 It's 632 July 21st, 2022. This is the first meeting of the newly minted Development Review Board of the City of Essex Junction. We have three members here, which is the quorum, so we can start the meeting. And I think the first thing on the list should be electing a chair and a vice chair. We have one member who's really stood, they would like to be chair, that's John Alden. But they need, you would need three votes to be chair. So is there anybody else that would like to be chair? Hearing none, would anybody like to propose John Alden as chair of the DRP? Can I ask another question? Absolutely. Um, I just want, so you mentioned that John Alden was a member of the planning commission. Yeah, he transferred to the DRP last week. Okay, okay. Because we heard in Taylor's presentation that they should be separate. So that's great. That sounds, that works for me. The abandon ship he left to see last week. So we have Rob me an emotion when anybody like the second emotion. I'll second it. Okay. Any votes? Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Great. So, um, John Alden is not really elected chair of the DRP. Um, there's no additions or amendments to the agenda. Um, does anyone, is anyone here for audience for visitors, which is someone who wants to talk about something that's not on the agenda. And you are. Have you signed in? Oh, yes. I neglected to ask it. Well, if anybody wanted to be vice chair. It's not as risky as it sounds. Happy to do it if there's no other volunteers. Rob says he'll do it if no one else wants to step forward. No one else wants to step forward with someone like to propose Rob. I'll propose Rob. Second. All those in favor of Rob being vice chair. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. I should abstain probably. No. No. Hey Dylan. Um, great. So Rob is Julie appointed. Vice chair. Thanks for. Um, so Dan, do you like to speak about. Your audience for visitors. Do I stay here? Yes. Congratulations, Rob. Newly minted vice chair. Thank you. You'll be running a meeting room. No, great. Uh, so I'm an architect, uh, working with Gabe handy. And I was asked to come, uh, before this board to talk about the building that's going up, uh, along Pearl street at 195, 197 Pearl street. Um, it's a. Big building with, uh, green, uh, board sheathing, uh, currently that's being put together. I believe, uh, Gabe got an approval some time ago. Uh, the project went quiet. It came back alive. I, uh, picked up the mantle, brought it to fruition and sort of changed the design. And I guess there was a question about the change in the color scheme. So I was asked to come here to, uh, address that. Uh, so. Yeah. At the moment, there's no design review in this district. There will be with the new land development code when it's approved. Uh, so generally speaking when the planning commission looked at any proposals in this area, it was by the metrics, you know, what height was it? How much land area did it take? Did that enough parking for the number of proposed units? So we never, we never really had a sand that, uh, but I thought it would be important for the DRB to take a look at what's being approved. The post the original one. Doug got it. Um, It was very colorful. Doug, can you show this? Well, I mean, I'm not sure if anybody can see this. Okay. Let's call it ready. And, um, Play colored. Um, anybody. Uh, It was remote. See this. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And this is remote. See this. Oh, now. So that's what was approved. In your sunglasses. Um, Dan produced. Another plan, much more muted colors. Good. Well, I brought a, uh, a really bad print out. Um, I didn't think I thought there would be a better one. So this, It's a little bit more dynamic in terms of the architecture. It's new taller, it's a same footprint, and same number of dwelling units, commercial spaces. So from that point of view, nothing's changed. It's set up with a new land development code, and we don't really have a lot to say in our buildings to look in. But from my perspective, I'm not sure. I think it's better. Any comments? Anyone else? Can you give some, where exactly that is on Pearl Street? But where, like, what's a give me a landmark? It used to be where the tarot dealership was. It's one that's on the north side of Pearl Street. It's one that has the Chinlint fence around it at the moment. It's basically the structures that are just about. I can't think of where it is. Sorry, I didn't hear you, Chris. Oh, I'm just trying to think of where it is. It's one of the good stuff. Good stuff was until very recently. Oh, okay. Yes. That's where I was thinking, but I wasn't sure. Okay. Yes. Now I know exactly. Yes. Exactly. Okay. Great. So we've got more muted colors, the elevation. You stay still. Okay, I think we can. Yeah. If you get the detail of the merchant on the entry level, you can see it at the end, at the end, what I would call the western end. It used to have two lines of twin nodes and three lines of twin nodes. It gives it a bit more verticality. I think it's dramatically better, but I didn't want to set it down. I'm going to use the same numbers. We're moving this on the premise that it's the same number, given it's same square footage, same footprint, same number of commercial buildings. So what we're really talking about is the skin. Yeah. And is there retail underneath? Like those are? Yes, there's retail commercial on the entry level. Yeah. Any comments? Any positives? Any negatives? It's fine. Me. Likey. You've been in the last table because you don't have a picture. Oh, there you go. There you go. Any thoughts still? Sorry, I have my video off the internet connection. It's a little unstable here. I think it looks good to me. It's great. So does the board think that we should go ahead to change the elevation from multiple routes to what's here? You have to give us. I mean, isn't the elevation already happening? There's really no going back because I isn't the building pretty much pretty well on its way. That's correct. The design and the look of it such as it is is sort of set as it were. There was a question about the color scheme and if the board would approve of that. I guess I have a little bit of a question. Based on the earlier conversation and how we don't have the new plan out that has kind of any design review or things that we want, is this more of a courtesy to let us know? Like, do we officially need to sign off on it? Or this? Do you officially need to know? But I think it really helps for the file and the record keeping. We don't have a full set of drawings. We would need a full set of drawings. Or if you decide that this is an improvement, which I don't think it is, we need a full set of drawings for the file. So Diane would have to provide that. Okay. I didn't have any issues with it. I just wanted to try and kind of fully understand what we needed to put forth at this moment. Right. Yeah. When they presented it to me and this was actually when the planning commission was still reviewing, I asked three or four members of the planning commission and they said that they would be nice if Diane would come in and go through it with them. So that's for this country. Got it. And can we have, for future, will the design review be part of this committee or will that be added to the new code? Okay. It is. All the five legs coming into five corners are not going to have design review for any properties that are fronting the street. This is just more out of curiosity. Personal curiosity. Are there digital files that might be emailed to the people who are being free? Do you have digital files? So you were breaking up a bit there. But yes, I have the full set of drawings. I have some stuff that indicates the colors I could provide the board with any material they'd like. Are you sending it to me in an off-roader, Terry, an off-roader to the board? Sure. Is there something specific you'd like beyond the elevations or floor plans? I think just to be able to get a good picture of the, you know, just because it was somewhat helpful, we'll see through the camera, but it would be nice to see kind of on my computer if there's any ability to do that. Of course. Could you send that tomorrow then? Absolutely. Okay. If I get it tomorrow, I'll forward it to everybody on the board since I can. Thank you. Any more questions from the board? Oh, sorry. You're running the meeting room. Any more questions? Make a motion to vote on approval. Yes? Yes. All right. I need a second. Anybody second? Second. We have a second? Yeah. I'll second. Yeah. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? All right. Okay. I think we should take Regina next. I will say that as I sent everybody an email, the conceptual plan for 132 Pearl Street is no more. There was no lease with the railway company, so nothing could progress. So they're going back to the drawing board to see what else they can come up with. Are you good with me? I wouldn't go that far, Dan, but yes, you're excused. All right. Well, thank you. I'll thank you for coming in. Anya, from a personal perspective, I think that's a great improvement. Wonderful. I'll send some drawings along. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, Regina. All you. Oh, sorry, Raul. What he said. All right. Hi, everybody. So I am going to go through some slides. Some of these are going to look similar to what Taylor did. Taylor did like lots and lots of slides. I just have like nine. I put them in a particular order just so we can really like run through the process of what things look like. If you were to have a hearing tonight, which you're not going to, it sounds like. But so this hopefully is just a refresher. But just so I know, were any of you not able to make Taylor's training? I was not. Okay. Okay, great. So definitely just interrupt me at any point. If you have any questions, I am only operating with one screen tonight. So like shout out, don't wait for me to see a hand or anything like that. If you have a question or you want to interrupt. So let me share here. Oh, Robin, I need sharing ability. No, dear. I didn't start the meeting. Oh, here you are. I'm going to hit claim host. Will that get you what you want? You're going to claim it and then you will be the host and then you can pass it to Regina. Okay. Yeah. Enter the host key. No. I don't go to host key. Who started the meeting? It was the start of the movement when we got online. Oh, great. I think Regina, at least on my Zoom, it looks like in the right hand corner, you can claim host if you look at least. Oh, it does. Oh, okay. I don't know. Is there a passcode? Oh, there is a passcode on the agenda. There you go. It's 940993. So I don't know if you. Now all the television viewers are going to jump in and claim host. So I don't know if you. Yeah, that's not the same. It doesn't work. Yeah, or conference ID might mean. Okay. No worries. I think we can just sort of talk through this as best as possible. And for you folks at home, some of these slides will be the same. So you could probably find them, but I reordered them. And then Rob, it sounds like in front of you, you have a hard copy of the version that Taylor did. So you might be able to kind of get yourself to the what I'm looking at as well. But essentially for the most part, what I'm going to go through is section four meetings, hearings and due process. Sorry, everybody. I'm just trying to figure out how to get this in the right mode, but in a minimized version so I can see you and it. Okay. So essentially, I just wanted to kind of go through with you folks. So you can see exactly what in theory would have happened. And it looks like we're making progress to me being able to share my screen. Okay. Yeah. Hope that works, Virginia. Yes. Now I made it too tiny for myself. One second. Okay, closer. Okay. Here we go. So this is again just a few of the slides. There's only like probably nine or 10. So I'm going to go through these pretty quick, but definitely just stop and ask me questions as I'm going. But I wanted to sort of reorganize these a little bit and just give you folks some acknowledgement of sort of what would happen before you show up at hearing. So first and foremost, when you have a meeting, the agenda is going to be properly notified based on open meeting law. Taylor talked quite a bit with you folks about this last time. And particularly depending on what cases you have on the agenda, they would have been notified under this gray column on the right hand side in different ways, depending on the types of the hearings. So for the most part, subdivisions and planned unit developments get the longer, bigger 15-day notice. I think conditional uses and variances have those too. And then site plans get the seven-day notice. But otherwise, everything else is the same. The agenda has to be posted on the website. It has to be posted in three or more public places. And any particular case that you have in front of you, it's going to have an actual sign posted on the front of the property alerting passers-by to the application. And the budding landowners are going to be notified via mail as well. So when you show up at a hearing, all these things would have happened already. Then you're going to start your meeting and just explain to folks kind of the order of events. And I think you also have on your agenda tonight an ethics policy. So hopefully you'll have that. And so you'll know more of what that means. What you're going to want to do is really describe this interested person's component at the start before any of the individual hearings are opened. And then also when you open each one, the conflicts of interest in ex parte communications. So I'm going to the next couple of slides get into a little bit more of the specifics of this and then we'll return to the order of events of how it will actually happen. But first and foremost, as a reminder, Taylor went over this as well. So because you are a quasi judicial board, you are not required to allow any public to comment. You certainly can. As a board, it's your prerogative to decide if you want to limit the people who are commenting on a hearing to this list on the screen right now or make it more open to the public. I would recommend that you stick to the people listed here. And the reason being these folks have an actual statutory right to bring evidence forward to you. And if at the end of the day, they don't like your decision, they have a legal right to appeal it. General public who don't fall into a definition on this list, they don't have that right. And so it can just be a little bit confusing if this distinction is not clearly made. Any questions, comments about that? When you say any petition of 10 persons, is that 10 people walk in and they raise their hand collectively and say we have a petition or do they literally have a piece of paper with 10 signatures on it? They could show up that night with one person identified as the organizer. And they would have to have the list of all the signatories with them. One clarifying question. When you said it's the DRB's prerogative, whether we limit the interested persons to the step parties or whether we can open it up to anyone who wants to participate, is that a decision that needs to be made as a blanket decision for all DRB hearings or is it a petition by petition decision? So there is, you folks have an ethics policy I think in front of you tonight. You can also at some point have adopt rules of procedure. And that's really where you would make that decision. And I would suggest that you that you are making that decision across the board. So that you're not for some circumstances going down a different road and making a different choice for some reason, I would just really lay the line clearly in the sand about how you're going to do that procedurally for everything that comes in front of you. Thank you. Okay, so moving past that. So the other item that was on that list is conflicts of interest. And I'm sure Taylor went over this, this quite a bit with you folks. But essentially as you're in your quasi judicial role, it is very important to disclose any conflicts of interest that there might be. And that may be, you know, where we're in Vermont, it's small communities, you might be a family member of somebody who's coming forward with an application in front of you. That's something you definitely will want to disclose. And just be clear that you might want to recuse yourself and step down in a circumstance like that where it's either financial or real direct connection with the application. But it is an individual choice about whether to recuse yourself or not. And I think at this point, you folks don't have any alternates yet. Is that right? Yes. Okay, so in an ideal world, there will be alternates for this circumstance. And those folks would get notified of every single one of your agendas and kind of, they can participate and they can come to every meeting to sort of stay up to speed with what cases you're looking at. And that if there happens to be somebody who feels like they need to recuse themselves, those other folks could step in. That's really the benefit of having alternates. It's not really as critical for other committees and boards, but for the DRB, it could be really helpful. Then ex parte communication is just another potential conflict of interest. And this Taylor would have gone over this with you folks too. Really the applications that you have before you cannot be discussed outside of the hearing at all. Somebody might see you in the grocery store and know that you're a DRB member and say, hey, I noticed such and such a little zoning sign in front of wherever, and I really would love to bend your ear about it. It is completely inappropriate in your role to have those kinds of conversations. And the main reason being that due process rights really need to be maintained. So if you're getting that information from a particular person, that might, you know, that's just more information that you have outside of a hearing where the applicant is also getting that information at the same time. The rest of the board members are getting that information at the same time. And the rest of the interested parties are getting that information at the same time. Without that, nobody else has an opportunity to respond to that. I think there is a question. Not really a question. I just want to mention something from experience. We once had somebody on the planet who thought that we're taking the temperature of S6 junction and they'd go around and go into spots with people's houses and ask people's opinions, you know, what do you think should happen in this slot? What do you think should happen in that lot? And if they happen to be in a conversation with somebody who owned the lot? And they said, well, it'd be great if we had a four-story building here that, you know, was bright yellow or whatever. And that person went off and hired an architect and hired an engineer and produced plans based on the conversation they had with somebody from the DRB. And it came in, it was denied. That really puts the S6 junction at risk for being sued. So, you know, I tell people that in some ways you'll lose a little bit of the rights of every other resident. We're stepping forward and volunteering to help the community. But that's, in reality, that's the way it is. Yeah. Okay, awesome. Thanks, Robin. Okay. Then, yeah. So, really, again, these things happen. It's not the end of the world. The most critical thing is to just disclose them. So, you know, if any of these happen, any of these things happened or you happen to have a conflict of interest when the hearing is started, you just ask the chair if you could disclose a potential issue. And that way, it's on the record. Again, it is the individual's choice as to whether to recuse or not. But certainly, there's nothing wrong with having an open conversation about it and getting a feel for your fellow DRB members' thoughts on it and choosing what to do. But, you know, I think, depending on the conflict, a lot of times people continue to participate and that's fine. It's just really important that it's, you're upfront about it and you just disclose it. Okay. So, got those two particular points out of the way. So, one second. Let me just go back again. So, this order of operations is really what the chair would probably describe at the very beginning of the meeting. And so, that's before any particular case is opened. The chair can just say, these are, this is the way that we're going to run the meeting. We have rules of procedure. They're available if anybody wants them. You review the definition of interested in person. So, folks know that. And you could administer the oath at the very beginning of the meeting before the hearings are open, just so you can get it done with all at once. This only really matters if you have like three different applications on a particular night. Sometimes you might just have one. And so, the distinction I'm making between a meeting and a hearing won't really matter because it's all one in the same. But sometimes you'll have an agenda with preliminary subdivision application, a final site plan, and a third conditional use application. Those are all three distinctively different hearings within an agenda. Does that make sense? Okay. So, then once you get to each of those particular hearings on your agenda, the chair is going to open the hearing. You'll ask the applicant to present the actual proposal and request. And I think Dylan made a great, had a great question earlier. In this sort of hybrid world, I think it's pretty critical that all applicants have submitted digital applications beforehand. And it's up on the website, which the hearing that you would have had tonight is on the website. And so in theory, that's how that will always work. So the folks at home will be able to clearly see what you're being asked to discuss. Then third up is for you folks, the board members, to ask any of your questions that you have. Then the chair can open the floor to the interested parties slash public. So you see that slash public. So that's again, sort of brings it back to that original conversation I was having, where you could have general public come and provide comment if you want to. And under number four, really the best way to work this is that those comments are directed to the chair. Then the chair relays them. I mean, it sort of all works in a, like you're all in the same room, essentially, even if some people are on Zoom. But basically, the chair is working as a facilitator so that you don't get into a situation where the residents are asking the applicant directly. Because if it can be, if it's a heated conversation, it just sort of gets a little chaotic. Then the chair closes public hearing. And then you go into your deliberations. This typically would happen the same night, but it doesn't have to happen the same night. Essentially, once the board closes the public hearing, you have 45 days before you issue a decision under number six. So you end up having time, particularly if you've got enough hearings where you're ending up meeting twice a month. You can generally either deliberate that night or the following meeting. And then basically in the deliberations, you're going to direct staff into what you want your decision to look like. And that staff can prepare the decision. Regina, can I just jump in for a second? Yes. The planning commission a few years ago decided that they'd restrict the amount of time somebody in the audience can speak. And I can't remember many minutes because we've been to meetings where one person speak for 30, 40, 50 minutes and a lot of other people speaking. We don't often like to take things from Burlington, but it was something that the Burlington DRB had done. And it still gives people plenty of time, but it just meant that more people could speak rather than one or two people that dominate the proceedings. So that might be something that happens there as well. I'll have to go back and check. The DRB and the board members can decide whether they want to do that or not. Yeah, it feels to me like if that's something we're going to do, we need to put it in writing and it's the same for every meeting. You don't make exception to it. It's just the way it is. Yeah, and it can be pretty typically be three minutes of time. It's, yeah, this one is really a little bit more dependent. Like a lot of times, you might end up having two people. And if it ends up being a little bit more conversational, you can kind of play that by ear if you feel comfortable with it. But other times when there's, you know, 10 people in the room, that can be or 30. Yeah, it can just be inefficient. And particularly, so usually you can set a time limit three to five minutes and ask folks to not necessarily repeat everything if it's already been said. Okay. Any questions on how it works generally? Okay. Then the role of the board chair, again, Taylor went through these, so I'll just go through this quickly. But really the chair functions as a facilitator to keep things moving along, stay on task. And the good chair typically is going to eventually, when you feel like everybody has had their chance to say what they want to say, really state the question of whatever you're moving forward to. So are we ready to close the hearing, essentially? And, or if there's more discussion to be had, ask for discussion. And the chair typically does not provide their own opinion or sway these kinds of things. It's really just moving the conversation along to the next step. If that makes sense. And then for the rest of the board members, really, this is your role and this is what you're doing. You're really listening, really asking questions. I would really encourage you if you have a question to ask it. And refer back to your regulations because the decisions that you can make really are based in your regulations. You can't make a decision about something if it's not based on the land development code. But there's nothing preventing you from just asking a question if you don't understand or you just something's missing for you. I would definitely just ask the questions. And the reason is because once the hearing is closed, that conversation with the applicant is over. There is no way to sort of circle back around and say, actually, we really would appreciate having more information about this, this, or this. Once the hearing is closed, you are going to issue a decision. And the decision will have conditions that that's pretty typical. But if any of those conditions are coming at a left field for the applicant, like you don't actually feel like you had enough information about a particular thing. So you're asking them in the conditions to bring forward more information. But that wasn't clear to them during the hearing. That is not great practice. And also once the applicant gets that, they have no recourse for having that conversation again with you folks. So what can be done, let me go back here. In between step before step five, or let me say more clearly, as an alternative to step five, is you can always continue a hearing to another date in the future because you would like more information about X, Y, and Z. And I would err on the side of caution and go that route rather than close the hearing. If you're really feeling like you don't have enough information in hand to make a decision. Do you have an example of a good question? So your land development code requires almost all applicants probably except maybe very, very small projects. It requires landscaping. And so you might have an application in front of you that has some landscaping. But you really don't feel like it's enough to meet the code. And to do more, you really might also really want to see where they're going to put that landscaping. And depending on how relevant it is to the particular application, you might want to see that revised landscaping plan in front of you. Before you close the hearing. A different path in that same circumstance is the landscaping for the most part is pretty good. You just, they have put maybe four or five plants on there that don't meet the code. And so if the conversation can be clearly had in that first hearing, that plant X, Y and Z needs to be replaced with other plants that are in the LDC. That might be something that's like totally clear cut. No big deal. You don't feel like you need to see that revised plan. And you could close the hearing that night. Does that make sense? Yeah. And it's sort of, it's really kind of tough to talk through these because every circumstance is going to be different. But particularly for you folks as you're kind of getting your legs under you, I would really not shy away from the continue a hearing and ask for more information. Because it's going to take a little while to get a feel of what's okay to not be included at the very end there and what you still want to get your eyes on. And if you do continue a hearing, you just always do that to a date, certain that date that it's going to be continued to has to be talked about that night. And really that's because for the public and the interested persons, the notification requirement where the staff sends notices to all the surrounding landowners, that's not going to happen again. So it's just important for those folks who are interested in this, it's really on them to be paying attention and kind of seeing where the where the hearing is going, if that makes sense. So you just have to really say what date it's going to go to. Okay, we went through those. Okay, so again, as in a quasi judicial role that you folks are in, you have the opportunity to go into deliberative session. And this is kind of another decision making point for you. You can go do these deliberative sessions in open so the public can still stay in the room with you and hear what you're talking about. Or you can do them in a closed session where typically you would invite your staff to stay with you. But it would just be your staff and the board members to talk through how you feel about an application and what the ultimate decision might be and what conditions you might put on the application. Though again, with caution, no condition should come out of left field. It should be very clear either from the staff report and or the discussion that happens in the in the public hearing. It's there exempt from open meeting law, which means you don't need to take minutes during this these deliberative sessions. And basically the decision itself has to be stated in an open public session. But you can get to that decision in deliberative session and you don't have to specifically reveal how each individual member voted. Though I would say in practice, a lot of development review boards list their individual decision, list their individual vote. So again another another decision point for you. Any comments or questions on any of this? So then after the deliberative session, the actual decision itself has to be in writing and it is based on findings of fact. That's essentially everything that the applicant puts forward, everything that is in the staff report. And then conclusions of law on how the bylaw applies. It's anything in the decision again is based on the bylaw a.k.a. your land development code. And it's has to that last bullet there. Basically it's clear in the decision what the vote ultimate vote is. I think I saw somebody's hand. I guess I thought I might have made it up. And this also the decision doesn't say it on here clearly, but it has to be clear how one would appeal this decision. And so for the majority of the applications that you're going to be deciding, it's pretty typically, I'm pretty sure it's going to be a 30-day appeal period for all of them. Which means the applicant or those interested persons, if either of them are unhappy with the decision issued, they can appeal this decision to state environmental court. So it's kind of pretty critical that the time frames are all followed. Once the hearing's closed, decision is issued no later than 45 days and then that 30-day appeal period kicks in. Okay. So again, all of this, it's really, this whole process is all around due process. It's protecting essentially the applicant's rights to a clear and appropriate process as well as giving all proper notice to the interested persons. And it can just be sort of helpful to really just follow this process because it kind of keeps things moving in the right direction. Then this is kind of a different slide from a different part of the presentation. But I just wanted to kind of touch on this a little bit because this can be kind of confusing. All of the different types of applications that you might get in front of you. And, but for the most part, just want to be clear that really it's staff, staff's role to determine which type of review a development proposal is required to come to you under. So this decision will be made beforehand. So you don't have to worry about this too much. But I did want to just be clear that for the last two, a planned unit development and a subdivision, those are going to come to you folks a couple of different times. That might also be true with the site plan depending on how large of an application it is and it may be something that you may want more information or just for whatever reason it might come to you more than more than once. But in the zoning regulations, the land development code, planned unit developments and subdivisions are laid out as either a two or three step process. So as an example tonight, you had a conceptual, conceptual PUD, planned unit development application that you would have seen. And it's really intended to be conceptual in the sense that there isn't storm order design details. There's not like an exceptional level of engineering design done on the application yet. And it gives you folks the opportunity to take a look at it and be a little bit more conversational about what you would like to see in the plan for improvements and how to get it to better meet the land development code. Then it will come back to you depending on the size of it for either final approval or if it's a bigger development, it'll come to you conceptual, preliminary and final. And what that means is there's, in that case, there's two or three distinctly separate hearings. So this whole concept in four or five here, the decision to either close the hearing or continue it, you'll have that opportunity at every single one of those stages because they're each just a distinctly different hearing. Does that make sense? I have a question. So just to, and I think I understand, so we could have three or more different things that we're reviewing and then they would each have their own close, like we'll do them individually and then decide, like we might close the hearing for one but maybe continue it for another. Exactly. Okay. Yes. So you have that decision on continuing or closing for each individual hearing on any given night because you might have something very simple and no problem whatsoever. You just want to close it and I mean, you can also, sometimes things are so clear, you could close it and just approve it right there without even going into deliberative session. Again, would probably wait till you get your sea legs under you a little bit more before maybe doing something like that, but ultimately some things are really pretty streamlined and you might feel comfortable doing that. But yes, to your question. Any other questions? So I'm going to forward over this presentation to Robin so he can get it over to you folks. These are just some links that are not in Taylor's original presentation and so these are a little bit more detailed. The top three are very particular to development review boards and they're more specific in terms of how you think about your land development code and how to apply that towards particular applications. Taking evidence is just a little bit more detail in terms of how you run the meeting and then reading subdivision and site plans. That can just be helpful for folks if this kind of work is really pretty brand new. Some of like for this last one, I'll just give you a little anecdote that my professor in planning school was not interested in giving us any education on this last one just because once you just got to learn on the fly, kind of once you start looking at them, they'll start making a whole heck of a lot more sense and definitely don't hesitate to ask Robin what you're looking at if you have no idea what you're looking at. Okay and then I just this resource can be a little bit helpful too, just a little bit more about open meeting law and land use hearings. It's basically the same stuff I sort of talked through tonight but just there for you so you've got it as a resource if you want. So I think that is it. I'm going to stop sharing. Yeah so that's all I have. Any other just sort of questions, concerns, things you're wondering about? If no one has a question, there's one thing I'd like to say. No matter where you craft a land development code, someone will always be able to design and maybe doesn't and be diplomatic which is unlike me, meet your aesthetic. That is not something that we can comment on if it meets the land development code, if it meets the standards that they have been set, if it processes bar that we have in the land development code, they get approved. And then take a couple of examples, if not the city FS extension around here that you wonder, you know, aren't earth that could build, but someone can always come up with a way to meet the code that may not be what we envisioned when we wrote it and approved it. And I will say actually so you did hear from Taylor that and your charter actually says that there shouldn't be any of the same members on the planning commission and the development review board, but certainly the development review board can inform the planning commission members of anything in the bylaw land development code that you think isn't working quite right. Like that's actually really pretty helpful if over time there can be that kind of communication over to the planning commission because they could potentially fix it in their next amendment update. Hey, sorry, I think I was touching my nose before and you thought I was asking a question. I do that a lot when I'm thinking so that's my bad. But I do have a question now. You mentioned that it's kind of up to us on if we want our votes to be public or private, but that a lot of boards are making them public. Kind of based on what Robin had just said, my assumption is that since our job is to like interpret and follow the land development code that's been set forward, there shouldn't really be a question for kind of why we voted one way or the other. Is it just to like for public confidence and like I voted this way and I stand by it because I think the code backs up my vote or another reason that I'm not thinking of? Yeah, I can't think of any other good examples. You know, I think some of it is it's a pretty clear role. You're going to be like you said, you're going to be making your decisions based on some very sort of black and white, you know, certainly some things are going to end up being subjective. There's just no no way around that really. But for the most part, your decisions are going to be relatively clear in terms of whether you think the code is met or not. And because of that, why not be transparent about how you voted? Yeah, I will say that every deliberation session we've had has been in public. Every decision we've made, you know, it'll give the voting record. And a quick question if you're Virginia. Generally, I write the decision and the chair comes in and signs it. I know when I was on the panel commission in Charlotte, everybody signed the decision. But we do not do that here because the minutes reflect our vote. And it's just, you know, I'll email the chair at the decision in advance. And they'll check to make sure it's complies with their memory of the discussion. And then come in and sign it. And then we mail it on. Yeah, I'd say that's pretty typical practice, at least here in Chicken County, because it's really difficult to get everybody's signature. Sometimes it's really difficult to get everybody to show up at a meeting. I don't talk about tonight. I'm talking about previously when for some reason we went to seven members of the planning commission, which meant you need four for forum. And it was a struggle sometimes to get for. We thought, you know, five, you need three, seven, you need four. You got two more to get one from. But I think when it was seven, people thought, well, it doesn't matter if I don't show up. There's just so many other people there anyway. So I'm glad we impact on five. I think it's going to be easier for everyone. Thank you very much. Yeah, you're welcome. Sorry, you guys aren't going to have a hearing to like run with, but you will one day. Well, I think it was a good, good exercise anyway to get the, they still got the staff. I think you didn't all send it, but it's very different from any other staff report. I never. Oh, uh, motion to adjourn. Does anyone like, would anyone like to discuss anything else? Oh, I don't know. Would you, Robin? Like anything else? I've been here since it started. You're supposed to have ethics policy, right? Well, Dylan already signed his, I believe, an email in. I did mine as well. Rob did his. I think I, I think I signed mine too. If you can scan it, email it in or drop it in. And Dylan, you and I will probably do a zoom thing tomorrow or next week to get that one other item out of the way. Yeah, I will, I will be back in Vermont on Saturday. So I'll come see you early next week. Super. Thank you very much. Take it away, Rob. Any other, any other items for discussion? All right, motion to adjourn. Second, all in favor. Hi. Hi. Pose. All right. Thank you very much. Nice first.