OK. Če sem prišla za pomečnje, narednjamo vse, da sem prišla vse, da sem pomečnje, da bomo priječnje vsi, da sem priječnje vsi, da sem priječnje, in sem priječnje, da sem priječnje, da sem priječnje, so neko biologijne, je softej metar. I dovolj da bi se zazakvačil in nekaj neko tudi nekaj vzela. Zato bilo, kaj mi zelo, sve nekaj je tako zelo. in nekaj nekaj, ki smo so videli v izgledanju. Prvno, izgledanje izgledanje je izgledanje nematikovih, kar ostevih, v dropletih. Kaj je ostev? Ostev, ki so ostev, Vse različite, da so nekaj izložiti, da je vse izložiti. Vse vse zeložite, da je vse izložit. Zeložite, da je ta vse izložit. Hvala. Vse razložite, da je pa vstupnila, ki je na vse zašečnje. Sve vse začne, da je kot način, ki je način, ki je začn, ki je začn. struktur. So instead of just having a loop, you have a framed knot. So there is a framing that is supported by this director configuration described by the enomatic molecules. And this is why we have additional invariance there. OK. This is a general outline. Of course we have, in enematics we have deskination lines and deskination points. And the lines are those that can make knots. And the points are those that actually turn out to be quite as interesting as well. But are not knotted because they are points. But around points you can also talk about knotting if you observe the topological structure of the director around it. So if you trace the preimages of certain direction in space, you can also arrive at linked states. And in our systems mostly we have these minus one-half deskination lines. This just means that in a cross-section even line goes like this. And you have these molecules arranged in a certain direction. Molecules, of course, not polar. So this is why you can get this profile that actually turns by 180 degrees. And mostly we have this conformation. This conformation is important because it has a structure. It's got three-fold symmetry. So this is why you can actually define a third integer invariant when you come around. If you take this profile, this profile rotates when you come around the entire link. And this is what is conserved. So when you have transitions between different states, we have to observe that not only will a knot, if you revire it, transform another knot which is at most one reliant, one crossing away. So you have neighborhood in the space of all knots. But it also has to conserve these invariants. OK, so what's the self-linking number? I will just recap this. Every defect line has this cross-section. And when you close the loop, it can close at any multiple of 120 degrees. This is actually a topological invariant known as the self-linking number, which decomposes into ride and twist. And here it becomes interesting. Because ride is actually a shape invariant. It's just the returns on the shape of the discrimination line. And the twist is the internal structure. Twist is this twisting when you go along. This is not allowed by the free energy. Not much, right? So we can say that in pneumatically cut crystals, where this is discouraged by free energy, the shape of the knot is prescribed. The ride has to be a multiple of two thirds. And this is why when you do this on colloidal systems, which I will not talk about today, you can always see the same shapes. All the shapes are similar. And they have to go this three-dimensional shape. It has to follow a trajectory that conserves this ride into. It quantizes the ride. And it quantizes it in a similar way, which also the tight knots actually conserve this approximately, at least, right? And what's more is that the self-linking number satisfies this conservation law. So the self-linking, sum of self-linking numbers of all the knots involved, plus twice the linking numbers between the loops, of course, this normalizes to an integer, plus the number of components equals the topological charge, which is in this case just a number of these colloidal particles, but it's modular, too. So this is even not effect. This is related to the up and down symmetry of the pneumatic molecules. OK. Where do we see knots? In a uniform cell, you actually have loops like this and you have these rewiring sites, right? And these rewiring sites have this tetrahedral symmetry, which, of course, also geometrically restricts this rotation to two-thirds, or one-third, or something like that, because this component happens also when you go into different systems. So locally, all the rewiring will look the same, if you have a system which doesn't have these stabilizing spheres, you will also have, just before you get the rewiring, you will have this characteristic local shape that always has to be the same. And we did a lot of this in pneumatic cells, so we just put colloidal spheres between two plates and fill it in the crystalline and you observe what you get. And in this particular system, 90-degree twist, which basically has a wire mesh of these collidations on top and bottom in 90 degrees, and then you have rewiring from top to bottom, we can actually prove that you can get all links and knots provided the colloidal grid is large enough. We also played a little bit with three-dimensional systems, but today I will talk about kinematic droplets. So this is easy, right? You put a sphere in there, a sphere forces a loop to exist there, and then you rewire one loop with the other loop with laser tweezers, or you just cool it down from a high temperature. But here, in pneumatic droplets, you have a much stricter rule, right? Basically, we only care about droplets which have perpendicular anchoring, because this is restrictive enough to actually force a boundary condition, because if you make the boundary conditions free or just to vary in the plane, then it can just relax. So you have to force it, and then we use chiral pneumatic. It means that the pneumatic wants to introduce a helical structure in it. Why is this interesting? Because helical structure requires a non-vanishing helicity, which is completely incompatible with the surface condition, which of course surface connection requires there is no twist there. So this is a deep geometric restriction, right? You have a twisted thing, and you explicitly forbid all twists on the surface. So what does the liquid crystal do there? Then we just run a simulation, right? This is what you get if you have free boundary conditions. So here you can see that it's not complicated enough. You have a lot of optical interesting stuff, but not defects, because you have a free boundary condition. If you go for chromatropic, you get something like this. And every time we run a simulation from a random initial condition, you get something different, because of course this is a frost-stated state, and it just kinetically freezes the diskination lines, which cannot relax, because between the diskinations there are these helixes, and it's just like a spring. So what we get is something like this. OK. So we get a zoo of nuts, right? This is not so recent paper, this is two years old. This is from simulation, right? And then we have a lot of questions here, right? What are the transitions between these systems? Because of course you can always, now you have a field, it's not just a knot. It's a machine line, which has a field around it. So there are free energy transitions between those. So if you have two states, you can always ask yourself what's the easiest way to transform this into that. And this is actually still an open question, because we don't have enough students to do this work. But of course this can also lead us to another question, right? Are the knots that are similar in terms of closeness in general topological rules without the field, are they also close here? So you have something that can mathematically be on the paper transitions from here to there with one crossing, can you do it here? Or is it forbidden because of the field around it? So we have to do some complicated transition which involves like four crossings or something. So we want to do this in the future. What's also interesting here, we have a parameter. It's the cruelty parameter that tells us how much this wants to twist. And we have a known boring ground state for nomadic. There is just a single point effect in the middle which can be actually represented by a small loop, depends on the exact free energy and temperature and everything. And then how do you get from this to this, right? You can imagine increase in clarity, you can do this in experiment, you can put in there an azodi, it means that you have a molecule that changes conformation under the influence of UV light. And you can do this transformation from a carol to carol state continuously and the question is how do you get there? And mostly the answer is you don't. These are metastable states. You can always start here and make it less and less carol and you will always get there. But the energy barriers are such that when you start with this you always get one of those structures that just have a discrimination loop stuck to the surface. It just expels this loop away and then it starts winding on the surface. So these are metastable but hidden states, right? You can get there by quenching by creating a random initial condition but not otherwise. So the plan is to start with a complicated condition because then you can visit all the intermediate states and see how they converge. This is work in progress but there is another important issue. This is all simulation. So did we observe these states in experiment? And the answer is not yet. At least not conclusively proven. So let's check that. We first had to develop a experimental method that can actually observe the states in three dimensions which is a challenging thing because this is like 20, 30, 40 micron droplet and you need three dimensions and you need direction, not just density. So this is why we used confonkone microscopy. For the experiment we made droplets but we had to use a certain mixture that allows this macroscopy to function because you want to avoid too much light diffraction because otherwise you don't see anything and we use this fluorescent confonkone polarizant macroscopy which is something that just excites the molecules of that direction depending on the direction you get a different signal of the emitted light. And this is how it looks like. You see there's a layer structure and this is under different polarizations of the incoming light. So it clearly works. You can reconstruct the angle from here for each slice. You see if the polarization is like this it's signal is strong and it's weaker if it's blue so there's a formula that can instruct the spherical angles from here. The two-dimensional angle, the flat angle it's clear. But the problem is the formula for the polar angle is different. It has a fourth power which kills the angle. So we don't know this from this. We only know the absolute value of the projection so what to do. But of course this is just a sign. And we do have the simulation code that we have the free energy which we know describes very well this system. So instead of simulating from scratch we just took this and simulated just the angles. We used stochastic method so we just it's simulated annealing actually. Because it's sort of like a spin system. You have a up and down in each point and we annealed this numerically to fix it. First we had to of course clip the angles because you have to know what's horizontal, what's vertical. And then you observe here of course it's wrong. Here it's not normal to the surface of the droplet. Here it's correct, here it's correct and here it's wrong. So after this numerical process we actually get a reasonably correct state. And the important is that if you want to observe topology this is enough. We don't care if it's a little bit scattered here if it's a bit flat here. This is clipped too much. These are all parallel. They would actually have to be fanned out a little bit but topologically it doesn't matter. We just want to see this structure on the side. And once we had this setup this is also a lot of optical challenges to make this work. You observed something different. It's not exactly loops. We observed point defects for instance a point defect with this distorted bubble around it. And this is also a topologically interesting object because we observed that it's a building block. All the structures that we observed are made of this. If you take a cross-section here you see that there's a vortex that actually turns here it's like vertical and then it goes 180 degrees down. So each of these vortices is actually a skirmjum in the cross-section. But this is of course just the point defect moved to the edge and there is some escape some complicated three-dimensional texture but no defects there. And then you go a little bit further with corality you get two point defects and there is another point defect in the middle. So as we go we get to the topological restriction in a sphere because animatic as here it can be represented as a vector field because you can just add an arrow at each point because there are no loops if there are no diskination lines it's okay to do that. And some of topological charges the wrapping numbers have to be one because of the Euler characteristic. So here it's a negative it's a saddle point you could say it's a point defect you can actually see in experiment under the microscope. And you have again two bubbles and it gets interesting because you go to higher corality you get all these constellations like chains of defects which fit nicely together it's just alternating one minus one, one minus one, one minus one up to five bubbles actually nine point defects which is amazing. This is just in a single droplet and you can also see that there is a symmetry here. These are always in an equilateral triangle and this is always a tetrahedron the surface points the every other one. So this is actually maybe useful to get droplets which have some valence to build superstructures from them or maybe as a optical resonator for liquid crystal lasers but of course topologically we care about these defects now and this is we can ask ourselves why points, why not lines and it turns out we do see lines. So we also see this this is a different set of structures which are loops we have a diskination loop which can wrap around some complicated structures which are actually just like this bubble but double bubble you can also see here that it's the same repeated texture again but no knots and there is a reason for that. We wanted to see knots we didn't see any the reason is that in simulation we used smaller effective droplets because of simulation is easier for a smaller system and we used a model for a liquid crystal at a high temperature just below the transition so the defects are cheap and this is the challenge that we have to get over now because it's difficult to perform confocal microscopy at a high temperature because of thermal motion so this is why we have this at below below room temperature and it appears it's not enough it's not enough to observe the simulated structure we know that they should exist in some regime but not in this regime but nevertheless we get at least some loops so we can anticipate that if you go with parameters further we can actually get those also through the loop through the bulk for a knot because a loop confined to a sphere is never a knot it would have to be at least a tors, to get tors knots or some higher genus surface for higher genus knots, of course so this is not enough so we need bulk discrimination loops but we did see something that wasn't seen before and this is higher order point effects so topologically they are of course allowed but there is a paper that says that there is a note paper that says that the harmonic map cannot have a higher than plus or minus one topological charge in there and pneumatic director is a harmonic function it satisfies a nabla squared equals to zero equation but this is a colosteric this doesn't follow the same rules so here we can of course have it's not forbidden to have point effects of higher charge but this is the first time we've seen them in experiment and this is how it looks like we have observed this point here and it's a perfect three fold symmetry actually in the confocal image and if you reconstruct this you can just see these three bubbles I'm not using this green shading anymore but they're here and it's a stable point defect and it's a perfectly symmetric structure and you can see that it's just this structure with two of those merged together so it's the charge is conserved the wrapping number is conserved but this is more symmetric and then you can build molecules from that you can take one of those take it away replace it with a chain with the same topological charge so you can build this stuff together it doesn't end there so you could also combine this with that so you could have a loop and a higher order point defect and any of these combinations so it's not exactly what you want to see but it's a new result so this is why I wanted to present it here because it's also it's still not published this last result it's a work in progress we submitted to nature communications so I hope this goes through and now of course this is minus 2 can we go higher and it turns out we can so this is a more interesting one because it's three-dimensional it's a tetrahedral structure there are four four point defects on the surface four bubbles very clearly seen this one this one and these two are out of plane and a minus three hatchcock in the middle and you can also combine this with another different structure you can remove this and put something more complicated there and this is geometrically interesting because we know what the building blocks are so you have these bubbles and you have to put higher all the defects around and this appears to use all the space now can you actually have a higher charge than that well yes if it's in the middle you could fit biper pyramid here or something like that but if you go to higher quality if you increase the quality here nothing can reach the inside anymore because you have this restriction you can only go one bubble away because then you have to come back here point and then there is something there and the next one has to be plus one next one has to be at the surface so these are the structures that are only possible for a range of realities which allows this distance from the farthest defect to the surface to be in some proportion close to the one helical pitch that this cholesteric requires here you can see this one is closer to the surface but you cannot go much further than that because then you have this all bulk to fill in and this bulk is filled in with regular layers because there is nothing else to do there so this one requires very precise calibration of the pitch the pitch to the diameter has to be exactly right and here we also then get okay this is a specific regime so are the explanations in the noted structures which is simulated also restricted and it turns out that yes if you have a drop that's too big if the clarity is too high you always get this structure expel to the surface there is always just a snake on the surface and nothing inside so these are all specifically reserved for this transition regime when the pitch is just comparable to the frustration radius if we go back here for comparison actually for higher clarity you only get this so this is sort of disappears when you go higher but how? this is also a question for the landscape simulations because does it just become unstable does it just collapse into one of those is a transition first order or second order and of course here all the invariants have to apply that I was talking about earlier so at each of these transitions here if you give a crossover the right has to change by two thirds there is no other way and also here the thing that I mentioned before this is usually twist equal zero not anymore because now you have a colostaric which prefers one particular direction of this twist and from work we did on the 90 degree twisted colloidal this array lattice of particles we know that chiral knots prefer chiral curves the ride of a chiral knot wants to be of a particular sign so we got all the right handed trefoil knots for positive self-linging number and all the left handed trefoil knots for negative self-linging number we have statistics here it's not in this talk so now that we broke the symmetry by introducing chirality we anticipate that a certain chirality of knots will be preferred to their mirror images so yes, this is still work to be done to go back to the end so now that we have all these building blocks we can of course try to also get diskination loops and observe the knots in experiment because then, if you do that you can also try to polymerize the core of the defect and then you can observe the knot or you can actually use this as a template for a knot you can polymerize monomers that want to go to the defect core and you can observe the structure and after we we try to get the knots we try also that ok, for conclusions I hope I'm not too quick I left 10 minutes for discussion but maybe 15 ok, so we experimentally didn't get knots yet we got a different also interesting system which has this topological defects of higher order that were never seen before and we now have a method that can observe the structures in droplets in three dimensions so now we just have to tune the parameters to observe this and then maybe report back and present the results then but these higher order defects are also interesting as a template for highly symmetric droplets for imposing three-dimensional crystals of these droplets and also as a proof that this theoretical result that holds for memetics of course doesn't apply here but now we can also actually see how the higher order defect looks like ok, thanks for the attention and here is just a set of my collaborators of course my supervisor Slobodan Zhumar the supervisor of the experimental group Igor Mushevich Gregor Posnjak who did all the experimental work and David Sejč who performed the simulations ok, thank you


And it's so easy to make and so much better than buying that ready-made stuff instant oatmeal that you have to put in the microwave that's full of sugar and junk. These are steel cut oats but you don't have to use steel cut oats. So I just, I like these because they're kind of chewy. So one cup of oats to two cups of water, it doesn't have to be exact. You can always add a bit more milk or a bit more water if it gets too thick. We'll add some milk at the end anyway. I like to add a cinnamon stick because it makes it taste nice and cinnamon-y and then put your stove on about medium till it boils and then turn it down to low and you've got oatmeal, a very rich insoluble fiber oatmeal, very good for their digestive tract. So I'm going to cover this and I'm going to go pack some lunches. Okay so now our oatmeal is boiling so we're going to just give it a little stir, put it down on low and then cover it and let it absorb all of the water. Now we're just going to add a little bit of butter, a touch of milk and now that we've made our oatmeal, you want maple syrup? Yeah. Okay, not too much, mix it up, blow on it to make sure it's not too hot and then see if you like it.


bit of a snafu on the Zoom link, but we seem to have that figured out at this point. We take up, I guess the housekeeping thing is when we call the different agenda items, Scott will see to it that the applicant and other members of the public who want to speak can participate in the Zoom meeting. Some people are in person at the Pine Street location. Most, many people are on Zoom. So we will figure that one out as we proceed. We also ask when people participate either as applicant or public speaking participant that you give Scott your physical address. That's what you want, isn't it Scott? Physical address. Okay, so then the next item is the agenda. And I will say that we will take up items in the order that they are on the agenda. And Scott just brought up the agenda there. Just showing off technical prowess, huh Scott? Yeah, right. Okay, so the communications, I think there was something that Ryan, did you post something a little earlier today? Yeah, earlier this afternoon I did. Just some correspondence from the applicant for 81 Dunder. Okay. Kind of last minute stuff, but I just threw up there so it'd be easier to see. Okay, minutes, I think there are, there were no minutes attached to this agenda. So we'll try to catch up on other ones. So we're on to the public hearing. The first item is 37 Hungerford Terrace. Kenneth Baldwin is the applicant. It's appeal of a zoning violation for an unpermitted term rental. It's the applicant here. Yeah, I see Ken Baldwin in the attendees list. Okay. I also have Ted Miles here from the city of the Forestry Office. Okay, so Ted and Ken, is there anybody else who's going to speak on this application? Besides Ken and Ted, nobody else? Looks like yeah. Okay. So I will ask Ken Baldwin and Ted to raise your right hand and swear to tell the truth and hold truth under pain and penalty of perjury. Yeah. I do. Okay. So I think I am my correct Scott that the city goes first in this kind of situation to present what the violation is. Yeah, that's correct. Okay. So Ted. That's going to appear in Ryan's window. Okay. I'll be a Ryan temporarily. Okay. Hi, Ted. Hi. Thank you all for this evening. My name is Ted Miles. I am the Compliance Officer of the city of Burlington. Property in question here is 37 Hungerford. The violation is operating a short-term rental without having a zoning permit. Warning letters were sent out to the owner of record, that being an address of San Francisco, sorry, Francisco Street in Los Angeles, California on January 20th, 2001, a warning letter noting about the short-term rental without a permit. Those warning letters were not returned to us. The notice of violation was created and sent on March 15th, 2021 this year to Mr. Baldwin and Mr. King. Again, at that address of Francisco Street in Los Angeles, California, the certified letters are returned as undeliverable. The first cast letters were not returned. Correct. Yeah, Mr. Baldwin found out about it through the attorney of the violation and has appealed that the city's allowed him to appeal that because of the notification. Other, but the owner's not denying the use of the properties being used as short-term rental without the proper permits. So the city is looking to uphold, requesting this board uphold violation and discontinue the use of the short-term rental within 30 days because the owners do not live here in state at the property. And that's a condition of short-term rental. Correct. Do you wanna add Ted? Nope, that's it, right to the point. Okay, any questions from the board for Ted on this? Okay, see none. Ken, would you like to present your response? Yeah, so just to go back to what he said, we weren't living at that address when they had sent it out. So I reached out to the zoning board as soon as I found out because that was an old address that they had on file and it bounced back. So once we finally were notified of it from our lawyer, we immediately took action and reached out to the zoning board to make sure that we weren't breaking any rules or laws. We had no idea that Airbnb was not allowed in Burlington because there were so many Airbnbs in Burlington. So it really, when we started doing Airbnb, we checked all the rules and regulations to make sure that we were following code and doing everything properly. So even like looking on the site, I didn't find anything saying that we were doing anything wrong. And we have been following all of the short-term rental proposal meetings that the planning department's been doing for the city. We've attended all like five of them. And since nothing had been passed, we didn't think that anything was wrong or there was regulation around it.  I'm asking for conditional approval to keep the Airbnb. And because what they had proposed from the planning department would actually allow us to continue to use our home as like a vacation property. Okay. And did you ever look at the zoning definition of bed and breakfast? Can you explain it to me? The zoning criteria is what we're dealing with here, zoning permits. And under definitions and zoning ordinance is something called bed and breakfast. I just asked if you ever looked at that. Yeah, I looked at it and we're not living on the property, it's a single family house. We rent to a lot of UVM parents who come to visit their kids. I'm super excited to be really close to the college, really close to the kids who live nearby. It's like 90% parents and families can't afford to like host a large group of people visiting their kids. So it is the criteria though is that at the owner occupy. Right, that's the missing criteria here. I mean, we're about three hours away from Vermont now and we come to the health lot and we see there as well. Stop. Yeah, okay. And I guess, you know, you're asking that you be granted use pending. You hope that what you're doing becomes a proof as a zoning, a conditional use for zoning or something like that. Yeah, it just been such a gray area with the city for so long, like because they've been trying to pass this for so long. So... I don't think it's been gray here. Yeah, I mean, there's other multiple single family homes that are being rented out with owners not living on the premises in the neighborhoods. So that's why I don't understand why we're being targeted. Well, people don't find out about these.  So that's why I don't understand. Yeah, so. Okay. Any other, does the board have any questions for the applicant here? So I guess I will ask. So you're, it's not really your intention to live at this property. Somebody's got their hand raised. Is that, I'm asking that? No. Ken, so it's not really your intention to live at this property. You'd like to be able to continue using it as a B&B that you rent out part of it and then the others available for you as a vacation place. Is that right? Yeah, I mean, when we bought the property, we were actually living in the house. And, you know, I wanted to be able to come back and forth because I had lived in Vermont before. I lived in Burlington and I wanted to, you know, keep the house. And unfortunately with the kind of work that I do, I have to live in my major city. That's where I can get work. And when I bought the property, the goal was that I would be able to keep the property, be able to come back and forth. And eventually, you know, down the road, be able to use the property and go there or even to like move to Vermont permanently if I could find work there. As you know, it's not easy to find like a job in Burlington that we could like actually transfer what we're doing there. So that's, you know, my intention. And are you renting out just part of the house through Airbnb? You rent the whole house. It's a three bedroom house. So no, yeah, it's just, we're renting a house. That's, I don't know where the city's gonna go in terms of what's before the planning mission of the city council, but being owned or occupied has been sort of a cornerstone of some of these short-term rentals. Yeah. I put like in the document that I gave you guys that they basically put that it's, it would be in conditional use in the residential districts when host lives off site for a whole unit short-term rental. So it would actually apply in a proposal. You know, I'm hoping that they pass the proposal but that's why I'm just asking for a little more time until the planning department can actually figure out their regulation for short-term rental. I typically would not hold my breath in terms of what takes to have something go through, a zoning amendment go through approval process. So that may not be a short process. It may be, but it may not be. Yeah. I mean, the governor really stands on the side of supporting Airbnb, clearly with like what? Just when, you know, I'm just saying like it seemed very, I don't know, we're not running a bed and breakfast, you know? So I don't, I don't know. So that's all I have to say. Okay. Do you consider long-term rentals? To college students? Or anyone, young professionals, families, anyone else? Yeah, we've considered that as well. I mean, the place is furnished right now and we would have to kind of figure out how to navigate that. But yeah, I mean, it doesn't work for us to be able to use the property to come up half the year and enjoy being able to own the house. So if we get someone in there, then it's, you know, obviously they've been taking over the place permanently.  Okay, thanks. Okay. Well, we will probably deliberate at the end of the meeting tonight, let's see what we do. And you can listen in on that if you so choose. But we'll close the public hearing at this point. Yeah. Thanks. Hey, Brad, before you close the hearing, I just had one quick question. Sorry for being late, Mrs. O's answer. Did the applicant explain what happened with the letters and why they weren't received and why the address wasn't updated? Yeah, I did explain that. We weren't living at that address. So they had the wrong address. So that's why I got a return to you guys. Luckily, that showed up on your guys' end that it was never delivered. So, you know, once we found out, we took care of it immediately. And do we not, the city now has an updated address for you? Yes, yeah. Okay. We're in upstate New York, not too far. Thank you. Okay. Thanks. We will, this hearing is closed. We'll move on to the next agenda item. This is an application for 31 North Avenue, which is a variance for a front yard setback along Tipo Street. It's the applicant here. Unless you have the tablet open, you can sit here. Do you want to look at it? Yeah, I'll have it open. Hey, Scott, can you get that a little bit more centered on the screen or something? Kind of put it up there. So this is not Ryan Morrison. Right. This is Steve Trombly. It is. Okay. Is anybody else going to speak on this application besides Steve Trombly? Scott, is there anybody in the public or anybody else? We have live bodies here of Pine Street who wish to fight them. Okay. So. We have Zoom individual as well with their hand raised. So we have a number of people. Can you identify them? We have Bill Pearson on Zoom. And their names are Susan Eisenstadt, and Carl Miller in person. What's that name? Carl Miller. Okay. It just easy for you to keep track. I can't see people and stuff. So we've got a number of people, including Steve Trombly, Bill, Susan, and Carl. If those four people will raise your right hand and I will swear you went to tell the truth and hold truth on the pane of penalty perjury. Do you? I do. Are the people in the audience there saying yes, Scott? I didn't hear you. Okay. So it's interesting that this is, we're appealing a front yard setback on Depot Street with an address of 31 North Avenue. With that, I'll let you take it away, Steve. Yes, actually we just got a notification that they are re-addressing it to 120 Depot Street just a couple of days ago. I think it finally caught up with the city folks. Okay, good. It was incorrect. Yeah. So you're appealing this, and I think the issue, if I understand correctly, is that this Depot Street is the rear yard for a lot of properties on North Avenue. And if you align with those, you're set back off the street, is that? That is correct. Yes, that there would be no developable or buildable lot if we had to adhere to that. And that's the variance that you're seeking relief from. Yes, and it has been in place prior to this. This is more or less a renewal. The variance has been in place before this. It has been approved prior to this, but it expired, so we are reapplying to get it renewed. Okay. I'll ask other, do the board members have any questions for the applicant here? Sort of. Yeah. And just with mine hearing a little bit more about accessibility to this parcel, I wrote my bike down Depot Street and saw a sale sign, I think. Depot Street is closed. You can't drive on it. So I guess I'm just trying to understand what the future of this parcel holds. The way I understand it is that this, having only that access on Depot Street, that that would be it, there would be an exception made to allow for access to this lot since it's the only access to a lot. And there's no way, no way to access it from North Ave at all? Or is it just challenging to do that? No, there's no access unless of course, someone was willing to provide an easement. And I think that's probably unlikely. Is that, does your property not go to North Avenue? No, it does not. Okay. This may not be anything you can answer, but are there other properties along Depot Street that don't want, I'm looking at neighborhood city of Burlington is next year here. And the other side is the condominiums that just got recently built. Is that right? That is correct. So there's not a lot of other land around here besides this parcel. No. And I guess to follow up on Jeff's question, what is the slope at topography going from Depot Street to your front yard? Is it accessible? Yes, it is.  Yeah, I'm challenged to see how you would even access it from Depot Street. I mean, the slope is so extreme, both of the lot and of Depot Street. It does not seem like it'd be very advisable to create some sort of access there. Actually, it's pretty straightforward if you're standing on Depot Street. You can, it's a reasonable slope, if you would. I'd be happy to meet you folks there if that were helpful to do that. But it is, if you look at the topographical map, it would show you that the elevations at Depot Street are quite manageable. Yes, go ahead. Go ahead. I'm not sure, but I don't think that there are city services such water and sewer from Depot Street. They're actually, say again. There, we have already come up with a couple of scenarios for the sewer. The water is right at the Depot Street side of it. There's a water main right there and the electrical is right there as well. What about sewer? Sewer, both access from North Avenue and Lake Street. You don't have access to North Avenue? Actually, I've spoken with the folks at the police department and the folks at the city attorneys and that there is a reasonable likelihood that they will allow an easement in that direction. And there's already access to the one on Lake Street. Hey, Scott. So this says, I just have a question real quick. So we're only talking about a variance here, correct? We're not, I'm looking at the staff report. It says that no development is excluded with this group. So we're just looking at the variance request itself. Right, you read my mind, Keenan. There's no development here. This is a variance request as the applicants noted. The same variance was granted a few years back, but simply expired. This is really about the front yard setback, the way it's calculated. Basically overlaps with the rear yard setback. So there's no way to build this in performance hence the variance request. The variance is granted then we'd like to see a subsequent permit application for building something. Well, I am curious to hear these. We've got three people. Scott, two of them are present in the room there. Correct. Can I have one of them speak and tell us what they have to say here? And if you just introduce yourself, it'd just be easier. Susan Eisenstadt, I'm going to come to a point, which is a 30 point.  Can you introduce yourself? I didn't hear who you are or what are you saying? Yes, hello. My name is Susan Eisenstadt. I live at Commodore Point, which is a 16 unit condo building at 33 North Ave. Okay. Yeah, so in relation to the variance, I was at a meeting a few years back when the previous buyer had asked for a variance. And it was the second, I believe that there were two variances given to that previous buyer that didn't go through. We were told at that time, which I believe was three years ago, that there would be no further variances. So that was one of the questions that I had when it was very clear at that time, I'm assuming that that was documented somewhere, that there were not going to be any further variances. We are concerned about, and maybe this isn't the correct time because this is just on the variance, but we're avid bike riders and we go down Depot Street almost daily.  And we believe this would impact the safety of those people on bikes and walking, including very young children. There are people with strollers, bikes. I mean, it is a constant flow of traffic up and down that street, all hours of the day and evening. And then the other thing that we're concerned about is erosion. Some of you may know that we had a disaster in our property Halloween night, 2019, where our bank on the other side of our property was completely eroded down to Depot Street from our driveway, from North Ave, through our driveway, over the curb, down the bank. And we are very concerned about what the construction on 120 Depot Street, how that would impact our adjacent property in bank. Yeah, I'm probably a legitimate concern. That would be something I'd get addressed if any development occurs, but understandable. Any questions for the neighbor here from the board? There's a stone wall on the plans that says it's to be relocated. Looks like part of that stone wall is on the property you're referring to. Is that related to any retention or retaining for your property? I really don't know the answer to that. Okay, if you've got anything else, I would move on to as two other people that want to comment, so thank you. And who's the other person there, Scott? Well, we're together. Oh, okay, no. If there was it for in-person that... Okay, and is one person on the phone, is that right? So my name is Bill Pearson. I live at 33 North Ave in the same building as the size and stuff. Yeah. I had sent a description of my concern to Mr. Gustin and the board may have seen it. I would like to ask a question before I launch into that. My question is, is the front yard setback from the edge of the property, from the edge of the lot, or is it from the asphalt on deep coast? It appears to be from the edge of the lot. That's typically where... Thank you. Okay, so I made a mistake then when I sent in my concern. I was thinking when I wrote about stormwater, I was thinking that the building could conceivably be 10 feet from the asphalt, but if the building will be 10 feet back from the edge of the lot, then my concern is moot. I've been worried about stormwater, but given your answer to the question, I don't have a concern now. Thank you. Any questions from the board? Mr. Pearson? No, okay. I'm Carson, I'm Zoom, who's looking to speak. Sally Edith. Who is that? Sally Edith. So I'll let her speak in a moment. So Bill, we need your mailing address, please, for a follow-up. Thank you. My mailing address is 33 North Avenue. You know what? You know what? Thank you. And who is speaking now, Scott? So Sally Edith, and speak now. And Sally? Sally Edith. I live at Commodore Point as well. Okay, were you sworn in at the beginning of this? No, I wasn't. Okay, would you swear to tell the truth and hold truth of the pain of penalty perjury? Okay. Thank you. I was concerned about the stormwater as well. I live at Commodore Point. I know about how our driveway washed out, but I no longer have that concern either. I just want it to be registered that I was here. I do care about how the property proceeds. Thank you. I have a question for Scott. Is this your project, Scott? Yeah, yeah, okay. And this is sort of curiosity and is not necessarily relevant at this moment in time. But this property is essentially on a city street that is not available. Is that true? It's sort of, look at it, I think it's do not enter from both ends, I think if I am just remembering. Yes. Yeah, yeah. That's correct, there are limitations. Yeah. And I had checked in with the Public Works staff when this first arose a few years back and basically to paraphrase, they would allow vehicular access to this property because it's existing. Okay. But it wouldn't result in opening up the street for normal usage. Okay. Okay. Any other questions for the board for the applicant at this point? And is Steve Tromper, is there anything else you want to add at this time? No, I don't believe so. It seems that it's pretty clear cut from my side as far as just being a renewal, frankly. Okay. Then with that, we will probably deliberate. Actually, Brad, I'm sorry, I do have one follow up for Scott. One of the commenters raised a point about some representation of the prior variance was going to be the last variance granted. Do you have any indication of what she was referring to? I think that was probably the extensions of the variance. The variance was granted. I forget the exact number of years. We'll say some years ago, and it was extended two or three times. The last time of course was the end of the road for extending it. That's why we have a new variance application. Okay. That's helpful. Thank you. Okay. And with that, we will close the public hearing. Thanks everybody for participating in it. Thank you. Okay. Next item is 41 Pine Place. And I think basically we're back for a request for a three bedroom short-term rental, two bedroom boarding house with a parking waiver request. That's really the basic new information. Is that correct, Scott? Yeah. The new information provided pertain to parking waiver. Yep. And I don't want to jinx anything, but maybe we arrived at a place for approval, but that's your call. Yeah. So the applicant is here. I see somebody here. Some of you is not Ryan sitting there, and that is... Sam Catalano. No, oh. Sorry, Sam Catalano. Sam Catalano. Okay. I know you've been here before. Is there anybody else who's going to speak on this application? Hi, if you're on Zoom and want to speak, raise your hand, please. Nobody in person or on Zoom, right? So Sam, I swear to you, when do you swear to tell the truth and hold truth on the pain of penalty or perjury? I do. You do, okay. And you have been patient. You've been here a number of times, and it does seem that maybe there's a path here that going forward. So you put an explanation of, you actually mislead part of it, but basically you're asking for a one, two-space parking waiver. Yeah, there was a little bit of miscommunication or misunderstanding, and we weren't sure if I needed one or two for my additional one or two for my usage, but somebody pointed out last meeting that you can ask for up to 50%. So I just went ahead and did that. I think that seems simple. So I, and I think you actually have, you may be able to squeeze more in there because you go to this historic space that we're not counting, but we know it's there. So a little sleight of hand there. Any other, anything you want to say at this point? I don't believe so. I think as long as everyone saw my waiver and read through it and understands what I'm asking, then I think I don't have anything else to add. Anybody, any questions from the board for the applicant here? Yeah, this is Jeff. The, thank you for the work on the parking plan. I just want to make sure I understand there. You've got two tandem parking spaces, four and two tandems. One of them is used for the residents, but the parking for the short-term rental will be in tandem. It will be a garage and a space behind the garage. Is that correct? Yes. And I think we're only allowed to approve that if we come to the conclusion that a parking attendant will be provided and available at all times to move any cars that need to be moved in that tandem arrangement. I will just add real quick that the way that the house is split, it's a vertically split duplex. So it's just half and half.   So it's almost as if they're two separate entities. So I control the parking on my side and the short-term renters will have access to either move their car or leave it or open the garage at their will. And you have noted that you rented out to one group, right, you're not renting out the house. Absolutely correct. Yeah, typically it's a family or small group and they cram in a car and come up here and park the car and rent bikes and walk around and do what tourists and visitors typically do. Okay. Jeff, anyone else want to ask? No. Okay. I think we'll close the public hearing and sadly, we probably won't see you again, Sam. I don't know. I'll come in for coffee one day. Okay. Okay, we'll close the public hearing here. Thank you. Okay, next item is 141 Star Farm Road. And is the applicant here for that? Let me see. I don't see Kyle in the attendees list. I think the single calling, I was gonna say maybe that's Sharon Busher, but I see her name here. So if you're the applicant for the home on Star Farm Road, please raise your hands. One caller just disappeared. I'm not seeing a hand up, Brad, so maybe we should revisit this for us. We'll go on to the next item and then come back to this one. That's all right. Okay. We'll pause on 141 Star Farm Road. Next item is 237 241 Riverside Avenue. The applicant is Steven Kencreddle. I pronounced that right. And it's a multi-family apartment building which doesn't begin to say what it really is. So is the applicant here? We have Steve Credell. Okay. And is there anybody else who, well, we don't swear people in on a sketch plan. So we can just get right into this. So it looks like an interesting project. You want to run us through it? Steve? Sure. I would just note that what we try to do here is ask questions that might need to be answered or give you some feedback so that as you develop the plans, we've made some progress in terms of the review when later on. So take it away. Thanks a lot, Brad. Steve, do you want to share your screen or do you want me to show what I've got online? That'd be great if I could share the screen.  All right, just give me a second. Okay. All right, Steve, you're good to go. Can you hear me all right? Yes. Okay, great. So I'll go through this pretty quickly. So this is the multi-family building that we're considering over on Riverside. This is between the car wash and the water treatment plan. And so I thought it'd be good to touch on some quick goals that I didn't include in what I submitted to Scott. And just the overview is we're looking at some new modern environmentally conscious workforce housing in Burlington. So there's 65 total units that we're considering and we're looking at making these really trying to approach net zero and we're getting really close. Are we gonna go carbon free and we're gonna any energy use we're trying to offset by solar. So all the power we're gonna use here is gonna be electric. And part of the premise here is that we don't think people should spend 30% of their rent, 30% of their income on rent. So we are looking, you can see the breakdown here. 24 of the units would be offered at below 65% AMI, 40%, 24 and another 40% at less than 80% AMI and then 17% offered at market rate. And then also we think the site and the location between the Old North End and Winooski is really advantageous. So we're right along the bike path. We have a bus stop right there. We are looking at having a dedicated bike storage and maintenance, EV, charging stations, car share and transportation communication on the premises. And then lastly, this site is somewhat of a marginal site being right next to the water treatment plant. So we're trying to make a purposeful use of this marginal site. So a big thing with the energy efficiency we're seeing just from the data we've collected that we're gonna use much less energy than a conventional building would use. And so I can go through all this, but I mean, the big thing here is with 65 rental units, if we're saving on 400 CCF per rental, we're looking at a savings of around 26,000 CCF of natural gas. And for scale, that's really, we're looking at that's approximately equal to 341,000 passenger miles per year, 16,000 gallons of gas or 135 acres of trees grown for one year. So there's some pretty lofty goals for this project. Really the only thing we don't think we can control here in terms of energy is the plug loads that the tenants are gonna use. And so part of the goal here is by using less energy, that helps us very much make these units more affordable. And so this is I think a great graphic of showing a gas baseline, just the amount of energy that's used with just for the hot water versus gas versus electric versus what we're proposing to use. So the basic point here is we're gonna lose a lot, a lot less energy and that's gonna be better for environment, it's better for the users and it's better for Burlington. I think it really meets some of the city's lofty goals. So this is the site that I mentioned right along Riverside and this you may have seen it, we're right along the bike path and we have a bus station. The site isn't as steep, it's steep right up at the bike path but then it really starts even out towards the back. And as you can see, it's the car wash to the right and then the sewage treatment plant to the left. And there's two different zoning districts here. There's an RCO zone in the back and then the NAC Riverside zone in the front, which is demarcated by this orange area. So what we're proposing with this house because we're trying to make this as livable and sort of vibrant as possible is putting the house within that NAC zone for the most part, but then tweaking it just so, so we cross over into the RCO zone and kind of block the sewage treatment plant. Otherwise people in their units would be looking directly at the sewage treatment plant. So this instead would make it so that people are looking out towards the south and back towards Winooski beyond. So this sort of illustrates that red line marks where the NAC zone stops and this back here is the RCO zoning district. And again, it's really trying to change the focus or take the focus away from the water treatment plant. So this is just to look at, we have parking on site. There's about 48 parking spots here. There's gonna be a number of compact spaces and then some full-size spaces, but we are not gonna be one-to-one for parking spots. And that's partly to encourage less vehicular use here. We will have bike storage and bike maintenance, like I had mentioned. And then each of these units are gonna be pretty small. And so we're gonna have 24 units on each level and they're about 350 square feet or so and each has their own kitchen, bath. And then there's also some, there's shared laundry and a shared communal kitchen just for when you have gatherings larger than, where you have guests. And so then a fitness area. So a bunch of different amenities throughout the project. So these are the upper levels. And partly what these, I'm calling these canyons in between these three volumes. That's really there to try to break down the volume of the building and break down the scale of it. So land is up higher. Then on the upper level, these would be loft units and a couple of courtesy units here. So when you have guests, they'd have a place to stay. So that's the upper loft unit. And we're proposing natural materials. So carbonized wood on the upper levels and then a natural wood at the, let's say the smaller units and a lot of glazing we have here and then concrete to act as structure but then also a screening for the parking beyond. So this is looking the other way. We really see this as contributing to the street activity here. So people outside looking out along the street with some planter boxes and places to sit and pull in your bike and really to be a contributor along the bike path in this heavily traveled corridor. So that's the big overview of it. If I'd love to hear your comments. Can you talk a little bit about the unit sizes? I mean, it's a fascinating concept. I'm just curious about it, you know, 350. So the unit sizes for those, let's say the level one and two for living, they're about 365 square feet each. And so they're essentially loft units. And then those upper units are between 500 and 600 square feet and they would have living on the, let's say it's lower floor and then sleeping on the upper floors. So when you say a loft unit, you mean like an efficiency? Yeah, exactly. And I'm just curious about it. I think it's an interesting looking building. It's a fascinating concept. Has this been done on the places? That's the kind of thing. Yes, yeah. You mean the smaller units? Yeah, it's been done in a lot of, let's say Boston, different Northeast Eastern cities. So New York, I think there's one going on in Atlanta. So I mean, these are intended for single or couples, I take it, right? It could be either. And we've talked about that during the NPA meetings that we had, so what, who the target was. And we really see it as people who are trying to downsize but then also people are trying to get into Burlington and trying to get a foothold and don't want to, I would like to live on their own. So that's the big thing here to be labor force housing. The rents are reasonable. And that's one of the questions right now is, so you're doing PV panels? We are, yeah. On the roof? On the roof? Yeah, we're doing them on the roof and we'll see this in later iterations just to cover, to get all the coverage we need for solar. We're looking at potentially making, using some of them as shading devices for the windows out in the front because we can't quite get all of the solar with just our roof coverage right now. And horizontal or sloping them? Well, we're talking with sun, we're dealing with sun common right now. We keep going through different iterations about what's gonna be the best. Okay. And we're talking with the fire marshal too about just access and how much coverage we can get. Oh, they have a restriction on access around the panels, don't they? Right, right. Other questions from the board for the applicant? Hey, yeah, I just, I have just a quick question. This is a pretty exciting project. One of the perennial issues with Riverside is slope stability and erosion and I'm just wondering what kind of work has been done or what is plenty of work is planned to be done to ensure that there's a stable slope to support this building. Yeah, so we've had a geotechnical test done initially and we're gonna go through a second round of those too. And we're gonna take, if it looks, we're gonna start doing soil borings at key locations where our structure is. But this slope is, it's not the same as it's steep right at the bike path, but then it really does start to level out where the existing house stops. And so, and then it sort of rolls gently back towards the, back towards the river. But so far with all of our studies, we don't have any concerns. And... You do lose 15 to 20 feet in that NAC zone of height. When you say it's, may flatten out beyond there, but you're going 15 to 20 feet of change of elevation within the footprint of this building. And we did look at putting the parking down lower, like when you come in and then it just started to get yeah, just cost too prohibitive in terms of the amount of work we'd have to do. So right now we're looking at piles here and pile caps, but so far nothing seem, everything's doable. Well, that's just following up with Key and Sam. That's just one area that there will be a lot of questions about and we'd want to see a lot of information on. Okay, and so we, yeah. Okay, and we have the initial test and we're gonna keep developing that. Okay. This is Jeff, just to put a fine point on that. We did require a recent developer to do the full geotechnical analysis and provide us an engineering study, providing an engineer opinion that it was safe to do. So I expect we would require something similar to that for this complete application. Okay, we're prepared to do that, Jeff. Thanks. This is Sean. Also, I noticed further on in the notes that if there are any retaining walls, those would have the same intensive scrutiny given the history, especially on that side of the road. So we'll be looking very, a lot of curiosity in that. All right. The rest of your project, there's plenty of things I really like about it. Oh, thanks. I guess this is a question, again, I forget whose project this was. What are the other side yard front yard setbacks on this project? There are, this is your setback from the curb. Say that again, Scott. There's only a setback from the curb. So no side yard setbacks? Correct. Because it's in the, in a neighborhood activity center, John. Right. Okay. It seemed like they went up to them anyways. And a setback from the curb, is that the typical 12 foot? Yes. Yeah. Okay. I think most, I mean, I, I think it's a good looking building. I think it'd be an exciting resident on the street. Probably traffic is one thing also, given Riverside is a pretty busy street. And I would imagine, again, with 65 units here, that we want to see some sort of traffic analysis on this property. And we actually have, we have that in the works already, Brad. Good. That driveway doesn't quite line up with the existing light on Riverside. Is that right? It's a little west of the light. Yeah. That light leads directly into the car wash. So it's, it's up a little bit further west. I think one big question for us is, I mean, we think it'd be great to have people here on this site and is to be able to continue this, the housing and angle it so we can block the wait, the water treatment plant. That's a, that's a big one for us, Brad. Because otherwise, if we, you're going to be looking right at it. I did provide some interest on the street too, to have it that way, angling it back. There was some question in the staff report about visitor parking in front of the building. I remember that, right, Scott? There are two points of clarification I had for the board. That was one, whether that's acceptable. And then going back to what Steve was just mentioning, I understand why they're doing it. I just don't see how under the CDO they can actually build units in the RCO zone. Yeah, that was going to be my question, Scott. I thought they could have a certain percent, very minor percentage of coverage within that zone. There's an allowance for coverage in this precedent for that, but we don't have precedent for actually having a use that's not permitted across the boundary. Across the boundary or within the zone itself? Is that? Across the boundary. Right, the precedent we have is, is basically swapping coverage for hard scaping like walkways for Champlain College of Perry Hall. We don't have precedent that shows an unpermitted use crossing the boundary into a zone that doesn't allow it. So they need a change in the ordinance to facilitate that, Scott? Is there one or should there be one? Well, that's what I mean. I mean, does it need, yeah, do they need, do they need one change in the ordinance to allow that? Yes, is the short answer, I think. You know, I looked at the 94 zoning code and it actually articulated in some detail what to do in these situations, but the CDO is largely silent. And I was just trying to find the, what's, what are the permitted uses in the RCO? Not much. How do they have, The housing isn't. How do they have lot coverage possibilities then? Well, I mean, if they had a walkway at the back end, that's conceivably something that could be allowed. And there, yeah, there's 5% coverage that's allowed of the permitted use. And so we were hoping just, because it's exceptional that we're next to a wastewater treatment plant. So that, really in keeping with the spirit of the neighborhood activity center, we think it actually is, makes it more usable if we can do this. Cause it's just going to make it that much better of a place to live, rather than if you were angled and looking at the wastewater treatment plant. I think your rationale is a good one. And I suspect there'd be support for it, but sort of agree with Scott and flush. I mean, it does seem like you probably need a amendment to the zoning district boundaries, which has been done in some instances, but I encourage you to consider that. Yeah, I think what Jeff is saying basically is that we have to have something to hang our hat on. Yeah. For this issue. What are the steps to making that happen? Scott? Well, there was a discussion that went on for a year or two about pushing makeshift zoning district further back that ultimately wasn't approved. This would be a little bit different if we're talking about a smaller area or it might be from a different angle about what's allowed in split lots, split district lots, but in either scenario, the request goes to the planning commission first and then off to the city council. Am I remembering right, Scott, that something like that was done for the corner of George and Turrell? Because it wasn't a project there that crossed the district boundary? There was, but it was two separate structures were reviewed concurrently, but under different standards. Okay. Okay. Well, it sounds like that's gonna be the, I agree that design-wise, it's actually quite a nice feature of the project. So Brad, we have a hand raised from caller. Okay. Tonight. So I'll allow that person to talk. Yeah. They can introduce themselves and give you an address. Okay, phone caller, you're unmuted, you can speak. Yeah. This is Sharon Busher. Sharon, are you getting feedback on Zoom here? I won't anymore because I was looking at the agenda on Zoom, so I apologize. That was pretty awful. I apologize to all your eardrums. So I'm calling in because I have some real concerns about RCO. I feel pretty strongly about protecting that as a zoning area. UVM tried to put in their emergency response at the end of East Avenue and go into the RCO just a little bit and that was denied and rightly so. I think we have to be really guarded about what we allow in RCO.  So I am concerned about that. Also, I understand the desires and how, first of all, the project looks great. I love the micro units. Eric Farrell has some small units in his complex on North Avenue. So I've seen a 300, a 350 and a 400 and it really, it's workable. It's doable, it's livable. So I think this is the right approach for our city. But I'm concerned about the site. I'm also concerned, I'm glad they're doing, they've already had some analysis on that site. But just beyond the sewage treatment plant was the old tortilla flats and the kitchen going into the river. And I know that it's not the same along that entire corridor, but I am concerned about it. I'm also concerned about this size development, the weight of this on that property. This is a big development and I am concerned about the weight and the stability of that land. I don't know what's in that land. I know across the street, we know there's a lot of, it was old dumps and so it's not as solid as one would like to think it is. So I am concerned about that. And as I said, the impact on the river, this is a, oh God, this is a protected area it's Salmon Hole Park and there's a walkway that's accessible, handicapped accessible, which we worked on and the bike path is there to have people enjoy that corridor, but also, and there's a natural path along the river's edge too. So I feel like, there was a lot of work and thought put into preserving but allowing development. And so I don't know whether the applicant can not have that interesting angle. I don't know whether that's gonna get into the right of way because there's a curve in the road and whether he can actually have all of the units straight and not go into the RCO, step one. And if the bank and the road and the land is firm, then I'm all for this with one issue that I feel really needs to be at least verbalized. There is a terrible odor there. And I feel badly for the people that would live there all the time. And I don't know how that can be addressed, but to not acknowledge the odor next to a sewage treatment plant is really kind of looking the other way. And I think we just need to address that and say what can be done to make that more livable? I am concerned about that. So that's it. Thank you very much for taking my feedback. Thanks, Sharon. Well, that was interesting about the treatment plant. I don't know if it's the same as the one downtown because I bike by the one downtown. And I would say a third of the time there's an odor and two thirds of the time there isn't. So I don't know how this one works. Yeah, we've talked to DPW at length about that. And yeah, there definitely is an odor at times. I think DPW called it a PD smell. So, but I mean, that's partly why we wanna angle the building too. And like if it's, I definitely understand about not wanting to reach into the RCO zone, but the same reason this is kind of an exceptional site because of where it's located. And we have, we've talked to some of the people that are in charge of maintaining the trails along the Winooski River and talk about providing access from this site down to that natural trail and actually making it more accessible. And so that would be very much part of what's really nice about this site. So where we're building this parking area, we could see having like storage for kayaks underneath and different amenities where people can actually use the waterfront. And given that the building goes basically from property to property, how would you access the RCO through your property? Well, yes, it's had some back and forth with that, whether we'd access it through a stairwell that walks down and under or whether we go by the side. So right now we're fine-tuning where the property lines are, there's some confusion. And so that'll be figured out, Brad, as we go forward. Well, I think that's the big nut that you're probably gonna have to chew on here and that it may be a calendar time issue to try to deal with that or it may not be an option for you. As everybody says here, it seems like we're gonna need some of the hang our hat on with this and that process may take a little while too. Okay. And Scott, that can't be done through a variance, huh? Boy, you can see one, you wouldn't get one out. No. Yeah, I mean, I would encourage you to look at it promptly as Brad said, it takes time, but I agree with Sharon as to the importance of the RCO. I would say with this site, given you're adjacent to the sewage treatment plant, I think whether it's dealing with it through looking at parcels that overlap to different districts, so it's not spot zoning or some other approach, it's a little more city-wide, there is a good reason to accommodate a change in this particular area, it seems like. So that you, we'd like to see that parcel developed into something nice and you've got some adjoining landowner challenges. Yeah, I agree. I mean, again, the wastewater treatment plant, unfortunately, is solidly in the RCO zone. Okay. Any other questions or any other feedback from members of the board here? And Scott, were there anybody, other members of the public that wanted to speak? I'm present, though, no. Okay. Stop to share. Okay. Well, as everybody says, it looks like a very exciting project, interesting criteria for it. And I have a feeling with or without that RCO encroachment, you're gonna make it work. So, great. Thank you. Is Steve Lee ready? All right, I gotta switch down. Okay. I think I was muted there, Brad. Sorry. Thank you very much. Anything else you wanna say or any other questions you might have at this point? No. I think we have our marching orders. Okay, well, good luck with it. Thank you. Okay. Thanks. Then we have one other item on our agenda tonight and that's 81 Thunder Road. And basically, I think we're being asked to reconsider condition number two of the zoning permit. Is Jonathan Heller here or on Zoom? So, Brad, yes, we do have the attendees. We do have our star farm applicant here as well. Okay. Well, I was just gonna do this. Why don't we deal with this one? I think basically, so is Jonathan Heller here? Yes, I'll be back and speak. I'll allow him to talk. Okay. And is anybody else here to speak on 81 Thunder Road? Yeah, Tom Moss as well. Okay. And if I understand correctly, this is a request to a time limit for the fence. I understand that. Correct. And so this is a public hearing. Is it not, Scott? This, is it a public hearing? No. The applicant requested within the board's 30-day field period reconsideration of this condition. Okay. They're looking for a longer timeframe. Okay. So Jonathan, do you wanna, let us know what your thought is on this? Yeah, I'm just concerned, you know, with all the supply chain constraints and everything and the way contractors are right now, it's gonna be difficult for me to necessarily get it done in that three month timeframe. You know, my neighbor's been waiting for four months for her decking and finding a contractor at a reasonable rate has been impossible so far. So I've only found one contractor who wants $27,000 for 60 feet. I have to build 90 feet. So I'm just concerned that it's not enough time. And you're asking for an additional 180 days, please. In addition, or you mean to go six months total or nine months? Yeah. So in case we run into winter and it's not finished, it's not an issue. Okay. And are there questions from the board for the applicant here? John, how many folks have you talked to about potentially doing the project? Two people have contacted me out of the probably 35 I've contacted. One wouldn't take the job and one said $27,700 for 60 feet. Okay. And did he give you a timeframe for when he could do the work? No. Did you ask him for a timeframe? Yeah. I said, can we get it done right away? He said, yes. And he didn't give me a finished date. You know, it's a very difficult area to dig in. It's all ledge and blasted rubble. So it's hard for, you know, the other contractor came here just didn't even want to touch it because it was such a difficult job. Yeah, $500 or $450 a foot for a fence is a pretty steep price. Yeah, that seems outrageous. Yeah, it does. It does. I think, yeah. Considered a different design rather than what they have with fence posts trying to go down through all those ruins. Which is our call to the desk. I just wonder if there isn't some other fence design that would work there without having to do so much. Well, a couple of tree stumps that could possibly utilize this embrace. Okay, well, you can talk to a landscape architect if you want to or somebody else to design the fence for you. So, yeah. So basically you're here requesting six months from, this is from the date of the hearing. Is it not Scott or is it? You have a decision. And what was the date of the decision? Was it June 17th, something like that I think?  The minutes. June 17th. Okay, June 17th. So this is July, August. So two months ago. So four, a little more than four months from now. I'm a little confused. Is he, are you asking for an additional 180 days? So 270 total? Yeah, correct. 180 days just brings us into February. So that really doesn't extend the time period that much. Bringing us into February. So June, July, August, September, October, November, December. So the original, well, three months would have been, in September, but it takes into December, which is, you know, that brings into December really, six months. Yeah, just with, you know, my neighbor's been waiting four months for her decking. There's a lot of supply chain constraints right now, especially for wood. Yeah. It's just not enough time. So, you know, in normal times, 90 days would probably be fine, but it's just not. Jeff, did you have something else you wanted to add? The comment we received on it asked whether we should suspend the use of the Airbnb while you're waiting to construct a fence. John, if we were to consider that, what period of time do you think you would really need to get it done? All I can say is, if I lose income, it's not going to speed the process. Well, it might speed the process if you want to get the income back. No, I'm trying to get it done as fast as possible. I want to keep Tom happy, trust me. I'm honestly, all at all, I'm trying to get it done. It's just not easy right now. Yeah. No, I know that's true, but also, you know, it's been almost two months so far. So let me hear what, if you don't mind taking a minute here, John, since I have Tom, you wanted to weigh in on this, Tom? Sure. One of the reasons why I'm a little frustrated and not having a lot of patience is the rental activity started almost two and a half years ago. If the original application was accurate and if this rental was reviewed, the DRB would have reviewed the impacts and likely required a fence. And if the fence was required then as it is now, rental activity would not been allowed to start when the fence was up. So I've been subject to this activity for more than two and a half years. And to ask me to also wait another nine months, I mean, I built this house in less than nine months. Yes, is there a pandemic that is slowing down? Yes. So when I received Mr. Heller's response today, I called the Middlebury Fence Company. I said, do you construct privacy fences in Burlington? Yes. If I were to retain you today, when could you build it? They said, certainly by the beginning of November. So when I talked to Mr. Heller a week or two ago, he had only talked to one or two contractors. I don't believe he's putting a reasonable effort in if there was a contractor that had been retained and was before the board today testifying as to the reasons why more time was required, okay, I'd be reasonable. I just don't see that there's been good progress in the six weeks from the time that this board asked for this fence to be constructed. I thought 90 days was generous, but we have no contractor, we have no application. And my guess is whatever extension you give, we will be back again, considering another request for more time. So if Mr. Heller certainly needs more time to build the fence, I think it's reasonable to say, take the time you need. In the meantime, stop the nuisance activity. No more rental. Thank you for your consideration. Any questions for the AVER from the board? Anything else? Any other questions for the applicant, for John Heller from the board? Keenan, were you about to say something? Well, this was just a process question because these have come up before. So is this one where we vote now on what we're gonna do or do we save it for deliberative? I think we'd save it for deliberative. There's pieces here. One is you can decide to entertain the request to change it. And then if you do, then you need to decide what you're gonna do about it. Two steps. Yeah, basically. So do we need to decide now if we're gonna entertain it and then send it into deliberative? That's your call. It just seems simple to do it all at the same time. That's fine. Is that okay? I'm just thinking we did this with the big project downtown or in the south end with Burton and we had decided it before deliberative. That's all. It was a process question. Okay. Jonathan, we will deliberate and discuss this and our deliberative in a little bit. We have one more item to take up tonight. So thank you. And so the applicant for 141 Star Farm Road is here. Are you speaking Mary or no? We're taking our applicant to the public computer. Okay. And if you can introduce yourself, is there anybody else who's gonna speak tonight besides the applicant on this application? No, just me. My name is Kyle Hagerty, I'm a builder. Okay. Then I will swear you in, do a swear to tell the truth and hold to us under pain and penalty or perjury. Okay. Okay, good. I think it was a pretty straightforward project. And do you wanna, I'm not sure what you wanna say Anna, but make presentation on it. Yeah. Well, I was asked to do a remodel for these people on Star Farm Road and found the foundation was crumbling and yeah. Yeah. Windows were all rotten, stuff like that. So we just decided to go ahead with this plan, demo it and start from scratch. Yeah. And I was recommended for consent. How do you think? So there weren't really questions on it. I don't think one of this one. Your landscaper plan is sort of interesting photograph of saying it's gonna sort of be like that. We may need something a little bit more specific at some point, even though it's nice photograph. Yeah, I would look nice like that. Yeah. Well, I think we probably need a little bit more information. And the garage is a little bit vague too. You got the nice drink for the house. I guess one would say that the garage would have the same details and materials of that as the house. Yes, absolutely. I think it seems pretty straightforward. Are there any questions from the board for the applicant here? No. Well, then I think, unless you've got anything else you wanna add, it looks like you've done a good job for them at putting stuff together. Okay. Yeah. No, I think that's it. Okay, then I will close this public hearing. We will deliberate shortly on this thing. So thank you. Thank you. And there's no other business tonight for our meeting. Is that true? Right. Okay. And we will close the public meeting and approach and develop a review board and move on to our deliberative. Recording stopped. Let's get voice again. So I'll just go right through. Hungerford Terrace, 37 Hungerford Terrace. I have to just admit that I am not, I'm not a big fan of unlimited B&Bs. I don't see a difference between B&B and Airbnb. It's the same thing. And to me, they impact the character of the neighborhood. And I think that that's one of the reasons that owner-occupied is in there. And to me, it's, you know, maybe the planning commissioner of the city council will make this be an acceptable use in a month or five years, I don't know, but I'm not inclined to. It seems like an easy one. Yeah. Can I make a motion, Brooks? Yeah. Recording in progress. I'll make a motion on ZAP 21-12, 37 Hungerford Terrace that we deny the appeal uphold the earlier ruling. Second on this. Second on ZAP. Any discussion? All in favor? Opposed? Okay. Good. Recording stopped. That's sort of interesting. 31 North Avenue. Again, this is a request for a variance from the setback, front yard setback, which I'm inclined, you know, again, we don't have a project before us and we can debate parking slope and all that stuff. But right now it's just this aspect of the property, which is an existing law. So, I don't know if there are any other comments on this one, it seems okay with it. It's a tough one. I think we're going to have a hard time getting something approved in this location. I'm not sure the variance, and I guess, you know, my only question is under D, whether approving the variance and somehow, you know, substantially or permanently impairs the appropriate use or development of the adjacent property or is detrimental to the public welfare. I don't think approving the variance itself does that, but I guess I have some pretty significant doubts that development of that parcel can be done safely considering the surrounding uses. So, but I'm okay with the variance. I just want to be on record that I think it's going to be a hard one to develop. They could end up with a parking off site that would resolve a lot of those questions. Not saying they will. Maybe. Yeah. But anyways, so anybody want to make a motion on this one? I can make a motion. Recording in progress. So on 31 North Avenue, ZP 21-508, I move that we adopt staff findings and conditions and approve the variance request. Second on this, second. Brooke, second. Any discussion? All in favor? Opposed? Okay. Recording stopped. Good. So now we have 41 Pine Place, which I am happy to see get approved. I do have one little thing in the parking management plan. He says, I am seeking approval for the additional two spaces. I think he's seeking approval for two parking space waivers, right? Miss reading that? There's a waiver request, two spaces. Yeah. Okay, so that's basically what we're doing, is doing a two parking space waiver. Anybody, I think I'll make a motion on this and you can see if anybody objects to it. So I'm on. Recording in progress. And 41 Pine Place, I move that we approve the two parking space waiver on this project and approve the application and staff's findings and conditions. Is there a second on this? I'll second that. Yeah. Any other discussion on this one? I'm gonna vote against it because of the tandem parking and like we just, we need an ordinance for these things. And this is, we're making things up here. It's not allowed without a parking attendant. Well, I understand on this one, there's some differences you could trust. I disagree with the staff's report on this one in terms of even needing the six spaces. And they also have a space they can't count. Yeah. So that space which exists that they can't count means they actually don't have a tandem parking space. So I don't have, whereas I do have problems on other ones. I don't have problems on this one. Anyways, all those in favor of this one opposed? Okay. Good. Recording stopped. And we have just rolling along here. 141 Star Farm Road. Again, this was originally on a consent agenda. Interesting to hear the history of it. You can see them asking the contractor to come and make a little repair and say, oh, we want to take your house down. Do you ever want to make a motion on this one? Recording in progress. Okay. So on 141 Star Farm Road, CP 21-412, I recommend and move that we approve the application and then offset findings. Second on this one, Jeff. Okay. Discussion, all in favor? Opposed? Okay. So then we have done to road. And I think Jeff was the one who maybe just suggested that there, if we, I guess that's the first thing we do, we want to reconsider condition number two. That's the first item before us. And the original was 90 days from June 17th. So it's June, July, August, September. So that would be five weeks from now. So I would be inclined to just deny it outright. And I know that seems kind of, I guess a little bit unreasonable, but we've had a number of friends and myself included who have worked really hard to get contractors and worked hard to get stuff lined up for this kind of work. And so I, given the fact that this has been pending for two and a half years, I would have expected the applicant to work with some urgency on this and get the project done. I am sympathetic to the fact that there are supply chain issues and that it was, it is difficult to find a contractor now, but given that this was a pretty contentious project, I would have expected a little bit more work to be put in. I agree, he doesn't sound like he's tried very aggressively to get a contractor in there, but at the same time, given the estimate that one of the contractors gave him and given what I could see, the site looks like it's a very difficult place to put an offense. So that's going to be a lot of work. So that changes the rule, this is not just any old contractor can go in there. It's going to have to be somebody who is pretty experienced in that, such as Middlebury Fence Company, or the neighborhood venture. So I'm a little up in the air with it, but at the same time, it seems like he could have made a little more effort here. Kevin, I have a question. If we reopen it, do we have, since he's asking for 90 days, do we have to vote on 90 days or can we come up with our own timeline? We can do whatever, if we reopen it, modify it however we want. Yeah. And once we reopen it. Can we condition an acceptance on going into contracts with a contractor for the fencing within the 90 to the already approved timeframe? Yeah. Yeah, that's a good suggestion, Chase. So I guess that's the first question. Do we want to open this up? Yeah, I hear you, Kenan. I'm on the fence. I mean, I think they could have moved faster on the other hand. I've filed a number of requests for my own clients asking for short extensions because it is really challenging right now. Some of it's outside of their control. So I think I'm in the spot of opening it, but doing something along the lines of what Chase recommended, maybe with a condition not to use the Airbnb until the fence is done. Not sure about that. I just already want to make a motion to reconsider condition number two. I'll move that we reconsider. Recording in progress. I'll move that we reconsider condition number two. Second on that one? Second, Brooks. Okay. So we don't, this is just to be able to discuss it further. So all in favor? Opposed? Kenan, okay. So. Recording stopped. It does seem, Scott, am I correct or what's been discussed that once we open this up for reconsideration, we can put on the restriction of not using the BNB after a certain date if we extend the timeline. You need to act on the request and you can condition that as you see suitable. I do feel like this could drag on and on. And, you know, I think conditioning it, I mean, having a contractor come before us, you know, if we, it seems there's a couple of things we could do, what is not extend the deadline, but say we will reconsider that if they come before us before the end of the deadline with a contractor who's ready to build this thing. That would be one thing before, what does that do in July, August, before September 17th. That's the original one. I like that idea. It puts a burden on them to find somebody and keep working. Well, I think I'm okay with that idea in the sense that, you know, it may be that that project isn't done within that time period, but at least we've got someone nailed down and a potential deadline for which we can then talk to the contractor about when is this project going to be completed. And the other thing is to, I don't know if we do it now or at that point to discuss the idea of halting the use of the B and B past a certain point if they don't have the contractor on board by June 17th. Yeah, I think, you know, not allowing them to use it as the B and B seems a little punitive at this point. So I think we do it kind of incrementally. Even though I will say punitive may not be inappropriate at this point. No, I understand. I understand, but, you know, I mean, and I guess Mr. Heller has to be careful what he wishes for too, asking for an extension and allowing us to have these kinds of conversations. But I think if we take it in kind of a multi-pronged approach, we can get where we want to get to. So I agree with that. At some point, we need to carry it out there. It's in a set as we're in 15 o'clock. Okay, I'm not going to do it. All right, how are you? So right now, as I said, it's by September 17th, but I don't know if that's exactly 19 days, but some place around there, he's got a, what we would say is that he has to have a signed contract with a contract, with a specific timeline to do this work. And we need him to come back before us, before that time to show that to us. And then the other question on that is, do we have a timeline on that contract? I mean, if he comes before us on September 17th, it says here's my contract that he can do this in 2024. That's not really what we want to say. I think we want to say that he can get it done in this calendar year. Well, I mean, this is why I didn't want to reopen this because we're going into, we're trying to predict the availability of contractors in an inherently unstable environment. If he can't do it, then he closes the use of the BNB. And that's, I think it's a limit to what we can. Yeah, no, that's fair. Yeah. You want to make that motion, Brad? Okay, I'll make a motion that on Recording in progress. 81 Dunder Road that we allow the owner to come back before us by, you know, on the meeting before September 17th with proof that he's got a contractor signed up to build this fence and that the fence would be completed by October, November, December, December 17th of this year. Is there a second on that? I'll second that. Any discussion? Brad, as a point of clarification, you said before September 17th, or he needs to have it ready for that meeting. I, whatever the meeting is before September 17th. Okay. So he, before the deadline passes, he comes back before us. I mean, if you can do it in August, that's fine. I mean, whatever you can, but not. I'm supportive of that approach, Brad, with the caveat that he comes back without a contract or with a timeframe that's, you know, beyond that December date, I'm very much going to be inclined to say that it needs to stop the use of Airbnb until it's completed so that it's clear that a number of us on the board support that as a next step. I tend to agree with you. Yeah, I'd support that as well. Maybe he's listening. Okay. And all in favor? Opposed? Good. Okay. All right. Thanks, everyone. Recording stopped. All right. Have a good night. Thanks, everyone. Take care. When are you getting that spiffy electronic stuff? Scott was ordering three weeks ago. Oh. So, soon I think. Okay. See you later. Good night, all.


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