 Okay, welcome to tonight's meeting. I'm going to call it to order. Um, our first item up is public comment, which is not specifically about the housing by law movement. So if there's anyone who has public comment? Anyone on the committee? Okay. Um, the minutes? Emily, are you able to pull things? It's going to show up. Okay. I didn't have anything to add. I didn't have any comments. Okay. So I'm moved to accept the minutes. We didn't even amend them. I can second. Jaypen, are you ready for a vote? Do you want a minute? Okay, let's do a vote. All in favor of accepting the minutes as, as is. All opposed. I can't see. Yes. All right. Great. Okay. Next thing up is the Velco waiver. That's, that's me. Um, so we received this request from, um, my electric. Um, this is related to work they plan to do at the large substation behind Mabel pre place. Um, all of the work is within the confines of the existing substation, but the work does require a permit from the public utility commission, which also generates a requirement for 45 days of notice to the town. Uh, unless waived by the town and Delta informs me that the waiver has to come from both planning commission and the select board and thus requested that the planning commission consider this waiver. Um, provided you with request memo, uh, as well as a diagram of substation and showing locations of the existing work. Um, my recommendation since it's all inside the existing fence would be to waive the 45 day notice. Uh, and just note that this same request will go in front of the select board at one of their upcoming meetings. So you got to waive it. They got to waive it. Then they don't have to do the 45 day notice to go to the PUC to request the permit for these upgrades. Yeah, comment. I'm okay with approving it because of what it is in the footprint, but I do want to note that some of the labels are more than confusing. I think they're inaccurate. It says in one of them like this is where the current backup transformer is stored. And then if you look at where it's planning to be, it doesn't make sense to me. At least it makes sense to me, but I'm, I am sure the engineering is good. I can speak to that if you'd like. Sure. So that aerial view that you're showing right there, the transformer along the fence, that spare transformer is actually moved into the position. What you're looking at here, this picture right here is actually showing the breaker. See the foundations? That's where another breaker is just like the one in the background is going to be placed. And there's another photo there that'll show the transformer. That transformer is actually moved into that position. It was in the aerial view alongside the fence and our maintenance crew moved it into this position. That's why it was confusing that it was pointed in the aerial view as being one person. Okay. Thank you. And can you just state your name for the record, your expertise? That's David Haas, H-A-A-S. Thank you. And thank you for clarifying. Okay. Well, thank you very much. Do we feel like we're ready to take a vote? We need to take a vote on this? Yeah. So I prepared from Velco a draft item for signature by one of the two co-chairs and appropriate action be for the Planning Commission to vote to authorize the chair to sign. So move. Okay. Second. Great. Okay. Next thing is Trader Lane. I suspect we might chat more about this one. I'm not sure if it's Emily or Matt who might. I'll start it off. So I've prepared a memo that I'm guessing most of you read with interest. The subject of this agenda item is planning for the future public street Trader Lane within the tap corners form based code overlay. This is a street that would be constructed connecting from the side of the Hannaford supermarket down along the side of the Texas Roadhouse crossing a new signalized intersection on route two to Hannaford. Helena Drive. A portion of this project would also be a small extension connecting Trader Lane to right Avenue. The construction of Trader Lane has been a long standing goal of the towns. It's one of our bridge streets. It will unlock the ability for the landowner adjacent to use some land to develop that development would would proceed in conformance with the new form based code adopted for this area which is great that the town has completed that land use regulation project and also will provide some congestion relief related to route two a some of the intersections coming up out of this part of tap corners. So some progress that we've made on Trader Lane since the adoption of the form based code where Trader Lane was located as part of the regulating plan. An official map at the town level the town manager's office public works department and planning have been working with the landowner tap corners associates to come to an agreement on sharing some costs related to design and permitting of the construction of Trader Lane. And as part of that process we've looked at looked at the feasibility of doing Trader Lane in the way that it was originally conceptualized in the regulating plan. Coming out of our tap corners vision and work by Jeffrey Farrell associates consultant where different from the way Trader Lane was ever laid out before Jeff Farrell had had opted for one way street circulation around green that would be associated with with Trader Lane. And you can see that green sort of alongside the side of Hannaford and then sort of taking a corner out of the block next door. So a couple of things that have happened as other follow up activities related to the form based code. One was that the form based code had all of these new street designs in it and one of the follow up activities staff here needed to do was take those designs through to adoption as part of the public work standard specifications. And we did that. But public works was not in favor of adopting the one way street section that would have been utilized around the Trader Lane green reason reason for that being circulation maneuverability and also to very low speed street and currently under Vermont law municipalities cannot host streets at a speed limit below 25 miles an hour where the one way street would have at least a 20 if not lowered mile per hour design speed. So our public works director's input on that was you know if you you build a street with a stated design speed lower than you can post it and somebody goes that lowest available posted speed and gets into a crash they can say to the town hey you designed a street that was meant for me to go 20 but you stuck a sign on it that said I could go 25 or I know that I can go 25 and then I crashed because I couldn't. So there's a liability issue for the town of that. So for that for that reason we are looking at a version of Trader Lane that would use the two way street section in the form base code. It's the ST 3680 or 3880. So that's 36 or 38 feet curve to curve 80 feet building face and in doing that to facilitate the reconfiguration of Trader Lane and not not have that one way street. The green now slides down to form essentially a T with right Avenue and it's the same size green. We took a look at the grade of both sites very very similar grade. So you know the first question I had is are we are we relocating the green onto a sort of a substance of property. The answer is no. It was on Taft Corners Associates property before it's still all on Taft Corners Associates property. Thanks to Melinda for redrawing the regulating plan to imagine accommodating Trader Lane and you can see that one of the what I think is really the advantage is adopting official map and regulating plan is when you go to make a site change like this you have to think about how it all is going to connect and what's going to happen. So that did lead us to one slightly interesting conclusion in this draft which was we weren't going to put a street in the back of the resource building because it would be very close to Trader Lane but we said let's put a required building line along that side of the green. This would allow somebody redeveloping the resource lot to come in from Harvest Lane park under the building and bring some you know likely residential buildings right up to likely a pedestrian way along Trader Lane. So in the two diagrams here the one on the right it's a little hard to see that blue line but you have the red street is right avenue the yellow is Trader Lane and the blue is the Trader Lane green with the RVL on it allowing buildings to go there. Moving forward through the memo there's this comparison table I think I've talked about a couple of these issues already. One of the things that I haven't mentioned that's sort of an offshoot of this is when you slide that Trader Lane green over you make right avenue shorter you actually make the right avenue block complying with the guiding principles of the form based code blocks under 360 feet in length it makes the right block about 275 where it was about 440 before. So as a change to the regulating plan official map and street specifications map this would need to go through the bylaw amendment process just like the hearing we're about to have on another matter. Staff recommendation my recommendation would be that the planning commission set this to a planning commission hearing so we can get that process going. We would then have to take it through a discussion with the select board. It's very important that for the town that we decide on this before we start incurring any design or permitting costs. We only want to pay an engineer to design this road. And we are hoping to be able to share costs for associates to get that started and maybe have a chance of seeing this will come to fruition in the near future. Is the plan for the rest of Trader Lane heading north to to remain the same as. Yes, there's a there's a there's a slight job where it just misses that Texas Roadhouse property. And it would line up with a slight realignment of Helena Drive toward where the sandwich company building was that clears it around the Texas Roadhouse property keeps us from impacting that property owner. And to get from where that new green is to there you just jog along the edge of the jail Davis property behind the TD bank parcel. So you can start to see the beginning of that job towards the right side of the screen in the proposed amendment image and then it just kind of eases back over to come come down under. My question was only are we going to be amending the official map to realign that later or is it already okay and could we include that part. I would include that in this so we would just make sure everything connected and remember once we put it somewhere on the regulating plan. I can administratively move the street 75 feet one way or the other essentially. And that's more than enough to deal with any field adjustments that would have to happen. It's really the green configuration in the street spec that are critical to take through the amendment process. I have trepidation about changing these things and we spent so long on but I it sounds well thought out. I have one very minor suggestion which is on that proposed map. There is a road called countryside lane that becomes a road called Bishop Avenue and I don't think we want to have changing names on the same short streets. So I hope that can be resolved. I think we would keep it all Bishop Avenue but duly noted and also just know the names are not part of the regulatory. We give the streets names but that's there's a whole road. In sort of gray on some of these drawings and actually it looks more clear here that what I have read online are I think the all the plans and some other plans. Actually the diagram in the memo does not show all the. It shows a different rendering imagining building to the form based code on the all the law adjacent. That's what I wondered if that was because it looks like there's buildings along the street and parking or green space behind. But that's not planned. That's just to show what would happen if it followed regulatory. Yeah so the owner of the property had William Lamphere architects prepared these two comparisons and then Melinda went and superimposed the actual regulating plant dimensions over them. But as part of our conversation with the owner we're just kind of exploring what could this look like and they went out and provided those for us. I feel like we have a net loss of green space with this reconfiguration. Has anybody calculated that out. The green is roughly the same size. Okay but the lower the. Yeah on the left side there's an L shaped. Green on the right that's loses part of it. Yeah so those are both sort of just perspective plans. So the big L shaped green is in a block that gets smaller with the relocation of Trader Lane which is part of why they're showing that smaller green. And then. Right so that that gets smaller because now Trader Lane essentially comes straight across the leg of the L. The green shifts over and then where the green was sort of on the other side of Trader Lane next to that pink rectangle. They just sort of roughed in a building with kind of sort of like a service parking lot under it. That wouldn't comply all by itself with the form based code. In fact some of this perspective development in a couple of ways would need to adjust a little bit to meet the full code. But the general idea of buildings up on the street is accurate. But I wouldn't take this as approving any of those development plans. We have a numerical quantitative requirement for green space on site that they would need to follow. So your point is that the green was reserved green space on the regulatory regular. The Trader Lane Green. Yes whereas the green space within the block was just representing what follows the bylaws. Right. And isn't an amount so it does shrink but it's not something that. Yeah and for those following along on Zoom what is circled in pink is the Trader Lane Green. That's shown on the regulating plan as the future public partner. What circled in blue is what Matt was describing part of that speculative private area. If there's a lot to develop. Yeah I guess I have another question which is perhaps just venting a little frustration that. That municipalities can't. Change speed limits. You know I'm I'm completely baffled by that because. There are certainly. Places where 25 miles an hour is too fast. Yeah so we have. We approached our legislative delegation about that towards the sort of the back. Third quarter of this by this half of the biennium and we'll be returning with that by the RPC and Taylor Newton. Next time around so we have a couple legislators who understand. The issue that that 25 mile an hour limit on limits is actually really problematic for. For my communities that are trying to have walkable downtowns or walkable areas in their growth centers or have street designs that are designed for flow but not really high speeds. And so number of our neighboring communities have run into the same thing and said you know no we want you know we have a street that's maybe a minor street that cars need to get through but we're really not trying to. You know move them through at a high rate of speed and this law creates challenge so. It's going to take a little bit of just informing folks at the legislature as to why that might be an issue but we've communicated with them and with the state agency of commerce and community development. That that would really terrible pun pay the way for some for some other street designs to be able to come into our back. And so the configuration on the left as adopted that is not possible at 25 miles an hour speed limit. You wouldn't recommend that. No. Because of the. I know you said this earlier. I'm just clarifying. And because of those 90 degree turns and there's parking on it and parking both sides. Well sensible people would drive slower. But yes I understand. Okay. Thank you for clarifying that. And thank you for reaching out to the legislative delegation to because I think we need to change that. We can have walkable neighborhoods with the lowest minimum of 25. The the form based code project continues to surprise with the number of things that connects us to when you're really trying to design a place from 10,000 feet. You find things like this. This is on both of them. But the orange street that is perpendicular to right Avenue. Is that supposed to be a new street that would be a new street on the regulating plan. That's what's called a level two street. And what a level two street means is it wouldn't be required unless that lot was entirely sort of bulldozed and redeveloped. So it runs. Right along the back edge of the existing TD Bank building that runs out on. And so the any any further development on this lot would need to accommodate that street in other words don't put a building right there. But the street itself doesn't have to be constructed unless there's a more dramatic reworking of that lot. And we have a couple of those on the map. Like there's one that runs right through the middle of Ashley furniture that would not happen as long as AOT owns Brute to and won't happen as long as Ashley furniture. That's another good example. Seems like they would be very close to each other though, you know, like Trader Lane and whatever road that would be. If you have another one at Ashley furniture, I mean, you'd have tons of roads coming into route to right there. And that's pretty close to the intersection, I would think that one. I think it's I think from the Orange Street across from the Blue Street, the street that's behind CBS along right Avenue back to the intersection with with Trader. That's our four hundred and seventy five foot dimension. Not quite the whole thing actually going going just from the back corner of CBS. That's the four hundred and seventy five feet I mentioned in the table. And then when when you shift the green at that distance instead is the I'm sorry, I'm not looking at my numbers. Sorry, two seventy five when it's short three and four forty when it's long. So there's a couple hundred feet there. But you do you do want to think about things like lines of sight and how people will be moving through there for sure. But how many years are we on trying to get Trader Lane, even just the one. I was told when I was hired in 2008 we were just about to build Trader Lane. Right. So I feel like one way to you can just to a the time. I mean, I guess the same question as you did about it. It reminded me of our conversation when Jeff was talking about the site plan of the green space that was then never built over on the other side of any crossing. I just got smaller and smaller and then evaporated. That's like that's definitely one. That's that's the intent of putting some regulatory amendment stuff around shifting things on the official map. There are a lot of eyes on it and it's always done in the context of the whole map very much so so as to not lose sight of that. Does Ellie have any any questions? No, nothing to add. Thanks. I'm feeling like I don't love that it's the first thing we're doing for base code is kind of making a change. I think that's this is what you know this is what this code is for that. It's like it gives us this framework and yeah, I guess that kind of raises a question of the interaction with Department of Public Works and, you know, moving forward or this is just going to happen again and again and again. Where we discover that under the current rules that they're operating in form base code is sort of not practical. So I'll answer it a couple different ways. One is this is the only place we had the one way street configuration on the map. All of the other streets on the map come with a select board adopted public work standard specification now they can be built as designed. The second answer is this is the only road we're proposing to build in town where the town will be a participant. So in every other case we're dealing with an applicant who's being asked to build, you know, their portion of the road on this map. So I don't think this is going to come up where we're in conflict with what what another town department is able to do. It's a pretty unique situation. I do think you will have private property owners who come in with other ideas for what they'd like to have happen in the street grid on their property. And the really nice thing is that you have some adopted guide post right in the form base code chapter to say, hey, the primary goal here is to have walkable blocks. And that comes with these these maximum lengths and it comes with some other things that you might be able to move these things around a little bit. But you can't, you know, blow up that pattern and create a super block or do something that would really run a counter to the state goals. Like a motion. One right here if you want to read it. Yeah. I wanted to add a couple words to it. Yeah. Sorry. I authorize as authorized by WDB 8.2 and 24 BSA 4441. I Chapin Caner move that the Wilson Planning Commission authorized staff to warn a public hearing on bylaw amendments to modify the regulating plan official map and street specifications as described above with one additional caveat, which is that the green space in the new green is at least equal to or larger than the green space that it's replacing. Second. Let's take a vote. All in favor of that as so amended. I. I. All folks. Ladies and gentlemen. All right. Thank you. Thank you. So I think we're at the point then where we're going to open the meeting for all the folks here joining us here along. Yeah, the hearing. You ready. You're going to do the instructions. Yeah. So folks who are on zoom. We'll have an antiperson as well. We'll have an introduction to the bylaw amendments and time for the planning commission to have question and discussion that will open it up to the public forum for testimony. If you're on zoom, you can let me know by commenting in the chat. And we'd like to see verbally use the raise hand on the toolbar. If you're in person, you'll come forward to the microphone. Don't adjust the microphone. It's all set up. I just have a seat at the table and remember for everybody, both in person and online to state your name and address before speaking. Okay. So I hereby called this to order at. 659 and I'm not going to impose time limits at this point because it looks as though we have plenty of time for folks to speak their mind and be conscientious. So does anyone from the public have questions or comments about topics? Not on tonight's agenda. If folks want to let me give a brief, very brief overview of this. Okay. I think that's helpful. I told the staff I'd be both brief and inspiring and I've only said one of them. I'm going to go for two for two. And the materials are here. If you didn't hear that, there's stacks of information on that. It's very in depth. So help yourself. So, you know, you have before you a bylaw amendment, the bulk of which is about making some housing supportive changes to the way Williston regulates the creation of new homes. And I'm going to leave it to the other staff to give an overview of both, both that and some of the other components that would pick up along the way related to accessory uses and permit thresholds and things like that. But all I wanted to say is I'm really, I'm really proud of the planning commission and staff for getting to this point on this. We've been spending a lot of time talking to people about our next town plan effort for Williston 2050 effort over the last month or so. And one of the big selling points that I can always give people about participating in town planning Williston is Williston is one of those communities that actually uses its town plan. It sets out goals, sets out work items, and then it goes out and achieves them. So Williston's town plan said take another look at housing issues, take another look at affordability, try to find some other ways to support those things. And the planning commission and excellent staff here have gone and done that. And it's really, it's really rewarding as a staff person to be part of that process. So thank you, brought it a long way. We started talking about this in the middle of form based code. We identified the need to do a housing needs assessment. We did one. We had great preliminary policy conversations with the select board and then took it back inside for the technical review with staff and this group. And here you are at a hearing for something that I really think has some potential to make a positive impact on this issue in town. So that's all I'm going to say. Great, great job. We're here to help you get it over the goal line and off to the select board for their consideration. Again, I'll leave a more technical summary to the rest of the staff or we can jump into questions. However you want to do it. Yeah. So let's see. I think I will start by going over this memo. Should I share it? Yeah. Sure. So I'm just going to kind of go over, you know, sort of step by step the collected amendments and I will probably get into a little bit more detail when it comes to the housing amendments. But for members of the public on June 20th, the planning commission reviewed these collected amendments to the Wilson development bylaws and voted to warn a public hearing on the collected bylaw amendments being held tonight. And the following summarizes the proposed amendments. I've italicized those amendments that were done after the 6th, the June 20th planning commission meeting and incorporated into the hearing draft. And finally at the end, there are some proposed additional revisions that staff had thought of after the hearing. The hearing draft had been, you know, was out in the world. So we're going to just briefly discuss that. So first of all, chapter three, Barry Meyer, and then changing the name of the historic and architectural advisory committee to historic and design advisory committee and reducing their members from seven to five. Chapter four, dealing with permit thresholds and exemptions, removing temporary events from regulation by the bylaw because it's now regulated under the town's temporary events ordinance, providing clearer statements on the types of permits that the bylaw requires and their thresholds. There is an administrative threshold for mobile vendors, essentially food trucks changed from affecting less than a thousand square feet to occupying less than a thousand square feet, just adding some clarity there. Adding emergency shelters to the list of partial exemptions to permit requirements, and that came about because S100 has incorporated that into their exempted facilities. So we just want to be consistent with the newly passed S100. And so chapter 11, growth management, that is where the bulk of the housing supportive bylaw amendments are. So first of all, allowing exemptions to growth management for small low impact infill projects such as adaptive reuse of non-residential structures to residential, allowing up to a total, four total dwelling units on an existing parcel without having to go through growth management. Allow an exemption to growth management for projects that include a certain percentage of affordable homes. In other words, another term for this is inclusionary zoning. So we batted a whole section in chapter 11 related to inclusionary zoning with details on required percentages of affordable homes, requirements for affordable units, incentives for including affordable homes, means of ensuring perpetual affordability, a payment in lieu provision, which would essentially be a way for some projects, projects that aren't going to provide affordable homes, would need to go through growth management, and projects that have ten dwelling units or greater would also need to make a payment that would go into the housing trust fund. And then there, so that's, that's like kind of the bulk of it. And then there were some other minor amendments to chapter 11 related to housing. Amendments to the language about the residential growth targets to reflect this new inclusionary zoning section. Minor amendments to growth management procedure and allocation rules, revising the definition of affordable housing to mean housing affordable at Burlington, South Burlington, MSA, 100% area median income. And that was made in chapter 11 and in 46, which is the definitions chapter. So, let's see, when the Planning Commission met on June 20th, there was a discussion about the required percentage of affordable or inclusionary projects and sort of a feeling of wanting to make it more flexible. And so what's in the hearing draft now is that from five to nine dwelling unit projects must provide one affordable unit at 100% AMI. Projects that contain at least 10 dwelling units must provide 10% affordable at 80% AMI or 15% affordable at 100% AMI. And at the end of after the hearing draft went out, we actually wanted to incorporate a little bit more flexibility. So there's a recommendation that we also incorporate a third measure just saying some combination of 80% and 100% AMI affordability that's acceptable to zoning administrator and or DRB. Because I couldn't figure out like a formula of getting it. That was a tough ask. That's where we ended on that. And then also since June 20th, we clarified the payment and loop provisions stated that fees will be adjusted from time to time by the select board as needed. Projects under 10 dwellings do not have to pay in lieu but must go through growth management if one affordable unit is not provided. And then the final amendment to chapter 11 was amending the criteria for scoring points on energy criteria. Across all three allocation areas, the growth center areas outside the growth center in the sewer service district and areas outside the sewer service district. So these criteria would apply everywhere in town. And basically the changes are that it increases the points allocated to energy criteria from actually says 20 in that memo is actually 10, 10 points to 30 points. So now projects can accrue up to 30 points for energy criteria providing more flexibility for the achievement of energy conservation points. Adding the option of using renewable sources of heat and hot water such as climate heat pumps and dropping the requirement for energy storage. So there are some recommended tweaks to that which I'll talk about at the end too. And then chapter 14, encouraging solar canopies over parking would be allowed without a permit and could be located within setbacks. Chapter 17, non-residential accessory uses and structures, temporary uses and structures. Increase the limit for accessory limited service eating spaces in Gateway zoning district north, industrial zoning district east and industrial zoning district west from 30% or 2,000 square feet, 50% or 5,000 square feet, whichever is less. Increase the limit for outdoor seating areas for accessory limited service eating places from 500 square feet to 1500 square feet. Allow EV charging stations, equipment in any zoning district within administrative permit. Remove temporary events from regulation by the bylaw. Require demolition sites to be secured and erosion control measures implemented. There's some amendments related to mobile vendors. They previously always required a discretionary permit. The changes would allow them as an accessory use in non-residential parking lots including senior housing. They will require an administrative permit where they occupy less than a thousand square foot and a discretionary permit where they affect more than where they occupy more than a thousand square feet. And they must demonstrate compliance with the bylaw by submitting a mobile vendor checklist within the administrative permit application. Documenting provision of their food license if they are food vendor, wastewater and allowance for temporary outdoor seating up to 16 people. Adequate parking being available, pedestrian and traffic safety being maintained. Hours of operation from 6.30 am to 9.00 pm. Trash and recycling provision and limits on amplified sound. And they're also given a signage allowance. And then the only addition to Chapter 18 was that demolition sites are to be secured by fencing. In Chapter 19, there are some housing supportive amendments. There is an exemption from residential density requirements for adaptive reuse projects. We added a density bonus for mixed use residential projects that include greater than 30% of affordable dwellings. And there's a clarification that transfer of development rights applies only to transfers of development rights from lands in the ARZD to lands within the Gross Center outside of the Taft Corners Farm Base Code District. Chapter 20, residential improvements. PV charging stations are allowed outside setbacks without a permit. The administrative permits no longer required for residential kennel, which must be in the side or rear yard. Allows keeping of chickens on residential parcels of any size in the VZD and the Village Zoning District and the Residential Zoning District. Livestock is allowed to be kept within 15 feet, was previously 50 feet, and bedding feed within 20 feet was previously 75 feet in the property line. Allows automated swimming pool covers instead of barriers. In Chapter 25, signs would allow, amendment would allow signage for temporary events permitted under the temporary events ordinance without an administrative permit. This exclusion is limited to one 24-foot wall sign, one 16-foot freestanding sign, and four small directional signs. Additional or off-premise signs require a permit. Special events were previously allowed signage at the discretion of the zoning administrator with few guidelines. Chapter 27, conservation areas. Amending the requirement for habitat disturbance assessments for developments in significant wildlife habitat areas during discretionary review, the biologists would be contracted by the town at the developer's expense to allow a more objective assessment to be made of a development's impacts. Previously, they were hired by the developer at the developer's expense. On then 46 definitions, there were some amendments to the definition of affordable housing to be consistent with inclusionary zoning provisions, amended the definition of dwelling, and added definition for emergency shelter. And then in several chapters, amending the name of the HAC to the HADC Historic Advice. Historic and Architectural. Thank you. Okay, so we're recommending that the Planning Commission hear from members of the public discuss whether any revision should be made. Or whether the Planning Commission feels comfortable, transmit the proposed amendments to the select board for their consideration. And then there's some further revisions that staff is recommending. And I'll just go through those. There are only a few. And then one is in Chapter 4, exemptions from the requirements of this bylaw. Adding language stating that where any bylaw provision is not consistent with state regulations, state regulations shall prevail. So this currently applies to the recently adopted HOMES Act, the S100, related to the opportunities for the creation of housing, given that it's so new right now, mostly I think the Williston bylaws comply with S100, but just to make absolutely clear that if there's any conflict, the state law must prevail. And then Chapter 11, what percentage of dwelling units this is required. This is related to the required percentage of dwelling units that need to be affordable. Just adding an option, allowing a combination of dwelling units affordable at 80% and 100% AMI. My relative percentage is acceptable to the zoning administrator and I would add 4DRB. And then another provision in Chapter 11 related to resale restrictions. There was an erroneous inconsistency with previous provisions and we need to delete the 120% AMI from applicable affordability levels. And then the energy committee discussed the energy criteria amendments and they are recommending the language cold climate heat pumps, ground source heat pumps or geothermal heat pumps be used to characterize the type of heating systems that could score points under the energy criteria. They don't support incentivizing any advanced wood heating systems and I think it's in there right now that criteria. And then in Chapter 9, just deleting a couple of sections that repeat information related to the requirement of affordable housing and bonus density as already stated in Chapter 11 and Chapter 19. So finally that's it and thank you for bearing with me here. Thank you for all your work on that one. And I'm happy to go over anything in more detail if there are questions about any of this. I do have a question about, see it's in Chapter 11 toward the end, very last bullet point about the criteria for scoring points on energy conservation. Okay. Under that it says drop the requirement for energy storage and I guess maybe I didn't realize we had a requirement for it. Well it's not a requirement, it's an incentive. And actually at the last meeting I asked that we could put that back in. That's right, so I'm sorry, that would be another recommended revision would be to put that back in. Okay. Alright, now that makes more sense because I thought that's what I remembered was that we had an incentive, it was proposed to get rid of it and then we asked to put that in. Yeah, and it's two days of typical energy demand whereas before it was four days. Right. Okay, that's great. And so the language is on the screen, I know it was confusing the back and forth. So this is the, well actually with the exception of the third bullet it says generate at least 50% of their estimated energy demand through on-site renewable source, or no that's not right. Yeah, the second bullet point, use cold climate heat pumps or advanced wood heating systems. So our recommendation would be to drop the advanced wood heating systems and just use the three different types of heating heat pumps as incentives. I have a couple clarifying questions but I also know the public might want to speak to the whole thing. Should I ask the clarifying questions? Can you go first? Okay. Is it true now that 120% AMI is gone from everywhere? That's great. There's no longer anywhere that we call that affordable or accountable. Yep. The, one of my questions has been answered in that this is different from what I saw in the earlier draft under chapter 20 about the Ministry of Permit for residential kennels. The previous draft I think just said kennels and I wanted to make sure it said residential kennels to be clear that commercial kennels are not in that category. I personally am in favor of all the staff recommended changes and the energy committee recommended change. And I wanted to understand better because I haven't gone back and looked at the detail ADUs and what we're doing about ADUs. I feel as though ADUs are really important part of allowing more housing without changing the character of Williston. And in Williston we're balancing that people don't want it to grow as fast as it grows on the whole. But we also don't want to be an elite community where people can't afford to live. And so we're trying to balance those and I see ADUs, I think all of us see ADUs as an important part of that's accessory dwelling on this. And I wanted to make sure I understood the details and in particular where we landed on short term rentals because I feel as though ADUs that have to be, when they're added or added to a property that somebody lives on avoids most of the problems people anticipate with possibly short term rentals in ADUs. And I know we had disagreements, we were like 50-50 I think on that commission. And I wanted to make sure we landed where we are all comfortable about that. Do we mention short term rentals anywhere in the snow? So we've left that aside for now. I think we do have language about ADUs and that is changing. Yeah, I mean changing. Right, so my sense from the Mentimeter survey way back when was that most of the Planning Commission members felt that the town should just be monitoring ADUs for the time being. There was such a low number currently. We weren't mentioning it because it seemed like telling people through their property should they develop it when it's not an issue. Right, you're right. I mean I see your point Chapin about wanting to know for residential neighborhoods. I don't want ADUs to not be supported by the public because they fear what's going to happen with short term rentals of them. I'd rather, I'd want to encourage ADUs as much as possible and I feel as though putting some restrictions on them keeps them to the purpose that everybody kind of wants and avoids the purpose of somebody just buying up properties and building ADUs on them to do short term rentals. I also, if I may, wanted to express for the community, they didn't realize it, that the way we are talking about these inclusionary zoning changes integrates them with development. And we are trying to avoid where there's one area that might think of like a future low income slum. We're trying to have it be integrated and so a lot of the details are around making it part of any development to have some affordable, more affordable units. So Chapin to your point about accessory dwelling units, this bylaw draft retains the requirement that the property be owner occupied. Yes, they can live in the accessory or the primary unit, but they, it needs to be a homeowner on site. That's great. I'm pretty sure we weren't touching that. That's great. Thank you. The fee structure changes the port of the accessory dwelling units too. Yeah, so we went before the select board with some changes to our permit fees for the turn of fiscal year and all residential accessory permit fees, you know, remodels accessory dwelling units that are all flat feet now the way we used to just do for fences, pools and sheds. So we find that there's not a big burden on the staff to review those. And if we have a homeowner that wants to make an improvement to their property charging based on project costs for something that maybe costs them quite a lot, but doesn't take me more than a few minutes to count the bedrooms or Melinda a few minutes to check the wastewater permit. Just didn't seem to be a good use of time and effort. And it does add a cost burden to some of these housing solutions. So ADUs are a $45 event now. Yeah. In our permit office. They used to be based on project costs. Great. There's a couple of people with raised hands. Yeah. Yeah, when we're ready to go to public comment, we do have some folks online. Committee are we ready? Okay. So I think we're going to go ahead and do in person to zoom or zoom to in person. You said there's hands already up. Yeah, we have two hands on zoom. Why don't we pick the crystal one? So if we're able to go to gallery view, we can see everybody on Zoom. And Michael is up first. Okay. Thank you, Michael. Hi, Michael. I'm unmuted. Am I on? Yep. This is Michael Olson. I'm at, I live in Lamplight Acres and 403 Whitebird Slane. I have a number of concerns by looking at these, both of all these ordinance changes that are coming up by inference, for instance, the kennels and 40 people allowed for an event as proposed in the upcoming temporary events hearing could get messy if combined with a private business running out of a home. I can see the potential for an unintended mess if more care is not taken with the limits. Kennels or chickens holding pens must be limited privately solely and not associated with any home business such as a dog or chicken rescue operation. Kennels should not be allowed in residential lots or at most one kennel per half acre lot. The primary reason being is that it would be reasonably expected that any dog in a kennel would bark endlessly. That could be a problem given dogs like boxers, bulldogs, basset hounds, older men's or any anxious dog. What if I kept 40 roosters and 10 pens? That could get noisy. Otherwise it seems like I could have a home, chicken or dog handling activity that sells or places animals with or without any money transactions going on. Is there any town in Vermont that is this laid back with the roles? That's it. The need limit. Yeah, let me point the commission to the chapter edit. This is in 20.11. So we're in the residential improvements chapter, chapter 20, and this generally goes over all of the things that are permitted and under what conditions they're permitted as an accessory to a residential use. So 20.11 as currently in the bylaw says is a permit needed for a kennel, kennels used for commercial purposes including boarding and breeding may be permitted as a home business. The revision would add the answer no. And this is because we're in a section talking about accessory to a residential use as opposed to accessory to a business. And then 20.11.2 are their standards for kennels used to require an administrative permit for a kennel and this doesn't require the permit and just says it needs to meet setbacks. And again this would be only a homeowner for their dog, not associated with a home business. A home business might be an allowed accessory used to a residential property, but you don't get to have a residential property, an accessory home business, and then an accessory to the home business. So there's an attempt here for some clarity. In the matter of chickens, some of you have been on the Planning Commission long enough will remember the great chicken conversation of I think 2019. Right now chickens in Williston's zoning bylaw are livestock like all other livestock. You can keep as many of them as you want as long as you have an acre of land, you can keep zero if you have less than an acre of land. As drafted, the bylaw change in 20.12.2 would add an exemption for poultry to the minimum lot size and say if you have under an acre, you can't keep any livestock except you can keep poultry. To Mr. Olson's point about number, I'll just say that many communities that do allow backyard chickens do set both a no rooster rule and a number. I have backyard chickens in South Burlington. I'm limited to six and they have to be hens. So if the Board, sorry, Planning Commission wanted to add any restrictions to this, my recommendation would be to add the word female. Poultry not to exceed and pick a number. I think half a dozen is the fewest that most places will sell you. So generally that's why that's the number that municipalities pick for small backyard chickens. I'll also note in the last five years I've had one rooster complaint, zero chicken complaints, and I'm aware of a number of backyard chicken coops operating on sub one acre lots here in the village and in their RCD. Do you have a question in the audience? Can I have a comment? Yeah. Michael wants to comment. Yeah. Yeah. I still don't see how more than one kennel could be allowed on a residential lot. Regardless of the size. I mean, it just it's going to be a noise nuisance. It has been a noise nuisance. It's going to be a noise nuisance. I mean, it's going to be a noise nuisance. Dogs, especially strange dogs, new dogs to a new location. I'm not going to be happy. They bark. They'll bark as long as they're outside in the bed. So at the very least, you have to restrict the numbers or not have them at all. Or not associate or are completely unassociated with any business. Thank you, Michael. I'm going to address the business aspect. Is there a restriction on number of kennels? So if you're a dog owner, there's four dogs. Can you have four kennels? Yes. Under the current rules. As long as you're not a business. So, you know, when we run into issues with this, between people who are just having residential kennels, it would really fall to a noise enforcement matter enforced by the police. I will say in the time I've been the zoning administrator, I've not had residential dog complaints, but I have certainly had home business kennel dog complaints, both in Mr. Olson's neighborhood, but also in a more rural neighborhood in Williston. It definitely comes up. Bring this close to me. No sleep right now. My name is Norman Rappaport, and I have lived at 160 Hickory Hill Road for over 52 years. Now, during that time, I've seen an awful lot of changes to the town. Some good, some great, some not so good. But one thing I do have is a question to you, and that is, is there a noise ordinance in the town? And if there is, what are the times of that ordinance? Last I knew it was nine o'clock to six, and that's a quiet time in the town. That used to be the ordinance that was set by Mr. McGuire way back. Is that still the same? Does anybody know if that's still the same? So I don't believe it's nine o'clock, but let me bring it up. So the noise ordinance sets noise levels both a one-hour average and what they call instantaneous maximum, so, you know, one loud bang sort of thing. And the noise limits are higher from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m., and the limits are lower from 10 p.m. to 7 a.m. So it's 10 to 7 or 7 to 10. Well, I've got to tell you that that has been violated because the trash trucks come, this morning they came around 20 minutes to six, and that's consistent. And that's more than one truck. That's multiple trucks because of the hard work that they have to do. So that's one thing that's a problem. But my concern is also with, as it was written in the notice, foul-meaning chickens. Well, we've got a problem with that because when you buy chicks in a store, they can develop a rooster or a chicken. So you don't know what you're buying, really, if you buy a chick. So some people have roosters that should not, if that is from what I understand, is in the bylaws that you should not have a rooster in the town if I heard that right. But my thought is in the areas where it's most populated, meaning Taff's Corner and the developments, where you have housing that is fairly close together, this is a problem. And it's only going to get worse. So my concern is why there can't be some kind of a restriction saying, okay, in the rural part of the town, okay, I'm going to have chickens, you can have roosters, that's fine. But where the population is most dense, and we all know where that is in the town, that's kind of a thing, be restricted. So that's my concern, and I would like to see something done to take care of this problem. But noise is not getting any less, it's only getting more and more. Our traffic, I'm sure you know this, our traffic is horrendous, and it's only going to get worse. So these are my concerns, and I hope that something could be done and to not pass an ordinance that is written in such a way that people can buy... I don't mind the chickens so much, but what I'm concerned about is the noise of a rooster. The other thing that does a side-to-side issue to that is that with these animals that come into the more populated parts of the town, that also brings things like foxes and other kinds of animals that potentially could bring rabies. We have children in the town, I'm concerned about that. So that's another reason why I would not like to see anyone have roosters, particularly in the more populated parts of the town. Out in the rural areas of the town, that's fine farmland, that's fine, but where it's more populated, I've got that concern. So that's pretty much what I have to say. Can I respond a little bit? I want to respectfully give a slightly different take on it. I've given this a lot of thought, and I've been a chicken owner in the past, and I take care of other people's chickens and chickens, and I live in a village which is fairly dense, and there are at least four people with backyard chickens, and I'm not aware of complaints within the village of people's chickens. I am very aware of people's complaints about dogs barking. And so I feel as though the size of the problem of backyard chickens and possibly noise, it's a noise violation, and it should be dealt with as a noise violation, and it's a much smaller noise issue than dogs barking is. And yet we sort of accept dogs barking, but we don't accept a rooster growing. And I'm against saying it has to be hence for the reason you mentioned, which is sexing of chicks is very inaccurate, and so if someone adopts six chicks, there may be two roosters in there. And I think people typically find a way to get rid of the roosters because they don't want them, and they don't want the noise, and I'm all that isn't producing. And so I feel like it has a natural way to resolve itself, and if someone doesn't get rid of their roosters, then there should be a noise complaint way to enforce that. I feel if we say you have to have hens, then we'll have people who are in violation who didn't intend to be violation because they just adopted chicks that were improperly sexed. So I feel like the things you're saying are true, that the problem is smaller than what I feel you feel it is, and from my personal experience and taking care of other people's chickens, and from the people who have chickens in the village, the other thing to note is that homeowner associations can say no to these things. This is what happens if you're not in a development that has a homeowner association. Yeah, mine does not. Mine is such an old development. So I'm respectfully disagreeing but on shades of interpretation and how to enforce what we both agree we should not have noise from roosters in neighborhoods. Thank you. Jill, I have one more clarification I want to make. Mr. Rappaport, you mentioned hours of nine to six, and I wanted to clarify that there are some general prohibitions in the noise ordinance. One of them is specific to any noise emanating from trash collection. Trash collection cannot happen before 6 a.m. or after 9 p.m., and that's the nine to six. So it does still say that, and I also want to know that there's a general prohibition on, and I'm going to quote, at the keeping of any dog, cat, bird, or other animal which shall become a nuisance to another person in the vicinity where such dog, cat, or other animal is kept by frequent and continued barking, howling, yelping, screaming, or other animal noise and vocalizations. So what that says to me is if there was a noise complaint about an animal, you don't have to go out with a decibel meter and try to measure it at the right time of day. You can go out, and by you I mean a police officer, because this is an ordinance, and say, hey, your dog's been barking all day, you need to stop that. So the ordinance specifically addresses those, and then it goes to the actual decibel limits for general noise. Seems like we should maybe make those things more prominent on our website. Thank you for your comments. Thank you. We'll go to someone on Zoom up next is Colin Larson. Hi, can you hear me? Yes. Hi, everyone. I live in Burlington, and I just wanted to kind of give my perspective on the growth management, bylaw amendments that are up here. I'll say first to start, I support them. A little bit about me that might be sort of illustrative here. I live in a dual income household. No children. I live in a multifamily building, because it's the only one I could afford. And of course the town loves us because we pay all the money in, and they don't have to, you know, pay for our non-existent child's education. So, you know, I know that there was a comment about, you know, concerns over Williston becoming an elite community where people couldn't afford to work and live. In my view, looking at the data already, you know, and Williston's not alone in this. A lot of places in Vermont, that's kind of where you're at, right? Burlington's like that too, I think, in a lot of ways. I know there was just, we just heard a concern about traffic noise. You know, I think that's also emblematic of this inability for people to live and work in the same community. At Williston, it's particularly bad. I believe 92% of the workforce has to commute from elsewhere, which to me sounds like a ski resort level. So, you know, to the furthest extent that Williston is able to promote better multifamily housing development in established growth centers. You know, I agree with that as well. It's all the better for the town and the people that live there. So, I guess a couple things I wanted to call attention to specifically. You know, the inclusionary zoning and affordability requirements. You know, I think these are in a perfect world. These are great, but I also think we need to be realistic about what these can accomplish in a market system, especially with the efficiency requirements that town has and many other towns have, which I also think are great. But, you know, a lot of times developers won't avail themselves of these bonuses just because of how onerous some of the requirements are. And this is, of course, not an argument for removing them entirely. I just, again, got to be realistic. So, while we're taking a look at the bylaws here, you know, I would also propose following in Burlington and South Burlington's footsteps in eliminating parking minimums. I don't know if that's on the table at the moment, but I think it should be, because especially if we're going to be pursuing additional housing growth in Williston, if you're also requiring parking spaces at these multifamily dwellings, that's really going to reduce walkability. It's going to hurt affordability. All of the things that we want to pursue, it's going to be kind of a two steps forward, one step back. And then, you know, I'm wondering if you'd also consider additional density allowances on smaller lots. You know, my sense is we want to avoid suburbanization, carving up a big parcel. So, you know, maybe trying to keep things small but dense is probably good. And I understand that there are concerns about character. I know that was cited. And I've also heard about, you know, the need to invest in better wastewater treatment. So I'm also cognizant of that. But, you know, given the severity of the housing crisis that we're facing now, I really think that character has to come secondary to the, you know, enormous pain that a lot of people are experiencing now, especially, you know, given the flooding that Vermont experienced, how many people now are experiencing homelessness, how many homes were destroyed as a result of that, and Chintending County was spared, so that for a lot of people means, well, maybe this is a better option to move to. So thank you for your time and your consideration. Thank you. Did you want to speak to the parking minimum which we have gone through? Yeah. Just remind the Planning Commission that we went through a round of parking reform, I guess I'll say, in 2019. In the Taft Corner Sporm Base Code area, we went a little bit further with some shared parking and then we aligned the residential requirement with what we had in the reform parking table from before. I'll finally note that we're going to talk a little bit occasionally here tonight about S100, the recent legislation that passed, and that also limits municipalities' ability to require residential parking in areas like most of Williston where we don't have a municipal parking resource nearby, that limit is you can't require more than 1.5 parking spaces per unit. I think in the form-based code we were at 1.6 anyway, so it's quite close, but that's where you are in parking. You've not eliminated minimums for anything. You've really encouraged shared parking and mixed-use scenarios, and you require a small amount of reserve parking in residential right again around that 1.5 to 1.6. We also did away with any sort of mention of parking for single-family duplex and accessory dwelling units because it felt like people just kind of worked that out when they built their house. A little bit. Colin, thank you for your comments. I think that we have been addressing a lot of these very issues in the past few years, both through the form-based code process and through inclusionary zoning. And so while we may not be quite there yet, we are working on it, and a lot of the provisions in this set of bylaw amendments will indeed do things like encourage multifamily dwellings, increase density and allow and increase density on smaller lots, including in the village, which is where you tend to see the sort of character reference. And we are very, very cognizant of the sort of workforce imbalance between the fact that many of our residents commute out of Williston to work and many of our workers commute from other towns into Williston to work. And that, I think, is changing as we have built more apartment buildings in the past 10 years, and as our population is also shifting toward more smaller households and in multifamily dwellings. So I appreciate your comments, and I hope that we're already on that track and starting to see some results. Anyone else from live and in person would like to speak? Do we have anybody else on Zoom? If anyone else on Zoom wants to speak, please raise your hand or let me know in the chat. Hello, I'm Reverend Paul Eyre. I live at 8052 Williston Road. I'm a privileged service pastor at Williston Federated Church. And in that capacity, I convene a weekly group that gathers to talk about how we respond to racism in society and in ourselves. I also am a part of the Williston Racial Equity Partners group. And I mention those hats that I wear to acknowledge that those groups have been particularly interested in this process and the work that you have undertaken. And I want to especially acknowledge, while I'm not speaking on behalf of either of those groups, either the church or the Williston Racial Equity Partners, you may have heard from some folks connected with those institutions individually. And there are some representation here in the room. I wanted to salute you for acknowledging the history of racial discrimination and housing and the intersection of those realities. And in fact, as I'm looking here at the assessment of the housing needs at Williston on page 14, you noted that fortunately a few African-American households own their own homes. The white households, you've named that reality and you've talked about advancing racial equity to address in many ways that historic discrepancy. And so, again, not speaking either on behalf of the church or the Williston Racial Equity Partners, but rather as an individual citizen, I salute you for naming that reality, addressing that reality. And I wanted you to know that there are some folks who are very interested in the work you're doing and so grateful that you held this public hearing. And thank you for all the work that you've undertaken for our community. Thank you. No other raised hands or comments on Zoom. Thank you, Reverend Pastor Paul. I wanted to add to that that as when you mentioned those other groups, I've recently read an article that Brant Dinkin sent our way about, I think it was in the Netherlands, that how they were dealing with the same issue. And in America we tend to give money to people to subsidize housing. And there they just increase the supply to the place where the cost goes down and they don't have to subsidize. And I feel like there's a chance that we should put more, you know, we are going to form an advisory, part of these changes will form an advisory group and we will hopefully be funding the Affordable Housing Fund and partner on projects with organizations that can help us provide housing expressly for that in addition to the changes for any new development. So we may want to focus on that more if the solution is by creating enough housing that the price of all housing goes down, it makes it more affordable for everybody. And some of the things in that article that are described is that once somebody qualifies to get housing that's at a lower price, first of all, it's rental housing in this example, can't go up more than a certain amount per year, period. And once you're in your end, even if you then become wealthy, you still are allowed to keep your place. And that is one way that they grow this integration of people who have money and people who don't in the same area because some of those people started out without. And so the community stays close knit despite disparities in income. And so I mentioned this just that I feel like there is a whole area of study that we can be looking at and hopefully our advisory committee will that's above and beyond the zoning changes that we're considering tonight. If I can make one other general comment too. As a planning commissioner, I feel as though I need to represent everybody in Williston. And I feel as though Williston has a long history of resisting development, whether it's the tap corners kind of development. We kept Pyramid Mall out for decades and then got a somewhat integrated solution in Maple Tree Place, innovative for its time, to our growth management rules that have been in place for 20 some years, I think about 20 years. So we have tried to limit development because of values that town has to remain somewhat rural. And then we also designated a growth center so that we could focus what development does push our way to an area and not have it us become suburbia throughout our agricultural district. And so we've taken steps as a town to limit development and to focus development. But we have found that with everything we've done, we still have this disparity about income, that we don't have housing that people with lower incomes can find. And we have a lot of people employed in the town without that. And so a lot of what's, in my view, what's happening now is trying to get that balance, still maintaining those limits on development, which are not enough for many people in the town. They would like us to just freeze development. But we have a lot of pressure to develop. And we, I think, I look as though we're working these levers, trying to focus it at the growth center, and now trying, we try just incentives for affordable housing that have not been sufficient. And so now we're trying other methods. So to me that's the big picture of where we are on this inclusionary zone. Anybody else? No one else online? No one else online. And there were three comment letters that were submitted previously that were uploaded on the agenda. And I'll just note I did receive an email from Michael Olson who spoke earlier the text of that email, essentially what he spoke into the record, but we'll put it in the record for the minutes as an attachment. Thank you. I would comment that in thinking about what he said about, you know, it's somebody on a small lot having multiple kennels, residential kennels, we could have something that says something like a maximum of two kennels per acre. So if you have a half acre lot and you have one kennel, you have one acre lot and you have two. And then you can have a quarter acre lot and put four kennels on it. We could do something like that if that is in fact an issue. And I feel like from what I understand about his situation, it's about business more than about residential kennels and I don't know that we need to do that for residential kennels. I would be open to it if that. I don't know what other towns do. One thing I would, you know, in reading Mr. Olson's comment and reading the chapter draft as it is, one thing I would take as a recommendation for planning commissions interested is if the transmittal draft made it clear, a little clearer than it kind of does right now that what is accessory to residential versus what is part of the whole business. As the zoning administrator in the midst of some of this, I would like that clarity and then Chapin to your point, if you wanted to have a limitation based on lot size, the only thing I'd say is probably let any lot of any size have one and then work up from there based on size just because we have a lot of quarter acre, 10th acre lots out there. That gets tricky. I think not all dogs are equal. I think of the doctor in my neighborhood who's got the two little dogs and their bark is louder than my big Bernie's mountain dog that they give you. Please don't make me do pounds of dog fur. Right. It gets trickier than that. If I haven't put a scale in the car. And a lot of folks do like to have more than one dog. I think part of the challenge too is where Williston is in its arc of history, we have neighborhoods that no longer have homeowners associations handling these things. We have folks coming and going from neighborhoods and different ideas about what's okay. And we have this noise ordinance that says, we're going to send the police, the town constable out to deal with this. And we have a police department that now serves a town of 10,100 residents with a daytime population of 24,000 and spends an awful lot of their time dealing with retail theft and car crashes and other things that are just more pressing. It's a growing pains, awkward teenager phase sort of thing for the town. Well, that's the remote threshold for having a dog catcher in your town. You know, like someone who does animal. I'm sure we could have an animal control officer if we wanted to have him. Well, we have a health officer. And so occasionally there are animal related issues that fall within the perimeter of the health. Right now Terry McCaig is the health officer. So he's also just like looking at another. I was a busy guy. You know, most of what the health officer position deals with in Vermont has to do with water quality and philanthropic systems. So luckily he doesn't have a lot of work. But yeah, I mean, it's just this thing where we're starting as a community to need to address these more nuanced things. Where if I send a seven days to correct zoning violation, whether that doesn't really help much with a parking dog, but our police force, recently when dealing with some parking issues that are sort of tangential to land use, the response was, you know, we will do parking enforcement, but we have these other things that are much more demanding on our attention right now. And it's just kind of where we're at. I'd like to acknowledge that for any noise complaint the police are, I mean it's true for a party too, somebody running music too late in the evening. For any of those, it's hard for them to find the time to respond to every call. But if three or four different neighbors all call about the same issue, then they may, they will pay attention. And so I think both, when people say, it's not going to come if I call, that's probably true. But that doesn't mean that they won't enforce it if it's clear that the community has a problem. I just want to also point out that I guess my feeling is that I think we should leave it in the noise ordinance department rather than trying to legislate over, you know, pounds of dogs per acre for some sort of bizarre metric. And yet, you know, we have F-35s going over that cease all conversation indoors for minutes at a time, interrupt innumerable work meetings and so forth. And so in the, you know, in that context, the barking dog honestly just doesn't seem to rise to the top. So maybe, you know, yes, Williston is changing. It's growing. There are different sounds, smells, sites. But, you know, I think we all have to have a little bit of perspective too. Was there anything further that folks wanted to address from the coming to receive besides the dog and chicken? The only thing I wasn't clear is is staff clear what minor changes came out of tonight? Like I said, I liked all of their suggested changes. Do we want to firm that? And the other thing, you know, we've made some comments and we didn't seem to disagree with each other on those comments, but do we want to give any direction? Do you want direction? I was asking if you'd ask us to provide a little more clarity on those residential accessory uses. Just be clear that they're, you know, residential in nature and not accessory to an accessory business. I can come up with a much cleaner way of saying that. Was there any direction from the commission on adding a limit to the number of chickens? Or did you want to leave that open-ended? I feel it's like the number of dogs. If there's a noise problem or a odor problem, that has to be dealt with. If not, you know, some people have two acres and some people have an eighth of an acre. We get into the chickens' burrito. I will note that we also do have some standards for the storage of both manure and bedding that are like a super setback. And if you're on a very small lot, a 20-foot setback, I mean, I actually wouldn't be able to store those things on my .17 acre lot in South Burlington under this provision. So they're quite protective. I would like to suggest that along with the chicken change, because there are chickens now, but we're changing the importance, it would be good to have a fact sheet available at the town clerk's office. And on the website. And on the website to let people know that if they're getting commercially raised chicks, there's the diseases to be careful of with the young people early on. Once you've had chickens for a while, that tends to go away as a risk. And also guidance about, there are methods for managing chicken manure. Just the way you learn how to manage your dog manure. There are ways to do it that are effective and easy and on site. And having that advice available to people so that if there's a question or a complaint, you can tell the person, hey, if you were to follow these guidelines, you wouldn't have your neighbor complain. Yeah, the State Department of Ag has really nice fact sheets available. Well, I mean, to that point, I might suggest recommend adding a number just because when it's easy to say, oh, you can have six and someone can get that information and say, okay, I can have six. And then they know that they're going over if they're eight or you can point to them and say, hey, you can only have six. Instead of having to someone, a neighbor complain about the noise or maybe they're not properly handling the manure because they don't know how or they don't know the setback or they're not taking a ruler and measuring their setback, it might just be easier to say, hey, you can have six and that's that. And it might reduce the number of problems that occur that need to be dealt with via. To be clear, we'd be talking about a limit that starts with acre size and smaller blocks. So where we sit now, if you've got more than acre, you can have Noah's Ark back there and that is just fine with the bylaw. So yeah, I just want to have, if there is direction on putting some kind of a number in there, I want to be clear about that because it's not there right now. You're the chicken expert. To me, until we have a price, I mean like people are saying about the short-term rentals, maybe until we have a problem, I haven't seen a problem. I don't mean to think we should regulate it, but I do agree too many is too many. And I've seen situations among the people I know who have chickens where somebody wants to get out of it and they find somebody that will take their flock. So if somebody has already six and then somebody is trying to get rid of their flock of five, to say you can't take those on as a group, it's disruptive to the flock to split them up when they're adults. I just sort of hate, and the chickens do die off fairly fast over time. So if somebody had 11, that might be down to six by a year from now. So I sort of, I have a hard time being hard about the number, but I understand too many is too many. Yeah, I just think it's easier to have a clear direction to people so that you prevent issues occurring. I know in my neighborhood, I have people with, they're not supposed to. We had people across from us had them and then they were told you're not supposed to have them. She got rid of them, but then people next to her got them and they were always wondering, I mean, I don't care. And they don't cause a problem. I don't think they have more than six, but just easier to prevent issues and to prevent less complaints would be my, so that people don't have to manage it. I mean, I'll tell you what, if you're trying to just do eggs for your own family, we're overwhelmed in the summer and we're wrapped in the winter. It's just kind of the way it goes. So if you had a number around like 12 or 15, that would probably be reasonable. And it's sort of that it isn't easy to communicate to somebody if you choose to do that. I don't want to, you guys have done an amazing amount of work on a bylaw amendment that is, I hope, really groundbreaking in the world of creating affordable housing. I don't mean to pull us off to the side and talk about chickens, but it just... Chickens matter. And it could still happen with the slideboard and, you know, so it goes. In deference to you, I would be fine with saying it doesn't, if it's under any... It doesn't. It doesn't work for me. Okay. One cartoon. Yes, one cartoon. That way if some of them turn out to be roosters and you get rid of them, you still have a flock of items the commission wants to go through. Get the hottest topics. We're pretty good. Good, good. And there's nobody else online who hasn't put... Anybody else online? Anyone else here? Last call. So we're saying on the residential accessory uses that we're not being specific here. You're going to go... You're just going to make it clear that there are things like kennels that if it's for your accessory to residential use, meaning it's your dog, that's going to be regulated with a light touch. If you're doing a home business, anything associated with that home business is going to be looked at under those criteria instead. Good. Perfect. So I entertain a motion to close the hearing. So moved. Second. Okay. Close the hearing at 810. Are we ready for any further motions? We need to do a motion for your... to pass your recommendations. To... I guess to transcend it to the select board with amendments as proposed. Do you have it updated? Didn't we already have this motion? No, this is to transmit. This was the test corner right avenue. Sorry. It's on this. While we're getting our fellow language together... I just wanted to thank the people that showed up both online and here. We really appreciate it because we are trying to represent the town. Our people are the town residents of those. I can't seem to find that language. It's not on this. Did you have language online? Yeah. Tell Ellie she has to make a motion. Yeah. She's the only one online. All right. I just dropped them in the chat. I don't think any of us are a little... Yeah, we're not on the Zoom. Tell her. No pressure. I also want to acknowledge there's a letter to the editor in today's observer from a group of people who have spoken to us before about adults with disabilities and how the zoning changes should help that. We're not specifically addressing that group of people but for the attention is that these zoning changes will make that possible for those people to remain living in their community. Does Ellie have a microphone enabled? Maybe she's... Or I could walk over there and read it. I just need to make it because you screen share your email or zoom it in. She just emailed it to you. Oh, I didn't hear that. I'm sorry. Thank you. I was busy making my own joke. I'm sorry. I pressed that too long. Okay. As authorized by WDB 8.2 and 24 VSA 441 I, Megan Cope, move that the Wilson Planning Commission submit the town plan on bylaw amendments to the select board for consideration. As amended. As amended. Yes. Second? All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? We still make other votes. Okay. Okay. Is it possible we would adjourn? This is going to be a precedent under my rule. Yeah, I like it. We should have done this 40 years ago. I'd like to share comments. I would just like to emphasize to the public that this is the opening of the planning. That's true. And if you are interested or someone who would be interested we'd love to have you interview with the select board. And we're not normally so formal with microphones and TV. Also, there's a new housing committee that's being established, so if you're interested in serving on the housing committee get in touch with us. I'd like to thank staff for all the work that went into this. Good job. Kelly, her service just came back on and she said that she would vote in favor. Okay, great. Okay. All right. Let's see if we can go for the stone.