested in knowing about, you're thinking about floods in the river. It's very, you know, it's right up to the, to sort of the buffer around the river. I assume that, you know, the flood folks in the planning office say that you're beyond where the risk is or you have a plan. All of downtown is in a flood hazard area. The floodway basically follows the river. I had some mapping, but I'm just, this stuff is outside of the floodway and it's considered more of the adjacent floodplain area. The strategy here is for us to design this project in a way that it doesn't reduce the volume of storage capacity currently on the site. And the way we're doing that is by sort of flattening out this lowest level and dropping it down to 519, I think, or 518, depending on final decisions. So that that volume is maintained. I see. What that means is essentially the basement in there, the lowest level in this garage is wet, fire, flood-proofed, which means in a terrible flood water could flow into the building. That's great and it won't damage things. But it would be free to flood, it would be free to flow right back out again and it's not impeded in any way. That's good. And the building elevations proposed for the project show that the ground floor is largely open with either security grills or a living wall system. And so any of the actual systems will be above that flood grade. Any equipment has to be above level 528. With a hydraulic elevator, we can put the pump actuators either in the shaft that ride up and down with the cab and our fire stop would be above 528. Or we could put the, if we decide to use one that has a machine room, we could put that machine room on an upper level. The only other electrical equipment in the building, apart from the lighting, would be the equipment that runs the gates and takes care of payments and stuff like that. Somewhere in this footprint, we're going to build a small 80 square foot closet for a server and the electric equipment that runs the parking management equipment. We are also exploring the application of solar power to the project. We've started conversations with a couple of vendors to get pricing together. We know that we want to at least provide for the addition of solar power at some point in the future if it doesn't fit into the original budget. So that would mean conduits and some extra boxes and things. And we are also committing to providing electrical vehicle charging stations. Precise number, I think, is actually spelled out in your ordinance. And we were undertaking a review to see if that's adequate and appropriate or if any additional needs need to be provided. But we are working on those features as well. They would just have to be put on upper levels to be flood resistant. The frontage, I think you had described at the last meeting that I'd appreciate understanding there's a requirement of frontage. And that was in a staff comment. Luckily, we don't have any teenagers here to ride me for my poor computer skills. It says it's working. The proposal as it stands right now is to create a right of access easement on the capital plaza property. I'm sorry, that easement would be inscribed over this drive that comes in from Taylor Street, goes through the project and goes back out to state. And so we would essentially be extending the frontage out to State Street by virtue of creating this easement through the site. It does show on the plan document, I just don't have a trouble getting it open. But that's the plan anyhow, is to solve that by creating an easement. There's been some back and forth discussion about how wide that needs to be to meet the requirement. We would prefer it to be 24 feet wide because that comports completely with the drive lanes that we have. It doesn't necessarily meet the text of the ordinance which I believe says 30 feet. If it were wider, it just means that it would overlap parking spaces in a kind of awkward way. But other than that, really, I don't think is a problem. I mean if it did overlap with the parking spaces, I don't think the requirement is that it occupy. I mean, you could still have those parking spaces as long as, but I think it's the idea that if the city needed wider access, it would have that for the 30 feet. Is that something that is negotiable or I mean a possibility or is it likely that it's gonna be 24 and that's as wide as? I'm sorry, Dan. Can I interrupt for just a second? Because I think we're operating under some misconceptions. So my read is that this new parcel needs to have 30 feet of frontage on a private or public road. So the 30 foot wide part only needs to be the part that's touching the parcel, right? So I just wanna make sure that we understand that the 30 feet aspect, I don't believe the 30 foot wide aspect needs to extend all the way to State Street. Right, but we're talking merely touching, yeah. I just wanna make sure, because when we're talking about having to cover the parking spaces further out, just because the parking spaces aren't right up against the building. Okay. But I'm also concerned just simply from a right of way access. Gotcha, we were just mixing what we were talking about. Okay, thank you. Yeah, we've been happy to do, our clients are happy to do it either way, but we've, from the very inception of this project, sorry, we've been thinking of this as wanting to be like and look like a street as opposed to a parking lot, which is what you go into now when you go there. So it's been a working title for it, it's been hospitality way, although I gotta believe you probably have some noteworthy Montpelier resident. Could be memorialized with a street name, but at any rate, however you tell us you want it described. Right, do we still, Meredith, do we still have the right to name streets under the DRB? I believe that Audra needs to check and see what's available. Okay, well I mean the old bylaws used to give this board. I think the board still has at least some of it. I honestly, this will be the first time I've dug into that too much. The first time it's come up since I've been here. I'm gonna go ahead and veto Dan Richardson Drive right now. Okay, any other questions from any other board members? Any issues? I don't know if I'm... You're gonna need a boundary line of adjustment on the Heaney lot or how's that gonna work? Cause this is gonna extend over into this other lot that this lot that's being proposed isn't big enough to fit the building. Well, both the lands of Heaney and the lot that's getting capped off by the Capital Plaza Corporation. Both will be involved lands. The Heaney lot is only subject to a long-term lease. So the directions we've been getting from other parts of the city government have been that is that we wouldn't change the shape of the Heaney lot or anything like that. We're frankly looking for folks on your side of the table to tell us just how that needs to be structured. But we weren't planning on further subdividing the Heaney lot in any way. I think your client was raising his hand. Well, yeah, please do. Thank you. Cause it is confusing. Bill Fraser, city manager. The city has a 49-year lease on that parcel, which is pushing the boundary of the expected life of the garage. So we are reaching agreement with Heaney and the lease allows us to construct a building on their property with their permission, their grant permission. We're creating an addendum to that lease, which we call for what happens. So we're providing options to purchase the property then for years that Heaney's could purchase interest in the garage, then for nine years or we can agree to take it down. So those we have control of that property for four years. That's the current plan. Mayor, is there any concern about a building straddling a property line as far as setbacks or? There's zero setbacks in this particular district. So with the setback issue, there's none. And when we get to this issue, when we get to site plan, we have multiple legal opinions dealing with this issue. Okay, a minute. Yeah, at this point, I guess we're just looking at lot two. I just, I don't have those in front of me. Yeah, yeah. Not this application. Perfect. No, thank you. So I know that they're members of the public. I don't know if anyone had any comments or questions they wish to come up. If you just come up to microphone, introduce yourself. I'm Sandy Vitztum. Is it working? Yeah. Yeah. It's mostly for the recording. Yeah. And I am part of the group called the Montpelier Heritage Group. Our purpose is to preserve, protect and advance a sense of place in Montpelier and that can include streetscapes, actual buildings, historic preservation and all of the other parts of the vitality that think of the sense of place. We are really glad that the city has been so carefully following and reviewing the development so far. This is a huge investment in the city, right in a key part of the city. We remain concerned that there may not, in the effort to keep this going, that there may not be a really thorough review of a lot of details and of things like the streetscape. I was so happy to see that you're beginning to develop perspectives. I had some concerns when I looked at them about relative elevations. They used to float balloons to actually make sure that things were accurate as a way to prove that the perspective rendering is correct. And it's hard to compare an occupied building like the Plaza with a parking garage. So it might be really useful to have balloons or something because the floor-to-floor is different. But I know tonight you're actually speaking about the subdivision. And I have a couple of very innocent questions because I didn't know. I'm just sort of in general curious about the subdivision. I think the zoning ordinance kind of discourages people from making non-conforming lots, right? So what this would accomplish being a conforming lot? Good. Yep. I mean, some of the issues that we're raising and Meredith, if you want to... I mean, the big issue about whether or not this would be a conforming lot is the frontage. The frontage needs to be ironed out. Well, the other thing is I'm just thinking about the parking garages that I've been to, the ones that are easier to use and the ones that are scarier to use. And it seems to me that they work well when they're on a street. And I was trying to think of my mind, what is a street? A street is it has something that has kind of people going both ways. It has a destination at both ends as opposed to an alley. The alleys can be a little bit scary and also be harder for people to find their way through if they're new to town, like people visiting a hotel. So I'm confused, and maybe this actually might be the best drawing to explain my, or help me fix my confusion, which is, is this the road? Is then L shape, is the quote street? That dark shaded areas to propose that. And you're forming the corner because there's no way to get through to the Heaney lot to make it as through street. Not because the Christ Church Episcopal Loans. All that land to the east of that point. Okay, oh, you can't reduce the usable footprint of that. You can't make cars smaller so that the garage can get narrower, got you. Okay, so that is, there is technically a way through. Are you gonna be changing the way the parking layout, because I cut through that way sometimes with my little tiny Subaru. And it's kind of hairy driving just that path that you have now. Through the roadway. Yeah, I mean, I'm guessing that the new hospitality street will be a little wider and more street like than the back way through the capitals parking lot. Several things will be happening. One is that the finished grade will be less of a rollercoaster. We're gonna smooth that out so that it's a more continuous grade and not, there's some big dips in there. But there'll also be sidewalks and trees and curbs. So it'll feel a lot more defined as a road as opposed to now, which is it's one continuous surface pavement with different kinds of striping on it. And for instance, from your new garage to State Street, which comes out, I think, by the post office. Will that be more like a street with parallel parking? Or, I mean, well. We're showing, we're continuing to show the perpendicular parking here. Some of that is necessary to serve the commercial tenants in the Capitol Plaza building, the bank, most normally, but there's a hair salon and a barber shop and the state has office space in there. So those will stay as with perpendicular parking. But yeah, in terms of it being street like, you know, that's our goal is to have curbs and sidewalks and we've got a continuous accessible route that comes down along the side of that and to the garage and to the hotel building. So we have been working on that connectivity. When we get to site plan review, I think we'll be happy to talk about that in detail. You have a pedestrian way either in your property or along, because now a lot of people get from the ATM over to the farmer's market. I mean, the farmer's market's going. Down through there. But yeah, right now there's a pedestrian walkway through there. There's roughly eight feet on the north side of the parking garage to the property lane. Eight feet. Okay. And so there's plenty of room to put a sidewalk in there. Normally an accessible route would be five feet wide. That's something I would want to talk to the folks at the church about in terms of, you know, how they envision this all coming together. Because I don't know if there's a possibility that when they build onto the back of the church to put an apartment in, they may not want that feature for some reason. I don't know. It's just, I think with sense of place, developing a really successful grid for both cars and pedestrians, bicycles, that is rich rather than, you know, a bunch of dead ends. Yeah, and I don't want to resist any of that. I'm only looking out for them. There's another property that owner involved. So that's the only reason I'm adding it. So Greg, actually this raises some questions. Where the proposed right-of-ways come out at State Street and Taylor Street. Right now, these are almost like driveway entrances. Is the proposal that those would be more street-like in that they would be more almost like an intersection where the road would not be going essentially off of a sidewalk ramp, but would meet State Street or Taylor Street on its same grade. And have crosswalks and- Yeah, crosswalks. Crosswalks. No one's asked that question before. Yeah, we were planning on, you know, especially in Taylor Street, that intersection gets a lot of rework because the city's already started their project to address Taylor Street up. And so there's going to be improvements at that intersection. None of the documentation I've shown so far has shown that relationship changing. I would have to talk to our civil engineers about how that is and why. The only thing I know for sure is we would want to make sure that stormwater flows running down the curves of State Street didn't come down into the projects, like as there's a drop of grade down through there. Right. I assume you're doing some sorts of traffic studies because this really changes the traffic pattern coming back out onto State Street, which is already challenging coming from the back. Yeah, I had good fun getting into town tonight. I understand what my pillar's like at five o'clock, but a traffic study is being done. You know, a lot of the traffic that's coming out onto State Street, I mean, right now there's 208 spaces of parking on the Capitol Plaza lot. Plus the folks like Sandy and I who cut through the back. Right. You know, they come around. Yeah. Yeah, but those are valid questions that we should resolve. And along the right of way that heads up from the north from the parking deck towards State Street on the right side, the east side, if those parking spaces are reserved, is there a plan for a pedestrian circulation for them to essentially cross over towards, because most people that would park along where your arrow is and up, you know, would be using the Capitol Plaza or similar facilities. There's two questions there, whether or not these are reserved spaces. And I think I might have to defer to Sue and Bill on that because the city's been talking about. After we're talking about the spaces in the Heaney lot or the. No, no. Right where his cursor is along. So those spaces, well, I think some of them are in our field savings bank. We have to look at the ownership. One of the options that we're actually pursuing is that those would become city streets. We just didn't think we'd be able to have that all done in time from this process. So we decided to go for the deeded right away for to get this at some point, those may all become entirely city streets which we have more that long-term preference. But for now, this is where we're at. Right. Okay. Well, I mean, obviously it's about reserves. No, but, you know, as long as those, those spots do remain, you know, because we're changing the nature of that from really a driveway entrance exit slash cut through into what's going to be a main ingress, egress for a substantial parking deck. Whether there would be any type of either crosswalk or other type of. So I agree with Greg. We hadn't really talked specifically about the crosswalk at State Street that becomes a street that makes perfect sense. I don't know why we wouldn't do that just to signal that that's what it is. And I think, you know, to the Greg's credit there, that his current function is to provide his access to parking. Right. And with a very kind of meandering route through. So while there will be more parking, we'll also be a better defined route and more parking organized in and out of that parking. One of the things that he mentioned earlier too is the idea that exit from the garage onto the Heaney lot, 60 State Street. We're looking at that both ways, either as a regular exit with the exception, say of Saturday mornings when the farmer's market was using that portion and closing it then or as only an emergency so that, you know, also could help disperse the traffic a little bit. Thanks. Any other questions from the board at this time? Is there Steve, did you wish to come up to the mic then? Steve Whitaker, Montpelier. I have spent a lot of time studying the different iterations they keep changing. I'm gonna have a little bit of a challenge to keep narrow within, but they're straight outside of the site planters, sub division as well. The setback from the North Branch is gonna be a fundamental defining characteristic. That bank is ambiguous at best right now. The top of the bank and the bottom of the bank are some eight to 12 feet of difference. So the distance from the corner of the garage right there, yep, right there to the river is, I stepped it off at about 19 feet, but you're trying to move a very heavy garage so I think the development or view board is gonna need to require a clear marking survey quality aqua engineer, water engineer to define what's the riparian boundary there. Traffic I believe is gonna be the Achilles heel of this because you keep hearing different things. You keep hearing a traffic study, a traffic report, a trip generation analysis. When you're talking 348 cars plus the surface lot parking, all those perpendicular spots that are remaining and the church spaces, this is ripe to be a traffic nightmare. Not only within the two easements as you're calling them, but where they enter Taylor and state as well. I predict that if this garage does go through in this location, which I object with good foundation, you're gonna end up needing to take the Haiti lot possibly by any eminent domain and turn that into a full street with a stoplight out of town because the number of times that these spots cycle from previous parking studies, which the city has conducted during a day, multiplied by the number of spaces in it, multiplied by the other congesting traffic perpendicular in most cases is gonna be a royal nightmare. And yet the city is acting as the developer here and not no longer the regulator. And so the typical due diligence that in skepticism that it would be applied by officials, employees of the city may not be brought to bear and it may fall inordinately to this development review board to investigate those. I wanna quote one line from 3505 where the purpose of the district is to maintain compact and walkable, emphasis on walkable. And then little II per end two, to connect to and extend existing streets, sidewalk path, trail, utility greenways and open space corridors to the maximum extent feasible. So this runs directly contrary to that in that coming down through the Haiti lot, there's talk of allowing a bike to get through and get around to the rear entrance of the garage through a little ramp where we just described coming down through the Haiti lot, surrounding that back corner of the garage and a bicycle storage rack or get into the garage there. There is so far no plan to connect that bike, pedestrian access to the new bike path bridge and walkway that extends across Confluence Park and continues on to intersect with the others. That has varying causes. I think security of the garage is one, but there's a retaining wall there that's not represented as showing a rail that kind of creates a moat type atlas environment in a flood situation. How those trails and that traffic flow, the Confluence Park is really gonna be meaningless if it's hidden behind this garage and inaccessible. If you have to go through a 50 foot urban canyon that's only 10 feet wide between the hotel and the parking garage and then turn southeast and go down and cross at the bike path to get to that teeny little posted stamp park, nobody's gonna bother. There's not gonna be any more view of the Superior Court building, Capitol, City Hall, any of our church steeples. All those views will be blocked from that Confluence Park. I'm just throwing a lot of cautions and I've written some of them in a kind of an imaginary walking tour of how this would create so many obstacles. I really think that we need to be very rigorously skeptical and challenge every piece of this location. This location is set by default by a prior permitted project that couldn't get insured and then shifted to city ownership. So there may be an attempt to bypass development or even more approval due to it being a city-owned project. So I just want to caution you that this is very high stakes, 40 year, $16 million with interest. The stormwater wastewater treatment is not accounted for both either for location, brake dust, rubber, filtration, any of that, those systems are not, the green wall costs were not factored into the payback estimates for the, we're getting into next weeks or two weeks from now. You heard that 100% of this parcel is paved. That's not true, because you saw the contours. There's a good section of that gray section in the middle of the garage. That's absorbent dirt and grass at present because I scamper up and over at it during the farmer's market. You saw an elevation model of it that showed the garage well below the railroad bridge. The railroad bridge is at about 30 feet elevation, the top of the railroad bridge. And this is gonna be 50 something feet. So how the garage appeared lower than the railroad trestle is quite baffling unless the. Right. I think the board made a comment about that as well with the balloons that it's often perspective. Well, I mean, it's a point well taken that sometimes when you look at this kind of perspective, it does have that appearance, but we don't know what it looks like in the balloons. And you know, Steve, from cell tower cases, the balloons are often the best way of determining the actual height as it appears. In fact, there's a couple of weights sitting there that nobody unused behind the video console that could anchor those balloons. So I'm happy to cooperate on putting those up and measuring and verifying the proper length of cable. I mean, I don't think anyone would stop you from finding the restrooms. It's gonna need to be further. It's gonna be a wastewater treatment because whatever gets left gifted in the garage ends up in the wastewater in the stormwater. And there are no public restrooms within reach of this. And that's what most of these garages have that smelling like. I think most of the rest can wait. And I will provide you with some written stuff that will help prompt your questions and refine your questions for next hearing. Thank you. I would ask you, I did read that you can require a traffic study. I believe you're gonna get less than a full traffic analysis especially based on the parking anomalies, the perpendicular parking anomalies that surround this whole project. And that you're gonna need to insist on a full traffic analysis because if this is gonna end up requiring a full street and or new traffic signals, that's gonna fundamentally change the character of Montpelier as a pedestrian and walkable city. Thanks. Any other questions from the board? Can I just say? Yeah. If everyone who spoke tonight can please make sure to put their addresses down on that form, sign in sheet. I'd appreciate it. Thank you. And that's for mailing purposes, is that right? Yeah, that's for mailing purposes. Okay. Claire. Permitting an Act 250. So this is being developed separately from the hotel but when the hotel gets Act 250, is this part of the Act 250 application? The guidance we've had from the district coordinators that they wanna see one application covering all of it, we would have preferred to come in with two separate applications but nonetheless, it's our hope that the project will be reviewed under Board Rule 6068B, which is sometimes called the off-ramp. We're collecting findings from various state departments right now, several of them are enumerated in the rule, but we hope to perfect an application for to the District 5 Commission to have findings on this that a permit's not required as part of a designated downtown. On the parking garage? On the whole thing. Or the whole, oh, okay. On the whole thing. And like I said, we would have rather processed two separate applications. We got a jurisdictional opinion from the district coordinator that the hotel room is a dwelling unit and so there's more than 10 rooms. It would have to have a permit. The city's parking garage, absent anything else, shouldn't really require one because municipal facilities are exempt but they're seeing it all working together and so I think the minimal process laid out in front of us is more than adequate. So much of the Act 250 criterion don't apply in an urban lot. There's not an issue of forestry or prime ag soils. So we're getting the letters and sign-offs on that and hopefully that will be processed sort of on a parallel track with this set of applications. Great. Any other questions? Yeah, Rob. So there's been some discussion about the river setback. I was just wondering if that was something that if you had a draft survey plat, the next meeting that that line was going to be shown and determined or have you already. The drawings on civil engineering associates, title block, including this one, are the result of a very detailed survey undertaken by them. So they, I mean, we can bring the worksheets but the top of bank was defined as this first dotted line here. This parallel line to it, this heavy dotted line here, is the 20 foot setback required in this district. Okay. And according to your rules, roughly 50% of that can be covered up. The only part of the river frontage that really belongs to the project's down here because there's a property corner there and all of this belongs to overlook partners. But I'm supremely confident that our surveyors have adequately identified the location of that top of bank. Absolutely. Okay. Unless there's any other questions or concerns, I think this will conclude site plan or sketch plan, sorry, long night, sketch plan review for the city of Montpeliers parking garage project at 100 State Street. And given the new bylaws, we don't have to actually make any motions or review anything to determine the next step of course would be the actual site plan and final final plat review for the subdivision. So thank you all. Thank you for your time everyone. Yep, thank you. Okay, the other business for this evening, the next regularly scheduled meeting is Monday, October 15th, 2018, 7 p.m. Same time, same channel. Okay. And probably same applicants. Any other new business? Yes, this question from Meredith. Are there draft findings that will be filed? My understanding was they would be circulated among the board members before being finalized. Am I correct in this? So it's something that we have done, I think when we have had decisions where there were questions on how they were dealt with. We weren't necessarily gonna do it with all of them because it wasn't necessarily something to discuss where we were gonna do that with all of them. Well, with regards to deliberative session, this is what I thought about. I don't believe that we've seen those draft decisions circulated among the membership. So, okay. And I'm asking that they be circulated. Sure, I mean, so I think we were going under the understanding that as in past practices that if the board had decided a certain direction that the chair and staff would draft it up and I'd sign it. And so we haven't been circulating those. So that would be. So for example, the school issued, did you issue it Friday? No, I haven't had a chance to. I was working outside of normal hours. And we can still share that one. We can still share that one. I don't wanna make this an additional burden, but I do think it's important. That's fine. To solicit the board's input. And if you don't have a comment, you don't have to respond. You can just make the assumption that 24 hours to review or whatever some reason that we're talking about. Okay, so yeah, I'll either give a set time to review. Yeah, I think that's perfectly legitimate. Okay. But I do think it's important that the board have a chance to do a walkthrough with the draft. I think that makes sense for the deliberative session. Yes. How about talking about it? Okay. Right, for example, like the decisions that we issued tonight, essentially Meredith will help draft, I may do a final review and then sign and issue those. I really am focusing on the deliberative. Okay. Okay. And then, as you've seen in what we've circulated one, two others, that really the staff report as much as possible is the first draft. So, okay. And you do a great job on that one. Thanks. Okay, so. I have a question that maybe is followed up on that. And I'm just curious on how Montpelier does it. I know it works different times. When the decision is made here, is that when you consider the date of the decision or this is the decision of it is when you sign it? Because I think, I've heard there could be a bit of a tricky, when did you verbally approve it versus when do you actually sign it to when it's actually approved for the 30 days? I was curious on how you have it. So, the decision in here triggers the 45-day window for the decision. For a decision to issue. Yeah, for a decision to issue. For deemed approved purposes. And then the actual written decision is the trigger for the 30-day appeal period. When that decision is signed, the signature date on the written decision is the beginning of the appeal period. So when they leave, I just wanted to make sure that when they leave here and they're verbally hearing you're approved, they're not thinking, oh, that starts my 30 days. Like, that 30 days doesn't start until they actually get the paper in there. So that's a gap. And that's why we had the clarification for the first application, that they need to wait for the permit. And that lays out clearly for them when there's a date on there that says when the appeal period is over. Okay. Any other? I'll take a motion to adjourn. Motion by Kevin. Seconded. Second by Tom. All those in favor, please raise your right hand. We are adjourned.