Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

I told him today he didn't mention it. Are you guys expecting anyone else? No. No. If he does, that's this problem. Are you all on the planning commission? Yes. Yes. So, we have a quorum. Y four out of six or four? Four out of five. Three. I thought three. We only needed three. Oh, yeah. No, but four out of five are here. Yes. Yes. Okay. And there's two of us select board members. Oh, you're a select board member? She is. Oh, as well. Oh, you're on both. We're on both. Welcome to a small town. We must have a lot of meetings. Okay, you are recording. Sometimes I forget.

Okay, we're starting the meeting. Call the meeting to order. First up is update agenda. Does anybody have anything? Because we were just going to go into the next one, town plan with Allison and Liam so they could have their presentation. That was good. I should be good to go. All right. So, um, what we could do is I said I would come back with draft questions and I sent out a link

and, um, I'm wondering if maybe I could just walk you through it on Google forms and then we get some input that way. Is that okay? Sounds good to me. All right. So, we'll go through that first and then um then we'll also have um a a big part of act 181 which y'all have heard about is um the future land use maps. So, how do I share?

Okay, I've got the I've got you should have um Can you see the survey up? Oh, I'm seeing it. Yes. Thank you. Yep. So, this is just uh my first draft and the copy like the why we're doing this. Um and then you would click next. Um I haven't set a date for um responses yet because we haven't gotten. So, if you click next, hold on. Let me get back to what I I'm sorry. I was downloading the map trying to do too many things at once.

Sorry. There we go. So, remember that all the survey responses are serve are kept confidential unless you choose to identify yourself and there's a space for that at the end. The first is what's your residency status? And this is set up so that you can only select one on the paper copy. We would say please. So you could pretend like pretend to take the survey if you want. Answer the question.

Yeah. So I I have a I have a question on this one only because um so second homeowners Yeah. I'm not sure they're going to understand part-time resident and second homeowner. Ah just wondering if we should should because it it kind of makes a difference as you're going through this. It kind of seemed confusing to me that it goes back and forth between island pond and Brighton and resident and all of that. I'm like, you know, I think we should probably think about that because, okay, most of the second homeowners don't claim residency in Vermont part-time or full-time,

but they do own property in town and they are they are there. Okay. I don't know how we want to do that is or do we just kind of it's at least my thought when I was reading it. That's what I what stuck out to me. Right. And if the question is what is your residency status, that's kind of an official residency status is I don't know if part-time resident visiting Island Pond year round is actually a residency status. And we talking about official state residency.

I guess we're trying to if we're going to get um fake, you know, people who own seasonal homes. I'm a seasonal visitor to or a second homeowner, right? Um, so what we could say is I I live somewhere else, but I have a second I I'm a second homeowner in Brighton. Is that the I think that would I think that would make more sense. Yes. I mean, I think people would get that.

So, what are you going to do with these two questions? You know, you could just ask I visit Well, that's not residency. Sorry. Go ahead. Is OVT on the plane commission screen there? Who is that? Bruce. Oh, that's Bruce. Uh, no, he's on a slideboard. That's my That's my AI at work. Okay. change it.

So confusing. If you want um if there's a way that I could join the Zoom and I could share my screen. Um you just need to dial into um end of the meeting. Yeah. Where's the meeting link? Right. There's one right actually. You have a paper right on your underneath your thing and it has the link underneath it. http this

probably skip the part this is 6.zoom zoom. usj 943 00 9996030. Did I get it? I think so.

We'll find out. It'll bump at me in a second here. Oh no, it's asking me to download and install the app even though I just do browser. Okay. Oh wait, wait. What's this down here? Invalid meeting ID. So, we're going to try again. Hold on. I can I can just send it to you. You want me to? Yeah, that might be quicker.

Do you do you want to get into this by asking people when you're your residency status? Should we ask them if they own property? That was the next question. Or say or say that I'm I I'm not a resident, but I do own property. That would cover second homeowners. Yeah. Um, I somehow think that if you're asking about a residency status in the town of Brighton, you have to go by resident rules. And you know, if you're a resident, you get to vote. And

yeah, but we're not asking about whether or not they're a resident in Brighton. We're just asking about where what their residency status is. Like if it's single family duplex or no if if they live there year round this is their home or why couldn't you just uh put that in in the question are you a resident of the town of Brighton or do you own a second home so forth so forth down through instead of asking for the residency status you more or less lump it into one question and make it so I do a second home in Brighton. Well, that could be Brighton.

There are Brighton people who own a second home in Brighton. Oh, that's true. Yeah. Well, are you a non-resident with a second home? I thought I All right. So, it seems like it's a little complicated for It gets a little complicated. It's And I I don't know. I think it's What are we trying to What do we want to know? Is I guess what Oh, shoot. I just muted yourself. Okay. Um I guess what I'm trying to find out is we wanted to open this up to people who live here. Did you want to share your screen? And people who have seasonal homes. Well, people who just come up as tourists. Yes.

That's why I, you know, that's why I would lump it all into one question. Are you a resident of the town of Brighton or do you own a second home? so forth, so forth down through.

What is this? Home of those questions. Um, are there is this the copy, Alison? Yes. Are there more copies in there? Uh, yes, there are. And you can pass them around. I like that question. That's That's fine. I like that question. Oh shoot. status as of an hour ago, but he's editing them as we see. Sure. Um, thank you. You're welcome. I guess better question here.

Does that work? That's better. Okay. What about this one? Does that cover When I say I rent, does that cover apartments as well? Well, renting. Yeah. A home is what you know, it's an apartment or a house. It doesn't have to be a single family. That's right. So what I rent my Brighton home like a Airbnb? Is that what you mean? No. No. Okay. Okay. I rent your own. What is your

No, it's like if you rent you rent situation. Okay. Because that can get I could have read that and said, "Well, yeah, I rent my home, my bright home Airbnb." You know what I mean? Point. But when I see this, I think of do I own or I rent? Because I I filled out other applications that do that same thing. They want to know if you own your home or Yeah. What about this? What if we change this? Well, is your in all caps housing situation? What? What? What did you say? Say page. I own my Brighton home.

Yeah. or I rent my Brighton home. Okay. But do you really need to even add Do you need really need to add the part after I own or I rent? I mean, you could just say I own or I rent. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, I've seen that that way, too. Do we want to ask people if they rent out their property for short as an STR? Sure. I think so. I think it' probably be good information to have. Y, we kind of want that anyways. It's an easy way to get it. At least some idea, right?

Shoot. This thing doesn't like Here we go. Let's add this then. Do you operate a shortterm rental in Brighton? Wait. Yes. Short and long though because snowmoilers tend to rent for like three months. Yeah. But I think that's still still a short term. It's still short term. Yeah. Long term is like for years. Yeah. Okay. Is that the the minimum required amount for it to be long-term rental? 12 months. I don't know. But that's a lot of places it's six.

I was thinking six is what I've heard. What? Long term? Yeah. I think it's just a like a permanent under contract or something where you rent it for a certain length of time over I I would say over a year. Okay. So, um I think that most people know what a short-term rental I mean if if they're in the business of running short-term rentals. I think they know right the drill. Yeah. Yeah. Um age. And this is actually a drop down menu. You're not sharing your screen anymore.

I'm not. Oh, darn. Okay. There we go. See, this is what it's going to look like. Yes. No. What's your age? Under the age of 35, between 35 and 50 or over the age of 50? God, that's kind of a horrible bracket, don't you think? We're all over 50 old.

Depends how you feel about being over 50. If we're if we're talking about having, you know, economic development as a recreational economy, we might want to break that down a little more. Do we want to So, people under 18 are taking this survey, too. Well, if they're under the age of 35, they'll be Yeah. Well, that's what I mean. Do we want to make it from 18 to 35 or do we want anybody anybody no matter what age they are? I think it should be open to anybody. Okay, that's what I was asking. I think you should add a over 70 group. Over 70.

I was going to say that. Or over 65 for something. And then would you also want to break down the under 35 into people over and under 18? Because that's what you were saying. Why not? Yeah. I think it's better to have more information than less. Yeah. Okay. So So I'm under I'm writing this down because it takes too much time to fix for a change. Um and over I'm I'm I'm over the age of 50. I'm between the ages of 59 to 69, 70 and up. Right. When you mean 51 to 69. Yeah.

Yeah. 51 to 69. Okay. And we'll just have um we'll we'll have numbers. Okay. So, let's go to the next one. How often do you come to Island Pond? Oh, you skipped the one. Where is your home in Brighton? Oh, shoot. Sorry. Back. Right there. Where's your home in Brighton? Oh, yeah. This one. That's

this one. You should take I I don't know. When you say an island pond village within a quarter mile of the lake, that's the whole village. The second question doesn't really make any sense. That's just delete that. Yeah, there is no elsewhere in Island Pond. We just delete that al together. Yep. Yeah, there is no should it the second option be um elsewhere along the lake? No, because you'd be everything in the lake is in Island Pond. There you Oh, okay.

How often do you come to Island Pond? So, this one is another one that I I thought because I just got a call from from WCAX because they didn't know what the difference between Island Pond and Brighton was. And so, I I questioned this that saying, "How often do you come to Island Pond?" Well, I live in Island Pond. I'm always in Island Pond. I would I might want to say, you know, the village center so that people get that that's what you're trying to find out. I assume that's what we're trying to find out. So, how how often do you come to downtown island pond?

That would work. That I mean, I'm just thinking because otherwise they're not going to people use the two terms, you know, the same. They don't they don't make a distinction between the two. Okay. Couldn't Shouldn't we say village of Island Pond instead of down? That would be good. Yeah, that would be good. I'd like that village. The village of Island Pond. We can essentially call it the designated village area and equate that with the same issue. Same thing. If we use a word designated village area, I think that people might get hung up. Well, no, I'm not saying that, but I'm just in my mind it it it lines up.

All right. So, would we do that for the same one? Um, do you come to Island Pond for So, we would say the village of Yeah. Okay. Now, yeah, the only the only thing when we talk about this is there I asked myself are there people who come to Brighton and not specifying Island Pond and that would be state the state park that would be, you know, hiking trails. Well, that's probably Island Pond, but there are other places in Brighton.

Well, Mars's campground, I don't think, is in Island Pond, is it? It's not, you know, Walt's Walt's taxiderermy. There's there's things outside of Island Pond. So maybe I don't know exactly how to do it, but I somehow think it should. How about this? What if we did it as a grid? So we had for the first question, excuse me, how often do you come to um check you know please select only one and you have the village of Island Pond and you have all those choices and then on the other on on the other line on the grid you had elsewhere in Brighton or why don't we just do do you come to Island Pond brighten

well I think you want to know what their what their purpose of going is because you could do the same thing with the next question. You could I like I like that idea. I like where you can actually kind of just check which which one it is. Yeah. If if you added on the question, do you come to Pond for check all that apply? If if you made it Brighton Island Pond, then you could just add recreation. You don't have recreation here for do you come to P. That's not one of the reasons people come to Pond. Should it be? It's a huge one.

But I think from I guess what what I'm trying to get is when we when we last met, we wanted to talk a lot about the revitalization plan for the village. True. True. So, so we were trying to get um visitor information specific to that and try to link it to some of the planned investments that you're trying to make. And I think that you still want to be able to single out that information and not just create like one big I I guess I I see what you're saying, but I still think you should add a recreation box for this fish or question six.

Yeah. Yeah, that's fine. Okay. So, both of these would be made into like little matrixes. Okay. And we will add recreation to the one you know do you come to island or can also select the three. So are we ready to go on? Yep. Other communities do you visit for shopping or errands? That that about covers it.

Y Okay. Unless Do you want to put New Hampshire? I mean, should we put New Hampshire on there? Do they go out of state? Just a qu It's a It's a question. You know, how many people actually go to Littleton still or go to Right. The closest Staples is in Littleton. I I'm just wondering if that's something we want to know is, you know, could do something with the state into New Hampshire. I would say just New Hampshire because they might go to Co. They might go to Colbrook, too. So, let's just go New Hampshire, I think. Or, you know, any of those. Okay. So, there is a spot where they can fill another as well, right?

Yeah. But if you have New Hampshire as a separate thing, then the statistical summary will capture that better. Exactly. Okay. So, do you own or operate a business business in Island Pond? Do you want to say if if you're also interested in Brighton, do you want just in general, do you just want to change that to say Brighton? I think so. Or or do the Brighton Island Pond, right? Yeah. I mean, the key difference,

Could you Could you do the matrix thing on that, too? Because, you know, when it comes to recreation businesses, we might have somebody that wants to do a recreation business that's not in the village. Yeah. Okay. Well, we could definitely do that, but I'm also thinking that we might want to if somebody says yes to any of these, we don't ask them to describe it. Oh, right. Right. So, we might want to have an open-ended answer that just says, "Can you describe what you'd like to do?" And and is there a question here? Can you tell us more?

There's a question here, I think, coming up about would you need help or do you want help or something? Did I see It's that one right there.

Yes. Yeah, that's good. Um, we might want to answer um include something that allows people to provide comment there. Um, on this question, are you looking for financing or technical assistance? Could we just delete the word technical? Yep. Right. Yep. It's scary. Okay. Right. But do we want to allow them to provide comment? Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Okay.

Yeah. But you know with that question Joel I still think we need to do something and I agree with the technical but somebody might come and want ask for some way you know a general idea of how to go about kind of you know like what a town plan says what the zoning bylaw says things like that. Well, I think the assistance kind of tells you gives you that, right? Or assistance technical because it makes it sound scarier than it really is. You're just asking for help. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Help. Help me. What business do you think Brighton/ Island Pond needs the most?

Good question. Yeah. Pharmacy is what you'll get. Yeah. like every other community too. Yep. Just about. Yeah. Even hardwick. Now, what else should we know about our local economy? This is just like a catchall where you get to write something. What else?

It's hard question to answer. I mean, no, it's just an open-ended. We just want to make sure that people, you know, people don't like to write things and they don't have to write. It's not mandatory question. None of these are mandatory except the first one. I mean, what is there to know about a local economy? I I guess I it's something about the phrasing that that's I was wondering, you know, would you like to share something about I'm trying to think how what are your thoughts about our local economy? Okay. Yeah. I mean, I I think that the way the question is worded, it's it's kind of

I feel like it's asking if it want a statistic of some sort or, you know. Okay. So, any other thoughts about our local economy? I like that. That that you'd like to share. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So, the housing costs, my housing costs are, and this one, you're only going to be selecting one. Reasonable within my budget, more or less affordable, but occasionally puts a strain or out of reach of falling behind.

And you're going to hope that second homeowner, if they check that last one, they probably should be owning a second home. Well, that's, you know, you never know what you're going to get, but hopefully by ask allowing to get, you know, different answers, we can um do like a cross analysis of right how various audiences answer these. Instead of saying reasonable, could we say acceptable? Why have anything other than within my budget? I think that works. Yeah. Really? We just said within my budget. Yeah.

Yeah, that that'd be fine. When was that? Okay. Question 12. 12. Oh, yeah. Will you need to make repairs or renovations to your housing in the next three years? Um, go back to can we go back to the housing thing? So, if we're just going to have within my budget for the first one, can we just say occasionally puts a strain on my budget for the second one and get rid of the more or less part? Uh-huh.

Okay. And then maybe just say I'm falling. I I don't know. Maybe the last one's okay. Okay. Any other thoughts? I go with that one. Okay. Will you need to make repairs or renovations to your housing in the next three years? Yes. No. I don't know. Any Are

people really anticipating their housing repair costs three years out? That's why I'm saying I would say I don't know. Well, depends on the flooding, right? Yeah. What do What do we do with this information? If we collect this piece of information, what do we do? Maybe they're, you know, their hope is to totally like weatherize their house in the long run or replace the heating system or they know that their roof is going. That's not something that you just go, "Oh, I did this spring. I discovered I needed a new roof, so I went out and I bought one." I mean, it's generally a major cost

investment that you have to plan for. Well, you have to find people to do the work, too. Yeah. Well, so you kind of had three years. That's what we did. Three years later, got to move. Um on that one, I think I'd do away with the NA. Not that. Okay. Because Well, if they're a renter, they're not going to have Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think hopefully they have a have like um a scrupulous landlord who's on then I would put that in as a separate box. Okay. I wouldn't I wouldn't hook it with I don't know.

Okay. Um, and this one is the biggest cost driver of your housing. This is for somebody to answer like the biggest cost driver. And I'm wondering on the paper copy, you know, we always say please select one and people rarely follow the directions. Well, so I'm wondering if we say the single biggest cost driver to really drive it home that we're trying to single out what that the problem is.

That that's fine. Why not ranked? Um I think we just want to get the biggest one and then I think what you'll find is by a pool of responses then you'll find it ranking. But if you get every like get like 160 people to all rank them, then it's it's a more complicated way to go about it. And then some people will only select one and then some people may just select two or something. So if you ask everybody to select the biggest one, then you're at the end of the analysis, you're going to end up with a ranking,

right? because you want to do it on a on a macro scale anyway. Does that make sense? Kind of. And also, when you ask people to rank things like that, it makes this more complicated. Oh, yeah. It's like, oh, which one is it? Three. Oh, no. That's two. Oh, no. Let's scratch this. That's maybe it's five. Maybe it's four. Maybe it's two. Maybe it's one. But that's that's just my I mean, people don't um we've done survey responses with people before. When you ask them to rank things, they tend to just get confused. They don't like it. I don't like filling those out either.

Does anybody else? Nope. That mean we can move on? Okay. Would you ever be interested in creating an apartment in your home as a source of income? Do we take out that technical again? Why don't we have a yes block here? We have a no block, but we don't have a yes block. But it says I already have. Oh, but yeah, I get what you mean. But there's no Yeah, there's no Yes. Okay. Yes, I would, but I haven't done it yet. But I would. Yeah. Uhhuh.

Yeah, because you got maybe with the right financing, but Yes. Yep. Good. Good catch. Okay. Where do you see yourself in the next decade? That's not an option. Currently said dead

deported. [Laughter] That would be somewhere else out of their mind. Okay. Yeah. All right. I see that. Sorry. Did people get deported? They would have to send me back to California. then you'll really get deported. I'd like to see them try. So, why are we asking uh whether they're going to be in the same or different residence? Because get out of that.

People are moving in. If people own a second home, sometimes they once they retire, they live here. Um, sometimes if somebody's living here full-time, they retire, they go somewhere else. So, depending where they are in their age bracket, you you just kind of want to find out, are they planning to stay here? And if they are planning to stay here, are they going to stay put or are they going to be looking for another place? Okay,

does that make sense? Yep. Yep. What else can you tell us about your housing in Brighton? It's like a catch all so just and we wanted to give people god damn town and their tax rate. Oh no. So then we're also missing I bet you money you'll get a response like that. I I know you will gonna go. So then I I also see that we're missing a question here. Yeah, that's I had that written down. I was like, we're missing something here.

How often do you enjoy the following forms of recreation? That's what needs to be there. It's on the paper copy. It's on the paper copy, but not on this one.

Should we put tennis in there? I know it's tennis pickle ball tennis courts and yes okay tennis pickle ball softball baseball shoes you can have a lot of we do have two ball fields um so what what do we want to say there to cover the um other maybe Maybe other's fine. Team team sports. Um, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, sure. Yep.

Okay. What was the question again? How often do you enjoy the following forms of recreation? Playground. I would also camping. Camping needs to be on there. Oh, yes. How about Yeah. I I was thinking playground. I don't know if that that we have a $100,000 playground in the back here. Yeah. I would also say kayaking canoeing and leave boating as its own thing. That's just my personal opinion. Agree. I would agree with that, too, because they're kind of different. This should go here. All right. All right.

What else can you tell? Should probably be walking, running because we do have pondathon and we do have um walking running marathon. Yeah, I would do walking running because we do have people that run in town. Okay. Okay.

Back riding. I'm a bic. Oh, you have got cycling. Y horses. Catherine Oh, there's one horse in your town. No, probably one horse town. One horse town. Yeah, one person that rides it and the other people just look at their horses. I don't know who's a couple people that seen them ride. I know three that ride. I know three people that ride all one family, but Yeah. Right. Yeah. Well, we've got Is it three horses or one? Uh, they have probably half a dozen. Oh, okay.

Oh, yeah. What's his name? The Maxwells. go riding. The guy that owns on Bilau Road uh uh he's got a they have a dozen people that ride down our road every now and then. There's a fair amount of horseback riding. It's something really increased a lot if we really pushed it. I actually we have a horseback trail that comes through town. It's on a map, right? Oh, the riders. The riders come through every now and then in their long gear and their fully western outfits. I I haven't seen them for a while, but they come through town. Yeah, that's true. Y

they hitch up at the uh po we had to make those posts at the state at the public park c parking spot for them so they could hitch up. The other thing do we need to put birding or hunting? Definitely birding. Oh my god. Yes. There is a place where you do bird watching. Yes. Yes. Yep. We have the place out the the right outside of town. You can go to the Moosebog boardwalk where you can feed the birds out of your hand. I know. I My neighbor um had a picture of Gray Jay's like sitting on her hand. You know what we need? Uh hunting hunting and fishing. Hunting fishing.

Yeah. Leaf peeping. Leaf foliage. All foliage. Okay.

Lots of recreation. Does um fishing cover um if you said fishing, do you want to do slash ice fishing? Yes, I think just fishing is fine. Got to do both. Yeah. put them both together. I mean, it's fine. I wouldn't make them separate. You can put it both together. Okay. Yeah. Right. But it might be good to actually put that put them on the same line next to each other so people understand it is two different people hear paddle board. Yeah. Yeah. So, should that be added to the kayaking canoeing line? Sure.

Yes. Sure. And Michael said swimming and I, you know, we do have I could see that people come to the public beach, you know, the state park beach or the town's public beach to go swimming and I don't know what else activity you'd call that, but Yep. Well, we have a race on the lake every year, every swimming race. Yep. Wow. Okay. They swim to the island in the back, don't they? Or around the island in back. Something like that. Yeah. Uh, Phil White.

Okay. I think we should put hot air balloon display and then make sure that happens. Yeah. Is that something you guys have been trying to make happen? No. We've talked about it. Out at the air. out at the air at the Brighton International Airport. We did try at one time. Oh, we did. We've talked about balloons and we've talked about uh model airplane contests too or modern airplane shows. Oh, but it takes, you know, effort to get that together. Yeah. Takes a lot of volunteers. Yeah.

And a lot of Yeah. A lot of these are forms of recreation that they can do on their own. Yeah. Other than the team sports, right? Yeah. Yeah. But there's a lot of team sports, you know, they're organized. Yeah. Yeah. But we're asking what brings them to Island Pond. Yeah. Right. I know there's a horseshoe tournament going on in August, you know. Right. I think this would actually be a really good question for us because we don't have anything that really identifies what do people do when they come. You know, you get a lot of Northeast Kingdom is this, but you don't get anything that really covers Essex County. I mean, there's very few studies that really cover anything out by us. Okay, that's true.

You know, we're that rural area. We don't count. Well, to a lot of the state, St. Johnsbury is the end of the road. So, what else can you tell us about recreation in our community? just like a catchall again like give people an opportunity to there will always be people who want to write a novel and that's great. So are you asking if they have anything else you need to tell us about just tell or um any I maybe they have some kind of idea that

anything they would like to see. Yeah, like anything like if if somebody did want to have a hot air balloon race across right town this, you know, they could write about it here and say this would be the greatest thing for and make sure you get that person's name so we can call them.

Yes, absolutely that at the end. So this is the last part the the vision statements. So the first one everything is like one is the um least important to you and five is the most important. The first statement is island pond is a vibrant downtown that offers residents and visitors alike multiple opportunities to shop, socialize, and recreate. Do we want to say play instead or joy recreation

the way it is? Okay. Island Pond offers array offers a comprehensive array of housing opportunities in a variety of pricing points. And again, this is part of the vision state where you want to be. That's gonna be a one. Well, well, no. I mean, it doesn't mean it maybe it's if there's somebody their housing is not this is a vision statement where where you want to be. I I delete the word comprehensive. I'm not sure that it adds anything to saying offers an array. Okay. And I'm not sure a lot of people will know what it means anyway.

How about many housing opportunities in a variety of pricing points? Sure. Island Pond has affordable housing options for families, single person households, and seniors. Yeah, that's not going to be a good answer either. Be expensive. Now,

that's that's where I think the confusion could come in here. the are the are you asking are people going to look at this and say are you asking me to whether I agree that that's the way it is now or whether that's the way it is that's the way I want it to be I think you're going to have to remind people that this is a vision statement not a question of what your opinion of Island Pond is now well how about this how about if we write all of these vision statements in the future tense I I think you should do that okay that's so Pond will offer many housing opportunities. That's better. Yes. Island Pond will be a vi vibrant downtown

and maybe our um when we write the word well is we always underline it. So in other words, it's okay. So Island Pond will be a place where seniors can safely age in place. I don't or should be maybe maybe that's the phrase you're after. as opposed to ask should

or or start this or start these sentences with ideally. I I'm not sure how to go about this. Yeah. You just want to be sure that you're talking that people understand that this is the future. It's it's what you're you're looking at how you want it to be in the future, right? Why why couldn't we ask it um ask it as a question? Would you, let's see, want Island Pond to offer many housing opportunities and variety of price pricing points or something like that. And then I don't know

what what if put at the top of this whole batch of stuff in big bold letters in the future and pond and then could be. Yeah. And then that then the rest of them it's pretty clear that it's a vision statement. I mean that's just a a thought. I mean I'm not I like that because then what you can say is in the future Island Pond should be dot dot or I would like Island Pond to be. I think if you said in the future you could almost leave everything the way it is.

Yeah. But you could also you could um if you did that you could shorten up all of these statements too and make it a little easier to read because if you said in the future Island Pond should be and the first one would be a vibrant downtown that offers residents in blah blah blah. Yes. And it would make it less confusing for people too. They would might actually pay attention to Yeah. Right. that offers many housing opportunities, right? No. A place where seniors can safely age in place. A downtown and surrounding neighborhoods that are safe for walkers, cyclists, and people who cannot or do not want to drive. Like it. I like it.

Okay. where how about um a place with year-round recreation opportunities that are accessible and affordable to residents and visitors alike. I like that.

Okay, this one, um we are good stewards of the lake and its water quality remains outstanding. Um, how about um in the future island pond should be um a great example of stewardship with um with a lake that has outstanding water quality or something like that. Does that make sense? I think it's good the way it is myself. But

but in the in the future, if you're saying in the future, Island Pond should be and then it doesn't really well in the anymore island pond should keep its water quality the way it is or remains alike. should protect the lakes's water quality. Protects the lake. Protect We should protect the lakes's current current high water quality. There you go.

High quality water quality. I don't know. I mean, we are the only lake around that's mil foil free. So, right. But there's a lot more we could do to protect this lake, I think. So, yep. A great place to start up a local business. Oh, yeah.

A community that cares. Multiple ways to come together and socialize and support each other. several places where residents can gather and celebrate. Um what are those? The last one is has has several places where residents can gather and celebrate. Right now we have the Legion.

No. Well, right now we're talking the future and we have Main Street and we have you know we have we have places in town. Okay. But do do we need that last one? I I would honestly I would almost get rid of the last one because it's kind of confusing for people because it are you looking at as from a business standpoint or are you looking at as you know okay we just had you know six or 7,000 people in town for Fourth of July celebrating so right 7,000 Yeah. Wow. Yeah. 7,000 people. Yeah. Wow. Fourth of July. We are the place to be.

Wow. Are there any other vision statements? Vision for the future covered housing, aging in place, recreation, high water quality, community. Well, you know what? We didn't put on that thing of the list of all the things that was a good place. the school. We have a school. Okay. True. True. Yeah. Good one. What do we want to say about our school in the future? A it's open

a strong school um system that is the center of the community or the center of community life something like that. Yeah. Does that is going to come up with it? Shouldn't you also ask if they have school age children? Yep. We at the beginning we we could ask

y Are you still thinking about the school statement? There's silence.

Hey, um I don't think you can hear us. We can't hear them anyway. No, I think people are just thinking Mike's moving his face. Yeah, Joel moved his body. It's not frozen. We Hey, we we can hear you. You know, you guys can come up with that one. I want kids. Okay, so um in the future we have a strong school system that is at the core of community life. I mean, is that does that work? Well, I don't know about core, but it's we have a strong school system that's supported by the community. I mean,

what do that's a good one. That'sed by the community. Yep. That's a good one. Okay. Okay. Great. What other issues should we consider in our vision statements? Again, it's just a chance for people to like last call as is the second question. Is there anything else we need to know? Give people answers to and then this is the name and contact information.

So on the online form it says strictly optional and on the paper form it says strictly confidential. Yeah. Should it say strictly confidential and optional or I just feel like there should be consistency? Good. Um, but we could say, but remember that if you offer some great ideas in this, we won't be able to pursue those ideas unless you tell us who you are. Yeah, you can sign up on it if we we can't get you to be a volunteer for hot air festival if you don't tell us who you are.

Yeah. Okay. So, um, it sounds like I need to come up with another revised form and ask a couple of people to just as as many people as possible to actually take the survey and then how do we want to do the final roll out because we wanted to do get answers by September and it's coming up.

Yeah, that's coming fast. I know almost survey was closed when I went to it. I only because I I had to go back and um make a change and then I forgot to reopen it. Um I was going to say I was able to open it. All right. Both of them

it was it was open for and then I was like whoops I made one mistake and I tried to go in and fix it and when it's open you can't change the questions but I won't make that mistake again. So, um, I can get you the final revised survey by the end of the week. I'm out of town for two days. Does that work? And then we talk about distributing this. What

I said, I'm gone all next week, so you won't hear back from me until the week after. How do we put the final blessing on this to get it out the door? What do we need? When's our next When's our next meeting? Fourth of August. Fourth. Yeah. Fourth of August. Yeah. Okay. That only gives us a month to get it out and back. We might have to have it open a little bit longer. I mean, to get some good answers. I think we ought to have been open anyway until last fall because people coming up for leaping and

yeah. So, are we going to have hard copies of these to We'll have to have hard copies and electronic so that we can get it from multiple places. And I was thinking what we could also do is print out postcards with have a a QR code so that it would take people to the survey. Yep. We can do posters, too. We can print those right in town hall. Yep. Yep.

Um I think it'll be really important for all of us to like go in there and and do test answers and just to make sure and then we can clear out everybody's answers before it go, you know, it goes and sees the light of day to the general public. But it would be good to test it. Where do we get it? this I'll revise this and send you a link and you can take it. Okay. So, I can actually So, we can we can actually set up the town. We can set up a

um a direct address so you're not sharing some bizarre Google address that nobody can follow. You know, we can do survey.brightt.gov and and take it directly to you. We have that ability with TA. Yep. Yep. That's great. All right. So, I'm gonna stop sharing because I don't have anything else and we still have the feature land use map and then um I'm going to leave this open for you because was I gonna share the map or was Mike? Oh, Mike doesn't matter. Whichever. That's right. Right.

If you could share it that would be great. I also emailed it to you

and I think I'm gonna get off. Okay. So, um this map was created in response to act 181 which the legislature passed last year in 2024 with two main goals. One of the goals was to um strengthen the jurisdiction and powers of act 250 in sensitive natural areas such as mountains and wetlands. And the other was to reduce the power of act 250 or eliminate act 250 in village center and downtown areas and their surroundings if a town has zoning in subdivision laws and water and sewer. So this map is made to identify some of those areas and show the broader land use patterns in the region with this being an excerpt of the map for Brighton. Which way should it face? This way.

Yeah. I've lost audio.

Oh, did they push the button underneath the map? If you hit one of those microphones, you hear us now. There's no audio now. We can be able to green. Can you hear us now? Yes. Okay. So this is covering. Is does this move? No.

Um so the dark teal color is uh rural agriculture and forestry. So this contains areas where there's more than 20 contiguous acres of farmland or more than 20 contiguous acres of forestry or of of forest. Um the dark green color is rural conservation. So this includes all areas above 2,000 ft. um the town forest um class one and two wetlands uh undeveloped flood plane and river corridor as well as any highest priority habitat blocks and highest priority forest blocks that are not forested. If we have a highest priority habitat block that is forested, it's included in the teal color. Um in the uh what is it called? light pink color is your currently designated village center. Um, this is shown in the upper right inset map of the PDF. Um, and then in the dark pinkish color, um, I have a proposed expansion as act 181 has expanded the criteria for village centers. Um, and it also, uh, uh, is bigger than in some towns because you don't have subdivision regulations. So, there's no neighborhoods. So, I've made a big village center. Um, can I just provide a little background to that since you've had village center designation for a long time and the village center designation I think the signature benefit of the program has been to allow for tax credit for uh investment in income producing properties and it's also um you're more competitive to apply for grants like the better connections grant that you applied for um which also allows you now to apply for like the downtown transportation fund. Um, it also made you more competitive when you

were trying to um apply for grants to pay for the sewer when it ended up this upgrade process ended up being more expensive. Historically, that village center designation program made you adhere to a very tightly defined area. This allows you to expand that benefit area and by doing that you might also be able to say create more users on your sewer system that would also in more users could result in you know more fees being paid and a big bigger revenue stream. So there is an advantage in being able to expand your your designated village center boundaries.

Okay. Um in the the designated village center boundaries are not necessarily the same as the areas served by water and sewer. Correct.

Or is it okay? Um so in the orange color we have um what is called a transition area. So these are areas that are not right in the village but they are served by the uh public water system um and they're zoned to allow for some medium density housing and potentially could include additional housing to be built. In the light green color we have what act 181 calls a resource-based recreation area. Um so this includes the state park um the campground on the north side of the lake and some intervening land that is primarily residential. Um in the purple color we have what is called enterprise areas. Um so the purple color, light purple, includes um rail yards, uh sort of industrial parks, factories, and any gravel pits or quaries of over 20 acres. Um, so there are six of these areas I've identified in Brighton, including three gravel pits. Um, the Sweet Tree Factory, uh, the rail yard next to the center of town, and it seems like this area has some warehouses at the end of Meadow Street. Not quite sure, but it seems like

Well, the wastewater treatment plant is down there. And then there's Yeah, there's um any broadband's warehouses down there. That's the industrial mini storage. It's like kind of like a mini industrial park. Yes. That accurate. Okay. So, that is one of the purple areas as well. Currently designated industrial zone. Yep. Yep.

Yes. Um what was the other area? I think I've gotten most of this. Okay. And then in this yellowish tan color is Royal General. So that is an everything else category and it includes a lot of lowdensity residential areas, but it also just includes anything that doesn't fit into the other categories I've mentioned. In bright blue we have surface water. So this includes rivers and ponds and the Clyde River. Um and then in black we have publicly owned and maintained roadways with the major ones labeled in white. So, I've made this map with the state's data as well as the town's own zoning and tax data. And um the data is imperfect. So, I brought this here to you today to ask if there are things that you think should be changed on this map from what I have developed so far.

Going to need a little more time. Liam, I'm not asking you to provide the feedback tonight. We're hoping to have feedback from towns by the end of August if that would be feasible. Okay. So, a couple of other points to make about this.

Um, local and regional plans have always been required to have future land use maps. They've sometimes they're referred to as current and prospective land use. And um we've always been required to show, you know, where where you want to encourage development and then where development isn't less likely to occur. So, previously NVDA's regional plan only showed industrial parks, village centers, and regional service centers. But now, we're required to all so it was just points on a map. But now we're required to allocate every acre of the Northeast Kingdom into one of 10 or 11 feature land use categories. And that's why this map has so many shapes on it.

But but this map doesn't replace our zoning map. And no, and as a matter of fact, this map has printed in bold here, not a zoning map. Um, so when when the law says land use map, what are they referring to for us to have?

Well, this is essentially the same thing. Um, so this follows the overarching planning goals of, you know, of of Vermont's planning goals of encouraging compact centers of development surrounded by open space. Um and it is something that you could adapt for your own future land use map. It also uh because um it sets up you know like where you want to invest in dens denser development like in the village centers it creates an opportunity for certain communities to have either full or partial act 250 exemption. Um, and we had talked about that briefly, but um, in a designated village center, you could have and within a quarter mile radius, you could, if you were to adopt subdivision rags, you could also um exempt um certain Act 250 developments of up to 50 housing units. And if they if you were to adopt subdivision regulations, some of the orange area would be eligible for what's called a village area status and that is also eligible for act 250 exemptions for housing purposes only.

Yeah. So it by um adopting a map that's consistent with this and you're you can find a path to getting partial act 250 exemption to encourage development in your community where you want to see it happen. But this map doesn't have regulatory authority. It's not a zoning map.

So, so no, what this map does do is the village center is the primary um thing that has impact. So, um is this available on our website as well? Yeah.

So, I I have a paper copy here and on NVDA's website there's a digital copy, but this lists all the benefits that you would get from having an expanded village center. Um, and act 181 in introduces steps to the village center program. So there's a step one, a step two, and a step three. So a step one is a beginner village, something like East Charleston. Step two is existing village centers like Island Pond. And then step three is a really large center like in Newport. And um the step two benefits are listed here. And there's a whole bunch. Infrastructure funding priority, state water and wastewater permit fee reductions, authority to lower speed limits below 25 miles an hour, exemption for land gains tax. Um,

I'm not arguing against doing that in any way. I'm just trying to figure out how we make best use of this map and what it means for us in planning and zoning. Well, guess you explain that. It's it's kind of a guide. tells us what we can plan for I guess but that's all I'm trying to figure out here.

So um again the requirement has always been in place to have a current and future land use map and um that's also been in place for local plans. Um, a lot of times communities have opted to show what their future land use patterns will be by showing a zoning map. But zoning by doing that, it it's not doing it in a in a more qualitative way. And this is an attempting to show where the investment has already happened, where the more sensitive lands are. And this is why we're pursuing this strategy. it provides more of a backstory. It provides more detail. Um, so that's that's I think one one way that it is helpful for the community. Um it also show it shows the extent of like your investment in in water and sewer for example with the with the light pink the dark pink and the orange areas

there around the pond are also some of the light green area along Lakeshore Drive is also served by the public water system from what Joel previously told me. Yeah. Yeah. No, I'm just thinking, you know, five years from now, we have new planning commission members and we've, you know, they come across this map and they look at our zoning map and, you know, it's we're not all planning professionals to these things mean the same thing to all of us as they might to you. Yeah.

That this is this isn't true. I mean, we're I think that act 181 is trying to get planning commissions to think more in like a transct approach. So like this area is, you know, medium density versus this area, this could be high density. This area is always going to be low density. That that's I think where it's heading. Um and hopefully I mean we could also um in the plan we could provide photo examples of when if we were to use these ex you know like these particular classifications we could provide photo examples of of what we're talking about and that helps to illustrate what kinds of you know what forms of development you have. So, I we're throwing a lot at you, but um I think that Island Pond has a lot of opportunity. Um you know, particularly if you were to develop subdivision rags, you could potentially remove some barriers to development. And you've done a lot of long range planning for revitalizing Island Pond and the village. You've got, you know, you've got, you've done a lot of master planning already. I don't think any of this conflicts with it. It's trying to move it forward.

No, look, looks good. I was just, you know, trying to understand. Sure. Um we have spent the last what four or five months trying to you know wrap our heads around act 181 I would say eight months but

but well yeah it just feels like well yeah in in dog years but um it's it is complex but um at the end of the day I think it's really helpful to a municipal plan that says this is the area that we've invested in and this is where we want to see the dense developments. This is where we want to see industrial uses. This is where we want um to see low density development. And um again, it's not a zoning map, but it is being more intentional and drawing a vision for like what are your what your current and future land use patterns are going to be.

I mean, there's certainly some overlap with a zoning map. That's that's for sure. Um would we have to apply to increase the designated village area? No.

No. So the act 181 has changed that process. So now um if we show this on our map and it's okay with the town of Brighton then um in 2026 we assume in the summer but we don't know for sure yet when um but NVDA will submit our 2026 regional plan including this map but it won't just be for Brain. It will be for the whole Northeast Kingdom. We will submit that to the newly established land use review board and then they have to approve all of the boundaries of these districts including the village center and then it gets approved. But the town of Brain does not have to fill out any paperwork for that.

And your existing village center designation stays in place. It because it's you don't I I think it was last summer you got a notice that you you didn't have to reapply for designation anymore. Oh. Oh. And I and I had just submitted it. Yes, I did. I had just done the whole all the paperwork for it and done the whole designation. Then I got it back from Richard and he goes, "Oh, you don't have to do this anymore." Oh, well that was last that must have been last summer. Yeah. It was I think April maybe. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So

ours expire ours was expiring last April.

Yeah. So um in in the act 181 world that existing designation that you have is called a legacy designation. And when we adopt our regional plan um we have the opportunity to expand on that legacy designation. And to move up to the next tier, we still have to do the whole um like uh where you have to have the historical review board and stuff like that for building facades and all of that. Is that not still

Well, those are um it's they're stepped. Your legacy designation would come in at a step two,

right? So you would have all and if our regional land use plan is approved, well it has to be eventually. Um and the any additional lands that we've added to it, those would be considered new designation areas. And if you have a current town plan, you could apply to have those stepped up to level two as well. Um the one the highest level is for a designated downtown and I think that that Brighton could be there

but there are a bunch of requirements. You need a capital plan, a local downtown organization, available water and sewer, permanent subdivision regulations, historic preservation regulations, and then a downtown reform based code regulations. But but you know, I think to get the um partial exemption through like the adoption of subdivision rags kind of puts you on that continuum of investment. And then you might find a time when you might become a full-blown designated downtown.

Oh, they were pushing me on that for for the last couple years. Somebody pushing me that for that and and they started working on that. That's I had written to help us do that. We're about halfway there, I would say. Who was pushing you for that? Um um probably Richard. Well, Richard was, but um no, actually uh um Annie Mlan. Yeah, she was she was push she was like, "You need to do this." And because I beyond working for the town, I also work for the Brighton Community Forum, which is our downtown organization. So, we we have a downtown organization already. Yeah.

That could fill fulfill that role. And so, she was she was hot on me for that for quite a while. Well, how big how many members does that downtown organization have, Mike? Huh? How many does that downtown organization have? We have a board. We have a board of five. Oh, five. Okay.

Yeah, we have a board. Um, you know, it's it it might seem daunting at the at the front end, Joel, but I think that there is a significant amount of potential and it might make sense for the town plan update to take stock of all of these assets that you have and identify like a long range path forward to to being a designated downtown. Always look at it, but I just never thought we had the capacity to pull that off. I looked at it when it first came out and I just didn't see us as being able to do that. Now maybe a lot closer than you thought like

well you have to operate you have to operate that whole thing too. You have to administer that whole thing once it gets started and that's the process that I you know it takes people takes people who are volunteering takes people who are committed and I just didn't think we can't even staff the select board. We can't staff the planning commission. We don't have listers. We don't have Anyway, you got Don't get me started. I think we already did. Okay. Well, but it sounds like you guys could have like a really interesting discussion about like what is needed for future investment. Sure, we should.

Are we done with this now? Mapping and everything's done. I know we've taken up a lot of your No, trying to move on with the No, that's all. I didn't know I didn't want to interrupt you. So, yeah, you guys can keep this map um if you want, which most towns we met with want to. Um I also have some sort of explainer packets that help explain the future light in these categories if you like those. And I have some of these paper copies that explain the changes to the designations explainers. So, I don't know which of these materials you're interested in, but most of them are also well, no, not most of them. The designation explainers and other resources are also available on NVDA's website. Um, I would keep a copy of that with that map. Leave everything. Just one. Yeah.

Oh, leave everything. Okay. Leave it. We all have to get it. That's right. I'll make Katie go in tomorrow and and and com and scan it all to us. You don't come into the office in person ever? I do. I live in Delaware. I go back and forth. Oh my goodness. Oh, I didn't know that. Okay. So, you Delaware right now. I'm in Delaware right now. Yes. Oh my goodness. What time is it there?

I'm up there a couple weeks. I'm on vacation next week and then I'm up the week after that. [Music] Where are we going to keep that? Might be too wide for let's We're going to put it in that closet full of maps. No, no, don't no. Please, if you do, put a number on it. So, no. Put it maybe in my office. would be the best place to keep it or in the or in your office someplace where it's going to be. There you go.

Yep. Not is your office locked. M Which one? Mine isn't. I mean, you can go to mine right through the through the list. I'll just go put it in your system. That's it. Well, thank you for having us. Yeah. And I I know we kind of dominated the conversation here, but we No, that's we got to work on why you're here. That's what you're here for. We pay you to dominate us. Oh, wait a minute. That doesn't conversation. This just has gotten really bad.

Yeah, I think it might be time for us to go. Well, we can do that. Have a good night. Bye. Thank you for coming. Drive carefully. Watch for moose. Okay. Um moving on. We have um anyone for public comment? No comments. Okay. So, the zoning board update that was um solar. It's not Well, it's the panels, but it's an inground. I think Mike, Joel, and I got that email. And so, is everything okay with that now? I mean, moving forward, I haven't heard for the 573 Cedarwood Drive. I think you're on that email.

All I All I Another solar panel. No, it's it's installing groundmounted panels like a residential area. Just one person. Yes. On 5573 Cedarwood Drive. Groundmounted matters if it's not so big that it triggers act 248. If it's if it's roof mounted, we don't care at all. Right. But if it's roof mounted and it's big enough for act 248, which I couldn't imagine that'd be a big roof.

But if it's groundmounted and it's not big enough to act 248, then it's controlled by local zoning. It's a structure like anything else. And that would be what I'm sure this is. I I haven't seen I asked I asked uh uh what's his name? Nick to get us a to get a dimensions. That's all I I think we ought to know the dimensions and it has to meet setbacks but other than that it's just like any other structure. Mhm. So this is still not done yet then. Right. I I don't know whether it's done or not. I I the emails that I got the emails that I got it was he was asking the question of what what he should do what we have for zoning on the Yeah.

I told what I thought the case was what he did with it. I don't know. Yeah. Okay. I I can talk to him about it. Um then the other is approve the minutes of the previous meeting. I have a motion. I wasn't here. Yeah, I know. I'll make a motion to approve the minutes of previous meeting. Second. I'll second. All in favor? I Okay. Thank you. Uh any other business? Are we got a lot talking?

No, we're good. other business. Did we um we didn't set that date though for the next um one in August, right? For the town one. We didn't set that date. You said just the end of the month. Oh, the next public outreach meeting. Yeah. Yeah. We didn't set a date then, right? It was the end of August, I think you said, would probably be okay because you were going to come up, Mike. Yeah. Yeah. I'm there last week of August. So, well, we'll just have the next meeting, you know, pin it down. Um, so do I have a motion to adjurnn?