So the meeting of the Essex Junction Development Review Board has come to order this meeting is a hybrid meeting, which means that some or all of the public body is meeting remotely and some are meeting physically at two Lincoln streets where the public may attend to observe, listen and participate. One member of this public body or other staff is present at two Lincoln street to ensure that the public can participate if desired. Please note that while we will strive to provide means for those attending remotely to participate in the public comment period, there may be technical difficulties or reasons that otherwise prevent or interrupt remote public participation. Therefore it is important to note that the open meeting law only ensures the public's rights to participate and comments at a public meeting by attending at the designated physical location as posted in the notice and agenda. If a member of the public body has technical difficulties accessing this meeting remotely, please alert us by using the chat feature on Zoom or by emailing cyuen at sxjunction.org. And in the events of a technical difficulty that cannot be resolved, we may continue the meeting if necessary to October 19th at 6.30 at two Lincoln streets sxjunction. Please note that all votes taken during this meeting that are not unanimous in accordance with the law. Actually that's only four seconds. Participating remotely and we don't have that. As required by the open meeting law, let's start the meeting by taking a roll call attendance of all members participating in the meeting and have those members attending remotely identify themselves to ensure that they can hear and be heard throughout the meeting. All developments review board members are present in person, but we do have some members of the public attending remotely here. I see Pat Bouchard was logged in, everyone else is, that's logged in is also here in person. That's it. So ready to go. All right, item number two is public to be heard. This is your opportunity for anyone who's wishes to speak about something not on the agenda tonight to be recognized and to speak. Is there anyone who would like to say something about an item not on the agenda tonight? Seeing that we'll move on to number three meeting minutes. We have received the July 20th meeting minutes. I had no issues with them. Can I get a motion to approve, please? I motion to approve. Second. Any further discussion or comment? Type. Nothing. All right. All in favor? Say aye. Aye. Opposed? unanimous. Thank you. So on to the first of three public hearings tonight, the first one is an appeal of administrative officer's enforcement decision that ate half street in the R1 district by Stephen and Sharon Willie Padnos adjoining residents. I believe they're here and I need to swear, well, how about I swear in everybody who wants to speak tonight all I want about that. So if you're planning on speaking tonight, raise your right hand and answer I do after I read this. I hereby swear that the evidence I give in the cause under consideration shall be the whole truth and nothing but the truth under the pains and penalties of perjury. Thank you all. And if you haven't signed in tonight, please remember to sign in before you leave. OK, so the applicants, you can come right up to the front desk there, the microphone. And I'd like to hear more about your. Appeal. Perfect. Just enough to join us and introduce yourselves for the record. Sure. Stephen Willie Padnos. My wife is on, I think, on soon. And it's a great call. Who's helped with has done all the research for the legal basis for this. And this is. This is an appeal of a decision to not enforce. Zoning rules that prevent or prohibit agricultural use of a property in your life. And. So. Yes, that's where we are. I think we'll start unless you have questions. So we'll start with. We go back. It's your your floor at the moment. So we'll we have a lot of material here that we've received. But I'd like to get your. Your statements that summarizing it. Yeah, yeah. But my name is Wilthole, as I said, and what our intent here today was to have me start a little bit to lay some of the framework here to talk about some of the legal issues and then have Steve have the opportunity to take you through some of the factual issues, because I think we understand this is kind of an unusual circumstance where. The facts, I think, are not going to be significantly disputed that this location is out of compliance with your code. The question really is about the non enforcement decision that's been made. So I figure we should start there because I think that's what logical people are. And I understand I'll say, you know, I get this case because I've been on all sides of this case. I understand Chris's logic in this matter because I may not know this, but I was a member of the DRB in Underhill from 2006 to 2021 and was the vice chair for quite some time. And I remember this issue when it was first thrown out to me by Kerry Papelbaum, who was the ZA when I started there, if any, that daves me. But she we had an issue involving a farm and she was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, you know, no farm, no can do. And I was like, oh, really? OK. And sort of like everyone else on the board were like, OK. Why is that? Well, it's sort of because and it was pushed down the road a little bit. And then we had another opportunity or so that comes along. And every time it came down, there was no doubt that eventually you know, people pointed to this provision and the statute about it. But as we talked about it, and as I've worked with this over the years, as I've worked with this, there is not substantial substance behind this believe that the zoning code does not apply to farms. And I want to go through why that is. When we look at forty four thirteen D one, I want to talk about this and we'll just bring it up briefly here in a second. But I think it's important that we talk about what this section does generally and how it works, because we understand consciously or subconsciously that municipalities have a granted authority from Montpelier to do what they do. We're told by Montpelier that you have some of our power, the state's power to regulate certain areas and they tell the municipalities to stay out of certain areas. And forty four thirteen is one of those provisions. And some of that's pretty straightforward. I mean, like, for example, in materials, you know, some of them say churches can't regulate churches. OK, it makes sense. State can't even do that. But specifically, they say some very things like hunting can't regulate hunting. OK, makes sense, right? And then we get sort of deeper into the weeds where the state begins to carve out a whole lot of areas in an area that's very important and partial to the state. And this is the area where the state has gotten there first, where the state has gotten involved in these areas and they don't want double regulation. They don't want over involvement by the municipalities in this. And this kind of makes sense, right? If you delegated certain authority to municipalities, but you're the state of Vermont and you've taken the time to come up with like energy creation, regular, you know, the things about power lines. They figure, look, we don't want to set up a set of regulations and this have municipalities come in and do something different. Right? And this statute and we'll get into the weeds here a little bit about it is one of those statutes where they're basically saying we have gotten to this area. And in this, in this particular provision, I think we need to understand that this statute is saying we got to the area of water quality on farms. So we don't want you to regulate that. But it is not a broad prohibition against zoning of farming. Now, I will say, and I've been waiting, and when it's one of the first conversations I had with Plutty and Sephard as an attorney I know and respect and admire. I said, let's talk about what is the basis of this sort of belief that municipalities cannot regulate farms in any way, shape or form. And we, of course, are drawn to this provision of the statute. But to my research, to my knowledge, there is no judge whose job it is in our system to interpret beg statutes, to interpret statutes that are clear. There's no judge that has gotten to this issue. And so without a judge, either in the environmental courts, peer court or hopefully the Supreme Court on this issue, there is no binding authority on this body that says that this is awful. Now, I think it's important to think about how this body, and like said, was on the DRB for 15 years or so, works in this sort of system, depending on exactly how your town works or stuff like this in the system that my pillars set up. You have a planning commission and in conjunction either with the city council or the voters propose the code and pass the code. They make the law. The DRB in this setting enforces the law. And above this sits the environmental court that if need be, interprets the law. Your job is to, with all due respect, enforce the code that was given to you by your planning commission and city council. And that's really what we're asking here, because when we step back from this, I think we all understand the facts and you'll hear from them, like, this is a situation that cries out for zoning, right? This we have a residential, a very nice residential neighborhood right near school and stuff like this. And it has this location that has commercial poultry. It has commercial cannabis, has a host of other things going on, none of which should be permitted in this R1 zone by your explicit rules. So what this board needs and what we ask you to do is to say our job is to enforce the code that's been given to us by the city council. By the voters and not say, no, no, no, no. You shouldn't have done that. We're going to slap you down to the code that we were given, because your job is to enforce the code that you're given in this scheme. Or dole out in the appropriate circumstances, permits permit according to the code or what have you. It's not to challenge the code because that is really if there is tension. And I will suggest that there is not. But if there is tension between this municipality's authority to pass this code and the statute that is unclear, then that's for Judge Walsh or Judge Durk in the environmental court to step in and say, because that's what judges are paid to do, right, is to come in and interpret the law in these circumstances. So when we look at this circumstance and we see this as a case where, you know, anyone who looks at this circumstance in this neighborhood and you see what's going on, you would say, gosh, we should have zoning here, right? And of course you do. So this is not an absence of idea. It's the fact that there is a and I get it because I was part of this sort of belief that this was not something that you could step into. But when you drill down into the why of that, you will see that there's actually nothing behind it. There is, to my knowledge, and I've been waiting for someone to come here. No judge who has looked at this and says, yeah, that's the way this works. And I have to say I was born and raised here. I love Vermont. But this sort of thing happens in Vermont quite a bit where there are issues that judges don't get to because they're not challenged or they're not brought to the court and they sit out there and they fester for years until somebody comes along some day and says, well, I'm going to take his stand on this and it ends up in front of the environmental court and the spirit court. I guess we'll find out who's right about this. But when we look at forty four thirteen. I wanted us to understand it only in the context of the limits that it could be placing here. But I suggest that we don't get there because really this board's job is to not naysay the code that you're given. Right. I mean, if the code, the Planning Commission and the Council has a code that says everyone has to have pink plastic pooling goes in the front yard or they can't have paper, whichever one would be. You know, it's not in all due respect. And again, I sat in your chairs for a long time for this board to say, I think you shouldn't have done that to the people who wrote that code. So I'm not being forced. Your job is to take the code as it's given to. So having said that. And so our first and foremost sort of position here is take the code as it's given to you because we know that that would be the right thing to do in this circumstance because this neighborhood is suffering under the cannabis and the ducks and this sort of pretence that the that this is a farm in this neighborhood. All right. But let's play judge for a second. I want to go through why if we go into this that we we don't think that you will we think you will see that there's a lot less to this myth about this area than sort of what we mentioned. And I can just share it. Yeah, you should be able to have. And I think we're getting into the details here because Mr. Struzzins has a farm interpretation from the farm. Is the basis of the refusal. So it's how that does. It doesn't affect the local business. Yeah, because and and thank you because I think that that's how we get right. It's not that we don't understand that it is zone agriculture not prohibited that's not that we don't understand that cannabis cultivation is not prohibited. It's that we believe that there's some impediment to what's going there. So I wanted so although I encourage this board to look at the code as it's given to you but if we're going to interpret the code let me let's go through how you would do. So this is the provision that everyone points and this is 24 BSA 44 13 and although the rest of this provision has a bunch of language including like the prohibitions about energy production facilities and things like this. This is the part that everyone looks to and so we'll focus on this now because again we're asking you to not do this but we're going to basically take this on as a judge would take this on. We'll look at what the statute says. The first part here is a bylaw into this chapter shall not regulate and this is the chapter that basically grants municipalities the ability to pass by laws or code and I want to show you what I think is really the failure of people who have looked at this over the years you've given advice to is section C because section C says you shall not regulate forestry operations. Boom. Forestry operations are off the table. There's a rule of interpretation when it comes to statutes that says we assume the legislature knew what it was doing and did what they meant to do. And within this section we see that the legislature meant to take forestry operations which is the broadest possible term and take it off the table. And so this is a conscious decision by the legislature that and it shows that they know how to write a statute to take the broadest possible approach. And what in contrast is to section A that says you shall not regulate required agricultural practices including the construction of farm structures as those practices are defined by the secretary of agriculture food and markets which is the AFM today. Those are pretty different because if there was this global prohibition against farming operations or agriculture operations they could have written shall not regulate agriculture operations but they didn't. They instead carved out and did something different and what did they do that was different. They said you shall not regulate required agricultural practices. Now other places required agriculture practices is capital R, capital A, capital P because that is as defined by the AFM is the water quality regulations that Chris put in the materials and I'm not going to go through all of them here today at all. But I suggest that you do when you have a chance because you can see that they are concerned about water quality and that's it. They don't regulate other parts of farming. They don't talk about how many ducks can be in a coop or whatever. They don't talk about how to do your threshing of your wheat or whatever. They talk just about water quality and this is all about a concern for water quality and of course farm structures and so that essentially means when you look at the rules which Chris provided is that if there's something in the rules that you're also getting into then you should not do that but as long as you stay out of water quality then the rest of this regulation of agriculture is part of what you can do and you stay out of farm structure which is also defined by So this is the operative structure the statute that has formed the basis of this belief that municipalities cannot regulate farms and what it says is you can't regulate water quality. And this makes a ton of sense right? They have passed 48 pages of rules about when you can apply manure how you can apply it dates and stuff like that and they don't want, for example, as I suggest in the appeal if the Vermont statutes or wrap rules say that you can't apply manure prior to April 1 they don't want as extension to turn around and say April 10 for us, you can do something different. Because that would add to chaos and burden. So when you look at what the basic statutory code says it's limited to these required agricultural practices which are again water quality issues and it does not say what they did with forestry operations which is just said to stay out of the loop. So I want to talk for a second about B-A-F-M B-A-F-M because their goal here is waterfall. And that's what they're focused on. They regulate for quality these contexts. So they have an application that's designed to catch people or catch them or bring them into their regulated era. And that's surprising regulators so they have an application process that's designed to catch the largest swath of say small farmers, backyard farmers and stuff like that. It is not an application that's designed to be used anywhere else. It's not a determination that B-A-F-M is making that is supposed to go any further than the B-A-F-M decision about whether you are going to be regulated as an applicant under their water quality rules. And you know I see an deference to them but they're trying to catch as many people as they can because they're regulators worrying about water quality. So if you go to them and say would you like to regulate me they're generally going to say yes. That's just kind of a rule of any regulatory body. You can regulate you as to water quality. I want to just show you the application a little bit here both the general application and the one that was submitted in this case to show you that it does not it's not really trying to assess whether you're a farmer in a classic sense. It's trying to adhere to really four things over there's a few more then these are all ores by the way. Farm determination do you operate four or more acres of land of the farming activities? Have you filed a 1040 F tax in the last two years it's farming tax does your farm earn an annual gross income of more than $2,000 from the sale of agricultural products or this is this instance do you have a prospective business or farm management plan that describes how the farm will be in fresh form requirements. So to be determined to farm under AAFM rules you just have to submit a plan that you going to sell $2,000 worth of crops or something in the future. So this isn't a determination whether you're a farmer this is again a determination whether you're going to create a certain amount of activity that could potentially concern them if you might and that's what happened in this case you look at his application he merely has a plan to sell $2,000 worth of lettuce, tomatoes, kale, you know cucumbers, watches, cabbages, and herb and I won't go through all of it there but if you go through his application it's clear that these you know he says this is not anything that has happened so far this is just my plan for the future and again nothing wrong with this and here's his plan nothing wrong with this being a aspirational and from the regulator's perspective way of catching people who might be doing activities that are going to create water quality issues but it has nothing to do with municipal zoning and indeed if you look at his what they tell him at the time of the application um yeah this is from the determination which is that had those two this farm operation determination does not exempt the farm from compliance with any other provision of the rats or any other applicable laws and regulations but there's nothing within the documents that you get from VAFM that indicates that this is some sort of a blanket brand of union their only concern that you follow the wrath of which of course we're not disputing that they should try to enforce the law of law but we are saying it's a mistake by this body to look at this determination and expand that into some sort of blanket community when you look at their application you'll see that there's and again not a criticism because they're not really worried about this but there's no question about you know what is the community that you're doing this in how is this going to impact these types of things do you have adequate space for any of this it's simply this application that if you hit the certain minimum that you're going to be given a determination not that you're a farm in the true meaning but simply that you're going to have to comply with these regulations as well I hope you can see and you look at materials to see how easy it is to get this farm information it's literally open to almost every single person both in this room but in the state of Vermont who wants to avoid potentially the local zoning ordinances because you just simply set a BAAFM that I plan to sell $2,000 worth of something that I grow in my backyard and they will say okay you're under the wrath rules and then if you don't enforce this you then become immunized from a large swath municipal land use record I want to make sure Steve has a chance to talk here I would say that even the changes to age 270 to the cannabis stuff is very similar when you look at them it simply says that you can't add and I can get into the weeds with this if you want but I sense that you see my message from here on and I wanted to turn it over to Steve here that you can't it's a list of a few things that you can't do you can't regulate cannabis by declaring it a nuisance so you can't add to your existing nuisance statute where you have for example public nudity and noise and things like that you can't add cannabis to that so you can't do that through the public nuisance that doesn't mean you can't zone it otherwise it just means you can't go after it as a public nuisance bottom line here is though we don't think this board should be afraid of its own power which is to take the code that has been given to you and when it's been violated to enforce it because that's the proper way to defend your own code and if this at Mr. Struthers in this case feels like you got it wrong then he can appeal your decision up to the environmental court and explain why he thinks he's immunized for this to judge Walsh or judge Dirkman and so people had specific questions that's all I had really on the statute and I'd like Steve to be able to show you what it's like after I give you the 10,000 foot view the 5 foot view free legal classes thank you maybe we can keep this brief because I don't think the question is really is there a farm there isn't there I think there's an understanding that somebody is running a farm and it's in the middle of an Irwin district and there are rules in place that we have to sort through the rules but I'm not sure so I don't mind looking at the presentation but don't show us 100 slides of a farm no worries about that well first if there's a particular category of information we would like to hear or from anyone else there are several I just want to clarify two points firstly I want to clarify two points one how long has the farm been there it received a designation in May but how long has it been there well I think Mr. Struthers had said that he had started growing cannabis I think it was around 2019 that he started growing cannabis which apparently some medical things he had had a garden before that but it was his parents before that and my second question is just to confirm that your testimony is that anyone can create a farm in any district by going after these designation by the state it doesn't you know like we think we have rules and yet if somebody can come along and say hey I'm going to grow $2,000 worth of something they can do that's your argument well that's our argument that is the myth that you should reject yeah that seems to be the prevailing wisdom and I believe the reason for the non-enforcing decision was that it's a farm that can't enforce our ordinances and so you know the I mean I think there's kind of a brief history here that this is kind of like the nuclear option in what has been attempted before in fact I think you sure sorry so I think on to the planning commission last March requesting variance because he knew that he was operating against ordinances it wasn't the correct venue later we my wife and I launched a complaint with zoning that was August and after that there it was brought up with the city council to get a variance on the dot ordinance again you know not not carrying whether the rules are changed but just saying I don't want them to apply to me and so this farm determination first off the application for the farm determination wasn't even submitted until January or February so well five or six months after we had made our complaint and then it didn't come in for another several weeks and then after that the decision was made to not so you know that's that was definitely disappointing for us it seems that if the rules had been enforced from the beginning whether that had started with our complaint or whether that had started with his first mentioning that he to the city that he was breaking the rules then this wouldn't even be a question so I think you know that's you know you were a part of this so you know the current situation is that you've seen the photos so I don't need to break them off my wife and I can barely go out on the front patio or on the back deck you know we have a paper lot that we can't use because it stinks it smells like rotting hay I'm sure exacerbated by the rainy year it smells like duck used to smell like dog and the duck coops are on our side of the property so if there's any wind then it comes right across our deck so we try to sit out there with a cup of coffee or tea and it stinks and it's time to go inside we have to close the windows and the doors we can't enjoy the summer at all because we never know when we go outside it's probably gonna stink and if we're lucky enough and it doesn't stink and the ducks happen to be quiet every once in a while you know ducks are fairly amorous and they get pretty loud and it's a very surprising thing it's like it's like someone you know it's the equivalent of like somebody slamming a dumpster right next to you ducks are whacking and you're interacting so you know essentially we might as well have an apartment you know rather than our nice R1 absolutely yard it's a similar thing you know from talking with my neighbors you know it's similar for them you can smell not just the sort of arm or the culture stone but also the cannabis is overpowering much of the time you can smell it in the street you can smell it three houses down across the street it's a nightmare the neighborhood and we I think we would all like again as I said there are others from here who I would invite to speak if they can you know this problem not only the actual situation there you know at my house but also the sort of the feeling that we haven't gotten any support from the authorities it's seriously question makes us question whether we want to live here because when we moved in you know we bought the house 20 years ago first house moved in next to Mr. Struthers parents who were very nice we took down the fence that had been between our properties and so it was like we had a big park out back then you know now we have a situation where we don't know well aside from personal problems with the neighbor we don't know what the situation is going to be when we go outside and so when we've called the police or the fire department about loud noises or burning or other things and they've come and nothing has happened and now we go to zoning and nothing happens we just don't know whether the city is supporting people we believe we're good citizens so we don't know if the city is really intending to support good citizens or people who just on their noses of the law can do whatever they want anywhere they can which is my position of what's happening Steve just so you know the photos are you referring to may not have been seen by the police I was looking around like did I miss the finger no more I think we're going to get the idea can I ask a question was there a complaint filed with the state has that been yes we we had actually lodged a complaint you know when after the farm determination after we found out that the farm determination had been approved we did complain exactly about smells I think Mr. Struthers had sent a a report when they came out to investigate first off they never actually talked to us or as far as I know came out of the property to figure out what the actual impacts were I suspect that as well they're it's narrowly focused I don't believe that they regularly orders forms now so so unless they had found some so they didn't find them there I know that there had also been a permanent complaints to sort of local and regional and state but again I haven't seen I think actually we had a zoning question that Chris forwarded to and maybe while he's looking for that so we had submitted exhibits which we thought were already part of the record if they aren't I'd like to make them part of the record here and I've got black and whites I could distribute hard copies of or just electronic submittals would be fine if you have paper copies you're welcome to pass okay and then in the record you can put the electronic copies yeah all of this is public record this is actually a Google or maps image that actually doesn't show the extent of the operations now this is over a year old so the neighborhood you know these are some of the views that we get from our deck and backyard let's see these blue bins are all stands they all cannabis here are the duck enclosures that are right next to the probably that fence is just barely over the property line but the green is your property the right side the close side of the fence yeah you know this I can go through this pretty quickly but you know it's clearly not the best you can see that shed is very nearly at the back end of this property and you can see the blue bin still almost up to it you know I do I have one anecdote actually will mention the phrase blanket immunity that's actually something that Mr. Struthers when we had followed the fire department because we were actually working on a shed out in the backyard and got the smell of smoke that smelled also like cannabis and saw that Mr. Struthers was burning in his backyard we called the fire department somebody came over wasn't allowed on the property but after some time we had two members fire department there and Mr. Struthers and myself we were talking about enforcement and one of the fire officials said well in the future just call and we'll come see what we need to do Mr. Struthers responsible as well this is a farm I've got blanket immunity he literally used those weapons to a fire official about burning so that will maybe be created but that wasn't his so is there anything else you would like to see I mean I I think maybe at the end of that so I have a question I think this is probably for Mr. Tal I see the argument that you're making about the case that there may not be blanket immunity for farming operations that may be limited to communities right away by the RIPs and I correct me if I'm wrong but I thought I heard you make the argument that that same non-blanket applies to the cannabis operations and I'm looking at 65 from this year and maybe you can help me understand that it appears that your argument is that the legislature was very specific in calling out RIPs I don't see based on this one in front of me here that they have made the same attempt to limit the scope when it comes to cannabis operations I'm looking at D1 municipality may not prohibit the operation of cannabis establishment within the municipality through an ordinance adopted pursuant to 24VSA 2-2-9-1 or bylaw adopted pursuant to 24VSA 4-4-1-4 the new addition is or regulated cannabis establishment in a manner that has the effect of prohibiting the operation of it there's probably more statute I'm just looking at sort of the excerpt from this year's legislation that on its face just appears to be somewhat broader than clearly what you pointed out in 44-13-1 yeah and I'm glad you brought it up because it was part of what I skipped over at the end because I could tell that we've gone through a lot of the statute and so I do think that we think generally many commentators have pointed out that age 270 I'm not sure what it was exactly trying to fix but the it was just as confusing as whatever what I had existed before but I think within that specific provision I think we actually see the concept that zoning is still permitted because if we could just look at this because the old statute said prohibit the operation shall not municipality shall not prohibit the operation of a cannabis establishment within the municipality through an ordinance adopted pursuant to 24VSA 2-2-9-1 adopted pursuant to 24VSA 44-14 so it used to say you cannot prohibit it right that means just like a blanket prohibition right and now it says also which so the fact that they added something to this suggests that they realize that there was other stuff out there right and the only right because otherwise why bother to amend this if that was that statute was originally designed to be just seen as a complete blanket prohibition you can't touch cannabis at all which I agree is one of the interpretations that's floating around there but I suggest it's wrong for the reasons I've just said but also if that's what the intent was then this statute doesn't need to be touched right because there's nothing more than a prohibition so what I think that meant was it would just hear me out on this is that the that they believe the legislature believes that that means you cannot have a blanket prohibition you cannot say an Essex Junction cannabis is illegal boom but it does mean it can be regular which means zone so I think that this statute on its phase suggested it could be zoned but not prohibited because again if that was designed originally to be a blanket prohibition as the legislature understood it there was nothing left to add so they must have thought their interpretation is zoning is okay prohibition is not so we're going to add something here basically saying we're regulating cannabis establishment in a manner that has the effect of prohibiting the operation of a cannabis establishment so I think this is the legislature's thinking all right we told them they couldn't prohibit it but what if they zoned it in such a way that nobody could possibly operate under the zone right it's only zoned in this particular it's only zoned on bare ground that you can't get or something like that something ridiculous right but they must realize there was the risk that municipalities would say okay we want to ban cannabis and you understand that the cannabis law is rife with this tension that the legislature did not want local municipalities to do an end run around their legalization so they didn't want for example you know certain municipalities to say well but not in our town sort of like what used to happen sometimes in other states especially with alcohol you'd have a dry county next to a wet county where alcohol was legal one place and not so they didn't want to do that so they realized that you could zone it and so I think that the they believe that it was permissible to zone it as long as you didn't prohibit it outright and then I think they must have realized they must have had some complaints there must have been some clever towns that were thinking well what we'll do is we'll just zone this into like a such a small little lot that nobody could possibly grow anything on or something like that and so they said now you can't do that either you can't regulate it in such a way that you're effectively prohibiting so the fact that they're putting a restriction on that suggests actually assumes that you can regulate and that's our point that if you zone absolutely is what we think under both the farming and the cannabis it just can't be as I said one of the things it can't be you can't duplicate the wrap and you can't so zone it that it's a blanket prohibition when it comes to cannabis that's what I think that that means because again if they didn't believe it could be regulated by zoning there was no need to add that second section because it already been right because if it had already been totally prohibited there's nothing to add because you don't need to add something to make it any more illegal at that point so I think the correct interpretation was that prohibition meant you can't have a blanket prohibition they realized there was a loophole in that because they were allowing people to zone it and they said you can't zone it out of existence either so I think what's permissible under the cannabis rules is what you have which is that you have zones that it's permissible and you have zones that it's not I think there's something similar again in the state so I think it's always a little dubious when we're getting into legislative intent I do think the legislature did have a clear intent to allow municipalities to prohibit retail establishments so in that instance they did go a step further and say actually we're totally fine with municipalities stepping into this particular area of cannabis legalization and saying you know what, no storefronts in town and then so I do think that may speak to their intent where I think you could sort of take your logic and run with it and say well in this instance they are sort of going above and beyond and the addition in this past section may have actually been sort of to address what you have identified which is maybe there are municipalities that are trying to make an end run around what my interpretation of their intent originally was which is we don't want we want to give municipalities the ability to limit retail operations but not small cultivators and there are municipalities that are getting creative and finding ordinances that are not maybe even calling out cannabis establishments but in fact prohibiting cannabis in one zone or another I still come back to you know if the sentence begins with prohibit the operation of a cannabis establishment but and you don't have to obviously agree but you see my point is that if the legislature thought that meant prohibition there's then there would have been no ability to zone around it previously so there was no need to go ahead and add that additional nuance right I think they're trying to that's what I understand and I agree with you I mean the legislative intent is as you said absolutely it's always a dubious adventure but in this case I think we have to kind of go there because it's such a mess both of these statutes are a bit of a mess that you kind of have to look at the big picture about what must they have been doing which is they must have thought the regulation of it is allowing certain municipality to regulate it into prohibition and when you look at if you assume that that then of course then this provision makes a ton of sense because that's what it says but you can't so regulate it that it's basically prohibited which means that you have to have regulations that permit it somewhere which you do anyone else on the board want to ask a question and is there anyone else in the audience that has a comment either we'll start within the room first and then we'll go to online anyone online have a wish to speak on this matter before we get ready to close the public hearing speakers speak on the other side and while I was about to get open the law the law didn't change the state of this property is really impacting the most quality of the street there's about a dozen children under the age of 10 live on the streets while cats are being watched about it doesn't look good it doesn't smell good it's not appropriate for them to see it's not appropriate for their neighbor to be growing in marijuana neighbor at the end of the block is an advent to this overdose a few times and he has people walking up and down the street and he's dealing with and now they are seeing you know in the streets in the backyard so we're introducing the possibility for spooky to happen my daughters can't use the backyard because of the smell because of if they complain of the smell I can't have a full scout meeting in my backyard because of the rules the program is not allowed for the children to be used but it's an innate of a string of rules the S-exception does not want to push through rules and laws to support people who send their children to school here we urge people now to vote down budgets in the city of S-exception because we don't think it's the kind of place where lawmakers are making laws that work down living so we ask our neighbors to vote down full budget budget because there's no point in trying to raise a family here when it comes to how people will be driving down any kind of one other company thank you that was my question I guess I want to focus really on the zoning issue of it despite obviously the passionate part of being a parent not able to use my backyard my children while that's disappointing I think the zoning we have to focus on if a tap street is allowed an exception from residents to farm then it's holding the door for other residents to change and want to change from residents to commercial or residents to industry and it's clearly a residential area it has been since S-exception 40 years ago we've walked down the block it's a residential suburban neighborhood you know so that's my concern with allowing the zoning to change from residents to anything else it's just going to lower the ability to value what's proper residential need thank you very much is there anyone else who'd like to speak on this issue take a motion to close public hearing any questions you gave us a 14 page whatever explanation I think we I don't have any more questions for you not this Sharon I absolutely second everything that was said tonight it's been very hard living here next to this neighbor even though we've all tried to farm for years and I I have a lot of people in the neighborhood who live here who notice can't help but notice the sounds and I have a lot of people who are just walking through our streets to go into the neighborhoods near us and people are always like what is that stench or oh my god is that docks because they can hear that even if you can't see it from that side I also think that there was another person here who is trying to connect who may close this place okay can we thank you can we get the other person online please good so I actually on the back side of ATAP unfortunately 43 during drive closed it up unfortunately I did not get the crits in buying it to get it on the dock here but it's really not much more than what Steve has already shown everybody are ready just the scuff and the curve of what we're up against as you know we all touched the board and just have to deal with it you know I'm at the top with all the slack and it's when the Canada's board showed up to do a surprise visit on the Asics Road's property being made with black silk fence if you will or black fencing fabric against the fence line because they said that from the streets you're not allowed to see is plants that are growing or any growing operation which is now great because now we've got you know this public fence that you have to look at every day on top of that is the fact that it's getting forcibly used between come across the property and all sorts of gifs and nastiness and you know when it comes back it's really a problem when you're talking about people trying to sell their homes I think your neighbor and their got used to it I'm guaranteed nobody's going to buy a property their houses give it to some of them for probably $800,000 maybe they really won't get it but I can guarantee you that people will move in looking over at that property and saying what am I getting into so that's the problem Rebecca talked about weirdo blocking around and Ron Cameron did the perfect example I got Cameron all around every inch of my property and we had some show up in the middle of the night walking around his fence by balling his plants when I mean how to approach the gentleman he was moved and he was scared and he was mumbling and I couldn't understand him but he was under some sort of influence of what I could tell you that his property is now being probably targeted from you know that's another concern to mine when you go back to the whole fired field like Steve talked about I was also one of the called the assistant chief I spoke with the assistant chief about his burning nothing good stuff and it's because he doesn't want to allow him on their property so I just feel like we're getting in the street but at the end of the day we all circle around this farm and put their boats on a farm all paying our tax he just gets reduced because he wants to be labeled and it's just wrong in so many different ways at my place thank you anyone else hello I look across the street from Mr. Struthers and while we have not had any difficult personal interactions with Mr. Struthers we are very concerned about the development of the new board's position of not enforcing zoning I personally have lived on the street since 1985 and the the smell from the animals and the plants and Mr. Struthers property is overwhelmed and I'm asking you he has enforced the zoning regulations that this is a R1 district not an agricultural farm district I have no problems when drawing personal marijuana it's legal but this we're talking about a commercial farm and that is not appropriate but thank you thank you anyone else hello hello my name is Kelly Turton and we've been on 15 tax Mr. Struthers house is that high school you are and I missed this in an earlier discussion but I'm also curious you know we are on a street that is built by a home for all built by the high school tax program we are very very close to the high school and I'm just wondering what does zoning for somebody who has a tax license to grow marijuana for resale that's close to the school I'm not sure we have an answer for you and there are regulations on protection going around the school we're not we're on a dead end this school is actually going to connect the road safety to juries at some point but at the end of the road which is just two hours down you know it connects to the apple field that the school grows further feeling like you know a real superb you know want it along to continue the smell is terrific the sector is perfect you can see from the road I often wonder if you've been you know treating those that can be made there are so many things going on here so many things but I'll agree with all my nakers just have to stop to change the status for most destruction thank you thank you last call I need a motion to close public hearing motion to close public hearing any further discussion all in favor of closing the public hearing sorry hi any opposed motion carries thank you before we deliberate I think we need additional information from our legal counsel this is essentially a legal matter so I believe we have to go into executive session to do that that's right you can also I believe you can also deliberate with the legal counsel with you in a fact session that's what I'm trying to do yeah okay so do I need to go into a private yes someone needs a motion to do that can I get a motion to go into a closed deliberative session did we close deliberate second all in favor any opposed okay so and we came up with a motion which I will read because no one else can read my writing and we'll vote so I motion that the development review board overturn the administrative officers enforcement decision and require that the resident at 8th Taft Street cease to operate a farm however we find that cannabis cultivation is subject to different rules and we agree with the administrative officers portion of the decision on cannabis cultivation seconded any further discussion all in favor I any opposed motion carries thank you alright well that is we will issue a written decision just to summarize the decision and the reasons behind so we are on to the next item on the agenda item 4b is a conceptual site plan to construct a three-story 39-unit residential building with parking at 8th Railroad Street in the V.C. Village Center District by Frank Quincel LLC the applicants are here David Burke Larry Burke Gabe Handy is here as well the landowner and Daniel Goldsman the architect we have the drawings and the application but we would love to have a little presentation sure I think it can be pretty quick so we have elected to come in previously for a concept plan and staff report does a good job of what's happened and what's changing but on July 20th we were in that proposal was denied in regards to the or due to the 15 foot buffer requirement to residential the board disagreed with my interpretation and denied that proposal rather than pursuing that and a legal method Gabe decided that he was willing to modify the plan so the plan in front of you is a building that staggers the building and it gives the 15 foot buffer so the modification has a new facade change in the footprint the main change being in the footprint is the 15 foot jog you'll notice on the concept plan there the back portion of the building that jogs to the north our office is just sewing a straight line the middle third of the back inset portion does have a you can see it in the architectural plans so we would you know after I'm done I'll give it to Dan on item 4 the staff notes but obviously our plan will be updated if the board supports the proposed building so the current site plan was modified the new facade the change in the building footprint provides the 15 foot buffer the street railroad street it's approximately a half acre parcel with 66 feet of frontage it's the village center district the minimum lot size requirement is 5,000 or not even a quarter of this lot size the existing lot coverage there's really not an existing lot coverage that the building that was badly burned has been removed since but proposes 81.3% in this zone in the village center zone it's a zero lot line with the exception of the buffer issue no longer an issue I'll get to that in the staff report and then the permitted percent coverage because it's zero lot line is up to you folks the current proposal is for a four story building with the intent of the village center district the height of this building is 44.75 feet to the gable and 58 foot is the maximum for this area so we're about 13 feet to the gable and we're about 13.25 feet below the maximum down on item 604C I think this is a carryover from the very first staff notes that I thought got revised or no I'm sorry it says the applicant proposes a 12 foot front yard setback which we went over because the existing power line at the previous meeting that's the closest we can get and it says no setbacks on the sides that's not true we got a lot of setback to the north we've got minimal setback on the first half the building now and we have setback 15 feet or greater you can see you can see the building is not quite parallel to the property so it's the southeast corner of the building the back corner that's more or less at the 15 feet and then it gets a little bit more than 15 feet as you travel towards towards railroad street I'm going to again I'm going to turn it over to Dan on item 4 but I'll go through these other things pretty quickly I think the next big one as far as the site planning is the parking we got into this last time at sketch plan I'm pretty sure the board supported what are both the information submitted 0.72 that's listed in the staff notes was what we were coming up with on average based on an actual parking study on some of Gabe's other properties on Pearl Street we feel that this is even a better location for multi-use and less cars so we don't see it as an issue we do not agree the staff notes suggest that it's a waiver that we'd be asking for for the parking we're proposing I don't I don't I think it's pretty straightforward in your regs that this is not a waiver there is no parking requirement in the village center district the board may require some parking so it's not a waiver for us to propose the parking spaces that were it's up to you whether you want us to provide any and I suppose if you felt that this wasn't enough that it could be an issue but again the requirement is 0 the building height item G I talked about but we're just below 45 feet and four stories is allowed up to 58 feet so we're good there residential pedestrian access I'm now on page 6 there is a front door that's what we talked about at the previous hearing and I thought that that was supported but there still is a front door on the facade for pedestrian entrance we also feel that the 20 foot entrance to the drive is relatively safe for people to walk in and out of there if they choose to so item 16 says waivers and again I feel that the regulations are very clear on this for the village center it's not a waiver it's a we are providing more than zero much more than zero and if we're not providing enough I suppose you could comment on that but it would not be as a waiver we certainly take exception to a minimum of 38 bicycles but the regulations does say that now and I don't see that there's a waiver but that takes up a lot of space and Gabe's just not seeing that anywhere near that command in his other buildings so it seems a bit extreme so if there is any waiver ability on that we would try to pursue that at final I'm on page 7 and it talks about the DRB access easement to railroad street be acquired it's more I believe it already has been acquired or more or less acquired we're showing it on the plan it's the intent that there's the easement there so garbage truck can go down that lane between us and the building on the corner the brick building on the corner so that is proposed and then the staff is also recommending that the DRB discuss the potential for another easement to the north of that building before the restaurant unfortunately that's not going to happen that's owned by Joe Handy and it's not going to happen so but if you'd like to discuss it that's really all we have to say on that one and other than that we provided the easement that we talked about I don't feel that there's a need for a second one on section 708 screening buffering there I think there's a typo where it says village center shall not be required to provide a 15 foot buffer I think the not needs to be removed in the staff notes previously determined that it did apply and then it's clarified on the next page on page 8 that it applies apparently the staff reached out to the town attorney and the town attorney's opinion is that the 15 foot buffer applies for the entire property line of the first single family home which is the second lock in on Gaines Court and you can see our plan there's a little tiny bit of the building there that extends beyond the line that's shown on the plan there's two things that are going to happen one we haven't done the full survey yet so that line may move one direction or the other a little bit probably stay within a few feet of that but that's just a tax map line and we have not had the structural's done and you're going to do that jog at a column line but the best answer I can give you is Gabe inform me tonight that he'll make sure that that building jog starts before the property line at or before the property line so once we have the structural enter in that so that section we will abide by the attorney's opinion and then the only other thing I had was on section 719 landscaping we understand that a full landscape plans required for final and unless if you have questions for me I'll continue to sit here if not I'll have Dan talk about item 4 which is the building I'm just maybe you can just that part about the easement that staff thought we might need you're saying we aren't going to get it and you don't think we do need it and you just walk me through that piece again sure so when you look there you can see the Holton and Handy LLC building that's the brick building that's at the corner there's a 12 foot access power easement just to the south of that that's what we're securing comes right into the parking area and is able to pick up the dumpster and get back out one of the questions staff had is 12 foot is not a lot and will they be pulling out will they be backing out that's up to the dump truck so I think staff's suggestion was if there was two easements then there's no question that they have better circulation and I can't argue that they wouldn't have better circulation but I don't know that there's anything in your regulations that suggest two easements are necessary and staff's not suggesting it either they're just saying there's something that should be discussed and there's a full review coming from the fire chief and everybody else in the next phase they haven't looked at this yet the fire chief has looked at this and does not have any specific comments but there will be at the final site plan stage city engineer will have comments as well but the city engineer hasn't also done a cursory look at this and that was actually a comment that suggested I know there's some fire code regulations on how fire hoses have to go but it'll probably be a sprinkled building anyway so that gets a lot more gets a lot easier for the first time well before we came in the first time we sat down with the town engineer Regina and the fire chief and they reviewed the plan that we brought in the first time and we did some tweaks to it so there was no major issues when we sat down with them initially deliveries you know the let's say they stay out on railroad street and don't try to come in they probably be out there and just jump out and deliver I think they do that whether you provide something for them any or not they're in such a hurry that hey there still is with the upgrades to railroad street there still is those parallels faces on the other side depending on what time of day those are open a fair amount depending on the time of day but my expectation is regardless of what we have that they're gonna they're gonna hop out we have regulations for deliveries but usually you can schedule aside from the package trucks you don't know what they're showing up with you can usually work around that stuff yeah it's not a building that has a cafeteria or something like that where you're gonna have a lot of deliveries for that type of use anyone else for cycling and really comfortable that they modified or enough to meet the yeah this was we had last time yeah I think we were pretty close last time the buffer was the big item and the denial was strictly on the buffer so that not the site design really hasn't changed same concept as far as the access and the easement and the parking area mostly being underneath so the concept really hasn't changed other than the job in the building so I will mention something about that so one thing that has changed because of the job in the building I think you can predict that garbage trucks coming in will have more trouble turning around if they were to go out head first this way so in reality with a layout like this I would guess that the garbage trucks will have to back up all the way including onto the railroad streets which may be I think they'll back they'll back in I mean I watched these downtown browns and back down these crazy alleys they'll back all the way into the dumpster depends what kind of dumpster yeah a lot of them are promoting now we could potentially in this I didn't think of this until Chris mentioned it on parking but the two parking spaces that are outside to the east we could extend that so that the 18 foot for the parking is in further to give more of a turnaround area there because it won't be unless they're very good it won't be one movement but they would be able to turn around so we could look at something like that and do a new mobility back there I just have a comment about the staff notes around electric vehicle charging I don't know if the applicant has any plans to include those I think I would personally need more compel to provide the waiver on the bike requirements that were starting yeah and I'm not sure because it's concept plan we really haven't dug into I'm not sure if this use triggers Act 250 under the current and if it does it's required so we'll get into that and if we're proposing them maybe we'll have further discussion on the bikes alright anybody else play plan thank you very much alright I'll turn it to Dan Dan you're up good evening everyone does the board want me to present the design I'm more than willing to do so but a lot of it hasn't changed the character of the front did so maybe you can focus your comments on what the flavor is now what's happening there sure so because we altered the project scheme we visited the whole project and we decided to alter obviously the front portion of the building the railroad street building we decided to go with a sort of Dutch colonial style one that references other buildings in the village center specifically the building with the barber shop on railroad avenue on that commercial strip right there it has a very residential quality to it but the shape and form are often found in commercial buildings all throughout New England as well so the gambrel that roof form speaks to both history in terms of the colonial reference and it speaks to vernacular buildings in Vermont specifically farm buildings etc so we thought it was an appropriate form you know to quote the ordinance we thought that the scheme both protects historical resources and provides new sources of architectural design for the 21st century while increasing density activity and economic activity in the village center and that section 604 E1 was referenced in the staff notes also in the staff notes 604 E the stone base in this scheme creates a human-scaled data point for the structure the building is over two stories in height so it also meets the requirement it's set back partly at a necessity but partly also to again create a quote active pedestrian space again from the ordinance the relationship of elements such as windows doors overall building size all created on a template of the proportions of this gambrel roofed colonial structure and architectural details such as the roof eaves larger dormer they all reference this classic colonial styling we recessed the main pedestrian entry similar to the adjacent brick Essex agency building and the height of the stone base also references and aligns with that very pronounced ground floor base of that adjacent building David spoke a lot about what I was going to speak about um I have a lot of notes here quoting from the from the or from the ordinance and I could go through them all but perhaps I'll spare you we'll let you probably end up talking more about the interpretation of that but let's see so anybody you want to comment on the provides elevation there was a two-story before and now it's the three three-story before now it's four well it was the three yeah the the front portion remained four stories the rear portion increased also to four correct um I'll just dive in so the rear portion um rendered all in a single color back there now is that there may be some advantage to you know I like the setback and the the jogging and so forth that that's helping you know break up that facade but you may find that a little bit of color it's sort of fashionable now I'm not really saying you have to do it just saying you might find some mileage and a little bit of variation there for me the the gambrale approach is interesting I kind of preferred the other one more but I understand what you did and the arguments are are reasonable it's a little skinny from for me you know just in terms of proportions of the front piece you're going to be kind of walking down the street or driving down the street and you'll get a the front will look a little thin and then I think with just a little bit of maybe paying attention to color and the fine points of the gambrale style you'll be fine you know kind of detailing that thing out I'm still I know it's an illusion but the drive in bay looks shorter than the other two and I'm guessing if you drew a line across the top of the arch they'd all line up correct but because it's wider and it means the arch is flatter and it looks smaller which is mentally disturbing to me because I think I'm driving through there and I might want it to be higher and it's probably okay if it is we want you to go slow but I might have bicycles on my roof or something so anyway I think the illusion the little balancing act to do here between what does it look like and what is like architectural kind of convention which they all line up but I don't know if you really want it all line up I think the drive through bay wants to be a little taller for obvious reasons but other than that the bay's treatment is strong like it was before and now we're just really trying to get the presentation of that front section which is pretty cool I mean normally that would have been built like first and then somebody might have added on and then somebody added on and somebody added on by the time you get all done it looks you know like what you've got in total now but you know I kind of missed the brick version but it's not exactly our position to tell you have to do one or the other it's still handled pretty well so I do like this one better you like this one better there you go New Englander right alright anyone else so here I'll basically say fine with it at concept level they'll come back to weeks anyway just because I heard your comment about the narrow a little probably narrow for how tall it is Nintucket would do that just because they didn't have you know something I fully recognize that comment I will say that this TV is not correct proportion of the drawing this one is closer we got to come over there that's not the correct portion the screen is stretching but your point is well taken this room is probably in the range probably a little over 24 feet that front is 24 feet it's not super narrow any other comments on at conceptual level I know you're going to have a lot more drawings coming but I think the other consideration I had was when you look at the building that's on the right hand side of that on the other side of Gaines Fort it's really short compared to this in this district I don't think we regulate that it's a commercial property in an area that's trying to get denser we have to balance normally we would say well really shouldn't be more than so many percent of your story higher or lower than the adjacent one but I'm pretty sure that there's an exception for that in the village center and in a predominantly commercial area so just my real beef is with the building next door not with the proposed building it's not even an exception because the regs are clear that it's to the residential that it applies to the residential it's silent on being up against that use I would expect that that use isn't going to stay that forever one would hope not it's also a shorter front piece in the back there's a few more stories yeah that's a weird it's a funky situation somebody broke the rules when they added the front piece on because alright so I don't have any other comment at the moment on the revised presentation I think it managed to dance down the line pretty well based on the bike storage we can't do a waiver for that right? I'm not aware of there being a waiver but I will say as having worked in the process of putting that regulation in to the LDC one bike per unit is not is nothing particularly interesting compared to other municipalities that have made recent changes to their bike storage the long-term bike storage situation you will see in a lot of developments where there is no safe, high quality long-term bicycle storage when you just put a basic rack there people are going to be afraid to book their bikes and that's why you'll see two or three bikes out of a 50 unit building the intent of the rules in the LDC is that people will feel safe enough to be able to leave their their indoors behind the locked door because some of these bikes are multi-thousand dollars they're expensive and they take those to their apartments people this discussion is a discussion that we could have had on road widths or parking 20 years ago so here we are very many well one's a lot when there's only one per 10 in the other buildings that Gabe has so it's the same thing as we're doing with parking now, we're recognizing that it's not good to over park it's not good to have all this extra so I don't disagree that one doesn't sound like a lot but it is a lot when it's not getting used in the half a dozen other buildings that he has because there's zero indoor parking so I would have to I would have to disagree with that in the other buildings that have never been dedicated and other of Gabe has hasn't been a dedicated indoor locked space for bicycles my question was more is it like in some things they're explicit like you guys can make the decision that you don't think this is necessary but this doesn't seem like we'd be I mean I don't think look this is relatively new we could take a really close look with the wording and see what kind of flexibility there might be more flexibility with vehicles than bicycles which is kind of odd my first read of it is it's not a waiver sometimes digging in deeper when you look at the overall regulation there might be something but my first read of it there's not a waiver I'm just saying it's excessive last comment yes I'd like to make a comment I wasn't going to but I will because of the bikes it's a lot of bikes that are being asked for the bike rack that was featured in the staff notes we need four of those it might require a thousand square foot room it's very difficult for an infill project to accommodate that volume of bikes I spent the past many years I put up all the new construction that Redstone did in Burlington and we put bike rooms in and each one of them had a bike room and they had varied levels of success the one constant with them is that every six months we had to clear out many many bikes that were left there that were left locked to the racks the expensive bikes people take up to their apartment that was our experience managing those buildings the rooms very quickly became unwieldy we provided a bike repair stations so it is an evolving situation and what's being asked for specifically in this case is a pretty big volume of space for an infill project I'll I guess I'll echo that we can try and regulate our way into better behavior but it doesn't always happen like M.S.I. better if we could we'd imagine this building just right next to the train station right next to the bus station walkable to the entire downtown area of S6 Junction and you know will we be successful in minimizing the number of cars and maximizing the number of bikes I don't know we understand your concern and I guess we'll keep talking about that anything else anyone else in the audience anyone online have a comment anyone left online by the way one person in their own yes is that Mary Jo back there okay so yeah some nice improvements I'm gonna stick by my initial comments about the height of the building to our world and now it's even higher so I do appreciate meeting the regulation for the buffer and I am curious about the north end with the parking spaces my property my house the edge of my house on the north side is exactly in line with Gabe's Gaines Court property that exists right now and in this footprint rendering it doesn't look like that I'm just wondering I'm just curious about the scale here I think it's well this is an actual aerial photograph that we're looking at that right the tax map line work on there might be off but I wouldn't expect that the buildings themselves can be off because it's an actual picture okay so then my question would be is the proposal eating into Gabe's existing Gaines Court property for those parking spaces I guess until there's a there's a formalized survey we don't necessarily have an answer to that there is a property line drawn over top of this that at the moment we will say is accurate but it's indicated by the applicant that they're going to do there's a cyclone fence currently dividing the properties that cyclone fence is exactly in line with the edge of my property on the north side I'm sorry on the north side on the east side on the east side and it may be that the fence has nothing to do with the property line I just I don't know well that is a curiosity there's a pump station that's right there so anyway that it's got my mind going about how that would be configured there and the property lines as they're being displayed I like the fact that the building has a lot more character and I would request that those parking spaces in the back and of course all along have good fencing and though those lower areas there are protected visually from gains court and I was curious in the last hearing about the fact that all the poles would be taken down and that there would be underground power supply and that now the power again in that location that I'm talking about that east location that that's where the power will come from for one gains court and my property three gains court and when I went and looked at how that would be configured it looks like it's going to come straight through my cedar bushes and I don't see any other way that it could possibly happen so um just saying maybe there's a more detailed version of the plan that will come along that will show exactly what the proposed routing is or where the poles are where they're not and I guess it's never really a done deal till the power company says this is what we're doing and they often don't even listen to what we tell them to do they just they'll kind of dictate that so I'm not sure what the mechanism is for getting involved in that conversation but that's probably a they don't really do anything without disturbing other things so I think that should be something that you keep an eye on so would that be at my cost I don't know I'm not sure how that were whether I mean I don't know how that negotiation happens they probably say we need to replace your power and maybe they listen to and talk to you about it they'll probably do it the day you're not there you know I don't know you have to it's probably will try and make sure that we have at least something to say about that but I'm not sure that we do the other thing other thoughts I have about this is where the snow is going to get plowed I brought up the very first meeting that that northeast edge of Gabe's existing gains court property got a waiver from for right away for for fire access in that far corner there and now I mean it's been manageable because the whole parking spot was open snow could be moved around in various ways but I'm just wondering how how is that going to be enforced just these thoughts they will have a snow removal plan indicated on the drawings or at least a storage area no pile location in terms of management that might be something that we could just bringing up my concerns after 30 years of being in that house I am very aware of all the different nuances of this particular property thank you thank you very much anyone else other good things I like to add or clarify so so first thing I was going to mention is about parking and what I mentioned about the waiver it is not a quantity waiver it is the waiver for dimensions there is no minimum parking requirements in the village center zoning district although I would note that the parking ratio is lower than anything we've ever anything we've had built lately and I mentioned in the report that said there could be potential just looking at the site plan over here with the kind of awkward shape it might be possible to put in a couple of tandem parking spaces which are assigned to the two bedroom units in case one household has two cars that they can negotiate backing out whatever so those are just things to be aware of with parking the other thing I was going to mention is the 15 foot buffer I think the definition of buffer has to not just be one dimensional I think it is two dimensional and you would have in my opinion you would look from this corner and draw a 15 foot radius which would go this way as well which is why I was I thought it would be worth considering the whether or not this is a required waiver but that's my thoughts about thinking of this two dimensionally I would I would respond to that by saying that the landscaping that creates more dimensions inside the buffer might be critical at that location to make sure that it softens that whole edge including the right so the buffer I would agree that the buffer is more than one dimensional I'm not sure how that plays out with the corner of the building shape but certainly in my mind that means that there's three dimensional ability for landscaping to address that buffering and screening and softening so we don't have a landscape plan there's a couple of token things on the front I would essentially encourage the applicant to seriously look at the how that part of the building which is tall is softened what happens in that spot now that we have a 15 foot setback in physical space what can we do with it that continues the buffering ideas softening that would help with the area certainly our intent to tell the landscaper that's one of the areas of concentration once you get to Mary Jo's property that cedar edge is about 25 feet high you can't see the property except the driveway so it's more important corner than it is the back of the building so again the concern along gains court has been for the houses that have been there for a long time they're short and they're close and your building is tall again the focus of the buffer screening activity can be enhanced at that location I think everybody will see that there is a reason we're 45 feet we're not 4 stories and 58 feet which is a lot we're 13 feet lower than any waiver requirement John I think that touched on what he meant though it does I know what he's saying because if you're standing here on the very edge of the property you put your arm here and you can touch the building it may be 15 feet from here I'm not that's a great point and it's a reasonable interpretation I think somebody's got to decide how that works buildings don't like to do that that's not our we're not here to make the building happy we're here to make the surrounding neighbors happy and the whole complex will good so I think I might need a straw poll or something though we're going to go from here Gabe's going to go spending serious money on a building bringing it back to the the extent of that property line when that property line is perfectly defined if you're saying take the 15 foot radius you're now taking the 15 foot radius on to the commercial property right you're taking it on to the commercial property there I don't think that's the proper interpretation if the board feels it is there's no way that that's an undue adverse impact no way can that be met even if you all agreed or the majority of you agreed with that interpretation but we need a little guidance on on that we're willing we're willing to come back to the line but we're not willing to go 15 feet beyond that line so there were a couple of different butters came in so last time I haven't and Mary Jo is here Mary Jo was here and the neighbor next to her were the two main ones last time but I just gave the guidance that I think you need to consider a building change here our office opinion wasn't necessarily to go to the full 15 foot buffer because again the undue adverse but Gabe said no let's go to the 15 well everyone alright let's do a strong pull I'm fine with it as drawn I'm not even worried about a foot or two really but I appreciate the sentiment that the intent is to stay you know back about wherever that line ends up I find that to be a reasonable combination to the intent of the code so and I don't see that it might just be the way the buildings are configured across the way but it doesn't seem like we're like the project is is encroaching at that particular location based on what I'm seeing on the rest of the straw holes Chris raised an interesting point but the code is not doesn't go to that whole specificity and I appreciate that let's adjust the plan in response to the concerns that were raised from folks lost sounds I agree we challenged you last time to move it 15 feet and we talked about that line did what we asked needs to the letter of the code and I'm fine with it thank you you won ours not majority cut it off any further comments from anyone including staff alright I will I guess we need a motion to accept the the language is specific right we have to I have to close the public hearing I think a motion to close the public hearing public hearing it would be a motion to approve the conceptual plan conditions not sure I like that language but I don't think I have a choice so I will take a motion to approve the conceptual site plan with all the we made some comments but at this stage it's not really we'll wait until you come back to make official comments we're just giving you suggestions at this point so we're going to approve the conceptual site plan is there a second any further discussion all in favor say aye aye post congratulations thank you thank you gay alright we have one more tonight thank you for your patience it's been a longer night than anticipated we're still here we're happy to see you we have a public hearing conceptual site plan to remove existing structures and construct a poor story 18-unit residential building with parking at 132 Pearl Street in the HA district by Paralign Real Estate LLC the applicants are here we invite you to introduce yourselves and walk us through the project I'm Robert Paralign and Doug our architect is on zoom he would like him to talk about the plans after I tell you what we're doing here we have two buildings currently in the setbacks on 132 Pearl and we'd like to build out to those setbacks it makes the road it's pleasing where the buildings are right now gives us a little bit more space for the bikes if we shrink it we're going to shrink our bike space I know he had the discussion with Gabe so bikes are important but maybe not so important not that big one thing in our plan we did not show any electric but we do plan to do some electric and also for cars I would like to have you look at this as a PUD possibility we could condomize these condominiums in the future or separate so the two waivers we were looking at wasn't clear as the height is 48 feet so that was a question that came up when I was on vacation and so we're at 48 feet not 53 currently and Doug will talk about the layout when you at the end after I talk about the waivers so we're looking for a waiver on those two setbacks the one in the back is a little bit easier to push back the one in the front will constrain us more and the other waiver is the total square footage we're at 67 and we're supposed to be at 65 we can go out to 80 if we get a waiver from you guys and that's about it landscape this is our current design the railroad is our neighbor in the back we plan to leave that untouched and Kentucky Fried Chicken is to our east or west sorry east I was right so that's about all I had you have any questions should we turn it over to Doug I only have a question for you because I knew it was an issue in the previous version and that's just the whole nature of the railroad piece now that you're doing nothing in there at this point you're not using it at all it's just the railroad yeah so this is my third time here the third time that third plan I never made it here because the first time we were going to come in and rent a railroad property and they said we could terminate the lease at any time and I said no I don't want that I would want a 99 year lease or something and they said no we can't give you that so I said okay that's off the board and then I came in with a nine unit and then Chris said hey we're changing our zoning down to one parking per unit so then we went back to the 18 unit with the one parking spot so it's been a long process for us and to redesign that to go back it's going to to me it's at first it's going to be difficult it's more money and it's going to go back to the setbacks if we have to redo the front if you ask us to move the back we could probably live with that a lot easier it's the front that changes everything so we're asking for the waiver for the front setback if you give us the front maybe you'll give us the back to that'd be great setback on the total lock overage consider this a PUD and I think that's it and you can see right now it goes through the railroad so we're not counting those railroad parking spots they're extra and the building will go the parking will go out into that area so John if you if it would be helpful I can clarify what a part about evaluating this as a PUD you know I got that I've rewritten that section of the code twice so I know what I'm thinking we said which is that the PUD is intentional instrument that the city is using to say we'll give you some leeway on some of the normal things but in order to get that you have to do some things that we're trying to incentivize so it's a tradeoff you get something we get something and so as we go through this we're just going to kind of make sure that the city is getting things that we wanted out of the plan so one thing that Doug and I talked about this is there's a bus stop right outside so we could put a bus yeah I think it's clear that the code asks for something to happen that's more than normal and so that would probably fit that I don't think the bus stop has moved I haven't noticed for a while it's been vacant but there was a bus stop right at the corner on east side yeah and let me just maybe I can ask staff about the setbacks or comment on that when we get there but the highway arterial and then there's the transportation district which is right next to this one and two lots down so there's a lot of weird stuff going on the transportation district has been a nightmare to try and regulate because it has a maximum setback because it wants stuff closer to the street so I'd be kind of interested in how all that plays out because I'm not sure that the with the two pushing and pulling I think there's some room to maneuver in there that's what I'm trying to say all right so so we have a this is conceptual only so we're going to give you suggestions and then make some kind of a yes or no at the end of this sure yeah Doug you're you're on as long as Robert's done here you're on go ahead Doug sure so I just wanted to point out that plan is why we can put it back up just one second and that's the formal setback line oh yeah okay got them setback line just setback so that cuts through the existing building yeah just fairly yeah so what we're doing is as we've taken those two corners and pushed into where their existing buildings the existing building in the front parallel to the setback but we want our building to be parallel so in that lower corner by utility it meets that's right on the corner of the existing building and then sort of steps back but I like your thought I had similar thought about this being transitional between here and the highway material so two doors down where it's a maximum setback which closer to the road so it's kind of that extra two feet and it sort of starts to get there pulls the building forward of the front building just setback so it helps the skies transition between buildings that are further setback that road where they're closer to the road a couple of staff comments that I wanted to point out that eight foot in hard space if we can make that nine foot I can steal a foot out of bicycles you can steal that out of any bicycles in every world we actually get more than being using a racking system that was talked about or shown in the staff comments could actually get about 22 bicycles in there and I agree basically knowing people who rent in Burlington that they have a $1500 bicycle in it they don't even put it in the lot bicycle storage those ourselves that's a cheap bicycle and the family members that I know have purchased bikes recently that's a used electric bike let's see the landscaping that I've shown is my interpretation if it's a PUD I understand then one of the things we have is a license landscape architect and if we're putting a bus stop in the shelter it would make sense that all of that be done in conjunction with a license landscape architect and I think that would be a good thing because that's what it made me do the last weekend I think it was in there and just because we're outside in other jurisdictions in the south row doesn't mean the setbacks used to be building there down they've all changed their regulations to allow to that or sometimes they use a percentage of the two lots next door so as you can see the lot next door is even closer to the road than ours or not it's just quite interesting one other thing we had discussions with Lamarone Stone sorry, it's now a TCE with about the storm water and I've shown an area of approximate depiction of Sanford there would be something similar to that it hasn't been engineered but Bob wants to have some public sort of adding the use for the tennis building so that is shown and then the law never yet on the east side that actually this is the first plan with all these generations Bob talked about now and every other generation you're avoiding going back to building so in this iteration we are able to do this with a turnaround under the building and connection to that and paving it back it's always on site in terms of trash which came up before yes in the last presentation yes it would probably be backing in to get that trash unless the property is lower than 12 feet that's a couple of times 11 feet that's a couple of clearance over the parking so the track could get in there or continue through and out of the other side those considerations came up in the last discussion point goes up on the 3D it is Bob gave me about three days together so there's no indication about there would be different materials and different parts of the building probably of course right at the bottom that silvery looking thing is actually the trash my thought that the interior sources about things seem like in the walls would be a natural finish wood loader and the trash would actually have that as well otherwise it's pretty much a black and white image that's so the just a couple of questions Doug the tower what's 48 feet the building itself or the tower the top of the tower is 7 feet above the roof binding awesome so what's happening on the roof garden it's mechanical equipment solar panels and that stuff yeah you got it solar panels going right away but it has to be designed solar ready and you made a comment about being able to drive through the building and out the other side and I'm guessing that's out the back and then you're onto the railroad property so it's not necessarily you're right away or your property but it's there and until somebody says otherwise it probably works where do you go from there you don't come back out on your own property you're just on another the next parcel over it's all connected back there so at some point that might go away but it's there now so you're not going to do this this is property yeah I don't I mean that's just it's hard to know how to handle that parcel because it belongs to somebody else but all over as extension this situation happens and it's been you know enjoyed or utilized by everyone all over the place and yet if you actually talked to the railroad they're pretty grouchy about any deal they don't you know it's not in their interest to make a deal so I think you know probably you have to just so so Marcus online he says we cannot hear the participants on zoom cannot hear on YouTube is that a town meeting TV issue or is that a zoom issue they were they were kind of whispering for a minute there so they weren't actually saying anything that was being public so I don't know if that's what the collars are referring to all right so the couple of structures come down is that large hedge there staying that looks like the border between KFC and your property and these hedge will stay the other hedge will be a fence it will come down yeah one parcel in the transportation district that transit oriented didn't really end up with the front yard that we expected is the probably everybody can see it so where when you get to your front area there that landscaping piece that it's pretty important that I mean the idea is friendly it's inviting pedestrian oriented the other one looks like a drainage ditch to me and so we want to be sure that your landscape architect and you work together on whatever happens out there so that it presents a nice appearance to the community and not you know like something else but that's pretty important we used to own the building 134 next door and so that's more of a low income currently so it would be nice not to shelter but more to separate with not blocking so we would like to make this our 132 more of a paradise away from 134 kind of I don't know if we could do that like the fence part where do we stop the fence in the setback I like that you've created opportunities for something to happen that would either be amenities for the residents or the one on the street is an amenity for the community which is great the transportation circulation path pedestrians bike whatever is a huge part of the overall regional transportation effort and so you want to kind of really pay attention there's a bicycle walk committee there's all kinds of you know reasons that you could find that to be a nice I'll bring bikes right through there I used to ride my bike from the other side of five corners to camp Johnson to go to work and I completely concur with the need to have accessible bike paths and a safe way through there for bicycles because there are areas along that road it's just kind of scary but and our intent is to just to upgrade the whole lot I mean it's pretty shabby as it is and we want to have something that we can be proud of owning as well as something that serves the needs of the community and meet the requirements of the committee pretty straight yeah just one more thing on the architecture itself and then I'll let the rest of the group talk we only got a black and white version of this Doug and I know it's you know we haven't you're early three days in that's pretty impressive but I guess I'm a little nervous that the actual footprint of the building that goes to the ground the front's pretty thin and I think figuring out how to continue the deception that says this building is a building and not a parking lot with a building over it is worth a little just keep doing things to sort of make us believe that it's really a building there and I'd say even be a little playful and I see some siding treatments there that are nice and the way the building is stepped in front is really nice you know it helps all those things help what looks like a parapet around the top which I'm not sure what it is but you know that looks like it's interesting but the more recent example of a building that has a small street front but you know it's the one right here in the back corners that what's it for Maple yeah right the bagel so that building is playful and it's mostly parking underneath so at the first story so I just use that as an example of you know don't be afraid to kind of have some fun with it can we kind of leave her out into the setback because we wanted to say it what we thought was the setback can you bring balconies or can we go in the building there's some I think there's a couple of feet available I'm not sure it's not utilities and you know like air conditioners and stuff that people don't want to see there's a little leeway there for that I think yeah I believe there's something about balconies being able to extend out because it reads a little flat now I think that would help you know and certainly you probably want to give them a little more room there so we haven't talked a whole lot about this but I you know my concern is to not make something that is going to be an eyesore 10 years down the line because it's so trendy now but something that like you said it has some fun and some interest to it but has enough traditional elements that it's not going to look like like some houses driving like well that's somebody's house you know and it's outdated looking because it was very it stuck to a very historical time frame in its structure I don't want this to be something that 10 years down the line would drive by and I'm like well sort of variation in the building facade is one of the best ways to achieve you know kind of the little more design you know alright so I had a whole lot of comments on the staff report that we can go through at some point but if anybody else has more comments on this we haven't seen many of those anyone though rendering it looks like something my kid did in Minecraft when he was 12 I alright well I'm not going to be too lengthy on this but we already talked about the PUD so it didn't actually say in the original effort that it was being requested as a PUD we don't have to look at it one unless you ask us to so I'm glad you did because I think it helped that said the PUD chapter now applies and so all of the items that are in there that have you know to do with what the city is looking to get for that designation also applied so keep thinking amenities, keep thinking who they're for because they could be for the residents or the community and so things that are out by the street obviously you know have a more of a benefit to the average person not anything there so I would point out though with the PUD section 723 says that the proposal shall include all of the following except for E if it's not applicable and one of the things there is private open space of 750 square feet I mean it just to me it seems like these rules were not written for this no they weren't those are written for larger development with a lot of open space and so on a kind of a denser site I would say that there's some leeway to that and unfortunately we don't really like having that interpret our own rules but I think in some cases it requires that we be a little sensitive to what is going on so since everything else in this district is asking for more density and more transit based design and more things that you can achieve because you're where you are we would probably try to overlook the portions of that that were written for other conditions alright let's see I think we dealt with the setbacks I personally don't have an issue with the setbacks as long as again there's a tradeoff happening there I'll call your attention to the design review overlay district section 620 that's on page 3 I think this is where your architect can and you can have a little fun with the building character and try and express what you want to express there and give them leeway and see what happens and there was a reference in that to design 5 corners plan which also talks about how you're doing infill development and making spaces for people so you've got a lot of people in the building you have managed to leave some green space around I was particularly interested in the sand pit infiltration and play area which my brain says oh it's a sandbox that's not really the point but anyway you understand you really do have an opportunity to do some things for your it may not be 750 square feet per unit but it's going to be adequate to do something you don't want anyone with grills on their porches right so you're going to have to do something there and then on page 4 pretty much all of those guidelines apply in the design world and you know I'm pretty glad that you have dvv working on this because I think that tends to allow some well the expectations can be higher right um we've been very happy with you know but again it's an opportunity to do something nice I think that's about it there's a lot of stuff about screening I'd kind of be more worried about screening KFC from here folks than kind of the other way around um I'm already hungry just thinking about living there I love the smell the calories and the fat so the people on the east side of the building are going to be obese have more trouble struggle with their weight struggle and then section 718 appears to have some additional you know visual impact notes just pay attention to them and and the only other one I had was about the sort of the existing non conforming lots and the staff notes talk about expanding an existing non conformity which is normally not desirable or even allowed so I'm not sure how that applies here maybe you can guide us on that but in my mind they're already on the right track with averaging the setback requirement and trying to they're not way off it splits the it's more important probably that the facade is varied than it is that the line is perfect the line can be more restrictive than it needs to be in this case I think I'm not sure that I would worry about the existing non conformity I think the net result is going to be an improvement we pointed this out because there were we thought there were several potential pathways to to dealing with this setback issue one of them was to look at this 802 and there's it lists out that if you already have an existing building that existing building you can repair it obviously and then it says if you wanted to expand that building that already exists there are some criteria but you can do that and then it says we don't have it quoted here but 702 802C says that if you're building Burnstack or there's a the cost of repairing would be over 50% then you can also rebuild it in the same place even if it already violates the setback requirements so thinking if there was no other way around it one way to think about it could be that this is an expansion of the already violated setback but this being instructive my interesting interpretation my personal definition is just more of a concept in that you're not allowed to self inflict your problem like you can't you can't knock the building down and then build it but if fire takes it then you can build it so if it wasn't your fault you're allowed to build it back if it was your fault you can't increase the non-conformity but I think as long as we're doing it the other way where if we treat it as a PUD then that gives us the leeway to say okay well let's figure out what makes sense here and let's work with that I think we're fine anyway that's my I've been through all my comments and guidelines I think this is a great match here you guys sound like you're really interested in providing something that could be a real nice feature where there isn't one now so great great idea there let's have comments at this point staff are we ready for a motion no we have to close the public hearing first right I just want to see if Jennifer who wrote this report had anything else to say it's good I just wanted to point out like this is my first staff report so I'm sorry it was so long and very little and where I wasn't sure I just kind of included things like I don't know if you could just put it anyway but overall yeah I think people are pretty good great that's a formidable start right there alright so I need a motion to close the public hearing all in favor say aye aye any opposed motion carries and now I need a motion if anyone is ready to make a motion to approve the conceptual plans motion to approve the conceptual plans any further discussion all in favor say aye aye any opposed motion carries thank you very much thank you so much excited to finally move forward Doug thank you so much chatting before too long yeah thank you I don't even know what my craft is is this shooting game it's a popular game but in that way you might know soon and I don't really like this what was that my first help came from being like come on can we watch theo games on your song first I think this is audience because I brought the old one by mistake just give it to me oh yeah do we have any other development or view board items tonight hearing none I'll take the motion to adjourn motion to adjourn any further discussion motion carries thank you very much