Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Now you can do that. Okay, it's 5:30. Let's call the meeting to order. Up first is updated agenda. How come I can't see anybody now? Okay, there's that. Oh, here we go. Okay. Uh update agenda. Nothing. Nope. Um huh. Annie, what do we have to put executive session? Yeah, that's going to be five. Well, I right Mike, we were gonna just announce it. That's gonna be part of number five. Okay.

Um, that's weird. I can't see anybody now again. Okay. Um, so public comment. Bruce, do you have anything for us? Bruce Webster. Nothing for me, Jeanie. Thank you. Annie. Yeah. Okay. Um, and so now we're gonna go to Allison. Hi, Allison. Hi. Can you hear? Yes, I can. I can see you, too. Yay.

And I'm very sorry that I didn't join you last meeting and I am still playing catchup. But my goal is to finish up the full draft this week so that we'll be able to talk about it in the coming meetings and then set the fine day dates and start, you know, hopefully um the adoption process over this summer.

Um one of the things that I realized that we haven't talked about is regarding flood resilience. And I just before I I introduced any substantive changes to your flood resilience element, I did want to have a conversation with you about that. Um, how many of you are familiar with Act 121, Vermont's Flood Safety Act? Not not me.

Okay. So, um I think um a lot of attention has been focused on act 181. So, people have been paying less attention to the Vermont Flood Act. Um but the Vermont Flood Act is basically this um about 75% of our dam financial damages from flooding originate from fluial erosion. Um that's because we live in a mountainous terrain, narrow valleys, um traditional patterns of development along ri streams that have historically been straightened. They're trying to reestablish that equilibrium. Um for years, the um Department of Environmental Conservation has been encouraging communities to adopt a river corridor rags. And those are areas where the um river is likely to move over time. And those areas are not depicted on flood insurance rate maps. Uh the flood insurance rate maps are really focused on inundation areas, areas where the river rises, spills its banks, and then the water stays in the flood planes for a while until it filtrates into the soil. The erosion areas are areas where the the stream bank is either errading or degrading and can collapse um sometimes in in one dramatic moment during a significant storm event and change its course and cause all kinds of damage. Um, so starting in 2028,

the state is going to start regulating development in those mapped river corridors. Those are streams that have a drainage of two square miles or more. And um the basic regulation is if if you are whatever you're you're not going to build any closer than what's already there. The flood maps, the uh uh fluville erosion, the river corridor maps will be adjusted for some downtowns and village centers that are already built up because clearly it's that kind of regulation isn't going to work. Um but I did want to let people know that that change is coming. The other thing is that traditionally our approach to managing flood risks has been to administer flood rags. And those flood rags are based on um you know those FEMA flood hazard maps which are super sketchy by the way. Um I don't know if you've seen them but they're basically consist of big gray blobs that are hard to hard to interpret. Ours is really old

there. Yeah, they're all they're all old as the hills. And um we're all getting updated maps, not necessarily new data, but data that's going to be run on one foot contours instead of like 20 foot contours. So hopefully it would be um easier to interpret. And they're also going to be superimposed on on digital layers. so that you will be able to actually see what's underneath them. Like right now, you'll just basically see a series of black lines and like a couple of streets as as but there's not much else that you have to go by. So, um, when when you get the maps, um, FEMA is going two years after the release of the maps, FEMA is going to review your regulations for ongoing compliance with the National Flood Insurance Program,

but you have an opportunity there to make your make your regulations stronger. Um right now the minimum standards really are geared to protect the the insure the value of the insured structure. So, the regulations say, for example, um if you're going to build in a flood plane, you can fill in flood planes as long as you don't raise the base flood elevation, like the area at the area in the flood plane outside of the, you know, the the the actual stream corridor by more than a foot. Um, and the base flood elevation is like how high the water can get in a in a historic flood. That's actually like raising the base flood elevation by a foot is a lot. If you do like flood insurance, like flood studies and hydraulic modeling, an extra foot of standing water in a flood event is pretty substantial. just seven inches of standing water in your basement is bad enough, but by an extra foot, you know, that's so the new regulations um that are are being promoted by the um Department of Environmental Conservation are if you fill in a flood plane, you need to create compensatory storage somewhere else so that the flood waters don't go up and don't affect other properties when you are filling in your flood planes. Um so that's basically like the the the gist of act 121 in a nutshell. Um, in the past we've had this funding strategy that

called um the emergency relief assistance fund and that's when when you have a presidentially declared disaster, the state gives you money to help fill the gap that FEMA doesn't cover when you get damaged infrastructure like roads and bridges. And for the past 12 years, the um the requirement has if you wanted to receive level funding from the state, you would have, you know, four measures in place. And one of them was to participate in the National Flood Insurance Program, which you do. Um, for several years now, um, there's been an an incentive that you would get more money from the state if you were to adopt regulations that um, address river corridors and included these enhanced standards. But since they're going to become part of law from act 121, it's not really clear what's going to happen to the emergency relief and assistance fund. So I know your existing plan talks about what they call. I I think it might be kind of shortsighted to talk about it in the update. So um that's it in a nutshell. I can, you know, I I I can also direct you to our draft flood resilience element in the regional plan that tries to distill some of these comment these concepts from act 121. But um I think that it would make sense to focus on the concepts of act 121 rather than just you know taking note of whether or not you participate in the

national flood insurance program whether or not you know you have a level funding reimbursement rate from the emergency relief and assistance fund. Um, and it would make sense to to focus on how Act 121 will be implemented and what it means to you. So, does that make sense? Um, I know it probably doesn't, but um, it does to the person who just did all the FEMA work and had to deal with that. We did not get we did not qualify for the maximum. Um, actually we because our hazard mitigation plan was expired at the time of flood,

we lost out on that as well. So we we lost about $25,000 by not having these things in place. So yeah, I do think, you know, I definitely think we should include this.

So here's the part that I'm kind of struggling with here. Um, the way that the state of Vermont has provided funding in the past is if you have a disaster and your roads and bridges are damaged, they come in and they help, you know, pay for that. They pay for the damage. Um, with the exception of like providing a match on this last round of hazard mitigation grants, the state money has really not gone towards mitigating disasters beforehand, removing risks that actually um, you know, that that are going to create exacerbate future losses. And other states have been proactive in doing that like Minnesota and Washington State and Massachusetts. Um they've actually provided funds to mitigate hazards in advance so that they could reduce losses in the future. We've always waited for um a a disaster declaration so that the towns could apply for funds um apply for hazard mitigation grants and they use that local hazard mitigation plan as a way to do it but they have to wait for federal funds. Now, the problem is when you have a disaster like what happened in the flash flooding in Sutton and in Burke and in East Haven last summer. They had a significant amount of damage, but the federal government did not declare a disaster. So, they were out of money. All of that was on them.

Um, so maybe it makes sense if if we can't always be sure that federal fund funding is going to be there to clean up the mess. Maybe and we can't be sure that federal funding is going to be there to mitigate the losses. Maybe there needs to be a better way to prioritize what state funding we have. Maybe it makes sense to focus on hazard mitigation, like projects where you upsize culverts, projects where you take buildings out, like repetitive loss structures out of the flood hazard area, or maybe even projects where you acquire land that you know is necessary for storing flood waters or stabilizing a stream bank and just permanently conserving it. um that approach in other states has actually worked. Um they've you know by conserving like natural flood retention resources like flood planes and stabilizing stream banks. they've actually been able to um prevent or or at least lessen the damage in in future risks and future flood events. And maybe that's the way we need to start thinking about it, too. So,

well, I have a question. Yeah. Where where's this money going to come from for a town to to buy out a house that's h was in a a flood plane uh area and was actually flooded and you're saying that the town should be able to buy these properties and so that they can't rebuild on that spot again. Where's all this money coming from?

Well, in the past we've always waited for presidential declarations to make that happen. But if we're not gonna if we're going to see fewer presidential declarations, how are we going to do it? So, um, what other states have done is to set up state funded programs and they're always at the mercy of the legislature. I mean, that's that's just the reality. Um, but they have their own hazard mitigation p programs and so towns would be applying for funds. It's still a competitive program. um just like you would be applying for federal funds, but you maybe you could apply for state funds. And maybe it makes sense instead of relying on state funds just to clean up the mess when it happens again and again to try to prevent those losses from happening in the first place. That's all I'm saying. And I know that there's limited state funding available as well. There's always going to be limited funding around, but these flood flood hazards aren't going away and it's not going to get easier for our town.

No. And and this and this could uh uh this new stuff that they're trying to to get together and pass this going this is going to affect probably our town centers and what we're going to be able to do and can't do anymore.

I don't really think so because um the river quarter maps are going to be adjusted for the built environment. So um I don't really um believe that to be the case. I mean, most we all we all realized that our downtowns were all built along streams because they relied on stream power and to do that historically we straightened them. Um, and it it's had long range consequences. Um, so no, we're not going to relocate our towns and village centers. I mean, because that that's just not realistic. So, I think that's why you would be seeing a revised river corridor map. It hasn't been released yet, but um that would certainly be taken into consideration. Stuff that is already built should be accounted for. I mean, you're not going to remove the built environment,

but this could affect stuff that's already built. this could affect the insurance process as whether or not you can get a mortgage uh and be forced to get insurance where this probably this certain area you didn't have to before and now you're going to have to have insurance because they're going to change this corridor and now these people who want to buy something through mortgages the banks are going to require this insurance be in place or they won't give you a loan Okay. So, there are two things here. The bank want to be clarified here.

No, no, no, it's it's I'm glad that you brought that up. So, there's two things to keep in mind here. Um, banks, any anybody who offers a federally backed mortgage is required to ask for flood insurance if your property is in a mapped on on a FEMA flood plane map. So, the FEMA flood planes are what they go by, right? If your property is already on the FEMA map, they have to require insurance, right? Now you but you said but hold on but hold on I'm I'm not done. I'm not done.

The river corridor maps are a separate map and legally they do not require they don't trigger that requirement for a federally backed mortgage. So it's quite possible that you even if if you were subject to flood risk and we all are. I mean, I used to think that I live on a ridge and I used to think that I wasn't I wasn't subject to to flooding until my house flooded in 2023. Um but um you would be not required to get flood insurance, but like if since your town participates in the National Flood Insurance Program, you could probably buy a policy at a preferred risk rate because you're not in the flood plane, but maybe in the flood in the river corridor. There's one wrinkle to that. Banks can use discretion when they're giving you a loan. So if they think that you're in a flood risk or if you have experienced a flood in the past or you know it it just does it doesn't feel right to them. They can they can use discretion and make you get flood insurance anyway. And I've seen that happen in Peachum where they have no FEMA maps any anywhere. They they had no flood planes mapped, but they had a house, two houses along um streams where the ch like the streams did jump their banks like because it was fluial erosion risk and they ran through the houses and in one case caused $100,000 worth of damage. So the homeowner went to the bank to get a loan and they said, "Well, look, you've already flooded, so we need you to get flood insurance." So banks can use discretion

um but it's not necessarily triggered by regulating river corridors. It's automatically triggered if you are in the FEMA flood plane map. Those two risk areas don't always overlap. Sometimes they do, but they don't always. So I hope does that explain it for you? Yeah. Yeah. I I I think I think the I understand what you're saying. So So like the the river corridor stuff is a planning mechanism. It is not a FEMA flood issue there. There those are two separate

two different things. Okay. Okay. I think that's I think that's what you have to put around your head is that you know the river the the river part is a

is a planning tool. It is a planning tool, but it's also the ones that are mapped, the river corridors that are mapped are going to be regulated by the DEEC in in areas where, you know, it's not everything is already disturbed and there's like I I can think of like there's a stretch of river like going right through the middle of St. John'sbury where it's all like concrete rip wrap. I mean, well, it's too late, you know, but um so it it is a regulatory tool, but it's not a regulatory tool that's necessarily going to trigger the need for flood insurance on a federally backed mortgage. That's that was the motivation for a lot of our towns that joined the NFIP in the first place because they'd get a property owner who found that they couldn't sell a property unless, you know, somebody paid for it in cash because they needed to get a federally, you know, backed mortgage to be able to buy the property and the bank wasn't going to give them that mortgage until they got flood insurance. So, you know, banks do have the discretion, but they don't have the discretion to require it if you're in a mapped flood plane. If you're in a mapped flood plane, they have to require it. Does that make it clearer?

No, I I saw what happened at Cabbat and I mean the the river rose there over 30 feet. it it right into the village center and what happened there and they got hit hard. But to when you're driving through the town and you're looking 30 feet down below and that's where the stream is, it's hard to envision that that actually happened. Yeah. And and and all those pe people people there now I'm sure are going to need some kind of flood insurance because who's going to catch them, right? So, um, another thing, are you familiar with Hardwick? Like the motel? Yeah.

The mo the in by the by the river. The end by the river was not in a on their old floodplane map. It wasn't on a flood plane. That wasn't what destroyed it. It was fluial erosion. It just the bank collapsed underneath it. Collapsed. Yeah. Yeah. Same as our 10 mile square bridge. Yeah. Yeah. You'd never think that that would I can't flood it out. I mean,

we have several we have several um I'm still waiting on three of our culverts that have are going through hazard mitigation right now to see if they will actually sign off on them because they they all three had to be replaced in that in the flood of 24 and they don't think that will be replaced is big enough. Oh boy. Okay. So um one of the actions I'm assuming on the um on the flood resilience program would be to update the hazard mitigation plan pronto hazard mitigation plan is it just was not in place at the

at the time of the flood you have to in order to qualify for it has to be within you have to have it to a certain stage within three months of the the date and Noah hadn't done that and so it was not it was not ready yet No, that's that's they kicked it back at me. I I argued it as much as I could and I didn't get anywhere.

That's too bad because um we actually um worked with a couple of towns where we had to throw one together pretty quickly and it's not pretty. I mean it's not it's not a pretty process and you know is basically like eat, sleep, work on hazard mitigation plan for like 3 weeks but um yeah I I was it was I was you know seven months after the flood when I started working okay that's okay you know it wasn't like something that he knew you know they didn't document anything on our flooding so oh damn it was too little too late they told me that they were like you know sorry oh okay well well that won't happen again so

no it will not okay um and uh you know in all fairness caller um in all fairness a lot of our communities when we talked about the RAF reimbursement rate in the past um they weren't seeing the kinds of losses that we experienced in 2023 and 2024. So that extra 12.5% from the state didn't amount to much. But when you started seeing communities that exceeded millions of a million dollar in in in losses, then you were looking at a lot of money. So

yeah. So lessons learned. So that's that's it. We got partial. So at least that was a perk because we had a lot we had everything else in place but hazard mitigation. So okay. Um, what I could do is I know that our our proposed regional plan is is up there. Um, I don't know where we stand on getting it adopted by the board. Um, you got my vote.

You I'm I'm grateful for that. Um, I just I I can't make any guarantees anymore. Um, but I don't think that anyone has disagreed. There's been very little disagreement about the content of the of the flood resilience element. So, I'm happy to circulate that around to everyone and I'll provide you the hyperlink to the website that has the draft plan in in whole as well. But there are some concepts that I think I hope are um may do a better job of explaining than what I did just now. Um that's I think that flood resilience is one of the more um challenging um chapters to write in any plan because it gets very technical. Um, but I also think that it's really important to make sure that communities understand what their options are for minimizing losses in the future. So that's all I have. Thank you, Allison. Is there any other questions for Allison discussion? We'll see you next time then, Allison. I guess we're kind of not got a question here.

Okay. Thank you. And I'll follow up with the draft of the regional plan in the meantime. So you can look at that. Thank you very much. See you next time. All righty. Bye. Bye.

Okay. So, moving on to the zoning administrator recommendation to select board and um so I'm requesting a motion that we enter into executive session in order to conduct the zoning administrator candidate interviews and review their qualifications under the provisions of title one section 313 of the Vermont statutes finding that premature public knowledge would substantly disadvantage the So, um, Katie and Bruce Oh, you're going to take the recording off, right, Mike? For us for this executive session.

Okay. And Bruce has to leave. Did he go? I don't know. I can't see. Um, well, that Bruce has stayed for the first half of it because he's going to be your He's your only candidate here to be interviewed. True, true, true. Oh, so we can all just stay right here? We can. Yes. And I'll just stop the recording when you need to. We can't yet. You haven't had a Nobody's made a first or a second on that. I'll make a motion that we uh You can just say I make the motion. Yeah. I'll just make a motion. Second. All in favor? I. Okay. Good. Okay. I will stop the

I'll make a motion that we exit executive session. Do I have a second? Second. All in favor? I. And then we're ex uh exiting executive session at what time? 8 uh 6:14 and no action was taken. Is that good? That's good. You're good. Okay. So, told you'll be a star. Oh, that was one line. Okay. So, now we're back recording. So, now we're back in session on online. Okay. So, um, I'll make a motion that we, uh, uh, recommend

recommend Bruce to be our, uh, zoning administrator. I'll second the motion. All in favor? I I Okay. So, do I just say we're the motion was accepted and we're moving to the suffer or is that just the way you um you're fine when when she should fix the language in there so that it's what I had written for you. Okay. Because you're recommending to the select board to appoint him because you guys can't appoint him. They they have to. So, so it so it just gets on the agenda. So, does somebody like for the is there meeting this Wednesday?

They will I will have them. So, they're going to have a special meeting next Tuesday at noon. Um, and I've already told them that it's going to be on there. So, they're going to make the appointment on based on your recommendation. So, we don't nobody has to be there. President, you don't have to be there. Okay. Because we we have a we have a literally a 10-minute meeting scheduled for next Tuesday. So, because they have to sign some bank documents. Okay. Gotcha. Okay. So, the other thing that we were going to talk about was the Gins Ginsburg property. I would say the Derby Street property, you should try to refrain from using people's names, all right, when you're on a recorded meeting.

Okay, now that everybody heard that. Oh, okay. Um, so what so what we're really talking about is they had the violation letter. They didn't respond to that within 30 days. We heard nothing uh was certified signature and nothing. So, um, I request a motion to ask the select board to authorize the funds necessary to pursue the legal action against the owners of the property at 560 Derby Street in order to correct the dilapidated structure violation that exists on the property. Do does anybody have talk about that? How you feel about that moving forward? I guess my my question is if we if if we decide to do this, what is going to be the next step that we're going to uh

legally legally acquire the property? Oh, well, you're not going to legally acquire it. You're going to have to go sue them for violation. It's this is a long run process. A long expensive process. So, Right. So, so then what as we go on with this, do we put attach attach the property, a lean on the property in order to pay for to to get the property to pay to tear it down. The attorney will file a lean against the property ultimately, right?

And that'll that'll give us that'll give us the rights to the property. Then after it's all been torn down, we can sell it to to recoup our to recoup our to recoup our losses of tearing it down. You would you would have to bill them for the for the loss for tearing it down. Then if they didn't respond within so long, if I'm not right, then you're right. I'm going to take it over. Well, we'd have to go back to court. I mean, it's not like there's there is no easy we take over profit ever.

There isn't. This is probably three years, I bet you, minimum, if you're gonna if we're going down this road. So, and for this one, you guys will somebody will have to go to the select board and sit and be able to answer their questions about this because they're going to want to know how much money we talking about and because, you know, our our attorney is not cheap. You're looking at $350 an hour. The other thing is also that uh you're going to have to go through a process because we the age of the house is so old that uh you're going to have to have before you even tear that place down, you're going to have to test it for asbestous.

Oh yeah. Before before you tear it down, you got to have all this paperwork and that that's going to cost money. And if they do find asbestous, then you got to have the asbesus removed by an asbestous certified company in order to uh have be able to tear it down after. And then you got to separate everything and uh there's a big process. And the thing is you you know I believe the first step with an attorney is the attorney will send a letter. They will send the threatening letter.

I I would I would ask maybe the select board as I mean this is just my advice to you guys. So, you can do whatever you want because you're the planning commission. I'm I have no role in this on this board, but my recommendation would be go to the select board and ask them for authorization to get the attorney to send them a a letter to comply because sometimes that will be enough to spur people on, you know, the threat of a lawsuit. Um, and you know, you're you're probably not, you know, you're probably under $1,000 for for that work to be done, right? you get, right? Because if you go to them and say, you know, we want to be able to sue to take this property and clean it all up, they're going to say, "No." No.

Because they're going to say, "No, we're not spending 20 or $30,000 on legal fees for for that particular law." So, I would I would start small and you can always go keep go back after that and, you know, pick it. It works. Yeah. Yeah. Well, at least it's moving. you know, I mean, you like you said, it's going to take three years, but you know, that'd be nice. And and it's very possible that they'll that they want nothing to do with the property and they're going to relinquish it and give it to the town. That's what it' be nice, but then the liability is going to fall on the town as if somebody gets hurt in there. Correct, Mike?

It would, but we have insurance for that. And we would, you know, if if the town obtained the property, we would we would probably just go and tear it down. You know, we would get do the the permits and get it torn down and then we'd sell it off and recoup our money. Yep. Well, the first thing we're going to be a long process. Yeah. First thing we're going to find out is if she's in a nursing home. Oh, the lawyer will find that out because the lawyer the lawyer will do a little better job of checking on, you know, who to get a hold of and making sure that they're ser because they'll actually be an in-person service. When an attorney sends the letter, they'll send the sheriff out to to serve the letter. It won't be by by mail

and he'll have the right address because obviously we don't know where she is and she might be an arresting home and but the power of attorney should have gotten that because that the mail forwards to whoever is the power of attorney. I don't understand why they're not if it's set up, you know. Did they sign for it? No, we didn't get anything back. Well, you should have got you should have got a letter back saying they didn't sign for it. Well, according to Teresa, she said that they didn't get anything. I'm pretty sure it was one with signature. It's registered mail receipt certified. Yeah, it should be certified with a green card. It should have been sent that way. Yeah. come back saying they didn't sign for it.

Well, I'd have to check with Teresa. I'm pretty sure that's the way it went. And I remember Nick talking about that, but I don't know for sure. But I did check with Teresa before about whether they had responded and she said no. And she would obviously tell us if they did. Oh, yeah. So, no. She'd hide it from you, Annie. I know. No. Well, I just wanted to make sure I had the right information. Um, so just realize that some of us probably won't be here anymore by the time this is all said and done. Right. Exactly. True. Right. So, Mike, on that Tuesday at noon, we're doing the um you're going to present the

Huh? Only only zoning administrator the um uh the legal thing that'll be on the next select board meeting. Okay. That will be on Tuesday. Oh, okay. Oh, this is just for Bruce. Okay. For the next meeting. Okay. Right. Right. Because we're under a deadline because we're going to be without a zoning administrator as of April 30th and there'll be nobody to sign permits or cos after that. Right. Yeah. Because we found out the last time. Nobody can step in and do that. It has to the zoning administrator. So, Right. Yeah. Yeah. That's why we got Nick or the assistant or the assistant zoning administrator. Yes. We don't have time. We don't have one. Oh,

we don't we don't have any ad zone administrator once he resigns. So that's why we need to get somebody appointed on Tuesday. Is that tomorrow or a week from tomorrow? That's Tuesday. A week from tomorrow. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Um so I guess we have to see are you are you pursuing your your motion here? Is somebody seconding it? Are you guys going to vote on it? Oh, for the for the five Yes. Yes. Yes. Are you guys going to move forward with that or not?

Well, I'd make a motion that we would uh send it to the flight board and ask them to have a lawyer write the letter to whoever is handling the property. Well, for the lawyer to find out what's, you know, who's legally responsible. Yeah, that's what I said. Who's handling the property? Yeah. So, they're making that into a motion. I did make it into a motion. All right, I'll second it. All in favor? I Okay, so that will be taken care of.

Yes. And I'll I'll try to remember to put that on the agenda. Katie, if you see me put on the agenda without it on there, yell at me. I'll remind you, Mike. Sure will. I'll remind you, Mike. That's a week away yet. But I won't do that till Friday. God. Okay. So, um, moving on. Just the approve the minutes of the previous meeting. I'll make a motion we approve the minutes of the previous meeting. Second, Mark. Second it. Second. All in favor? I. I.

Okay. Uh, very good. Next is other business. We're good. So, making a motion to adjurnn. Make a motion we adjourn. I'll second it. All in favor? I. All right. End of meeting. Thank you.