of the DRB meeting for the City of Bessex Junction to Order, please. April 20th, 2013. First item on the agenda is additions or amendments to the agenda. Anything, Chris? No. All right. Public to be heard on any topic, not on the agenda. Now is your chance. We have one person who has sent an email, and he would like this message to be heard here. I can read it out loud. Please. This is a message from Rich Callahan, Essex Junction residents. He says, hello. I'm an Essex Junction residents and regular bike commuter to Burlington. I'm hoping this email may be submitted as an official public comment as I'm unable to attend the DRB meeting coming Thursday. My comment is in regard to the new handy building that is nearing completion on Route 15. This is a building now having a sign that is labeled handy boulevard gave handy on the side facing the road. They have erected two white privacy fences on either side of the building lots. They look to be six to eight feet tall. The privacy fence on the west side of the building slash adjacent to the driveway extends right up to the sidewalk. This creates a blind spot for any user of the public sidewalk who is heading east from Susie Wilson Road where they can't see a car exiting the building driveway until it's on top of it. Can this be mitigated for public safety? Is there a city ordinance which can be enforced with handy to improve visibility here? Examples, including a mirror shortening the height of the fence panels near the sidewalk etc. Thanks so much and appreciate any follow-up feedback you may have. Rich talent. Nice. Does staff have any comments because I would I know other communities have sort of a visibility triangle where you have entrances and so forth do we have that? So yes I have reviewed this case there. One of the fences is within the visibility triangle but it was it was a nonconformity that was there before. We don't have we aren't able to require that it is that it be changed. The fence on the other side so there's two things that play. There's a visibility triangle and there's also fences within the front setback. According to the LVC the fences on the front setback are not supposed to exceed 29 inches in height if they're if they're not transparent but there was one new proposed fence on the east side and we well my predecessor didn't notice that and it was it was approved as it is. Either ways it doesn't go all the way up to the sidewalk it there is there's at least 10 feet between the sidewalk and the fence but I have reached out to the developer there and asked nicely if they could do something about it. Good I think there probably some teeth we can use about compliance with the LVC anyway that even if it's not written down on you know if somebody didn't catch it it's well let's see what we can find out. Gabe's usually very amenable to making sure it's okay. Anything else? Not from not from online just remind I do have the online public. Yeah will you take care of that part for us thanks. Okay this is a hybrid meeting held both at two Lincoln streets and on Zoom because there may be technical difficulties or reasons that otherwise prevents or interrupts remote public participation it is important to note that the open meeting law only ensures the public's right to participate and comment at a public meeting by attending at the designated physical location as posted in the notice and agenda. If a member of the public or the public body has technical difficulties accessing this meeting remotely please alert us by using the chat feature on Zoom or by emailing c-y-u-e-n at sxjunction.org and the events of a technical difficulty that cannot be resolved we may continue the meeting if necessary on May 18th 2023 at 6 30 p.m. at two Lincoln streets sxjunction. Please note that all votes taken during this meeting that are not unanimous will be done by roll call votes in accordance to the law. As required by the open meeting law let's start the meeting by taking a roll call attendance of all members participating in this meeting and have those members attending remotely identify themselves to ensure that they can hear and be heard throughout the meeting. I assume you mean board members yes for that right so uh John Alden present Rob mount present Maggie Massey present will we also mean anybody that's joining remotely uh as members of the public should uh say who they are as well so so that's that we can have them on record um so I see online right now there's uh there's a colon Johnson and there's another person who was found in with no uh without a name uh please uh please add your name if you can or uh speak up and state your name well it looks like they're they're not able to uh timing at this moment so I think we can move on all right um we have uh next is the minutes of um February 16th 2023 uh board members uh does anybody want to make a motion to prove the minute most to approve the minute I'll second it all right um any comments or corrections updates no uh all in favor of the minutes as written hi hi moment minutes are approved unanimously thank you uh that brings us to the public hearing number one uh final site plan to renovate second floor of two-story building into six one bedroom apartments at one jackson street in the mcu district by fat tire llc ron la fountain and crispy wilds owners you can uh come up to the table if you wish I'll just remind the board that uh I uh announced the potential conflict of interest at the last meeting that's still the same uh didn't seem to matter so um any questions about that again that you need me to go through that again I wasn't here but I saw it briefly mentioned in the minutes okay question no all right um I uh will do will do the oath part uh for people testifying project by project so I'll ask you um to answer in the affirmative I hereby swear that the evidence I give in the course under consideration shall be the whole truth and nothing but the truth underpains and penalties of perjury yes okay awesome uh so you're here for final uh staff has a report um staff do you want to go through the uh the project and the report and then we'll hear from the applicant sure direct so you all have uh looked through the report so I assume I can uh just go over issues uh the highlighted portions if you have uh any questions or comments along the way please um please say so but uh yeah this project is within the uh mixed commercial use district and the uh the um it is the project is consistent with the purpose of this district and and uh many of the dimensional requirements um are not relevant in this case because no uh building uh no structure is being no new structure is being proposed this is really a renovation of an existing building um in terms of parking requirements that were uh were satisfied that the section 703 requirements are met um no problem with uh with building heights um if we're following along on the the note here and I'm assuming that um the app can tell the the notes as well the first thing that is sort of not closed is the bike racks um maybe we can just breathe that we should be able to breeze through most of it because we saw this and talked about everything well I'll actually update that there the bike racks actually have been uh included in there uh the the area is drawn in the foyer yeah yeah I may have missed that on my first look through this okay so that's all taken care of now lighting we still have an open lighting question that's correct so yes lighting is uh has been updated but the latest updates are a little too bright to uh and the uniformity ratio exceeds what uh what is specified in the LDC which means that as uh as designed and as submitted there there would be two very bright spots uh and you know the rest uh by the building and the rest of the parking lot will be sufficiently bright but uh you know it's uh uh but there'll be a big contrast um the applicant has mentioned that they might have some comments about that right did you did you have any more thoughts on it yes I have um we have um in front of the building where we have stalled wall packs because it's an existing structure existing paved getting into underground and poles and all that we and also due to the uh the 16 foot limitation on the installation of light pictures it's been difficult to to get a perfect light picture that would give you the no trespass but enough light along the border and then uh and also not too hot underneath the fixture you know so it's you know the foot candle uh levels are are driven largely by height and not just lumens uh there and so that has been a challenge uh the last design we had uh not enough coverage in some areas and some trespass and um so we've tried to dial it back and you know light fixtures lumens are in you know large 2000 lumen blocks so you are we uh are we talking about light fixtures that are currently on the building and and they're already no these would be new new there are none on the north side of the building facing to our right here so um and it would be lighting fixtures that would be required to kind of cover that area between adam garylson's law and our property and then the railroaders of course to the left so uh we've even put the trespass onto their property as much as possible um I had a Chris had presented an option of possibly coming back with a a lighting design change that might address this hot spot uh concern I ran into an issue with my supplier who's doing the lighting design they were closed down for inventory and so I had no resource available to me to to actually do it um I believe that there's an option to select the fixture of the right lumen package and photometrics to kind of get a better spread um on the corner right by the jay and jackson street there's a brand new pole green mount power uh would have a light fixture there brand new led same thing that you was all throughout the city um and that has helped that with um light levels it's not as dark in that corner that our providing edge is quite tall it's probably 25 or 30 feet high and pretty pushy so it it absorbs a lot of light off the pole we originally were there originally said hey we'll put it at 32 feet i'm like okay that's great that sounds like what you would normally do with a street light but then it came back in the review that you can't go above 16 so we lowered it to 16 feet and that's kind of changed the lighting distribution in that corner obviously because now you've got a pretty powerful street light up there that's we did kind of dumb it down a little to help mitigate the best we could so but i mean i'm looking at the lumens uh you know the the mapping here and it looks like it's really the front the you know right next to your building that's hot which yeah if if i was gonna have a safety area that's probably where i'd want it anyway but um i guess i would suggest that you continue to work with staff they got a fixture that's or shielding or you know drop the you know the power down a little bit or something uh is that acceptable i mean they haven't put them on yet the rest of the parking lot is pretty good you know you're you're you're way down it's just right there by the building and i always like the front door to be a little brighter anyway so so i i see several ways this could this could go i i suppose the applicant might be able to find a difference fixture that that that spreads the light out a little bit better and isn't as bright right under there uh it may also be possible just to turn down the intensity and accept the fact that at the at the edge it uh of the parking lot on the other side yeah well where the grind yeah basically where yeah right here yeah um it might just you know get a little bit too dim for our specifications so there's there's a potential for a trade-off there and it would uh if it came down to that i think it would be helpful to if the if the drb had some direction on on if that is acceptable if it was necessary i i wouldn't feel comfortable that being with the light tapering off to the north um and uh not being maybe quite so hot right up there and and we are going and is it a safe to assume that we would stick with the 16 well uh restriction on those light fixtures i don't know that we have any justification for doing anything differently except i will say that that my recollection of the existing lights on the foals over there they're way higher than 16 feet yeah like we have a lot across the street that we have a long term lease with the city on that it's just an empty lot that we use and there's there were light fixtures installed there that are 32 feet well i didn't measure them but they're not 15 so again i'd work with staff and and uh public works to figure out what yeah what's like appropriate and you know yeah and i'm assuming that going to gmp and putting a pole light on there under there is acceptable way of uh solving this lighting it's not a real yeah you know right is it here it's not your light it's their light well we would pay for it it's like a fixed flat number per month you just pay a electric bill and they put a light up for you yeah it complies with all the dark sky and yeah they're all right uh i'm any other comments from them all right uh continuing on with the after the lighting we get to uh they made a recommendation about uh maintaining existing crib cut which i'm fine with if anyone else has come in okay um i think the issue on encroachment went away uh dumpsters i can't imagine are there any new dumpsters proposed because of this uh no we've got plenty of dumpster over there for the whole property so that's not really a thing and it's in it can enclose your the dumpsters have lids uh they have plugs in them uh it's it's got a screen around it so police and neighbors don't have to look at a dumpster and there's a gate on it there's also a screen there so the pretty nice dumpster really nice dump it's dumpsters go um i i guess it's really the screening and buffering i think i the is the biggest item that i think we were concerned about in in the sense of the police for me um it was a more of a suggestion that as this turns residential instead of commercial that the residents uh uh you know the tenants might expect more landscaping and not necessarily to buffer them from the surrounding commercial because that's the opposite way that the code is written the code says you have to buffer the commercial stuff from the residential so you're really going the other direction but it's more of an amenity like the bike rack so it's not written that way in the code so um i'm still going to suggest that somebody wants to see some flowers out there and it could be one of your tenants i don't know but um i'm not really i'm not really concerned that the project itself isn't proposing more landscaping from the point of view of the land development code and i just wondered how the other board members felt about that i mean it's a building that's already there that's a fit up inside and it's just the change of use that even begins the conversation in my opinion yeah i don't have any i don't have anything to add on that you know i i don't disagree with you but i don't necessarily think that it's going to be a requirement either for a tenant to come in and say oh i want flowers over here you see or you look across your parking lot and you see the whatever happens in the right away for the railroad they're right next to railroad tracks whoever lives here is going to really have to love trains i mean this building is the best looking building in the area in my opinion so i got to come a long ways yeah i understand oh that's interesting there's a that's a that's the building yeah there's a power line oh street parking lot but that must be that's before it was renovated or because there's a lot more there's a lot more trees on the between the railroad and the property uh it might just be it's here okay all right it's google attempting to turn it into a 3d image i was like wait wait there's a lot of scrub and a lot you know trees and okay yeah it looks pretty naked there but there is a lot of foliage along that track you know our our issue with that is and i'm happy to put plantings and if that's needed we have one strip of grass right there it's a triangle yeah we've got pavement and then we got a building and as you all remember the property line for the railroad cuts off the front corner of the building on the bottom there it also cuts off the other corner so the building actually is over the property line it's been like that for probably 140 years when it was built it was that way there used to be more spurs between the building that grassy area is not quite as nice looking as it is on that screen but the railroad's property line is right up to the edge of that building yeah you know i would i would even suggest you could put a you know some potted plants or something you know just your tenants are the ones that are gonna benefit from this yeah it's not the next door neighbor they're they're not right yeah it has ornamental grasses right now in front of where the residents both entrances that the residents would go in and in front of our office which i i need to cut down so those are actually nice and then i actually last year i thought about maybe planting some sunflowers and stuff like that so we might do something like that just um i like to leave some of the grassy areas just for like dog people have dogs and stuff those nice areas to walk and yeah i mean thankfully for that little patch of grass we have there at least we can use that for the barbecue and requests that might come yeah and and you know and then and against the arbor vides they can use some of that yeah um anyone else have a comment on them um no no john do you see this as a requirement or or suggestion i see it as a suggestion i really don't see it as a requirement i don't i don't see how we can require them to buffer themselves from something worse well they can buffer themselves from something worse but they don't owe it to the other surrounding neighbors the buffer um all right so i'm i'm pretty much done with the review as far as i can tell the there's a anyone else on the board or uh christ do you have anything else will we get into the stipulations and so forth i do not have anything else are there any comments from the public hearing that um i'm fine with staff's recommendations um i think we've determined that we don't need uh well we want them to continue to work on the lighting plan that was the only one but but staff is capable and willing to make a determination that favors the lessening the hot spot for possibly a little less light at the north edge um we uh are recommending that landscaping and vegetation suitable for um residential applications be considered by the applicant uh and all the proposed stipulations are are okay is that emotion or can i get somebody to make not remember the first all right did you get that you have it recorded right can we turn that into a motion i i saw move do i have a second second second and third it do i have uh any more discussion yep no all right all in favor of that uh of the motion as made say i hi hi can you pose no motion carries thank you very much thank you all very much thank you thank you john didn't bring kids alive and i was over there i'm over there regularly because i i recreate next floor i know i know the place pretty well uh all right so we're up to um public hearing number two final site plan of the village at autumn pond phase two or a p u d redevelop amber lantern apartment construct three buildings 39 units each with underground parking at 169 autumn pond away in the mf two district by trudel consulting engineers agent for amber lantern llc care jeff rudman owner uh some of you are at the table you're i have i have uh why don't you introduce yourself and then i'll make you uh pick the old i'm lucy there landscape architect with trudel consulting engineers lucy i'm alan spencer with rabidu architects project architect thank you i don't know colin johnson is online as well oh good so uh colin you're part of this um yes i am all right so um in the affirmative i hereby swear that the evidence i give in the cause under consideration shall be the whole truth and nothing but the truth under the panes and penalties of perjury all right and if anyone in the audience ends up speaking you he'll be subject to the same rules okay um all right great i'm gonna switch it up this time and let you guys present first and uh have added let us know what what you're doing with phase two and and just for my own clarification because i was around for phase one the phase one uh approval note which which we did get a copy of indicate there's a phase three coming is that still the case or is this this is it no not that's not in the discussion at this time okay so so we'll just work on what's called phase two and if something else happens uh we'll hear about it later sounds good yeah all right great all right um maybe i'm not sure who's running the screen but maybe a slight plan and overall plan the c um maybe 200 or 201 would be useful just to have on the screen okay it will take me a minute to pull that up but i will put it up all right well while that happens i will start uh just to tell you about what we're proposing so just a brief overview some of this is in the staff notes but it's a 9.7 acre parcel in the mf2 district uh when you see the site plan and as you've seen in your review there's we're proposing three buildings um with a total of you know 39 units in each building for 117 total rental units proposed with the project those include a mix of one bedroom one bedroom and den and two bedroom um kind of contextually we've got in space we have sx high school through the east the tree farm soccer complex is to the west autumn pond phase one is to the north um and then old colchester way is the south and that's quite a ways away it's about like over 700 feet to the south so our buildings are oriented in a kind of z configuration and that's to maximize views to the natural features so those natural features and natural resource constraints um include wetlands and those are to the east of the project you're getting very close almost there so we have wetlands to the east kind of on the sx high school side yep there we go that's great um with a stream and then we there's also wetlands on both sides of autumn pond way as you approach the project the footprint of the project has been contained to the existing developed footprint so we're not expanding that at all the that development area is remaining the same the project is really well buffered from off-site because of existing mature vegetation between the high school old colchester way also the tree farm to the west and there is vegetation also existing between autumn pond phase one and phase two so like you mentioned autumn pond phase two is an extension of the autumn pond phase one project which has been a highly successful residential development and one of the great things about this project is that all of the amenities that are available to the phase one users that exist now are also going to be available to to this new project and those include a heated in ground pool community room fitness center private diet dog park fire pit outdoor barbecue grills on-site management and walking trails so pretty nice a set of amenities the phase two development has got outdoor seating areas grills walking trails connections access to the tree farm area parking on the site is underground so under each of the buildings there is underground parking that's accessed from the east side the lower parking area which worked really well with the natural grades and the rest of the parking is at grade surface level parking so that's kind of the high level overview of it and if you have any questions we can certainly get into that as we go forward thank you allen do you want to explain buildings aren't really part of the no the review phase but but they're so good looking you might as well talk about them right you know we uh we tried to do something a little bit different from phase one but yet in a complementary nature uh different colors uh main building itself is more of a muted earth tone scheme with maybe just a little splash of color on some of the bump outs on the building but overall it's meant to kind of blend into the natural natural surroundings more but yeah like you said it's not a major divergent from what we did in phase one because it was a highly successful project i don't know chris if you can pull up an elevation that'd be great um the there was a height question um and you're asking for a height waiver and i'm just i know you can't see these from anywhere so i'm not concerned about it at all i don't know if you guys have had a chance to go visit the the site uh but it is i mean it's 700 feet away from the nearest road and you can't see any of these buildings unless you know they're there and you go looking for um but that said the just overall site is beautifully developed and i can't imagine this is a flagship development for our community in my opinion and it hits all the bells and whistles that we ask people to hit um so nice work everybody and we thank you for that um but when you're asking for the height waiver though it's it's our prerogative to say yes or no based on a couple of factors and i don't i think have you guys read the staff notes in detail you know all about all that okay um so i i think what i'd like to do if you don't have any more comments we'll just go through the staff notes and we can talk about the things that are essentially like the last application still open unless anybody has something else they want to bring us um so there you have so the the trees are all you know the existing trees are very mature um are they taller than the buildings they're they're probably 50 60 feet tall aren't they you mean in the wetland well no just in the surrounding the the whole development yeah it's a mature canopy yeah so even with a fourth story you don't they're not taller than things around my point um all right but we don't really we don't really have the building design under our purview so this is just for fun um shall i lead everyone through the staff notes do you want a motion or do you just want to say no i just want yes please all right um so they're asking for two waivers one is the height which we kind of just discussed i have no problem with the height does anyone have a problem with the height no okay uh the second waiver is for parking spaces that's usually a little more of a discussion however in this case they have phase one to point to i will ask the applicants um in uh there's a couple of things one in phase one there were 53 spaces that were not built and it says in the notes that we were going to do a parking study after a couple of years to see whether or not they were needed and i'm guessing if anybody knows whether you needed those spaces the number of years that have occurred is and your tenants are going to tell us whether they were needed so how is that first phase gone it's going very well so we actually did do a parking analysis for this project in request of the waiver and roger dickinson did that for us um you know premier traffic engineer and he found that it it what we're proposing is absolutely adequate and consistent with what's built there it as it exists and in fact there are some additional spaces so if there were ever a need for overflow that those spaces do exist so um did you ever build the additional 53 spaces that were not built in phase one we did we built like 35 or 56 okay um to i think it was hard to remember seven years ago yeah but i did a good portion of bells and we surely do have it so um because we have empty spaces yeah and that's fine and then so we don't want you to over build them either so um we we know roger does a great job with those um you're you're looking for basically 1.75 spaces per apartment which in my experience is more than adequate uh for generally one bedroom units one bedroom in a den um you know and if you know you have extra spaces already i certainly am not going to make you build more uh anyone got else a question on the parking chris yemeny or the common on parking um no i don't all right um let's see we did the waiver um i wondered if you could talk to us about the road the access road so the the first phase um the access road seemed to be a big deal everybody had something to say about it um i've heard nothing in seven years about the road um i used the road um i'm always on a bicycle i don't drive through there or cross country skis and i've never seen more than one car at a time on the road so i'm wondering if there's any information about the road that you can provide to us that would say that a it's not operating safely and well i mean do we have more do we have any traffic accidents or pedestrian uh you know anybody complaining about the road in seven years i've heard nothing do you anybody right so you're widening the road uh there was a request for a sidewalk which is kind of standard uh the road goes through wetlands and it's narrower than it wants to be but but the idea is you don't really have the ability to make a sidewalk next to the road so i think the way i understand the proposal is that you will widen the road and there was some discussion of striping um which would have the effect of providing guidelines for the vehicles so there might be a walking area is that reasonable yeah so we did widen it to the dpw standard of 28 feet wide all right yeah yes that's what's proposed and that was what was included in our state wetland permit and so that's all all set and we're we're happy to do that um and then the request for the four foot basically a four foot shoulder on either side as we understand the staff notes um and i'll i'll just go over because i that is uh something that's uh that i put in for the last week when i did a site visit there um yeah at 28 feet uh the the lane widths are probably then at at the kind of widths where you would where it would encourage faster driving which is not which is the opposite of what we want um yeah by adding in by adding in the striping a visually narrowed and provide the space for cyclists and pedestrians that's uh that would is there a center stripe like a two yellow lines or anything this is almost like a i mean the road really doesn't deserve two stripes and i will write and maybe one but as staff i wouldn't recommend adding a center stripe just because the the evidence current evidence shows that the ambiguity of not having a center line actually tends to get drivers to slow down a bit and they're seeing a single line around here anyway no that's another thing i saw it when i lived in canada it was there yeah every once in a while you see it um this is the real i mean the only people really using this are the residents i mean or maybe the occasional visitor and deliveries and so forth yeah um and i just asked all those questions because there was a lot of excitement about this road during phase one and and it's been there for a long time now and the upgrades have happened to you know most of the project already and and if so if there was something going on we would hear about it and there's nothing going on as far as i can tell there's nothing going on so i'm not going to get excited about the road yes because we put emergency going into happens yeah that was a lot more exciting yeah that's what the excitement is they wanted to make that a boulevard yeah rather than a single road so that anyone have the emergency uh entrance it's there their road and that was that was about a three-year fight yeah to establish the emergency originally when i originally came in front of this committee they wanted a tru-lo martiol was pushing for a tru-lo right there which was not practical at that point um i'd be i'd commit it to the atmospheric people that i would not put a tru-lo i wouldn't do a development if it was a tru-lo okay uh so we walked away for two years and then we came back and yeah it's people so they trust me but when they see you get through the road and you know the lot of it at that point said i think an emergency road would be sufficient and that road would be the issue and that was really where a bunch of discussion was over the use of that road as a boulevard which would be get two ins and outs uh because they didn't want to use their road for anything else but at any time they're going to use that road as a building out listen they're best to have a tru-lo knit road and they go get out to open it up so they can use it yeah and uh i guess i would continue that the lack of any one from Athens drive that today's hearing would suggest that they're perfectly happy over there uh so i think that worked out well i think the access road has ended up being fine uh i haven't experienced any you know in my own personal use of that area i've never seen anything that even begun begins to look like a problem so i would be in favor of the of the proposal as written i guess where there's some i don't know if you strike both sides but maybe it helps keep the cars on the road and contained but um you know the there are plenty of sidewalk situations in the village city now that uh they only have a sidewalk on one side of the street if you're going to strike for sure there you strike on both sides because it also is going to be used by cyclists yeah okay good well i i like that as a solution to any further uh discussion on improvements to the road i'm the lighting of the road is the next item that's kind of out there um i guess i could say that i haven't been there at dark you know my time spent has been during the day life um again i would quest you have the same questions as there been any issues the people tend to think that it shouldn't be lit um i'm kind of saying it it i don't know that it needs to be lit yeah i don't think people are walking down the street from pollchester road they're driving a car yeah you know well let's just say they were at least i mean now if you have stripes on the road at least there's i'm hoping they're the reflective paint and all that right so you can see him keeps the cars well reflective stripes tend to not be reflected after a while by itself yeah just one one snowy season you're done but what i would say from a staff perspective in terms of people nobody walking along there i i don't think that is true just given the fact that it is especially in the winter it would be the shortest path going you're going into town anybody that wants to get into town to to use transit or to for for shopping or to get to the school would be likely to use the road at least some of the time and without lighting at all in the woods there would probably be times where they would have to take out their cell phones and uh light the way or at least try to you know stay safe from people running into them yeah but it's it's been it's been that way for how long is my point you know it's been that way for a long time if absent any any evidence that it's unsafe uh or produces on i mean of course we we might all wish it was like lit i just don't i'm trying to get to the point where we either say it has to be lit or it doesn't have to be lit i would say it also could be the case of you know trying to evaluate whether or not you need a bridge based on how many people are swimming across the river if it's if it's very dark there and not pedestrian friendly you're unlikely to get anyone using it but also there are pedestrian paths they are out of the way i think in terms of people just walking for recreation walking their dogs i don't see them any any reason why they would use uh uh autumn pond uh road but i can see a transportation utility for um for for people who are walking along here again today have you have you have has there been any discussion by the residents that they wish it was lit or what have you heard some of our tenants like the speed so we have speed bumps there too especially around the curb you're slowing down that's the only issue i've heard i've i've owned that loan since 19 maybe and i've never had any accidents on that loan or any personal injuries but for every reason why people walk down that well is to get to the bus and i would love to get the bus coming up the autumn pond there's going to be 800 people living there and if the bus came up they don't want to school there this is a pathway in the back that they use to go to the high school so it's not me and the kids that throw it with people that they can't do much other than that uh it's getting in the bus it's about 670 to 770 miles from it so we somehow can get the a bus stop that on bond that would really eliminate probably 90 percent of the walking on that road it's very minimum i mean i don't i don't have three or four times a week and i almost never see so much they're gonna need to be able to turn around is there space for them to turn up for a bus to turn around well you probably wouldn't get ccta there but you might be able to get ssga there but i doubt you get the you know what do they call the thing now the big one gtms gtm a gm they won't even go to coley drive so you know there's no way they're going it's it's unlikely that's uh that gmt would have fixed routes going up there because it's a dead end uh yeah given that the the uh the emergency road is now the emergency road and uh the out-of-direction travel for for transit buses likely oh school right no there's no there's no problem with turning it's just in terms of as a fixed route it wouldn't it wouldn't work well for ridership and the the use of driving time because for many for the people that don't live there any bus that goes in there would be extra time on the trip i used to do i used to uh be a public transit planners yeah like previously so it doesn't make sense for the bus route uh they'd have to show an inordinate amount of ridership before it would make any sense at all that's right yeah um i asked some questions sort of offline like i don't see any information in the staff report about police or fire or my understanding is they all have a chance to comment on these plans if they wish and yeah and i don't see any comments so that means they're happy or not unhappy enough to comment so i i mean it for me it falls into the category of fixing a problem that doesn't exist the way i see it you know mine it's i don't i don't know there's a problem um any other comment on lighting will probably come back to it i will yeah i wanted to say that you know right now there's no lights right yeah and if you're if you throw some lights on that street you're going to start lighting it up in the middle of the night and maybe attracting more attention to that street that you wouldn't otherwise want and it it's set back so far it looks like it just blends in with the woods which is i think ideal the way that it is now and i don't you know i would lean towards no no change just keep it the way that it is and just in case you guys didn't remember seven years ago uh this 2014 so really nine um the language in the approval at the time of phase one was the lighting shall be removed from the emergency access road which had been proposed for that and it is recommended that the applicant consider streetlights on thash elaine now called auto on the way um as the neighborhood grows in density and popularity in the future so that was that was how it was worded back then consider streetlights as i guess did you bring those out of your personal file yeah he's he hurt his back on his way in i know they exist and i asked chris to find them okay it was included in the the email that's for the follow-up yeah the follow-up yeah i did have that yeah no i don't i'm not that bad um but you know there's some longevity here so hopefully it helped but the point is we went through this once we came up with a way to say you know keep it on the table think about it i still like that approach you know if at some point streetlights look like a good idea i'm sure somebody will put them in uh but absent anybody actually asking for them except uh you know the lbc i have no strong desire to make to make them happen agree with that approach i think i would be more pro lights in the with like the idea of trying to promote a more walkable culture and the ability to walk to those places but i absolutely agree with your statement my you got to remember with my opening statement was i recreate here and i do that because tree farm is an amazing resource and the trail network all around there including in and out of this development is amazing it's just really good and it's good for all times of the year and it gets a fairly decent ongoing use not just residents and i'm sure the residents are even more excited about it but other people use it all the time that said the only reason i would think about it was if there was a safety issue and i'm just not hearing one so um i'm happy to leave it alone so that's the light um there was a question from staff on uh stormwater drainage inside the subsurface parking areas due to snow melting from vehicles maybe a quick comment on that like what happens in your other buildings and does it really oh we've been doing this a long time doing a lot underground parking and we'll see we never had to come up with a client as being an issue um the inside garage slabs are sloped positively to drain outside or negatively to drain outside we provide catch basins or trench drains at the building entries to catch that flow and it really has never come up as being an issue so underground the underground parking if there's water if there is water in there where does it drain it drains toward the building entrance the garage entrance and then the building has positive drainage so it goes there's catch basins outside yeah one and and the parking and drives actually slope away from the building so anything inner so anything at that entrance is going to drain to the south towards the the parking lot and then be collected and in the catch basins in the parking lot generally we struggle with water coming into the garage from the outside whereas this project for the way degrading works we're actually in a better situation than we normally are and we'll see it in coming up a potential issue has uh has i ever anything with the parking underground parking ever come up on your wednesday coffee hour you know we have storage down there too when we on the issue just because we had some bites yeah that's that's the only issue and so we're putting bike fluids in these new buildings um trying to decrease that on the building and we took that boundaries in our present buildings and made them in the bike um so that that was the only issue we ever had with the garage is that the rainy that's not in essence right now that used to be in essence that was stealing bikes uh they're not through the night they were cactus cages and they're in it wow okay uh bicycle access is on the list but it got checked off as being resolved um talked about but uh what's this building um there was a comment from staff about building three and uh lighting around the proposed sidewalk there Chris do you want to just tell us what that was about maybe if we looked at the c you know 201 or that would help understand the context yeah let me just so this would be a main plan instead yeah it should just be a few i'm not sure what's going on right now but it's probably backwards from here yeah this is a good plan to look at so building three is on the top right and the variant question is east of that is this is this a good yeah that's that's so nice or maybe i can zoom in yeah i might go one back i think this is the grading plan no other ones yeah so we're talking about this sidewalk over here this path over here so uh if i understand correctly that is uh the there's no proposed lighting along there is that right that's right and is there what was your reasoning behind it so this is really this path is for internal circulation the does that it's not for it's not an access point folks are not typically going to come in here it kind of leads to the back of the building so this is really a meandering path to be used for residents and we want to keep it kind of low key low light um you know we're trying to be sensitive to light levels and we just didn't think that that was a place that needed to be lighted at night you know year round so i think it also poses some potential winter maintenance issues so uh we felt that since it's not a primary path or a path used for access that it didn't needed to be lighted because all of those other areas are lighted so we would call that more of a primitive path for seasonal use or that am i seeing landscape boulders and there are landscape so there is some yellow butterfly garden or something back there yeah yeah yeah it is an asphalt path but it is just meant for more of a meandering stroll you take your dogs it's it's not meant for any ingress or it's to the buildings i'm i'm fine with it being natural well probably paved so that it's accessible to everybody and not that's right lovely um anyone else have a question on that no comment all the rest of my comments from the uh staff report seem to be uh related to widening the road which we already talked about um there's a tree that's somewhere um it's too close to a water line yeah i'll that was um that that will be removed or moved out out of the ten feet that wasn't a fake um all right uh i have nothing else board members i'm good chris anything else um one second let me just look through this that's the word goard all right uh i'm good are there any comments from the from the visitors in the audience none no more all right uh i guess we can close the public hearing and talk about what we want to do all right so the recommendation i'm just going to go through the the notes here the recommendation on considering the waiver we are granting the waiver or the height we are granting the waiver for the parking based on the evidence presented um we looked at improvements to the road we decided that widening the road and adding the line striping on the shoulders is is ideal and adequate and we i would like to add the basically the same note that we had about lighting the street that we used in the first uh approval of phase one that basically pushes the decision off until there's some striking reason to do something about it and so far i don't think we'd hit that level i would i would say to that uh as a city we will not have leverage uh to require anything beyond uh once once it's built but that's so is there a is there a way to have leverage but that's more like the city reserves the right to revisit the lighting and require it should a safety impact be identified i am not i i would have to i would have to look into that um i i can't give you an answer there's if if we have a mechanism of doing that after issuing a co i tend to agree with you it's it's tricky to make a recommendation and have anybody do anything about it but um we and we have the ability to wave the lighting though right i mean that's that was my only technical question is do we physically have the ability to wave the lighting i believe you have the you have the ability to wave writing the writing cards yes um it's not like my way here you would be looking at the plans and saying it is sufficient yes what if we continue on with the old way we say it maybe it holds up maybe it doesn't who you it will it will hold up say it you know it makes us feel better that's it could be a recommendation i mean that that's what it would be you could recommend that that's that the applicant keep an eye on that and voluntarily i address the issue if it comes all right well i'm that's the only uh stipulation that i would add to the proposed stipulation so we can make it number 12 um and i guess what i'll do is i will move that we um approve the project as presented with the two waiver granting the two waivers lighting and height based on the event parking height uh thank you um and uh we will include all the proposed stipulations and add number 12 which shall read uh the board recommends that the applicant consider streetlights on autumn pond away as the neighborhood grows in density and popularity or a safety impact is noticed so there'd have to be some some real evidence that says you gotta have light that's my feeling so new item 12 otherwise uh granting the two waivers and uh approving with the proposed stipulations including new number 12 seconding i'm seconding yes seconding uh any further discussion all in favor all right motion carries unanimously thank you all so much thank you wish you thank you every every happiness with phase two because we're all happy i thought there were some upset people in the audience a lot of people there's a lot of people i'll explain why they're not upset with their fans of our work um all right so what have we got a lot here other development other development or view board items the only one i have it's related to the um current uh senate bill s100 and Vermont league of cities and towns have been uh they've been um exercising some uh they've been against some of the parts of the bill because it basically allows the state to come in and with a blanket statement change our zoning uh that we spent so many years working on and only in certain particular cases and some of it's good like when they're gonna say that i think one of the trade offs is if you're a designated village center which we are like are we a city center automatically because now we're a city yes i know it's still it's still the village center it's um they're they're trying to make sure that if the if it has to do with how act 250 applies and so if if you have created rules that um apply to you know zoning to a certain area you know many people have felt over the years that active 50 should not apply because you've already got your rules you you studied it this is what we want um and so i think that's the the trick is to is to kind of say where those designated areas growth centers and village centers and so forth are identified and part of your town plan or village plan city plan then um active 50 can be not a second way you know a tier of uh of review so uh we like that one and so does vermont uh league of cities and towns but they don't like the ones that say if you have a sewer you know if you're on a sewer line you basically will will have higher density so if you have one house now you're gonna have two or three or whatever it is there's a whole formula for it and and so local communities in some cases have been really upset about it because you know we've we spent years writing our zoning rules and now the some of the parts of the bill are gonna just say you know never mind we're gonna tell you how it is so that's been a little bit of an issue i don't know how chris have you been following that oh absolutely this senate bill 100 is is likely to directly impact how our our land development code amendments um our our ldc amendments actually are quite similar to what what's uh the uh what s100 as written would require in terms of uh increased densities uh in in all areas uh it would just be adjusting one number a notch further from three from triplexes to four uh to four plexus um and i think i think it should be i think everyone should be clear that just because something is zoned for four plexus doesn't mean you're likely to see uh yeah huge changes anytime soon uh from from the experience of uh of other cities i've worked with including port and Oregon with very similar housing prices uh and affordability issues uh the areas that have that have been up zoned to to uh four plexus uh many years ago many decades ago have seen incremental change uh inside so in theory we don't like the state superseding our zoning but in reality the impact is much lower than than what people would expect i i think i think we might be in a in an interesting case here because we are already proposing yeah something that's almost there yeah so we did so you guys don't know this because you weren't on the planning commission last year when we did rewrite some of our density regulations in the updates for the land development code which have not been approved yet so they don't we don't have them right they're not in our in our pocket yet because they're still waiting for approval so uh but they're in there we did we did up up some of the densities um um specifically uh to promote more housing in in some of our targeted growth centers or certain districts so uh i feel better about that i hadn't analyzed it that carefully but um i know it was a hot topic and it still is the bill hasn't uh made it i think the senate version made crossover and it's now in the house and so it's ongoing and there's there's been just so much discussion about uh about it because housing is such a huge topic in the state and really around the country so thanks for that update i guess i feel better about it just on a our community level um any other like regional planning news or local planning news the ldc updates though there will uh staff is currently working on uh public engagement material for you know getting everyone up to speed prior to council considering uh the the amendments that said that that were proposed by the planning commission uh about a year ago so keep an eye out for that uh there will be material up and uh we'll be launching a survey for the public to participate in as well great and so the date for that uh going to council is sometime we expect that to be mid-junal right and we might see an approved updated new land development code for our use sometime in the fall then it takes a while well no so the moment it is uh the moment uh council uh warns the the uh amendments for public hearing uh we have to start evaluating every project based on both the new and old rules really uh and they will be held temporarily to the higher the tougher of the two standards uh i know that it's happened in burlington for a while there were some projects that would try to go through on the you know while the hadn't been approved yet but they sort of had to use it right rules yeah it gets complicated for that period of time we don't expect that period of time to be very long it's likely you within uh by august yeah by august we expect that's you know it either passes or it doesn't okay and then does the regional planning uh have to approve it or the state or anybody is that that's sort of down the road that uh they have participated already oh they have okay i know we used to get you know cold chesters everyone's over somebody in one of our neighbors would update theirs and we have a shot at looking at it or something just to make sure we didn't have any questions uh all right well that's great uh do you guys have any more anything to share i do not all right uh chris nothing else nothing else uh anyone else still online they all left right nobody else yeah all right well i guess i'll adjourn the meeting any any uh any objections no objections all right meeting is adjourned


Construction is good work. It can give you a real good feeling to help build something that hundreds or thousands of people are going to use. But sometimes, before you can build, you have to destroy. You need to get rid of the old to make way for the new. And when your job is to clear the way for new construction, you face some special hazards. Demolition can be one of the most dangerous parts of a construction job. There is a lot of things going on at once, and any one of them is likely to produce flying or falling pieces, piles of unstable debris, explosions, or big holes. It's all part of the job. It's up to you to make sure it isn't your last job. On a demolition site, there can be hidden problems that you might not even be aware of until it's too late. Tearing down residential or commercial structures can be particularly hazardous. The people that used those buildings before had to have electricity, gas, and water.  Most of the time, that will be handled by experts. But if you're around at the time, be careful. A stray spark at the wrong time around a gas line is a sure way to make the evening news. But you probably won't be around to see it. Asbestos removal is another job best left to experts. If you just start tearing things down without thinking about what you're doing, you'll endanger not only yourself, but your coworkers as well. Structures containing asbestos will be marked. That's done for a reason. Don't ignore the warnings. Take it down right, or leave it to a properly equipped removal team. Even just getting to the site can be dangerous. You may be moving a lot of big equipment into a small area. And if you're working around a populated area, you need to be extra careful. Power lines are one of the biggest dangers, and they're everywhere. You run a crane boom into a transmission line and the sparks are really going to fly. And even if you don't hit a line, there are plenty of other hazards lurking up there. Tree limbs, signs, and building overhangs are all potential targets that can come crashing down on you. And if one of them does, a hard hat isn't going to be much protection. Once you get into the actual demolition, you need to keep your eyes open all the time. You never know what might be coming at you. When that wrecking ball starts in, or that charge goes off, you better believe that things can get dangerous in a hurry. Even if you're far away from the action, there's still a lot of things to look out for. What used to be somebody's basement is now a big hole in the ground just waiting for you to fall in. There's likely to be piles of lumber, broken glass, sheet metal, maybe even some contaminated soil. If you aren't careful, any one of these hazards and dozens more can cause serious injury. The long and short of it is that the job site itself can be a hazard. It's not like going out into a field that's going to be a road someday. It's more like walking through a minefield, broken glass, rusty nails, falling concrete. They're all out there just waiting for you. Tearing down something that was designed and built to last needs high-powered equipment, things like jackhammers, chainsaws, cutting torches. Any one of these tools can be dangerous when used alone, but on a demolition site they might all be going at the same time and you've got to watch out. One of the biggest hazards comes from flying debris, bits and pieces of stuff that get thrown around everywhere. Just one of these little bullets can blind you in an instant, so always wear safety glasses. If it's your job to make little pieces out of big pieces, be careful. That rebar you're cutting on may be under tension. When it comes loose, it's going to fly up and smack you in the face. And that jackhammer is great for breaking up concrete. Just make sure it isn't going to break something that you need to stand on. It's a long way down from the top of that bridge, and there's nothing soft down there to land on. Just a bunch of broken concrete and steel. Of course, you're not going to take down a four-lane bridge or an office building with just jackhammers and cutting torches. It takes some pretty big equipment and maybe some explosives to get the job done. Some of that big gear doesn't have very good visibility. It can be real hard to see what's going on around you when you're up in that cab. So the worker swinging that wrecking ball might not be able to see you. A ten-ton ball doesn't stop on a dime, and if it did, there wouldn't be much left. Just moving some of this stuff from place to place can be plenty dangerous. If you see a bulldozer or a crane headed toward you, get out of the way. Don't just assume that the driver can see you. Nobody ever wins an argument with a bulldozer. When you can't knock it down, you need to blow it down. That means dynamite, nitro, and all kinds of potentially very dangerous stuff. Joseph's demolition is definitely a job for experts. You have no business fooling around with it. Dynamite doesn't play favorites. Make sure you're well back from the site. Just in general, demolition is dangerous work. No two sites will be alike, and that means that plans and procedures may change with each new job. You have to be constantly alert. Of course, some things are always the same. You have no business on the job site without your safety gear. Hard hat, safety glasses, steel-toed boots. That's just common sense. When you think about it, a lot of safety rules are just common sense. You know enough to look where you're going, not to get in the way of heavy equipment, not to push a tree into a power line. The problem is that sometimes we forget our common sense, or worse still, ignore it. Sure, you may get away with it this time, but sooner or later the odds will catch up with you and then you'll have real problems. Part of common sense is having respect for the job. If you go in with the wrong attitude without thinking about the hazards, you may live to regret it if you're lucky. One of the most important elements in keeping you safe is knowledge. There's a logic to destroying a structure just like there is in building it. Make sure that you clearly understand not only your job, but the overall plan, what's going to happen and when. Before you even hit the site, the contractor will have someone explain the demolition plan to everybody. Pay attention. If you aren't completely sure about what you're supposed to be doing, ask. If you're in the wrong place at the wrong time, it could be the last mistake you ever make. Yes, demolition can be dangerous, but it's not really the job site or the equipment or the debris that decide how safe or dangerous it is. It's you. Your attitude, your common sense and your willingness to follow safety rules are what makes the difference. Think about what you're doing and what the other worker has to do. You have to know the job, the equipment and the plan. Because when it comes right down to it, the only thing keeping you safe on the job is you.


active weather that we've seen over the course of the week but we are allowed to return to multiple spots like Christmas week but also New Year's week as well. Can I shoot them? Come on on the water and then stop for a little bit. They're laying on the decoy, you might have let them come all the way in. Here, sit here with me. Good boy, come on, come on. You want to sit on that sack? Just swap me. What do you think they landed up there? Huh? What do you think they landed up there? They're gonna land all over. That's why there's blinds over there. Flocked about 10 to 12. There's two more right over us. 10 to 12. They didn't land in our decoys, they landed probably 30 yards. So we were close enough to shoot. I shot one on the water and then scotch-doubled two more drinks as they lifted off. Good boy, huh? Doing it dirty. I'm gonna have some orange feet here. Good boy, here. Good boy, good boy, come on, come on. Heal, here, the sun's starting to burn it off. Come on. I don't know why he flouted down. Good boy. Good boy, Doc. I'm gonna check. He's doing that check. That's number four. He's stone dead. Good luck. Dude, they haven't all been doing that. It's just been those two. They overleaved? I don't know where I'm at now. I'm getting nervous. I need three more. Can I make it happen? Yeah. Yeah, I don't. I think it was the right call to shoot, don't you? The way those ones were acting? That was a bruised up. No, it wasn't. I promise. And you missed it three times. Yes. Well, you think I shot at it. You're lying.  You know that little weird quack? Yeah. Yeah, it was a bruised up. Yes, it was. I've seen it. I wonder why you... That was so weird. That sounds like... What is that? That was a bruise. You're kidding me. No, I'm not. You only said that weird? Yeah. That's gonna be... Because I was looking at the trig miller and I'm like, no, that's not a trig miller. It's something else. And then it clicked in my head where it was. I've seen this bill, that weird bill. That different colored bill. Get him, Ron. I got four birds. Hey, I told you I wasn't gonna shoot. I know. I said I'm gonna shoot. Did you get two? I didn't shoot. Uh-uh. No. I said I'm gonna shoot. He's got six. Tom says six. I have four in there. He did just miss a bruised up though. If you know anything about a bruised up, you know he'll never forget the rest of his life.  That's a matter to gadwall cross. And then he wounds this one that's hovering right here. Did you see that bird? No. You're kidding. I'm gonna head down. He's hovering. Why did he shoot that bird? Why did he hear it? Let me shoot. Let them take care of him. Two miles away but you can't hear me say I'm gonna shoot him. I got four birds. I told you when you shot before you shot it it was. Travis, you know it is. Turn this way. Turn this way. Where are the suns on?  Hey, Travis, turn this way. Can you hear me? Look at that thing, dude. Are you happy now? Oh man. You're done. Look at that thing, dude. Hold still. That's a nice bird, dude. Don't have to go to Alaska for this one. Don't have to go to Alaska for him. That is awesome. Look at that thing. Let me say this one to Eugene. All right. You can have my shotgun shelled everything. That looks good, dude. Congrats. Good job, boys. Is that your limit? Yeah. That was awesome. That was awesome. That was awesome. I was running out of bad luck. The call was working like that. Now I guess what we gotta do. You guys worked them hard. Oh my goodness. We were good boys. Good boy, Rocky. Awesome. Come on, buddy. It was like a flight came and another flight came. I know. I was worried I told him I'd go, they're gonna sneak and land by this other one. I kept calling them. Yeah, just stayed on them. I thought you guys were gonna shoot in the first group past the goal. I think we almost did, but we wanted to wait. Come on, bud. They were higher. I'm glad you waited. Huh? They were higher that first group. I'm glad you guys waited. Bird number seven. Seven days. Seven days, man. Lots of miles, lots of gas, lots of pain and sorrow, but we got it.