 I'm gonna call to order this regular meeting of the Winooski City Council. Please join us in the Pledge of Allegiance led by Deputy Mayor Thomas Fenner. Pledge of Allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. Thank you. So first I have a gender review. Unfortunately our guest for item B from Winooski Valley Park District can't make it this evening, so we'd like to table that for next meeting. Do I have a motion to make that change? So moved. Second. Motion by Thomas, second by Aurora. All those in favor please say aye. Aye. Motion carries, thank you. No other agenda concerns? Okay. I lost my shirt. Yeah, okay. We have our City Council and Liquor Control Board meeting minutes from January 2nd. Counts payable January 4th. The Main Street Revitalization Project, step three, construction phase, drinking water and clean water loan application. Any questions, concerns with the consent agenda? Okay, do I have a motion to approve? So moved. Second. Motion by Thomas, second by Aurora. All those in favor please say aye. Aye. Motion carries. On to Council reports. Charlie. The Winooski Housing Commission meets on 1.23 at 6 p.m. here at City Hall. There is also a remote option. We're currently still working on changes to the Housing Trust Fund with the hopes to have a final draft completed within the end of the month. We're also beginning to plan for our cross commission collaboration with the Planning Commission. And Jasmine is here or will be presenting later. Well, and Jasmine will be presenting later. Thank you. Downtown Winooski meets on Wednesday for the first time in a little bit actually. But tomorrow there is Blingo Onion City Chicken Oyster from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. So if you can attend that would be great. And I was able to attend the Winooski Farmers Market with some other members of Council. And I remember the school board was there as well. We're just able to connect with folks on the budget. So thank you to everyone who participated. To the residents who came to speak with us. We will be holding some more of those events that will advertise on Front Porch Forum as well as our individual social media accounts. So thank you. Planning Commission is meeting Thursday at 6.30 p.m. You can join here at City Hall or via Zoom. That's it for me. See if I can go in order. I'm joining the Senior Center Wednesday morning the 10th for Coffee with Counselor from 10 a.m. to 11 a.m. Hope to see folks there. Look forward to that opportunity to meet at the Senior Center. Reminder that the Airport Commission meeting this month is on the 17th at 4 p.m. Information for those meetings can be found online. But also you can reach out to me if you need to find details for the agenda and meeting location details. The Chittin's Hall of Waste District facilities will be closed on Monday the 15th in recognition of Martin Luther King Day. The Municipal Infrastructure Commission will be meeting the 18th at our regular location in the community room at the pool. And we will be covering La Fountain, Dion Street scoping updates since the last public hearing. And then the Winooski Bridge public hearing is on January 23rd. That'll be up at the Winooski School District and a following committee meeting for the bridge to follow up on what we learned at the public hearing will be on February 7th. All right, I don't have a whole lot of updates. So this is an off month for Inclusion and Belonging Commission and the State Health League. People commission is also taking this month off. I also have a coffee hour at the senior center. And for me, I'm gonna be there on the 16th, or sorry, 17th and look forward to anyone who comes to that. Thank you. Onti City updates, Elaine. Sure. So tonight continues our fiscal year 2025 staff budget presentations. Please stick around for the community services presentation, join us to discuss community programs and events, parks, the library, the pool, the senior center, community gardens and more. Ask questions and provide input on how you think your tax dollars should be spent. The last department to be covered is the Department of Public Works, which is next Tuesday, January 16th, not a Monday because of the holiday. Council will continue their discussions that night and Monday, January 22nd. For the full schedule of budget meetings and information, please visit WinooskiVT.gov slash FY25. You can also send questions between meetings to budget at WinooskiVT.gov. The City of Winooski is hosting a blood drive at the Winooski Senior Center on Friday, January 19th, from 12 p.m. to 5 p.m. Donations are always in critical need to schedule your appointment. Visit RedCrossBlood.org slash give or call 1-800-RED-CROSS. Eligible donors with blood types O, B minus or A minus are especially encouraged to make a Power Red donation. And anyone who donates on the 19th will automatically be entered into a contest to win a free trip to the Super Bowl. Details available via our news updates at WinooskiVT.gov. And finally, the Vermont Agency of Transportation is seeking your feedback to gather data on how people cross the Burlington-Winooski Bridge. To take the survey, visit Burlington-Winooski-Bridge.vetransprojects.vermont.gov or simply search for Burlington-Winooski Bridge. And to echo Councilor Oakleaf, do be sure to join us for the next public update meeting on Tuesday, January 23rd at 6.30 p.m. at the Winooski School District Performing Arts Center. Thank you. All right, we are on to our regular items then. First up is the FY25 staff budget presentation for community services. Ray, please join. And Paul's in the drive for me, I've got my notes here. Before I get started, I want to say first off, thank you for the flexibility in patients. I was supposed to be doing this in early December and instead was having an unexpected back surgery. So also throughout this, if I stand up at all, it's not you, it's me. I think I should be good, but definitely happy to be here and not in a hospital bed. So I also just want to thank John Rauscher and the two chiefs, Justin and John Audi, for switching schedules, because I know that was a quick pivot on their part and very much appreciate the flexibility. So with all that said, I really like to be here to present our budget tonight. Certainly some exciting things for us that we are proposing and happy to talk about and answer some questions on, but unless otherwise preferred, I'll jump right into slides and we'll go from there. So I always like to start off with my staff team and just an appreciation. None of the work that we're going to talk about tonight happens without them. They make my job very easy and very pleasant and work super hard on behalf of this community. So I just always like to start with an acknowledgement. Robin's here and Nate and Barb I believe are both online too. So if there are specific questions related to service areas, we've got some experts available as well. All right, go ahead Paul. And then just a quick overview of our staff structure. This looks pretty similar to last year, what you saw. So community services department, I have the pleasure of supervising that and managing that department. We have really four kind of buckets, if you will, within the department of service. Children and family programs manager, so that's Claudine and the Thrive program, really focused on our licensed child care programs in summer and after school and more times available working on other initiatives around our youngest residents. Recreation in parks, which has grown quite a bit in the last few years, but that includes certainly all of our recreation programs for youth, some of our adult programs and then the pool and the parks. So lots of doings there and during the summertime, especially that department grows to be a pretty good size. Senior programs, so that's a bar, that's a part-time position right now, managing the senior center and programs within and we'll hear more about that later on tonight. And then the library, so Nate is doing a great job down there managing the library with his staff support, so Kirsten, Donna and then Mary and Caroline who are our subs. So really fabulous team and yeah, happy to answer any questions on this structure if there are any, but again, looks I think relatively similar to what we've seen. I believe SC2 AmeriCorps noted, is that a typo? It is not, or actually, sorry, no, it is not. So we had one budgeted AmeriCorps position that moved forward with the budget this year. In May of last year, the Vermont Youth Development Corps where we typically get our members from folded unexpectedly and just, we're like, yeah, we can't offer you members anymore. So Robin and I have done a bunch of work and quickly pivoted to a partnership with the Dream Program and are working still to kind of get that fully fleshed out and developed, but they are providing AmeriCorps members to us at no charge to the city. So we are again, still working out the details of recruitment and management. It's a work in progress, but that's why that says two there. So those are two members that are part of our team. And that will vacillate a little bit. Their structure is a little different than BYDC with they do more seasonal members because they're working with a lot of college-age students and younger folks who have some more scheduling flexibility, but for all intents and purposes, two members there. Thank you, that's a good catch. Any other questions there? All right. I wanted to just flash this up too, certainly for folks in the room and online to see if you're ever wondering what we're up to and what's available. You can go to our website and check out our offerings there, but also want to make sure here to make note of just recruitment in this community and getting folks signed up for things is way beyond this, right? This is part of what we do. Certainly we have a website that has the functionality folks can log on, sign themselves up. We try to stay active on social media and front porch forum, but it's a complex beast to do our work well and equitably within the community when it comes to getting folks signed up. So I think it's worth mentioning here that Barb is doing a ton of paper flyers, making phone calls. It's not uncommon to see our rec staff at Elm Street knocking on doors and getting parent signatures. Robin running through the parking lot at the school with kids throwing registration forms at her. I think all of us at this point travel with like three or four program registration forms like on our person when we're going up to the school. So I think we're really trying to make an effort to meet residents where they are, especially when it comes to getting kids signed up for programming. But I think it's just worth mentioning that it is a lot of labor that goes into the numbers that we're gonna talk about in a little bit participation wise. All right, Paul. So before I get into the proposal for next year's, but I wanna just kind of reflect on the last year and some recent investments in the community services department because last year's budget was certainly a big investment and I've re-recognized that. Moving out of the ESSER program and the funding that we received there through the school district, I think it was a really huge vote of confidence by the council and by the community to say, we're gonna continue a lot of this funding for you all into the future. And so I just wanna talk about what we've been up to with that answer questions there before we get into the proposal for next year's budget. So go ahead, Paul. So looking at the past year, we have offered over the course of that year, fiscal year 23, 633 unique programs with over 9,260 participants and that represents well over 1,600 individuals. I think those participation numbers are based on actual data that we have around registration and participation coming through the door. So I think in a lot of cases those are under reported. For instance, at the pool, we're not counting every day the attendance there. That's the number of people that bought a season pass. So I think it's a good snapshot but it's not the full picture I think of what we're up to. So I just wanna acknowledge that that I think that number is probably lower than what is actually happening but it's the number that's real and based on data that we can really kind of point to. Within those 633 unique programs, 13 weeks of summer camp which served 167 different youth throughout the summer. Much of that programming based on ESSER funding was able to be provided free, which is fantastic. And this represents a comparative to pre-ESSER times about a three-time increase over fiscal year 21 programming. So we increased programming a lot with ESSER and with the investments of council last year we were able to sustain that which was really great to see. And then again, that's just worth noting that since May we've been sort of scrambling without an AmeriCorps member position. So that's been worth noting too that we've been running a little bit ragged staffing-wise. Of those programs that we've offered we're seeing really strong response. So about 90% of the available capacity has been filled. So when we are offering programs for registration people are signing up, which is really great to see. And we're seeing really high satisfaction rates based on the surveys that we are putting out after programs. So about 4.7 out of five stars is the average. Every program that we do online registration for we send out a net promoter score which basically asks the question, how likely would you be one through five to recommend this program to a friend or neighbor? And so that's, we tried to keep that survey metric a tool pretty simple in hopes of getting responses. And then there's also an opportunity for people to give feedback that's kind of a text box. But I think this number gives us a pretty decent snapshot of how people are feeling about what we're doing. So I wanna pause on that and see if there are questions or things that folks would like some more elaboration on. So the youth interventionist position, another big investment that the council and the community made last year. Unfortunately we were realizing we do not have a picture of Vandam which is something I need to figure out in the next like week. So this is Frankie who was in the position last year. Vandam is our new youth interventionist and has continued her great work. Since the beginning of fiscal year 22 we've served about 42 different youth through that position. And I think a couple of recent examples that I wanna highlight. This position is a little squishy. It doesn't have necessarily a cookie cutter approach and is really being tailored to individual families and kids and their needs as they come to us. We're getting referrals through internal folks so within our own department, kids were identifying through program or through interactions in the library. We're getting references or referrals from the school. And then certainly are working to try to figure out some other referral channels throughout the community police department and other service agencies. A couple of recent examples this fall we had some students show up at the library and they were there every day. And school had most definitely begun and it was four kiddos that definitely were of school age and were just in the library every day. And Nate and his staff were working really hard to figure out like who are these kids? Where are they supposed to be? What's the story? And Vandam stepped in there and did a ton of work over a course of about four weeks to try to figure out who these students were, how they were coming to get to the library every day, why they weren't in school and then worked with the school district to get them enrolled. They had relocated from out of town into the community and were just not on the radar because they had not enrolled in school. So I think that is a great example. Another recent example he's working with a student who is only in school part-time during the day for some behavioral challenges. And so he's spending a ton of time with that student during the day after they've been released from school to make sure that they are staying on the street and narrow because they have been getting into some challenging behaviors and are staying with a non-parental caregiver who is really struggling. So I think those are just two examples of a place where this position was able to be sort of deployed to really help a youth and family that was struggling. And otherwise I think would have really fallen through the cracks. So really proud of the work there. Frankie and certainly now Vandam have done and it's just exciting to see that investment kind of playing out these families in this way. Any questions on youth interventionists? Is that full-time position? 28 hour position. I later on in your budget proposal, you can get to it a little bit more but I'm curious why. Yes, I saw that question earlier today. Remind me, because I will probably forget. Sure, no problem. And then the pool, certainly a big recent investment by our community that I wanted to just highlight again. Wrapped up season three at the pool this summer. I think the theme was rain and I think you see that reflected in the numbers up there. And I have some more detailed data that I will send out to you per request from council. But quick snap, 42% of the open days this summer were either full closure or had, based on day pass usage, really low participation which I didn't go back and I have the NOAA data sitting in my inbox which I need to go back and look at rain data but needless to say it was not a great summer in terms of weather for us and I think that's reflected in the participation usage up at the top for open swim. And there was a change in notifications so it used to be through social media. Yeah, correct. So we were doing all of our notifications for closures through the website and the primary reason we shifted to that is that because of the way folks feeds in social media are being populated it wasn't always possible for us to guarantee a chronological hit. And so we had some instances from the previous year where on Instagram in particular, we'd post something and then it would pop up in somebody's feed like two days later and they would think the pool was closed. And so we were really struggling to figure out and did a lot of work with Paul to figure out how can we better leverage this and really felt like ultimately the most effective, consistent way of communicating it was to have the website updated in real time and that was communicated to pass holders as well. Who manages the library, Instagram? Nate and Kirsten primarily with some support from Paul. Okay, because they do their notifications on Instagram. Yeah, yep. I think because their closures tend to be less frequent and we were sometimes also closing midday which just gets tricky. So we could look at it, I will say I didn't hear any complaints about that shift. I'm not sure if you all did and if you did please let us know and we can reconsider it but for the most part I think it worked. And I think the advantage of the pool is like nine times that's 10, if it's raining people they know the pool's gonna be probably closed. One other thing that came up this past year and since we're just talking about it. Yeah, yeah. Obviously elevated particle levels from the smokes of force fires. Were there closures related to that? There were not that I recall. I don't think we, did we have one? We have one closure and that was, obviously we were navigating uncharted territory for us. And so kind of looking at out west with Dave Johnson, they've been dealing with it for years and so we don't have a set policy right now and that is something that we're looking for toward doing this summer with the unfortunate anticipation of more fires in our climate. So we did have at least one closure and we did have at least one program cancellation due to air quality and we were using, I can't remember the exact website but the site that all of us were using to navigate whether or not it was safe to be on that. And I think some of my closure questions right here are obviously seasonally rain conditions, severe weather and then the air quality. So kind of curious of like what percentage was related to rain weather events versus air quality. So again, we just had the one day with air quality and didn't have any closures. We had, I mean we had some pool closures due to incidents in the pool, I'll just say that but because we have the pools on separate filtration systems that didn't close the whole facility. So all those closures but the one were weather related. Correct, thank you. Yep. And then I just, I love to brag on this cause it's a big deal but we had over 1,000 kids this summer in our community past the deep water swim test which is up about 7% from the year before. Given the data and sort of the disparate data for youth of color in particular and their water safety, this is a huge deal to have this happening in our community. So I'm really proud of that and proud of the work that's gone into making that possible. We're just to clarify then, were you still looking for an answer to the overall question or what it just answered? Can you follow up later? Was that? Yes, and it's okay to follow up later. Yep, okay. It might be more work than. It's a lot of work so we want to follow up with you about what you're looking for. Sure. But yeah, we can follow up. Yeah, unfortunately there's not a street easy way to like pull that out of our system and I don't have the memory to know like this day. I wouldn't imagine you would. I wouldn't. But anyhow, we can find it and if that's, wait, wait. If it's helpful, you can send me a poll and I'll do it. We'll talk. All right. So kind of reflections on the investments and what's happened this past year and now kind of moving into this proposed budget for the coming year. All right. So go ahead, Paul. Oh. Paul, can you go back to the spreadsheet? There, thank you. I'm gonna have to put my cheaters on. I hate to admit this. So looking at the numbers year-over-year, I wanna start first with the level service proposal just cause I think that's the foundation on which the recommended budget is built. Looking at that level service budget increase, exclusive of the O'Brien Center rent, which I will talk about in a moment. It represents about a 5.8% increase for our department. The primary driver of that, as you can see, is staffing. We are a very staff heavy department as I think many of our departments in the city are. And the primary kind of unexpected or kind of out of your standard increase items are highlighted here. So pool staffing-wise, we are proposing an increase which will be including the swim team coaches which was a program that came online after last year's budget. So the Y had run the program in the past. They opted not to run the program and so that came into our budget and had not been budgeted in the previous year. We also had this past summer a higher number of lifeguard and supervisor hours. And I think last year was a little bit of a pendulum swing. The prior summer, I will say Robin and I were averaging when we were working throughout the summer, 50 to 60 hours every week that we were on, not on vacation. So I think that we were really subsidizing that need. This summer we hired some more supervisors and we're able to step back a bit more and get our numbers a little bit more in line which was mercifully great for us. With that said, I think we probably swung a little far in kind of learning. And so we are gonna be doing some adjustments back this coming year around number of hours. So I think that 1600 or 16,000 number is based on those pieces there. The thrive number did go up year over year by about $20,000. And what I will say there is that that's driven by much higher participation in summer. Summer is a really expensive program for us because we have a lot of staff on for full days all summer. And then initially some projected increases in after school. Since October when this budget was built we've actually seen our after school enrollment be lower than we projected. And so Claudine and I have worked to make adjustments to the staffing levels in real time. And I think as a result of that, again this projection that was built on six weeks of data now with the luxury of several months of data is high. So I think it's likely you will see us be coming back as we further this budget conversation with some adjustments to that number. But I wanted to present the number here that initially came to you so that there wasn't confusion but I just wanna highlight that thrive number as something that you're gonna see probably changed in the next meeting or two. And I think just in case the question is there because I had the question too, we've done a lot of head scratching about why that enrollment is down for after school. I think there's a number of things going on. We're actually seeing this in a lot of other communities that are running licensed program. Interestingly their recreation or kind of interest based numbers are up and their kind of childcare numbers are down. And it's a little bit of speculation but we're thinking that it may have to do with more folks working from home. So there's a parent in the house and a child can be home. In Winooski specifically there's also now after school bus service which this is the first, I think the first full year that that's being offered. And we are suspecting that a lot of these kiddos again have a parental unit or caregiver at home who maybe couldn't get up to the school to get them because they were caring for younger kids or were a grandparent and didn't have mobility. So I think the bus is delivering a lot of kids home that would have otherwise been in thrive. So we've been working certainly with the liaisons doing a lot of work with the school to try to drum up numbers but it's been, I was really expecting we'd see a rebound in like late October after 21C programming started and we didn't see that. So it's an interesting trend to keep an eye on for us but again we've adjusted our staffing numbers in response to that. And then as mentioned the O'Brien Center so within the buildings line you're gonna see that jump from 1500 to 97,000. That money is coming from the community center portion of the budget into the community services department. So in terms of impact to the bottom line for the budget that's net neutral thereabouts but that was not money that was in our budget in the past that was carried in a separate line for the community center. And so that represents what we are projecting as lease costs for the library and community services offices once the kind of project moves ahead with CHD. So any questions on the level service? Going back to the thrive thing, are you anticipating that going down then? Yes, yes, that's, sorry. If that was not clear that's what I'm saying. I am expecting we will come back to you with a lower staffing number based on those changes. That's why it's a green star, not a real one. Yeah. Regarding the lease, the billing lease. Yep. Will there be any year-over-year cost increases with that? In terms of the lease going up year-over-year. Yep. I do not know the answer to that question off the top of my head. We can certainly find out. Yeah, it's a question we can ask CHT. I mean, I would expect similar to any other kinds of billing maintenance, they might need some, but they're also building it on the overall costs of borrowing, so the sum of it will be fixed once we have that financing for that period. Okay. Anyway, they're coming next week. Great. Thank you. All right. And then I'm gonna jump to the recommended budget and kind of work through the additional pieces that kind of reflect that larger increase. My computer has rebooted. So Paul, if you can jump to the next slide, we'll just walk through the kind of major high points of what's different between the level services and the recommended manager's budget. All right, go ahead. So I wanted to start by putting, Elaine was like, what are you doing when she looked at this? I wanted to put this up because this was a slide straight out of last year's budget proposal or budget presentation. And I just wanted to put it here because, and then Paul, if you can go to the next slide, the things that we're gonna be talking about adding are all things that were on the future consideration list last year. So I just wanted to highlight, like these are not out of left field items. These are things that have been on the radar for us for some time. And so I just wanted to reflect that here. All right, go ahead, Paul. And I'm gonna say, I'm presenting these in a priority order. I did talk to Elaine about this, kind of articulating this in that way. As I think about it from my position managing the department, you're gonna see the items in a priority order based on what we really feel like are the highest needs. You can take that or leave that, but I just, I wanted to say that as I start talking about these pieces. So the first one for us is looking at the re-edition, I guess I should say, of a part-time 14 hour per week library clerk. That position was temporarily funded through ESSR and that supported our ability to expand programming and kind of grow the library participation and then was eliminated after ESSR went away last year. Since that time, we've seen an incredible continuation of participation and interest in the library. And I think that's a trend that's being reflected nationally too, which is interesting to see. Within the state and within our peer libraries, I wanna just highlight we are under a resource to compare to a lot of our peers, which is again part of why we are asking for this ad. Compared to an average of 43 hours of open time for most libraries serving six to 10,000 people, we're at 34 per week. Average number of staff hours per week, 268 for other libraries, 96 for us and eight paid staff versus three for Winooski. So I put that there mostly just to say like we're really squeezing a lot of value out of the folks that we have and I'm hopeful it's some justification of why we're here asking. And then in terms of comparative libraries, so larger libraries, well, and 5,000 plus, we rank last in square footage, last in square footage for capita and last in collection holdings, which for us is really constrained by our space. So we're really in a lot of ways punching above our week class because on the next slide, which I'm not gonna get to quite yet, but you'll see that we are also providing a lot of service in spite of those numbers. And then since July, we've really been kind of trying to really scramble and keep things going. So we've had 101 hours of community service staff coverage, meaning that that's other department staff covering in the library because of staff vacations, staff illness, et cetera. We have reduced hours in response to the change in staffing. So we've lost about 56 hours of open time since July for the library in a planned way. And then we've had about 11 hours of unplanned closures due to staff shortages. So again, staff illness primarily driving that. Yeah, so I think those are the sort of gloomier numbers that I'll share on the library. And I guess I'm happy to answer questions here before moving to some of the I think rosier numbers of what we've been actually doing with what we've got. Well, for the sake of the public, aren't we planning on space expansion already? Correct, correct. Yep, yep. And do you know what that new square footage will be? It's about, well, I think we're 5,600 square feet. It's about three times the current space. So it's a significant proposed expansion with the CHC project, which is fabulous. And is there an estimation as to how much that triple the space could hold for a collection? We have not gotten to that level of shelf, linear footage of shelving kind of detail yet, but and I think there's also the question for us of looking at the data around circulation of digital versus non-digital materials and where we wanna, and programming and how we wanna kind of lay the space out. But I think suffice it to say there will be more, the ability to add more holdings to the space. And right now we're doing a lot of culling. So I think that that's something that that doesn't mean we're gonna necessarily need to come back and ask for a bunch more materials funds. I think it would allow us to hold onto materials within the space for a longer period of time. And Ray, can you explain why the current staffing is no longer sufficient when it did work pre-assert? Yep, yep, so prior to COVID really, we had often been staffing the library with one single staff person, which Amanda and I, who was the director prior to COVID had been having conversations about trying to adjust from a safety perspective. We had a lot of concerns. We see a ton of folks through the door and a lot of folks with a lot of different needs coming through the door and having a single staff person in that space by themselves was really a safety concern for us. And so since Nate has come on and coming from a more urban library setting, he's really been a strong advocate and I support this for a minimum of two staff in the space when we are open to the public. And that's why we've had an increase in the need for staffing during those open hours. And that's again, since COVID, that that shift has happened for us. My understanding too is it also allows Kirsten to go provide service events and to thrive. Yeah, to a degree, that is true. We are doing some offsite programming. I would say that's not a major impact necessarily on a week to week basis, but yeah, she is going up on a routine basis to thrive, to do a story time with those kids there. She's done some offsite programming during the warmer months where she'll do a story time in the park versus in the library just to try to meet folks where they are. But I'm not, I wouldn't say that's like a major driver of the staffing increased need for staffing. I appreciate that context, right? I also just wanna add the data story here is a bit limited. I looked at the full library survey data. I think there's only about 10 other libraries in the population ranges us. And they're not all a good comparison to the music. Yeah, it is not a perfect comparison. I will say that is a fair assessment. And like, I mean, everything in Vermont, right? Like every community does it their own way, own unique way. So that is a fair critique, I think, of the data. But I think it's still fair to say staffing wise, space wise, we're not at the high end of what's available in communities of comparable size. And I think the follow up on the mayor, like one of those communities, for example, at Shelburne, which has like a very different tax base than what we have. But I do wonder, so on the previous slide, you said the pool had gone over by about like $16,000. And the thrive is gonna come under this year. I think thrive will be about similar, maybe a smidge more. How much of that, like are we getting close to that $17,000 mark in savings that you think you're gonna be able to get from those two programs? I would say no, I don't think we're seeing, I don't think we're seeing savings necessarily. I think we're seeing like that $16,000 for the pool is money we're adding to the budget to level services, not subtracting from it. Any other questions on this information? All right, go ahead, Paul. And then again, just I can't say enough about the work the library staff is doing. I think it's been a fabulous just trajectory since COVID. I think Nate and Kirsten have really built on the hard work of Amanda and the other library staff of the past and really kind of taken things to another level. Across the board, you're really seeing numbers up. So increased number of patrons, library card, new library card signups are up. In-person visitation is up by a ton. July and August for the two busiest months the library has had since I've been in this job. It's almost 12 years. And that trend has held. We are continuing to see month over month those participation numbers be really high. Programming is also really increased within the library. A lot of those programs I will say are happening during open hours onsite in the library. So I wanna be careful that that term program doesn't mean we're pulling staff out and sending them somewhere else. It's program happening within the space. But that is programming that takes time to develop and implement and run. And I guess Kirsten needs a big tip of the cap too. She's been fabulous and has been doing a ton of really cool innovative programming for kids on a shoestring down there. So really cool to see. And then circulation numbers up as well. Perhaps not surprisingly, e-book and audio book circulation is up significantly. That's great. Problem being as we've talked about here in the past, the cost of that digital content is definitely higher than physical circulation materials generally because there's often a renewal period that you have to kind of go back to. So I think generally though, good news for the library on the whole and really proud of the work they're doing. Again, I think indicates an interest in need from the community that is the reason that we're here asking for this ad. Any questions on this info? Do we, I know your PowerPoint doesn't capture this, but you said a curiosity. Do we have information on how much friends of the library contributes? So the friends of the library group is, I would say, emerging from a dormant period. That's a fair way to say it. There were a number of folks that were really heavily involved to step down or moved out of the community. And Nate has been working really hard to try to drum up interest. Recently, there was a community member who is a regular attendee and has gone out and kind of rallied the troops. And I believe there's about 12 people now that are interested. So they have their first, I'm looking at Aurora because I don't know if you know, their first meeting is coming up, I wanna say in the next couple of weeks with this new group. So, and for folks that aren't familiar, friends of the group is a non-city, nonprofit whose sole purpose is to raise resources and do advocacy work for the library. So that's, I think, a really interesting channel for us to look at partnering with. But that's gonna be its own entity as it gets stood up. And it's not unusual, there are other communities that have similar organizations supporting them. So we're super excited about that. And again, that first meeting is coming up in the next couple of weeks. Okay. That's great, because this past day, given Tuesday, I was asked by a bunch of people how they can get to the library. Has there been any, since I asked last year, consideration into a voluntary charge for new card signups? I'll tell the story again. When I wanted to get my library card, I was expecting and willing and ready to give some money. And I think there are other residents who would also want to assist the library in that way who are able to afford it. Yeah. I will say we did just redo a bunch of policy with the library committee and that the card policy was one of them. At no point in that conversation did that kind of come up for a rise to their kind of level of interest. We can certainly ask it. And I think we can always accept donations for folks that wanna make those. I would have loved to, but I was now having to do so myself. So on the website, there is now an online opportunity for making a donation. I think libraries in general are really cautious about not creating barriers for participation. And I think even a voluntary donation could feel like a deterrent for someone who comes up and the person behind you in line and sees you drop a 20 on the table may turn around and walk out the door because they think that's an unspoken expectation. So I know the library committee and library staff historically have been very reluctant to charge or kind of put monetary numbers, but I think. Or maybe I know that there's a lot of pamphlets that they hand out when you've got a new card, maybe the link to donate could be included there. Yeah, we could certainly look at that as with the little cards. I don't expect it to be a huge source of funding that would like pay for full staff or about maybe pay for some digital subscriptions. Sure. We can definitely look at sort of those materials that go out after someone signs up. So it's a good question though. But we did talk about, you know, when we rewrote that policy fees and whatnot and that was pretty clearly like, not of interest to the committee. All right, anything else on the library stuff? Do you have data on the, so as far as circulation goes, are there changes in the cost for the e-books and audio circulation? I know that that was an increasing light. The last time Nate presented to us. So our, so like our other supply budgets, we've applied a COLA escalator to that, but nothing more than that. Okay. Go ahead, Paul. So next up, looking at expansion of our senior programs manager position to full time. So as I mentioned earlier, Barf's position at the senior center is 28 hours a week. It has been part time since I started here. I wanna make clear that expanding that position is really, it's not just geared towards expanding programming for seniors. It's really looking at expanding our slate of programming for adults across the board. And I think that's in line with a lot of trends we're seeing nationally and even regionally too. You know, Essex Junction, Rotland, Montpelier have all, in some cases even renamed their centers to adult centers versus senior centers. A lot of that is really stigma-based. I think there's a lot of adults and even older adults who don't wanna go to a senior center. They really feel like for whatever reason, that's not for them. And so we are really trying to think creatively about how we can be more inclusive and get more folks in the door for our adult programming in the future. So where does this ad come from? Again, it's not just a dart at the wall. I wanna make that clear. This is something we really feel like could be put to good use in our community. So we're seeing an increase over the last three or four years of the adult population within our community. Certainly the line share of that is still within the 20 to 39 year old population. I've sadly moved past those bars on the graph. I always liked to think of myself in there, but no more. So with that said, we do have also a significant percentage of our population, about 25%, which is 50 plus. And so that is a group that we wanna start to really be more mindful of programming two and four. When we did our 2018-19 WREC Program Needs and Interest Survey, we saw a high percentage of adult respondents there expressing interest in trying new programs. I recognize that that data point is not the most solid, but I think it indicates to me that there is an appetite and an interest in trying some new things. And that could be an open door for us to say, let's put some programming out there and see what happens. And I will say that when we have put adult programming out in recent years, it has been very well received. A couple of examples I wanna highlight, the Winooski Bike Gang, which we helped sort of catalyze and then they really took off and ran on their own. That's a weekly ride that meets downtown at Monkey and goes for a bike ride. That's on some weeks, numbering 60 to 70 people. And with very limited input from staff, honestly, we kind of like, I feel like we kind of threw the firecracker in and like it went. Ukulele, we've just rekindled and that's been super popular and we're filling that up. We've had a lot of great response to pool programming. So Aqua Aerobics is a big one that's had really good participation. So I think we're seeing that when we put these things out there, people are responding and expressing interest. The other nice thing about adult programming is that it is generally a lot less labor-intensive for us. You can send fewer staff than you can with a group of kids. That's the people you're taking, our adults. We're finding that when we are charging fees for programs, adult users are more likely to pay versus kids and families. And I think the other great thing that we've seen actually with our yoga program is that a lot of folks when they are coming for free programs are also then making donations back which is really helping us with scholarship requests. So I think hearing some interest from the community seeing the response in real time and then looking at these numbers of saying only 30% of our programs at the library serve adults and only about 15% of our non-senior center rec program serve adults, it feels like an area that is not in line with the demographics for us which is why we're interested in this expansion. So I'm happy to answer. Have you projected revenue from charging fees to offset this cost? So I'd have to check with Angela but I believe when we added the position we also added revenue in expectation that that would grow. I don't remember off the top of my head I'd have to dig back through my spreadsheet what that was. It was a, I think it was a fairly conservative addition. But we did add I believe some to it. And I think over time that could be expanded. I just, I'm always really reluctant to like say yeah we're gonna bring in $10,000 and bring in one. And so I'm more apt to say let's put a little bit on there on the revenue side and see how it goes. Well there's always been go rate. I know, easy. My other question is this is another space that we can't keep open as much as we could pre COVID. The senior center. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah and I think I also wanna just be clear too as I'm thinking about the expansion of this position I don't, it doesn't, that's not necessarily in line with only expansion of hours at the senior center. I'm really thinking a lot of these programs actually will be outside the walls of the senior center potentially. And so yes there may be the ability to add but right now we're more or less doing four days a week. Maybe we could grow out to five days. But I do think a lot of the programming would be offsite and in the community and other places. And the other piece that you know again this is all down the road but as we look at the O'Brien Center redevelopment really thinking about co-locating some programming there with the library, with community services and some of the public spaces there. Especially just given some of the question marks about the future of the St. Stephen's lot that we're still kind of waiting to know more about. All of us are waiting to know more about. So yeah one of my questions that I proposed ahead of time was estimated program costs, operational costs. So it's obviously not just salary and benefits. Yeah so we did not add any additional costs on the programming side. Reason being is that we did apply a COLA escalator to supplies and professional services which for us tends to be like instructors and teachers and things like that. So I feel like we, I think we can live within that budget for this year and see, grow things without the need for a ton of extra supplies and materials. I think it's another place where being a community services department as a whole is really valuable because we do a lot of resource sharing in terms of Claudine will buy something for an activity and have extras that Robin and Maruna can then use in a rec camp. We can share equipment and share materials. So I think we didn't add funding to that budget again beyond that base escalator. I have just confirmed that we did not add additional revenues for new programming that this position would create. So there is potentially the new revenue could offset any additional supplies that could be needed as well. Awesome, thank you Angela. In a more broad staffing question, you're asking for more capacity in these two roles but you have a second AmeriCorps position back and you shared previously that your admin outreach coordinator is gonna gain another 10 hours after the building transfer. So what are you doing with that capacity? Yeah, so the AmeriCorps position is really and I should say we have not gotten two members yet. We have had one through dream and recruitment has not come through in a second. So we are still at just the one. When that position comes online, that will be a position that is really supporting youth programming, especially in support of kids at Elm Street because that's where dreams kind of mission focuses. So I think we will keep that person occupied and what it allows us to do is then not have our manager running an after school program but instead allows her to be doing program development, more managerial work versus direct service work. And so that's where I think the AmeriCorps position would be deployed really, especially in the summer we are running ragged in terms of direct service staff and I think especially with the pool. I mean, the number of times that Robin and I cross each other driving across town in the summer is sort of comical because there's just a lot of running from the pool to a program to another program to a summer camp. So I think that that's where we're using that AmeriCorps position. And then, and sorry, the other. The 10 hours for your management. Oh, the 10 hours for the admin, thank you. Yeah, so I think when the, and this is projection, we're not sure exactly what it'll look like but we are expecting that when the public rental spaces at the O'Brien Center are managed by CHT and not the city, that that will open up about 10 hours a week of our admin person's time because they're doing a lot of the legwork now to manage and support that. And what I would say, and this is back to the earlier comment I made about recruitment, outreach for us is really, really time consuming. And I think as much as we do a good job, I think we could be doing a better job of meeting people where they are when it comes to registering for programs. So I think that time will be very quickly consumed. And again, it allows our program managers to be doing more appropriate work for their position versus running around knocking on a door at Elm Street to get a signature. And so I'm expecting that's where that time will go. With that said, Zara has also sort of been our, you know, Swiss Army knife staff member. So she also is, it's not uncommon for her to step in and cover a program if somebody's out sick. So it's just another, you know, another place where I think her time could be leveraged for early on programming. I don't know if that gets. You answer my question. Okay. All right. Go ahead, Paul. And I will say, this is perhaps a little sparser than I would have put on a slide had I known Nick was not gonna be here tonight. So I'll talk through this a bit. I was expecting Nick would be doing from Park District his annual report tonight. So there'll be more info when he's here next week, I believe. But we are proposing that we would like to get our contribution to the Winnieski Valley Park District up to the full request. That is something that has not happened for Winnieski in quite some time. And we are one of the eight member towns that is billed every year based on a formula an allocation to the Winnieski Valley Park District as members. And so the $12,000 represents the difference between what we have been paying in and what their full request to us is based on that formula. We've really worked a lot with them while they don't manage a property in the city at this point. They've provided a lot of technical support, especially through planning processes. So I'd highlight our Parks and Open Space Plan when Lauren Chakodi was one of the primary staff supporting that effort. Most recently, we've done a bunch of work with them drafting an invasive species removal policy that's gonna be coming forward soon. Nick and Lauren were super helpful there. They've come in and done some work on the ground in terms of removing clearing back trails and helping with cleanup and parks. So it's been a great partnership in spite of the fact that they don't have a parcel here in the community. And we are, and this is I think something we've talked to council about before, we are planning to come forward with a proposal to have Memorial Park transfer to them for management moving into the future. And so that's also one of the impetuses for increasing this allotment is that they would be taking on management of that park. So I would say those are the pieces and then just cost wise, I put this number at the bottom more just as a reference. So in June, we did a natural resources inventory of Memorial Park just to get a sense of kind of what was truly happening down there. Neither myself nor anyone on staff as a naturalist or a natural environmental studies person. So we could look at and say this looks really overgrown and is probably not supposed to look like this, but I'm not sure candidly what Buckthorn looks like even though I know it's not supposed to be there. So this is really helpful information for us to have to then go through and say, okay, to get this parcel to a healthy state, here's what we need to do. And these numbers are really kind of back of napkin estimate from that consultant of for what cost for removal could be. And that again is really fluid based on how much, how big, but it gives you a ballpark per acre of what costs could look like for invasive species mitigation down there. How many acres is it? It's about 16. Has there been consideration of adding additional AmeriCorps to our teams too? No, and that was a question that had come through earlier. And we've not looked at Eco AmeriCorps in the past largely because we had members through VYDC and that was kind of what we could support and manage. It's certainly something we could explore moving forward. It's not something we've looked at to date. And I'm not sure cost wise what that looks like. It seems like a lot of the AmeriCorps programs have different cost share models as we found out with Dream. I'd love one like Dreams. Yeah. And again, I think there'll be more conversation when Nick is here in a week about this, but any other questions here? I mean, I would just like to know specifically what they would deliver to us for another $12,000. Yeah, yeah. And I think that would be. That's a question for him. Correct, correct. All right, go ahead, Paul. And then we've mentioned this a few times throughout and I wouldn't say this is a low priority. It's just at the end because there's not a vegetarian impact necessarily. So sale of the O'Brien Community Center to Champlain Housing Trust. We are anticipating being back here early February with CHT to further that conversation, but Elaine and myself, others have been working for quite some time with CHT around a proposed redevelopment of that parcel and really have been holding onto the fact that we wanna maintain that resource for the community as a community center and make it work better. And so the, again, the addition to our budget is countered by a reduction in the budget elsewhere. So it's a net neutral impact to the budget year over year. Just to go back to the question that Councilor Oakley had asked earlier. Does that neutrality carry on for any of years after this one in terms of are we selling it for more than we're gonna be seeing in rent increases? I don't know that we've increased rent much in the past. No, the rent has gone up. We have a, I believe Angela will be saying, 2%. 2% escalator in most rents. Yeah, so that's been something that over time has gone up and that's allowed us to stay up with the cost of utilities primarily. There's not a lot of fluff on that budget beyond just keeping the lights on and the water running at this point. So I think that whereas if we maintain the building again those costs of operation would have continued to rise. I think we could see leases go up in the same fashion but we've not had that conversation with CHT at this point. Also with the redevelopment, it's hopefully it'll catch some of these big expenses that are coming in that redevelopment. We actually are gonna be paying for something now because we couldn't act quickly enough but that's just gonna get worse over time. So there's quote unquote saving in that sense potentially. Yeah, great. Do you have just generally speaking, do you have vacancies? We do, we do. And we've been carrying those vacancies in anticipation of a transfer of the property. So we've not been actively looking to these spaces because we are trying to keep that transfer as simple as possible without a lot of contractual baggage. But it's, I think if we didn't have this on the horizon we would have been out trying to fill those spaces but because we did we've been kind of sitting on that. Also Ray says that but he's not exactly having full empty time in his schedule to manage that sort of thing which is part of why we're going in this route. Yeah, I will say when the Y left and we were trying to refill that space that was an enormously time consuming process. I am not a commercial realtor and after that we'll not be trying to be one. It was a lot for us. Is the, so the last time we had an update from you or routine there was some indication like request for a reservation was still very high. Is that continued? It has been busy and I will say that's without really any promotion. So all of that is happening word of mouth. So we've had quite a bit of use in the kitchen and we are actually that is one place where we are gonna be I think shifting to a short term lease with some folks that have been using the kitchen on an hourly basis just to kind of like stabilize that and get them some ownership. But we have yeah every Sunday there's two or three rentals we've had the farmers market in there this winter, quite a few community meetings happening throughout the week. So it's still pretty busy and that's again without a lot of promotion. All right. So that was just space vacancies. Do you have staff vacancies? Oh, do I have staff vacancies? We do not at the moment. No, no. Congratulations on that. No, I'm knocking all the wood. Yeah, no, we've had our team has been awesome and been really stable and solid for about two years now which is great. I think this is the end of this section before you get into some numbers. Yes. Going back to my previous question about the youth interventionist and why that is not proposed for an increase in hours. Yeah, and so we did actually talk about that and I think we're really kind of weighing those two positions. I think where ultimately the expansion of the senior programs manager kind of rose ahead for this year is that I'm feeling like we have invested a lot in youth the last few years through us or through the kind of expansion or stabilization of the youth interventionist and have not had as much of an emphasis and a focus on adult programming and I'm worried that by not acknowledging that and trying to make an adjustment, we fall further behind. And so it's not to say, I mean, I just had this conversation with Band-Aid this week, like I would, we could keep a full time youth interventionist busy without a doubt but it didn't feel like this was the year for that ask based on trying to put some priorities in order. Thanks. Yeah. All right. I did have one question again before we get into the numbers. Yeah, totally. For the programming that you do a net promoter score for, does that include Thrive? It does, yes. Has there been any indication of a change in satisfaction? No, not that I've seen. I think again, it seems like those transportation and or caregiver at home factors are what's driving that. Okay. Yeah. And it's, I was really interested. We had a couple of conversations with other municipalities who are running licensed child care and when they said the same thing and I was like very heartened to see that, like that trend is not just us. I think it's something that is happening to- Is there a decrease in birth rate? No, I think it's just people are finding, I mean, and I'll speak for myself, like we were Thrive family for years and Phoebe, my youngest who's still Thrive eligible is now coming home and spending a day with our neighbor once a week and with us once a week. And they're excited about that. It allows us to save some money and it's not in any way a reflection of Thrive or the quality. It's just, that was a budgetary decision for us as a family. And so leading to that, so maybe satisfaction is high but cost of access. Yeah, I mean, we've stayed, that's a good question. We've stayed within the range of subsidy. So we've not, our price has never gone above the base rate for subsidy. And is definitely, especially for summer camps as you compare, because we're about to start this rodeo as parents soon, Thrive is very affordable compared to other summer programs. So I think we have to the degree we can kept those prices within an affordable range. And because we're licensed, anyone who's eligible for subsidy can get support from the state. And that's expanded, or that eligibility has expanded with some updates to the state law recently. So, okay. I think the correlation with the bus service is probably a significant factor too, knowing what the demand was for that before it wasn't. Correct, correct. Yeah, and just knowing, you know, is the blessing and curse of being a small community, right, like knowing a few of the families that have dropped off and knowing the circumstances in the household, like that is very much what was happening. Mom was home with four other kids and couldn't come pick up the elementary school age child. And now that kid can get delivered home for free. So, all right. So go ahead, Paul. So just a few slides here for kind of more for illustrative purposes than anything. You know, I think I always like to just point out as a department that we are doing a lot to bring in revenue as we can with a focus on equity, of course, and access. But I think it's important to see that there are revenues coming in. We've been able to keep those pretty steady. And there's also a lot of potential for us to go out and look at grant funding and donation seeking on top of program fees. So I wanna be clear in saying those grant numbers are not something that we can say that's definitely gonna happen next year. But I think it's more to say we've had success in going out and getting grant funding for programs here in Winooski and we'll continue to try to do that whenever and wherever we can. I think we have a compelling community. I think we're doing a lot of compelling work and I think there's a lot of funding streams that align with that. Challenges often that those funds are not for daily operations, right? A lot of times grants are new initiatives or special projects. So I think really as I look at that, the places where I think we're gonna be able to leverage grant funding are more around park development projects or kind of one-time projects that won't necessarily benefit the general fund budget but will benefit the community. So that's, I just wanna make sure to kind of tease those two numbers out to say that 296, and that's a typo. I apologize, I was only back in the office like three days. So I only had one typo, that was pretty good. But that should say fiscal year 25, not fiscal year 24 out of the 296. So that's what we are projecting to bring in with this budget proposal. And then again, I think that additional grant funding is just to say, we've had a good track record of bringing these funds in over time and expect that we will continue to work towards that. Is the Vermont Patriots Scholarship, is that the scholarship from the guard? No, that's our youths talker program. So we partner with the Vermont Patriots which is a nonprofit that is, that kind of started the soccer program and they basically finance any students that need scholarships. So it ends up being usually a couple thousand bucks per season. Any other questions on this? All right, go ahead Paul. And then I think just a kind of global snapshot of how we're carved up and where we sort of sit in the bigger picture. So the smaller pie chart on the right is where the community services department sits within the broader general fund budget. It's about 13% of that budget. And then that 13% is carved up in the larger pie. So, you know, you can see a pretty even split there. I think again, senior programs being on the smaller side but I think that has really kind of equalized over time that pie chart, which is great. It used to be very heavily thrived and I think is now much more spread out. I don't have to ask this earlier but just seeing the senior programs again. So if the decision was to increase that position, would there be a rebranding from senior center to adult center? I think that's highly likely. It's not something we've like decided on for sure but I think that it is likely we would look at some degree of rebranding work around that space and around the programs that we're providing. And again, that's in line. Rutland, Essex, Montpelier have all done that within the last two years to good effect. Would that affect the grant funding that's denoted on the slide before the federal grant funding? For senior center? No, I think it's kind of, it's just a different name on the grant but the same programs, yep. All right, go ahead, Paul. So, I'm gonna pause here because this is delving into non-general fund budget and before I do that, I just wanna make sure, are there any general fund questions burning before we jump into this special program budget? Would you mind if I open it up to public comment before we do that? No, that's fine. Do anyone here have questions? Anyone on Zoom? You can use the raise hand or chat feature. I do have one correction on the vacancies, right? We do currently have two, three, where for our members who are not in the two positions that are not filled currently. So that is directly with the rest of the market so I thought I was going to do that. But no budgetary savings really. But thank you. Okay, I'm not seeing any comments so let's proceed. All right, so we for many years had a much bigger non-general fund slate of budgets and over time we've brought programs into the general fund and are now really discerning our community services or our community gardens budget outside the general fund. So, but I wanna just highlight we do have some community services reserves that are available and that we've been tracking over time from those former budgets. And it's not a ton, but I think it's a good nesting for us as we look at the potential need for a grant match and sort of using this funding to bring in other resources over time. So it's something we're kind of tracking and managing and I just wanted to kind of point it out for council so that there's awareness of what's available there. But they're specific to those program lines. They are for the most part. From an accounting perspective, and Angela again can correct me, but we do track those all together, but we are trying to keep those tracked internally separately. Like so the senior center for instance is a big one where when we took over management of the senior center, there was a real concern that their funds were gonna get swept onto the broader budget and disappear. So on the books, from accounting perspective, it's in the 62,000, but we are tracking that separately so that it's clear what belongs to the senior center. So trying to kind of stay with the spirit of those funds. And the library for instance, like that's a bequest that we got primarily is what's made up of that $10,000. So that was a very specific donation to the library that we can't spend elsewhere. There were some cost increases, the pool cost increases that you've had, and then some of the special annual events taking them to the Halloween event. Yep. Would you be drawing from reserves to offset those costs? So for current year, no, I think we've figured out with some creative flexibility among staff how to cover those expanded costs. Halloween was the big one. That was a lot more expensive than we were projecting. But Robin and I really put pen to paper and we're able to say, we're gonna push this investment a year and kind of use these funds for this event. So we didn't tap into any of these reserves for that. We could have if I think we needed it. We'd have to come back here and ask, but we didn't choose to do that this year. And for next year? Next year it's carried and being built into the budget that we have. So again, we're being creative and flexible in terms of where we can make investments and not and factoring those things in. Cause I do think we're likely, I mean, back surgery being exhibit A. Like I think we do need to think differently about how we're doing Halloween in particular. And that's one place where I think the cost of the event could go up, but that's not gonna be reflected in the costs to the general fund beyond that. Okay, COLA increase added. Do we hold reserves and interest growing accounts? We do now. Yeah. All right, go ahead, Paul. And then again, as I mentioned, this is our loan non-general fund budget at this point is the community garden. So you will see a drop this year. We made the unfortunate and difficult decision that we will not be opening the greenhouse this spring. Unfortunately for the second year in a row, we experienced a ton of vandalism and the costs, especially because we will be likely having to relocate that with the new project at the O'Brien Center. The costs of getting that up to speed for this spring were really prohibitive. So that's why you'll see the drop in the revenue. And then that's also reflected in the drop in expense cause we won't be paying for propane and some of the other resources that go into the greenhouse. But otherwise largely unchanged. Gardens have been an awesome program for us. They've been really full and it's been a really diverse usership, which is awesome. So it's been a really fantastic program for us over the years. All right, Paul. And then just a few emerging issues to kind of highlight obviously the O'Brien Community Center we've talked about tonight. I think things are on a good track but it's gonna be a big project to kind of navigate. And especially for our staff team who is all housed there with the exception of Barb, it's gonna be tricky to figure out how we're gonna do our jobs as that project unfolds but I'm confident we will figure it out. Again, as mentioned, St. Stephen's in the senior center is still a question mark for us. Like the rest of the community, we're kind of waiting for the courts to weigh in and we'll go from there. And then ongoing, continuing to figure out how to implement our parks and open space plan. I think we've got some exciting projects coming down the road, some interesting grant opportunities that we're following but that's work that over time is gonna be, I think a little bit less linear than it might be in a community that has a big budget for a parks capital. I think we're trying to figure out how to move towards that end point but it's not always a straight line for us. So, yeah. And with that said, I wanna end, this is one of my favorite pictures from recent years but just to say thank you to you, we love this community, we love what we do and our job is really cool, like these kids and the man. So I can't say enough about how much joy it gives us to do the work we do here and the support we've felt from council and the community has been awesome. So, thank you for that. And with that, I hope you can take any other questions. Are there any more questions? Yes. So you note on the construction for OCC and anticipated transitional space, when will that likely initiate? And I know CHT is coming and I can ask them more questions soon but yeah, yeah. I think, so what I can say and what we've said I think here is that tentative start to the project is November of 2024. And I say tentative in like all caps because there's still a lot of work to do between now and then but that is sort of a date that we are holding for the potential for shovels to start hitting the ground. That's I think a very optimistic timeframe but that's what CHT's been sort of modeling. So budget-wise it wouldn't necessarily fall under capital for cost of temporary space. No, and right now what we have been working on with that budget is that any relocation costs are being included in the project budget. So that's not additional cost to the city beyond the project budget. So those, yeah, we've talked about the library and what that looks like, office space for the community services team, what that looks like. So those are all considerations that will be part of that project budget. Great. Could you say your name, please? For the, maybe the mic too. Oh yeah, I'm sorry. Can you also come over here and use the mic so that folks online can hear? Sorry, we have a protocol. Thank you for the reminder. One question, I'm just curious about the Brian Center and how that's gonna transition and my specific question was just, now there's paying tenants there. Are they gonna be impacted by this whole reconstruction process or is that gonna be a smooth, they stay in place while the work is done and as well as the library and your offices too? What's gonna happen to the building? Yeah, I think those are questions that we will be determined as we get through the development of the project plan. So the hope is that we'll have minimal impact but I think the reality is there will be impact to some of those tenants briefly. I think figuring out how we stage everything is gonna be part of the project development conversation as we move forward. But we're really, we are conscious of that because there's a health clinic, we're not works for women, UVM rehab, the library. These are all important resources. Will air spaces be renovated? Some will, yes. So CHCB is looking to do some redevelopment and the health center, the library would look to be redeveloped. We believe UVM is not. New views also. Is the actual look of the building gonna change drastically? I don't, I don't know how to answer that. I wouldn't say drastically. I mean, it's probably too early. We haven't seen it. It's never too early. It's coming up in less than a year. So it wasn't something on paper. Yeah, so there's been architects working on it through CHT. We have seen primarily floor plan drawings and not so much elevations and external kind of mockups. But there will be some. There will be some. The actual footprint of the building will be staying the same except for the library addition. Correct. And we have discussed when we get closer, like have more timeline and design plans having an event at the community center for people to engage. Okay, so that's when the answers will. Available maybe? Yeah. I'm also curious about what's gonna happen with the community garden area and the ball court. The back of the building. Yeah, I mean, again, at this point, the plan for the community gardens and the way back is that those would remain as is. The Hickok Street parcel would be impacted. So there's about 12 plots there. Oh, the little one. The little one by the library. And that's where the greenhouse is. And the greenhouse, correct. That's where they'll put the addition. Correct. Okay. Well, thank you. Yeah. Thank you. Ball court is TBD. Yeah. The ball court is to be discussed. Oh. Yeah. That's a good reminder. Is there gonna be some new signage, street front signage included in this project? Yes. Excellent. Yes. All right, last call for questions. Well, thank you so much and for your team for showing up and some friends of the library. I think everyone's, you all clearly demonstrate dedication to the community all the time. Thank you. Well, we enjoy what we do and love to talk about it. So any questions, let us know. But thank you very much. Don't wrap up yet, Ray. Oh, Ray. Oh, Ray. Okay, we'll do our five minute break and then we'll have you on. So we will reconvene at 7.30. Perfect. Yeah. So worked on this with the chiefs. Not a lot to report here. That's newer different, but happy to answer any questions that folks have. Things seem to be by and large where we can expect them to be moving along well. I think there's a few spots obviously that are slower than we'd like to see, but in those cases, I think generally not necessarily things within our control, sadly. Do you know if there's a timeline on the court decision for St. Stephen's? It's up in the air, right? I guess some communications, but they were not of the nature to indicate the plan was gonna be over. Okay. I wouldn't say publicly anyway. Did anyone else have questions on the update? I feel like we got most of it through the couple of presentations we've had. Okay, great. Then we can move on. Thank you so much, Ray. Thank you, Ray. Go stand some more. I'm gonna go stand some more. Okay. Okay. And then Jasmine is joining us for item D, the strategic vision goal area update for housing. You don't have to say that. I'm comfortable. All right. Well, similarly, I also feel like I have recently given a goal update. So not a ton has changed since the last update. Happy to answer any questions about specific items. Everything's on track apart from the plans review process and fee structure that's on hold via the administration, but staff has reached out. Airport noise mitigation, as was mentioned before, there's another technical advisory committee meeting later this month. UL, UDR changes were passed. More changes are being considered currently. And then as you are all aware, conceptual framework for short term rentals in Winooski was presented in December and legal consultation is currently underway. We're also, we've been exploring the cost analysis. So that will be coming back in February. And then for other updates. So the city was awarded a $30,000 municipal planning grant from the state for an equitable housing needs assessment. So that's exciting that we were awarded that. So I'm currently drafting the RFP, hoping to have that out potentially by the end of the month to get started on that. So that's a two year grant. So we'll be working on that with whoever bids for the consulting agency until December of 2025. So- The RFP means our request for proposals because we want a contractor to do both of the work. Yep. Yeah, housing trust fund program offerings were continued to work on those. Final draft will be presented to the housing commission later this month. So after that is finally passed and we're hopeful that we will begin working on a more coordinated outreach effort and kind of marketing plan. And then lastly, the reappraisal continues now with four assessing teams, which is proving to move much more quickly than it did before the additional staff member was hired and then a new team member was hired and that disclosure is included in this update. So happy to answer any questions. Yeah, and FYI, if we have to vote on this contract again, I would be refusing myself. Do we have an updated estimated completion time for the reappraisal by chance? I see they're on track. So, April 1st of this year. Yes. And are we ready to do messaging for appeals once that's complete? Well, that's a good question is when they complete April 1st, when do people become notified of their new assessment and do they see like an adjusted, because they won't get the new tax bill until. They'll receive their change reprisal notices in June. Okay. And then we'll have a grievance period. The assessors will, they'll have informal week of appeals that people just wanna come in and question their new appraised value and then there'll be a formal week following that in June. Does everyone go out in June? Like even, or have people who have been completed last year gotten them already? No. Okay. Everybody will receive their change. Any other questions? I did have a question. Try and jog my memory. There was a comment recently about maybe the last meeting and I may direct this to Elaine about potentially moving the rental registry into the general fund. What's the estimated timeline for that conversation? I'm sorry. There was a comment during our last council meeting last week about alluding to potentially moving the rental registry into the general fund. And I'm wondering what the timeline is for that council for that conversation coming to council would be. I mean, we proposed it last year and we're proposing the same thing this year. So I would expect to just be part of your regular deliberations on the 22nd as part of the budget to conversation. It is part of the workbook. Yeah, so there's a policy decision there. Right. About whether this should be a self-funded enterprise fund. Right. There's a $10,000 gap. Do we raise the fee a little bit? Or is this something we wanna move to the general fund and subsidize with tax dollars? So this is very preliminary and Angel's gonna jump in here any second. But there's a possibility with the, we just had this conversation today with short-term rentals, the inspections, if we go to, if we start with only inspecting at a four-year cycle instead of every year as we initially proposed, then we might be able to make up that gap and then some. So it's, there's a few pieces in play here. Angel, do you wanna add to that? No, it was a very brief discussion, but without it, without increasing any expenses, if we bring on the short-term rental licensing and split where that funding comes into and have part of it offset the code that's gonna do additional work, and then the remainder going to the housing trust fund, we could fill that gap pretty easily with the estimated units that we have in town. I have some concerns about adding, increasing those fees. They're not fully data-backed concerns, but there's enough anecdotal concern that we wouldn't wanna necessarily propose that that's gonna put, that we wouldn't necessarily propose that in time for the budget, and we wouldn't be touching the fees chapter anyway in time for the budget. But that's some of the preliminary thinking. So the possibility that we can have short-term rental plug that hole is encouraging, so we don't have to touch that just yet. And are we, is the assumption that we would be standing up the short-term rental program by the time FY25 starts? That was the plan, wasn't it? Yeah, actually I wanted to go in effect. And the fee and fine review, that'll happen in one May. The fees chapter comes up usually in March. So we're gonna be bringing in, I thought to coincide with the short-term rentals in, at some point in February so that we could start more past sales in March. Okay. Sorry about that, yeah. Another significant thing that's not on here because it's pending is just cause of eviction. Yes, so we unfortunately learned recently like in the last couple of days, I was gonna discuss it with Christine first. That apparently we have to do it all over again. Okay. It does not qualify as the type of technical error that that statute was written for. So we have to discuss how to do that. I also need to confirm that our tentative recommendation of next March is kosher, essentially. I don't know that it will be. The other option is a special election, really. It would be the fallback recommendation from staff because having it as part of a, like a primary, it would confuse voters potentially because you'd have to have the, because all of our voters could vote on just cause of eviction but they couldn't vote on the primary. It's just a mess. So we have, I haven't brought it up to you because there's a few things I wanna iron out first but since you're asking, that's where we're at right now. Yeah. Just thinking about like what we've been anticipating to be on the ballot again in March and then as it relates to anticipated budget impacts, like again, there are many steps in that process at the legislature before it would even necessarily come back to us. But the thought was if we were having to vote in March as we had been anticipating, sounds like it's a move point and then the legislature was to take it up and vote on it this year, then presumably costs for expanding that program or standing up that program would come to us in FY 25. So. Right, you were asking about implementation. Yeah. And staffing, et cetera. Well, we have the leeway of when we actually. Right, write the procedure. So it's so soon to tell, I certainly wouldn't wanna be proposing as part of the FY 25 budget. Okay. That's primarily why I'm asking is. Gotcha. Assuming that it was happening within the timeline that we had been anticipating, what would the cost be to FY 25? It, I'll talk about this with Christine and of course council, I would say too, but it might anyway, because the legislature can do whatever they want. It's the legislature's document. So. They could change their target, the target without. They could, yeah. They might decide it was enough of a direction to go with the session. So your question would still be relevant. That's my point. Got it. If they did. Thanks. Is there any contingency planning? I guess any event that things do happen in FY 25? Well, if they do, then we would, and council presumably votes to direct staff. And we would be recommending that. Like a budget adjustment. So that we could have it in an FY 26 budget built in. Okay. All right. Well, good to know. I was drafting the February newsletter tomorrow. So. Thank you. Never at all moment. Indeed. Any other questions? Any questions from members of the public? Okay. Thanks, Jasmine. Thank you. Move on to item E. Amendments to the Unified Line Use and Development Regulations. I'll take the other chair. Okay. So thank you very much. This is a continued discussion on draft amendments to the Unified Line Use and Development Regulations regarding local resource protections. This was introduced to you back in December at your regular meeting on December 11th. So just for an overview, tonight we're here for a more detailed discussion on the draft regulations. Included with the agenda were the draft regulations again and a memo from me identifying or sorry, addressing some comments that were received in advance of the agenda being sent out. I also had received some additional comments, which I will try to address with other parts of my talking points tonight as well. So happy to address any other questions beyond those or any other details. So to just kind of provide an overview, this is an item that has previously been included with Council's policy and priority strategies. I don't believe it was included in the last, this most recent one, but it has been in years past. With that said, it has been included in the Planning Commission's work plan for probably about the last four years or so to provide to basically develop some sort of local resources protection. You may also recall in 2021, there was a, the city received funding to do a historic resources analysis from VHB, the firm of VHB did that analysis for us. That focused primarily on the gateways. It was not a formal survey of the historic properties, but did identify some significant properties to be analyzed further. This, that report also included some recommendations for policy to review demolition of properties and also some recommendations for standing up some sort of historic preservation commission or something similar to that. So we're kind of building off of that work with this draft as well as we are, one of the covered actions that are, that's included with these regulations are the demolition of buildings or is the demolition of buildings. We're also standing up some sort of local resources advisory commission to review those projects. In addition, there were, the state of Vermont's division of historic preservation has asked us to update our regulations in the past. Currently our land use regulations related to preservation talk about getting approval from the state for before anything, any listed properties are impacted. That's not something that the state does and does not want to do. So they've been asking us for several years to correct that deficiency. So this would also amend that language, shifting the focus to local regulations, which is really where any type of protections or more specific regulatory authority lies is with the local regulations. This draft will also address several goals and objectives in the master plan, specifically under the section on land use and municipal infrastructure. So it does accomplish some of the master plan goals and also related to the study from VHB. One of the recommendations that they provided was all of this work will then or can lead to the city being eligible for grant funding to then do either additional analysis for structures but also potentially reanalyze the properties that are listed here currently. So as part of this draft, there is a list of resources. We used the existing state and national register to develop that list, including districts. So that's what is highlighted. Those are the only properties we're including at this time for consideration of these regulations. I also, any questions about any of that first before I start talking about some of the text? So the text of the regulations is really, demolition is one of the primary actions that this covers. However, it does cover modifications or other changes to properties. If a property is listed and it's not proposing one of the covered actions, these regulations do not apply. So just because the property is listed doesn't mean that there are regulatory impacts to that property. Anything, there's a primarily exterior changes as well. So any interior modifications would be outside of the scope of these regulations. So. Is that, that's fairly consistent with historic preservation? I would say yes and or no. Depending on the community, some regulations do get into interior changes as well. To make sure that a floor plan isn't altered that may have some historic context. Are there, I think I'm kind of answering my question already, but thinking about homeowners associations and they can have additional like self-imposed. That's correct. Yes, yep, absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah, so this would, so yeah, so if one of the actions listed under section 4.4C is not proposed, these regulations do not apply. In addition to that, there's a specific standard of review for the covered actions. So under section 4.4F identifies what actually is getting reviewed based on the action that's proposed. So for example, if an applicant is proposing to replace their windows, then we would not be looking at roof shapes, for example. So it's really only gonna be the applicable, the applicable standards will be reviewed. From a process standpoint, this is modeled generally after our process for conditional use review or projects that need to go to the Development Review Board with the exception that from a timing perspective, this does not require a public hearing where the Development Review Board does require public hearing and the 15-day notification adjacent property owners need to be notified. There's additional fees that go along with that. This process would have a similar review schedule except for the Advisory Commission could meet more regularly. And because of that public hearing notification not being included. So actions could happen quicker than they do with the Development Review Board without that public hearing being required. To that point as well, the Local Resources Advisory Commission, as it's currently being titled, is advisory. So they are making a recommendation to either the zoning administrator or the Development Review Board, depending on the actual application, which can also be appealed. Those decisions can be appealed per our standard practices now. So they're not, that advisory body is not, they're not making the formal determination. They are advising on whether or not a certificate of appropriateness should be issued. The regulations also outline processes for listing and for delisting of property. So if somebody is proposing some actions or they just, they realize that their property is included and don't think it meets the standards, then they can request that the property be delisted or similarly, they can request that property be included if there is some level of historic protection that they wanna maintain. Additionally, there's some other referential changes that are being made just with updates to section 4.4, which is the bulk of the new language. Under Article 7, there is the discussion of the Local Resources Advisory Commission. In my, the memo that I included with the agenda, I do talk about the potential to consider that as maybe a board instead of a commission since it won't be a policy body. So it may be more appropriate to retitle that as a local advisory, local resources advisory board. So just to kinda more formalize what their role is as they're not recommending policy on behalf of the city like some of the other commissions do. They can to that point prepare reports as necessary to inform decisions, but they would act more in line with the Development Review Board does now and they're reacting to applications that come before them for specific projects, not meeting on a regular basis to develop policy or things of that nature. Can I ask to follow up on that? Sure. You were just explaining previously that kind of how it's set up, it wouldn't require a public hearing. Correct. If we named it a board instead of a commission, would that public hearing requirement come in? It would not. Okay. Nope, nope, we could still leave it as is, just that would simply be a name change. But good question. The only other item to call your attention to is under Article 9 for the definitions. There's a new definition of contributing element to add and then there's some amendments to the certificate of appropriateness. That certificate of appropriateness was included and adopted with your last set of amendments. These are updates more just to align with the title of this new section. So it's not changing anything about the definition other than for consistency with the title of the new section. And then as I mentioned in Article 10, there is the map and list collectively. So these can be amended as they are a part of the land use regulations or would be a part of the land use regulations. So they would follow that same process to amend as we're going through right now. I just wanna point out a couple of properties were removed from this list as I was reviewing it from our last meeting. I noticed a couple of properties that have since been demolished were included. So specifically, I believe 223 East Allen Street, which is now 10 Manso Street, the Park Terrace Project was included. And I'm not remembering what the other property was but there was another property that was also included on this list that is no longer there. So those were removed. In addition, I wanna point out that 120 East Spring Street was added to the list. 110 East Spring Street was currently on the list as the Porter Screen Factory. 110 is the office complex. The warehouses are at 120, which they're both included in the National Register nomination but they were all lumped under 110. So I added 120 as well to reflect that. There's both properties included with that nomination. So otherwise, I'll be happy to take any questions or try to answer any questions or providing additional clarification. Before you all jump in, the purpose today, we already called a public hearing for February 5th. So the purpose today is if there's something that we want to change, have Eric change before that public hearing. Yeah, and that's a good point. So the hearing at your last meeting you did authorize the hearing. It has not been advertised yet specifically to have this meeting so that if you do want to make any changes or corrections like renaming the local resources advisory commission to a board, those changes, we wouldn't have to have a second hearing to reflect those changes. So we do have time between now and the February 5th meeting to advertise the hearing but just to make that clear that it has not happened yet. As another point to that statutorily once that hearing is advertised these regulations will be in effect. So as a logistics component that's something to keep in mind as well. And then the last framing I want to share is the planning commission has spent more than four years talking about this about preserving historic cultural resources, et cetera. And through all of that discussion I think this is sort of the narrowest approach I've seen where this really targets very specific set of buildings without impacting the majority of the city. And just to add onto that, as I mentioned if a covered action is not being proposed these regulations won't apply. As an example of that, right now at 205 West Allen Street that property is included on this list. They have an application before the development review board for a planned unit development to add two new dwellings on that property. That would not require review under this new set of regulations because they're not proposing to do anything with the existing building. They're leaving that structure intact as it is. So these regulations wouldn't apply in a situation like that. So properties can change and amend and add things. So these would not be applicable for a project like that right now. Also that's already in process. So that would be retroactive, it wouldn't apply anyway. But. Sorry if you covered this. Under in 4.4C6 there's a mention of a resources survey I was just wondering if you could go into more detail like who does that? What does that mean? Yeah, that's a good question. In this context, the resources survey is the form that was used to list the building initially. So those surveys already exist. So for that item, particularly if there's an element that's included in that survey that says this is an architectural element that's specific to this building and that's why it is significant, that's what we'd be looking at. It wouldn't require a new survey unless the property owner wanted to conduct that new survey. Okay. Another thing that I have which maybe isn't fully a question but I think just to pin still how and again, I think this might be a broader question. How does the Inclusion and Blowing Commission tie into this? And maybe that's where we name, not as a board and I appreciate you including the details about kind of the specifics and credentials that the commissioners can have. I think I still have a little bit of concern or reservation credentials doesn't necessarily mean reduce certain bias. Like I appreciate that. Yeah, I don't bring in that expertise but I think I still have that lingering concern and bias and almost a little bit more with the credentials a bit. Like does that now create a barrier for folks who wanna be a part of that commission? I know, a little different from what I've said before but I wanted to name that too. And again, that might be more of a question for the council. So I think to that point, statute does identify that the body should be made up of experts with credentials in certain, or sorry, with background in certain areas. It doesn't require that it be that way. So the commissioners can be, there could be several individuals that have the expertise and then several that are just lay folk that do not have the expertise as well. So the idea I think would be structured similar to our other boards and commissions where it would be a five member board with two alternates like our development review board and planning commission that I staff currently, all the members participate in all the meetings whether they're a regular member or an alternate. That's really the designation is only for voting purposes. So we could potentially bring in experts as needed on that board. However, that suits the council. Yeah, I would like to see the name change from commission to board because it's not, because of the confusion with the policy. I don't see an intersection with inclusion belonging for that reason, similar to DRV, it's not policy. But I think to your point and similar with DRV and really any of the bodies that we recruit for, it's important to try to solicit like diverse representation and think about that when we interview candidates. Yeah, in advertisements. In advertisements, yeah. I wanna just make sure that nothing proposed here would prohibit energy efficiency updates that may alter the exterior of a building. That's not the intent. I tried to cover that under item seven of the covered actions. Okay. But it may need to be more explicit. Such as solar, if somebody wanted to add solar to their building, that would have, obviously more apparent external. Yeah, I think a lot of times, and again, I think that goes back to why the building is significant. So if it has nothing to do with the roof of the structure, then that may not be an applicable, that may not be a covered action to do something like solar. Similarly, what I've seen in other communities and how this has worked in other areas is that with things like changes to the roof or the siding, for example, if there's a clabored siding that is historically accurate, the commission or a board may still permit a vinyl siding to be put over it as long as that clabored stays in place. So the vinyl could be taken off and the historic structure remains underneath. So it could be a similar scenario with doing solar or other energy efficiency measures. I think the infrastructure associated with those projects, solar being a rare example because it's mounted to the roof, most of the energy efficiency would either be interior or exterior envelope to achieve that, which these regulations should be, should be mindful of and not prohibit those changes to be made. Yeah, obviously solar is the more significant. E-pumps would have some exterior changes and EV chargers would have some exterior components to it. I think those are probably the more significant elements at least in terms of technology we're seeing now with technology changes. Right. Yeah, and I don't think those projects would provide if they're not altering the building itself, that wouldn't be covered. Okay. One thing I think of the council locally because windows, I don't know if that would be considered as changing the building in a substantial way because old buildings typically have pretty thin windows and a cheaper way to kind of weatherize your homes by putting newer ones in. A lot of new window forms don't follow the older ones. Yeah, so under item five, we do talk about any changes to the opening for the window. So if they need to enlarge or reduce the size of the window that may fall under this. However, if it's for the purposes of egress or any life safety standard, it would not be applicable in this case. So it is possible that they could replace windows without having to go through this process. Also, I believe it's under, yes, under item five as well. Anything on the rear of the building would not be applicable here either. So it's really the facades that are more visible to the public is what would be captured under the covered actions. Could there possibly be some specific language added to five? Because yeah, you have the life safety, state energy codes, which touches a little bit, and ADA to have, I'm not exactly sure what that language would be, but. Yeah, for energy efficiency. Is there a standard we should name? So the state energy codes are the standard. Okay, excellent. The minimum standard, but it is the standard. Right, and I think that was written specifically so that if those standards change, then this doesn't, we're not locked into a specific standard that may come out of date. And usually the state energy codes, there are elements that address existing modifications to existing homes. The bulk of the energy codes are for new construction. So that's kind of why I was hearing my questions more to like adding solar, adding heat pumps, adding EV chargers, things along those lines. So I'm personally satisfied with your answer. I will say throughout discussions too, the intent of the commission was to be like the least restrictive, like specifically reference some neighboring towns, historic preservation that we don't want to reflect. So that people can do safety and energy efficiency upgrades and even make changes to kind of redevelop but while maintaining some of the historic integrity or whatever the resources identify. Right, right. And I think it's also important to point out that through the process of if a covered action is proposed, through the process of going to the local resource advisory board, they may determine that the modification doesn't impact the structure and the structure may itself no longer, may have been modified enough already that it's no longer, should no longer be considered historic or architecturally significant, culturally significant or probably not archeologically significant but it's still, that's where some of that discretion comes in to make sure that the, just because the building is on the list currently, doesn't mean that what's being proposed is going to adversely impact that property and therefore it may be the, what's being proposed may still receive a certificate of appropriateness. I think this is an issue that's come up in the past and I don't know if this board and this might cover but thinking about landlords or owners who kind of let a property decay with the intent of having it decay so much as no longer being considered historic and just preventing that. I don't know if that is something that can be prevented but it was something that came to mind as I was reading through it. Yeah, so this, these regulations wouldn't address that directly. I think probably where we would see that come into play is under our general life safety code for building quality when, in particular with rental properties when they're being inspected to make sure that they don't deteriorate to a point where they're basically demolition by neglect. Yeah, okay. That said, if something is already in a state or like it reaches the state where it can, it's not a viable building anymore. Right. Would have to go through this for a demo but could be determined. Exactly. Go ahead and demo it because it's not a worthwhile. That's right, that's right. And also I should point out that there's references under the covered actions under item one where it references section 4.1a. That section talks about specifically properties that are damaged by fire or act of God, whatever the case might be that they can be demolished if they are a hazard without going through any of this process. So if there really is some sort of significant hazard we don't wanna hold that up to make sure that the public is safe. Related to that, what if it's not so severe that it would require demolition? Yeah, so there's a carve out in that section as well that allows for buildings to be reconstructed back to their existing state without needing to go through the permitting process. So that would be covered there as well. Of the unfortunate incidences that could occur, a vehicle goes into the building. Right, tree falls on the house. Sure. That could be reconstructed without needing to. With the expectation that it would need to be restored or repaired to conform with the remainder of the building. Yeah, I believe I pulled this up earlier. The way it's written is that section 4.1. I was just reading it earlier. Basically, it can be restored to its original, to the pre-damaged condition without needing to get a permit, which would then exempt it from these regulations. I guess my question is the expectation that it will be restored to be in conformance with the remainder of the building, to its... So to, for section 4.1 to apply, where they wouldn't need permits, then yes. If they were to make alterations, then that does require the permitting and puts it into a separate process. Okay, great. Thank you. Any other questions down here? Any questions from the public? Are we all in favor of renaming the body from commission to board? Yes. Okay. I think that's our only change then ahead of the public hearing. Okay, that sounds great. I can update that and provide a new draft for the hearing. All right, thank you. Great, thank you all very much. Thank you. So you're sticking around, yes, I'm joining. I am. If you wouldn't mind, I'd actually like to kick off the next item, or last item. So this is on item F. It's an overview and information on housing replacement options. As you all know, I attend a monthly call with housing and service providers, addressing housing concerns across the community. And one thing that came up in December was a recommendation from the group that the next policy priority we should be pursuing is a replacement ordinance. This is something that was included in our original housing needs assessment, though had not yet been, there's a number of recommendations in there. The housing commission has been working through, so that's where like housing trust fund came from, and some other things have happened before. There are also other recommendations in there that haven't been considered yet, like inclusionary zoning, for example. So that group was pretty adamant that they thought this was important. So I'm bringing it to council to ask if this is something that we think should be the next priority for our housing commission to work on, and then had asked staff for information about two different approaches to get there. So one is the regular way we adopt policies. The other is this like interim zoning approach that could act faster. In my estimate though, requires a lot more work in the long term, in my offset other priorities. So with that, I'll hand it over to you all. Can we start? Okay, so thank you very much. So included with your agenda for tonight was a memo from Jasmine and I outlining two processes, as the mayor just described a little bit. One is through the municipal code. So similar to the short term rental regulations, housing policies, parking, things like that, a replacement regulation could be included in the municipal code or in the land use regulations. And then under the land use regulations, there are two possible tracks. One being the interim zoning, which does not require planning commission approval is simply done through council, kind of as an emergency action to correct an issue. Ultimately, the planning commission still does have to go through to create the regulation to make it a permanent change rather than the interim change, but that is a more expedited process. The other option there would be to just run the standard process through normal zoning updates like we just did with the previous agenda item. Also as part of the memo, it kind of outlines some of the considerations for what you may want to include in replacement ordinance, whether it be or sorry, replacement regulation, whether that be replacement for specific dwelling units, or the number of units, the bedroom count of the units or some combination there of both. So kind of outlining some of those processes. There's also the question about affordability and we want to take that into consideration. Some of that may be difficult to really grasp, but just the memo kind of outlines some of the processes and provides some information on what we've seen in the past basically six, seven years of developments, primarily on the gateways that we've been tracking or that I've been tracking to give you a sense of what was previously there and what's there currently. I do have some additional information on the breakdown of what was previously on these properties prior to the redevelopment. So in the table of the memo on page three, it just lists the number of dwelling units previously. I did do some additional research looking through our assessor's records to see the actual breakdown of unit counts and bedroom counts as well. So based on that information, and I want to caveat the highlighted property, 138 through 166 East Avenue Street still exists, those properties that have not been, they have not been altered yet as that is not an approved permit. So based on the properties that are listed here, there were 40 total dwellings, including 10 that were part of the hotel at 348 Main Street. So take that for what they're worth. Of those 40 dwellings, 13 were one bedroom, 14 were two bedroom, 13 are three bedroom or more bedrooms, three or more bedrooms. So if you compare that to what we've seen constructed in the same timeframe, we're actually, we are replacing what we've lost and then some. So just to give you that context for what's there. Now I will also caveat that by saying that the project at 36 Mallets Bay Avenue with the Butternut Station was 20 of those three plus bedroom units. But overall, what we've lost in the redevelopment properties we've also added back plus and I'll let Jasmine add anything else. Can you clarify bedrooms per unit or total bedrooms? Bedrooms per unit. Yes, bedrooms per unit. So there's that. So just to be very clear, there's at least 13 that were replaced that have three or more bedrooms. Correct. We had previously there were 13 of the properties listed here, 13 of those properties had a dwelling unit with three or more bedrooms. Sorry, there were 13 dwelling units that had three or more bedrooms on those properties. Four of them still exists because they're a part of the 138 to 166 East Allen Street. So four of those still are out there. The other nine have been lost, but we've added 24 units with three or more bedrooms. And I left this out at the top. It's the loss of free bedroom family size housing that is why the housing group was recommending that we should adopt something. Affordability was also part of that discussion, but that's the bigger piece is the three bedroom. Yeah, and I will say, I know you had also asked us if we were able to determine what proportion of the housing that has been lost was affordable housing. And unfortunately, it's a common issue, but unless it's capital A affordable housing, it's very hard to keep data on naturally affordable occurring housing. So 300 main, for example, we all know that that is naturally occurring affordable housing. But for the most part, there are a lot of mom and pop rentals, things that come offline that we just don't have the capacity as a municipality to trap rents for every single property in the city. So that's unfortunately not data that we have to us. Obviously it is easy to know that generally older housing stock is more likely to be in the naturally affordable range and therefore more likely to be redeveloped, but kind of data wise, we're not able to look back at that data. Yeah, and then in terms of affordability, it is worth it to note that it is common that replacement regulations are paired generally with the inclusionary zoning. It's common that those are kind of melted together. So it's just good to keep in mind as we think about this topic. I would also add, and I believe the mayor, you had a question about this in an email about ADUs, accessory dwelling units and any just random units that have been added. I did look back through some of our zoning files and was able to generally determine this is not a very scientific estimation, but there's been approximately 20 accessory dwelling units that have been added in about 25 new individual units since 2017 that have come online. So somewhere in that, I don't have information on the bedroom counts of those units, but that's, we've added additional units here and there over those years also. So there's a lot of like options laid out here since producing this memo. I will say that I have a recommendation that we ask as planning commission and housing commission act on our prior directive related to Act 47, that they consider inclusionary zoning for affordability and replacement for three bedroom units as part of that work. I don't recommend having us enact interim zoning, but I think that would long-term not be as effective, but space for questions here. I'll also say the time. Yeah, I appreciate the context of having that the majority of these three plus bedroom are due to a CHT building, which to me highlights, I don't know, that's a very specific partner and that it highlights to me that buildings that are not being done by that partner are not including three or plus bedrooms. So this, it feels definitely like we need this. I feel like that's underlined. I definitely feel some urgency with it, but I think that is also in context of is this going to help the people on 300 main? Trying to adopt it urgently through interim zoning likely will not. Additionally, I would add just to that that the units at 300 main are all two bedroom, so we wouldn't be able to require any additional three bedroom for redevelopment of that property. I will also add that the zoning regulations currently do have language that incentivize affordable and three plus bedroom units. We will be revisiting that because of some of the changes to Act 47. Makes some of those incentives no longer incentives. So that is something we will be looking at with the planning commission as well to try to figure out how to better incentivize or what incentives might make more sense in light of Act 47 and potentially if you so direct any type of replacement or inclusionary zoning that may need to be finessed to make those incentives, actual incentives. Yeah, I will say we have the incentives at this point for a lot of this and a lot of the time, like for inclusionary, most projects take advantage of the priority housing project. So we're almost there, but it is just that last bit, the wiggle room of well, they have the option to not, which I think considering the need for affordable units and the integration of affordable units and mixed income buildings, I think that it's wise for us to continue that. So it's just a full guaranteed and staff doesn't have to spend time advocating that those affordable units or three plus bedroom units are included. I also support having this go through the planning commission. I think timeline wise, kind of might be faster. But also be more thorough. They spend more time looking at this language than we do. So that would be my preference. And I think including it with Act 47 updates, also looking at that timeline makes a lot of sense to me. I know it's not necessarily, it may or may not be related. I'm gonna just ask the question is, there've been some properties acquired and demolished that have yet to be developed and that seem to be on an extended timeline for development. Is there any policy language that can influence the construction timeline for replacement of those units that were demolished? I don't think we've discussed timeline at all. I do know that it would prevent non-resident or them developing it into non-residential units. They would need to at least replace the number of housing units that were existing before, which is very rare that people don't do that because that's just good investment at this point. But we haven't talked about time restrictions at all, you might know. Yeah, it hasn't been discussed at this point. What you're referring to counselor may be more appropriate to do in some sort of vacant structure or vacant land regulation to address that so that if there was a viable property that has since been demolished that there is a certain amount of time that they need to start moving forward on redeveloping the property. With that said, I'm not sure what mechanisms we have to require that if it's a vacant property. So that may be challenging. Yeah, that kind of comes to mind as permitting frequency of like, okay, your permit like with actually 50, your permit expires, you will have to go through the whole process again. Yeah, and we would have that in place if there was a redevelopment proposed with the demolition. If the property owner just proposes demolition outright and does not have a plan for redevelopment, once they demolish the property, there's no, we have no mechanism in place to require them to move forward. If they propose redevelopment with the demolition, the zoning permit does have an expiration of one year. So they would need to act on the redevelopment within that timeframe or request an extension. So there are some controls in that regard, but if they're not proposing redevelopment at the time of demolition, there's nothing currently that we have that requires the reconstruction. Silly question. How can we compel redevelopment with demolition? It's a good question. I think in most cases, there's been few examples where I've seen the demolition, where I've had a permit for demolition without new construction. In most cases, the property owner is trying to meet some deadline or timeline. For example, the April 1st setting of the grand list. So they want to get that off of the grand list for their purposes and then they might come in later for the redevelopment. Yeah, I don't know if I have a good answer though for that. I mean, it's rare that we see properties being demolished, viable properties being demolished and not being rebuilt with something because then it's just whoever owns the property just now has a piece of vacant land that's not making them any income. Provide, presuming that there, it wasn't income producing property to start, so. But if it's a highly leveraged developer. Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. So, I don't know, it's something we can look into though, I think, to see what we might be able to do. Yeah, we still are researching and interested in vacant building, potentially ordinance, registry, but this has kind of bumped its way up instead. Sure. But the time being. That does spur me, I want to state this out loud though. The more restrictions we put and like these requirements for inclusionary zoning or three bedrooms are going to make development harder and so where the initial rollout of form-based code clearly led to a lot of redevelopment, the more requirements we put in is going to slow that down. I personally am okay with that decision because I think it's better to get the kind of housing we need, even if that means less redevelopment overall. But that is like a decision. Yeah, I would say some certainly more than others. Exact unit number and bedroom count definitely could hinder if someone was demolishing a bunch of three bedroom units. That's, we know it's cost prohibitive for developers to develop new build rental three plus bedroom units that is going to be a bit of a tough sell potentially, but total bedroom count, that's a lot easier. Total unit number, that's a lot easier. Inclusionary also, we almost already have it. So it's not going to be a huge change from what we already have because we had one property that didn't do it in the past seven years. We've had many affordable units. Things to actively, but yeah. I just had one quick thing on properties where somebody just demolishes it and leaves it as vacant land within our charter. We charge commercial adjustment on vacant land that's held for development. So they would be subject to that additional 20% assessment. Learning something new every day. Yeah. I'm in agreement with the commission plan. Great. So we will ask, I think what we want to do is ask housing commission to give some recommendations on the questions here about like unit count, bedroom count, et cetera. And then planning commission looking from the act 47 review. We have this meeting coming up to coordinate across the commissions. I think can better define what that looks like. But we are interested in some kind of replacement and stronger inclusionary zoning. Is there more specific guidance that we should be giving right now? No, I think both of us. I would recommend actually not much more specific so that they have some room to give recommendations. Yeah, so in your DR and then. Yeah, I was gonna say unless you had specific or strong feelings on the questions of bedrooms versus units versus bedrooms and units. I think it's safe to say that we are specifically concerned with three bedroom units. What that looks like regulatory. We just want to make sure we're not, the Champlain Housing Trust isn't the only person willing to build them. My only other thing is I would want to, I would not want a sideline, short term housing. Short term rental. Thank you. Short term rental ordinance language that we're moving forward and looking to launch. Obviously act 47 takes priority but the only other element is quality, housing quality considerations and needs as well. Yeah, short term rental is already on. Okay. So I have this, oh wait, I should invite, is there any public comment? I don't even know if anyone's sorry. Just Connor. Just Connor, so probably not. He's always welcome too. Okay, so I have this on for discussion approval. So can I have a motion to advance replacement ordinance and inclusionary zoning with a focus on three bedroom units to our planning and housing commissions? So moved. Second. Motion by Thomas, second by Charlie. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Motion carries. Thank you. Thank you very much. That's the end of tonight's agenda. Do I have a motion to adjourn? So moved. Second. Motion by Charlie, second by Bryn. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Motion carries, meeting adjourned. Thank you.