Convert that to CAD and draw a box around every single one of those red boxes That's up to him to find out how many how much you can develop on it You know, I think you guys are really really nice in terms of how much information you give But the the owners should fall on the on the landowner To be able to come back and say this is what I have to be able to confirm that well sure Yeah, sure, so you you know you're gonna need to have the information to confirm it and so if you're thinking that This is not something that works to do or they don't have time to do it That's a different question and how much of a burden does just put on the development if we're trying to Encourage an increased amount of housing that gets developed that was the issue that came up is we're putting an awful lot of burden on everybody to do a lot of work Yeah, so then we have this property Which now the entire area can be developed based on the density of the area Which increases significantly the number of units which we all agreed was a you know reasonable number of units previously Because we excluded those 30% slows And there seem to be anyway general consensus So anyway, yeah, but only even on that one only 15 It was less than 15% that was excluded from developable There was a relatively small amount of land when when we got to the end as to how much of it Was actually over 30% well, I guess the area is indicated here our slopes over 20% But it's got to be this this whole area here Where the cliff is It's just okay. I mean, you know this Is more complex in terms of administering than what we intended However, if we remove this then we need to go back and redo every one of the densities Determined because we told the public We were doing it with a 30 an exclusion of 30% slopes so they were But we calculated and I think we had this conversation when we had the vote on that That line was that when we calculated the 90% we didn't account for the slope when we did that calculation So if we redo it how how is it going to change if we redo it if we at the first time we did it We did it without taking into account slope, right, but not, you know, that was a guideline and not Some people members of the public thought that and some didn't I thought the big concern with building with calculating density based on buildable area was Ensure that the buildings weren't skyscrapers in a corner of a lot That was my recollection. That's my recollection. What the biggest concern Because because that they're almost like of other considerations that would prevent that from happening in terms of Exactly. Yeah He's just saying the back doors locked so they well sometimes there's automatic locks on things so we will just check with Seth Okay, we'll call the meeting to order. Thank you starting a little bit Lee So is everyone taking a look at the agenda for this evening are there any adjustments to the agenda Yeah, I was gonna ask about that So you work with a municipality to set up Which is a platform to put out information but also Fully understand what's what it's capable of and I think part of it is that they're trying to also figure that out And We've done a number of projects with stone environmental and they've been great partners, so I Know the grants do in September, but questions are due by the end of this week So I was going to go through this week and review the application make sure there weren't any questions in the materials I it seemed like I Wanted John's thoughts on whether he thought it would be a good grant to look at And maybe it only has a lifespan of two years it's more project specific But it's just something we should know yeah Or You could yeah, you could set it up by You know city plan could be one maybe you other city projects could also be Set up in that two or three years Software solution that's ready to replace it. So it might not be it could be useful and Hang on now What is the deadline for applying to that it's like September 16th I don't know if we need to add that as an agenda item or if it's just I'll pull it under my comments from the chair Anything else about the agenda Okay, so we're gonna deem it approved Item three is comments from the chair. So let's just pick up with a stone environmental grant If everybody's agreeable to it Mike do you Yeah, I can work on yeah I was planning to to work on it because it's just I think it's a it's gonna be a critical piece if it if it was gonna be Useful and that was why I wanted to make sure John had a look at it Then and he seems to think it is then we should definitely move forward with an application at least with respect to the city plan because it's If we can the more opportunities we have to get public input the better and this is Usually these mediums are great if if it's functioning Yeah, so everybody has a chance to think so we'll add that to the agenda for the next meeting because that will come Before the deadline to submit the application Yeah, maybe we could review it. Would that be possible? Unless you unless you don't think we need to Yeah, I mean I can provide a copy of it What do we got September? It'll be September 10th. Yeah, okay. Yeah, it should be after the 10th The the other item that I'll point out if we're talking about that is on the next one would be the municipal planning grant application Topic which we can just approve at the next meeting as well Which I'm going going to suggest and if people have other ideas you're welcome to give them to me, but Yes, Montpelier alive and MDC both have been interested in doing a streetscape specifically for State Street streetscape plan so it would be more of a of a master plan Okay, so a real master plan so using a landscape architect and engineering firm to kind of go and lay out State Street Because if we're going to be shutting down at some point The realto bridge for repairs and replacement That would be a great opportunity if we want to talk about Putting in moving moving curb lines Putting in tree boxes and planters a lot of what you'd see for like What berry did for their main street what waterberry did for their main street? Those all involved doing streetscape plans to decide where the trees are going to be where the bump-outs are going to be for Crosswalks where the street lights going to be where the bench is going to be Realto bridge is The bridge Yes, right there over the north branch So it would be a good opportunity For us to connect from Taylor Street, which has a plan already and is going to be reconstructed and then we could kind of connect from Taylor Street back down to Main Street State in Maine Scoping study I Think we would want to go and integrate the findings of that So if we end up with us street lights, so there's a scoping study that's looking at berry in Maine Whatever they do to berry in Maine, they're gonna probably have to do at the other intersections So if you choose a roundabout you'd probably need a roundabout from state in Maine And you'd probably need a roundabout for school street If you go with lights you'd probably need a light a light a light and they would have to all be time And so that's the initial some of the initial findings that from what my understanding was That's probably what they'd have to do. It's why they really can't look at one just in isolation. They have to look at in fact all the way out to route 2 All the way through although route 2 could never be a roundabout. So that's always gonna be a light but the other ones would probably fit Into into multiple things, but you can't do a roundabout with a light on either end because it would jam on the roundabout Yeah, once once the red light stops it would pickle the roundabout And so you kind of have to keep roundabouts all the way through to make the roundabout idea work That's a Tom question I don't know specifically what yeah, I haven't been in the loop Scoping study presentation They're giving the results of the scoping study. Well, they're asking for public comment Okay, I haven't I haven't done my homework on that one to know what's Comment yeah, I don't know what they're Okay, that was why I emailed you today because it looked like that meeting was okay Yeah, and I don't know I'd have to do some work on it. So that was the thought was that we should have For the municipal planning grant I've done these in the past for when I was in Barry we did them on merchants row That was how a lot of the work got done there to come up with how to rearrange the parking areas We also did master planning for Summer Street area And how to accommodate where do you put 40 parking where you put those were a little bit more area-wide How do we spend that money like? Who outside are you going to hire just had a curiosity for You'd be looking for probably somebody who's got a combination of Engineering and landscape architecture because you're really looking at streetscape. So it's not just Engineering it really starts dealing with People at ADA and how do you yeah, oh definitely have to go to bid Okay traffic flow and all of that traffic flow Yep, yeah, because you'll you'll want to accommodate traffic on the street, but then you could start having the discussions of But the focus is on this as you're saying the streetscape. So they appear as aesthetics or a big aesthetics, yeah, the whole thing for within we're looking almost exclusively within the city right-of-way or Sidewalks that may be within the private We're usually looking almost exclusively at what's in the city right away But we'll talk about we'll get that for for the next agenda as well That's the end of September as well So that would be I would first do this ArcGIS one and then afterwards do the municipal planning grant You can probably look at the ArcGIS one You'll have that. Yeah, I should have that one either ready or close to ready While we're on the topic of applications. I received this in the mail today From the Central Vermont Regional Planning Commission Solicitation and municipalities to participate in enhanced or in in enhanced energy planning So this might be something for me act energy committee I just wanted to make sure our flag it for for you and for you Mike to make sure it was covered This would be the Regional Planning Commission has Will be receiving funding to assist three to six municipalities with the development of municipal plan energy elements That are consistent with the provisions of Act 174 So there's an application process and the deadline is October 1st. I just wanted to I don't think we need to do anything on it Is the Planning Commission, but since I received it in the mail. I thought I should share it with you all So what would the better strategy be I mean if we decide in the energy committee to go forward with it That would be something that we coordinate with Mike's office That Mike would have to answer that question It sounds like counsel would probably either need to sign off on you applying or on the committee applying or Itself, that'd be my guess the city council You're on the energy regional energy regional planning commission my I mean the only thing I would have to add is just for my experience on Regional Planning Commission is that they like to cover their bases. I think you probably receive that as courtesy. Yeah Yeah, in case you didn't receive it as well Okay Okay, so having mentioned it, I'll move on Other items I just want to mention I sent I shared an email sharing the the tragic news about John Anderson's daughter and we have a card here for everyone to sign and after the meeting we can talk about the best waiter to reach out at all so Just if anyone does need to leave early, you'll just put that next to you Kirby and Then finally for from comments of the chair, I think we should have a quick discussion You see how quick we can make it at the last meeting Here with just the planning commission our last meeting was with all the a lot of committees but the one with just us we were ticking through our metrics of changes to zoning based on The experiences that Mike's office has had and administering the new zoning bylaws One of the issues that we talked about was Calculating density based on Barrett buildable area and lots Barb has some concerns about the way that the boat went so I don't want to Rehash the vote to the extent that there's no new information. I don't know why I don't think it would be productive for us to re-vote But I do want to use this opportunity here to help us fully understand the constraints of your office Barb's concerns and if there are New pieces of information The two of you were here for the vote that you didn't hear or didn't understand when you voted Please let me know because we will revisit it. I just want to find that balance of making sure we've had a Full and robust discussion, but not redoing everything twice. That's that's my concern so When When we arrive before we call the meeting to order we started to talk about this a little bit I'm going to recap what I understand and then we can pick up from there so Mike's office is Not getting a level of detail that you need to easily be able to tell applicants What amount of density they have if it's based on buildable area? Is that right? Yeah, or the Information is almost too detailed. It just it's it's not Easy for us to administer and answer the basic questions that we need to be able to answer the data we have is actually too detailed and Too complicated to be able to easily answer the questions that we need to Even a basic question of whether somebody can add a new unit to their house So it's a matter of not having the expertise to interpret data Right now. Yes, the GIS data is just too Detailed to be able to make a quick easy Determination on some basic questions okay, and barb your concerns are that We went into that the original Densities for all of the various districts were based in part on The the idea that they were going to subtract buildable area Right well the you would be calculating density based on buildable area and buildable barrier area would be excluding 30% slopes as well as other natural resources identified on the inventory, right? Yeah wetlands and a few others Determination about those We didn't I Do it that last week so yeah, yeah, there was no discussion about we've never intended it But originally that keep that as it was that was Part of what's not buildable, right, right, but we didn't specifically address that in motion. Yeah No, no, I'm talking more general like the the policy Decision before the by-law revisions were sent to city council one year ago That was my understanding So what we talked about before a vote Was the difficulty of administering it again, we talked about the various restrictions on building scale size massing setbacks That do restrict the way the building looks in the in the area how density interplay is with that and Were there any other pieces to this discussion that I'm not recalling I think we adults I think we had talked about the fact that the issues that had come up about Buildable area We had kind of addressed it in multiple places Yeah, so while we had talked about everything in isolation We had actually ended up addressing the the issue we had was that people were building big houses based on Using density that was on steep slopes, but we also came up with Footprint maximum footprint requirements and maximum height requirements as well So we were kind of addressing the same problem multiple times and it was best managed by setting footprint And bulk and massing size which we have done Which were also new to zoning. We didn't have footprint requirements. We now have footprint requirements So we we had kind of addressed it in a couple of different places So maybe this wasn't needed any longer to Keep building smaller And barb your concern is that it may appear to be a bait switch from members of the public who who understood and an acquiesce to the Zoning proposal based on their understanding that Buildable area would be subtracted from density So the sizing scaling Not quite that Okay, 30% would be subtracted from the buildable area and the buildable area would be the basis of determining How many units and you know you've been talking about footprint and mass and scale and that's Certainly all part of it But really the issue here is the number of units that would be allowed in a parcel and so if we don't exclude Help me understand that all right. I mean I understand how density is calculated based on Slope and how that limits the number of units, but why is that an issue separate from size of the building? Because the number of units could be sprinkled all over the Property it doesn't necessarily especially if you got we went and say got a Cottage cluster those kinds of because we have PUDs which also allow for density bonuses So we've got a lot of ways for if it seems like we're Excluding the rights of property owners to Use their property we have lots of bonuses that allow for that to happen if they go through the PUD process So the really the issue here is yes, it's good to limit footprints. It's good to limit Massing and scale and everything else, but it's also important to limit number of units Based on the available area of the site the site area of the site that should be developed and frankly 30% slope areas should not be developed So that if you you know if you're looking at a piece of property I mean it's sort of an example I gave before if you look at savings pasture if that were to be subdivided so that only the Southeast Yes, Southeast corner was a parcel on its own And Previously it would not be developable because it has 30% slopes, but if Eliminate that then any number of units could potentially be put on that property and whether or not they should be built there You know is another question, but that was what I hoped we had Handled by virtue of creating looking at it from the standpoint of buildable area Not the standpoint of what's what is what are the outlines of this particular site? so, but I guess the question is still so that Maximum allowable density is not the right to build that many units The slope factor is not also if we're using it to calculate maximum allowable density We're not saying anyone can build on that slope. So if someone can build 10 units now or They can build 50 afterwards. What is the? How is it in the public interest to limit let's say 10 families to move in here Now 50 can What are we trying to address? What's bad about those extra 40 families moving? We're trying to address that Nate the character of the neighborhoods that these are going into and we've already increased the density Some of those what is No, no, no the number of units there's a you know So there's a street with predominant one picture character is number of units It's the size of the buildings and the number of families that are there the street cars on the street all of that So if you have a street of one to three family structures and suddenly you come in with 50 Because now you're allowed to build that there and by the way, we did allow for building on 30% slopes, didn't we? We're lifting the prohibition requiring engineering plans and a hearing Hearing I thought an engineering plans. Yeah engineering plans and a hearing That's so there's no engineering plans required for building on 30% slow Well, it's prohibited previously. We're lifting the prohibition and it's place. We're requiring engineering plans and yeah So now the people can build on those 30% slopes as well. So it's I'm not saying that I mean I totally agree that additional Density is really valuable and important and we have the opportunity to create additional density That is still in character with me. I think if we have to be very cautious about making sort of Quick decisions that can have all kinds of other ramifications because we spent months talking about these different density number of units Parcel we spent months debating that and we had a lot of comment from the public but now Mike you said that the density was calculated based on 90% right yeah when we did those 90% analyses we did not Factor in any slopes when we did those So it's still I mean it's still an arbitrary number That 90% figure because we we we tried to set it at 90% they would come out, you know Somewhere around 90% So what we previously had in the old zoning was Entire neighborhoods a good example is if you go up off 1st Street and Kent Street in that area almost 60 to 70% of all parcels Were non-conforming and most of the structures were also non-conforming because the setbacks and and the parcel sizes Were somewhat arbitrarily picked so There's a minimum lot size of I think 9,000 square feet and most parcels were less than 9,000 square feet So every time somebody came in to do something If you were up on Town Hill the rear setbacks were 75 feet and the front setbacks were 30 feet most lots Had no buildable land Because if you factored in where the rear setback and the where the front setback was there actually was no place to build So what we did was did a 90% rule we we just looked at every parcel to go and say All right, where do most front setbacks? You know we always know they're gonna be some that you can just look and go and say that's probably a bad idea that that Parcel was that small so we kind of said 10% of the parcels will let be non-conforming 10% of the structures will let be non-conforming. Let's just try to find rules that somewhat match What's on the ground assuming that we like what the neighborhoods look like the um prior zoning? wouldn't have any allowed The my failure to build the way it was built. Yeah. Yeah, so we want we you know, everybody agrees They like the city how it is so What do we make it illegal? Yeah, we make it illegal to build the city. So I Understood that was a concept in the previous zoning. I just the 90% Yeah, no, I understand what you're doing. We want to make sure 90% of the buildings in this neighborhood would be conforming to the Standards were setting and so the 90% calculations for density Were not taking into account or like subtracting 30% What I'm hearing but what Mike was just alluding to was that that 90% Determination was based on the size of the parcels and Potentially making them the ones you referenced for example Making those single or family homes are duplexes Be able to have a conforming lot 90% of those lots would be conforming With a single family home on it because we allowed a single family home on any size parcel basically So we didn't That 90% really technically was looking at the footprint size of the building was looking at the parcel boundaries Not looking at the number of units Right, and that's right That's where we get a little like we tend to kind of overreach is to how many people can live in a given building I I get really uncomfortable when we start messing with that. We did two calculations We did two calculations. We did one for minimum lot size and one for density when we did the 90% so if you look at the The book that was made there was a book that was made that has both columns one for what's the 90% for Density of that neighborhood because especially when you look at a place like Liberty Street or these other streets that have a lot of multi-family It factored in But didn't factor and didn't didn't exclude Didn't first exclude unbuildable land before it made those calculations. It just looked a lot size So for my vote last week, I can tell you I mean that what was most compelling for me was For one is we already went over tonight that other regulations are in place to safeguard against the things we're talking about for character of the neighborhood and And then slope being another thing this in a way like gets it density for me I'm not seeing a nexus or a connection between a parcel that's more limited and what they want a person can do with it because of Art like arbitrarily because the slope not not because of the physical constraints of the slope itself But the way that we had set it up previously It's just the presence of the slope means that you that fruit the person unfortunate to have a lot of 30% slopes It's almost like they're not in that neighborhood They're in a look they're in a different density like requirement type neighborhood and I just didn't see the connection between the slopes And like the slopes were being misused in my view because they didn't have the policy connection that other things The other regulations that exist do have does that make sense? Well, I guess I'm not really following the concept that our footprint and Height limitations would necessarily have the same effect That's what you're saying is other other requirements are in place So the ones that were mentioned were footprint massing of the building height Conditioning subdivision regulations if design requirements if those are yeah, if those are part of that Application which when do when does those come in when does condition of use? It would depend on the neighborhood and in some cases something could be prohibited. I mean somebody could still have Be able to build 10 units, but if multifamily is not allowed in that neighborhood. They wouldn't be allowed to put 10 units So this this then puts simply have back on the map Then they could potentially have had how many units if they could fit all of those 16 units into the bulk and massing Because that was the issue was that that was a in order to fit 16 units on that parcel They had to go and put them all in one big building and it was going to be 5,000 square foot but they could print now they can't do buildings that big right But if they they could have stepped it down the hill because we're going to allow them to build on a 30% slope So they could have broken up that building into multiple buildings and still have how many units were they allowed? Assuming they made it through the whole process and they weren't Under under the old zoning which had no footprint requirements and had no slope requirements They still Had to go and they still couldn't they had to fit the 16 to that one Big building that was the only way that they could fit 16 and they eventually decided not to do it Actually, I mean that was the least expensive way because they were building it that had that top of the hill But that's not saying that they could not possibly have Going down a rabbit hole.  I mean the the pieces that we voted on last week that this is related to is item in the chart it's item 26, which is Removing buildable areas from density calculations and We voted on that to adopt staff recommendation 4 to 1 with Barb dissenting And then item 32 which is to remove the prohibition Building on 30% slopes and in its place require engineering plans and a hearing. Is there any standards for that? Someone could go with engineering plans. It's just it's a terrible idea to do this, but if there are no standards by which It's good was the idea is if it's going to the hearing We do have staff downstairs the engineering department who do review it and usually what they what they are reviewing for and maybe I can put a note that we should be more Expressly clear in what we're asking for them to demonstrate but what usually what Kurt is looking for is Foundation plan in a slope stability analysis So what he's looking for is that is is a demonstration that whatever the engineering is going to work. It's going to make that structure safe and then separately they look at an erosion control plan If there's anything on the 30% slope then generally what they're looking for is to make sure bank stability is maintained and other So should we be clear about those? That that's what's being I can certainly put that as a note We want one of the issues with bank stability is that you can't plan grass on anything higher than a 30% slope so establishing bank stability at 30% is Is iffy so at least with an engineer plan You know, I would feel usually what we're looking for what he's looking for in the engineered plan is usually these steeper slopes are are going to be used With Retaining walls or some other type of engineered thing. It's going to keep the bank And that's the issue that we had with under the old rules You could complete naps. It's complete naps loot and you can't build a culvert across You know, you can't put in a curb cut across the Roadside ditch because roadside ditches were three to one slopes and three to one slopes of 30% and therefore you can't put in a new curb cut We said that just isn't Functionally working we need to have at least some opportunity to address especially in these small cases of an ability to Manage the slope especially if you're going to say I'm going to remove the 30% slope and make it a 10% slope and Therefore I can then plant vegetation on it. Well, I mean we could Remove that 30% slope allowance and limited to specific areas if you're concerned had to do with drainage and culverts Not the whole site I mean, isn't it? I'm not Interested in building on that kind of slope. I mean, do you think most people are gonna There's one across the street for me It almost ended up in the backyard of my neighbors. Yeah, it was it was frightening. Either they didn't do engineering plans or They did maybe you need a different engineer All right, any Any more discussion about the steep slope the removal of the 30% slopes or any more questions? Yes, I would make a motion We go forward with this the way it was voted on last time that we should address the number of units allowed in all of the districts again we visit because it was based on Conditions that are no longer under consideration. Okay, does anyone want to second the motion for discussion we could Second sure. Yeah, you know the discussion Maybe I'm not understanding that but when we have to look at every parcel then Every neighborhood no every every every zone every district because we set the limitations by district and those districts were based on on my 90% rule for the most part And we told the public that that's what we were doing Based those on that I would definitely think that we should to the extent we can get some information on this to know how much how much of What percentage of parcels across the entire city have these kinds of slopes and like getting that basic information and putting it Before this the city council when we make a recommendation to give them an informed You know to let them make an informed decision I think we definitely need to do that but as far as like on the front end going in and in revisiting the density I Mean, I'm I'm comfortable with just making slope and non-factor and acknowledging at the same time being very clear city council yes, this might mean that The densities are now more lenient than what you may have believed before and let them again Like I said find out specifically how lenient that is I'm passing that info along I do think we should do that The other piece of the information could be that it is technically possible to To measure these things. It's just a question of resources That's currently doesn't have the resources, but that's also an option They may have the software, but they don't have the personnel for example, but they've got Potentially right and it may not be a question of personnel if it's something that's contracted out We don't know Exactly that was in the details, but that's another so contracted out today to engineer Readily easily make a determination Right or they should be Pre-process a lot of stuff and so those questions the problem then becomes what's the sustainability event when you're updated or changes, but All of that's certainly certainly possible. It's just a question of is that So what Kirby's suggesting is that we need some kind of an assessment of how many parcels the parcels In the city that have 30% slopes on Yeah, I mean I think it would help to pass that information along and I would I would be in support of that I would also point out that just going off to what John said I mean for me too is just a Person who studied policy and like really values simplicity when it comes to regulations and in law creation That I like the idea of cutting Factoring in the slope into it. I don't think it adds enough to justify the added complexity Even if we can afford to do it. I don't think it's a good use of resources. I mean, I'll make that point too And I do feel like we got to a place with a lot of people where Density was just a proxy for other Other maybe traffic regulation Like before we asked like really what is it that we're getting at and then you've said building size and then parking on the street If that's what it boils down to then those are things we can address Density sort of a lot of hammering that we're saying, you know, unless you can afford this People in the Townhill Townhill I'm not sure that that was the issue for them the issue for them was parcel size Single-fam how many families are going to be on each particular parcel size? And Yeah, so I just think we definitely didn't please everyone with our know But we did run a long way to adjust our numbers in order to make them feel more comfortable and of course we adjusted the numbers to make 67% of their parcels non-conforming but Yeah, well, they're they had some level of protection for some of the parcels by exclusion of the 30% Because then they felt like oh this might so my neighbor can't suddenly turn their property into four families Because they don't have the available area maybe now they may have that but that would take, you know more of an analysis as Kirby said of Parcels that actually have That's just that gets us right back to the same thing if there's just there's just no way I'm gonna have the resources to be able to do that analysis just That's the reason we've got this problem in the first place is the fact that to do that analysis is going to require way more Expertise and computation than we can actually perform it again. It comes back to what's what is the value? I think in the end of Think we can I mean, yeah, that's what I was thinking. I was show them the math Well, I was thinking I mean we do know like about what percentage of the land is 30% or more slope, right? And just give estimates based on neighborhoods and in what areas of the city that this impacts the most just that basic info See as you see from the math most of the red is concentrated here. Yeah, except red is also roots, right? On that map it well, I mean it so I'm afraid that could be really misleading looking In some cases it excluded it in some cases it didn't it just got it's depends. I think I wanted algorithm They had run. I'm afraid maps actually make it look like a bit more of an impact than it really is because it includes some false positives Those are pretty minor in general. Are they yeah? I mean a lot of in the parcel that you had clearly excluded Yeah, but what we end up when in our Specific concern with this one was when we got to especially smaller parcels and that was why some of the suggestions I had would to eliminate using it on small areas. We have on Main Street some actual applications that came in As you pass the school and start going up the hill there were some parcels and there were either they wanted to subdivide or they wanted to go from Two units to four units and the question was okay how much buildable land do you have and a lot of the red was actually within the footprint of the buildings but we We ended up making people jump through a lot of hoops because we just don't have the ability to answer the basic questions of you know how much how many developable units can you have and The project that they had Once you excluded the slopes that were within the existing footprint They had to hire an engineer and they did hire an engineer to do the analysis and to remove these densities So they could prove that they could Build this project, but it just the question starts to come up Not everyone is going to have the resources that these guys did to hire an engineer to go and do this stuff And is it really worth it on these small small parcels to be really making people jump through that many hoops rather than just Going to say how big is your parcel and how many units that's the way 90% of the towns in Vermont are how big is your parcel?  You still have to meet setback requirements It's not our Obligation to make sure you can fully realize all of the density that's available to you even on Sibley Sibley could have built 23 units They were only proposing 16 because they couldn't possibly Give it to the slopes given that they know where they wanted to build it and Reasonably they didn't well that had been a fully flat parcel. They could have so but I guess we have a motion on the table I just want to address one thing that you said Mike so that you talked about a Project was that a project where they had four units and they were looking to go six That was no that was a we had two of them on that same stretch of road One of which was a single-family home that wanted to subdivide And They had the area to subdivide but they couldn't subdivide without first calculating whether or not they would have enough buildable area on the new lot, but they're automatically Automatically to allow to duplex According to the zoning, so if it was a one family, they should have been able to do but they wanted to subdivide They wanted to take their parcel and subdivide it two parcels I see and then use the second parcel to put another single-family home on but they had to have enough buildable land on that parcel So they have enough land. I mean, it's of three. It's a res 3,000 and they had 8,000 square feet plenty of land to subdivide into two 3,000 square foot lots, but they couldn't until they did a density calculation to determine whether or not they had enough Density on each of the parts as interesting as each example is Isn't I don't think it's really moving the discussion along very well, and I you know all we're already an hour in so We have a pending motion from Barb Which was to go back and recalculate the densities for every zoning district. Is that the motion? Okay, any other discussion before we vote on this motion All right, all those in favor say aye All those opposed Okay, so the motion doesn't carry what I did hear were some other suggestions based on this idea that we should probably do a little bit More legwork before we send this to council Maybe not the level of detail of going through and redoing on the zoning or the density calculations, but I Heard a couple suggestions one from Kirby one from John. Maybe we can document these and turn these into a proposal Well Mike indicated he doesn't have that information well some of it so what can we give them? And my suggestion was made and yet to the extent that it's not over burdensome on Mike and his staff some basic information on How this was will impact the city. I think that's a wonderful idea We take each zone and just I mean, I guess the scale at what scale do you look at this? but if the issue is Or I hate to say each neighborhood and look at the LiDAR for each neighborhood and Just that particular parcel would then give you a sense of how much Have 30% slope there might be in any particular Yeah, but it doesn't factor in a lot of the other factors that It's just diluting everything down to a point. It's like I said, it's getting back to Sibley and saying well You've got you know 23 units, but they could never build 23 units So even if we look at this and go and say well, this will you know potentially allow a unit of property owner and prospect Street now Could instead of having just a single family or a duplex could now have a quadplex because we're calculating in This full 30% slope, but when you look at the parcel, you'd never be able to build it and put in parking for the four additional and for the two additional cars or It's it's not buildable Anyways for other reasons other than the density What we care about is looking at each particular neighborhood and seeing what the impact is of This slope I mean, I think all of this information should be conveyed to council with this I mean, it's it's the implications of removing buildable area from density Calculations Will be felt most prominently in these particular neighborhoods or these particular areas of the city However, we do want to mention that various other restrictions from building may May end up Hampering development in those those areas even with the elimination of in the opposite is is can also be true though is This the 30% slope may be eliminating potential Like we said, we had to do this calculation for property on Elm Street Even though they weren't building any buildings, they were just going to add two units to an existing building Okay, we're going back to the one example thing again Want to get away from that? We do that a lot with the historic preservation folks that I but again, but it's that type of yeah But it is that the argument can be argued both ways right So that same argument they're going to say that they have the potential that they may never be able to realize I think we can keep the rules in we present the options we present our recommendation So the options are Remove buildable area as we voted Here are the potential implications look at the map another option is keep keep that as it was don't change anything and you calculate density based on buildable area, but if that's going to be The way we move forward then we're going to need additional resources We're not recommending that because we're concerned that it may not be a good use of resources But it's ultimately a city council's recommendation I think that maybe we draft a memo or something to this effect that has a little bit more detail in it I think Mike can probably convey that right? I Want to work on the plan? I agree, I Agree, but I never really shouldn't be too Time-consuming will bar in Mike will you be able to work together on a memo? because We have different opinion. Well, that's why I know the memo is going to be valid different opinions in the past Mike I mean, I think that It's the two of you or it's someone completely neutral and then the two of you are going to have a lot of opinions So it might as well just be the two of you although I think both of you will be probably be at city council and can probably express These ideas and have with the follow-up questions I just want to make a vision use of people's time if you guys really want to read it. Yeah, you're right You're right John and as a planning commission or as a planning mission member and saying there's no I don't see a lot Getting into the details and I'd like to go on record. So I that's why I want to see it I want to see the memo and writing and very clear So so the planning commission will also I mean sorry the city council will also see it in writing And it's not going to take us forever Now so and you guys don't even have to you know Concern yourself. Well, we're probably gonna want to review it if it's a planning commission recommendation Yeah, but once Mike and I work this out. It should be seamless, right Mike? Yes, all right. Look, I'm willing to help if you need help on the lifting I mean my bigger interest I mean same as John is is this is really a lot of these were meant to be Rather straightforward Review of issues that had come up in the zoning and that this was gonna be a relatively quick Amendment to the to the zoning and I don't want us to get caught in rabbit holes on this for I agree however, we shouldn't We shouldn't just ignore Potentially large policy implications. So we you know, you're both you're both right. You're both wrong. We're all right We're all wrong.  These are not easy decisions, but I appreciate everyone working through this Can I move on from buildable area and slopes, okay one more item on comments from the chair I know Yes I'm keeping track even if no one else is you may have seen when you walked in there was a slew of meeting minutes On the table, none of them have been put on the agenda for a view for tonight So we're not going to be voting on them or the ones that are on the agenda because those were not among the slew of minutes on the table I was shooting in the dark when I made the agenda because Mike was on vacation. So fine Your task will be to look at the meeting minutes from these past minutes before our next meeting and These are from the meetings of January 22nd, May 14th, July 9th and July 23rd hopefully we'll have August 13th to review as well at that point and It's not we have plenty others to approve and then We're gonna go through them really quickly at the next meeting. So take a look at them in advance Okay, that's it for comments in the chair item for general business Which is comments from the public about something not on the agenda? We have one member the public here nothing, okay? Item five let's talk about the all-committees city plan kickoff meeting and next steps I thought it was it was energizing to see all of the all of the people and committees working for the city and What how much overlap there was and I took a lot of notes and we have all of the Goals downstairs in Mike's office. I believe yep on those large pieces of paper Well, that's part of our discussion is what what should we do now? I mean, how should we move forward? So typing them up sounds like a good Yeah, I'd love to review those Yeah, that was said. Is that something I mean is that a task we can delegate to Tammy or to Probably has plenty on her plate. I just I know you're yeah, I can I'll See what we can come up with Okay Just the broad topics Right, yeah, yeah, I might just be able to you know find whoever to just go through and put whatever your because you took The notes and put the heading and then just type up whatever was literally on yeah Both them right now or even like photos of that Yeah, I think it would because I did generally ask the presenters to Make sure that their goals were accurately Reflected, so it would be great to see them typed up. Yeah Be one of the first things we add to our website might not be in all the correct order because I've got them all in sheets And I haven't actually oh, it doesn't matter. They can be in any order. They'll be in any it was random anyway Yeah No, I think there's potential overlap with a lot of them and I don't want to lose our momentum and like John said we should work on the city plan and not Go back and rehash the zoning that we love so much Yeah, well, there's some things we're gonna have to do but you know as far as Today in this meaning I would rather we spend the rest of our time talking about what we want to do for developing the city plan Sorry Mike Well, we will continue ticking through them But yeah, I mean for today, I'm not sure how much time we're gonna be able to give that and the city plan We obviously needed to talk through some of the buildable area issue So What what are I mean? I? Guess one of the first topics that we should discuss is With our website Committee members were asking whether There's going to be a folder for their committee or there'd be a folder based on topic My inclination is that we should do it based on topic and have various committees contributing to it So I guess I would advocate for by committee just so people have their space and We bring things together and organize the plan by topic obviously not by committee And it'll be interesting to see where different committees may have the same recommended actions or strategies But it may be you don't think it's going to encourage siloed work I'd say I think the committees don't need to limit what they write to Anything that's in that specific topic, right? So we can tag things in terms of advancing a goal in different Like the committees will have their folder, but what they write on doesn't need to become they don't have to worry about the boundaries of Being within you know that committee's purview necessarily or not and then when we bring into bring together all the Goal strategies actions targets, etc. Hopefully with identified People responsible and relevant programs projects That's where the where we have the fun exercise of putting things in different Topics and things can be in different topics, right? We don't have to otherwise you end up with like well are we gonna put this in housing or transportation or you know Energy or it kind of belongs in all of these and now we're saying just don't worry about it like put down what that idea is and we can frame it so That would be my suggestion just for for a lot of people to work through it and understanding that some people are probably not going to embrace the folder and whatever Google sheet we put out so also having Essentially, you know an easier to use Survey format or even maybe a box that's people can write things in here at the city hall They don't want to use a Computer do it did you talking about in terms of people are you talking about the committees themselves? Well, I think I think everybody I think hopefully the committees can have more structured Input and follow these guidelines, but I think we should try to be as inclusive as possible Capture as many different medians Preferences So they did talk about a public input Piece of the website, right? So they could use that potentially So I'm not clear who you're talking about are you talking about committee members who might be putting things in But I think Committees will give them the option. We can create folders with the templates and then you just jump in and use If for whatever reason Committees like we can't figure this out or we don't want to figure this out. Can we just write this down for you? Sure? Yeah, we don't want to like I think necessarily Hopefully our committees can come to that, but I'm thinking of those people who are not maybe necessarily part of a committee to make sure that they also feel like they can Provide input and ideas Maybe we're getting away from the question I always want to have a brainstorm about the whole thing so let it organically. Yeah I think I was gonna originally go with what was Leslie was thinking with the various Topics, but I think you're I like your ideas. It lets us be able to go back More easily to the originator of an idea if we if we just get everything in housing We might not know whether that came from you know Housing committee You know, we've got the housing task force, but we also have Montpelier housing authority. So, you know, who gave us that idea And they don't even have to try to put it in any basket Be interesting just look at all these ideas together and we could set it up So that essentially they can just hit when an idea is ready to go to the planning commission They say okay, we like where this is at now they can select that one and then they'll all go into one place And we'll know we can go back and see but we can also not do that Just look at them all together Could we set up the format in such a way that it would automatically link to a Document that's my topic so any mention of housing at least for us would come together Into a particular oh you mean tagging is basically both of it both of those yeah Yeah, we could we could filter it that way or we could go through as an idea comes in we could ask people to do it, but it'd be Think simple enough for us or Mike or anybody to to tag it under whatever baskets we want to look at Because ultimately it's going to go into chapters So one thing that came up in the meeting that stuck with me was when some of the committees asked basically they were asking to be assigned a basket and It made me realize that like at this early stage We don't want to narrow our thinking and we also probably don't want committees to fill territorial about like baskets or different chapters so any I think I think what you're saying is great and The fact that it avoids Territorial behavior or people thinking limiting themselves unnecessarily Those are two things I think that we need to consciously try to make sure it don't happen and that sounds like both of those things are accomplished by setting it up Court and just have the committees Go a while with any goals that they think are priority and then us worrying about cat cat aggressive and later. I think that sounds Maybe we set up like one pilot with one committee say hey, will you be our Thinking the energy committee Energy housing are usually pretty good. Yeah, actually it'd be great to have two of them So we can sort of look at that overlap. Yeah, the overlaps happen. Maybe we Fire next meeting to have that set up Formatting of the website We don't have baskets set up That's pretty easy to do though. I think committee yet, right, right? I think the website at least As far For anywhere in the near future. I don't think we set up those types of baskets Here's how right though we fold theirs that everyone can go look at but in terms of the website It's here's what's happening. Here's how to participate. Here's some background information on Montpelier here We can also set up like the progress that the committees are doing in terms of your ideas that That they've submitted so far but in terms of like trying to You know get the chapters set up as individual pages right now Maybe I would recommend No, I guess they were saying is so if the energy committee has their their goals that they want to Put in where would they put them and you talked about having one file for each right, right? So are those files set up? Yeah, okay, so the idea is doing the pilot want to committees to make sure that it's Or to identify we know it's not going to be perfect to identify those problems get some feedback so that their people are conveying their ideas or goals in the same or similar Scheme on format so that we can't bring them together Is there a basic, you know, like basic information format that we might want each committee to fill out Just so that we make sure we get the basic information Yes, and I think that's the key get getting that right and Figuring out what works and doesn't with those first two committees and and and the planning Commission my Original thought was to basically try to get Get things in to Two baskets one looking at goals and measurable objectives So it's sort of like the what and how do we know that when we've got there and the other being strategies? Which could be actions or policies Rather than maybe you could kind of split those up into here your goals Here's our measures our objectives, but I think limiting it to two and then having within those You know, what is the objective here? What's the measure? How do we know when we accomplish it? What's you know target date or data source and then Is there any like background information or other documents that you could tie to this for the goals and objectives and then the Strategies, you know, what's the action or policy? What goal or does it relate to who would be responsible for this? Is there a project or a program that's linked to it? Those might come later, you know, because that's quite a development You're gonna be a certain amount of processing this gonna come through with we're gonna Take and compile and go back to them to go through and you know because nobody's gonna get it perfect And you know so as long as we've got the idea of where they're going and what they're trying to do the committee's trying to do We can do a certain amount of processing to bring it back and go in as long as we've got it relatively close We can be able to bring it back and say this is how this is what we heard This is how we kind of reworded your So to to proceed if we're going to do something before the next meeting then Is this is there's some kind of a Base format that you want to put together or that you've already put together And then we use that to get Basic information I can send that out this week some of it will probably be like Coming up with like on the page some of the qualifiers or some instructions rather than just like a spreadsheet Maybe a couple of examples So what if I send that out and then we can all look at it and Try to finalize that by the next meeting. Yeah, I could try and Input to it with the information that I have from the energy committee. We can see how that works Yeah, okay. All right. Yeah, if you couldn't send it out I'm sure Stephanie would be interested in helping you with that too. Yeah, she said she would be For some of these other elements like that would probably be premature for some of the committees or whoever to get into You should re-identify them now and maybe gray them out, but just to signal like This is what we're going to be looking at and maybe to get them thinking about it So if we're going to evaluate some of these things try to prioritize if you have them thinking about it as well like what's going to be How effective is that what's going to be the most effective thing that we can do with the least amount of risk like try to get Folks thinking of it. How do we just make the most of our our resources get the biggest biggest bang for our buck I think that would be helpful for the committees to know where they're going Right that so we that they don't just get to a point then stop And then we have to kind of get them energized again to go to the next step But with the explanation that we're not expecting them to necessarily have so under and in hand Don't do this, but think about it. I think about it. Yeah It'll be great to have that. Yeah, I'm just thinking because Labor Day is And there was what is it Laura from the RDC? From Montpelier Yeah, yeah, yeah I had sent an email because she had worked on some stuff I think in Lancaster Lancaster So maybe she's just someone who could also With some time and working on this or has People read that article about Lancaster Did you see it? Yeah, it's Pennsylvania, right? Yeah, it was a op-ed in the New York Times that then got reproduced in the Times Argus Oh Yeah, ironically, it's called can American politics still work, but that's really not what it's about. It's about Lancaster. So anyway And also maybe on the site we could also put some of these other kinds of resources for like the Ed McMahon Tape if we can come across I guess we could you know anything that we could put there just sort of give them Other than the Seacore art, which is of course inspiring Sorry, do we do some Seacore art? We do I Asked James Seacore local artists if we could use some images of his art, which is a mob Montpelier I like it, but yeah, I think the Ed McMahon video there's the Ted talk and Sustainable Montpelier Just team bridges have a oh, yeah. Yeah, we should do that too. Yeah, so all of these video clips So I'm wondering a place In this whole thing for the team bridges presentation because there's a lot of background information That is not necessarily Yeah, I think the same we'll have a deposit a repository with all of these resources just say Resources about planning in Montpelier There Yeah, I think we want these groups cuz I know the parks commission has said you guys should have a copy of the green print Well, that's a great opportunity for them, you know Whatever they have as data, you know, I may not have everything down in the planning office. So if you've got it Put it in the Google Drive, and we all then have it and we can decide what we want to link to You know because we're trying to keep this playing short when we're done And we really want to be able to link to You know if we've got a green print that identifies this we don't have to restate the green print We just kind of summarize it in a sentence or two put a link to it use that as an approach There's certainly several different proposals coming up in the next few weeks that Potentially add it on to this as well such as the scoping study the scoping study complete streets play in I mean, there's a lot of Parking garage a lot of a lot of proposals that we can just link to rather than rehash By the way September 5th is going to be the public comment discussion I don't know I haven't I've I've been out for the past two weeks It'll just came yeah They'll just change that today Change the location today No, no, he didn't But no he changed the location of the meeting Which was going to coincide with this of scoping study? So it's no longer All right, you'll go ahead. I know we've talked about this before but I just I'm wondering and remind me of So it's the main outside of the committees if other Are we gonna have other ways to outreach to the public or is it basically going to be this website other? comments, I Mean It could be that really that I don't want to over drain resources trying to reach out to people who aren't interested in Commenting on the city plan, but I did have a little bit of a concern after the meeting that you know, it's a certain type of person Person like me who wants to you know town committees and if we can try and reach out to people who aren't I think one cool thing about the website is that we can all promote it separately in all sorts of different ways once we get it up and running Yeah, and we don't have a press as series of public meetings. Oh, okay. I don't see how we can get away from action although it would be nice not to To have other ways to engage with people maybe people that we don't usually connect with To get them involved It's mostly you know people feeling like they had a chance to voice their their issues and so It can certainly be a combination Have a website and we have a page open So people come to the public meeting and they can just add in while they're listening they don't have to participate But I think we're gonna have to I mean judging how active the public participation was in the last master plan No, we definitely will need a lot of public input I think all we're trying to do or that I was trying to do with this one is to try to go and focus the public input at a different step in the process in 2009 You know the world is your oyster. What would you like and the public came in with a lot of ideas and that that's good That's healthy. That's helpful But when we then turn around to go and say hi energy committee, here's your energy plan and they look at it and go and say but We weren't involved consulted worked on this this this may seem like great ideas to the public But those of us who work in the industry See that there are better ways of doing it so we're trying to just kind of turn the table it's a little bit and start with the energy committees and Develop a plan and then kind of take that to the public This is this is where we would like to go and if the public says they don't like it Then we've got to go back to the energy committees Maybe we could also say to the public now who are interested in being in being involved Why don't you work through a committee? I mean they could offer commentary to the committees And then that might you know facilitate your process because I agree it would it would be a lot more Workable to work through the committees rather than just having it as an open wide open Process that that was challenging all 600 people. Yes Yeah, I think What once we get through some of these goals that the committees have We can start to put it to the public and and put together a survey that asks You know, is this something that you see as an important aspect of Montpelier? I don't know Crafting survey questions is challenging, but I'm thinking that with that content. We can We'd be a better equipped to craft survey questions. So we were previously Then the public could come out with you know, oh, yeah, those are important or they could even rank them I suppose but they could also add Or Issues that maybe the committees have a concern. Yeah, and if we have the hub Yeah, I'm hoping the hub would be a good If we get that great Yeah, are we gonna have a high school student joining us? I was just thinking about that You know I haven't heard anything on the planning commission or anything either I mean we I did the survey. I mean well high school hasn't started back yet If it's follows the elementary school, it'll be this Wednesday. It'll be the first day maybe a month from now. Well, yeah We'll hear about that. I Mean we could specifically reach out to the schools rather than just one particular person Survey She's talking about When when the yeah when the high school the high school had reached out to all the city and so we did the survey And so I think that there will be a student from some class or program They're doing be assigned to us and start showing up at our meetings. Yeah, but I was sort of thinking just in general about engaging So it sounds like for the next meeting in advance of the next meeting John is gonna put together some templates or some sort of Mechanism for us to input some content Barb's gonna work with I Think Stephanie will follow you using but I think I think engaging with with Barb on behalf of the committee energy committee Laura Gebhardt Who has some experience with this? Stephanie and then I will try to dig up all of the various links that I've been sent for the basic repository that My job here So we have something to review for the next meeting and seeing how that seems to be working and And So that'll be our pilot folders. So I think folders for a couple committees and then the general resources Tab or whatever would be a good play a good place to start I Think that's a good good step. I just I want to make sure we keep moving forward, but I don't think we need to be at a Very crazy clip or anything. I don't think the committee is to be able to keep up if we did and maybe they would I don't know But I want to make sure we keep our momentum going I was impressed with how many committees came given the pretty short notice. Yeah, I was very impressed Yeah, and I think Mike you and I need to compare the list That we have and make sure we've got all of the additions that have been added since Additional committees you mean? Yeah We had a bait mention that she her she believed there were more committees So we need to identify if we haven't heard from anybody We need to make sure our list is comprehensive as well. So I think there's two we know the school We know we heard from the school board. It's Mary Hooper Could have included the school board and maybe we should get them for the next time Yeah, so I think if we might if you and I can figure out Who we haven't heard from and Who are the suggested additional committees that we have or haven't heard from we make sure we just have a comprehensive list of Everybody that we're engaging with And Jamie Granfield sent us the Email list that my my letter went to but I wasn't able to Open up the contacts on that. I don't know if you were No, I had her send them individually to me because of that. Okay Yeah, the the data that she sent us just wasn't it didn't I I don't know we must have been to do a software issue. So okay, so I tried a lot of things but I was it defeated me I Tried it It was an outlook Thanks, I used outlook to open it and I also downloaded some things to try to open it. No So anyway, okay, so I think that's that's something we need to do And I think we need to maybe create a list to be posted on our website of all the committees that we're collaborating with So that will be my task in conjunction with Mike and Kirby who apparently has all their Well, you can you were coffee it on the thing I sent out so look look there further Thank you. Okay All right, so we do have time to move on to zoning our zoning punch list. So that's item six on the agenda I don't know that everybody has their coffee with me I can share mine But mark and Mike and Barb you can also share. Yeah with your neighbor I'm gonna know what number we were on We've got a we've kind of Jumped a few but 28 would be the next one on the list and I did color code the most recent one You've got an older one So you haven't changed any numbers I Know he did I thought he did yeah, there might be some yeah changes. All right, well I've tried to I've tried to add them now only to the end. So yeah, that's what everybody's so before the color I think you inserted them. Yeah, I get as I got new ones But it on the left-hand side if they're green those were the ones that I assume Didn't need to be talked about or not talked about too much And yellows were the ones that I at least need to mention that there's something of concern to be talked about 26 on the colored one 26 and 27 Did we do frontage build out? Yes PC agrees delete figure three dash all three right. So yeah, there must be one another one later than that one colored version I'll print out new ones for the next meeting But next one I had with figure three dash oh seven remove parking areas as accessory structures But I don't know if we want to talk about the green ones or if we want to just jump to the yellow ones Well, we do them as consent because they're mostly smaller unless you identify to concern Barb Kim's notes. I have Kim's notes in front of me and he well his might be outdated too actually, huh? This is dated the 20th July 22nd Well, that was why it's being removed because they showed up as accessory structures And therefore had to start meeting all the setback requirements of accessory structures and that was a glitch Okay, so Yeah, I mean I'm in favor of just doing it by consent and then I mean this isn't the this is last opportunity by any means Next time we look at these. Yeah, there's one that we already passed over we can revisit So item 30 Well, yeah, I mean that's the thing is I so the issue at number 30 So this is talking about demolition of historic structures is in one sentence under applicability It says anything that is on the state and national register while under D2 it says something is either on the state or national register and That's not as big of an issue as Additionally the current practice Has not been either of these but rather it is applied only to the contributing structures within the National Register District So what this talking about is who needs to The demolition which that which historic structures that are being posed to be demolished need to go through This review process That makes sense. Mm-hmm. That's the big question because Way the current rules are written. We've got some issues in that I don't have a database I have a database for everything within the National Register District. I have a map color-coded which ones are contributing Which ones are not contributing, but that's only for the National Register District Which is also historically what was only being regulated The way this is worded things that are on the state list That are outside the registered district would now also need to be map showing Yes So the owner has to go through some active process to be put on the state list. Nope, they're already on the state list the state has surveyed But it's in big brown books on the shelf So it's not online like the National Register Listing is it it it's I mean there's a PDF online. Yes But it's we've got the historic district But the question will start coming up the question and basically is going to come up four other buildings We need to then evaluate Which ones are historic which ones are on the register and what well which ones do we want to apply the So the question is about the Vermont Yeah, give us give us a set of rules that you want to enforce if you want to enforce this townwide any Historic building townwide then that just means I'll have to put together the resources to do that from a map Question whether it says eligible for or whether it says is on the State register because if it's eligible that gets to another completely different level Yeah Yeah, well that one says and and then let me get 304 So if you're looking on page three dash nine on your book under demolition it says And But on three dash ten number two it says or So we should be consistent as to whether we mean and the list or or the list Get added to this I guess I thought we were always talking about the national register and so I Remember discussing the Vermont Historic sites It's I think some of this was added some of this is this is in 304 So this is stuff Brandy added But some of this was taken from the old Some of I think some of the standards are taken from the old Zoning and pulled forward So I think we just had a little bit of inconsistency because I know In practice that's why cedar street was able to be demolished without meeting demolition standards It was a historic structure and it was demolished And I think there was one over on north street that was also demolished Because they were out of the district because they were out of the national registered district So they didn't have to meet these standards, but under the new zoning It kind of is written as if they now would need to go through Because they are listed because they're listed in the state Yeah, and so we don't have maps for and the question was really okay Let's take a step back and just decide what's our policy. Do we just Really care about demolition of historic structures within the historic district Which is the cleanest easiest for us to enforce because we've got the maps for it Or do we want to have something bigger than that? What's been the aren't we aren't we going with sort of existing practice until we Sort of revise everything Yes, except that that's not what's actually written in the rules And that was the issue is now that we're revised now that we're doing a cleanup This this is mostly supposed to be trying to do some of our cleanups and that came up in our cleanup list was hey wait We've got two issues one is it now appears that we're enforcing demolition townwide not just in the historic district And two We've got this and or thing where it talks about and in one section and or in the other And we really should be consistent there as well. Yeah, that one is easier to clean up. That's easier to clean up I just need to know what we're Is this something that historic commission reservation commission is going to want to weigh in on? We could certainly get their their input I mean if we just do something now They may bristle it not having so just put a note get hpc input at this point sure Move on so if we skip to 31 This talking about riparian areas. Oh, yeah buried streams and buried streams. We now have have uh two of them So for anyone who wants to just look at what we're talking about this is This is berry street and this is wheelock. So I mean you'll notice There's just a stream that that has For decades been buried In a big culvert, but the issue is we have stream water setback and buffer requirements that now apply to people's backyards because there's a culture Running through their backyard and we just need to go and revise that there was also an application over on root 302 I'll say a couple weeks ago now because Been out for a little bit But it's another one where there's a culvert that goes under their parking lot And the question was are we applying a water setback to that? Parking lot And do they you know, there's vegetation requirements or all these requirements except it's a paved parking lot That this culverted stream runs through So we haven't handled this one before I know we talked about it I think we talked about that one before but we We just mentioned it. I think I'm just discovering them all over town now. Yeah, what's happening Yeah, seems reasonable. So the the thing that comes up is Okay, I think you've got your we can map it or we can I can come up with a process for If it's in a culvert if it's in a culvert, these are the rules to apply. Yeah, I think that is probably the best thing to do I'll draft some rules 33 Already done 32 right 32 already done. Oh, yes 30 One note on 32 is that kim kim had a note which is criteria for drv waivers should be stated which is what John Adams mentioned too Which is uh to the extent that we're going to allow for building on steep slopes. We should probably give some specific criteria What will be acceptable So I think having more detail about what the engineering plan should entail They accomplished that but we'll probably just need to discuss that a little bit more Well, at least at this point I've got a framework that I can start putting things together and writing a lot of a number of these yellow ones I need to draft language for but I didn't want to draft language until I kind of knew And I think that's the same for 32 now that I know what we want to do I can draft up some language and we can do some word smithing Is that is that one where you could borrow from somewhere like Seems like we wouldn't be the only city that would allow building on slopes, but You know what I'm saying? Yeah to get an idea of what other cities of Concerns were it's not writing zoning ordinances. It's Kind of pasting from others All right, so number 33 So yeah, these 33s that um Three o.a.p. I think that's slopes vision control um Applicability the first sentence is not applicability It's either purpose move it up or some kind of performance standard move it down Considering the intent of this of the statement is generally captured already in c1. I would just strike it 34 Also, isn't 3008 inconsistency and how slope is broken down. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Let's stay with 33 before we move on because um Just want to make sure Anybody who wants to comment on it has a chance So all you're suggesting is to strike the first sentence under applicability 308 point b Yeah Is that what you're proposing right? Yes And then so that 3008 point b would begin the provisions of this section apply. Yep. Okay That's actually the applicability I mean That sentence is actually a requirement Well in which case well the the 3008 point b Yeah, is talking about applicability what needs to meet erosion control I know our sentence is a requirement. So either we have to move it down I don't think we should strike a requirement without talking about it So the requirement is all construction activities that will disturb soil Shall implement appropriate measures to prevent erosion and sedimentation from adversely impacting nearby properties public infrastructure or downstream water bodies and then in parentheses it says for further guidance See Vermont agency of natural resources low risk site handbook for erosion prevention and sediment control So, yeah, I agree. This doesn't belong in applicability, but I don't know if we want to strike it all together Maybe what we want to do is It's not purpose either is it I mean no But the section c Says you shall submit and implement a professionally prepared erosion control plan In accordance with vermont standards and specifications of the action All right, so it doesn't okay. Yes. Okay. Yes. So let's just strike it. It's accomplished down there It seems redundant. Yeah, it is. Yeah, okay Just wanted to make sure. Yeah Um, I actually have to leave right at 7 30s. Oh, yeah. Okay. Well, that's a good cue for us to wrap up anyway Go ahead if you need to go So We're going to keep going through this at the next meeting, but we are um, We're going to consider Everything in green to be a consent item Yellow will go through. I think that probably makes good sense And Mike will circulate an updated version to us because we run out of coloring at 37 It's about the 30 or more. No more than 30. Yeah, we'll do that the next meeting Hey, it's green though. Yeah. Oh, I mean, it's it's pretty much a non It's just a matter of we talk about sometimes we talk about 30 or more and sometimes we talk about More than 30 So with a green if you do have a concern we'll take it up But it's they're considered approved unless somebody raises a concern Okay, because you said you're gonna research it I would make it consistent with what's on the map Oh, okay. All right Yeah, the the question is did the map is the map showing me what is more than 30 percent Or is the map showing me what is 30 percent? And more so I mean it's it's the No, it's it makes the difference, right? Oh, okay. We'll come we'll come back. We'll come back. Okay, so Item six is consider minutes from august or teeth. We don't have any so we're not going to address that this this week Um an item or that's out of seven so item eight as adjournment. Do I have a motion to adjourn? Do I second? John all those in favor say aye. Hi Okay, all right, we may actually not have anything literally


Now that we know how a processor works, we're going to start looking at how that processor can interact with other devices. So our processor doesn't just stand on its own. It also interacts with things like memory and various IO devices. And since those systems aren't going to be directly on the CPU, we're going to have to have a way to connect them. To do this, we're going to use what's called a bus. The bus serves as this transport that runs down, connecting all of these various devices that we might have on a computer. They allow our CPU to talk to memory, to IO devices. And in some cases, it will actually allow IO devices to talk to other IO devices, or multiple CPUs to talk together as well. The bus is used to transport all of the information that we need, all of the information that we care about. So it's primarily going to be used for data, but we also need to be able to do things like tell our IO devices that, hey, we'd like you to do something for us. In order to do this, we're going to be using what's called memory mapped IO. And that will allow us to interact with our IO devices just the same as we would if we were trying to interact with memory. So all of our IO devices will have a series of addresses that they respond to, and we'll be able to interact with them just by using things like a load word or a store word command to either read data out of an IO device, or to change some things in our IO device. If we want to display something new on our monitor, then we'd want to send some data out to that monitor to be displayed. We've had a number of different specific buses over the years, but we're going to begin by just focusing on the theoretical aspects. Things like the protocols. How do we communicate with other devices across the medium? What will we do if multiple devices tried to access the bus at the same time? This will give us a lot of interesting questions to look at, to examine, without actually having to look at one particular type of bus.


Governors of the all-progressive Congress APC insist on having a convention before the presidential primaries. And the People's Democratic Party PDP affirms that it has not zoned its 2023 presidential ticket to any part of the country. Or this is Plus Politics. I am Mary Anacol. The ruling all-progressive Congress APC met on Sunday, January 9 to decide a substantive date for the party's national convention. This was partly in response to the caution issued by President Mohamed Abahari in an interview that by the dilly-dallying, the APC might be setting itself up for defeat by the opposition, the People's Democratic Party, in 2023. Now, speaking with State House Correspondents, the Chairman of the Northern Governors Forum and Governor of Platu State Simon Lalong noted that deliberations at the Sunday meeting would centre on picking a date for the party's convention. Lalong explained that the party is working towards having its convention in February, and that despite concerns the President raised about the issue, the governors were determined to ensure that nothing stops the convention. While joining us to discuss this is Mooriz Baniere. He is a senior advocate of Nigeria and a legal practitioner. Thank you very much for joining us, sir. Thank you. Good evening. Great. So, of course, the party, according to the opening of this conversation, is insisting that there has to be a convention before they have the primaries of the party. And of course, this is something that happens. It's normal. But why is it that the governors are the ones who are fronting and asking that this be done before the party primaries? I mean, February was already set from last year as a month that they would be conducting the primaries. So, has anything really changed? Well, I'm not a party member, but I know from what I read all over your place regularly that a lot of intrigues is going on within the ruling party. And I'm aware of the fact that, like you already said, it is unconventional to have a convention come primaries at the same time simultaneously. It is not proper. It's not regular. In fact, it's a source of confusion. But like you already said, the governors are stakeholders within the party. So, also, a lot of other people that are stakeholders within the party. But normally, it's usually the national executive council of the party that's supposed to determine when actually that will be taken place. Of course, as you know, the APC cannot boast of such a body right now. And they do not even have a board of trustees. They hardly have any meeting of the natural court cause. So, most of the time, you're only here of the president, you're here of the governors, and you're here of the caretaker committee. Most of these bodies, for example, the governor's forum, the president, they are all alien to the structure of the party, as far as the constitution is concerned. Even the caretaker committee itself. So, to a large extent, the party has been in crisis. And that crisis is still lingering. And that is why I see this challenge that they are having. I've said it almost six or eight months ago that certainly it seems to me clearly that the inclusion of the party is inevitable. And I think they are working actively towards that. Thank you. Well, President Mahmoud Buhari had a meeting prior to this. And he was quoted to say that he wanted a time, a particular time fixed for the convention, which so many people have said that this ask by the president has further dippened the crisis within the party. And as the leader of the party, how much power do you think the president wields, you know, as to the fact that he would want to bring the party together or reconcile the warring factions to make sure that the party can go forward. Do you think the president has that much power, being that the APC in itself does have a lot of strongmen? Well, let me, let me, let me confess to you that while I was the national legal advisor of the party and a member of the National Working Committee and the executive council of that party, the president had always resisted invitation to be domineering in terms of party affairs as much as possible. But as since progressing, you discovered that gradually people in my view are gradually bringing all pressure on him to take charge of the party. In other words, submitting the entire party to the president. And I think that led to what happened eventually in dismantling the earlier structure of the party. If you recall that the meeting that led to the dissolution of the National Working Committee was presented over by the president. Again, that certainly also was an irregular act within the party constitution. But that had taken place, but the truth of the matter is that often now practically all the major stakeholders in the APC look up to the president for direction on all affairs, in all affairs of the party. So to that extent, I believe that they have on their own, voluntary submitted the authority of the party to the president. But when does that leave the national leader of the party, you know who I'm speaking about, the former governor of Lagos State, because he's also called the national leader of the party. What is his responsibility in this regard? But there's nothing like that. As far as I know, there's nothing like national leader of the party in the APC constitution. There are so many national leaders of the party. But he's known generally and nationwide as the national leader of the party. And members of the party have also alluded to this. So whether it's in the constitution or not. Isn't there the way people always in Nigeria tend to massage orders? But constitutionally speaking, there's nothing like national leader in the APC constitution. And if you are talking to the best of my knowledge about national leader of the party, technically you might be the president, maybe one in charge of the affairs of the country and the ambassador of the party in government. But generally speaking, there are national leaders of the party, not a single national leader. It's not a position that is provided for in the APC constitution of the best of my knowledge. So it's alien to the APC constitution. Let me push you forward on the issue of zoning. Because this is on the lips of every Nigerian. We're talking about zoning, pressure groups, different groups across the country, especially in the south, talking about zoning. So like I said, many groups are asking political parties, not just the APC, but the PDP and other political parties, that they should jettison the idea of zoning and throw open the party tickets to all and sundry. And I'm wondering, what do you think the APC will be standing on this, bearing in mind that you have been and worked with the APC? What direction do you presume they might be going in this regard? From my observation, it seems that the APC is going south from my observation. But that is not to say that again there is a limitation in terms of the law to any other aspect of coming from any other part of the country to contest. It happened before. Recall during the presidential primary of General Abrari that someone like Rocha Sokorocha also contested during that period. Now we'll tell you before that there was this unspoken zoning to the north. And the same thing is not unlikely to happen this time around also. It seems that the APC tend to be looking towards the south. Like I said, that does not automatically exclude the government aspirant from about as those of the country. Why do you think the push for the south is becoming more and more loud, especially now in 2022 looking forward to the elections? Again, I ask this not because I do not think that the south should be pushing for anything, but I'm asking we've been zoning for years. We've been rotating this power even though certain persons in certain parts of the country have been given the short end of the stick. But should we after this administration be looking at zoning or should we be looking at one who's capable to deliver? Well, it depends on your perspective. I must tell you that originally and for some time I've always believed in competency as opposed to zoning. In other words, let's look for somebody who is able to deliver the goods. But in recent times, the result of so many acts of injustice in the land and a lot of agitation in the land and beginning to think seriously speaking that that might appear to be one of the ways to address the tension in the country presently. Interesting. Now, there are divisions within the party bringing you back to the APC again. It was gathered that some governors are no longer comfortable with the goalpost shifting politics within the party and this has been credited to the Ketika Extraordinary Convention Planning Committee which is headed by Governor Balabuni. I'm wondering why do you think this committee has been plagued by so many controversies and I'm not just talking about one, I'm not even talking about this. I'm talking about several controversies which you and I have actually had conversations about. Well, maybe if you look at the foundation and the forces, how did they come to be? That's number one. Two, look at the composition, another challenge. The third aspect of it is the way and manner in which they have carried out the primary. The Congress is sorry, the Congress is in different parts of the country. To the extent that today, in virtually all the states of the country, you have parallel executive at all levels and that is one of the facts of meditating against the convening of any convention now because half a consolidated list of delegates to that convention would be an equilibrium that's even an impossible one for the Ketika Committee. Just today, I just read online that even in Kepi, for example, Senator Leroy just opened a parallel APC office and you know it exists in Kami, it exists in a lot of people in Lagos. There's a lot of places, all these exist. Which list are you going to ultimately use for this purpose? The problem is, I mean, the problem of APC is one that is saying if that I personally do not know how they are going to submit it. Even common membership register, there is no credit for membership register of the party on ground which is the foundation of all subsequent acts of the party, particularly in terms of the Congresses and the convention and even the party primaries. This is a sacred document but which is not necessary as we are talking now. So the challenge is like rightly observed and I do not know how they are going to theme it before the convention. I want to zoom in again on the question I asked and what was raised, the concern that was raised by the Governors. I want to zoom in on the goalpost shifting politics and what you think they were making reference to. What exactly do you think they were talking about when they said the goalpost shifting politics? The goalpost shifting means that there is no established rule or regulation in whatsoever manner. So the scheduling of the event within the party, even the Congress, if you recall, the date that was given, all the dates given were shifted almost to three times. The same thing with the convention that is stressing them. Again, the rules of the game kept on shifting equally. So there are so many issues that are plaguing the party, particularly the activities of the extraordinary Catholic Committee. You cannot say this is where we stand and you go to sleep at. You might wake up tomorrow and find yourself elsewhere. And that's what people are saying that there is a need to reasonable certainty in the affairs of the party rather than what it was. For example, their proposed primary is supposed to be February now. Often they nobody know the exact date. Committee ought to have been formed more than three months before the event because the convention is not usually a small thing. It's just a lot of logistics. There is a notification aspect to the commission which they can add 21 days. See, these are all the issues that people are wondering that, look, where are we? So there is no credibility right now in terms of the affairs of the party. And that's why people will say that the goalpost keeps shifting to the extent that there is so much of sustainability. The law appears to be shrouded in secrecy. I'd like to push you a bit further. This one is a pretty direct question. You might not necessarily be in the position to answer it, but I would ask because you were a member of the political party. Now, all of the issues that are cropping up and bedeviling the party as we speak, could these also be pointers to how this party was formed? I'm talking about the foundation of the APC. The policy, the blueprints, was it built to last? Did it have long-term goals? Are they seemingly able to achieve these goals? Or was it meant for a certain reason? And the time for that has passed, and that's why the party is somewhat suffering. Well, to a large extent, you might be right in the sense that there is still a large disconnect among the members of the party, particularly coming from different backgrounds. I want to have expected that after the merger, there will have been active effort to ensure that everybody is integrated into one, but that never took place, and I'm not too sure it's taking place right now. So, to that extent, the foundation itself might be part of what is plaguing the party right now. Again, what are the goals? What did they set for themselves? They set up an idea of power and the use of say. Beyond that, have they been able to build an institution, a multilet, a very strong institution? I'm not too sure about that at all. So, to that extent, I believe that it will seem to me, let me put it that way, that at the time of the merger, the primary motive of the party was simply to raise the power from the people's democratic party, which after accomplishment, people tend to just concentrate on the hijack of the various positions and offices that are available rather than trying to be the united and virile party. Finally, before I let you go, let's talk about some of the movements within the party. We've seen certain organizations put together and certain people, groups coming out to tell us certain persons within the party to run for the presidential ticket. We've also seen billboards surfaced in the federal capital territory of the vice president, which is also indicating interest for him to run for the presidential ticket. Would you get a comment on how these two people from the same place, especially the vice president and of course the former governor of Lagos State, Tinnabu, how this would affect the structure or maybe the body language of the southwestern parts of the party? I don't see it affecting whatsoever manner. Ambition is usually legitimate. People can always have ambition. The only thing is that you prosecute in a manner that is not divisive. But that's not the wrong guy. In my opinion, it's a strategy to have as many materials as possible from the southwest coming out so that people can have choices and at the end of the day we can have our best being pushed out there. Alright, well thank you very much. Mui Banire is a legal practitioner. He's also a senior advocate of Nigeria. Thank you so much for speaking with us. We appreciate your thoughts. My pleasure. Alright. Thank you for staying with us. We'll take a short break now. When we return, we will discuss whether or not the People's Democratic Party PDB has zoned its presidential ticket to anyone. Stay with us.