Hello there, let's continue on our journey of understanding ethnography. In the last module, I shared my experience of painting with the Beel artist and how through this participation, I learned the importance of painting in their lives. During some of our conversations, my participants shared a very interesting story with me. This is a story that the Beels tell themselves about their relationship with painting. Over the Beels, painting is a way of praying to the gods, which may also bring down the rains. The story tells us about the centrality of making images in the Beel culture and it tells us something about their relationship with the natural environment. This story added a further layer of understanding to my conception of Beel art. I first heard it as a part of a conversation with my participant and later my collaborator Sher Singh Beel. I wanted to share this story with you to show you how we might learn multiple things about the same subject in different ways from different sources. And one of the most important ways of learning from our participants is by conversing with them or through interviews. This will be the subject of our discussion for this module. Simply put, an ethnographic interview is a conversation between the researcher and the participant. But it is a very particular kind of conversation where the researcher wants to learn something specific from the other. I have a question for you here. We have discussed observation in the previous module. Do you think observation and interview are interdependent on each other or are they independent of each other? Some of you may have said that interview and observation are different research tools and hence they are independent of each other. Others may be of the opinion that they are interdependent. This is the most appropriate answer. In an ethnographic research, learnings gathered from different sources through different means feed into each other. In fact, as you will see later in our discussion, observing is a key part of every interview. In this module, we will focus on understanding some of the fundamental characteristics of the ethnographic interview and the value of interviewing as a research tool. We will discuss how to do an ethnographic interview and how to record our learnings. Somewhere along the way, we will touch upon the importance of narratives and stories as ways of learning from our participants. We will deliberate on some of the ethical and practical concerns common in interviewing, such as the safety and privacy of our participants. Interviews in ethnography can take varied forms. Sometimes we happen to meet a participant accidentally. We strike up a brief conversation asking questions that arise then and there. Other times we engage in conversations as we accompany them in some activity and sometimes we sit down with them and have long conversations about a specific topic. By some definitions, these may all fall within the broad ambit of the ethnographic interview. On the other hand, some people would only apply this definition to in-depth exclusive conversations with one or two participants at a time focused on a few topics. Let's look at an example.


Hey, John. You don't think you're a golfer, do you? I guess I'll just make this a shot. Yes, sir. I got my phone in front of me. Three holes. Good thinking. I turned you next. 10-chow, 10-chow. Yeah. Talk to us.  Testing one, two, three, testing one, two, three. Hello and welcome to the South Burlington Development Review Board meeting for Tuesday, July 16, 2019. My name is Matt Coda. I'm the acting chair of the Development Review Board. With me is Frank Cokman, Don Philbert, Jim Langen. On the phone, we have Mark Baer. And also with us is Marlekeen, Development Review Planner and Delilah Hall, South Burlington Zoning Administrator. For those of you in attendance, there's a sign-in sheet in the back, which is important to put down your name and your contact information in order to be considered a participant in this hearing. You need to fill in the sign-in sheet, speak during public comment, or submit comments and writing. You should do one of those things if you want to obtain party status should you decide in the future to appeal the decision made by this board. First item on the agenda is directions and emergency evacuation procedures from the conference room. There are four exits to this building, two over there, two back here. Should there be an emergency, meet out in the parking lot. Are there any additions, deletions, or changes in the order of agenda items? I do have a announcement regarding agenda items. Regarding public notice for items number and item number 10, conditional use applications. Conditional use applications under state law are required to have 15-day notice. Staff made an error in public noticing those, so there is a remedy available, but let me just tell you what happened first. For the condition use application CU-1904, agenda item number eight, the placard and the butter notices went out seven days before the hearing, as opposed to 15. The newspaper notice was timely and the condition use 1905, agenda item number 10. Placard and the butter notice, it went on day 10, including an additional outreach by email, and again, that was supposed to be 15 days, but the newspaper notice in that case was also timely. So 24VSA4464A5 addresses defects in the public noticing requirements, and I can just read that out. No defect in the form or substance of any requirements in subdivision one or two, which addresses sending a butter notices, putting placards up and putting notice in the paper, shall invalidate the action. So no defect in the form or substance of any of those requirements shall invalidate the action of the appropriate municipal panel where reasonable efforts are made to provide adequate posting and notice. However, the action shall be invalidated when the defective posting or notice was materially misleading in content. If an action is ruled to be invalid by the environmental division or by the applicable municipal panel itself, the action shall be remanded to the applicable municipal panel to provide new posting and notice, hold a new hearing and take a new action. Our position is that it was not materially misleading in content, reasonable efforts were made to provide adequate posting and notice, basically our interpretation of this section that it allows for human error and the board should allow these applications to proceed, but it's up to you guys ultimately. I'm sorry, I had trouble hearing you. What was the error? The humor. In terms of public notification. The placard and the butter mailings went out on 10 days for agenda item number 10 before the hearing and seven days before the hearing for agenda number eight. Both of those were supposed to be 15 days. The newspaper notice went out 15 days before. Yeah, I don't agree with you. I'm sorry. I don't agree with your interpretation. I don't think that that's what former substance means. I think the notice period is not a waivable thing. I think it's jurisdiction. Look, willing to discuss it, if there are any other lawyers handy, you'll have a different point of view. I don't know. In previous, can please correct me if I'm wrong, we have also, we have provided the applicant warning that this could be a field in which case we have to start from scratch. Is that how we proceeded in the past when we've had a discrepancy in one of the warnings? So in other words, if the applicant doesn't mind taking the chance that no one will have a concern. But the point of the duration of the notice, not for the applicant, the applicant presumably is ready. The point of the notice is to allow potentially objecting persons to be heard. But in which case an objecting person could make a very substantial claim that they were not notified in time and thus would have to restart. So the risk is to the applicant with pushing ahead. Can I make a suggestion? What if in both of these, we were to mail the decision to all of their butters by default? That's not something we do. We only do it when it's an interested person. I'm not going to sit here and pound on the table. I have a view. I don't think it's curable without a new notice, but the board will do as it does and we'll see what happens. Mark. You know, I'm wondering about this because I know in the past we've always had when the applicant has not come in and picked up the platter and put it up in a timely fashion. We've always faced this, because we're going to continue the hearing to the next meeting to allow for proper advertisement, proper placement. How is this a different scenario? So in my tenure, the board has sort of given the applicant the option. You've obviously, your tenure is much longer than mine. So if that's the stronger precedent, then that's the stronger precedent. I don't know. And that's always been on when the applicant doesn't. We basically say to the applicant, you didn't fulfill your obligation. Therefore we need, we're going to have to continue this. And that has always been the precedent. And it's typically been, it's only happened a handful of times, but it's typically when the applicant didn't come in and get the platter and post it in the required time period. And in both of these cases, I reached out to the applicant as soon as we were aware of it and they jumped on it. So we should make every effort to not punish the applicant for staff's error. Right, I understand that. This was these samples. I'm not aware of a situation of this type where, you know. What you're saying, Mark, is I'm the first one to ever make a terrible mistake. I'm very sorry. No, I don't think he was saying that. No, no, no. I just, I missed it mailing on a project just recently. So no, I think making every effort to mitigate it without punishing the applicant, but giving interested parties and the butters sufficient notice. I do agree with you that it's sort of on the applicant, whether they want to proceed with this, that would be my opinion. And mailing the decision or anything to all the butters to give them that chance seems very double to me. Well, that's, I will pound on the table to this extent. Given the butters a chance after the fact really does not satisfy the intent of the statute. What would you agree? It provides them the ability to set it back to zero and restart the area? It provides them with the ability to go to the superior court at substantial expense and argue that the matter should go back to the board to be re-noticed. But that's a considerable burden on those people. We should have had an opportunity to argue with her. It would be an appeal of the decision to us where we immediately acknowledge it and, you know. Yeah, that's my question. Are we going to, would someone have to go to superior court in order to reorder a hearing or would it simply be done out of our protocol if someone said I wasn't properly notified of this? I don't know the answer to that. I think to have to go to the superior court, the applicant would then have a beef with you. Well, if that's true, I would side with you, Frank, because, you know, if we're... I would, too, if that's the only... But I don't know if that is the way it is. If that's what automatically happens, you know. An athlete, I would have butter comes in until I wasn't given proper warning and it automatically gets to court where everyone has caution and all that. I would, yes, I would side with Frank as well. I would have understood it as they would appeal it to us where we would reopen it and re-warrant it. But if that's the case, then I'm not a lawyer. Does the board have the ability to just say, well, of course the environmental court's going to side with you. We'll just take that step without you incurring the expense. Well, the answer is, I don't know. But the reason that I don't know because I think it's the wrong thing to do and the right thing to do is when you have a George Dixon bar regardless of who's fault it was, you re-notice. But now I'm done pounding on the thing. Jim, Dawn, thoughts? Yeah, I mean, without reading the statute and so not knowing the answer, I tend to agree with Frank. So we're talking about CU-1904, not SP-1921. Is that correct? Well, so those under the LDR are reviewed as one application with one. So we'd be continuing, gender item number eight entirely. And number 10. Is there a motion? I would move to continuing what it says, SP-19-21, is that what we're talking about? That's one of the errors, right? We're talking about agenda item number eight, SP-1921 and conditional use applications, SCU-1904 and agenda item number 10, conditional use application, CU-1905. I move that both of those applications be continued and be re-noticed in accordance with the rules. Second. Okay, so the motion is that agenda item number eight, SP-1921 and conditional use application, CU-1904. And agenda item number 10, conditional use application, CU-1905. Be continued until August 20th. Any discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? Staying? Not voting. Okay, so those two items, if you're here for agenda item number eight, number 10, those two items have been continued to August 20th. Okay, that was agenda item number two, agenda item number three. Are there comments or questions from the public, not related to any of the items on the agenda? Seeing none, agenda item number four, announcements. We are off, we meet twice a month, except for August, where we only meet once a month, so the next time that we will be back here is on August 20th. Any other announcements? Agenda item number five, a reorganization, elect chair, vice chair and clerk and set regular meeting dates and times. Let's do that. It's my position, if the board agrees, that we do that on August 20th when we have a full house with John and with Brian. Agreed? Okay. Or we can just take this opportunity to make them chair and vice chair. Yeah. But I don't think we need a motion, but I would like to continue that until August 20th. So I think you're going to agree to have an answer. Yeah, I concur with that. Okay, thank you. So let's go to agenda item number six, continue final plan application SD-1912 of SBRC properties LLC. That's my little talk, item number five, because one of my items on a reorganization, set regular meeting dates and times is slightly timely. Okay. And that is for, where'd it go? The Labor Day meeting where we always get kicked out by city council and moved to the police station. Do we want to do that just to get a change of scenery, or do we want to move that meeting to a Wednesday and have it here? Do we want to make city council go to the police station and we stand up for that? Unfortunately, that's not within my authority to me. That's not within my authority. That is, so that's the September 3rd. Right. And so that would be the next one after, so I need to have that before the August 20th. I need to have that decision made. Okay. It's either it's fine with me, does the board? I don't have a preference. Clearly it doesn't affect me. You moved my little thingy wherever I go, so. Unless there's an objection, I would. One issue is that we don't get sue if we have it on the second, but we do get you if we have it on the Wednesday after, correct? Okay. And this is a sewer no-sue vote. I cannot be two places at once. I've been tried for 39 years, if that's what. Okay. So we're talking about the 1st of September? No, the 3rd, a regular scheduled meeting is September 3rd and this would be moving it to September 4th. I'm happy with moving it to September 4th. That's amenable to anyone else on the board. Okay. I don't have any problem with that. Okay, so item number five, we'll discuss regular meeting dates and times on the 20th, but as for the Labor Day meeting, we'll move that to a Wednesday. Okay, thank you. Great, thank you, Marla. So now, item number six, continue to final plot application SD-19 of SBRC properties LLC to subdivide, 27-point acre parcel into two lots of 6.2 acres and 21.2 acres at 284 Medellin Drive who is here for the applicant. David. David. Adam Busco. Adam. Tim McKenzie for the property owner. Hi, Tim. Open number seven at the same time? Yes, and why don't we at the same time open agenda in number seven, continued site plan application SP-1907 of SBRC properties LLC to construct a 25,560 square foot, 31 foot high warehouse building, paved parking area and associated site improvements on a proposed 6.2 acre lot at 284 Medellin Drive. All three of you have been sworn in at the prior meeting. This is the third time that we've had you before us. Thank you for being here. Before we start, are there any disclosures from the board? Seeing none, let's proceed. You have seen, should we start with the SP-1912, SP-1907? Sure. You've seen the draft put together by staff. We have, we have no objections with the draft decision. I can slide a little narrative on the changes that we've made. That'd be great. So we've actually changed quite a bit since we last met with you. Last time we were talking about canopies as a possible option, but we kind of really met with staff and I'm really had a lot of input on here. What's going to look good? What's going to function well? At the end of the day, as we've told you, there's not a lot of customer traffic. So really adding a canopy that's trivial on a building that's really far away, really didn't functionally work well and architecturally maybe didn't really create the punch that you all were looking for. So we did other things. We inverse the colors to making the gray, the accent color. The previous sketch had a band of blue kind of along the front bottom. We changed that scheme in having the accent grays in block format. I think last time we had this French entrance being accent with a gray. We saw an opportunity two thirds that'll left on the north elevation to capture another accent area. You'll see those three windows. You can't tell in this format but one thing that staff helped us with was repositioning those three windows in there so they're more symmetrically aligned with that accent area before they weren't just based on, but we were able to make that changes on the inside. Pretty much all the windows that are visible from the street and neighbors, you'll see now are a little bit more fancier. They have that little mullion at the bottom, little operational. Prior to this application, all the windows were a single pane similar to the ones on the south elevation that are facing the back buffer that are really just there for natural light. So we upgraded the window style. In the front entrance, the north elevation, you'll see the brick area. That's still the same, that hasn't changed. We only had, I think, two bays of aluminum storefront and we had a rogue window kind of on the left of that area and it's kind of a big reception area, just a welcoming area. We had an opportunity just to delete the window and just plow the storefront right across and just create a lot more light and glass there, which visually will make the entrance more prominent. From the street, because that's the street view, the north elevation. The other thing we did is we change, so on the accent colors, we actually, the gray colors, they protrude about, I don't know, it's on here somewhere, a foot and a half or so higher. It's like a parapet in a way than the rest of the roof line. Again, it's all in plain. It doesn't come out or in, but we went up with it. And that allowed us to keep our site plan the same without changing on our impervious space or anything like that. Another thing is the panels are insulated panels. They're all insulated panels, three inch insulated panels, but the texture of the panels between the colors are different and you'll see on that architectural drawing on the right, kind of in the middle, you'll see the profile, one's called a flute, one's called a mesa. So basically the gray, which is a tundra, has a rib every, I think like eight inches. The down on the screen is what you see from the road. So you'll see more ribs closer together. That's why in the two-dimensional drawing, you'll see more lines there. The mesa panel, I actually have an example of it here if you wanna see it, that's just the normal panel. So that really summarizes all the things we change. We feel pretty good about it. We had a very good meeting with staff. They gave us a couple of pointers that we liked and we went with it. You've read both draft decisions? We've read both draft decisions and we are fine with both conditions. One omission that during that last meeting we discussed adding a condition in landscaping to be part of the pilot program run by the Natural Resources. That wasn't in the draft decision on SB 1907, but I assume there's no objections to putting that back in there, as was agreed to earlier. Being part of that pilot program, great. So that would likely appear in the final draft decision. Any questions from the board regarding the property? Just one because I can't make out what it is. You say there is no, on the east elevation, is that a canopy of some sort? So there's no appendage on the building sticking out. The brick area is actually recessed underneath. So when you go to the front door, you will be protected. Over the bay door says a little bit of a second. Okay, so that has always been on the... The stripe, is it canopy of sorts? What is that? No, so it'll probably actually... Are we talking about the east elevation, the long one? The east elevation, the long thing. So that's always been there. That'll probably, it'll blend in relatively. The edge metal on it will be the same color as the blue, but it's a six foot canopy because if you look on the slave plan, that's where the truck's back into. And that allows the drivers to come out and inclement weather to load a couple of steps. So there is a canopy, but it's got a function. It does have a function, yep. Mark, any questions? No, I think I must admit the intermeeting between the previous one, which was... You did, yeah. Yeah, which was just a big bland box and this one, but what I see here, it's still an industrial building, but I think it's more easily improved compared to the last one I saw. And they're speaking my language. I hear symmetry, I hear accent color, change in math, so I'm good with this one before us. So good to have you on the line, Mark. First non-architect. And the other change we made on the west elevation, we did add one more, there's nothing going on inside the building, but we just added a block, you see, on the west elevation, we added that area too. And yet you left off the gargoyles. We did, in the murals.  Yep, yep, all the slave plan, we're fine with staff comments. I would open up to anyone in the public who would like to comment, seeing none. I would move that we close SD1912 and SP1907 of SBRC properties, LLC. I don't know if this is inherent in closing. Can I say anything? Sure. One thing John said that we could do is ask you to stop and vote. So one thing we are respectfully asking tonight is that you do vote on it tonight. If that's, I'm not sure that's outlined. I'm not sure that's outlined me to ask or something. So what we're gonna do now is we're gonna close it. And then after the hearing's over, then we can deliberate, we'll have time to deliberate. We wanna see the change that you agreed to tonight with the, we need to see that in writing. I can make that on the fly. We can make that on the fly. So we're not gonna vote here in this hearing, but in a deliberative session, it's quite possible. I understand that part. Okay. So we're moving as fast as possible. Do I have a second? Second. Okay. All in favor say aye. Aye. Those opposed? Abstained. Thank you very much gentlemen. Thank you. Okay. If you're here for item number eight, that has been continued until August 20th. So we're gonna move in. So we're gonna move into item, agenda item number nine, continued in preliminary final plan application SD 1918 of the city of South Burlington to subdivide a 4.09 acre lot into three lots of 0.27 acres, 0.61 acres and 3.21 acres for the purpose of a future development project under the form-based code on the 0.61 acre lot and dedicating 0.27 acre lot as a public right of way at 180 Market Street. Who is here for the applicant? Ilana Blanchard, city of South Burlington. Hi Ilana. Andrew Boulda, city of South Burlington. Hi Andrew. St. McKenzie, South Burlington, realty of the property owner. How are you? Okay. This is continued in final plan application. All of you are sworn in. Ilana has not been sworn in. Ilana, could you raise your hand? I swear to tell the whole truth on a penalty perjure. I swear to tell the whole truth under penalty of perjury. Thank you very much. Tell us a little bit about what your plans are. So the city of South Burlington has been working with the owner to develop a subdivision platform for lot B. We plan to build a building on lot B one and subdivide a street, build a street on lot B two and then the remainder of lot B will stay with South Burlington realty or South Burlington city center LLC for their use. So I believe this was covered at the last hearing. So we have since the last meeting and this meeting come to an agreement. Yeah, I think you may have received it. I believe Marla received a letter from the school district stating that kind of all outstanding issues have been resolved. We've reached a tentative agreement with them. We did. Some of the access. We did. We received a letter from David Rue and in advance of tonight's DRB meeting, we want to inform the DRB that the city of South Burlington, the South Burlington school district have reached a tentative agreement regarding the curb cut and access design and on-street parking issues related to future street to be constructed on lot B as part of a preliminary final plot application SD-19-18 as a result of school district's concerns regarding the application have been resolved. Can you talk a little bit about the tentative agreement? It hasn't been brought before the full boards of either side. So you describe in general terms? Sure. So one of the big questions was whether or not it would be secondary access to the remainder of lot B, whether the curb cut off the support street. That question has been resolved. The school district has recognized that it would be, it will be unrestricted access when lot B2 is eventually resolved. So staff has drafted a draft decision. Have you had a chance to review it? And what does the draft decision, any points that you would like to bring up regarding the draft decision? Does it concur with what your agreement is or coincide or correlate? No objection as it's written. I don't know, Tim, if you have any comments. Since that agreement is tentative and our primary concern is the certainty of access from that street to the adjoining lot block B2, we just wanna have some certainty if that deal isn't memorialized, that that access is primary access or access it's not restricted in any way. And I don't know if that can be a condition of the approval that that access to that lot is unrestricted. So if the DRB believes it's within its purview to comment on the nature of access that is gonna be provided, the city has no objection to some language or note in the decision that mentions its unrestricted nature. Well, based on our earlier deliberation, it would be helpful to us if you actually made the request to include that, is that a modification? Why don't we look at 11.06 and read that. So the 11.06 in the LDR allows the DRB certain modifications to the city's runway standards. Based on the specific request from the applicant for the city, which shall consist of a minimum of the following information. Statement of the specific standard or feature for which a modification is requested. This is giving reasons why this cited standard cannot be achieved. Estimated cost to construct the standard and to the proposed design if available. I'm not sure that really applies here. The project traffic volumes, including trucks, pedestrians, and bicyclists and other relevant information. Some of these may or may not be applicable here. A statement of compatibility with the present and anticipated improvements to adjacent sections. A review of accident data for the site to determine if the types of accidents occurring are or may be related to the proposed feature. A discussion of practical countermeasures that will be employed to reduce the frequency and severity of future accidents and a statement of recommended action including other mitigating features as appropriate. So, any chance you could pull that stuff up? So, maybe the application team? Yes, there's just a couple features in the right person. Well, first of all, what kind of street is this? What's the type of street? It's a support street. I'm sorry? Support street. There's a couple things going. Number one, in the student board's letter that they sent you for the last meeting, they referred to access as secondary. I can't find anywhere where there is any such thing in our man-development regulations where there is any such thing as secondary access. No, nor does the draft decision make any such reference. So, we just want to have certainty that we have access to our lot. So, neither in the LDRs as their reference to primary access. For the board's benefit, I'm not sure if we can't make reference to something that doesn't exist as a secondary. I don't know that it would be appropriate to make a reference to primary if that also doesn't exist. As long as it's unrestricted, I suppose. As long as it's unrestricted access, we're content with moving forward. I mean, does unrestricted have a definition? I'm sure it doesn't in that, but could it potentially be true the wrong way? Does someone say, well, unrestricted must mean that it's... Dr. Traylor jokes in the middle of the night. And that it's left turn and right turn and that there's no median and this, that. And the other thing, or does it just mean that we can, does it mean that the design is subject to future review? I don't know, but I understand the intent. I understand what we want with you. I understand the city doesn't have any objections to that. Is that correct? Correct. No objections to some language or certainty. I mean, I would argue that accepting it as a support street and the standards under the support street kind of in capsule that kind of unrestricted goal that Tim's looking to achieve, which is it's going to be a public right of way. Public right of ways don't restrict access in the way I think. So Andrew, a support street designation in your mind affirms that there is unrestricted access by the... It seems reasonable that the applicant wants certainty. Just the light of the fact that the city and the school had been working on an agreement previously and I attended the meeting with the city and the school a couple of days ago. We're all on the same page. We all agree that there's access, that the access will be unrestricted. It's just that that deal doesn't get memorialized until next week and as we move forward, if there was some way, I don't want to hold this up. I want to keep us moving forward, but if there was some way that we could embed in the decision that the... We'll take that under consideration. Thank you, Tim. Any other comments from the board? Any other comments on the applicant at this time? Any other... Seen any comments from the board? If not, I would open it up to the public. Does anyone like to comment on this development, this project? Seeing none. I have actually one other question. Jim had raised the point about speed on the support streets. Design speed. Are you concerned in this circumstance? Well, yeah, I mean, I'm looking at the... Just curious as to the design speed for support street is 30 miles per hour, which seems high, but not being a traffic engineer or a road engineer. Just as compared to, I mean, even a commercial street is set at a lower number. We could speak to that. So the street has been designed. It doesn't have a specific design speed in the sense that we did not say to the engineers, it's going to be a 25. But because the lanes are fairly narrow, so they're 10 feet wide, there's not as much parking as we would like. Parking goes a long way to slow down traffic, but there will be street trees that contributes to traffic calming. And there will be, you know, on the Lot B1, there will be a large building, and that will be right next to the sidewalk. So that sort of signals it's an urban area expectation that there will be people. And then on the east side, there will likely be buildings very close to the sidewalk, and they will be at least two stories. So all of that goes a long way to making it more of a 20 to 28 mile an hour street as opposed to a 30 mile an hour street. It's only a 200 foot street. I mean, at the end of the street, you get into the school driveway or driveway into their property. But the ultimate condition of the street, I mean, this is setting the street type for the entire length of it, which is beyond the SBRC property limit. So this decision for the board has implications beyond that line. Anything else, Mark? Jim? I guess so. Can anyone explain, you know, looking on the support street sheet, page 198 in the LDR, if anybody's looking. The distinction between design speed and target speed, the target speed for support speed is 15 to 20 miles an hour. Making a hard eye contact with our traffic expert in the audience right now. Target is the speed that you want, and design is the speed that, that, that, that. Yeah. I believe we may have a member of the public able to answer that question. I don't know. Do you know? I would throw the question over to anyone who reports to be a traffic engineer. So the question is the, if you can pull up the table there. Yeah, that first one. Well, she pulls that up. Can you state your name for the record? David Saladino, a traffic engineer with VHB. It's hard to put you on the spot, Dave. So these standards for street typologies have a target speed and a design speed. And the question from the board is, what's the difference between a target speed and a design speed? Anyone will do that, I think. So here's target, here's design. And the one we're looking at, the target speed is 15 to 20 and the design speed is 30. I've caught this before. Design speed usually governs the curve radiuses, how sharp the curves will be if they're sweeping or sharper curves, if there's any up or down, horizontal or vertical curves. That usually sets those distances. The target speed, I'm guessing, that's not kind of an official term, but I think the idea is that that would be the posted speed limit. That's what it's targeted. Typically you design it for something higher than what the posted speed is. So that gets, maybe it gets to Jim's point, which is that you want a design speed that could accommodate a 30 mile an hour vehicle going around a curve without upending it, but you would still have, for example, a posted speed limit of 20 miles per hour. Correct, yeah, yeah. Is that, does that make sense to you? Yeah, that makes sense. And also the design speed may be higher just in this case, perhaps, to have not just cars on the street for deliveries and such. So that makes sense to me. Although in the commercial street, the target speed range is 20 to 30, yet the design speed is 25. So, logic doesn't necessarily have a point. It is. I mean, you should be setting speed limit post, speed limit postings based on the actual speed of cars, so you should go out and actually measure the speeds of cars and then post it, but that rarely happened. So 25 is a nice, happy medium to post. Thank you very much. Thank you, Dave. Yeah, thank you. Any other comments from the applicant, from the board or from the public? I would, seeing none, I would entertain. I would make a motion to close, continue to implement a final plot application, SD-1918 to the city of South Burlington. Second. Second. I hear a second. All in favor, say aye. Aye. Aye. Those opposed. Abstentions? Thank you very much. Okay, we continued agenda item number 10 for August 20th. So we'll go right ahead to agenda item number 11, sketch plan application SD-1920 of Suncat Property Group to resubdivide five lots, number 8B, 9, 10, 11, and 12, and one easement into four lots of 6.9 acres, lot 8B, 43.8 acres, lot 9, 6.7 acres, lot 11, and 6.6 acres, lot 12. Eliminate the previously approved city, street, community way and construct an approximately 144,000 square foot warehousing and distribution center at 45 Community Drive who is here for the applicant. I'm John Nealick representing Technology Park and with us is Kevin Dar representing the applicant Suncat. Hi, John, Kevin, happy to have you back. This is a new sketch plan, don't have to swear you in, sketch plan for those in the audience that are interested in sketch plan is a high level review and discussion where an applicant receives feedback from the board on major elements of a project before it is fully designed. During this hearing or during this meeting, the board may provide oral guidance to the applicant which constitutes the board's determination that the application meets the purposes of land development regulations. These comments are to help guide the applicant to a later application that meets the LDR requirements and contributes to the goals of the comprehensive plan. It's not a formal hearing and doesn't result in a binding vote, but we are eager to hear what you've got planned. Great, thank you. So our application tonight is remarkably similar to one this board saw last year and we've been. And I would add John, reconfigured board, we've got some new members here, so they're so. So I will represent it in as much detail as you wish for, but I'll do some fundamentals. What we're looking at here is the southeast corner of technology part, which is a business part subdivision that was the subdivision of which was permitted 20 years ago over there about tomorrow. It can probably help me with that day. It was a 16 lot subdivision by way of historical reference. The property was owned by Digital Equipment Corp, which left this property in 1995. They actually closed their doors in probably 92. We purchased it in 95. The original building has been repurposed into a multi-tenant building and we subsequently build a couple of office buildings on the other locks. Now comes Suncap on behalf of their prospective tenant, FedEx, who wishes to build a packaging and distribution facility on the southeast corner. It's a fairly large building, 144,000 square feet, and it doesn't all fit on one lot. So part of our application is to take lot nine, 10 in a portion of 11 and combine them into a single lot along with the right of way of community way, which was originally intended and offered to the city to be a public street, at our expense, to service lot nine. Well, lot line's now being attached to 10 and 11, so this is no longer necessary to be a public street. So we will have to approach the city council to ask them to give that back to us. They don't actually own it yet, but we agree to dedicate to it. So we'll have to ask for that back. We're gonna combine it with this lot. And in fact, when you see the site plan, the driveway to the facility is right here because that is the logical spot for a road to connect to community drive, whether it was a public street or a driveway. Another part of our application, which doesn't show on this drawing, but on the north end of the property, we're at a Butts Kimball Avenue. I don't know if we have that model or not. Oh. The larger part. The larger part of that. Yeah. We may not have it, it's... We can look at this one right here. So part of the requirements for the trucks that will be servicing this facility is a slightly different radius on the curves as community drive hits Kimball Avenue. So part of our application is to ask to flatten out or subside the radius of these two curves. And of course, we feel the most important part is the building itself, which is a facility loosely described as tractor trailers bringing packages in, the packages get offloaded, put into the building, they go through a conveyor system to be sorted, and they go back out for distribution to our homes and businesses on smaller trucks or I don't know how you describe a smaller truck, but I would call them step vans, but some single acts or... The delivery vans look like bread trucks that come to your home in offices. So it's sort of packages in, sorted, packages out. It is a three shift operation. In other words, it operates essentially 24 hours a day and it operates essentially 365 days a year. Correct. Obviously they have a busy season. That busy season is, as you can expect, before and just after the Christmas holiday. I'm sorry, did you say three shifts? Is it 24 hour operation? Yes. It's two to three shifts spread throughout the day, depending on seasonal demand. The peak season is the holiday season early November through New Year.  Yes, sir. No. As you might imagine, it is a bit seasonal and that's important when we come to calculating things like water sewer allocation, parking spaces and so forth. We have to be able to meet the demands associated with our most intensive use, which is that time period around the holiday season is probably a little inaccessible month where it's our most intense time period. John, I appreciate the presentation in order for the microphone to pick up your voice for the viewing audience at home. We ask you to sit down or grab the microphone when you're pointing out. I can do that. Excellent. Thank you, John. We have thousands and thousands of viewers. I'm so sorry. So you want to continue going through it or do you want to go through the comments? Yeah, let me continue going through to give an overview for those members that weren't here before. So once again, you saw the lot layout. This obviously is our building. It's about 144,000 square feet. A vast majority of it is what I would consider sort of high base storage. It's probably 30 feet, 31 feet to the top of the building. There's a small office component here, which is a fairly subordinate piece of the whole building and it has a slightly lower roof line, which you'll see on the elevations. Here's the curb cut from community drive. It aligns with the curb cut over to 30 community drive, which is the other large building on the property. That building actually is twice the size of this building if you want to get a sort of a sense of scale. This is half the size of 30 community drive roughly. That's 275, this is 144. So one of the operational requirements of the building is that the building and the trucks are in a secure area. So my finger is describing a fence line and that's what we call the secure area. There's a gate right here across the driveway. So employees will come in before the gate turn into the parking lot, then they come through a secure area, check into the building. Any truck has to come through the gate. The fence is a chain link fence. It's not barbed wire in many of our locations, frankly it is, but that's not what we're having here. This is just a chain link fence. Interstate is here. We've tried to set this building into the site so that it is as visually not impactful as possible. The site slopes from here to here, pretty good grade. I'd say there's about 20 feet across that building so there's a fair bit of cut and fill on this. The good news is we've lowered this corner and created berms along the interstate. This is, for those of you who were here before, I've already heard this. So the building is, it's not invisible from the interstate by any stretch, but its visual impact is certainly diminished. Let's put it this way. We'll see the whale's tails a lot more prominently than we'll see this building.  That's about it for that piece of the presentation. We have talked with the city of South Burlington about water and sewer allocations with GMP about availability and provide power. All the ability to serve letters have been acquired and they're part of our application. Now I think we can go through the staff comments. I would say that the sketch, I know this is your second time around, but the sketch plan is extensive so thank you for that. And the staff has put in a lot of work here as well. I'd like to go over some of their comments. The first one, page three, number one, Steph advises us to make note that the cost of the required mitigation cannot be applied towards traffic impact fees. Yeah, so this might consume as much of our conversation tonight as anything else on the list. Our position is the traffic counts, the trip ends that we are generating, put the intersection, the east intersection of community driving Kimball into a warrant position. It takes it from level service DDE and that trips a warrant. So our preference, our strong preference is to have a traffic signal there. So we would like to suggest that either we pay the traffic impact fee which at least as we understand it is in place to support infrastructure improvements that have been created by a development. An alternative is to actually make the improvements that the development creates a necessity for. Our traffic study indicates that of that warrant amount of traffic, of the total amount of traffic through that intersection, we're gonna consume 15% of it. In rough math terms, traffic signals a quarter of a million bucks as we understand it from consulting with our traffic engineer and the city, roughly speaking. So we would think we would normally be on the hook for 15% of that. What we'd like to suggest as part of our application is that we actually install the traffic signal because we would like to have this in place day one for safety and efficiency purposes and so forth. And that we consult with city council who is the only, as we understand it, the approving board of quid pro quo between improvements and traffic impact fees to see if they would be agreeable to 85% therefore of that traffic signal mitigating the traffic impact fee amount. I think as long as your approach is to city council on that, that's probably fine. It's just not within the board's ability. So if that's okay with the board, let me back up for just a moment. We, our standards for traffic efficiency and safety probably exceed South Burlington's in this regard. We will exceed IT standards for virtually everything we do. Radieses have to be a little gentler and we want safety and efficiency to be paramount because it's at the core of our business and safety, you know, you can't mess with that anyway. So our standards in that regard are very high. So we would like to see a traffic signal day one even though we could probably limp along without it as could other traffic, but we would like it day one. So we would like to install it. Any questions on the board on that? Moving to item number, go ahead, Mark. No, no, I said no. Okay, moving on to item two. This is the car before the horse here. We, applicant authorize an independent review with updated memo. We retroactively request this review. Yeah. Number three, staff recommends the applicant be directed to develop a cost estimate for the mitigation of traffic, which I'm sure you're in the process of doing this. That's in process. Just further that note needs to generate, by the proposal to collaborate with staff as a possible intersection improvements in the short-term and longer-term prior to the submittal of a preliminary plot application in any design, staff considers the intersection improvements should support city goals in minimizing pavement widths and accommodating multimodal road users. Agreed? Yes. Okay. Number four regarding wetlands stream, wildlife habitat protection staff recommends the board ask the applicant, here we are, to submit field delineations and wetlands report as well as documentation from state wetlands program supporting the delineation as part of the preliminary plot and is described in section 12.02D in order to substantiate compliance with the wetland protection standards of section 1202E. Yes. Good. Number five, regarding storm water, I want you to confirm that you understand the comments of storm water section. Staff considers the comments of the storm water section should be addressed as part of the preliminary plot. Yes. Okay, great. Applicant provide the following justification. We talked about parking. Board recommends the board ask the applicant for further information about the proposed employee parking, including a phase in for the new facility, feasibility of offsite parking, frequency of peak demand, what transit options, shuttle options are available, how the proposed facility relates to the size and number of spaces at the current facility. Staff recommends the board use this information to evaluate whether to require parking be constructed in phases with the parking construction in each phase restricted to the minimum needed as the proposed facility phases into operating at full capacity. You note that there will be 406 employees projected at full phase, two to three shifts, the size of the employee parking area designed to accommodate the shift overlap. And I remember this discussion when you were last here, which is it's not just the number of people in the shift, it's the switchover that requires you to have more pavement than perhaps we, as the city would like. So I think that the applicant is noted in here that the applicant has provided an hour by hour breakdown of the anticipated employer hours and departures under full build. And this is sort of a complicated exercise, but if in hour one, five people arrive, an hour two, five people arrive, five people depart, that doesn't mean that there are only five people in the parking lot, because some of those five people may have been from hour 23 or from hour 20 or whatever. But staff reviewed that and ran the numbers and it seems like the maximum number of employees on site will be 226. Acknowledging that there should be more than the bare minimum number of parking spaces, the applicants are proposing 31% more than the number of parking spaces required based on the information they provided. So we were hoping they could elucidate why they felt they needed 31% more than the maximum number, while acknowledging that some more than the maximum number is appropriate. So between midnight and 9 a.m., 273 automobiles park in the lot, guys are referencing, arrive to the facility and 101 leave. So it's the 273 that enter 101 leave in that time period that dictates or set the parking lot configuration. This doesn't address the concern you've just mentioned, but I would say that in this district, in this zone, we're entitled to 70% lot coverage. That's the maximum lot coverage and we're consuming just under 30%. So this is a, while it may feel like an intensive use of this property, by the LDRs, this is very non-intensive use and by way of comparison, 55 community drive, which is the adjacent office building, 70,000 square feet has 296 spaces. 296 spaces for a 72,000 square foot office building. And obviously this isn't an office building. The use is different, therefore the intensity is different, but this is not an intensive use of this property. And can I ask a question about the current facility, which is in the city of Wolston, is similar in terms of operations and shifts, it's just a smaller facility. That's why you intend to move to South Burlington, is that correct? So your experience with the shift change and how many parking spots needed is based on some of it from your experience in Wolston, I assume, because obviously every community is different. Every community is different modes of public transportation, but Wolston, South Burlington are largely the same. I drive by their existing facility every day on my way to work. And in the busy season, I'm here to say they park on Kimball Avenue for quite some distance. And it's a nuisance. Speed limit there is fairly low, it's 30 miles an hour. So it's not a large hazard, but it's a nuisance because people are getting in and out of their cars on the city street. They simply don't have enough parking. These are FedEx employees at the Wolston facility? These are FedEx employees at the Wolston facility. In other words, that facility grew more than they thought it was going to, and I'm not trying to make that comparison here. I'm just saying we want all of our parking on our lot. So just one thing to bring to the board's attention, and ultimately the board's gonna make a decision on this, but keep in mind we're seeing applications for people to use their vacant parking for off-site users. We have an application that was just approved by the board to allow access parking just up the street on Tech Park Way to be used for off-site parking of Subaru vehicles. So the city's goal is to be multimodal. It's right in our logo, there's a bicycle. We're just trying to be really conscious about not paving over more than is necessary, and I think that if this is full phase, that's great. Maybe there's an opportunity to consider the peak 30 days, share parking with a different office within the same park, or maybe it doesn't get built out to full capacity until the facility ramps up to full capacity, but ultimately it's the board's decision. What do you say to the point that there's an allowable 70% coverage and they're at 30%, I mean? Yeah, I mean it's a PUD, so the board does have the authority to make requests and tit for tat and that sort of thing, but you're right, it is a valid point. I will say we received Marla's question staff's comment on this, and we worked to put together an exhibit to demonstrate where our parking allocation and how it's formed. We don't want to build more than we need either, and FedEx has a logistics team that they project their capacity and the requirement for the facility, so our traffic study actually shows between midnight and nine a.m. those numbers and what justifies what we're showing here, so we can provide you guys what you would like to see. Appreciate that. There's nothing else to move on to number seven. Proposed open space appears to meet the criteria, the staff recommends the board remind the applicant of need to demonstrate compliance with the standard, including the required minimum size at the next stage of review. We will do that, we've already made a numerical calculation of that, and as staff noted, we're well within the prescribed percentage, and we'll provide that for you. Moving on to number eight, access to abutting properties, staff considers the proposed employee parking area as a driveway segment well aligned for future connection to the adjoining lot 11 to the west, and recommends the board request the applicant provide an easement to allow future driveway connection to adjacent lot 11 as part of the next application for the project. Staff notes this request is not intended to encumber the operation of the proposed facility, but is instead to facilitate future connections should the nature of the proposed use change over time or should the adjacent property be developed with a complimentary use. We'll work with you with the board on providing a future access easement. Number nine, staff requirements, the board discussed with the applicant the lack of shade trees in the commercial vehicle parking areas while there is no requirement, staff considers that it'd be beneficial to locate some of the required landscaping around the large commercial parking area to reduce the heat island effect of all that pavement. I'm not quite sure I understand the heat island concern. If somebody could describe that in a little more detail, what's being created that we're trying to avoid? Well, the sun hitting the pavement. I certainly understand that. I would make note that I assume we're talking about this kind of area here. Is that correct? Yeah, and all three northeast and south kind of. So it's a complete non-starter operation for us to have trees in this lot, like islands and when it's just not gonna happen. Trees on this side, which is the north side, certainly don't do anything for these. They won't cast any shade there. This side here, this is considerably lower than this and there's a berm with not shade trees, but evergreen trees on this berm. I don't know that planting trees on this steep slope in here is really the world's best thing. I suppose on this side it could be done, but our landscaping is in excess of the requirement. We believe it's placed for both the function of aesthetic and safety and convenience and feel the concept of the heat island. I'm just not quite understanding maybe as clearly as I should. I understand what a heat island is, but I don't know that 12 shade trees on that east lot line is gonna, in any way, consequentially diminish that. Right, and of course where you have the tractor trailers you can't have. I just don't see it. Okay, number 10, conditional use standard. Staff recommends the board discuss with the applicant what the proposed RTUs consist of and make a determination of whether section 3.07 applies. Definition of height. So RTUs are rooftop units. We have just finished preparing a roof plan that shows all of the equipment on the roof with their heights, dimensions, and so forth, and that will be part of our preliminary plan application. Great, fantastic. Number 11, bicycle parking. We wanna discuss with you whether you wish to consider providing shelter for over the provided bicycle parking instead of providing more than the required minimum. Staff notes the applicant must also provide two long-term bicycle parking spaces and at least one closed locker. These facilities should be included on the provided interior floor plan as part of your preliminary plan application. The interior piece of this comment will be acknowledged and accommodated. The shelter over the bike rack, I'm not quite sure I understand. So you're only required to provide parking for eight bicycles, you've provided double that. It's just a thought, but given the nature of the facility your users may be happier with eight parking spaces than spending the same money to put a little canopy over it as opposed to doubling the number of bike parking spaces. Our preference would be to stick with our number. Okay, exterior lighting. Number 12, 1307B2 prohibits excessive spillover of light to nearby properties. The applicants provided the lighting plan shows that there will be spillover from the driveway into the adjacent property containing the fire pond up to a maximum of 2.0 lumens. Staff recommends the board discuss whether request the applicant relocate the light fixture or shorten the pole in order to reduce the spillover. This is a similar issue that Act 250 will also have with us because they like to see little to no foot candles at property lines. But now let's just go to the site plan if we could Marla. A little easier to see. So really what we're talking about is this lot here which is the fire pond for 30 community drive. It also serves or did serve as a stormwater detention pond. It's not a buildable lot, in other words, and it's owned by us. We have no objection to two foot candles at the property line because that's not a lot that's ever gonna be built on. The primary access drive FedEx's requirement is for five foot candles along that driveway which does a lot for a parking lot, it's not a lot for a driveway. And in order to get five foot candles here because of its proximity to that property line, which once again, we have no concern with now or forever, you'd get two foot candles at the property line. The other property lines, it's essentially zero. So coming up from the highway, we're not gonna see that? The, our site lights will create essentially zero foot candles that property line's here, here, and here. I won't say you won't see it, light fixture, but the foot candles at the lot line is zero. This is the one lot line where it's two and that's just because of that proximity, but that's a piece of land that I'm not concerned with. There's a photometric plan in the application that will show exactly the foot candle with the property line. Right, we would prefer to stay with our lighting plan as submitted. So do we have a definition of excessive somewhere? What do you think this is? Some sort of actual judicial body, not a quasi-judicial body? What I wouldn't, what I... I think it's a practical body that says, see if a guy is spilling a light onto his own property and it doesn't bother and it's not gonna affect anybody else and he doesn't care why the we would be my reaction to the comment, which I expect to be hardly endorsed by the applicant. Under any scenario, I can't imagine two foot candles being objectionable. For instance, as I sit in an office building, we have several on the adjacent lots here and I look down into our parking lots, which are all lit to just a little over two foot candles. I'm looking right at two foot candles in my parking lot. And I think the intent is not to annoy a neighbor, you know, with excessive light. Two foot candles is by no means excessive. It's not like we're talking 20 foot candles here. Two foot candles is not at all excessive and it's our property that we're talking about, which I'm not concerned about. So I would ask that our lighting plan has submitted be considered our application. In fact, the common sense reaction is reinforced by the actual language of B2, which says, Paul Playsman mounting height fixed to design shall serve to minimize lighting from becoming a nuisance. You can't have a nuisance without a potential complainant. New sea. Without a new sea. I promise I won't complain, I swear I won't. So John, you said the driveway needs five foot candles. I'm not seeing that in the photometrics plan, except at points. It looks like it drops down to as low as 1.1. Just at the gate. So where the gate crosses the driveway, that's the moment where we need five foot candles. That's the spot where we need five foot candles. Right here, correct. Obviously the board is not terribly concerned about this, but it does seem like fixture S4 there could potentially be increased and S5 too could potentially be decreased to affect that. But if the board is not concerned, it's fine. That's it for staff comments. Are there any comments from the public regarding this application? Come on up, Dave, take a seat and say your name for the record. Dave Crawford, I'm the chair of the Natural Resource Committee, and I just would like to commend the applicant for over-putting in trees. That's one of the things that we've been pushing on as you folks know. We just note that. I don't think there can be any other benefit comment that I can make than that. We just want to go on record as saying thank you. Thank you, Dave. Appreciate that comment, Dave. I'm sorry. I'd like to come back on one thing, because this heat island thing has been rolling around on my head a little bit. It's bothering me so. It's getting you hot. Pardon? It's getting you hot. It's getting hot, yeah, right. I don't know. I can't define a heat island either, but I think there's a massive piece of what's going to be asphalt. Is there anything? Who's affected by that? What's around that? Anybody except the employees who have to walk across it to get to the building? Well, in every case, it's affecting the overall neighborhood, it affects the property across the street. It affects the critters who live in the wetlands. Well, I'm sorry. I literally didn't hear you. I said, like in every large parking area, it affects the neighborhood. It affects the people who are in the office across the street. It potentially affects the critters who live in the wetlands. Those effects may be small, but they are cumulative. But I get that. And it bothers me a little, too, because it's so massive. But I've come back to the coverage allowance. Your total coverage allowance is really? 30% as opposed to the allowable 70. That's, you know. All right. The coverage can be parking, can be building. And your total coverage is 30% and could be 70%? So let me bring up a potential ponderable here. It's not necessarily to be decided tonight. But if that's a major factor in the board's acceptance of landscaping, of the amount of parking, of the configuration of the site drives, maybe there ought to be some condition of the approval as a PUD that says it reflects. Or maybe it's just in the commentary in the eventual approval that says something like, the board considers these because of the lot coverage being what it is. And that way, if there's ever a request for amendment, it sort of triggers future boards to say, well, we should really reconsider this.  I'm kind of sympathetic to the concern about the heat island, which I sort of lack in a technical definition intuitively also kind of have a problem with just because it's so damn big. We will work with the board on landscaping at the perimeter around the outside of the parking area of the truck court. Yeah, that's what I was going to ask. Anything in mitigation of the general effect that you understand? I don't mean to be argumentative. And I'm certainly not a thermal engineer. But I suspect if you planted the best shade tree that the local arborists would consent to around the perimeter, it would have a very de minimis effect on the heat island concept. Unless you're putting shade over essentially the entirety, like if you had solar panels, which you see in the south all the time over parking lots to provide shade, a few trees around the perimeter of something that size? How about aesthetic effect and the psychological effect? I hope you will agree that we pay a lot of attention to the aesthetics and technology part. This is a masonry building. There's no other facility like this probably in the continental United States that's unit masonry. We insist on it because that's the aesthetic we want there. And everything we do, we over landscape. We have pedestrian trails for the public that we're not required to have because we want to. We have public sculpture there because we want to. So aesthetics are incredibly important to us. I've probably driven these guys crazy over that issue. So I think we've been very sensitive to the aesthetics of our landscape plan. We have a very wonderful landscape designer sitting here in the audience with us that's worked with us to create this landscape plan and the burming and the contouring. I hear the applicant say he wouldn't mind a little over landscaping around the perimeter. Can I ask you to consider it? Your concern is noted. We will work with you on adding landscaping around the perimeter. Back to the public comment. Is there anyone else in the public that would like to comment on this project proposal? Seeing none, I see no reason to continue this. So I suspect we'll see you back for preliminary plat. We will be very soon. Thank you so much. Thank you, John. Thank you, Kevin. OK, we're now on agenda item 12 has been withdrawn. So what's left is agenda item 13, which are the minutes from June 18th and July 2nd. Has everyone had a chance? January 29th and February 18th. I don't think we have those. Do we have that wrong? Sue's still working on them. Thank you, Sue. So we just have the minutes from July 2nd and June 18th. And we don't have to have four people on the June 18th because we don't have four people on June 18th. Does that matter on approval of the minutes? No, you don't need that for meeting minutes. You don't need the four for a minute approval? No. If you vote board members who weren't even at the meeting, then vote on the meeting. Well, that I would separate this motion because of the change in the board. I would say that I would move that we approve the minutes from June 18th. Do I have a second? Second. All in favor, aye. Aye. Aye. Stain. Aye. Stain. OK, now I move that we approve the minutes from July 2nd, 2019. Have a second? Second. Seconded. Bye, Don. All in favor, say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. OK, and that is it for the Development Review Board meeting for July 16th, 2019. Thank you, everybody. Are we going to go into deliberative session? Yeah, let's go into deliberative session.  Dave is packing up.


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I used to be one of those people who really make fun about Zimbabwe until I got to Zimbabwe. And I realized that if my perception of Zimbabwe have changed since I got to the country what can I also do to use my platform to change most of you that are watching this video's perception about Zimbabwe. I know and believe that some of you never expected to see Zimbabwe this beautiful. I know and believe that some of you are surprised with the magical content that you are consuming. Listen, Zimbabwe blew my mind. And everything that I'm saying about Zimbabwe comes straight from the heart. Do me a favor. If you are enjoying this content, like this video. It's very important to me because that is the only way I feel appreciated.  When I was in Zimbabwe, when I felt that I've been to every corner of this country somebody left a comment, don't leave Zimbabwe without going to Nyanga. Listen, this is definitely one of my favorite places that I've been to. But goodness, are you guys seeing the shot? Once again, indeed Zimbabwe is not what I expected. Let me tell you something, Zimbabwe's got a land which gives them access to farm and do mining. In Zimbabwe, they got the water which is the almighty Zambezi River and the people of Zimbabwe cannot boast of sea because it's a landlocked country. But yes, the people of Zimbabwe can also boast of the landscape. In Zimbabwe, will you ever believe it? Like I'm currently in Nyanga. Look at the view in front of me. Like I can even hear the sound of a stream. Oh my God, it's a blessing to be from Africa, man. It's a blessing to be from Zimbabwe. Zimbabweans are not marketing Zimbabwe enough. Because to me, Zimbabwe is a perfect tourist destination. You know why you guys didn't service your country? I mean, I'm not a politician. I'm not here for politics. I'm not here for the economy of the country. But I'm here to expose the beauty of Zimbabwe. I can't believe it. I can't believe that this is Zimbabwe. I can't believe that I've never seen this part of Zimbabwe anywhere. Have you seen something like this before? You ever thought places like this exist in Zimbabwe? Look at the greens, man. Like it takes me back to Kenya. It takes me back to Congo. And these are the kind of beauty that we have on the continent that no one is talking about.  Whatever moment that I've had in this country will forever remain in my heart. And it will take a long way. God bless Zimbabwe. God bless Africa. We've got a place called Honda Valley. And I would say that it's the best scenic drive in the whole world. And you know what? Whatever I travel, I love to support the local. So we have to stop by and buy from them. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. What does that mean? I help you. I help you. I've never knew that the entire Zimbabwe get their bananas from here. And everything in this place is super cheap. Here, this is where the second highest. We've been driving for hours. I think we even got lost. Huh? You still driving? Shit. Ah, no. I'm just tired of sitting in the car, bro. We've been driving since six. Six in the morning. Yep. What time is it now? Right now. It is. 4.43. Just to go and see a mini waterfall. I'm sorry. It's not mini, but that. Come on. You know, this is what we go through. Just to show you guys. I mean, the Africa that you don't see on TV. By now I should be sitting in my room, eating for food. Zimbabwe is a paradise, man. You see that view right over there? No, let me ask you one question. Bro, have we ever seen anything new? Nope. Nope. And that's what I want to tell you. Zimbabwe is a discovery. I mean, I always tell people to go out there.  Go learn something new. Listen, this is something new. I never knew that a place like this exists.  It's a Zimbabwe. It should even be a shame telling me that it's your first time here. It's heavy. Imagine, like, coming here with your girlfriend. She will love you forever. To be honest. I'm in shock. And this is why I keep on telling people Zimbabwe keeps on surprising me every single place that I go to. I mean, the natural beauty of Zimbabwe? Ah, this is next level stuff. Ah, it's next level. No next level. No next level. Next level. You see, I've tried seeing big falls. I've seen everything. No. In fact, this one, you know why this is so different? The location. The location. Ah, this is brilliant. Oh my God. Today, I'm going to have sweet dreams. For sure. You see that view right over there? You would never get this view anywhere in this world. Oh my goodness. I feel like jumping in there, man. But yeah. I think I don't have a baby yet. So I'm just going to wait. So when I have my first baby, I think I can try that out. But yeah, it's a blessing to come from this beautiful country, man. I think the people of Zimbabwe need to travel more within their own country just to experience the natural beauty of their country. Because listen, I've been to the north, the southeast, and west of Africa, but I will tell you something. Zimbabwe is a discovery. Zimbabwe, it's a treasure. Zimbabwe is a paradise on earth, man. And if this is a paradise on earth, I want to make my home in here. But I need to get away from Zimbabwe. We spent only one night in Nyanga, and the next morning, before we head back to Harare, we had to go check out this beautiful resort that everyone was talking about. And listen, when I got there, my mind was blown away. One more time, why are Zimbabwe's not marketing Zimbabwe enough for the world to see this beauty? I mean, I didn't have enough time, but don't tell me that what you're seeing is not heavenly. I definitely need to go back to Zimbabwe. And when I go back to Zimbabwe, I'm definitely going to spend a night in here. And when I come back next time, I'm definitely not coming back alone. Because this is not a place to be alone.  Let me know in the comment section have we been here before? How did you feel when you slept in there? And listen, I really want to come back to this place in summer. Because I really want to see everywhere filled with greenery. Oh my goodness, I need the selfie. It's alright. I'm Tony, I'm from UK. Oh really? UK? I'll take a picture. Definitely, my goodness, my boys will be thrilled. Do me a favor, like this video if you haven't. I know you are enjoying this video. Subscribe if you haven't subscribed to the YouTube channel. You know what? This is a whole vlog, so we are combining two videos together. You know what? Enough of Nyanga. Let's go to Kariba. Hello and welcome back to the YouTube channel. It's your favorite village boy, Mr. Ghana Baby. Right here. And I'm with Aaron. Aaron, you want to say hi? Hi everyone. How are we doing today? We just left Manopoulos even though I didn't want to leave. But hey, I mean, there is this man-made lake that everyone has been telling me about. It's called the Kariba. It's actually the world-largest man-made lake. I mean, when it was constructed, but I think right now it's no longer world-largest man-made, but it's still world-largest reservoir. I mean by volume, yeah? So since I'm in Zimbabwe, since we are close to the Kariba, I need to go check it out. And if I'm going to check it out, you all need to come along with me. This road is so scary. Yeah, we're driving through an escarpment and the interesting thing about this road is that there was a contract that was advertised like a tender to construct a road to get to Kariba Dam. And this was way back. And a lot of companies in England came up with massive figures or tenders on how to construct a road. And some local guys said, no guys, I can do that for less than half. And they said, are you for real? I was like, yes. And the guy simply came and followed the trail that the elephants were using to get to the Zambezi River. And that's how he mapped out the very road to Chattanooga today. No, no, no. Why do you know all these things, man? What is called history? Read books. See, you guys read on the Internet these read books. This is so beautiful, man. I can't wait to come here in summer. This is so green. It's not the lake. It looks like a sea, bro. You ain't seen anything yet. What we're seeing is different. It's going to look like a sea once we get to the top of the viewpoint here. Whoa. Where are we right now? This is so beautiful. We are at Nyanyana Camp. Okay. Which is a parks facility, a commendation facility like the shale that you can see behind me. You've got the lake overlooking. And in the high season, the water can actually come up this high. This place? This place, the water will come up this high when the lake Kariba fills up. Whoa. When the lake Kariba is full, the water is right here. And that over there is the wreck of a carpenter fish. People catch carpenter fish using that. So once we get to the hub, we'll probably be able to see a working one. I really want to come back here in summer, man. And you also get hippos coming out to graze here. That's not fun. Well, put it down there. Look how high you are. You're fine. Okay. Yes. So the hippos down there, you're up here. Oh, my goodness. Come this way, so you can look at them. Jeez. Is it a national park? Because I see... Yes. Those are where we're going to park through those. Whoa. Water parks. These are crocodiles, man. This is as big as they sometimes get. They can actually get bigger than this. But why will you guys keep crocodiles? This is a crocodile farm. A farm? You eat crocodiles in Zimbabwe? Crocs, nice. Have you ever had croc meat before? No way. What have you been eating all along? To... You eat crocodiles?  Croc meat is nice. You can also get croc ribs too. No, let me know. Have you tasted crocodile before? Because this sounds so weird to me.  They all come from the water. This animal is so dangerous. You don't know that? Yeah, we do. Look at all those teeth. We know it's dangerous. So this is a croc farm. This is breeding stock. This is where we get the eggs from. The breeding stock? Yes. Oh, my goodness. They're so huge. So what do you use the crocodile for then? Okay, so these crocs would lay the eggs, and then the eggs are hatched, properly hatched in hatcheries. And then they are farmed for three years. And after the three years, you've got your meat. And then you can also use the skin for handbags, clothes, belts, wallets and all sorts of things. Okay. But for me, the first thing I would do is eat them. Is where the biggest hydroelectric power station for Zimbabwe is located? We generate most of our electricity from hydroelectricity from the dam here, which was originally the purpose of creating this dam anyway. When it was created in 1958, it was for two purposes, electricity and fishing, and tourism as well. So which is three? So there's a lot of tourism that happens in our Kariba. There's a huge fish industry. And also there's a lot of presence of the electricity. The electricity company will be using water for electricity. This is the town of Kariba? This is one of the townships in Kariba. Kariba is different. It's split into harbors and different neighborhoods. So you've got another area which is up there. I think they call it Micropoint. You get another area called Kariba Heights, which is up in the mountains. We're going to Heights. Right now we're in an area called Nyamunga, which is more or less the big area center with more shops than the other areas. And then there's another older neighborhood called Mahombi Kormi. Now that one is laden with history because that is where the men and women were constructing the Kariba dam were actually staying. And we're going to drive through it when we're going to the harbour. What are these boats for? These are cruising boats, right? Yeah, these are cruising boats, yeah. So you'll have your own bedroom, there's a bar, and they even sometimes have a little swimming pool on it. Whoa! Yes, some of them have a little, like that one there. That one's got a little swimming pool on it. Can you see? Oh, yeah. It's not what happened to be cool. So you can swim from there. I feel like the Kariba, I mean, it's not being promoted enough. You don't think so? I think so too. There's a lot that Kariba can do. There's a lot of potential. Look at all these boats waiting for people to go and have fun in them. So the Kariba now has got its own airport. So you can actually fly here, and there's a regular flight that comes here. But in Kariba you can do game drives, you can do speed boating, sailing, parasailing, boat cruises, fishing, and of course you can have brides and parties and everything that happens. But why is it not promoted enough? Because, you know, I never knew anything about Lake Kariba. I was just checking about what to do in Zimbabwe, what to talk about in Zimbabwe, and then, oh, Zimbabwe's can boast of the largest mermaid in the world. Yeah. So you'd find that Kariba as a destination was a very popular, it still is a very popular domestic tourism area, which is maybe, it wasn't really known, mostly out of the country. But having gone through COVID and lost, you know, a bit of traction in the tourism industry. Let me know, where does the name Kariba comes from? The name Kariba actually comes from the name Kariba, which is the name for an old name by use by one of the tribes for the Zambezi River. Kariba, Kariba. You mean the Zambezi River used to be called? The Zambezi River used to be called by some tribes Kariba. Oh, wow. And so why Kariba then? I think some people couldn't spell Kariba, so they said Kariba. Some people. I just want to see how the boat looks from the inside. So I need to go inside. I would love to do a cruise, but I don't have time. I only have one hour in Kariba. So I have to take advantage of the one hour. Yo! Wow. It looks good. It looks like you're living in your house, man. Whoa! And how long can you spend on water? Yeah, we can spend for as long as you like, seven days, five days. It just depends on how long you want. Oh my God, look at that. A boat cruise. Do you guys have destinations that you need to go, or you just want to be on the water? There are specific destinations that you can actually visit. Like you can go to Sparing Island, you can go to a number of islands, which are Long Lake Kariba. You can visit Ume River or Sanyati River, which is in another park called Matusa Dona National Park, which is along the shores of Lake Kariba. You can even go inside its binga. 300K is down three. Ah, we've got to go up, huh? Oh, that's the kitchen. This is where your food will be prepared. Oh! When you are cruising, you still need to fill the stomach.  That's amazing. Oh my goodness. It feels like you're living in your house, yeah? Yeah. Nice to meet you. Nice, thank you. Are you the captain? Yes, I'm captain. Oh, captain? Yeah. Ah, I'm good. Is it expensive to be on this boat cruise? Not really. It's worth it. It's worth it, eh? Yeah. And I think I don't need to come alone, right? Yeah. Because I need to make babies as well as I'm cruising. I need to make babies as well as cruising. Because living room right here, where you can sit and watch TV. This is amazing, bro. Oh my goodness. Ah, now I feel like being on the boat cruise. Even though I have an hour here. Wow. How many passengers do you take? 12 people. Oh my goodness. Wow. Oh. Mind-blowing, yeah? Jeez, look at that. It's like you're living in a hotel room. Yeah, it's a sweet balcony. You even got a balcony. So when you are here, you can literally come outside from and then just enjoy the view whilst you're cruising on top of the lake. This is amazing. I would love to try this, but I don't have enough time. So whenever you come in here because of this video, just let me know, take photos, tag me and I'll be jealous of you. This bedroom is self-contained. You have your washroom in here, man. It's amazing. So definitely you need to have six bedrooms, right? Six bedrooms, since it takes 12 people. So you have another bedroom on the top. There's four downstairs. Yeah, four, yeah. Oh. You don't have another top? It's a top deck. What is it used for? It's a sand bathroom deck. Oh, sand bathroom deck. Oh, this is a bar, right? Wow. Amazing. You've got a swimming pool up here. So when you're cruising, you can still enjoy yourself whilst cruising. It's going to be so cool knowing that you're cruising on top of water at the same time you're on the swimming pool. You can't do this alone, bro. You can't do this alone. So this place is just for sand bathing, right? Or if you want the proper view of the lake that you're cruising on, you can definitely come up here and enjoy yourself.  I've been to all the four corners of this country. Forget about politics, but the natural beauty of this country is underrated. And I think the people need to start bragging about their own country. Let us know how beautiful your country is. I mean, you should see a country beyond politics. Man, this is what I always want to encourage because I've been attacked. People are saying I've been paid to see all these things, but I do this in every country that I go to. This is my country number 25, and I'm not doing anything different from what I've been doing in so many countries. I'm just appreciating nature. I'm just appreciating beauty. I'm just letting you know that Africa is not what you think. I'm just here to let you know that you can choose Africa as a destination.  So if you don't want to go to Ghana, you can go to Zimbabwe. If you don't want to go to Zimbabwe, you can go to Namibia. If you don't want to go to Namibia, you can go to Egypt. Yeah. I mean, we are just the same people, but it's just that our tourism boards are not marketing our country the way they are supposed to market the countries. That's why I've taken up on myself together with other YouTubers to promote Africa to Africans so that Africans will appreciate their own countries and explore it more. Ah, this is unbelievable, man. I wish I had more time in Zimbabwe, but yeah, there's always one thing that reminds me that you just have to go back to this country. So, hey, Zimbabwe, thanks for the love and support. I'm definitely coming back in here. And believe me, when I come back next time, it's all about fun, no cameras. And I'm not coming anywhere. Is this the damn, man?  Oh, my goodness. And what's that? Is that a hotel? No, that's an electrical power station. That's in Zambia now. Oh, yeah. So what happened is, this is the border for Zambia and Zimbabwe. You can draw a line right in the center. Oh, wow. We also talk about this snake here. This snake? Yes. What does it got to do with that? This is the river god of the Zambia river, of the local people known as Nyami Nyami. Okay. Right. So does it mean that you guys share the power from this place? Well, not necessarily. If they generate the power, they feed it into the grid and use it as they like from there and there in the country. And if we generate what we want, we then use whatever we want to do the site. If you've got excess, we can then sell it to other countries in the world. But why is it that Zambabwe shares almost four borders with Zambia? Well, they're our neighbors. Remember, we're part of what was called the Rhodesian Federation. It was Northern Rhodesia, New Zealand and Southern Rhodesia. We being Southern Rhodesia, Zambia being Northern and New Zealand being the modern day Malawi. So the administration from the colonialists was that this was a federation under the crown, the British monarchy. That's how it works. So a lot of similarities exist between Zambia and Zambabwe. Who built the dam? The dam was built by the Italians in 1958. And I learned 11 Italians are still stuck in the dam. Yeah, not just that. I mean Africans are also stuck in that war because a lot of people actually died during the construction of this war. Wow. And imagine once you started feeling concrete, if you might have accidentally fallen, they'll just continue feeling the concrete and put up a memorial for you. So there's a church that we're going to see up there which was constructed by the Italians during their spare time. The Italians are Catholics, remember? Yeah. So during the spare time they constructed the church where they were going to do their prayers and everything. You didn't talk about a snake. Okay, so let's talk about the river God Namiyami. Now, the local people believed that the Zambia river, prior to the construction of Lake Kariba, had a river god. The river god had his wife. So there are two snakes, not one. Right. Wow. And the river god was myth to be one that was providing food or meat to the Tonga people. So it was the ancestral god that was taking care of them. Now, myth has it that when this dam was constructed, it went in between the wife and the husband. And every now and then it is myth that where there's an earthquake, the husband complaining about the existence of the dam for one reason or the other. So Namiyami, you find quite a number of sculptures around that have been made. Like this stick here? This was these sticks are carved out to commemorate the river god Namiyami. Do you know something that I noticed? Yeah, I've been to like Mitriki Dam. It has a name, right? What's the name of the dam? The dam is called Lake Kayo. Lake Kayo. Yes, Kayo Dam. Okay, good. The same design with this one. It's a similar design and constructed by the same guys. The Italians were the ones who constructed this. And here in Kariba, the Italians constructed a church and they also constructed a chapel at the dam wall of Lake Mitriki Dam. So we're now here at the Santa Barbara church. Now this church shares the history with the dam wall because the very guys who built the dam wall were the guys who also built this church. The Italians. No, the Italians are Catholic. They're strong Catholics. That's where Rome is anyway. So you'd find that they built this church in honor of those of their comrades who they've died when they were constructing the dam. And also as a place where they could also come and pray. But they did not construct this as part of the dam wall construction. It was simply workers doing the construction during their spare time. So instead of sitting and drinking whatever time of, they came to build a church for God. So what happened is, back in those days, it used to take months for you to be in a ship, for you to get to Europe. It's not like you flew overnight to get here. You would catch a ship and then you would wait for weeks and weeks or months while on that boat. So one of the Italians received a message that his daughter was very, very sick. It was a letter. And of course that letter took a long time to get here. When the letter arrived, he knew that he wouldn't be able to make it back to Italy in time to see his daughter from the time because he had been told that his daughter's on a deathbed. Oh. So in memory of his daughter or also as a dedication to God, praying that God would actually spare his daughter, he built these three bells here. And he had said he's going to bring these three bells so that God can hear his prayers that he spares his daughter. Did her daughter die? She didn't. She lived. So this is actually considered one of the rare miracles. The daughter lived and she recently a few years ago actually came from Italy to come and see the bells. She's not an old woman, but she came to see the bells that her father had constructed for her during the time when she was sick. Oh. That's the history of those three bells there. This really worth dying for, man. Look at the view. After being to the forkiness of this country, I will say once again, Zimbabwe is not what I expected. Listen, why are you guys hiding this from us? This is the Caruba Dam and I will change the name from today onwards. Welcome to the mighty dam of Africa. If you made it this far, write congratulations in the comment section. And if you are writing congratulations, don't forget that we've got more vlogs coming up that we cannot upload it on this main channel. So we have another channel called Wadamaya Vlogs where we'll be showing you behind the scene the struggles that we go through along our journeys across Africa. My name is Wadamaya. You're one and only. I know you in village. Where from Ghana? Give me a favor. Like this video. Share this video. Subscribe to every part of this awesome channel. I will see you all in the next one. I am Wadamaya. Peace out.