Regional Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Okay. So, welcome everyone. Um, since you're upstairs, get outside. You have to get through that door in either direction to stairs and go elevator or um the area of refuge at the top of the elevator. So, for the agenda, are there any changes suggested?

So, we just had one. Um, the we I sent by email. a notice for an um regulation amendment for Williston. Um that's something that neighboring municipalities not notify each other uh about upcoming public hearings on on amendments. So that is the same as you have in in other you've received for other municipalities like there was a Burlington one recently. We've had Colchester etc. Um so just putting that on the agenda under other business. Um, I know I sent it after the packet, but it is um the public hearing is before our next planning commission meeting. So, it'll be good to have on the agenda for tonight. Got it. And no action required, just notice to the planning.

Yes. Do you So, how does it work with the attendance of constraining? Do you do that different? The last bunch of weeks we've been like do a thing. I can sign for I can sign for Duncan and just write online. Um, but that reminds me any vote you take will have to be a roll call vote because it was online, but I will grab that uh signage sheet roll call vote unless if it's not unanimous. If it's not unanimous. Um, well, I'm not sure how much voting we're doing, but we can do that obviously. Um,

okay. Um, we basically just went over the exit instructions which you do resolve and um, a reminder that there was the Williston public notice thing in our email to start.

Okay. So, open to the public for items not related to the agenda. If you are joining us online, you can unmute or turn your video on. We are not monitoring the chat. So if you have any folks trying to get us, you can raise your electronic hand. Turn on the video. I'm not hearing anything under the open to the public with items not related to the agenda. Let me move on. Um do we have any announcements? Yes. One thing to note is that our schedule continues to be up through this month. So, we do not have a meeting next week, but there is one the following week of the 16th. I will miss that one, but I think Duncan is lined up to chair giving the affirmative. Um, any other announcements? Um, I'm not hearing any other announcements, so we can move on to um the

I have a couple of um staff items. Yes.

Um just a couple of quick things. Uh one, last night was the first presentation of the budget to the city council. Uh they'll be having uh May three more, I believe, on the 15th of this month. and then the first two meetings in January before they wrap up the budget. Um, as our city manager says, it is the most important policy document of the year. Um, so they're all public meetings. Um, and all the materials are available online. So that's the first one. Uh, second one, um, yesterday I participated in the site visit from the land use review board. That's the new state board that reviews regional plans and ultimately the same board that would look at our tier 1A application. um they came to Kooki to the regional planning commission's offices and the um regional planning commission gave a presentation all about the regional plan and the um the future land use map and then they did a bunch of virtual site visits basically um zooming in on various different digitally um different areas of the county to um that were um sort of interesting case studies of why they made a decision one way or the other. Um and it was really positive feedback. Um and they uh it was a lot of uh appreciation from the board of the amount over which amount of collaboration between the municipalities and the regional planning commission um and a lot of uh accolades on that. So their feedback will be due by the 22nd of December on the plan and the map. And so we may be hearing um if there's adjustments that they are recommending um prior to their final vote and we'll see where it goes from there. And then lastly uh exciting thing from this past year's budget um being an active and um

intentional in the second half of this uh year is as of January 4th the library will be open on Sundays. Yeah. So um 9 to 3 9 to 3 presumably am to [laughter] all the late years in town. I've got to say I think I think it is really great. There's so many Sundays that I'd really like to go.

I think it's going to be very well attended and participated. So um it's it's really exciting. Oh, and also um sorry, also on the library, as of November 24th, so last week, uh thanks to uh a partnership with the library foundation, the library now offers both in the library and then remotely if you you can get a daily pass for the near time subscription. So, um it's a it's a substantial um investment by the library foundation um to give all of our residents access to that. So, and one more thing that the library has now due to donation from Keith Epstein, they have at least three infrared images if you want to do a a you know cold air study of your house.

You can check them out. Take them home. Okay. I don't know how to work, but are you recording? Yeah, that's you know I was recently surprised at um their online well their online both audio books and electronic books but also there's um magazines too like it was just kind of a larger collection than I realized including but not limited to consumer reports which is great.

Right. Any other staff items? Okay, we can get started on item number five, which is the bedrock removal noise regulation um research and summary of recommendations. So, we talked about this a few months back um following um adoption of the new part of regulations that pertain to this um and there's a few documents in our packet. um starting with the research summary um and then kind of moving on to a staff recommendation based on law research. I don't know if there's anything that you wanted to go through to a staff level or if you wanted it

be okay. I'd love to take a little step back um and just give a little um you know talk about I think the a little bit more than we have in the last few months about the project the main project that has been the driver of this whole question and um that's okay. Um so it's not about specifically these rules but I think it's important for us to sort of there they are on that. Um, so you know, I think we can we we know that a primary source of what we're looking at is what happened at Long Dash. Um, there were chiseling that took place over two plus summers that was extreme. Uh, it was ongoing and nobody wants to see that repeated or anything resembling repeated. And so I think like you know acknowledging that as a very start um I think we all know just so we're clear on these regulations that um the bedrock removal standards that were adopted in September and anything we're talking about here don't directly um affect Long Drive itself because that um neighborhood um per the court order is subject to the regulations we have in 2002. Um, so we're really talking about, you know, the future.

Um, but I think it is important that we take a step back and sort of look to make sure that our policies and procedures are in place to make sure that never gets repeated again. Um, so we did take some time to look back at that and what what happened, what led to it, what have we done, and what can we do to make sure that it doesn't happen again. Um so it was in some ways sort of a perfect storm of events that led to an extreme uh circumstance and an outlier from what we have typically seen. And Nick's research, you know, does identify some of the work that we've seen um elsewhere. Bedrock removal in one form or another is is pretty common practice in the city and we have not um heard very much about it frankly um over the years um except in this case and um in an isolated instances of you know people starting too early or something like that and that gets clarified in the moment um when it's been well managed um we've heard very little from folks um if anything we occasionally hear positive things about developers um communic communicating well with with folks. Um so what what what happened here? Um I think that you know like I said it's kind of a perfect storm. It was a court order. That's the first thing. Um the project was denied by the development review board back in 2002 for impacts to wildlife areas. um that was appealed all the way up to the Supreme Court and Supreme Court ruled that a portion of our regulations was um constitutionally invalid for vagueness and um results of that were that um were a few things that maybe didn't play out for a long time. One was that as part of the arguments that were made there was a um very complex tree preservation plan that was

um uh submitted and approved by the court. Um a second is that um the court in issuing their when the Supreme Court made their ruling and they gave it back to the environmental court, the EC court approved the preliminary plat and sent it to the city's development review board for final plat review with a very very very narrow authority of what they could look at. They basically could look at a h very small handful of things that are not dealt with at preliminary plat. Um and that's that's what they were limited in their authority to look at by the court. Um the project interestingly so you know up until very very recently the subject of blasting was regulated solely by act 250. That project was approved for a blasting plan um in its act 250. Um the approval that they got um was for the infrastructure um but not the house sites initially. Um the house sites would be subject to their own um amendments essentially by act 250. Um there were some um somewhat outlier conditions in that um which included uh a condition that pre and post blast surveys for all structures located within 1500 ft of the blasting activity needed to take place. Um that is larger than is typical. Typically it's 500 to 750 ft um including other projects in our own community. Um what impact that had in the developers decision-making we don't know directly but they implied that that was a um that was a lot it was a large geography. Uh

third um oh and and of course we did not regulate the subject at the time so we had nothing on it. Um there was nothing in the permit that talked about chiseling. Um and I think um you know when the chiseling started to take place. Um there was a gap. Um there was nothing in our regulations and nothing in our decision that talked about removal of that rock at all. And the act 2501 talked about restrictions and limitations related to blasting but had nothing nothing was said about chisling. So from an enforcement perspective, Act 250 didn't feel like they had a thing because they weren't they weren't not complying with the condition about the blaster, which is frustrating, but it it's it's where that was. Um the you know I think next uh in the spring and summer of 2020 uh the duration um of the rem removal was deeply underestimated um first by the developer and then frankly I think um by by us as they said to uh us a few more days and then a few more days and then a few more days and I think everybody was uh well I can't speak for the developer. I can say that we were um hopeful that that was going to be the case and it was not and um uh that uh was you know I think that's that's what I can say about that. uh there wasn't a straightforward alternative that the city had because there wasn't a specific, you know, here's a condition that you're not meeting. If the building were being built too close to a property or too tall, we could say that's not

what you were approved for. Um and so it was there wasn't a straightforward here's the way that we can address this and here's how it can be fixed. Um but that you know that that doesn't make it better. I'm just acknowledging that we did look at whether we could um issue tickets, uh whether we could um seek a court order, each of which at the time seemed like it would take a really long time to take effect. And um and our authority was was unclear. Um later, much later, the city um through city manager um with um support from the city council did on a sort of on a single house site um seek a court order for a nuisance violation. And um you know, with the benefit of hindsight, maybe that's something that should have been pursued a lot sooner. um or a learning institution and you know I think that that's that's a that's a reality in that instance. Interestingly um the city sought an immediate injunction. The court said that um in in that instance that it was appropriate that both the city and the um developer of that project that single house site um should have the uh ability to um submit documentations and make arguments before the court was going to or was going to rule. Ultimately in that instance the um chiseling was completed before that court action could start. And so that's sort of an interesting also you know learning experience that even when you go in that direction it doesn't mean things can happen instantaneously. Um we did explore some alternatives with the developer as it was going on. Um one was to uh that that was considered was

to blast out all of the house sites at once. Um so this was post when a lot of the work of the infrastructure was done. Um but to finish that up and and do all the house sites at once, the developer had expressed that you know that might make it a little bit more cost effective um rather than doing each one individually. Um challenge with that at the time at least um was that you know with the court order um ruling and the backdrop of the regulations that were completely silent on it. The administrative officer at the time determined that they didn't know that they had the authority to allow that to happen and to allow the sort of substantial permanent impact to the land without having full zoning permits for the entirety of the development and not being sure that the house would even be built the way that it was being blasted out without knowing anybody. But that felt, you know, looking back at that, kind of a catch 22. On the one hand, it's not a project that necessarily is going to be built that way and could have a permanent impact in the land without a home. On the other hand, uh it would be a more cost-effective way of removing the bedrock and maybe would have led to fewer impacts. Um the tree preservation handbook played a role. um I don't want to overstate it but the it had strict um limitations on disturbance so that could have played a role in the subject. Um so those are a lot of the factors that we um we came across with this. Um so what's different now? Um because that's really the key question, right? What's different today? What's different than

what you're looking at? Um, so I think, you know, first and foremost, the 2025 regulations that were adopted a couple of months ago require an assessment upfront, um, where it's reasonably foreseeable or where the DRB has evidence to think that it is reasonably foreseeable. Um, the regulations require a plan that is um, locally approved for uh, bedrock removal beyond 40 hours. So, it allows us to have a time frame associated with it. Um it um requires that a plan exist which means that there is then and it's not just for blasting it is for bedrock removal which means that there is something for the administrative officer to um adhere to um specifically and to um call out on um as I said I think we are a learning institution and looked back on the subject of enforcement and how even if let's say tickets had started at The tickets under Vermont law start at a pretty low number. They start at something like $100 a day. It is inconsequential to a larger development. But if you could go back in time and say, well, 4 months at some point starts to add up in money because it's, you know, becomes $800 a day. And you know, while each day that that's that in and of itself is probably still inconsequential over time, that starts to both um add up financially and make a case for other modes of enforcement as well as to somebody not, you know, adhering, not paying attention to it, right? Um we've had several projects advance in the years since. Um even with limited authority uh or really you know sort of tangental authority the development review board and staff have um been able to pay much closer attention to the subject of bedrock removal. So it um and and I think the development community uh

has been aware of this and so um several projects have locally reviewed and approved blasting plans or bedrock renewal plans um even before you adopted your regulations. Um what the regulations did in September was to give direct authority for it. Um the we were not challenged as to whether we had the authority in the last few um because I think the developers wanted to work with the DRB but it is much better when you actually have direct authority to do it in the event that it's challenged and then um we're going to discuss tonight some possible improvements um to it further. Um so that's uh that's kind of what I wanted to give as an overview. Thank you for taking a few minutes as a turn on that. Is there any

anything that folks would like to ask about those ones? And yeah. Yeah. A general question. The the problem with that particular development was that was it that the developer underestimated the amount of labor involved or he had no idea of the volume of material that they had to remove or

I I mean it's it's hard to be in their head right Michael so I don't know exactly what I think it was an underestimation of the amount of it the extent of it the labor involved olved with it. The um uh the hardness of the rock itself, they said that to us a couple of times because different types of rock can either break easily or or less easily. Um and you know, I I also don't want to overemphasize this in any way. Um but it was the spring of 2020 when this started and a lot of people didn't know a lot of stuff

as to what was happening and I don't want to you know give that as an excuse but an awareness but they need to know I mean they need to know the geology which would have taken care of the hardness and I think they need to have they need to make an estimate in their proposal of the volume of material that's going to be that they that they need to remove guessing at the time they can probably uh estimate the time based on how much they have to do right and we didn't have that at

and the I've read a couple of other places where an estimate of the volume of material to be to be removed is part of the application

right and so um in or long drive specifically. Um the administrative officer for the individual house sites since that time has required that. Whether they have the authority to or not, they have just said we're doing this and we're requiring this and the developer has agreed because of the history. That's not a good setup to do it outside of the regulatory authority, but I think both the developer and the administrative officer recognize in this instance that's critical. Um but we just need to think about that. Yeah.

Just one of the many things that should be added to [clears throat] the plan. I think there are quite a few details that should be fleshed out. And that was really the reason that I recall that we kind of sent it back was to put more bones on it. And I think one of the things that we do still need to find a way to put in there is some sort of limit as to what sort of noise at the property line is. It's too much. One of the problems had they been doing that development in the middle of a farm field somewhere and the nearest property line was a thousand feet away, it wouldn't have been nearly as much of a problem. If they were doing that in a light industrial area where all the other companies around there are making a lot of noise, it wouldn't have been such a big deal. But could you imagine if they're doing that right next to a medical facility or a school or a nursing home or a couple of thousand houses? The the impact is definitely location specific and I think the plan has got to address that in some way. I guess the second question is have we asked for a legal opinion on whether the existence of this bedrock removal language precludes us from go us the city from going after somebody on a nuisance ordinance violation. So there has been without the the city council and city attorney have had conversations on that subject. Um because it's um this because it's in the context of a singular thing. It was an executive session conversation. Um but there has been discussion of that subject. Well, from a broader standpoint, if we don't put noise caps in the bedrock removal language that we have, is there a fall back for the nuisance ordinance? Or by the fact that

we said you can do this and there's no cap on it, can they then use that in court to say, oh, they said it's okay. So, um, Adam, thank thank you for the clarification. Um what I would say is that um what that there was a little bit of discussion about the interplay between a nuisance ordinance and a and a um and a um land development regulation. One does not um preclude the other one um is what the city attorney had stated. At the same time, a specific approval under one would be um important evidence to a court on whether the other one is being exceeded or not. So a court would look to let's say a regulation and say well if they got a full approval and there was full knowledge of everything that was going to be in there then the city as a singular entity that would carry some weight in a conversation as to whether some something is being exceeded. That would be my assumption too. So I think language has to be in there. 80dB for an entire day in a residential property lawn is too much. 70D would probably be too much next to a school or a nursing home. There there are limits where we just have to say find another way. As you said, one of the reasons why they didn't one of the reasons why they did it this way was because blasting was more expensive. They didn't want to go out further. Maybe the trees, but they knocked down enough of those on their own anyway. It was mostly because they didn't want to pay for the engineering studies. Yeah. I I though uh

I wonder in retrospect whether they would concur that um after it was all done whether in the end that was the right column. Absolutely. not not even politically financially whether in the end um that's but you know I

I don't get to look at their books so I agree but but things like subsurface uh investigation I don't think they did any we need to make sure that we say they need to do this do if they find the bedrock are we going to allow them additional chipping to take out uh excavation for swimming pools I would say no basement I would say no. You can build a house without a full basement. Excavate what you need to get your utility lines in. Put it on crawl. Put it on slab if you're impacting neighboring properties that much. I think there's a lot more that needs to be in this plan to really make this effective. Um can I ask that um so so that absolutely is tonight's discussion. Can I ask that we hold on that part of it just to I was sort of starting with a debrief of a individual circumstance rather than see the future. Can I just ask if anybody else has any questions about long guy specifically? Uh well maybe it applies but to follow up on something that John mentioned I've a couple of examples that I've read the noise part of an excavation plan is tied to the to the particular city's noise ordinance. So by reference you know they say noise see the city's noise ordinance you have to comply with it. uh I don't know whether our noise ordinance would be a viable option for setting noise limits or it would need to be amended somehow but uh you know throughout this u I I'll let you go ahead because uh maybe something we'll come up against later in a discussion but I think noise is a big issue that we need to work on

so specific specific to the what you would talked about. One of the things that you said was that um you know it seemed like they were through act 250 there were very stringent complicated requirements put onto the blasting piece. Do you think that because the blasting was made so difficult that they were reverted to this other method which wound up being like so much longer?

I think it was a contributing factor. Um, you know, I I don't uh they indicated that that was a component. I don't think it's fair to the residents or us or even them to tag everything to one component, but I think that that's a factor. I suspect um this is totally my own speculation, but I suspect that the timing of it didn't help either. that perhaps people would be not would not have been receptive to pre-blast surveys in homes in the spring of 2020. Um, I don't know if that was a factor, but I could imagine that, you know, if I was trying to say, oh, maybe it's only a couple of weeks of chiseling, people might prefer that. But again, speculation. Um, but I think that was a factor on the on the the fee. Um, and

yeah, and I want to be like I've emphasized 1500 feet is more than double what is typically done for a survey radius for blasting the quadruple of the area. Yeah. And in a residential area as it is, that's a large number of structures that need individual meters placed at, calibrated, followed up on, reported much larger than it would be in if it was just the standard radius.

I see 750 ft similar, right? We we've often seen 500 to 750 is is pretty typical. Anything else on like that part of the background? We didn't get to the memo yet. Thank you for indulging my No, that was really helpful. Not not overly fun for anybody. Trip down memory. [clears throat] More fun. [laughter] Well, almost everything was [clears throat] more fun.

His recap was more fun than living through the Um, thank you all. So, a question. Do we know if they're done? Are there any lots left? And of those that are left, do they have know if they have any legs on them? So, there are a few lots left. Um, uh, I believe that there are fiveish lots left. I'm saying ish because, um, one was purchased by Neighborhoods Express that they may never build on it.

They're not. Um, it appears that one side of Long Drive has more uh likelihood of lynch than the other side. One side has had none show up so far, the Butler Farm side. Yeah. Um the other side appears to have some um we have um remained in communication with them and um I think that they are very aware of where this city how the city feels about this. But yes, there are there's probably a couple of house sites that have prominent ledge. Thank you.

Yeah. Um so I don't have much to add on top of that but I'll just summarize roughly um how uh we went about our research and uh recommendations. So um you know uh reading off of our project charge we this was to examine whether and if so how it is necessary for people in the best interest of meeting city plan it goal to further refine these new regulations. Just to um background everybody in that, those new regulations require um a bedrock removal and processing plan for projects um that are in the permitting stage. This is now part of the approval process like zoning permit, subdivision, site plan, whatever. Um if there is a strong likelihood a reasonable reasonably like reasonable likelihood that there will be significant amounts of bedrock or ledge that is being going to be removed as part of that uh project and if any kind of blasting at all is going to be done during that project. Um this can be triggered at the review stage. It can also be triggered along the part the time of constructions. um if the bedrock is found to be uh significant enough that it's going to um be an extended um and major part of the construction. And you can use the word major sort of synonymous with the um being larger than the or longer than the 40 hour or 40 hours uh dimminimous exception. If there is some amount of smaller amount of bedrock that needs to be removed via um hydraulic hammering, then the project whatever the level permitted at, can get 40 hours to remove incidental amounts of of material via those methods. um the DRB or the administrative officer

depending on what type of application we're talking about or where in the city would be the ones would be the the body to uh review and approve this application. Um so we did some research into three basic uh uh three buckets of research. Let's say we looked at other communities and we talked to industry professionals and experts and other regulators to talk about best practices and what is currently being done um elsewhere. We also looked at uh the application and sort of the theory of numerical or quantifiable limits for noise emissions from construction activities specifically bedrock removal. And then we also looked at enforcement feasibility and cost impacts. Uh we focused mostly on the first two. So, uh, the the result of our research, um, a while ago, we learned, you know, these things also, I just want to be clear, these three buckets kind of weave in and out of one another. These topics are all confl are all kind of um, mixed up. And so, we try to keep, you know, that was the approach that we took. Um the this the subject is is fairly broad and connected though, but I'll just go through those basically in the in in order. Um spoke to a number of our neighbors um talked to other city staff um and regulators and talked to them about what uh they had done in similar projects. Um there are no there are none of our neighbors that have um any kind of specific numerical limits on construction noise. Um so we have Burlington does apply some extra um standards of review for how blasting needs to be surveyed and communicated to

the general public. Um Essex Junction um apparently has uh some some amount of monitoring of their fairgrounds um but not of construction. Um, other towns may have noise ordinances, but they spec either specifically exempt construction noise or in practical in practice, construction noise has not been a regulated activity under those noise ordinances. Um, and that's just not really speaking to intent. That's just based on what we've spoken to with other uh officials. They said, you know, this is not something that we have. that's not a subject that we have used or been called to use um our our noise ordinance to to regulate it. We did look into one final an example of um a town in Massachusetts uh Quincy Massachusetts uh a little south of Boston that has an ordinance that does limit construction noise um using and uses decibb as the metric for that. Um that is done via a process called a noise mitigation plan which it applicants can apply for if it is likely that they're going to exceed a certain depthable threshold and then a team of building inspectors is the one to enforce that with monitoring equipment. They also keep up um they also monitor the the law itself and um and the application of that law via a special standing committee that they have that includes industry professionals, elected officials, other policy makers, and um people from the the construction industry. Um South Portland Maine limits nighttime construction. Um that's more like a performance standard or a noise ordinance. They do allow for some amount of nighttime activity. It's mostly

reading through it, it's mostly about maintenance on um on equipment. Uh so they do use decibb to uh to set a cap on what nighttime equipment um or what nighttime construction can can rise to in terms of decibb. But um during the daytime, so 7 to 9, um they they they allow constru they don't they let that cap on decibb. Um I'm citing examples from New England because um generally speaking, New England states have pretty similar state municipal government structures to Vermont. And so while we wanted to cast uh as wide a net as possible so that we could get good information on this um giving a little bit of uh of weight to the examples we found in New England just because it's a little bit different than you know uh California or Minnesota or Texas with which are all home rule states different uh relationship of the um municipal government to general regulatory law but also state law. And so um the New England examples tend to be um more sort of more more useful in going forward for the the purposes of discussing regulation. Um we also had some pretty lengthy conversations with experts and practitioners in the construction industry and within um uh the blasting industry and um and excavation industries. And you know, I won't go into all of the all of the details in the that that you can read those in the memo, but essentially what we learned is sort of two major or two two major sort of takeaways were that blasting is already very regulated from a federal, state, and here now local um level. And

it's also limited by its own industry best practices. So some of those are developed in like in conversation with regula with uh state regulators. Um but some of them are also uh driven by you know insurance and liability needs. it's a, you know, potentially kind of dangerous activity. And so when you're using explosive charges and so the industry and its practitioners tend to take a pretty conservative approach to um their their own activities and they do a lot of monitoring. They uh they do a lot of like sort of internal reporting. Um they uh and they carry with them, you know, licenses and insurance. um that is specific to the activity that they're doing. A little bit more involved than your your typical sort of like general liability insurance that a contractor might have. And what that adds up to is that basically, you know, um it's a pract it's it's an industry that is already very well equipped to report out and to um and to um enter into a conversation with the municipality that is that it may be it may have concerns about certain blasting activity. But the blasting activity itself is largely quite safe and has increasingly being used in even more dense areas without incident. You know, we just anecdotally we talked to some people in Burlington, some of the regulators there who said that when they were that one of the the sort of the blasting act the activity that jumped to mind for them the most was the um demolition and rebuild of the Burlington High School, which required, you know, a decent amount of blasting over a few

months. and they said that due to the proactive outreach that the blasting um uh specialists did there, they had some constituents who had initially called up the city and said, you know, I'm really worried about this. Like, hope you guys are are are are monitoring this and are are are really holding their feet to the fire. have a number of those people um be surprised later on to hear that the blasts that they were originally concerned about had already occurred. Um and so between sort of like small you know controlled um activity and also uh like a proactive outreach strategy um a lot of the concerns and the disruption that blasting could potentially cause were were largely mitigated. Um and uh it's also just important to keep you know one of the things that we also heard from that industry and is that you know they would much prefer to blast if they can because it's so much quicker and um is much easier to control than other ways of removing of bedrock and other like hard subsurface materials. Um, so those other ways of removing hard subservative materials, we've heard a little bit about them and some of the problems that they that they can cause. We looked into those as well and talked to the some of these same people. Blasting and we'll call we'll call it, by the way, hydraulic hammering. So, when we're talking about this, we're talking about some kind of um, you know, drill or hammer. It grabs a bit against the material that is being removed. It's usually mounted on some kind of vehicle uh like a skid steer or a backhoe or other kind of construction equipment. Um, this is often done in combination with blasting. Um, but it can also be

applied on its own. And this is an activity that really is you used pretty widely in a variety of different construction and excavation and demolition scenarios. And it's really, you know, to hear the industry folks talk about it is really, they really seem to consider it as just one more tool in their tool box that they um rely on when necessary um but won't necessarily go to if there's something else that works better. Could be blasting, could be some other way of excavating, could be avoiding it. They can for when it comes to removing bedrock though, keeping things focused on bedrock and ledge. When hydraulic hammering is being used, it's typically to remove a wider and shallower area or to shape something or to uh excavate around a sensitive area. For instance, there's a maybe there's a building that they're seeking to um to preserve and they need to do some rock removal around the area. Um, that's one that's sort of that's why the hydraulic hammering is a go-to uh method of of construction. Um, it's also pretty common for urban areas because it's uh one of the most efficient ways to break up concrete and asphalt. Um, which is typically something that needs to be done in like an infill or redevelopment. A lot of infrastructure work. Um a lot of uh a lot of utilities uh lines use concrete lined trenches and so when those are getting built or rebuilt um hydraulic cameraing is is often used.

Just to interject briefly, it was um across the street the um buildings that are just under just got occupied and one that's under construction. They had a surprise discovery of some bedrock there. And um they did look into both blasting and

uh and hydraulic hammering. And one two things that you described came up specifically. One was they had certain limitations. There were some existing gas lines that they were not permitted to blast near. So they had to hammer in some areas. And then your example of the shallow was um exactly the circumstance there. So they had about two feet worth that they needed to remove. Um and so they specifically knowing all of our history looked into both. And the quote that they got back was that they would need to do 30 days worth of very small blasting that involved each of their own chiseling in order to get the two feet or about six days of chis. Um and so in that instance, the lesser of those um was by far the chisling in that instance. [clears throat] So just give me a real world world example of what happened across the street from us.

Yeah. So

yeah, thanks Paul. The yeah the these sometimes the yes basically these techniques sometimes are um you know fungeible sometimes they are done in in concert um and uh and sometime and it's also um sorry one other thing that is that hydraulic hammering can also when we when we are talking about using that as sort of the primary way of removing bedrock or wedge or something like that like a larger deposit of of hard material. One way to speed up that process is to use a drill to perforate that rock, which just allows the um the the chisel to remove it in larger chunks. That can be pretty useful and can significantly speed up the process sometimes is what I'm told. Other times though, depending on the type of rock and the orientation of the seams, I'm not a geologist, so please take with a grain of salt, but it's not always useful to do. Um although for certain types of material it can be. Um and then sort of the third takeaway uh was that there is a certain sort of inevitable amount of improvisation that the construction and development process demands. um you know, weather, availability of labor, um permitting delays, a variety of things can change the timeline in a process. And that is and and so having a tool like a hydraulic hammer on hand can, you know, have the availability of that tool might be uh it might be used across a variety of different scenarios, which is one one reason why it's popular. Um, and it's also one reason why you might it might be used for a variety of different sort of discrete tasks within one larger

construction project like laying a little bit of utility line and then finishing out shaping like a a seller hole um or maybe dem demolishing a structure even prior to that. So um try to wrap up quickly here. We did a we we we did some looking into um how uh other municipalities have have talked about have um used um sound exposure and decibb uh to uh enforce their noise ordinances or limits. Um I won't go into all of the detail of how uh decibb work. If you'd like to get more background on that, there is a excellent memo that the uh city attorney Col um Colin wrote in February of this year. But to the extent that it is um used, you know, to the extent that it is enforcable, it's very difficult to enforce in a uh to use uh no uh decibb as a metric for enforcing um a noise ordinance in sort of the outdoor world. given that practically everything um environmental influences how the perceived sound um uh yeah how the sound is is perceived and how it's measured. So things like temperature, humidity, wind direction, cloud cover, um leaves on trees or not, um snow on the ground, snow not on the ground, all these things can have some amount of influence over what a receiving property uh where of what sound is measured at at a receiving property. And I've mentioned that because it basically means that for those activities that are right on the edge of of of a limit, the same activity one day could theoretically be uh illegal the next day. Um and that just

makes certain uh regulatory um that makes basing a regulation on a on a strict sound limit really difficult and requires ongoing constant monitoring um and and reporting. So, not a reason not to do it, but it is just a uh it's a it's one of the factors that has to be considered in um in using that as a tool for for basing a regulation. Um [clears throat] we also did a little bit of looking into uh noise complaints and bedrock removal in South Burlington. We I think Paul's um introduction um largely talked uh covered that but we did do we did try to get a little bit of quantitative data on that to go there.

Okay. Well, we're here for a reason because there were so many complaints to dece the document saying there were there haven't been any complaints lies in the face of what Paul just summarized. Well, we were talking about one particular project when when hundreds of complaints over it. So we looked into other projects as well and what we found is that other projects haven't generated that amount of complaint. Wanted to give that as background.

Um so summarizing these what we learned essentially is that we have been um was that you know blasting and hydraulic hammering are essential and commonly used tools for modern construction. um they'll be continue to be used. Um that extending the period of time that they are that they are used um tends to up the cost of a project and costs also um tend to determine methods. And so a lot of the folks that we talked to um in the industry side said that that they were probably more influenced by the overall cost of a particular method than the um than than local regulations. Um they also um you know anecdotally they also told me that they were very interested in limiting the amount of complaints, the amount of disruption, the amount of oversight that uh any uh particular project that they're working on um generated. They were very helpful and um and willing to speak with us and uh provided a lot of really really good information. So that's it for the research. um be happy to take some questions um on that. Um and other than that, you know, I think we can probably just move into some of the recommendations that we that we drew up based on what we've learned. Um and especially based on the the the the difficulty in in enforcing um a no a decibel based noise ordinance. We believe that there are improvements that we can make to the existing language that give the city and the DRB

or the administrative officer the discretion to um infor to review and enforce a application that is going to be obviously outside the bounds of something that is acceptable. One of the concerns that we heard that was that the was that the language as was passed in September created a a chance that there would be an application that would be reviewed and found to check all the boxes, say to make an an, you know, assertion that it that that it had um pl that the applicant had planned out all activities had listed all the equipment, had um submitted any maps or documentation of their claims and that that would be essentially rubber stamped. And so, and we addressed that by making by revising the language to make it more of an affirmative for the DRB or for the for the the reviewer. So the draft would agree that the the the body of the city should shall only approve the application after making a determination that so essentially that they would have to review it with the following in mind and we added we took some inspiration from act 250's language about um uh reason about a reasonable standard to say that to just reinforce that it's not just that the applicant would be asserting that these four things would be um met but rather that the reviewer it's it's incumbent upon the reviewer to uh find that those that that balance that

ascertation is reasonable. And um we also made more explicit the fact that um those uh that the application could be rejected on the basis of failing to reasonably uh balance those four um th those four values. And we feel that this is the um an a major improvement on the existing language um because it provides more of more of an affirmative opportunity for an application to be uh rejected to you know to be um yeah to be rejected based on an unreasonable balance in one direction or another. Whether that be length of time or methods used or any other issue that can uh aspect of a of a better opera his hands higher than you do.

Oh, it'll start with spraying. change. Go ahead.

Yeah, I guess I have a sort of fundamental two of them actually fundamental question about one is that bedrock removal seems to be very limiting because um other you know you remove other material you maybe have to scrape all the top soil off before you start hammering at the bed. So, and you've you've used removal and excavation many many times. And excavation is the the word that I've found in all the examples that I've looked at as as indicating what we're doing. It's just rock excavation or soil excavation or whatever it may be. So, maybe we should think about a little broader um title for this. uh this one. Um [clears throat] there are a couple of other suggestions that I came across which might be helpful. One of them was that um no rock excavation permit shall be issued for a property that is located within 750 ft radius of another property that also has a permit. until such time as the first property has finished or its permit has expired plus 60 days. It would means it gives the people who live in the vicinity of 60 days of peace and quiet. Um I'm not quite sure where that came from, but it might have come from somewhere in Canada for the lineup.

Um you've covered maintenance and cleanup operations in where is it? Um I think it's in G and there conditions of approval. They're talking about like mediations G. Yeah.

Yeah. Um, and then in section F, we've talked about it, but I think it would be good to add um, you know, that they have to present a neighborhood outreach plan to the homes that are nearby. You talked about the fact that that was very useful and helpful in many instances. Yeah, we found that uh feedback we got was that that's that neighborhood outreach plans are very useful for blasting scenarios and it's typically something that is drawn up for blasting. Yeah.

Hydraulic. So I think that is in our if that is already in ours. It says um required notification of the city and properties in the immediate vicinity of the approved approved stable. So so that is a good point because you already have that part in. Should it go in F? Yeah, that's F9 as a submittal requirement. I think it's in G. It's one of the four things that would been um balanced in duration. know it's in G as the board has the authority to impose conditions

to what you're saying. So certainly um uh knowing that the board has the authority to do it. Most folks will prepare a plan if you would like to be more explicit and say that the plan needs to be done and then the board can adjust and certainly that can be a um that can be a a tweak to that. Um you know okay that's a good point. So it's not required in the first in the submission. So that would be good to have it required. Yeah. To have it I would agree. I mean I think we might as well be upfront [laughter] and say the plan and it needs to include this.

Have you you say you can be tuned you can do it from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. but we don't say that it's Monday to Friday. and no and not on holidays somewhere. I don't see it anywhere unless I misread it.

I I mean not the contrarian does it matter that much this weekend or weekday because like I feel it's more about not trying to disrupt people's sleep and the like and know everyone's on a Monday through Friday schedule. Maybe it would disagree me. I I I'm more careful with the hours. I'm just concern based to me personally. Well, I'm not sleeping during the day. Sorry, they're not sleeping. Well, that's my point is 8 to 5 is more about avoiding nighttime hours than business hours. Like I'm not sure it matters if it's whether or not city offices are open during the blasting. Well, yeah, they can block from 8 to 5.

Yeah. So, do we care if it's Sunday or it's Monday? I I personally wouldn't, but maybe we decided we should do probably. Yes, because the the families, their kids are not at school. They're at home. It's family time. Um so, Act 250 often has conditions specific to blasting that um prohibit on Sundays, federal holidays, and sometimes they do it Saturdays as well in their conditions. That's what we've seen. So that's not necessarily all forms, but um

Did we Did you experience blasting on weekends? Um blasting wasn't the issue. It was the hammering. And I don't think they did any of that on weekends. I could be wrong. It kind of you you heard it even when they weren't doing it after a while. Well, yeah. So, I but I don't believe they did it on weekends, but it was like four months the first time, four or five months. It was like

all the examples that I read excluded the weekends and holidays. You know, I wonder if it is something like just goes into like the um the period, you know, the discussion of when it's happening because if you could do it over like 10 days straight and be totally done and never have to come back, but you went through the weekend, that might be better than like I I don't know. I'm just I'm just thinking because that might be a savings. There could be it could just be better for the neighbors to say let's just get it done. We'll know it's during this one period, you know. I don't know. I guess they

probably come out and outreach if the neighbors say don't do it over the weekend. Yeah. I I guess the question is if it's it's all about dimminimous and minor ones if if we ban a weekend that creates situation where it's still working construction seven days a week and they found just a small rock on Saturday morning having to halt construction towards Monday where it could be a little ownorous just for the since it is diminished it's like a oh just you know spend four hours you know chiseling it and it's just duck unanimous in any way.

Well, yeah, just because this this is specific. People were talking about section B, right? This specific about the the standards. Um it it this all came about as Paul so eloquently recapped because of a noise issue and city council sent this along to try and do something about the noise issue and we seem to be off on a tangent where we're doing this whole plan and nowhere in the plan does it address the noise.

That was my second fundamental question. I it doesn't seem to do what they asked us to do. Um the recap that you gave in the memo, I would be fine with eliminating blasting from this altogether. It doesn't seem to be a big problem. The drilling that goes along with the blasting maybe, but the blasting itself doesn't seem to be a real issue, I don't think it's a bad idea for us to have it, but I don't think that it's just kind of getting brought along with this original topic that we don't seem to be addressing. And without putting some sort of limit on there at least you don't talk about mitigation.

Did they do anything to try and mitigate the noise? Did they go out and buy some temporary chain link fencing and put it around the site and put some noise dampening barriers on it to try and do something to keep the noise from getting nothing. And there's nothing in here that says they have to. And that's what I think we if we want this to really accomplish anything, we need to set some performance standards and say you need to tell us how you're going to mitigate. Don't just give us a plan that says this is how much noise we're going to make. Okay, let me um so one thing to start just on the blasting side just as um context. Uh we think it's important that we do regulate the blasting in part because that has historically been only Act 250. fewer things going to be are going to be in active 50 in the future. So regardless of that, I think it's a good idea, right?

But I'm not sure that it's generative. It's it carries along nicely, but we still seem to be missing the driver for this. Yeah. And the second thing I just want to say contextually on this is um the looking back at Long Drive, um one of the things that to us was a gap was that the subject of bedrock removal unfortunately was not looked at holistically. And so this tries to say we want a plan for the removal so there are no loopholes in either direction. So that's what I just wanted to share that to us it is important that it be looked at because they're both methods of doing the same thing and to talk about one without talking about the other gives a loophole to go to to a different problem that we may have never faced yet that we don't want to face. I'm not arguing that this isn't a good idea to do this,

but I don't think it addresses the original driver of what started this. So rolling down the hill, but I think the driver is back at the top. So it does say in here that demonstration of how the means, methods and excavation balance following objectives limit level of no noise factors considered in noise limitation in uh long periods and use of sound blocking measures such as blast match positioning equipment construction sequencing. So that's all in there, right? But almost all that refers to blasting.

No, that is how the means and methods of removal of that. No, actually they added they actually in those red line they actually kind of specifically to make sure that that's referred to in you are correct. There is not an explicit level. No, there's not a decel and and the blast mats are for the blasting positioning of the equipment. My concern is that we're just we're just asking them to document what they were going to do anyway and then we're going to say, "Yep, that's well documented." And we could still end up with a situation where we've got this horrendous noise. I see what you're saying on on the on the blast mats. You're saying that that refers to only better

for for other purposes, right? But there there's no talking about noise dampening and those things are possible to do without it being an excessive cost. So why why do we have to specifically talk have a a regulation of of blasting when we can just take the state and say it applies by reference. That's part of what we do right in there. A blasting plan as described in the Vermont blasting plan guidance. Okay. But we

wait then comes the noise. Um, if the Air Force was able to make a noise, a 65 decibel noise plan around the airport, why can't we have a 65 del noise plan? Um, or maybe it's different. Maybe not not 65, maybe it's a different level, but DBAs are what we measure as human beings. But why can't we do that? I mean, we've we've we've documented a lot of reasons why we can't or why it's difficult. But I'll repeat the mantra that I used to tell my guys, the degree of difficulty is not going to be the yardage by which we judge whether we're going to do this project or not. We got to find a way to do it. It doesn't seem I mean it seems difficult but it doesn't seem out of out of our reach. Michael, one thing you just said, this isn't specifically about decibb, but you just said judges whether you do the project or not. And one of the things that I wonder if it should be in here is an avoidance like is did did the project consider not removing the bedrock as just

you know part of it? I feel like there's some situations and I think I think you maybe brought up the point like you know if you've got bedrock maybe you don't get to put a pool in like you know like know exactly what the what the if Donna was here tonight she would say absolutely you could use pole construct yeah or why I mean we're pinning stuffed bedrock all the time like I am a subunter do this you like you uncover the bedrock you maybe scrape it up a little bit you like maybe hose it down. You maybe chip away a little bit just to make sure you've got all the loose stuff off and then you pin something to it. Yeah, that was that was Or you use a slab like like are there

like I feel like there could be a part of this maybe at the beginning where you you make them describe why they need to remove it in the first place because it feels like there's an awful lot of cases where like why can't you just have a house on a slab or I don't know maybe there's a reason in certain circumstances why you actually can't do that But I guess in my opinion, it feels like if we're having them go through all this, we should try to get them to just consider. We'll have to avoid it.

Like, you know, you with wetlands permitting and stuff, there's always like an avoidance. You have to talk about how you considered avoiding first. And I mean, I'm not saying we should not let people remove bedrock because I I do know there are times when it makes a lot of sense and you really want to be able to do it. you know, being nimble. And, you know, that's why I think this dimminimous part should stay in there. If we're partway through a utility project, you get a little piece of bedrock in the way of your stomach pipe. You want to be able to like get it out of the way. But,

I guess question one, would it would it make more sense to kind of I I do like that idea. Um, would it make more sense to sort of have that as sort of like an initial check or would it be more make sense to say like in section the eight sorry F8 there's limit duration limitable noise limit impact limit cost could you say limit volume of removal so sort of it's one of the many things we're balancing so like oh maybe more volume here but we're putting all these advanced mitigation techniques to try to make it like with yeah is it like a separate thing or is it one of these many limiting factors in section 8 which again if and if we don't like how they're complying with section 8. We already are saying we can deny the permit if we don't like how they're compliant with section 8. The balance is in eight or is it a high level? Yeah. So the four in in eight the four um qualities that are being balanced are to some degree at least limit to build environment um level noise duration are all to some degree proxies for volume. So yes something like that could be added. Um but all of those have some amount of uh bearing on like on volume and vice versa. So, um, yeah, it it could be added. I'm not sure if that would necessarily

I guess was saying like, is there a way they have I mean, I I think I think that we keep getting at is can they avoid it? Yeah. Can they avoid it? Like, we're saying the how the design of the structure is designed such using the example from across the street um because I think that sort of tells this this idea sort of on both sides of it. Um I mentioned the two feet. They did the pinning to bedrock um as one of their strategies. So originally they were going to have to go down. Their plan was to go down x number of feet and they were able to reduce that by about 4 feet by pinning to bedrock rather than removing it.

I think that's the good example of what you're talking about. The consequence that in this instance probably would not have been of benefit to the city is if the limitations that said you can't put an underground parking garage anymore, which would have dramatically changed the whole project and probably made it a lot fewer housing units being built or a lot more surface parking. Um, and so figuring out what's the balance of those two things in that instance, I think they came up with [clears throat] a good pretty good balance to um find a way that didn't have to remove bedrock, but also didn't have to have an unintended consequence to the city. Yeah. Um,

al also, yeah, bedrock also is not a natural resource in the same way that a wetland is or trees are. They it's it in when we're talking about removing avoiding removing bedrock. We're not talking about doing that for the sake of the bedrock. We're talking about doing it for the sake of reducing the noise generated by it. Talking about limiting the volume to avoid impacting the resource of bedrock. I was talking about limiting the noise by potentially just not removing it. So I I realize If they could blast a really big hole in a short amount of time,

that's totally that seems way better than chipping away for months on end. So, so that's where I think we want to somehow hone in on, right? Maybe it's not a decent like two days of something loud might be way better than four months of like slightly less loud but like really annoying. you have that 8A like 8A does say that about right and I don't want to lose that agree like you know I think that's where a decel level feels uncomfortable to me like if we could

have some way of saying if it's really only a week but it's a little but it's louder and you know avoid a whole summer of of of it right there's got to be some proxy for impact Right. And I don't know how we use decals for that. So that that's still the hard. I just don't Yes. And I really do I think a lot of it depends on who the receiving properties are.

Like I said, can you imagine if Long Drive was right next to one of the elementary schools? You know, how would you hold class? You couldn't you couldn't hear yourself inside the house with the windows closed. We were locked in our houses for the whole summer and I people that had been, you know, stay at home, you had home businesses that had to go someplace else. You know, some people that just took hotel rooms to get away from the noise.

So even even 40 hours of that is is quite ownorous. Uh we may decide that that that's acceptable, but they could get louder too. That's what scares me. They could be closer. They could be louder. Where they were working on Long Drive was not right in my backyard. they could have been even closer. I can't imagine what the noise would have been. So that's why I'm thinking there there needs to be some sort of limits. I I think like I said things like engineering around in the first place, but but the impact matters and and I'm maybe because I we haven't had that bad experience with it and I have personally blasting seems to be a much less impactful solution. and you have one loud noise, you know, maybe two or three blasts a day because that they're only allowed to do a certain number as part of the the act 250, the blasting plan because they were blasting around our house uh over the summer. I never heard a thing. One of the things that we think that this regulation does and will do by forcing uh folks to have a plan much earlier in the process is it will steer more folks towards blasting because the hydraulic jackhammering is a thing you can do by renting a truck and showing up that day. The blasting takes preparation. Mhm.

Everything else being equal, if you are required to have a plan months in advance, that is already forcing you to have thought about the subject. So, I'm not saying it, you know, is 100% going to declare, but it is definitely steering people in a direction of a you must have a plan, so do it the right way. Here's an idea for you. Um, because I don't see anywhere in here where it says who writes the plane. Can we specify that it's got to be sealed? That we need a engineer to stamp the plan presented at the DRB. Is an engineer required to staff stamp blasting plan, but it wouldn't be for hammered.

Well, yeah. So, that that that's that's a question. Yeah. If you were I qualified as a licensed civilian hire to stamp a hydraulic hammering plan really easily. Like I could do that tomorrow. I do it all the time actually, but like I can't stamp a well some PE is stamping you. You probably something we can take a look at that. What we typically use is a qualified professional is the word that we use in our regulations because it gives the board the ability to let's say we're talking about landscaping, landscape architects can do it, others can potentially do it. um professional

gives well it gives the if you say qualified professional it gives the board the ability to decide qualification determine determine what qualification is because there might be some degree in mineral extraction that is not

because my concern is I think that larger developers are going to have a larger staff they're going to have more experience with these things they're going to have a but a much better plan to begin with that's not where we got into trouble We got into trouble with a smaller builder that was kind of doing things by a shoestring and the plan they would have generated would have been on the back of an napkin and it would have been five minutes and here it is. And keep in mind that the board always has the authority to invoke an independent technical review which they did at um Park Road even when it was a qualified firm that did it. They invoked a technical review by an entirely third party and said, "You know what? We're not experts in this. We want to have somebody who doesn't have a stake in this evaluate. So that is a tool that absolutely can should and uh can or should be used.

So what's language that would allow or would encourage the builder to not do blasting or chiseling or any of it that they would build something that doesn't have a basement, for example. And so I mean that's one of the things that would avoid the noise correct foundation. I mean pardon me that I mean that would reduce the noise. I mean not like a basement. You're still wearing a heat. Well yeah reduce but right

it would reduce it to great. So, what is the language where you don't say we don't really want blasting because it's so noisy and if we can't have blasting then you can't have walk up basement on bedrock. Um, but we want to encourage uh a developer to consider there's a lot of bedrock here. So maybe my plan ought to be ought to not require some huge amount of blasting even if it's just

blast one big hole and it's done with. Is that is that kind of thing item in there basically to limit extent? Has the plan been reviewed to reduce the amount of bedrock removal that's required to the extent necessary? Yeah. And will this have will this have a positive impact on noise impact and these other things? Because if they can say, well, we're doing it, but it's not we don't expect any impacts. That's why we're blasting anyway. So instead of blasting 3 ft, we're blasting six feet. It's there's no difference. But if it's a matter of, oh, we're going to hammer for a week or we're going to hammer for four months.

Yeah. I guess just back on the whole thing we're talking about like blasting versus hammering. It sounds like there is people who have brought this legislation that the issue we have had has been limited to um It's a hydraulic hammering.

Um, so this is for barely for uh in the state of Vermont for sorry for state highways. The agency of transportation basically a few years back said we are we we we care about safety and in general roundabouts are the safest form of intersection in a lot of in most cases that we're dealing with in the state of Vermont. chat with anyone after why that's the case. But regardless, I said to you the state and we have an interest in trying to install round buds where we can. Now, whenever you do an intersection project on a state highway in Vermont, you have to you required to consider a roundabout. And if you put something in that isn't roundabout, you have to explain why you're knocking a roundabout, man. And it can be pretty brief a lot of times. It could just feel like it just it don't fit. You know what I mean? Like it's it but you need to have at least considered it. And if [clears throat] coming in here would it be interest to say like yeah sure like dimminimous stuff like you're going to have to do every now and again some hydra drilling but you have a non-minimist like multi-week long hydraulic drilling. can you at least require them to say why aren't you just doing blasting because we as a city feel that's got to be less disruptive and that will at least make them forced to at least look into blasting. I mean, we're sort of already implying that by we talked about a little bit putting more of a a point on saying like we prefer blasting as a city. Do something to demonstrate. We don't need to get the details of it, but then the DRB can say uh your explanate like your explanation of why you chosen it doesn't make sense why you choose drilling it here. Could you please like we're essentially saying a state of preference for blasting. No requirement. Sorry, not require blasting, but a preference for blasting when it is a large project and is on them to say why not and then DRB can argue with them if they don't like their

explanation. That feels a little similar and maybe just up that 8 like the 8 I think is maybe trying to get at what you're saying. Well, I won't be explicit like prefer blast. We would be saying that. Yeah, we that's a decision. That's the decision we're making. but is more explicitly for this alternative. So maybe that could be like yeah I mean in the case of roundup before we had that we had this whole evaluation we we always do evaluation matrices and there's all these various factors that we consider thing and that sort of thing specifically like this roundabout thing is a particular preference of others and we I'm suggesting doing something.

Yeah. Yeah. It's a it's a value judgment. Yeah. I mean, it's interesting that you mentioned that because I think that that's something that the industry as a shared value with the industry based on what I've heard. Most of the contractors I talked to said like unprompted, "We would much rather blast if we ever get the chance." Obviously, the people who are, you know, running the blasting companies would rather do that as well.

Um, that's that's their wheelhouse. But even the GCs and the sort of just project engineers um and and sort of like back of the house guys in the development corporations I spoke to said yeah I mean blasting is just it's a it's it's our preference for a variety of reasons and you know frankly um the the um like um the disruption of using other methods to to to excavate is one of those a big one of those races. They would much rather have a project go smoothly without uh having without require like like requiring a bunch of oversight by the city or having to uh do a bunch of outreach to you know um uh or have to frankly build complaints from neighbors. Like they would they would much rather do that. And financially speaking, for a large enough project, it's blasting is almost always going to be the the the cheaper thing. And at the end of the day, you know, they have to they're they're thinking about profit and and and cost. So they're they're already incentivized to do that. We could make it a little bit more explicit that that's a that's a value from the city's perspective as well into that. Yeah. Yeah. And I guess the point is for the big developers, everyone should be looking at this anyways. The big developers probably already doing that for someone that's in a little overhead and just I don't want to deal with blasting. Yes, it sounds like that may have been a contributing factor long drive. Yeah. And maybe if they've been forced to say, why can't you blast up front? maybe would have decided differently if if they're forceful they're forcal

what both of you are saying like like the act of making this plan be created by someone like a qualified blaster you know you're not going to get the fly by the seat of their pants just going to go hammer at it because they have to go through this whole planning process so but we should also try and incentivize has um pole construction in their basement like the avoidance avoiding avoiding um Duncan we have have I been ignoring those are you [laughter] good I

was just what I was saying according to what I like back to somebody mentioned earlier is uh set um somebody mentioned earlier that we needed to have something included. Don't come back to me. Sorry about that. So, I wrote down specifically mentioning noise dampening, not just a blast mix. Yeah, noise mitigation. Noise mitigation. Um there are ways to do it. somehow having some language um in under eight like another column another bullet that would be about kind of avoidance methods considered to limit volume or

so you'd add or noise so be five things you' be an E in there the avoidance thing um somehow somewhere including that the plan should specifically be prepared by a qualified professional So probably going to get that more advanced and um if it works say that we have the preference towards blasting um to limit duration. Those were the those were the four things I wrote down. But you also talked about outreach planning the notifications. Yes. Oh yeah. So the notifications would be

one other thing that I would suggest probably talk to Colin about is if necessary to improve the city's case if it ever comes to it putting something in saying that in the event the removal generates excessive noise the city remain reserved erves the right to act under the nuisance ordinance.

If everything goes by and it's still you've got a couple hundred people turning up at the city council meeting, I don't think you want to block your ability to say, "Okay, something went wrong in this process and we've got an unacceptable impact and at least take them to court that way or and that may get them to do something." Would it maybe on that note, could you sort of have something like if it's considered well say or not to find but also like required to put mitigation like required to put in basic sound maps or something like that if it's becoming an issue like I don't know if that's legally enforcable or not but

I would think at that point that the contractor would do what they could to try and get the plan to something acceptable but I'm just if if we think that this may make it very difficult for the city to bring a case under the nuisance ordinance But I'm just wondering if there's some language that can be put in to say in the event that you know an approved plan generates noise that's a public nuisance the city is brighter than anticipated in the like

if the commission would like us to explore that with city count city attorney we're happy to do it. I suspect that they might it it might have to be words like, you know, excessive and unusual. Something that is clearly above what anybody should have anticipated based on a full plan like they've decided to, you know, not oil the machine. Maybe it's interesting if their plan didn't work as they advertised it would. You need to fix your own plan. If like if you said it' be fine and it isn't fine, you need to review your plan. It's so Go ahead.

No, you guys are having a great conversation. Um I think it's going well. what John was really the only thing is I think is about the necessary does the house you know actually it's um so I don't know wording compared to that.

But I also I think that we should have some better metrics for noise mitigation too. So, the plan would have to identify potentially ways to mitigate the noise and they should get creative and let them come up with something. They know they have to

and have it connected to a metric or just we know it's going to be noisy. I personally would still like to see some maximum decibel level at the receiving properties, but I I think there is a point where too much is too much. And you know the worst case, if they can't do it, then they shouldn't do it. I am okay with the city losing one in a thousand developments if it's going to be a nightmare for a bunch of residents for months and months and months.

There's a trade-off there. the the housing unit or two that you get for disturbing thousands of people for an entire summer I don't think is equivalent. So if the developer can do it without doing that fantastic go ahead and build. But I think there are points where you say no and that's where it gets to like things with a basement. It's like you didn't need that would have saved us a couple months. I I hear that. I will say that my worry is at the complete opposite end of the spectrum where um the rule that gets written has to apply fairly uniformly and the UMOL comes in with a 14story building and says to do that in the back corner we have to create the foundation for it and we have and we have to apply that same rule in that in that circumstance and say sorry you can't build that's my worry without having the knowledge of what the implications would be.

Yes. But I think if you have somebody that comes in with a project of that scope, they're going to know how to do it. And I think they can do it. They do things like that in the middle of cities. They'll build skyscrapers, right? But that might be loud for portion development. Depends for how long. Somehow I don't think in New York you've got development going on where people can't hear themselves think in their own apartments for months on end. dug over and above the the [laughter]

really if it happens again I'll invite everybody over to sit in my kitchen with the windows closed and you have to yell to be heard because the noise is so bad from that. So it it does seem that you know if I may characterize a little bit that that d that it's the combination of duration and maximum sound level that's really the really the issue. 134 decel boom. Yeah. Right. Which is why blasting is two or three times a day or whatever the maximum of it is. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, so it's it's really that Yeah. which is explains why blasting seems to be tolerated by by by most folks. Um

to put it in perspective, you know, they're building those houses back there. So, we've got saws and we've got hammers and we got nail guns and that's all fine. Nobody's complaining about that. It's not a big deal. The leaf blowers are noisier than any of that stuff is. It's never it's a whole different whole different I worked in oil refineries and I was on units that were quieter.

Yeah. Um, so I I I guess, you know, I would say that I think that the that the changes that we're suggesting, I think give the city more ability to in to take enforcement action and to preemptively review um some uh a plan for the purposes of making sure that it's duration is not excessive and unreasonable. And from what I'm hearing and um from what I'm hearing that the the um suggestions and that I've heard tonight I think add extra ability like more criteria and sort of finer grain scrutiny to that ability. So, if you combine these suggestions that we've that we've made with the suggestions that we've had tonight, I think we're getting a lot closer to um uh a pretty broad but also nuanced um tool that the city can apply to limit dur that like combination of duration and extend like um you know instantaneous noise

along those lines. Kind of a either or with the the issue with the nuisance. Is it worthwhile putting language in that allows planning and zoning department to come back and reopen a plan in the event that they have excessive complaints that the noise is over and above normal and and anticipated? Some sort of language that allows you to come in and say, "Wait a minute, something's not working the way it was supposed to." So the the mechanism that that exists is to essentially issue a notice of violation that you were violating the conditions of your approval. The way to cure it is to either stop doing or to come in with an

okay we don't really have the authority to cloth. That's what I'm saying though. If they come in with with the information we've asked for they're not going to be able to project what the decibel level is going to be. They're going to tell you everything they're going to do and they're going to try and mitigate it and all this and then they get in and they do exactly what they said in their plan and it's 100 dB of property line and you've got the nursing home screaming about it. is do maybe we need to think is there some way to put the language in there that if the performance of the plan does not yield a noise level that is reasonable that the plan needs to be reconsidered

because otherwise they got a plan and too bad and they're following the letter of the law and you still have a huge problem. So I'm just wondering whether there's a way to put something in there with the with the nuisance ordinance the city reserves the right to if it's excessive. Yes. I'm suggesting is giving your office the ability to come back in and say, "Okay, let's take another look at this plan. Is there something else we can do? We we got to do something here." Is that these things work together, right? So, I I think we we're happy to explore both of those. I think the threat of the nuisance one would likely kick somebody back to do this work, right? So, yes, it's it's why I said either or.

Yeah. Or I mean I guess one thing just to bring it back a little bit may may maybe ar disagree on this. It seems that even even as written and know we're adding more to whichever category we are but uh if this project hypothetically had gone through this ordinance and had gone through here I mean simply put limit duration we even then like the the long ride to like yeah so we're just going to spend a couple minutes blasting at like 12 different sites over the course of two years the like that is clear with opening duration like even as is it seems like I it feels like the long drive would be wouldn't you you couldn't justify that plan purely due to ADA alone at the moment I mean you would just blown up the whole thing over the course of like a few weeks or something with a ton of plastic basically I I don't know may maybe I will disagree with that but like

um I guess That's why um I've pushed back a little bit on the decibel level because it feels like if if that plan came in, maybe they thought they were going to do three weeks. They did the three weeks and then it turned into two summers. There would have been a mechanism in place to like not let it just continue to go on and on because they would have reached their their allowed duration. They would have done their three weeks and have not been done and then they would have had to come back to get a new plan. So it it feels like that situation has at least oversight and like durations and limits and um

provided we have some kind of language that says like if it's way above what you're expecting because in this case if it was three months it tend to be if it was going to be 3 weeks it's trying to be two years we need a mechanism to make so if they said it was going to be 3 weeks and it wound up being more than 3 weeks That's a violation. So it's not that's not that's not going that's not the unexpected that's just violating the plan. I think what the the thing that maybe John you were what I heard from what you were saying was it's within the 3 weeks something was way off the rails from whatever what everybody was expecting within the group. Yeah.

Yeah. I guess by I guess I'm saying like if they go plane saying this is going to take a year and a half we we just would all prove that and said we're going to need a year and a half straight blast of shipping and that's where I would hope right well and that's where the the added language of a reasonable balance has come in and that's you know that it it's it sounds like a soft word but um it is a word that has been through the legal m uh machinations have defined term They expire at some point. They do. So once once they've expired and the job's not done,

well well it also depends on the scale of the project. So O'Brien East View in their approval, they have a pretty, you know, extensive blasting section and they can blast for a certain period of time and then there has to be a gap of you know an entire season before they can do another phase of it. It's it it's an extensive thing because they're doing years and years worth of work, but the work happens in intentional groups so that it's not forever in just sort of like, oh, we're going to do one section of sidewalk this year.

Well, presumably, I mean, it's just like any development, don't they come back with, oh, we really thought we wanted to build 300 units, but things have changed and they're not going to be single family. They're going to be duplexes now. and it's actually, you know, 500 and they get a new, it's a new plan, they get a new permit. So, it seems to me in this blasting thing, if it really goes haywire, they thought really thought they could do it in 3 weeks and it isn't, um, they would have to come back with another plan.

Yeah. So this is how we're going to manage this so we can complete the rest of the homes or schedule and wait and yeah it wouldn't be easy. No, but it also wouldn't be allowed to just dribble on end like there's a there's a disincentive for them to allow that to happen. So would this require them that that if they were excessive and it was not what they had intended or anticipated and you know neighbors were really at arms that you could force them to come back with plan B because plan A didn't make it

right. So if the if they're not if they're exceeding the 40 hours um which is that's the dimminimus or if they're not adhering to the plan then that is a violation and there's you know two basic ways to cure a violation. Stop doing it or apply for a different plan. Um and under stop and apply.

Well you could just stop. [laughter] Um, and importantly, you know, not to go too deep into the weeds here, um, Vermont has a um, long-standing court case, and Kelsey, just slap me if I'm saying the wrong thing here. Sto Club Highlands is a important court case where you can't just come back with the same thing and ask for a different condition. So, you can't just say, "I'm not changing anything except I want um I want to have more leniency in a previously determined condition." Something has to have changed. A plan has to change. The law has to change. Something substantive has to You can't just retest a condition that was already applied to you. Does that make sense?

You'd have to come back with a different plan, not just a request for more, more generous for them. As far as neighbor impact and input goes as well, this essentially creates a new a new forum, a previously un unavailable forum for that kind of input and it puts it up front so that all these plans are going to be are public and subject to public scrutiny and comment. So, um, that's something that that neighbors are going to be able to to look at ahead of time and, um, it actually provides more opportunity for that kind of review and comment than we've had in the past because in the past it's been after the project has already been approved to have

which is actually point. Could we put a noticing requirement in there? They have to notice a certain radius around before the DRB hearing. Anything that's going in the DRB is already noticed for adjacent properties and um it's is it the same notice that act 250 now you get a letter. So

let me act 250 and are the same rule which is all about butters plus um anything goes to the DRB has to get um published in the newspaper um if if it's certain types of application posted in advance. I'd be wary of changing that. Big projects um involve master plans. Now, master plans already have additional notice requirements. Um I think it it it becomes very tricky to get that right. Um

what do you mean get it right? So that you really notify everyone who's supposed to be notified. Uh so under state law, the burden of correct of doing it correctly is is the applicants. It's not the city's responsibility. And so if a neighbor is not appropriately notified, then they can take legal action against the um against the developer. If we choose to go higher, that becomes our burden of responsibility to make sure that we that the applicant gave us the right addresses. Um, how do you draw that line? Is it as the profies it I'm radius? It's opening radius radius from where

this center radius from the outside. I'm just it it it opens a big can of worms that might not succeed in the level of predictability that you're hoping it's going to do. Um, [clears throat] We've had good discussion. Do we have any comments or questions from the audience in the room or joining us online? Not radius. What? I'm waiting for that.

I didn't hear anything. No, I was going to respond to Paul's the radius was a bad idea, but certainly a buffer from the property line of the development. Yeah. Quite difficult to draw those too cuz like does it have a rounded corner or does it have a straight corner or do you how do you how big it is? Right. It's for being on the other side. I know it's complicated but it's it's bad because people don't know these things. So, it'll get passed, it'll get approved, and the first thing somebody's going to know is when the noise hits. But that's And then they'll all come screaming. You never You never told us. Oh, was it a paper? I didn't look at the page.

Any other comments or questions at this point? I kind of let us go a little while here. There's a few things on the So, just to sum up, um, we got a lot of great feedback. Um, let us chew on this. We'll come back to you. Uh it won't be at your next meeting, but we'll plan to come back to you and Jane and R with updated ideas for this. Thank you. There's a lot in here. Um so let's move on to the UPWP. Um this is the uh the grants through the regional planning commission. Um

so next meeting you're going to get our formal list um of what our recommendations are. Um, right now we have some buckets that we wanted to um go over a little bit with you and get your feedback on. And I just need to get the buckets. No, not for the the updated a combination of your off meeting schedule and then new guidelines for when council meets things in advance. I just sometimes I miss things. So just tell us the buckets. Okay. Agree.

So buckets that we're looking at are um last year you had applied for municipal planning grant um that was not successful on um doing center like planning for a center along Sheldon Road a downtown area. Um we would like um tenatively we're looking to apply for that through the transportation fund here. Um years ago the city center formbbased code was funded by that same

um tool. So, we think that that's something that we can run up the flag pole with them and see if it would pass muster. Um, it has to get regional planning approval and also the federal highway person's approval and um but it is about creating you know um downtown which hopefully is widely supported. Um so this is like federal transportation funds through the reg that's the RPC

through the RPC. Yeah. Um we are looking at the next priority projects uh on bicycle pedestrian the scoping of those um as identified the active transportation plan. So what's next on the list? Um our capital planning person is out this week. So um and last week. So we're going to connect with her before the exact list. But that's um you know implementing the active transportation plan um uh improving um uh the uh mobility and access and Kelsey can you remind me the words um you wrote down mobility and access as a theme in here. Um that was

missing sidewalks. missing sidewalks, looking at multimodal transportation options, um uh potentially um working with Green Mountain Transit, uh which were already doing um but but seeking grant funding to adjust their rooting based on where our changing population areas are, not just locally, but in Wooki and Shelurn and Willist. We've had these conversations already started. That's really right. And I think some of it was some of one or two ideas were also related to public education about pedestrian and bike safety and rights of way and um some of those other things of um

in in the not not specifically but in the general vein of um project zero, you know, moving towards the goal of having no pedestrian or cyclist um fatalities or casualties or injuries. I believe everybody's included, but um one part of it is part of it is infrastructure, but another part of it is is education and outreach. And so I think that was another thing that not specifically pursuing project zero, but

right, some is about safety, some of it is anecdotally um UVM did a really good job of um informing their new tenants here of the exa the availability of the bus and from day one there's been high ridership there. So, can we do some analysis of can targeted education really maybe actually move the needle on some of these things if you get people right when they're moving in to areas. Um, and then the um last two are data collection which we always do of traffic counts and things like that and

like um and then um next brownfields project. So, we kicked off project um a couple weeks ago um with property owners along San Remo Drive um to potentially doing a multi-sight um brownfields analysis and also sort of a meet for each other because they don't all know each other and it had a really positive reception. Um so, we're looking where can we potentially do the same thing on parts of the study boat um to help help them move the move things along. So, those are our themes. We'll come back to you with specific ones that you're not going to make. Do you um [clears throat] you might not like this one.

No. So, part of why we're here tonight is to hear your thoughts that What I was going to say is um I actually don't remember all the current EPWP projects that we might have going on and what their status is. It's been 12 months. You don't remember every single day? I don't. So, I guess I was wondering if we could have like a tiny mini update even if it's just one assignments on like kind of the existing projects. In prior years, we did a little like here's where we're at with the current ones. I'm happy to do that in your memo just to put it in context. Yeah. Um they take they take some time some of these. So,

yeah, absolutely. Um, is there any big things that have been burning in your minds or sort of generally this is mostly geared toward transportation um that um that you'd like us to be exploring? I guess my other thing, were there some that we had from last year that didn't get funded other than at Shelurn Road Center? Because sometimes we've done some thinking and then we thought we said we wanted to do it and then it kind of didn't get funded and then it gets lost. Like I guess I just wonder if we could look back at last year's list and make sure there wasn't. So each of the ones that we asked for last year did get funded. Oh, okay. Good.

Yeah. Um, a few of them have had their scopes sort of as we had more time post being funded to refine them a little bit. Um, but they were each funded last year.

And there's a there's a few that we discussed on the staff side last year that um, at the time we felt were not timely. You know, just need a little more time after a change or after something a different project had finished or or whatever it was. Um so those are things that are on the list for reconsideration this year. Whether or not they go forward um this year or again is pushed another year um remains to be seen. But that's um another thing that we consider on our end is how does this fit in with all the other projects that are going on? How does it fit in with other infrastructure improvements or other outreach projects or whatever it is? Um and there's occasional things that don't um the timing is just not right. So there's a handful that we're looking at again for this year that we didn't bring to the planning commission last year for that reason. Um so you may see things that for us are repeat discussions but for you will be a new discussion because it didn't come. Has there been any discussion and this is probably from several years ago, but some way and to use the planning money to really help um kind of coordinate um all the different uh parks and natural areas and that the whole county has beyond not and it's, you know, we're kind of building off just in near the southeast quadrant. There's a bazillion acres that are all connected and how do we um have appropriate, you know, access and parking that's kind of organized among all those towns, you know, Will, Shel, and Shelot and South Burlington and

Yeah, that's a good point. So, there is a called the um went anywhere. It's called the regional conservation partnership. Yes. I think um that is a group of they made actually in this room of us St. George, Melbourne, Willist, Hinesburg and the regional planning commission um to to do those kinds of things. So they already doing it.

Well, they've been involved with it in the past. I think it is um I have a meeting with them at the end of this week to go over some of these things. Um whether they have an active role today, I don't know. And certainly that would be the kind of thing that's not on the transportation side. It is also in their work area to put in a um that we would like for them to be actively helping take the next steps of that. Yeah. Well, that would be an interest of mine. Just

I can at least flow about it and see. On on a similar note, you remind me of one thing. I guess may maybe we already have been talking about this a lot, but uh of how sort of our city bike ped plan relates more to towards the regional bike plan, the RPC. Um the reason as I was thinking about this a lot was um maybe I'm mistaken. I remember the um we're planning on putting in a completing [clears throat] the sidewalk from Candy Drive on route two from Candy Drive to Shpike Road. Like I think that's currently in our walk bike plan. If you look up for the RPC's plan, they're like this is one of the highest priority bike corridors because eventually they want to send to connect Wilston Taff corners to downtown Burlington with bike facilities,

right? My initial thought was I'm sure funding from our perspective. Yeah, silence should be fine. From a regional perspective, maybe that should have been a shared use path. So I I don't know if this is the time or place to talk about it, but there's just sometimes I felt that some of our internal decisions on bike pad infrastructure made sense from a seed perspective, not necessarily a regional perspective. Uh that's but maybe that's just yeah. Thank you.

Yeah. And something I don't I'm now not now blanking on whether you mentioned this or not, but UPWP um there are different ways you can get funded. You can get funded for getting consultant money through from the federal government through the or through the RPC for a one town project. You can also do get consultant hour. You can get hours of RPC staff time, but you can also do if it's a multi- town multi-municipality project. It just changes the funding calculus a little bit. So something like that may be something to consider. Right. Well, specifically a couple years ago we did um Queen City Park Road in South Burlington and Burlington, right? And right now we're doing one of um where Feral meets Home Avenue.

Yep. So that's exactly I mean it's not it's it's at that end instead of that end, but same same connectivity challenge. Yes, just pointing out that the UPWP money can be funded to multi-municipality projects that do sort of consider that regional connection um a bit better than a sing, you know, if we did something and then Willist did something, it may be more effective for us to do it together as one project. Exactly. Yeah. Right.

Um last item we have for you tonight. Um so, uh earlier, no last month now, I guess. Last month, the city council adopted um updates to the electrical um uh safety ordinance and the light safety ordinance that the fire department takes care of.

Um that extends jurisdiction for electrical permits and building permits to the one area that they did not previously have jurisdiction over, which is uh owner occupied single family homes. So, new homes and construction over $5,000 of um improvements now requires um likely both, but electrical andor um uh andor building urbans and electrical is there's no bottom threshold. It's anything electrical. Um, so the one of the things that that has had us looking at is what is the value and and importance of a zoning permit for specifically interior renovations. So if you're just remodeling your kitchen today, that's a zoning permit. It's not a change of use. You're not adding bedrooms. You're not adding wastewater. Um, we are thinking that uh the threshold of $5,000 and or its existence at all is either the thresh the threshold is far too low or it may be that it's a redundant permitting. Um because in the past this was the only way that we knew that something was happening. Now there is a person doing a life safety inspection um and that is a separate permit that with a separate fee. So um we are examining pretty closely um the removal or substantial rising raising of the bars to the threshold for that.

Um that's in the land development regulations. So this would um directly be your call. Um, but we wanted to just sort of float that that is a thing we're looking at because we want to be effective government, not just government that does it the way we've done it because it's always the way we've done it and we're not seeing a lot of value add to our residency. Right. I like the idea. Yeah. Redundancy is not necessary or else the whole point already is essentially to prevent adverse impacts on the community. And I'm not sure how much internal renovations what the potential to adversely affect your community would be.

If it's a change of use in the building or there's an addition to the building or they're adding bedrooms, there are implications. But if you're just installing new kitchen, right? Right. Yeah. Right now we're getting permits for Oh, sorry. Oh, I always thought that was silly. Like if you're just trying to like change your appliances, you know, that's the put in new fixtures, right? So if someone really wants to be by the books, I mean, at this point with what labor and materials costs like a painting project might trigger a zoning permit, $500. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah.

All right. We will proceed. We will um as we prepare for our next round of amendments, we'll have some specific recommendations for. So we have minutes of October 28th move to approve. Second. Any comments? No. Okay. All in favor? I. That was unanimous. So we don't need the um fall and we are adjourned. Thanks everybody. [music]