City Council - Regular Meeting

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Yep. All right, the time is 6:00 and we'll start with calling to order uh this meeting of the liquor control board. We will open the meeting uh with a pledge of allegiance led by Deputy Mayor Bren Oakley to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you, Deputy Mayor.

Today, we have two items on our consent agenda. Jenny, tell us what we need to know. Not much. Staff uh has no concerns. One is a renewal and one is a new one right next to each other. Wonderful. Thank you, Jenny. The second uh item, item B is positively adorable. Um I thought that was very cute when I read it. Nice to see different types of sidewalk sale permit, sidewalk permits, I should say. Um council, any questions, concerns? No, no, no. All right. Uh then I will seek a motion to approve uh tonight's consent agenda. So moved, seconded.

All those in favor? I. Wonderful. Thanks everybody. Thanks Jenny.

All right, the time is 6:01 p.m. We will move on to our Wooki City Council meeting. Uh first item is agenda review. Uh councilors, any items on the agenda you wish to talk about, change or move? No. Okay. Um in that case, we'll move on to public comment. This portion of public comment is reserved uh for members of the public to provide comment on items that are not on tonight's agenda. So, if you're here for an item um on the agenda and you'd like to give uh comment on that item, I'll just ask you to wait until that time. That said, is there anybody in the room or on Zoom who would like to give uh public comment? And if you are online, I'll just ask you to raise your hand. All right, not seeing anything. We will move on to our consent agenda. So on the consent agenda today, we have approval local liquor control board meeting minutes of May 4th, city council meeting minutes 4th and May 11th. Approval of payw wall payroll warrant April 26th to May 9th. Approval accounts payable warrant May 13. Approval subsequent to payout warrant March 2026. Approval Wooki farmers market event permit application approval. Annual approval of local emergency management plan approval. Chitten solid waste district fiscal year 2026 2027 budget presentation. Any comments or concerns? Council?

No. No. All right. I'll seek a motion then to approve uh tonight's consent agenda. So moved, seconded. All those in favor? I.

Wonderful. Thank you. Uh we'll move on to council reports. I think I started that side. So Elsie, go ahead. Um the Wooki Finance Commission met um last Tuesday uh the 12th to discuss um sorry um they met to discuss the um strategic purchasing um policy. Um sorry comprehensive comprehensive purchasing and proposed solicitation procedure which is an internal policy. um and they will meet next month to discuss the um composition of the commission as we have lost a chair um and the role of the commission in general.

That's all. Wonderful. Thank you, Deputy Mayor.

On May 12th, the safe, healthy, and connected uh commission met. Um the primary focus of that meeting was um to review the short-term public art policy that'll be on the agenda tonight. Um there was a lot of really great comments and questions um that'll help build on um the discussions for a longer term policy that move forward in the near future. Um but no no significant concerns from the group and generally as a you know straw poll um everyone supported the short-term policy. um as presented with minor changes that Ry will go over um later on this evening.

And on May 14th, the planning commission met um primary uh conversation that evening was the equity housing needs assessment um conversation phase two. Um Michael Moser from UVM uh was taking the lead um that evening for the conversation. Um there I think are a handful of other scheduled conversations coming up I um I believe tomorrow with the housing commission. Um they'll be having a similar discussion and then a few more before wrapping up and moving over to phase three. So, um, a report on the discussions will be, um, coming shortly, but, uh, recommendations and a report probably later this fall. Um, and that I think that pretty much summarizes the majority of planning commission.

Okay, councils.

Um, I I'll report downtown Wooki first. Uh, the Wooki farmers market is back. It returned yesterday and will run every Sunday through early fall at 20 minutes falls way from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. Um, something significant I want to note is that yesterday more than 100 people were waiting for the farmers market to open while four years ago we had 200 people over the entire four hours. So, it's really wonderful to see the growth and support for the Muski farmers market. And I want to give a shout out to Sarah Brunst who manages and supports the Muski Farmers Market um and is just has really helped it thrive. Winnuski Wednesdays is also returning next month in Rotary Park. So, please save the date for the first block party of the season, which is Wednesday, June 17th at 5:00 pm. And you can find more details on the downtown website. And finally, the downtown Wooki board has its monthly meeting this Wednesday at 6 p.m. Now, I'm putting on my Burlington Airport Commission um hat. Um the Manuski Housing Director, Jasmine Hurley, and I uh recently met with the team at Lehey BTV Airport to get a thorough briefing on the sound mitigation process. It was an incredibly informative conversation. I will be sharing a fuller update with the community soon, most likely via via front porch forum, so keep an eye out for that. In the meantime, construction on sound mitigation for Muski Homes has already begun, and more information is available at btvsound.com. Our next airport commission meeting is Wednesday, June 3rd at 4 p.m. And now, the inclusion and belonging commission. Our next meeting will be in June and will be a joint session with the Safe, Healthy, Connected People Commission to discuss background check policies for commission members. We're finalizing whether that meeting will be held on June 9th or June 11th, and we will keep the public posted as soon as it's confirmed.

Wonderful. Thank you, Council. Yeah. Um, so the Municipal Infrastructure Commission has a meeting this coming Thursday at 6:30. Uh, I believe that's 5:21. Uh we will be at the Myers Pool community room and we'll be discussing and reviewing the outcomes of the Wooki Bridge meeting that occurred on April 29th. Uh we'll also be discussing presenting on the upcoming Bristen Cedar Street water improvement project. Um we hope to see folks there and look forward to your questions.

Thank you. Um as you may have noted, uh I was not able to attend the planning commission meeting and that's why the deputy mayor did that update for me. So, thank you for attending that while I dealt to some um personal family issues. I do want to remind uh folks that um we are open for applications for commissioners. I see one of our planning commissioners uh here today um in council chambers and I ran into another one actually over the weekend who reminded me that she um will not be uh applying again. So, we are seeking members of the community to help us and help the community advance its goals. So, if that's something that would be interested to you, um, go to the website, uh, the city website, take a look there. Uh, one thing that I hear a lot from people is they're worried it's going to take up a lot of their time. And although there, you know, is some homework that you have to do before each meeting, and meetings are usually about an hour. Uh, they happen once a month besides if you're on planning where they happen twice a month. Um, and it's a really, um, great way to participate in the city. I know so many people are trying to look for community and for ways to um embed uh themselves more in this great uh little city of ours. So, uh give it a try at the very least talk to a member of city council. Uh we're happy to talk to you about the time commitment. Um but again, if you go to the website, you can uh find the application there. Elaine, city updates.

Thanks. I'll tack on to that one. So the groups are the development review board, finance commission, housing commission, inclusion and belonging commission, local resources advisory board, municipal infrastructure commission, planning commission, safe, healthy, connected people commission, and the Wooki Memorial Library Committee. Uh, please save the date. Everyone is invited. The Wooki Mosaic Campaign continues with the Main Street Community Parade on Saturday, June 6th. The parade starts at the Wooki School District at 12:00 p.m. and will be followed by community lunch at the Wooki Senior Center. We do need more volunteers to march in the parade with banners that promote businesses. We'll provide those banners. Uh please sign up and learn more at downtownwookki.org/mosaic. Please note that the Sugar House Hotel and its contractor will install a temporary fenced in construction staging at the lower Cavan Nature Area starting this week. The staging area will remain in place until the work is completed from late August to midepptember 2026. Work includes removal of gravel road access, improved access via a boardwalk, and wetland restoration. Visitors are asked to steer clear of the staging area. Our annual leash law reminder was sent out on all city channels this month. Residents and visitors are encouraged to review the update and please always keep your dogs on your their leashes in Wooki. The only off leash area in the city is at the West Allen Street dog park. There is no dog park in Cavan. Remember, not everyone feels comfortable around dogs and keeping them leashed ensures everyone's safety, including your dogs. And finally, the city Wooki Department of Public Works has begun hydrant flushing around Wooki. This is routine annual maintenance which helps the city's water distribution system, ensures adequate flow for fire department use, and improves the water quality for residents by clearing out

mineral deposits. Residents and businesses may experience low water pressure and temporary water discoloration during this process. Although the water remains safe to use, we do recommend running a cold water tap for several minutes until the water clears before using it for drinking, cooking, or laundry. Please avoid using hot water while discoloration is present as sediment may enter your hot water heater. That's it.

Wonderful. Thank you. All right. We'll move on to our regular items now. Um our first item is uh public hearing um for the condemnation for temporary and permanent rights for the Burlington Wooki Bridge project. So the time is 6:12 p.m. and I'll ask for a motion to open up this public hearing. So move seconded. All those in favor? I. Wonderful. All right. Well, now that with the public hearing open, uh we will take any testimony um in regards to this public hearing. John, will you be uh doing an introduction to this?

Sure. Uh yeah, we'll do a quick intro. So this is related to the Burlington Muski Bridge. Uh so on March 24th, 2026, we received a letter request from VR for the city to proceed with uh condemnation proceedings for temporary and permanent rights for the Wooling Mill Associates. Uh this property is located at 20 Canal Street. Uh so we've got a few guests here tonight. Um, and I think I guess first I'll introduce uh Christian Chva. Christian represents the city. He's our condemnation attorney uh who's with Downs Rachel Martin. So I think what what Christian will do is kind of give you the overview uh of the condemn condemnation proceedings and then um after that I believe Josh from HMTV will go through a presentation on that. So one quick item. So tonight is just a hearing. Uh no decisions are requested to be made tonight. Uh this is just to gather information and uh ask any questions.

Perfect. Thank you, John.

Good evening. Uh thank you, John. My name is Christian Shorba. I'm an attorney at Downs Racklin Martin. And as um John mentioned, this is a condemnation hearing pertaining to the property located at um um at 20 West Canal Street here in Wooki. So that's um the parcel, the overall parcel is roughly 6 1/2 acres in size. Um through this proceeding um we are looking to condemn two portions of that parcel on a temporary basis and then a third portion on a permanent basis um um taking that in fee simple. So the two temporary takings would be easements and that permanent taking would be in fe simple. Um there are a lot of different condemnation statutes here in Vermont. Um

I'm sorry Christian, can you define fe simple?

Yeah, fe simple is is in so many words um ownership um just basic um overall ownership. Whereas an easement is a right to enter onto or use another's land. fe simple would be actual ownership of the underlying land rather than merely a limited right to use the land. Um so as I mentioned um in Vermont there are many different condemnation statutes. We are proceeding under 24 VSA 2805 and that is speci specifically about municipal condemnation. There are a few other statutes. Um for instance, 24 VSA 3607 concerns uh municipalities taking land for wastewater systems. 30 VSA 110 is regarding utility companies taking land for utility projects. 19 VSA 502 um concerns the Vermont Agency of Transportation taking land for highway projects, but this one um is 24 VSA 2805. And so we are following the procedures required by that statute. Um that statute can kind of be thought of um as encompassing two different stages, two very loose different stages. The first is this city council stage. So the statute pres uh prescribes how this stage has to proceed and then it also prescribes how any appeal to the superior court must proceed. At this stage, you're going to hear testimony that really falls under two buckets. The first is the necessity of condemnation and the second is the compensation to be paid. So, um, if you can really think about it as those two different subjects, is it necessary to condemn

this property and what compensation should be paid to the landowner? As for the um question of whether it is necessary to condemn condemn the land in question, um we're going to hear from a panel primarily consisting of Josh Oland um whom John mentioned before, but also Bob Kleinfelter and Andrea Pru. And then um during their presentation, you are absolutely welcome to ask questions as they arise or at the end of their presentation. And then we'll present a second panel um and that will primarily consist of Kevin Mcmanis who is an appraiser as well as Rosa Benoir and Eric Furs who will primarily testify um to the um subject of negotiations with the landowner. Um so that's what we'll be doing this evening. As John mentioned, we're not looking to have a vote held this evening. Um, we're hoping that would happen two weeks from now. Um, which, um, would start with the city council going into executive session. Um, and I would and could accompany you during that executive session to provide legal counsel. Um, and then you would come out of executive session and hold the vote. Um I have also and others among this team have been in touch with the land owner with um um the um the Wooki, excuse me, the Wooki the Woolen Mill Associates um as well as with their attorney and we have mentioned to them that um they will have the opportunity and the right to present two weeks from now. So, um that right will remain open to them um to present two weeks from now before you go into executive session. Um and so with that, that's that's it for

me and I think we could hear from our first panel. Thank you. Good evening. Evening. Evening.

Just go ahead and share my screen. All right. Excellent. Uh so as Christian mentioned, I'm going to start walking us through uh kind of the necessity side of this property. Um really the purpose of this presentation is just to provide an overview of the project, kind of a reminder of of what we're talking about as it relates to why this particular parcel is necessary and then walk you through a little bit more about the need for the temporary access, the temporary easements, and that fee simpler fee acquisition that Christian mentioned as well. So three different pieces. It is a bit of a lengthy presentation. So I do have an agenda here just again project overview some project considerations the overall schedule and phasing some comparison projects to look at uh and then go and go through the construction access and then the fee acquisition separately. So we'll talk a lot about the construction the temporary need for it and then talk about the permanent need at the end. So to start off with the project overview, this is a conceptual project site plan that's been shared with the public in the past. You can see the new bridge that's proposed is uh a bit curved, shifted off alignment from the existing a little bit. Uh and you can see over on the right hand side of the screen uh kind of the green spaces that are going to be reconstructed at the end of the project. the parcel in question or that we're or the subject parcel I should say is in the upper right hand side of the screen. It's the northwest quadrant. Uh and really the only impacted part that we're talking about is highlighted or shaded yellow up there. It's kind of a a strange L type of shape. And if we zoom in a little bit on that

particular parcel and look at that strange L shape, as I mentioned there, there's three different pieces to this property that we're talking about tonight. Uh the first is highlighted a kind of an orang-ish color up there. That's a temporary access easement. So this is along an existing driveway that's out there. This just allows the contractor to really drive into to the project site. So that's just going to be purely for access. There's another part there that's a a blue color that's an L-shaped. This is going to be that fee simple or fee acquisition part that we're going to talk about in a permanent setting. And then there's a little sliver of green in between them. that's going to be for temporary construction. That gives a little bit of additional flexibility to the contractor, but really it's just to reestablish the project at the end. So, I wanted to show these renderings just again kind of give a sense of what we're talking about here. So, starting off on the left, we have the existing conditions standing in Burlington looking back towards Wooki. In the middle we have the proposed base technical concept that's been shared with council in the past and has been approved. And on the right we have an example alternate layout. And you can see that that yellow highlighted area again in the kind of in the background that L-shape sketched it over on the existing conditions roughly first. Again, it's not perfect, right? It's kind of a strange overlay in this setting. And then that's been transposed onto these other views to give a sense of the area that we're talking about. There's a view looking back the other way just for reference. The uh the project uh sorry the property that we'd be talking about would be in kind of the lower right here hidden behind the buildings. So I didn't highlight it in this view because it's just a very strange angle to try to show anything. But if we take a look at this from uh kind of looking east, you can once again see that subject property in the upper left here. Again, starting with an existing condition, the proposed base technical concept, and then an alternate

layout. Right now, we're just showing blank park spaces with a pedestrian path. Obviously, these aren't final. There's going to be trees, there's going to be benches, there's going to be other things, but these are just for discussion purposes. Also, as a reminder, the bridge itself is getting much wider compared to existing. So, it's getting roughly 24 feet wider. Much of that's going to be within the recreational spaces, the pedestrian facilities on the outsides of the bridge and a little bit for the travel lanes themselves and the barrier separation. So before we really jump into just why do we need this particular property for construction and for that permanent setting, I wanted to kind of remind of all the surroundings that are out there. It's a very congested site as you're very aware. Uh here in purple we can see a lot of the buildings that are historic around the area. So these historic buildings comes with extra strings attached meaning you really can't touch them. You can't modify them. You can't harm them. They're part of the community. Off to the southwest of the bridge highlighted in red we have the active dam. This essentially provides a physical obstruction to access the bridge for construction as well as any sort of relocation too close to it. There's a bunch of uh utilities that are throughout the different project sites. Some of them are marked here. These aren't entirely accurate and there are more than what is being shown. And then we also have uh up in blue highlighted around the area, active pedestrian facilities and walkways throughout the area. And then off to the lower right, kind of hidden off the screen here, we have the natural falls of the river itself, which is another physical obstruction to getting any type of barge or other access down to the bridge for construction. So, lots of things around this area that are complicating our access and ability to construct the bridge. Very limited possibilities around it otherwise. That's the physical obstructions. We also have a lot of traffic out there. We've talked a lot about traffic in the past, both publicly and with council as

well. This is another driver in terms of how we go about constructing the bridge. There's different ways. Someh one way is to completely close the bridge for a period of time. The other way that's kind of mo more in line with the base technical concept is what we call staged construction where you leave some part of the bridge open at all times. This comes into play as we start talking about impact to public or how fast we can build the bridge or access things like that. So there's a public uh component to implications of this property being uh available for construction and for permanent setting. So, it really leaves us with three areas that we have uh to access the bridge. Highlighted here is area 1, two, and three. We're talking about area two tonight. I've highlighted the entire area. That's of course not the same as the parcel in question. Much of that is owned by the city of Wooki as the park itself. And then a portion closer to the river actually owned by the city of Burlington associated with the dam. So, let's talk a little bit about schedule and phasing because this does uh play into timing and overall duration of the necessity. I'm going to talk about this in a couple different ways. This first one is just a schedule bar charts just looking at the overall timeline of when we think construction is going to start and end. Uh, and really we think it's going to start sometime in the fall of 2027. This type of act of construction won't immediately impact the public. We very much believe there will be u four lanes on the existing bridge for the better part of 2028 and probably into 2029. During this time frame, the contractor is primarily going to be working off to the east side of the bridge trying to get all their access in place. Uh their temporary works, mobilizing to the sites, lay down areas, and a lot of utility relocation. So, there's going to be a lot of construction off to the side of the bridge before traffic is really ever impacted. When the contractor is ready and they've

built enough of the project, they will at that point cut the bridge down a little bit and reduce it to two lanes on the existing bridge. That would be two northbound lanes only. And they the southbound would be detourred off site. That would be in place for a period of roughly four to six months after which traffic would be transitioned onto the new bridge and an additional lane opened up in a southbound lane. That southbound lane would be dedicated to going to Riverside. that would be in place for roughly 12 to 16 months and after that four lanes would be open on the proposed bridge. So that's a very quick highle overview of how we think this is all going to play out in terms of durations and I give rough durations because the contractor is faster and slower in different areas. So graphically what does that look like? uh some something like this. Again, kind of marching through the major phases of the bridge, starting off the four lanes on the existing bridge while the contractor is building things off to the side. Then when they're ready, they're going to cut down the part of the existing bridge, but leave two lanes open, those northbound lanes only with southbound detourred. As they continue to make progress on the new bridge and get it ready to open in traffic, they'll then transition three lanes onto that new bridge. two northbound, one southbound that's dedicated to Riverside. They will then complete demolition of the existing bridge and open the new bridge back up to four lanes. And of course, as we mentioned in the past, pedestrian traffic will be maintained at all times throughout construction. So, I've kind of given you the overview of traffic, but really what does that look like on the site, right? What are we impacting? How are we accessing the site? Why do we need this particular parcel? So, I'm going to step through uh just a series of construction slides here. I'm not going to get into nitty-gritty detail, but just kind of a visual of how we think we're accessing the site and what this means, and then I'll talk about some comparable projects as well. So, starting off here with phase one, as I've mentioned, four lanes

on that existing bridge with really the contractor accessing the site from the adjacent parcels, those areas one, two, and three, as I showed in a different slide. This lets the contractor get to the site, have some lay down area, get their toolboxes up, and start building into the river so they can actually build the bridge. From there, still four lanes on the bridge. They start to build the supports for the bridge, the new bridge, the abutments and the peers. And you can see those kind of clouded in some little red areas. Once they get past having the supports up kind of up up and out of the water and it's ready for the steel girders, that's when the contractor is going to start to transition the the existing bridge down to two lanes. So, they're going to get two lanes of traffic going across that existing bridge, start building the rest of the new bridge, kind of partially overlapping its footprint. This is that four to six month time frame. And again, a lot of the construction is actively happening on the east side, but we are still going to need that parcel in question over on the west side for all the different staging, again, toolboxes, lay down areas, facilities, field offices, whatever it might be. We'll look at pictures of that. Once they get that new bridge completely ready for traffic, they're going to switch the traffic onto that new bridge and their focus is going to flip-flop. So, a lot of the construction access and the construction um methodologies are going to be coming from the west side of the bridge. So, over on this side of the woolen mill, the opposite side of the river is still going to be actively used, but they're going to be transitioning a lot of their layown area and lesser used materials over to the opposite side of the roadway. They get through demolition, they build up those concrete supports, they start peeling back their access, they get their steel girders up. And then they get the rest of the deck on place and they get four lanes across the bridge. And in this case, you can

see the cross-hatched areas. This is where the contractor is now focusing on kind of finishing up the spaces around the bridge. All those park spaces, the sidewalks, the under bridge path here in Wooki, all that type of stuff. So, still active construction, but lanes are back and open, sidewalks are back and open. It's all these park spaces. And then that looks a lot like what I showed kind of earlier on in the presentation. Complete project. So what does this all look like? I keep saying all these spaces are going to be used for layown, for construction, a lot of equipment. What does it take to actually build a bridge? So I've provided a couple examples here and I'm just going to walk through those at a high level as well. Uh this first one being right down in Hartford, Vermont. Um similar type of bridge. This is about 550 ft long going over the White River. It's a three span bridge, single sidewalk. Uh certainly not the downtown setting that we have here, but a little bit of a village setting. Anyway, this particular site had those kind of orange shaded area as its um allowable layown and construction access areas. You can see the one here on the lower left of that image is about 45,000 square feet. The other two are roughly 7,000 square feet a piece. So much smaller, but they give you the access regardless. So, I want to focus on that 45,000 foot one in the lower left here as I show a few pictures. And this first picture is a portion of that area that's kind of up away from the river. This is roughly 18,000 square feet of that 45,000. So, a little over a third of it. Uh, and you can see kind of what they use that area for. So, a lot of tool sheds, a lot of um layown areas, a lot of carpentry happening here, some facilities for the workers, and a little bit of parking for some of the workers, which um is again a different setting compared to what we're talking about here. So, what about the other two/irds of the site? That's what this ends up looking like. So, we've got cranes, we got drilled shaft equipment here. There's a

couple um boxes in the background, those yellow areas, that's going to be for slurry from taking things out of the river. and a lot of just general access getting in and out. So, lots of equipment, excavation happening, hoisting, things like that. So, they need quite a bit of space to be able to get in with this equipment and use it daily as opposed to exchanging equipment constantly to be able to progress their work. This is another image looking down through that 45,000 square foot area. Again, you can see some general equipment in there, but most prominently is a girder delivery with a truck backing down and having a couple cranes in the background ready to lift it up into place. It just takes a very, very large area to get this type of heavy machinery in and have these types of deliveries happen. And then another view looking down underneath. So, this is the lower end of that 45,000 square foot. And actually, the contractor ended up extending into the river. They got permits to be able to extend their 45,000 square foot area because it wasn't quite enough space. Here you can see um some different equipment in the lower portion that's used to put up formwork. You can see some concrete trucks maybe slightly hidden in the background of the bridge and then a concrete pump truck being used to pump concrete all the way up to the top side of the bridge as well. So again, showing you this simply to show the magnitude of equipment that's necessary to build structures like this. And then I have another example too that I'll go through. It's going to have a lot of those same similarities, a lot of those same characteristics. Uh this bridge is much larger. This one's around 1,800 square feet, but same type of thing. It's a five uh it's a steel girder bridge with a sidewalk going over a river. Most prominently in the lower portion of this image is a 90,000 square foot layown area, but we also have scattered across there a 15,000, a 25,000, a 30,000. Um, so there's a lot of

different areas out there for this contractor to work. This is a view of that 90,000t area. So again, you can see a large crane out there getting ready to help with formwork for setting girders, etc. Lots of layown areas around this site for those different materials, for rebar deliveries, for tools, for formwork. Uh you can see storage sheds off to the side, as well as facilities for the workers themselves. Looking at the tail end of this 90,000t area, we can see an access road that's been carved down through the area to get down to the river itself and have access for construction. Here we can see a couple cranes that need to be in place to install the steel girders. Very much like what we're going to need here in Manuski. So again, large access, large equipment, large material deliveries. Another similar image as we saw for that Hartford project. I've got a couple concrete trucks backed up to a pumper down below uh just to put the deck in place. So again, lots and lots of layown area, material area needed to build this type of structure. So I've provided some examples, some construction access phasing or construction phasing diagrams rather. Um, so now I kind of wanted to go back to this image that I had before with three areas that we have available to access this structure. In those example projects, I kept harping on a 45,000 foot area for the Hartford one. There was a 90,000 square foot one for that Madalosa project. Here you can see we have three disjointed areas to access the bridge with the largest being 21,000 the other two 16 and 13,000. So much smaller areas all separated all necessary for construction of this bridge. We're of course going to focus on the 16,000t area which again is predominantly a Wookki owned park. Um,

but the wool and mill property in question does wrap around that and cut off access to the river because of its shape. So, I wanted to talk about how each of the areas would be used because I talked a lot about equipment and access and and girders being delivered and so forth. Really, all these areas are necessary. I know we're talking about area two in the wool and mill tonight, but I wanted to kind of show these other areas are also necessary. And it's not that we're just picking three areas to just go after this. First area here is right off of Mil Street. This one's going to be predominantly used for access to the river. Um, as you can see here in this this image on the right, there's three different hatchings. The the kind of the cross-hatched area is going to be for active construction. That's where those concrete supports, the abutments are going to be coming up out of the water. The gray area is going to be access to the river itself. So they can actually get down there with the forming with the concrete with the rebar and actually also be able to drive out onto temporary works in the river for girder deliveries and workers and everything else. Then there's a small portion that's orange just below that that would also be used for just some general lay down and materials off to the side that are out of the way. So this entire area off Mil Street would also be necessary within Burlington. This is the area that we've been talking about for the Woolen Mill. Uh if you look at the image there on the right, you can see I'm encompassing again the Wooki property, a portion of the Woolen Mill, and then even a little bit of the Burlington property next to it as well. That area in total is 16,000 square ft. But if you can make it out, that L-shaped area that's in there is the Woolen Mill property, and that does cut off access for the contractor to be able to actually get to the river, which is part of the need for this Um again this would be used predominantly for layown for materials for field offices and storage for that first phase of the project as they're working on the east. They would then flip-flop and this would be used for active construction and

access to the river as they're building on the west. And then finally this other area that goes through um some area as well as the the hotel groups area. This would be used for primary primary access to the river. It's the most straightaway shots to the river for gritter deliveries, for other things that are large like that for crane access. Um, and then would be used for lay down while active constructions happening through this other part portion near the woolen mill as well. So, they all have their primary functions. They all have their drawbacks in terms of what they can accommodate with what they have for access. But really, we need all three of them as I mentioned. And if we can't have the access, I'm focusing on temporary right now for this area too or the wool and mill really there's going to be some some ramifications to the project. Um the biggest one right off the bat is if we just don't have access there really we lose a tremendous amount of kind of staging and layown areas that we're going to be allowed to touch because we're going to have to kind of work within that Wooki property and probably have a little bit of setback just the way the grading ends up happening. So a lot of those types of layown and storage of materials would have to happen in the other parcels that we're using for access to the river. So if we have things like toolboxes, unused equipment, things like that that are in the way, we can't actually access the river on a daily basis and construction slows down. If we can't get through the woolen mill parcel area, demolition would also have to take place from within the from within the roadway footprint itself. So all of that access would have to happen when traffic is shifted to the new bridge and all the access would have to happen from the roadway which means everything becomes incredibly sequential and progressive. Taking off the deck and the girders, getting out to the first peers, taking those down, getting out a little further to build the pier, backing yourself out, and it's just a very, very slow linear process that would have to happen.

Uh and then finally, a lot of the different um girder deliveries would not be able to get down through the side of the river either. This was the only area identified on the west side of the bridge for access to the river. So, if we can't actually get through that L-shaped area for access, our gerter deliveries are all coming from the existing bridge, which means more traffic disruptions and more implications to the public as well. So, kind of putting that in bigger picture terms, we we had done this assessment um a while back, but community impacts generally speaking, we'd estimate that if we don't have access to this area, the project would probably take about six months longer. The bridge would be about 15% more costly as an estimate and probably have a user cost of roughly 14.5 million more. And that's the impacts to the general public, not a direct project cost, but their own impacts from added time driving around on a detour, gas depreciation, etc.

So, speak spoken a lot about temporary needs. I wanted to kind of switch gears to fee acquisition if that's okay. But I'll I'll see if there's any questions on that. Yeah, that's that's a good point to pause. Council, do you have any questions come up with you all? I can see my control. Okay. Um, as a as a public hearing, we'll also see if anybody in the public has any questions. Anybody online, just raise your hand. All right. Thanks, Josh.

So, switch gears to fee acquisition. And there's kind of two sides to this I wanted to talk about. And the first really is pedestrian movements. So, as we go out and and talk with the public and hear concerns and needs, one of them that comes up is safety getting across the roadway, right? So, a lot of people come from the Riverside path over in Burlington, take the sidewalk along the west side of the bridge, but then they want to go east through Wooki. And really, there's two different ways people can make that movement, and I'm showing them here on screen. The first one in green takes you across that western sidewalk. You continue through that first block in Wooki, cross West Canal Street, then you cross Main Street essentially twice, right? Because you have to stop in the middle and cross four lanes of traffic. So there's three different crossing points or what we call three different conflict points, areas where pedestrians and vehicles could come into contact. The other avenue of making that movement from getting west to east is to go down this red path that I'm showing here, too. This cuts through the park kind of across the decking and down the uh the timber staircase that's out there. This is a possibility. It's it's not necessarily ADA compliant. Uh it is a little bit antiquated or dilapitated and I don't know that ownership is really known because it does cross several parcels. and talking to the public, there's kind of a third option that's out there, but I I consider this to be maybe an informal one simply because we don't know that it's um the rights are in place for it. So, it follows this blue line that we see here, which comes across the bridge, goes to West Canal, then actually goes left and then comes down the the private driveway between the wool and mill kind of having access down to the dam itself. Then from there wraps through the underbridgeidge path off to the east and past the Champlain Mill. I don't know that this is a formal one because like I said, I don't know that the rights are in place along that

driveway and certainly it doesn't meet current standards if it is in place. So taking that a step further and trying to mimic that because we hear the general public actually makes that movement because they feel safer doing it. We'd like to replicate that actually through the park space that's out there. If we're going to be using this for construction and having to reconstruct it, we think that there's a need to actually improve the pedestrian safety and create a path through this park that actually connects from the roadway to the underbridgeidge path and lets people get to the east safely. This would be a 5% maximum grade to meet ADA compliance, 10 to 12 feet wide, and like I said, generally speaking, around the the perimeter like we see here. And again, this is just a green field, not showing trees, benches, everything else that would make it a park. The other side of things, um, as well as we we kind of showed those renderings earlier on about the base technical concept, which shifts us a little bit east, but there's also the allowability or the the allowable solution, if you will, by the design build contractor to go back on alignment. And in that case, the bridge might actually shift slightly to the west. It does have a limit of only being able to shift up to 20 feet. That's something that we've imposed on the contractor through um different historic or NEPA evaluations. Uh but as we also mentioned, there's the physical obstruction with the dam on the other end of this bridge that wouldn't allow us to move closer. Anyway, both Wooki and Burlington, my understanding is there's a little sliver of their own land that's being um essentially transitioned to having a highway, a permanent highway easement on it to allow this to happen if that were to be the case. That is shown there in that dashed red line as well. And you can see it would kind of clip through that L-shaped parcel of the woolen mill as well. So, we've got a kind of a need from a permanent setting to have a path

grow through this area and also a slight need to kind of um align with the two adjoining parcels and allow the bridge to be placed there if it actually went that way. And then just kind of taking another look at it from the renderings perspective again trying to overlay this permanent area that we're talking about getting fee acquisition to. Uh again, you can see the majority of the path comes down. I'll say that vertical leg of the L over on the left and then a portion of it passing through it over there on the right as well. With that, I'll open it up to questions.

Okay. So, okay. So, the I'm just going to scroll up at the looking for the temporary easement. Um, so do we is there possible damage that'll be done to that access road during construction that would be part of the compensation that is being discussed today? That would incorporate that. G gaining that temporary access is part part of that. Are you saying would it be damage? Exactly. So, I imagine you're going to use it for a through bear for vehicles in some fashion. So, yep.

Is there going to be excess wear and damage that will have to be included in the compensation for the landowner for their usage? I I don't know the actual um what's in the actual appraisal itself in terms of compensation there, but I do know that the contract itself has the contract to repair any damages to any private or or access granted type of parcels like this. So, the contractor would have to repair any damage made.

Okay. Um is there is there also a secondary staging area that's like outside of this direct broad bridge project? So like the area one, two, and three, is there a secondary one in Colchester or something like that? Nope. No, these are so we only ever um the agency only ever gets rights that are on site for construction. Any sort of off-site areas are going to be by the contractor. Okay. Have a question. Um I'm looking at the width of the private driveway. Um would that need to be widened?

No, we're not looking to make any modifications to it. We're trying to use it as is. Uh that's why maybe I kind of glazed over it a little bit quickly in those phasing graphics. When we get around to setting girders during that side of the bridges construction, we're actually have to create a little bit of an access road coming off of Main Street getting down to the water. Okay. We're not going to be able to to deliver girders or anything like that along this private driveway. Yeah. It's too too narrow, not long enough. Yeah, that's kind of what I thought. Yep. Um, so the likelihood of um any damage to the to the trees or vegetation on the private property won't be touching it. Okay. Nope. So just the the access easement only allows them to drive through the area. Okay.

Not clear anything. Um and anything kind of westerly of that driveway they're not allowed to touch. Okay. Um and then a another follow-up question. So maintaining the pedestrian um use throughout construction most of construction um what it was hard to tell from the images earlier what's whether it'd be down river or up river. Yep. It it changes throughout construction. So when we're down to two lanes on the bridge it'll be the western side the downstream side of it. As we get to the new bridge it'll be that eastern side.

Okay. And then just thinking about, you know, the off on the Wooki side of the river, the off-ramp access and making sure that that, you know, safety of for the pedestrian uses. Yep. There's going to have to be um we call them TARS. They're temporary pedestrian access routes. So, there's going to be specific traffic control for pedestrians just like there would be for for vehicles. Great. Thank you. Go ahead. Um the temporary construction landings that um are I believe in area one and area three. Um is there any plan for that on area one or sorry area two the one that we're talking about now? There there would be some temporary access coming through area two as well.

Okay. Like um sorry the construction onto the river like the gravel the gravel beds that you're talking about they need extra space. Is that going to happen on this area as well? It'll come through that area. I guess I'll say it that way. So, okay. So, this area is offset from the river because there's a a City of Burlington property up against the river. The stone will come out from that City of Burlington property, but it'll come through access have to come through the W parcel. Okay. Um, and my second question is, and I I think you just covered in this temporary uh temporary pedestrian pass, but does that include signage to indicate that you're going around and and lighting? Yes. Okay. Yep.

Thank you. I've seen vehicles util utilizing this street that we're talking about today to get to the dam. I'm assuming the owners of the dam. Would your construction if we were to be able to do this easement impede those vehicles from getting to the dam? Nope. Okay. Nope. They would have to have coordination, active communication with the owners. Um, but it's going to be written into the contract. They're not allowed to park vehicles, block vehicles, anything like that.

Okay. Any other questions? Um I'm mostly kind of curious about learning about like the history of why the the map looks like this for the condemnation. So why you know why is that one section of the temporary construction easement is that small sliver why we just did the fee acquisition of that L-shaped and then why the temporary access easement is another shape. I just don't know why the whole thing's not fee acquisition or if they're all all of it's all temporary construction. So the I'll start with the access because that that was easy. That just follows the footprint of the existing pavement. So we just whatever was surveyed that's what we're looking for. So that's that shape. Um for the fe simple part, it really really came down to kind of squaring up the rightway. So obviously taking the part coming straight off of Main Street that goes towards the Mullen Mill. Um, but then as you look to make the bend and kind of draw a line someplace, we simply lined it up with the rightway lines coming down from the other buildings as just to make a nice clean area. Temporary construction easements is just what's left in between. Was there ever discussion of because like as you showed there's an informal path already. It's now we're doubling up paths that are all in congruent with each other and it's already using Eastman for the Burlington Dam.

Um I'm just curious if Yeah, because if all if the only reason was because it lined up the property lines, you know what? Yeah, it lines up nicely with the property lines. It allows us to get the path around the perimeter to have a nice 5% grade actually coming down. Yeah.

Um and then provides a little bit of a buffer between rollen mill property and then city- owned property um to be able to maintain that path as well. So there there is a little bit more than just squaring it up um in terms of having the path be separated from the driveway. And I think maybe where you're going is could we just get the driveway like an easement on the driveway for pedestrians. Even if we could, we would have to make significant updates to that driveway just to meet current codes. It's currently not even really wide enough for two-way vehicles, but as we mentioned, vehicles do come down it, so they got to leave, too. So, there's got to be two-way traffic. Um, and then we would want a separate pedestrian area as well. And so, you'd be looking to widen things out. So, you'd be taking taking or modifying property on one side or the other to make this happen. So, you'd be looking for some type of other easement or acquisition. Okay. Anything else? Uh, any questions from members of the public either in the room or online? Not seeing anything in the room. If you're online, just raise your hand.

All right. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. Do we have other folks from the trends who wanted to talk tonight?

No. Um yeah. So for that piece, the necessity piece, you know, whether it's necessary necessary to condemn the land in question, um we we did also have Bob Kleinfelter here and Andrea Pru appearing online um just in case there were questions that um they could address. Um but now I think we're ready for our panel regarding compensation.

And so there um that would primarily be handled by appraiser Kevin Mcmanis. Um, and then we also have Rosa Benoir and Eric Furs, both from Vrans. Um, so if we could just make sure that they're appearing here remotely, um, that they have presentation capabilities. And I think for the for Kevin's presentation, he's going to be presenting a PDF of his appraisal report. Um, and if whoever's running the Zoom could maybe bring up that report and I think Kevin is planning on just directing um, you know, which page we should be on and where in the page and he'll just walk us through his report. Kevin, you're muted.

Okay,

good. So, I am Kevin McManus. Um, I've been an appraiser since 1986. I have licenses in Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont. Um, appraised a variety of different commercial, industrial, and residential land, and um, improved properties. I'd say that uh between 30 and 40% of my appraisal work has been on eminent domain projects like this one. And in particular in Vermont, I've worked on the uh the new Colchester interchange and now this uh the subject Burlington Wooki Bridge. So an appraisal is developing an opinion of value. I was hired by VR to complete appraisals intended to be used as a basis for compensating owners for the acquisition of land or rights or improvements as in the plans. Um the first uh page that would be useful to turn to is page seven which is the uh the site survey. Here we go. Um the area that I valued is 5.58 acres which is the green uh not distinct in this version but it's it's

highlighted in green. Um the area of the taking is uh the far eastern uh part of the uh part of the site which as this is shown would be the the top which uh shows uh Main Street is the very top part of this. Um, I inspected the property on February 3rd of 2025 with the Will and Mills maintenance supervisor. Uh, did a thorough inspection of all the land. Uh, and in particular, uh, focused on the the far eastern section where the takings are. And if we could uh sorry to ask for a page that's uh page 25 uh is a repeat of what we've seen uh of plan of the takings. Um there we go. Um the uh the takings include a uh fee acquisition of 6,1 95 square ft. It is not as clear as it was in the previous uh exhibits, but um it's the L-shaped uh kind of gray section there. Um and then uh there is a uh temporary construction easement of 896 square ft and an access easement of 2,928 square ft for ingress and eress over drive. In the uh in inspection, I observed that

the acquisition and the rights taken occurred in the far eastern section of the property. That there is no impact on access. Um I'm sure there's there is no access currently to Main Street because it's it's far below the grade. Um so there's no uh effect on the access to the parcel as a whole. There's no impact on parking. Uh it doesn't touch the building and essentially it doesn't change the highest and best use of this uh property as a multif family apartment building. So given uh what I observed and plans that I had um I concluded that the taking won't impact the use or value of the remainder of the property and it would be appropriate to do to value this uh as if it is vacant land. Um the three valuation methods are the cost approach which applies to improved properties and we're valuing this is vacant land so it is not applicable. The income approach applies to income producing property. It's not common for land to be uh bought for its ability to be rented u in this market area. So that approach did not apply. And the third approach which was applied is the sales comparison uh valuation method compares other similar recently transacted properties in this case trans uh land parcels.

Compares them to the subject and existing and the sales approach was completed and relied on. My original report was published in May of 2025 and in that original uh report um I had chosen commercial land sales in the area and um after VR did a review of that publication. I revised my analysis to uh to more specifically app uh look for and apply multifamily land uh land purchased specifically uh for that use which um was more reflective of if the subject had been a vacant parcel of land with the approvals in place that it had. Excuse me. Um, this uh kind of multif family property land would be more reflective of the subject and uh in addition increasing uh the land value conclusion and the compensation amount. Um, I chose the most recent area multif family land sales available. I uh chose for my highest and best use and for my uh comparison with the uh comparable sales. the the uh the number of apartment approvals

in our case being 168 is legally uh in the documents for the subject property and it's physically what is there at this point and so um my unit of comparison was apartment units approved. Um, if you could uh flip back to my sales grid on page 18, I can walk through how some of that uh some of that analysis resulted in my value conclusion before the the uh the takings. So, as you can see, I've applied for sales in Wooki for South Burlington that each had between 45 approved apartments to 161 uh apartments. Um, and I made some mathematicals or I should say percentage adjustments for those things that could be measured in the market. And in this case, um, if you go down to expenditures at sale, those were adjustments to to sales because those buyers needed to uh they needed to get involved in demolition costs. So, they in fact paid more than just the the amount of money that was transacted in order to have arcs land that they could begin to work on. um other uh factors that were adjusted for measuring the or compensating for differences between the subject and the sales. There were

conditions and uh number of approvals etc that certainly um would impact value could impact value but there wasn't sufficient market data to to derive a precise uh percentage adjustment for these. So anyway, um there are uh qualitative adjustments uh including condition of sale. Um two of the comparables were uh closed with a contingency that the buyer would obtain their approvals for their apartments and two of them like ourselves our subject uh construction approvals are assumed in place ready to go. Uh so the ones that needed more uh effort on the buyer's part were slightly inferior and they get slightly upward adjustments. Um the uh another category that had more than one uh adjustment uh adjusted comparable were uh the apartment units approved reflecting that um there's an inverse relationship between the number of approvals that you're purchasing and the price you you may pay for that per approval. So for instance the uh sale one and four are significantly smaller number of approvals and assumed to have uh benefited from uh that cost relationship and they're adjusted slightly down. And the um bottom line is that my value conclusion

per approved unit uh was $23,000. Getting down to the very bottom of the grid. $23,000 times 168 apartments uh concluded of a four value of $3,864,000. That equates to $692,473 per acre or $15.90 per square foot. All right. All right. If you would turn to page 2 uh I'm sorry 28 it would it begins to uh describe how uh I derived the after value and how I uh estimated the temporary uh the right compensation for the temporary easements. You'll see here that um the uh the subject is now uh shifted from 5.58 acres to 5.43 acres once the acquisition has been followed through. So it is uh um.142 acres uh smaller. And if I apply the um the same per acre value estimate as I did in the before analysis, 692,473

per acre times the somewhat smaller um 5.438 acres. Now after the value of the land after is 3,765,669. The difference between the uh the act the land value before and the land value after amounts to uh the value of the fee take which is $98,331. Um Continuing on the same page, I talk about the construction and access temporary easements. These are um these are recognized as typical annual rental rates. So the uh amount per square foot of $15.90 is uh is calculated at uh how how much it's calculated at at 10% of the total value of the easement areas um for each of the three years of the construction period. Um as uh shown here, the the sum of the temporary construction and the temporary access amounts to $18,241. And so the uh total rights acquired plus the parts taken equals 98,331 + 18,241 totals 116,572 which is rounded to 117,000.

And that's it. Thank you. Any questions? Thank you very much. Uh I appreciate you going over that in detail with us. Uh councilors, any questions? I do have a question. Deputy mayor,

um I'm curious, did your assessment account for um the flood hazard areas and whether or not any parcel, any new uh multif family construction would even be permitted to be built on that parcel. uh my intent was to reflect what that land is uh today and um it was assumed that it I mean it wasn't assumed it does have legal approvals for the those apartments and I would assume um there's no issue with uh compared to other properties that have x number of approvals. Um that that will be comparing uh the utility of the subject to the utility of okay just pause one moment.

Thanks. Um, I was having a hard time hearing. So, it sounds like the the short answer is no. That was not accounted for and and that you didn't feel that it needed to be accounted for. Is that a accurate summary? It um Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Great. Thank you. Any other questions? Any questions for members of the public? either in the room. Sure. Come right up. If you'll just state your name and then your comments.

Michelle Street. So, my apologies. I wasn't coming for this tonight, but it's very interesting. So, I just have some questions because I don't I didn't understand some things and I didn't have time to read all of these pages in the five minutes I was back there. Um, so the 3.7 million is what the cost is to acquire that piece of L-shaped land. No. What's the 3.7 million and what's the 117,000? Isn't that the appraised value? Yeah. Yeah. Do you want me to No, we can let Kevin answer that.

Yeah, Kevin, you can answer that question. Yeah. the the the three uh can try to be precise here. Three the $3 million value is the value of the whole 5.58 acres. Mhm. And $17,000 value is just um the part that's taken, the uh.142 acres that's taken plus the uh the value of the temporary uh easements. Okay. So the cost of adding to this project is just 117,000, right? That's all that's being added or that's all that's being included in this. That's all that's being

this is what's being discussed today, right? We're not adding anything or making any decisions tonight. Gotcha. So, we're not adding $3.8 million to the city budget, right? Correct. Correct. Okay. Just wanted to know that and wanted to know what is the division between Wookski's portion of this and Burlington's portion of this. I know the semiqua numbers, but Bob knows the exact number, so you come on up. I mean, is it like, you know, when we were looking at the um You can use that. So, the funding for the project, each city has a 5% share.

So, it's 80% federally funded, uh 10% state funds, and then 5% for each city. Okay. Except for capp. And yes, the Wooki in the finance and maintenance agreement does have a cap on your amount which uh was based on state statute. Um there's a provision for uh the the share cannot exceed what the the a 50 cent increase on the grand list. I can't remember the exact language, but you know, typically we usually don't have $70 million town highway bridge projects. So I don't know if it's ever come up before, but it did apply here. So I don't remember the exact number but I think the city shares capped at

so yeah right around 3 million. Yeah. So it's likely where would where would the balance state state funds that the state would take over that? Yep. In my estimation it's just a little strange that we are paying the same amount as Burlington when our population is 10% of Burlington and they are using it that bridge just as much as we are. Ample discussions about that. Okay. Um just wanted to believe me I share I think it's bridge and essics you know even though 5% doesn't seem like much it seems like you know they should be 9% and we should be 1%.

Actually we are not using it just as much. We're using it a lot less. So the Chun re Chunin County Regional Planning Commission has trip studies and so most of the benefit of the bridge like people coming to or going to is going to Burlington, but it's statute that says what the share is. So we that we did a lot of advocacy around it, but fortunately we did have it capped at 3 million because it could be it would be costing us higher without that. Yeah, just seems a little odd. It is odd. We agree. We agree.

Thank you. At least you're all on that page. Um just a quick question and this just has nothing to do with this piece. While that is being thought of and there's pedestrian um access, will that also be allowable for biking or is it only so during the construction? Yes, I believe so. Yeah. Okay. Yes. Josh is nodding. Yeah, I'm seeing nods about the trends for across the way for us to bike to so during construction just uh for the phase where part of the existing bridge is cut down. It'll just be one of the sixft sidewalks that's out there. So, it will be tight.

So, you probably, you know, I'm not sure you'd be able to bike across that sidewalk with opposing pedestrians during that phase. Um the second phase though will have the full 12t wide uh barrier separated shared use path on the upstream side. So it would be that four to six month period where it's the one sixoot sidewalk hopefully during the winter. Just wanted to clarify that you know you may not be able to you may have to dismount and walk your bike across. Oh, just walking is fine just as long as but yes, there will be that at a minimum that 6 foot one sixt sidewalk across and that would you know but once the new part of the new bridge is built then it will have the 12t wide. Okay. So yeah,

thank you and thank you for the clarification about that funding piece. Yeah, thank you. Any other comments in the room? No. All right, any comments online? All right, not seeing any comments online. Do we have any other testimony?

Um, we do have Rosa Benoir from BRANS. Um, and then followed by Eric Furs also from BRS. Sorry. My name is Roseor. I'm the right way chief for the agency of transportation and uh I assigned this project to Kevin McManis to complete the appraisals for the project. Can you hear me? Okay.

Uh the audio is a little as if you're underwater, but there's probably nothing we can do right now about that. So, you just keep speaking clearly as you are. I think that's our best approach. It's not bad, Rosa. I can hear it pretty.

It's on our uh All right. Yes. I um as an appraisal chief, I assign appraisals to staff and consultants and I provide them with information about the project and scope board. Um I uh also review appraisals uh that come to the office that are submitted. I will review them or sometimes I send them to another consultant to review. And so if you turn to the uh almost the end of the report that uh the approved approvals report on page 61, you'll see my reviewer statement. Can you share that again? Just a second. Everybody pull up. Okay. Let's say again one more time. What what page?

Uh page 61. So back to Yeah, there you go. Thank you. Uh so I uh did review Kevin's report and as part of the review process uh if there are items that I feel need correction we send back reviewer notations and uh we usually have a few uh back and forth until we get an appraisal report that um provides all the information we need. Uh it's as you can see where it talks about the scope of work. Uh we look at the appraisal report to make sure it's complete. Uh the information is accurate. Um it's adequate for the agency's needs. Uh relevant. The information is all relevant for the assignment and the value is reasonable. And the appraiser also needs to follow the uh uniform standards and professional appraisal practice. The code of federal federal regulations chapter 49 part 24 the uniform act uh provides standards for uh the criteria for appraisal and appraisal review. So we follow those and uh also sometimes the review will include an on-site inspection. I did not inspect the property uh for this assignment, but I have been to Wooki several times and I'm familiar with the neighborhood. So, I did not expect the subject property and I did not expect the comparable sales, but I uh I live in Vermont and I've uh been to the neighborhood. So, I didn't feel that was necessary for this review.

Um I recommended this review as a basis for establishing just compensation. Um which is something that as the writer appraisal chief I do set. Um you can go to the next page. the as Kevin mentioned the before acquisition for the approved appraisal is 3,864,000 and this is based on the land as if vacant as he said but also considering what is legally permissible. Um so it was based on the number of units on the property because the land and the buildings are actually joined together. a creative value of a home. And so, um, when we do appraisals, we we, uh, want the land value to be consistent with what is the whole property value. And uh the after acquisition value is the value of the land before uh the project and minus the fee acquisition and uh so that is the same value Kevin mentioned 98,331 uh and then we add the temporary rights value 18,241 to combined equals total property compensation of $116,572 which is rounded to $117,000. And I've approved this as just compensation as of the effective date of February 3rd, the date uh Kevin inspected the property, which is the

date of value, and uh and approved the report and signed the certification at the end. Do you have any questions, Rosa? Thank you very much. Um appreciate that analysis. Council, any questions? No questions. No, I have a question. Overall, I guess um overall for the team or overall for Rosa. All right, let's do the next presentation then do that. Okay, wonderful. Thank you, Rosa. Thank you. And then we had Eric. Okay. Hey, how you doing?

Doing well. How are you? I'm doing well. Thank you very much.

Uh yeah. All right. So, I'll get right into it. Uh, my name is Eric Spurs. Uh, B trans almost 15 years. I'm a rightway agent. Uh, my job is to acquire the rights. So, Rosa has done the value. Rose has approved the values. Uh, Bob and the design team have made uh the design and so my job is to present the offer of just compensation and attempt to make the property owner. Um, part of that process includes me sending out what's called an offer package. There there was an offer there that I did submit. I'm not sure if that is um available. So, yep. Pretty simple. In order to satisfy statute, I have to make uh what's considered an offer of just compensation. I have to give them time to consider. Uh in this particular case, time of consideration previously by VA trans has been determined to be 30 days or more. Uh in this case, you can see that my offer letter was dated August 27th, 2025. Uh I did send this to the woolen mill courtesy of their attorney. Uh a brief overview is that the offer package includes a color-coded pen showing the rights requested, similar to stuff that we've already looked at. Uh the appraisal report uh provided by Kevin Drew by Rosa, and then some legal documents. Uh we actually have an incentive payment program where if property owners sign up quickly enough, they'll get a bonus and just a W9 and stuff like that. Um the rest of the offer letter that you can't read just goes on to say that this is offer just compensation. If you'd like to discuss it, have questions, would like to meet on site, you're more than welcome to do so. Um the reason why you can't see the whole thing is because uh per statute, we do send this uh by certified mail. Um, and in this case, Tammy, uh, Tammy Taylor, uh, car of the Lone Mills. She, uh, was my contact info and then we

moved on to the attorneys afterwards. So, the, uh, card there just shows proof of receipt and acknowledges that I've given adequate time, um, for negotiations. Um, at this point, I'm still in negotiations with the will. We've had active conversations uh, satisfying some of their needs, but not necessarily all of them. uh negotiations are still going on in a positive manner, I would say. And um that's where we're at at this point.

Eric, thank you. And uh thanks for explaining what the uh postits were over the the letter. Appreciate that. Uh good to hear that negotiations are going well in your perspective. Um council, do you have any questions? No questions. No. No. members of the public through my experience uh there is a chance that we will settle in within the next few weeks. Um at this point I don't necessarily see any giant red flags or blocks or hurdles that might not prevent that that might that's always nice to hear. Thank you.

All right, Ela, you had a general question. Yeah, I mostly for the group I wondering why we're pursuing municipal condemnations to highway condemnation. Um, yeah, I was curious to hear

um I I can at least speak to just and maybe I misunderstood that, but whether you're talking municipal or state, but the the state VR has no ownership in this bridge. Was was that the question or were you talking Well, in the beginning of the presentation, it talked about how there's highway condemnation. There's different avenues for doing Christian's probably better to speak. I I was talking more the ownership, but VR is just managing this project on behalf of the city. So, that's what I was prepared to say, but we don't have any ownership, but we appreciate and love your eagerness.

Actually, um, what Bob was was saying is is essentially what it boils down to. This is a project that um is you know being largely funded by VR um but it is the bridge itself is owned by Wooki and Burlington and therefore it is a municipal project at the end of the day. that's sort of the in a sense the sovereign that's in charge of this particular project even though so much of the the oversight the financing um the logistics is is is provided by VR um at the end of the day this is this bridge is owned by Burlington and Wooki and therefore we are proceeding under this um this this statute uh 24 VSA 2805 rather than a highway condemnation statute whereby by Vrans itself is taking land or an easement.

Okay. Thank you. Did you know you were a sovereign? What? Sorry. That's just sort of a way of saying yeah the the theory I should say is is Wooki not VR. Okay. Thank you.

All right. Any other general questions for the team while we have them? Any comment from members of the public or questions? Again, just raise your hand if you're online. All right. I don't believe we have any other speakers tonight. No.

Um, no, no other speakers today. Um but as I said in the beginning um the Woolen Mill Associates um will have the right to present their case if they so choose two weeks from now. Um and that is also the date that um you would enter into executive session to deliberate um the necessity and compensation and then come out and vote on this issue. Wonderful. Yes. Thank you for all your work too. Y thank you so much. Thank you. So, I'll close the public hearing, but Elaine, do you also need me to set the next public hearing? Uh, it's that won't be a public hearing, Christian, if I understand that correctly. It'll just be a regular agenda item. Is that right?

No, that that would um that would be part of the public hearing. Okay. Particularly, you know, if the Woolen Mill Associates chooses to um contest this compensation, that that would be like today. Um, and it would be um a city council meeting. Um, regardless of whether they present, it will be a city council meeting and you would simply enter into executive session to deliberate and then come out to do your vote. So, yes. Right. They would need to set I'm sorry. Yes, they would need to Yes, you would need to set that. They're not just continuing.

No, you you would continue this uh Sorry, I misunderstood the question. um you would continue this hearing um to two weeks from so that's the motion then right so I won't close the hearing then correct keep the hearing open correct yes we we had a situation like this last year and we kept it open is my is my recollection all right thanks uh okay I'm just going to say that so we'll keep this hearing open as we will continue this conversation at our meeting on June 1st uh given that I am also going going to call I'm going to call a 5m minute recess before we move on to um item B. We will come back at 7:37. Yep.

In there. Thanks for in that. Give it to you. Oh 38. Yes. That's all right. Close enough. Just change the stairs. Do you need a snack? No. I just I had to come. I need something sweet. I'm like a grandfather. I feel like I only have fruit. I don't know how I Thank you. They're delicious. Oh, there is no doubt in my mind. I don't I feel I don't know what I'm missing. Yeah. Oh, I love a fruit bar.

They're They're better than I expected. Oh, I love a fruit bar. It was a impulse. I think I might need to switch my chair.

You'll sit very low. It's like anonda chair, but you're trying to do work. My heads are

Yeah. So, I have once for the first I've been told it's not going to

and I've heard that from a lot of people. How long did it take to go back to you? She I don't Yeah. And if I text her right now, well, actually,

it's okay. I think she's I think she's in the driver's seat right now. She and her best friend and I we have had a group text for a while, but the only time I have a question for Liz, I just like texted to her and Maggie and I was like, I don't know who's driving, so this is my question. Like I told them that maybe Arkansas and I was like, if you guys get home before, please leave me like three. Yeah. How was your um Oh, I know them in person. Oh, I went to that.

It was like the person was the director like their version of And

no, I'm just trying to stretch my body. Um, and it's just like I mean like it's like a super diverse town right next to the tower of the

Oh, it's such a culturally interesting area to me. never supposed to be back. Here we go. Um, but like they're this is their current population and they think that they're going to be this. Then we have this conversation about like and I think it was too about like they got a loan from Walmart to basically completely redo their controversial.

Um,

we should chat with anyone. Okay. Yeah, I want to chat with you all the time. Um, you don't know what? Well, I want to hear more about your struggles. Oh, yeah. I mean, I'll just I'll literally just share this with you right now. Let's see. Oh my gosh, it's past the 5 minutes. I know, but it was it was a long one. We needed a break. Okay, everyone needs to stretch. your beard.

It is a little longer. I don't know if I can do this chair. None of us can do this chair. I'm sorry that I keep moving, but like my trauma hints are just they just can't handle it. I just think it's comical that this table just promotions. I was trying to catch up on email. I was like for this I'm just going to do it. I was 100% 300 and like the entire thing was like we've done it both ways. Yeah. I Yeah. Like she

I think I've heard some responses my best. Um it's okay either way. I think you have to vote to close the hearing, right? Yeah. But then you vote to open. But I'm just I'm just going to do it. I don't know what you have. I don't know if there's much harm in over. Right. Well, that's the thing. I was like Yeah. when you under as many like. All right, the time is 7:39. We will come back from our break and we will enter into another public hearing uh for amendments unified land use and development regulations. Uh can I get a motion to enter this public hearing? So moved. Second. All those in favor? I

wonderful. Um Revy Jazz, are we hearing from both of you on this one? Jasmine, I've never called you jazz. I was just hope that it's all right. Like, is that what we're calling you? Okay. But we're not your family because we're love.

Okay. So the amendments in front of you are in regards to character of the area considerations. You last reviewed this last month on April 6th. Um the uh amendments on its face appear straightforward in removing language that referred to character of the area as a review criteria for DRB review and approval. Um in the discussions um this has come up in uh light of the uh how the armory project was reviewed. However, uh notwithstanding the armory, um it's important for the city to be in alignment with state statute. Uh per state statute, um the DRB can't make uh decisions or or base any decisions if a project meets um the maximum density requirements, uh maximum height requirements, uh uh dimensional requirements, any and every discrete requirement in the zoning. Um so this uh amendment would remove u any sort of uh language that would make a decision seem arbitrary or capricious on today's so at this point I'll uh turn it over to you for questions. I know I received uh some questions in advance um and I can address those accordingly up to you.

Wonderful. Thank you very much. Um I know that planning commission member had raised some um that the wrong language had been primarily posted originally. Has that been updated on what folks are seeing online now? Yes. So that was only in regards to section 5.14. Um I think there was some copy paste error because I like totally made sense. I just want to make switching files across. So yeah. Okay. Perfect. That was not broken into this item, but it'll be into the next item.

Um all right. So, as this is a public hearing, um councilors, let's start with you all. Do you have uh questions or comments on what you're seeing today? And I guess I just said I'll start with you all. I would like to say um you know, this is an item that was um concerning to members of this body. Um planning commission also was talking about it kind of the same time that we were. Um and I just want to recognize the work that they put in very quickly uh to address the concerns um that that we had shared. Um, it was they they worked hard on this for a while. You'll recall that I uh was presenting during our updates about all of the changes to the ULUDR and listing off many sections to you all. Um, but planning folks, some of you are here, but to those of you who aren't, just thank you uh for the work that you you put into making these changes that council and the community thought were important. So, thanks. Now, council, if you have any questions,

I know you do. Yeah. Um, I mean, it's there's a lot um there's a lot of material here and there's been a great deal of public comment. Um, so just wanting to move forward very intentionally

and cautiously. Um I'm I think one of the things I'd asked is if there was a crosswalk or of some sorts where comments um if they were addressed that um we've received previously if um it was indicated whether or not like yes this was addressed in section 5.14A or you know um just so it's easier to see a correl like the exact correlation between this comment was received, it's been addressed here. This comment was received, we cannot incorporate this comment because of statutory authority. So essentially like if there's been anything to help capture the comments received and and provide that inventory of whether or not it was incorporated and how it was incorporated and if not um the why not. Yeah, for the for this set of amendments, I I didn't have any type of log like that. Um, these were rather straightforward when it came to the planning commission as well. It it felt uh quicker than the next set of amendments that you're going to review. Um, so it's uh hard to say uh what kind of log would even come out of that. Um, but I think that uh what I it's it'll be easier for me to have a log for the next set because so much back and forth has happened and then it'll be uh and I can provide that log for you of saying so this reflects this part that was removed from section 6.2 6.3. Um, this is kind of a like a starting point in a way and I think everything that'll come afterwards will connect back to this document rather than the other way around.

Okay. I appreciate that and I do think it um it'll I I know that I would find it very helpful and I um I'm sure that I'm not the only one. So um I know that there is a bit of work that goes into capturing all that but I think it at the end of the day it will be um a useful resource. Um, one followup question, please.

Um, so again, I may need to just try and revisit some of the previous questions I asked um so that I'm not uh confusing myself, but um I'm curious with some of the language proposed for repeal. So, um, you know, lots of conversation around the Franklin Street project, um, and then the 10 Franklin Street 8X 8 Greg's Way

Mhm. street project. Um would rem repealing. So I think I'm just confirming my um my understanding is DRB would still have the ability uh to modify or request a modification for layout. Not really because it it would meet setbacks. It meets building height. Um I the only elements that would come into play would be landscaping and screening. Okay.

Um u or building orientation which is going to be covered in the next um item. Uh it's it's pretty limited because of the limitations on what they can determine for building height which it already meets. um a building footprint which which we don't have any set standards for that in the residential districts um density uh dimensional requirements. So the the actual uh ability to to speak on uh particular elements that can be taken from this section right now is is very very limited per statute.

Okay. And then I think I also read just as a um one quick followup the uh in terms of PUD setbacks it would be um not the street spacing setbacks but setbacks on the adjacent parcels that would not be able would not likely to be moved or

right so typically with PUDS it's the periphery of the PUD setback that is binding and then everything within it has flexibility so to allow allow for creative layout, creative subdivision design, um creative uh placement of buildings, what have you. The whole idea of PUD's is to allow for greater creativity in design so long as it meets the density uh requirements for that look for that district um and the character and intentions of that district as described in the master plan. Um the the whole point is a give and take of um of of creativity with some limitations. Uh PUDS are much more common in uh municipalities that have a lot more green space and green fields than we do. Um it's it's pretty common in Vermont to see like clustered residential development patterns that are in the form of planning and developments in which all of uh de the development happens in like the front five or 10 acres and then the back 90 acres are preserved uh as open space. Uh something that you just don't see here. Um, but there is some uh value in having it in Wooki on certain lots that um have particular dimensional qualities that would allow for infill that that we would want to see per the master plan but need some creativity to make it happen. Uh, one example I cited is a project that the DRB is reviewing later this week. Uh, 197 to 205 West Allen Street. Um on 205 West Down Street there are three uh single unit houses on a postage stamp of a lot. Um so you can't cleanly divide that for our subdivision requirements but you can do development uh creatively and that is still in line with the density limitations in that area. So to allow for that flexibility

for info housing um that's what the intent of PD regulations are. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Questions. Um, this is I feel silly for not knowing this, but I'm going to ask it anyway. So, I'm just trying to understand uh the kind of a definition of a plan unit development. So, I'm trying to figure out are is any development of like a building a plan unit development? Like if you have a new plot of land and you build something or you tear down another building, is that a is that always a plan development?

No. So, this is where Winski gets interesting. So um by the textbook you have your subdivisions which are your clear cleancut divisions of land into um smaller rectangles in which each uh piece of land is then sold off and then developed or developed and then sold sold off. Um your I would say cookie cutter type of development. Um your plan unit development uh allows for um a bit of uh squiggier lines I guess. So like footprint lots, so lots that are only the size of the building footprint underneath um or um or all the development happens in one particular corner of the lot and the rest is preserved. Um so it's a creative way of doing subdivision by the textbook. Um in in Wooki uh the there's been uh a practice of using the plane unit development uh permitting process in order to tap into priority housing. So in order so it ends up being that if somebody wants to develop a priority housing project with three or more bedrooms and andor uh with an affordability requirement and they have to go through that process even though by you know the textbook it's not going to be a planning development. This is hard to explain when I'm talking to you in the abstract, but um I have AAPTA um the the association for all regional planning commissions in the state has a a nice primer on planning and developments that I recommend that you check out uh that talks about what is the difference between a planning unit and development a subdivision specifically because that is a textbook definition of it. um we just happen to to exercise that a a bit more and and use it for our priority housing permit process as well. Um so on its face it's it's going to look like a three-unit building or four-unit building. Uh they just happen to go through this extra process in order to get the incentive.

Okay. what folks think. Um, members of the public, anything you'd like to add, questions, comments about this public hearing,

Russell and also commission member and I just want to to um state statute that that's being referred to for this um because as the planning commission has been reviewing it um we were told the changes were required for state statute and then I had a resident reach out and say what is actually the state statute and that was the first time I actually looked at state statute and it really talks about this this requirement is for affordable housing units and that's where traditionally you've seen bad behavior in terms of trying to keep certain elements out of neighborhoods. It's been affordable housing projects. So, the state proactively um from what I could read, proactively um put in language in there saying character of the neighborhood could no longer be used um to stop affordable housing projects. And so knowing that it was based on affordable housing, I'm feeling like maybe we stripped the public's ability, the DRB's ability to have input on non-affordable housing, forprofit market rate housing inadvertently. Um, so I'm just cautioning y'all as you're looking at this to make sure that um that we're not misrepresenting state statute and that it is actually um that it is actually for affordable housing specifically and not all housing. And by just blanket taking out character of the neighborhood, are we set like um setting us up for having less ability to influence for-profit development in terms of design and style, etc. Thank you.

Thanks, Abby. Either of you want to comment on state statute.

Yeah. So, per state statute um so I had a memo for the planning commission back in February and um this uh came up see 4 44647A. So um under the home act um so Abby refers to uh appeal limitations for affordable housing projects which is correct. So there are appeal limitations uh for affordable housing projects but there are also appeal limitations for housing projects in general. Um and these aren't specifically appeal limitations but these are actually limitations on uh rendering decisions under 20 under 24 VSA 4464 7A. So, under 44647A, let me just pull it up so I can read it. uh decision rendered by the appropriate municipal panel which is our DRB for a housing development or the housing portion of a mixeduse development shall not one require a larger lot size than the minimum as determined in the municipal bylaws. Require more parking spaces than the minimum as determined in the municipal bylaws in in section 4414 of this title. Limit the building size to less than that allowed in the municipal bylaws, including reducing the building footprint or height. limit the density of dwelling units to below that allowed in the municipal bylaws and otherwise disallow a development to abide by the minimum or maximum applicable municipal standards. So that in turn um means that a DRB cannot render a decision or pin a decision or in their decision state that um you need to have a larger lot size or we're going to deny this project because the lot is too small for this type of development even though it meets the the zoning requirements for the lot size and the density requirements or require more parking than a single parking space which is the maximum that we can allow

as a minimum requirement. irement per statute or um for a building in Wooki if it's 35 ft uh we can't say that this project is fine but it needs to be 25 ft uh that goes against this section of statute um or for a project that is allowed um hypothetically speaking 20 units in a particular area by rejecting it or by uh saying in the decision that this can only be 15 units even though it allows for 20 units. uh in the district. So all of those elements uh can be traced back to this the sections of uh text that are being recommended to be removed in front of you that a TRB could say that this doesn't fit with the character of the area. This is why we suggest this which statute is saying no you can't.

Yeah. I would also say I mean I wouldn't necessarily say that it strips the right of people to deny or have a reason to deny marketer rate housing which is also arguably just as needed as affordable as well. It's it's a it's a part of the housing ecosystem. Um, I think it's important for us to continue aiming to say what we mean, you know, um, not using an, you know, ambiguous terminology to deny a project or have that as like a trump I said this last time too. Trump guard um, and saying why, what is the reason it is? Is it the scale? Is it the massing? Is it the density? Is it the parking? What is the reason? It's not just character. And I think that that is important regardless of if it's affordable or not because I don't think that, you know, um anti-housing sentiment or nimism is exclusive to affordable housing developments. Yes, there is a a lot more storied history about discrimination tied to affordable housing specifically, but I would also argue that that's the same for multi multi-unit housing generally, apartments, um larger apartment buildings. Um, so yeah.

Thank you. Yes.

So, I'm Sue O'Brien. I serve on the local resource advisory board. Lived here since 1985 and we're on the point street. Um, I am a retired home teacher and one of our domains was housing. And now I'm not professed to be an expert, but one thing I'm I'm very aware as Abby has spoken on um the character of the neighborhood, which is definitely something that is being spoken of in our local local resource advisory board. Um but as a teacher um of understanding housing um and as part of housing, you um of course deal with principles of design, elements of design. And given it seems to be to me um kind of a semantic issue with the charact the term character, I'm um proposing that possibly their um consideration of using the word harmony, which is one of the principles of design. Um and I'm just reading really right off of AI and if I can read it to kind of elaborate a little bit more. So harmony and design is the principle of combining similar or related elements such as colors, shapes, and textures to create a visually cohesive, united, and peaceful composition. It connects separate parts of a design into a collective hole without making them look perfectly identical. So obviously in a neighborhood, in a downtown, you want cohesion and at the same time, you don't want everything to look, you know, like a carbon copy of each other. So kind of continuing on with that. So it can be through color use, it can be shapes and lines and within that I think is a huge area of of architectural issues. So, geometric repetition as in your cable um um lines. Um and I just want to say um I was so pleased that um seeing the modular home going up on the corner of La Fountain and Main Street to see a

gable that just is reflecting what is around it. And it just it's high, it's tall, but it really just it's like it's honoring each other, you know? And so, so I'm just wondering if that can be a consideration given that I do understand that with the word character that it does have a racial, um, connotation that is negative. Um, but to me, um, as an educator for a long time in the area of housing that something to consider that I don't think has any string of the t um, tide that are negative. Thank you, sir. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Any other? That's all. Michelle Wheeler again from 85 Dayon Street. So, I'm just reading on the agenda for today that the purpose of the amendments is to encourage more infill in the city that is compatible with the character of the areas as defined in the Wooki master plan. And then further down on the agenda for today um is in the findings section on the Wooki master plan. Furtherance is a sentence that says to protect, preserve, develop and use. Oh no. preserve the scale, character, and value of established neighborhoods by ensuring that new residential development is well integrating, well integrated with existing development as called for in the unified land use and development regulations. So, the word character is being used twice there in today's agenda. And so, therefore, it's not always necessarily um being used in a derogatory sense. And so I think it's important to for to have especially this piece in the findings well definfined for me. So what what is what is meant by preserving the scale, character and value of established neighborhoods? What does that mean for people? What where does that come into play?

So that's in the next report. So in the report that's for this item, the only finding that I wrote down was continue to find ways to make Manuski's and municipal government open, accessible, representative, and participatory such as opportunities to serve on commissions. Um, so this uh helps with uh clarifying the process in decision-m that we're not making arbitrary decisions based off of what one subjectively believes is character. Uh what's really important with uh character is um so in the master plan it's going to talk about character in broadstrokes. Every town plan, every master plan does this. Ours does it very much. So it's it's important to convert what are what we say what we mean.

Okay.

Right. So we when we talk about uh like a residential area, right? Each of us are going to have variations on what that's going to look like. Um, but it's important to translate what we say in the broad sense of this is what we mean by residential district into this the exact setback limitations, the exact height limitations, um, roof line elements, um, blank walls that we're going to talk about with the next with the next item, transparency. Um so it's it's just a so it's important to convert um that uh broadstrokes character into discrete defined elements that we share in terms of defining what is the character of this area. So that way when somebody wants to develop something the standards are a lot more explicit and a lot more a lot better understood of what we say what we mean.

What do you mean value of established neighborhoods? Uh or do you want me to talk? Is that is that later on tonight? Yes. Okay. So, yeah, my apologies for that. I didn't There's a lot to go through. There's a lot. So, there is I sort of jumped ahead. Okay. So, then um Okay, I guess I'm ahead of myself because we were talking about um the other pieces. So all the the other pieces like the 6.2 6.3 those are all coming later as well.

So this is 6.2 6.3 6.6 and the next item that is 2.3 2.4 2.5 4.10 4.11 4.14 5.1 5.4 5.14 Robbie you lost me a long time ago. Yeah. Thank you. None of the sixes. None of the sixes. Let's Okay. So I think um well I think it's 5.14 that talks about the notification to adjoining properties. I don't think I'm in the right section here then because I have way too many actual pieces of paper that I'm shuffling around.

Um yeah. Okay. I guess I I'm just in the wrong section. So that's okay. Back and be quiet and come where is it all Michelle? Um, any uh questions or comments on this from Oh, I see a hand. Um, Paul, can you bring the member of the public over on Zoom? Yeah.

Hi everyone. This is uh Jen Ber. Um, I'm just jumping in early on just there's a lot of different documents that are being looked at in this section and I'm wondering just for those of us following along and trying to keep up with you all if you could just name which document you're referring to or like that you're reviewing so that we can look at it along with you. Um, because I'm kind of like going in and out of different documents to make sure I'm trying to follow you. If you could just name I know Robbie you just named off like a whole bunch of documents but whenever somebody's talking if you could just say this is the one that you're referring to. Um that would be super helpful.

Certainly. Thanks, Jen. And yeah, just just as a reminder for all there is a lot of ulud items tonight, we're on item B, which is the character of the error considerations. And as R just mentioned, it's 6.2, 6.3, and 6.6. But noted, Jen, when we are moving through documents, let's uh know which documents we're moving through. Thank you. Anything else, Jen? Not yet. Okay. Wonderful. The Honorable Michael O'Brien, please.

Once once a mayor always has the honorific. Yeah. I hate to come up after after Sue. Mike O'Brien. And yeah, I've lived here longer than Sue O'Brien has. Um, first of all, Revy, do you have We're talking about section 62, whatever. Do you have that that maybe you can put up on the screen so people Sure. aren't aware. Sure. Can you just pop on the Zoom real quick and then you should I think it'll all auto.

Okay. I I all this stuff is very complicated. There's a lot of information that we've been going through as a planning commission. I'll I'll tell you this when when the uh topic of character area was brought up at the planning commission, I was probably the only one said why are we changing it? It doesn't mean anything. But I have heard from people uh that you know there are racial connotations to it from historically and so okay let's let's uh and I think Revy's discussion with us was we need to define what we mean by that and I think there's always going to be some um uh uh different interpretations that people have but I think we do need to talk about um all these different things including, I'll use Sue's word, harmony with the neighborhood. Um, if we look at the Armory project, the the a lot of the comments that we've heard was it doesn't fit in with the neighborhood. Well, well, what's that mean? Right? So, I think that's what what some of the stuff that we're trying to define in the planning commission. Uh, and like I said, it's a lot of heavy lifting and we've been dealing with with this for a long time. And um, yeah, I I don't know what the answer is, but I think that we do have to look at um, defining what we mean and making it clear. And I've said this to Revy. I've been preaching for a long time. Let's make the zoning regulations easy to understand, as easy as we can, because it gets very complicated for people who don't deal with it all the time. So, I guess that's

all I've got to say on this part of it. Did Did you bring it up on the screen? Uh, I can. Which section are you looking for? I I'll ask I won't I shouldn't say bring it up on the screen. That's up to them. So, I'll I'll uh be quiet and disappear into the back until the next uh item comes up. Thank you very much. Thank you. Um we'll see if we need to bring anything up depending on what comes next. Anything else from the public? Let me check online. Just a quick clarifying question.

Okay. Deputy mayor and then councelor Turos. Um, Revy, can you just walk me through the um terminology uh footprint lot? I'm not used to that one. And I know you give a little bit of a summary, but um if you could just give a little bit more depth of detail. I'll I'll try. I'm still going to be talking in an abstract. Um let me see if there's a Do we want to bring that up? Like a parcel viewer or something on the screen if possible.

Yeah. Trying to think is there any in the news? I'm aware of footprint lots in South Burlington. I don't know about the news. Um so lot lines that match the footprint of the building. Yes. So footprint lot. So my interpretation of that is there are no setbacks. That's correct. So removing repealing language would repealing language in any of these six section six um okay allow for footprint lots.

So yes that is the intention. So say so the sorry the intent is to allow footprint lots. Yes. So, we would want to so say for example share um at the end of West Street there are a bunch of condos. Um I'm using you for example purpose only. Um I don't know if any of these uh condos were footprint lots but on the parcel viewer they show up as footprint lots in which each condo unit only owns the land underneath their condo.

Okay. Um so this means that there is no setback between where the building is located and then the and and the lot line. However, the periphery of the condo um all the condos h has to meet the setback requirement. There's a setback between the the building itself and the periphery of the plan. Give me a heart attack. But yes, no. No. Okay. Thank you. I'm glad I asked. Okay. I was like I don't recall planning suggesting that ever. So yeah. All right. Thank you. Yeah. I'm glad I asked. Thanks Bren.

You good? Yes. I'm good. Thank you.

This is more of a comment than it is a question and I just want to acknowledge that. Um, I really appreciate everyone coming here today and I acknowledge that the term character of the area can bring up a lot of things and I just want to name that I just appreciate everyone being here in the room. Um, I have been doing a lot of my own extensive research on character of the area and um, particularly the like history of character of the area and um, I just want to name that I really appreciate what Sue has been saying and particularly also what Jasmine had said or Jazz um, had said regarding um, I think it's really important to to say what we want to say and Abby had also said this and to name what we want to name um, Um, and some of the things that I had learned particularly around the history of uh, structural racism and housing in the state of Vermont. Like one of the I was born and raised in Vermont. One of the things that I did not know was that Vermont is a state that that has had racial covenants, which is basically naming that like my wife and I own a house. We own a house on the Fountain Street. I don't know if it is on our D, but it very likely could. Um, my wife and I are white. I believe only white people have owned our house. Um but basic ba basically naming that racial covenants are stating that on the deed of your house it can say something along the lines of and this is a direct quote that any building or buildings um that are erected on the parcel or whatever um shall be for residence or dwelling for the purposes of white people only. The restrictions and covenants shall run with the land and bind by the successors andor and this is a direct quote that the house shall never be occupied by colored per by by a colored person or persons and racial covenants have been have existed in Wooki. Um a former state rep Coloulston worked really hard to get racial covetidence um like struck from the record. I'm using incorrect language

there, but um and so I just want to name that like structural racism exists in our housing in our city, in our state. Um we have had elected officials who are doing a lot of amazing work to get this um to no longer exist, but like racism exists everywhere. Anti-blackness exists everywhere. And so when we're talking about character of the area, I totally hear what you're saying, Sue, in the sense that like we should be thinking about the harmony and the art and the gables. I don't know that word, but um and I think about that so often. Yes. Right. My father-in-law would be so happy to hear me use the word dormer because I've learned that recently from him. Um, but I I also just want to name that like when I hear the word character of the area and when I think about it in Manuski and when I think we're talking about market rate housing or affordable housing, um, I just think it's important to name like what are who is not at the table, right? Like who is not here speaking. Um, and you know, it's really hard to come to a city council meeting and I totally named that. Um, but I just think that there's so many things that I want to talk about or that I just want to bring into the room which is uncomfortable, but just when we're thinking about character of the area, when we're thinking about redlinining or when we're thinking about certain communities and our neighborhoods and and our community members and our neighbors, um, that's what has been coming up for me a lot. Um, and I know I had a meeting last week with some members of the inclusion and belonging commission and we talked about this extensively and I know um, yeah, I just it's I'm I'm not going to continue on, but just um, racism exists everywhere and it exists also in our housing policies. And so I just I want to name that and I'm just really really grateful to the people who have been working on this really extensively and exhaustedly and um resiliency is exhausting and I know that we're really trying to do that. We're trying to do that differently for our community and I'm just so grateful to the folks who are

are showing up and um relentless incrementalism is wonderful.

Well, thank you all. All right, anything else? Thank you for that. I don't I don't your name, but thank you for bringing that up and I appreciate that. And I think that we can continue to parse this issue. But I think we just need to find different words for it. Um so that we can ensure that it is not based on racial discrimination and that we continue to bring harmony to our buildings so that some of them aren't up against the street and towering 60 ft high or any kind of you know sort of loopholes that unscrupulous developers can take take advantage of. Um so there's that and we have to be careful of that. I also would like to talk about we have different residential zones and is there any thought to maintaining any sorts of differences within those residential zones in terms of the density of our housing and how much of the land we're covering. Because if if it explained to me how my 10,000 square foot lot could be impacted if I sold that. How many how many PUDs could go on that Ravi as opposed to something in zone B? How how is zone A going to be ever different than zone what we have these zones? is the intention to just erase the zones and erase the lot limitations and erase everything there.

I do just want to stop you there because I think this is outside of what this portion of the public hearing is for. Okay. You asked a question. I'll respond, but I do just want to keep this character of the area so we can keep moving because there is a Well, I do I do believe that lot size has to do with the character of an area, right? We're talking about like the specific wording here and what was what was changing. But Ry, answer that question and then I'm just going to move us on to the next piece here cuz there is another discussion approval for ULUDR amendments where I think you can ask a lot of the questions you're thinking about in item B.

Okay. Cuz this this is section two is all about PUDS and subdivisions. So it does seem appropriate, right? talking about different zones and again just trying to keep it to what this exact part of the public hearing is about. Revy's going to answer this question and then if you have another character there question we'll do that but otherwise we'll start moving through the agenda here.

Okay. So section 2.5 lists the dimensional requirements per district. Um in section 2.5 um it goes from from residential A to residential C. It goes from uh least dense to most dense uh based off of lot size, lot dimensions. Um and then with that to uh certain density elements that are indirectly referenced. Um it's I mean each context is going to be different. Um but in in residential a the minimum lot size is 7,500 square feet. Um so like a hypothetical 10,000 square foot lot wouldn't be able to subdivide um could put in four units in a building which is a lot by state statute up to six if you want to meet the uh priority housing elements. Um and then there would be step incremental step increases uh based on the zoning district in which your property is located. And that is one way in which we translate the broad strokes of character of the area into discrete requirements discrete elements because by limiting by specifying lot size that limits how much uh density how much intensity you can put on uh your piece of land.

Okay. I saw Ruth you have your hand up online and then Abby I saw your hand up so I'll have you go after Ruth that works. Okay, Paul, you bring over.

Yeah. Hi. Uh, my name is Ruth Steinmet. I am a resident and former uh commission for the inclusion and belonging and still a member. I my question is um if state statute is saying that this character language is problematic, I'm just wondering why we're still having conversations around that. And um I guess we're saying we want to clarify what we do want to preserve around the um intent or at least the good sides of the intent around the character. And I I recommend adding elements like, you know, architectural style if we want to, let's say, have a twodoor neighborhood or whatever. But um I'm just wondering why we're still having this character conversation. And the next question is um if uh the state statute is also um wanting to preserve or um make room for priority housing for lowincome residents uh or to prioritize housing and to uh help alleviate any push back uh in communities against that. Um and we are talking specifically about this armory project. Will it be given uh the opportunity or will the applicants uh CHT be given the opportunity to represent the original drawings which was um much more uh desired by everyone who wants to have a mixed use of uh uh rental and um homes for purchase. And I just want to you know as a member of the public understand why is it that um the

like is the decision going to stand the DRB decision or will these discussions and changing of language or transforming of language to be more um clear uh will it have a retroactive effect on the pre the the application the armory application and please let me know if I wasn't clear in any of those questions because I know it's a lot. And I hear a little cutie in the background there. Uh, thank you, Ruth. Appreciate the questions. Ruby, do you feel like you can answer those now?

I think some of those are better answered by by council. The only thing that I can say is that um an application vests according to the regulations that they applied for and Vermont is an early vesting state. So since the armory's complete application came to me uh in March, I don't remember the exact date. That's the regulations that they are subject to. They are not subject to any changes in the regulations during their application process. I think the remainder of the questions are best answered by by you council.

Sure. So um Ruth, you know, as to why we're talking about this, you know, it's something that's currently in our regulations. So to remove it, we have to, I believe by statute, have to have a public hearing about it, even if um the language is contradictory to new state rules. Um so understand your confusion, but but that's why it has to happen. We have to have public hearings for these things and warn it appropriately. Um and then if CHT is able to uh represent their original application. So they they made modifications that they presented to DRB last month at this point. Uh DRB is still deliberating as I last spoke to Revy about. Okay. They're still deliberating on that. Um we will see what what happens. Um again I I don't know until they're done deliberating what they might say. Um, in terms of the original application, uh, you know, I I believe CHC chose not to bring that forward for a variety of reasons. Uh, one, you know, as a result of what the DRV had said and, um, also trying to, um, make the project work. Um, Ruth, I I express your frustration to to me that project was so appealing because it was going to have home ownership tied to it. However, um creating housing is um of utmost importance. So although I I have my personal preferences, I think that at the end of the day, we wanted to work with CHT and we were happy to see them uh present something again. We'll see what the DRB says. There's still discussions to be had. Um yeah, I don't know if that answers everything you asked, Ruth. If it didn't, please rephrase uh and I'll I'll try again. Thank you. That answers it. I guess I

was just uh confused if there's something that is uh like a law a state law that supersedes a local law if that state law can just initially I mean um immediately be applied but you've explained that there has to be a public hearing process to discuss the discrepancy. Correct. Thank you, Ruth. Abby,

can I just Abby Lighting for Ruth's clarity um even though um character of the neighborhood was encoded could not be used. It's an affordable housing project. So, that wasn't one of the reasons that was used to um that resulted in the change of the project because it couldn't be because if our code contradicts state statute, state statute trumps our local regulations. Just wanted to clarify that. Um, and so what I was trying to get at earlier was not like rewriting we've got code, we've been working hard on code. But I'm talking about the nuance of like design and I don't see us writing land use code to talk about design elements like um gables for example or materials like those kind of conversations happen at DRB meetings and I think like front porches often result in better products and um when you're talking about a for-profit developer they're obviously trying to make as much profit as possible so using materials and designs that are less aesthetically pleasing than we might want. And so I just want to make sure that if we're removing this language, we're not taking away the opportunity for the public to comment and influence design. I was talking to one of the neighbors of Molly's Way and she said through the public input process, it really transformed what that plan unit development looked like from when it was originally pitched to them that it was an iterative process. And so what I'm cautioning is not like niming it or or not allowing development or changing code at all. It's just like just making sure that we're still having public input to design what the design looks like on it. So anyway, just wanted to clarify that since I thought I think it might have been lost in the conversation.

Thanks Abby. And I I think that that's a lot of the work that you all are doing right now on planning. I mean, when I think about the conversations we've had over blank wall, for example, like I think that takes a lot of what we in in the best intents may have said this is character of the area by exactly defining what you want to see in the blank wall. That's just an example.

We're not going to put that in our code space. Um okay any another chance comment questions public okay so the time is 8:29 I will seek a motion to close uh this public hearing on amendments unified land use and development regulations character of the area consumers thank you second all those in favor I I

wonderful. Thank you everybody for that. Uh we will now move on to item C discussion approval for amendments the ulr character of the area considerations. Uh so given now that we have had our public hearing and I don't know if you want to introduce anything else but it's essentially what we just talked about. Um now council this is a moment for us to if we want any further conversation um propose any amendments um suggest further public hearings this is our time to do that. Um for me I al you did a wonderful summary of why council first became concerned about character of the area. Um, you know, I I recognize through the conversations the planning has had and have been brought up by folks, um, you know, that we want to have some things that we can point at, um, that will make sure that Weski continues to look the way that we want it to look. I'm not sold that saying character of the area actually does that. Character of the area can be interpreted by quite literally anybody very differently. What you, what Eli thinks is character of the area may not be what I think it is. So although I believe that this table and I also think many members on planning, I think we kind of have a similar idea what we think we might be talking about when we see character of the area and we're talking about different neighborhoods. I have no guarantee of assuring that anybody who sits in these seats or sits in the planning seats after will agree or disagree. Um what I do know is the deep racial connotations the character of the area comes with. um as our city's first black mayor, as a council that represents a city that has the largest minority population in the state of Vermont, possibly also in New Hampshire and Maine, but I still haven't verified

that. Um, our language means an awful lot to the people who live here as well as the people who look to Wooki as a beacon of change. And for those reasons, I was very appreciative of the planning commission taking this right up and understanding the concerns that we had. Mike, you spoke about first not understanding those concerns and then uh you then getting there. Maybe you you don't agree, but I know that you got there to where I was hoping to get you. Um look at me.

And look at you. Uh but um I I know that everybody who has who's endeavored in this process cares deeply about this community. So I think thank everyone for these considerations. Um I am um happy to adopt these amendments as they're presented, but council you um have options to speak here and to propose anything to change. So I'll open it up to you all. Um, I think I'm in support of uh of repealing the language. Um, overall I look forward to some of our other agenda items tonight um to provide some additional depth of detail. Um, I I do think that where we can um I you know I would want to look at other municipalities to see where they've incorporated design elements. Um there's uh some language that's part of the repeal here that I um think is incorporated in other UL UDR um ordinance language um where new roads in these districts shall be designed to maximize pedestrian and bicycle safety in circulation. I think we have heard so much about traffic calming needs and walk by pedestrian safety needs. It's an annual budget line item conversation, additional capital project. So, I would just hope that we're able to incorporate um that or retain that in other um portions of the ordinance as well.

I believe it exists in other places, but Ro, I'll look to you for that. Yeah. So that's in section 6.6 uh 4. So site circulation provision shall be made for adequate and safe on-site vehicular and pedestrian circulation consideration given to the intended use of the property location addresses, buildings, parking areas, and existing facilities on site and on adjoining properties in accordance with sections 4.2 which talks about access and then 4.12 which talks about parking. So short answer yes. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. That's a very good question though.

Okay. Um any qu uh comments from the public online. All right. Seeing nothing, I will seek a motion to adopt the amendments as presented. So moved. Seconded. All those in favor? Hi. Wonderful. Thank you everybody. Thank you. All right. We are now on to I was going to say don't go too far. You can use your phone. Oh. Yeah, that'll work. Thanks.

All right. Harvey is getting charged up. We'll move on to item D, which is overview and introduction of amendments. Unified Land Use and Development Regulations. Gentle infill. Okay. Um, so I guess I will continue talking if Would you like a break? I can call.

No, no, you're good. Um, so these, so this this is a a list of a laundry list of changes that I kind of bundled with the term gentle infill, but it's a lot of technical changes that uh disparently are connected to gentle infill, I would say. Um, I think the items under this discussion, there's a separate memo that goes into the detail of it. Um, so it goes into allowances for gentle infill and existing structures in the C1 district. uh clarification on the applicability of permitting processes, revisions to accessory dwelling unit allowances, signage allowances in the public district, required design elements for all projects uh including maximum blank wall length and width. So um the area of it, outdoor lighting, screening requirements, building fence requirements, building orientation requirements, and then edits the administrative review allows us for priority housing projects. Uh so I can go through them one by one per that memo if you like. Um so with the gentle infill allowances in the C1 zoning district um this was in response to a request that the plan commission received uh to allow for uh conversion of office space in the C1 district into a residential unit. And uh in the C1 district uh you're not allowed to you're not allowed single unit dwelling, two-unit dwelling or three-unit dwelling or fourunit dwelling. uh so there's no uh method of adaptive reuse of the existing structures. So in order to allow for the incremental change with the market and flexibility over time uh this suggestion is is being uh suggested right now. Um so this would allow for uh better adaptive reuse of historic structures in our downtown area over time. Um applicability of pering processes. Um so this is a very minor technical change about readability and legibility of our regulations. Uh when

you look at our um use table uh in section 24 it just says permitted or conditional use but doesn't specify that DRB review is required. For the vast majority of projects DRB review is required for site plan. So that's DRB checking for access and circulation on site and how it connects to adjoining properties. Um, and so if you hypothetically an applicant could come into the office and say there's a P on here that's permitted, right, that just goes through you, right? And I'd be like, no, that that has to go through the DRB. So, in order to clarify that, um, there's a it's a redundancy, but an addition of text into the top of the zoning that specifies that, uh, for these uses, um, site plan review in front of the DRV is going to be required. Um, accessory dwelling units. Um so right now in the zoning it's uh it doesn't adequately communicate the statutory rights single unit dwelling owners have for an ADU. Um we do that well for um single unit dwelling owners in um the residential districts but not in the gateway or the or the C1 district. Um so roughly 20 properties in the gateway and C1 districts are single unit dwellings and uh per our zoning it says that you can't do an ADU but per statute one can. Um so so this technical change clarifies and allows for the ADUs for those properties um in the C1 district and the gateway district. uh signage allowance from the public district, not very related but to gentle infill but kind of put into the larger umbrella of gentle infill somehow. Uh this was in response to um a public request for signage um in uh uh the miners pool. Uh it we don't have any signage regulations for uh our parks

which are in the public districts. So, there are no signage regulations for the Meyers pool, for Landry Park, um for uh Cassavan, uh and Gilbrook. Um we have signs there. Um I have no idea how those signs were approved, but we have signs there. Um so, so the this uh language would establish that one can put in a sign. Um I've talked to Paul and to Rey in the past about these regulations. Um they w didn't have any plans yet, but when they do have plans for signage, uh we can work together and work on signage uh in our parks when the time comes if there are any changes to signs down the road. Um outdoor lighting, outdoor storage, mechanical utility equipment. Um so part of the design aspects, um these changes would apply outdoor lighting standards to smaller residential projects. Right now, out our outdoor lighting standards don't apply to single unit properties, two units or three units. Um, same goes for outdoor storage, mechanical and utility equipment. So, for a 4-unit building, um, mechanical equipment has to be screened from view. Uh, dumpsters have to be in the back, screened from view, but that's not the case for a duplex or a triplex. Um so we've added some flexibility for single unit houses and duplexes. Um but we've made sure that um there are screening standards uh for those elements that um that don't apply for those types of projects. Um maximum blank wall area. So there is a uh draft definition for blank wall area for the limitations and dimensions of a blank wall area. Um so when I say blank wall area this is um what I am uh talking

about. So it' be uh something like this in which um the definition specifies that um you can't have a box that is 15 by 15 on the side of a building uh in the residential districts. Um, so that prevents uh so that allows for aesthetics um for for buildings that are street facing um and that one would have to put in windows or doors in order to not have a blank wall. Um because walking by a blank wall is um soul sucking sometimes. Um so so the the goal of this is to uh create an interesting and and pleasant walk um for and and improve the aesthetics of neighborhoods in this manner. Um so the

sorry before you move on from that if you just in the draft language for what a definition of blank wall is it doesn't say area it says arrol. So just so you know typo. Yeah. No I figured it was but just so that you know it's there. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um, my bad. Uh, I hope that's Aurora is not here anymore. So, somebody's got to pick up the typos. I hope that's not in the that's not in the draft language. Okay.

So, it's not where it matters. That's good. Um, yeah. So the the blank wall um length area with um so essentially in the residential districts one would not be allowed to put in a 15 by 15 foot box on a street facing or public facing facade and then in the C1 district it's 20 ft by 20 feet and this matches the gateway district which has uh which limits uh blink wall lengths to 20 feet in the urban general frontage building form standard. The 15 feet matches what's in our gateway district for the detached frontage and townhouse sections. Um, and that is a that limits blank walls to 15 linear feet. Um, building orientation requirements for residential uh uses. Um, so this specifies that um a defined entrance must be provided on a street, specifically a public street if the building fronts a public street and a private street if the building fronts a private street. Um, so there's two versions of this in your packet. Um, I uh uh was like I think like woke up one morning and went, "Oh my gosh, I don't we don't have regulations about multiple principal structures." So, I managed to just like pencil that in for us to consider. Um, I figure someone would have notes. I thought Mike or Abby might. Um, so, uh, I think that is a little bit of a work in progress. Um, we've I've started conversations with uh our attorney about reviewing some of the changes that were made uh pretty quickly in the in the interim um because the planning commission wanted to push this forward as quick as possible and they said that okay we're gonna have these blanks and Revy fill in the blanks and we'll work it out in the process. Um, so I've reached back out to the city attorney about uh some of these elements that haven't been reviewed earlier uh

and we're in the process of reviewing them. One of the pieces is blank walls uh or building orientation for multiple principal structures. So uh I've had some feedback already from our city attorney and there might be some revisions uh to that section when it comes back for the public hearing uh based on their review. Um moving on to the next item, building transparency. So this establishes that a minimum amount of openings including windows and doors um uh have to be in place on a public facing facade. Uh this is a requirement in the gateway districts. So this is why for newer buildings on the gateway districts um there you'll see a like a plane of of windows and openings that are street facing. Um so this uh so this requirement would apply in the residential districts and in the C1 district. Um in the past in the last meeting uh that planning commission discussed this they said that they were discussing different amounts for minimum requirements for the residential districts. Um they concluded that city council should finalize and set a minimum amount within the range of 15 to 25% transparency for the residential districts. Uh I recommend 15% fence u or transparency. Um this is based off a recommendation that our consultant for the building typologies project has made. Um and uh this is based off of his experiences. Um this is based off of what I've seen in um in in his examples as well. Um one of our uh planning commission members uh who's an architect also had some comments as well saying that you know 12 to 15% he was leaning towards 12 makes sense um because of uh the oh I'm making sure that I paraphrase him correctly. um for uh passive house lead requirements. Um he was saying that the size of opening ma openings matter and that with openings um like say sitting

next to a window that is um you're you're losing it gets drafted. You're losing heat you're lo and and you're from the house going outwards. So you would want to make sure that you meet egress requirements but at the same time limit your openings so that way you contain the heat and you don't lose heat uh in your openings. Um and that's uh and and and so that's that should be a factor in um in building design and with transparency requirements. uh with transparency requirements as well. Um there are certain aspects that we have to keep in mind in terms of building code requirements um and egress requirements. So that would uh end up requiring openings uh and and windows of certain sizes um on on buildings and limit where those windows could and couldn't be placed. Um let's see what else. Uh so the uh one of the major ones is revisions to administrative review allow allowances for the priority housing projects. Um I think this is one of the more contentious pieces. Um planning commission went back and forth based off a lot of public comment about uh recent projects that were approved under this allowance. Um the revision scales down that 75% uh requirement to 65% uh and adds some guard rails that would require notification to abing property owners when I take action on a project subject to this section um and sign off from code enforcement and public works before it can be approved. Um at this point I will turn it over to you for questions. I have a laundry list of questions as well that I received in advance. Um, and I can go through them as you'd like.

Awesome, Revy. Thank you very much. Um, again, this work is a lot of the work that is necessary, um, as a result of what we just done. So, um, planning wanted to get working on that obviously before we have our vote today. Um, Revy, I so for the blank wall discussion, I had taken a note, but I wasn't and it helped me jog my memory. I was hoping Abby was going to stay here for this, but that they were weren't 100% actually set on the 15 ft and hoping that it would be lower. Do you recall that for blank wall? I was pretty sure they were set on 15t 15 by 15. The we were having discussions about whether it should be 15 feet by floor or 15 feet by area. Um most municipalities in Vermont at least do it um by floor. Um it's uh in the model ordinance for formbbased code it's by floor. Um there are only limited instances that I saw by area but there are examples of by area uh with definitions as suggested in the draft language that say that blank wall area applies horizontally and vertically 15 feet. Um the idea of that is they were concerned that one could uh basically on a floor um have the 15 ft align in a particular way that ends up creating a blank wall. Um or that if it gets too small, if it gets below 15 ft that there would be a way for someone to meet the requirements um in a ge in like a geometric form and still end up creating a blank wall on the side of the building. So um they were uh trying to figure out uh in what way could they regulate blank wall without any

loopholes that would be created with that. All right. I I just got an email from Abby and she said the 15 ft worked but the Sarah had created some language. Yes. And apparently you were CCed on that bridge. Mhm. Um that they were happy with and addressed the concerns that they had.

Yeah. So, the language in front of you is based off of the revisions that um Sarah had suggested and we worked on that together. Um, one thing that we'll have to check with our attorney is making sure that language is tight enough that we're talking about a 15 by 15 two-dimensional box instead of 15t in one direction or 15 feet in the other direction. Making sure that we're not trapping applicants um in that manner.

Okay. And then for administrative review, as you mentioned, there was lots of discussion, particularly of course fueled by what happened on Franklin. Um, I don't foresee that happening again, but say, you know, down the line, we've got a new person in your job. We've moved on to better and greater things. Um, there isn't Well, no, maybe retirement. You know, that that can be, in my opinion, can be quite great. Um, mayor of New York City.

Yes. Yeah. Nobody wants to be there at New York City. Um, do the way that this is laid out or that it will be laid out, do we think that the next person in your role would un it would and again tying to what Mike was saying about how confusing this is, would it be easy enough for somebody brand new in the job to be able to see what has been written down and understand it well so that we don't have another Tim Franklin situation. I think with the blank wall, transparency, screening requirements, um that will all cover the the building element aspects of it. Um in terms of the priority housing piece of it, um I think Mike and I were chatting and we're like, how do we make heads or heads and tails out of 5.14? Because it took it took me a really long time to understand 5.14. Um, and I and if it took me a long time, then I can't imagine how long it takes an applicant or a community member to understand it.

Um, so I think that we'll we want to revisit 5.14 to make sure that it's it's legible and that it it can be understood and try to demystify a lot of that text. I'm glad I know you have that on your mind, but I'm glad you've stated that it's on your mind. Uh, council, any questions?

Sure. Um, staying on the blank wall conversation, um, when were additional changes made? So, with blank wall, additional changes were made. Um, during the April 23rd meeting. Um, is that the last one? I'm trying to remember. Um, going back. Okay. So, no additional changes today were made. Not to blank wall. No.

Okay. Um, I got some feedback from um a community member that that just really cautions council to see if this um if if the proposed changes are actually meeting the intent of of what we're hoping for. I also think that we have to be cautious about for-profit developers that you know are looking to build fast and easy projects and that will maximize whatever um language is is in place. So like is a 14 by 14 blank wall does that have the same effect? Like what if it's a 14 and 12 and a 14 and 12 foot blank wall? Like what are what like when we look at it, is it is it going to feel like a 15oot wall

or is it going to feel like oh yeah, okay, that's just under like that that that's okay. Like I've I've also um think about energy code as well. So I think a comment was made about like not wanting to have like a port like a port hole window as like the excuse for like oh we got a window. It's not a blank wall. Yeah.

Um and then saying like well we would want it to meet egress. Um I think also our updated 2020 and 2024 building energy design standards um also account for um you know uh potential heat loss um and cooling impacts by having uh requirements for triple plane triple pane windows. So, um, again, depending on whether or not the builder's meeting 2020 RBS or 20 24 C, um, RBs, I should say, residential building energy standards. Um, that, you know, I I know the city of South Burlington requires um, certifications of meeting RBs to be submitted. I would love to see similar language in our ordinance, but I know that's not proposed tonight. So, I will advocate for that again.

So, um but I just think about like the blank wall um is a visceral impact and as you walk by a property um and and what what is it we're really hoping to achieve? Um is it is it the bare minimum? Is 15 by 15 the bare minimum that we're comfortable with? Um I you know I think in the commercial district 20 by 20 may make sense. Um like I think my most real experience is the one on Franklin Street. So it's it's hard to when I don't have a lot of other bases for comparison. So um just for on the blank wall conversation.

Yeah. I mean they talked about it for a long time. So for for you to talk about it also makes sense.

Yeah. See 15 is the lowest that I I've seen for blank walls really. So I think with blank walls it's um I understand the the concerns because it's it is an it's a it's a bit of an eyesore. Um, but it's also important to input certain flexibility and making sure that we can have development and that we're not just boxing out development and uh because of restrictive uh requirements that uh go against how to build a building. Um, so I think that 15 based on my research is the lowest that that we can go. uh 15 matches our are our formbbased code as well. So we would end up having um a type that is more uniform across the city that's already been established.

Yeah, I would just say from my perspective, I would also caution against the notion that developers are trying to circumvent regulations or do things cheap because they want to. I would say we're barely getting any development at all right now. Um, and most of that is because of cost. So, you know, cost cutting mechanisms are a reality at this point in the market. Um, if we want any housing to be built at all. Um, it's not I think obviously can't speak for all developers. I'm sure many do just do things cheap on purpose, but they are poor for for-profit entities. they have to make money otherwise they will not be developing housing. There is not enough funding for you know a ton of nonprofit affordable housing developers to enter the market anyways. Um you know our existing ones can barely uh obtain enough funding to develop at this point. Um so you know I think developers are a very essential piece in our reality in trying to get anywhere close to our housing targets. um in doing anything to to you know work towards building more units in the city because right now it's it's not even happening at all. You know I think the the development that Sue mentioned the uh modular unit that is you know besides the hotel housing project which has been years and years and years coming with lots of different funding mechanisms involved. Um you know there's not much that's coming down the pipeline unfortunately. We're seeing a lot of stalled projects or reduced scale projects as well.

Yeah. Thanks for um in the discussion of whether the the changes fully address the understanding that um whoever is in this role in the future might have. I wonder if um a piece that's missing here is the permeability of um the driveway

because I know that has been um something that that like it's not memorialized anywhere, but it's an understanding. Um so I I think that would be 2.5, but I don't have like exactly the wording where that should be added. Um, so when you when you say that, do you mean that permeable driveway driveways or permeable papers should be counted as impervious or counted as pert or should be some sort of credit or could you clarify that?

Sure. Um, so um that Oh god, I'm panicking on they're permeable. Okay. That permeable pavers should count as part of the lot coverage and don't count as green space. That's right. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Um yeah, we can add that to definitions under um block coverage. Thank you. Yeah, good catch. Yeah, um so I got some of your questions. I was mostly talking about the 15 by 15 and the 15 by floor discussion. Mhm.

Um, kind of we talked about how we want to make our code more readable and more understandable by people and this is the only item that wouldn't be by per floor that I could find. So, I don't know if we would like it to be by floor. I know you discussed that they were worried about having a stack on effect of it. Um, but that's already being somewhat identified by the transparency percentage. Um, so it seems almost redundant to have it based off that. So, I don't know. I just was that's my two cents in terms of making it a little more approachable to read and also making it a little more consistent.

Yeah, I I mean, you bring up a good point because all of our neighboring communities that do have these requirements do it by floor.

Um, even the model ordinance has it by floor. Um, even areas that do have, you know, form based code like elements that in the use based zoning like ours have it by floor. So it's um you're you're right that you're pointing out inconsistency in most of the examples that I came across regulated transparency by floor instead of and and um transparency by floor and also the uh the the blank wall by floor. So um yeah, I'm I'm open to to either. Um, but I will relay what the planning commission's concerns are is that um that the that two-dimensional plane of the 15 by 15 um could be circumvented easily if it were by floor and that there could be a way that um the the blank wall could be stacked in a way that it ends up creating this larger blank wall. Um but it's but then again all of our neighboring municipalities Um, this was kind of in there. So, I know there's discussion. I sent an email out about uh 5.4. I'm trying to find it again. Okay. So for I think C um C is here to figure out. Okay. Come back to me. Someone else has questions. Okay.

Thank you. Any other thoughts? All right. Uh public comments.

I just want to thank the city council and Ravi for doing all this work. This is really wonderful stuff in defining what the architectural design and sighting and scale of buildings will be and look like to you know fit into our town. So I think this is really really important stuff and I think it's sort of the base of what I have been trying to talk about. So I really appreciate it. I would like just a tiny bit of clarification on section 5.4 which is the orientation of the buildings. Um and this is just sort of in relation to obviously um 12 Franklin and potentially what 8 Franklin will look like. So, from my understanding, um, under this regulation, 12 Franklin would have had to have had an entrance on Franklin Street. So, that somehow the the way that that building was constructed, it it should have looked more like a house on Franklin Street. And by having all of this these windows that are being added in the penistration would have taken care of pretty much all of the issues that I hear from everybody. Um so my question is is looking at 8 Franklin Street which is proposed to be on the private street. The way I'm reading this, even though that building will front a private street, it would still be required to have an entrance on Franklin Street because Franklin Street would be the more traveled street.

Yes. Is that correct? The public street. The more Well, it's the more traveled roadway. More It says more traveled, I believe. More traveled roadway. But yes. Okay. So that can't be a loophole for no

further development that it can be like continually cited to the private road because that was my concern at the last meeting that I brought up was allowing it to have a private road. Um when you talk about um regulations being silent about determining orientation for projects involving multiple principal structures, does that apply to 8 Franklin because it's a fourunit structure or are you talking about more than one building? More than one building. Okay. So like house behind a house

like those long the the narrow lots that Jeff Frell was talking about of like not citing things behind things. Okay. Would these provisions apply to 8 Franklin or are they too late? They would apply because they haven't submitted a complete application yet. But it depends on when city council appoints a public hearing and when the applicant submits an application. But as of now they haven't submitted a complete application yet. Okay, wonderful. Thank you, Michelle. Thanks, Michelle. Uh, any comments online? Eli, did you remember your question?

I do remember my question. Yes. Thank you. Um, so 5 4C1, we just we talked a little bit. I sent the email and you got back to me, but I might as well just talk about it again. um project must be designed to maintain the existing building line from streetscape along the roads. So I guess I just follow more definition of uh talk a little more about that I guess.

Yeah. Um, this was me trying to figure out how to patch this up and um, it's still a work in progress. Um, because I think the idea of it is that um, it's difficult for me as a zoning administrator to make uh, subjective interpretations and have them scan. Um, it's a lot easier for a DRB to make those determinations and have them stand weekly. Uh so I was trying to figure out how do we allow for a DRB to make uh an easy subjective determination to say this is the primary road therefore this is where the houses need to be oriented towards and this house has a lot more flexibility and there's a lot more um uh subjectivity involved but uh I think as you've probably pointed out as our city attorney has already pointed out it leads to the slippery slope of character of the area so and then it ends up having the DRB determine where the streetscape is the building line and what is the what are adjacent power properties oriented um and make those types of uh subjective determinations. So I think that with that section um I that's going to require some some work um and I think that at this stage um yeah I think with C um I think we can work with you know C2, C3 um uh C4 to an extent um but C1 should probably be stricken through because of that subjectivity that's required to interpret those darting terms that you identified.

Okay, thank you. Um, and just talking about more about the uh administrative approval, can you just walk me through when something is just administrative approval and when something is goes through DRB just to and does that change at all in this update?

So, it doesn't change. Yeah. Um projects that go through administrative approval are single unit dwellings, two unit dwellings. Those two are allowed by and ADUs single unit dwellings. Those three are required by statute for us to have. Um accessory buildings, sheds, garages, um decks, those are allowed by administrative review and approval. Um and then only for priority housing projects, three-unit buildings and four unit buildings. Uh and only if they meet all those requirements uh that are listed. So uh the the affordability component, the u the unit size component, uh sign off by code enforcement public works and notification of neighboring properties. The last piece with the notification enable properties. This is something that our attorney has um preliminarily flagged as um as an issue. Um because with uh notification, there's um like there's notification for a public hearing that allows people to voice their concerns. Um but in this case, notification to to let them know that I've taken action kind of raises the question of so what? um and and leaves things a little vague. Um the uh the question of uh whether we can do it. So we can do it. It's a matter of how does that mechanism work? Um and what are its limitations? Um along with that the appeal duration. I know that was a question that has been raised and by the public in previous meetings uh with planning commission. Um, and based on the way statute is written, I um I'm hypothesizing that we can't do anything about appeal durations because it's it's explicitly spelled out

that administrative review uh and administrative approvals have a 15-day window for appeals. Um, and then for DRB review and approval, those decisions have a 30-day window for appeals. Um, I don't think that we can change any part of that due process piece that has been explicitly stated in statute. However, um I'll need to follow up with the city attorney to to confirm that because I'm not a lawyer. Okay. Thank you.

Yeah, that's a difficult piece. I mean, I think that, you know, we we want to keep this administrative review because there are extreme benefits to it and there's a reason why it um was created, but um obviously, let's just be honest with everything, Franklin is looming over all of this. So, um, you know, I feel like folks definitely felt like 15 days wasn't enough for an appeal. And also the notification piece I think is, you know, I we could discuss, you know, whether it's like you've made a decision or whoever's in your role has made a decision, people are notified. Um, you know, whether the decision is made and people had are able to change that, but if they're not able, they don't have the time to appeal. I think that's kind of the bigger issue. So, I would want to make sure that our notification process is um ample enough that people would be able to to appeal in those 15 days if it's something that we're not able to extend because of statute. Um I believe you send letters right now. I think that's the approach

for administrative approvals. No. So per statute um uh I have to or I the property owner have to post a placard after I take action that says what is the action that I taken and when the appeal period ends. Yeah. Um and it's up to uh anybody who sees that placard to uh ask for the permanent application or to go to the city clerk and ask for the permanent application or or to appeal that action and send an appeal to to me and to Jenny. Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

Yeah. So, I mean, in that case, I mean, I would be interested and I again, I don't know if this falls into statute, if this is operations or but I would be interested in the neighbors at least on the street or impacting the streets to be notified via a letter. I don't think I'm nosy. I like to go and look at those placards, but not everybody is nosy and or has the time. So to me, I think a letter would be something I'd like to encourage us to do as a city. Walking around. Sorry, what? Or is walking around? Or is walking around. Yeah, exactly. And they're 8 by 11. They're small.

Yeah. No, like I said, I'm nosy, but most people aren't, so they may not have any idea even if they are walking around and going out. Um, yeah, I don't know. Yeah, Michelle, thank you. Um, I had the exact sentiment. Um, and I guess I was asking for clarification about what adjoining properties were if that just meant the house or the on either side when in reality it does impact your whole street. What about the people across the street who would be looking at that property? That seems to me to be adjoining. What about the people whose backyards? Yeah. As far as it all that has impact. So,

and I didn't maybe I didn't relay what I think would be the street and then for example, if there was a street directly behind that this new building would veer into like look into I would at least think that those properties maybe not the entire street behind but but that that and at least the two on either side. Yeah, that would be my because they might not be walking on that street to see that placard either. And I think the the cost of sending out 20 letters or I mean the cost is probably minimal but staff time is the staff time.

I think it's really cost very minimal. I think it's really really important to do this because I don't think that people are adequately notified or or don't know or they just don't until it's too late. And I I certainly know that's what happened on Franklin. So the street that it's on and the adjoining properties in the back that would be impacted by whatever the structure would be. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, I'll just add that first statute for DRB applications. That notification only goes to directly adjoining properties and that includes any property that's across the street directly from it. Um it's that's sorry across the street is considered

Yes. directly joining. Yes. So it's because it's really because once we start deter once you start asking me to determine what is the scope of impact it it gets really slippery really quickly rather the state statute has this it might be myopic but it's still um a definition for what is a scope of impact being the directly join property members and I I would recommend that you just stick to that because it's already established in state statute. Would that include folks who are behind? Yes. Yep.

Directly. So any anyone who has a property line that is touching the pro the subject property or and or who is directly across from the property, even if they're kitty corner from it, they would get a notification for DRB hearings. Okay. Imagine it like a ring around such a property. Yeah. No, I'm imagining the ring. I'm just trying to think if I if I feel like that's enough notification, if I could. Um, yeah, please.

I feel like if you start broadening it, it does not work if you're on a street that isn't straight. So if you're if you're on a kitty corner, if there's multiple branching, if your street swoops, and if you broaden it beyond the clear definition, you open the door in the future to someone beyond where the zoning administrator could determine that boundary reasonably is, but feels as if they should have been like notified. So I like it it does feel perhaps smaller than we want it to be and not hitting as many people, but it exists that way for a reason.

Yeah. Uh I'm just trying to think if and this is possibly likely given the amount of rental properties we have. Say all the there's one this one property is a home ownership or it doesn't even have to be but the properties all around our rentals. So the letter gets sent it goes to the landlord and the landlord says I don't care what it looks like. I'm getting money anyway. four houses down is somebody who owns their property

who is now going to who will see this who may potentially be impacted by their property value. So, I get what you're saying. Like, I don't want to open it till all of a sudden the letter has to be sent to half the city, but the people on either side could not live there. Airbnb rental could also be like, "We're moving in a year. We don't care anyway." Like, so I don't, you know, obviously in Franklin, the people who live right next door are very upset about it, but also the people who live like five doors down are also very upset about it. So, I do understand why statue says that. It makes it easy. But, you know, we've heard more public comment about this than many things since I've been on council. So, I want to make sure that we're really really setting this up for as much success as possible in the future. Um, you know, there are people who have there are there's been an ask for us to just rem remove administrative review, right? So, I don't want to do that, but I do want to make sure that we're trying to meet residents in the complaints that they've had. So, I think a slight expansion of that would assist with the residents concerns.

I'll I'll defer. uh I would strongly recommend clarity over subjectivity. So that would be my concern about going beyond a a joining and I would say that that's actually the theme of everything that planning commission and council is trying to do with the rest of it is clarity. So I think I mean even the fact that Michelle like she was like oh okay cross street cool and behind cool and then she left like she was more concerned and uh appreciative of the blank wall definitions

and then the notification should be like that's your um that's your assurance but it's like you everything else should be you should be stopping it before then. Is there um we're so we're going from like no notice form like on our public channels to um letters to adjacent. Is it is it would it be too much burden to add it to just our channels like administrative notice? So like add it to city website whatever.

Yeah. Uh probably we can't even keep up with all of our meetings now and then so if there comes a day when we get a boom in development I feel like that would be a lot to keep up with. Can I ask how many we're getting right now

in so I guess in this section there's only been two projects that have been permitted and it's those two on um if you were to I mean I review How many permits am I this year? 54 55 applications so far in administrative review and approval. Um, and honestly, right now, I'm the one that sends out the notices for the DRB for the most part. So, I will be doing all the notices for 55 plus zoning.

Yeah. I'm of the opinion that We should not go much beyond the direct building surrounding it. Um it sounds like because ministry of approval happened for anything ranging from a shed to four unit affordable housing unit. I think because of that, having a blank statement saying all administrative approvals should be the whole entire street is going to be a can of worms, especially considering that we've had 50 and it's not a great time to be building. I also just think sorry

I also just think about staff time like the fact that you are a single person and it's I just don't even know how like that would be possible. I don't either. Yeah. Right. I'm literally to be frank I'm just like I don't even it just is so Yeah. I like I don't have I'm a I'm sort of uh my exhaustion is setting in. So, I'm not being as eloquent as I would like, but I'm just going to say like I I agree on the administrative approval that like I think it's helpful. Um, but I don't know how one person could do it, especially when you're doing 50.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but there's also like a legal definition of what like abodding properties are allowed to legally appeal anyways. Well, so I can't determine who's an interested party, right? That's for the courts to decide. Uh the best I can do is is follow state statute to capture interested parties and then this and then the state would determine the courts would determine whether that person is actually an interested party or not.

Um so even if you capture the entire street, again, you're putting that onus on me of determining subjectivity, which is also legally slippery. and then you're you may not even be capturing what the court would even determine to be an interested person in the first place. Um so it's I would stick to what's in the like state statute in terms of what they consider to be the scope um because there's already a pre-stated set rule. Um, I'll add that I've done something similar uh many years ago as a zoning administrator and the scope itself was adjacent property owners uh would be notified of certain very very limited administrative actions that were considered a little bit higher than than your normal house on on vacant lot.

And um that notification would be in um the DRB's like other business. And so there would be like a a block of the body assembly administrative actions and and it would be very it's and it's a it was a very limited set of uh of powers that specify this that town no longer has that regulation and I looked around for other towns nearby that have these types of regulations none of them do. Yeah.

Um, so clarifying question, I think what I heard you just say is, um, you are familiar with a town that used to have language that would allow the DRB to require the person submitting the project to send the letters themselves. No, what I'm saying is that for very specific projects um they required uh they were allowed administrative review by me but I had but once I took action I had to notify all the abuing property owners and then notify the DRB that I had taken administrative action on this item.

Okay. So what would it be feasible for language to be incorporated that requires the applicant to send the letters

if because I feel like I've seen somewhere that notification for other projects is on the applicant to provide Yes. And it's I mean you could do it. I've seen in other towns too. It but there would be some sort of affirmation or certification that would have to be provided by the applicant to release me of that liability. It seems like it could take care of who's notified, providing some type of evidence that it's that that's been completed and alleviating the labor for you to to have to manage that. There would still be

and then like if it if evidence wasn't provided that it happened, then that could, you know, mess up their appeal. So, it' be in their interest to do it correctly. Yes. But the the due process only starts when I take action. So, they would have to it it would be this weird game of telephone of me telling the applicant that I've taken action on their application now starting the 15-day clock and then them having to send out the letters. So, then you you already lost five or six days on the clock. How how are you providing notification to applicants for your administrative review? Now,

so our process right now is once I take action on an application. I notify the applicant saying I've taken action on your application. Uh this is the approval or approval of conditions or denial. Um and then I go out and I post on the property uh the placard that says what the project is, where the project is and when the appeal period ends. Um and then uh I hand it over to code enforcement and then they start their review. Can I ask another question? Is there a way to frontload this so that the letters are, you know, there's like a a form based letter of sorts where um your decision is made. Um and that way like the applicant has already basically prepped the the letters for for you to basically post. It's so there's there's a lot of um pieces in here that are outside. They're like they're they're very uh flexible. So even when somebody sends me an application, I often times won't determine that it's complete until it meets every single box. And say for a project that's subject to 5.14, I'm not going to determine it's complete until DBW's completed their review and code enforcement has completed their review. I don't know how long DPW is going to need uh and code enforcement is going to need to to determine whether that application is complete.

And then that starts the 30-day window. And then after the 30-day window and I take action on it, then that starts the 15-day window in which someone can appeal. So I can't So when you submit an application, I can't tell you when I'm going to determine your application to be complete and when and what's going to happen in that back and forth. And I can't tell you when I'm going to take action on it because there's probably going to be five or six other applications on my desk that I'm going to need to take action on first. So even so, I can't really I can't really say like when somebody applies when they would expect to for me to take action on at this point. So I think what we're trying to do is find a path forward where we're trying to find a way to give notification, right? And also alleviate the the increased labor on your end.

I think at this point, let's just leave it pass it off to the

let's just leave it right here, which is 5.14 having this notification requirement. 5.14 is a very uh narrow scope. Um it's Um I I don't foresee it going to be used utilized often based on the way it's written. Um it has been used twice, but even um the applicant on the second one is having um a lot of second thoughts about why they chose that path in the first place. Um, so it's uh I think in terms of rare instances that are of a higher impact than what is typically an administrative review such as 5.14 having this guard rail is going to be fine. And I think that I'll have to talk to the to the city attorney about how this mechanism would work to make sure that we are sending notifications in a prompt manner that allows for the that 15-day window to be maximized. I'll iron it out. Some of my concern about or displacing the the responsibility is that there needs to be some oversight of that which is also labor and it might be easier just to do whatever it is oursel. Yeah. Um okay. I think what I'm hearing from most of council is I think that you're fine with the property lines. You don't think it should extend any further than that? Yes. Um all right. Anything else?

Can I uh restate unless wants to it? I think the one change was the permeable driveways. Is that correct? Eli discussed changing to floor, but we didn't have a full conversation about that. But I don't know if that's more something just to send back to planning for them to discuss cuz I know they had concerns about that. I didn't hear opposition from other folks about what Eli was mentioning. I guess

I would want I would personally would want to see us adopt some restrictions on the blank wall and then allow for iteration um after after that rather than not adopting any language around blank wall. Yeah. Yeah. I think that that would be wise at this point and then during the public hearing we can all collect comments and we can review them. You mentioned I'm sorry your acronym Barbies. Yeah, residential building energy standards.

You mentioned you talked about those and you kind of brushed it off but I reminded you this is a time to submit amendments. So

yeah, and I think this is also something that um does not necessarily have to happen tonight, but I I do think that there is value um to putting instead to putting an ordinance um that and we've had this conversation before um over whether or not we should have ordinance language. Um I I personally feel like it is beneficial to state clearly that we require a cert um an RB certificate to be submitted and that a cert certificate of occup occupancy will not be issued without um having a RB certificate on file with the city clerk which is required by statute. So, as we keep talking about aligning with statute, that would be my recommendation is um making sure it's clear in our ordinance that we also expect the Arby's to be submitted.

I'm so hungry. I keep thinking you're saying that's what I heard the first time. Building energy standards. Um, great. So, yeah. So, just those two things there. Um, is June 15th the soonest we can have because I need to do the public hearing notice. Okay. All right. It's a bummer, but it is the law. Um, all right. So, I seek a motion to introduce the amendments as presented with the two changes that staff has taken notes on uh and set a public hearing for June 15th, 2026.

So, move second. All those in favor? Wonderful. Thank you. All right, Revy, you're done talking for the night. Congratulations. Could I recommend that you not take any presentation for the next two items and just state if you have questions about the goal updates? Does any of you feel like you need presentation? I don't want to cut short. Take away your thunder. Yeah. Um that's fine. Okay. Um item E, uh goal update housing. Jasmine, do you do you we I mean I mean you stayed so well involved in all that. We don't have to pull it up but is there anything

we've still got Ray particularly you'd like to speak about?

Yeah. Um let's see. Housing needs assessment is moving forward as deputy mayor Oakleaf mentioned. Um, councelor Turos also mentioned some uh nice progress on the airport noise mitigation program finally after I've been here for three years. Um, and we're working on coordinating a presentation from the team um to kind of touch on the data a little bit more in depth than I think we could regurgitate. Um, let's see what else. Uh, short-term rentals. Uh we only have two out of compliance now. So we are at 96% compliance. Um hoping to get the last two into compliance before the next year starts. Nice.

Um I presented on a panel about our short-term rental program and sent a slide deck and information to um people at uh Department of Housing and Community Development who are interested. Um let's see. Armory second DRB hearing decision is still pending. Um we've executed another addendum with the National Guard for the purchase and sale through September 30th. Um and then we're working on the option agreement with CHT to mirror that as well. Um yeah and oh we had a successful infill housing campaign event on Saturday in Burlington. Um with our multi-reional campaign um there was maybe like 35 people there. Um lots of questions and networking and two of the presenters were uh Wooki ADU builders. They're the same ones that presented at our event last year. Um so they're seasoned pros. Um, but yeah, it went really well. We're doing another one on June 12th, I think, but I will follow up with more information. Um, and it'll be in South Burlington.

Great. Yeah. Thank you, J. Any questions for Jasmine? Uh, I I just want to thank you for the updates. Um, and say like I I think there's really um nice momentum here. So, thank you. Yeah. Will you send me info for the stuff from the 12th? Yes, it's the 12th or the 22nd. I can't remember now. It's all floating around in my That and Arby's. Arby's. All right, you're done. Okay, great. Thank you. Thank you. Uh item F, discussion, goal update, safe, healthy, connected people.

Um unlike Jasmine, I don't really want to say much at this hour of the night. So I think uh some great updates in there are generally on track with things as um except where we're not. I think they're all reasons that we are pretty clear about and understand. So happy to answer any questions. Great. Thanks Ray. I mean I feel we did all just discuss this very very recently. Um questions. All right. Ray, have a good night. Never mind. And then we have Don't have a good night. Yeah, you're still here. So, we'll move on to item G, discussion approval, short-term short-term public art policy.

Yeah. So, I will again in the interest of time keep it pretty brief. Um, we, as Brenn mentioned, uh, throughout here have had good public participation um, in terms of representation from our two commissions, Safe Public Connected and IMB, and then Bren has been at the table helping as well. Uh major changes from what you saw last time are uh number one we sort of teased out a policy and a procedure. I think that was feedback we got actually from Angela uh that there were a bunch of pieces in the original draft that really were more appropriate to procedure versus policy. So more of a staff guiding document versus a public document. Um, so what I will say is that the things that got pulled over to procedure were not changed with the exception of some language that was added based on feedback from the commission, state public commission, uh, to help sort of basically give staff an out if there were projects that were going to require a lot of staff time. Um I think in the original proposal there was a discussion about not investing like funds dollars into projects in the short term but it was brought up that you know what do we do if a project comes in that is suddenly asking for staff to put in a bunch of time on a on a project and that's that's a cost to the city as well. Um so it just gives us the flexibility to say yay or nay um if there's a project that's going to require a ton of extra time.

Well Right. Thank you. As I had said to you last time you were here, you could have asked for approval the last time you we saw this and I would have said yes. So, council, do you have any questions? Bri, I know you worked extensively on this. So, if you'd like to share any thoughts, please do. Um, there were really good I I think I started it at the at the um beginning of the meeting tonight. So, um really great discussion from the safe healthy and connected group. So, um just glad we had an opportunity to get that on that agenda um this past week.

That's great. questions from counselors. Uh members of the public, I just realized there are some folks still on Zoom. If you have a question about this or the other two items, you can also ask those now. All right. Um in that case, I will seek a motion to approve the short-term public art policy as presented. So moved. Second. All those in favor? I. Wonderful. Thank you. Now, Ray, you may have a good night. Hi, Ray. Thanks.

Thank you so much. double looked at H again to make sure we really weren't done. Uh discussion approval introduce amendments to Wooki Ordinance Chapter 15 parking and set public hearing date. Angela, I'm so sad you're at the end of this, Angela, cuz you wake up at like 3:00 a.m. So, that that's all right. Um this should be pretty straightforward. Um, we've been approached about doing some uh operations management on the city's behalf at the new Abnacki garage. Um, and the read of the ordinance as it currently exists indicated that that wasn't something that was allowable. And so we wanted to amend the ordinance to make it very clear um that it would be allowable and uh have the city council approve any agreements for operations of the Mirage. just to make sure that we are maintaining all of the policy and administrative components for how the garages that are owned by the city are run. Uh this was reviewed by our attorney and they thought everything looked good with moving forward.

Thank you, Angela. I always love to hear that our attorney has reviewed something and likes it. Um, you know, I'm when Elaine first told me about this, I was happy to hear it because I think uh any any work that staff doesn't have to um do and can be overseen by another entity uh when appropriate is um is really beneficial to the city. So, uh this is uh a great uh comeuppance. Glad we were able to create the language to make this happen. I don't have any questions. Council,

I I do have some questions. I sent some ahead of time. Um, but given the hour, I'm I'm not going to belver it too much and we can leave it for detail for um the hearing date. But um I and I'm I'm concerned about how we'll pay off the bond for the garage because I'm under the impression with some of the responses I received to previous questions is that the third party will be able to retain the um the uh or it will be negotiated in a contract which if I was the person negotiating the contract be like, "Yeah, I want to keep the the um the penalty." Yeah, the fees. Thank you. Words. Um and so I'm I'm just concerned about um the being able to pay off the bond.

Angel, um I'm happy to talk about that. I've been in all of those negotiations. Uh John Rasher and I have reviewed the budget and the amount that we were budgeting for the transient customers in the new garage. We are able to have equivalent savings from not doing the um operations of the garage. So we would be net neutral. Okay.

A quick followup question. Um and I think just another thought is um just the complaints. So I mean are will it be will the garage be rebranded to look like it's managed by a private party or will it be branded for a city? And if complaints come in, are we managing those or is the third party that's managing it dealing with those? One of the things that we have specifically discussed is a number of signs that they are going to need to make it very clear that it is managed by a third party operator and give contact information if there are issues. Okay.

Um they would still be reaching out to the city for assistance with anything security related to the police department with the exception of timelmited parking enforcement. Uh they would be handling any unpaid meter um enforcement on their own. Okay. Um, and at this point I think uh that I'll leave it at that. Um, but my concerns mainly relate around those two topics. Okay. Thank you for that. Any other questions?

No, I'm just I'm just going to echo what councelor uh Oakleaf said. I also have same concerns and I'd like to discuss this later. a a lot of the concerns around the specifics for the management of the garage would be addressed in the contract that is brought to the council. Um and so that could vary from contract to contract, but they they would be something that would be addressed in the contract itself rather than the ordinance. Right. This is enabling as opposed to explicitly handing over all rights to a specific operator. I I understand. Sure. Sure. Yeah. There's some preliminary ments that we may want to prohibit.

And I I do understand the hour and I have been moving fast and joking about letting people go. But if this is an item of importance to you, we can continue to have this discussion. Spur frequently talks till 2 a.m., which we will never do, but I'm fine to talk till for, you know, 15 20 more minutes. If um you or Eli would like to broaden that conversation, I'm think that's more than appropriate. No, I think as long as the contract, whatever it is, does go through city council for approval, I think I'd be I'm okay with the currently written things. Okay. And

I um if as a followup I I just I have reservations and um you know articulated some of those in previous um questions leading up to this agenda item. Um, but I I really I just want to make sure we're being very cognizant of all the ways that if we need to discontinue the relationship that that is very clearly incorporated into the contract language with any

and that like I I just have concerns of like committing to something and then oh man gosh it's so hard to get out of that contract now. Um or that is not unfounded. I wish we had try to determine who owns the park. Yeah. Yes. Exactly. We have we have tentatively agreed on some uh termination language that would allow for anybody to withdraw with 90 days notice with a a 30-day remediation period if you were terminating for cause and not just convenience.

Yeah. It's it's just it's very um there's so many different elements and facets of this conversation that I can see relating to maintenance um to addressing uh damages to like it just there's and I and I know that it's like well it'll be in the contract but there's some of this enabling language in the ordinance um that I know gets us to the point it's kind of Like can we have horses in the dog park like in the in the flood plane? Not dog park.

Yeah, exactly. But like I know there's this preliminary um discussion before we can get into the depths of detail, but it it raises some anxiety for me. So I appreciate you bringing it up. Uh any public comment on this item? Nobody's left. Oh, they left. All right. It's helpful enough, I guess. Um, so I will seek a motion to introduce the amendments to chapter 15 parking and set the date of a public hearing for June 1st, 2026. So moved. Seconded. All those in favor? I abstain.

I'm one obsession. Thank you. The time is 9:49. I uh will now ask to adjourn this meeting of the WooC. Uh a motion, please. So moved. Seconded. All those in favor I thank you so much everybody. Uh a big thank you to staff who has stayed late.

I was cut off. Heat. Heat. N. Down. Down.