 go ahead okay good evening we are on the record for the select board meeting the first order of business is the minutes from august 15th is there a motion there approval subject to any modifications there's a second page one page two under a temporary event permits the second motion temporary event permit for Bernie Sanders messengers it is it is for me senders it's under yeah it is yeah okay page three all those in favor of approval I will say nay the eyes have it catch anything this week well I had a few but since I wasn't there it wasn't really appropriate so you're you're abstaining no I watched it on TV so I'm okay all right okay public comment this would be a moment for anybody either in the audience or participating remotely to make comments on anything can be on the agenda or not it does not seem to be anybody from the public here tonight Eric is there anybody participating online who wants to make a comment no just stop okay okay next US Small Business Association update to the select board James what up is it a cursor right the person welcome thank you thank you am I on okay very good very good so good evening everybody just records okay okay appreciate the opportunity to be here I am Jim Acker so I am a public affairs specialist with the Small Business Administration and we are here in Vermont educating Vermonters and storm victims about the disaster loan program that we have available and have had available since July 12th so we've been here about two months next week and the disaster loans that we do offer to homeowners renters businesses as well as nonprofits in the forms of business physical damage loans up to two million dollars home disaster loans we help homeowners with their real estate up to two hundred thousand dollars and then personal property for homeowners and renters up to forty thousand dollars in addition to our economic injury disaster loans which have a deadline of next April 15th those also have a two million dollar cap just last week we announced that we are going to be here an extra month so the deadline was extended to October 12th anything we do when we're on the ground in the state is done at the request of the state so we worked with FEMA you may know that we work in accord with FEMA FEMA provides grants to people when they're offering their individual assistance they offer individual and public assistance and then when in the event individual assistance is offered then we offer our full package of disaster loans that are all spelled out there on the fact sheet that you all have we are reaching out we're doing a lot of outreach to communities like yourself the media newspapers events we're working with farmers markets we most recently worked the the Champlain Valley Fair we were there for about 10 days along with FEMA in the booth getting the word out and we also like to let people know that we have disaster recovery centers we've now currently as of today have seven disaster recovery centers actually they're FEMA disaster recovery centers where we are located with FEMA as long as as well as other agencies of the state Red Cross USDA to provide information and where people can apply in person talk to a trained and experienced customer service rep they can also go online we have a disaster loan assistance that sba.gov where folks can apply there's also email addresses and the like if they have any questions to work with us the date we have awarded very close to 17 million dollars in disaster loans 350 loan applications have been approved FEMA's referred to us about 4700 folks and out of that 4700 referrals 841 folks have applied for the loan 603 of those are home loan applications and 238 are business we have a feeling that there will be more folks applying there's always a lag time you know folks have to get their house in order their business is in order they like to make applications with insured the insurance company first although they don't have to do insurance first or us first there's no real order if they do one or the other sequentially you know we will work that will sort itself out but any of the loans that we do provide they there's no fee to apply there's no obligation to take the loan and currently now the first year is deferred interest free so the but the loans that we do offer are are ones where we encourage folks to again apply online or come in and talk to someone the very very low interest rates the interest rates are 4% and less and again it's all spelled out on the fact sheet 4% for businesses 2.375 for non-profit organizations and 2.5 for homeowners and renters so we encourage folks again to come into one of our centers the seven centers that I mentioned I think two of them are going to be closing in the next couple of days we closed a couple last week and we like to work with folks if they get their application and hopefully with that buy in within a month they could get their first payout of up to $25,000 for either an idle loan or for a or for a business physical damaged loan to get their paperwork in order they're going to work with one of our customer service reps over four over three to four weeks and then in that fifth week hopefully we can get that that payout to them. Of that $17 million figure that I noted here in Chittenden County we've awarded almost more than a half a million $662,000 and we've had 25 home applications. The way the idols work are if there's any businesses here in town that have an economic setback tied to the dates of the the incident period on the fact sheet there which is the 7th through the 17th of July they can look back you know three four or five months down the road and see that they had a you know then maybe they had to lay off employees or they couldn't go into a particular county and do business they could apply for the economic injury disaster loans and again excuse me they have until April 15th of next year to apply for those any questions? Questions from the board? I was going to ask you about the economic injury loan but you answered my question beforehand so now I have nothing. They're there they're the idol and we call the idol loans right um any of our if any of uh anyone that's interested in a loan and they have other outstanding loans from the SBA folks may have COVID idol or they may have other disaster loans that they've taken from us unfortunately those can't be combined but that won't preclude you from taking taking out the third loan. Uh folks also may think that you know their credit uh they may have a high credit score and or they don't want to take on a loan we still encourage them to come in and at least talk to us we don't hold credit score against someone we look at uh their ability to repay so we look at the big picture you know and again like I mentioned um they've got that first year interest free and and deferred so that could help some folks to get their get back on their feet and that date the date starts the clock starts ticking on that date from the time they get their first disbursement not from when they apply so they give them that extra time there. I don't think you can't remember that you mentioned this but are there people been Williston that have received these funds? I I I haven't I don't have that breakout. I could get that for you. No. Yeah. Yeah, I don't get that. I get I get breakouts by county. We do everything by county when we when we go from disaster to disaster so but I'm sure some we could drill that drill down if you actually wanted that we could you know I could work with Eric if if you'd like to get that to you. No, don't. Okay. Not not for me. Yeah. But again, maybe you know maybe maybe there's a bed and breakfast here. Let me have some stuff. I did hear uh of a couple of folks that were having cancellations to you know reservations to their their bed and breakfast you know with the you know with fall and everything because you know it is so wet out there but uh seems to me things are kind of drying up a little bit. I don't know what anyone else thinks you know I hike and I play a little golf and things are getting a little better but you know not that good so I know it's it's you guys have been through a lot. You've had a lot of rain right since spring on and then the you know then the big storm in uh in July so it's another wet season. We're a heart to breathe. Yeah, it's that bubble we've been working just to help get the word out so folks are aware of these programs some if they're affected and want to consider these um these financial opportunities for these loans to assist them so that's something on the town website. I've connected with Jim a few times here. Do another round with this latest update. Yeah and I do appreciate that. We'll get the I can remind kind of local media if they I know you've been out but we'll remind the local paper as well. The local paper cable tv yeah tv and and I have got I've got about uh I think the number keeps fluctuating. I think a team of five other public affairs specials like me that are covering the state and covering all of those primary counties um the counties where we're offering the idol we call those contiguous counties so if they border a primary county um then we offer the economic injury and then along those lines there are three counties in New York three in New Hampshire and one in mass where we also offer the idol because they're contiguous to a declared county and again those declared counties are where FEMA is offering their individual and public assistance and then in the contiguous they're just only they're only offering their public assistance and and then that's and we can also help again with nonprofits there's kind of a small window it's where we can help nonprofits as well as farmers USDA primarily would be the source where farmers if they had field damage we can help farmers that have a have a business operating on the farm themselves you know maybe a maybe a farm stand or a co-op or things like that we can help but again we encourage folks to to you know to come talk to us uh and if they're interested we'd love to be able to help them great awesome thank you thank you thank you thank you thanks for what you do welcome thank you Eric the next thing on the agenda is the bylaw amendments but the planning both and the planning commission does not appear to be I'll I'll text Matt that we're all set they're planning on 715 so it couldn't come too minutes early I could possibly do the managers report now yeah actually if you cover a couple of those items that would be good good use of time so long lines of of the FEMA funding discussion our public work staff recently met with FEMA officials to discuss uh damage cause our infrastructure from July rain events FEMA's going to be reimbursing 75 of the cost the state of Vermont uh reimbursing 17 and a half and the remaining seven and a half percent coming from the town I've got to get a final number from Bruce but our estimates were about the $250,000 range last time I chatted with him so it's good news to get the declaration and to and to have this news on the funding the last in July we we weren't sure Chittenden County was even going to be considered but it gets crossed threshold or whatever so yep they did a site visit recently so it's on track there we'll be doing our annual 9-11 remembrance is coming Monday September the 11th at the fire station uh change in time it's that people gather at we'll gather at 9 30 and start about 9 40 at the fire station it was to to attend it's a ceremony that fire organizers with with police and we'll have some get some community members to come out as well I've included draft budget review schedule in your packet for the new for Mike and Gene sorry I was planning budget season right now so part of it is planning the select board's review process one thing I chatted with Ted about was we're doing a Saturday session to go through all department budgets in the past the town has split that up over a couple meetings in December so that's the major change for the board to think about I haven't heard any objection from staff I flowed this department a few weeks ago we're going to start our internal process here the next couple of weeks get a budget trans the manager will transmit the budget by the 1st of December so to the board so first draft scheduled don't make any final decisions tonight let's see if there's anything we've got for um that seemed six hours of budgets even for me seems like a lot too even for me could be my dream day but no actually it would be pretty classy eye after after three hours so I don't know if did we find that it was a problem last year or could be the could be your dream um I actually I mean having honestly having sat through now I think a couple you know Tuesday nights for two months straight basically I think I actually kind of prefer the Saturday and let's hammer it out and but that's my thought just that you know it's it's hard to have a meeting every single Tuesday during December and then going into January even after a while it's wondering if we just experiment try try the Saturday session one time but it's what board board's pleasure is yep and the timing timing's tough to gauge trying to try not to do more time I think hopefully they could be less than that too but yes that's a best estimate right now so let's back when we take a break in and welcome the illustrious people who've just entered the room thank you all so Matt you're I think I'm gonna turn it over to you um the bylaw amendments housing and staff overview so you can uh take it away thank you and thanks for having us back talk about this tonight um I'm gonna give a really brief introduction um and then turn things over to Melinda um to answer some of the questions on the the details particularly of the housing supportive elements of this proposed bylaw amendment obviously uh also welcoming the entire planning commission either in person or on zoom to the meeting tonight and we have a couple of those members who are ready to come up and speak so I'm I'm hoping to speak a little while and then vacate the chair let some of the commission members come up and and have their turn um since the major thrust of this proposed bylaw amendment is related to housing and and supply of affordable housing I want to start there um and recognize number one that you know Williston has a long history of attempting to address housing affordability um going going to um before my time here and and through a number of planners select boards and planning commissions past um Williston has worked through its land use regulations in a number of different ways trying to address that challenge um so this is not a this is not a new challenge nor is this the town's first or will it likely be its last effort in meeting it um but this recent effort has some of its roots in two to two and a half years ago and we were working on the tap corners form-based code um which was a really major rewrite of the development standards for tap corners and really we we just kept on taking on more and more issues as as we looked at that and one of the issues that was raised that we didn't take on at that time was affordable housing said well gosh you uh you're changing your regulations you're creating quite a bit of development potential um what about affordable housing um and the answer was that is the very next thing um we're going to do um so the tap corners project came with a to-do list um on that to-do list were a couple of different items um some were more technical like adopting public work specifications for the new streets and tap corners and we and we got that done um another was the foundation of the um effort that you see coming before you tonight which was the housing needs assessment um Planning Office Shepherded that through uh completion and approval and there's a lot of hard work on part of the staff to do that and then we held a series of conversations with this board about the housing need and the potential policy response to that need over the spring and summer um what you see in front of you tonight represents the hard work of staff as well as the Planning Commission in refining the adjustments to the land use rules that we think could help increase the proportion of new housing in Williston that comes online that is in one shape or form or another more affordable um and what you're seeing tonight what we're going to go over is not fundamentally different from the policy discussion that we had over the early summer with this body in other words there are no real big new ideas related to housing um in this it's inclusionary zoning it's a requirement that portions of new project be made perpetually affordable and that if a project does not have that inclusion in it that it must follow the growth management path and pay a fee in lieu of the creation of those affordable units that fee revenue going into the affordable housing trust fund to be used to make other projects more affordable so that general thrust um is still there um and we think that what the Planning Commission has prepared has a has a likelihood of moving things in the direction of increasing the supply of affordable homes in Williston um this amendment package also reflects um a number of smaller amendments we refer to as the collected amendments um I've listed those very briefly in the bullet list in my cover letter um and I was trying to kind of find a way to communicate to the selector will wire these other issues coming up um things like food trucks and backyard chickens and um accessory food service at manufacturing sites in town and all these other little things and well um another thing that we were asked a lot about during the form-based code project in in 2020 and 2021 was what about COVID um what what about the ways that the world is changing um when some of our fundamental assumptions are challenged about the way that we can live in the world um what are the restaurants going to do what about outdoor dining what about food delivery um every the way people use the the town and the public spaces in the town is changing what about that and so we had some things um that that we saw come back to the fore as a result of that conversation and those are included in what we call the collected amendments and they're mostly more related to um economic development type goals as opposed to housing goals and it seemed okay to package the two together into this one transmittal from the planning commission um that's how they've been working on them so we can we can also talk through and answer some of your questions um related to those so what I've just talked you through is essentially the one page letter that we gave you in the package um the the next piece would be the longer bylaw amendment memo dated July 27th of this year um and this takes the amendments to the bylaw through um the chapter order that they are in the final supporting documents you have in your package tonight are both a red line version of the affected chapters in the bylaw and a clean version which helps you see how those red line uh strikeouts would actually look in an adopted draft um so I'm going to stop there um Melinda if you want to go through especially the housing related stuff Simon Miles who worked significantly on um sorry there he is on the um collected amendments may be the best person to come up and talk about those um so I'll I'll get out of the way as needed and as I mentioned before we have some planning commission members who may want to speak and answer some questions about why they chose the approaches they chose uh in this bylaw amendment so I'll stop there uh so uh I guess probably makes sense for me to go through the housing related um amendments if that's okay with you yep um okay so uh first of all allowing the amended bylaw allowed acceptance to growth management for small dwelling act to build projects including um including um adaptive reuse of non-residential structures to residential um and allowing up to four total dwelling units on an existing parcel without having to go through growth management um Melinda I'm going to stop you just because I apologize the development I'm absorbing as fast as I can on the stuff but when we say growth management we're talking about the uh you get so many points for your development and then the somebody in the design review board somebody decides this is how you all stack up and this is who gets the allocation that's what we say growth management right it's a system of um kind of doling out the um the allocation that's available each year to um developments based on a scoring system and um the higher scoring um proposed projects um get you know presumably get get um allocation more or get preferred in that allocation process okay now would this jump them to the top of the line or would this be additional allocation um so so this would be um basically they would not go through that competitive process I mean currently we have uh an exemption for small projects um and but that only applies to um four total uh units this year like across the town and the drb has discretion over whether or not to actually uh enact um that those exemptions so but if you had 80 dwelling units to allocate when you say they're going to this exception to the growth management could there there now be 90 or would just be this would be the first 10 of the 80 um no there could there there could be 90 so when we talk about projects that are either exempt because they are small under this proposed bylaw amendment or that are inclusive of affordable homes we are talking about those not going through the growth management scoring process and also not requiring allocation on the table in order to move forward so there is a possibility um that the table is completely full in the growth management system of market rate projects and that there are affordable projects inclusive projects that include had create units beyond the caps in growth management um I would caution that that's balanced by the pay and loo provision that's added so um today if you want to build a 100 percent market rate project in growth management you can you can do that um and there are other ways to score points and be competitive in that process without providing affordable homes which is currently incentivized there um under this draft that still might happen but every affordable unit you would otherwise be required to create you would have to pay money into the affordable housing trust fund for the for the right to do that so in looking at how these provisions have worked in some of our neighboring communities and in looking at um several in vermont we think at the staff level that adding that pay and loo to the growth management makes it likely that the overall number of homes created is not fundamentally more than under just the growth management system because if you're going to use that growth management you're not going to build affordable homes as part of your project you're going to pay for that you're going to pay real money you know writing a check to the town and that's something most folks want to avoid so it's an alternate path we would not expect both of those two alternate paths to completely fill up so you would not expect growth management plus exemptions to growth management to both fill up is that what you're saying I wouldn't expect to exceed the cap with growth management as the only path we don't we don't exceed the cap today we see about 65 to 70 percent utilization of the cap as it is yeah but it could but it could okay thank you I didn't mean to do you really you on the first line Melinda no worries no that's fine feel free to interrupt anytime and I believe that before total dwellings on existing lots that's not part of growth management that's a essentially like accessory dwelling units it wouldn't be restricted to ad use it would be exempting you know if somebody has a parcel and and they want to build four dwelling units on that parcel subject to density requirements and and other requirements of the bylaw that would not have to go through growth management they would just go through the discretionary permit process and and you know have to do site plan review and and all the rest and and it would be you know only those parcels that would have the area to allow the density of forwarding all the units yeah so that's an important point these proposed amendments don't change the number of units per acre that are allowed anywhere that that all stays the same they don't change setback provisions they don't change height provisions they don't change design standards or anything like that it's just about you know the the number of dwelling units that can be approved through the site plan review process without going through that interim step of growth management that makes sense yeah okay um okay so then we come to allowing an exemption to growth management for projects that are inclusive that include a certain percentage of affordable homes and the bylaw the the amended bylaw has details on how many the required percentage of affordable homes and it's it would be 10 percent at 80 percent area meeting income or 15 percent of the total units affordable at 100 percent of the area meeting income or just to allow some flexibility if somebody wants to do a mixture of homes affordable at 80 percent and at 100 percent they could do that mixture subject to approval of the drb or zoning administrator um and then there are incentives there's a density bonus and the incentive main incentive is not having to go through growth management which you know will add additional costs to any development project but that's the main incentive for including affordable homes and then we've included details on the means of ensuring perpetual affordability and payment and loo provisions um and the payment and loo provisions could be like any fees could be adjusted by the select board as needed on you know as needed um and then there's amendments to residential growth targets to reflect inclusionary zoning um there's some minor amendments to growth management procedure and allocation rules um the one of those in particular i'll i'll just point out will be that um currently projects that go through growth management large projects that don't get all their required allocation in the first round of growth management have to repeatedly go back to growth management um basically they submit a pre-application the previous year and then they go to growth management the next march to get more allocation um and you know they keep repeating the process until they've gotten all their allocation well it means that some large projects may not get actually get off the ground um until after four to five years of permitting um local permitting um because in order to get off the ground they need to get a loan from a bank and banks require a high degree of certainty about certainty about that development and how many homes are actually going to be developed and the the current system it just requires you know for for a large project it requires years and years of going back to the drb until they get the allocation that they need so so the proposed change is that um once a project obtains that that single uh that that first allocation then in successive years they wouldn't have to go through pre-application they would just uh they wouldn't have to go through growth management they would just um go to the drb for a discretionary permit amendment just to amend their their um what do you call it phasing schedule so that would be that would be a change and it would be sort of less timely and less onerous um and be able to to sort of streamline that process but they could technically start building years earlier um yeah technically i think that would just allow a project to get off the ground sooner than just similar to like cottonwood crossing right now um but you know they're allocated 320 units or something they've only built like 90 well that's i think uh you know that's that's a different um you know sort of thing i'm i'm really really talking about a project that um hasn't been able to get all their allocation and has to keep they have to keep coming back year after year okay so and then a required percentage of affordable for inclusionary projects um so projects that are small projects that are exempt from growth management would be up to four dwelling units um they would not need to be inclusionary projects that are at least five units and greater um would need to be inclusionary in order to bypass growth management so between five to nine dwelling units um must provide one affordable unit at a hundred percent AMI um if you have a project that's at least 10 dwelling units must provide uh 10 and i think i want i just went over this the required percentage is 10 percent affordable at 80 AMI or 15 percent affordable at 100 AMI for a combination of both levels of affordability um what would that go ahead i was just going to have you just explain uh for everybody what AMI is sure um that's the area median income of the burlington south burlington metropolitan region and how that's um yeah area median income so i'm just going to ask what how much house set does that calculate out to be right um so to calculate the affordability basically a house is considered affordable if um the uh household spends no more than 30 percent of your income on housing expenses including um if you own the house so the mortgage uh taxes insurance um if you're renting it would be your rent your utilities um basically yeah rent and utilities um what's AMI these days i was gonna do i was gonna do not in my head but yeah just to impress it so um this is may 2023 numbers from bhfa um but in in the msa the area we're talking about um max purchase price for a three bedroom that would that would be affordable for a household of the appropriate size um would be 361 thousand dollars um that number is quite low right now because interest rates are quite high and so one thing that happens with when we're regulating affordability is um if interest rates go up you can buy less house for the same monthly mortgage payment and so um that number has fluctuated in the last couple of years um up up close to 440 thousand and and down like it is now in the in the 360s 370s yeah so well based on five percent interest rate or approximate and you know property taxes and everything what's that come out to for annual income so um that's that's looking at a household income and i'd be looking at a four-person household for a three bedroom house that's an annual household income of 113 thousand six hundred dollars so we have we have a quite high median income in the chitin county area um so we have a relatively high median income as a result of just lots of high salaries in the region so i i don't i read through the red line stuff but with me um the the in lieu was wasn't very much it was eight thousand dollars a unit or ten thousand dollars a unit um i believe it is uh 3500 a unit um for the first 20 units and then it jumps to seven thousand dollars a unit for a project that is over that is bigger than 20 units it's not a lot of missing because this a three bedroom at 361 you'd be giving up a hundred thousand dollars as a contractor right you might be um but uh given given the heavy subscription of the town's growth management system especially if you're looking at a large project you're also looking at maybe not being able to schedule that entire project so it there's an exchange of money but there's also an exchange of certainty and flexibility for the applicant that um we think has some value as well and i think you know embedded a lot of the questions that are asked about payment in lieu is well wait a minute that doesn't make up the gap between an affordable and a market rate home and that's that's absolutely true it doesn't it's it's a um significant but not total disincentive for someone to build an all market rate um project um and then the other thing is uh because that money's coming to the town and coming into the affordable housing trust fund it lets the town accumulate it and and do some things with it that the market might not otherwise be able to do we can leverage it it's just a huge difference between yeah there was a market and and so if you go the cash in because the cash in lieu the um route you don't skip growth management no you have to go through growth management as well um and then one other clarification so projects that are between five and nine dwelling units they would not have to pay a payment in lieu but they would still have to go through growth management essentially they're just under similar rules that we have today um and then finally um we amended the criteria for scoring points um namely uh giving the energy conservation measures more uh weight or more points um in today's system you can get 10 points for energy criteria and like they're literally almost never used because they're considered pretty onerous in in today's bylaw not much flexibility at all and they don't it doesn't get you very many points with the amended bylaw uh energy conservation criteria get you 30 points 30 out of 100 and they're more flexible um you know there's just there's more choice in what you can do but they're they all help to conserve energy um adding the option of using renewable sources of heat and hot water such as full climate heat pumps um and reducing the requirement for energy storage from four day storage to two day storage but there's still you know flexibility and choice in those energy criteria um and then I think yeah I think that's about it there's in chapter 19 um there's right there's there's a couple of other housing supportive amendments um an exemption from residential density requirements for adaptive reuse projects so if there's a commercial building if you're adapting it to a residential use um you would it you would not be subject to the density to to the um existing density requirements um and then uh adding a density bonus for mixed use residential projects that include um greater than 30 percent affordable dwellings um it wouldn't be you know it wouldn't it wouldn't affect uh a big area of town it's really the area within the growth center that's outside of the taft borders for base code district because um that area has a different system for allocation anyway so density bonus you need to get more points for pushing the envelope on how dense they're is that what that means yeah you can have more units for the acre of land um and so the land area Melinda's talking about is mostly from a few hundred feet south harvest lane to interstate 89 in that mixed use area that's not in the form base code area in the form base code area we don't look at density by units per acre so there's there's no incentive incentive you can multiply it by the the form is what's regulating what happens there um and this is this is reflecting a bonus that currently exists in the entire residential zoning district there's there's a bonus for going to 30 affordable in chapter 19 for that district um today the former catamount gall or summer field project is an example of a project that is proposing to take advantage of that that bonus so it goes from three per acre to five per acre in that case that's all the way to whole stage road um the the district to a essentially root to a full stage road to to a to north williston road for the rzd but most of the developable land is between old stage and and to a yes um that's that's about it all i have for for the housing portion of the bylaw you'd like to hear about the other chapters um i could well i could probably answer the questions yeah um i wasn't sure if the commission wanted to pause and ask some questions related to housing before moving into the other items or or to sort of go through the overview it's really up to you folks well i um planning commission people are here is sheila and jill we're going to be speaking as well is that let's be a good time for that or we hello everyone hello thank you for taking the time to do this and having us here we really appreciate it um i'm going to speak at a much higher level because the staff are much better at the technical parts of this than i am but we uh heard lot loud and clear during form-based code and a number of our other public hearings where we went out and proactively looked for feedback on the work that we were doing in williston that affordable housing was really important and it's something that we need to work on we need to focus on and we need to think about as a town we need more folks here who work here we have a lot of jobs we're really lucky in that way and we don't have enough places for people to live that they can afford and access and um so we've just heard that really like like matt said we heard that very loudly and and we committed to working on that um with the community and then you all gave us that funding to do the community needs assessment and that um the housing needs assessment and that was really helpful and very detailed and the data supported again the great need for affordable housing in the town and so that reinforced all the feedback we had from the community and was really helpful and useful in focusing us on this work um and then finally you know we we as a group um looking at the town plan and the goals feel that it's a great thing to do for williston to focus on the affordable housing issue here and make sure that we are really meeting that goal for the people who are here now and the people who want to come and live here i will say that we looked at multiple different options for how to do this and this was the option that is sort of the most well-tested and the one that staff really recommended as the best choice for moving us forward in a way that won't hamstring you know housing development because that of course would be counterproductive and is not the route that we want to take and at the same time ensure that there are more units that that folks can afford i think you pointed out a couple important things which is that it's not um not for somebody making minimum wage they're still not going to afford these units and so i think it is important to see this as a step it's a really important step and it's a great first step and we hope we've gotten it pretty close to right um and it's not going to get us all the way to our goals that the that the housing needs assessment found or that we think we need to do and that's going to take further work and more work maybe using that housing trust fund as well as working with community partners to reach some of those lower AMI but when we think about really leveraging the developers and the developer interest in the town this is a really great way to push the proportion of our housing that's being developed to a more affordable level so again like matt said we don't think this is going to create a sudden housing boom in wilson this isn't going to generate tons more units all of a sudden but it will push the proportion of units hopefully toward that affordable rate for folks so that it's easier to come and live here so those are the pieces that i wanted to say again i appreciate you all doing this we've been working on this for a while it's near and dear to my heart it's been really great work by again the staff and i really wanted to appreciate melinda and and matt in the amount of time they put into it and we're happy to answer questions and i i just want to see if jill eric wanted to my co-chair wanted to say anything yep that's why she's online yep she uh she's in the small yes hello jill hi i'm just the pilot in some of the echo shows comment about if i don't be perfect this is the leading to the necessary start considering where we are in the community and relationships other towns and i think that the fact that we don't have a law if any sort of outside of senior and we don't we have a huge gap we will we'll be current y'all because we are pardoning the person and we have full basic load of the kind of people um online this is a great opportunity and as soon as that we get this more that you're assuming it's our um developers going in and then things to get to take off and have to have opportunities for people to help us because it's a huge thing and we see it everywhere from people who want to get jobs they will send their own to jobs in their month and they can't get people to live and afford or people who are living with multi-income families and um it's something that we can take a step here and this is this is something that we're looking forward to so thanks thank you um questions from the board uh gentleman first age before beauty age before beauty thank you for tackling such a difficult issue i thank you for leading on these issues i think that's important you know i disagree with in lieu payments i don't think that's the way to tackle this i never believed that the government would spend my money better than i can you know i i like the fact that you're really relaxing the standards on the accessory dwelling units i think that's really important i think that's really going to help people i think you know allowing four units per lot i think that's a really good that's spreading the wealth around i really like that i think that uh affordable housing is not only home price but it must also include you know what we're doing to keep property taxes down in town by keeping property taxes down in town prices down in town it also helps make rents more affordable i like that um i think on the enforcement of the affordability housing i think that should be starting with the 10th dwelling that developers the developer gets 100 homes allocated you should start the affordable housing after the after the 10th dwelling i don't want to see you know developers pacing i understand what you're saying yeah you know they you know build 89 homes and walk away and not have to make a 371 thousand dollar home yeah we did contemplate that and i i can't remember the exact mechanism but it's in there it's a great point it's an it's really important thank you but you know i i like a lot of what you're doing i you know when you talk about energy efficiency i love what they're doing in panton with the o'briens are doing with their new developments you know all solar all power walls being able to disconnect from the grid i like that you're talking about the two day and the four day i think that's important i think that's something that we can start with new dwellings once that you know becomes affordable and it becomes more mainstream we can take old dwellings and do the same thing with them i think there's a lot of potential with that it gets the future so you know thank you you're doing a lot of hard work you're trying to please everybody and it's really difficult to please everybody i know i'm not the only one that you're trying to please no i i hear that i do want to i i hear you on the in lieu payments it's not perfect one thing that what i was frustrated by is the reality that we we would risk a lot if we demanded developers build housing that's affordable for example for the families that you all heard from and we heard from who have children who are now young adults who want to live in wiliston and who are living with disabilities developmental or intellectual disabilities developers realistically are not going to come in and make housing that's sectionate affordable housing that's got supportive services for those individuals probably just not a reality the in lieu payments if they go to that housing trust is something that we could leverage to work with for example the champlain housing trust and that group and provide that type of housing and increase that diversity and ensure those young adults could stay here so it's i hear you it's not perfect and we could see maybe it's not enough as you say and people just skip the affordable units and they only pay the in lieu well that would be a sign that we would probably need to change that however those dollars are going into a space that we don't think the developers will go into and so it's it's potentially an important resource for the town for a different population thank you so i was i thought you asked if you could talk for a minute sort of on the 10 and 15 percent talk about throwing the needle here i know it's a tough one but just seems really low to me to be able to skip growth management for 10 at $113,000 it's gonna be it's gonna be a hard fell to the community when i say yes when i say okay we are letting this 50 unit or 100 unit you know house development skip growth management and come in potentially faster than the town can absorb it or the school's gonna absorb it for 10 houses that for someone that makes over a hundred thousand dollars a year that seems low so i hear you okay the percentage i think so yeah so maybe to talk about like i know you guys supposed to have a lot of conversations about that yes can you explain why yes yes and you could maybe imagine that some of us wanted to be like 50 percent right um so again this is striking the trying to hit the balance and we think we've got it pretty close but it might need to be adjusted where we're not going to deter development because we have already seen in finny crossing and some of the other developments that were where we're building a lot of units that that does in itself make housing more affordable right there is simply a competition aspect to this where we just need more units so that there is more out there so that those units become not as out of reach because the market is so constrained so we do not want to deter people from coming in and building units where they are allowed and in the proper spaces and with the proper density that we have zoned and in our town plan and the concern is if we if we ratchet that percentage up too high developers will choose not to come in and make anything because or they'll really you know they'll do something very different that's not what we're looking for with housing because it makes it so unaffordable for them to actually do the building and we know that you know labor is expensive here that prices of goods are expensive here there are lots of reasons that it's hard to build housing in vermont that have nothing to do with our fancy zoning in wilson and it and so we don't want to do that and i think it is the piece that we probably one of the pieces that we talked about the most and one that we might come back to but we are looking at surrounding towns and i can't remember off the top of my head exactly what those are but we were looking at them and learning from their experiences and trying to make sure that we that we kind of hit that sweet spot i do want to address one other thing you said though because i think it's a really important thing for people in wilson to hear which is again that i that it's not going to um open the floodgates of housing and all of a sudden there's going to be millions of new units because we don't have this growth management option we really do not that that we do not foresee that happening yeah please go ahead gel yeah we have um an understanding now with doing some of this work together and with a lot of input from folks that growth management has kind of caused certain developers to be the only developers that are coming because they're the only ones who can kind of navigate that system so what we're hoping is that by putting in this opportunity that it might attract other folks who couldn't or wouldn't kind of go through that growth management process but are invested in and do value the idea of affordable housing and will will not only maybe just meet our like if you're thinking it's a local bar but might potentially consider you know other avenues like these particular groups invested interests people with the developmental disabilities things like that so i think we don't really know other players in wilson because there really have been kind of only a few key developers because of how we to get involved and invest in our community in a way that we know we'll provide more housing for folks who need it address is your question are we gonna talk about other parts of the yeah i'd like to i did do it before we move on um so and i feel like i'm always the person who brings us up but um i think it's important to talk about wastewater capacity and the limitations that that would also impose around development um and um because i think many folks may fear that again and you've done a great job of kind of hopefully mitigating some of that fear that this will be some sort of massive boon in development but that we do have other kind of existing limitations on on what might dictate development in this town so i don't know if someone can briefly touch upon how wastewater capacity might i wouldn't i wouldn't want to step on out here i had to feel like that was chomping at the bit to talk about wastewater you know i it's it's so sad when i only get to talk about sewer once a year so thank you for the opportunity um as as i think you all know um all potential future development in williston um is limited by or must be in accordance with limited limited resources the town has as it relates to wastewater treatment capacity because almost all new development happened somewhere in the part of town that's served by water and sewer and we have a growth management system um and we think about it as the system with this table and this limited number of units um and that's really only one small part of the way the town manages growth and and manages its ability to keep up with the pace of growth so within the rest of the zoning bylaw itself um williston has high standards it has high development standards has high standards for the concurrence of bringing in other infrastructure like streets and paths and trails and open space and playgrounds and any number of other things um those are also always of managing growth because not just any old sort of bargain basement residential project can come into town um beyond that there's a very regimented system where those who would be connecting to sewer need to purchase that capacity um in order to do so and the select board only chooses to make so much of that new capacity available for sale for the different use categories including residential and affordable housing every year um and most years it's not all purchased um I think everybody here has been through some piece of me with attachment a talking about how we look at how much we've sold in prior years and how much to make available based on what's coming in the pipeline so it's it's yet another control on the pace of growth um it's a very real very physical limitation on the total of what can happen and the policy decision the select board makes a little bit is how fast do we get closer to the outer limit of what the current system can can provide and the the policy push in the town plan it from the select board has been to plan for 20 years of capacity and think about what's made available and what's sold as needing to last over that 20 year period so that's that's all still in place um the new residential category and sewer allocation as well as the affordable category would need to be used to support any of the homes that are created under this provision regardless of how they get there and really there might be another follow-up question for the select board in in the next several years as it works through that attachment aid to the sewer allocation ordinance which is what are the town's priorities when it comes to allocating that limited resource there are job producing industries that use a lot of wastewater capacity and there are job producing industries that don't use a lot of wastewater capacity does the town want to start prioritizing how it sells on the on the commercial side in that regard does the town want to make more capacity available for affordable residential and less capacity available for market rate residential right right now what's made available for affordable is relatively small because there isn't as much demand for it that balance could shift so um i hope i'm answering your question which is basically to say there's yet another mechanism that's not even in zoning that also bears heavily on the pace of growth um i would i would look at it as the primary policy goal of that one is a very sort of accounting-based one of we don't want to overspend our limited sewer budget and we want to think carefully about how we spend it ultimately the town's comprehensive plan and that year-to-year sewer capacity decision should be the things driving that so now i'm understanding why nobody understands how this works in wilson because i always assume that the sewer allocation and the growth management plan are related but theoretically you could get all of your growth management and then we could hold jet for five years because you don't have a sewer allocation yeah i certainly know it's going to agree to do all these low-income things to get through growth management and have to wait for their sewer allocation so we we have that conversation with prospective developers all the time when we say you know here's what we see coming available here's you know if you were thinking about something really really big you you might need to think about whether that's feasible within the system when we when we change the zoning in tapped corners we we took a hard look at well just how much of the potential that that new regulatory change creates is actually supportable by the current infrastructure and the answer is not all of it something we'll have to change by 2080 for that vision to move forward or the vision will have to change as informed by the limits that we that we reach in wilson's policies i always think of the scarecrow and wizard of boss because sewer allocation and zoning kind of do this to each other they say we've got a limit um how much sewer allocation we sell because we need to control the pace of growth and that says over here we need to control the pace of growth because we don't have infinite sewer application um i i really look forward to working with the select board over the next couple years to maybe untangle those a little bit and and put them in a in a priority order and make that work a little better but that's kind of be on the scope of what we're dealing with here and for now that year-to-year audit of what's going on with sewer and how does it relate to the development that's being permitted it works quite well if the horizon starts to get more like a five-year horizon instead of a 20-year horizon and we really start having some harder decisions to make then the need to change that becomes more urgent great we got the weight squad in there there are there are other issues in the um presentation though that i was interested in the capper 20 residential improvements and matt can remember a few years back uh when we talked about allowing chickens to be kept in the yard so we got to a really important part here so cal's going to the chickens there's two people left on the board that were present uh at the time of that discussion and we both voted against it at that point in time so a lot of questions about uh is there going to be a permit required if so how much is it our coop's going to be required sensing going to be required manure renewable and uh our roosters allowed so big things that could be problems down the road sure um well let me let me frame this um first by saying one of the first questions i heard from someone who survived the last uh discussion of chickens why are why are we talking about this again at all didn't didn't we just decide no backyard chickens um and the answer is largely staff driven so apologize for that it's been six years um we've become aware on a number of occasions just by being out in neighborhoods or talking to people that there there's a fair number of folks in williston on uh lots that are smaller than an acre often in a suburban setting who who despite the zoning's prohibition have backyard chickens um so we're aware of that um and we're also aware that we we've not received any complaints about backyard chickens in that time i had one rooster complaint um that i handled under the the noise provisions i called the homeowner and said i'm getting a complaint that you have a rooster and he said i i don't and and then the complaint ended so either he took care of the problem or he really didn't have a rooster i'm not sure which um and you know sometimes this is not the first time where our bylaws have been somewhat behind what's happening out out in the world there are times when things change people find new land uses again covid was an opportunity for lots of people to engage in backyard animal husbandry and other hobbies and um sometimes the zoning disallows something in a blanket sort of way and you know we start to wonder if that still makes sense so to to get more into the details of your question currently chickens are classified as livestock in williston zoning the same as pigs horses goats et cetera and those things are not allowed on lots that are smaller than one acre so the the threshold is dogs and cats below an acre above an acre Noah's Ark and chickens are kind of in the middle there there there's a fair number of folks we're aware of who either have or want to have backyard chickens and at a relatively small scale and there is a numerical limit proposed in the in the bylaw draft it's something that that can be done without creating a nuisance for your neighbors so that's that's the framing of it we would not under this bylaw amendment and Simon please come up and correct me because i'm struggling to scroll to it at the same time we would not require a permit for this but there are a set of standards related to it and and they include a limit on the number yes there's a there's a limit of 12 to your flocks you can't have a lot a number of chickens larger than that and you also got to here to set back requirements you got to keep the chickens 15 feet away from your property line and i think bedding and manure and things like that needs to be stored at least 20 feet away from the property line there's measures built in there to the zoning bylaw to protect the amenity of residential neighbors as well as the the noise ordinance that the police operate which can deal with things like noise yeah but i survived the chicken debate war and i they had a distinct recollection that we had a number we actually had a number of meetings on it a number of hearings on it where we had experts from the agriculture department and as i recall that the number was six not not 12 and i mean i will share with you i don't want to prejudge the issue but i voted against it last time six and you know i think of i think of neighborhoods like like mine which most people think is part of south ridge which it's not but it's that kind of thing and you know if you had a dozen chickens my neighborhood with my right and then i have a dozen chickens and then my backyard neighbor has a dozen chickens then there are a dozen chickens my left um you know 12 24 3 were 48 chickens in less than four or five acres um and uh you know that that the noise and the odor and the uh you know the things that will come to feed on the feed uh are all you know very significant issues um and i you know the other thing i'd say is that we had a meeting either one or two meetings ago where a gentleman said you know my neighbors have chickens and i know that's allowed because of the ordinance and i said well we actually that that was defeated he said no it's my neighbors said that it's not and you know and i looked it up so i so i googled it and sure enough that the defeated ordinance pops up um and it doesn't say it was defeated so so somebody's right there says right there um so i uh you know so i mean i i'm i'm pretty concerned about that and the fact that people do it you know people speed too it doesn't mean we don't have a speed limit but anyway i just well let me just finish up my wisdom um i just the only thing i'd say is that i i do think that this is something that would be that would require significant input from the town i'm with you on that what's that i'm with you on that i'm gonna prejudge it but i think i'd want a lot of input i think people will weigh in and and i will say in shape and i'll hand it right over to you but the the last time we did this the the the intensity of the passion on both sides i i haven't seen such passion since the uh should we allow advertising on the little league home run fence issue um that uh uh when um when jenny lions was chair of this board um and uh she barely survived that anyway chapec chapecain or i live in the village and um ten years ago when i retired i thought i might want to get chickens could have them as in as a 4h student as a kid and uh in order to decide i answered someone's ad on front porch forum to house sit their chickens or the chicken sit their chickens when they went on vacation and i've done that for four other families um since then i've become sort of a chicken sitter and um i can tell you that there are many more problems with dogs and we don't limit people about dogs and dogs make noise dogs make smells dogs do all sorts of things and they eat their neighbors cats and chickens um and so to me we have a much more problems with dogs and we do with chickens and we get more complaints about dogs and we do chickens and yet we allow dogs pretty much just register your dog only most people don't but that's the way it is couldn't it be true that we don't get much complaint about chickens because we don't allow them well here's the thing when i thought i was going to get them i thought i could i didn't know that because my lot is less than an acre i could not which seems ridiculous to me i live far away from any other house but my lot's less than an acre and it it it didn't make any sense to me that i couldn't have chickens so i started out on the side of well we should probably change something what i can say is the people in the village who have chickens they manage them well and people don't have complaints about them and so i i find a lot of the concern the the gentleman you spoke about came and spoke to us on the planning commission too considering that and he didn't have a neighborhood chickens but he was worried he might and he was talking about what we were considering with this change when he said that it was going to be a part of the ordinance um i lost my train of thought oh i know what i wanted to say is i i put the number 12 in there because someone said we should have some number and i'll own that it's because i've seen people have a flock of six or seven and then a couple die and then they decide they don't want to do it anymore and their chickens really should go as a group to someone else they shouldn't be split up and so someone who already has four or five chickens is oh i could take four or five more and you don't want to say oh you can't because you can only have six and the rooster problem should be taking care of with our noise ordinance as should a barking dog now there's to me it's not any different than a barking dog to have a rooster disturbing you you should say that's a problem you're disturbing the peace so i i just feel as our noise ordinance should handle noise and we also you can't be bothering your neighbors with smells and so forth and i don't see that any of the people are keeping chickens having that problem and so i don't understand why we can't have chickens within reason and so i just that's my where i come from while i'm here i just wanted to say one thing to the earlier questions about housing which is as someone has been the planning commission for a while we really have wanted to have more affordable housing because we've put the brakes on development because the town wants to slow development once we did that the prices of the houses that are built go up there in more demand and so we put incentives in and they just haven't worked so we feel like we have to do more but for the people who can't afford a medium income house that's why we want the housing trust fund that has already been started to grow and why we asked for a housing committee to work on how to do that but the idea of the inclusionary zoning in the in the zoning gives us more affordable housing that spread around so it's not isolated we want it to be part of just any development to have some units were affordable and we put in there that they can't look or be substantially different from the other units thanks thank you jebin back on animals dog kennel is that kennel is that just a dog house that what's a kennel uh i looked it up it said dog house so yeah outdoor house for your dog uh they're not really much in vogue anymore most people keep their dogs inside okay and it would only be your dog you couldn't be taken care of uh correct if you were a day's day doggy daycare or anything like that would be your dog a home business or another type of business would require a separate permit okay one of the reasons for putting this in given some recent experiences in zoning administration is we wanted to be crystal clear because both home businesses and things that are accessory to a home all live in chapter 20 um there's this discussion of kennels and it it kind of leaves the question open about kennels for a home business versus just kennels for your dog that you know lives at lives at home with you um and we wanted to clarify that a homeowner with kennels for their own dogs that they own is absolutely fine as an accessory use that um kennels that were established as part of a home business um would be regulated under the home business provisions it simply if you're not if you're not going to regulate how many dogs somebody have and i'm definitely not going there if they couldn't have any dogs they can have they have to have safe place to be outside so you're not going to say you can have as many dogs you want but only two dog houses i mean that right i kind of just trip over there i do see some i i do see a potential problem if you're fostering a lot of dogs on and on and on but that just comes back to how many dogs you have not how many dog houses you have so i just want to clarify that we were that it was just really your your residential dogs are we talking about here not needing a permit to build a dog house so i would point out to the board that we are significantly behind schedule which is fine like so we're aware um but are there other questions on by bylaw amendments housing staff overview and is there more comment from the planning commission or anybody else please um i also i mean we we put this all forward so i do support the changes but i would ask that if the select board feel strongly about chickens um which i understand that um i would ask that if that's going to be something that's going to need a lot more time that we separate them um because we feel really strongly this housing work you know is critical now so that was that's my plea is if that's going to feel like a no no i think it's exactly what i was thinking when i was reading these are some of these which are sort of quality of life we want people's input on what that would be and then but but all the meetings seem to be about chickens so we really need to talk about this because even if it's even if we all were a hundred percent no questions all want this you still need to have a discussion so people can learn about it and understand it and ask the questions and so i i'm totally with that i don't know how we work that out ted but yeah i'd rather not have chickens and dog houses on the same night as as growth management and inclusionary zoning wherever it's chicken sitting shaping i just look we had a farm walk so hey chapin's here if that is if that is the um the case there is a proposed promotion um but the um animal sections of the proposed development bylaws would have to be pulled out of that mode so we just make a separate motion to pick that yeah well i have some more that way you remove the any of the refer references to chickens and um the new language on chickens be removed um sorry discussion i was just going to say maybe just the whole chapter 20 section we could do a different night make it a little cleaner okay people may feel really strongly about swimming pool covers i don't know as a as a matter of uh administrative ease does that make sense to staff um i'm just going to take a look really quickly um the the housing supportive amendments are mostly in um 11 19 and i think maybe 39 residential um so there's there's sort of a couple ways you could divide this up one would be to take um the residential improvements in 20 which i i've just got to look at and tell you if there's anything other than chickens and kennels in there be charging stations yeah we do have bb charge in there as well um so we we traipse into some things that might not be and pool covers there's a pool security provision right but somebody who feels really strongly about their neighborhood and doesn't really care about the growth center stuff might have a feeling about pool covers i think what you're saying mad is either we do the three growth centered ones and everything else another night or well one one way would be to just capture everything that's related to housing so that's going to be the amendments in chapter 11 growth management 19 density which is really just to correlate to 11 and maybe a handful of others and we can we can move we could you could have a motion to move that forward to hearing um and collectively everything else is what i'm calling the collected amendments it would be um chickens ev charge stations pool covers um expanded out our eating areas for food manufacturers um and sort of a sort of a bunch of other things um and we can we can help you staff through how how to you know warn a hearing that's based on part of what was transmitted to you there's some timing things in statute we have to follow but it's certainly doable for the board to move forward on just the housing elements as a package um and then take up the others at some other point do you think that's chapters 11 and 19 yeah definition in 40 there's also a chapter 46 definition uh um emergency shelters exempt from the bylaw lives in chapter 4 all of the chapter 11 amendments um well changing the name of the hack doesn't affect housing so i'm i'm looking at just the housing if i just point out that this is being reviewed to move to a hearing which is exactly what you're asking for about the chickens but like don't you want to know community input yes but but if we do it if we if we warn it my understanding is if we warn the whole thing for a hearing then that has legal consequences about what has to be passed at that hearing and what and whether it can be divided out at that time um i definitely want to have a public input on all these other things too um but i i think there's somebody correct me if i'm wrong it's the it's the board's preference so you talk about separating the issue to separate hearings or if you kept the package as it is had a public hearing to decide to make a significant change to what was warned after the hearing you would have to go back to the planning commission be re-worn well that's my that's my concern is if the chicken part was deleted that is a significant change that and the whole thing would have to go back to the planning the timeline was an increase so i'm trying to make it so that all the other stuff goes forward without holding that up so um if you wanted to move forward on everything but chickens we can do that that's that's easier for me to say and define then then quoting you all the chapter numbers yeah everything out would be it would be to move everything forward except for the provision in chapter 20 that would take the the chickens out of definition is live i like to take the kennels out too because i know we're going to get some neighborhood people to talk about dog kennels so yeah so we would take out 20.9 and 20.10 and and move forward with the rest do you want to finish your motion then terry that was my motion everybody's looking at you we're wondering if you're going to make the rest of the motion so uh my motion is essentially what matt suggested so move toward a public hearing and a proposed amendment to the town unified development by last was presented without 20.9 and 10 yeah so is is the motion a motion to warn a public hearing on proposed amendments to the town's unified development by-laws as as transmitted by the planning commission with the exception of sections 20.9 and 20.10 is that your motion yes that's what i heard don't repeat it i will second that further discussion on the motion uh all those in favor say aye those opposed nay the ayes have that was easy thank you very much that was i know a lot of work from all you guys okay so next what i suggest i think the folks for liquor license are here yeah let's let's do that out of order so aromas of indian work come on up thank you so much so i can kick it off aromas of india is a new restaurant in town they're requesting a class one liquor license before the select board this evening um folks from the restaurant are here to answer any questions that that board has thank you for coming um could you give us a little presentation about um the restaurant and how your requested liquor license would fit in okay so i can take that uh so we have started recently that aromas of india and 202 cornerstone drive in the listen where it used to be earlier narrow restaurant so we we have started our vegetarian and then we are going with the little uh board this initially we started our takeout journey and then now we have started our dine in and we have been requesting getting requests to add more like our customer are coming in or we are calling them not customer like our aroma family so they are coming in and asking us hey can we have uh liquor here like and can they come and then have it and then even sometime we have received call oh you don't have license but can we can we bring our own and then at least have with with the indian meal can we have this as well so kind of we are getting a lot of questions from our as i said aroma family to have this in in our restaurant so from there we can we can take for that enemy to the requirement of our of our family members questions from the board so this is just for all of you who may not have approved liquor licenses very often before the liquor license first class is just beer and wine that's going to be my question yeah it makes no sense to me this be for in on-premises service only yes no takeout it's where is your restaurant located uh 202 corner stone drive it's uh that's found right behind down it doesn't ever like that near saps corner let's let's over near where the uh chef yeah i love india food so i was going to say i think i'm up to my different to recuse myself given how much money i intend to spend the rest of your future full disclosure my family is uh had takeout twice yes i i i should also disclose that we can be eaten there i told them i haven't seen your guys' faces but you know uh and staff staff has no issues no no issues from staff how does that just because i'm new to this too how does the how does the uh licensee license holder know about training and how do we make sure that that's all done properly though yep this would be approved up at the the local level then they need to obtain the the license from the state of vermont so i haven't been on that and but i anticipate that's what that's requirements to to prove the training regimen and that folks have received a different state we kind of look at some of the department of liquor control and what the options were they have virtual they have they can come to the store they can go you know to go to the state i think in mobiliers so kind of trying to jump ahead of it and seeing what's necessary great okay so if there are no further questions uh is there a motion and the draft motion um sarah mason our tanklark reminded me that for a new license it's not on the april 30th year it would be a year from the date of issuance so i might suggest the motion would be to reflect a one-year license through september 5th of 2024 rather than april 30th as i all right i'll move to approve a first class liquor license for sarita indian kitchen llc doing business as aromas of india through september 5th 2024 is there a second second further discussion always in favor say hi hi as opposed to no the eyes have it great thank you thank you for coming in very excited and here is sarita that i just want to say is this woman entrepreneur and she is the one who owns the business so we are here to support the right so she's right she's the one with the recipes it's she's very valuable thank you we keep our buy bar high and we'll make sure you guys visit soon yeah please thank you thank you get this amount of room to the state this week oh thank you thank you you're welcome okay um better lane regulating plan amendment great matt thanks for having me up again um that was just impacted by sewage allocation well there'll be a pipe under the okay got it all i need to know um so um i think as as most of select boards aware from when we introduced this issue um the the town has been working for many years on moving the construction of trader lane uh a proposed grid street and taft corners forward trader lane was one of many streets in taft corners that was placed on a couple of regulatory maps through the adoption of the form-based code including the regulating plan official map and street specifications map and as we've um worked with the landowner to come up with a very rough layout of trader lane so that we can hopefully move forward on designing and constructing the street uh the the preferred alternative for trader lane changes the street configuration a little bit from what the regulating plan originally anticipated the regulating plan has a one-way street circulation around a central green the preferred alternative slides that green to the north essentially making it a t with the end of right avenue which is the street CVS is on and straightens trader lane removing the two 90 degree turns that would otherwise be required so this was reviewed by the planning commission as a potential zoning bylaw amendment because that's how these things are structured the planning commission has now transmitted its its version of this trader lane alteration to the select board this does shift the green and street in in the way that we think is the preferred alternative the planning commission also added a change to the street type for trader lane so on on my memo you'll see a two column table with the map on the top of the orange yellow red streets and the green green before and after and then under that you'll see two street sections the street section that the planning commission is recommending be put into the amended map is similar to the one that was originally planned for trader lane it's a little bit wider and it incorporates bicycle lanes on both sides of the street as well as sidewalks parking lanes and travel lanes and so a few reasons for that change in the street section taking the 90 degree turns out of trader lane probably increases its ability to throughput cars but it is an area where we would anticipate significant residential development and redevelopment and a need for lots of people to be able to move up and down the street as well so the planning commission felt that in straightening the street out there should also be a place on that street section created for cyclists and recommends that change staff has no issue with that it's doable under the code it works well within the other framework further on in the memo you'll see some some maps that kind of zoom out from Taft corners and show how this would look in in the overall grid of the Taft corner streets and as a amendment to maps that are adopted under the unified development bylaw this follows the same path as what we were talking about earlier tonight it would need to be warned for a hearing by the select board and and voted on at that hearing in order to become effective i'm happy to answer any questions about Taft corners trader lane or otherwise i would just add you know with the street type change the original proposal is the korean the planning commission had the street type change we had a meeting last week all stakeholders involved in this project the the current land owner and public works department planning department myself and everyone involved on the project team didn't have any objections to this proposal it's it's feasible the way that the land is is structured and and everything there so that that conversation i want to know that conversation has been had questions from the board correct me if i'm wrong and i and i'm looking very much be misremembering this but in the original thinking the kind of kind of circuit is kind of rude of it was to slow the traffic pattern right so this is what theoretically then will will result in a in a faster moving traffic through this area um do we see that as is problematic if it's going to be primarily residential what what else will we do to mitigate the speed in which people are kind of traveling there so you know the the street section we're looking at can be can be adopted with a similar lane width and all of those things but it does take those kinks out the truth is a lot of folks when they encounter something like that they slow down to go around the corner and then they just kind of speed back up again so you might get an end-to-end difference in the travel time but the maximum speeds are still kind of high so i think we're in a similar position that we were before which is we have to look at what kind of traffic calming we might need to do along this street um anyway and that would be part of the refinement of the design but but fundamentally shifting the green straightening the street doesn't have to mean um that it's you know less of a multimodal street less good for walkers and cyclists etc okay i struggle with the street because it's uh ostensibly we're putting it in to take traffic off of taff's corners but then we don't actually want too much traffic or too fast traffic so it's it's um i just think about like i'm always taking the cut through by movie theater and like that that one because there's you know you pass those houses and then you can not worry about houses or kids on bicycles or anything but but i rarely do through the new taff's the north east corner i rarely go through there because i feel like i'm driving through a neighborhood and i don't like to do that if i can avoid it you know so it's really kind of a it's an interesting dilemma you make this a beautiful neighborhood with with houses and kids on bikes and the people's are no longer taking it as a way to avoid taff's corners and it you're not alleviating the traffic there so it's i appreciate that it's a um i appreciate the um the addition of the bike lanes because i think that's a that's a bit of a compromise position i mean it's great it's not that bike lanes are compromises but it does sort of address that issue of there's going to be cars going through there they're going to probably be going too fast but if i think that the way they're these this this kind of lane is that they're talking about was that it's actually sidewalk bike path parking traveling so that the bike path is on the inside because that's the way that uh i understood it to be which is a really great way to keep bikes kids on bikes away from moving cars yeah the trees and yeah between the trees and the parking is the bike path right because of the outside so as long as no one opens their driver's side their passenger side door it's a i think i think it's a i think it's it's a really interesting way to sort of address that struggle we're going to have with some of these these roads yeah i think it's a it's a nice hope that trader lane would be this sort of very quiet street but part of its function is to provide an alternate route to a an alternate route out of a major retail area right and so you know it in sort of coming in coming back and looking at the design the planning commission wanted i think i think it helps meet those two needs well for the questions if not a motion is well i'd move to warn public hearing to amend form-based code regulation plan maps and as well as the corresponding street specification map and townwide official map to reconfigure trader lane and relocate the trader lane public green is there a second second for the discussion all those in favor say aye those those say no the ayes have it great thank you it's not it's fine add amount outdoor family center well since renewal welcome back so we're bringing this back to the board this evening you might recall it last update i think in july there were a couple last issues to work out uh assignments work with the cow mount community family center board on on those last couple of items he's highlighted them in the memo to you this evening um possible action item for the board consider approving the renewal of the license i've added some draft language uh as our town attorney to take a final look at everything before for the manager where to sign it it's on like a third assignment just if you want to highlight those those last yeah so it's really just just three small changes when it was presented in july we were still figuring out uh the fire department's utv and ems availability uh we discussed that with fire uh and sort of reached the conclusion that um the outdoor family center were well placed to uh judge when it was necessary having regard to uh public safety and the safety of their event participants um so that's what the draft reflects um but like um we've been doing with other things the town does have the ability to monitor that uh and change procedures if they feel it's not being uh uh sort of exercise with due diligence uh and there's also some language in there that there's the understanding that there may be some delayed response times if if they're not present on site the second change was just um in relation to the term and renewal we asked that the um the town be given one year's notice if the outdoor family center don't intend to renew um so we tweak that so that applies to both parties giving us a sort of uh reasonable attempts to do so um sort of allow time for the catamount outdoor family center to wrap up their um uh their business and also probably as importantly not sell sort of annual or seasonal memberships uh for the trails uh and then lastly just um from reading it back in area we haven't touched for probably six to eight months which was trail closures um a bit of clarity there for uh to help those of us who are going to be administering that we don't we don't need to be notified every time you know a single trail is being closed um because that does happen for maintenance and sort of individual wet events it's more for the larger scale events uh say for example the entire trail system is closed during the spring four um or there's some sort of public safety issue that needs to be resolved uh so those are the three changes that have been made uh since july other than that the um licenses as you reviewed it previously questions from the board um just real quick because how um it says i've had some people express concern that it's never open for just people who want to walk and i know that's vastly unfair but how if we're no longer sort of regulating them closing trails how would that come about to have a conversation about so you know told you have trails every time but you're closing an awful lot of trails so the way it works is the pedestrian access is protected under both the easement and the license and the management plan um they notify us when all the trails are closed and the way we're drafted is in more than 50 so in my time here that has only happened twice both both of which is in april and the reason for that is that they notify us is that it gives us the opportunity you know should i wish to do so visit the property and check that it is being you know it is necessary to protect the trails um if if trails were being closed uh sort of against the license or more regularly uh i'm pretty confident we hear about that uh and we do retain the ability to you know they don't really be closing the trails for things like uh events or things like that and so a lot of the language that we included in the temporary events uh changes uh allows the town to go back uh and review that um language and sort of uh we have I think this term sold discretion to to acquire changes to allow more public access whether that's by limiting the number of events or whatever the case may be yeah I saw that on the I was glad to see that on the event part if we start yeah too many we're gonna have a conversation all right right okay thank you other questions if not it was I guess um there there the town does have a quite a number of uh public trails on private land you know is there any way of maybe notifying like Jean if she wants to walk in time and you know pattern out for us is closed so is she is she aware that there are other I'm not picking on you is she aware that there are other trails that she could be walking on yeah I mean we do we do post it on our website we try and get information out about our trails so at green update we give out uh leaflets we try to make sure there's always leaflets available um sort of in the in the office and town clerk has some as well so people are aware uh that there are other places to go um I mean you know it happens very rarely um and I think catamount might put it on front porch form if the forest is closed but I can certainly look at that as well and make an action item for me to make sure that we do message um on front porch form that there are alternatives available to people you're welcome to come walk the trails at the farm can't bring my dog other questions if not a motion would be in order we'll move to approve a new license agreement with the catamount outdoor family center to operate at the catamount community forest following a final review by the town attorney and authorize the town manager to sign the agreement is there a second is there further discussion on the motion now all those in favor say aye all those opposed any of the ayes have it great thank you simon right well thanks simon for all his work on this has been a it's been a big win yeah a lot of red lines thank you bill the current agreement runs out in october so we're ahead of schedule now um the ordinance amendments that that you approved for temporary events we wanted that to run through the 60 day appeal period before we sign the license so mechanically I will sign this later this month after the town attorney reviews it so everything's lined up so thank you thank you next item a memorandum of understanding with the school district yep so this is an area the town owns some called tree island near allenbrook school um the school districts approach the town to have a team of volunteers be to build a lean to structure for an outdoor classroom on that property I worked with the school and staff and the town attorney to draft an mou that would set expectations for the district in the town primarily want the district to absorb the the liability for that structure and and the uses related to it I distribute that to the district the district didn't have any hesitation with the town proposed except the terms as as outlined there we've posted an administrative permit for the lean to that has an appeal period that runs out later this week we wanted to try to get this mou in order first before we had the district had volunteers going on here building the lean to so both parties had an understanding of of the expectations here so should the board approve the mou this evening I think construction was starting that lean to maybe later this week adding the weather even the heat so just as a point of note I'm going to recuse myself from this as an employee of cbsd now I am also it's my fingerprints are all over the review but I do want to say this is the the town has this is just a reversal the town has all sorts of structures on school property so this is very mutually agreeable it's a good document to work from right exactly further further questions or discussion how easily is this structure uh you think of the right word here all of a sudden not maintain you know but is it visible you know where you can see what's going on there 247 thanks Simon do you recall how far off I think adjacent to the parking lot at Allen broome uh it's it's the the idea is that would um tree island is a more a barzy menahani because we're calling it um essentially is a a big hill and so the idea is it'd be put at the top of that hill where there's currently a stump circle classroom that the kids use to learn about the natural world um so it would be up there um I think it is visible from the the parking lot and it is this area of land is not used solely by the school there's also members of the neighborhood who sort of walk their dogs or go for a walk there as well so there will be surveillance of it my only concern is people living in it moving in sleeping in it you know we would we'd certainly keep an eye yeah I think there'll be enough from people interacting with the space from from the school district and other other folks like any other kind of country park in town if there's something that that needs to have some attention to it then someone would alert the town and we would work to uh to mitigate that issue you'd have the authority to take care of that if there was you know if we could find that there you know say someone vandalized the property for example we would we would look into that like any piece of town property most classrooms are using outdoor um at allenberg at least we're using outdoor classrooms daily at this point year round so we'll be eyes on it at this daily but if there's somebody sleeping in it it was the way I read this at least the school's sort of responsible toward school hours and then it's you know the town's responsibilities just like if they were sleeping on the in the wreck to wreck building over here or something would be kind of the same responsibilities I would say yep we had been kind of situation played out you know if it became an an issue um damage or something like that we we'd have to decide how we want to adjust to that it does have potential visibility from the fire station as well just depending I think at the top of the hill you can see down into the fire station as well I think I think visible is the word I was looking for a visibility for the questions or comments just to comment the emotion would be in order so I'll move to approve a memorandum of understanding with the Champlain Valley school district concerning the lean-to structure and town property adjacent to allenberg school and authorize the town manager to sign the MOU on the town's behalf is there a second second all those in favor say aye aye all those opposed no all those abstaining me the eyes have it emotional manager for most of it earlier that I want to highlight but um the folks we were talking about the budget reviews again thank you miles we'll have to make a decision tonight but I didn't know if there was consensus from the board on that draft schedule so they want to think about a little bit further I think we had consensus but I support it and it doesn't work next year we'll go switch back we'll we'll make plans for for that approach here and then finally um it's coming up in a couple meetings um trying to get the board out to some of our town facilities think our public safety facilities and our um public works facility trying to think how we might be able to fit that in that made sense um thought I had maybe we could potentially could start a couple select board meetings a little bit earlier hour or so or a little more than an hour to give time for travel but you know do a do a tour police fire public works want to see the board's thoughts on that availability these next couple of months if we try to build that in with maybe a couple 5 30 start times for or whatever time the board would like to like to take care yeah I would love that it would be great it's the same night can't wait to see the wastewater facility that's the one I'm most you know one of my favorites honestly I've seen it a couple times um this is a matter of procedure I would imagine that that gets warned as part of the public hearing too so like potentially if members of the public wanted to join us for the tour that would be yep yeah we had warned the meeting starting at 5 30 at the fire station and then whenever that torque initially would recess the reconvene back here at 7 o'clock yep as a matter of historical note when we did this when I was early on the board we had my daughter Ella but not Julia yet and we had a Honda Odyssey van and we met here and by happenstance ever the entire select board and Rick Maguire and Ella because babysittinger got in the van they reported from the observer and we went from station to station station uh and and did the tours and then came back here and started our meeting and the observer did a wonderful story on it uh highlighting basically Ella anyway um that's uh I think right now she's a junior junior at uvm but we could ask her to come along save great retrospective better now with Ella um that's all I have for time okay okay um so there are a number of items for executive session and a motion would be in order sorry did I have a couple catering permits oh I'm sorry for the business okay yeah go ahead oh yeah I skipped other parts too so I'm sorry uh for catering permits all at the ocean family um farm first September 23rd for a wedding we have another on sorry September 16th uh that's a wedding um both caterers are catered to cocktail yep for both of those um we have another event September the 21st let's grow kids event um so it looks like it's a fundraiser for the organization uh foam brewers um would be the provider of service at that event and then October 1 October the 7th a wedding as well and that is 802 cocktails staff has no um no concerns for these applications that last little is back at isham yep all four all four isham oh is there a motion I'm sorry you said there's four I got the 16th the 23rd October 7th and what was the other one October September the 21st yep let's grow kids okay yeah September 21st let's grow kids I'd move approval of all four there's a second for the discussion all those in favor all right all opposed extension one of one extension okay um sorry I skipped uh so other business and no other business final thoughts on agenda items from this meeting no I was I was loud it came up about splitting the the hearing on the chickens and the dogs versus the other stuff I I watched the um the last planning commission meeting with it it's too bad because they work so hard and it's so much work heavy lifting to do the really hard work and then I'll I'll do is talk about chicken so yeah we should um I'd be interested Eric if I could bounce some ideas maybe off of you and I'll let you know quick but I think it would be really good to be able to get the word out about those a little bit more because you know I just I don't like to us to have to act on something and then find out afterwards that people are really wound up about it for the public hearing no yeah yeah any ideas yeah because I I'm learning slowly but I think a lot of people would be interested in knowing how how this is going to affect the affordable housing growth and how it might affect all growth but it's in the service of affordable housing I think that that would be good to get out there as information it this is an excuse to have an informational discussion um so that people can weigh in if they want I feel kind of bad they go through meetings and they bring it to us and then we just find fault with it based on what a little bit we know because they've discussed it all you know the experts on it yes but they don't have to get elected all right other final thoughts if not an executive session is on the agenda and there are proposed remarks okay on moves to find premature public knowledge regarding a labor relations agreement with employees and contract discussion would clearly place the town at a substantial disadvantage and further move that we enter executive decision executive session to discuss a labor relations agreement and the contract under title one sections three one three a one a nb of the vermont statutes and the evaluation of a public in favor say aye we are in executive session and we're not going to be returning to uh that's the last thing so we're not going to take any public action