 a popular planning commission meeting for Tuesday, November 12th. This meeting was rescheduled from yesterday because of Veterans Day. So the first thing we have to do is approve the agenda. I'm going to take a look. I've forgotten. No, I think it's just one we can approve unless there's no changes. There are no changes. Right, no changes. Do we have a quorum of the historic preservation committee? We don't. We warned it in case it happened. Very thorough. OK, well, so we'll deem that approved then and move on to the comments from the chair. I don't really have any other than to say that last time, just to touch officially back on something that happened last time, we talked about view sheds and regulating view sheds. And we decided to probably leave that out of the discussion tonight. So instead, we'll be picking that up later and Mike has some reports for us to look through. And we'll be looking at that thoroughly, but that's its own issue in the future. That's all I have to say. Does anybody else have anything to report? Marcela, did you mention that you are getting a subcommittee position on the Regional Planning Commission? The plan, I think, is just to fill the one that you were on. So I was emailing with Laura today, and she said that they can put it forward. They can put my name forward for the subcommittee on the regional plan tonight, even if I'm not there. So I think that's fine. And last month, she asked the room if anyone else wanted to do it, and nobody did. So I'm expecting it will be me, but I can let you know. What's the subcommittee? The Regional Plan Development. It's the Regional Plan Subcommittee of the Regional Planning Commission. Yeah. I have this called, well, Doc. It's the Committee on Committees. This one, yeah. A core competency. Regional Plan taking her reach today. Yes. But it's not a bad one to be on as far as the subcommittee's go. And it'll be handy when Montpelier goes to review our part of it. So, OK. That's great. Moving on, we're going to continue out. First, we have to review the minutes. So everyone, I'm going to take a look at the minutes. At the last meeting, so I assume I shouldn't vote, but then maybe we don't have four people? Thank you, it's fine for you to vote. OK. Seems like the least amount of complication. Any changes? We have motion to approve the minutes. So moved. OK. Moved by Aaron. Second? Second. So a second. Those in favor? Aye. Aye. All opposed? OK. OK. Now moving on to business. I want to make sure that we get through our discussion and vote on the design review district regs proposal and the map tonight. We had discussed the possibility of the district preservation committee also having a joint meeting with us. But it appears that not everyone can make it, which is fine. We have Eric here to participate. And I always have Meredith to help out. So do you guys want to come up here and jump in that way? I'm fine here. OK. I'll show you the microphone. OK. We have one up here. All right, super. So let's jump back in. I haven't given a lot of thought about how we want to go through the week. Is everyone interested in walking through like we did last time? Revisiting the things that Meredith had brought up? So can I ask a question? What is this? It's the same one that you had last time. We didn't make the changes to it. So if you have the one with your notes from the last meeting, then that's the same thing. Particulate where we want to get to tonight. We want to pass these out. And my recollection, and I didn't bring the ones I had written on last time, but I didn't really bring much notes anyway, my recollection was that out of the suggestions that were on there, I don't recall any that we were planning to, that we had definitely decided to keep. Meredith, you can remind me if I'm wrong about that. There were some tweaks to what had been changed or deletions. Some deletions. Yeah, mostly deletions and then maybe some other tweaks to language that was in there before. OK. And I think the only thing that was really still open for discussion was, and I may be wrong in this, but was the whole energy conservation measures funkiness that you hadn't quite decided how to deal with, I thought, just because I have a little note that says next week on it. But since you've had some more time to think about it, you may have all decided to just do it on a note. I see a couple options. We could briefly run back through everything, or we can just say that we'll pass on the suggestions, because that's what I was looking for last time. We'll pass on them by default, and then we'll revisit this one and take a look at it. So how do people want to use their time? We're going to go pass on what you said. The only other change that I see is the ghetto initials were started building. Oh, yeah, I had that as they. I know, they had that before. Yeah, no, I had that as they rejected it again. I had that they rejected that addition again. Which one are we talking about? The change to the definition of historic building on page 14. In my notes, I had that you went back and got rid of the suggestion again. So yeah, so how about we let's not go back over what we already discussed last week. Because that took a whole meeting. Yeah, and let's just go into the building materials discussion, and then if there's anything else you've noted that we need to talk about. And anything Eric wants to follow? Yeah, Eric, if you wanted to bring anything else up again. No, I just don't. So then that's the last one that we didn't totally resolve. That's going to be, I don't know as we actually came to a final conclusion as to what this was trying to get at. The page eight? Yeah, the page eight change before implementing energy conservation measures. Existing energy efficient characteristics of the building need to be taken into consideration. Was one suggestion during the meeting? Or just delete it all out? I don't know if that was resolved. I think that the issue there really is that some treatments that people think are energy conservation treatments can be very damaging to a building. If you have a paint peeling problem and you put the vinyl siding on it, the paint peeling is probably caused by moisture in the building. And if you put the vinyl siding on it, you trap it. I mean, I actually looked at a house that completely composted. It was an old pre-1800 house with corner posts that were in. I could take a screwdriver this far into all of the moral process. The complaint was the siding was buckling. Because that was going down. So I think that's the point behind looking at the changes that people have been sold on this energy conservation. Windows is probably the biggest issue. Even the efficiency of Vermont, there are studies that show that you can rehab windows if they're in reasonable condition and get as much energy efficiency. So I think that's what that was trying to get at, particularly things that were damaging to the building, potentially damaging. All buildings behave a little differently. So I do have some language from Barr, by the way. She just sent this out in case she couldn't make it. So I'll just throw that out there. And Eric, you can tell me what you think of this. I don't think this gets at what you were saying, but you tell me. So instead of what we have on strike through on page nine here, instead of what's there, we would have materials should not be added to the exterior walls of the building that could damage the condition of historic materials. Windows, but it's closer to what the problem, the whole, after the comma in a sense, it just confuses me. Like existing energy efficient characteristic doesn't seem to get at what you're explaining and what Barr was explaining last week. So she's close there. Or maybe we just add structures instead of, you know, not limited to just put something on the outside of the building. I think we had talked, or at least I had notes, of the changing the second energy efficient to the end of the sentence after the comma would be the existing historic characteristics of the building shall be identified. Yeah, I have that too. I would just suggest that I think it's a top on page eight, except for under materials. The first sentence I think actually speaks to this issue pretty well, which is historic building materials should be preserved to the maximum. It's not practical and replaced in kind when they're deteriorated beyond repair, replacements of material shall match existing materials to the maximum to the maximum, it's not feasible. I feel like this does a pretty good job of speaking to the vinyl siting issue I'm willing to listen to any concerns to the contrary. But I think that the existing language adequately addresses the concern that we already have. Can I just explain something about the setup here? So your first paragraph here that you just pointed out for materials is supposed to be sort of what the standard is. What's underneath it is different ways you can be examining that standard and whether or not your application meets that standard. So these are different subcategories of things that may come up. That's the way I looked at this for the organizational purposes. And you may not always have a design review committee that has thought about the, you know, I'm adding something, okay great, it's for energy efficiency, that's fabulous, we're not gonna worry about it because you may not always have people on the committee or even if they're attending that particular hearing who would think to look at what's the, you know, not necessarily foreseeing impacts might be. I think that's why we have some of this, that in a subcategory here. That may have been too many words, sorry. Sometimes talk more than I need to. I think it's to bring energy into the picture because there are people think that the only important thing to deal with is to see energy efficiency of ability, that's it. And so they come forward with things that are very destructive of the historic character. What do you think about Mike's idea to just point out that those things should be identified? Existing historical. Right, that's what you were saying, right? Well that's, yeah, I know I had at least recommended the changing energy efficient to historic characteristics of the building shall be identified. I have and preserved struck out, I don't remember why I would have done that. I don't know if somebody else had suggested that. And also have a be taken into consideration as an option as well. Like they need to be identified. The committee also has to. Oh, okay. Has to be more than just identified in the application, but also may be considered by the committee. I don't know. If we're worried about energy efficient addition harming the building, can we just say that? Don't add energy conservation measures that will harm the structure of the building. I feel like that's way too broad. I'm not comfortable with that. Yeah. I'm sure it is, but can you help me understand? No, no, I, and I admit, I probably have a bias towards energy efficiency here. So I, yeah, I mean, I agree with what Aaron said a while ago. I don't know why it needs to be called out because it does seem like the materials is saying, right. So maybe I missed the. It's some of these scenarios that they brought up where someone's trying, they think they're well-meaning and they think they're improving something, but they're actually doing more harm than good. But there's a lot of ways to go about addressing that problem, right? That's what we're trying to get at. Yeah. What's the best way? The one covers it. Yeah. I mean, aren't you already taking into account the building materials are appropriate? I mean, if it's like a bad energy, I mean, if it's designed poorly and it's going to result in moisture, that's like a whole nother issue, I think. Or maybe I'm just confused. It is something designer view takes into consideration things that are destructive to the building. I mean, one of the things about mounting signs is an example you're supposed to mount them in the mortar, not drill holes in the bricks. And I think this falls in that same kind of category of things that relies on the expertise on design review to catch because sometimes the window and vinyl siding salesman get there first. Vinyl siding solves all your problems, right? I think it's just the idea of having it mentioned in there. So we're considering it is important that we have the authority to deal with it. Speaking as a member of the designer of your committee. So there's an instance in which the historic materials they're using would be compatible, but you would feel that it's designed poor way? Trying to think of an example of that. It's very unlikely actually that if you're using a stark map, replacing it in kind, you know, and if insulation is done well, it's fine. But it has to be done. That way the right way and using the right vapor barriers or insulation is not something we wouldn't review any. But we do look for the designer who does look for things that are potentially destructive to the building. I captured in this beginning generally a lookable bit. I mean, there's a lot of, about, to be seven, sub B, level I, it's like. Page seven? Page seven, yeah, but a lot of them have to page seven. So like, if you can't, conditions shall not obscure undermining essential form and character that originally was over. So if you're gonna be, you can't do that. Materials features shall be repaired rather than replaced. Development shall not destroy historic materials that characterize the historic building. Let's kind of get back to the site. I mean, my only example that I really understand is putting insulation over brick. We're protecting the material, the historic material over brick than we can. Well, it's interesting that efficiency for Montza, the first thing to do is to control air infiltration and along with that you should do some moisture control because there's a lot of houses around the dirt forest and things, yeah, just there's water getting in the building one way or another coming in the basement and we're leaking in and just controlling that moisture like even bathroom vents and kitchen vents. So there's ways to kind of counter like that by dealing with that, but that has nothing to do with the regular part. Yes, is there a specific reason to call out energy conservation measures? Maybe that's, if it's too confusing, then maybe it's captured. Can I make a suggestion? It might be something where this is something that is used as an example in the guidelines versus being here in the regulations because it does seem to be kind of covered based on what everybody's saying. And I don't know if that's something that you would feel comfortable with, Eric? I think that's a good idea and that's more of the details but I think giving the authority to deal with energy conservation, to have that discussion otherwise somebody that got ready technicals like energy is what we're doing and I don't know. Well, I guess I'd like to leave some room for people to be able to like explain if they're doing some new technology. I mean, I can't think of an example but if they're using heat pumps like to explain how that might work. Are you saying that, I guess I'm just feeling a little uncomfortable with, I'm not sure what we're talking about maybe. The concern is energy conservation that damaged the building for sure. I mean, if it's not affecting historic materials, I don't, it sounds like you want to review energy efficiency upgrades if they're not affecting historic materials. I can't remember how that got in there. I don't remember who's first put it in but I mean, the other thing to remember is the only thing that's going to get into design review is stuff that is going on the outside of a building that's in design review. Whether it's energy conservation or not, everything, well, not everything anymore because there's a bunch of exemptions but you're going to have to first get into the bucket to even get here. Okay, you know, sorry, my example was the poor one. There's a whole bunch of things that are going to be exempted out including a bunch of utilities on the outside of the building as long as they're on, I can't remember if it's the rear or side elevation, it depends. Those are all, those aren't even going to get before the design review committee or they're just going to be administratively approved. Yeah, I guess, oh. So some of these things will be approved administratively as long as we can go, oh, is it screened or is it the same color as the side of the building? Oh, okay. Then we'll be like, oh, okay. You're right, there may be a number of things that, I mean really, these have to be things that affect the outside of the building so somebody just insulating the building is probably not even going to go through design review. Great, and this one is specifically, this has been moved so it's specifically only historic buildings. It only applies to buildings that are both historic and within the design review district and you're talking about replacement of historic building materials on that historic building. So you've really narrowed down when this is going to come into play anyway. So I guess the question is, why is it critical that the homeowner identify existing characteristics for the design review board in instances where they're seeking to implement energy conservation measures? Why that should apply? And that specific instance and not any other one. Because I agree with you. I think we're all talking about the same thing which is a fairly limited purview of the design review board, which is changes to the exterior of the building, right? Yeah. Again, I think it just seems to me that I think that the draft that we have already does a good job of allowing the design review board to take a look at specifically these things, citing, you know, citing it goes out. Somebody wants to put in new windows because they think that that's going to create energy efficiency. You know, when I think, I think it's a little not germane to this, but we can have a debate about whether or not that's a good use of your money for energy efficiency, something like that. But like, again, I think sub four here does, I think it gives really broad latitude to the board. And I, you know, if somebody were to come to the design review board without number four in here and said, do I want to do these things, you know, for energy efficiency reasons? I think this language gives you, gives the design review board ample authority to say, not, you know, you want to do what? You want to put a vinyl siding like, but that doesn't, you know, that's not in kind, blah, blah, blah. And it just, to me, this just sort of creates an additional step that I don't quite see with the value of it is for anybody involved in the process. So what's crucial there in going to Eric's concern is that the way we're reading this is that it's absolutely on the table to look at energy efficiency without this language and an argument from a homeowner saying, well, this is for energy efficiency. Like, that's not going to override your ability to look at it anyway. I think that's, yes. And I mean, we're saying that that's the state of things without any additional language. I think the only things, energy kind of things I can remember reviewing are the windows, of course, but where the heat pumps are located and the piping, because some people want to put piping up the front wall of the building for their heat pumps and, you know, and that's excluded. And I think this proposed scheme allows you to look at all of those things without putting in this last one. That's pretty much it. I have no problem taking it out, really. I think the only thing is sort of the philosophical piece that designer view actually recognizes energy efficiency as a goal that people have. And so you can't talk about this because it's an energy, that's what we don't want to have happen. I can do anything because it's energy efficiency. And I don't think we have that problem with the way this is drafted. I think that's the obvious retort to that. And I understand the concern. I just think the obvious retort is like, if you didn't live in an historic building in the designer view district, you might have an argument, but you live in an historic building in the designer view district. So therefore, you know, it triggers, and it's not, you know, whatever your project is, isn't under the list of exemptions. We worked out the piping on the outside of the new condos down on various streets. And it actually made the building owners a lot happier because, you know, the engineers come in and say, well, the shortest way between two points is the straight lines. They put it on a very visible place on the building. And there wasn't a problem with that. There was no pushback design to do more. No, I think, and there's a lot of things that we do actually that people are really happy. We've got some people on there that Steve Everett has owns a bunch of buildings in town, so he's really experienced with construction techniques. And so some people go away happy. It just seems to me that there's still gonna be, you know, the designer view board's still gonna have the ability to, those opportunities are still gonna be there for the designer view board to look at these things, help developers and homeowners figure out ways to incorporate, you know, historical. Why, I agree, let's take it out. There's striking number four, then. Yeah. Did you have anything else? No, that was the last thing I had. That was the last thing I had. That was the last thing I had. That was the last thing I had. That was the last thing I had. That was the last thing I had. That was the last thing I had. Meredith and I'll put it together. And do you feel comfortable knowing what we've, yeah, okay. Do we wanna vote on those and then move on to the map? Or is it all one package, Mike? We've made decisions on individual items. I don't know if we, unless there's something specific you want me to do with it. Should we vote on the regs and the map together or separately? I guess it would depend what your motion is gonna be. To be, if the motion is to start proceedings to adopt these, then I would probably wait till you have the map. Okay. So we'll do our failing from when we were drafting this stuff is that the map should really be done in conjunction with the planning commission. And it should be the last thing done. Right. And that is the way that we did it. We went over the regs first and then the map after we had a really good feel for the regs. I'd go up there. I have several questions about the map. Yeah, go ahead. Ask us. Mike's got one like that too. Usually it gets harder here just because everybody's around it and we've got to watch for the microphones and everything else, but there isn't an identical. I'll make notes on this one. We don't have a mic up there that's on. She's a group effort, so we can just answer as a group. It took me a while to figure out why you made the changes you did. I think I finally got to most of it. A lot of it has to do with schools and colleges. A lot of it has to do with existing boundaries for our zoning. Yeah, this section, since it's not going to be owned by the college, it's going to be put back in. It's also a gateway significant near savings pasture to be excluded. I know they're planning on putting in some kind of a spa. But I think that should be in the sign review. The other thing I wondered just as I'm right, that's the Main Street School. You also went across the street and I was curious about why. I can answer that one. That's because it's a different neighborhood within our zoning. And we understood that, yeah, that's a gateway coming down main, but there were just two or three parcels that were in a different zoning neighborhood that were called out and separated. So we took those out so that that area matches what our zoning says. And we just kept the area in the neighborhood around Main Street. These, this is owned by the college. I also didn't figure out these additions here. I didn't drive up in that neighborhood. Those were all zoning too, right? Yeah, it just is the pink zoning there, the western gateway. So yeah, the green and the red on the lower left side there, that's just to make it match the zoning. OK. Because those are, and because our thought process, part of our thought process is that Mike went out and looked at the neighborhoods to make sure that the zoning matches what the neighborhood looks like. So those changes were based off of Mike's previous research to make the design review match what the neighborhoods were like. This is really good to continue this down Berry Street so you can catch it both sides of the street. Yeah. But that little bit near the college, I think that's also based on zoning. I think that the part we have taking out there is because it's in a different neighborhood. And the addition on Berry Street is also based on zoning. OK. Yeah. And it matches the historical district. I don't care about that. Designated downtown. Designated downtown. Oh, yeah. Oh, that was why we had to put it in. Yeah. Yeah. OK. Is there anything out there? Just put it in, yeah. OK. So are you, what are your thoughts, just to learn more from you, about those parcels that are next to the middle school? Yeah, those parcels next to the middle school. There's really nice office right across the street. Whole block is. I don't think we're taking anything across the middle school out. Yeah. This looks like you're taking on. Hold on, let me zoom in. No, they're further up Main Street from the middle school. Yeah, that's. J Street. Hold on, just a sec. Yeah, that's past North Street. So it's on the hill. You come down, and you come down North Street, and you go right in J if you keep going straight. Yeah. But it's to the right if you're coming down North Street. Are you zooming in? Sorry, not right, left. There actually, that's North Street. Yeah, so where's my pointer? Where the word Scribner is. Scribner is the school. There's J. OK. So the map is a little fuzzy. So right here where my little thing is, that's J Street. And this is just its own line. Yeah. It's a neighborhood district line. So as far as there's interest, those are different neighborhoods. So we kept them separate for design review, too. We'll work it making it bigger. Now you can add whole new neighborhoods, then, if you want to work on it. It will be 20 years. I can zoom in on anything else if people want to discuss anything else. I don't want to re-litigate anything. But one thing that's still in my mind is, yeah, the area along Berlin Street there that we currently have out. Did you see the angle at the river there? Yeah. Still curious why, because there's a lot of just very commercial development there, why that's not included. To match the zoning district. I mean, is that the zoning district? I'm talking about residential in here, but here's the main bridge, and here's the start of Berlin Street. We do have kind of a neighborhood riverfront district that is partially in and partially not. So that was one place I was going to have a question was whether we wanted to include this entire neighborhood, which tends to gas station alley in design review. The rest of gas station alleys in and then we've got to come up here to the three that include. It might just follow the designated downtown line now. Yeah, but if you're following neighborhood lines everywhere else, just for a, a, you know, I'm just saying that's why I think it's there now. She was just giving the reason, not like her policy. Oh, thank you. Sorry, I didn't mean to scroll. It's not designated downtown, but it's in our design review. Wait, sorry, which is this map of the scenario for women? Some of the issues design review has had with the commercial because it's in now is the issue of corporate logos and corporations requiring humongous signs. And I own kind of cynical philosophy if you're going to build a Kentucky fried chicken, let the bucket revolve because then it's a good example of that kind of architecture where a stall bucket is not. That stretch of road where the line goes down the river, that residential stretch there is a pretty important role of houses. It does, they are slowly converting to commercial. The residential, they're in a residential zoning district. These guys can't convert any further. Had to be permitted use, I take it. It's not in the historic district either on that side. My memory is a little fuzzy on this one, but I remember we had a similar discussion about extending the boundary to the other side of, I guess, it'd be the north side of Berry Street along that edge. And we decided not to do it. So I mean, we've already sort of considered bringing in some more of that Berry Street zoning. So Berry Street is more mixed use. That's why it's, and I was going to ask you guys about that, because the black line is Berry Street. So if you're on the south side of Berry Street, you're in the design review, but you're in the north side, you're not. And it might suggest the neighborhood boundary actually starts here and just kind of notches out, catches one property uncivally before coming back and then going up if we wanted to. Well, that's right, but you're in here first. I think our logic was that it's visible from across the river. The river side of Berry Street is visible from across the river, whereas the other side's not. And I think that's what our logic was. We did talk about the whole neighborhood conform. That issue has come up in discussion. It's about the boundary before, and I didn't catch it, but I really think that following the back lot lines and including that part of Berry Street, so you're catching both sides of the street, it really doesn't make any sense to have one side of the street in design review, to me anyway, one side of the street in design review and the other side, not. Yeah, well, since design review is all about what you can see from the public right of way a lot of the time. Yeah. I mean, this part of the way we approached it was looking at gateways, looking at people coming into town and what they see and kind of wanting to focus on that. And so that Berry Street's an example of where the river side is something that's seen from a lot of vantage points, whereas the inner part there is not seen as much. There's some really, it's a nice historic neighborhood on the other side of Berry Street as well, certainly it's maybe one or two houses on Berry Street that are not historic. And then, for me, I was trying to come up with as much, one thing we wanted was something that we could justify if somebody asked us why am I in and why are they not. That's a reason people might disagree with. Yeah, I mean, if you've got a reason, that's good. Otherwise, I would say, this is the only part of the neighborhood, the whole rest of this is all part of that same neighborhood. And that's the only part that's excluded. I would have included it just because it would have been more consistent to say everybody that's in that Berry Street neighborhood is in. Downing Street is out of design review. I would probably push that up, because that's part of UC2. And there's the back part of, that's the senior center. And the back part of the senior center is this little blue area you see. I would include those, so I'd push this guy back. Is that pushing Downing Street? Do you want me to zoom in on that? Is that my senior Crosby way? My senior Crosby, yeah, there's a couple of pieces that. Sorry, I can't zoom in, also keep it centered. Berry Street is a real, is a thoroughfare and is an entry into the community. And I think it'll only become more so. When they get the intersection of Berry and Main Street fixed, then it'll be a busier thoroughfare. Yeah, I think the colors look a little different because some of that's designated downtown and some of it isn't. So you have that green hatching over some of it. Yeah, I mean, so my thought when it came to these, considering this is also a similar, I, my thought would have been to put that in, those in, and then to include the rest of this neighborhood here. I guess these are already in. It's already in, yeah. Yeah, those are already in. So it's just adding in these guys. I think that would be a really good adjustment because Berry Street really is an historic neighborhood. It has its own kind of special history of the big multi-unit buildings and boarding houses and stuff. We missed a little bit of the vote on this section here in that we already had Cumberland Farms fixed up. We already had the Dunkin Donuts come in. We already had everybody come in and redevelop without design review. A lot of this is about the future. Yeah, a lot of this is about the future. And it's also why, because Eric mentioned the college before, but we were talking about what if the college sells a bunch of stuff? What if national life sells stuff? We were looking at it from that perspective when we were looking at this. So yes, what if other gas stations come in? And I've just been trying to look at what the underlying zoning is. So not only what the neighborhoods are, but we talked about it if we're gonna require them in areas that are predominantly single-family homes. These are ones that aren't eligible for tax credits and other things. So a couple of places kind of make sense where it stops. These are more single-family homes. They are historic, but do we require design review on single-family homes that aren't eligible for tax credits, that commercial property would be eligible? There are a couple of places that I thought make sense where we drew the line. I like that one. I don't know if we wanna make any decisions on these. Cause I had also had some questions on over by Redstone. Did you move it there? I didn't know if we wanted to make any decisions. I guess I got a stuff to move on. Right. One comment, the Historic Preservation Commission and its long-term plan, which Mike has been a big help with. We talked about working on some incentives for people to do work on historic buildings, either a tax abatement. The hotel got things like that. You mean single-family too? Single-family, if you do meet the preservation standards on your policy, you can do a tax abatement with it. And that has some complications to it, but that gives the private property owner at least some incentive to do something. The only buildings that are eligible for the tax credits are income-producing buildings. So you can't do your own house. Yeah, tax credits. But the city can have some incentives. There's another one that came up the other day. Now I forget what it was that we talked about. I might see it. I wrote an email. Well, before we move on to the other things Mike wanted to point out, between the three different areas that Mike pointed out, does anyone have interest in adding those? We're discussing it further. I mean, we discussed the other side very straight. I'm game for whatever call the discussion we decided on. I mean, Mike was put a compelling case forward about Mike and Eric together, I think, about it's a gateway in its own right and a lot of historic buildings are concentrated there. And that the college owned property and savings pasture, that's going to be a pretty visible piece. I don't know what they're, I don't know what the design they're planning or layout they're planning. You talked about 40 houses. I agree with you, Eric. I've always thought we should have kept that in. Oh, you did? It's not, it's not. I don't think so. It's just way out there for no reason. It's out there where there's other neighborhoods that seem even more appropriate because they're closer to downtown, they're more historic. All these other, there's other things that are left out. And we thought that, so we were skeptical of why that's included. And the truth is it's undeveloped, which for us in our thought process, the way we approached this was undeveloped is in a, I don't know. It's, I guess they're planning on developing it's very visible, particularly with the pasture there. As if you think of that part of Berry Street as a gateway, and it's, that's what you're gonna save. Is it visible from across the river? Yeah, because it goes up. I mean, all of Savings' Pasture is visible across the river. I mean, we are, just because there's development on the table, though we can't make our decisions on that. Right, no, no. I think we're trying to avoid, avoid that. Avoid, avoid regulating something just because we know it's likely to happen or something. Yeah, like, God. Can I put my administrator slash previous lawyer hat on for a second? So, you've been trying where you can to stick to neighborhood boundaries, right? So, in that case, I kind of see taking out, I mean, it looks like in general, you're taking out things that are outside of the same neighborhood that the college is in, but you're also taking out things that are no longer owned by the college, right? But they're technically still in the same neighborhood. Those are all zoning neighborhood changes, though. I think all three of those around the college. Were those all zoning neighborhood changes, Mike? Or were they just? There's three zones in that parcel. No longer owned by the other three. Right, but are the other three, those were no longer in the other red off of the other two, the other corners of that? Or were they just no longer owned by the college? Those two. It wasn't because of ownership. It was because of zoning. There are other zonings, there's a little pink one. You made no decisions based on ownership for the record. So then, I would almost say you gotta leave the top as I like to call it, the penguin. The top of the penguin is still that same zoning neighborhood, right? It's just no longer, and technically, it's still owned by the college, too. But that's still the same neighborhood. This place here is not owned by the college. Right, but it's still the same neighborhood. It's still the same neighborhood. So really, if you're following the same reason you're using for everything else, you should keep that top part in. I don't think we've been perfect about keeping all, I mean, halfway. Although I guess it's technically a whole separate lot. Parcel. That's right, that's right, it's a whole parcel. It's impossible to be perfect and consistent in my failure. Yeah. It's the same time. I think one way to put it is, we were trying to go by neighborhoods unless there's a compelling reason not to. And because it's a separate parcel. Yeah, I just, I, yeah. I think you could include that. I mean, it is, but it's just the top part. The part that's actually being developed are the lower parts, but that is part of that neighborhood. But then you do have the whole, it's one parcel with part of it in the district, part of it out. So which rule is stronger? It depends where the proposal is. Didn't we discuss that part of the, I could be totally wrong, but part of the reason that's part of that neighborhood is, I mean, that whole zoning, zoning that parcel was a compromise of some sort. The city council. Right. This line is actually old. The line is actually right here right now. Pretty sure the bottom part, the bottom leg has already been removed. No, it's still three separate zoning. Three separate zoning district, the design review line. But I guess I'm saying the three, I thought we talked about the creation of the zoning districts in the first place wasn't exactly like making a lot of scientific. This is a single parcel with three zoning districts that was not your idea. That was the city council. So to me, that's a rationale for. That's part of what we disregarded the neighborhoods there, because we know it was basically a political reason, that's why they exist the way they are. Sorry to have thrown a wrench in the water. Thanks for the number. Yes, that's all. One of the issues that I have with the state law, actually, is that excluding colleges, schools, municipal buildings, and everything from design review, because what they've done is produce a really good list of what are likely to be the most significant buildings in town, churches, the public buildings, and all that. They're excluded from most of what design review does. There's some aspects of it you can do, and I think that makes no sense at all. I think we consider that because there was discussion of dropping the entire college parcel, but we thought if the college is to sell it in the future, we'd want those buildings to be in design review because they are significant in the start. I think the state law needs changing, but I don't have the hope for the state house to do that. What's the little blue again, Mike, you were pointing? So these were just a couple pieces that are on the back. They're actually the parts of, they're the back half of these parcels. So the parcel line for the art place in school is actually, the property line goes out past the design review line. The property that the senior center is on actually extends all the way back here. So I would just move it back to capture the rest of those parcels instead of having it go through the middle of the building. Downing Street, which is up next to the church, there's a little downing street that goes up. It's a dead end road, but it's still, it's strange to think that all these other parcels around it, it's in the same neighborhood, in the same zoning district as Berry Street. So I would just capture the last five parcels that got missed. Oh, we just, I don't, I mean, we didn't notice that that's the difference. Yeah, yeah, that's easy to miss that in this little blue, so that would get the entire UC two neighborhood is in, the entire UC one neighborhood is in. One of the things Lisa Papacy tried to do when she redid the National Register District is that the boundary used to run through lots and she took the boundary to the lot lines, which makes a lot more sense, I think. So how about this? Let's get this moving and I'll bring up each one and we can do a show of hands of whether you would like to make that change. First one, would we like to include any part of savings? Okay, so that one didn't make it. Do we want to add the other side of Berry Street? I'll be on board with that. So that's a yes, that was a three to one, it looks like. Next question, do we want to add the rest of Gas Station Alley for that entire zoning district? Not all the way down Prospect Street and all that, but just that zoning district. At Dunkin Donuts going nowhere, but yes. Yes, yay, so those are the ones I really wanted. Do we want to do the changes to Downing Street and the section behind? Yeah, that makes sense. In your center? Yeah, that makes sense. Yes, okay, that's a yes also. Is that bisex the building you're saying? I think it goes just off the back of the building, but the rest of the parking lot and stuff, it just seems to make sense. I would, as often as possible, follow parcel lines. Yeah, that makes sense. Did you say on Berry Street, there was like a little jog at the end of it, that's in the same zoning district? Yeah, there's a little white line, which you can see that kind of goes up like this. It captures these first ones at the intersection of Granite Street. So if we follow the neighborhood boundary, it would capture those two and then go off. Is that what we want to do? No, it's on the street. Yes, I'm hearing yes, is that what you want to do? That makes sense. Okay, that's what we voted for them to include the entire neighborhood. The entire zoning district. Okay. I'm sorry, what's the white line again? What boundary is it? So there's neighborhoods. So sometimes you have a long, continuous zoning district. So we'll look at the riverfront zoning district. Starts up here, goes all the way down. No, but he goes down across here and then goes out to the roundabout. And it's divided into various neighborhoods, but it's the same zoning district. So the way I'm just the neighborhood boundary. Yeah, and this happens to be the neighborhood boundary for that section. Okay, that makes sense. Did you want me to go up to Redstone now? Yeah, if you want to go up to Redstone. Yeah, you had something else to tell us about. I keep losing my cursor. Oh, you can grab a little hand. Oh, thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Way easier. Where am I going? All right, right there. There we are. All right, so the couple of pieces that I had here for questions, one of which was we've got this design review that's splitting this neighborhood. That's a residential neighborhood. So I don't know if these should come down. This is the Redstone building. You guys don't know the Redstone building? Yeah. Big historic. It's out. I would finish the rest of this neighborhood and pull this up here and kind of capture that. I don't know if I would continue this neighborhood. Actually, I think the neighborhood line may come down here, but I think this might be a second neighborhood. But I would just follow this at least through here. I don't think we need to grab the rest of the state street. But certainly, if you were looking at gateways, this neighborhood goes out to the cemetery and you could capture that. But these are more single family homes out this way. But the thought is this is mixed use zoning district. So this can have a mix of uses. While these are single family and duplex. So it's much smaller. Do you feel that way about the section that kind of goes up the hill behind the state house, the pink part? This is owned by the state? And then just the little bit that's right next to it in the lighter color. There's like four parcels. Yeah. Oh, these? Yeah. And you would have pulled these in to follow. That's UC1, that's a residential six. This is a semi-personal question. I live on Richardson Street. And I wonder why, and my house is apparently excluded from design review. And I wonder why that is because it's on the national register and why it drops. I think that's the downtown, the designated downtown border up there. Yeah, well, this is the designated downtown border coming across here. And then it goes up and kind of wanders through that neighborhood. The black lines of the historic district then? The black line is the design review district. The design review district. The big black line. So the question is, what's the black line is even different than that? It is? Yes. I thought there was at least something that that line follows. Other than the current, is that it? I will attempt to trace out, so it comes down Territory, it comes up here, over, up, over, up, down, over, up, and then over. Actually quite a lot of this neighborhood is in the historic district. That is currently not in design district. So there is an argument that could be made if 80% of this is already in the historic district, why don't we capture the rest of this neighborhood? Because they're all, virtually all historic buildings in that neighborhood are ones that are very compatible. There's an issue out on Terrace Street about where you stop the historic district. We had that discussion. Really thought it was the designated downtown. No, designated downtown down here, the historic district, the old historic district used to go out from here. The new historic district, for whatever reason, took a couple of properties out of Terrace Street. Is that the old design review boundary? Is that why we left it? No, the old historic is where this neighborhood went out. This design review district boundary has been random since it was created four years ago. It ran right through a house, actually. One house. So there's a certain justification. If we followed the outside of the pink and the outside of the green, it would actually be matching the historic registered district for this corner. As well as following neighborhoods. As well as following neighborhoods. Yeah. And so I can step to the microphone and I speak as a resident of the neighborhood. You can wear more than one hat at the table. And I think the neighbors would be very happy to be in design review. They don't have any problems with it. My thought is once we decide what we're going to do, City Council is gonna expect us to do this. So I'm gonna say we're going to do it anyways before they ask us to do it. Everybody who's getting changed is gonna be getting a letter. Hi, you're currently in design review and you're gonna be removed. If you've got an issue with this, come to the public hearing. Or hi, you're currently not in and we're gonna be putting you into the design review district. Please come down and then we'll get near full. But at least they're gonna expect us, we should do it anyway because it's gonna have a material effect. But there's a reason why we've decided to put this neighborhood in assuming we do. The other reason we've moved a few things away from you. The other reason to put that in is it really is a backdrop from the state house. That's why I was asking you. From the state house. I said in my living room, I'm gonna look at the lady on the top of this data. The nice shiny golden dome. So it's kind of a master terrorist. It goes along there, those houses. But that whole neighborhood really are all visible from the state house, all the houses. Okay, let's take each of the two neighborhoods separately and do a show of hands. Who's interested in adopting to the pink neighborhood there. Yeah, changing the boundary. The whole neighborhood will work consistent with the historic district. My understanding was they're both the same thing. There's a couple of houses. There's a couple of houses at the end of the street that were in until 2016 and they were removed from the, but they're still in the neighborhood. Does that mean that they're not... They're not in the... They're not in the natural neighborhood. That they're not conforming? Is that what you mean? It just means they're no longer contributing. Sorry, that's the word. They're no longer contributing to the neighborhood. If they're not contributing, then the historic part of the design of the areas wouldn't apply to them. But all the other would. But the other things would. Yeah. Yeah, either way. Does anybody have a motion that they prefer one way or the other? Since we're going neighborhood, let's keep it with neighborhoods. I move that we adapt the neighborhood. I can't read the number. Are we moving? 16-4? Can't be right. Something dashed. Sorry. 10-6. 10-4? 10-4. Yes, 10-4. 10-4. Okay. So all neighborhoods 10-4. Who's in favor of adding that? Raise your hand. I... For the sake of policy, I'm gonna vote for this just because I mixed about it, but I think what's the deciding factor is that it does bring the entire neighborhood and regulates it as a community. The part from Bailey Street East is really a cohesive neighborhood. They have block parties to stuff like that. Yeah, I know a lot of people that live there. Yeah. I'll let them know that I've made a decision in fact at least. Yeah. Yeah. Second motion to include the redstone property in seven dash. That's five. Seven dash five and the portions of the three properties it looks like on the west side. What now? There's just two of the hats on these properties. Yeah, and then there's a third one. Yeah, the third one has a little tiny cap. Sorry, vote, what is the... I vaguely know what the redstone property is, but it's a, is it state owned? What state? Not private. Not privately owned. What happens in that building? What is it? Wait, it's a big redstone building. But does this thing happen in it? Is it a used building? Not anymore. It's privately owned now, so. It's a secondary state office. It was a state police headquarters years ago. It's a mansion, it really is. Yeah, I've seen it for a long time. But it's not visible from State Street, right? It's already visible from anywhere unless you get there because the trees are all filled up. With a lot of property that somebody could do a lot of stuff with. Yeah. And then it would be real visible, right? Was that an auction? Yeah, it was auctioned. So, okay, so let's move on. Who's in favor of including the properties that Aaron motioned for? Sure. I don't remember actually having this kind of story. I feel like we focused on this side of this. Those were the only ones that I had, but I kind of had some questions on. I'm gonna check. I don't think we need to vote. It looks like that we had tried to follow when Cliff Street wanted to come out and they voted to take them out. They had to leave properties in the designated downtown. And I can see the green here, here, here, here, but it looks like there's one parcel here that's not in the designated downtown that we left in design review, so. I think our intention was to leave the part that's in downtown. Yeah. So, we'll confirm that one little parcel that's sitting there to make sure that that's, if it's in the designated downtown, then we'll fix the map if it's not, we'll adjust the design review in one parcel. That's not the homeowner who wanted to be, or the rental property that wanted to be in. Ooh, or was that them? I wasn't here for that part of the discussion, but we might need to check. I thought there was like some one rental property that wanted some historic tax credit, so they asked it to be in or something. But. They could get them whether they're not. Yeah. Oh. But there's some things that are only available to the designated downtown. Okay. I think that's everyone. Do we wanna vote on? Oh, Rex. All of the whole package now. That's what we discussed. This is moving into the city council. No, I would be warning a public hearing probably in January, just because there's no sense having a public hearing just before Christmas. So we would probably just have set up for some meetings in January where we would send out letters to everybody who's potentially impacted. And. Do we have to? If it changes for everybody, the rules, the boundary maps would be adjusting for just certain people. Do we have to have the final draft of the design review probably district changes set before you notice the public hearing? If you guys wanna talk about it more, we can certainly talk about it more, but we can make those changes in about an hour. All I wanna do is just take one quick look at the final draft with all the tweaks. I don't think it'll be an issue. I don't think there's anything to mull over. I just wanna make sure that. Would it be okay if we go ahead and vote and then we'll get a draft at the time of the hearing? Sure. Because we'll be making changes potentially probably anyway. I think it'd be really useful for people to have the old design review do a map that shows the old design review boundaries and do it once because this is a, I understand why the map is a lot better now, but it looks like one of the classy gerrymandering maps that they put up for Southern states. The boundaries zigzag all over the place. It's not as bad as it seems once it's explained, but. Yeah, I agree. Come on up if you'd like. Fortunately, we're just wrapping up that part. Yeah, we're wrapping up Eric will fill you in on all the submitting changes. Okay, so we have a motion to make the changes to design review regulations and the overly-district that's discussed. Okay, yeah, all in favor? Aye. Aye. Is that four? Aye, I guess. Okay. That's awesome. This one we actually need all four. Okay. We need all four on this. But we will have a chance to vote on the final after the public hearing, right? Yes. Okay. But not before it goes to city council. Yes, so there's always a draft. The process is always public hearings as people who are here and survive the zoning change. No, we can have public hearings and then bring it back and decide to make all new changes and come up with a new version. If the public input, if what we hear from the public says we need to make changes, we can make them. Yeah. And then once it goes to city council, they can do something totally different. Totally different. And their only obligation is to provide notice to the planning commission so we can provide comment. So a couple of things that even the ones we talked about earlier about like Savin's pasture, we were like, whatever you guys want to do, we're okay with. But we could have, if there was a proposal to make a big change, we could have come back and said we think it's a bad idea and this is why. But ultimately they can do whatever they want once it's in their hands. And when that comment happens, just folks who haven't been around that long, we will vote on what our voice is going back to. Okay. So just to double check, and this is just my nitpicky side, you all just voted on that the changes were okay. Was it also having Mike set up the public hearing as well? Yeah, we understand that that's what the next step is. Great. Yes. Pairing for a hearing in January at some point we'll figure out exactly what day, which one of our meetings, but we'll figure out a time. Feels like January right now. Mm-hmm. Okay, so let's. Thank you guys very much. I appreciate it. Yeah, thank you. Time for consideration. Yeah, and yeah, if you don't want to hear about River Hazard Areas or talking about the vision statement for the CD plan, you guys can feel free to go if you want. I'm not gonna. Or you can hang out with us. You can comment. So do you want me to shut this all down at this point? Yeah, I think I'm ready to move in. I'll hold by the door. I'll pour myself a drink and then watch the news because I can't do it any other way. I can do it too, but I'm sorry I'm late. My class is an annual quarter of six, so. Don't worry. Sorry, we missed your input. Okay, so let's move to our next item, which is for Mike to discuss a potential River Hazard Area regulation map change. So there'll be two pieces, one will be a map change and then I'll be putting also together a quick language and I'll actually steal from Meredith if you're staying for this. I am gonna stay. Okay. You want this? Nope, I just was gonna, we're talking about the River Hazard Changes. Yeah. I didn't print it out, so. What you guys, just showing you really quick. So the River Hazard Regulations are a set of rules. They're not really the flood plain. They are a set of rules that the state has been working towards to try to talk about where the river's, river's naturally meander through a valley over time. So what happens sometimes is things that are outside of the flood plain, they're high up on a bank, say the river decides it's gonna move over, it takes out the bank and drops the houses. So the state has gone through and developed river hazard maps looking at where the rivers could move and identifying a place where it would logically be allowed to move. The idea just being that we don't wanna keep rip wrapping the streams, the more we try to riprap the streams, the more it pushes that energy somewhere else and it destroys someone else's river. So we just, the state's philosophy now is to try to be hands off and try to just keep the river within the river corridor meander belt. They call it the meander belt. But usually when they make these maps, they have certain rules that they follow. One rule is that we're not gonna be moving our roads. So if a meander belt comes up and butts into a road, it usually stops at the edge of the road. And in our case, and I missed this, Cummings Street is coming across here and coming up to the bridge. And for whatever reason, I mean I can see this is blown up a lot to get this printed. And you'll see it actually crosses to the other side of Cummings Street. So it kind of breaks one of the rules. Not sure why it didn't get caught in their auto clipping function, but the problem then come up, we didn't notice it until somebody came up right here to decide they wanted to put an addition on the side of their house and they can't because it's in the river corridor and you can't put new structures in the river corridor. And we're like, yeah, but it's on the other side of the street, so it should have been clipped. So the proposal is just we're gonna clip this. The long explanation for what's actually a relatively simple process, we're just gonna cut it off at the Cummings Street because it should have. And is the road as a boundary principle that's kind of offensively? It's the process they use. If I were to start looking around, dragging this thing up the stream, this is the North Branch, by the way, that's Cummings Street, that's Route 12. If I were to go, the only river corridor we have is from Cummings Street Bridge to the Wrightsville Dam. That's the only section that we have regulations on. And in other places, you'll watch the meander belt come up and then all of a sudden it goes boop and it follows Route 12 and then it comes back out and it'll make that, in other places, Mill Street way up at the end where the dam is, it cuts off at Mill Street. So other places it did it and for whatever reason it didn't on this one. So yeah, so that's been the proposal is that I was gonna go to, because there's an active proposal, rather than go through a full adoption process right now, we were just gonna go to city council and ask for an amendment, an interim amendment to the river hazard regulations, which would be valid for two years and then we would have two years to go through and go through the adoption process for the river hazard regulations. When we have the time to kind of present a full thing, because it's a relatively minor piece, we think it's a pretty easy one. The second piece that came up also not too long ago is, and this is kind of where I was gonna, Meredith wrote up some quick language. We actually have some language somewhere else about that you would be allowed to put some structures in this area provided they are low-valued structures that contain low value, that have low value contents. So the reason why, somebody has up on route 12, they actually have an existing house with an existing business and they wanna put a sand shed in their backyard. They do a lot of snow plowing, so they wanna just put a really cheap shed up to keep the rain and snow off of their sand pile. But it's in the river corridor and it says no new structures in the river corridor and we're like, that's not really what we meant. I mean, if that river were to move, we would not be actively trying to protect and save that structure. But the reality is, it's gonna take 100 years for that river to move that far. And a structure that can be built for $1,000 doesn't seem to make a lot of sense that we wouldn't allow them to make such a small addition or repair provided it's a low value structure, we would obviously have to define low value with low value contents. We have to have something that kind of meets that criteria, but that would at least give or making that something that the DRB could approve. With DRB approval, a low value structure with low value contents could be approved. That way Meredith doesn't have to make or actually Audra in this case wouldn't have to make an interpretation. It could go to DRB and they could make that determination. So just to note, there are actually some allowances for accessory structures. They're pretty limited in square footage right now. We're talking like 150 square feet. So that's something I found after you and I discussed. That there are some allowances because it wasn't in the river corridor section. It was a lot earlier in the regulations. So there are some allowances for some, but it has nothing about the value. And I think that makes sense to try and work that into here and play with it a little bit. So those were the two changes that we needed to and I just wanted to give you guys a heads up. I mean, we don't need planning commission approval to do this, but if we're gonna make changes, make sense to go and let you guys know that we're gonna go to city council and kind of make these proposals. We think they're relatively minor. We think they're in the best interest of the purpose and the goals and objectives of what we're trying to do. But sometimes we don't see these things till we start getting applications and we go, oh, is that really what we wanted to do? And some of these are always gonna be problematic. I mean, you can see that that's actually a property there. I mean, some people were gonna have to just deal with entire houses that are in the river corridor. The underlying, or like the river could just wipe out your entire property. Yeah, and I think what the state has been trying to do is to start, the state's model goes river corridor all the way through downtown Montpelier. We cut it off at Cummings Street Bridge. We said, that's where we're drawing the line when we adopted these, just because there's a lot. But it actually is surprising if you were to start to look through the number of structures from Cummings Street to Wrightsville. I mean, it's quite a long stretch of river. And there are only about a dozen structures and major structures that are in the river corridor. So for the most part, what we're trying to be able to do at this point is to say, we've got some strict rules that'll say, you can't put new things in river corridor. Montpelier has been here for 200 plus years and nobody's built in this river corridor. Now is not the time to start building in our river corridor. If it's unbuilt, it should remain unbuilt. So just one question, just kind of a dumb one, but Cummings Street is a public road, right? Yes. It's a private one. It's a public street. We're replacing the bridge right now. Right, okay. And I'm just curious, are these properties in the flood plain? Nope, they're not in the flood plain. No, the, yeah, it's. It's pretty steep. It's got a pretty steep bank. Yeah, so there are a number of them that are, and that's part of the balancing act we had for the other property that we were working on where it was that there was a stretch that was floodway, a stretch that was flood plain, floodway fringe, and then another section that was river corridor. So we kind of had this staggering of rules, but there's nothing to say that they don't do this. Sometimes you can be in the flood plain and not in the river corridor. Sometimes you can be just in the river corridor. So it depends a bit on the geology. There's a bedrock outcrop, then obviously you know the river's not gonna move past the bedrock. So they usually, with this map, they've gone through and tried to find out where the river walls are that they define. Supposedly scientifically developed. And then we kind of chop it off. So that was it for that one. Thanks. Do you need to move anything or no? Just hands up. Okay, well, the next item on the agenda, the last item for tonight, which we have 30 minutes to tackle, is the discussion of vision statements. As a vision statement is something that the city plan will need, and Mike is going to show us a branding statement, which is a different, first different, slightly different purpose that was written by a consultant for a month earlier alive. Did you have any plan for how we could use this mic, or is this just FYI for now in the role? I think it was FYI for now. I think John and a couple others had mentioned we should do a vision statement. And I remember that Montpelier alive had done one. And so I thought it might make sense to go and see maybe that's a good starting point. I think when I read it, I'm not sure if it quite fit our purpose here, but it still makes sense to know it exists, and if we can integrate pieces from it, then that would probably be good. But it didn't seem like it was entirely gonna fit for a city plan philosophy. Do we have it? No. I don't. Oh, I printed out a copy. I used to have a little bit. Yeah, I had printed them out. I didn't, and it's not in my box this time. I'll probably put it in three or four times in a row. Yeah, I think it was basically the theme was everybody, every day we serve the people of the Green Mountain State, and pretty much that's the reoccurring phrase is that every day we serve up the arts, every day we serve up fine food, every day we serve up customer service, every day we serve up recreation, every day we serve up young people, every day we serve up. Serving. Serving. Oh, every day Montpelier serves. There we go. That's where it is. Thank you. It's a different context, it's a cannibal restaurant. There we go. We serve people of the Green Mountain State. So, I mean it has obviously paragraphs explaining each one of those, but it's kind of more of a, much more of a commercial branding statement rather than a say a vision statement of perhaps where this residents and might. It's on what a vision statement for a city plan is supposed to say, or should we just look at other city plans or? Yeah, I can, there's no requirement that we have one. Different communities will put one in if they feel they've got a, if they have a theme. I've seen some good ones, I've seen some that aren't, I'd have to go kind of dig back through my stack of other communities. Were you involved in the same time with Barry? Yes. I think they had one. Trying to remember, I think there's, I think they were able to borrow a little bit out of their very partnership one, but they focused their plan on a kind of on a couple of themes. I think healthy, healthy safe, kind of one of those foundations that having a healthy community was what they were going to focus their entire plan around that theme. They did not serve up children. Actually, if you think about, if you think of the rise of helicopter parents, we serve our children, maybe things going on here. A vision. So, yeah, I think you're right. Some of us, I think John, John has a major planning background. He has a lot of ideas for these things and he talked about it being a starting point. Does everyone agree that that could be a starting point, something that we do now instead of later? What exactly? To start working on this. Basically, it's the idea of working on it now. I mean, because of an alternative could be that we actually get into the weeds of the plan and let that guide what we think the vision should be. The vision emerges out of that. Not much of a vision here either. I think that if we were gonna do a vision statement where we somehow tried to find a way to survey the public so that that would be helpful. The instances that I've done visioning is... How do we do that? Could some of that come from the words, that didn't they do a, you know, when they did their survey, they came up with a whole bunch of different words that people saw as the way, like, I mean, that was more the downtown core master plan, but they got statements from people on how they saw the downtown and then how they want to see the downtown, things they want to see changed. And they had different words that people came up with. I don't know if that would be a place to start. I know that's just the downtown, but it may be a place to start. Yeah, we can try to pull from a couple of places. I mean, I agree. I'm not good at coming up with the big vision statements, but for communities that do come up with a, do manage to come up with one, it actually is a great cohesive. It's a great piece if you can come up with it. It's a nice way to talk about the plan too, if there's like gonna be sort of this like public outreach piece that's nice to have a vision you can. What's your vision up to? I'm not sure, but I'm just saying, it's a nice thing now. So I think we could brainstorm the planning commission members' vision and what got us and what we like, what we'd like to build on, which might do nothing else, but to just advertise to the public where we're coming from. We may find out, we don't represent them, I don't know. But yeah, we could do something like that to start off. And then of course, who wants to be the Shakespeare of the group to turn our brainstorming into, we cherish our children and know that in a world that is changing our community, still a place where kids can walk downtown. Although I've been shamed for letting my child walk down town, I don't know. Really? Have you? Oh, that's terrible. Do the, because we're getting packets from other committees, right? So do those come with any kind of overarching visioning statement that we can consider? Well, they've got their aspirations, which will help to drive where they're going. And to that, so you guys already have historic, they've finished theirs. I'm meeting with housing, they've got one more meeting and they'll be done. I met with transportation committee. They want to work on it, so they may have a couple meetings before they're done. I'm meeting with Energy next week, the Energy Committee. I think I got one more kicking around. Who's the other one? I might have another one. So I've been working and I've been, oh, natural resources. So I'm meeting with the Conservation Commission. So I do have a number of these pieces that are moving, you guys have one, you should be getting housing, that'll be two. And I'm hoping these other ones will, as I work through the committees, you guys will start getting more of these. And that might give you some sense of where these guys are going. As I said, I think we'll have a total of 12 when we're done. And I'm just targeting to get as many of these drafts put together and as many times meeting with these guys to hopefully work through. So I'm just trying to think in terms of kind of a picture, time. I mean, we're, we're getting a little think of the city plan and that's, that's what we, that's what we're doing. So I mean, it seems like maybe we should start working on the Nets and Bulls and the visioning state will progress depending on what we get from the other committees. I'm thinking the committee like aspirations might be actually really helpful in writing. If they're sort of focusing on themes then we can collect and group those into bigger themes. My concern is, you know, we're on the city planning clock and let's not wait around for that to, let's not wait for a visioning statement to materialize it before we start doing it. We can start, yeah, we can start getting into the weeds of some of the chapters for a while then and then play it by ear from there. Maybe we'll do the vision statement in the middle or at the end from there then. Maybe we'll decide we'll want to break if we have a few meetings or anything all about just the chapters. I mean, I do think it's a good idea to have something sort of like North Star to sort of guide us through this, but I think it's we're just gonna start. Yeah, I agree. I think it, I actually think it'll be helpful to start to help see themes and then I think it's most important to have something when it's all said and done so that we can talk about it in an artful way. What are your thoughts, Mike, about the person or people to write the vision statement? I'm always willing if we've got ideas that start coming up to start pulling them together, but I'll look for creative other people who might be a little more creative in the writing. I mean, sometimes in a flash of inspiration, I can come up with a paragraph, but. If it's something that you think would be fun for you, then you could say that you could take that or we could try to form our group. Yeah, I mean, I think whatever it is, I think it's gonna be something that's gonna be worked through. You know, try to think of what was some of the other ones that we've tried to kind of hammer through that sometimes you just group, have to group think your way through some things to make sure it, you know, I can't develop a vision for Montpelier on my own. So it's really gonna be throwing some things out, letting everybody beat it up, give it to the public, let them get the sense. It just seems like something with, something is sort of bulky and disparate as a city plan. It will undoubtedly be, it just seems like probably the best idea, and this should just be a spin ball right now, is get two or three big threats that bind and just sort of use that as the, you know. Yeah. That 90, that we gotta think of what night, like 90, 95% of the population can get behind, and you know, we'll never get 100%, it'd be great if we get 100% people behind a single vision. We may disagree on how we're gonna get there, but we'd all agree this is what we want in the future. It's very new and delicious. There's all kinds of things that we don't like. As long as it's got free, new, and delicious in it. I'm happy to help. I think usually your visions, you're not gonna really be looking for how we're gonna get things done, but really about, you know, what's the condition in the state of things. Maybe we could have a couple of commissioners like work together or something. One concern I have is I would, if something like that needs to have a voice, I'm trying to remember there's a kind of saying about two people trying to draw a horse and you get a camel, something like that. Like, we don't want that kind of. A committee designing horses again. Is it a committee? So we don't want a committee. Like, I think the writing project is probably for one or two people. So, okay. I'm planning to do that when we get there. I have a question, Mike. Where are we? Sort of, so you've been talking to other committees. Just trying to remember. Give us an update about this couple of meetings again. Yep, so I've been trying to develop the different implementation strategies for each committee and then meeting with them to start to have a, I usually have an initial meeting where I talk to them. Unfortunately, a number of them meet only once a month. So it kind of takes a bit to get to meet to them a couple of times. But I meet with them once to kind of go over the basics of what we're trying to do. And I give them a draft of just something for them to work on, pull apart. And both historic and housing so far, the first two that I've kind of gotten mostly through have really thought it's been a great process. They've really enjoyed it. We try to focus on the eight years. We try to focus on what our aspirations are and then our goals and what we're gonna do to accomplish our goals. And we try to be pretty specific. I kind of let them talk about what they want. And then I fit it into the model that we set up. So they've really liked it. So it usually takes like three meetings to get through. But I've gotten historic preservation done with a lot of help from Meredith. We got that one done. We've got housing, which is almost done. They've reviewed most of it. And transportation, natural resources, I've got it, I've got the draft done. I just have to meet with them to kind of start. They'll be the first of three meetings for them. Energy will be the first of probably two meetings for them. And what do you expect the lift for us to be? So at this point, when they get done, they're giving their Christmas list. So when it comes to the planning commission, what you guys are gonna look at is, are there things that haven't been talked about that should be talked about? So public transportation could be in community facilities. Public transportation could be in transportation and it could be in energy. Who's talking about it? Are all three talking about it? Are none of them talking about it? If none of them are talking about it, then we've gotta assign somebody and say, hey, somebody needed to do it, nobody did it. But how are we kind of framing this? If all three are talking about it or two of them are talking about it, are you talking about it in the same ways? Do you have the same goals? So I think there's a role that you're gonna be looking at what's missing, what's being talked about in multiple places. Kind of synthesize it. Maybe at a certain, and to a certain point, you may be going through and saying, you know what, at this point, I don't think this is gonna be a good recommendation. As much as they may want a new fund to do this, I don't think that's gonna be an appropriate thing. Maybe you guys kind of let those go, but certainly when it gets to city council, they're gonna probably go through and say, look, we already have a housing trust fund and we already have a transportation alternatives fund. We can't have a historic fund and an energy fund. Everybody can't have a fund. We won't have enough money, so we're gonna say your request for having that in the plan as a fund. We're gonna just take that out of the plan. Do you anticipate there being sections of the city plan that will be uniquely ours that will be covered by a commission? Yes, you guys will have the responsibility for the land use plan, which I've been focusing on the other committees right now knowing that at some point, we'll have to draft up an implementation strategy for the land use so you guys can start working your piece through. There are also a couple of chapters that don't have committees to go through, utilities and facilities. We don't have utilities and facilities committees, so I'll probably be working with the DPW staff to kind of review that. There's not a lot there. They've got some principles that they are working towards. They wanna have sustainability is a key for them because we had for a number of years, we didn't have enough money in the paving budget so the roads got really bad. So now what their goal has been is to have a sustainable paving fund that every year we get that same amount of money so we can continue to pave because pavement lasts 12 to 15 years, so we know we have to pave every 12 to 15 years so we should be paving 8% of our streets every year. Otherwise, everything goes to hell and then we have to go and spend more. So that's kind of in the same principle applies for our sewer lines and our water lines that keep breaking what we've got to get to a point where we have reached a sustainable repair rate on our water lines. And so I know there are gonna be certain principles we can get through them. Public safety is another one that there is no committee for. So I'll have to work with them to develop the implementation strategy with Chief Gowens and Chief Fagos and we'll develop something for that. City Council will have the governance chapter so they'll get a chapter for them to work on and then most of the other ones have committees. Are you going to be facilitating with City Council for that? Yeah, I'll probably be, I'll work probably through the manager's office to go through and try to work on that one. I haven't even started that one yet. I've been really focusing on the other one so far just because I wanna start to get more of these across the finish line. And then once we've got the implementation strategies then hopefully what will come out of that is you guys would eventually end up with these 12 chapters. And it's not like we're gonna wait till we have the 12 chapters before we move on to the next step. The next step after that would then be to start to write the chapters for each one of these which is our goal was 1,000 to 1,500 words. We wanna do things online. We wanna have a digital plan. So the idea is with 1,000 words it can fit reasonably on the screen. We'll have links to other plans. So really why is our goal for transportation to have complete streets? Why is it important? Why is that our aspiration? We don't have to go through and explain. 17.5 miles of Montpelier roadways are class two roadways. That's nice. But that's what a lot of city plans are. These just bunch of statistics, a bunch of facts. What we really wanna do is to get these other things and then have links to, if you want more, here's a report on this and here's a report on this and here's a report on this if you're really interested more. But the question of what's our plan and what's our goals and why are we paying taxes to take care of our streets? Well, this is the goal. Then obviously same for housing and energy and transportation, natural resources. So that's the plan. And as I said, where we're at right now is I probably have six, about halfway through the implementation strategies. And then my hope would be that we get all the implementation strategies done. We get all the chapters written up and then we can get that online and go through an approval of that. And then we can build off of that going forward because we did wanna go and do other things eventually. If we have the plan, then I would love to have videos and I'd love to have more links that would help. If we talk about tax stabilization. So we wanna have a tax stabilization and three or four of them have tax stabilization. You should be a click on tax stabilization and have a description of what our tax stabilization policy is. But that second layer of everything don't want perfect to be the enemy of the good. We can't do everything. So if we get the first layer done and then look at that second layer to be something that we would work on over the next eight years to kind of go through and say, we had a goal of, why do we do this in zoning? Why do we do this in zoning? Well, that's because over here we talked about it. And talking about here, we talked about this. So then we've got a connection between the master plan and our implementation. So it makes sense. So at our next meeting, we'll have a couple of chapters maybe I'm thinking. You'll certainly have at least two. You guys already have historic and you'll almost definitely have housing. And we can start working through. Yeah, at least get a feeling. Start reading those and reviewing those and getting a sense of what these are doing and how they're going and, you know, if we're heading in a completely wrong direction, then now would be a good time to turn the boat. We might want to revisit it. I mean, once we get the housing done, maybe we're three or four chapters down the road and realize this all relates to housing, we need to go back. Yeah, and that's the advantages. Once we've got these things together, there's still, everything is changeable. There's nothing, you know, and that's what I tell the committees. I'm like, you guys are gonna give me stuff. We're gonna talk about stuff. But even if you guys think six months down like, oh, we should have put this in the plan. And there's, until city council gets done, right up through the city council hearings, somebody can go in and add or remove a strategy. But the hopes are the goals and the aspirations, hopefully will remain more static. Hopefully, you know, they'll maybe tweaked and turned and shuffled a little bit. But hopefully what we end up talking about is, you know, if we all agree, this is our aspiration. And, you know, it really has three goals in order to do that. And here's one, two, three, and how are we gonna do that? How are we gonna have safe housing? How are we gonna have affordable housing? Should we solicit input as we work through the chapters, you think, would that be productive or is this something we can wait for the end? As an example, let's say next week we get done with our housing chapters. Would it be a good time to go ahead and send it to somewhere like Downstreet to get feedback? They're actually on the housing task force. So we've got that. But it might make sense if we reach a point, and I'm really flexible, if we reach a point where it's like, hey, we've got three chapters. We've got three chapters or four chapters, and we're done with these. There's gonna be a little bit of a wait before we get the next set because transportation and natural resources are taking time to work on theirs. Maybe we'll just have a public hearing and get public input on these three or four chapters. You know, warrant a hearing to go and say, hey, we'd love to hear about you guys on, you know, from the public on historic and housing and energy and, you know, let's start getting some feedback on these and see if they think we're heading in the right direction and then knowing that we still have eight more chapters that we'll be rolling out when they're ready. Calibrate. Okay. Okay, sounds wonderful. I think we're done here for tonight. Thank you, Henry, for your participation. We're definitely an admirable middle school student. We're going through this. So I hope you have learned something. Yeah, it was really nice to be on this board and just experience all this. And I think I definitely like learned what I wanted to from the experience and glad I did it, so. And thank you guys for like accommodating me and not being like, why is she here? Yeah? How long before I started? Yeah, it's been about a year. I think I started in January of this year, so almost a year. Yeah. Did a great job. Thanks. Thanks. Okay, do we have a motion to adjourn? Okay, any second? Yeah. We're going to call Marcello the second. Yeah. Okay. What's your next meeting? And that's, that's... Next meeting. We're at the end of the adjourn.