Regional Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

So, I will call the meeting to order. Uh, for land use review board, um, I would ask that we go around and give brief introductions. My apologies to those in the room. You're going to hear this again from the top. I'm Sarah Adam, the vice chair, consulting, board member. Brett Gold, board member. Alex Barhagen, member and Chim County resident. And perhaps our staff can go next. We'll see on this end. Um, I'm Kaitlyn Hayes. I'm one of the uh board members for district. Hi, I'm Gary. I work district for 609 or director. Pete Gell, executive director.

Hi, Charlie Baker, executive director of the Chenny County Regional Planning Commission. I'm Taylor Newton. I'm the planning program director at CCRPC. I'm Kate McCarthy. I'm a senior planner and project manager here at CCRPC. Paul, do you want to Sure. Uh Paul Conor, director of planning and zoning the city of South Ber, director of planning and zoning shel. Uh Jackie Murphy, member of the Colchester select board and member of the Chittney County Regional Planning Commission, excuse me. Melanie Needle, GIS and IT manager with CCRPC.

All right, fantastic. And thank you. Um I think what I'd like to do is sort of give an explanation of the pre-application process. So the pre-lication process for our guidelines and also first state statute is a chance for the land use review board to uh review and provide comments back to the regional planning entities on um the application that before it's approved. And so at this point we have received comments from a lot of our sister agencies that we view it online through our portal. Um if you go to m250.vermont.gov gov and go to the act 20181 process under regional plan review. There's a link and you can search in it for the CCRPC. It's a regional plan board and the entirety of the regional plan submission is online as well as public comments received and sister comments. Those are due today. We grant extensions the end of day. Um so that should be updated um as of now and we'll update endeavor to update it again throughout the day. We also have on or will shortly be on the our website in that portal um the presentation that you'll see today. A little bit about what we're going to have going on today is a overview of the plan the plan process and then we'll be doing a virtual site visit. We are going to have time for questions at the end for the public. There will be opportunities for the board to ask questions as we visit each area. Um, I'm happy to take questions as we go right now. But are there any questions to start? All right. And folks that are online, it looks like everybody's joined in the traditional way. There's also, if you have a copy of our agenda, if you join by phone, directions as to unmute, mute yourself and raise your hand. Um, please feel free to do that raise hand question or raise hand if you have questions.

All right. With that being said, I will turn over to Chin County Regional Planning Commission for an overview of their plan. Thank you.

Yeah. Thank you very much. Uh, Madam Chair, members of the board, glad to have you here. Um, I'll do, um, you get stuck with me for like the first 10 minutes or so doing a little intro to the context of Chidney County and then Taylor will pick it up and get into the actual plan document. Um, and uh, so there's just the rough agenda we think we're on. Uh and so uh let me to go to the next slide. So um just a little bit kind of economic focused first. Um we have had a lot of business growth here um and a lot of job growth. Uh you can see our rate of job growth and jobs business growth has been almost double the pace of the state. Um so we have you know about a third of the jobs uh a third of the businesses are here. Our household income is higher than average in the state. However, one notable thing here at the bottom of the table is we also have the largest concentration of poverty in the state which sometimes gets masked by the overall higher income. So we have about 12,000 uh folks living in poverty here. uh about 20% of the folks in poverty in the state are here. Um and uh while we do have the number of jobs has been fairly consistent over the last 20 or so years, we have had this dynamic of more and more people are having to move outside of the county to work in Chittney County. So we had 75% of our employees lived and work or worked and lived here in 2002. In 2022, that was down to 65%. Uh so that has been a trend that has been prominent for us in trying to address by having more housing within Chaden County. Next slide. Um and just some broader dec uh demographics. Uh our

population is pretty close to 170,000 now. Our age is younger than the state. Um no surprise. And that's driven by college students and and all of the people in this room. Um sorry. Uh but you can see our um our population growth as a growth rate, you know, has been almost triple the state's average. Um still pretty low if you look at it, you know, in terms of an annual basis compared to the rest of the country. Um but one major fact, we are getting more diverse. um of that um 12,000 increase in population between 2010 and 2020, only 30 of those people net were white. So 99.7% were people of color. Um and it's just pointing to just the changing demographics broadly. Um you know, we'll see things are different in Washington than they were a few years ago. So, we'll see if this changes, but um you it wasn't all refugees, right? There were a lot of other dynamics going on to have that amount of growth um especially uh from people of color. And you know, we only we were doing about 300 refugees a year. So, this is way more than that, right? Um so, that would have been 3,000 of the 12,000 might might be from refugee uh resettlement. Um and then just to this the 2017 population employment household forecasts were adopted by our board back in 2017. Um and you can see just looking at the right the 14% forecasted increase in population. And just really notable is that we need a lot more households today than we used to for to keep up with that population growth. So you see 25% increase in pop

in household growth compared to just the 14%. Um and you can see down at the bottom in 1970 we were like basically three and a quarter people per house. Now we're two and a quarter or 2.3. Um so household size has been a major factor uh across the country in driving the need for more housing growth. Go to the next slide. And so let's which brings me to the housing targets. Welcome. Um 2050 we're looking you know kind of the longer range not at the short short-term 2030 number just for planning purposes. Um the lower range of 15 or 16,000 over the next 25 years is pretty close to what we've been averaging decade over decade. The middle target is 31 32,000. The high target for Chittney County is 47,000 housing units. That is a lot. Um, just to illustrate that even more, if we go from the 1950s, so 1950 to pretty current, we've we've built about 50,000 housing units in Chimney County over the last 70ish years. building another 50,000 in 25 years would be some amazing miraculous feat which I'm not expecting to happen. Um but those are the targets that we were given from the state. Um and Taylor will get more into this as he's talking about individual uh municipalities and things but in general we've been working with our municipalities talking about trying to meet the middle target. Um so which is you know more than a thousand house housing units per year. um we got over that I think in 2024. So that is not crazy. It's u a challenge um and a significant bar. Um you can see down at

the bottom I tried to break out what that um the low target rate per decade would be and you can compare it to the previous decades. Um so the low target 6,300. You can see we've been kind of doing that um for a long time. The 2020s is a partial decade. So don't take too much away from the 2020s, right? Um the 126 as I mentioned is, you know, that's 1,260 a year. That is a more aggressive number than we've ever had. So and that's just to get to the middle range. And I won't talk about high range anymore. U keep that down. That's that would be huge changes for us. Um any questions on this one? Sorry, I pause just for a second because I'm just throwing a lot of data at you. Okay, made sense. And so just so you look at these numbers, this is the actual number of housing units that were built in the 1950s, the 1960s. You can see that, you know, from 4,000. You can really kind of see the trend of, you know, in the 70s and 80s, we had peak years of, you know, 84, 9,400. Uh, that was kind of post interstate. IBM was booming. uh you know those were we had a lot of growth happening and then reactions after that. Um so we'll go to the next slide. Sorry a lot of words here but wanted to kind of emphasize how important smart growth is to our overall regional plan strategy and has been for quite a while. Um the previous regional plan had 80% of growth. I think maybe I'll get more into this in another in a coming slide, but um but right now the draft 2026 plan is trying to accomplish 90% of residential growth in those areas planned for growth which includes the tier 1B eligible

flight future land use areas as well as the transition. Um so which is just a pretty small percentage added. I'm not but um and just you're probably all familiar with the smart growth principles but wanted to put them up here. You know, we get to the compact center separated by surrounded by real countryside which is coming from the statutory goal, you know, but then we're talking about mixed use, having transportation options, protecting the environment, natural resources, historic resources, strengthening a and forestry um and and the diversity of housing. But you can see overall there's a big emphasis on getting the growth to happen where we have infrastructure. And by doing that, that does protect the natural resources and our a and forest economies. Um, and just a little note that is kind of an old statutory reference because that chapter got deleted during act 181 writing. These uh smart growth principles are not actually in statute anymore. Um, but that's one of the things on our cleanup list. Um, I don't know if it's on yours. So, um, okay, next slide. if that part of statute may go away in 2030 or something like that.

Yeah, it's still hanging around a little bit. Still hanging around a little bit. Gotcha. Thank you.

Um and then just did a really simplified version of our land use map. Uh again, 90% of new housing trying to land in that 11.6% that's dark colored on this map. And just to note, um, colored all the rural a and forestry and the rural conservation, uh, green and this map here just to give you a sense of how much of our county, even in Chidney County, we have 60% that is in either conservation or a forestry. And if you get down to individual parcels, there's really an overlap there. A lot of the conserved lands are in a forestry, right? Um so they're not don't think of these as separate. Um there's some amount of um and as we've talked with our towns where they've done a lot of u conservation easements they wanted to make sure they those conservation easements were reflected on our maps. So you see we have 35% in rural conservation right now. Um of course there's forest land etc in there as well. Um but just I I think this is a little different perception than people have of Chidney County. Just when you hear the word Chitten County, you think we're like 80% built out. That is not the case. We're actually 60% pretty rural a and forest. Okay, go to the next slide. Wait. And then um this is the breakdown of the future land use areas. Um sure Taylor will get into this um more deeply. Um you can see that 11.6% 6% those first five uh land use categories I mentioned which include the four that are tier 1b eligible and then plus that transition the transition is just a little bit over one 1.1%. Um the other areas in the middle um again I'm sure Taylor will get into this some more but um one notable thing is

that we have a land use area that's not in statute uh for some pretty large uh land consumptive uses in Camp Johnson the airport and the Ethan Allen firing range which are you know thousands and thousands of acres in Cheney County but didn't really seem to fit well in in the other um in the defined land use categories. Um and then we have the rural areas. Um you kind of repeating some of what I just said, but that's uh almost 83% of our county is in the rural areas. And so infrastructure mentioned a little bit about trying to focus our growth where we have existing infrastructure. Um, and you can see if you took that that dark blue map that I did a few minutes ago and compared it to this. Most of what we're trying to accomplish is taking advantage of the existing infrastructure that we have in Chney County and having more infill and redevelopment happening within those areas. Um, you will see very few parcels going outside of existing sewer service, water service areas for our growth uh areas. Um, so it's almost all infill. The darker uh shades here with the uh crosshatch are the uh sewer service areas. The blue um is not water, but it's water service areas. Uh so you can see major areas in Colchester and Jericho in particular have water service without sewer service areas. And by the way, when just as we were looking at this on um some of the state layers, the sewer service area layer in particular, the state GIS at BCGI um is not a sewer service area. It's something different and I don't know and it's very outdated. We might get into that later.

We can Yeah, we can talk more about that, but this is outdated and we're going to try to provide an updated layer to VCGI. Melanie is coordinating with Josh Blaska, so we'll we'll make that work. Yeah. Uh you go side. Um and a little similarly this is a a little finer grain because this is actual sidewalks and bike paths and things. You can see the multimodal transportation system is very focused in those same areas. If you overlay those uh sewer and water service areas with this uh map of the bike and ped network and is that am I getting close to the end?

One more slide I think. Oh, thanks. Um, so this is you're kind of taking that decade over decade growth idea, but also looking at so where did housing land in our landscape here. Um, the blue is the areas planned for growth. So that 11 uh.6% or so. And in 19, you know, starting in the 1950s, you know, 92% of our housing units were landing in those areas. You can see as kind of a suburban suburbanization movement happened in the 70s 80s and continued into the 90s the percent happening in our growth areas went way down um down to 67% 68% you know down to around 70%. And you know what does that what's the converse of that? That means there was a lot more rural housing development that happened um you know in some other venues and you know I think act 250 was a factor in that because the jurisdictional threshold kind of made you know doing nine lot subdivisions or large lot subdivisions was a factor in this. Uh but there were also other dynamics happening in the housing market at the same time. Um you know we have Chin County is 6 and a half% of the state's land area with 26% of the population you know so obviously the densest part of the state um from Wooki to Bugore Bulesgore is not very dense um but uh but we have a lot more uh conserved than planned for development um and you know our towns just to look at the bar chart again um when I got here in the you know in 2008. I think one of the things that was really notable for me was that all of our towns had really been doing a good job with in their town plans. Maybe they didn't have all the zoning there yet, but they were all, you know, really

trying to implement smart growth in every single town. Uh and so you can see, you know, in the 2010s, a lot of those zoning changes started to take effect um and reduce the amount of rural subdivisions that we had in prior decades. uh so that in the most recent decade you know we're at uh 87% now happening in these areas planned for growth and was getting so close to 90 we're like let's shoot for 90 going forward so that is the plan going forward is to get to 90%.

Anything else to cover here? Well, and just to point out, Charlie, this slide I think is very interesting, but mass something, right? This this talks about development in the 70s, 80s, and 90s that occurred within areas planned for growth as we define those areas today. That's right. We didn't have the same areas planned for growth in the 70s, 80s, and 90s that we do today. I presume it was a much smaller, more constrained area. Meaning it's likely that those percentages reflective of the actual planning at the time were were far more skewed to rural areas subs.

It could be. Yeah. Although a lot of the um infra the water wastewater got built in the 70s 80s, right? So I don't know the answer to that. But certainly, you know, if you go back in time, you know, yeah, 1950s this infrastructure wasn't as extensive as it is later on. And it's a good point, Alex, and thanks for making that point. I think glossed over that, but but it is the blue is the area's plan for growth in this plan, which yeah, it wasn't the area's plan for growth back in those decades. Thanks. Any other questions, comments? If not, I'm going to think it's time for me to hand off to Taylor. It is so Charlie gave you some context for Chittney County. I'm going to talk about the ECOS plan itself. Um, so ECOS, if you were wondering, stands for uh environment, community, opportunity, and sustainability. Uh, this branding of the regional plan came out of a really substantial rewrite of the regional plan in 2013. Um, and it has a bit of name recognition in the county. People are bought into the brand of Eco. So, we've kept it um in this second amendment of the original ECOS plan from 2013. Uh, next slide, Kate. The ECOS plan really is four plans in one. So it is the regional plan and it meets all the statutory requirements of a regional plan but it is also our comprehensive economic development strategy which is a kind of plan uh that's approved by EDA the economic development administration through the US department of commerce. Um so that is the SS is a supplement to the full ecos plan. We have a sets that is actually a joint sets with Washington County, parts of Orange County, Addison County, and Relen. The EOS plan is also the MTP, the metropolitan transportation plan. That's a specific type of plan that we need to have because we are a metropolitan planning organization, which is a federal designation for urban areas over 50,000 people. Um, it provides us with some certain access to federal highway

funds to do transportation planning, but also responsibilities along with that as well. Uh the EOS plan is also our enhanced energy plan. Um like many well like all regional plans uh we created an enhanced energy plan around 2016 2017 uh to advance states energy goals. Next slide Kate. So the ECOS plan is uh mostly composed of 17 chapters that will reflect the 17 goals of Chun County. Um you'll see a really wide breath of things that are planned for in the regional plan. is truly comprehensive. Um, we also have two key themes that run throughout the entire plan itself. That is climate and adapting to climate change. It's also equity and inclusion. So, we've tried to address those two themes in all 17 of our chapters. Each of these 17 chapters has associated actions that go along with it and indicators to identify in future years whether or not we're making progress towards attaining our goals. Um I also want to note uh that we implement our plan through adopting an annual work program. Um so each year we're putting projects in our work program to actually move forward the goals of the plan itself. I also want to note that along with adopting this new plan we're adopting uh we're creating a new website and slowly not this round but hopefully in future iterations moving towards a web- based plan. Uh next slide please. In terms of the plan itself, there is that base plan, the 17 goals, but there's also seven supplements. Supplement one talks about our engagement process. Kate's going to talk a little bit more in detail about what we have done in terms of engagement for developing this iteration of the plan. Supplement two is our crosswalk. That's where we make sure that we're meeting all those statutory requirements of all those four different kinds of plans. Supplement three is new. That's um our environmental benefits and burdens analysis. Um there is a new state

statutory goal um goal number 15 that talks about making sure we have an equitable distribution of environmental benefits and burdens um that we address such in our plan. This is our attempt to do that analysis associated with that goal. We have the SS supplement 4, the MTP is supplement five. We have the enhanced energy plan supplement six and supplement 7 is also new. Uh that's a supplement where we try to show the math in terms of how we've done that those municipal energy sorry excuse me municipal housing targets um and shown the math as well for the housing estimates that are also now required uh per I believe that was for the home act from act 181 uh next slide K so development process itself we've been we've been working on this plan for a very long time and part of that is because in prior years um we didn't use our full eight years we would just use uh a 5-year period. Um and that is because the Sense and uh the MTP both federal plans those expire after 5 years and so we had been keeping an every 5year plan cycle. Um but uh given things were happening at the state level uh we decided to to adopt our current MTP and uh SDS independently um and to actually hold back on our regional plan and use our full 8-year cycle um and actually bring the MTP and the sets back into the fold in 2026. Um and so in 2023 we decided to to um stop for a bit and do some engagement spec specifically with underrepresented communities um because it felt like we had really hadn't done the hard work yet to inform the plan. Um then we had the passage of act 181 in 2024 that was going to require us to do a new regional future land use map. Um and so we again paused uh work on our on our overall plan and focus very much on the regional future land use map. We've been working

with our municipalities and with our community partners over the past year uh to do another round of engagement related to the plan at the map and here we are with LUR pre-application in fall winter 2025. We'll talk more about um what lays ahead in future slides. Uh next slide.

Okay. Um thank you Taylor. So, as as promised, I'm going to go into a little more detail about our two phases of public engagement over the course of the several years that we spent updating this plan. So, and Taylor mentioned um phase one of the engagement in 2023 really came from a realization by staff that um there were a lot of groups that had not been involved in previous plan updates, even the big push that we did in 2013 to create the plan in the first place. So we made the decision to focus that additional engagement on underrepresented communities especially those who do not speak English. Um that was the priority. Um and what we did was we um worked with cultural liaison to establish relationships and hold translated language specific focus groups to hear from those groups about what they were what they wanted us to know. And part part of what that ended up involving was a lot of conversation about what what's how does local government work, how does regional government work, how do the policies up here connect to the actions on the ground and the decisions and who does what. Um so it was good relationship building as well as important information gathering. Um you can see the languages there that um that we got to interact with. Um in addition, we had a countywide survey a little more broadly. We tabled and went to events in various um communities focusing um for the exception of Burlington on some some more rural places. Um we also tried to um connect with folks who lived in manufactured home communities um to make sure that those voices came to the table. And this this ended up being very fruitful. People were generous with their time. We were fortunate to to have people share their knowledge with us. Um this was before the meaningful engagement requirement was added to

statute but provided a good basis uh for that later work in phase two. Um so this is what we did between what did you say September 2024 and yesterday? um on ongoing important phase two, but focused in a little more narrowly on Act 181. And considering that we really wanted that to be a bottomup process, working building from the municipal planning efforts that had already happened, we there was a real municipal focus. We worked a lot with select boards, city councils, planning commissions, housing committees, um many many good and helpful meetings with planning staff, directors, planning commission chairs. Um overall over 140 and I think we consider this 150 at this point um meetings. Uh we also uh cast a broad brought it up beyond municipalities with some focus groups and those included topics like housing and land access, natural resources. We had one for state agency partners. Um and then we had three three language specific focus groups. again this translation um that allowed us to kind of weave the threat thread forward from the phase one engagement and um talk about how how the information had been used from previous engagement and and to maintain the the relationship that you know that's a piece of feedback that we that we often get um from systemically marginalized groups but and from groups in general is well what did you do with that information and how can we stay involved what does it mean to to really keep influencing this so this process that we undertook helped with that. And then we had an interactive map viewer online where people could drop a pin and leave a comment. We got 238 of those comments from 58 people. We gave people a chance to react to and respond to the housing targets and heard from 44 folks

on that. And then we went deeper on wanting to understand the um the needs of folks in manufactured home communities with a survey that got just over 70 responses. So, um, yeah, well over well over 140 activities in the course of of nine or 10 months. Again, having that conversation about what is a regional plan, what can a regional future land use map do, how will it and won't it influence your day-to-day, your property, etc. So, really, really important opportunity to bring planning into the into the limelight. So, what do we do with all this with all this information? And we did make a number of changes based on feedback and we tried to be as responsive as we could given that we're also working within the structure of the future land use area definitions that we have. We're working within the structure of what goes into a regional plan for statute. Um we got a lot of feedback on rural areas. Um, as you can see, and and it's already been mentioned that it was really important for um people in Titan County communities that if something was permanently conserved with an easement, it be represented as a dark green. Even if it was a working land, even if it was a a rural area that could be one of the other rural categories, we um we designated those as rural conservation. We made sure to label flood plane and river corridor overlay using hashmarks on the future land use map. We made some changes at the town level as well like and they were around the edges refining boundaries of transition areas making sure that we aligned neighborhood areas with sewer and water infrastructure and the local future land use maps and as as mentioned before identifying that locally conserved land really brought in some local knowledge there. We put all of these changes into a revised online map viewer which folks could see online. We also documented

those changes in a in a word document saying here's what we heard. Here's what we did. So we we aimed for transparency there to show that people's feedback was valuable. Again within within the bounds of what we could influence um given statute. Next. All right. So next I'm going to talk a little bit about housing targets. We got a preview from Charlie. I want to talk a little bit about the methodology which you can dive into very deeply in supplement 7 when you're ready. Here's your preview. Um so how did we create this methodology? We took a lot of time to do it. We took about a year and we worked with a committee of of very smart people who were willing to think through it with us. our planning advisory committee uh in in in achieving our charge of disagregating these to the town level. So the this subcommittee looked at it from a lot of different angles. How how how the how those targets should be assigned to the municipalities considering we do have a pretty interesting range of communities in Chittening County as I'm I'm certainly learning. Um they looked at things like infrastructure availability, land area, zoning, historic growth rates, uh lo local goals and where the group landed was deciding to assign housing targets based on mun on the type of municipality. We came up with three categories, cities, rural towns, and mixed urban and rural towns. And because each of those has a different form, a different availability of infrastructure and different different land area, we took different approaches. And along the bottom row there, you can see those approaches summarized. We assigned 60% of the regional housing target to our four cities, Burlington, Essex Junction, South Burlington, and

Wooki. And then and they have access to water, waste water, transit. We then further divided it by land area. Uh we received a lot of support from this municipalities that this ambitious target is in line with a lot of the planning already underway in these communities. So then for the rural towns they will receive about three 3.8% of the regional housing target uh with the encouragement to promote village development knowing that's going to take some planning and we're prepared to help them do that. The 3.8% 8% of the overall regional housing target represents approximately status quo for many of these communities in terms of the number of units that need to be produced annually to meet it. It is very similar to the historic growth rate and then our mixed urban and rural communities got the rest. Uh it was weighted based on the availability of water and wastewater infrastructure. So we really did take into account infrastructure. We did not do uh a capacity analysis per se knowing that as a planning project if we know we want a certain form if we want development in a certain location we can then plan to invest in the infrastructure to make that happen. One thing I'll add on mixed around world Kate is that we we did some waiting but you know um we also looked at our regional future language map too and so the weights are dependent on the map itself. So the map does have an impact on the targets per municipality. So if one of those mixed urban enrollies has a lot of area plan for growth a lot of access to infrastructure they have a higher target.

That's important. Thank you for adding that. So here's what that looks like in practice. Let you take that in for a second. You can you can see the rural communities generally growing at the same rate. Um check out Westford there. The fourth column from the left shows the annual historic growth rate. Six units annually approximately and Westford going up to about eight. Uh Bolton six going to about five to hit the middle target. And then you can see our our cities are are setting their sights on the middle and upper targets which do represent an annual increase in the number of units produced. You can see that there is quite a range and that that is what it's going to take to get us to our our middle or upper targets for the region. I'll pause there again after the data dump. All right, I'll move on. So, shifting gears a little bit here into the the last part of our overview presentation for you. We wanted to talk a little bit about the approach that we took with different categories, how we thought it through, and what that looks like. So, I'm going to do the first few of the these approach slides and then hand it back to Taylor. So, the first approach has to do with rural areas. Approach, no smoothing. Well, what does what does that mean? When we did our mapping, we used land cover data to identify where there were agricultural areas, where there were cleared areas that were likely residential uses, where there were um areas with forest cover, other important resources. Uh what we found is that it led to kind of a a blocky pattern in different rural places where there had been some exurban development. We considered whether to smooth those over which is to means to

color them in with whatever was surrounding them whether that was more um agriculture and forestry or rural conservation typically. We tried that out. We found that there wasn't a way to do that systematically across our communities. We also found that different municipalities had different opinions about the way that they wanted those rural areas represented. And let me show you an an example of that. This is this is from Huntington. I'd love the laser pointer, please. Yes.

Um, thank you. So, on the left here in the circled area, you can see our March 2025 map. And what what this is showing you is is rural conservation, agriculture, and forestry uh based on there's there is a forest block that goes through there that's important. And so we brought this to the town and they said, well, this doesn't this doesn't represent what is there. This does not represent the experience of the town or how we review it, nor does it reflect our future land use map. And so we said, well, what about this? This is the unsmoothed the roughed version I guess. Uh where you can see that the the cleared areas are represented in the light brown rural general down here. These these rural exurban neighborhoods. This in some cases you've got parcels down here. This is a road um that the front is cleared but it goes back. It might be a a piano key lot, a spaghetti lot. the back of the resource or the back of the lot will still have the dark green. The front of the lot will have the cleared area. And so this is what we opted to do just as a matter of policy uh across the region. So you'll see that on our map. The next thing I want to highlight is that we did end up mapping some enterprise areas adjacent to planned growth areas and this was done to reflect local policies, existing buffers and the intensity of different enterprise areas uses. In many cases, you know, there were there were different reasons for this variety of reasons from our municipalities for wanting to have PGA adjacent to enterprise areas in Burlington. It had to do with m maintenance of existing uses down by the intervvil McNeel generating plant but also some places that are neighborhoods that need to remain neighborhoods. This is an example from Wooki um just north of where we are sitting. And what you see here is the you can see

the footprints of these buildings in a kind of low inensity industrial area adjacent to to very compact neighborhoods and some some of their core areas along those corridors. and Wooki, which has a very small land area, they wanted to try to maintain a diversity of land uses and have the opportunity for businesses and jobs in these areas. And in fact, when I've driven up here, I need to go out there and get to the highway, do some errands, uh, I've I've seen people walking to and from this job center. So this in practice and according to the future land use map for the city is is a very functional adjacency of enterprise and PGA. And so as we thought that through and talked with them, we decided to map it that way. I give that to you for your consideration. We mentioned the custom category for our unique and land consumptive uses. Camp Johnson airport and the Allen firing range. That is the only custom category that we that we chose to create. There they are. And then I do just want to say uh that we use the transition area to describe a real a real range of contexts and the the definition of that area certainly allows that and I think ends up being a very important conversation starter with with communities about those areas that aren't quite this that aren't quite that that that need need some conversation. So we used it around interchange areas. We used it to identify possible future neighborhoods that are not yet connected to the infrastructure needed but could be with some planning. And then the example in this photo from or image from South Burlington is that there are some areas that are served by sewer and water

and they're perfectly nice neighborhoods and there could be more housing there but they are function they are disconnected transportation wise as you can see this neighborhood uh above the airport here. So common thread here no surprise uh additional planning is needed to achieve some of the local and regional goals. The orange on the map brings our focus to that um to that project. That's transition. Going to turn it back over to Taylor. So, I'm going to talk about the neighborhoods, the PGA, and the village areas and talk about uh the centers. Um a lot of this you probably already know, but we feel like it's worth reiterating. Uh with plan growth areas uh in Chipney County, those those are areas that are served by both water and waste water. there aren't really any exceptions. Um, you know, those areas that served by water and wastewater are subject to the home act and the provisions of the home act whereby you know there has to be five units per acre allowed. There has to be quadlex by right and so there's a diversity of housing types that need to happen or need to be allowed in those areas that are served by water and waste water infrastructure. That gets to one of the criteria uh of what a plane growth area is in statute. Um, PGAs are really where we see the most infill opportunities to meet our existing housing goals. So, they're they are probably a little bit more expansive than other parts of the state, but again, that's because we have larger water and wastewater service areas than a lot of the rest of the state. Um, PJs also need to be served by either plan or existing complete streets infrastructure. So, um, sidewalks, multi-use paths. Um, and we've done our best, you know, we have our own internal database of of that infrastructure and we've done our best work in our municipalities to understand where that infrastructure is planned. Uh, with village areas, those are areas that do need to have either water, wastewater or soils for future uh, community

wastewater systems accessible. Um, they also need to be a walking distance to the core. I don't know why core is in statute, not center, but it says core. Um and essentially you you'll see a lot of village areas in Colchester and Jericho as Charlie mentioned a lot of areas are served by water infrastructure but not served by waste water. So they couldn't PGA from our perspective. Move on Kate talk about centers. So we've got two slides on centers. Um, so the first bullet there, uh, we just want to note that we were really followed the municipal future land use maps and followed the municipal leads when defining what areas are downtown centers or village centers. We really let the municipalities choose and define for themselves what to label those areas. you know, from our perspective, statute uh doesn't come out and say you have to be a step three center to be considered a downtown center. Um that isn't clearly stated. And so our map is really reflective of how our municipalities define themselves. Uh the next bullet point, you folks are probably well aware that there is some uh misaligned language in statute between uh 4348A and uh title 24 chapter 139 in relation to centers. Um what you see here on the flowchart is sort of our thought process when looking at what geographic areas could meet that definition of center. And so you know we very much you know we're responsible for the regional future land use map. We looked at that definition of downtown and village centers in 4348A. And from there we we found alignment with the definition of downtown center and village center in uh 24 VSA 58014. And from there we found alignment and

conformance with the description of what is a step one center uh in 24 VSA 5803. you know, that description of step one center doesn't have a requirement that a center be historic. And I think that's the big the big um sticking point for some folks. Um we also want to note that it's important that you know for the definitions of of PGA and a village area that um that those areas be anchored by a center. And so given our our historic growth pattern here in Chin County that you know one this definition works and complies with statute and we're complying with statute but also just to comply with the village area and PGA definitions we needed some centers to anchor to um also want to note that you know there I know some folks uh in the state are are a little worried about the implications of having additional centers as part of the designation program and impacts on things like historic tax credits. We just want to make very clear that we only want historic tax credits to go to places that are historic and the community investment board has control over that. They get to decide where those tax credits are used or not used. And so we may have centers that are not historic here in county, but we don't want to see historic tax credits used in those places because they're not historic. Uh next slide. Next slide is just going to show you these definitions from statute itself. um wanted to document that as part of our presentation be available for people to review. But this is where we see alignment between those three statutes. Any comments or questions on the center topic? Hearing none. Uh that concludes our

overview of the regional plan. Uh overview of how we approached developing our future land use map and uh we're a little bit early surprising. So it's time for Q&A for for you folks if you have any questions on the plan or the general approach to mapping.

So I think I'll take the opportunity because we had a few people join us online after we started the meeting just to go over a few sort of ground rules here is we'll take questions from the board first and then from the public. Um we've built in a bunch of different times for follow questions here. The other thing I'll note is um act 250.gov is our website. If you go to it under act 101 and regional plans, you can find a link to all the eos plan as well as all the public comments that we received so far as well as our comments from sister agencies. We will not be reviewing those uh verbatim today because those are part of that public record which is online that we will be consulting with. Um, for those that wish to speak and ask questions today, absolutely, please do. Or you can also email act50.board, correct? Is it act.board.gov your comments and uh the public comment period is through the end of business day. So, please be timely with those. Uh, but we're happy to receive comments or questions that way. Um, any questions from the board first?

Oh, I have lots, but um, a bunch of my questions are related to the future land use area mapping and Sarah, are we doing a separate segment of this uh, show specific to that? So, I should tell you. for our agenda. We're due for a break in a little bit and then we'll come back and we're going to be doing a virtual site visit of the county and uh we will take questions from the board at each place that we stop. Um and then questions from the public after. If you have general questions about land use mapping, now might be the time to have them. So yeah, I have some general comments questions about the plan and then a couple of general comments questions about the mapping and then a lot of sort of specific stuff that we can talk about later. Um so one of the specific goals for regional plans is to broaden access to educational and vocational training opportunities. um to what extent your outreach efforts are were amazing. I was blown away by the level of engagement and um yeah, really proud that that's what was happening here in the county. Um but what sorts of engagement did you do with the school district specifically? Because that section of the plan is somewhat anemic. Honestly, there's a couple paragraphs that addresses total enrollment and how many school districts and that's it. So, what what kind of engagement were you able to do with those folks? Specifically in round one, we tried to engage with and Burlington school districts and were not responded to. Um and so there was effort made um but but yeah, no no takers and so you know direct engagement

with youth or with the school districts themselves uh the answer is none. else. Yeah, I I have some experience in local market so I understand that uh conundrum I but I noticed there are no action items specific to education in the in the relevant chapter. Yeah. So that's I don't know what the full board will say but as one board another that was one in my box was like

maybe we could say something about the educational system especially given the rather seismic changes that are being discussed right now um and yeah what what's happening with the long-term decline in enrollment. I do think the comment that was made about the fact that enrollment is declining but school age population is increasing is a really interesting point and where are those kids being educated? Uh and so yeah that that was that was I thought that was a good uh good value added point. We made a decision prior prior or the 2013 and 2018 EOS plan both have an education chapter and we you know in this iteration that went away and we merged it with I believe our infrastructure chapter

right and just felt like we hadn't been making any progress specifically on actions and prior plans that uh you know despite our best efforts we weren't it didn't quite maybe uh assessing having its own goal and chapter and said we we merged it in but your your point is well taken that things are shifting pretty considerably at the state level related to education.

Uh the other comment I had on um the specific goals or requirements uh is goal five under the specific goals and staff to identify that for the important natural and historic features of the Vermont state and then it gives of of a list of four um that that should be addressed. Um I didn't see a lot on historic resources and I wonder why.

Uh that is a good question. Um I think what is there is I think we do call we have an action specific to like update all the historic sites and structure surveys across our municipalities and that is like one of my pet things that I hope we can find money to do at some point in time. Um and so from our perspective at least that was that was enough to meet that statutory bar in terms of conformance. Um on the whole though that's a good question. You know as an RPC we haven't been as involved perhaps as some of the more rural RPCs with you know helping property owners like access tax credits or things related to designation program.

Um just because you know we have municipal staff in most our municipalities that that may be helping property owners with with those sorts of things. Um, yeah, we I'm I'm open to ideas. I

thinking what I might again can't speak for the board, um, is that it seems like Jen County is um somewhat unique in the state in in that the growth potential and and necessity is high, right? you the plan does a good job of indicating wow a quarter of all the new housing in the state needs to happen in this one county and yet um there's a balance right between um understanding your historic resources and respecting them and having them inform

what that new development is and it'd be great if the plan said something about that. Um would it be helpful for the board, you know, to to address that concern, Alex, that you know, we we highlight, you know, our RPC's efforts to help municipalities with with bylaws that do, you know, form-based code or or um design kind of specific standards that we that we you know, we're we're trying to support municipal efforts to do that kind of work that that we've got even a little bit of discussion about the form based codes that at least here in Newki in Burlington stem in part from the build landscape, you know, the history of that bill landscape. That might be helpful. Okay.

Y there's a request to drop the share screen there just Saturday before the board.

Um my other uh comment on that particular statuto goal has to do with the um significant scenic roads, waterways, and views. There's there's chapter 15 um that addresses scenic resources and and such. Um doesn't talk a lot though about scenic roads, um waterways and views. And as somebody who grew up here and lives here, I feel like that's a big part of what makes this such a special place is being, you know, having all the advantages of an urban area or even suburban area, but still having access to those

um scenic roads to drive on or bike on or, you know, the that spectacular view that you get in this one spot that, you know, gives you the sweep of the green mountains and another spot that gives you like champagne. And um I I acknowledge that in the plan you talk about the the deficiencies in a lot of the municipal um planning regulatory documents where there's uh intent and good language in a plan but not really correlary in the regulatory uh side of the coin.

Um but it just struck me that chapter 15 was a little weak. um and couldn't say more about why this particular place, you know, is special in those ways that the statue anticipates a plan addressing. I'm gonna I'm gonna try to be responsible, but I want to look at Charlie just because he was around in 2013. But I, you know, I think and my impression is that our board, you know, back in 2013 perhaps tried to not get that specific maybe uh specifically about views um because of the regulatory implications perhaps in terms of conformance to the regional plan at Act 250.

Sure. Um and and you know, not Yeah. wanting to be specific enough and supportive of municipalities but perhaps not feeling comfortable um in the region plan saying those things clearly um or specifically kind of being differential in this county. Am I am I interpreting things wrong now? I don't remember too much conversation like that but I do remember you know probably back at that point 10 years ago or more we were actually doing some we were investing in some of the towns doing some of those some of that work and getting some of their bylaws updated. So yeah, I think that's an area we can look at.

Uh I think this is my last sort of general elements of the plan comment dialogue. The the plan talks about u act 59 and the 30 by 30 50 by 50 initiative for uh bolstering the amount of conserved land in the state over those periods from to 2030 and 2050. And Melanie maybe you can help me. I didn't see a map though. Like in is there a map that shows the conserved lands from the protected lands database in Chip and County? No, but we can show maybe it's just in the viewer somewhere.

Yeah, it's um on the viewer and it's also combined with all the um state local known and possible constraints in our natural systems map. So it's just collapse um into those categories, but it is a layer that informs the energy plan.

Yeah, that's a more another sort of more general thought as far as you're doing the plan that um that map is super helpful. It gives you one place to look at like where the constraints are and it's also super unhelpful because you can't pick apart particular resource areas that a viewer might be most interested in whether it's conserved land or some other you know developing constraint. So I know I know there's been an evolution in the regional plan to you know move in the direction of these more combined maps for a variety of reasons and you you you might want to you might want to bolster that with some specific resource maps and at least in terms of the conserve land I think it would be interesting I think Charlie's point about Chippen County not being exactly what a lot of people in the state think it is is a good one and showing the how where the network conserved brands is in addition to the percentage I think it's 24%.94

and and the state is 27 I believe so like very comparable to the overall um the state level of the conserved lands just to see where that work patterns there that might be interesting can't do it um the maps are now and just a heads up I'm guessing you already know this but I was I was on the map viewer this morning And it's got a bunch of layers that involve display it. So just some kind of glitchy debate is going on with the map. I think that you were on the old EOS plan Matt viewer.

Very positively. I was I was using the link from within the plan in the historic resources section because I thought, hey, I've got about historic resources. I'll just go in that viewer and see where they are. And that Yeah. So, and I just noticed that link is to the old ECOS plan map viewer. Our map viewer is now on our new website. So, in the next iteration. Gotcha. Thank you. And I will just state that we have our own map

from act 250 which is the future land use in tier 1A and B viewer which does include a protected lands database that you can turn on and off. But I will note for the record that there are some discrepancies that were picked up between our data sets and your data sets specifically with infrastructure. This is noted earlier. We are endeavoring to make sure that those are up to date. Hopefully we'll go to the final application. We have some lead time. We will look into that and get that corrected.

Your explanations about why you made decisions on some of the future land use area um calls was really helpful. Um I I I still feel like the rural general category is being used too much. Um and that when you have singular house sites in a sea of rural a forest that show up as rural general, that's not land use mapping. That's that's house mapping. And so we've seen that issue in some of the other regions as well. And I thought your point about like we couldn't figure out a better way to do it was was a good one. Um I wish we could figure out a better way. Yeah.

It still doesn't seem like the right way. And honestly um at least in the Northwest uh regional plan there was a lot less of that. So, you may want to talk to them about how they figured out how to do it because I think they did. And and I'm just concerned that as this board, we would use all of the regional plans across the state that I I don't really want one region to have an excessive level of granularity that three other regions don't like that it'll make it difficult to do statewide analysis.

We've had those conversations with those partner RPCs. Um, and I I'll jump in because I was probably at the point of some of that, but was that there was also the dynamic of going into public meetings with people seeing their um, property labeled as, you know, rural consultation and we're like, well, this is my house, like, you know, and so I think that's the struggle statewide of like, you know, the the is versus, you know, kind of the specific versus the general. Um, I think more of the regions look like us than maybe look like Northwest. So, just heads up as you're going. Um, but we'll look again at how Northwest was able to smooth that out. Um,

well, and again, it's to me it's not a dichotomy. There are three world classes, so whatever that is, a dichotomy. Anyways, it's it's not the difference between rural general or rural conservation in my mind. It's the difference between rural general and rural land forest. And so the community that I used to work for which is here in Chimney County is one of those community where communities where there's a lot of rural general being mapped and as their former planner I look at it and say that that's an a forest district. It's an in a forest future range map at the municipal level. Why is it why is it mapped as sort of a more of a rural general category when they could easily be rural and forest the acknowledge that those places have plenty houses in them?

Right. Well, you know, one of the things we found, Alex, is that and you've probably seen this in zoning as well, there are a lot of agriculture districts that are they're actually and sometimes named agricultural residential. Sure.

And so that leaves us with the sometimes the choice between rural, general, and agriculture. It it comes down to maybe an expression of values as much as what's on the ground or what should be on the ground in the future. And so those are some of the things that we're kind of grappling with. Yeah. And I think in to the extent that an area as a whole, you know, hangs together as a rural general, so be it. But those areas where you have a a narrow road winding its way up into a rural a forest area, the little pin creeks of yellow along the way for each house site, it just doesn't make sense from a land use mapping uh standpoint and mining. Uh don't that's uh and then like all the other all the other commissions you have lots of slivers everywhere in the in the mapping and that's just an artifact of of the process. So

trying to clean them. Yeah. Still trying to clean them.

We are at time. We're actually a little bit past time. Um, I think the one other thing I just want to say in terms of data cleanup is, uh, I think our partners at ACCD noted that you have some plans that were expiring that are noted in the Vermont planning data center as being expired, which when you go to their websites of the municipalities, these are recently adopted plans. And so just an encouragement to make sure that there is municipal follow-through to make sure the Vermont data planning center is updated because I think that was another easy sort of fix there. And the most up-to-date info on that should be in our tier 1B memo where we where we noted that there were some possible

and I mean our partners at ACCD should have the most up-to-date data because we have to update uh uh a map layer related to municipal planning grant uh uh eligibility and that was done before the end of September and so they should have that data. So is the example I can think of the commentary they said that was an expiring plan. We know it's not. Yes. Yes. Recently very recent. So kudos to that.

So we are due to take a break until we were due to take a break from 3 to 3:15. Um I think we should still at least at the very least take a 10-minute break. So what I'd like to propose is coming back at 3:20. We'll go to a full screen. What I would say too is just anything that you have to say, please come back and say it on the record and don't catch us running to the restroom. Uh we're more than happy to stay here and hear everything. Um there on that note, there are three restrooms at this way and as well as thank you very much for I provide some apple squares and apple cider but the rest is actually courtesy of Chin County region thing. Um so please avail yourself for that and we'll be back at 3 time. Are you ready to close the hold?

Yep. All right. Perfect. Thank you. All right. Well, very good. I want to welcome everybody back. Thank you. We're um back together and I think the next thing on your agenda is to have a virtual site visit of the future land use map by CCRPC. I will note that what we're going to see in the room is the virtual site visit side by side with the slideshow. If you go to our website under active50. vermont.gov and look into the CCRPC plan submitt. We have also uploaded that there. So, if people want to get that PDF to follow along, please do. Um, with that being said, I'd like to turn it back over to CeCe.

Exhibit 23. Exhibit 23 and counting. Very good.

Thank you, Sarah. So, we're going to do a virtual site visit um of Chitting County. I am going to drive the map. Kate is going to drive the presentation. Hopefully this works. If you have questions, please interrupt us. Feel free to ask board members. Um this is an internal map viewer just for our staff. It has some data layers that uh that we can use that are not available in our public basing map viewer. Um including building envelopes. So we can see or sorry building footprints. We can see building footprints. We can see bike pad infrastructure waterway service areas. I can just turn that on and off um as we move about the county. Um we're going to talk about St. George first. All right. One second. Sorry. Let me get me

I'll start talking about it. You start talking about it. I'll zoom in.

All right. Welcome to St. George. Um, this is one of the places that does not previously have a designated village center, but it does have characteristics of a center, which the act 181 definitions allowed us to use to give this community an opportunity that it would not have had otherwise. So this is uh just we just wanted to start out off with this example of a small center, a new center in a small town that would provide access to planning resources to help improve um the centerness, the compactness and the and the function of of this place where already there's an existing existing neighborhood with affordable homes. There is a town hall town offices rather. There is a small private wastewater system that serves multiple properties including one or two publicly owned properties I believe. Thank you. Um and so what does planning look like for that? Uh when we think about the future of this small area, the center allows allows that to be contemplated.

I'm seeing there's a little bit of lag on the map, so I will do my best to to stay um quiet with my mouse. Um, the only other thing I'll I'll mention is that we have a mobile home park in the center. This might be one of the very few centers in the state that has a mobile home park in it. Um, I believe over a third of St. George residents live in that mobile home park. Um, so um going to be a pretty urban pretty pretty urban place if this becomes a center. Um, let's move on unless there's questions about St. George. Well, just one question. I I saw the village area to the south. There's a transition infill area to the north. Mhm. Why why why is it villager in one side and transition info on the other?

My recollection is that the village area to the south, which I'll zoom back out a little bit. So there are better soils down in the south than there are on the north. Um and you know both the transition area and the village area I believe in the municipal plan are within the same category or same subset of like a residential kind of category. But with the soils and the slower speeds on 2A to the south that's 35 miles an hour, but actually it goes up a little bit higher to 50 above the center. You would know better than me driving that every single day for a long time. Okay. All right. Yeah. U that that into our decision- making there in terms of transition versus village area.

Yeah. Just curious. Of course, the transition areas, while still an effective way to map land use, do not have the advantage of a potential um 2011 D status at some point in the future. And go ahead. No, no, I was going to move on. So, this isn't necessarily specific to St. George, but maybe as we go through the towns that have mountain village areas, could you touch on the walkability and how that was evaluated? Sure. I'm particularly interested to know if there was a specific distance factor that was considered.

Uh there was not, but we did factor in the existence of of infrastructure, but I can bring up the the sidewalk and bike pad infrastructure layer too to kind of demonstrate how those village areas are connected to centers as we go along. So I had one thing on uh St. George, which was that the um mobile home park is included within the village. this new village area, but the zoning for is actually rural zone. And so that might be good to have some additional information as to when you're looking at creating one of these new village areas and you look at the underlying zoning as to what's being included, what's not. Um that was something that might benefit from a collaboration.

Okay. Yeah. It's always been tough with all these municipalities when we're looking mostly at the mal plan their future language map and their zoning and they're not totally aligned. Um and so in those circumstances we've you know work with Miss to make a make a decision but I I hear you Sarah we will look at that. Anything else on say George? Yeah, Sarah. Sarah. Oh,

hi. I'm sorry I came late. Um, and maybe I missed a little bit um in the earlier portion of the meeting when um you were describing your methods perhaps. Um, but I also wonder in in addition to what uh Kirsten and um Sarah talked about in terms of zoning and sidewalk infrastructure, I'm also wondering how you decided to uh you know, how you decided on the boundary that you decided on and and how does that relate to those other underlying uh considerations and and also in terms of um parcel whether you snapped to parcel for instance. So as you're going through these is if if you can sort of address those um questions in a summary fashion that would be great.

I I will say overall that if we can snap to parcels we're snapping to parcels. Um, if there's a circumstance where a parcel is divided by a sewer service area, we would snap to the sewer service area or to the water service area as in we would keep the area served as a village area or a PGA. The area not served as some probably some kind of rural category or transition category. Um, as a general response to that, Janet, I can try to be more detailed area by area, you know, not too much detail, just a little.

Yeah, I'm also worried about time. Uh, here in St. George, I mean, we we would we would snap the parcel and we would generally follow along with with their municipal future landing snap in their town plan. Okay. All right. I'm going to zoom out and we're going to move to Fort Ethan Allen in Colchester.

So, this is another newly mapped center, but it is mapped around a very historic place, um, Fort Ethan Allen. And this has a you can see the aerial now that Taylor has pulled the map up. It's a compact pattern with lots of historic buildings. There's a mix of housing types um, and housing affordability levels. Um, Champlne Housing Trust just opened tent cavalry there. Uh, which is a new afford permanently affordable um, housing development. Uh, on the right in the slide uh, for those following along at home hopefully you have the PDF of the slide presentation up and if so the title of the site visit Essex and Colchester and Allen. On the right of that is the National Register of Historic Places boundary. Um, this this is a national register site and nonetheless it's kind of that fun old postcard but it looks just like that today.

Just interesting fact that you know this very historic place was not part of the prior designation programs. Um why I couldn't really explain to you. So this could really benefit this both of these municipalities this place by being a part of the the designation programs. Uh I do want to note there's a lot of wastewater challenges here too. um specifically with with I know in Colchester um so additional investment here is very important um I want to note the mix of uses that exist here uh some of those uses are kind of back in some of the the non-historic portion behind the old for sorry my mouse is is lagging a ton um and lastly you know Kate mentioned that CHT has a lot of uh affordable partially affordable rental units I also want to note that there's a lot of CHT shared equity home ownership units too also in this area. Um, and those folks um or those property owners would have access to benefits for the designation program through uh being included as a center. Shall we move on?

Any comments about Colchester's non-tier 1B optin position that process or is that a decision made? It is a it is uh a municipality decision as you know.

Yeah. Um, we provided information that's out of Colchester. Um, we have given our municipalities until March 18th to make a decision about opting in or not. Um, we did that because we want to be transparent to the board and to well everyone about what what municipalities are opting in when we warn our second public hearing. Um, in Colchester, uh, yeah, I'm not sure where they're going to go next. We've offered support and to be a part of this conversation. I don't know if Charlie or Kate have anything to add.

What what I would add is that Colchester is one of a handful of towns that was getting ready to start its municipal plan update just after we were wrapping up the mun the future land use map. And so I know in many in many communities, you know, Huntington and others, um there are local conversations about land use that could inform an ultimate decision to be part of tier 1B or not. And um being able to have those conversations in the context of the municipal plan update uh in addition to or instead of the regional plan update I think is some a helpful thing for towns and the time that they need to take conversation ongoing it sounds

conversation ongoing I think same for assets too while we're at it. I was mist and is Jen Jance. Jan, did you have anything on Colchester? No. All right. I guess I'm just noting and asking if you have any comment concerning the extent of the village areas proposed for Colchester in terms of the walkability element. Some of it's it's large frankly.

So let me ask you just a procedural you're going to be skipping to the different villages. I was going to use one example. Are you going to come back to the village areas or would you rather have our questions on village areas? That's where villages village areas now is is fine. Yeah, totally fine. Well, you're Yeah, you're asking about Colchester. I just didn't know if you wanted to touch on that.

So, I've zoomed out to to show all of Colchester now. Um and you'll see in Colchester that we have several new village centers in addition to the 40th Allen. We actually we have one legacy center here in the old Colchester village. Um that's it's it is expanded from its current boundaries. We have another uh new village around the town office. We have another new village on West Lakes Shore Drive kind of by tick mass general store. And then we have another uh village center around what's called Warner's Corners. I grew up around here. No one calls it that. Um but this is this is around Porter Point Road, Prim Road, uh Hyber Route 127. Um Kirsten, what I've turned on here is uh our bike ped infrastructure layer. Um there may there may be errors. This is our best effort at at kind of collecting information about where sidewalks and bike paths exist. Um what you'll see in the white specifically are the locations of sidewalks. And so if we look at Warner's Corners for example, um we have pretty good sidewalk connectivity um from Warner's Corners um in all four directions. Um, we actually have sidewalk connectivity all the way out to Airport Park and and pass um over to what is the the Burlington bike path that comes over the bridge of the Munis River. Um, and so, you know, this is just one example, but you know, we could half mile buffer off of of this one particular layer here and and we'd probably be about halfway down Porter Point Road. And so are we getting a little bit beyond, you know, the strict definition of walkability perhaps? But there is connectivity via via sidewalk in this location, for example. Um, you know, Colchester has a lot of sidewalks or p bike paths that are planned in this capital improvement plan that are not shown on here, not factored in here, but um, we can provide more information to the board if needed. Um,

Kate, nothing to add on connectivity. I do want to note that the historic Colchester Village Center isn't a legacy center. It's not participating in the downtown program right now. Yeah, just peeking on the planning atlas. I'm not surprising to me actually.

Um, and so that that's another one where it's it's going to get the benefits because it has the the characteristics. Um, what I would add about the the the multiple villages in Colchester is that the, you know, we really got a lot of nodding of heads in the town of Colchester when we talked about these as nodes, as functional spaces that people gather, go to, whether it's because of parks or a general store or some daily services that they might need down at Mort's Corners, a drive-in movie theater, but whatever one might need uh for daily life. Um, but the community really kind of saw these at as as nodes. Maybe not and and villages. Again, this is a future land use map. So, thinking ahead about where additional services could be located that would serve the the pretty vast neighborhoods in Colchester and anchor those uh so that you know over time hopefully some gentle infill um could could lead to more housing in in this community. And these, you know, these village areas are all served by water infrastructure as well.

I had sort of an opposite thought about the the the two sort of M Bayish uh village centers and the fact that as somebody who drives me there all the time, um it feels like one place to me. It doesn't feel like two different village centers. And I see people walking because it's it's the waterfront. Mhm.

Um especially in the summertime. Uh to me it's it's sort of mallet bang is one place, one village center. And when I look at this, I thought, well, that's kind of odd. Why do you have such a tiny little village center near the town office? Um and another one out by uh the bed itself. Uh maybe maybe they could be collapsed into just one larger village center. But we kind of went back and we went back we had a lot of conversations about that. Exactly. With Colchester, Alex, too much local knowledge.

Well, I I think that was uh a larger um comment on some of the mapping overall. I think this is a good area to show is I think the proportions is what you're getting into in terms of village area to village is um I I think some of the questions in terms of this is central Chin County. These are the municipalities that are relying upon for your housing targets. Why not increase the size of your village areas in relation to or village centers in relation to the village areas. Um it just uh there's a lot of existing development that might be best encapsulated by a village center and reading through um the definitions um provided in the VA um criteria. Um it would seem that some of these areas could be reexamined to be larger village centers which would then help in terms of relation to walkability of the core to the village area and that sort of/4 mile to half mile um which were in about what the relative distances between different nodes.

I wish I had a measuring tool here. Um I do not. I could go to the NR atlas real quick and do measurements. We have one on ours. You have one on yours. So, we have one on ours and happy to measure that. I think it's about a mile. That's probably on the bottom. That one, sorry, 2,000 ft down here at the bottom. So, if we're talking on KM Road, I would say about 6,000 ft. A little over a mile. Um or maybe a little bit less if you were measuring from the edge of the village center here. Um a half mile. Yeah, it's about um mile 180 ft. So that's what about a mile between each. Okay. Is that what you're measuring now? Yeah.

Anything else on Colchester? We're going to move on Jericho. A pretty similar municipality in that it uh has water service but does not have a wastewater service as of right now. Um Jericho has three historic villages um that are all participating in the destination program. Now we have Jericho corners. Um we have the Riverside undergo flats and then we have Jericho center. All three have uh map village centers that are uh you know really grounded in the municipal plan itself. uh you'll see quite a bit of village area uh around uh particularly in between Jericho Corners and Under Flats Riverside. Um these are areas that you know are in uh future land use planning areas municipally and in zoning districts that uh support residential development and have access to to water infrastructure. And I'll interrupt you for a sec to say that for comparison on the in the PDF that we see on the right here, you're looking at the Jericho future land use map and yellow is um residential didn't build red and paper village core and village neighborhoods. So as you kind of look between the two of them, you can see why how they line up with the future land use. And so you can see that, you know, we have some transition areas, notably this one here by the high school where municipally they're they've put that in village neighborhood, but we've had it as transition because it doesn't have water service right now. So it's kind of a signal to to say, hey, we don't have infrastructure now. You're planning for this locally. Um perhaps you need to do more work in terms of planning for infrastructure. Maybe this could be a village area in the future, but more work needs to be done.

Your your questions about um the breadth of the village areas and the distance from the village centers and the walkability I think is relevant in this case because the route 15 corridor is not a pedestrian friendly coronator and um although the map shows a bright green which is you know like a bike uh route um you know that's that's a 50 mph road without a dedicated bike, you know, facility on one side, right?

Um, so I I'm just I just sort of call that out for your benefit, Kirsten. I I actually am more on the on the wavelength of Sarah, that like this is Jenny County and and for lack of a better way of putting it, like we need to pack people in here. Uh, and so I'm I'm not uh as worried about village areas that are not um formerly connected to village centers via sidewalk system existing, but I think's point is still worth thinking about. And this one to my mind again, and somebody who drives around there a lot, uh,

it's not super friendly to pen use along that blue 15 corridor. Anyways, any other questions on Jericho? I do want to chime in that Jericho's been um doing a lot of scoping and construction even of of sidewalks and multi-use paths. So, there's pretty active conversations about active transportation and about wastewater too. They are currently doing a plumber engineering report forget

uh for a wastewater community based wastewater system to serve that Riverside uh Riverside area. Where are we going next? We are going to the village center in South Burlington at the corner of Kennedy and Kimble.

While you get us there, I'll just um share that what what you're looking at here is a rendering though part of this neighborhood has been built. It's combination of um single family homes, multi-story uh apartment buildings. I believe there's some duplexes in there and this this is the vision but lot lots of it has been built already. Um and then that polygon is a a very approximate approximation of future development that is planned uh that is mixed use development uh complementing the residential development that is there. Could you orient us to screen one screen? Spun around here a little bit.

And so, um, yeah, we've got on the presentation slide, you can see Kenny Drive labeled there. And so, this is Kenny Drive. You look at my screen real quick. That's Old Farm Road.

And then we have Old Farm Road right here that kind of goes up the middle and it's kind of connecting to all the residential that's in the back. Some of which has already been constructed. Um, and so this area here, as Kate mentioned, we're going to show you on the next slide, uh, a conceptual rendering of of what may be built here, but we're talking two to five story buildings, um, you know, that are mixed use on Kimble A. Um, built form looks pretty downtown like um, and this is, you know, one of those nodes that South Burlington is planning for. How many stories are in the buildings on Kennedy? um directly on Kennedy Drive. The ones that are just above the

Sure. I believe those are five-story buildings, multif family. Um you know, Kennedy Drive is pretty boulevardy and pretty uh screened on the road. So there's there are trees, I believe, in between Kennedy Drive and those those structures. Um, but the the point of the ones on Kindle Lab is to be much more mixed use, much more oriented street and more of a traditional village or downtown center kind of feel through the streetscape. You want to show the next slide? Thanks. Also, so this is another reorientation but closer to closer to the one on the screen. Yeah.

And this shows just a conceptual buildout of of what this may look like in the future. Again, you two to five story structures with with some examples of what they may look like. um generally oriented street. There's some in parking lots, but generally oriented street bike infrastructure serve in the area.

So, this one requires us to have a little bit of a leap of faith. Um it doesn't right now look anything like a village center to my mind, right? doesn't have a mix of um civic assets and commercial destinations that would drive that designation. But the reason it's being shown as a no as a village center is because of what's planned, what's happening on that Kimble Avenue end of the equation.

I say yes and you know at least the subdivision of those lots those lot sizes have been permitted either locally and or through act 250. Um, and so we we do have, you know, some control of the build form in terms of lot size, but you're right, Alex, there is a bit of a leap of fifth. Well, I I think that looking at the definition of the village center um and you're looking at within this area about 25 parcels roughly and I I think what would be helpful is additional information like what you're providing um to help guide because

right now with the information that we provided through the application, there's a lack of historic sites and traditional center or civic amenities. These are things that are in that definition of a village center. Um and so that sort of southern edge along uh for farm road is that area with those slots that you were highlighting. Um that might be helpful to talk about that specifically in those in terms of those buckets that perhaps need to be filled in. In terms of where we talk about that, Sarah, would you like that in the application in the plan or supplemental information to provide as a part of pre-application?

Sure. I think we'll provide you with comments, you know, from all of us that will help guide you as to the level of importance and where maybe to address it. Excellent. As far, we're still figuring that out because we're decide how to respond to the application. So, Janet has her hand up, but Kirsten, did you have anything? which I think very good Jen

um it's really hard to put these two images together especially on a single screen but the what I'm seeing on the map viewer there's it looks like um some larger structures in the purple that is being um proposed for village center. Yeah. Are those mixed use?

Uh it's a good mix of uses. Um and so uh in this structure here we actually have a formal uh a formerly commercial building that's actually undergone a renovation to become purely residential. Um you know in response to the housing crisis we have here. The other structures uh to my knowledge are uh commercial structures. Um this is actually CCRPC's old office um once upon a time. Um but yeah, we have a mix of uses but not mixes of uses within one structure. Jim, okay, thank you.

Uh this structure here, for what it's worth, I believe is three or four stories tall. Um this one is three stories tall. So we have some height here as well. Um ready to move on. All right, we're going to move to Shelurn. But we I think we alluded to this a little bit earlier, but here you will see some village centers along Route 7. These are new centers again nodes really in in line with some recent planning and zoning work in Shelburn. These create some differentiation along the Route 7 corridor. We've seen that be successful in other parts of the corridor and it helps anchor the the neighborhoods that are off of uh Shelurn Road that again could could become locations for more infel housing opportunity.

I want to talk about a couple things overall with Shelurn then kind of go node by node down Shelurn Road. Um, I just want to provide context that right now Shelurn is in the midst and actually almost over the finish line on a very substantial bylaw update that was funded through a bylaw modernization grant. Um, hopefully that gets adopted this month. If not, it's going to be in January. Um, the town has also updated its sewer service area recently and the town is going to do a very uh strategic town plan update in the next few months, plans to to make sure we have alignment between the bylaws and the plan. a little bylaw before the plan here. So, we're going to get full alignment and that'll make our lives a little easier in terms of boundaries. We'll talk more about that when we talk about a transition area and Shelurn later. Um, and I just I want to say that, you know, all these moving parts kind of underscores the need for a lot of coordination between the municipalities and in the region. Like, they're doing their best to do good planning work and we want to be as responsive as we can and sometimes that can get a little hectic. Um, in terms of this northern node, you'll see that our northern node is a little bit smaller here on this map than what Shelurn is planning for on this proposed zoning map you see on the left here. Um, the reasons behind that is that, you know, we really wanted to uh make sure that we had a mix of uses and we felt really good about that um uh and solid about that on our map. Um, so there our our node is a little bit smaller. Um, I do want to note though that there is a a project that's been permitted here that is mixed use that is 63 homes. It's the Kronback property. It is this larger property here. Um, so that there was actually a settlement. Um, but that project is permitted. We have sidewalks on both sides of the road here. We have bike lanes on Route 7. Um, we have access to public transit. Um, but all this node and all the nodes here were all within the intermac 250 transit buffer area. Um, there are a few structures to the south of this node that are historic that are on the state

register but not in the node themselves. Um, speaking of just adjacent to the node, um, I do want to note that this property down here is Bay Ridge. You'll see a picture over here on the right, which is a recent Champlne Housing Trust uh, development 94 professionally affordable homes uh, at that site. Question. Yes. So when you refer to existing historic structures that are adjacent to the node by the node I think I think what you're referring to is the village center. Yes. So why were those not included in the village center? Why why was the village center not mapped to include those?

Sure. Those structures are down here a little south of of the node. you know, uh, from our perspective, um, we wanted to not get too linear with with any of our centers. Um, we wanted to include areas that we felt really good about in terms of them being permitted, at least at some level, some permitted uh, kind of development that was going to be mixed use and meet the definition of village center. Um and so yeah, those are the reasons why we stuck to a more tight center here and we didn't expand it down down or Shelurn Road. I think I had some of the same comments here in terms of you had very tight uh village areas and a very expansive planned growth area and it might be beneficial to look to expand the village centers for that proportionality

reasons and also I think you just highlighted some of those in terms of the historic sites. This is an area served by transit. Um there have been some major increases in terms of walkability within this area too. Um so that might just help in terms of the proportionality because there is a very expansive plant growth area which is really at times more than a mile from these centers. Mhm. Yeah. And I I get the desire to have nodes and to help provide centers uh for the fight to feed on or dovetail with. Um but yeah, this one bothers me.

It's so small. It's somewhat inconsequential. Um used to work in one of the the buildings there. I mean, it's uh it's a it's a retail plaza. um doesn't seem to fit what a village center is by statute or my conception of what what that is. Um but just initial thoughts. Yeah, I mean, you know, I hear you, Alex, and it's, you know, kind of comes back to our our, you know, interpretation of centers and the non-historic requirement and for step one centers, um there being a low barrier, but but yeah, I hear you,

Jana. I just want to reiterate I think that one is too constrained and if there are historic structures I think they should be in it and why not put in that new um Champlne housing you know uh trust uh bu uh development. Um I I would encourage you to expand that one double it or something. Kristen, what I'll what I will say out loud to your question as well though given my lackluster response is that this is also as I mentioned before us trying to coordinate in real time as the municipality is making its own decisions and so you know we finaliz this well it finalized the map but we had we had a draft map in March and a lot has changed at the municipal level since March and so we're sometimes we're trying to play catchup and so we'll we'll take the feedback we heard today and thinking about expanding that stuff. Yeah. And I'm I'm myself as a single board member, not necessarily focused on like looking to expand them, but just trying to see does it meet what I think our interpretation statutory definition is. What's that explicitly calls for it's it's a historic area. So just was curious to see. Okay. Well, there's adjacent store buildings that were omitted from the closed mount area. Thank you for all the explanation.

Yeah, no problem. We've moved down to the middle node, which is uh another new village center here. Uh for those familiar with this area, this would be the the rice lumber property. So, we have rice lumber up here on top of the hill. It's a transition, but uh down here on Shelurn Road, um we have an historic plaza here, Alex. Uh we we uh with a mix of uses. Um we have a mix of residential commercial uses along the corridor itself. Um there is an historic structure, the Dutch Mill, uh an old motel here, uh on the Avenue or on Shel Road itself. Uh on this parcel, we do not have a fully permitted, but we have a planned grocery store. Um and the parcel behind it is municipally owned and is planned to bring a fire station in the future. Um we have sidewalks, uh we have bike lanes, we have access to public transit, we have water and wastewater. Um we have a lot of good things planned for this area. Any questions about this middle center?

Just the same comment. It's a little bit of leap of faith, you know, as what's happening. I wasn't aware that there was a potential fire station there or a grocery store. So, that's good news. Um, but it doesn't change the fact of what that second shelter mode is, which is not a place for people to congregate. It's a it's a hightraic road that take your life in your hands if you want to cross it as an administrator.

It's it's been a really interesting tension for us internally and in conversation with our municipality to to to walk the line between what's there today, what it feels like, which is you know dangerous for walking and what it could be in the future with some planning. Um, so we want to re respect reality and pragmatism and also help help the towns to be future oriented with future land use map. And I think you're seeing some of that tension here.

I I totally get it. I I'll be honest with you. A lot of me looked at this and wondered why most of that road wasn't transitioning. It seems like poster child for that designation. But I hear what you're saying about trying to create nodes and respecting future development plan and um and municipalities future, you know, plans as well. So that all makes sense. Thank you.

Yeah, it's tough. We got a state highway. You know, it's near this in all the regions too of the state. It's tough when we have state highway. Um you know, I beat did a really good job here trying to make it a complete street, but it just still doesn't change the fact that you've got 10,000 cars a day going through here. Um, all right. Moving on to the historic uh V uh village center, which is now going to be a downtown center. Um, this is Shelurn's historic uh center. Um, we have Shelurn Museum included. Um, zooming in a little bit, uh, we have the Sheltown offices, the existing fire station, library, um, etc. Municipal ball fields and a whole mix of uses. Um, we actually even have a mobile home park here as well in this center. Um, I was wrong. There are there are more than one mobile home park in a center here in Chin County. Um we have all the things we have before. We have water, waste water. We have bike infrastructure. We have access to public transit. Uh any questions on on this center one parcel that went down to the other side of Boston Road, which would seem to be a nice hard edge to it. Was there a reason?

Uh the reason I believe is municipal future lane use map. Um, and I I I do think that uh we might have thought about this parcel differently if the mapping methodology was different. Sarah, so this this parcel is owned by Meech Cove, which is uh actually owns all this land way over here too. It's all in current use. uh even though it's in the water sewer service area and so um per the methodology we had to include it as we're like forestry but municipally they're actually planning for this to to be something more than that um and so if and when that that that zoning gets adopted if and when that municipal plan gets approved that shows us as you know a village centering district or something like that we might upgrade this whole stretch here on road Sarah Um, so it's more than just a little a little parcel.

So why doesn't the downtown area include uh the school, the post office? Um why isn't it bigger? And and why does it include Shelder Museum? It seems like Shelurn Museum is maybe a real oddity. It doesn't belong in the category at all. But I first looked at it and thought, "Well, that seems like a resource-based wreck, you know, facility of sorts, but less about museum, more like why why wouldn't the downtown expand over into the school and extend um you know, further down uh to the south along that that road which the main um is it a zoning issue? Is it is it

future lanes map?" I mean, we're we're we're trying to mimic their future lane map and their existing existing but now expanded designation through the legacy state designation program. So, we started with mapping the existing the the legacy village center designation which the community was working to expand into a downtown and including uh Shelurn Museum. We followed that lead. that expansion didn't include the the school and post office.

Yeah, just Shel's such a wonderful downtown area and it's gonna get bigger and it just seems like those are incredible pieces to it. Both the school and the Sheldon Fieldhouse which is a mecca for uh indoor recreation in this county and it is the the place for indoor recreation besides the Champlain Valley Exposition. Um and okay, we're going to move on to uh Willist and we're going to look at top corners. Okay, 15 or 20 minutes on

Okay, we're about Okay. All right. So, we're going to move try to move a little bit quicker. Um even though I have a lot to say about this one. Uh so this is Task Corners. Um this is mapped as a downtown center. Um this the boundaries of this downtown center uh mimic uh the future land use map and zoning in Willist that identifies this as their form-based code district. Um Wilson underwent a really substantial comprehensive uh planning process for this area in 2020 2021 whereby they adopted this vision plan that had a lot of of public engagement related to it. Um and then a form-based code. Um, so they're highly regulating uh building form now. Structures have to be oriented on the street. Um, and I'll zoom in a little bit more. If you can pop out.

Sure. Yeah, I should totally shrink that pop out. Thank you. Um, you can see there's not a lot of grit network here, right? And if you look at the map on Kate screen, there's a lot of grid network planned um, you know, in that southwest quadrant. And so that whole grid network that was identified as a part of that vision plan as part of the forbase code has been adopted as a part of an official map at the local level. So the municipality is is committing the best they can to actually building out that roadway network. Um all four quadrants are planned to be connected via bike pad infrastructure um either cycle tracks that are protected bike lanes or via sidewalk depending on the road context. Um that's all been uh planned out. Uh the Misty owns a piece of land over here by Shaw. Um they've actually done some plenty of work with us to make that a multi-millility hub. So essentially a a bus station and more in the future. Um the town continues to monitor the formbbased code itself. They're working with consultant actually this spring to make tweaks. Uh there's been some uh substantial redevelopment over in the northeast or construction in the northeast quadrant over the last two years while they've had this code in place. Um, so they're they're planning on making a few tweaks. The town's also studying TIFF for this area in order to build all this infrastructure. Um, they're also kind of planning on a smaller scale perhaps using the CHIP program and cooperating with some property owners on housing development, wave water capacity issues long term. Uh, the town is going to work with uh surrounding municipalities to try to address that issue. Storm water treatment um is also an issue and for some money. Um, I do want to address one DHCD comment which was uh questions about uh this southern boundary along Marshall Avenue. They asked why is it 150 ft off Marshall Avenue? It goes through buildings. Well, there's there's that's a that's a decision Wilson made on purpose. And so the the Wilson made this decision because they wanted all of Marshall Avenue surrounded by the form code district because they want Marshall

Avenue to be an urban street in the future and they want new structures that are built on Marshall Avenue to be on Marshall Avenue up against the street. Um this the forbase code also has um block length standards. So they're the town is aiming to have blocks that are about 300 to 350 ft um in terms of length. 150 ft is about half of that. And so they're planning and sorry a lot of the this area is supposed to be served by alleys. So they wanted to go 150 ft deep. They would have an alley come in to serve that new new structure that would go up on Marshall Avenue. So there is a purpose. I'm talking too much about Wilson. I I really you know I worked on this project so it's close to my heart. Um, any other questions on

Yes, Willist. I mean, maybe it's a question for Willist, but why not extend it 350 ft and or or include those entire parcels there instead of bicting those parcels? But you don't need to answer that. Just it's a consideration. Yeah, Janet, my answer will be that, you know, there there was one major land owner in this area and that was a decision that the town made in cooperation with that land owner about what land would be in and what land would be out. I think just another um comment is it appears that the legacy grow center is not fully included in the proposed correct downtown

which the guidance says that you should whenever possible. Is that also a local decision? That is a local decision. They want to keep the land the south of that 100 ft off Marshall Avenue out of the center and in plant growth area. And then I think this is the same um as some of the other areas which is you have um sort of a constrained village area, constrained uh downtown and a very expansive planned growth area um that goes well beyond a mile out. Um then perhaps could use a better access to the centers.

Yeah. You know, so you know that served area is that PGA area is all served by water and wastewater for a very long time. Um you'll see here a lot of that area is served by sidewalks and is connected by bed wise to those centers. Um but we can try to provide a clear nexus and our reasoning why that entire area is plenty growth area. I have a pine growth area question for you Will. Um, whenever I drive on March or Shun Pike to the west of the proposed downtown center, um, it feels very enterprise. Mhm.

Uh, you know, big UPS facilities and and yet it's just it's just road area. Was there some discussion about an enterprise district or future land use area in that part of this town? There was, you know, but you know, kind of it came back to, you know, the conversation Kate brought up earlier of like adjacency and whether or not adjacency of enterprise to PGA is okay or not. I know you're going to do it in scheme. Yeah. Like I think maybe you should do it consistently in Wilson too. Well, if that was included in the previous I'm sorry, is the industrial area you're talking about in in a PGA or in this in the center that we're talking about? It's in a PGA.

Okay. Draw my comment. Yeah, Alex, I hear you. And that's kind of where we, you know, we've been somewhat differential to, you know, what the miscal express for their preference. Sure. Got it. No, we have we have form based codes in Burlington, uh, South Burlington, uh, Wooki, Williston, uh, Jericho, Westford, and then we have some municipalities that have some design standards. You'll see Milton in a second. I don't think Heinesburg has any does, too.

Some like design standards, you know. So there's there's yeah there's quite a few. We've been funding zoning updates for the last 10 15 years which a lot of them have been for base codes and Brooke sorry to be more specific to you like those are all for village areas or for urban areas. You know the rural areas remain kind of traditional zoning but it's just for those more urban places. You know, it was an issue that came up repeatedly in the appeals study really outside of scope outside our resources in terms of how much has been accomplished in regard.

I know we're briefly you want to stay on his shoulder. We don't want to do we've got this this I heard of them. Uh I'm going to do it really quick with Essex and Milton. Okay.

Uh so here we have uh Essex and Milton. Uh we have a downtown center and then we have a village center. Uh the village center actually just got in the le leg legacy destination program as of like a few months ago. And we have a downtown center. Uh this downtown center is a place where the town did the ETC Essex Town Center next plan in 2020. That led to some actions you can see on the screen here in terms of trying to pursue New Town Center. They didn't get around to it. They had a lot of things happen in Essex recently. Separation, Amazon, Women's Prison. A lot of things that that drew their attention away from New Town Center application. Um, but what they did do after separation is they did some additional planning work specifically for these parcels on the north side of 15. Um, which uh case showing in the outline over here. um municipality bath those parcels did some additional planning for uh some mixed use development there but also for a new municipal building uh fire station library etc. Um they've also received an MBRC grant to do some additional water wastewater uh work here. Wastewater constraints in the future if they are relying on Essex Junction for wastewater capacity. Um we try to address that that problems in Wilston as well through a regional wastewater study in the future. Um we have some some significant wastewater challenges in the future in the county. Uh any questions on Essex? I think that the downtown area is that's proposed is not a traditional or historic central business district does not include historic sites. There is I think the post office within that area.

Um and so I I think it was just sort of interesting that you had a legacy village area. Mhm. And in some ways when you're reading through the future land use guidance, it's would they be better to flip-flop um and to have the downtown where the historic villages and then you have the this be a village instead. I'm guessing that that also came down to local preferences. Yes.

You know, it's very similar to the Wilston example, Sarah. You know the difference between the historic village of Wilston and the downtown area of around tax corners. This is not as far along as that in terms of the newness, but it's definitely moving in that direction. This is the center of Essex down going forward. Right. The unfortunate thing is they didn't get the new town center. They are the legacy. Um Wilston has the legacy growth center. Um, so just reading the future land use mapping methodology. Um, this is a bit of an odd one out.

In the last time, I'm going to move quick. I'm going to move to Milton. I'm going try not to talk too much about this one, too, because I used to work in Milton. Uh, they we did recently a downtown core master plan uh in Milton. Uh, shown on the screen right there in the middle. Um, Milton is planning for mixed uses here, tons of wastewater capacity, and a bunch of sidewalk connection. Uh, plenty of water capacity. Um, that master plan, uh, plans to accommodate 500, 600 new homes within this downtown center area. Um, they're also pretty far along in terms of some uh, roadway improvements in cooperation with VR. Uh they also have a new town owned parcel that we're currently funding. CCRPC is funding some additional site plan work there for uh probably mixed use building. There are challenges to storm water treatment in the area. There is um public trans service as of right now in this area. Um and I'll just note El Place there on the upper part of the screen. That's a 30 unit uh senior housing complex that was built by Cathedral Square a few years ago. Um, it just kind of shows you kind of the the direction this area is going in. Um, traditionally a lot of one-story uh single-use structures. Um, the town's planning for a pretty significant transition. Already allows for five story structures in this area. Any quick questions on Milton? Uh, yeah. Yeah, you can talk about Burlington.

Here we are in Burlington. This is again a rendering, but um there's a lot that is built out here at this development called Cambrian Rise, midway between what you think of as the downtown and the new north end. And as we were looking at this, it really functions like a center because of its denser form, eventual mix of uses and multimodal connections. So, uh didn't feel like a PGA by itself made sense here. It felt heavier duty and therefore a center. So we made it a down downtown center in consultation with the city of Burlington.

Yeah. Water, sewer, public transit on the bike path. 950 units permanent. Yeah. Mix mix mix of mix of uses from affordable home ownership, uh shared equity homes, rental and pen houses. So then um heading south into what other than residential, what mix of uses are there there? There's a mix of uses planned, contemplated, not manifested yet. The the original plan had some uh first story retail um space created and there's some that's permanent right now that's vacant has been vacant since it's been open.

Yeah. And this opened I you know within the last five or six years. So it it kind of crashed into the co nest of it all too. So um mix abuses until we hear otherwise.

The structure uh on the bottom of the screen with the solar panels on top there I believe there is commercial space permit in that structure um at least conceptually. But your staff could tell tell us more definitively I'm sure. Honestly, this looks to me like a a large development, not not another downtown on par with other downtown areas in the city. Um, to my mind, the old North End is more of a downtown center that this singular development on North Avenue, but that's my take is more important at the beginning.

Noted. Thank you. You may have a similar comment here, Alex, um, and others, but this is um, this is in the south end of Burlington, South Pine Street, and you may know where BEIC used to be located. Uh, you may know where the Champlain College building is. It's it's this zone. And there have been recent zoning changes, planned investment, pre-development agreement between the city and the property owners of this site site with a vision to create housing, commercial space, artist maker spaces, child care at a downtown scale and mix of uses. This is contemplated in about 1,400 units. Um, and it is connected to a lot of things you are probably familiar with in this area. There's Callahan Park. There are neighborhoods. There are a number of businesses, banks, coffee shops, etc. nearby. So, this this is as a future land use definitely definitely a node. Definitely uh a more intense core. And so, we labeled it as a downtown center in consultation with the city.

Any thoughts about just expanding the traditional Burlington downtown area to just connect with this? Do you have a Pine Street corridor or not that it's too far apart and can't be walking? I think we were I think we were cautious about connecting things along roads because it was visually kind of workable. We're also conscious that city of Burlington does want to maintain some other functions between those two things, you know, whether it's the farmers market or space for artists or other types of buildings. And so not necessarily make some uses of that connecting space. Is it just awkward because as a Burlington resident and somebody who even uses this area, the Pine Street corridor is

especially now it's very very walkable. The farmers market is down there. It was um it feels like one center to me. Even though I know Burlingtononians think of the downtown, you know, Church Street as the downtown. this south end and it's a different place but from a future age mapping standpoint they've seen overall Burlington I mean overall Burlington I mean again trying to be deathual with the future lane map that they have and then the city plan and they also have like corridors along north street to your point about the old north end that we had conversations about should this be a downtown center you can identify as a corridor that should be a little bit more dense the area around it they said no and so headed into a planning process

they are also doing an update the city plan um that should be done by March next year. Yeah, Janet has a question. Janet, I'm just wondering why why why not just keep it or call it plan growth area? I mean, what are the implications? Is is it the is it the downtown program? I guess um there are things that they want to do there that that they can only access through the downtown program or community investment program, I should say. But yeah,

I think to the earlier point, you know, uh we're trying to keep centers or PGA walkable to centers whenever we can, the best we can. Um to not have this be a center would be a pretty far distance to walk to other centers than in Burlington and South Burlington. Um in addition, the intensity of development that's planned here is is more substantial in the area around it and the built form will be more downtown like so that's why it is a downtown or map as a downtown center. Um, I bring you next to the South Burlington City Center. This is a legacy new town center uh that has developed with housing, civic uses like the library and city hall. Um, businesses, it's been there have been public private partnerships and it if you haven't been there lately, it's worth a visit. Um, smart growth development in in this area. Um and and it's becoming a place. I love this picture on the left that Paul shared with me. Um it celebrates the dedication of this the Tilio Drive which is named after someone who works at a school. It's a little tiny road that goes to the school. The elementary school is connected to this civic center and those kids are all celebrating that with balloons. It's um it's it's just an example of of um of of a downtown center that has has kind of grown up and appears on our map as as such.

Uh what I what I will say is that you know we we do the university mall here. We have a lot of open parking lot space, right? But also we have a city that's adopted zoning regulations to allow 14tory structures or 12story structures in this area. And so there is a plan to urbanize this area and as you saw in the housing target slide, South Burlington has the highest municipal housing target in the entire state and a lot of that growth would be accommodated here in this downtown center. I think to me um it was the question of are you being too constrained with this because there are things that are left out of it.

If you go down towards the high school is not in it, the fire department's not in it. Um, Kenny Drive could be more of a harder line to it. And then there's some other areas for possible infill. There's a parcel over on By Street. Um, so again, with a successful downtown area, you're being perhaps a little bit too constrained. Right. So, I just quickly know since we're at this airport location that's been designated for a special use category, just kind of footnoting, I'm myself as one board member unclear as to whether or not that's something that we can do like that that is, you know,

uh we feel like there that is enabled statute that is that RPCs can create that special category. Um it is in 4348A. Um I can't remember if it's the bottom of the land use section or at the top but it is enabled. It's almost in passing and and other categories is deemed. Okay. Thank you. Janet, did you wish to comment on that? No, I just I clearly recall that. Yes, that is something that is enabled in statute. Thank you. Anything else on South?

All right. Thank you bearing with us here. We talked a little bit earlier about transition areas and how they're used in different places. This is just one one example when we're looking at Colchester um and the transition area around exit 16 served by water and sewer um pretty close to Wooki. It's it's it's a highly valued location for the services that it provides. I know that Colchester residents um see this as a very important part of their community and it's important to the region as well. Um but then you say well what what more could happen there? What might be possible given the presence of infrastructure and the proximity to to some downtowns and some jobs. So um we've labeled this as a transition area uh in order to contemplate that should mention in the lower right of the PDF that we of the presentation we're looking at that others may be looking at as a PDF there is a major infrastructure change coming there with the diverging diamond interchange um at exit 16 under construction soon to underscore why this area you know couldn't be considered PGA despite water and wastewater service to the area uh residential uses are not allowed here um in this future land use in zone district in Colchester and so from our perspective didn't meet the definition of PGA

but not enterprise uh not enterprise because I think if you look at enterprise enterprise talks a lot like cory's and industrial uses and like this there's there's some kind of more fits the commercial little resale of Costco or a little professional services so transition seemed more appropriate but I yeah it down to the O'Brien head down to O'Brien this is the last

so this is the last visit last stop on our site visit. It's in Shelurn. It's a it's another transition property. You can see we're zooming into that. You can see how it's attached to PGA, but how it's also within a rural area. So, this is the subject of a pre-development agreement between um O'Brien Brothers and the the town of Shelurn. That predecment agreement was established early this year. The sewer service area was amended to include this area. Um it was amended by the town. We mentioned the forthcoming anticipated zoning bylaw update that contains many provisions that need to be passed in order for the development agreement to remain in effect. Um and so this is planned for sorry I don't have the

375 units

375 units of housing. Um the planning is underway as we want to see with a transition area. We are flagging it for you in the event that all the conditions of the predevelopment agreement are fulfilled that this could move into the PGA category in a future vision of the a future version of this map. Some of those terms include, you know, conserved land, playgrounds, walking and biking infrastructure both along the street to get to the front of the property and then paths through the back of the property. So, this is one that, you know, in the absence of those changes actually being in effect, we weren't going to make it pink, but knowing that there is work underway, we we flagged that as transition and it and it could change even before the next submission. And it might be easier for everyone to see the proximity of that to the center if the center was bigger and extended to that four-way intersection. Um there right now it's hard to see how that parcel is connected. Um

development agreement does uh require side or scope of study I believe for sidewalks. Um or sorry, let me let me take a look at my notes on that. Uh yeah, scoping study for pet improvement on Falls Road. Um per the new zoning that will be adopted, there would have to be sidewalks and there is there is sidewalk across that bridge over uh on Falls Road as well connecting it to the center. But you know, again, I hear you about expansion of that. Well, part of it matters a little bit about where the development is on the parcel. You know, it's fronting on the north side of the parcel. Is it fronting on the souththeast side? Yeah,

for the zoning, the new zoning and the town plan amendment, this front part of the parcel would be more intense up on Irish Hill Road and it'd be less intense in the back. And actually, this parcel is part of this parcel and this would actually be conserved and so pretty agreement says 60% of this total land area will be conserved. 45 inclusionary units as well. Check in with the chair. We have a couple. We were going to tell you about our tier 1B optins, but I I look to you for what we should do.

So, we're doing good. I think we as are not speak for the board, but I think what I've observed is that we've asked a lot of our questions along the way, although we had on the agenda space and time for questions. I think let's just keep on plugging through. We have a break scheduled at 4:45. Um, are you fine with continuing on the next 15 minutes? If you are, we are.

Great. Sounds good. Uh here's a list of tier 1B optins to date. Uh you know, Alex and I already picked on Chester. Those are a little bit of notable uh exceptions from this list and and we are going to continue to work for those micipalities along with the rest that have not opted in yet. So there are seven that have not opted in of our 19. Um a couple don't have any eligible areas. Correct. Including a field score. Um we won't see them. Um we have two partial optins. Um, we know that that is a little atypical. One of them is please, can we change the screen to the PDF? Sure. Yeah, we can do that. While you're talking about this,

thank you. Okay, one second. No, I can. Okay, I got it. Okay, I got Thank you, Janet. Make that happen. Thank you. That's okay. That look okay to folks? Yes.

Uh so Wooki has decided to only do a partial optin. Um and the area that they uh that is eligible that they've chosen to exclude is here in the red. This is their downtown core zoning district. uh they've opted to they decided to not have this be a part of their opt-in tier 1B area because that entire area is already subject to an existing I250 master permit that the city is the main uh permit holder of. Um there's only few remaining parcels uh left that can be redeveloped, but there are a whole bunch of complex conditions in that permit related to infrastructure, professionally affordable housing, etc. Um, and the city felt really confident uh, just using the process that exists now um, and staying within it um, than not having it in place anymore. Um, and so they decided, you know, to just take that area out and opt in for the rest of the city. Any questions on Wind's reasoning?

Uh, we have Westford. Uh, Westford has also only done a partial option. It is hard to see in this screen so I will do my best to try to show you. There is this purple outlined area here. It is very small. It cuts or cuts across some parcel boundaries or sorry within parcel boundaries but that is the the boundary of their existing neighborhood development area. Um the municipalities only uh has only opted in to include that area as tier 1B. um that's where they felt like they had community consensus in terms of where they want to see infill redevelopment uh in their community. They may possibly uh expand this area. Um West is one of those communities where this whole conversation about act 181 act 181 is really um have them reflect and want to really focus on this topic in their next town plan update in 2028. Um, and so I could see this area expanding in the future, but this is what they feel comfortable with right now.

So, it looks like it's only seven parcels and one of them is the municipal complex. Correct. So uh per our standards for the regional planning conriction application guidelines as part of the final application I'll strongly urge uh CCRPC to address the requirement that the tier 1B stat does not include the entirety of the downtown center plan area or village area the tier 1B memorandum must explain the reason that the entire flu area is not proposed for achievement status Um, I I think we have some environmental justice concerns on that front that you would urge somebody to elaborate on.

Thank you, sir. Um, anything else on West? Uh, to to wrap us up, uh, we have two more slides left. Um so as I just mentioned specifically with Westford but with a whole bunch of our communities you know Colchester, Richmond, Charlotte um the conversations about missile housing targets and about the flu map has really led to a lot of conversations at the local level about um doing more intensive detailed future lane planning in the future. Um, and so I, you know, we're already planning as an RPC to probably amend our regional plan, um, every couple years, if not more, to be responsive to municipal changes because we think our municipalities are are going to really dive in this topic in the next couple years. Um, overall, as an RPC, we're going to continue to work with our municipalities to do that kind of work. Um, to reinforce the smart grow places that we already have, um, through planning work and through bylaw work. um but also help them plan, design and construct uh new smart road places. Um we really appreciate having clear direction from from you folks uh and your comments back to us in December about, you know, really what's what's necessary, what's a good recommendation. Um you know, we we just want clarity, you know, in terms of what we need to bring back to our board and to our long range planning committee about what we need to change um in order to apply to statute

and our individual municipalities. there are some areas where we've left it open with them and we said we we think this is the way forward. We want you to know we may be hearing something different. So when and if we do being able to bring that back to our towns and say we received this guidance from the LAR but need to change

and that's a lot to do and a really tight timeline. Uh you know our original plan does expire in in June. Um and so we we do need to adopt a new original plan. Uh we are planning to have our first public hearing in January. Um, if that goes well, um, we can be responsive to comments, get a new draft out, warn the second public hearing in March and have that second public hearing in May. Ideally, the plan is adopted at that May meeting and then we bring the plan to you folks in June or July next year. So, with that, that's Kate and I. We can open up to questions. So I think I'll also use that transition mark to explain sort of our next steps before we get into questions in case people have questions. Um what will happen after today is we will um take all the comments that we received board member comments and by December 22nd the board will u send back formal comments on the free application. Um so that's something that we're going to anticipate working out over a couple of different meetings. I think we have two going at the same time and we're trying not to overlap but everybody I think uh an RPC is due the 12th and you're due the 22nd. So that's what will be the bulk of our next few meetings is try and sort of work through the comments. You may have seen us work through um Rland and similar fashion and then on the 22nd hope vote on comments to send to so that's a bit of what will be happening after today. Um, I'm going to ask for questions from the board member first before we get into questions from the public. We do have a break plan at 4:45, but I'll be trying to as well. So, questions from the boards. Janet, are you do you have any questions for us at this time?

I do not. related question, but just a comment from one board member. Um, I noticed in the Agency of Transportation comments that there was reference to an act 181 related AOT study that is underway and nearing the finish line. and um would encourage the RPC to um you know take a look at that information when it becomes available and consider um that its plan could could you know reflect areas to help support um you know transportation infrastructure and any projects because you know with Act 181 and the elimination of Act 250 jurisdiction in tier 1A and housing up to 50 units in tier 1B areas. You know, this Chney County is really where a lot of that effect would be seen. You know, statewide approved probably the most, right?

I think it's very important to think about that. I've been actively participating in that advisory committee and

um yeah I think we're you know I think this whole system change which is what thank you for volunteering to participate in um is is shifting things from dealing with things at permitting stage to getting upstream and focusing on what's planned so we do a lot of work already with vrans in terms of planning infrastructure you know as exit 16 was a scoping study we did 12 years ago. Um and so I think it's going to move more of those decisions up front. Um you know the and the issue the disconnect that has existed in Vermont between state agencies and municipalities is this is what this is this whole system change is trying to connect those better. So I think that's going to be the question of like how does Vrans or how do municipalities depend on which direction you're coming from connect on some of these bigger transportation project issues. Um I'm not sure we're going to solve it here but it's a legislative issue. There is no great way right now for VR to engage in a municipal review

um for state transportation improvement particularly if it's not right on the state highway. Yeah. Unless without the 11-11 permit. So yes to answer your to respond to your comment.

And for those of you who aren't very familiar, the reason I said 90% 90% of the money that has been collected through the act 145 process through act 250 has been related to Chimney County projects. And so it is significant. It wasn't a significant amount of projects. It it's been significant in that it's enabled developers to go through the permitting process, right? and have a path through without waiting for a project to get done. Um, so I think that'll be a question is are projects getting hung up in the municipal level from traffic impact study reviews and we need to kind of repatch that what 145 did uh into the municipal system to path forward. But to be clear too, it's also been significant in that it has

um not it has alleviated the situation of the you know the developer that that triggers that um you know level of service app or whatever the case may be

that that for which a major transportation improvement is needed to support the development fairness and having that one developer incur all of that expense. So it provides that cost sharing mechanism. So, yeah, we'll be interested to see what the final report looks like and thank you for um considering that. just want to tell you how much I appreciate the engagement that you clearly have um been involved in and also the and not just on an individual or the EJ level but also with the municipalities because um one of one big concern that I have heard from uh citizen is a concern about the top down sort of approach from the regional planning commissions And I really appreciate hearing this was, you know, worked out in collaboration with the towns. And um you know and while maybe you know some of those issues we do need to look a little more carefully about um I do appreciate um the difference that has been showed to our communities because it's it's vital that this is not somebody showing up and telling you know Vermonters how their communities are going to be reformulated And so I really do um appreciate all of the effort that you have provided in that regard. So

thank you. There there are at least two people three people who are not here who are a big part of that. Um our our colleagues Annne Nelson Stoner, Sarah Muskin and Darren Shibler um who helped design the outreach and then implement the outreach and uh Melanie is here and has also been a part of the effort in terms of the interfaces online. Emma, all I'd like to thank the academy. Um, it's just I mean it really has been a a team a team effort. We're really 10 10 of us probably working on this project for a year.

It was particularly interesting to me to see the fact that you reported on what people who are not typically at the table what they said and and it didn't look like you applied much varnish to it. like it was these were those looked like real comments from people many of which probably did not have much experience uh being in those settings and understanding these processes. So it was refreshing to see those uh and I was again like Brooke a lot of appreciation for that effort. I think you've gone well beyond what any other region in the state is has done or will do on that front. And partly you have to because you have a much more diverse community here, but you did it and so kudos on that.

Thank you.

Um, sub comment though, I'm looking through my notes on all the various areas and the one thing that I haven't already said and I've said too much and apologies. I live here so I have the good news. Um I I don't I see a lot of comments in my notes about why isn't there an enterprise district here? And we we talked about some of that. You know, you made me look at the statary description again. It's it's not just resource extraction areas. It's, you know, commercial industrial parks. And there are examples in Burlington, the Que City Park area. Seems like it should be that. Um there's areas um in Essex on Sand Road that that the mapping is left out of ovens and other you know recent developments on that road that's seen enterprise um and so I I would just encourage you as you you know we'll get your comments as a board but you know just generally to think about that land use and um understand that it's not eligible for the tier one and one really and so there's some unless I'm wrong isn't it? Um well if I can just um heard you I think that is something we'll take a look at the I would also I'll flip it around and ask the board to you know when the plan growth area definition was written I mean I think if you look at it now it still talks about the enterprise areas being included in them

right so there was kind of conscious discussion in the legislature about those distinctly employment areas like it's employment only right like that's what we're talking about being that they are part of the community and not separate from the community. So I think that's that is the debate you know where is it truly something separate um they're certainly not eligible for 1B because 1B is only for housing right but one of the reasons that you may see a municipality in particular want to include that employment district within their larger plan growth area is that those areas are eligible for 1A. So sorry that was I apologize for reacting in a way that interrupted your thought. Um no I appreciate the clarification

because so that you know and I think even when Wooki you know was like thinking like no they don't want to necessarily step into regulating that. So they're like, "No, we want to exclude that enterprise area." Whereas maybe in South Burlington or Burlington, Burlington Burke, they want like it they wanted it to be potentially available for 1A application.

Okay. And I I hear that. So I'm glad you you've done the thinking on that front. Maybe to crystallize the comment and react a little bit is to say where you have enterprise areas identified already make sure they include the full scope of those enterprise areas. Sand Road Essics is an example. It doesn't that shouldn't change. they might

um so you know there are other um the intermail is another example there's the McNeil generating plant in but gardener supply is not that that doesn't even compute to me but maybe there's a reason but anyway so I take your point and that's a good point and I understand what you're saying about city barn but where you do have enterprise like think about what the boundaries should look like and I'm trying to look at the base zoning underneath those and frequently those areas are zoned for industrial uses So I'm like that sounds like an enterprise district to me or or at least land you shared

when I look at Saxon Hill and Essex you know that area you know it kind of north part is in PGA now the south part's an enterprise the differentiating factor there right now for us at least is is the water sewer service area so north part has water sewer service south part doesn't that was kind of our differentiation between um but yeah I hear you

I'm not convinced that that's a reason to have them in two land use areas. I think an enterprise area can be served by water presumably um can also be part of the PGA. Well, I I think it's one of those tough tough situations because I think for all the things I've been articulated is you've gone above and beyond with including um input from so many different communities, so many different um people within the communities and the plan is a reflection of that. And so you have a lot more individuality as you move from town to town. And I think that's something that we've seen more here than we have in other areas so far. And I I think that's makes it a little bit tougher to explain some of those edges and some of those decisions as to what's in what's out. I I think one of the struggles is to keep that sort of regional perspective on that 10,000 foot where there's um to I think where Alex is trying to sort of articulate is that there's some level of uniform

that could sort of pass muster be explained overall um yet still and that's a balancing acting yet retaining um the individuality of those communities and their ability um to be reflected in that way. So I I think those are good challenges that we've articulated. Um that's part of the pre-application process is for us to learn a bit more. I very much appreciate learning a lot more um and we'll get comments back and then there's the final application. So this is an iterative process that we'll learn from before we move to a break. I see that Janet has her hand up. Jan,

just to to point out that I think this kind of extensive um work that Chittening County did with its communities is I think probably going to inform the statute and you know if the board comes down on you know in a particular way that you know the statute just doesn't allow this I think um you know this kind of really engaged process can inform changes to statute in the future that that will make this even more workable. Char,

thank you Janet for saying that. And I just want to note as somebody who was, you know, in the room quite a bit when this was getting written, it was not written for Chittney County, which you could tell. I hope you can tell that, right? right? It doesn't, you know, there's no suburban urban, you know, growth area. It's all this planned growth area. So, I'm just u this is going to stretch all of our bounds of like how does this all fit into this kind of uh somewhat rigid box uh that we were given. So, I thank you for uh whatever thought and discretion and uh efforts you can put into uh trying to make this work. Unless anybody has anything else that they'd like to add in at this time, I'd like to move us to break, but I will recognize that when we come back for break, we have um questions and comments from state partners. So, any our board members have any comments before we move to break going once, going twice, I will then ask for a recess until 5:00 and we'll come back and take questions for our state partners. Thank you. Thank you all for those that have stuck around online and also in person. Um the next portion of our meeting and so about 5:30 is reserved for our state partners for any questions and comments that they might have. I see a few that have joined us online and if you would like to offer uh comments or have questions, please raise your hand and we will recognize you one by one. No pressure though because some of you may just be here to listen

and just Yeah. Hi, my name is Cheryl Vanips. Can you hear me? Yes, we can.

Oh, great. Um I'm just now joining so I'm not sure um where my comments fit into the context of this meeting but I wanted to say that um I see act 250 as performing a per protective role. Um what I am seeing around me as far as development goes is not meeting our housing needs and at the same time destroying what u critical natural resources that we do have. Um I took a look at our Vermont population uh just an online site Neilsburg research it was. And I I I was asking myself, okay, so what's the rush? What's the press for um building so many houses so fast? And um what I saw in uh annual population counts um it's got to range from uh year 2000 up to 2024. I saw a slight increase in the year 2020. Of course, that was the COVID year. And I'm seeing um around it both before and after it kind of a uh much reduced or even uh this past 2024 seems like there was a decrease in our population of Vermont. So um and it was the opinion of the uh folks who did the study that we had already reached our peak and it's

showing a trend of decline. So, I would ask that our um regional and state and local uh uh planning commissions take that data in mind and also looking at the actual population who need housing and their needs are not being met. So, the homeless population, um, what we see now in my neighborhood is there's a house on the market for $950,000. Um, two more, one is $625,000 and the other is $850,000. Um, those are highpriced homes which are way out of the range of even myself. I couldn't have afforded it when I arrived here in Vermont 21 years ago. Um, so I ask whose needs are being met by what is being produced housing wise. So these are some of the points and and to build these homes we are destroying wetlands. We're encroaching in and destroying deer wintering areas which I understand are critical because only 7% of the land in Vermont is capable of hosting um being designated deer wintering areas. So, this is something critical. It's not my opinion. It's it's in the Department of um fish and wildlife uh literature. So, I I ask that these comments be um

recorded by your uh meeting and taken into consideration when decisions are being made. Thank you. So, Cheryl, uh, may I ask, I don't believe you're with one of our state agencies. Are you? I am a citizen and resident of Essex Town, not on any board. I'm just witnessing all of this happening around me. Thank you.

Thank you so much. I apologize. From 5 to 5:30, uh, is a time that's reserved for our state agencies for comments. Uh, and we have not opened yet to public, but I thank you so much for your comments. Um, and I just would ask the board is I was just taking a minute to look through our roster of who is still online and who's in the room and it does not appear that we have any other state agency folks left with us. So, it might be a little bit early to move into public um participant questions and comments. However, would anybody be would anybody find that objectionable to do that? I think Cheryl just got us started.

All right. Fantastic. Then we will do that. So, thank you, Cheryl. And Janet Janet, you had your hand up first. So, Janet, I was just I was just going to say that basically, you know, that happened for Rutland, too. we didn't really have much and so we just opened it up to the public and I just want Cheryl to know that her comments were recorded and they will be taken into account. Absolutely.

So I I think the other thing that I'll note before we get into the public session is I see some of the folks um that are in attendance have also submitted comments today. Those have been uploaded onto our portal and so uh you do not need to read those verbatim. Uh however they are also part of the record and also will be considered. Um we'll hopefully now go to those. I see uh K Davis you have your hand up. Um if you would like to speak next.

Um thank you so much. Um yeah I was just outside walking the dog and and I heard the I heard Cheryl's voice. I know her voice. I I am also from Essex Town. Uh, my name is Patty and I want to I'm just amazed how act 250 and everybody over there responds so quickly to me and I just want to thank you. I'm so grateful that we have your district 4. They're awesome people over there. So, I I just wanted to thank you for that from of getting answers so quickly. My only my only little tidbit um I want to add um when someone was talking about Sand Hill Road earlier as an example um and and was talking about uh you know that more works more work needs to be done my qu and and the other thing that was mentioned was maybe the statutes will change and of course you know that does happen but I want to read this in case this one changes I hope it doesn't um under 23 VSA 1042. This is a um highway statute. Um and I'm just reading this from a little research I've done, and you probably already know this. A municipality cannot reroute or designate a truck route unless all four statuto statutory criteria are evaluated, which they're evaluated by the secretary of transportation. To date only criterion one um a road construction capacity has been discussed publicly and that's something you got from me today that proof of that criter criterion four which requires evaluation of whether a more suitable alternate route already exists is exists has not been addressed. For example, Route 15. Um, Route 15 has been the established truck route since 1959. It is a state highway engineered for

freight movement signalized and already function functioning as a logistic corridor. Lower sandill by contrast lower sand hill where we live there's like thousand or there's 300 and some odd homes is a residential collector road down the bottom there with homes school zone access narrow geometry psy a lot of cycling activity including my husband which is why I'm so actively involved and no prior approval or study as a freight route because of the statutory compliance question that is now pending Um I um I just want you to know that um the the Thanksgiving holiday was here and I don't expect any any answers or at all. Um, my only suggestion, um, if I'm allowed to say, um, if CCRPC and and the land use review board could pause any designation of Lower Sandill as an arterial truck route until the compliance review under 23 VSA 1042 is completed. Um, that that is my only request. Thanks. I I will just uh to that respond very quickly and say that the land use of your board has absolutely no authority over that. Um at this time that's nothing that is being considered by a board or can be considered by um I'd say you could follow up with your municipality and CCRPC with those sorts of questions but um

Sure. I only I only mentioned it Thank you. I only mentioned it because um I think it was Janice that mentioned that that statutes eventually can be changed and I wanted to at least read you that one before in case it ever got changed. So, thank you so much for your time. Well, thank thank you so much. And Brooke, you have a question. Patty, may I ask you a question? Um I did see your posting um on the Active 50 database with the Solar with the slackboard video from Essex. Yes.

And and it sounded like from your email that you were intending for us to look at a portion of it because it's like over two hours. So, if you if you had a specific segment of that video that you'd like to direct our attention to, would you be able to file or send me an email um in terms of where in the tape specifically to observe or listen to? Oh, sure. Sure. It's the very beginning. As soon as you hit start, public to be heard. It's the very very beginning.

Yep. And what else is uh don't email it directly to Brooke. Email it back to I think Maddie. Uh got everything online for you. So if you could email back to Maddie, but yes, I looked at the video the meeting. Yes, it now it should be emailed to act 250.gov. Everything that that is submitted should be submitted through that email address. Correct. And that is uh if she replies all to the email that she was sent saying that her information was online that will work her place. Yes, that will get it. Okay, got it.

Thank you. So, is Janice saying I should I should email it to this address that that video? Is that what she just said? Yeah, if you could whatever you email for us, it should always go to act 250 um.boardvermont.gov gov because that's what gets it that's what is officially um the email address to submit for this process. Well, thank you so much and but everybody's been so kind. Uh I've got three letters from you today. Two or three. Thank you. Welcome. Um Evan, you have your hand up next.

Yeah, thank you very much. Um Evan Langfel from O'Brien Brothers. I just had a quick question. I'm not even sure who to direct it to, but I was just wondering what the high level differentiators are between a a downtown designation and a village designation if they're both tier 1B.

So, um I'll I'll take a whack at it. Uh which I will first say that uh we're moving beyond the designations. So these are the future land use areas and the designations are part of what the downtown board now community investment board uh used to do. So in speaking to the future land use designations both um downtowns as well as village centers are eligible for tier one. Is that really does that I think not just that but that there are you asking Evan what the distinction is between them?

Yeah, I was asking for the distinction between the two.

Okay. I think the distinction is that village centers don't have to have subdivision um or water sewer or zoning where and the implication there is that downtowns do and downtowns are eligible to h to go through all three steps of the community investment program um uh designation uh uh process. So, we don't do that as a board. That's the community investment board. So, what we do is we approve the um the future land use boundary and that gets you into step one of the uh commu community investment board um process.

So, there is uh um this is all taken from statute too. And so, um, if you look into is it 24 BSA 4348A small E um talks about that the um there needed to be a methodology produced too. And I believe the methodology that we're reviewing under is also on our website under act 250.gov. If you look under act one and then regional plan review. So there's additional information there that you might want to look at that describes downtown versus village central.

Yeah.

So Evan, in terms of the statutory definition of of downtown and village center, they're defined together in 4348A. As Sarah just said, um there's a mapping methodology that the RPC's jointly uh made together that Sarah just referenced that you can find on on fa.org. Um in that mapping methodology, it talks about uh how RPCs can make a decision in cooperation municipalities about what's a downtown center and what's a village center. Uh here in Chittening County, we were very differential to our municipalities in determining what areas are labeled downtown centers and what areas are labeled village centers. In terms of benefits from being either a downtown center or a village center, they are identical in terms of of the actual state designation program. Um and they are treated the same in terms of act 250 exemptions. But obviously what level of act 250 exemption exists is determined upon uh municipalities opting into tier 1b andor the municipality applying to lur for tier 1a. Does that does that help?

I I think so. So if if if a municipality and in this case I'm just referencing South Burlington's um communication, a downtown designation that's 1B and a village designation that's 1B from a state level would essentially be treated the same. It's it's really more the city determining, you know, whatever the level of density or kind of prioritization maybe. Yeah. the city and and you know in cooperation with with the RPC and as approved by alert.

I do want to give a caveat to that what Janet said. I want to reiterate that not this board but community investment board which review steps now um there are different methodologies for what steps you can achieve for some of their benefits between a village and a downtown.

So let's walk that out a little bit for South Burlington as well. So Evan, you know, South Burlington's uh downtown center, you know, in city center, that likely will be a step three center in the state designation program. That's kind of the highest level of center. And so there'll be uh generally more benefits available there in that in that center. Whereas it's likely that the South Burlington's other village centers either at Kennedy and Kimble or on Shelurn Road likely will be a step one center in the state designation program and likely will have access to fewer benefits. But despite that differentiation within the community investment program, the fact remains that both of those centers are the same from an act 250 tier 1A and 1B perspective. So the review process whatever whatever process that requires for both of those will be the same from an act 250 review correct.

Yes. So there's a whole bunch of caveats. Yeah. I think it it sort of depends. So the next chapter after you get your future land use uh approval and the CCRPC can also ask for tier 1B designations at the same time is um it's really working with that municipality in terms of do they want tier 1 A or 1B for the area. So you've got two downtowns, one community decides to go tier 1 A, one community decides not to. So that's sort of the differentiating factor that's at the end of the road. I see you still have your hand up. So I

Oh, yeah. Sorry. Sorry about that. Yeah, the the the only kind of ongoing confusion I have. So the the the tier 1B So our site is at Kennedy and Kimble. It's 140 acre site, large mixeduse site actively under development. We have currently about 250 homes constructed and many more underway. Am I still going here? You are.

Okay, you guys appear to be frozen up on my screen. Um, and so on the the act 250 review question, because we have much more density to realize, I guess the question would be in terms of an act 250 process if you're limited at 50 residential units to trigger the threshold of going through the act 250 process. Is there any benefit on the act 250 process for a tier 1B designation? Probably not for your project, Evan. I think you that benefit you need South Burlington to apply for tier 1A for your area.

Yeah. And as far as the timeline for that, I'll I'll just say what's already been said, which is that that application for the tier 1A by the municipality is only possible once the regional plan and map are fully adopted and approved. For us, that's June or July of 2026. And then also confirmed by the land use. Yeah. Yes. All right. And wrap all that together. Thank you.

It's going to be a little bit of time, but and no, I think we're happy for the questions, Evan, because um this is confusing a lot of people and this is all new and I'm sure for people that have raised their hands, there are lots of others that have the same questions. So, um trying to explain the differences and we didn't really touch on the fit today. So, thank you for the question. Okay. Thank you,

Ken. Just to clarify, it's the tier 1A or B probably Evan that you were more concerned about the distinction between because both village centers and downtown centers are eligible for the same act 250 exemptions and that's also the case for a planned growth area. So it wouldn't matter to you whether the the distinction isn't whether it's village versus downtown versus planned growth area. It's is it tier 1 A or tier 1B.

Yeah. I wasn't sure if there was a a a differentiator in between 1B downtown and 1B village, but it sounds like for the purposes I'm asking, there isn't.

All right, don't everybody jump with your hands up either in person or online at this point. might just want to stretch. Um, any questions here in the room or comments? Paul. Hi folks. Paul Conor, director of planning, zoning with the city of South Burlington. I'm going to pause you. Can everybody Janet, can you hear Paul? Yes, I can. I can see him, too.

Hi, Paul. Um just a couple of notes um based on today's conversation. Um one I just wanted to underscore um the collaboration that took place with the municipalities having served both um from Burlington's perspective but also serving in the planning advisory um committee um and the um long range planning committee. It was a lot of work and it's not uh a coincidence of the how strong the partnership was because this has really been 15 plus years of um strong collaboration that has led to success in this constants. So just wanted to share that. Um there was some conversation around the subjects of plan growth areas and enterprise areas. Um I think Charlie captured it really well um in terms of the conversations that that we were a part of. Um for us um it's really important that we're looking as we think about our plan growth areas and where we have the infrastructure where we're intending to see focused um pedestrian oriented even at various different scales development that we're including areas that have both a residential focus and a commercial focus that together in the core of the county both need to be successful for us to be driving. We just completed um an economic development strategic plan um in really close collaboration with our partner communities, the region, the state uh looking at core sectors of growth and really sort of um uh being that being the the important partner to housing and then of course um all of the um uh services and infrastructure that we are striving to support in the coming decades. um for uh Kimell Avenue specifically, the um the area that you had uh looked at as a potential village um uh village

center. Um this has been an area that we've been planning for the future for a long time with Evan and his crew um over with Brian Brothers. Um as with City Center, the developer very strategically um were to build the area around the mixeduse center first in order to create the markets that will support a mixeduse area. And so when we um when we think that there is this piece that hasn't been built, that's intentional um to have built the uh the residential. There's a bunch of park space that we work with the RDC to talk about because I think that was a note that uh it doesn't necessarily show the component the mixed components of that. There is park space that's already been built is about to be turned over to the city. And so really thinking about that and how this sets us up for uh a big piece of our um 7500 um dwelling unit uh housing target of creating a village and having that be another node of center of activity. understanding that we haven't experienced a lot of new villages in in the state. Um but this is um you know a big part of the focus. And then uh just lastly, you know, there was a discussion just a few minutes ago about uh downtowns versus villages. Um statutoily they're essentially defined together. Um we had a lot of discussion back and forth about which ones belong as which. It's a little bit of a style and feel. Um, from our perspective, I think we would be open to, for example, the uh the area of Shelurn Road at FET, which is shown as a village, um, as being a downtown. Um, we can also see why it would be appropriate to call it a village and to keep our focus, um, in city center at at the moment for, um, sort of our our one node knowing that our local planning is already turning to making sure that we really have both our southern corridor and our eastern corridor covered. And so if it um remains a village in this plan, then a future iteration of the regional plan

might come and say we're ready to call that a downtown in a future time. So it's a little bit of a style thing. Thank you very much for your time. Thank you. Anybody else in the room? Anybody else online? Could we be out of public comments short of the adjournment time? Um, any questions or comments from staff or from the board?

Well, sure. Paul, you you uh your community has a lot to look at, so I spent a fair amount of time looking at it. Um, and you heard me uh talk about enterprise future land use areas. And one of those areas that I didn't mentioned was in South Burlington. It's that um section of Route 116 that I think is zoned industrial near Tilly Drive and just south of Tilly Drive. Um but I I don't think it's mapped as enterprise. It's part of the plant growth area. Thoughts on that? Yeah, I mean I think that so Tilly Drive area, the community drive area, uh which is Technology Park in the Wales Tales, um just south of the interstate, that's that's exactly when what were um what I was highlighting is saying for us being a plant growth area for that area for those areas is important and an appropriate distinction because its focus is more on employment, but it is part of the same ecosystem of what people are using every day in their lives. And so as we look to partner with Green Mountain Transit, say how do we provide transit service to areas, it's not the same as say north of the airport which has a very um you know very enterprise feel of very sort of autofocused businesses that are right there. Um so for us we've been looking at these areas. They have historically been, you know, pretty single use, but um our city plan actually moves those areas to being a transition of um looking to see how do we provide overnight accommodations in the those areas. What does that look like? Um, and our most recent zoning amendments just adopted a couple of months ago start to really rethink the whole idea of distinction between uses in a lot of ways to say what are the uses in 2025 that really need to be separated,

right? Is very different from 60 years ago. There's a handful really not a lot of big smoke stacks anymore.

There really aren't. So we've sort of collapsed ourselves into about six different total uses um plus the statutory months. And so for us it makes sense to consider that to be part of the fabric not which would be plan growth area and not separate from the fabric which which seems to be what was written as the enterprise areas. And so we were trying to be pretty judicious in the use of both of them. Does dining really feel like a part of the fabric though? Is it going to be something doesn't feel like a part of the fabric to me. It feels like an autocentric employment center.

Yeah. I mean, I think these sort of the debates and as we think where are we going to be 20 20 years from now, right?

I I'll I'll tip my hand a little bit. Part of why this has been roing in my head um is what Charlie said and you you educated me a little bit about the statuto intent and the fact you know that um enterprise areas were not meant to be all exclusive like they are meant to be part of playing growth areas at the same time the lack of an active 50 exemption in an enterprise area is interesting to me and I wonder to what extent that's appropriate um for places that could have very large scale industrial development. The warrants act 250 would be um as opposed to an integrated part of the network commercial use that maybe doesn't because it's in a plan growth area and is part of that fabric. So it's just part of what's roing in my head a little bit. That's fair.

So disabuse me if if I mean it's a fair comment. I guess what I'd say is that the land use review board will also be in a position to determine the appropriateness of where tier 1A is applied. Sure. As a separate application. Um so just just a consideration that that that is its own action brought forward by Luke's. Yeah. There's a second bite at that for sure. Janet, I saw that you had your hand up.

Uh, I put it down because I just thought we should go at least until 5:30 before Paul raised his voice. Um, because on the uh agenda, we gave that time as the time for public comment. So, I think we're good to go if everybody's done.

Well, um, Kirsten has something to add. I just have one last maybe last question. So the housing target allocation and the decision to maintain the status quo growth rate for the rural towns that fell into that one of those three categories that were um identified for those rural towns. Is that what they wanted to occur? They just wanted to maintain a status of quality growth rate

if you if Yeah. if you have to assign one opinion to a rural town. But yeah, I would say generally the the rural town's um expressed uh nervousness about having a target much higher than than the status quo mostly because of the lack of infrastructure. Um you know those none of those rural towns have water or wastewater service. Um and so um you know our framing of of the housing targets with our rural municipalities has been All right. Well, we can pick on Charlotte. Let's let's pick on Charlton. Um, we have a whole bunch of data over the past 25 years that that we can say that 98% of new housing development in Charlotte has been in the rural areas. We know that. Um, and so we can go to Sherlock and say, "Hey, look, you know, you have a target, the status quo. Um, you have goals in your plan where you're you're not really achieving them. All your development is going to your rural areas. Let's work together and try to figure out, you know, perhaps an infrastructure solution in your villages and try to work a little harder about concentrating growth in those areas, but let's not push you too much. Let's let's try to talk more about where development is going to occur. Um, not so much about the amount. Let's kind of keep the amount the same. Does that help?

Thanks for your explanation. I think I read some in the engagement comments from folks um about uh underrepresented communities and community members wanting opportunities in all communities, not just in the urban core. Um, and I wonder when when the towns we like to pick on in Shen County like Westford or Charlotte

um talk about, you know, their nervousness about accommodating more housing if that if there's any additional color to that conversation regarding environmental justice and the responsibility to uh help with the with the with the housing crisis. Great question. Uh, you know, I think, uh, I think that sometimes municipalities do that work on their own, sometimes they do it with us. And, you know, if they're going to do it with us, we're going to try to bring that perspective um, whenever we can. Um, you know, today both those comments that we received, we shared that with all our municipalities, all our municipal planning officers. They have that at hand um, at least to be as representative of of the county where we're hearing. Um, yeah, it's a difficult conversation and in both as communities and others. Um, but it's one I think us as staff are are it's important to us to continue to have. It's something I think we try to deal with a little bit in our equitable planning practices chapter of the regional plan. We try to bring that perspective when we're working with this pality.

Um,

the housing targets themselves are opening the door to that conversation. So in in one community where I presented, someone thankfully said, "Well, why do we need more housing here? This is a much bigger problem than our town can solve. What's the point? Why should it why do we need to make an effort?" And I was very grateful for that question because then we could talk about it. We talked about how it's about aging in community. It's about kids being able to move back. It's about providing choice to people who want their kids to go to this sort of school and instead of that sort of school or live in one type of community with one flavor versus another. And don't you want people to enjoy the flavor of your community too? Um, and so it really opened the door for someone who really truly I think wasn't sure why, you know, because what we hear in the news about housing, it is such an intractable problem that a town of two or three or four or 5,000 may honestly be wondering what they can do. Um, and the housing targets are a way to talk about about their part, their role in the solution. I mean in my mind it could be part of an equity issue in terms of housing needed to support rural economies.

Yeah. Onfarmm housing in particular is is a really tough issue that a lot of urban bodies are struggling. examples. Sure.

But especially in shipment cabin where a lot of people um drive to job centers elsewhere um and in my mind it's it's an awful lot of equity in terms of the ability for the full range of household incomes to live in a community. And so when West lost its one mobile home um park and there isn't going to be another one. Um the whole strata of the community disappeared. Uh and and that it seems like, you know, when you talk to communities like that they they need to understand that that that the rarified air that they breathe um is not inclusive of everybody, you know, from all different walks of life. Uh, so I know I'm preaching to the choir on that front, but I was just curious because it seems like as as Kirsten asked the question, you know, the those communities um are getting housing targets that align with their historic growth and nothing more. Um, and yeah, so just curious what what what the conversations are looking like on that front with those communities.

Good with staff, usually good to the PC and then it's harder when we get out beyond that. Yeah. All right. Janet has a question. I think this is a great conversation and I'm glad that we're having it. Um, and just sort of that.

Janet, you muted yourself. Oh, sorry. I don't know how that happened. Um but just that Chittan County is such a different scale because um Kate mentioned the 1,000 to 4,000 to 5,000. Those are our big count those are our big communities in some of our other counties and they are really concerned about housing and keeping people in in their um communities. And it's the it's the 100 to 500 that are that are asking that question in some of these counties. and even there it's the same, you know. So, I think it's a great conversation. I'm glad that it that it came up tonight.

On the other side of the spectrum, I'll just say that, you know, a lot of farm or urban places, you know, the municipalities have done a lot of work over the past 15 years, as referenced by Paul, to to change the conversation about housing. Um, and so the conversation about allocating 60% of the targets to those four cities went pretty well. those missiles were really receptive to that high of a target. Yeah, that was refreshing to hear that those communities were or at least Yeah, the feedback that you got from those communities was supportive of of uh children, you know, 60% housing that's necessary. It's great.

I see Jan's hand is still up, but she went off camera. Oh, sorry. But um I did notice that Katie Gallagher joined us. I don't know Katie if your hand is up but we have other hands up Janet but do you have anything else before we go to the next person? By all means if you want to dive in please do but uh Patty Davis has her hand up next. Are you still on public comment? I'm sorry I stepped away or no. Yes, we are still on public.

Oh, okay. I just wanted to um just give you my um two cents. Um I was on the planning commission a while ago like in 2022 and I it was a learning experience and I really believe where we live um there's like uh 1,100 and I I have the data of our section all along San Hill Road. There's it's it's all tier 1A housing. And I want you to know as a resident here and we're very athletic community, I would I I would love to see mixed use all along Sand Hill. Um and uh instead of all these big industrial companies because um they have to build their own enterprise route in the enterprise zone, not along a residential zone. But the reason I feel that we need more housing in 1A where we live is because our section along Sand Hill Road um across the street, I don't know if if uh that developer would give us some of the land is because not only would it be a good tax base, but I've already told the e our economic development commission, we need doggy daycarees, we need daycarees, we need um services, we need financial services, we need we have a very highly educated demographic. Yet we're mixed use. So the what I mean by that we're mixed income I should say you know people from Nepal or on the bottom of sandill and then there's moderate income. We're all mixed and and we're such I think we could be a village center because all this money I've observed in the last 10 years is going to in South Burlington. All my neighbors on Hillside Circle have to bring their dogs elsewhere. There's we don't have enough services right here walkable in our area and instead we see these semitrs and it's just degrading a very well I don't want to say wealthy a

moderately inomemed area very highly educated kids but yet mixed you know we have you know low income we have a mixture and we welcome a mixture we welcome people to come move here instead of the industry that's my two cents. Thank you. Right. Well, thank you very much, Patty. I just want to note that we do not have any tier 1A anywhere in Vermont yet. Uh so, please do speak with your municipality about if that's something that they wish to pursue in the future, but at this time, uh nothing.

Oh, maybe it was just a maybe I misunderstood. I didn't know if it was an A area, tier A. Tier A. Maybe it was. There's I was trying to understand tier one A and tier B. on any of those yet either. So, um those would be something that could happen in the future, but uh no tier ones are um tier 1A are proposed right now. So, that's just um something to bear in mind. Um Janet, you have your hand up. just to sort of answer Patty's uh question. I guess it wasn't a question, but to explain uh that the tiers are act 250 jurisdictional tiers that will be established as these plans are approved and as municipalities either opt in or not for those tier 1A and tier 1B statuses. And I think what you're probably con concerned about is the the future land use map categories and whether those are properly reflecting what you envision for your community there.

Absolutely. You got it.

Very good. Janet, you still have your hand up. Is there anything else that you want to add? Sorry. No, sorry. And Janet, it looks like uh Katie left the meeting. Um so she is not online, but I will another call out for anybody that has not had a chance yet to speak.

Um I can see some of our regulars on in the audience online. If you'd like to speak now, please uh raise your hand. We have a little bit more time remaining. Don't be bashful. Going once, going twice. I have another question if we don't have enough public comment.

Very good. Um, so the virtual site visits were great. Um, and every time we hit a town, I had notes on that town and wanted to ask questions about other places that weren't part of the site visit. and we did a lot of them. So, that was it they went pretty well. But a couple of questions I had that we didn't quite get to um are in the Milton and Colchester area um specifically there's a transition infill future land use area around exit 17 and I didn't understand because it seems like it's mostly taken up by the interstate itself. So, I wasn't sure like what's actually what the thought was on that. And then in Milton, there's a there's a transition infill area north of the of the the center

that is appears to be outside of the sewer service area and but but it has some residential development in it and I'm I'm guessing there's a reason why it's transition. So those are the two areas. If you could clarify, I'd be interested to hear more. Milton's quick and easy to explain. uh that transition area uh doesn't have a bike ped connection into the into the center at all. You know that that bridge over seven kind of where the dam is. There's no side uh there's sidewalk that ends right after the bridge

and then it's 50 miles an hour on seven. Um no real way over those neighborhoods. Um and so we already we lost our connection there, you know, in to the center. So village area and PGA already felt kind of out. But this area is served by water, not served by waste water, not served by water, but water. And so we're like, well, let's transition then. And it's planned that way in the future land use map of like a moderate residential. Okay. So, it's not it's not intended sort of be the status quo. It's potentially a denser rural general category. It wants to be wants to be a little bit more, but it needs some infrastructure to be really much much more. And getting some connection would be nice, too. It's large. Oh, yeah. It's huge.

So, it's an interesting tack on. Um but that that helps a lot to understand the the limitations on the connectivity. What about exit 17?

17's harder. Um you know 17 a lot of 17 and the area around 17 kind of north of two is all in like one lane use category in the in the future land use map for Colchester. Um it talks a lot about um being kind of mixed use and kind of relatively like prodevelopmenty but the zoning doesn't quite totally align and it and it's just a little little bit in the wash at least from from our perspective and working with the town and so you know we we left most of the area rural general the kind of the note around the interstate we went to transition and speaking with the municipal planning commission um Kate you work with Colchester too any anything to add there.

There is development potential that can't be I don't know if you just said this, but can't be fulfilled unless water or sewer down and that's so so I think there's a there's some hope that that area could be more robustly developed, but there's a missing link which is which is the infrastruure. The thing that really stood out to me was just that it seemed it's a reasonably smallish uh area and I I almost half of it is just the interstate and the the interstate exchange there. Like clearly there's not going to be transition development on the exit and on ramps to I9. So you know where is it actually going to happen? So it's on the periphery I guess of that

and that area is served by municipal water. H uh Evan has a sandis. Yeah, thank you. I was actually just you clicked out for a second or I clicked out for a second but were I assume you were talking about exit 17. Yes.

Yeah. So that that area is served by public water and there have been conversations over the years with the town of Milton about expanding their waste water to that area because they have an abundant capacity almost directly down the road from it. So I I don't know if that's something that should be taken into context here as well. I'll add to that that that uh wastewater expansion that happened to bring that wastewater uh line down to the Catamount Industrial Park in Milton is subject to act 250 per and a settlement with conservation law foundation. Um, so there are permitting and legal issues related to extending it into Colchester. But it has been a conversation between Milton and Colchester in the past, but there hasn't been comprehensive planning work to go land use wise with the planning for the infrastructure too. And you know, it's one of the areas we're curious what happens when Colchester updates their town plan the next year. You know, kind of what they what they settle on for that area that can provide us some more clarity.

Okay. Well, for what it's worth, there's three large willing land owners surrounding that interstate exchange. We have 200 acres right there, and I know the other two land owners right on the fringes of our property are also very interested in that. We're part of that discussion. I think we encourage you to work with your municipality uh on their plan update. Great. Thank you.

Anything else? in Portland minutes. Don't encourage him. What do you have for Do you have anything for I am I am beyond

it's obvious that you folks have been working very hard for very long and uh it shows so and I do appreciate all the explanations. Um, I know that you were flying balls and strikes and uh given the best you have a robot up soon with in the MLB. So, AI will replace me. Um, I I don't Evan, you have your hand up again. Uh, or maybe you didn't take it down, but I wanted to give you a go. Apologies.

That's quite right. Would you like to speak again? No, I think you heard enough for me. Thank you though. We're on twos and threes of people, so it's absolutely fine. And we're not into overtime in ECX, so that's a good thing. Um, but we can also

Yes. However, would DCRPC like to offer any thoughts before we close out? Closing comments just in your comments back to us whatever you can provide for clarity about you know what's necessary what's a recommendation would be very much appreciated we want to be responsive we want to make sure we get this plan approved so our municipalities can can the benefits of the designation program and actually the exceptions so please keep that in mind as you put together your comments for December

absolutely well thank you so much for the hospitality today for taking us through um of intricate detail. Uh, high level review all in a very short time, very condensed. Um, I too found the virtual cyus I think the most informative yet. Um, it was nice how you were able to compare and contrast with a lot of the data all at the same time. That was very informative. Um, and I will say that I think as we've progressed over the past couple months, we're really good at this. Um it's nice to see the amount of thought and uh detail that has gone into this and I very much value also the discussion from the board. I think this is one that um has hit a lot of different areas and um a lot of different good questions and details. So and also for the intrepid public that's stayed with us throughout the entire time and uh for those of you that have been the municipalities involved on the other side of it. Uh there's a lot of work that's been effort in this and just very much appreciate all of us. Appreciate your time today and thank you everyone that has come and participated. So more to come. We will get comments back to you. Hopefully we will vote on that on December 22nd. Look forward shortly thereafter. And uh by all means if you have comments that you've not gotten yet, act 250 uh.boardermont.gov, please email those in. Um, I think Maddie will accept everything up until 12:01 a.m. uh please don't stay up that late, but um absolutely if you feel like you want to make yourself avail yourself of that process. So, all right. Well, thank you guys. Um thank you all and I'll take a motion. So, moved to ajourn.

Second. All right. Janet, you have your hand up. I was I was hoping I could make a motion to adjurnn, but you all beat me to it. Well, you want to call the all in favor? We can. Yeah. No, no, no. You go ahead. I can vote from here. It's fine. All those in favor signify by saying I. I. All right. The eyes have it. We're at 5:54 p.m. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.