or yeah um yeah we the property line yeah the property lines in there have been tricky but we could yeah we certainly could look at some of those we didn't in this in this instant but um there's some topography challenges on that other site but um we should we should look at what rezoning that would do and we don't know what the owner wants to do with that so all right joe do you have your hands still up or okay i'll very quickly yeah can you hear me now yep perfect yeah i know that one of the things that mike and i have been discussing back and forth via email is i know that there's going to be a brand new master plan that's going to be coming out soon and my thought was okay with some of the rezoning that tim had brought up would this better fit under doing the new master plan or under the master plan umbrella there's just a question yeah i think that's a good point i think they also just know the true spirit of a master plan yeah okay um is there anything else that uh are people in general will it ready to say yes let's add this uh urban residential as proposed to the uh to the ordinance figure we'll make a motion at the end but general nods or lauren yeah i mean i support doing this i know there's like timeliness around moving this forward so we can keep the country club project moving forward i do think this broader conversation and look and i mean i know you said you generally try to do once a year i mean given the housing urgency and this you know the master planning process and all that like maybe we just want to be looking at more proposals sooner um knowing that there's a lot more we want to be doing on this um and it seems like there's some kind of logical next steps that would just build on what we're doing um right now that we could we wouldn't necessarily have to wait a year so i just i kind of that's what i would like to see yeah i like that all right uh donna that was also saying then move on these now but then continue to keep moving on things yes quickly yeah yeah um all right what about solar we haven't had any discussion real discussion about that so i brought it up because um the energy committee had a discussion about it with with mic president mic presented the uh the the the new zoning proposes to eliminate entirely the solar access and shading provision so we had some discussion of you know why it was originally in there and you know whether or not it should be capped or modified somehow um i mean it seems obvious that it was in there to try and um protect and incentivize people to um to use you know solar energy um photovoltaics or whatever um and there was quite a bit of discussion i think we ended up um one one thing about it even even if it was currently capped it the standard that you're measured against the the the shading is measured on december 21st which is the uh winter so it's like the darkest day of the year right so you're likely even on a bright sunny december 21st there's not a lot of energy to protect uh the standard ought to be sometimes between april 21st and september 21st and and uh we think we can probably um rewrite it to reflect that uh but the general feeling of the committee was um let's see what did we conclude um we ought to change that test condition but um at the very least we ought to protect existing solar installations and passive houses which depend on solar radiation uh for their heating almost exclusively and um and the possibility of protecting potential roof rooftop solar installations so that it's not an arcade game between neighbors like who gets their solar up first um that if there's potential for solar there at least has to be a discussion around it um and mike thought that he could probably draft um draft something that would change it seems to me worthwhile that particularly at country club road which is almost ideally positioned for to gain solar on everything that's built there so it would well and then thinking about the change from fourplex to six if somebody decides to do that by building up a story that could affect neighboring properties so it kind of throws a little wrench into the discussion but it's another consideration if we make the change from four to six it might the solar shading might counteract that somewhat so if you know to me it seems like we we still want to encourage energy efficiency and the move away from fossil fuels and the easiest way to do that is to promote solar energy and at the very least we should be protecting existing installations um passive houses you know we may we may get some passive houses up there i don't know but um potential potential rooftop solar i think is worth protecting as well there are a lot of people who want it and just can't do it quite yet we ought to preserve the ability i think we ought to preserve the ability for them to do that so so your general proposal is to keep some solar protection measures in the ordinance but tweaked a bit yeah right right now it's pretty pretty severe not only is the test date severe but the the amount of shading that's allowed is ridiculously small i mean you want to you want to prevent shading when it matters most but there you know some shading is going to be inevitable so the question is where do you draw that line it's it's a very strict measure right now but like you thought you could probably come up with language that would accomplish those things yeah no i mean you actually made a made a run at it i think yeah i mean i gave you what was basically the the the 2021 proposal that that got voted down but we would have to amend the the formula that's used so for the test for the test so pretty much right now the requirement the rule is that you can't shade roofs walls or yards um so you can't park your car just just to count towards buildings how far you want to take it's pretty strict pretty strict it's true total trees so those those were the the three requirements so i mean if we the 2021 proposal eliminated those three requirements and that proposal said protecting existing and permitted solar devices and solar devices could be pv or it could be hot water but if it's a solar device that if it's either already permitted or already existing then we would protect it um and that kept in i believe that kept in the the December 21st number because it wasn't looking at much but if we were to go through and say have some other requirement you know if it were existing solar and using the equinox march to september date instead yeah because december 21st to that's the lowest angle so it's the yeah and even if it only clicks for for two hours on that one day it would not be allowed and it's kind of well geez that's kind of so adjusting it so that way it's really affecting the amount of sunlight in those um we still haven't really talked about how much interference at this point it's kind of any interference so if for one hour on march 21st it hits it technically that would be the violation so we don't have any ability to kind of go through and have a determination of waiver of whether or not that's of something but we can incrementally work towards what council is comfortable with trying to approve once once we have a framework of where you want to go we can go through and start to answer the rest of those questions but i think even if we just went to the march dates that's going to make a big difference even if it's just looking at i guess you were commenting maybe just roofs but um or is it just existing and if you wanted to protect as a house might not have to go to walls too i guess which could be very tricky to do um yeah that's and that's the policy question you have to answer we i can write the rules if you're telling me what the policy is yeah it's harder in infill than it is in you know development that's being planned from scratch yeah and that's what they that's um john adams did a good review of the properties and found within the downtown and the surrounding neighborhoods that most properties violated the shading rule already so it's kind of like most of our if you want that rule that's like here's a rule you can't rebuild mont pillier because of the zoning that exists well most of it can't be built because of the shading rule because if you're going to live close together you're going to shade your neighbor and that's just that's going to happen and you're going to have some sometimes the sun goes through the window and sometimes it doesn't because it moves and you get a little bit of shade but that's urban urban residential living loren yeah thanks how how much do you think rooftops are being shaded how big a problem is that if we were trying to think of something that preserved existing solar which i do think if people have made i mean it's a big investment so to say that you can build something that all of a sudden makes that investment kind of moot for someone that does seem like at least should be considered um and then you know but how often are like roofs being if we're just talking about like potentially thinking about a consideration of rooftop solar and is this like is there a way to have kind of considerations or if somebody wanted to raise this issue they could um but it doesn't necessarily always mean like you couldn't develop it like if nobody raises the objection or something um i think i don't know exactly how it works yes um so i think it's the the tough part about answering that question is that we have got so much topography um so it's not always how close you are to your property line and how close um you know you might be far away geographically you might be up on uh east state street and somebody might be down on marvin street you got a whole bunch of trees in between us but according to the model on this date it's going to cut across here and because your house is downhill might be 300 feet away but it matches the you know you so sometimes there's just because the topography it it can so how much i i really can't say it's it's going to be tough on a flat the amount of time we're going to be shading somebody is going to be when somebody's got a two-story house two and a half story house next to a single story ranch then you're going to have if they're close together you're going to probably have that shading of the roof for a period of that time seems like the standard ought to be closer to noon either side of noon then dawn or dusk right because you want i mean that's where the that's where the peak solar gain is and if that's blocked then there's almost no point and how much at that point if you're talking about a noon i mean really at that point how much shading is there i mean it's not well i'm saying we're at this side of noon if you went two hours either side of noon let's say instead of six hours either side of a noon or whatever the current rule is four hours either side of noon you might you might you might have a more reasonable rule for rooftop i think because you would still get the benefit of the the best part of the day in the best part of the season we're not talking about just you know january and february we're talking about july um i mean something to think about and then tim one question maybe the energy committee or mic or anyone is there not some best practices put out there about solar shady that other communities have that we can look at no this is what i had mentioned last time that there's a legal theory about we are the one of the only ones there's a theory of um legal thing of called ancient lights the theory of ancient lights and basically what it says is you of all the things you have the rights of you have rights going up and you have rights going down into the ground but you don't have the rights to the light that that's why new york city that it's it was a big thing for new york city as it was building up was but what about my light i always had my light you're building this big skyscraper it's going to take away my light and they said you don't have a right to the lights and so it's actually in you know legal theory that people debate that you know that's not a it's not a thing you don't have a right to the sunlight that hits your house um so with all the solar development all over the united states there's no community that's taking this on i can't i i don't know if they are um i i do know when we first proposed this back in 2018 it came you know jerry taren was in and gave a long thing but he also had lots and lots of complaints of things and in totality we kind of just rolled off like i don't know anything about this ancient light until after it got adopted then we realized that this is really a thing and and that's why most solar projects will try to go through and try to locate in areas where they're in a place where that's not going to be an issue we're going to be high enough on the hill where development isn't going to interfere or trees growing they're very they look at where the topography is because hey there are no trees over there but there could be and somebody could plant them and we either have to control it or stop it tim then lauren yeah a couple thoughts um and you mentioned jerry chard so i see it sounds like a full employment act for internees well that's that's good i mean just potentially and is there anyone i mean how would you empirically determine this like if for the storm water potential issues you require the developer to hire an engineering firm to estimate what the storm water would also be a certain point are we going to also now be in a situation where we have to hire some certified light specialist to come in and tell us what we're doing for shade i yeah how's this going to be determined there are models for it um so going into 2018 we picked our battles and i didn't particularly like this rule and so i intentionally steered it into a part of it only applies to major site plans which don't come up very often so most projects won't trip into this in the first place and if you trip into it then there's some exceptions in there that go through and say well the building is less than 20 feet tall it doesn't have to meet the requirement or or it's a certain distance based on the setback from an imaginary 20 foot wall there's a theory in there then there's a certain exception so most properties most projects that had happened tried to stay within that exemption because they didn't want to spend the money to hire somebody to do this study but now there are a lot of anyone who install solar have people who know how to do this studies because put in a solar project that's what they do so you just hire a solar guy so just one more cost to develop but it would be one more develop something to prove it thank you loren well just on that point i mean there's very simple tools solar developers do free assessments of every house like it's like literally you go around you can do it from google earth now apparently like it's this would not be a big expensive new thing it would be another hoop to jump through like yeah but like just just to be clear there's really good cheap to free technology right now that does this so i don't think it's that's a big barrier even just doing a quick google search like there's a dc zoning regulation on solar shading like so i do think this is happening all over probably since 2018 it's popped up a lot more with the massive explosion so i do think if we wanted to think about like theirs is you can't if you are this is just for existing solar and it's like if you're going to obstruct more than five percent of the system so it's like a impact on the system's productivity i don't know if that's a good standard or not but anyway other communities have thought about this we do have a little more time now we could throw it out to the energy committee to do some research and come up with some ideas if there's a simple way i mean and i do just want to be clear like the energy committee did also very much recognize or i heard this anyway like we want dense housing and that is a huge priority and that is a climate strategy like having people in walkable compact community centers so there was people were not trying to be like let's throw out barriers because solar is more important than housing it was how do we have a minimally you know how do we like protect solar but not but be as little intrusive as possible so i just want to like share that context because that was the tenor of the conversation as i was hearing it so i think it was like if there's just a way especially in my mind to protect existing or like projects that are in the works it does seem like you're impacting somebody else's property value and something they've invested in so that seems just worth considering to me and then if there's some simple way of looking at other but i would happily throw to the energy committee to do some some research and see if any communities have figured out a good simple way to look at this but you know that's the thought that it was going through my mind as i was listening to this conversation so it just seems like we don't really know enough yet you know there's we could but we don't yet but you know because we want to want we've already encouraged people to put solar collectors on their houses and stuff and you know we put the subsidies into it and that's a good thing and we now we don't want to screw them by letting someone shade their their solar panels just one more question but like you said that you in 2018 you steered it toward new sort of major projects or new new development is that is that how it currently applies that's how it currently applies so so that can be done because i think it's especially important for new development in places like country club where you know you can plan this in advance and not have to retrofit stuff but it also applies to infill projects at this time as well so you know the infill building on ewing street was one of them that had to do the analysis to make sure it wouldn't impact fortunately in that case it sits on the south side of the road so it had an entire road between it and its neighbor across the street so it had extra space so it that in that case it got approved because there's enough space difference between it and the neighbors but if you were thinking about um say something on on in the meadow on fine street or something it's going to have a different orientation being on which side of the road you might very easily end up trying to think about the the other one's what winter street that runs kind of north south you're going to very easily block your neighbor who's to the north of you to the north of you to the north of you because you're close so where do we come down on this leave it the way it's it has come to us at this point figuring that we will be reviewing it again at our next public hearing or is there another proposal or Laura I'm sorry just process wise for things that the planning commission would consider is it does it have to be specific language or if there was a kind of general motion that we're looking at language to try to protect existing solar or consider existing solar and um in new developments would that be enough or would if we then changed it if we don't change it now and we change it next time does that then trigger another trip to the planning commission it probably could but if we went if we got the general policy I can write the general policy and they can approve it so if you said what we want are the rules to say protect existing pv we want the analysis to be between March 21st September 21st and we want the analysis to look at 10 o'clock to 2 o'clock I can write something up that then says we're still going to have the protection of existing pv and the analysis would come in in these these time frames and pv in hot water what's that pv in water pv in hot water yeah so uh existing solar devices I think yeah okay does that work for everybody and also to speak any requirements out to passive that seems really hard to that's the house yeah well passive any passive structure I mean if you think about even if you yeah because yeah everybody gets some passive it seems kind of nebulous yeah difficult yeah so yeah I mean this is pretty straightforward it would be easy to study and analyze and put together several rules that says that's that's what we're doing and now with any of these changes we'll go through we'll make you know a draft number two or draft number three or whatever we're on you'll still be able to make adjustments if if we get everything back and you come back next time you're like oh we should make this a little tweak or that little tweak they're probably not substantial changes at that point I mean it's still possible you could come up and say whoa we missed something we'll make a substantial change we get kicked one more meeting it is what it is we had 21 meetings in 2017 those are the days remember those like could we see what it would take to protect passive I mean I think I think if we could see what it would how it would be different from that was if the basics was the three things we mentioned and then passive was potential fourth that we could see how how much difference it would make in the ruling it might be might be easier to evaluate would be that much more work to try and work that out I think one of the differences I'm just trying to think off the top of my head word word we've discounted winter we've taken it out of December and moved it to March to September so you're automatically going to be moving more into where shading is going to be helping to cool rather than you're doing analysis to cool not analysis to heat so I think we'd have to have a different analysis and I think that's a trickier trickier one I think we because how much how much shading would affect because he certainly probably wouldn't have a rule that says you can't shade any part of any passive solar house I mean then we're I got what percentage of what wall or what percentage just the energy we need to tackle that one see yeah see what they come up Carrie you haven't been heard from yeah so I am completely unqualified to make decisions like this and I think that most of us are and and I'm sitting around having a discussion like this or what if we try this what if we try that does not feel like a great way to create public policy so so I think we're we're giving some guidance to the kinds of things we would like to know more about and hear more about but I would much rather hear from the energy committee or back from the planning commission with more specific recommendations like I don't know if 10 to 2 during on march whatever is the time I can't make that decision right now Donna the concern that you're doing it wants to hear the test because the sun is different in the summer and the winter and your solar operates differently so it would seem to me you would want a test at both ends that's just practicality but I mean Carrie's right and just and Tom mice I step up okay thank you all right are we good to go ahead without without that we've got some other things that we still need to figure out what we're going to do I assume that all the things that are in your checklist where you said so and so had and a suggestion and you said fine well we'll do that those are all good I haven't heard anyone say yeah we don't like those we do have still the sign question and what we want to do about that and remember reminders to the council we have three options keep it as is 12 feet increase it to 15 feet or 12 feet with with a waiver rule or a waiver option and Donna rule that goes to the D rb that's would be my preference okay seeing everybody nodding okay and the stormwater rules that's the other big thing I think that we don't that we haven't made a decision on yet do we incorporate the question just is do we incorporate this proposal into into the ordinance well it means it seems to make sense and it came from public works they ought to know yeah there are experts in this yep everybody else is okay with that okay sorry are we ready for a motion that says we move to adopt this with the following amendments and does someone have a list in their mind of what all the amendments are we think we there's so much here and it's been kind of cobb together and put out in a couple different formats I I really want to know what I'm voting on and I don't feel like that's what we're going to get tonight it'd be nice to have it written out for the next one so we could say these are the amendments and we can do that I mean this guy's Mr. Weiss's comments enthused in it and all kinds of other stuff I just don't feel like it's something I can work with it was a good tool to get us here but that's fair carry yeah I think I think that the information is all here somewhere but but the public isn't going to be able to understand what it is we're doing right now if we've made this decision right now so I'd rather wait and have a clean version of everything prepared and give people a chance to see it it before we vote on it we're gonna have to have another hearing anyways because there's going to be a substantial change but we need to to to kick into the substantial improvement you need to make an amendment to make the changes that you discussed tonight so what we need we're probably looking at two more hearings right just just one well what I'm hearing a couple of people say is that they're not ready to vote on anything at this point Donna well I feel like voting on a draft because it's another draft that he's taking back to the planning commission they're going to make their comments and come back it's just one of those another rough drafts so I'd like us to be willing to go with the roughness of this just to create a draft that is more clear more readable understandable and that will have probably two more hearings on it and Mike says one but we could have two but just to kick it further down the road so the commission then can work on it before the next council meeting would be my dreaders Lauren so essentially can our motion be to it's to amend but it will be like for future consideration like we're not actually adopting it tonight we're just we're we're we're amending a version that we can then consider and discuss further and have a clean and have another full robust conversation and it could be multiple conversations if we want so that's just what we're voting on to be clear we used the word adopt came up but we're not actually adopting anything no we're not adopting tonight we have further draft so somebody Lauren you look like you're not willing to make that motion but I did not take all the notes on what we need to do so I don't know if Mike has a list handy or I can run through the list really quickly on what I had all right so the it's a motion with the following amendments to accept the following amendments they would be to amend the use table regarding water supply and sewer related facilities and greenhouses and to remove the non conforming requirements from 3002 and to expand the density exemption from four to six and to draft new solar protection requirements with a policy of protecting existing piece PV or existing solar solar devices and to adjust the analysis March to September and 10 to two we can always adjust those depending on what Miak comes back with and to amend the sign rule I got the number there 12 feet with a waiver provision yep to add a waiver provision to the sign the freestanding sign height and add the storm water and to add the storm water yes so is that your motion no that was put into this this draft what you have in front of you at the revised draft yeah these are the changes based on that so that's a motion is that is there a second okay is there any discussion Tim is it still not comfortable having to amend zoning for the country club ruin property and yet till we work it through more I just that's a really big change okay it's so uncomfortable that we're doing it for this one property because we own it it feels like animal farm to me you know it's it's it's a fair policy it should be enforced fairly to all the properties that it should apply to and not just ours because we own it and I've said it before I'm really struggling with it it feels like bad government any other discussion are we ready to vote Tim is there an alternative for what you're proposing you can take the country club road piece out for now we can keep discussing it I don't want to approve it as well we're not voting to approve it we are voting to draft another draft if if there are changes that you'd like to see in another draft we ought to include those and if they include additional rezoning it does we can add that to the motion okay you can add that I'd appreciate it I mean I don't know what people think about Soviet amendment to well um we have a motion that's been seconded if if you wanted to move to amend that you could make that motion okay so I guess I move that we include provision to expand the urban residential zone or provision to study expanding the urban residential zone to other adjacent properties that may be appropriate in addition to the country club road property is there a second for that motion I'll second okay is there uh Lauren are we asking the planning commission to study and come back with a recommendation or you know if so I think that's fine I just want to be clear direction to yeah is that what you are actually being okay so it's trying to get a recommendation from the planning commission on okay Donna and is there a time on that is it supposed to come back with the draft of the other changes I assume that's what you're thinking right yeah okay any more discussion about that oh sorry Lauren just I I'm fine with that I like the idea of looking more broadly I think I would personally caveat that with I like I don't want to slow down the process knowing there's a bunch of steps so if they come back and say there's potential but we need to spend more time thinking about it and looking um you know but we think this is a district the form of this would work in other areas and we're just assessing that to me that would give me comfort that it's constructed well it's the kind of district that could fit with some of the surrounding parcels and be woven into the master planning process for example but but I don't want to like my vote is not contingent on all of those questions being answered to keep moving that forward so I just don't want the planning commission to think they have from my perspective supporting this motion I don't mean that all every answer every question has to be done before we might move forward with pieces of it personally but I don't know what other people think if like because I just want to give direction that it sounds like we need this entire next phase done before we would move potentially move forward with other pieces of these zoning changes. I hear the wording because I thought it was just do at least a look to see if they thought there were other parcels that it would apply to but that could productively apply to or something like that but it but that was the real scope just to say yes there is or no we don't think so and yes there is there these right okay I can deal with that to find scope and thank you okay very oh yeah I agree with all of this I definitely want to hear more about where else it could apply and I like the idea of applying it more broadly and not just for one specific property and and yeah I just want to be clear that I'll vote for this and I'm not going to expect to have all the answers before we can move on with the rest of it to just so just reiterating what Lauren said that that's where I'm coming from also all right are you ready to vote on the motion to amend Lauren's motion do you have the motion in mind John I'm gonna check on this okay okay with that all those in favor signify by saying I I any opposed all right so Lauren's motion has been amended and now we're to the original motion with that amendment is there any further discussion on that if not all those in favor signify by saying I I any opposed all right there we are we've got we've made progress once again yeah now now we have the river hazard that we kind of left off that we have to we could probably adopt this one if you guys chose to I said I would look at that design flood elevation so I have suggested language I would put in there I don't think it would be a significant substantial change but it just would be a 720 point C there's an A and a B already this would just be a new C for the purposes of critical facilities the design flood elevation referenced in these regulations shall be equivalent to the point 0.2 annual chance flood event plus two feet so that gets addressed at the point that Thomas had made so at this point we need to vote on where you could vote to adopt as amended the design river hazard area regulations as amended is there a second okay do we need further discussion or to have a clear have you just say once more for everybody's benefit what exactly this vote is this is a vote to adopt the proposal you received plus that amendment all right and this so we're not coming back for another here not coming back river hazard will be done I will not be coming back to talk about that one in two weeks okay ready for a vote so the question about the maps and the adjacent areas that that would be for future because we don't have the maps correct this is just for critical facilities as you've outlined before or is it the end critical facilities the sheet rock question a couple of minor amendments that were in there it was not not big yeah there wasn't a lot that was really big it was mostly to address the critical facilities question and these were proposed before the flood and just got held up just hypothetically if we have to renovate the fire station and it's a critical facility is there some little place we can get hooked by doing this where all of a sudden oh no now we have to raise the whole building it's it's the same rules are in effect right now so you um existing buildings they can't be substantially damaged so there's not a requirement to tear down the fire station if there was a decision that we were going to build a new fire station because this one was just not appropriate in its location then it would have to be a few feet above the 500 here thanks all right ready to vote all those in favor signify by saying hi hi anyone opposed all right now not done with me yet we are to do we need to take a break before we talk about the building code amendments it's uh it's been about an hour and a half since our break or there are people wanting another break okay let's take a break till 1015 I'm going to get us started again and I see that Pelin is uh is still connected well I want to make sure when when her face appears we'll start because we don't want her to have to miss here we go so Mike we're on to item nine second reading or second public hearing of the building code so I will open the public hearing all right so this is the second reading so this is adopted as an ordinance this is more typical to your process um because we have all the same faces I'm not going to bore everybody with the same presentation I made last time and I'm going to kind of jump to the end um do you want to share your screen maybe you are oh I can just real quick I've I've just I had to open up the program first so I can get back into zoom I can share screen so really quick I mean these I'm not going to go through all of the pieces but I'm going to get to the end so really the big thing was we got into this for the fees um I will stop at this slide to go through um some fee examples so this whole purpose of this was that two things first um we have a we did our end of year survey of permits and we realized that uh 25 percent of all the permits that we get for building we're not collecting any fees on so the proposal was um to and those were all tied to the energy efficiency exemption so planning department and myself we proposed that we have council consider removing that fee exemption because it's having an impact on our revenues that we are collecting so just so people know fees for commercial projects this is for any commercial project is ten dollars for the first thousand plus eight fifty for each additional thousand that's what the state charges I'll have a few examples to show you what that means and fees for residential are ten dollars per thousand for the first thousand plus three fifty for each additional so some examples if you had a commercial project to do an eleven thousand dollar efficiency project there'd be ten dollars for the first thousand eight fifty times ten for eighty five dollars ninety five dollar permit for an eleven thousand dollar project plus thirty thirty dollars to go to john for the recording fee if you had a fifty thousand dollar project that's a four hundred and twenty six dollar fee plus thirty and a quarter million dollar project if you're doing a big solar project or a big big something you might end up with a two thousand one hundred and twenty six dollar fee plus thirty dollars except right now you wouldn't pay anything because we exempt fees residential um these are some projects I did I did a heat pump at my house I live in hardwick so it doesn't wouldn't matter but that four thousand dollar heat pump is ten dollars plus fourteen or twenty four dollar permit and for thirty thousand dollar home insulation that might cost you one hundred and twenty one dollars plus thirty dollars for recording fee if you had to pay fees so those are the border of magnitude that we're talking about for fees um and so obviously much larger projects could have uh much different uh much larger fees and we still do all the work for these projects we're just not collecting any fees on them and then the second half of this was we had a whole bunch of problems in our actual ordinance that did not address certain important things like we have a a cooperative a cooperative agreement that cooperative agreement is not reflected in our ordinance or any of the requirements in that cooperative agreement um we have penalties but we don't have the proper rules to let us to actually enforce those uh penalties so we have to kind of clean and fix those up and we had outdated codes from 2003 and 2010 so we needed to update our codes so decision points so I gave you a bunch of revised ordinances uh that made all those changes but um we have a couple of final things to make final decisions to make and then you can either vote to approve it or you can vote to have a third reading to reflect these changes first when I was doing this I was having a conversation and it turns out there's a third fee so there are three exemptions I told you guys about two I told you about the energy efficiency and the accessibility but there's also a sprinkler exemption so we need to talk about that we could leave the sprinkler exemption we haven't had any applications for them by the way that's why it really didn't show up um you could leave it you could remove the exemption at this time or you could amend it um to be similar to energy efficiency and the other ones if it remains and we'll have that conversation in a minute I also noted related to the sprinkler in section 201-1 the sprinkler we talked about the fact that sprinklers are not required for one and two family structures but that really didn't clearly appear in the actual document so my suggestion is the easiest thing we could do is to add a number seven one and two family structures and it would be very clearly in there that those are exempt so that's a recommendation um we had a recommendation um from Councillor Heaney that maybe we should consider extending the building permits as well so I would suggest section 107 we change one year to two years that would extend any building permits to be open for two years and the other three decision points are the energy efficiency fee which was the point of this we could keep the exemption we could amend it to something less such as only residential is exempt or only residential projects less than $10,000 are exempt um or we could remove the exemption uh altogether which is actually what is proposed in the draft is to remove the exemption uh we briefly discussed the fee refunds for projects that have not been completed that's not a big deal we can certainly not need to deal with that and then there's the accessibility exemption which is similar to these energy efficiency and sprinklers commercial projects are required to do them we do all the inspections but they don't have to pay fees so we also could go through and say all three of our exemptions maybe they should only apply to residential considering if this building were in Berlin or berry or in any other city they would be required to pay fees it's only a month pillier you don't have to pay the fees residential we could have a system so that would be a thought to consider is to have all the fee exemptions kind of be similar maybe commercial pays for all of them maybe only accessibility sprinkler and energy efficiencies that are $10,000 or less are exempt or something to that effect those are just some ideas but that's it those are the the decision points that we have left on the building regulations all right I'll first see if there's any member of the public who wishes to be recognized on on this item and there aren't that many members of the public left out there see seeing no requests for participation from members of the public I will close the public hearing and we can move to council discussion should we just go down the list of questions and see what people think yeah I'll go let me go back to previous page here yeah here we go so sprinkler fee exemption the first one sprinkler fee exemption was the first one or we could talk about all the exemptions at the same time and just skip that one for now okay what do people want to do about exemptions Tim because there are all things we want to encourage people to do and they're all I mean the sprinkler fees having put a few of those systems in and it's it's not in homes it's where we're going to have the most impact and safety it's it's old buildings and it's just crazy costly but I think we you know we still need to help people do it and make it happen I'm not sure this exemption is the best incentive so maybe that's the conversation I mean maybe if they're going to put in a sprinkler system we find a way to waive the hookup fee because usually there's a separate hookup fee to the water system for that that's separate um just something that would encourage it because it really it is a good direction to go and the hookup fee is probably more than the application fee that would be more than that because it's around a thousand or $1,200 for the water hookup I don't know off top my head what the hookup fee is right yeah um I don't know that's one to think of and then the energy piece I mean how can you discourage that I didn't know Lauren you look like you're about to so I mean more on I can just share briefly the conversation that me at CAD although Sal maybe maybe took better notes but I mean my my impression of the conversation was basically people were really trying to like directionally they were like you know we still want to be encouraging energy efficiencies so we don't want to be doing things that go in a different direction but in the spirit of trying to be responsive of this um city staff recommendation they had talked about some of the ideas that Mike had put here like exempting commercial from it and maybe putting some kind of cap on residential like was was one idea that was discussed I mean people were also like these are kind of nominal fees there were different opinions I would say like among the committee of like how big a deal this really is um but yeah so I guess you know so my impression and I think Sal and I might have slightly different feelings on this is like I just feel like there's federal incentives right now for energy efficiency there's state incentives like where people are like wanting to do everything possible to like encourage and like so to me I don't like any fee it's bringing in $10,000 total it's not even that much money like it just seems like why are we picking this fight to like go after it just seems like the wrong thing to be focused on if we want to raise $10,000 let's look at other places to do it then from energy efficiency and like you know but if we're go if we want to go in the direction then I think like the commercial with some kind of like I might put it more at like 20,000 or up for projects like there's like the place to me where there's like decision points are more like if you're doing 20,000 and up that's like that's a big project that's presumably probably more work for the city looking at bigger scale projects um but like a heating system decision you might have to do like two heat pumps you might be getting over that $10,000 mark and then you're like well do I do this do I put a fossil fuel boiler in and like those are real decisions people are making and so I want to be doing everything we are to encourage and to just demonstrate that the city is encouraging that through its actions so to me I just feel like at a minimum like maybe commercial and some kind of like cost parameter but I'd be happy just not doing this at all yeah I think I was the lone member of the energy committee who just said let's get rid of the exemptions um part of my thinking was that as with sprinklers I mean you save on insurance over time right um with energy improvements the you know the fee the permit fee is part of the payback calculation and and the payback is never you know next week it's always a couple of years down the road and people are making that calculation and so to me it's really sort of insignificant and we're doing the we're doing the work um we might as well include the fee most of those projects are amortized with a loan of some kind I mean it's it's just uh it's it's not an overwhelming amount it's not the a large enough amount that someone's going to even a residential project of ten thousand dollars it's it's just not that big a hump to get to get over and um and we were we just spent a couple of weeks fighting over ten thousand dollars so that's my two cents I'm with you I feel like we do all these little exemptions that are just a blink of the eye and I feel like the planning does the work and sometimes one is as many as a large project so I would tend to just get rid of all the exemptions including the handicap accessibility accessibility can also include some large projects I mean elevators and those sections so they're projects that take a number of inspections and a number of work so that's why some of the if it were to apply to commercial and residential as a term is also big it also could be a five-story residential building but you've got more exemptions than we're seeing here I was thinking of the ones we were talking about it's just the three there are the three there's the accessibility but because accessibility applies it might access I had the sprinkler the energy efficiency it's three it's just accessibility is the third yeah but so you're you're you want to make a motion to keep them all there to eliminate the exemptions I would for the energy efficiency in the sprinklers so I have a question about the sprinklers um are there some properties that are required to have sprinklers and some that are not so it looks to me like we have some cases where people have to do these things they have to put sprinklers in they have to make things accessible and so if we can kind of ease that burden a little bit by whatever we can and I don't know if the if the fee exemption is the way to do it like Tim pointed out that might not make that much of a difference then I'm okay with that I think the energy efficiency I I'm compelled by the idea that we want to show that we're supporting this and do whatever we can to encourage people and especially if it's just a small amount of money um relatively speaking but I also I'm dubious that anyone's going to decide not to do the energy efficiency work because they had to pay the permit fee so I'm not sure it's making that much difference and that's an interesting point the way you phrased it is it would it sounds as though you would think that you would exempt projects where some measure is required from a fee but you would continue the fee for someone who's choosing to do it even if they're not required to which seems like kind of backwards because if we're looking to if we're looking to the fee waiver isn't it or a fee exemption as an incentive then that it seems like it's counter to what you what I expected you to say yeah that's very clarifying you're right it doesn't work as an incentive that way so I'm definitely looking at it from a different perspective yeah Laura based based on camera um I've just had a number of conversations with people who are in the field trying to encourage energy efficiency and like like our utilities for example who have really wrestled with what is the right amount of incentive that actually motivates people and I do think people get you know when we got quotes on heat pumps for example like you get the whole breakdown of the cost that would include permit fees and everything so I think that is part of the line item that goes into your bottom line and you're weighing do I do this and like we decided not to and we went with a pellet boiler which I still don't think was a good idea but like the cost breakdown and all of that so like my understanding from a lot of that is that people are really looking at it's like a hundred a hundred dollar incentive is a meaningful difference when that when gmp went from 200 to 300 for heat pumps they saw a massive uptake and some of it I think is just psychological really and so like yeah I don't know for sure but it just feels directionally wrong to be just adding expense making it like that many more people like a little bit less likely when we have this urgent crisis we just had a climate catastrophe in our town to be like well now's the time to like make it slightly more expensive to do energy efficiency and to switch to those heat pumps that get your stuff out of the basement and like I don't know it just feels like like I'll go look for 10 000 other dollars I don't know like this though just like the heat pump that has a wonderful recognition of their going from one price to another I don't think we get credit for our exemptions I don't think the residents really appreciated that it feeds back into their feeling about the city or their you know maybe I agree with that I think it's more a like behavior thing when we're looking to try to get as many people to do something I mean I think we could ask me to do a public campaign like go you know do energy efficiency the city's encouraging it in these ways we've got this program we've got a fee exemption like I I agree like if we're if we're gonna keep any exemption we should probably promote it as part of like the package of why it's affordable I think that's a great thing we could and should do if we decide to keep it even if we keep like a small like if you're doing a residential project under 10 or whatever like I'm feeling cheap it's like I feel like they should not refund things that aren't completely at least keep half of it you know it's like a deposit well I'm with you on that but but but let's focus on this let's focus on me okay so where are we let's have a motion one way or the other so I don't think you actually made a motion is that I move that we we remove all exemptions zero second from energy projects ADA and sprinklers is there a second I'll second it all right do we have any further discussion I think and mostly have a sense of where people are but I don't want to prematurely cut off discussion all right let's have a vote and I'm going to call the roll Donna Kerry no Sal hi Tim no Helen I think that's a yes yes okay and Lauren no so what are where are we with that three three it's what we always do chair votes yes all right next so that was all three exemptions are out then yep okay just making sure I'm keeping it on straight in my head so the next one would be and this was really just a clarification to add number seven one and two family structures to section 201 that would just clarify that the sprinkler exemption is for one and two families which it is but for some reason it's not really clearly written in the ordinance so do you want it motion for that we can do that one separately or we can add it to the next one which was your section 107 request to add one year to two year and are there anything else just those two before you get too far ahead of yourself let's move on that most of us make a motion that we extend the permit periods from one year to two years and then we clarify the language to be clear that sprinkler systems wouldn't be required for one and two unit residential properties so yep those favor signify by saying aye anyone opposed okay and I think the last one was just the if we want to do anything about the refunding of fees for projects that are not completed and currently we refund 100% so sometimes people come in they do projects and because we were talking about fees I wanted to come in and just go through and put that on the table that is one of our things we do give 100% fees so in a lot of cases we put a lot of work in it to start to approve projects to plan reviews and the like and then the project doesn't go so we return all the fees now what about we're fine with that but it's just to make sure everyone knows that's a policy that you have the right to make what what if we went to a system where we did not refund the fee but if they came back in with the the same or a similar project within a couple of years that they wouldn't have to pay a new fee I think keeping track of that might be tricky over the long term there'd have to be a time period on that yeah building inspectors come and go and how many times does this come up we get a number of them especially for projects that either got cut short so somebody got approved for a large project came in smaller and we'll have to give a refund of a certain amount like I said it's it's not a big item like I said our big thing is the building for years and years and years for the first six years that I was working the building department and the building inspector raised enough fees to cover his his salary as Chris Lombra and over the past three or four years we have been having to get basically subsidized by the general fund and so we're we were just trying to identify different ways that we could you know we're that's not the intention our intention is that we pay for ourselves building permits pay for themselves and right now we're not and part of this is fee exemptions big chunk fee exemptions and some of them are these little things but I don't think this will make a significant difference I don't think we need to address it if you don't want to but I wanted after going to all the budget meetings and the questions were like hey can staff kick over some rocks and see where there are opportunities this is where we thought if we're already talking about fees let's at least mention the fact that we refund projects maybe there's a portion of those that don't get refunded get refunded except for ax amount would it be too much administrative work to say refund 50 percent or I don't know at what point you the staff is done 50 percent of the works 75 percent of the work if the deposit could be refunded as to a proportion to the level of work I mean what would you suggest would be administratively possible or easiest I would probably say because usually because people can come in we ask people to estimate their costs and we expect it might go up a little bit more and they owe us a little bit they might come down a little bit more we give them a refund that's not what we're talking about here we're talking about for the projects that happen big projects that don't get developed they pay the fee and then don't come in I think if there was a you can get a refund except for even if it was except for $50 we've gotten some part of our time you know that wouldn't even cover a portion of the amount of times you know at $50 an hour there probably more than an hour's work that went into processing the application Audra's work on her end Michelle's work on her end to go through and do the review of the application to make sure it determines make sure it meets the rules so I mean if there was an easy thing it would probably be you can get a refund except for $50 then at least we're keeping a policy higher or lower than 62 percent a 50 percent would be I mean in some projects if a big project got canceled for some reason that I mean that could be we have fees that could be 20 30 thousand dollars so somebody were planning a big project that for some reason financing fell through on and they decided to cancel it you know I would say a lot of times you do a deposit that's not refundable on things so that's why I was thinking 50 percent sort of a flat number yeah I would be I would not be I'd be more inclined to go with a flat amount than I am a percentage because and on a big project let's say uh the on on Main Street the the new facility there for Alzheimer's so that when that project was built that was $28,000 permit something in that area so you know obviously if that fell through most of our work in that project is going through and doing the inspections the weekly inspections and going in and seeing these guys every Friday so there's a chunk of that that's just going to pay our time for all those inspections that don't happen if a project gets canceled so it wouldn't seem right to be charging the 50 percent because we're not really doing 50 percent of the work upfront what that the dollar doesn't seem worth the paperwork wasn't I would say at least 100 or yeah I mean but like I said 50 100 if there's if there's a fixed dollar amount that would that would work if you have a problem if you're if you're a non-residential applicant and you're doing a big project like that it seems like the reason it doesn't happen is because the financing falls through or usually that's the last permit you get so it's not usually because there's a permit or there's an appeal usually you're building permit it's your last permit that's when you are ready to build you're going to come in and drop your check on for the for the building permit and they've invested whatever money they were going to invest on doing the planning and the design and everything else yeah and for a big project that could require a plan review and you know there's a lot so usually those projects don't fall through but we we have had somewhere it's just been like so everyone's like we shouldn't refund these I'm like I'll mention it you know um any motions seven moves that we don't refund once you pay the fee right like would be my take it sounds like that's yeah I'm done enough permits I don't yeah I can't I just can't think of a time I would have gone back in so things and things don't always go the way you plan but yeah it's up to you yeah by the time you're into that you're at that point you probably don't have a surprise that's so big that you decide you can't go forward you might but because that's the other way that you would you would cancel a project I moved it once fees are paid we don't refund on building permits they were and you had your hand up yeah I was just curious do you know how other communities with similar permit programs deal with this I don't actually have that I don't actually know that one I mean they're only a handful of communities that do it very Burlington so I think permit fees are adjusted upward if the project costs more than was estimated when the fee was applied for are they adjusted downward as well they're adjusted downward so if a project comes in less but that's usually those are usually smaller amounts so somebody will estimate you know this whole building this new addition is going to cost you know $110,000 we pay the fee and it comes in it you know 102 so they get a refund for the $8,000 and that's fine because we're getting a chunk of fee along with that usually those are pretty close to the estimates Gary yeah I'm thinking about the very small projects someone who's like renovating a bathroom would that fall under this or you know not building a whole new building but just something small in their house or they're doing something to the garage and then it doesn't work out they decide not to do it and in that case the permit fee could actually make a difference to that you know that one person who's trying to do something to fix up their house I did I like the fact that we haven't been that we've been refunding them that just feels nice to me it feels like if you didn't do it you don't need the permit so why are you paying for a permit if you didn't do the work and I'm also very sympathetic to the idea that you're you are doing a lot of work the city is doing a lot of work for this so so I think you know a flat fee of that's basically like the processing fee you're sort of the administrative fee that you don't get back makes more sense to me than no refund or a percentage so that's what I'd be more inclined to go with so you want to move to amend the motion you can move to amend the motion or I can do it right because I made you you can move to amend your motion too so make the motion if the project isn't done retain a $500 processing fee and return the unused portion of the permit fee is there a second to that sorry what's the permit fee the first $500 for a processing fee and then after that we close back but on those big projects they've done all that work already so it's better than nothing but I still think we're letting the the staff have all this time put in and it doesn't happen they're not being paid we've established those fees for a reason because they're more complex they've spent a lot of time you can go either way yeah so I'm I don't so we have a motion we don't have a second at this point you don't have any second on any motion oh no you have a second on Tim's motion but we do not but we do not have a second on Tim's motion to amend the motion I'll second that okay do you want to say something about it I guess I'm just thinking about the past few years we had a flood we had a pandemic like I could see circumstances where people can't finish a project and it could be a senior living facility like if that one hadn't gone through because of the flood all of a sudden now we're going to keep the entire twenty eight thousand dollar fee I don't know I just could see scenarios I think we could reassess this if like I would want to know does I'd feel comfortable doing this if I knew other communities this is like standard practice if most places give it back having a flat fee still seems fair to be like we are doing work that's just the expectation you know that's it's very clear up front there's a set amount and I would be open to revisiting it in the future if we get information like yeah most communities just keep it all and there is no refund then I could get on board with that so I just think I mean $500 buys a lot of project I mean it would be more than the fee for a small bathroom yes yes so it should be somehow up up to I mean you're not going to refund more than they paid right of course if it's a flat fee it's got to be something that covers you know 99% of the projects if it's $500 for commercial and $100 for residential or something like that just thinking this I think it needs to be something something like that you know I'm thinking double drop the motions it seems like I really just go back and see what the staff feels good about it's really a relationship of staff with citizens and then maybe next time we can talk about it but really it's they're doing the interaction with people and have a sense of this let me tell do you want do you want to just not do this at this point yeah and so everywhere everybody votes no on this mode on this motion and on the because technically under Robert's rules there's not really a way to draw a motion because once the motion is made right once the motion is made it belongs to the body it doesn't belong to the maker of the motion so the first to to do what Tim is suggesting what we would do is vote yes or no on the motion to amend and then vote no on the original motion also moved postponing definitely yeah can we do that once at this stage in the process okay yeah so we could do that first you want to move to postpone indefinitely as long as we remember when we come back what the other two motions were at first yeah maybe let's let's let's vote on Tim's motion Tim's motion let's vote on Tim's motion to amend his motion all those in favor signify by saying aye all those opposed okay now we're ready to move vote on Tim's original motion all those in favor signify by saying aye all those opposed all right there we are so the fee the fee thing can come to us another day Mike that's fine and and is that it or is there one no that was it so we want to so now it's right for a motion to adopt the ordinance as amended once it's building code as amended all those in favor signify by saying aye anyone opposed all right roll call it's okay Donna aye Perry aye Sal aye Tim aye Pelin and Pelin voted aye and Lauren no Kate the motion carries we've adopted the ordinance thank you for your patience all right we are on to yeah I will here I do this to you no it I really appreciate it every time you come in here with this stuff you know what you're talking about and it is very helpful for us to go through it item 10 change the April council meeting dates that's Kelly it's been a quiet night for you Kelly because of Mike and Sarah you know not much to see here um so we are recommending that maybe we adjust the meeting schedule in April sorry that's way better a lot louder oh my goodness um so we're recommending that we amend the meeting schedule in April we have a scheduling conflict for the first meeting I'm just actually pulling up our proposal right now so get the dates specifically so here we are so what we're looking to do council typically meets the second and fourth Wednesday this would be the 10th and the 24th the April 10th meeting complex with an ICMA northeast regional conference in the April 24th meeting complex with school vacation week we don't necessarily have a conflict with the school vacation week but we do with the first meeting so if possible we were hoping to maybe move both meetings up a week so do the third and the 17th to eliminate possible conflicts the work for everybody that works for me and I am out of the town on the 24th or first school break so yes and you're and you're not the only member with kids in school so it seems like that would probably be a popular thing they're okay with everybody all right I'm sorry and Bell and you're okay with that too great all right thank you um I don't see anything in it any under other business uh city council reports starting with Lauren tonight yes the only thing I was trying to get an update because the budget adjustment act has been moving um so and with Bill out of town I don't know if you had all of this Kelly so I can just wait for you if so but I did have her text me the numbers oh great you'll be willing to share them that'll be okay so what I got uh was that Montpelier will be getting 825,000 dollar grant for the city for helping with the flood related costs and ERAF fully covered so that's good um unfortunately no immediate funding for an individual mitigation but that request is in for the budget the fiscal year 25 budget so again this is the budget adjustment from the previous budget is that 825,000 and the ERAF um and as well as there's an ongoing request for additional money for municipal abatements and revenue replacement um so we'll keep fighting for more money but there's 825,000 and the ERAF fully covered for now thanks uh Pelin nothing Tim Sal no nothing Harry I was talking about the upcoming eclipse earlier today with the city clerk and talking about um I had ordered some of those eclipse glasses and the city clerk let me know that the city apparently has thousands of them or is getting thousands of them or something that there may be some available for people and so I would love to hear more about that and let and if they're you know if that's something that's available to the public hear about that so that people can cancel their amazon orders for the special sunglasses like I did if they don't need them you have the answer to that John I'm feeling alive has a whole bunch yeah we have a bunch in our office stack that we're giving out so I'm not sure how many they have but I think I know it's quite a bit so so you think you're gonna have them out like on uh town meeting day for people I don't know um I'll see if I can yeah that would make a lot of sense so if I can go grab you I'll sum down there we've got some uh Donna thank you uh this making my last meeting this is my third time I've been challenged in my five elections and so they all been difficult but it's been great serving here and uh I haven't been on the council with all of you that long Lauren and Jack the longest but it's been really interesting it's always a delight when people just do their thing and they study the material and they come here and share all these different opinions and personalities so thank you for serving the city and agreeing to disagree with me thank you mayor's report I just want to let people know the annual report is out um we've got uh nice on the back there's a nice picture of the of the city council from one of our meetings at the uh at the senior center and it's full of information uh if anyone's got some questions about how your city government works and you want to review that before uh before you come out and vote next week um it's here and online and uh I encourage everybody to come out and uh and vote on or before uh next tuesday city clerks report a really great picture of us with the back cover it really came out pretty well yeah so it's pretty good I just mentioned Saturday voting hours um my office will be open from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturday for early voting city managers report I don't have anything to report thank you all right then that means we are adjourned at 10 59 p.m. where you got out before 11 o'clock


Austria would like to see a European Union which is more efficient, which deals with the big issues, focuses on the big issues and solves people's problems and shows a value added compared to national politics. Austria would like to see a European Union for the people and often people, a more democratic European Union and a less vegetarian European Union. I think the perception is that we already have a multi-speed Europe in many areas such as Schengen or Euro. The idea is that Austria sees itself as a bridge builder. It would like to mediate between the east and the west, the north and the south if there are strong divergence of views who would like to help and build bridges. Thus, the main objective would be to have a European Union that moves on in integration with all its EU members. That being said, the majority of Austrians would still prefer a United Kingdom staying within the European Union, not leaving the EU. But of course, the reality is different and we see that if integration should make a difference, it might be necessary for a group of countries to have a higher speed and a deeper quality of integration, but always leaving the doors open for the others to join. It's important that based on criteria, on facts, whoever wants to join, whoever can fulfill the criteria is defined, which I join and become part of the club. At the moment I would say that for Austria as a country, the social dimension is very important. The question of fair mobility, intra-European mobility is a crucial topic for us. But also migration, migration is important. Keep in mind that in the summer of 2015, more than 150,000 people arrived in Austria and asked for asylum in Austria. That's more per capita than in Germany, for example. So that's a big issue. Security, how we manage our external borders, how we manage the migration challenge. That's crucial. Third point would be enlargement. We're promoting the European enlargement towards Western Balkans. We're very close to Western Balkans. There's a lot of people-to-people relations, but also a lot of Austrian investment in the Western Balkans. And we think that there needs to be a clear perspective of the Western Balkans joining the European Union. But also the fact that we want to see a European Union based on the principle of subsidarity. We want to see a European Union that deals with the big issues and the small issues are dealt with on a national, local or regional level. I think the question of strategic alliances is very crucial and getting more important after the Brexit actually takes place. And there I think Austria has a lot of room for improvement. It should be having more sustainable medium-term strategy towards strategic alliances within the European Union. It's not so much a thematic alliance, but a medium-term coalition building, which can be flexible, but which needs to have-needs to set priorities. I think for Austria it would be-on geographical terms it would be their neighbors. When you look at trade relations in particular Germany and Italy, but also in the neighbors to the east, although we have a very, very, how shall I say, ambiguous relationship with the countries of the Vizsikhar-4 group. But then if you look at the state of societal development, I would say that the countries that we joined with, Finland and Sweden, should be natural partners for us. But also when you look at sides, for example, and strategic interests, Ireland should also be a strategic partner. If you think about security and defence issues, the question of how do you define your neutrality, I think this is something where Austria and Ireland have things in common, where there should be a much, much closer cooperation in that field. Also when it comes to the common agricultural policy, for example, that's something where I would believe it would be good to have a deeper cooperation between Austria and Ireland.