Okay. I think we are ready to go and I will call the meeting to order. Start by asking Councillor Brown to identify yourself. Yes. Kerry Brown, district three. Thank you. I'll note that Councillor Alfano is not here because of family events and he may log in later, but for now we'll proceed without him. I'll mention briefly meeting logistics. Anyone who's participating by Zoom or remotely, we would ask you to indicate your full name on your screen so we know who we're talking to and who's talking to us. Anyone who wishes to address the council. Please raise your virtual hand on your Zoom screen and keep your comments or questions under three minutes. Anyone who wishes to speak must be recognized by the mayor. And once you're called upon, you may make a statement or ask questions but not in a way that is a dialogue just make all your points at one time and then we'll take them up as we as we can and we will have assistance from his prim on keeping time for speakers. And with that, I'll ask the council if there are any changes to the agenda requested. Okay. We will proceed with the approved agenda. Next item is for general business and appearances. This is an opportunity for any member of the public to address the council on any topic that is not on tonight's agenda. And in accordance with our rules of procedure, we would ask you to keep your comments to three minutes and I will start with the with Jim Adkins and who's who's joining us remotely. Thank you. Can you hear me? Yes. All right. Great. Thank you. I have a little speech here. I'd like to read. I'd like to make the statement that I don't condone any violence against anyone for the color of their skin, their faith or nationality. I hope that every group can enjoy the right to live in a world of freedom of violence. Every group has its strengths and weaknesses and should be proud to be unique in their own way. Asians, Hispanics, blacks and whites all have a culture while different are equally valid. Pride in one's own race and that does not imply content for other races is also a normal and healthy sentiment. I want to talk about the rise in violence against white people. It's not as hidden as it once was and we're all seeing a spike in terror against people for the simple fact that they're white. I can't stay quiet any longer. Every day I scroll through X and YouTube to see countless videos of whites being stabbed, shot and beaten by hordes of non-whites.  I read about stabbings and subways. I see videos of innocent whites being murdered day after day and it has to end. I want things to peacefully to be settled. It's not just happening occasionally. It's happening every day in our country. Just think about how white people feel seeing our people being abused, but we're called Nazis for demanding to afford to end. I'll take the label of Nazi if it means I love my people enough to stand against the genocide being perpetrated against us. For years we've stayed quiet, letting the blood of our people be spilled without any opposition, but it must end now. We need an organization for whites to unite under to defend our people in future. One place you can learn more at gtvflyers.com. Watch Defiant by Devon Stack in Europa the Last Battle at gtvflyers.com. I want to tell the story of Shannon Christian and Christopher Newsome of Knoxville, Tennessee. They were a happy white couple in their early 20s. They were murdered on January 6, 2007. The horrors started when they were carjacked and taken to a rental house. Both were raped, tortured, and ultimately murdered.  She sustained a severe head injury and had bleach poured down her throat and her body scrubbed her with DNA evidence. Christopher was raped by a minimum of one perpetrator. He was then taken to a settled railroad tracks where he was forced to walk barefoot to the location where he was murdered. He was blindfolded with a bandana and gagged with a sock. He wore only a shirt and underwear. After his murders, after his murder, they kidnapped Christopher's body on fire. The criminals were, you guess it, four black men and a black female. Diversity means fewer white people. Inclusion means excluding white people. And equity means stealing from white people. Why do we have DIE programs when the Supreme Court has ruled that practices of favoring people over race is illegal discrimination? Why do non-whites get special housing programs? Why can non-whites get social safety nets but we get scraps? White's living in rural Appalachia is struggling for food privileged. Is it a privilege to foot the bill to import those that hate our very existence? Is it privilege for our children to be groomed? Is it privilege to be murdered in our own homes?   I don't think this is progress. Thank you. Sir, before you log off, if you do, can you state where you live? We usually ask that of our speakers. Okay, thank you. Is there anybody else who would like to be recognized? I'm sorry, folks. I did not realize that we'd be subjected to the level of racist and hate speech that we just heard, but it's a public forum. Okay. I'm seeing no other people asking to be heard. I can move to the consent agenda. Is there a motion to approve the consent agenda or any requests to remove anything from the consent agenda? No minutes. Right. The liquor license is out to discuss. Sure. Okay, would someone move the consent agenda? Yes, sir. Okay. Okay. So we have, except for item F. So moved. Is there a second? All those in favor? Yes. Quickly note on these that. They're all set to be voted on. I just want to make sure we were clear that one of the conditions for the. Corporate cop is that we will be, is that. Okay. So we have a request for which the city will be incurring costs, but we're not. Because we don't really have a set policy. We won't be assessing those costs, but we. We will be, I guess I just want to point this out that given the budget discussion, we will be bringing forward a policy that. For you to consider whether or not we should be assessing, you know, whether it's the overtime or creating signs or whatever it takes to do these types of events, but it was an issue during budget times. I just wanted to flag that that's nothing about these votes, but just so people understood that. Thanks, Bill. I did have a brief discussion with the previous Sergeant at arms about the, the costs of providing security. To the state of the state address. And so it's just. What we're faced with these days. Any other discussion? Are we ready to vote? All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed. All right. Thank you. Liquor licenses. Tim. One of these in the list was Charlie O's outdoor. Then you. And having had the joy of living downtown and right above it last summer. Are there any sound restrictions or noise limits associated with that permit? So there are, there is a noise ordinance about that that really focuses on decibels. Doesn't focus on crowd noise. So I don't know that I don't know if they have outdoor. Beyond 10 o'clock music after 10. I don't. It's either nine or 10 is they're cut off. I do know when they initially sought a license for that space, there was a discussion about whether to put a time limit on it and the council that time voted to allow them to go. Whatever they're legally allowed to go to, but we can, we, you know, so we have not imposed any regulations other than our normal noise ordinance and the restrictions on the outdoor music beyond either nine or 10 o'clock. I can't remember. So we can get more information on that. Yes. I'm not trying to hold them back, but I think probably because there are also people that live downtown and it's. It's a factor. Maybe if there is a time limit, if we could confirm that and enforce it or at least let them know this. But I'm not looking to hold them up beyond. You want to take some time looking at whether. We should amend that ordinance bills going to get us some information, but if you want to pursue that, you certainly. I mean, I don't know. Yeah, if you want to put it put a discussion on a future agenda to discuss what the ordinance should be be fine with that. I mean, if we can go for their license, we should probably vote to approve it. But yeah, with an awareness that. It's a little different issue than associated with most licenses. Mr. Weiss. Yes, why don't you step up? So. Thomas Weiss district two resident of Montpelier. I would appreciate it if you all would remember that you're not speaking just to the person you're speaking to, but to all of us back here as well. So raise the voices a little bit, please. Thanks for the reminder. Okay. So is there a motion to approve item F from the consent agenda? Is there a second? Any further discussion? All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed. Okay, thank you. We're now up to zoning public hearing and I will. Well, Mike's getting setting set up. I will open the public hearing. Good evening, Mr. Mayor. Good evening council. Mike Miller. I'm the planning director for the city of Montpelier. And this is the fourth. Public hearing on the zoning amendments that have been proposed. I don't have any presentation. Other than just to say we haven't made any changes since the ones you made at the last meeting and. We will. I'll take whatever questions that anyone has. Okay. Since this is a public hearing, I'll look to the room to see if there's anyone who wants to make a comment. Mr. Weiss. Thank you for being here. Thank you. If I remember correctly at the last meeting at which this was discussed. Did I mention my name Thomas Weiss? Just for the record again. I just left that there was going to be some consideration among the energy committee on the solar access portion and I'd like to know what happened with that. Even though nothing has changed since that last meeting. Thank you. Do you, I did not attend another MEAC meeting. I don't know if there was one. Lauren. There was a meeting, but both Sal and I had conflicts so we weren't able to attend and never got an update from MEAC. So. There's no unfortunately new feedback to provide. Okay. Looking for any other comments from members of the public either. In the room or. On on zoom. And I'm not seeing any, but I will. Pause. Okay. I'm just going to go back briefly to give anyone who wants to speak a chance to. Get their hand up. Okay. See no comments from the public. I will close the public hearing. And do we have discussion from the council. Tim. In terms of how you see this progressing. Is there some big changes in here? Urban residential being one. Yes. I'm just doing it for one property. I still don't feel it's the right approach, but that's what we're doing to get the country club road piece going, but. I'd like to hear some thoughts about how it could progress after this. To look at other properties around it and other potential places in town. To expand that zone to if we really value creating more housing. Yeah, I mean, I think. From a, from a process standpoint, we're going to have a couple opportunities with the, certainly with the city plan update that's going to be going on for the next. Over the next 12 months, we're going to be working on having some broader conversations about. Kind of more general those 50,000 foot discussions of where we want to have additional. Development happen and that could be, as I said, this, this district could. Really work in a place, maybe like the national life area, but we haven't approached them and I don't really like to generally just go and rezone somebody's property without having them either initiating it or. Working with us to go through and say, yeah, that's part of our vision for this property. So I think there are other changes we could be making going forward. But at this time, I mean, taking an incremental approach. My office has very much since we made the changes in 2018 really. Work on every year coming back and trying to make those incremental changes. So we can get opportunities to look at each piece. In detail and not to have a lot. Actually, I think the last one that came in had like 14 zoning changes that were in it. And that kind of felt like a lot for people to absorb and discuss. But they're all good changes. There are a lot of small changes, but I think taking them a couple at a time is good. It gives the public a chance to kind of. Wrap their head around what's being discussed, what the opportunities are, and we can make votes on each one. But I do think there are opportunities to make other other adjustments. But immediately around this area, I don't think there are good ones. Just because of the terrain and just because the existing land uses, I don't think we're going to be talking about to the east is a lot of the industrial areas. I don't see that we're going to be adjusting any of those and to the little bit to the south and west is a lot of wetlands and we get onto the roundabout in 302 and I don't know it's really appropriate there. So it's kind of in this piece, a fairly unique location for this new zoning district. We talked briefly about whether Saban's pasture would be appropriate, but we kind of steered away from that because it had received a lot of conversation and a lot of debate during the 2018 adjustment. And the public had a lot of input on that one about trying to make sure it was consistent with the riverfront district, which is Berry Street and not to have it that much different. So they very carefully carved out planning commission had made a couple of potential proposals and council kind of had their own idea, which was to make those 10 acres riverfront and the rest rural. So that's the way that has kind of worked out, but it could certainly over time be something that could be reconsidered as well. I think it needs to be. And really, it's somewhere in our zoning process. We've lost track of highest and best use for properties to use them to create housing, which this community really needs. And that process unfortunately feeds the NIMBY mentality and when you're cutting a 96 acre property or whatever that is down to 10 usable acres, which is way more than 10 usable acres there. I think we need to look at it in this process. I would rather have to be part of this process and not waiting to go through a prolonged city plan. Yeah, and it may come up again, as we're talking about, you know, we're talking about connecting a road through and we're talking about a TIF district. These are going to have to come back up again as we're having those conversations because we're going to obviously put city infrastructure through to connect these properties. There's going to have to be a discussion of how that's going to be impacted by the land use. You know, we're not going to want rural zoning through that area. If we're going to be spending money putting infrastructure through that area.  It's been somewhat of a of an assumption we're going to we're at least going to have to have the conversation because of fire access. We're going to want to have two accesses to get in and out of that property if we're going to have 500,000 units. It just is the appropriate thing certainly to have that conversation. Other conversations does that connect to College Street does that connect to Town Hill. Those I think are separate conversations, but there should certainly at least be a conversation of looping those roads around so that way both of those properties have two accesses for emergency services. You know, Tim, I don't want to tell you what to do, but the ordinance is before us now and it would be in order to move to amend if there's some if there's an amendment you like to propose. I'm not ready to try, but this it doesn't seem like other counselors have had interest in going into some of these options either so it really just seems like this ordinance that's proposed is what's rolling down the tracks. Well, but I my sense of the discussion is that people are people in general have been pretty interested in your idea of expanding consideration of this zoning district to other parts of the city and so whatever we do tonight. I don't think that conversation is going away right. I certainly hope not because I agree with you that we we need more housing and that probably involves rezoning other parts of the city to. It does. Okay. Adrian question. So we say the word we need to have a lot more housing and even in the strategic plan we say we need to increase housing. And so I would love to understand a little bit more love Tim's idea, but what does more housing mean in terms of a number what is the number we're trying to achieve. The zoning amendments help us achieve that. So I'd like to tie it back to some data and some goals that we can measure to understand where are we now in terms of our housing opportunities. Where can we go in terms of the number of increased housing and does this zoning help us get there. I think we need to see that tied together a little bit more clearly because I, I agree with Tim I just don't see the connection in terms of, you know, the more housing, the TIF district, you know, high density and how this relates. And so I mean I'm not a zoning expert, but I'd love to have more clarity around what that looks like so I can make an informed decision. Yeah, I can and we're going to have a larger discussion of this later on in the meeting when we talk about the housing, the housing strategy as well. The zoning regulations are one piece. And I can get into this again a little bit later but I can also talk about it now. Zoning is more often than not a barrier to development. It prevents things from happening so we can adjust our zoning and we have adjusted our zoning to allow development to happen. It is no longer a barrier to a lot of development happening in town. A lot of smaller projects obviously larger projects may need some zoning changes. But in general, our the barriers to zoning have been mostly removed. But that doesn't change the economics of housing. And it doesn't change who owns the property. Obviously you could have you could have no zoning Worcester. I don't think Williamstown there are a number of communities in the area that don't have any zoning and they still have a housing problem. So it's not just just zoning it's it's a development problem with the cost of constructions and who owns the land and who wants to develop and those types of barriers. And so there's another set of what we call programs and projects that we can do to help facilitate housing happening on the question of numbers. What we have used is so there's a general metric that says you usually want to have about 5% in rental markets about 5% vacancy. We've been at about 0% vacancy. So if you were to do the math that would come out to about 240 housing units. But that assumes we're not in a deficit, which we probably are. But assuming we aren't in a deficit, we would need about 240 housing units. And that's what our city plan talks about as our target 240 housing units over eight years. That's where that number comes from wasn't just drawn out of a hat. The question is whether that's that would be enough to actually make a difference. We will have to see and it'll take time to see how that that plays out. But the first piece we had to do is to adjust the zoning. So we had infill potential and we now have infill potential in nearly every building lot. And if this goes through every building lot would have some infill potential that doesn't force anyone to do anything. That doesn't mean that the economics are there to make it happen. That's where we have to start talking about programs. How can we help, whether it's the state has it like a VIP program that helps put in accessory apartments. Tax stabilizations to help offset some of the tax burdens. We're going to have a discussion later on in this meeting about development agreements. The city could get involved to help the phrase some of those costs, spend some of those cost curves to allow housing to happen. But our target is about 240 housing units is what we are. We are talking about and we don't think that's going to necessarily fix the problem, but that is our first big step in that direction. Just by way of measure we had about 140 housing units gained net gain between the 2010 and the 2020 census so obviously even building 140 housing units is not really keeping up with the with the development pressure that exists for in the demand for more housing units. Thanks Mike Adrian another way that I think about this you know having been advocating for housing for many years. My personal feeling is that if we were to develop the population of Montpelier to 10,000 people, I think we could do that and it wouldn't do any violence to our experience of what it is to live in Montpelier. It wouldn't over burden our infrastructure. And of course, it requires a good bit of housing to get there. But if we're looking at 300 or 400 units on country club road. Does that get us closer to where we'd like to be. I think it's a significant contribution to that. And on that too quickly, we did do an economic study. It's dated now, but I don't think it really changes the. I think the facts are still pretty relevant. It was about how basically how much growth can we afford with our services. And it was, it was similar to what Jack said about 2000 people could be absorbed with our combination of additional revenues. And the police fire or public works infrastructure that we have, you know, so beyond that, we would then need to think about spending more. And of course, under today's school system, also the greater number of students is a financial benefit on the school side. And around the time that that happened, which would have been around 2010, I'm guessing. The council at that point set a goal of 500 new housing units. So if 140 have come by, then we guess we have 360 to go. Right. So, so I think that there's a range to 40 to 360. You know, when those those are in and ultimately you are talking about housing goal tonight. So you all can set a goal if you want to put a number on. Relative to this Adrian's question. I think what's interesting is the what we're doing is creating like another layer or more layers in our zoning code. And as much as Mike said that, you know, the zoning codes now in line and doesn't stop housing from happening. The reality is that the reason we're doing this tonight is because the zoning we have will not allow the house and we want on the country Club Road property. And we're having to amend our zoning basically create a variance to allow it to happen there. And Mike talked about the Jersey Gulpin property a few minutes ago. Same kind of comments. It was like limited down to really 10 acres and the last rust was left rural. Again, we zoned it so we can't build on it. Um, so our zoning code isn't that friendly for housing. And I think it needs a lot of work. And that's why I'm just, you say, you know, it's different times when we talk like with Bill, it's like, you know, show me where it's not working. And I think that tree club road is probably the biggest example of that. You know, yes. And in all fairness, it had been a golf course. And so it was zoned. What is it? It was zoned rural because it at the time it did not have access to sewer and water. So it was zoned for its use as a golf course.  Once it was no longer a golf course, I think it had been zoned based on its prior use savings, I think is a fair. You know, comment. There was a lot of community discussion and people wanted part of that reserved and part of it developed and what is in the zoning represented the outcome of many years of community conversation. And if we want to reopen that conversation, I'm sure we'll have a robust discussion and where we end up, but that's, you know, that's how it works. It's, you know, I understand. The planning commission had proposed in 2017 to have all of it zoned residential 6000, which would have made it consistent with the college street neighborhood. And it was the council that made the compromise to kind of adjust it and make high density in the lower area and lower density in the other area. So certainly there are people on all sides planning commission planning department who favored other alternatives. But we also supported the fact that at that time we really wanted to get that those bylaws through and that was to compromise that needed to be made at that time to make that happen. Any towns we can check and compare what they do about their zoning like, is it better to have more flexible zoning codes or something like what we do, or we don't have anything to look at. I'm not talking about this hearing. I'm talking about for the future discussion because it might affect economic development and also housing so many things. So if we start discussing these things, we need to look at other numbers, right, which is better. And I know that every decision has like positive and negative impacts. But as a council we are trying to make the best option for the future right so can we add an agenda item. I know we are talking about housing tonight but maybe in other strategic planning so are they any towns doing something different and creating more positive impact on housing, like similar town like. I have a couple of observations. One is we are going to be talking on a broader policy basis in like two agenda items about. So maybe we should resolve our, what's before us and then have that conversation about where we want to go. Secondly, I'm just going to observe I'm not a zoning expert and I can jump in here but the housing shortage is a statewide issue. So again, to the extent that the zoning is stopping housing. There's a lot of people that are doing it everywhere so regardless of people's zoning, and you're seeing municipalities all over the state trying to do what we're doing and I would say, you know, I think there's philosophical questions about what the best way to do it is but for this year the state mandated many changes in local zoning to try to create more housing and our zoning already had them virtually all in. So they were, they were trying to get the rest of the state to a standard where we were already at. And so I think, you know, we are, I mean, I know our planning commission and our council have been pushing, or more housing friendly, could it be friendlier, could it be easier, but you know, maybe, and, you know, and I think as Mike has pointed out there's a trade off between process and the vaguer you make it the more it requires going to boards to interpret the more specific you make it the more it can have administrative approvals, and someone can walk into the office and get an approval so you know it's all trade off so I would, I'd suggest that you deal with the zoning. That's in front of you now and then in just a minute we're going to talk about how we'd like to spend our time talking about zoning and promoting housing over the course of the year. Looking at our zoning, right. From your example, which we can say that our is what I can say is the state impose zoning standards on the entire state to try to create more housing, and we almost entirely already met them. So we had very little change to make was others then had to drastically change their zoning to make it more housing friendly. So that's what I can say. I don't know who's looking at ours. I'll just give an example so when I looked at the zoning, you know it's 200 pages it's a lot of information and so I, for my own comfort level had to make it into a real life scenario so just to share this example one of my neighbors on Jordan and Jordan has two houses with a, like a, I guess, another parcel of land. I don't know all the technical terms. But he has been prohibited to build on that land due to our restrictive zoning policies over the past couple years so I had him look at the updated changes he talked to the planning department, and based on the updated changes in the reduction of requirements he is now able to build on that property, which provides more infill for our city, more housing I mean it's not 300 units but I think if we can look at more opportunities of lands that exist within our neighborhoods and promote these zoning policies that we might potentially have quick easy ways to build additional buildings. So that is something that is brings this to life as an example that I'm excited about so thank you for making those changes for my neighbor who can now build a house that will bring in more people. In fact, if he can build a house, it doesn't have to be a single family house. We're multiple apartments. Yeah, Carrie. Thanks. Yeah, so I think we have really good questions raised here and I think that we're in general we're trying to be housing friendly. I think we're all really on the same page of we want more housing. The planning commission is very much on that page as well as is our planning director. And in terms of kind of looking to other communities for examples of how things are done. I know that that has been part of the process that the planning commission has gone through, and that the planning director does all the time that they're not coming up with these as you know their own original ideas that they just have no reason to think about public work. So I feel pretty confident. And also as as the mayor was pointing out they or as the manager was pointing out I'm sorry there were, there are things coming down from the state, where there are also people who have been looking at best practices in other communities, not just around the state but around the country. And so I think it's, we can rely on when people tell us that these are best practices I think we can, we can rely on that. There are probably lots of other changes that we can make. And one of the things that the housing committee is starting to work on is getting more into the details of where are the challenges that people in Montpelier are facing and have been facing like Adrienne mentioned, and to try to get really clear about what kind of changes we can make so I am, I would like to, you know, I like the ones that we have before us right now, but this is definitely not the end of the conversation to me it feels more like the beginning of the conversation. Thanks Kerry. So here we are. I don't, there's maybe a lot more to say I don't know but here we are we're at our fourth hearing on this. I think that we discussed pretty comprehensively everything that everyone has wanted to discuss on this set of proposals and I can't tell anybody in the room what to do, but it does seem like it would be an appropriate time for someone to move to approve these and we'll decide whether that passes or not. Lauren. I move we adopt the. What's the right name of it. The amendments to the unified development regulations using the April 3 draft as presented. Is there a second. All right, is there any further discussion. If not, all those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed. No roll call. Hurl. Aye. Aye. Heaney. Brown. Aye. Bill. Aye. We have adopted the ordinance. Now the way it works is that this doesn't go into effect right away is that right Mike. I know it's a compass. State law is very weird when it comes to this. Technically it does not go into effect for 15 days, but it actually also goes into effect. As soon as it's warned. So, technically, they have very complicated state laws that we really wish they would fix, but they, they basically have been in effect. And once you warn a hearing, both regulations are in effect at the same time. So you can only get approved. If both, if it means both sets of regulations are current and are proposed. Now that it has passed. There's a 15 day window where they will both still be in effect until the 15th day when only the new ones will be in effect. Thank you, Mike.  I'm pretty much getting nice and comfy here. All right. So this next hearing. This next isn't a hearing. This is just an introduction to an emergency emergency set of interim changes to the river hazard regulations now. Most of you were all here, maybe Adrian was here for the adoption of the river hazard regs, but we just did this couple weeks ago. And something came up that I felt was sufficient enough that we should warn an emergency hearing for us to this to have a discussion about changes of use for certain projects. So it turns out there's a loophole in our regulations that I wasn't aware of or I would have probably mentioned it during our process. And what it is, is that if you have a non conforming commercial building that is and by non conforming it means it doesn't meet the rules but it's legal. And that space is below the base flood elevation. You are technically allowed to convert that space that commercial space into residential living space. If you are building new that would never be allowed. If you were doing an addition that would never be allowed. But because of technical loophole in our regulations, you actually can take commercial space and convert it into residential space. At the same time, Bill and I and a number of folks are working really hard at the State House to get money to elevate 12 buildings in our downtown. We had 12 residential buildings, which total about 20 units where flooding happened into the first floor of those residential units. So people were displaced. You've probably heard a lot about it. You've met some of them. They were displaced from their houses and they're going to be displaced for many years as a result of it. So our goal is to get funding to elevate those buildings so nobody if we get another flood like last June, nobody is displaced. We don't have to find places and we don't have to count on FEMA to find places for people to live. That's the goal. So that's our goal on one side. And then on the other side, what I didn't realize with the loophole until somebody actually came in and pulled permits for, we had two permits pulled to convert commercial space into new residential space. So while I'm working on this end to get all these buildings elevated, I've got people behind me who are putting new spaces in below base flood elevation. Point out, perfectly legal, 100% legal. The question is, and the reason why I worn this as an emergency amendment is that I wanted to make sure council had an opportunity to discuss because we also have three more people who are asking to do the same thing. That'll be five new buildings below base flood elevation with multiple units. And so we can, and the proposal that will be on the table for you in two weeks is to prohibit that type of construction. If you want to convert commercial space as below base flood elevation to residential, you have to elevate it. You can't put new residential space. We can't have new people going in below base flood elevation. That's my recommendation. That's why I wanted to warn it was because once it gets warned, it goes into effect just like we mentioned with the zoning. This weird quirk of state law, once you warn it, it does go into effect. And so by warning this, we have a two week window, three week window for us to have a conversation of what do we want us to policy. And if council says that's okay, we vote down the amendment, those projects move forward. If council says we like it, or we like it with this amendment, or we want it with these changes, we can have that conversation. This gives us a period of time of a couple of weeks to have that conversation of what we would like to see going forward. But from my standpoint, I was concerned enough, I felt we should warn at least an emergency provision to get that. That stay that whole put in place. So Mike, for for a first question, is this a public hearing that since you said you warned the amendment, should this be treated and opened as a public hearing. If this is going to fall under an interim emergency, so the interim hearing is actually warned because it has to be warned 15 days in advance. It's actually warned for the 17th. Obviously, if you want to take public comment now you can. That's certainly an opportunity. But from a legal standpoint, the public hearing is not until the 17th. There's only a requirement for one public hearing. For an interim change, because interim changes can only go into effect for a period of 2 years. You have those 2 years to then go through into a full adoption process, whereas a public hearing process, public hearings at the planning commission level before being forwarded to you for consideration. And this is also just a plain ordinance, not a zoning regulation. River hazard follows the same rules as zoning, but it does fall under slightly different because it's an interim change, not a full adoption change. So just to help with that, the basically the goal or the the decision for you tonight is you can say, yep, we want to continue talking about this. And then we will hold the emergency public hearing on April 17 and then whatever. Or you could say we don't want to do anything else with it, which case we were canceled that public hearing and things would just stay the way they were, or you could provide some other direction. So this is sort of here's a topic. It came up. We're bringing this to your attention. How do you want to proceed with this? So that's, that's what this is about. Okay, thanks. Adrian, you're up first. So we're talking about commercial buildings being converted into residential space. So what I just, you'll know that I'm a numbers person. That's how my brain works. So what is the number of potential units that could be impacted by this? So if I'm thinking of it correctly, I'm thinking about downtown, those are all commercial. And in our zoning, they could turn to a residential unit that are all within the flood zone. I know use the technical term, but like is that if we don't change this, they could all turn to residential and still be within the flood zone. And I don't, there's certain there's going to obviously be an economic, most people aren't going to shift a lot of their down valuable downtown space into residential, but they're going to be places on say Elm Street, where it's not on Main Street where there may be places that fall into these other categories of, you know, maybe, maybe this is one that will shift over because if there's less foot traffic over on this street, but it's in the flood stage. And it doesn't prohibit, because we know. Perfect example obichon's we did the French block project. This would not this change would not affect the French block project because those units were above the base flood elevation the building is in the floodplain in the first floor floods. That's that's okay. The second floor did would not be flooded so therefore that project is still fine. And if you were to decide to take obichon's and convert it into apartments, then we would say, if this rule were were to pass as it was written, it would say no, you could, well you can do that but you have to elevate that first floor. Tim. I wonder what the implications of this would be so we don't get someone in a bad situation to do live on Main Street and when I look around my house and anytime it's amazing how many buildings are still dark. There's nobody there. But it's over eight months and we haven't done anything to assist or contact or help these folks but at some point as they try to bring their properties back some number of venues for commercial uses. And I think in the market and the times we're in. There's a higher demand for a need for housing units and less for offices so I expect you may see some of those wanting to change over. And so I think we just need to consider all that as we look at this kind of policy change. Yeah, you mentioned Elm Street but there are those office spaces like right on the river on Main Street that. Yeah. You know, there's carriage houses and stuff and that would be a very attractive residential location if not for the fact that your risk of having your, your home flooded. Yeah, one of them is already residential that is on our list that we would like to elevate that we're looking for for federal funding and state funding to elevate so that's there's one on Main Street that is on the river tucked in back. But Tim your point. I think is well taken that if we if we decide. We need to have a fuller discussion of it. This idea is we'll have it on the agenda for the 17th and we'll we'll do that. Lauren. Thanks. I'm glad you brought this to our attention I mean, it's so hard like we were just minutes ago being like there's a housing crisis we desperately need housing which we all agree with. And then it seems really challenging to be like let's build housing that is putting property and at risk that later we might have to pay to elevate so it seems like we should do it right the first time. And so I think that instead of creating something and I don't know what that entails though and like, are there, does this mean like those entire buildings have to be elevated are there like ways they could be built to meet standards with like aggressive disclosure, like, like, are there is there some other ways to do it or is it like literally these are other buildings that would have to be elevated for another couple hundred thousand in order to meet this. And so I think that we need to be elevated because you can't drive flood proof or wet flood proof residential structures. Okay, there's really just elevating. And, you know, in, I think if, if our experience last June had been different or July had been different, you know, I might look at this differently but just knowing how I guess how badly the FEMA process was, and has been for residents. I'm not sure hesitant about going and having a disclosure statement or some other ways of saying we certainly there's nothing illegal about what we're doing right now, even as a city. We certainly there's no NFIP obligation that says we have to require these to be elevated. It's it would be something we would be doing because we're working to put ourselves in a position where if there's a hundred year flood event. So we can't guarantee anything if it goes above 100 years, but if it's, we've got that hundred year mapped, we know, because we just had a hundred year flood. There were 12 buildings have flooded. Then. So two questions. One, NFIP National Flood Insurance Program. Sorry. Always worth remembering that not everybody. I live in the vegetable soup that is FEMA. The other thing is when you said that you can't. Dry or wet flood proof residential property is that because there are some regulations that prohibit it or that it's just not. As a practical matter, it's not possible. It's it's not legal for through the National Flood Insurance regulations to have those so wet flood proof basically puts in floodgates that would allow the water to come in and allow the water to leave afterwards. It's used a lot in industrial buildings and those types of things where there's you have to get hydrostatic the water pressure you don't want water pressure to build up on the side of a metal building because it doesn't have enough. So if you have a port, it'll just collapse in on itself. So you have these vents that allow water to go in and out. You you can't allow that for residential use and dry flood proofing generally requires that you've got some type of device that keeps the water out, which is fine again for certain certain things we've been talking about that for the basement of this building, but nobody's asleep in this building. That's where the NFIP codes and the flood codes kind of come in to go through and say if you're sleeping, we don't want you in those types of situations because once those are breached. They usually rapidly fill with water and certainly certainly in our environment ice jam environment, you don't want to be waking up at two o'clock in the morning with 35 degree water in your house. Any other comments from members of the council. Do you would you like a motion to go ahead with this or just kind of a general okay and I see you. To have two weeks like for the item on the agenda so it will give some time for public to read and think about it and maybe they will come with other questions that we haven't mentioned. So, I just want to take that away. And just to be clear procedure the hearing for the 17th has been warned so the only action you would need to take was be if you did not want. If you don't do anything, then the hearing will occur. If you choose if you took an affirmative vote not to have it then that would end that process. I am curious to see if there are any members of the public either in the room or online who would like to be heard on this topic. This is not the public hearing but always interested in hearing what people have to say, not seeing anybody. Okay, I think we're set on that. Thank you. Okay, but I know. Well, next up. No, I get to actually move out. Okay, two minute break and five minute break. Short term committee comment short term rental ordinance. Hi. How are you all. Good. Nice to see you. Nice to see you. Welcome, Rebecca Copans for the record. I am representing the housing committee today. And I'm bringing to you bringing back to you the short term rental proposal that we presented it. I'm not even sure how long ago feels like years. It was months ago. Yeah, a long time. And I can do two things I can run through high level, or I can give you just a like a three sentence and what we'd love to see as the amendments in the policy before you. What's your preference? Why don't we go at a kind of a high level. It's more than three sentences, but it's a substantive thing and this. This is the first reading of the ordinance. Although Bill, I heard you saying that something might not be the first reading. It was warned as a first reading. I think what I had heard is that the housing committee maybe wanted some changes or work. Yeah, so I think whatever you all want to do, it was warned as a first reading. Okay, you can amend it for a second reading. You can have a third read, you know. We can have another first reading. As many readings as you like. Okay, Rebecca, you're on. So we, I think the confusion lay lies lay in the fact that it's not in ordinance form. So we didn't have something to mark up.  So just to give you a reminder, the housing committee was created to increase the availability of long term housing in Montpelier. And one of the low hanging fruit pieces of housing is looking at what is currently available that's not being used as long term housing and squarely in that camp is is folks who who buy a house and then turn it into a short term rental. Montpelier has authority under Vermont State statute to regulate short term rentals. We define that I'll just go through some definitions owner occupied means a primary dwelling or the residents of the of the property owner. I'm sorry, the, the primary dwelling unit or residents the property owner claims on the Vermont homestead declaration, or the primary residents of a short term rental operator which gets into the tenants that the city attorney suggested that we add to make sure we're inclusive of all. This is where I would recommend our first amendment by striking or manager authorized by the property owner to act on their behalf because this takes a sharp left turn away from the intent which is, you know, we are fully in favor of people who live in their homes and they don't want to go out from time to time to support their pay for their taxes or pay for their trip to Montreal or whatever they want to do as as additional income. We don't want people who are investors to buy a property and and then rent it so by striking manager authorized by the property owner to act on their behalf it, it comes back to the intent of the committee. The definition of a short term rental is something that's rented to guests for less than 30 days. And then over a 12 month 12 month period, it's more than 14 days. So if you if someone rents to their house for one weekend a year. That's not considered a short term rental. If someone rents their house to a legislator for four months. It's not a short term rental. This is, you know, a weekend or a week at a time, a rental that's, you know, in the very short term. It can be a partial dwelling unit. So you could rent a room in your house or it can be a whole unit. It, it specifically excludes motels hotels bed and breakfasts group homes sober living houses schools hospitals and similar facilities. Allowed short term rentals. So the second amendment I would, in that first sentence, I would strike and replace it with or. So short term rentals shall be restricted to partial dwelling units or one whole dwelling unit. It's it was just a draft on error and in writing and it's consistent with the rest of the document. The third and the really chunky amendment is in the next paragraph. So, owner occupancy of the subject property shall be evidenced by. Homestead declaration or. A certification from the short term opera the short term rental operator a testing and certifying under penalties of perjury that they that the subject property is their primary residence and there's a definition in state statute of what primary residence is. I would then strike the remainder of that paragraph, which goes down the other path of allowing someone to buy a property live elsewhere and rent it. So I would strike from if the short term rental is not located on the same property all the way to the end of that paragraph. And this ordinance would ask that people register within with the city. They would pay a fee of $110 a year.  And I tell me if you want more detail, but I'm sure you can, you probably want to go faster than shorter. And then every year we want to collect data to say who's, you know, who's using the short term rentals how often are they renting them. You know, what was the total number of days, are they really to get at, you know, the taxes and the income to the city and those kinds of things. And then it also gives the city more information about, do you want to regulate further? Do you want to change the regulation? It gives you more information to amend in the future. And then a key piece is compliance with additional safety requirements. As we were doing this research, there's there are long term rental safety requirements that are not applicable to short term rentals necessarily. And we believe that it's really important to have consistent safety regulations across all places that are rented. Enforcement is another big piece. It would be there would be an enforcement that would be similar to a parking ticket with heavier fines. So there's a you can see the list of civil penalties for a first offense through fifth offense and it gets bigger as you go from $160 to $800. The intent is to just dissuade people from being, you know, working outside of the ordinance is pretty clear. And that's the large and the long and the short of it. Any questions? Thank you for a short but very good presentation. I received some questions how this will affect Airbnb. So some people ask, is it doesn't mean banning Airbnb, or how much impact on that. So if you clarify that question will be great. Thank you.  So you if it's if it's your primary residence and you rent it rented out to an Airbnb, that would be totally legal and under this ordinance.  And you rent it out as an Airbnb. It would disallow that activity. So you have to do your primary residence. Yeah. Adrian. Thanks. Good to see you. So just thinking about the problem we're trying to solve here and so is there so how many houses in Montpelier are bought and turned into rentals like is do we have a number in terms of like, you know, like, I know nationally like when you go to New York City or Montreal they investers by entire buildings and turn them into rental units like that is a thing that happens and so is that is, is that happening here in Montpelier. And if it is, you know, what are the numbers like how many houses are impacted by that and if it's, if it hasn't happened yet is this something to like as a, like to prevent it from happening is that what the thought process is like I guess there's a couple of questions in there So the first part is, it's really complicated because the data changes day by day is not broken into, you know, there's there are websites called air DNA that that can give you kind of a snapshot of what the Airbnbs are for that time period. But it doesn't tell you what's owner occupied and what is investor owned. And so that's where the registration and data collection comes in. So, you know, if we look on one day we looked it was 87. Another day was 140 I think. Sorry, my phone a friend in the back of the room. And so it's, and then, so it's just it's unknown. And so you. It's something that we really, we really wrestled with that, you know, how do we, how do we know unless we collect the data, and the only way to collect the data is to mandate that we collect the data. And then the second question is, so in Burlington business insider named Burlington is the best place to invest in short term rentals, because people were buying up justice said they're buying houses. Burlington passed their ordinance, and they were struck from the list. Almost immediately so when you pass an ordinance that says this this community is for long for for residents. And the intent is to preserve the house housing for for residents or for people to live here rent or own. It sends a message to invest investors that they should look elsewhere.  So, for example, 70% of their properties are are not primary residences. So, if you look it's both. We don't want it to have it's it's happening. We don't know how much it's happening. We don't want to have to happen more. We have such a shortage of houses that we we want to stop the bleeding. One more question. So for the $110 annual fee, how will that be enforced and how will you work to collect that fee from these people. So we have batted around some different ideas. It could be in the planning department. It could be a volunteer committee of the housing committee. You know to to look at the enforcement piece Burlington hires a firm that they do the enforcement they they scrape the they use a service to scrape the site so VRBO Airbnb. If you register in Burlington you have to put a registration number on your, your ad, which then can be tracked to the, to the registration of, you know, of the city. Because my players so small, you know we we could do it as a, you know, a rotating volunteer job to check that registration. If it gets to the place of, you know, a really big business so we could talk about, you know, someone from city hall as an as a job, and if also looking at, you know what what the income is if it, if it warrants warrants spending, making more of an investment as a city employee. Thanks. So we talked about, if you buy a house and use it Airbnb and you don't live in it this ordinance says no you cannot do this. And we don't have enough hotels or ends in Montpelier to attract like tourists. People like especially that leave season right so people go and stay somewhere else than cities revenues from like room and alcohol like people don't do shopping here. Do you, or does Haas and committee think that it will be a negative impact in the long run, in terms of attracting people to stay in Montpelier and spend money and enjoy and experience Montpelier, because they will not have Airbnb to stay. We have a very nice hotel on State Street, and we also have the in Montpelier. There's one also at the top of the hill in Berlin, and there are hotels to stay in. I, as a resident, I have lived in Montpelier 90% of my life.  There's volunteers that show up to support each other. We are a vibrant city because we're able to work where we can walk. If we continue down this path and become more of a stow. I would question, you know, how vibrant of a city can we be if we don't have people that can actually afford to live here. The reason I, I'm sure you all know this set it before, but the reason I joined the housing committee is because, because of our refugee community was really having a hard time finding housing. And these are people that lend an incredible vibrancy, both culturally and to our schools. My children have, you know, deep friendships. I have deep friendships with with our new, our new neighbors. They can't afford to live here if they can't find an affordable place to live. And the shortage of housing makes it really difficult for people who are not high income to live here. And I think it's really behooves us all to ensure that this community is somewhere that we all can live, not just the most privileged of us. And so I think there's a question of, do we want to prioritize visitors, or do we want to prioritize people who live and volunteer and work here and go to school here. It will be great if you could. Last question. So we don't have any data. This idea is great. I really like the idea, but we don't have numbers or data yet. So how long do you think or the housing committee things it will take for us to have some numbers and data say that yeah, we should continue doing this. It will be great for our community and for our city. Or actually, right, let's go back and think, think it again and like plan or revise the idea. So like one year, a couple years. I think you, you are the body that the city sent here, you know, the city voters sent here to make decisions like that. This ordinance suggests that data be submitted every April 1st. You can take a year and see, you know, what data comes in take two years and see if more data and different data comes in. I mean, it's right now we are we have no data and there's no understanding of where we are or where where we can improve. And that's the beautiful thing about a citizen's government that we can adjust an ordinance as more information comes to us. So, you know, it's not, it doesn't have to be static it can be, you know, something that changes depending on what we know. Thank you. So, in a year, we can see the results, which is great. Right. In terms of numbers, I mean, I don't know. We've never, we've never done this before.  I see. Yeah. Thank you for all your hard work. Okay. So, it's true that we don't have quite the hard solid data that we would ideally like to have but we don't, we don't have nothing we don't have no information we do have. We've kind of, you know, done some scans of what's on Airbnb what's on the, the, like if there's something else is like, where you have rentals that are like for a month at a time. Yeah. And then the other thing that we have a sense of just from living in a small community and talking to our neighbors and looking at what's on Airbnb is that it seems that the large majority of the practicing Airbnb is right now would continue to be allowed under the So, we would not be eliminating a whole bunch of Airbnb is very few. It's really much more about trying to stave off move towards people just, you know, buying a house and so that they can rent it out on Airbnb and not make it a place for somebody to actually live in and be part of the community. I think that, you know, there's when there's there is a need for places for visitors to stay. And we do have hotels in town. And I would imagine that, you know, I mean, well, I think that it's important to have a strong hotel industry as well as places like Airbnb is.  I know that if, you know, the in a Montpelier, I haven't talked to them but I, but they advertise on Airbnb.  And so, so this is what the way I see this is a way to try to kind of hold that off. I don't think we're going to be like so, because I just think we're fundamentally different kind of community but, but I do think it's important to do what we can to try to preserve housing for people who are actually going to live in the community, rather than just visit and pass through Lauren. I'm grateful to the housing committee for all the work done on this. I mean, and just contextualizing this is within it's like there's so many different things we need to be doing so nobody saying this is the solution, but this is like one of many things that the city can do and it's kind of a low hanging fruit thing as you said so just, I don't know if that was explicitly said So just to be clear, like this is part of a many faceted approach we need to be taking, just like we just made the zoning easier to build new housing and so just to be clear on that. I mean to me like two things are coming to mind one, Mike Miller or planning director a few minutes ago said we have a 0% vacancy rate. So in my mind, even if it's five units, that's five months like it's to me if it's pointed in the right direction that we want to go. I'm not thinking about things like the country club property where we might build 300 units we don't want any of these going to this we want that to be attracting residents that are living here full time. And so, even if it's just sending a signal like we are not a community or investors to be looking at to be trying to make money off of it we want a vibrant community of residents, like to me. This is great. It definitely seemed like there were some details between the legal memo that we received and some other things to make sure that we get the language right and appreciate the amendments you brought but I think this is a good direction to go of one of many many things we need to be doing on housing so grateful to the committee. I just want to draw your attention. There was a phenomenal presentation by three or three housing major housing groups to the it was an all legislative caucus. I think around to some on December 1, and that was exactly what one of the presenters said, you know she gave she was like, if you feel like, you know zoning is the problem with housing you'd be right if you think you know short term rentals the problem is is a problem with housing you'd be right and she had like the list of like 15 you must have seen that. You have to look at every single piece, which is what you know we on the housing committee we're trying to do and it's. It is like an uphill climb and we're looking we're trying to look at the most simple things first and you know this was something that a year and a half ago when the housing committee joined together I was like this is an easy one we can have to to them in my in two months and a year and a half later here so this yes this is just one tiny little piece but it is a tiny piece and it's, it's, it's important to send a message that housing is a full time long, long term housing is important to the city. Appreciate your efforts in this Rebecca you have been amazing pulling it together. I, you know, unfortunately when you get to the end of it I'm still not convinced. I know. And I think part of it is because we do have a lot to learn about the actual issue we're trying to craft a solution to a problem we don't understand very well yet. Stanley Brinker Hofston out a piece that I don't feel good to read yet. But it's an interesting perspective on it and I think he did try to quantify it. I noticed Adrian you weren't on the mailing list so I can give you. Oh, you did get it. Good. Oh, good. So I mean, Stanley's take of studying the Airbnb's and the VRBO's and how few units actually would come down at the end, probably being in this category was interesting. I think when I look at the ordinance the way it's crafted or trying to be put together. It looks pretty expensive to. You know, when you've got to do a rental registry and you've got enforcement actions. And if everybody's paying $110 a year to register a unit. And you've got Stanley's right 88 in my player today that's $800 a year for gross revenue to come in to administer this program. It's going to cost the city some real money I think to do it I don't think the 800 is going to come close. And we're really not in a budget position to add new programs like this that aren't priority, looking at potentially having to hire new people to administer them. That's my fear with it. It looks really expensive. And if you look at Burlington is a model. Yeah, they are but also in our attorney's opinion, they point out that Burlington's also involved in some litigation already over this zoning ordinance, which is just another thing to be aware of. So, I would favor a slower approach to it. Maybe establish a rental registry and maybe look at our total rental resource because this is just a small piece of all the units we have in town. And I think we need to better understand what we have to be able to know what we need. So. See how it is first. Can we have something like that. Say, and have the program right away. Well, we can see if we could I don't know how the pilot for something like this would work. Right. One of the questions I have following up on your comment, Tim is, what do we think and I'm sure that. Or I assume that in at the housing committee, you've had some discussion about this. What do you think would be involved in administering this, you know what, and I just don't know like what are we expecting to send somebody out to inspect every unit. Are we just just what we think would be involved that would. That would require either the $110 annual fee or should it be a higher annual fee or, or, or what. What work are we are we buying with the registration. It's a question to anyone, but you're up here. So yeah. So my pillar does not have a have a robust enforcement mechanism now, as far as like someone going into rentals, long term rentals or short term rentals now. And that was something that, you know, we talked about and it's we're not asking, you know, for a new department of the city. What we are asking for is to send a message that says we don't want people to buy up houses and, and turn them over. It can be a, like I said, it could be a volunteer. Committee that looks at, you know, just everyone say it was my week I would look at all the, all the posts on Airbnb and VRBO and match them to a registry. So that would be a free service. You know, it wouldn't it wouldn't cost anything. And then it would be like a parking ticket and they would city hall would send send a letter that says, here's your, you know, you're at a compliance. Here's your bill. It's an administrative question. Do you know the cost. So you said Burlington outsources this. I mean, but they have a much more robust. I understand, but is it just wondering. It was not cheap, which is why we thought about the volunteer options per unit. I'm just curious. That's, you can't remember. I could, it's been, it was a long time. Yeah. Adrian, just another question, just thinking about the are kind of the customers, right. So the folks that have these Airbnb's that would be impacted by, you know, paying to be put on the registry. What was your, the committee's process of working with them to kind of bring them into this loop to get their input to get their feedback to understand their perspective. I don't see their voice in here. And maybe it is I'm just missing it, but I really want to understand. I mean, that's a huge piece of the puzzle. They're, they're, this is their homes.  So how do they feel about it? Like, what is their perspective.  We warn our agendas. It's no secret that we've been talking about short term rentals for a long time. We posted our agendas. We've heard from a couple of folks, but it's the Montpelier housing committee is not the hotbed of activity as far as public participation, but it's not like, it's not a secret that we are talking about it. So we have public comment, we were open to public comment in every meeting. Okay. So we have, we have heard from a few people. What are they saying? One was that they did not want. They live in British Columbia, and they have a house here on Northfield Street, and they thought it was completely unfair that they would not be able to rent it out in the short term. There was someone else who has a property, his several properties in the downtown core. He has an Airbnb. He lives next door. So he also didn't like that, you know, it's, it's, you'll be no surprised. It's not surprising to hear that people that would not, they would have to rent their house in the long term. And they make a lot of money in the short term. They don't want to change their business model. So, yeah, I remember, I remember hearing about this person in British Columbia. It seems like we hear about that person all the time. That's someone who wants to have it for family to come visit or something like that. Is that right? And they, but so is the place occupied most of the time or not occupied most of the time? It's, I don't know. I don't know them. They wrote a letter to us. So I didn't, we weren't able to ask questions. I think they wrote a letter to the city council and they, which is forwarded to us. That sounds right. So, so that's a house that could be a family's home. If they weren't doing that. Lauren. To me, it seems like the most resources will take setting up the database. The way the legislature is going, they've been talking about a rental registry for years. I think that's coming at some point. Barry already has one. I mean, it might be worth asking them what it costs or what it costs to set it up. And then what annual costs are once you do that work, maybe we already know that information, isn't it? We might have someone who knows. Yeah, Barry. And this is a much smaller data set because you're just asking for short term rentals to start. It might give us like, I mean, I think a rental registry is coming. I think, I think it's a good idea. I think we should do it for the fold and just to get a better sense. And even just like there were issues around the flood around like notification. We don't know, you know, all the renters and like, so I think, I think there's other good reasons to pursue a rental registry that's broader than this. And I think that would take more capacity. But just, yeah, I guess I was just curious and maybe Mike could speak to Barry's experience with that because that seems like the biggest resource intensive piece of this to me enforcement is totally discretionary like we could spend a lot of money on it, or we could do spot checks twice a year and and call it good but we've sent the signal through our ordinance to people so like to me that's we could spend a lot or we can spend very little on enforcement. Yeah, so Mike Miller. So I before being a planner for a city Montpelier I was the planner for the city of Barry for five years. So the rental inspections were under my umbrella as I was there. So it's, it was a complicated process. They have not only registry but they also have inspections. So it's a so much bigger, much more intensive process and was a very heavy lift and was very understaffed. And so, you know, the hope was to get to everybody every couple of years but it really is so much that there's a lot of administration that goes to it. We did have to send out annually. May 1 we had to send out all of the letters to all the reg, all everyone who was on the renter list to get the new payments. Follow up with them. It did have that process did have a lot but that was every rental property. If we're talking 80 Airbnb is that's a much smaller pool but it does usually require a number of different letters that go out. Obviously every time you send a letter to another 60 cent stamp on that one. So it's small but at the same time after you've done a lot of these you start seeing the costs that start getting into there including the time and the follow ups. And what do you do about somebody who you know is doing it and who isn't. And then you get into the enforcement pieces. What we did learn about the enforcement piece was that. So this goes through what's called the judicial bureau. So the ticketing authority. I went through the whole process and what I learned was I don't want to be doing this. And so the best way to do this is to have a police officer come and issue the ticket with you. And they then are on the responsible party for then going to court. When that comes up in all those pieces so it's a it's there are a lot of legal requirements to issuing tickets and it seems like it would be an easy process. It is not after going through it with all of the caveats if you have to ask if they're a veteran or if they're this or they're that because you have to follow all of these special rules. So the easiest thing to do is to grab an officer question is how much of a burden does that come down to. And it really depends if you pass the rules and everybody cooperates it's really easy. If you pass the rules and you've got to be following up with 25 Airbnbs who don't want to cooperate. And you're you know then we're having to issue tickets because they're not actually there. Unlike the rental registry was a little bit easier to connect with people. Sometimes the Airbnbs might be a little bit more difficult if they're in British Columbia. How do we issue them tickets. That goes back to back to a question for the police officers but it's not impossible. But I think it's I think it's maybe to Tim's point it's how we prioritize the use of the staff. We have on the various projects and we're going to get to you know the planning department and what our departmental everything we're working on is and how we want to divide up our time. But it is it is possible we could do it out of our office. We certainly would kind of rather move keep our priorities where they are right now and see if there's other avenues of volunteers can do it that would be great. Any other questions. We did so many cuts during the budget discussions, and not seeing what the cost will be to city. It is a little bit like saying yes something we don't know what will happen in the long term. So if we have maybe estimated number okay in a year city has to use that much that percentage of its employees. Right. This, if we hire someone else like like a firm or something outside. This is the cost so if we can see some dollars, let me say, I think it will be better for public. Also, for me as a city counselor to support this idea because I like the idea, but sometimes I feel voting for idea is not the same voting for a systematic change. So I want this idea to turn into a real change. All the reasons you just listed right to make our community more vibrant like providing more houses for people who cannot afford. So high rent, but I don't know the cost. So it is little bit difficult to decide this for me. Thank you. So the second part of when I presented this the first time was a tax that would that would match the Burlington local option tax. It was largely panned because it was to, you know, the process was such it has to go to the city voters and so you as a committee sent us said, just let's work on the first part. There is a way to build more financial resources in by by increasing the local option tax. I, sorry, I mean, I don't believe, I mean, I think what Kerry said is really important. This is largely to send a message that we want people to live here. In the long term, we don't want people buying up houses and and renting them in the short term.  You have a grand list. There is an address for every house that you can mail a parking you know mail the enforcement ticket to, you know, there's, there are mechanisms I'm sure to reach the people who own the houses that with that don't involves, you know, sending a police officer to British Columbia. I know you mentioned this, but I just want to make sure I'm very clear so for I know we have, you know, in the nursing world where you have a crisis in terms of, you know, traveling nurses and places to stay because we have no places from this day so I know, in central Vermont they do stay in short term rentals. I don't know if that's the right term but can you just tell me a little bit more about like, you know, for visiting nurse or traveling nurses as an example with with this preclude them from staying in these homes. Like, well, okay, this one I knew you talked about like legislators and like I just want to make sure like in my mind that was like a very clear example. Generally, visit nurses have I think I'm, I'm totally making this up. It's not, it's not, you know, under a month. If it is under a month they can rent a place that is, you know, that someone is in Hawaii for the month I mean there's still, there's it's not like Airbnbs are going to go away. It's just saying that we need to, we need to make them a lot tighter so we can protect the housing that we have. I'm a process person to also so I like numbers and I love process. So for this. So this is an ordinance that we're thinking of either adopting or not adopting so after the ordinance say it's approved. From a city perspective, there would have to be processes put in place to receive these funds is what we're talking about in terms of like capacity, money to support this. Does the city have the capacity and the funding and staffing to support adding a new ordinance to maintain monitor and effectively manage this new ordinance ordinance. So to answer your process question with process. What would, what would happen. So in this case, I think we, we haven't been sure what direction the council wanted to take Rebecca and her group presented I think in December, right before the budget. And it was like, we'll talk to you after Tom meeting, right when our heads a little clearer and, you know, fine and put a lot of work into this yet. What would happen is, you know, this is a first reading you can so you'd have to have at least one more hearing. Minimal, you could have more.  But you can control the process to get the information that you want and we would do the best we could to put together a fair assessment, you know, I was just recalling that we, we looked at a rental registry here for a long time ago now. But again, it was the same idea was going to be, you know, $100 an apartment per month but the year but the guarantee was every three years we would do an inspection and at that point it was enough revenue to pay for the inspector. But that was every single apartment, not just every single Airbnb, but but one of the benefits of that. So I think one of the questions I think as we think about this because clearly one of the goals is really clear, preserve the housing and also. And, you know, I think back to the rental registry, I don't want to confuse things too much but one of the, one of the benefits of that wasn't just having a rental registry was that inspection would help make sure we had safe, you know, quality or at least safe housing for people. So they got there was something in it, you know, for the tenant, even though it was probably going to get added to their rent because at least once every three years someone was making sure the electrical is fine and the plumbing was fine and the exits were proper and the fire doors and those kind of things. And so one of the questions is what, you know, we're getting to manages so how would we want to set this up is this are we implying that by licensing this or that it is a safe place for someone to be, you know, or are we simply saying you have permission to rent this on Airbnb. So I think, you know, just understanding what it is someone is getting with their, with their registration fee. And how what we want to do with that is it, you know, information, you know, so I think those are the kinds of questions we'd want to think through with the housing committee to make sure we were getting the product that everybody wanted but so long winded we have saying, you know, you can be clear with us how you want to proceed and we would want to ask all the right questions and, you know, do it right. Basically, if we if that's what if you want to do it, we should do it right and make sure we're doing it for the outcome that we want. Maybe we talk about so many alternatives who will deal with this ordinance maybe the next step is to decide specifically which department city department. And then maybe that department can have this person to deal with like, again, like an estimated budget. Well, I think I don't think you need to do that. I think, you know, if you direct that you want this done that's really my job, figure out which department and how we do that it probably would be the planning department but we would look to see where our resources were and what those things were. You know, you, you set the goal and the policy that you want to follow and we come back to use it here's how we would do it and what that would look like and what we think are the pros and cons and the problems and the benefits and maybe it's, you know, a combination of the volunteers scouring the websites, and we do the follow up work, you know, the, how do we best put this together to get the outcome that you want the end of the day you are still setting the policy and you're setting the desired outcomes. It's our job to work with you to get them to what you want. So if you want to do it if you don't want to do it whatever that's your choice up and then you, and if you have specific, you know, obviously you could say, we might want to do this but come back with a proposal about how it would happen and we do that. Lauren. Yeah, a couple of that. It seems like you could either make this really complicated and expensive or really simple and not that expensive at all, which is the direction I would prefer to go like. And so I don't want to get a proposal that's like this is going to cost like half an FTE to run this program like I think that's like you could. I just I just want to be clear like I like this idea I like a really simple version certainly to get it going to me. I mean the one approach that we could think about for example could be, we put it in place. We don't plan to do enforcement for a year will get data April one will see what's the scope of this. We have a better sense like how many units are we really talking about how much follow up we could then get a better sense of like what would enforcement look like at that point like it gives us some data to work from. I mean there's going to be a little bit of a if we're dissuading this, then it's like it could have grown and we'll never know that. But then it's doing its job if it's keeping the numbers kind of low but like the numbers that I'm seeing of like, you know, anywhere from like 18 to 88 it just seems like a very manageable thing to collect some data on. I mean the thing that might be helpful is like, okay if we did a bare bones program that phase one is let's get, but let's put this concept out there so we're starting the dissuasion soon. Maybe it's phase in enforcement and let's get this data though, so that then we can get a better handle and better answer these questions. Like what what would be like the bare minimum that it would take because then it seems like we could set the fee to like based on at least like the preliminary preliminary numbers that we have to be like what would what a reasonable fee that would hopefully cover the number of hours that we think it would set to set up, you know, an Excel spreadsheet and, but like I know there will be real steps that the city would have to take like to do even this very simple program so like let's get a sense of what what that might look like and then set a fee to me to match that. And that's why I think I gravitated toward if we just get some kind of registry together and have safety codes for short term rentals which must exist anyway, but publish them and put them out. I think that's a great start I think this ordinance is pretty heavy handed and to really enforce it as it's written would be expensive if we really took it to the words that are here. I think one thing that when I first got into the council almost a year ago and on the housing committee and one of the first topics Rebecca was talking about this and Donna and I went to Montreal and and there was a big fire that weekend and there was a beautiful building in old town that burned and the top floor was an Airbnb and the city had no records no way to trace who owned it or who was staying there. I mean there really some safety reasons for knowing who owns properties how they're being used and who to contact when something goes wrong. So I mean I think there's value in that registry. And I think that's the first step, but I think that can be done more cost effectively than the other parts of this piece. I feel we may be at the point where someone could make a motion. For what to do you know where we have a whole range of options including move to have another, another reading and a public hearing on this as it's proposed along with some instructions to the administration for any kind of things we've been talking about to anything else. Oh, I'm sorry I should say that I would like to get comments from the public and so I see someone here.  I live in the college street area, my husband Frank Faleani is here. And I wrote a letter to city council a couple months ago so you may already know the story but I'm going to present it anyway. I want to thank the housing committee for your work on this issue and also city council because I know it's a complicated issue with a lot of parts. So I just want to present the perspective of an Airbnb owner who is not in British Columbia but who actually is a member of the community. We live on Foster Street in Montpelier. We own greenhouse pottery which is on Berry Street. So if you remember the old building it was the Berry Street market. So we bought this building three years ago with its express purpose of putting Frank's studio in the downstairs and then holding an Airbnb upstairs so we can have tourists come in and purchase Frank's work. There's only so many pots you can sell to your neighbors and friends in a small community like Montpelier so that was our business model. If you remember what greenhouse the Berry Street market looked like. It had been shuttered for years it was vacant as an unfortunate a terrible situation is very sad. No fault of the of the owners but it was never intended for us to be a residential property was intended to be a commercial property. The investment that we it's been a significant time in the financial investment to get it running but it opened it's finally open so please come by if the flag is out. So I wanted to tell you a bit about us and our guests. Our guests are visitors to Montpelier but when they visit they have done spent weeks here volunteering for flood relief efforts. A lot of them send their children to the page program at the State House. Many many of them are parents of Norwich students. So yes they're visitors and tourists coming through but they all buy pots and they all spend money in Montpelier. So it's essential to our business model to have these people here and come and buy Frank's pots. I wanted to talk a little bit about other towns that have addressed this issue. I believe are you talked about their towns Morrisville I believe has a grandfather policy. So if we want to send a message or send a signal. I think one option to do that would be to do it prospectively and prevent I also don't want people from other states or other countries buying properties and keeping them away from the residents of Montpelier but I happen to be one of those residents too so you could signal something prospectively and then grandfather people in is they have in Morrisville. I think that's it. I just want to express that we are also people who live here and work here and are a part of the community and want to invest in the community and Airbnb's are not always the the the bane of a town sometimes that can provide business and opportunity for people. When you bought that building did you do a lot of work to the apartments upstairs. We did work to the apartments upstairs because because I've been in that building I was years ago talking to to the tenants there because they had some major concerns with with conditions. Yeah they were the owners they were the owners and so yeah they had concerns with the conditions of the apartment. They lived above the store and they operated it and then with the the woman's husband died. I think they were just unable to maintain it. The place was robbed at gunpoint numerous times. So we really feel that we're part of a burgeoning very street like Renaissance, you know you can see a lot going on in various street we really want to be a part of that. And Airbnb is the way that we make that work for our business. So yes, it's it's safe now we went through the city was very very supportive of us going through the development review process. So, yes, the the apartment safe. It has smoke detectors as carbon monoxide detectors it has fire extinguishers so yes it's it's it's safe. Those conditions are no longer an issue. Well I might be thinking of the building next door because there are multiple apartments upstairs and they were they were dissatisfied with the landlord because of the. Yes, and I will tell you we work. We were very close to the down street who is on one side of us and then the apartment search is about the. The new restaurant and the hair cutting salon the people that they they frequently come and talk to Frank in the studio there are neighbors now to we live really just up the hill. When we moved in, I think I put this in my letter, there was a rat problem. So there's an open compost box and the place was infested with rats Frank personally caught 25 rats on his own. And we worked with down street to rectify that problem so neighbors still stop Frank on the street and thank him for cleaning the area. So, yeah, it's it's better now. And we did get legal advice that if we were to do something like this. We would be required by law to allow pre existing uses to continue. Excellent I'm aware myself that's excellent because because it feels. Yes, yes, sending a signal and what feels a bit more like a taking I think that's a that's a distinction so I wasn't aware of that legal advice that's great advice. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Yeah. Sometimes we do. The stand. I can't figure out how zoom works. I, my, my email was cited and I just wanted to clarify, I think, was at the bottom of that email was just an option, a suggestion that we potentially can go a step further in this and use existing mechanisms like zoning. The council could consider that. This be a zoning request that. You know, whatever kind of Airbnb it covered or uncovered a room in the building or otherwise. You know, those impact the community those impact neighbors. And going through an existing process that has fees associated with it has safety checks associated with it. Could provide. Yeah, the council's option, even kind of going further than this study. The way the email is referenced, I think, sounded not supportive of it. When in fact, I think I was trying to make the point that we have existing systems. They could make this even more powerful and send a signal much, much earlier. You know, there's a couple communities that have done that so I just want to clarify my intent there. Thank you. Thanks. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Yes, I know your email came in sometime this afternoon. I have not had a chance to read it yet, but I certainly will. Okay. Anyone else from. Inside the room or online who'd like to be. Heard on this. Okay. Lauren. Would make a motion that we schedule a second reading April 17. That's what city obligations. And estimated costs might be to implement it. And do you think April 17th gives the city enough time or would it be better to do it a month out? I don't know what you do you have. That's me. It would probably make it would probably be. Easy here. May. Let's let's do may. Make sure to get good data. I mean, I'm not trying to delay it, but I just thought the second one. This is the first. Right. Well, I. I think it's going to. It'll, we'll have it. We'll probably have more than what after tonight. I'm guessing. So. So 417 or 58. May 8th work better for you. Okay. For you, Lauren. I just want to make sure we have good information. So if that's when we're going to get better information, then. I guess we might as well do that. Is there a second. I just want to make sure we get an updated copy of this too. Cause you were, there were strikes in here that you had. So I want to make sure that we have an updated copy. And if there's a way to include the grandfather. That's one of the things we can do. Okay. So. I just want to make sure that we have an updated copy of this. So. I just want to make sure that we have more and more and more in its form. Perfect. So even if. In addition to the implementation work, we can also have it ready for adoption. If that's, if you all want to go forward with it, then we'll. I'm an effort. Not if we know that's your policy. All right. Is there any other discussion on the motion. Okay.  I. Yill. Hi. All right. There we are. And it is 823. Time for 830 break. So I'm going to say, let's break now and and come back at that. And so I think we're up to planning and development overview. All right, so good evening again. So this, this is the second. I didn't get to see Kurt's last week, but. The various planning departments are coming or the various departments each are coming in over the next couple of months to kind of give you an overview and understanding of who we are, what we do. So that way you're have a little better idea of. The various departments and the roles we play and what are our core services. So I'm here. Not only it's planning and community development, but it's also building and code enforcement. I'm actually the director of both departments. And let me see if I can go. All right, so this is the whole department. There are only five of us. And so that's Josh, Michelle, Audra, me and Meredith and Audra in the middle. It has officially nine days left. So she is on her way out. Going to enjoy her retirement. So, most of us have been here for varying amounts, Audra, 17 years I've been here 10 and everybody else is in the on the newer side. The department kind of breaks up in this way. I'm the director. Meredith Crandall is our zoning administrator. She is a 0.8 FTE. So she is here Monday through Thursday. Does not work on Friday. Josh is the community and economic development specialist. And we have Audra who's planning and zoning assistant and we are currently searching for our new planning and zoning assistant to replace Audra. We're doing interviews right now. I also share responsibilities with the fire chief. Bob gallons. We both are the directors and oversee the building inspector was Michelle savory. And as of today, we're looking for a new one of them too. Oh, thank you. Don't scare me. Not building inspector. Not building inspector. Thankfully. So, court services. What do we do in planning and community development. I usually try to describe this in, in this way I break it down there a couple ways we can look at it. So we are responsible for planning the big picture pieces, developing city plans, updating zoning, doing various studies resiliency planning projects like Confluence Park, the planning for that. So we do planning, which is what do we want to see happen. And then we have these four other ways of implementing plans. So these are how we do those things we plan for. So this department looks at what we want to do. Think of country club road. And then once we've decided what we want to do, we are usually a part of those implementing pieces and some of that implementing plans and goals the community has some of that can come through permits. We have river hazard, building codes, vacant building ordinances. We were just talking about the rental or the short term rental ordinance that would be using a regulatory approach to achieve a community goal. We have programs. So we can go through and do things that these are things that happen over and over. They're not things that happen one time. There are things that we do on a regular basis. That could be the community rating system, which is for FEMA, E911 road numbering, VCDP grants. That's the community development. You think of those as HUD grants. We do those. Josh handles those. Those are usually passed through funds that so we're working with housing partners. The Housing Trust Fund is a program that designated downtown as a program growth center and TIF. Those are all programs. And so the other two ways we can work on accomplishing our goals are through projects, which are things we do one time. We're going to do one transit center. We're going to do one country club road. We're not going to be continuing to do those. They could be projects that are specific as we've got to currently have a project that we're working on right now in response to the flood to Elevate Dog River Road. That's to help protect the sewer plant from a future flooding event. Every time it floods, it gets right up to the top of the road. And our plan is to elevate that road to make sure that it doesn't go ever over the top of that road. And so that's a project we would do that once. 1216 Main Street will be on the agenda for later on today. That's another project. The fourth way communities you can implement your goals is through policies and the way we've kind of crafted policies and thought of policies is how we spend our money, how we use our resources. So tax stabilizations, development agreements, which again we'll be talking about development agreements later on tonight, net zero, which is how we spend our money on our city resources. Our city buildings. So these are kind of the ways when somebody says this is a problem or this is a goal that we have our department usually tries to eventually break it into these different pods. What is the most effective way of our of accomplishing these goals and the permits are generally through the folks you'd expect. Meredith, Audra, and Michelle, and these programs and projects and policies are things that are usually handled through Josh or myself. So what do we, what do we cost? So I believe the just short of $7 million is the total budget for the city and planning accounts for about $491,000 of that. And specifically for ours, we, for our department, most of our costs almost 90% of our costs are for personnel. We have a small amount that are operating costs and some other costs that are in there. For the most part, we are just people. That comes out to about $62 per capita. And I think I've seen numbers on an average house that are usually about $100 a year. For the building inspector, this is currently it costs about $112,000 to dollars to run that department. Typically in the past our fees fully covered this and sometimes made a little bit of money. So usually we would always talk about the building inspector doesn't really cost you any money because it pays for itself. Lately the revenues had been down. We had a conversation about this in, I believe in February. So we're going to see how revenues turn around for next year. Hopefully things turn back around. But right now it costs about $14 a year for that program. Which is per capita. So the opportunities and challenges for planning the one of the big ones flood recovery that's taking a lot of our time. And not only was it a lot of our time we were located in the basement of city hall and we had four feet of water in our office. So that required all of our files to be most of our files were flooded. We had to send them off to be dried at a facility in Massachusetts. We've got them back, but they're now just sitting in boxes up at country club road. We're going to need to eventually digitize and scan those files and put them in so we can actually do title searches and do our work. Right now they're not in any organized box. They're just piled in 60 or 70 boxes. Eventually we're going to need to get relocated back in city hall. So big challenges. We have five people sitting in an office. About a quarter the size of this room. It's a pretty small space to have five people working in. So that is certainly a big challenge. Not having our resources, not having our files, not having our maps. That's it's it's a challenge to kind of get used to not having everything that we used to have right within arms reach. Our second challenge and opportunity. I'd point out is the city plan. So this is something we've talked about for a long time. We re adopted the old plan, which is sometimes referred to as the city master plan. Back in 2017, we adopted it with just minor amendments. With an intention of going through and doing a full update and we've got the full update ready to go. And I'm happy to say that the first hearing and we're going to getting ready to get the locations and all the information put out, but it will be may 13th. We'll be the first public meeting on the first three chapters of the plan. And we will have more information coming out on the specifics of that and where you can get more of the details and copies coming up in the next two or three weeks. Thank you. These are going to be public input sessions. We haven't warned it as a hearing yet because we really want to start. Go through the planning commission voted to. There are 11 chapters. Their decision was to do every month to do 1. Block of 3, so they'll do 3, 3, 3. And then the last 2, so it will probably be in September. They'll be done with public input. They'll then combine and hear what everybody says and then go back to hearings. Which we hope if we've got had a positive input process, we hope that the hearings will be. You know, more for trying to get things polished up and getting those last last items that are. That need need work. We can work on those through the through that process. So it's we're happy to say we are finally at the point we're having our hearings. We're done with floods. We were done with COVID. We are done with everything that has been thrown in the way we are finally ready. The 3rd challenge. Is well completing completing CCR. So plan, prepare, implement. We've taught. I've talked about that we are currently working our way through those preparation steps. And we're going to that's going to take time. It's going to take some effort. So that is a 3rd of our challenges or I would look at this as an opportunity. The 4th piece of ours. I would say the steady operating costs. While budgets have gone up. Our budgets have gone up less than inflation over time. So we're I'm. Proud to be able to go and say that we've been able to manage that over time. Does go up because of inflation, but we are going up less than inflation. So we try to keep that. Those costs in line and the 5th challenge is going to be welcoming a new planning assistant. Audra has been the jack of all trades and. We've relied on her a lot over 17 years to use her skills to kind of make up for when people are out. So bringing a new person online is going to take a lot of training. We're used to leaning on Audra and now we're all going to have to kind of. Come together to get somebody new up to speed and getting to be the next. The next new Audra. Big shoes to fill. So we're going to get into a little bit of the strategic plan coming up after this, but. You know, the housing and resiliency is. So those are some of the bigger strategic plan elements that come down and fall into my office. But. The planning, the policies, the permits, the programs, again, those same ideas. You lay the foundation by understanding what it is we want to do. And many times I've worked with communities and told them that's actually the hardest part is figuring out what you want to do. And so the time implementing plans are actually the easier part. They're just hard work. But from a community standpoint, having the community come together and decide what it is very specifically they want to do. That's the hard part of the community. The hard part of implementing falls on my department. And lastly, that's it. See if anyone has any questions. Thanks Mike. I'll be right back. Council members any questions or comments at this point. I have an overall question, which is relevant, not only to this presentation, but also to the priority setting process, which is where, where are you in terms of your capacity to do all the things you're doing. I would say. Pretty safely, I could pretty say that Josh is about in over his head on he hand. He's handling all of the grants that are coming in from that from FEMA, the working with the various property owners. Studying up on the new grants available. He's also does economic development. So he's also been trying as much as he can to kind of stay involved in that. That side of things, which we do have a lot of economic development needs this flood has had serious impacts, not only in residential, but on commercial. And so getting involved in making those helping those that side get back on their feet. It's going to be difficult as well. So I know he's very busy. Obviously a lot of my work has been tied up in the city plan. It's a very heavy lift kind of finish getting getting that over the finish line. Obviously getting the zoning in the river hazard regulations done as a big piece. That's a big help. So we don't have a lot of bandwidth. Certainly not with losing Audra. Everybody's going to have to be picking up that side to help. And we won't have a replacement till July 1st. So we've got a couple of months where we're going to be operating until the new fiscal year comes in. So we're doing okay. We're going to be fine. But it is certainly for the short term, it's going to be busy and certainly folks like Josh are very busy with the flood response. And with the digitizing of the records, I know we sent it out to some kind of commercial facility to freeze dry the records and and send them back to us. And I assume you've looked at some of them to ascertain that they are in fact readable. Yeah, for them for the most part, things are readable. There are certain things that are that are lost certain inks. Don't like getting wet. So you might have an entire form that looks perfectly fine but no signature on it because the signature was in a certain type of pen that the ink ran on. So ink jet printers really don't, don't like water. So we might have some plans that are blank. With. Is there a company that would be able to do the digitization process also. We haven't done a lot of homework on on what the costs would be. It isn't in our current budget situation. Our priorities were to focus the money in other places. And the files can stay there until we reach a point where we we can come up with a plan for what to do with them, whether it's something that becomes a winter job or the new person. You know, we go we ebb and flow through the year with our workloads. Audra and Meredith will be particularly busy in the spring as developers are coming in getting permits ready for the building season.  So usually that's when we're working on some of these other projects. That's why the community rating system the CRS updates, we have them worked out so we submit those in February, because that's when it's slow for us. And stuff with these files is it are the boxes organized so that you can say well out of these 60 boxes for you. These are files that are 10 years older more so we don't need to jump on them right away or anything like that. They were organized all by address. So, and then they were just grabbed and dropped in boxes so they're not even organized right but they are in files. So we would just have to re kind of reorganize them and put them back in and scan them and so it would be a huge process, but it would be a process that we'll have to. We'll have to identify and see how long it takes. That was one of the things we were hoping to do was just to be able to go through a box or two and kind of get an estimate. It would take you know we did one box and it took us how long three weeks, four weeks, one week, and then we can at least go through count up the number of boxes and we'd have a back of the envelope that would say it would take us this long to do the whole thing in house. And then they go go from there to figure out what the best way to manage that is. Yeah, because the hard part is we've got to put it into our permit database. And that's where we don't know if we could get an outside firm to go into it because they'd have to be familiar with our very specific permit software to know where to insert just having them scanned. Means we don't have the boxes anymore we just have a database with thousands of scanned files that aren't attached yet to our database. Laura. I was just thinking like the physical scanning like we've got a bunch of high school students like a great intern project like it does not feel like staff time should be spent on that I hope like but then somebody who has some kind of expertise it sounds like has to like file them once they're digital but like there seems like there could be some cheap ways we could get some help to physically scan I would hope so many committees every every committee has to take a box. Anybody else with questions about this or do you want to charge right into our closing priority item. All right. Thanks I think. So, hello everyone, I'm going to get teed up but Mike's probably going to take on the lion share of the specifics when it comes to the items with housing and this presentation will look very similar as we go through each of the goals. Thank you. Thank you very much. Much better. So I'm going to cruise through this a little bit, hopefully not too quickly, but just to kind of, you know, get our bearings and then we'll start the conversation so this particular goal is the one the second one that we prioritized and it's to create more housing. Oh, there we go. Got it. Thanks, Mike. So, we're going to go through the agenda of you know what we're going to be looking at it's we'll take a look at the adopted plan and the status, you know, where we're at with that. And then we're going to review the initiatives associated with what was previously adopted back in December. And you'll note that some of those initiatives have changed just based on staff review. We'll get into the details. And then we're going to look at the structure goal will go over council policy decisions and action items. We will be pulling this all together in the end for a complete view of the strategic plan for you to take a look at. So, just like last time just to kind of orient where we are we're kind of here in the middle where we're looking at priorities and action items and you know how we're going to land the plane. So, we're going to go there. And this is the plan that we adopted, we're looking at the create more housing goal and so really what we're looking at is how we can create more opportunity for people of all income levels to make sure that housing is safe and healthy accessible efficient. And then also to make sure that there are critical community service resources available. Looking at what was adopted back in December here is the whole list of them, but we're looking at create more housing and so the specific priorities or strategies that we've got going here for housing are to develop policy to reflect housing priorities. Actively partner in housing projects support private housing development. There's been a slight shift in the language on the first strategy and so I just want to note that and the work up that you've got in front of you. The other thing to mention is in front of you you have a summary of this item. Housing and then you get a little bit more detail in terms of the goal which is also posted online. And so getting into the specifics of you know what we're looking to get feedback on. I'll just going to go through each of the strategies and then the initiatives. So this is the first initiative. And so there's a slight difference in the language but to enact policies to promote housing as the strategy that was approved more or less a little different there. And then the initiatives to support this particular strategy or to simplify zoning which we had a discussion on that earlier. So we're going to look at housing and committee recommendations so revised housing trust fund guidelines and look at the short term rental ordinance. So those things are underway and then also the next initiative to consider the city plan which Mike just mentioned in his overview is going to be coming. I could just interrupt here quickly. So to the extent that you want to have a conversation about what you'd like to do this year with regard to zoning. This would be the area to do it. So one after the presentation. So I'm going to keep moving right along here. So we're moving on to the next strategy so actively partner with housing projects and so this first one is to advance CCR housing project. The next is to create or apply for a TIF program. Then followed by establishing funding through the housing trust fund and then advancing housing projects on city owned property. You will note that you know on sort of the goal itself there are some of the initiatives that have tasks associated and there are some that are pretty straightforward and the initiative is the task. And so moving on into the third strategy to support private development proposals so this one. The first initiative would be to work proactively with developers reach out to property owners of underutilized properties. An act local development agreement policy which is coming up along with the tax stabilization policy and then the creation of. 80 you guidelines. And so what's next much like with the other goals we're really going to be looking to establish performance measures and to tie. Those measures to performance standards. And then our goal is to be able to report out on the progress of this iteration of the strategic plan by the end of the fiscal year. And then next we'll talk about the council policy decision items that will kind of leave the next steps in this conversation. And so it's kind of a lot to look at here, but we've got the 1st. And Mike will start to chime in I think once we get and I'll leave the slide up so we can talk about it but the 1st is to simplify zoning and enact amendments to the zoning regulations. And the 2nd is to review and revise the housing trust fund guidelines. Review the new short term ordinance rental ordinance to consider consider the city plan program recommendations consider advancing CCR housing project initiatives. Apply for a new tip review funding so consider where the housing trust funds at and where it needs to be to support some of the programs that we want to do. And then look at advancing housing projects on city owned land. And then. And we've got sort of that also on tap to be discussed as we move along and then review local development agreements and then to review the tax stabilization policy. So there's a lot here to consider. And I think at that I might open it up just a little bit or see if Mike has any. And then he wants to note in terms of any of these items, but I think they're kind of straight ahead. I can kind of continue through the rest of the presentation, but it's essentially the same just highlighting where we're at in the review. Thanks. One quick question. So, when we're talking about policies to promote housing, the 2 that were named were looking at the housing trust fund and short term rentals. Just curious if, like for this year, is that all we anticipate is the housing committee planning to bring forward any other policy ideas that we know of at this point. Or, like, is this is the short term rental one, like the thing that is kind of ready for action this year as we just try to look at priorities, or is your office promoting any other. Yes, I know they're working on the housing trust fund guidelines as well, which will we've, we have a couple hundred thousand dollars in the bank that we really haven't been moving. And I know I've Josh is staff on the committee and Tim's on the committee as well, but I know one of the things they've wanted to do is to redirect how we spend those money to better use them in creating new housing. So they do have some draft guidelines they're going to be getting out. So I do know that is a piece that will be coming out this summer and probably pieces that can be broken subcommittees. And there's a subcommittee for infill. So they'll be I think recommendations for if we can find any ways to help move that along. There's also just some commercial committee looking at commercial sites downtown to say places we potentially could create housing. And so there are a couple of subcommittees working on projects that'll be. I think productive. So what you anticipate is that as those become ready within the housing committee that they'll, you'll come to us but put something on the agenda and take that up. And you anticipate a large amount of work from Mike's department to make that happen or you expect essentially to come to the council. Oh my gosh. At least he guides us in our process. I think he's laughing. Yeah, this is the right time but I think you know you have all these policies, the decision items that you're working towards. But what I feel is missing is what. Is the overarching goal that is, you know, Montpelier has sufficient housing opportunities for all people of all income levels but what is it that you're working towards like I feel like we're missing the numerical number in here that says, over the next 12 months, we want to build 500 mixed use developments, 30 commercial properties that bring in 2000 residents. You know, we attract 10 different developers. I don't know. I just totally made that up. But I feel like that is missing because how do you measure your progress if you don't have your baseline and your targets. And maybe it is somewhere else I've looked but you know you have your policies but what are these policies going to impact and how do you know that these policies are successful and helping you achieve your goal. That's what I would like to see. Yeah, and I think some of that's going to come in with the with the measures that that Kelly wants to get at, but we don't have the specific numbers in there the hard part for something like housing for my department is unlike ambulance calls and police calls there's a certain amount of stuff that they do. We as a part of the department have a goal of increasing housing but we're not allowed to pick up any hammers and we're not allowed to develop any property so we're kind of. We have to do everything we can to encourage other people to to make that step so it's really hard to say we're going to get X number of housing units built. If we were, say, you know, Chittenden County if you were in Burlington they have an entire organization who's dedicated to building housing and so they can go out and actually get grants to build housing and they build housing. We don't we don't have that ability. We're not. We're not structured that way so we usually think a little bit longer term. That's why we talk about 500 or 240 units in 5 years or 8 years. You know, these longer term because we know we're going to have to craft and build relationships with certain landowners to try to encourage them to develop and we've got to do a number of pieces so we can't look on. We want 50 units a year because it'll probably be 3020 and then maybe if everything goes well 100 and 150 and then maybe back down to 30 because we're going to have years where big projects will get developed. But over the long term that's why we try to have this kind of this medium term goal of a certain number of housing units. And that's been going on since before my time. They've been we've had goals when Gwen was here for 500 units and 1000 units have been kicked around from time to time. And I do think it's reasonable for the council to set a goal. You know, I think the question is, we would want to be clear to ourselves not to give us excuses or anything but what, which parts of that we control and which parts we don't. So, like I said, we can change all the zoning in the world we can do all these things. If the economics aren't such that people can build housing so so. But, you know, for example, we have our, you know, the projects we might be able to controls because our goals to create this many units in the next three years on the city on properties and then tried to, you know, we'd like to encourage up to, because to your point. Let's say we got 1000 new housing units at that point we might say okay, maybe we want to not have such a permissive housing policy right now we there might be too many years you know. So I think setting this is where we think is the healthy place to go to is still something we could be looking to so that is something we would look to you all and you know by the master plan and those kind of things to set those goals. So for us, you know, it would be more, you know, have this list here is really going to is what drives what's going to show up on your agenda is over the next year. You know, these are the things you can expect to see this is or not if you don't want to do them. But, you know, these are these are things that will show up and then once they've either been approved or denied or just a decision made then that part of it's right the big picture what are we trying to get at at the end is important. I mean, I think what we're really looking for is, does this list look good, generally kind of, you know, like last week, you know, it doesn't seem like this is a, these are things that we, you know, want to work on and work towards. You know, or not or if there are things that like you'd like to add the list or take off. You know, I think we, you know, are really while we're doing this work we're also still recovering quite a bit as Mike had mentioned earlier and there are some transitions but you know I think this is certainly a list that will keep the planning department busy for quite a while. The thought that I have is that looking at that first bullet simplify zoning and in the in the handout you gave us you say simplify zoning streamline the process active reduction and barrier barriers and previously in our discussion earlier tonight. The terms rate were raised about. Should we have a zoning ordinance that's more flexible and and these are all descriptions I'm not sure. I understand what they mean. You know we hear talk about well as the zoning ordinance too many pages or is it too simple or too complicated and. Is the question should the question really be, what do we hope to accomplish by the zoning ordinance, and I wonder if you have some thoughts about that. And it's kind of a nebulous. Mike on the spot. I mean, you know, those, those were what came out of the session so they were actually things that the council have identified so. No, I'm not I'm not asking Mike to to take ownership of any of this I'm just trying to talk about what does it mean. When we talk about what we want to do with our zoning. So, I mean I think each one of those words would kind of have a different context I mean simplify could be just. You know, maybe removing extraneous requirements that maybe aren't necessary or have little impact. Towards our goals that we have the streamlining I think is. Would go more to making sure we have an efficient process I think we currently have a very streamlined process we issue permits very, very quickly. That's one of the things I'm proud of that our department has done a very good job at. The fact that we're, like, like I said, literally 10 times faster than when I got here. And I think some of the other pieces. So there was a third, third one you'd used, which was active direction barriers, the barriers and so yeah that's that is a continuing process that we're always looking at. Because we can we can have discussions about the parking requirements is parking a barrier and it it's but it's an area where again we can have a discussion and we've had a discussion because some some in some places like Barry Street it's it's important. You know that on street parking is an important consideration. And having more, having less parking requirements may mean putting a greater parking demand onto an already parking filled street. And I think with the flexibility one. It's good and I think we've done a good job I think there are places we can still do better with the flexibility we've been trying to build that into every one of our updates to make sure that the flexibility how we kind of make flexibility. work with the streamlined permitting process is we've tried to have a set of rules where if you're basically doing what we all consider what we all want. You know, if you're if you're having at least one parking space for every dwelling unit and you're meeting all the setbacks and you're meeting all the height requirements. You can come in and get your permit. If you want a waiver for your height or a waiver for your setback or a waiver for your parking, then you're going to have to go in for a hearing. So we have flexibility built into the process we allow those things to go and it just takes an extra step and it's going to take more time. And I think that's a good balance we can't have flexibility the zoning administrator can't have flexibility it's not allowed under state law they have to literally enforce the zoning. So, and it has to be consistent over time so that's why usually the rules are very clear about what's going to be an administrative approval. Then we have the flexibility that is there. We would always admit this did the product that was adopted in 2018 was a product that needed a lot of work and we've over the past five years six years we've made a lot of amendments to landscaping and science and all these pieces so we have that flexibility built in but there's still a number of places where we could make more improvements to have more flexibility and again if the housing committee or the energy committee or any committee is working on things where they want to talk to us. We can talk about the rules and maybe find more room where we can either streamline those or those permits or make more flexibility by putting in waiver rules that say if you're doing this we can issue the permit. If you'd like to do this we can make that allowed as well, but you're going to have to go to a hearing. And you're going to have to describe these three requirements as to why this is not going to have a negative impact on the community because you are going to be eight feet taller than your neighboring buildings. Thanks. Kelly you look at your but something. Nope. Okay. Lauren. I don't know if this is the right time or place but I mean I like the idea of council setting something like 500 units in five years that we're working to, you know, maybe some of those are under development or under contract or whatever but like I like us having some kind of goal that we're that's tangible and measurable. And I guess my question to this slide is does it feel like this is doing all the things that we would need to be doing to get to whatever that right number is to be aiming towards which, I mean, a lot of it does seem like knowing that, especially the thing that we can most control the country club project which has the seems like the biggest possible number of units coming on