Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

There you go. All right. Call the meeting to order. Anything for update agenda? No one? Public comment? Anything, Bruce? He knows I'm going to ask him.

I'm good, Annie. Thank you.

All right. So I didn't hear from Allison. I didn't know she was in.

She just logged in.

Oh, okay. Perfect. Yes, I see her now. Allison? Allison?

No? She's probably just getting connected. Oh, okay. Give it just a minute.

Yeah.

There she is.

Hi, can you hear me? We can. Oh, okay. And we're ready for you if you're ready for us. Okay.

I don't have a have a huge update for you except that I'm still working on the draft and I would like to schedule a time where I could actually come up and meet with you after I've submitted the draft and then we can talk about it. I do have a couple of updates for you. on just the overall planning horizon. The governor hasn't signed it yet, but there have been some changes to statute. And I think a lot of people have been paying attention to the repeal of tier two of the tier two lands and the road rule and tier three. But also in that legislation, town plans that were going to expire in 2026 now don't expire until the end of 2027. Right. Not that we want to drag this out with me to the end of 2027, but it takes a significant amount of pressure off of you. And then on the other thing is that the regional plan has been sent to the LERB for review. It was narrowly approved by our board. To not just not like approving for submitting to the board that doesn't mean that it was adopted. Within 60 days, we should be receiving feedback on. The on the entire plan, including the future land use maps, and that would include the expansions to the designated areas that, you know, that new designated areas that we created, like, the new areas that we added to your downtown area. And I don't know what to expect, but I do expect that there will be some site visits. We have such a big area that I don't know exactly where those site visits are going to be. um after we um that they will probably request some changes and after we make those changes then it will have to go to the board for adoption um we have have scheduled some hearings some adoption hearings for later this summer but again um i cannot predict If the board will adopt the plan, it seems to be the vote on last Thursday night. Narrowly approved it for submitting to the just for submitting it to the lerp 8 to 5.

So Allison, can I ask a question? Yeah. I understand now there's over 55 communities now that are against Act 181 and written to the Statehouse. Can you confirm that or is that pretty well accurate?

That probably is accurate. I mean, the bulk of the objections stem from the road rule in Tier 3. And S-25, which was also passed through the House, eliminates those. So that was where the bulk of objections came from.

So is that passed now? Is that official?

It was it was passed. I haven't been able to. I've spent the whole morning trying to find the final language that reconciles the amendments from, you know, the language from the Senate and the House. And I haven't seen it. There is neither.

I haven't seen anything about it on anything.

Well, there is language on the VLCT web page that talks about the two differences between the bills that were in the House and the Senate. But the main thing is that the 2-3 rulemaking has been repealed. And yeah, I mean, so that was the main source of objection.

So this tier three thing that everybody's fighting over, how is that going to affect what we are doing?

It doesn't. It doesn't. But what does affect you is that if the Regional Planning Commission fails to adopt a plan that is approved by the LRB, we could lose our legacy designations. So your existing village center designation. That's what's at stake.

So everything we're working for possibly could not happen.

I don't think it would not happen, but it would be a significant roadblock.

It would be a setback.

We'd have to work around it. Karen Hollweg, yeah um but, again, you have. Karen Hollweg, A deadline now of to the end of next year. Karen Hollweg, So. Karen Hollweg, um. That said, I'm going to assume that our draft land use plan has the same land use classifications that we talked about, the same map configurations that we talked about. And, you know, based on any input that we get from the LARP, maybe we'll make some changes. But all I can do is move forward in good faith in the future.

I was just curious how things were going to, what's going to happen.

Yeah. I don't think Act 181 is going to go away. Also, because there are potential exemptions to Act 250 that your community was, you know, stood to benefit from if you were to adopt subdivision regs. And that's still really important.

That's very important. I hope that that wasn't being affected.

No, no. So that's all my news, but I think it's important news.

Yeah.

I was out all last week, and I'm still actually out of town, but I'll be back so we can get moving.

Were you going to ask something, Joel? I was just wondering, Allison, a while ago you put out a little chart showing what Act 181 changes would mean. the things we'd have to do is a little chart. Could you renew that in light of the changes that have happened to 181, if that is applicable?

Oh, you mean the land use classifications? The land use classifications wouldn't change.

No, it was a chart of just covering new things like existing small lots, law changed, various statutory. I can email it back to you if you don't recall.

Oh, yeah. That was a matrix that I created of, I think, what you're talking about is a matrix that I created of statutory changes going back to 2013. Okay. And those things have already been enacted and some of them go back to the home act. Like the most salient changes would have been, you know, would have been related to the home act. So like, for example, any area that's already served by water, like public water and sewer has to allow for a minimum density of five units an acre, that kind of stuff. That's, that is not at stake in any of like S-25.

Okay. Okay. Thanks.

But I can recirculate that just so that you have it as a reference because I do think it's helpful.

Yeah. And you had all the statutory references for each thing in there too.

Yeah. Yeah. Any other questions?

No, I just said that this last thing that you just talked about, I think that's going to be pretty important as to our water allocations for areas that we're going in the future that we're going to have to be working towards.

Yep. Absolutely. Sorry. How did you do? Please. sorry i'm working from a different location and she's seeing people go by there are windows all around me so um i think that um yeah i mean we definitely but i think that's what we did in the future land in the draft feature land use map for your your town plan is that we gave serious consideration to the densities and the potential benefits of Act 250 exemption. And all of those things factored in, like availability of sewer and water.

Yeah. That's something that we're going to have to look at on the water side. We're going to have to look at very closely. Right, Mike?

Well, we're going to fix our allocations. Let's put it that way.

Okay.

was pointed out to me by an engineer that our allocations that we're granting people are wrong. They were way, way too much.

Oh, wow. Not so much on water side as bad as sewer side. Yeah, sewer side was worse. I mean, water allocations and pricing and basing it on use. And you had pointed out that, you know, given the high number of seasonal residents, that that could also be problematic in terms of revenues. Is that still the case?

It is, it is. We still stick with the base rate because that's what covers the budget. Yeah. And the thing is, it's what keeps it equitable because otherwise the people who live in town year round are going to completely be clobbered. I mean, if we went to a completely... you know, per gallon, you know, usage rate, the rate would have to be so high to make up that budget that the people who live there all the time are really going to be just paying for the whole system. And the seasonal people will get off really cheap. And it's the seasonal people that over Memorial Day weekend that use the most water. Surprisingly, that is not true. Oh, that's not. That is not.

I thought it was. No.

Our problem was our town residents refused to conserve at all. Our water, when we put the conservation notice up, our water usage went up, not down. And that was before the weekend. Oh, that was before the weekend? Before the weekend. That's why the reservoir dropped to the critical level on Thursday and Because people were just power washing their houses. They were getting ready for company to come over the weekend. And they just didn't care that they were just draining the reservoir.

Wow.

So, yeah, no, actually, we did better on Friday and Saturday. But then by Sunday, we just reached a critical level. So we had to switch back on the south plant, which triggered a boil water notice.

Do you have a report from that engineer that you talked to that you can share with me about the allocations?

Oh, yes, yes, yes. I can say that to you. Somebody had not gotten a state wastewater permit when they built a house. And so he asked me, oh, could you send me the letter where, you know, that you have the capacity for this? I said, oh, sure. You know, and I made sure, yes, they had applied for their allocation. And so our form has the calculation on there, how to, you know, figure out what your allocation is. And we were doing double on sewer, what we're supposed to. Oops. Oops. Yeah. I'm sure it was probably just a typo on the original form, but we've been using it for who knows how long. Oh, wow. Yeah. For the best of us. We don't have that many new houses built, so it's not a huge issue, but it's something we've got to fix if we're going to try to increase users.

Yeah. Especially when it's based on the number of bedrooms. Right, right. Because that's how the allocations get figured out. That's the catch-22.

Some of us only use one bedroom out of three.

So this is for sewer allocation.

Water is the same. It's just a different, it's a different, different amount, but we were still, we were still high on water, but not nearly, not double.

I'm telling you.

Okay.

Huh? Well, I think the engineer sent it back to me. He goes, you know, I've noticed this from another one of these that I got from your town that you're doing this wrong. It's like, well, thanks for that. Now I know we can fix it.

Especially when we've been using the same allocations for years. Yeah, I don't know how far back this goes. I don't know how far back it goes either.

Joel said they used to calculate based upon the number of sinks, number of toilets. They don't do that anymore. Now it's based upon number of bedrooms.

Yeah.

And so I imagine whoever created the form, when they read the regulation, they just miscalculated. It's

No.

It's overdone at this point, so we'll move forward and correct it. Yep.

You said it was based on bedrooms? It is now. What happens if a guy just has a camp and don't have a bedroom and uses water?

They're still considered at least one. There's no camps in town.

I mean, you have to have... No, but I was just asking that, you know.

It's assumed that you have at least one bedroom in that case.

Yeah. street from my house.

So does this mean that you're going to have to change your wastewater ordinance as well?

I don't think it's actually in the ordinance how you calculate it. It says you have to obtain it and then I think it's just the form that I'm going to have them fix at their meeting and week after next.

Any of this on the agenda.

It's I don't think it's gonna be a big deal for us to fix it. It's just it's a correction.

Okay, forward.

Because I think our ordinance says that we're supposed to see the form for the calculation of how to get that, and the form's wrong.

Yeah.

It's good that we caught it now, because if we start getting into low-cost housing and we're adding a lot of units, that's going to affect the whole thing. So I'm glad we caught it now.

It was a perk. Luckily, I have a good relationship with this engineer because he's doing our bridge on 10 Mile Square.

Just because there's twice as many allocated, does that mean they actually use the extra allocation, you think?

No, but we have to take it off of what we count because we have to keep track of those allocations. So we're pushing ourselves to a new plant faster than we need to.

Uncommitted reserve.

Right. Right.

But that would also change your calculation for how much density you could absorb and what it could do to your rates, which is a good thing, right?

Yeah.

Okay.

Okay. We all set? Yep. All right. We're going to move on for Bruce's update on zoning. Exactly. Thanks. Yes. Thank you, Allison. Thank you.

Good night.

You can hang around if you want to.

My dog will probably start barking at you again.

Just a couple things. So I've gone through all of the 2026 permits and gotten them organized. There's a few things that there's a few that I can't find where the permits were signed and returned to us. So there's, there's a few of those. One that, that the, the applicant paid the fee to go to the DRB, but I can't see that it needs to have the DRB look at it. And they got all the necessary setbacks and all that. So, so we're probably going to have to refund them the $250 for the, for the DRB review. Cause it, it never happened. And this was back in February, but it was never signed or that I can find and sent back to us. Anyways, that's one. Then there's two that are going to go. There's two currently that are going to go to the DRB and and then that's pretty much it. I took off one that isn't going to be a permit at all. So we're, we're pretty much, organized now for 2026. I'm going to start going back through 2025 and making sure that everything's the way it's supposed to be done. And anyways, and look at some of the, see if we can issue the certificates of occupancy and get that, those rolling for the things that happened in 2025. And I'll probably maybe go back, eventually as far as 2024. I don't know how much further I should go back and make sure things were done properly, but we'll see.

What is that going to accomplish? Well, basically, if you've already got permits out there,

Well, I mean, you got to have built.

I mean, how can you? Well, maybe they have, maybe they haven't.

So we don't know because we don't have the certificates of occupancy done. So we have to go into that.

A lot of people don't bother with those until a bank requests it.

Right. But we don't know if it's been done or not.

Right. And in our audience, you'll recall, as Annie pointed out long ago, the CEO requires documents. we're required to do a CO and the new law says we have to do a CO. That's correct. And you need to supply the wastewater permit in order to occupy. So I think that's what we're up to here.

We also don't know, I mean, I don't know if the listers will, without a CO, how do you know everything was done?

That's a key piece. I've been realizing as a lister how closely the listers and the zoning administrator have one similar thing in common. We need to know what status of the property on April 1st.

I gave you the permit when it's signed off, but then I mean, there's got to be a follow through and find out if the actual thing was built that way. You know, when you, cause you, unless the, I don't know if the listers, are you guys going to go out to the actual property and look? Or are you relying on the CO? Supposed to.

Yeah. Well, I'm just saying that's. No, we have to go out and look. And we'll be doing that in the next two weeks. Our hired assessor will be doing that. But I've asked Bruce actually to go along because it's in our common interest to know how far along and if the thing was built. So a CO can be issued. Yeah. And so that we can add the property, the value of the property to the grant list so we can tax them.

Yeah. Um, I was able to get ahold of, um, of the, uh, property on, uh, the owner of the property on, uh, Derby street there. And, um, uh, we're gonna, we're gonna, I decided we're going to hold off on the penalties cause they're, they're going to be, they're going to be selling the property. Uh, so I had a call into them, um, and I'll today, but I didn't get ahold of them, but I'll call again tomorrow. They're looking for a realtor up here. So I'm just going to just tell them a few that are up here and they're going to try and contact them and basically sell it. So as is, and then we're going to have to do something with the work with the the realtor, I guess a little bit to make sure they have, they put a stipulation in the sale agreement that the house is torn down. and uh and done you know something's done to it that otherwise it makes it safe yeah i mean basically it's collapsing i mean completely but um yeah so that that that's probably the best resolution um the the owner didn't have the financial resources to do anything with the property and so it didn't make sense to penalize somebody who doesn't have the financial resources to take care of that so um anyways it it should happen um Hopefully this, you know, this summer, whoever, I mean, it'd be a nice property for someone to purchase because it has, you know, water, sewer and electricity right at the site so they could.

And fiber. And fiber, yeah.

So, you know, it's a good, if someone's looking for a place to plunk down a house, it's probably a good thing to do. I think that's it. And then I made a couple trips or a couple attempts over to the property on Derby Street that's being built or has been built. I haven't got a hold of the builder or the owner or whatever yet. I don't think he was up this weekend. Yeah, I didn't.

Yeah, I went by a couple times.

I went by this weekend and no one was there. So anyways, that's basically all I have. Do you have any questions about anything?

We could. Okay. Thank you, Bruce. Now we can approve the minutes of the previous meeting.

I make a motion that we approve the minutes of the previous meeting.

Second, second. All in favor. All right. Any other business? Good. Yeah, okay. Do you have a motion to adjourn?

I'll make a motion to adjourn.

Second. All in favor?

Aye.

Meeting is adjourned. Thank you.

Hey, Joel?

Yeah.