 here. Oh, I don't see any other commissioners. I'm looking John. Okay. So March 11th, 2021 planning commission meeting 631 p.m. Recordings. I'd like to welcome everyone. I am going to read just a short preamble of the open meeting script. I Dustin Burso as chair of the Essex Planning Commission find that due to the state of emergency declared by Governor Scott as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and pursuant to addendum 6 to executive order 01-20 and act 92, this public body is authorized to meet electronically. There is a more detail to that script that is both posted on our website and is available from staff. If anybody wants to see the whole I would ask it if you're not speaking, if you can make sure that you've muted yourself. Hopefully, we'll reduce some of the carryover. So for tonight, before we get started, I am going to request I'm going to do a roll call of the planning commissioners present. Start with myself, Dustin Burso, present. Joshua Knox, present. Ned Daley, present. Tom Farrell, present. Dave Raphael, present. John Mangan, present. And Sharon, you can just announce if any of the others join us, you can please announce them. Before we get going, I'm going to administer the oath to the public. This will be for the entire meeting. Do you swear that any testimony you present this evening will be truthful to the best of your abilities? I'd like to hear just an acknowledgement, please. I do. I think it's the best that we can do in this situation. I thank you for your patience. So to begin with, we're going to start the meeting at this point with the section for public comments. This is an opportunity for members of the public to ask questions of the planning commission or just present topics of the planning commission for items that are not on our agenda. So we have a little open spot. So if anyone from the public, again, let us know if you have any comments. You can use a hand-raising feature in Teams. If you don't, if you're not working from your computer, working from your phone, just try to let us know or you can also use the chat feature to let us know what's going on or that you have a question. So if anyone have any commentary for us, hearing none, we'll move on to the second item on our agenda, which is a sketch public hearing. For I do apologize, I'm not sure how to pronounce your names. Negas and Juanita Gutama. If I did poorly, I apologize. This is a proposal for a four-unit, five-lot planned unit development PUDR on a 37.8-acre parcel located at 137 Towers Road. Staff, who will be presenting on this? That will be me, Darren Shibbler. Thanks, Dusty. As you mentioned, this is a four-unit, five-lot planned unit development. The last lot is an open space lot of roughly 19.4 acres, I believe. Sorry if I got that wrong. 19.6 acres. And this is a sketch plan, which is the first of three steps of subdivision review. So this is a chance for us to take a broad look at the proposal, identify concerns that need to be addressed at a future stage, and make sure that it fits with the overall goals of the town plan and the zoning and meets the general standards of the zoning and subdivision regulations. So staff has extensive conversations with the applicant and the engineer about the design of this site. Overall, we feel that there is development potential here that could be accommodated in the regulations. We're not sure that this current proposal exactly meets that. There are a couple areas of concern. The first is that because this is in the Scenic Resource Overlay District, the applicants are allowed to propose a design where lots do not actually front on a public road in order to reduce impacts to scenic views from the roads, which is why they've used a shared driveway that runs towards the back. And I apologize, I should be sharing the plans here so you all can see what I'm talking about. So this is the overall site plan as an inset of the main plan. And let me know if you can't see that if I need to zoom in a little more. So we have here the entire lot outlined in red and the exterior. And there is an existing dwelling, often an existing driveway here. So the proposal is three new lots, one existing lot for houses, and then an open space lot to the east. So one more thing I should mention before I dive into all the details here. This is in a split zoning district. To the east is the low density residential district. And the west is the agricultural residential district. So the Planning Commission has a discretion to apply the more restrictive of these zoning districts depending on where the development is actually proposed and the site conditions present. As noted in the staff report, most of the development is proposed on the AR part of the lot and seems to fit more with that character of that zoning district. So we would recommend that those standards be applied. In truth, the only difference between them is the minimum lot size, which is three acres for the AR and one acre for the R1. And because this is a planned data development, there's flexibility in the actual lot sizes based on hoping to cluster development and reduce impact on natural resources. So returning to the question about the scenic resource district and the ability to use a shared driveway, the applicants have done that. And the goal is again to reduce visual impacts. They've lined most of the houses up on the this little ridge here in the center of the lot or the west part of the rear with one tucked in the middle behind some existing landscaping and hedges. There are significant wetlands on the site. That's another factor into the design. And so again, this is allowed under the scenic resource standards. The area of concern is that this creates a relatively long driveway over 900 feet, which is not allowed under the public work standards. A driveway that is serving more than two residential units has some limitations on how long it can be, which is 300 feet for a dead-end road and 750 feet for a looped access. So the Public Works wrote in their review that this driveway would need to be reduced in length or looped. And they did propose a design that would allow for that to happen and allow for this development to mostly go forward as proposed, although lot four to the north would have to come closer to the other dwellings here. So that's one area of concern. And the other area of concern is that under conventional subdivision as opposed to planning and development, three lots could be accommodated with the frontage that is provided or allowed existing on this lot. The applicants are requesting a reduced frontage in consideration of creative design under the planning and development standards. And they have met the requirement for an open space lot that includes most of the protected or most of the sensitive natural resources on the site. But again, there's a question of whether this design is clustered enough to qualify as planning and development. So those are the issues we wanted to hear from the Planning Commission about. And I will note that from the original design, the applicants have proposed some changes to the driveway that would meet the public safety concerns from Public Works and the fire department. So there would be a 20-foot drive for most of it. It would transition to 15 feet after the second dwelling. And there would be pull-offs for emergency vehicles. But there's still a concern that this is just too long. And if any blockage were to happen along this road, vehicles wouldn't be able to get further in. And it's simply just a larger impact on site than if those lots were clustered. All right. Thank you, Darren. Commissioners, do you have any questions for staff at this point? I've got one question. Is this on town water or well water? These would be on private, individual, drilled wells and septic systems. There might actually be some shared septic, I believe, depending on site conditions. Correct me if I'm wrong, Doug? That's potential, yes. You're right. We haven't really explored on-site wastewater options quite yet until we get through sketch plan. And then that'll be our next step. Okay. So that means sprinklers are not an option? Is that correct? Not a good option. Okay. All right. Anything else, Tom? Nope. That's it. Any other commissioners? Any other commissioners questions at this stage? Okay. Just as a reminder, as was mentioned, this is sketch. So this is where we're starting to do an overview and get big ticket items and so forth. So we keep that in mind as we go forward. I'm going to shift over to the applicant. And I'm assuming, Doug, you're going to be presenting on this. Correct. So give us any exceptions you take to the staff report and any high points that you'd like to present to us. Okay. Well, I think Darren did a good overall job giving a basic input. I wanted to polish it a little bit with a few other details. I guess I want to first give everybody some insight as to why the plan looks like it does as far as the layout and house layout. Darren, maybe if you put the site plan back up as I chat here. Can you do that, Doug? Yeah. I know what it looks like. So it's up to the other folks if they can see it. Let me know if you need me to zoom in or point anything out. Okay. Appreciate it. So as Darren said, I think starting right off there are two main topics here, whether everyone feels that this layout is clustered enough to meet the goals of the PRD regulations. And secondly, we want to talk about the shared access and how that meets the regulations. So again, as I said, I want to quickly go through how we came to this layout. The property only has about 500 feet of frontage, but it has 37 acres, so it's kind of got a disproportionately small amount of frontage. And what frontage it has along Towers Road is primarily all wetlands. So we really don't have any options but to develop toward the north internally as opposed to stringing lots out along the frontage of Towers Road. And again, as Darren suggested, to do a conventional subdivision in the AR zoning districts, it's 200 feet of frontage, so we would only have two lots, the existing house and one additional lot. So again, that's driven us in the direction of a PRD because two lots seems to be under utilizing this property. So the coming in is an existing long driveway about the first 300 feet. Maybe you zoom in a little bit, Darren, please. The first 300 feet runs adjacent to the Johnson property to the east and to the west. There's wetlands and the mound system serving the existing house, so really no development potential for that first 300 feet, which gets you to about the driveway of lot one, as we show it there. Lot one sits in a nice little open meadow facing easterly, sloping to the east, and it's 2.1 acres. Again, we need to create these lot areas so we have some space for drilled wells and hopefully on-site septic systems. So those out here are not great. They're heavy, so the likelihood of a mound system is great, which is what most of the folks around here have. Once you get past lot one, you're still following the existing driveway to the Gudamo's house. It crosses a small brook and associated with that there are wetlands. So the proposed shared drive would angle to the right where Darren's cursor is and go out into an open meadow. And we tried to, as we crossed lot two, lot two being the lot that incorporates the existing house, try to reach a happy medium between keeping some front yard to the house and not putting this shared driveway in the wetlands to the west. So that's why it's positioned where it is to try to reach that sweet spot. At that point, we have the lots three and four proposed. Lot three is 2.1 acres. Lot four is 3.9 acres and extends to the very northerly boundary of the property. Again, we've got well ins to the right side or east side of the lots. The big dashed line that you see there is actually the zoning line, but the wetlands boundary is close to that. The houses spacing is about 100 feet between the existing house and the new houses on lot three and four. And again, a lot to size to try to anticipate and be large enough for wells, mound systems, and the isolation distances that are required between them. So that's sort of the background of why it looks like it does at this point. I would like to point out in the staff report that the staff did an analysis, the surrounding density in a half a mile radius is one dwelling per 5.3 acres. So the new lots we're creating, lots one, three, and four average 2.7 acres. So we're twice the density of the existing homes within a half mile radius. So for us, we think that's a good demonstration of clustering when we're twice as dense as the neighboring geography in this area. Wanted to move to the shared driveway discussion. I produced, I'm sure it's in your packet, a letter February 5th, very long we did, two or three pages, explaining all the reasons why a shared driveway is appropriate for this property, as opposed to a public road or a private road. And I want to quickly touch on just the highlights of that. So first of all, as Darren suggested, the shared driveway or sorry, the SRPO, the overlay district regulation specifically allow, encourage the use of a shared driveway to serve up to four lots. This proposal utilizes or proposes to utilize the combination of a type and a type B driveway, which are found in the public workspecs to serve this project. So the type B driveway is specifically designed to serve three to four dwellings. So that cross section would be proposed up to the first two driveways. Beyond that, it could drop to a type A driveway, which is narrower and would serve the last two houses. So type B driveway is 22 feet wide, which comes out to 10 foot, two 10 foot lanes and a one foot shoulder on either side. That detail in the public workspecs also includes recommendations for pull offs for driveways more than 900 feet. So this clearly acknowledges the shared driveways can be longer than 900 feet. We're not talking about a town road that does have limitations. This is not a town road, not a private road. It's a shared driveway. So as Darren pointed to on the plan, we are proposing pull offs and an emergency turnaround near the end of the shared driveway, which would bring it in compliance with a typical driveway B detail. I want to quickly go through not too many comments on the staff report. There's a lot in here. I don't want to spend too much time. Just a couple of things, table, the table on page three is just a little typo. It has proposed lock four being 3.9 acre, sorry, as shown as 2.1 when it should be 3.9. So I think that's just a typo. I want to jump to line 165 on page six. Top of the page, we have not seen any documentation from the fire chief or the town engineer that states that the proposed access is not safe or reliable enough to sufficiently serve the residents and emergency vehicles. If we're missing some documentation from those folks, we haven't seen it. Again, we're proposing a type B driveway right out of the public works specs. The shared driveway will be designed to comply with the details found in the specs, and this detail is specific to driveways serving three or four dwellings. So if public works feels it's not safe, I guess they're telling us their public work specs are designed or poorly designed. In other words, we are following the public work specs with this type B driveway for widths, for lengths, for everything, pull-offs, and such. So we don't understand that comment about how it can be unsafe when we're following their own public works own rules and regulations. Line 175 to 177 keeps talking about the driveway issue. Town engineer acknowledges actually that a town type B shared driveway is correct for driveways serving three or four dwellings. However, he goes on to discuss how any future accessory dwelling units, I'm going to call them ADUs, would change the number of dwellings served. So in our opinion, this is this flawed logic, and this argument could be used on any residential project in Essex. As an example, if a project outside of the SRPO proposed, say, two new single-family homes on a shared driveway, the public works recommend that they build it to town road standards because potentially there could be four dwelling units on that road if each house had its own ADU. So we've never encountered this comment, and it just doesn't seem, we don't know why it would be specific to this project and why it couldn't be applied to any project proposing single-family homes that anybody can have an ADU. So we just don't really understand that logic, and I just don't think it's applicable to this, to this discussion about a roadway. Secondly, if you look at the definition of any ADU, it states that residential density requirements do not apply to accessory dwellings. So if an ADU isn't counted as a dwelling unit when computing density, why should it be counted for roadway or driveway design? It's just inappropriate in our opinion. Having said that, if the planning commission feels that ADUs should be under consideration for this project, the applicants would be more than willing to, by either decovenant or other means, put a restriction on the ability to construct ADUs on these three new homes, or we could limit the amount of bedrooms in the homes by covenant. We could limit the sewer capacity by covenant. There are many ways we could limit the ability for a house to add on to an equivalent ADU, but again, we don't think that's necessary for this project or any project to consider ADUs in the design. Almost done here. Line 181 suggests that a type A paved rural road may be appropriate given this ADU scenario, but we point out that a type A paved road is 32 feet wide in the town of Essex compared to a 22-foot wide type B shared driveway, which is proposed. So a type A rural road 32 feet wide is clearly in direct conflict with the recommendations of the SRPO, which encourages access roads and drives to be kept to a minimum width. So again, the recommendations of the town engineer don't really jive with the goals of the SRPO. And just for comparison, the applicants went out and measured towers road in front of their house, and it's 23 feet wide from shoulder to shoulder. So to consider a new road that's 32 feet wide serving four homes and is nine feet wider than the existing towers road, again, doesn't seem to make a whole lot of sense to us. So that's it. I'm going to stop there and take comments and listen. Thanks Doug. You're welcome. Commissioners, it looks like Darren has something before we go to the commission. Darren? If it's okay, Dusty, I just want to provide a couple points of clarification on what Doug spoke to, which is stuff we've discussed with the applicant and with Doug before. So one of the questions was about the ability to restrict development of future ADUs with covenants. This is specifically not allowed under state law, and that was passed last year. And there is a bill on the floor right now of, I believe, the house or the Senate that would clarify that the restrictions do specifically apply to ADUs and not. So staff questions the ability to legally allow a project to not have those ADUs in the future because we do want to limit the number of homes on this driveway. So for us, it's kind of an all or nothing. The number of single units determines the number of ADUs. And on the Type B driveway, my understanding from the public, from the town engineer was that this was designed to serve two single unit dwellings within the Scenic Resource Overlay District. It was created after those standards were put into place. The idea being these two units would be on a shared driveway and could each have an ADU. So a total of four units. So again, given the fact that this could have eight units in total on the driveway, that's where the concern from Public Works came from was now you're talking about a road that has eight units. Is it still fitting the Type B standard? And again, because we can't restrict the number of units with ADUs, we have to assume that that's going to happen at some point. And then the last question again, just to reiterate that we're not trying to provide or deprive the applicants of the ability to develop this lot as a conventional subdivision. There still would be the road issue, and that's something we should address. But we also want to raise the question of what benefit this PUD provides in terms of knowing above and beyond a design that's normally required for subdivisions. Okay, thanks. Commissioners, I see Ned, you've got your hand up. Questions for staff or applicant? A question is actually probably a little more for Darren. He seems to get off on a track about preserving the farmland and all. I'm not sure if the farmland is strictly some hayfields or is it for growing crops or something. Can you give us a little background on how you got off onto this tangent, so to speak, as opposed to the plan that we're looking at? Absolutely. So the reason I looked into that was because of the planning and development goals and the goals of the Agricultural Residential District, which are to protect agricultural lands and their productivity. So in looking at what makes this PUD, proposed PUD special and what would make it really go above and beyond a conventional design, I looked at the goals of the district and said how would this be protecting agricultural land and found they are certainly reserving that 19.6 acre open-spaced lot, which is great, but I did wonder if they could tighten up the lots a little bit to allow that entire field to be retained, whether it's for what it's currently used for now, which I believe is a hayfield, but I guess it corrects me if I'm wrong, or whether it's, sorry, feel free to chime in. But the point is that we wanted to try and protect the agricultural viability of that lot and of that area. I guess say, do you want to comment on that or I could comment on that just briefly? I would just add that it really isn't a agricultural, value. It's mainly wetland and as you know, it's about one time in a year in the fall that they can get out there and just brush hog it. It's not used for sale of hay or anything. It's just to keep the trees down. So it has very little ag value, but certainly protecting it as open space and maybe letting it revegetate, certainly the wetlands folks would be thrilled with that because there's more habitat and such, which is conducive to wetland species and such when you start getting more mature vegetation than just short grasses and such. So I think conserving 20 acres is a good thing. I don't think it would be harming the ag value of the property as it is now because there really isn't much of any ag value to speak of. I guess say is that true statement? Yes. I'm sorry. Like you said, we kept that area clear for a while as long as we've been there just to keep that brush down. Maybe a couple of times it was hate just because we had that free opportunity, but other than that, even the hay guys didn't want to do it. So I brushed out that that's all. And like you said, it's wet and they won't do anything and it's just sit there. So that's what it is. Okay. Thank you. Ned, your hand is still up. Do you have more or are we just distracting? No, no. I'm going to go back to Tom. He's got his hand up. Okay. Well, you can put your hand down then. I didn't do that. So, Darren, I just want to verify your comment. You said that the driveway standard for four units was really two single families plus two ADUs. That's what the public works was assuming. Correct. That's my understanding. Okay. So where are we in terms of assuming ADUs across all the zoning zones and decisions and how we calculate things? So we would assume that for any single unit dwelling that is permitted, there could be an ADU permitted. So let's say there is a existing shared driveway with two single unit dwellings. If there were ADUs added to one or both, my understanding is they would be required to upgrade the driveway. I may be incorrect in that. So this might be worth clarifying with Erin, but that seems to be why they implemented the standard to begin with because it was my understanding was this was after the scenic resource standards were adopted as a response to make sure that those shared driveways that were proposed in that area would be adequate. Okay. Let me rephrase my question a bit. So since the law says ADUs don't count towards density, is the only aspect of zoning where we have to consider ADUs in driveway standards? Are there other things where an ADU might affect whether it conforms or doesn't conform to a zoning regulation? So the law does specifically say it doesn't count towards the density requirements. The idea being that not to artificially restrict the ability to develop an area that could or a unit that has a minimal impact, but the town engineer's perspective is still that you have to provide safe access and adequate access that's going to be durable over many years if you're going to have the extra traffic that comes from having an additional unit and the ability to serve with fire and emergency services with extra units, extra people living there. And again, this is coming from Town Engineer and Fire Department. Okay. And so what about limiting the bedrooms as Doug suggested? Again, the law does specifically say that no zoning regulation shall have the effect of limiting the development of ADUs. I'm not sure if bedrooms would count for that. And one of the things we talk about in the staff report is that, you know, if this moves forward, we would like to get a legal opinion as to if and how there could be any restrictions on ADUs in a situation like this, because the way staff interprets the law right now is that we wouldn't. It would have the effect of prohibiting, but we can see clarification on that. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Thanks, Tom. Doug, you have additional commentary? Yeah, just briefly. All we can do as engineers is read the letter of the law and the type B driveway says the type B standard driveways section is to be used for driveways serving three to four dwellings. Talking about dwelling units doesn't mention ADUs. I think we're rewriting public works is trying to rewrite history. I agree that they probably they developed this standard when the SRPO overlay district said you could have as many as four dwellings on a single driveway to reduce visual impacts and such. So that's why they generated this detail to say, you know, it's wider than the type A driveway. It's requiring pull-offs. It can be longer than 900 feet. They put all sorts of criteria in to acknowledge that it's going to be a beefier road because it serves three to four dwellings. To try to interpret three to four dwellings is only means two houses with two ADUs, I think is a real stretch. That's not what it says. And I think, I don't know, I've said enough, but that's not the intent. All right. Thanks, Doug. Elisa. Hi. I just wanted to point out that there's still the PUD threshold that has to be met about whether this actually meets the qualifications for a planning and development. And I just don't want that to get lost in the conversation about number of houses on a driveway because it's a really important part of zoning. Okay. Thank you. Doug, your hand is still up. Did you want more to add more? Sorry, I didn't mean to be up, but I will add just one more too. Oh, we saw this comment. We did never miss an opportunity to talk. We did do a density analysis and this lot would support up to 11 dwelling units. So I think the appropriateness of three new houses versus 11 residential dwelling units is telling that we're not certainly over developing this property by any means. It's a very modest project and we're limiting lot sizes, as I said before, to have the current density in the area. So I'm going to put my hand down now. Elisa, your hand is still up. Did you want to add? Yes. I put my hand back up because a conventional subdivision would allow you two units on that property. Plan unit development is not an as-of-right condition and it really is for a certain type of development that we're hoping to have in Essex. And again, I'm just asking the Planning Commission to consider whether or not the physical location of these houses on this site meet the requirements for clustering. And I respect the units per acre, but density is completely separate from clustering. Okay. Thank you. Tom. Well, I guess Elisa answered my question whether you really could put 11 units on here with all the white lands and the road frontage issue. Okay. I want to bounce on the rest of the commissioners who haven't had a chance to chime in yet. Does anyone have any questions before I request that we open the public hearing? I got a quick one, Dustin. Go for it. Doug, in the staff report, the section that was sort of referring to the length of the driveway and Vermont Conservation Design, which we haven't officially adopted, but in the staff reports saying about alternative mitigation strategies, is that something that you guys would be willing to entertain, address, think about ways to have less impact on the wetlands with the way the driveway cuts through there? Certainly. We know to put that driveway in, we will be impacting wetlands and or wetland buffers. So we know we're going to need a state of Vermont state wetland permit. So because of that, we don't have a choice, but to minimize wetland impacts every way we can because they'll require it. Historically dealing with wetlands, if they saw a 32 foot wide road there and knew that we could do a 22 foot wide road, they'd really be pushing hard to have the town justify why we were impacting wetlands to a greater degree than what we have to if the SRPO is supportive, which it is supportive of narrower roads, not wider roads. So we feel like we've gotten, to be honest with you, torqued around quite a bit here with these regulations. Don't get torqued yet. Hold on before we let's get through it before we get too far. So to answer your question, we absolutely will have conservation in mind and minimizing wetland impacts will be a requirement, not just a desire. Let's keep the conversations going. And David, John Mangan or Josh, any comments? Any questions? Okay. Yeah, mine were already answered by others. Thank you. Okay. Yeah, I'm good. I'm mulling the driveway issue and the clusteriness, but I don't have any questions. Okay. With that, I would like a motion to open the public hearing. I move we open the public hearing. I'll second it. Moved by Josh, seconded by Shu. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? All right. Motion carries. We at 7-0. So folks, the public hearing at this point is open. I'd like to still follow the same orders that we've been doing with the Planning Commission. And if you can raise your hand using the tool and the teams to raise your hand, and then I will recognize you and you can ask questions of the commission and we will reach out to staff or applicant as needed. All right, everybody take your turn. No rush. No pressure. Looks like Nancy is speaking, but you might still be muted, Nancy. So you're on mute. Nancy, your microphone is off. You need to unmute. And if you're having trouble finding that, if you're in teams, there should be a little microphone towards either the top of the screen or in the middle. I'm fine. Go ahead. All right. Well, Nancy's working on that. Sharon Zuckowski has her hand raised. Sharon. Hi. Can you hear me? Yes. Can you hear me? Oh, good. I did have a comment about the dwelling thing, because I know in the Vermont statute, an accessory dwelling, is that an ADU, an accessory dwelling? An ADU is considered a dwelling. So you can't just say a home, which could possibly have another attachment, is one dwelling if there's two things. So, I mean, you could say a four unit is a dwelling. So I'm thinking the possibility of an ADU means if you had, how many houses are there for? Or three? The proposal is for three. Anyway, it would double the amount of possible houses dwellings that are possible on that road. Anyway, that's it. Okay. Does that make sense? Yeah. And I think that's kind of what's reflected in the staff report as well. Online 179. Got you. Sharon, if you can put your hand down if you're all set. Okay, great. Nancy, you were looking like you were trying to talk before. Are you still trying to connect to us? Somewhere there's an icon to turn your mic on. Nancy, if you're using a browser, it should be towards the top of your screen. And there's a little camera. There's a microphone icon. And if you click that, that shouldn't turn it on. I'm going to see if I can try to unmute you, but I don't think I have the ability to do that. Sharon, you should just be able to press your spacebar, I believe, as long as the window is active. Yep. You can also try control, shift, and M, Nancy, on your keyboard there. Oh, let's go ahead and try that now. It says that there's two Nancy's here. Your video is Nancy Prenthys' guess. Looks like she just went to it. You just went to another desk. Perfect. I mean, they're both still muted. Okay. There you go. All right. My question is for the driveway. Would that be widening the existing driveway as it sits right now? Darren? Nancy, I believe regardless the driveway would be widened, part of the question is how much. And I know we spoke earlier, so I think your concern was about in which direction it would be widened, whether it would be towards your property or away from it. Is that correct? Yes. Yeah. And I would defer to Doug on that in terms of the design. Yeah, to be honest with you, we haven't looked that far into the future, but we know there are wetlands on the left-hand side and the road ditch and all, so but I know it's also limited to the right-hand side with the Johnson's landscaping and also probably be a combination of widening on both sides if I had to guess right now to make that happen. My concern are the trees that we were required to put in when we put in our property. And because of the root system, I would be concerned that that would be disturbed if you move it anymore to the right, because I don't want to have to replace the trees that I'm required by the town to have there. And they've been in since 1984, so they probably have a fairly decent root system. And I'm not even sure if where our property line is there. I know the trees are on our side, but I don't know exactly where the line is. The other concern is since the existing driveway was put in, our driveway floods every time there's a rain. So I would be concerned that somehow we don't get in any worse situation than we're already in. I mean, you can't walk out there. Luckily, we park our cars in the garage, so we drive out, but you could never walk in our driveway after a rain. And that only happened after the asphalt was put in. So that's a concern. And a little bit concerned about how close the one house, the first house looks next to our property. Obviously, we purchased out there because they were 10-acre minimum lots when we purchased. So we moved out of the development and we really don't want to be put in a development at this point in our lives. So those are our concerns at this point. Thank you. Doug, did you want to respond? You're on mute. Thank you. Yeah, we will take your concerns into consideration. If we move forward with a roadway design, again, hopefully we land on a 22-foot wide road and not a 32-foot wide road, which would obviously make a huge difference in the infrastructure that would need to be constructed. And similarly, we weren't sympathetic to your property and only proposed one house behind your property. I think there's suggestions that, you know, with a more cluster design that maybe more homes could be put in that one single lot because we really are restricted right there between your property and a wetland boundary. We've got about 120 feet. So we think a good design is one house there. Staff may feel that clustering could put two or three homes there. So I'm glad you voice your opinion that you're not even too happy with one, but there could be more. Okay. Thanks, Doug. You're welcome. Do we have any other members of the public that would like to offer comment? Now, Nancy, it looks like you took less as chair. Does you want it back? Does you want to jump in? All right. We'll move on. I'm going to bring this back to the commission at this point. I'm not going to close, ask to close the public hearing. Commissioners, what are your thoughts on this point? It feels like we have really two issues to come to some conclusion on for this, again, sketch plan hearing. One is, does this qualify as a PUD? And two, the length of the road. So I'm really thinking that's as at least as far as sketch goes, those are our two primaries to sort of come up with some direction on. What are your thoughts? Nan, I'm going to start with you. My prime thought at the last resident that spoke is, you know, the concern with the driveway. And I'm not sure if we increase the density there. We hope that situation at all, given the closest to the wetlands. So I think the drive and whether it's a Class B or how it gets worked out is probably the prime consideration. I don't have a lot of issues with the four units for lots in the way they've been laid out. Okay. Thanks, Ned. Shu, what are your thoughts at this point? I guess I hadn't really given a huge amount of thought to the driveway other than the fact that it is cutting through a lot of wetland and Doug is right. He's going to have to go through, they're going to have to go through some serious hoops to do what they want to do there. Yeah. I'm not sure how comfortable I am so far about whether it beats the PUD criteria or just the spirit of it in general. But that's about all I have for comment right now. Okay. Thanks. Tom. I like the layout. I like the fact that they're all in a row. So my biggest concern, I think, is a WISO's comment about whether it can be a PUD and I don't offhand know what the issue is. But I wouldn't want to make a precedent that people can bend the rules. Okay. Okay. Josh. So re-read the two issues with respect to the impact of the ADUs on the access. What I'm kind of thinking is the condition, excuse me, in the staff report it says at best the town could require as a condition of approval that the road be upgraded before allowing the development of such ADUs. But this may not be legally possible given that such and such VSA prohibits municipalities from enacting bylaws that have the effect of prohibiting ADUs. I would definitely, as it says here, want to know what the town attorney does think of that because that seemed to me the sort of obvious solution because otherwise we're sort of risking, like this hypothetically could be this many. So we're going to treat it like this many. And I don't recall, this I think was Tom's question earlier, I don't recall how often we've done that. And if we could just say, well, when you add ADUs, then it becomes large enough than road needs to be upgraded. That seems to me the easiest way out. On the other issue of whether this is clustry enough, I mean, every time we have one of these, I kind of struggle with the spirit of the law, letter of the law thing. And I don't know that I've resolved it with respect to this one yet. So I suppose we'll see it again. Okay. That's what I got. Gotcha. Mr. Mangan. Yeah, I'm certainly no expert in PUD. So we need some assistance, I think, in trying to figure that out. I can appreciate a lot of what Doug said, though. I mean, if he is building stuff according to what the spec reads, what right are we in to say it's wrong. So I think that requires some additional thought as well. Okay. David? No issues with the layout. I tend to agree with Doug. Any other time we've considered driveways and multiple dwellings, we've never entered into the ADU discussion. One 17 is pretty clear. It has a line in it that says, by law may require a single family, an accessory dwelling unit to be subject to the same review, dimensional or other controls as required for a single family dwelling without an accessory dwelling unit. So I would like, if we move forward, just to get a legal opinion that says, hey, can we put a restriction that says if they add an ADU that we get to relook at the driveway situation. But all in all, no issues with the layout, no issues with the density. I kind of agree that this is in fitting with the character of the area. Okay. Thank you. Darren, are we so? I've gotten the impression that Public Works is standing on this pretty firmly. That what does it mean if they if if what does it mean to this application if we don't accept their recommendation or or we put it through us as it as it is stated now. So I want to understand what is the the impact to this application as it goes through life or it goes through the next few iterations if Public Works does not support this? I would like to get, this is Darren, I'd like to get Aaron to speak to that a little more knowing the commission's general feeling on this. I think one of the biggest concerns and Tom alluded to this is that, you know, this is going to set some precedent. This is one of the first real subdivisions we've had in Scenic Resource District that has this shared driveway layout. So we'd want to make sure that we are setting the right precedent and clarifying what is intended and what isn't. And I do know, all I can say is that Aaron did have some significant concerns about having up to eight units on this driveway design. And he felt that it was not meeting the intent of what was designed for in the specs. So I think if the commission would like to delve into that further, we can ask for some further information from Public Works as to what the specific concerns are and what they would suggest. And I will say, as I mentioned earlier, they did suggest a looped road that would have gone, as Doug said, a little more into the Gutama's existing front yard. So I can understand the, not wanting to do that because it would create a little more disturbance to their house. But Aaron did suggest a design that he felt would meet the specs and would meet the standards and would not significantly alter the layout per maybe one dwelling. But Okay, David, I'll get to you. I'll go back to you in a minute. One further question is, we keep mentioning the Scenic Resource and so forth. So just sort of in a summation, how does this layout meet our Scenic Resource designs? Because that was a very hot topic for quite some time. So let's weigh the balance, what are we getting versus what are we giving up sort of thing? Yep. So the design does keep development away from the open meadows, most of which are wetland on this property, which is one of the goals of the Scenic Resource District. It does locate dwellings on the edges of forested areas or trees so that there is minimal visual impact from the road. It does, unfortunately, one provision within the Scenic Resource Standards that does allow for this shared driveway scenario does say provided that it meets public safety concerns. And I know that that in particular was a phrase that was debated. This was before my time here, but I know that was contentious during the review of the standards. And that's where Public Works has raised a concern about, you know, it's not meeting the specs. The specs are intended to be the safety standards. So there's concern that it wouldn't. David, you had something else? I was just struggling a little bit with, you know, this is maybe it's just because of the ADU's are fairly new. But I guess I'm just struggling. I mean, I know that the statue says that there has to be sufficient wastewater capacity. We just have never talked about other subdivisions in terms of their what if potential for adding ADU. So I guess I kind of want to maybe this is new learning for me and everybody on how this is impacting all of our discussions because I can think of just so many instances where even two dwellings sharing a driveway, we've never then said, oh, what if there's two ADUs added and now the sudden there is, you know, six cars or four. I mean, so I'm just struggling a little bit with some of this. I think from my perspective is if you've mentioned in the staff report that if it went forward, you'd be going to the town attorney for some term. I'd like to actually table the ADU question to, you know, just ignore it for tonight because we don't I don't think we know enough to really weigh in on it. I do think we have the the legitimate question or options to discuss whether or not, you know, what the scenic resource impact are, what the road length might be. And does this really fit as a PRD or a PUD, whatever you want to call it, XYZ. I'm almost my opinion is that that I think we need to get to some position of consensus with public works regardless. I don't know that we need to reject anything. I think I'd personally like to see this go forward to the next level and get into some engineering of and get public works on board with the applicant and and work out something that fits. It may not be exactly what public works is saying has to be right now, but I like that I would I've got to think that they can do this. There's a lot of options that that can be flown back and forth. And it's either stay at this level and continue the sketch and come back with something more or push it up to the next one. And I haven't heard a lot of hesitation from the commissioners so far about the application in general. I mean, am I am I missing something from commissioners? I don't think so. I want to hear from a WISO first and what yeah why it's not a PD. Yeah, I'm circling with the commissioners right now. Let's let's we'll bring staff in and put them on the hook in a moment. The other small comment I have is that the lot sizes don't meet. And it seems like it'd be easy enough to make the lots extend into the wetland and meet the the requirements. Okay. WISO, you're up. So I don't know whether this is appropriate to ask, but speaking to sort of what you just brought up. Dusty about public works as concerns. I wondered if the applicants can tell us whether there was any merit at all to the discussions that they had or the plans that were shown to them by public works. Was it just was it a minor inconvenience that that that the driveway was located? I mean, I have not seen the plans. But what is it a minor inconvenience that the driveway is low would be located in a way that would work for them? Or is it something that you could work with? I mean, it may not be your number one choice. But I'm just wondering if there's any sort of space between because public works did come in hard on this. And I wish I wish you represented it from public works. We're here right now. Doug, can I respond? Well, I'm not sure, you know, public works came in hard on this sort of speak. I spoke with Aaron early on and he said, I'm fine with three to four on a shared driveway. It's just, you know, what if somebody adds an ADU and that just I've never heard that in any discussion and any project through me for kind of a loop. And as some of the commissioners said, this is just a precedent that on every project doesn't matter whether it's in the SRP or not, is a single family house considered to you. And it's now if you always consider an ADU can only be 30%. I mean, you know the rules and it's not another it's not a duplex. So but but to answer address Saouisa's concern, yeah, it's a big deal. You know, Aaron on a kind of scratched out a little cul-de-sac design that took up the entire front yard of the Gudama's front yard public works specs are I think 50 foot radius cul-de-sacs they're huge. And if he was suggesting that the town road then were 24 feet plus shoulders, it probably would might kill the project if we had to build a town road in to serve, you know, four houses with the wetlands concerns and everything else. It's just public works isn't taking into consideration the goals of the SRPO in that infrastructure is minimized. So we're faced with trying to design something that is big and fat and wide for public works but narrow for the SRPO rigs and we're we've been struggling for two months with this and it's it's not easy. Getting into the ADO would help but it's a town road with a cul-de-sac and such is potentially a project killer to be honest. Okay, so let's hold on on the road let's circle back in a way so I would like you on this and I know your hands up Darren and Sharon but let's let's I'm going to circle onto the question of PUD does this fit. So let's let's let's hammer on that a little bit and then we'll circle back to the to the road a little bit and then we'll decide where we want to roll with this because we can hammer this all night but we obviously don't have enough information to I believe make clear decisions on all elements. The question before us is is there enough in order to advance this as a sketch advance this to preliminary and and that's we got to remember we're not trying to get to the engineering details yet we're trying to get whether or not we agree with the project. So let's let's bring up because it was brought up early on whether or not this this qualifies as a PUD. Let's toss that around a little bit. Are we so? My sense is that it reads as a subdivision it's just not a subdivision because it's using the PUD exception and the PUD exception is for clustering and for and and for projects that provide some public benefit. So those are my questions. Is it clustered enough for you? Does it cluster enough to pass the straight base test of what clustered is? I mean clustered is based on the relationship of the buildings to each other. That's what clustering is and doesn't meet that. Okay. Darren? I have to remember to unmute. So I wanted to add to that that there are a couple other examples that the commission has seen in recent years of PUDs that maybe had this similar question in mind about what is clustering. One is the Smokebush Lane development at 50 Chapin Road which is relatively close to the project. It's in the R1 zone just off of Chapin Road north of where it intersects towers. That was basically three duplexes or sorry two duplexes. Now I'm sorry three duplexes and a detached single unit all within a relatively clustered site and the commission was very supportive of that coming forward as a PUD and in contrast there have been a couple of projects on Brigham Hill Road that came in originally as PUDs that were essentially houses strung along a long driveway and were asking for the same flexibility on frontage because the lots were longer but only had the minimum frontage for the AR district and the commission also and one of them also had wetlands issues that the commission felt maybe didn't qualify it as a PUD. So those were not supported as PUDs and one of them came back as a conventional subdivision. The other one has not yet returned to the commission's table. So I just want to point to those examples as part of your approval or your case law on this so to speak. Okay so let's mount that around the commission commissioners in general do you feel that this this meets a PUD proposal at this level. Let's let's let's take this let's decide never and we're remembering we're deciding whether or not we want this to move forward to preliminary so we're not engineering yet but we're trying to get the basic concepts. Let's go down the list. Shue. Yeah I have a question back to you Daren you just listed off a pretty good bit of examples how many of those were actually like in you know in an AR district those are sound like they were mostly R1. The two Brigham Hill Road examples were in the AR district so one was 101 Brigham Hill Road that was a two lot PUD that had lots stacked behind each other so flag lots essentially and originally they then came in with splitting the frontage 100 feet and 100 feet and the commission felt that that wasn't necessarily clustered enough and it didn't provide enough open space to really be functional that's maybe not the case for this the open space isn't an issue for this project but there was a concern about circumventing the frontage requirements simply by calling it a PUD. The other example was Goodrich Lane and I believe that originally came as a plan into development but there were concerns about wetland impacts and so they ended up doing a conventional PUD or conventional subdivision and got their wetlands permits. Okay thanks John can I have a follow-up to your question? Daren have we had any PUDs come in with the scenic resource is this the first one where we've had both things layered on it? This is the first PUD that is in the scenic resource overlay district the 101 Brigham Hill Road is not in the scenic resource district but it was identified in the town plan as a scenic area so we didn't apply the exact same standards but we used that as guidance. Okay thank you. Can I just remind folks since we're talking about PUDs and some of the struggles we've had the Morse old-stage road one where we went back and forth on clustered versus non-clustered and we ended up with lots with two dwellings per shared drive we ended up with basically not clustering. Yep okay so let's continue up the list Tom. I think it's a gray area whether it's clustered I get I do like it from a scenic resource perspective so yeah we wanted yeah okay we'll leave it at that for now Josh. I mean I think you named it Dusty when you said the fact that this one's in the scenic resource changes it a little bit on how do we meet that objective as well because it's a gray area it's these aren't traditionally clustered in the sense that I think of a cluster development which is where you want more density and that's the whole point of circumventing if you will the the frontage issue but now that it's in the scenic resource we want to preserve the scenic resource and so yeah it's I'm kind of where Thomas it's like yeah this is a gray area for me right now that's all I got. Ned I get my my biggest concern is if it's treated as a PUD we may get more density on that lot which is you know we've sort of muddled it with ADUs and you know whether we do that or it's a subdivision and I'm just not fully set on the PUD here. Okay John Mingen I don't have anything to add right now okay David anything addition? I'm good with the layout because for me clustering doesn't have to necessarily mean tight proximity it can mean locating homes in a specific area while with the end goal of preserving the remainder of the lands as open so for me I like this design because of how much preservation happens to the rest of the acreage okay and I'd rather see one roadway slash driveway into the parcel than to see multiples just to meet the regs. Okay and I think as far as the the PUD and so forth I'm in the same camp as you Dave so I'd like to to put a sort of put a pin in that and if if we were to move this forward I'd like to I would suggest that we accept the the applicant's description for the time being until or unless additional details are brought forth by staff that would change our mind at preliminary. Is that a reason of commissioners is that a reason we're not done with public hearing yet either so but is that a reasonable approach on the PUD portion of this application? Good for me yeah okay so we're done talking about PUDs Sharon. I just have a little concern of moving sketch forward and maybe would like to see see what the applicant feels because that's when bigger money is spent during preliminary and if we don't have you know all the answers at sketch I would think a continuance but just my thought thank you. Let's let's get there so I think I think the two big issues again that we've that we seem to have had have been the access the length of the access road and whether or not we want to consider this a PUD or not and I I think from what we've the discussion we've had is at sketch level the commission seems to be leaning in favor of putting this as a PUD but acknowledgement that it is a gray interpretation and as we know nothing that is nothing at sketch is guaranteed approval at sketch does not guarantee approval at any future stage. I think that's a discussion for the applicants to have. Let's talk let's talk about the length of the access road so forth and it feels like we have a pretty big barrier with public works. This might be where we want to talk about continuance or moving it forward and this I think would be more for a question to you Doug if we were to move this forward from sketch to preliminary with the expectation that the road issues be worked out before it comes back for preliminary is that too vague for you or would you want to keep this at sketch and get more feedback from public works and have this back and forth a little bit more. I have an opinion but I'd like you know the the opinion too I feel like there's a lot of I'm hearing a lot of I don't know and this is a gray area I feel like a continuance to get a bit more clarity on some of these issues would be good as Sharon said moving to preliminary spend in the big bucks on design when we really don't know what we're designing yet. We think we should be designing a shared driveway but if we do that and the town comes back and public works says no we wanted a road then we've wasted thousands and thousands of dollars of the goonumous time so I guess I and Juanita if you feel otherwise but if I'm feeling like I'm not hearing enough clarity in the planning commission and staff that we want to maybe come back in a few weeks if we can get a more detailed discussion with public works to see if we can get on the same page with them with regards to what's appropriate for the roadway again if it's a shared driveway it can be greater than 900 feet the length and all that goes away and if we can convince public works that ADU shouldn't be on the table if they haven't ever been before then I think as I said Aaron Martin has said he's fine with a shared driveway if we could somehow limit ADUs and we're willing to do that however creativity creative creative yeah we're willing to work with staff put it that way and public works so so let me let me circle around to Sharon your hand is still up do you have a question or is it just left no sorry okay so let me circle around to um ask see if there's any more public input and then we can look back on this does anyone that's on the phone like to have like to to offer any additional commentary yeah through I see no hands okay um commissioners I think I think it is reasonable at this point as as has been noted there are a lot of gray areas um I I do get the feeling that in general the PUD is not as maybe as big of a question as as maybe we thought coming in but the access is the length of the access and the whole status of ADUs so that it feels to me like the option to continue is probably a good one um and and Doug you've brought that forward and you're not I don't see an issue with that what is the commission feel at this point is that hurt anybody's feelings if we if we could continue whatever they want to do okay I think I think that'd be good uh Dustin just real quick how does this compare to 131 towers road where there are like five dwellings there it's just right up the road at least it looks like that on google earth anyway is that the morse proposal that Dave mentioned we're not five dwellings on 131 oh they're not no okay uh John are you thinking of Douglas road just yes Douglas road yep so what's the comparison with that so Douglas road is a public road was designed that way I don't know the history of that project but um it was I believe it was a five lot subdivision okay sorry that was it I'm just okay it is in the different zoning district as well which requires much smaller lot sizes par one zoning right one minimum so Darren and Doug what I'm hearing is there's questions and work to be done on the access with public works maybe fine-tuning you know PUD positions my staff still still feel strongly about that I think we need uh potentially different documentation as far as why better you know different description of the position and we probably can use this as an opportunity to address the ad you question is which is seemingly new at this point and you know maybe the question is why is it new and how can it be addressed commissioners anybody feel anything else needs to be thrown into the mix no Doug do you have enough clarity on that I mean does that give you enough to go back and continue this and do you outline most of those as much clarity as I have yeah all right we'll keep working on it as we have for the since November we will leave the public hearing open but I would look I would look for a motion from the commission to continue I move we continue all seconded move by age on no move move by Tom and seconded by age on and that would be to a date as determined by staff yeah all those in favor of continuing I posed motion passes we'll continue to the next date that you are available or that this that you guys are ready to bring it to us okay all right thank you very much yeah thank you for your time guys two minute break Dustin two minute break 754 recess so I can make rude noises I'm ready when you are dusty whenever I have everyone else says yeah that's it who's back on everybody back oh that's right all of a sudden Paul appeared out of nowhere magic he's like that he's sneaky commissioners all back I'm hungry I'm back as long as they're not hangry it's all good yeah David you back yes sir okay all right I guess we're at John Mangan you back and Josh everybody yes cool yeah I'm here all right we are back on the road next item on our agenda this evening is a site plan amendment and boundary line adjustment public hearing for Jeff and Don Lyon doing business as kana associates this is a proposed eight-unit building addition to the existing four-unit multifamily building Darren are you presenting for this yes I am just one moment to get the plans back up because they seem to have decided to go to sleep while I went took my bio break all right so as you mentioned this is a eight-unit addition to an existing four-unit building this is also a boundary adjustment to combine two lots so let me get the plans back up and I apologize because this one is a larger file so it runs a little more slowly so um this is center road in the middle of the location map here saber road runs to the bottom left of the map towers road runs up to the north and the site is two parcels one of them relatively large one a little smaller both right on center road roughly across from sunset drive let me zoom to the whole picture here here this is looking east is up north is to the right so the there are two existing buildings on these two parcels one is the four-unit dwelling and another is a single unit home with a short term rental unit the staff report incorrectly said this was an accessory dwelling unit that was recently changed so the proposal is to add this eight-unit building to the rear of the existing one towards the frontier and expand the parking area a gravel wetland would be added there is a wetland noted here on the plans without as class three wetland and new street trees would be added new water and sewer service would be added to this building and it would be roughly two stories this is within the business design control overlay district and the high density residential district so it is a 10 000 square foot per unit density and this meets those requirements by combining the lots and using some of the land from the larger lot to allow for development to happen closer to center road which is exactly what the town center master plan and etc max are calling for in this context check my notes here we also have some elevations let me turn those to show what these building what this building addition would look like so very characteristic of the sx center design style with gabled roofs we have some shingle siding or shingle yeah shingle siding on the bottom portion and vertical clabbered siding on the top there are some porches for some of the units and entrances with covered covered entrances that really highlight the design of each of those units and i'll go back to the site plan briefly to point out the applicants have proposed solar carports on some of the parking areas these would look similar to those at the alchemist in stowe i can share a picture of those if you like but staff is very supportive of on-site renewable energy generation and also using existing impervious area there were a couple of other corrections for the staff report there was again the adu should be a short-term rental for the existing dwelling in the rear there should have been a date on line 185 for what the police chief stated should be february 5 2021 and on lines 274 there was a location should not be plural it should be singular thanks to Dave Raphael for pointing those out and one other note is that the tree warden chug vial took a look at some of the proposed landscaping of the street trees and noted that they might not be well suited to the site due to wetness red oak does not do well in wetness in wet areas and it seems like the soils might be compact and wet they might be well drained so we suggest some on-site investigation to determine that and then the red maples are not salt tolerant so because these are close to center road there's going to be some salt spray from the plow trucks so we might want to choose something that is salt tolerant such as princeton elm or hakeberry other than that that's enough i think this is a good proposal and we'll turn it over to the applicant now we'll check with the commission first anybody have any questions anybody have any questions for darin at this stage okay now we'll turn it over to the applicant good evening paul olery from olery burke civil associates mike duggan is on the line also the architect if you have any questions for him a pretty straightforward project for our end we're in agreement with the staff notes we're not requesting any changes in the staff notes of the condition we're okay with some of the suggestions by chuck vile to change some of the tree species out there and the only other comment i'd have is on the solar car ports or something that we very much like to do but we're not sure whether the economics will work on those or not so just to let you know that uh you know they may happen and they may not and that's really all i have unless you have questions for me excellent thanks paul for the for the applicant at this point commissioners hearing none i will ask for someone i have a quick question i you know i did see a picture you know an array of solar panels which i understand will there be any in the parking areas will there be a charging station also uh we're not planning on that right now that don't okay thank you anything else all right seeing no further questions i would ask for a motion to open the public hearing by josh seconded by ned sorry dave all those in favor opposed motion carries seven zero public hearing is open so if anyone in the public has a question about this application um i will recognize you in a moment and you can address your questions to us at the pc and we'll push them to staff or applicant as needed so it looks like lorraine hi hi desi um can you hear me okay yes yeah i know feedback that's good um a couple questions we're ordering we're neighboring on this property design looks great we don't have any real issues with it just a couple questions about because it is no wetlands and we struggle with water in the basement and just wondering if the units are going to have basement which would be more water displacement um and also uh it looks like they're going to leave the road gravel which is great but pervious but um but i do have concerns about the amount of impervious that might be added and the size of that pond the retaining pond or whatever you want to call it there will be uh this is michael dug in the architect there there will be no basements okay good thank you for saying that and then also how do you determine uh the size of that is it called a pond or what do you call that mike no not mike what's that would be for paul yeah so so we are adding impervious surface uh we're actually our total impervious is under an acre so we don't require a state of vermont stormwater permit but we're greater than half an acre that we do require a permit from the town of esic so we went ahead and we designed a system that fully complies with the state of vermont regulation so essentially what it is a is a gravel wetland best description it's a pond that's completely filled with crushed stone that's just a place to go to instead of that's correct it provides treatment and it provides storage before it's discharged into the existing wetland it's just fantastic because it's just i see what the etc plan is certainly something that we're going to have to deal with if it moves forward and this is you know right on the edge of that kind of plan development so all right cool and i love that there's trees there just i really want to applaud the lions for doing this kind of work and whoever they hired because it's it's great to see that so and i'm sure we'll have we may have some future questions too we want to make sure that the boundaries are observed because we did lose one boundary post in the back within the home and we just want to make sure that we don't lose any more um so anyway that's all i have to say thank you guys thank you anyone else commissioners we'll come back to the table then and commissioners any other any questions or comments at this stage i have a comment if there's no charging stations it would be nice to have a conduit from the panel out to the parking lot so you can put one in later we could do that well that'd be great i would like to offer a comment i think this is both applicant and staff that the i feel that this application was very well documented very clear um and i appreciate the preparation that was done i think it was everybody did did a lot on this okay round of questions no questions commissioners if you have nothing i'm going to ask to close the public hearing my move we close the public hearing by josh second seconded by ned all those in favor opposed motion carry seven zero public hearing is closed i'm not hearing any questions from anybody so is anybody prepared to make a motion at this point okay tom did i hear you say you want to make a motion well i just i just want there's no staff report right so there's no conditions is that correct yeah there is a staff report yeah it was oh maybe i'll look at the wrong plan thing all right well are there any conditions that we need to deal with next next question um tom this i would suggest you might want to uh add a condition that they replace or consult with a town forester or tree warden on street tree selection but otherwise we include all the conditions that are needed okay so i move we approve the proposal with an amendment another condition to consult with the forester on this tree species i would okay before moved by tom seconded by shoe um so for some open for some discussion on this potentially you might want to capture in the add a add a section new section for for planning commission findings that just says you know applicant was supportive of i'm not sure the terminology used tom but running a leg out to the parking area for a future charging station yeah not an actual wire just a empty conduit so it's an option in the future okay and darin did you had you had listed some grammaticals at the beginning correct so we just include the grammaticals in the okay yes so we have that motion um um kana do you have something i mean we're in the discussion of emotion so what what there's just some in the chat the marine uh we're public hearings closed so at this point tom would you accept a friendly amendment to add that planning commission finding yes good yeah fine and okay so that was that was there so at this point we have motion is moved by tom seconded by shoe amended any further discussion hearing none all those in favor signify by saying aye aye opposed motion carries seven zero we're good thank you all that makes up for the length of the first application thank you very much thank you this is michael duggan thank you very very much good job onward now to item number four on the agenda which is the site plan amendment public hearing for al-sanical doing business do dba a and c reality this is a proposal there are two additional 20 000 square foot facilities and other site improvements 123 old colchester road darin yes thank you dusty um so the proposal as you mentioned for additional extraction of ledge and two additional um warehouse buildings at the site which was previously approved for one warehouse building and 90 000 cubic yards of ledge and stone extraction staff has no objection to the project in general but public works provided a an extensive memo requiring some design changes and details about how the public how the roads would be designed and one of which would need to be conveyed to the town as an option to take it over so given that those were late breaking changes we wanted to suggest that the condition continue this application to allow the applicant to address those concerns in a revised site plan rather than trying to capture all of those in conditions of approval so that is what you have before you but we are happy to answer any questions about the proposal and i'm happy to give an overview as well but we can also save the time for the next meeting do we have the applicant and engineer present so hang on a second i was a little curious about the i've got a recommendation to continue right the memo to open but we don't really have a staff report so it's a little you know the only thing we have is what's on the on the agenda so it seems like it just needs to be rescheduled well the reason the reason we're asking you to reopen the public hearing is because um this request came in late with the staff report and the butters notices were already sent out by certified mail so it would just that's the reason if you open the public hearing it just eliminates the need to have to recertify people they would get a regular mailing of the next meeting but it wouldn't be done as a certified should you so choose that so we also wanted to make sure that any public had showed up tonight not knowing that it was going to be continued had a chance to comment i don't know that there are any for this application okay tom you had your hand raised i had a couple quick quick questions the is there going to be a sidewalk if it becomes a more public road i can certainly speak to that if you want desi and if we want to get into details basically there wasn't a plan for a sidewalk this is an industrial lot and we didn't foresee a significant amount of pedestrian traffic there is a bike path along old colchester road so there is pedestrian access to the site just not directly in except along the road we can discuss that as an option um well i guess my my other question i thought the last time and maybe it was a time before but not the previous one but i thought there was some kind of path access through the property i will review the last discussion and get back to you on that okay thanks thanks for pointing that out so maybe excuse me it's i find it awkward to just call it and then open the public hearing and then continue um i'm recognizing that we're doing this because of a timing situation um well there might be somebody here that wants to speak so i think i think darin if you're prepared i'd like to you know we don't have to go into length and if the applicant is here and they want to say something they can but i'd like to maybe give open the open the hearing have you given overview so we know what we're talking about we can open the public hearing if the applicants here wants to speak that's fine we can open the public hearing get any questions that people might have on on on record and then we'll have to continue is that reasonable happy to do that commissioners is that okay that sounds good that's fine okay darin all right so um as i said there's sort of two elements of the proposal one is the extraction of additional ledge that was approved by the zoning board at their last meeting last week and the blasting plan and the impacts to extraction of earth resources were evaluated in that we do evaluate in site planning criteria the restoration of the site and because this is going to be developed as an industrial parcel with warehouse buildings there's not a whole lot of traditional restoration to do but um one thing i will add on that point is that uh the tree warden chuckwell recommended that anywhere there's going to be plantings and areas that are not impervious that soil be filled back to a depth of four feet at least to provide for root growth so that will be the recommendation to the applicants when we reach back out to them for those changes that we've discussed or that we mentioned um overall the proposal is consistent with the previous plans there's been a long history of master planning for this site a couple of different iterations of a subdivision and most of which would involve ledge there's a possibility that a road could be extended up the hill to the east into the agricultural residential district which is why that stub road is shown there coming off of old colchester road but that would be for future planning and would require a lot more research in terms of sewer capacity and so on and the proposal meets all the dimensional requirements there's plenty of screening from the roadway and from adjacent sites there's not a lot of landscaping onsite so staff would suggest a little more around the buildings particularly closer to the loading dock areas um public works noted in their memo that um there would be a traffic study done in this area the spring and summer so we will get a better sense of what impacts will be and a better sense of what the proposed impact fees would be um overall site circulation is perfectly adequate no concerns there um parking is more than adequate based on the number of employees in the building as opposed to the floor area uh lighting is sufficient and no spillover uh the one change from this proposal compared to the previous iteration is that they would now be using public sewer so they were able to connect to the force main that was installed for garden side lane so that's a very brief overview um but as we've discussed it might be um there might be more comments from the applicants who don't seem to be here tonight so we probably want to review this at the next meeting that we scheduled this for now they were are they in agreement with the continuance yes okay commissioners at this point anything for darin or can we go right to opening the public hearing i'll take a motion to open the public hearing i move we open the public hearing second moved by shoe seconded by josh all those in favor i i opposed motion carry seven zero public hearing is open if there's anyone in the audience that wanted to ask a question about this we obviously will not be getting into depth because we don't have the applicants here our expectations that we're going to continue this application to a date in the future so that we can get more information and have a more complete um presentation but if you have questions this would be more than more than uh welcome to pose them now and it actually would be in staff's hands as they're doing the reports as well so i am not seeing anything there's anything in the chat window nothing at this point so i would take a motion to continue this meeting until to the date as determined by staff and applicant i move we did that shoe shoe move to continue um did you just second seconded john mangan seconded sorry this is fun this is like a all right i have a motion to continue all those in favor i i opposed motion carries seven zero this will be continued i don't know we've ever had one of these quite like this before next on the docket is the minutes from 225 these are the ones that were amended um amended by Sharon no she kicked them out last week so we have the final thing does anyone want to offer the minute a motion on the minutes i move we approve the minutes of february 25th second i'll second them is anyone want to offer any corrections to the minutes as presented hearing none all those in favor of minutes as presented by saying hi hi opposed minutes carry seven zero um other business you had one item and i forgot to mention at the beginning but it was just i wanted to clarify communication um dana you're still on which is good nope Sharon did you have a question no i do have something after you're done just wanted to get out there okay so do i okay so i had a question and i just wanted to confirm with the shift of the town to the automatic or automated distribution of minutes and not minutes agendas and so forth some of the emails that have gone out have sort of sounded as if if you want agendas you got to get on that that mailer and i wanted to make sure that we were still going to be getting them um directly from the staff correct you'll be still getting your normal packet and everything that you guys typically get from me that's just for the public okay that was basically it just to confirm Sharon um i thanks dina put in your um um in your packet uh vermont federal credit union is moving into one Carmichael where the people's bank was located next to don't condone it's up in the town center and um they want a sign application but their color is a little off well a lot off huh yeah their color was as dunking donuts not quite there so my question basically very quickly shall i have them come in for a for an application the way we do or or are you comfortable um answering this under other business um or do you just not want the color and you want them to adhere to the color chart okay my my opinion is they don't want to adhere to the color chart then they got to come pitch the idea to us and sound they want it if they want to adhere to the color chart then we don't need to see them you know that's fine just didn't know if we wanted the full application so i will have them go through the process and we will get that scheduled are we so hi okay so i've got katie bellard from the housing commission here and the reason why she is here is that we are the as you know the housing commission was created recently by the select board and they have been charged with a number of things including um um addressing items that are listed in the housing needs assessment one of which is inclusionary zoning so we have formed work groups within the housing commission to um to address a couple of different things but the only one that really affects this group i believe um is is inclusionary zoning and potentially other zoning related items which of course is one of the reasons why katie came to one of your last meetings was because there was that sort of overlap so um the intention behind the work group at this point with inclusionary zoning is to just to start to delve into is this a good idea for the town to pursue or the town in the village in actually but um in any case so really um an objective review of other other um instances of of inclusionary zoning pros and cons um anyway uh long and short I guess is does the planning commission what is the planning commission's pleasure they um the committees have not met yet um there are two people on the inclusionary zoning committee um um either we can work with the planning commission who has the ultimate purview over all items related to zoning or um or they can advise I mean there there are a lot of different structures within this but so but I guess the question is do you does does any subcommittee of the planning commission want to work with the housing commissioners on this in this work group as pertains to inclusionary zoning which is what they're tasked with right now okay thank you good you for talking subgroup engagement katie did you have a comment did you want to add something hi yes thank you again katie ballard chair of the housing commission I did just want to clarify we started um as we said we're very brand new five months in we're really just figuring out our priorities too so I did just want to put it out there that part of what the work group is figuring out is is inclusionary zoning something that we we as a commission want to focus on so I I do just want to recognize that that was one of the things that we talked about so it is possible that this is really as we so said before like a research information gathering conversation work group at this point and we would definitely be open to any communication collaboration with with your group um after I came here last time I definitely heard from the commission clearly that they would love to collaborate and work and and support and provide anything that we tend to you folks um that would be helpful so for any for the commissioners present is anyone I guess what I'm hearing is that you might it might be beneficial to have um the commissioners be be part of your work group as you're as you're reviewing or discussing inclusionary zoning so my question to the commissioners is does anyone have an interest in participating at that subgroup level we've talked about doing more subgroup work and you know creating work groups and so forth so this maybe is like the first opportunity we have to do that Ned you're volunteering excellent you raised your hand that's what it means no I I would volunteer but you know I'd like to get it doesn't have to be here tonight but if someone can get me a little bit of background of where you've been so far and what and what you want to do uh yeah I would assume you have some ideas and I won't tell you any of mine right now because we don't have that much time either so yeah I've got I would volunteer thank you okay and that we literally just have the housing needs assessment so it's it's really in second or ahead yes you know in your life we're very much at the beginning of this conversation um but they're they're very excited I believe it's Mark and Evan Mark Redmond and Evan Einhorn and they're they're very excited to get into this conversation and I know they would look forward to to having someone join them yeah okay well sounds like we've got to volunteer to get started and I think Ned if if as you're participating um if you think there's an opportunity or an advantage to having anybody else join in please you can refer back to the commission ad hoc and and wing wing it this is cool just Sharon do you want to weigh in on something I just wanted to know it do they have a do they have a date scheduled yet um no and this is we didn't want to do anything before we spoke with the planning commission and I think this timing is just about right because they'll probably be meeting in the next week to 10 days I'm guessing perfect no vacations for you Ned the ice is not yet we've got him until the ice is out we we don't have to worry too much about Ned taking off well you know I I I I made his head back to Florida and I and I have a confession to make to all of you while we have an open meeting is I did get back home at 6 30 exactly 6 30 two weeks ago after driving 1600 miles in two days and I I really apologize but there was absolutely no way I was going to sit through what you were going to say I would have been out of order in about 30 seconds anyone oh hey thank you for your honesty I I apologize as recorder I didn't hear that and I don't know that it's going to make it to the minute whatever all right anything else that we need to bring up okay then let's take a motion to go away I move we turn second seconded by moved by Tom seconded by Ned all those in favor all right all right all right ever it's on board as well so that passes eight zero gotta pull his weight oh no excuse me seven and a half zero