Planning and Development Board - Regular Meeting

All right, welcome everybody. Um, this is the Planning and Development Board meeting, uh, Tuesday, March 24th, 2026, and it is 6:04 p.m. I'm calling the meeting to order. Um, here comes Jenny. Perfect timing. Uh, we're going to start with introductions and I think we'll go around the room starting with Peggy. Hi, Peggy Tully, member of the board. Mitch Glass, member of the board. Emily Petrina, member of the board. Andy Roman, member of the board. Jenny Sliff, member of the board. Sarah Quinn Jacobs, planner and staff to the board.

Max Feffer, chair of the board. Nikki Sarah, environmental landscape planner and staff to the board. Great. Uh Mitch, we want to welcome you. So happy to have you back on the board. But yeah, thank you so much. Didn't do anything yet. There's great anticipation. So yeah, thank you so much. Yeah. Um let me start. I think I want to ask about the agenda. Uh let's review the agenda. Uh Nikki, I think there were some changes you wanted to mention.

Yes, thanks Max. Um we do not have the minutes but the February 24th minutes, but we will have them next time for review. So those are off. And then the other thing that is off the agenda is the advice of council. Our attorney is not well today. So he will be here though next month.

All right. So I think with that, thank you very much. Uh everybody okay with that? All right. Uh, then we'll continue on. I I want to open up the floor for uh public comments, which I think we have some, right? Do I have a motion to open it up? A second. Oh, Andy Mitch second. Um, I'll I'll agree. Uh, so please step up to the mic and please limit your comments to three minutes. You know, we have that rule. and uh wanted to let you know that we're we're not going to be responding to you, but we're here with open ears. Uh if I may, may I approach and share my notes? Of course.

And as you you might remember, you listen to press that silver button when you speak. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak.

My name is Brody Smith. I'm an attorney at Bon and King Kang and I represent the owners of 307 College A. That's collegetown Crossing LLC. I spoke previously, the first page on my notes just uh reiterates what I what I spoke about before in the sense that the crossing was something that was required by the planning board in the past and is a valuable and important public resource and piece of infrastructure that I think um allows pedestrians to access college a from the neighborhood behind. Moving on to the second page, I want to address something that has come up in terms of a possible um uh fix to a criticism that we'd raised before. The criticism that was raised before was the differing ceiling heights and the that having a lower ceiling height could potentially defeat the purpose of the crossing, which was to create um quoting the board an open, safe, and inviting uh environment for pedestrians to use. Um the applicant will present a possible alternative today which would which would include the elimination of columns on their side of the property line. Um you know there's always more than one way to solve a problem. Um we do think that the elimination of the columns is helpful towards making the passage more inviting to pedestrians and more open. Um the uh my client supports that alternative which the applicant will present which includes the elimination of the columns in order to open up the passage. We appreciate their willingness to discuss it and to look for alternatives. Um, on page five of my notes, um, on the top, a previous plan was presented that included a trash room facing the front door, front door in the passage, um, of the crossing, um, where my my client's property is on the bottom half of that drawing and then the

proposed uh, new project is on the top. And that was something that was not um supported by my client. But I think you'll see an alternative plan today where the trash room is recessed and the doors would open into that recess rather into the into the crossing. And my client supports that change and thinks that it addresses that issue better than the um screening, you know, that we think would have made it seem more cave-like and more dark and more less inviting. Finally, on page six, um there was a planter that was in the previous drawings. Uh it's our experience in the in the crossing itself, but also looking at other places in Ithaca. I included a photo here from the alley near Synopoulos where there's these planters that are placed in urban alleyways. The that green that green does not survive. There's no light, but also human factors um prevent that. So, we support the removal of that planter because we think it'll be counterproductive and that area being replaced by bike racks, which my client would support.

Thank you. Great. Thank you so much. Yeah, thanks for comments. Um, and do we have any other public comments, Sam? No. Nothing online either. No, nothing online.

Okay. Uh, can I have a motion to close public comments? Emily, Andy seconds. Okay, public comments are closed. Um, all right. Uh, so one of the things I did not do is, uh, mention the usual things about the exits, both sides of the room, I think we all know about that, but for anybody coming, uh, then also the restrooms for ladies restrooms are the first and third floors and men's are second, fourth. And, um, do I need to read this? Um, so we have an uh emergency evacuation notice. In case of emergency evacuation, we are to take one of two exits and those are at the each end of the room that I've already mentioned and wait at the trees on the same side of the street on South Ka and Green Street. We do not cross Green Street unless absolutely necessary. Anyone with restricted mo mobility in the event of emergencies, it's best to move to one of the stairwells and first responders arrive to aid you. In the event of other emergencies, you'll be notified at that time. We want everyone to be aware of their surroundings and offer help when it is not to your own detriment as you are your own best advocate. All right, so that's with that said, I think we're ready to move on to site plan review. And do we have um representatives for the hive at 132 Cherry Street?

Fortunately, I'm not seeing anybody on Zoom and doesn't appear to be anybody in the room. Um it's a little Yeah, it is a little quite a bit early. Um but we do have the applicants for we have one applicant for 309. Perhaps we could response comments. Oh, yeah. was I'm I'm sorry that um I neglected to mention that uh we had the public comments just now. Was anyone from the board like to respond? Yeah, Emily.

Yeah, I just wanted to say thank you for giving us your side of the story as well. It's often hard to understand um both sides of the story when we're only hearing from the applicant. So, thank you for coming back and and giving us your comments. Anyone else? Jenny? Yeah, it's nice to hear too from your perspective when you feel like something's been worked out. So, I think that's great. Mitch, where where are we in the process of the design of that building? We're just getting started. We're going to hear an update today with with the plans. They're evolving. We've giving feedback. Uh we nothing uh concrete yet, however. So, this is still conversation and absolutely something that's up for debate. Yeah.

Okay. Yeah. We spoke to the applicant today. I think they'll be submitting plans tonight that you haven't seen yet. Some of my comments maybe don't make sense with what you've seen before, but uh they have new plans. I think reacting to our comments and the board's comments they intend to present tonight. Great. Thank you, Peggy. Did you have anything you wanted to add?

No, I Excuse me. I I appreciate the thoughtfulness. you your client has been there his whole life practically and um really does understand the site very well and um I'm not going to say whether I agree or not but um I have feelings about planters in College Town and plants in College Town and how they tend to end up where they end up. So I appreciate your comments.

Good. Thank you so much. All right. Yeah. I I was just going to add we also did I'm sure you guys all saw we received a public comment via email. So we sent that to the applicants and to Yep. Yep. regarding the hive and that'll be included in the minutes for the public to see. Good. And I think all our board members saw that the Zoom. Yes. Okay. Good. So we don't have the hive yet. Well, actually we do now. Oh, we do. So that's even better. That's great. Thank you for the time with the timing. So, let's uh bring them on.

No, that's for

good evening everyone. Um, can you guys hear me and see me? Now we can. Okay. Um, I will I'm gonna, if you don't mind, I'm just going to let the team know that you're ready. Um, I joined early to be sure. Uh, but I'm not sure if I don't think everyone is, do you guys see by any chance CJS uh, and Chris Dor and Todd Fox as well? I don't yet, but I'll keep an eye on it for you, Julia. Okay. Thank you so much. I'm sending them. We're running a little little fast today because of some changes to the agenda, Julia. Sorry about that. No, that's okay. Do you mind if I just let them know really quick?

Yes, please. I think. really really interesting. Andy's Just a reminder to always be on early in case we run early. Oh, I see Miriam is there. Hello, Miam.

Um, just making just making sure we have Craig coming as well. Yes, you should be. I I'll give him a call though, just in case. Yes, if you can, please. We have a phone number in the waiting room that's unidentified. Um prefer not to read it out loud. Um but I can chat it to you. Yeah. Yeah. Jamie is joining us as well. Jamie gets a second. Thank you. Thank you very much.

Thank you. All right. So, um, Craig just needs five minutes, but we can start without him. He said he has he has to just sign in. So, he didn't doesn't want to delay us. So we can

if you're comfortable with uh proceeding, we can give you the floor.

Yeah, sure. If um you can do that. Um Miriam, just so you know, Chris is joining now as well. So maybe we can start uh Chris can start by um addressing the management and supporting services questions and then Craig can jump in on the other items if that works. Yeah, that's great. Sounds good.

So we should be seeing Chris Dur in the waiting room within the next few seconds or so. Please, if you let them in, please. Thank you. Um, I did just receive an email that someone is having a really hard time hearing. So, if everyone could just speak up a little bit, please would help. Thanks so much.

Okay. Absolutely. We apologize for the delay. I guess we were anticipating coming in a little early, but not 20 minutes, but we'll learn for the next time. Sorry. Yeah, sorry about that.

Julie, is there a Jamie on your team? Yes, Jamie. James Gel with Fagen Engineering. He's working on the landscaping. Um, and Chris is supposedly on the waiting room as well. He just uh mentioned it. It could be potentially he could be the number that we that you're seeing there. Okay. I'm sorry, Julia. The number is actually no longer there. Oh, okay. And we don't see Chris Christopher Dur.

You don't? No. He's trying again. My apologies. The Zoom wouldn't actually let me in until like the third or fourth time. I apologize.

You're fine. Thank you, Jean. We're waiting on uh Craig and and Chris there as well. Okay, Chris should be there now again if we can see him in the waiting room. Christopher there.

I'm sorry, Julia. Still not not seeing anything quite yet. Okay, I'm asking him to join by phone. Maybe Miriam, if you would like to start with maybe addressing the items addressed on the previous meeting that we I think we didn't have enough time to talk through them. Um, you could potentially start there if that's okay.

Sure. um I can walk us through some of the approval process we've been through and approved on and that's kind of where our conversation started and the topics that we are addressing today that are um that were brought up at the last meeting are the tow path and um to u along the inlet and um some updates on the parking and then management which Chris will be talking about. So that's just an overview. We have our toe path along the back. Um, as we know, we were we received a zoning approval for the loading zone that could be situated in our uh designed parallel parking spaces. Uh we received a variance for 425 square ft um instead of the 450 that's allowed. And um we can use this area as our loading zone 15-minute parking for uh other uses or other visitors. Um uh the other variance we received was for the front front yard. It was uh our we are 8 foot six from the inside edge of the sidewalk. Uh so we needed to gain a variance for that which we also were uh were granted and the uh the condition to that was we to create a tow path along the back of the building since we were shifting it forward because of the regulatory uh the flood regulatory wave.

Um the loading zone uh is uh located here. And then we have our toe path along the back as you can see in this area. Oh, that is Craig is here as well. If he has anything he wants to jump in and add to this, I was just going over the variances. So, no, you're fine. You're fine. Go ahead. I I'll listen in.

I haven't touched upon our new topics about the toe path um shifting towards the front. And I'll also um before I jump into that, uh there was some mention about the fence along the courtyard. We do have key fob access there. This is the front fence as we show it. It is a 5 foot high metal fence that we will be providing some landscape buffer around just to widen that barrier a little bit and soften it. Um along the inlet side there will be a gate uh towards where this uh pergola is and um residents will be able to enter and exit through that. Um, and you could see that landscape kind of around that uh fenced area. But I'm just going to switch back to this to talk about the toe path towards the north. Craig, do you want to discuss that or should I continue? I can

Yeah, continue. It's fine. Yeah, I think you you've got it fine. Um so the we were uh asked to look at wrapping the north side of the building with the toe path so that people can enter and exit through this area which we uh we believe isn't the best uh best idea due to the lack of surveillance along this edge plus not activating Cherry Street as much if we create that secondary means of egress along along Art House and the north facade. Plus, our most activated storefronts are along Cherry Street and along the trail and really like to celebrate that experience for the community. Um, additionally, we have right now proposed this area to be landscaped uh with tall grasses and river rock and a fence on this side just to really encourage people to use Cherry Street and uh the trail as their main means of egress. Um, I don't know if Chris has joined and if he has anything to add about management.

I haven't seen Chris yet. Okay. Might want to tell him to check his link. I wonder if he's using the wrong link. Yeah, let me I'm going to try. He He also was trying by phone. Um, I'm going to send that again to him just now. Yeah. And it's just 6:30 now, so he may be, you know, delayed a little bit like I was. I don't know. No, he he he's he's on the chat with me just Oh, yeah. It's okay. Okay. He's trying to join, but he's having some issues. I'm not sure why, but um sending it now again. Um

um and we did update the landscape plan with the toe path and the bio soil in the back. I I I'm pulling it up right now. It's And Miriam, did you already touch on the BZA and the zoning variances that we had received? I did. Okay. And I went over the conditions to which we were granted. Right. Thank you.

Yep. Um, in the meantime, if we have questions, we can field those while we're waiting for Chris. Start with some board comments on what we've heard so far and then and then the management stuff come back to that or do we? Yeah, that would be the hope. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Should we should we do that? Uh, Emily, I want to start with you today. Great. Thank you. Um, so there were some engineering comments. I'm not sure if the team received those. I'll just read them since we are at like a critical point here of approvals. Um, they consisted of a sidewalk easement, a plumbing easement, a full SWIP, and a storm water pipe replacement. Um, so if you were not aware of those, I think you can get those comments um from Nikki. Um, and I wanted to actually the agenda packet.

We're in the agenda. Okay. wanted to ask Peg and Mitch, Peggy and Mitch, sorry to put you on the spot here. We got we received a public comment about the toe path and plantings along the toe path. And I looked through their uh landscape plan, revised landscape plan, and I wanted to get your feedback on if those trees were sufficient. There are several autumn brilliance and several river birch. Um so curious for my own understanding if you think that's enough. And it's not what they're picturing here. It was in our packet that there were some additional plantings because I think that's a fair point from the public. There were many trees demolished. So, I think it's um this is our last opportunity to ask for a more robust um land.

Maybe Miriam, if you can Yeah, if you can share the landscaping plan. I think that that's more that's what we you're referring to. Yeah. I mean, we can come back. I didn't mean to put you on the spot, but No, it's okay. I mean, you can maybe zoom in on that a little bit. Yeah. I was the concern that uh for shade, is that the concern that was in the comment? Yes, it was um sort of animating that path. The path seems like a good um compromise that was reached through zoning and that uh what we had seen previously was really just sort of an asphalt or stone crush path. But

in this submission, I do see some planting there. So, Um just curious, yeah, for my colleagues if if that feels like the right species and the right count. Um and then the last thing I would say, um are the materials the same from prior approvals? Because, um I don't think we have seen materials this round of approvals since it's been um with the flood issue since you've come back. And so if the answer is easy and it's yes, then I would just make sure that's um yeah, I think it is easy and yeah, the answer is yes. So the none of the exterior materials have changed since the prior approvals. Great. Okay, thank you for that.

And actually, I might make a comment that the landscaping plan's pretty much the same as from the original approvals, obviously with required adjustments make room for uh the path and uh the bio retention swale. So that's one we have that spaced in that in that area. But um other than that the the landscaping is about the same as before. Maybe a couple of the numbers have changed just because of uh spacing requirements. All right. Thank you. Uh so uh let's stick with the landscaping. Uh Peggy, do you want to comment on that?

Um sorry. I Yes. I saw the I read through the um the comment um by our uh community member and um well I understand what she's saying. Um I your prior approval back what I read through back in 2022 from the forester um all of the trees that were removed from here were just sort of like not great trees anyway. There were some apples that were supposed to be preserved. Um it doesn't sound like they're going to continue. You're going to keep those. Um but for the all along the waterfront trail, there are not shade trees are not sort of the the the vernacular of the waterfront trail. And um so I'm not sure that it's honestly fair to ask this this group to do something that we're not even doing ourselves as a community. Um the amalancher is um service berry is is a is a beautiful tree. I don't think it's going to provide a lot of shade and um especially as it the way that it's planted. Um, I don't know. Um,

yeah. The other thing I would say is that the trail is on the west side of the trees to push it a little closer to the inlet and further away from the building to give a little buffer between the building and the trail, which I think is good. But that even if it was a shade tree, it's not on the right side of the path um to be as effective as it might be if they were reversed. I'm not advocating for the reversal of them, but you know, shade tree or not, it may not be that effective in the locations shown.

Okay. Um Mitch, Mitch, you have some thoughts on that? Yeah, thanks. Um I just want to ask a question and then I have a bunch of comments about the landscape plan. Actually, I took some notes um before the meeting. Can you tell me what's happening with the geometry of the path? Does it just end at the end of your site or is there a way to continue it in front of the art house? Has this been discussed why that's there and not pushed even farther to the west so that it actually can make a connection past the art house and even up to Cherry Street, you know, much farther up like where the wine Yeah.

New York Wines is like take it all the way up. So, there's a connection between the bridge and the road that makes the turn farther north. Jamie, do you want to handle that or I I have some thoughts, but you might know better.

I I do have some thoughts. Um, so one of the things is just we're just trying to keep off of the the property line and the easement, the DEC easement. Um for the the south side, for the bridge side, the thought would be is to is to do some sort of uh you know, we're lining it up with that connection. And actually, there is one tree that we are saving over in that area. And that's what moved that toe path over to the east a bit more. Yeah, you can see that it's not showing up well there, but there's a dash line at the bottom of the where right along where the terminus of the the trail is on our property that lines up and with um with with actual um the bridge work that was done previously. It's hard to see because that's kind of cut off at the bottom by the notes. So, one of the thoughts would be as you that would be connected to that uh spur that you could see just that little bit of gray at the bottom.

Yeah, I get that Jamie. I think the point is on the north side of the toe path that you have on your property, it goes to the corner of Artthouse and it can't continue. It's just stopped. So, it's a fragment of a path. It's not really connecting the bridge to anything. you walk down it and then I guess you've got to turn around and walk back. Like what I'm suggesting is if it's moved to the west, if you can align it with the property line or the easement line, whatever the DEC line is, can the future opportunity be that there's a path in front of art house that connects keeps it going or is that just not possible?

I I just don't know if there's enough spacing on the art house property to provide that. But um we can curve that. We can do a couple things. We can we can move that trail or turn the angle slightly to so that we're protecting that one tree at the bottom, the southern piece and move it so it angles it pretty it's not perfectly parallel to the building. Anyways, we can aim it towards the corner uh property um the property pin at the northwest corner or we can curve it, you know, just so that if there is some future extension on our house, we it'll work a little bit more smoother than doing a abrupt 45 and 45, which could happen right now. So, that that wouldn't be a major change that we could do.

Yeah, I think Jamie that might make sense. I mean, just to maybe angle it or can it so it hits that corner, start where you're starting at the south, but finish where it's suggested. I wonder also, I don't know how quickly the embankment starts to drop off there, but keeping the majority of the path a little off of a, you know, a steeper grade is just a little safer. You know, when you're walking along one of these paths, you know, you kind of like to have level surface on both sides as opposed to just the slope starting immediately. I'm not sure how quickly those grades drop off, but they drop off. We're okay there. We're actually about Yeah, we are. Sure. But

yeah, I'm pulling up the the grading plan on my CAD. So, we're okay on that end. We the burm itself, the the the storm water protection berm or dyke, whatever you want to call it,

is roughly 25 foot wide within the DC easement. It's the It's actually at the end closest to the bridge where we have the issues because it you have the grade change there. So I would I would leave the location at the the southwest corner as is and then you know almost rotate that with pinning that that piece and rotating it so that the at the trail hits the corner northwest property pin and then one if you can get the DEC to allow us to put a trail. I don't know if anyone recalls this, but we tried to do some some work on that easement area to make that into a trail and the DC declined that. So, um that was a little bit of a an issue. So, if you know, whoever can work with art house and maybe the DEC, we can actually make that work a little bit better. So, I have I think it's an easy fix to to do that rotation. Thanks, Miam, for kind of throwing it in there to so we can see it. We can make that work. No problem, guys.

Uh the other reason why we we wanted to keep the trail a little closer to the buildings, especially building one, is just the the other um hardscape that's in that location. It was just so it could connect up. And from the from a delineation point of view with that trail, yeah, the the farther you can get it to that northwest corner caned so that it has space to get in front of our house. Yeah, we can bring it all the way over. So, I think that's great. And I mean, I appreciate the fact you're putting in a path anyway. That's a great amenity. Yeah, I like that. I think that's

Yeah, we can we can hit that right on. That's not a problem. Um, when it comes to the trees, I I um I don't think there's enough. I I think the the amalancers are I think they're planted about 50 feet apart, and that's just way too far apart. They're going to feel like um little tiny sticks out there and the scale of the project. So, I think doubling the number of those, putting a tree in between where you have the spaces, uh would help. And also, that's the garage, right? So, that's you're screening the garage that's facing, isn't that where the car?

That's correct. Yeah, that's right. Um, so I think, you know, doubling the number of trees I think addresses that. I also appreciate the the um community comment and agree with it. Um, and if then there's more places where you could put, you know, two more uh birches down on the south, I think that would also be good. So, I think I think that would help a lot. Um, I'm going to go through the rest of my landscape comments if you can just bear with me. Um, I think going to the north, I'm not sure why you planted grasses on the north side of the building. I think it's going to be very very shady and nothing's really going to work there and you don't there's no reason to put any visual interest in that space. And I think where you do want the landscape interest is on Cherry Street. And I feel like you have a lack of planting at the front of your building that faces Cherry Street where the entrance is all the way up to the the entry uh of the parking area. So I would I would move those CA2s and put them on the east side of the building. at the entry. I also don't really understand why there's so much paving around the entry into the garages. There's three like really huge gray paved areas and I'm curious or puzzled why those aren't landscaped.

Jamie, do you want to take that or or I think I can answer that in part at least. I think that was more along the lines of just making sure from an access point of view that we have room to maneuver. But go ahead, Craig. Well, I think it's also uh fire department access, right? Don't we need 26 ft of width there? I think they want to be able to set up a truck there, you know, with outriggers, I think. And so, a lot of that hardscape is even though it's not where people would be driving, it's area that the fire department wanted for for their uh needs. How wide is the road? I mean, the road looks super w the the driveway looks super wide.

I'd have to go back and look. I mean, that looks like it's 50 feet wide. The actual drive is it's about wide. What's Say again? Sorry. The actual drive, the light gray there is is 20 foot wide. Yeah. I guess I'm looking at the scale bar wrong. Um, there's also a transformer there. So, it's just I'm I'm curious. I've never seen that really that much paving around a garage entry. And I don't if that's what the fire department is requiring. Can we verify that?

Yeah. I'm not saying they're requiring all of it, but I think they were requiring more than just our drive. We'd have to go back and because one of your other diagrams, you've got the area in front of your commercial uses. It's all green the way it wraps the building. That one on the north along the chair. Yeah, that that thing is green in another drawing. So, it struck me. Okay, we'll have to go back and check then. So, I think more landscape on that side. Um I think you're missing a tree at that corner at the southeast corner at the entry. There's one shown in your rendering. It's a shade tree. It should be a FR. I'm not sure what FRS are, but um is it ash? What is it? Red sunset maple.

Red sunset maple. Right. So, I think there's space for one on that corner. Um which corner? I apologize. Southeast corner. The very southeast corner of the project, there's a a tree lawn that in your rendering there's rendering there's a tree there. That's an existing tree that we're retaining. That's what that light gray shadow is there. Um, okay. I can tell you what that is. Still probably space for another.

Um, but just more landscaping. I mean, you can see there's 7PA there at your entrance, so there's not really much going on. So, I think that little lawn area doesn't really do much. So, the more you can plant that up and have it be kind of an interesting front facade of landscape at this building, the better. And then as you wrap and go to the south, I also feel like there's not enough stuff there. Um, that is that bike parking and commercial on the corner. I Miriam, could you bring up the elevation from that side? Sure. I can explain that.

That's mechanical and electrical and commercial space. That combination Yeah, that's where we're doing the bike parking and the kayak parking. But storage. Okay. All right. I guess it's not shown on the landscape plan. Yeah, because it's kind of underneath, I believe. Yeah, we'll call that out. That's all I have.

Yeah, it's very helpful. Thanks, Mitch. Um, Andy. Yeah, thank you. Um, yeah, I I had asked in the PRC meeting that we did get a full presentation on the landscape. So, maybe that's why you're getting so many um questions on the landscape. Um, I also really like the the comment um the public comment that we received and I understand the trees, but I also see there's um a suggestion of benches which we do see along the waterfront, you know, near the farmers market. So I think there is a precedent for that. You know anything we can do I think to activate this trail because you know as we're seeing you know it's not connecting really to anything. So I think having some benches along there would be great. That would be a great place to come out from the you know private garden and and you know experience the inlet and actually you know sit. So, I think benches there would be a great idea then.

And that would give purpose to that trail if we put a couple down that way. Yep. And then the other question I had, you know, you you really have me focusing on this. I think Mitch, you know, your your discussion about connections is what does happen at the south property line between that and the access to the bridge, that white area that's not your property. I see, you know, you've created some sidewalks to connect to amenity spaces and retail spaces, but what happens in that white zone? Who maintains that where you're saving the tree?

So So that white zone is not our property. So that's that's actually off property. That I believe it's city right away. But but are you how are you creating this the connections? that that would have to be approved by the the DPW there or I believe DPW to allow us to to install those. So, is that not in place or

I I don't recall that was actually from the original approval to be honest. Those were in place before. Yeah, that seems that would be important because you know your your whole story was how you were activating that pathway and that's why all the amenities there. So, we would absolutely need to be able to access that from that pathway. So, it seems like that should be a condition of approval is having that, you know, those easements in place or at least knowing that that would happen. Those those were my only comments on the on the landscape. Thank you. Yeah. Good. And we're gonna come back to management. Something you raised before. Okay. Yeah. So, Jenny, turn it over to you.

Thanks. Um, so in case anyone is curious, I do know for a fact because I recently had a staff event at the Cherry Art Gallery and we had staff who walked all the way down, crossed the bridge, looped back up and came back around. So, this will be a wonderful place to have a path. I think it'll be used. I see, you know, that there's like a bit of a path kind of up by the chamber. So, I do think there's a real opportunity here to kind of extend that. So, I think that's great. Um, I just wanted to revisit the location of the commercial space. I I can't I honestly can't remember if we talked about this or not. I just it does feel like it's a bit of a shame to have the commercial space sort of spilling out onto Cherry Street when if you flipped it with the fitness gym location, you could have the commercial space that could kind of look out onto the inlet and potentially have sort of an outdoor component as well, depending on what the commercial uh tenant was. Um, I just wanted to raise that and curious, I guess, to what other folks on the board thought about that. It seems like we don't we talk a lot about how we don't have a lot of waterfront dining and this is kind of an opportunity for more waterfront uh activity.

Was that it Jenny?

That was it. I think that the the discussion as I recall on your last point was that we uh there were concerns raised about commercial space back in that corner that there wouldn't be much traffic in that area and so maybe the the the viability of a business there and so that's why the fitness center got put there and then the commercial space was out front. That was kind of the nature of the discussion if I remember. But yeah. Um, so I we we raised a lot of landscape issues here and I think the let me just make a little list because I think it's quite long actually. Yeah. the um we we talked about the rotation of the toe path which I think is a great idea and and providing for f future connectivity and it looks like that might be something that that you're minimal to to adding. Um we talked about uh increasing even doubling the number of trees uh in the uh plan. Uh we talked about the entry landscaping and getting a little more clarification about that in terms of what is actually uh kind of hard pavement versus uh some green space. Um the we talked about the south landscaping kind of the cherry street around the corner onto the path that corner and what what's going on there and is it that sufficient? Um we raised the question of benches on the toe path uh as a possibility um as well. and um and then uh finally the access to the to the pathway there from the the building itself and crossing that um I guess that city space. So those are the issues that I kind of I I picked up on. Did I kind of summarize those more or less and so forth? So let's um let's uh I don't think we necessarily need to discuss those more right now. I want to um kind

of get talk about everything else that we need to talk about. Is can Is it all right if we move on to the management thing? Get an update, please. Yeah, there was one thing about um the all the gray I agree with Mitch by the entrance. Um something to think about is grass pavers. Actually, Botanic Gardens uses it for fire access. So, permeable grass pavers could be an alternative to having so much um impermeable services. I also worried about the toe path honestly being asphalt in the middle of a flood plane and 100year flood zone. So I my comments I thought the top path they had said was going to be they said oh asphalt.

Yeah. So just whe like but whether they could maybe rethink that material. Okay. Okay. Um we move on okay with that? So, uh, we'd like to hear from you about kind of some of the management issues and and and uh looking forward and u uh that was raised last time and I think may maybe now is a good time to do that. Yeah. Um, is do you Chris should be uh waiting to join uh over the phone. Great. He should be able to speak now. Okay.

Okay. Chris, are you you're muted, I believe. C can you hear me now? Yes. Thank you.

Okay. Uh appreciate your time this evening. Thanks. I had a little bit of a hard time getting in, so I uh I joined via phone. I apologize for that. Um I don't know if uh any of these comments have already been stated. If if so, I sorry for restating them, but on the so there are some questions raised about um management and uh and support services. And so I wanted to talk about that within um two contexts. um one are physical things that we're attempting to do um and then secondly our management and support service procedures that we're that we'd implement at the development. So let me first talk about um some of the things that we've done to um uh assist with the um with the management from the hard perspective. Um the first is uh electronic controlled access. Um we want to we want to enhance the resident convenience. Uh we want to also enhance the um um management the safety within the building. Um so we propose that we limit access points into the building with each of those access points being electronically controlled um with a key fob system. um that access would extend into the building with electronic control to each floor so that the residents that have access to the floor um would certainly have access but only those residents and their guests would have access to those floor. Um that access would also facilitate things such as tenant vacating of the premises. Um, in addition to the controlled access, we have an integrated camera system that'll be remotely controlled. Um, and it will provide uh coverage to the common areas within the building, the hallways, the elevators um as well

as to um the exterior of the development. Um, we're engaging the public space in addition to the controlled access and the camera system, which we're engaging the public space. Um we're proposing it's going to be well lit. Um and um we're creating defined travel paths and attempting to limit the dark alleys. Uh for example, the space between um the northern building and uh art house. Um we would reduce areas where non-monitored activity could occur and where congregating uh would occur. Um there is the courtyard and we proposed that that would be um secured with a five- foot high um fence um that would be uh accessed with two gates um one between the two buildings and then the second um adjacent to the toe path. Um so uh those are some of the hardcape things within the courtyard. um itself. We have the the fencing um and the camera system would also provide coverage within the courtyard area. Those are hardscape design things that we've done at other developments um that have proven useful in enhancing safety and security uh in the neighborhood as well as for the residents. With respect to the management, the support services on site, um there is a uh on-site property management um that the local owner and the developer um would utilize um and would man. Uh and that provides a a duality of purpose um not only to have a physical presence, but the other importance of having um on-site management is to establish the rapport

with the residents. Um and that rapport is extended from the community manager through the maintenance technicians that are on staff um and on site at the development. Uh there's building management that is available uh 247. It's not to say that it will be manned um by somebody on site 247, but there will be um building management uh accessible 247. Um there also are support services that were provided to the residents via onset offices um with a physical presence. Um and building demographics were very thoughtful um or sensitive to uh those dynamics. Um this is intended to be an affordable workforce development. It is not a supportive service development. And that distinction um is is stated to to mean that while there will be supportive or there may be supportive service residents in the building, it's not designed um and not intended to be financed with a high percentage of supportive service residents. Um I think some of the other developments that have been more problematic um in town have had a higher percentage of supportive service residents than this is uh designed and intended to uh to address. and um try to keep it tight and succinct, but happy to answer other questions um that you all may have.

All right, that's helpful. Thank you for that uh walking us through that. Uh Andy, you've raised a lot of these questions. Let let me start with you. Yeah, thanks Chris. Um it's um that's again, you know, I I really care about the residents um of this building and makeing making sure that they feel safe and you know that this is a a a good addition to the neighborhood. Um um Chris, who who would be managing the building? Who would be the management company?

So, we have two other projects. I don't know the answer to that. Um now um we have two other developments that um we have worked on with Visom. Um and uh they are two separate management companies. Um I think that it will probably be one of those two. They're both um one is Arbor Housing and Development. Um and the other iss um we have managed we have developed other properties that they have managed. Um, and so I think that there's a likelihood that it'd be one of those two, but we're so far off. Um, and we're 3 years from when the building would open, um, at at least. So, it's just a little premature to think about, um, uh, na, uh, nailing down the property manager for the development,

right? But at the same time, you know, we're seeing, you know, major problems here in the city with, you know, project managers that we do know. So that was, you know, why I asked the question. Um but but you know, hearing that it might be Arbor, um you know, gives me a level, you know, some level of comfort. Um otherwise, at this point, I don't really have any other questions. Thank you. All right. Thanks, Andy. Jenny, would you like to comment on that?

Yeah, I just, you know, thanks Chris. I appreciate your comments. Um, something I really just want to point out is that, you know, I think we're talking a bit between the lines here about Asteri. Asteria is 101 180 unit building. 40 units of those are supportive housing and the supporting housing residents have not been the the the residents that are causing any sort of challenges in the asteris situation. So, I think it's just really important to be clear about what the challenges are with that building and it isn't about having supportive housing units in that space. The challenges are around security, making sure that the building doors and safe and and egresses and entries are safe and that they are monitored. Um they are, you know, um yeah, secure physically for lack of a better word. The challenges are around prompt and a responsive solid waste management plan that is removing higher volumes of trash than I think many landlords and property managers are potentially used to. and the challenges are around um quickly addressing and responding to biohazards and things like that within the building. So I think that there are what what I would like to hear more about is your ability with if you have cameras all around what is your plan to address and respond to tenants who may be having challenges in a way that is dignified and supportive um and allows for respect for other residents. I I think it makes me feel a bit uncomfortable just to sort of hear the answer is that there will be cameras everywhere and that's sort of how you'll be monitoring the situation. I think what we would like to hear more of is like what's the next step after that a situ after a situation is um identified? Um and um you know if there is a situation where you need to move to more of a a a doorman style security public safety presence, is that something that you all are considering in the future if that's something that becomes necessary with such a large building? Thank you.

Yeah, sure. Do you want me to respond to that or do you want me to hear the other comments first? Why don't we why don't we go around the room and then and then you can respond to everyone. All right. Okay. Yeah. Thanks. Uh, Emily, uh, I'll wait to hear their response. I have no other questions. Okay. Uh, Mitch,

sure. I totally agree with what Jenny just said. I I think the details are really, really important and the specifics of management and not the generic kind of we're going to have gates, we're going to have cameras, we're going to have access points. Like, those are really, really compelling arguments for getting this project right. And we've got to get this project right because the ones we have been approving are not right. and that's a problem in the city. So, we're really going to lean on every project from this point forward to make sure that the management, the operations are done well and they're done correctly. So, I really really agree with what Jenny was saying. Thanks, Mitch. Uh Peggy, any thoughts?

Sorry. Um, Jenny speaks from uh a place of absolute knowledge on supportive services on community health and I completely agree with her. Um, I also um I know that Visom is is um pretty close to you know within the next I don't know how many months but soon going to open a new building. um that has supportive housing in it that is also affordable. And so it will be interesting to see how some lessons that are learned um that may be able to be visited on this project. Um I will say that I as I understand it, Visom owns a affordable building on Senica Street that seems to be run very well. It's a very small building, but there never been any issues with it. It's, you know, a block from where I lived for many, many years. Um, so I have a lot of hope that this is a a local, um, thoughtful um, invested developer. Um, who has some experience here. Um, these are, uh, 80% units, right? Right. I mean, we're talking about people who make 80% of the the the um median income in the community. That's the target group as I remember it. And um so it is definitely workforce housing. Um which can be a different it can have a different um feeling. Um I don't know. Um, I just I don't really have that much else to say, but I think I'm I'm hopeful. I think it's a beautiful, beautifully designed building, a

thoughtfully designed building, and I I from everything that has happened so far with the board with this project, you've listened to us and responded and and um and I think you're really thinking about how this building is going to work and how it's going to improve this neighborhood. Um, so I'm excited, but I hope you listen to Jenny as well.

Um, I before we turn it over to you for comment, I would like to add uh one set of questions that I would have about this. And what strikes me is that uh the maintaining the security of this property is quite complex because you have multiple points of entry and so forth. You have multiple areas where there's kind of public uh transit. uh you have a neighborhood where that has lots of uh buried uh people living in the in the area passing through a lot. Uh so I'd like to talk you to talk at some point a little bit about the complexity of that and and managing that and then you know what if there are any special considerations in terms of of of staffing and and kind of coverage of that uh uh throughout the day and and and night. I know you were saying 247 uh but that's a lot uh let's see for one person to cover uh it might take more uh staffing uh than that in um in in thinking about this for me. So uh if you could uh comment on that that would be helpful too. So I'll turn it back to you.

Sure. Thank you. So um I heard a number of comments and I'll try to go through all of them and if I skip over anything it was inadvertent you just remind me and I'll come back to it. Um one of the things that I will highlight is that um the design of the buildings the design of the development um specifically separated the build it into two different buildings. um that adds to the complexity but that also adds to the opportunity and I think that um we talk about uh trash for one example you know we have two separate trash uh collection areas um so that uh it won't become overly burdensome or cumbersome in one area um and we'll service both of the buildings um independently so I think that that will help I think that the two buildings also help us from a management perspective in providing security. Um because uh residents that uh for example live in the north building will have access to the north building. The south building they'll only have access to the community areas. They won't have access to the upper floors. Um and so that will um and and vice versa. Uh and so I think that that will um experience has shown us that that will help to um reduce kind of just like random wandering around hall um because people won't have that access. Uh I think that the um we are looking forward to Visom opening up the state league um which I think is a development that was referenced um and Visom specifically partnered with Arbor Housing and Development on that development because Arbor does have considerable experience managing and working with um supportive service population on its developments, its

other developments that it's done. So, we hope to um combine the the local ownership experience um with the the really in-depth experience that Arbor has of managing um developments that have higher supportive service populations. Um, so I think that that um will be a way for um for us to instately and then and we'd replicate that on this development um to respond to maybe specific um needs that um tenants have either supportive or non-supportive uh tenants have um but a greater degree of sensitivity um that uh that matter management staff will have because of that experience. Um I think that the there was a question asked about is there a doormat? Would we propose a doormat? Um as everybody's aware this is a development that will be funded um by homes and community renewal or HFA housing finance agency. housing finance agency approves um all the operating budget um and to the extent that that need arises, we would have to negotiate that with um with the housing finance agency and the developments. Um as as everyone is aware, uh the developments are balanced very closely to keep the rents as low as possible. Um, what that means is that there's not an extra pot of money um that you can draw from um to uh um to pay for to pay for those things. So, we would have to get approval um from HFA um who is an invested partner in the development and wants to see succeed. Um but we'd have to get approval from HFA to increase the operating budget to accommodate um a door man without it having without

having to sacrifice other needs within the uh within within the building. We're hoping that by utilizing um the uh the technology um and by um controlling the access to the development as as I've talked about that that will um will will lead us with a development that doesn't need a doormat. Um but if we have to have a dormant then we'll have those conversations with HFA. One other thing I um thought about that has come up to recently is challenges around parking ebikes in apartments. So a lot of those right have lithium ion batteries and so that is something that has has proven to be a challenge um also in a steer and so what they have worked out is that people remove the batteries from their bikes and then bring their bikes to their apartments and they sort of like dock the batteries elsewhere. Uh but I think just thinking through sort of like the bike parking and the rise of ebikes and sort of how you would sort of manage um an influx of folks with ebikes and and making sure that there aren't um hazards with those batteries in units is something to be thoughtful of as we think about bike bike parking models.

That's a Yeah, that's really great. I don't know that we talked about it before. I think that in the southern building we do have um bicycle storage identified. In the northern building on the first floor we have a room identified as storage. Um it's off of the uh off the parking. Um and it would be it's a good size for uh additional bike storage. Um and it is right off of the um the parking area. So, I think that that might be um another area that would be a good option for additional bike uh bike storage. And that may be where um where because it is off of the parking area where it may be best for ebikes to be um to be stored uh removing the batteries from them.

Yeah, Andy, please. Yeah, the the other comment I would have about security and I I um I've noticed this on other projects is um the idea of having the management offices near the front door, you know, if you do get into a situation where you need um a front desk or, you know, a front office. Have you thought about you know having the management office closer to the main entrances? I I see you have package rooms which, you know, I'm assuming, you know, the packages are just in there or they're in lockers, but, you know, maybe there's a way to design them um that that have an opening in them or or just something that could be easily um you know, modified to create a security backup space rather than you know, burying the management offices, you know, sort of in the back of the building. Something to you know, think think forward Yeah, the the lobby does that. That's a good thought. I think that um there is uh if you're looking at the building from Cherry Street, there is a a corner in the lobby um that's adjacent to the parking um on the southern building. Um, and that would be uh certainly a place that we could have um uh a management presence. Um, and uh and we could do something similar to that um in the uh in the northern building as well, the the building that's at top of the page.

Yeah. Yeah, I see that. So, so it might be beneficial, you know, to provide the infrastructure, you know, for that as you're building the building. Sure. In terms of security or, you know, other things.

I was thinking about that too. I hear I have a few issues just to summarize a little bit where we're at so far. Uh, this last point Annie was making kind of the surveillance staffing location kind of thing, which uh I think is interesting. And this discussion about the the lobby space is something maybe we could explore a little bit more. Um the uh bike storage I think is really a good point and I think we there might be some options on that that maybe you could explore a little more and uh come back to us uh with um the uh one thing that was brought up I I think it was Jenny the uh in terms of the prop property management and you addressed partially was the you know the trash location of the trash and the collection and so forth but I think your point was a little broader than that I at least that I took it Jenny was that you were really talking about kind of the property management and and assuring that there's the cleanliness and orderliness of the property was is that right

yeah just prompt removal of any hazards in stairwells and making sure that the trash shoots can properly accommodate like what is a realistic volume of trash I I think it's been and I don't I Yeah, I can't speak to what the size should be, but I think what we've seen is that in some of these buildings, the trash shoots just can't actually hold the trash that's coming from each of the floors, so it gets totally backed up. Um, so like being being prepared to be maybe more responsive and making sure that you're really there to like rapidly respond to um, you know, yeah, biohazards and waste in stairwells, um, furniture left in hallways, things like that. And again, I I think everyone is really excited for this building to come online. I I I think you're obviously catching us at a bit of a moment in time here. Um and and this will be great. And I you know, Peggy raised the thing of point about workforce housing. But I think the other thing here is also just bigger buildings. We haven't seen that many buildings with this many units in Ithaca. So I think that is also at play here. It's not necessarily about like who the tenants are, but I think we are also just, you know, I think we're just seeing larger buildings that are more residents and require perhaps more property management services than historically have been needed.

So, I think one of the if I could respond to that, I appreciate that. Um, and uh we're all a work in progress trying to trying to trying to do better each day with with what we're doing. Um but I think that the development is a larger development but purposely we have two buildings that are independently not larger. Um so what that allows for is that does allow for um greater concentration of management resources at the site. Um so whereas you know if you had just one of these buildings um you'd have uh you know two or three management people. Um but since we have since we have two buildings at the same location, we can have more management people there, more people to provide management uh maintenance technicians um kind of faces of the management staff on the site. So I think that that would be uh a benefit to having a greater density of units but spread over two adjacent buildings. All right. This I think has been a a good discussion. I want to um propose uh something uh to with the board right at the moment and see what you how you all feel. Um if uh we've got quite a a number of items on u landscape that we've identified and gone down the list and we have a few issues on management that we'd like to hear back uh from the developers. Um what I would like to do is that ask them to come back to us the next meeting uh addressing these issues and that we uh at that point consider the uh uh site plan approval. I see nods uh people feel comfortable going forward that way. Yeah. So I I

think that's what we'd like to do. We'd like to end the discussion now. Um get your responses to these various issues that we've summarized. a couple of times and and uh and then take this up again at our next meeting. Um Oh, go ahead, Julia. And then Mitch, I'm so sorry if you want to go ahead. Um Mitch, that's okay. No, no, go ahead, please. I have just a broader question for Visom.

No, thank you. Um, I was I I was just going to ask respectfully uh considering these are changes mostly related to landscape if this is something that could be um a condition for approval. Um, and I speak to this just coming from the fact that we're um looking to um in order for us to move forward with the with funding applications and get to get this project um moving in order to build the you know required affordable housing units in the city, we we we should advance on the on the approvals with the with the with the city. So, I was just going to ask if this if there's a chance that the city might the planning board might consider having the landscaping plan updates be a condition of approval. That's all that um you know we we would need to change um in the project at this point.

Thanks, Julia, for for raising that. I uh I I want to turn to the board. I like to know what you think about that. If there if we could move ahead with with some conditional approvals if How do people feel? I see nods. Yes.

So I was going to say the draft schedule 2 had the final approval next month. So that was thought that the final approval would be next month. So there's not really that pressing. I do understand that Julia. But the other thing is the landscaping could definitely be a condition. It's not our purview to put management in a condition for for final site plan approval. But if there are answers that you guys still want, then that's you know that'll be up to you. And I think we've received specific direction on what to make changes. I those are rather straightforward from uh that approach. What do what do people think, Jenny?

I I'm I have I don't have additional questions on management. Um I think I I've appreciated your answers. I think you hear our concerns. I think everyone is probably walking away with some lessons learned. And I trust that you guys, you know, you want to be really good property managers and you want to have happy residents. So I I don't have any other additional questions there. I think it was just important to talk about and if there's other particular things that we do learn in coming weeks that might be useful, you know, we're happy to share those also as best practices.

Thanks, Jenny. Uh Mitch and Peggy, uh turning to you first, the uh landscaping, you know, the kind of suggestions that we've made if we put that in a resolution, is would that be something that you'd feel comfortable with or would you like to see more detail before we proceed? maybe um I'm comfortable putting in it as a condition. Um I think that um I wanted to add again what Nikki said about the material of this toe path and also the question that came up about it has not been there's a question about it actually being approved by the DEC like this hasn't been approved yet. This isn't a request. This is a request from the the Board of Zoning Appeals, right? That they requested this.

The DEC does not have to review the toe path. Okay. It would be if if we decided to shift it any further into the west into the the white area adjacent that's outside. Yep. But within the green, the shift is okay. Perfectly. Yep.

Okay. So, I mean, from that point of view, I I do agree that asphalt might be I I know it's the other it's the materiality of the entire waterfront trail, but I in this location, it it may be um not the greatest material for for um infiltration, but um I'm fine with I'm fine with this being a um a condition and not going not having to go any further. Yeah. No, I agree. Condition is fine and staff reviewable landscape. Emily, I agree. All right, Andy.

Yeah, I agree. Okay. So, and Jenny, I've heard from you. Yeah. So, um I think what we would I would like to do is go over what the resolution how it might be modified to include all of this. We should probably and then we can go over the the conditions and and I can say what sorry I can say what um I have and then you guys can edit as well. So then I would like to have a motion. Emily makes a motion to 90 seconds. Everybody agree? Okay, we're open.

Okay. Open for business. All right. Thank you. Uh so this is what I have and it's going to be a submission of a planting plan. So we'll cover everything that you said but just for a little more detail and if you guys want me to add something else please. So it would be five the Roman numeral five and this is for the applicants to hear too so you guys know. Um it's it would read submission of new detailed planting plan um including soil replacement specifications for tree planting areas planting schedule with shade trees including chairs and birch trees. Um plans remove plant species in alignment and material of toe path and amendments including benches and we can either planning staff or we can say to the planning board. You had also suggested um the pvious pavers uh grass pvious pavers where the fire

consideration where the fire truck for additional planting there and also the east side plantings. Yeah, the east side plantings but also in that in that drop off area plantings would be preferable if not additional plantings in asphalted areas. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. with grass papers as a yeah plan B option

and comfortable with submission to staff or do you want it submission to board? They would come back you know at some point just with the your pleasure. What do you you feel Mitch staff? It's fine. Um could you also add um approval of easements at South? Yes. you know, to provide connection from building to and we usually do. Let me make sure, Andy, because I usually have this does not, you know, supersede any easements. I'll make sure. Yeah, let's put that in there.

Right. Right now there's three shown. Okay. So, exact I'm sorry. I just want to get it right. Approval of easements to provide connection between building and bridge path, you know, across private property or across city property. Yeah.

Thank you. Um I'd like to include the benches along the I was going to say that's one of the things we had. That's I said Yep. Yep. I said including amendments including benches. Great. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you. Okay, I think we've covered got the material of the top path. Yeah. Um Mitch, um just to Jenny's point about the conversation about the management side and we can't write anything into the approval about management, but is there a way to have some of this language and an agreement with the city? It's a very interesting conversation.

Interesting. But like some of the thing the very specifics that she's mentioning you know if there is a trash you know problem it will be effectively fixed within 8 to 12 hours or 6 to8 hours you know like where is that written down so there are assurances that the project will be well managed. Yes, great question, Mitch. And I think this is when we need Nells to come. Nells Bond who works for IUR, the Ithaca urban renewal, to come and talk to us because there are different agencies that work and Peggy might know some of this too, but that work to ensure this. But we should we could have him come come and talk when you guys talk about your priorities for poly policy discussion um and figure that out because I think it is something that's been on everyone's mind. So, that's a great question.

We're going to come back to this later. This is exactly the kind of thing I think we were uh starting to get at that we should talk about and and perhaps make recommendations to the city about ways to manage this. Yeah. So, all right. So, I think are we satisfied with the the list of conditions? Then I guess what I would like to do is is now do I have to have a motion for to vote or vote on that? Okay. So, first a motion to vote on the changes. Emily uh moves. Andy seconds. So, then I think we should have a roll call. Yeah. Jenny, I'm going to start with you. Yes. Yes.

Yes. Yes. Yes. And I vote yes as well. So, that's unanimous. All right. So now the question is do we have a motion to um uh to approve preliminary and uh final site plan that now we can vote on now you can vote on it discuss so any other discussion all right well let's take a vote Jenny yes yes yes yes yes

and I vote yes as well so that's unanimous okay so you're approved to move ahead, Julia. And uh thank you for working with us, Mitch.

Yeah, just just one question while you're here. Um just picking up on a point that Peggy made, like I really think that the building has a great potential to, you know, fill in the urban density along Cherry Street and be a compliment to Art House. And I think it's all really really positive um development for this neighborhood. Uh it's what's needed there. I'm just curious because I think you were the owners or maybe the past owners of the um property across the street and there was an idea for an arts district a year ago, two years ago, several years ago. I'm just wondering you I'm just curious like within the context of the neighborhood, what's happening with that and if you still are the owners and still have plans for that.

Um I have to get back to you on that, Mitch. Um, I promised to send you an email and I can send that to the to the planning staff and board email with um with updates. I'd have to check on that with Todd if that's okay with you. Good. Thank you for that. Yeah, absolutely. I'll be happy to do that tomorrow. All right. Thank you. I think we'll close up this discussion and move on to our next one. Thank you for being patient. We're Thank you, everyone. Yeah. Thank you very much. Thank you. Have a good evening. Thank you all. Yeah. Good night.

Moving on to 309 College Avenue Apartments. Um and we have Nick and Charlie with us. Welcome. Um tonight we're going to get an update on your uh project. Now, when I looked at the materials that we had, it's I didn't see anything changed. So most of the materials that we submitted were really in response to some of the seeker requests that we were getting and we were kind of dumping material as we were going, but we were kind of communicating with Josh's team and stuff kind of to the 11th hour. So we do have some updates to kind of share real time. Um so we'll walk through that, but I think by and large our kind of interpretation of the process thus far has been um the big items have been the stuff that we're working on with our neighbors. And so we've been focused on doing that and kind of along the way trying to make sure we're checking all the secret boxes as we go. So I know Sam sent us a list of stuff. We've been responding with materials and I think we're checking off most of it. I know we have one or two more items that we're working through, but um that's been the approach thus far.

Brody gave us some comments at public comment section as well. So uh we're a little bit up to date. uh but we really do like to get uh some advanced materials because we we that allows all of us to study it a little bit and be prepared to interact with you. So just understood point of reference and reinforce that it's Thursdays the t the before the planning board because we have to post the agenda with all that and that's when the board gets a chance to review. So in order to get better review yeah you can submit it by then that's great. Understood. Our apologies we will do that. So the floor is yours. Okay. So, I think who do we did? We let everybody Chris and Vince.

All right. Chris and Vince. So, I think we've got everybody. So, they've pulled up a slide deck. And so, um, you know, going through, you know, we had our PRC meeting. We got some feedback there. Um, we also wanted to touch on some stuff from our last planning board meeting. And so, there's there were a couple kind of points that were we wanted to address. Um, there was some conversation about the retaining wall in the back. I know Emily had asked about maybe some better perspective in terms of how that relates to our neighbor to the east. Um there was request about showing the columns with the two buildings as proposed. Uh there was some conversations about the curb cut and maybe showing what that might look like if it was extended versus not extended. And so we've put together some material that I think hopefully addresses most of that. Um, so I think one of as we're looking at this plan and we'll go into some renderings here, but one of the things that we've done is um in the back of the crossing to the east, what you'll what you'll notice is we've eliminated the planter and we've located bike racks. This is something that was done in response to our conversation with Josh and team. Um, you know, they felt strongly this was an improvement to the crossing. We understood their perspective about maybe planting's not doing well back there. So, we felt like that was, you know, a concession we were comfortable to make. Um, one of the other changes or I guess what we're illustrating now is you do see the columns. Um, I do think, you know, last minute feedback here. I think we are committing at this point to eliminating those columns. Um, you know, that was part of the ongoing conversations about height versus columns. And so, here's what it would look like. and we've rendered that as we kind of go further into um our presentation. And then one of the other comments we'll address and it really hasn't changed from our last presentation, but the trash room is recessed and one of the questions we got was maybe render it, show what the lighting will look like to make sure

it's not kind of a dark space, make sure it feels safe and and accessible. So, um we'll keep kind of running through this. Vince or Chris, if you can scroll. Um, these are just kind of continue evolution. We were kind of working through just some of the final materials. So, we just updated our elevations, but I think really we'll kind of move into the renderings because I think that really starts to give you all a better sense of kind of where this is going. So, so if you look on the top left, um this is what it would look like with the columns. You know, the columns, you know, from a massing standpoint, we don't like they, you know, structurally they would have needed to be um steel or concrete or probably concrete um just based on the design. And so, we do think um that removing them is a huge improvement. as you look down to the bottom left and we'll have some other images for you to look at. So this the bottom left is showing the crossing with just um Josh's columns. And so again, we've kind of committed to Josh's team that we're we'll we'll remove them as part of kind of our conversations. So this is I know there um there was a request about you know the curb cut and if we extended it how it would impact that uh tree as well as there was a question about um you know whether we would then be encouraging vehicles to kind of basically sit at the end of the crossing and and kind of how would that feel what would the impact of that be and so we've created this illustration. Um you can see the dotted line on the upper where you know we're basically showing in that case a curb cut that extends if it but doesn't interfere with the tree grate. It gives a little bit

more room. Um we can't we we've studied and looked at whether or not we could move the tree grate further north. We can't do that based on gas lines and vaults etc. So there's just no way to to move it and and feel like it would be successful. If you look at the gas line on the left, you can see how the gas line was intent intentionally kind of installed to go around the tree grate. And so, you know, it was all coordinated as part of the city's street improvement project. And so, you know, it's I think we're really have to decide um you know, whether if we get rid of the tree grate, we can obviously move it further. I think this illustration will give you kind of the sense of a vehicle and what that might look and feel like. And so we wanted to be responsive to your request to kind of better illustrate that condition and get your feedback. Um, this rendering is intended to show you basically the crossing and the trash room and kind of how it'll be illuminated. Um, we do intend to install, you know, sufficient lighting on the underside of our building to make sure this feels like a safe, um, welcoming crossing. This is just the same from opposite angle. Um, we did get a request uh to show some more updated imagery around what the front of the building, the streetscape is going to look like. This assumes that the the tree and tree grate remains in place. And we also had the request to show some of the nighttime images to see how that light might kind of spill out into the public domain. Um, here's another image. And I think we talked a little bit at the last meeting about some of the changes we're making and really trying to add glazing and really activate the space. And I think this is intended to kind of show uh the impact of that.

This is just rear entrance. Um we are kind of contemplating the biggest the upper left you know we are trying to decide what doors the material of the doors will it be you know full light doors or or not and so um but this is just some additional imagery. So here we're kind of migrating to this back wall. So you've you've seen the image. This is updated a little bit but nothing's changed in terms of you have the stair the ramp. We have bike storage against the northern wall. Um and then what you'll the biggest change here is the moving the bike rack storage to against the wall and eliminating the planter box. Um so that's the change there. And then we've also added this image here which kind of shows um you know what this is going to look like from above. Um so you can see the concrete retaining wall with a short rail on top. you know, the concrete. We would intentionally extend the concrete above the grade there because they do have vehicles up there. And so, from a safety perspective, we would want something pretty sturdy. And then from just a kind of guard rail compliance standpoint, we would have a small rail sitting on top of it. Um, these are just additional details in terms of the

development. Yeah. Yeah. the the front kind of lighting accent where the 309 sign is. So, just kind of showing how we're backlighting um those translucent panels to create that effect. Some more details on the bike storage. That's it.

Yeah. And I think I mean so I think that covers the majority of the stuff that we've we've been asked to kind of give further information on. And again the big kind of comments that we've been working on were with Josh was the height of the overhang and kind of an alignment. I think we've come to agreement unless um they think otherwise. But it sounds like you know we're all in favor of removing the columns, leaving the height as is. We've recessed the trash room which they've kind of accepted as an improvement that they were comfortable with and we conceded on the bike racks and so we think we're in pretty good shape which I wasn't here for produce comments but um again this is all and to their credit to our credit like and to speak to the fact that we didn't get you materials like we were communicate Charlie was communicating with their team today right trying to make sure before we showed up and presented that we were all on the same page because we did want to make sure that Everybody felt good about the project and so that's some of the delay in materials.

Great. Thank you. Lots of progress. Appreciate that. Uh now I think you'd like to get some feedback from the board. Uh Emily, I want to start with you.

I'm so happy to see neighbors working it out. Thank you both uh for for really getting to the issues and coming with a solution that works for everybody. Um makes our job easier. I think everything you've proposed makes perfect sense. I love that you're willing to eliminate your columns. That's such a good move. I think it really enhances the space. Makes it feel like one instead of two separate hallways. So, that to me was the most significant change that I see here. Um the lighting seems good. Um thank you for the detail on that back wall. That seems to make perfect sense. Um and be safe. Um, I think architecturally I I I can't think of another focus point like the end of a hallway anywhere in town with such an opportunity as that wall. So, let's put a mural on it. We're ethica, right? What can you do on that back wall? Mural comes to my mind, but um I think it's such an opportunity to enliven the space, make it feel like a destination moving through there instead of a dead end. So, I would love to see that in lie of plantings like what could that be instead? Um, I think the Let's talk more about the loading. Um, what you've proposed makes sense. I don't love the idea of cars blocking the passage and I'd love to see that tree there, but I do understand you I was talking to the mayor earlier today about the lack of loading in places like College Town and downtown. So, I really understand the need. So, I think we should keep that conversation going as well. Thanks.

Great. Thanks, Emily. Uh, Jenny, can you weigh in, please? Yeah, thank you so much. I think this looks great. It's a really beautiful building. Um, yeah, I agree to Emily's. My only comment is that the the stairwell looks great and it's super open. It does feel very sterile and I don't know what can be done to kind of make it feel um a little warmer, but I mean I think otherwise I um have nothing else really. Yeah, Piggy.

Um yeah, I really appreciate that. the collaboration. I think it's fantastic. Um, it's so much better this way than two sets of columns, just like bananas. Um, I I'm I'm don't really understand. You're you're calling it a curb cut. Um, I missed I wasn't here at the last meeting. I was sick. Um, and I didn't go to the the um interim. What What is going on? Why do you want to remove a part of the sidewalk and a street tree? I'm sorry, I don't understand. Yeah. So, we will have a retail tenant and Josh has green star.

Yeah. And so, what you can see on the bottom left, you see the dotted line. Yes.

Right. And that represents what the curb line currently is. And then you can see the darker line, which is what we were saying we would expand it to. So basically, we're, you know, we're taking this pulloff loading area and we're extending it further up the street to make more room for vehicles to unload because, you know, it's really Lynen is really difficult, right? Because it's you get parking on both sides of the road. It's narrow. It it you can't get deliveries down Lynen. And so most anybody that has retail on college has to service it from college. And you know, there are very limited paces for a truck to pull off without blocking traffic. And so the thought behind this was, you know, Josh's team is already kind of struggling with loading there and we're going to add more with our retail tenant. And so does it make logistical sense to increase that to make sure that we're not blocking traffic? I um I really I really don't like the idea of removing even more sidewalk. There are already I understand this. I have a a interest that I have to deal with in a building that's two doors down. Um and um I completely understand and I watch this every single day. Every time I'm there, I see it. Um our retail or client has the same. We have a little pulloff. So, um but I have I really this is already very very narrow sidewalk. Green star um has their you know possibly legal seating there and um I don't know. I feel like the city uh pedestrians lose something by this

happening, but your retail client, your private client, and your private property get something, but the city, the community loses something here. I think this can't be I don't think this is something that can be sort of cavalierly sort of say, oh yeah, you guys need loading. I understand that. I definitely understand that. But um I don't know that just really makes me uncomfortable. I need to hear more about like why this would be something that would happen here because I mean our job is to protect the city's interests and the community's interest and this is sort of protecting a a private entity's interest by doing that. That that's my concern.

I would know I think we were kind of torn on this as well, right? because we do like the wider sidewalks. We like the tree there. We find a lot of positive in not doing this. But I think to speak to kind of I guess the counterargument is when you get these trucks that are unloading, they just stop in the lane, right? If there's not a spot to pull off, they stop. And then you have people pulling around them and I do think it becomes a safety issue. And so, frankly, if the streets were wider and we didn't have to do this, like I think our preference would not to be to do this. But I do think that it really does if if there's a lot of volume of loading and the only way to to deal with it here is like these truck drivers if they're there, they're going to stop. They're going to unload.

No, I know. I know. And so I guess I would argue that it becomes a a city issue if the streets are constantly being blocked and there's accidents, pedestrians, you know, like I think there is something here to this while I also fully understand your point. Uh just a point of information now. Isn't there a bus stop there too? Yep. So that you know and that's a community interest too. And so that there it's quite congested there. That's the thing right

again. It's like vehicles versus pedestrians, you know, who are we who are do we what do we prioritize here? And um I don't know. I don't I don't know. I understand. I completely understand what you're saying and why. I just I don't like it. I just don't like it. Um but I really like that you guys are working together and um as I've said before, I really like this building. I think it's really interesting. Um, I completely agree. Taking that planter from the back out was absolutely the right thing to do. It was just going to be a bunch of dirt in a couple months. Um, it looks like you've changed the front the planters from the front to a stationary planter from or sort of a built something built in maybe some seating. Um, which is a better I think a better choice than of these sort of saucer plant planters that you had before. Those are still there. Yeah, that I think is a good idea. I don't I I've said it before. I don't I wish you luck with your plants. Um, but I think that the planter having sort of could be a seat and have that sort of um become furniture in a way. Um that that's a really nice change and I and the glazing is really great. It's really exciting. It brings a lot of warmth to the street. Um and I'm I'm very excited about all that. And I agree with Emily that that opportunity at the back um for something some some focal point some something really interesting happening back there be wonderful. So thanks

Uh Mitch, I don't have any comments. This is looking really good. Great job, Andy.

Yeah, again, thanks um team for listening to us and for working with the neighbor and Josh or um I'm sorry, Brody, sorry, Brody, for you coming in and you know, presenting your your side of it. I think that was great that you guys are a great model for this collaboration. So, I just had a couple questions. Um Oh, perfect. Um Chris, is so the lighting for the the first bay or first couple of bays, is that a recessed LED above the glass? Is that spilling light on the sophet? Yes, it is.

Okay, cool. So, I just want to make sure because then I saw the recess lighting beyond. I think that's further beyond. Right. Right. I think the um eliminating the columns is a great idea. I think it it looks it looks really nice. Um can you pull up the slide of the stair? Um I'm just wondering if you need that knee wall. Um you're to your point about you know safety and having that as open as possible. Um I'm wondering if the knee wall provides a place to kind of hide behind and if it were be if it would be better if it was just an open rail there instead of having that wall. I don't know that

um you need to hide the stair. That would be um my only comment. And then lastly, I I think I agree with uh Peggy on the on the streetscape. I like the wider sidewalk at the entrance to the twotory entry um of your neighbor. I think it kind of signals that grand gesture that you know your neighbor has done with the building and having you know the wide sidewalk and the tree there kind of signals that entry. So um I would prefer that the sidewalk remain and and that we get to retain that tree. I see why you can't do more but I think retaining the tree would be important. Thank you.

Thanks Annie. Emily, did you want to add something? Yeah, just for next time. I think we should have a conversation about signage earlier than we usually do. Um, typically signage comes back as a package later, but I feel like the signage for your building is part of the design that these glowing panels and internally illuminated number. And so I just wonder if we should as a board, you know, bring that up a bit earlier and maybe have a discussion so it's not a key feature of your design that you're then coming back and having to negotiate for. Good suggestion. Thank you. Yeah.

All right. Um that gives you some feedback. I think it's looking good. Lots of pro lots of progress here. Uh Sam, was there anything on the secret review that you needed to cover? Yeah, as of um uh last week when when we had the um we're creating the packet, there's a number of outstanding items including um vibration monitoring, geotechnical report. Um uh I could probably pull up the whole list if you needed. Um I know some materials were submitted yesterday. Thank you very much, Chris. Um so nice to meet you uh virtually. Um and um so I'm not sure if all of those have been addressed or not in that latest submission. I haven't had a chance to review it, but those are generally the topics um that we had questions about. Um this month's uh review was supposed to be on uh transportation construction. Um and uh we were asking for some more materials related to um off- streetet staging and uh parking and such. But if there's anything else you wanted to ask for review related to that um that this meeting would be a good opportunity to ask for those materials.

Any thoughts? Any anyone anything that come to mind? Sorry, I do. If not, if the board doesn't uh we will need a vibration monitoring plan before construction just because of how close it is and there's we, you know, for all that above college. So, as Sam mentioned, um, we typically, sorry, Nik, we typically ask for a transportation demand management plan, right, in collegetown buildings, like what management is doing to reduce cars. I know it's a student population.

It's a requirement in some zones. Um, I don't I don't understand that as being a requirement, okay, um, of this case, but I mean, it's it's certainly within your per to ask for something like that. Anything else? Mitch, whatever happened to that conversation about the historic fire station in the back? And does this project recognize that in any way with some kind of thing in the sidewalk or I I don't know. Wasn't there very early on when the when this was all happening? Dem demolition some idea for fire station recognition. Is it isn't it the fire station?

There was many years ago. I guess many years ago, I don't know, 3, four years ago. 311, which is the original fire station, the nines, right? I know there's a conversation about whether that was going to be deemed historic. It didn't get deemed historic, but I don't think there's ever been any of those types of consultations around this parcel. It's probably the parcel that this is the actual This was the functioning fire station for a long time. Okay. But it is adjacent. So there Yeah, could be. All right. I think we'll come back to secret. Yep.

I just wanted to remind the applicant that uh next month is design review and that there's a there's a a deadline for the application that I sent over email. Yes. Thank you, Sam. Great. Thanks, Chris. Right. Anything else? Okay. Thank you very much. All right. Uh, we're moving on to Fingerlakes reuse site improvements. Um, Sam, do we have the team? We have Andrew Sharaba, Diane, another Andrew.

Good evening. Good evening. So, this uh we're uh looking at Fingerlakes Reuse site improvements, 214 Elmmyra Road. Uh we're uh considering possible prelim preliminary and final site plan approval. And I I think we'd like to hear from you kind of your last thoughts about uh things that we've talked about, Andrew. Sure. Can everybody see my screen? Yes.

Okay. All right. uh from the uh February 24th meeting uh we had some three comments to address which we uh feel like we addressed with the resubmission to the uh PRC. Uh the first one was the question of the right turn only coming out of the drop off lane. Uh the request from the board at the last meeting was to get input from the city transportation engineer. Uh we did receive comments back that the um the engineering site plan review group did discuss this exit and because of the traffic on Elmyra Road which is averaging about 13,000 cars per day. Um they prefer to keep it as a right turn versus allowing left turns. I think we all know that not everybody obeys traffic signs all the time. to probably still get people trying to make a left turn out of here, but the city engineers preference was to um persuade folks to head uh west and al road to go to Meadow Street, which interestingly has about almost 20,000 uh cars per day uh as an average traffic volume. The other comment uh we had was I had some incorrect botanical names on my plant schedule. Admittedly, as a civil engineer and not a landscape architect, uh I corrected those for the the red twig and the yellow twig dogwoods. And uh Jean Grace had asked us to update our details on the tree planting uh to eliminate the typical wire and garden hose uh guywires uh to more of a nylon uh mesh webbing. So we've done that for the tree planting detail in the

lawn areas as well as the paved areas. At the PRC meeting, uh there is a request to excuse me, let me go to the right drawing here. To review the planting plan in a little bit more detail. So, I'm happy to kind of go through that. Um I'll do it parking lot, west lot, south lot, east lot. On the west lot, we have uh three shade trees uh proposed. These two that are in the islands would be the red maples. These two would be uh a maiden hair tree which is a ginko baloba tree. And I do have some images that I can show to to to folks uh for these trees. Uh I think a lot of us are very familiar with the red maple. Uh this is an image of the maiden hair, the ginko baloba. So we have shade and we have some color interest. On the south parking area, we are creating more of a grove of three birch trees surrounded by red and yellow twig dogwood shrubs. We have another birch tree over in this area with uh the do the dogwood shrubs and those This is just an example of the red twig. This is more of the spring uh shrubbery. This is in the fall. And then in the winter time, uh this is an example of what those look like. Um the birch trees I think we're we're all generally familiar with.

Over on the east parking area, we have another red maple for shading this parking area, uh the um red twig dog woods. And then there was a request to reinstate there was a couple of street trees that uh uh were there originally when the improvements and mon road happened. Uh two trees didn't make it for various reasons. So we're planting two trees and Jean Grace asked us to put those in. And those are pink flare cherry trees, which is this uh tree right here. Beyond that, we received a few comments from engineering and that those are really related to uh shuffling around the dumpsters in this area. There's a sanitary manhole here. So, we're just going to relocate uh maybe just flip-flop these dumpsters so that we don't block that access to that sanitary manhole. And uh there was some additional silk fence that they wanted us to add along the the back edge of the parcel while we replace some of the pavement in the back. So those were the comments that we received and feel like we've addressed those. So happy to answer any questions that the board may have.

Great. Thank thank you Andrew. Uh Peggy, I'll turn to you first. Hi. Hi, Eddie. Um, I um I missed the last meeting. I was I was sick. Um, but uh I'm I'm very I'm really happy with that you were able to establish the the right turn um exit that that you were able to reuse that that driveway, that curb cut. Um I think it's a really um efficient way to to deal with the drop off area and also get people back into the parking lot if they're going to go shopping. So, um I think you solved both problems and um it's almost impossible to turn left. Uh wait, am I saying that right? Left. Yeah, left off of onto Elmyra from this parking lot. Anyway, so

um I think it's a great compromise. Um I am wondering about um some pedestrian circulation questions. Um, it still doesn't it doesn't look like there's a way a sidewalk. Oh, is that it right there? Yep, right here. There it is. Okay, thank you. Sorry, I missed it. Um, and the um there's the the addition of so there's still no curbing around these planting beds, right? You weren't weren't able to pull that off. Okay. Okay.

I'm still concerned about that as a as a just um a maintenance issue. Um but I hope that your snow snow removal folks are are careful and you're able to maintain this investment. Um and um it's looking very good and it came really quickly went from um your initial uh plan changed really quickly and I think it's really functional and I like it a lot and great. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks Peggy. Andy, can you um comment? Yeah.

Yeah. Great. Um thanks Andy. I I think it looks great. I really appreciate you're not a landscape architect, but I really appreciated seeing the images that made it really clear and I really like your design. So, um I don't have any further comments. Thank you for listening and um making this even better. Thanks, Andy. Emily.

Yeah. Hi, Andy. Thanks for all of your work on this. I'm so excited for this to to happen on in this location. and it's such an upgrade and um thank you for adding those street trees back, the ones that died. I think that's great. That's sort of the city's goal to uh maintain walkable streets with trees. So, that's wonderful. And I think everything else is great. Looks good to go. Thanks, Emily. Jenny, nothing for me. Looks great. I can't wait to drop off my things, which I do on a regular basis. Thank you, Jenny. Mitch, what are your thoughts? No other comments. This is a great project. I'm really excited this is happening. So, great job.

Great. Thanks, board. Um, so I think um given the feedback what we've uh got and all the things that you've addressed, I think we'd look towards a a motion to open up this uh resolution. Emily, uh, and Jenny seconds. Uh, so open. Yeah. For discussion. All right. Any further discussion? Um, seeing none, can I uh let's take a vote, Jenny? Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Can I can I ask a couple questions about the draft resolution? Oh, of course. Yeah.

Yeah. Sorry, I just I just noted that there was uh I think uh C107 uh might have been omitted uh from the the drawing list. Not critical, but I'm an engineer, so catch catch those things. I love the attention to detail like that. Yeah. Yeah. Um, and then just one, this uh condition, getting documentation from the fire department for emergency access. Is that something that we reach out to obtain or is that something that that Nikki or the planning board does? It'll be through the building permit. If there's any when you have the building permit open, I think you're going to be fine. Okay. Yeah. Yep. Because you're not doing much there. Yeah. Okay. Thank you.

Other questions? Andy? Andrew? No. Okay. Let's let's do this again. So, Jenny, let's start with you. Yes. Andy. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. And I vote yes. So, thank you very much for working with us on this. I think it's going to be a great uh improvement for the community and we appreciate that you're undertaking this. Thank you. Thanks everybody. Thank you everyone. Really appreciate it. Yeah. Good luck.

All right. Um I guess one of the things when we did the agenda review, we did not say that we would not have a director.

Yeah. Sorry. No director support. And then what um the next thing we wanted to do is start this process of having kind of a policy discussion which you anticipated Mitch which I think is really really great and we've been talking about for a while. Uh but I think one of the reasons that we wanted to touch on some of these uh policy issues is it's kind of a special time of opportunity because of the uh zoning rewrite and I Emily and Andy I understand you guys had a meeting on that uh just today right so maybe could you give us a kind of an update and a kind of report on where the discussions are going and what kinds of issues might that we might want to weigh in Well, today today was uneventful. It was more of an organizing meeting where we brainstormed different ways to engage the public through outreach. Um, and also, is it in person? Um, and then we also uh brainstormed hot topics is what we called it for zoning attention. Um, and so I guess I would pose for this that maybe you can tell us what your hot topics are and we can take it back to the board. Um, things that came up were parking. Um, help me with other things. Parking is always a hot topic.

Um, yeah, I think more density in general, you know, the pros and cons of of that. um transportation um traffic for instance this idea of loading zones and handicap spaces as being distinguished from other types of parking came up um so

yeah I'm just I'm pulling up my list um you know densification in relation to where it makes sense or not um maintaining or increasing pedestrian connectivity ity and you know people were thinking about the waterfront in general. I know we've talked about that on projects. How do you get through it? Um the the concept of form based zoning where it's not so much specific, you know, height and area but more around the form of a building. Um the idea of aesthetics, how does, you know, how can zoning um weigh into you know how a building looks? There's some zones where things like pitched roofs are required. Um the pros and cons of ADUs of um accessory dwelling units, how people feel about that. The idea of just simplifying the zoning code in general, it's too complicated. Height um incentivizing sustainable practices. So encouraging you know b b b b b b b b b b b b b b b b b b b b bonus density um or encouraging sustainable practices by giving bonus density um preserving and increasing green space and PUDs. Sorry that was

your your group did a bigger list than my group really. So that's that's interesting because you know kind of what we had to around before were uh PD's green space sustainable practices and uh I think the green space actually dovetales with the density discussion as well. I mean you know because they're kind of right pros and cons as you put it. Yeah. So I mean that was on our little

little list and you know the um so we would hit on a few of those in terms of things that we've already started to talk about. That's great. Yeah. Is there any kind of uh sequencing that's going to happen in these discussions and how the how will these issues get taken up and I think it's still unclear. We're still

uh it's a bit unclear. I think you know how the process will go. They the city has officially signed a consulting agreement with a company and I think at our next meeting they're going to lay out the process in greater detail. Um, but I'm not sure. I would love to know what topics you get could give us or we could brainstorm as this group to take back to the board next time.

Yeah. Well, I mean, I think we've got a little short list of kind of what we've kind of kicked around, you know, and and you you had some suggestions about what might be a priority and so forth. And so, you know, and so those dovetail a little bit with the things that you've started to discuss, but I mean in ways. I feel like we have to get into those and discuss those and kind of deliberate about those and maybe gather some information and stuff so we can make some recommendations.

One thing that wasn't on this list that that I think about is the idea of screening mechanical equipment and rooftops. You know, in my experience in DC, you know, we called the structure on top of building a penthouse and it was always a big part of the design. It wasn't just, oh yeah, we're going to do screening around mechanical units, but it was part of the design. It's it's basically another floor of the building. Um, so I I feel like, you know, that's something that we've really always have to push out of applicants. You know, they never they they rarely present it. We usually have to ask for it. And you know, just seeing the um Auga Park project go up, you know, I'm I'm waiting to see the mechanical screening on that building because you can see the you know, mini split units everywhere popping all over and I'm just, you know, that's going to be a really big penthouse. Um, another idea that Washington DC developed was usable space in pen houses um in commercial buildings. Um, it was it was a really great new idea to be able to have roof decks with amenity space on roof. So, not just mechanical equipment, but you could have an elevator and two stairs go up and actually have usable space. So, to me, that's something that we would we could debate.

Yeah.

Sorry, not a board member, but one of my big things is green infrastructure. So green space, but actually thinking of those stacked benefits. So we have a lot of rain, let's see, bio swales and green roofs, which can be amenities. So that really that's stacked. And then I'm sure Jenny would hit upon this too, but wellbeing, wellbeing and livability in these spaces as well. And those all over they can overlap as well too. Green has so many health benefits as we know, but deliberate well-being. Yeah, Emily and I were talking earlier, you know, um I totally agree with you and I think, you know, one thing I did was I pulled up the lead, you know, point system and there's so many things and we were wondering, you know, a lot of times on projects we ask, you know, what is your sustainability story? And applicants will say, oh, we're following the um Ithaca green building code, so we're all set. And, you know, my feeling is no. You know, what are you doing beyond that? you know, we rarely see buildings that are um leadcertified unless it's a Cornell project. Um and there's there's just so many, you know, ways a building can be more sustainable beyond what's covered in the energy code. But it would be we thought it would be good to compare lead to the energy code and see you know where we are as a city you know with that and you know how could that be improved on or again how can we go beyond to your point Nikki green infrastructure and just all of the other you know ways we can you know look at sustainability adding that

one of the things that you know for us to have discussions um you know would be to gather more information and kind of uh evaluate a little bit. So I mean some of those lead standards could be you know some kind of a presentation from someone or something like that could be a starting point you know for for thinking about how yeah that's easy we could do that. Yeah I'm thinking about you know we we need to kind of have an entry point so we've got a lot of stuff and uh you know if we we could kind of focus on a couple issues and then build on those. Yeah. Um, good. And then the question is kind of where's a good place to start that's kind of robust and let's helps us get talking. Yeah.

Yeah. The the other now I'm looking at my bullet point from the lead checklist. The other thing is you know you get lead points for flood plane avoidance for not building in a flood plane. Clearly we're not going to do that here. You know we have houses in the flood plane and we're looking for creative solutions but you know that's the flood plane is a huge thing. You know, now we're starting to see projects that are addressing it in certain ways and we're giving feedback, but you know, the green infrastructure could completely change the entire way that water is

that we engage water here. And you know, I mean, I've talked to you about this like how how desperately I would like to see a um just I mean this idea of like green space, but like why what is it? What is green space? I mean we have parks, we have Dwit Park, we have Washington Park there nothing like nothing happens in those parks. The most um you know active park we have is the the the skate park, right? And that has a and I know this because I I wrote the grant for it. It has a storm water resiliency built into it and that it is part of our storm water. It catches storm water. It holds it and it and it percolates

and we can build parks like that. We can use it as part of our our resiliency strategy um if we want to. But, you know, I mean, or we could just have some, you know, Washington Park with a It's not I'm sorry. There's nothing wrong with Washington Park. just it doesn't it also like we can do more

and I would love to see that our entire city could be you know a all of our our our beautiful tree lines could be activated in this kind of green infrastructure I would love that that's a an obvious one to me you know those could all be rain gardens we could really reduce so much because we know that you know our current storm water system is kind of at capacity. So, you know, we need to find other places to put the rainwater. I agree. And and we're losing it like that is our water and is something I worry about with density particularly and ideas like

activating pen houses, having green roofs, that's all about storm water. And if that could be part of our code or part of our incentives, that would be incredible. And I know it's not easy and it's not cheap and it, you know, incredibly intensive um engineering, but we're los we're losing our water. Like every if every backyard, and I'm not this is I had a accessory apartment that I've rented out for years, but if every backyard has an ADU in it, then we lose all of that green structure. So maybe all you know, ADUs have green roofs and things like that. And I don't know, these are the things I worry about and think about.

I'm hearing a lot of discussion around uh green infrastructure, which might be something that could be a focus uh that relates to green space, sustainable practices, you know, some discussion of of lead standards might be a way to help us kind of start to think about some of that. It might that might be a little package of something that we could work on. And then I think it relates completely to the zoning uh types of stuff and and in some ways it also relates to the density issue right as well.

Yeah. I think my concern with the density has always been that you know density is great but in most large places there are just a plethora of like pocket parks

and like we seem to be developing very densely but without the corresponding pocket parks. So I think we are gonna we risk running into a space where like downtown Ithaca is like fully developed but it's just concrete concrete concrete and we don't we and then and there is something it is I actually your your points about some of these parks are interesting because they are not well utilized and I don't know why like I think about this a lot. Um and yeah they're kind of boring. Yeah. Um so I don't know what it's like. It needs to be a a a pocket park, but also that like has a little community garden or just a couple community planters or things like that that like bring the space to life and make it a place where you want to sit or spend time.

Yeah. Well, Andy, you said something really interesting earlier about trading um more buildable density for these sustainable movements, parks and uh green urban spaces, which I hadn't really thought of if if there's a mechanism within zoning to allow for that. There's precedents too like Portland has a lot for like the foot fun foot ratio if you have a green roof, etc. Um There's a lot of incentive ideas.

Actually, it sounds like we need a landscape plan for the city, a kind of a framework plan about green infrastructure. That maybe that's something that Cornell's Department of Landscape Architecture could get involved with. I know they're partnering in Lancing coming up or doing it currently looking at landscape master plan and lancing. And I think these issues are really important. the water recapture, water reuse, water management, storm water management in relation to density. I think the things that come to my mind, one is a sustainable practice around deconstruction as opposed to demolition. I don't know if that's come up or if that's something that could be actually put in a zoning ordinance that there's a whole waste reduction and kind of a circular material economy potential there since there's so much construction happening and demolition replacement of um pretty good buildings and pretty good materials and it's a shame to see those just demolished and carted off to the landfill. So that might be something. And then I'm also curious about the relationship of this effort and previous neighborhood plans and guidelines because those I mean fairly recently within the last 10 years has been many of them rolled out. So I think there's going to need to be a lot of like public education around like well why are we doing this again? Does it replacing what we all went through for many years? What's the relationship and what's the reason for the zoning? Right? like what's the importance? Why are we doing it? I think that really needs to be up out front out in front of it and explained every time because I think there's been push back that we know about regionally to zoning in general that the concept of zoning and I think it's has a really important place in citym. So I think that would um be a

good thing to kind of contemplate and frame argument around. Absolutely. That was, you know, something I brought up today is, you know, I think we need to lead with that. You know, why are we doing this? I think, you know, we tend to dive into these granular, you know, concepts of we need more density without why, you know, why is it good for the city? And I think that's what we need to start with, you know. So, totally agree.

I missed that last point. Now, I'm really curious what what Mitch said. Oh, he said we need a master landscape plan for the city, which is brilliant in in in conjunction with this development density. Um, creating a policy around deconstruction ecosystems, which Portland, Oregon created the policy and then it worked, but I think no one's going to do it until there's a law requiring some percentage be deconstructed. So, that's a good point. And then um you heard the last part explaining why we're rewriting zoning as the lead framework to present to the public. You know, the other thing that can be incentivized is affordable housing and there's also lots of precedents for that. You know, in exchange for providing more affordable housing than is required, you know, you get to build more square footage. So that's another piece of, you know, a zoning incentive. And I've always been unclear with us, you know, is it only in certain districts that affordable housing is required or you have to make a contribution

it's it's everywhere. It's every Yeah. It's everywhere. So every project like you know projects that that we just saw on College Avenue. So that will have to make a contribution. Oh, no. It's not mandated, but it's not mandated. Yeah. So, that is something that could be mandated in certain zones or it could be throughout the entire city.

So, the only the only thing I I love that the only thing else could speak to this again. I keep bringing his name. I hope he watches recording. Um there is a state level law about affordability in a project and you probably know this but it has to and Peggy please chime in that part of the project. So like for Caya Park it has to go through no matter what. So if the rest of the project fails they have to guarantee that that will go through. So it becomes difficult to make it diversified within a building you know within like a project but that doesn't mean it's

so 309 couldn't have like four units that are affordable right have to that it won't go through that's where it becomes difficult but

yeah so darn And uh you know they're like you have to have you can get a tax break or whatever 15 30 units whatever it is. They all have to be spread throughout the building. Um and no one can know. They can't have separate entrances. No one knows which is which. Everybody knows which is which. They do. And they have people do unfortunately um skirt that law about the the entrances. But anyway, I mean, we could do this. We could do this. We could say, I mean, all of the jobs are at Cornell. We could make people who are building buildings on college affordable units, workforce housing. That could be we could I mean, I don't think we're going to, but we could. One of these buildings back here did this. um at the very I think it's been very successful. It's been really successful.

I think it is a mixed Yeah. a mixed rate. Oh, interesting. I do. Yeah. They're not supportive housing units. They're just um I think they're called workforce housing. So, I think they're subsidized at 50%. It's a really nice building, too. I mean, it'd be good to look at how they go through. I will say um the studio even on that is 1400. Sorry,

they talk about community benefit agreements or anything like that or uh public space impact fees for developers. Like that's sometimes a lever that's used to um create funding, revenue for um you know public space, green infrastructure improvements, you know, municipal committees sometimes set up and you know to determine how to spend that money. I've seen it in other cities um CBAs or it's called different things but it might be a way to offset some of these density concerns and you know public space improvement equation. What's the terminology Mitch?

A community benefit agreement CBA or open space or public space impact fee or green infrastructure impact fee. That would be interesting. That'd be a way to link kind of the development with the green space stuff that we're just talking about. Be I'd like to learn more about something like that. And that that I think that would be the kind of thing we could if we could get some uh more information and kind of would help structure our discussion a little bit and you know in terms of uh kind of concrete ways the community could approach kind of some of the goals that we're talking about here could relate to the zoning but it could also even even site plan review in some way would be informed by something like that. Yeah. Um, what do we find out more about that?

Might be somebody that could come to us on Zoom or something. Yeah, you know, similarly city.

Yeah, that would be like a couple of examples of kind of make it concrete. Um, what do people think about that idea as kind of entry point? I think that's great because it could go in many different ways. just it allows for a little bit more determination of how to improve public space, not just on the applicant's site because I mean you might we might get some push back from that idea. It's like they're saying we're already doing trees and landscape and sidewalks and things on our site so why do we have to pay into a fund? But it would just I don't know raise the stakes a little bit and help help the city out a little bit more.

Build that over time. We take the burden off taxpayers to Yeah, that's right. It has that economic uh side to it as well. That's right. I just and and the city budget which is part of the taxpayer.

Sometimes I am curious and I this is uh not a well-reasoned argument, but it is just a question. Sometimes I'm curious if actually a lot of these functions of adding additional requirements just actually drive up the prices of these buildings and if we we are actually just further you know we are putting all these burdens on developers who are still only functioning with a certain amount of funds to put these buildings in place and so they just in turn pass them down to the consumer. I just think it's worth the question. I I totally hear you and I think it's a great point, but we never get to look at financials from this board. So, we do not know what the numbers are really. It's true.

And so, we don't know what the the returns are and what, you know, kind of what the equations are here. And so, it's it's a really good point, but I think like the market is still pretty stable and hot right now in Ithaca still after all these years of building. like we're still seeing projects come forward and proposals and I just feel like there's room to make these requests and to push a little to say we want to see more public benefit out of all this development that's happening in the city. I think there could be some potentially more positive outcomes especially if there's a zoning rewrite. So it's a chance to ask but I totally see your point Jenny.

Yeah and you know it goes back to the you know creating something to give back. So, it's not just, you know, we're adding all these things for a developer, but in fact, in exchange for this, you're you're getting more square footage, you're getting a higher building, you know. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's Yeah, that's true. That's a good point. Like there's something that they could earn. I mean, it's like the it's the same debate kind of as the minimum wage dis policy debate like if you require a minimum wage, does that actually just raise the cost of everything? And then you're sort of at a net place. Yeah.

What I would like is for us you have this kind of discussion and kind of evaluate the pros and cons of different things. I mean, you know, this would be a public discussion and, you know, maybe community members might weigh in somehow. And if you know, and if we reach some kind of conclusion about what seems like a good idea or something that we like because based on everything we've learned that we make a policy recommendation to the city. And you know, in this case, it could also relate to kind of zoning incentives to to do this community benefit of some kind. Yeah. Yeah. I think one thing to keep in mind is the schedule of the zoning rewrite is really quick. Yeah, that's a problem. I mean, it's, you know, it's like a year away, right? The whole process is a year.

Year and a half. Year and a half. So, it's Yeah, it's moving quickly. So, so that's why I think that, you know, that I wanted to talk with you guys about the kind of prioritizing because it kind of if we we start a discussion, then we should pick the right thing that will be productive. to to actually have a kind kind of a concrete discussion about that with some concrete uh recommendations for the zoning right and also you know beyond that because the the city council can also establish policy I think Peggy you were mentioning that before too so you know we can make recommendations to yeah because that's in our purview to do that

I think Max if I can make a recommendation I feel like this the landscaping green space is something where I feel like we have lots of strengths on the board um to weigh in on that and like you know some subject matter expertise on like managing rainwater and things like that. So I feel like that it feels like of this list of things that feels like the most fruitful for us to try to like make a recommendation on. I mean, I guess I myself do. Yeah, there's stacked well-being. Wellbeing well-being.

And then I I just wanted to I was curious, too. I saw somewhere somehow across my desk um a downtown Ithaca Alliance, they had a consultant who did a plan on retail. And I was curious if that um was surfacing at all in these discussions and how that plays in because I don't know how this fits into zoning, but to me what feels very concern or I don't maybe not concerning but just worth noting is like we we're constantly approving projects with tons and tons of retail space and it's not clear to me like what actually is going in those. Is that the right thing? We're also only getting like the only development is like apartment buildings with small amounts of retail. we're not getting like other larger community spaces that also offer retail or or activity. Um, and I don't know if that plays in with zoning at all. It might not, but it is just something to raise. It has not come up, but it is it should be on the forefront.

Yeah, use is absolutely like I keep saying like where's the climbing gym? like when is someone gonna come I mean this is just an example demand them but like you know like it's just an example of like you know another type of a development that isn't just apartments and we don't see any of those for all the development we require first floor active it has to be it can't be apartments it has to be some offices or day it ends up being daycare a lot like I shouldn't say a lot but it has daycare is popular and um

well maybe it's marginally active because people are not seeing occupancy rates like we want if we build it they will come but I don't think they're coming there's a disconnect there each I mean each development each project does have their own team that does this as well like you know to vet whether they will be successful or not but Yeah. Yeah. It's zoning, I would say, for sure.

Yeah. What zones allow retail? You know, can you have a retail, you know, establishment in your neighborhood and in certain residential zones, you know, is it allowed or not? Again, going back to Washington DC that that was something that was introduced, you know, everybody thought, you know, look at New York City, there's a bodega on every corner. Wouldn't it be cool to mix in, you know, that type of retail, you know, in residential zones? So, that's absolutely it to the list. I think that's a great discussion. That leads back to parking. It's a more walkable city and you can have less parking, right? It's all connected. Yes.

Sorry, I was just going to bring up on the community benefit just because it kind of leads into it. Um either Mora and or Lisa this next month will talk about the PUD um policy that's going before recommendation before the council because does that that actually uh all these questions come into play they'll be asking for you know if you want to give a recommendation whether you support it or not. So we talked about that before and so you know that was going to be the starting point kind of that Lisa was going to give us a presentation on that. She may next time, right? Yes. Yeah.

Yes. Because it goes before council in May. Oh, so that's a time.

All right. So if we have that discussion or that presentation that can inform some of our discussion uh you know the puds actually that there that a lot of these issues would come to play right and okay should we start there since we already have that on the the list and then see what that what kind of issues that raises and if we want to make some recommendations to the city council around that that incorporate some of these considerations that we've been talking about. That might be a way to approach it.

And eventually we'll get to affordable housing. Are are you saying we're kind of focusing on the zoning stuff because that's time sensitive, right? But we're all, you know, of course sensitive about the So that Thanks for bringing that up. So yeah, I think you know that's kind of the thing of prioritizing and so that we can have as a group as a board have some impact

discussions that go beyond site plan right that we so that the thing you've been raising in terms of the management issue is really kind of hot right now to say the least and so it's kind of an important point it came up in our discussion very strongly of course we can't really do anything about that but we can in terms of policy recommendations And so you know that that that would be something I mean we have to pick our which apple we want to pick first. So the yeah the question is does that get pushed down the down the list a little bit because we're going to focus on these other

well we just approved kind of the last one right so for now. Yeah. So maybe it's okay. That's fair.

Yeah. What I propose to to do is um we'll have the the PUDS presentation and I'll try to get some uh additional information about that for us and uh we'll we'll have that and we'll plan a discussion around that. I'll try try to articulate um some of the things we've talked about around the green um uh infrastructure, green planning and and so forth. Uh and u maybe try to articulate some of those questions uh for the puds discussion because that would be good if maybe Lisa could speak to some questions we might have. And so maybe I'll try to consolidate some of that, circulate it amongst us and try to we can try to come uh come up with something that's reasonably articulate. Does that sound like a reasonable approach to go forward?

Yes. I think it's really great because we have a group of people that want to have engage in these discussions right now meaning us and if we can get some interest around that that'd be from others that would be wonderful too. Okay, we leave that at like that for right now. Yeah. Okay. Thank you, Emily. I have some questions whenever it's appropriate unrelated to this policy stuff. Yeah, I think I think we'll we'll we'll stop this discussion and and we open the floor for questions.

I read that Gunhill and other Visom properties are up for sale or will be listed. Um, Gunhill had some changes. So, I wondered had some changes that were not approved when Elizabeth and I went there for that site visit. And I wondered if the city did an inspection between approved drawings and what was actually built. Not yet. Not yet. Did you get a C of CFO? There's no TCO yet.

There's no TCO. Okay. So, that inspection Okay. So they're a little bit early listing it because they don't have their TCO. So it this whole process might happen where changes come back to us. Okay. Um I also wondered unrelated um question. Oh yeah. So that that would the if they have those changes what changes come before us and which changes are simply under the purview of staff?

Um it depends. So if it's something small they disrupt somewhere, we'll probably say that's okay. That doesn't we don't want to waste your team. But if it's something that we feel is big or something that you guys spent a lot of time talking about, you know, you're very um adamant about, we would bring it back to Yeah, absolutely.

Uh my second question is um or statement for everybody. I am disappointed that the county didn't advertise their what's it called the um the the code blueue shelter to the public. I would have gone to that outreach specifically us as a board. It's the same thing that happened with the legislature building and I read about it in the voice. I didn't know that there was a public outreach about the design. So, I just wanted to say for the record, I am disappointed in the county for not including us or at least advertising to us or inviting us to hear the process if not give a comment. Yeah. So, that's all. Thanks. Yeah, I had the same reaction.

I can I that's a great point. I know it was sent to a lot of community partners. Um, maybe I can get you just added. Well, how could we get added to the list? Do these things come to you? We could talk about it. I know it shouldn't come from me, but I'm happy for it to come from me, even if it doesn't come from the county planning. And it's it's not coming from a place of I want to influence the design. It's more of we're talking about other developments on chairs. Yeah. So that's sort of why I was like, well, this is a missed opportunity where there could be a collaborative effort. What do we want Cherry Street to be?

Do we want it to be all affordable housing, homeless shelters? Is there a way to to have a discussion about it? Yeah. So

I I do think I mean I think the ship has it has been many years in the plan that that is going to be the shelter location. So that is something that has been decided for a really long time. But I think the design of the building is certainly something that is is what they were looking for feedback for. Yeah. Surprising. Um and then you raised the question of kind of what what other uh development there might be in that neighborhood which is related to this. Right. So hopefully find out about that too. Thank you guys. Um just other initiatives thinking about those the 400 block of College Avenue was there an RFP a year or two ago and what's come of that

was for phase one and we did get a design but it has not gotten further consultant. We had a consultant for phase one which was to figure out what what we might do there but it hasn't gone further than that. Is that is that available? Is that public or I will ask I'll ask. Yeah. Yeah, I can see that. Yeah, sure. Anything else?

I wanted to talk about the the trash issue that you had mentioned and I'm in total agreement that the buildings these huge buildings are being built and somehow the amount of trash is not being considered or where trash is put or how it's dealt with or anything. But it's not just affordable housing. It's college town in particular. It's all of these buildings. And that if that we are going to make some sort of statement about you know a steer or something these all buildings should have to be um should have to have some sort of better way of managing their garbage because it is I have friends who who lived here for many years moved away came back and they're like what is going on here? There's garbage everywhere and it's like it's being stored at the at the in the tree lawn and it's just um and I don't mean to be like like you know uptight suburban but it's really unbelievable to me the amount of of waste that our students produce that our our just regular city residents produce. And I think um so anyway, that's something I wanted to just touch on. It's not just it's not just people in affordable housing. It's it's these luxury buildings are producing unbelievable amounts of waste and they're not doing a good job dealing with it either. And again, we wouldn't necessarily be management or you guys perview, but you could be with design because I know you guys do focus really carefully on totes and how are you getting the garbage out and which is fantastic that you're thinking about that. So, I mean

definitely design could be thought of for shoots, what size, etc. Nice question and asked.

Yeah. Is that what you're talking about, Peggy? I mean, do you know what at what level of garbage the issues are most commonly found? I can't believe in We owned a business in Dryen and we weren't allowed to. We had to have trash. We had to have a trash service come. We had to We weren't allowed to use any kind of Well, I mean, I guess Trident has doesn't have municipal trash. Exactly. But anyway, it's kind of like I don't know. I don't know why. I'm just when I was when you mentioned it, I was like, "Yes, you're absolutely right." But it's not just it's not just INHS and Vino. It's it's everybody.

Yeah. And I don't really know what the specs are on what's an appropriate trash shoot. And I look at the trash shoot and I'm like, my kitchen trash wouldn't fit in this trash shoot. Um, I mean, I think it's also a reflection of like changing consumerism habits. Yeah. And like mail to direct mail delivery for so many more items than you used to get. So, like, do you think households are generating more trash? And I looked at Sam's dashboard while we were in this meeting and it's true, we only have 15 buildings that have more than 100 units and and and I think a lot of those are like around the 100 unit mark. So, having a 181 unit building, like that's a huge building,

enormous. Um, so I think we're just also not thinking about like the size of the building in the infrastructure that they're building in to support the trash the solid waste management plan. need compactors. I didn't sleep.

Yeah. The the architects that you know these teams are working with you know do a lot of housing. So they should abs you know we should hold the architect's feet to the fire like how have you designed it because this that is something that the architect should absolutely figure out how much trash how big are the dumpsters where do they go and you bring up a good point you know that we really should focus on that and know you know where how big is the dumpster? How is it being moved out? I mean we have asked that on some projects but it's absolutely the architect's you know responsibility to make sure that works and you know and the building owner it shouldn't be you know what you're talking about having totes in a commercial building I've never heard of that. Yeah,

it happens. Trash to seems like a sustainability issue, a broader critique of consumer culture we can come up with. Yeah. Um, thank you. Yeah. Um, so, uh, any other things that anyone would like to raise before we move towards adjournment? Do I have a motion to adjurnn, Emily? Andy second. Everybody agree?