My name is Rob Goodwin. I'm the chair of the Development Reboard in Montpelier. I'm going to call this December 6th meeting of Development Reboard to order. And I'm going to introduce the members starting on my right. Oh, microphone. Thanks. Katherine Burgess Development Review Board. And then we have three people on the Zoom platform. Joe, are you there? Joe Karenon. And Abby. Hi, Abby White. Just two of them on there, I guess. There's four of us this evening. Okay, so I will, at this point, turn it over to Meredith who's going to give an overview of the remote meeting procedures. Yes, so I'm going to be, hold on, let me just check my email real quick. I'll make sure I didn't have something somebody wanted to get.  And a lot of this, this part on the screen is for people watching remotely over Orca media who might not have joined the meeting yet and that you, but would like to So they can get in if they need to. So those of you who are watching over Orca media, if you want to participate in the conversation, you can use this link here and actually log into the meeting with all of the video options. You can also call into the meeting with this phone number using the meeting ID and be able to, you know, speak in here, but you won't be able to see things on the screen. If you have problems accessing the meeting, please email me at this email address on the bottom of your screen. For those attending via Zoom, turning your video on is optional. And that is one thing that actually you can turn off if you're having connectivity issues. That way you can at least hear what's going on and see what anybody's sharing on their screen. But having to actually stream your own video out sometimes causes problems. For everyone who's attending, please keep your microphone on mute when you are not speaking. This will reduce background noise. 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And that's for both the people here in the room as well as people on Zoom. And make sure to provide your full name and address for the for the minutes. This is not a official public hearing. There isn't going to be, you know, items entered into evidence, but we still need your name and address to be able to put in the meeting minutes. And that way we can also correspond with you later. And the event the public is unable to access the meeting. Please note that it will need to be continued to a time and place certain and I'll get noticed about those issues with access via my email. Okay, so go back to that. So does anyone have any questions related to the remote meeting procedures and the Zoom platform? Yeah, I'm not seeing anybody. I will take a motion to approve the agenda for this evening's meeting. So moved. Is there a second? Okay. That was a second from Abby. Is that correct? I didn't hear her. Uh oh, did we, I think we can't hear them anymore over the speakers now. They can hear us, but we can't hear them. You can't hear us. Well, and we had it working Just a few minutes ago. Yeah. Meredith, you can't hear me. I guess not. I don't think so, Abby. I can hear you, Abby. Okay, now we can hear you. All of you. Thank you. Great, great. A second from Abby. Yeah. Alrighty. So, um, I'll just go through. Um, Joe, how do you vote? Yes. Abby? Yes. Catherine? Yes. And Rob votes yes. That's four zero. And the motion and agenda is approved. Welcome to this night's meeting. I don't have many comments this evening. I'll just put out there that we have an open seat on the development review board. So if you know of anyone interested, they can contact Meredith. And there's information on the city's website. Also pretty easily accessible for open positions. So anyone interested in joining this board that, you know, only has four people tonight, a couple are out for various reasons. It's great having a full board because everyone's got, you know, children to take care of and COVID precautions and jobs and whatnot. It's nice to be able to have a, that's maximum size pool to pull from these meetings. That being said, we will now review the minutes from the November 15th meeting. Does anyone have any changes to the minutes? Can we? Yes, we can. Yeah, so. Yep. Yep. I had just one question, Meredith. It seems like maybe just a general note in here to say that parcel two and lot two would be interchangeable. The plat says lot two, two lots of division. Using the notation of parcel two. Yeah. We don't, I don't know if we need to change it everywhere, but it's just a. Where did I use lot in here? Well, a lot isn't here, but on the plat, in the application materials, it refers to lots. Maybe it's inconsistent, but I was just, that's why I was saying not change it everywhere, but just put a note about. I can. Sure. I mean, that's, it's because of, in the regs we refer to them all as parcels now. So yeah, because that's actually the proper, more proper term under the regulations versus calling it lots, I guess. So whatever. Okay. I think that that suggestion is withdrawn. Do I have a motion to prove the minutes for the November 15th meeting? Yep. Yes. Wait a second. Second. Second by Abby. Joe, how do you vote? Yes. Abby, how do you vote? Yes. Catherine. Yes. And Rob votes yes. That's four, zero. And all of those people were at the, that meeting. Okay. We're now going to move on to our only application of the evening, which is for a plan review for a campus PUD sketch plan. So we do not even swear anyone in tonight. This is a more of an informal conversation than an application. And I just want to say we're glad to have a lot of public here. This is a really important part of the process to have public comment and engagement because it's at the very beginning. And so at this time, I think I'll turn it over Meredith to do a brief overview of the application before hearing from the applicant. Okay. Thank you, Rob. So I'm going to stick, try to stick more to procedural. So this is an application for a campus development under Montpelier's planned unit development chapter. And this is this, all the planned unit developments have to go through a sketch plan and a final application process. So it's two different applications. The sketch plan hearing isn't really a hearing. It's a meeting where the applicant can get some informal feedback from the board and any members of the public. You know, there will be meeting minutes, but there will be no formal decision from the board. This is not a decision on a permit or an approval of the plan. This is an opportunity for input as to what needs to be in the final application when it comes back to the board for an actual decision. You know, the Vermont College of Fine Arts has had a PUD previously. It was called an academic institution PUD under the regulations that were replaced in 2018. And there's not, there's nothing really physical about actual buildings or parcel sizes or anything that changes between that old one and this one other than, you know, pieces of property that may have been sold in the interim. But there are some, there were some new sort of opportunities that were included within campus PUD options. In the new regulations, including as people have seen the ability for a campus of any sort, whether it's a college campus or a commercial campus, to be able to get some limited changes in how uses are designated and what kind of approvals changes and uses require. And that's one of the big, you know, potential changes under this. But a campus PUD isn't actually a permit to make any of those changes. It is a sort of a plan, a blueprint. And the college in the future would still need to come back either to the planning department for administrative approval of permit changes or the board, if something were to otherwise trigger board review. So, but tonight's just sketch plan when we get to feel things out. And a reminder to everybody participating tonight. This is the very first planned unit development that has seen any kind of a hearing since these regulations were adopted in January of 2018. So we're all in the process of learning right now. So thank you very much. All righty, yeah. So, Katie, would you like to introduce yourself and just give you the floor? Sure. My name is Katie Gustafson. Make sure you're right into the microphone. I currently am the VP of finance and administration at Vermont College of Fine Arts. Previous to this role that I'm in, I was the VP of campus planning. And when I moved into that role pretty quickly, I discovered that our campus master plan had expired. So this has been on my to-do list for quite some time and there have been a variety of things that have just taken my attention in other directions. So I'm really excited to be here, to have finally gotten it this far. And I like the board. I'm excited to have the community here to give us feedback in terms of what we have presented. I have lived in Montpelier most of my life and feel very strongly about this community and what the college has to offer. So I sort of see this as the start of a conversation towards hopefully getting us to the final application process. So I'm sure people have lots of questions, but that's really all I'll sort of start out with. So just starting very high level here. What? There's a lot of reasons why someone would do a campus PUD. Could you just sort of explain what your goals are and interests are in the process? Well, like I said, our campus master plan had expired. The regulations had changed. So in order to sort of get ourselves fully into the new zoning regulations, we needed to submit a campus master plan. So really at this point, the college doesn't have any immediate plans to do anything, but we are sort of just getting ourselves to the place where we're sort of back in compliance so that if opportunities come along, we're ready to move forward. So there's no... It seems like in your application there's a couple sort of ideas about the ability to change uses and whatnot, which is not tied to any specific proposal. Do you think you could talk a little bit about what that process gets you up at the college and in the future? Sure. I mean, so we have a lot of underutilized space. We're a low residency college for those folks that aren't that familiar with what we do, which means that of our six programs, they cycle through the campus for a week at a time. Every six months. So the six programs are never on campus at the same time, and we use the campus with our academic programs approximately a third of the year. And so that just leaves us with a lot of underutilized space. So we have some tenants currently and are always looking for ways to maximize the use of the campus. So looking at just what we have for excess space and thinking about what are ways we might be able to fill them, whether office space or housing. I mean, just all the different options that are out there. So we did list many of the conditional uses as things that we could see that could fit there well alongside what we do. And again, nothing is planned at the moment, but when opportunities arise, hoping to have ourselves positioned in a sort of efficient, effective place where we can move forward with opportunities as they arise. That's probably, since you're considering questions, I have a follow up on one of the earlier ones, just around context and goals. And somewhere in here, some of the language alludes to the potential change needs post COVID or some sort of potential changes in what the students' patterns would be going forward. Can you elaborate on that a little bit? I mean, I think that COVID has put us in a position where students haven't been on campus for essentially two years. We've had one group in August that sort of threaded the needle before Delta arrived, and then we again took another pause. So just, I think the sort of shuttering of the campus has really given us a moment to rethink about what might we be able to do long-term. But again, no clear plans about what that might be, but just knowing that we do have just so much underutilized space that we have to be opportunistic with opportunities that come along that are a good fit with what we currently do. Our students are our top priority, the academic programs. So things that, like I said, office space or we have a food service provider that has moved into our commercial kitchen, which we haven't used in two years, just things that will help generate additional revenue to help bolster our overall business model. So I think, you know, staying a little bit higher level, a lot about this process, you know, obviously you don't have a specific plan, so it's not about specific things. We're more of sort of preparing to embark on a process that gives you a more long-term process of how you are going to, you know, what types of permits you're going to get and what the process is going to be in the future. We've never seen a, you know, PUD application before. The board has a lot of discretion on, you know, sort of like what we would require. Have you sort of started, you know, thinking about sort of like what the nuts and bolts of that application might look like for an instance, the type of site plan you might, you know, you might need or sort of the, maybe the specific types of uses and how detailed your maybe master plan, you know, might be for what the options are in each building is that something that you sort of contemplated? We haven't yet. We're about to start a strategic planning process. So we're in the middle towards the end of our current strategic plan for the college. So as we embark on that, I think a lot of those ideas will become clearer to us. Again, this in my mind was really just like the groundwork to sort of, number one, make sure we're compliant with what's required currently with the zoning in terms of a campus master plan. And then as we sort of develop what our next five to 10 years is going to look like, you know, be able to move in that direction. You know, I think that some of the conditional uses are things that we're already doing. So in my mind, thinking about moving those things from conditional to permitted make logical sense. We lease space to several different offices. So being able to lease additional space to offices makes logical sense. Just things that we're already doing so that we don't have to go through any hoops to do more of what we're already doing. That's good, easy space for different kinds of organizations. So as I recall, I was here, we had an application. I don't know, maybe it was a year ago now where you got changed the use of one of the dining halls to be more of a commercial kitchen. And I don't know if you could maybe talk a little bit about sort of that process. And if that's maybe the type of thing that through this process you're looking to have a little bit more streamlined.  We have students on campus a third of the year. Even when they're on campus, we don't need the entire kitchen to be able to feed our students. So being able to have multiple tenants in that space so that it is utilized well. Number one, not only provides more revenue to us, but it actually in some ways creates a food service model that actually somebody's willing to step in to service us. A lot of the larger food service companies really don't have any interest in servicing us because it is such an up and down model where you've got 45 students on campus twice in April and you don't have people on campus again until the summertime. So there are challenges sort of embedded in our model that being able to, for example, have other tenants in our commercial kitchen really benefits us as a college and has actually worked really well for right now. It's just one food service provider, but they've been able to do some really innovative things. with the space that we have available. So sort of one of those win-win situations, things like that we would love to be able to do more of. And you see a lot of our other similar opportunities, maybe not exactly kitchens because you only have so many, but I know on campus this is just sort of, you know, change the use of one building and be able to sort of have it multi-purpose and get somebody new in there sort of on the fly. Yeah, I mean we've been trying to find more tenants for years and it's a challenge to find tenants. So when you do find one that, you know, either can help support what we're already doing or use the space in a way that we don't need the space, you know, that's really the best case scenario. And, you know, the timeline for getting administrative permitted use of permanent is obviously, you know, more conducive to trying to close on a client for a particular use than, you know, coming all the way to the development or re-board and I guess that's part of this process that you're looking to get into. Absolutely, the more efficient that we can be will certainly help us when those opportunities arise. So I guess at this point, I'm just still staying a little bit high level here because getting into the details I'd sort of like to avoid that until later. So board members, there's a list of conditional uses in the staff report that I believe that the, you know, DCFA had identified as potential, you know, things to put essentially into the permitted use category. And I just didn't know if any of the board members had any, you know, sort of major concerns with, you know, sort of before the college moving these conditional uses over to permitted use. And just know that I did forget to list office in there. Office. Yeah, I just double-checked that and was like, oh, no, it's a conditional use. So personal and professional services is permitted, although that's not one that Katie mentioned in her list, right? Office use is separate from that and is a conditional use in mixed use residential. So right now, VCFA can't add additional square footage of office space. So like a law office, something like that, on their campus without coming to the development and review board for a conditional use review. Even, you know, even 100 square feet, they can't expand any of those. I just have a question, Rob, which page are you on in the staff report? Page eight of the staff report. Of the staff report. Okay. And see at the bottom, yeah. Yeah, got it. And it continues on to page nine, where we have community center, fitness sports gym, athletic facility, public safety facility, greenhouse. Well, I do have a question about a lot of those pieces here. And I'm curious about how the applicant would manage working in traffic. Well, I believe that every time we would come with an administrative permit, we would have to provide the shared parking plan, an updated version. So that would, I believe, be part of that process. And we have our own parking needs. So that, you know, there are limits to what we can possibly add in regard to any other things that we might want to create as other leasing or rental opportunities. So that has sort of a natural constraint on what we're able to do. And I'm just the question, I think, I'm wondering about all of these conditional uses listed here on page eight and nine, they have varying degrees of impact on parking and traffic. And I think some of them would probably, would most likely fall out of the, you know, what's attainable with what we have now already. Do you agree with that? Yeah, I mean, certainly don't plan on doing all 15 or so, whatever of those things. But if any one of those things came along as a possibility, you know, we'd like to be able to entertain that. And if the parking that we had didn't, couldn't accommodate that particular use, we'd have to look at adding more parking, I suppose. Thank you. Joe, do you have any comments? No, not this time. So I guess one thing to, you know, to consider here is that, you know, there's, there's the element of, you know, sort of moving some of these conditional uses into the perm reviews column within the college, you know, PUD. But I think there's some degree of, there's particular buildings that, you know, maybe you would, you would be interested in applying, you know, two or three of these uses, and particularly buildings that say neighborhood market, like wouldn't, wouldn't be the, as for an example, be the right thing. Do you think that sort of with your application, you could maybe, maybe specify a little bit more closely as to what structures you're proposing these uses?  And obviously without the massive plan, we can't make that determination tonight. But I think something to consider, you know, might be something of that, that nature that makes sense. Yeah, I think that's possible Meredith, so, so sort of like zones of potential development. So like the buildings that might be geared more towards residential versus the ones that might be geared more towards commercial style, like restaurants or retail, or like you said, the market opportunities because some buildings or some locations would just be better fits for those than others. Is that what you're looking at? That's correct.  What I mean is conditional uses. But, you know, I think that in the final application, there, you know, would be needed a great deal of detail to sort of like making the case for what precautions you have, you know, taken, what infrastructure exists on the, you know, on the campus and, you know, maybe generally like where you would envision that type of use occurring, you know, and however that would be best presented.  Anything else? Anybody? The second issue I think is parking. We just got, I just wanted to sort of close the book on this, you know, general concept of changes of use because I think it's kind of twofold. It's the changes of use and then it's, you know, it's sort of the impact, you know, on parking and infrastructure at which that might have. And so I'm ready to move on to the next section of parking if board members are. Yes, sir. Perfect. So Katie, do you have a sort of a rough sketch master plan of where parking exists on campus? Do you think you could just give us a high level summary of what your, what parking looks like and on the college hill? Give me a moment to find my, they're in the packet. It's right near the end of my campus master plan application. I have listed both street and parking lot spaces available. So it's on page nine table A 224 spaces. Or what we currently have. So that includes a small parking lot behind Dewey, a large parking lot that runs behind both Stone and Shulmire. And then the alumnus all the way from alumnus back to behind Gary library is the largest parking lot with 99 spaces. And then there, I didn't subtotal the street parking, but there's maybe another, I don't know, 50 spots or so where we own the property on both sides of the street that gets us to that total of 224. There's, I believe there was a comment from public works and the staff report about the street parking. Yeah, just that the during the winter right now, because we have the alternate side parking during the winter, the street parking would be roughly cut in half. Um, because they can only use one half of this, you know, each day under the current DPW plan. I don't know which months you typically have students if it's in the winter months as well. I would assume it would be to be able to fit everybody throughout the year. Yeah, we do have people there in the winter time. And you know, at some point I would love to have a conversation about that particular way in which we're now approaching parking in Montpelier, because that definitely will be a hardship for our students when they're on campus. I don't know if now is the appropriate time to have that conversation, but, yeah, to lose 25 spots or however many it would be would be a challenge, I think, at certain times of the year. And at the same time, I totally understand why the city is trying a different approach, because it has been a challenge to keep the streets clean in the wintertime. So, you know, maybe that's, we have in the past on occasion asked for a temporary permit to be able to have people park on the tennis courts. I don't know if we could entertain something like that or just waving the every other side of the street rule during the wintertime. But again, maybe not appropriate for today's discussion, but certainly something that we are going to have to try to manage too. So, Meredith, we have some flexibility on parking in this process. Correct. You know, the board has the ability to waive the minimum parking requirement based on several different factors. And, you know, outside of the special circumstance of the college, not having all of its students on campus all the time, there's the separate allowance for when you have things like public transit stops nearby and facilities for, you know, bicycle storage as well as showering facilities for staff. So, there's some allowances there where we would just need additional, or not we, I don't make the decision, but the board would need some additional information in the final application to be able to better weigh what kind of waiver it can grant. Or it's not really a waiver, sort of an exception. It doesn't have to meet the waiver standards. Could you talk us through what the, I mean, I think it's pretty clear here the proposal with Cable D, the proposed change shared parking plans, you know, with the reduced numbers, including for the college. Can you talk us through, you know, in the absence of having a formal study right now, what types of modes of transport most of your students are using? And that, you know, is part of the discussion for changes in approach. Yeah, I mean, so I, I can't. Katie, if you could make sure you're close to the microphone. Sorry. Yep, no, that's okay. So many of our students come from outside the state. So they're flying into Burlington and they take taxis to campus. So certainly not every student is driving to campus or faculty members. And, you know, along with that, as I pointed out, I believe the college calculation is supposed to be based on number of beds and we don't generally put our students into the double rooms that have two beds. We have people in single rooms. These are adult students. And we don't, we're never at maximum capacity. So that, while I understand why that was sort of created as a way to come up with a number of parking spaces, it really creates a situation that would require us to have much more parking than I actually think we need. There are very few times when we have more than, you know, we have two programs that can get upwards to 150 people. And I'd say maybe half of those people drive to campus. And is the college offer any additional shuttles or anything beyond what's offered in Montpelier? We don't have any shuttle service. So people are taking taxis from the airport or if they are close enough, a lot of them do drive. So a shared parking plan here. So if a particular building with a parking lot were to come in and ask for a change for permanent use to, you know, to conditional use, would there still be a certain number of allocated spots for the use of that building? Or are you talking about sort of, you know, you have this many, you know, parking spots in the PUD and, you know, they're all communal parking spots, essentially get the distinction I'm making there. Like I sort of miss, I couldn't hear you. I'm sorry. Okay. So I think you were. So like, you know, say College Hall, you know, as a Pacific parking lot, you're going to change from a permanent use to a conditional use under the conditional use and under the under or under a new PUD with every parking spot in the PUD, you know, sort of be considered to be used for that, you know, increase of, you know, traffic, you know, what it may be, or would there be specific spots at College Hall, you know, for that building, because that's where the change of use is taking place, you know, designated, you know, allocated to say that, like, okay, we needed five, now we need, you know, 10 because a change of use is doubled. And so I think maybe that's not something you have to answer now, but I think that that's the type of thing, you know, you know, going forward that we would need some good information on. Yeah. I mean, currently it depends on the tenant, but whether we have specific parking spots or not, and I would say the vast majority of our parking spots are not reserved. So that we really are sort of just keeping count of how many parking spots we have and how many people need spots or how many uses need spots. And it obviously fluctuates quite a bit because it depends on which program is on campus or if no programs are on campus. Checking in with Captain and Joe here. I mean, Abby and Joe. I'm all set. Okay.  And so, which means you have the ability to sort of get creative. And there's a much better plan for parking that works without tallying up spaces in this lot, you know, in this lot and figuring out all the uses. I think that the board is all years to, you know, sort of a comprehensive plan for, you know, completely changing it, which way things are allocated. I think that, you know, that type of creativity is, you know, is maybe what this process was intended for. But I don't know, we definitely would need some substantiated, you know, evidence. And I think what would be really helpful is, you know, particularly with parking a site plan, kind of showing like the duration of the parking spots where they all, you know, where they all are and all the buildings that could be used going forward. So say, you know, you go in for a permit, it permitted use, which used to be a conditional use. And it makes it much easier to streamline that process in the planning department to just be able to see like, okay, this building has X amount of spots and we'll get it or whatever. So I think that that would be important. Sure. I think I'm ready to turn it over to some public comment here. Miss Meredith, do you have anything to add? I don't have anything. I don't know. Abby, you're not muted. Did you have something, Abby? This is where we go to public. Um, I do want to return to the parking question just for a moment. And I'm on table, table C, back to table C. This is just the question for the applicant. So in this, this calculation that you've done, you've made it in 43 spaces with existing college and existing tenants. How do you factor in these additional uses, conditional uses, which you're seeking to have be permanent uses? How do you factor that into the plan? So spots come in. So tell me again, which table you're looking at table C? Yep. Yes. So the basically with the slightly different approach that I proposed in terms of calculating the number of parking spaces we should be required to have. I've calculated 143 places that we need for that, which would leave, um, I think the total is 224. So that there would be some additional parking places available for other uses. All right. Thank you. Okay. You want to start in the room or? Um, yeah. I mean, we want to make sure that we get everybody. Why don't we, why don't we start in the room and then go. And we just need to make sure. I know that at least one of the people who submitted written comments is here. I'm not sure if David Frank is here, but we do have written comments as well. Oh, and Jocelyn just put her hand up. But I think we only have, um, you know, a little more than a handful of people here in the room. So I think we might go with them first, unless somebody desperately needs to comment before they log off. Um, Joe's Castellano has his hand up and just came up on video. I don't know if he has to log off or something. Maybe just go ahead, Joe. What do you got? Oh, you need to unmute Joe. Can you hear me now? I can, if you can make sure to, uh, announce your address, please. Yes, I'm over at three saving street in Montpelier. So I'm literally right around the corner from the campus. And I have a question for the applicant. And basically, if I'm understanding her application correctly, so she wants to be able to do an administrative review as opposed to what the current process is. So this will be comparable to say, if somebody wants to build a single family house in an area that's zoned for single family residents, all they have to do is file the application fee. And there would be no public hearing, no public notification until a sign shows up. Am I correct? We wanted to consider many of the conditional uses to be permitted uses so that they could be administrative. And we did keep that list really long. But as I said at the very beginning, I feel like this is the start of a conversation. And, um, you know, I could probably be convinced that some of those may need to, to come off. So, um, you know, we have a limited amount of parking available. We have no plans to build anything currently. So there, there are natural limits on what we could potentially add. But even when the time comes where we have tenants that fit nicely in with our other uses, we'd like to be able to do that as efficiently as we possibly can. So I don't know if that totally answered your question, Joe. So feel free to follow up if I didn't. It didn't quite answer my question. I certainly would like the college to succeed. And we all, I also realized that the college is definitely underutilized at this point. So we would like to help you succeed in your mission. However, as a neighbor, we would like a little bit more advanced notice. I know that you need to pivot as somebody becomes interested and be able to turn something as quickly as possible. But at the same point, you know, we would like to be notified or at least informed as to what the potential uses and be able to comment if possible. I think that might be a neat question. Really? Yeah, go ahead. That's a question. So, Joe, I mean, the, what the request is from the college for those changes to how those uses are designated, essentially, yes, it switches anything that the board approves in the final application, right, to be counted as a permitted use moving forward. It would require just a permit from our office as long as nothing else triggered development review, board review. It would be the standard, you know, in office permit with the 15 day appeal period with the blue notice card going up in public view on the college campus related to the parcel on which that changes take in place. So there wouldn't be individual, a butter mailed notices. There would not be a public hearing, like I said, unless something else triggers that public hearing. So if all the college is doing is converting interior space of an existing building to a different use that in this PUD process has been converted to a permitted use is no longer conditional. There's no, no big new buildings. There's no request for parking spaces beyond what's approved in the master plan.   Similar to what would happen with a building a single family home. You know, if there are changes to the outside, even just lighting changes to accommodate the new use, it's going to trigger site plan review, even in-house site plan review, which does have us look at landscaping and screening and things like that. We do some of those things in the office without it going to the board. So it can sometimes be a little higher tier review than at house, but the notice to neighbors would not be anything more. Hope that answered the question. Thank you. Yes, it did. Okay, we just, we'll take our first citizen for public comment that's here in the room. Anyone like to speak? Go ahead. I could just state your, state your name and address just to make it easier. Okay, I'm Paul Pernaghan. I live at 14 Savon Street. And I was just going to say that I was pleased to hear the chair say that it would be helpful to have more of a plan as to what's going where on the campus. I think, like Joe said, everyone wants to see the campus succeed, but it is a little daunting to see that huge long list of conditional uses being moved over into permitted uses without really a set plan of how that conversion is going to take place or where it's going to take place. So, and I can see how some, you know, some uses might work out well, but then another opportunity comes along. And if it's permitted, it's been moved into permitted. Maybe the campus can't support all those five things that the college wants to do. So it seems that it would be useful to know what buildings are designated for what sorts of uses. And that would be more of a plan so that the community can know what's what's going on. Thank you very much. There's no one else in the room. Anyone? Let's move to our next person on the Zoom platform, Meredith. Yeah, so I am going to be going in order of what I have in my participants list on the right with hands raised. So we have Phyllis Rubinstein, please unmute and give us your address, please, and then make your comment. Hi. Thank you for the opportunity to speak at this meeting tonight. I'm Phyllis Rubinstein at 15 College Street. I live closer to the college than both Joe Castellano and Paul Carnahan. I've lived in this house since October of 1999, I believe. And I certainly recall the times when the dining room at Vermont College was open to the public. I don't know if that's the case. I don't know anything about the current use of the kitchen facility. I do know that there was a cafe that's not in the former large kitchen dining room. There was a cafe that was around for a period of time. I would echo what Joe and Paul both said. I'm very concerned about the number of permitted use possibilities on that list. Now, if anyone knows where 15 College Street is, I'm directly across the street from Michael Sherman. I'm on the east side of College Street, which is the only side of College Street and from lower college where you can park. So below the college, you can't park on both sides of the street. You can't park on Michael Sherman's side. You can only park on mine. And if you look at my side of the street right in front of my walkway, I don't, there's no sidewalk from College Street on College Street from Barry all the way up to the college. And, but I do have a walkway that leads from my front and back door to the street. And going to the issue of parking, there is now a, there has been a sign in front of my walkway. So it's not the sidewalk. It's the walkway from my doors, my access to the street. There's a sign that says no parking in front of the walkway. And I had to ask Montpelier to put up that sign because Vermont College students when in the periods of time where there were residencies, people not only parked in front of my house, but they parked in front of my walkway. So I'm very concerned about parking. I'm very concerned about the types of businesses that might come in that could attract a lot of vehicular traffic. And I don't know that there is a legitimate reason to change from conditional use to permitted use for all of these activities, because it's actually denying the neighbors a sort of due process right to be heard in this process. If it just becomes an administrative process, we really lose our voice. And I for one am concerned about about changes to the neighborhood that could happen with some of the types of businesses listed in the application. Thank you. Thank you, Phyllis. Okay. Next I have Jocelyn Moltek. You have to unmute. I'm here and so is my husband, Anthony Iropino, and he's going to speak first and then I'll give my comment second. So I'm just going to turn the screen so you could see him. Hi there. Whoops. We're at Four Sabans Street also around the corner from the college, walk through the college campus every day. And we also run a small law firm in downtown Montpelier representing a lot of businesses in the downtown. I have to say I'm very concerned for the future of Montpelier. We have obtained a reputation as a no growth town, singled out in an April 2021 article of seven days as such.  And if they go away, they will be hard to replace. I have been doing a lot of study and work through the Vermont Bar Association. I co-hosted with Vermont Legal Aid attorneys a continuing education course on the role of land use planning laws and structural racism in the United States and how abuse of regulatory process to essentially prevent things like increases in density in urban areas and neighborhoods has had a negative impact on the vitality of communities, on the diversity of communities. We know that there's a housing shortage in Vermont right now and that we don't have a lot of new construction in Montpelier. We've got a large campus sitting there going underutilized. And I think something like the planned unit development that's being proposed subject to the reasonable specifications that other folks have mentioned makes a lot of sense. But I hope that as the DRB goes through this process, you'll take some time to educate yourself on the historical role that land use regulation has played in cementing inequity in our society and in preventing Vermont and communities like Montpelier from being more diverse from a demographic standpoint and a socioeconomic standpoint. And we know that unfortunately a legacy of structural racism in the United States also is that socioeconomic diversity and racial diversity are closely linked. So I know there's a long process ahead, but I hope that the DRB and our neighbors will take the time to be educated about the extent to which Montpelier has developed a reputation in the state of Vermont as being ground zero in our affordability crisis, in our lack of diversity crisis, because it's just seen as a town that is resistant to change, resistant to density, and resistant to any kind of progress that would make the barriers to entry in this community lower so that we can have a more diverse, sustainable population over time. Hi, Jocelyn Wilczak for Sabin Street. Thank you, by the way, to all the volunteers on the DRB. I know this is an unpaid job and it takes a lot of time, and I know this is a preliminary meeting, but I wanted to share some thoughts with you at the outset along the lines that Anthony set out. I've reviewed the school's application and I fully support most of the conditional uses being treated as permitted uses for a number of reasons. I also fully support the five parcels being treated as one unit, because functionally speaking, they act as one, and I think it reflects beyond the ground realities. So a couple of my reasons for the DRB approving these conditional uses as permitted uses is our city suffers from aggressive nimbyism. It has made our city anemic in terms of diversity and inclusion and growth. I understand people want their neighborhoods to look the same and not change, but that is completely contrary to the city's goals of diversity and inclusion. It's also contrary to the city's goals, which this project, this campus creates an amazing opportunity to bring in more housing, which also meets the goals of helping to bring in younger people in our community. Another great goal that this PUD can help as someone who works in the regulated entity every day, the regulatory environment, the less regulatory hurdles we can place on the school, the better. Absolutely, they need to submit a plan, but no one has a due process, right, to review a private property's plans here. And I think the lower regulatory burdens we can place on the school, it's better for the school to engage developers who may want to turn these units into apartments. And that is a goal that I hope the DRB has in mind. A couple other points, our city's in desperate need for employees to help support our downtown businesses. And if we can help recruit employees by saying, hey, look, we've got all of these apartments or even short-term rentals within walking distance of our restaurants, our hotels, our businesses, we as a city will be more competitive. Two other points, the school has been a great neighbor. No one is entitled to use that property. They open up their property for picnics, family gatherings. And I think we as neighbors need to support the ultimate flexibility for the school to financially be able to hold on to these real estate to these various parcels. And the last point I'll make is there are not many properties in Montpelier that create that have these awesome opportunities. And so I encourage the DRB to limit the regulatory burdens this school needs to meet. And to also think about this school as an opportunity to reduce admissions because if it is a hotel or short-term rentals or apartment, it is within walking distance of the downtown. So thank you for your time. We may not be able to attend all these meetings. So we wanted to provide these broader comments earlier on in the process. Thank you. Thank you, Jocelyn. Thank you. You could make sure to put your hand down. Jose, you would be next. Thank you. I'm Jose Aguayo. I live at one camp and we're just right across from Schumeyer Hall. And I wanted to address something that just there was a couple of comments that were just made. To me, the college is this is just a discussion with having about the college just seemed like some sort of libertarian political discussion we were having earlier about regulatory constraints. So I think we should try to avoid that. And then the diversity from actually, I'll mention that I'm from Mexico originally and I know the number of people moved in is very expensive to live here. It's difficult to move into town, but there has been a growth actually in the number of people. But you know, there are a lot of constraints as we all know. I wanted to point out that the mission of the college as stated by them in the past has been a mission as a national center for education in the arts, which is really to the core of what their purpose is. At the time when the college was acquired, they also acquired, I believe, 11 leases. You know, there's at the time, I believe in 2013-2014, 62%. And this is coming from the Supreme Court decision, the opinion when the city and the college went to the Supreme Court because the college felt that they were exempt of paying property taxes on the building that's across the street from me. And they said they're 11, they had $2.8 million in revenue. I think we need to know, as neighbors, we would love to know what the situation of the college is. You know, where are they at?  Are there more leases? Are they doing okay? Is this something that they're going to force them into anything that presents itself? I think we need to have a definition of what, yeah, what was suggested earlier, what each building, what proposal there is for each building in terms of moving, if they're planning to move from conditional to permanent use. I live across the street from the parking lot in Schumlach. And I can tell you that there's all this traffic from delivery trucks back and forth, back and forth all day long. You know, how many more would there be? That's a good, that's a question to have if you're going to move more businesses, you're going to lease more of the space that's there. And also, you know, just, I think we, we are looking at a college that actually has some, has had some great graduates, authors, writers in the field of communication. So they need to communicate with the neighbors what exactly it is that they plan to do in order for us to feel more comfortable as neighbors, you know, on what they, what they want to do. We want them to succeed, but we don't want to be, you know, forced to accept anything they want to do at their whim. They're an educational institution. They're not here to set policy on zoning in the city of Montpelier. So, you know, I really would like a lot more definition. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, when you get a chance, if you could make sure to put your hand down. And then I'll via Dana, you would be next. Hello, can you see and hear me? I can. Great. So I'm at 29 Ridge Street. So we actually share the fence with the parking lot at Dewey Hall. And we are relatively new neighbors to the, to the university having moved here just in the very end of 2019. But I wanted to say that we're very happy to be neighbors with the college because we really enjoy the resources that the college so generously allows the neighborhood to use the kids play pretty much every day, sometimes twice a day on the green. I'm never sure how the college manages to keep up with the quantity of dog waste deposited in their trash bins, but they really do so with the kind spirit. And boy, there are a lot of dogs, including ours. So we're really appreciative of the services that they offer to the community. And although we're relatively new neighbors, I grew up in Vermont. My mother went to Vermont College. I worked at Norwich during the period when the college was had been acquired by TUI and I provided some service to students then. So obviously the campus has changed over time. The university has changed the purposes, the various, you know, strategies to, to keep the institution afloat as it's changed over time have, have changed. And I think it's great. So we, we have watched the increase in delivery trucks and so forth through the, the Loaning Bay in Dewey Hall.  Everybody's very courteous, just as promised. There's been a real limit on anybody smoking or loitering in the parking lot. So I would say the college has been very reliable in delivering on its pledge to make use of the facilities that it has, but in, in deference to neighbors. So we've been pleased with that. And I would generally just say that one thing that I love about Vermont and the reason we move back after having lived overseas for, for almost a decade is the resourcefulness of Vermonters. And what I see in the proposed plan is that very resourceful nature to make use of what is there in a way that furthers the future of the college, but also continues to make the neighborhood hopefully more vibrant. I think there's a lot of room for more vibrancy and more activity. So I look forward to seeing what, what will, what the future holds. Thank you very much. Okay. Next, we have Shayna Casper. Hi. Yeah, can you hear me? Yep. I'm Shayna Casper. Yeah, I live at 21 Ken Street. I've lived in Montpelier for about seven years. And thanks to my parents really substantial help in supporting me and buying this home, I've been here in Ken Street for about four years. And I moved to Montpelier because I want to, I work remotely and I was able to like really choose where I wanted to live and I wanted to live in a vibrant and diverse community near my family. I wanted to be able to like walk to the grocery store to watch my friend's house movie theater to the woods. And I really, you know, one, I got it all by, by living here in Ken Street. And really the one problem is that living in Montpelier is extremely expensive. And every year, you know, year after year of the seven years that I've lived here, I've had friends and loved ones who just can't afford to buy, who can't afford to continue renting, who can't afford to stay here, or they find that the city isn't as welcoming as they'd like it to be. And I would not have been able to afford to live in this community without my parents' help and to be able to live with roommates. And it's a really expensive place to live and structurally cuts out young people and people without class privilege, people of different class and racial background, people with disabilities and more. And, you know, these are some of the reasons why I joined and I'm now the chair of the Social and Economic Justice Advisory Committee, although I want to make it really clear here that I'm speaking as an individual, not as a member of the community. And I didn't even know about this until the last time we had our call. I also recently just got a very energetic COVID dog named Roxy, who I'm now taking out for, you know, three or four walks a day.   But, and these walks are not like they were when I lived downtown, you know, I've been walking past all of this empty spaces and all these really incredible buildings around the college. And I love it when the college like is in session when there's like music coming out of the windows and people gathering on the green. And I've been daydreaming as I've been walking and listening to my podcasts and such about what these spaces could be to like keep my friends and my loved ones and my neighbors here, keep them as my neighbors. And so when I got the flyer on my door from my neighbor Erin, you know, who I'm in a book club with and like who we have this neighborly relationship with, letting me know about this meeting, I was just so thrilled. I'm so excited to be able to move forward to develop this space to be able to have more young people, people with different backgrounds, different businesses to be able to recruit and retain more amazing folks to this neighborhood. I'm just really excited to participate in this process moving forward. So thanks for starting it. Thank you, Shayna. All right, next we have Donna Ackerman. Hi, everyone. I'm Donna Ackerman. My house is at 10 Kemp Ave. And I am a director of butter to the college. And I have been get this for 43 years, a director of butter to the college. And I've seen many, many changes. Also, I have spent my professional life the past 36 years working in affordable housing and trying not to take offense at some of the comments that were made because I honestly don't feel that moving that that keeping the conditional use says in the conditional use department basically has anything to do with racism or being more restrictive or trying to keep a certain population away from my property. I just know that for the honestly for the past 43 years as the college has changed from Norwich, from Vermont college with women only to Norwich and all those things over the years, things have come up regularly that have presented possible changes in the campus use and always I've had the opportunity to share my opinion. Sometimes listen to sometimes not, but I feel like if I were going to make changes to my property, there's a process that's rather restrictive and one pillar for me to go through and I appreciate that. I would expect the college to do the same. And I feel like it just although it is private property and I don't have the right to tell them what to do. Part of the process has to do with the character of the neighborhood as written in the guidelines and that's really something I think we all should have a voice in. And I'm more than willing to work with the college on anything they present, but I don't want any of the current sort of, I guess restrictions is the bad word as a bad word to use, but I don't want any of the current conditional uses to be made permitted uses, because it takes away the due process basically and the discussions. So I echo what Jose says and Paul says and some of us live closer than others, but I see the college out my back door and I'm happy they're there, they're good neighbors and I want to keep it that way. Thank you. Thank you, Donna. Next would be Mike Donafrio and I'm sorry if I mispronounced that. Mike Donafrio at 88 College Street. I just wanted to let you know that Alisa Dorsky has been like literally raising her hand for a long time. I'm sorry. I was going in my participants list on the right hand side because I've got multiple screens of people, so I couldn't. Yeah, Alisa doesn't have the hand function on her Zoom. We'll get to you next, Alisa. Okay. I'm just going to say I'd be happy to let Alisa go ahead of me or whatever. However, you two want to work it out is fine. Well done, Alisa. All right. Thank you. Thank you, Mike. My hand was getting tired. Look, I live, I'm Alisa Dorsky. I live with my husband, Daniel Sagan at 31 First Avenue. We're right next door to Dewey Hall. We've been here, oh my goodness, my youngest daughter. I was pregnant with her. She's 18 now, so 18 years. And I did submit some comments in a letter to the committee earlier today. Look, I want Vermont College to, of course, succeed. And I should mention that I'm an architectural designer. I have a master's of architecture. My husband is a registered architect. We have a design firm. We've been practicing design in Vermont for, gosh, nearly 30 years. And you know, details really matter in terms of understanding impact of design decisions. And I include in that use decisions. And I agree with so many of the people who've spoken before Phyllis and Donna most recently that it's incredibly important that we as community members have an opportunity to have our voices heard, to have a chance to understand, ask questions and review any changes to the buildings on the campus. In a way, it's a little bit like a variance because those changes are changes from the current educational use. And just as at a domestic scale, we would have an opportunity to comment on our neighbor's variances. I believe we really should have the right to comment on this neighbor's variances in use. And that isn't to say that I am necessarily opposed to some of these conditional uses at all. But I think we should also, nobody has really listed them for the record in this discussion. I know it's in the, you know, in the documents, but let's just, I want to take a moment to read them. Multi-unit dwellings, five or more units, group home, congregate living, temporary housing, hotel or motel, neighborhood market, open market or market shop, retail sales, restaurant, including takeout, food service contractor, surface parking, performance theater, movie theater, community center, fitness sports gym or athletic facility, medical clinic building, public safety facility, and greenhouse. And I think office has mentioned. Yeah, office. That was a mistake on my part. Right. So I know as, you know, as a resident next to Dewey Hall, which I know is being underutilized and it's not my intention as a neighbor in any way to keep it underutilized, but to change it from a dormitory to any one of those uses might have a significant impact on my experience as a neighbor, my fellow neighbors parking on the street, traffic, noise levels. And I think that I should have the right and my community should have the right to make comments on that change. And if we can, if we change these conditional uses to permitted uses in the language is a little, you know, the way that it was put into this document was not straightforward, let's say. I don't appreciate that, frankly. I wish that it'd been more straightforwardly stated, but, you know, that's a significant change that I really oppose. And that isn't to say I oppose any one of those uses in particular, but I want to retain my rights for comment and feedback and to raise issues as they affect me and my neighbors. And I do have a question because this is a lot of this is referenced under, I guess it's confusing with the pages, page seven of the staff comments, page 12 of the PDF under item G, any use permitted or conditional allowed in the base zoning district that is also listed in the campus master plan as incidental to or supportive of the campus's primary purpose shall be allowed in a campus development as permit use. That I think I understand and was clarified, which is basically, effectively everything in the conditional use would become permitted use and we would lose those rights as community members to comment to give feedback and for a discussion to take place would automatically be approved and we would nothing we could do. On item two, I'd like clarification, the board may approve additional uses listed in the campus master plan that are not otherwise allowed at all in the base zoning district. So long as the applicant obtains conditional use approval and demonstrates that the proposed use is incidental to or supportive of the principal purposes of the campus development. So does that mean that without community input, additional conditional uses, which effectively would be permitted uses can be added without community feedback? So I'm going to respond to two parts, I'm going to respond to your question, but first I'm going to respond to a comment you made. Just a reminder that an administrative approval is not a, you're definitely going to get your permit no matter what, they still have to meet standards. It does mean that there's not a public hearing, but we really carefully go through every single administrative permit application. Onto your question, the way I interpret that point two under section 3406E is that if something that would otherwise not be allowed in the mixed use residential neighborhood, so that includes the communication tower, which is the one thing in that category that is in the draft sketch master plan, to get a permit to actually put that up, should that use remain in the approved master plan, right, through the final application process, that would require conditional use approval as the final permit to actually get built, right. So the tonight we're in sketch plan, we're then going to have to go to the final application for this PUD, right, this campus PUD. At that point, the board is going to say which permitted conditional or not allowed uses can continue to be listed in the master plan, right, physically going to be strike through or specific caveats for those different uses when we get to the end of this process. Then the college has to come back for permits. So if there's something that ends up in that master plan that's eventually approved under the final application process for the PUD that would normally be not allowed in mixed use residential at all, that will then become a conditional use on the campus. So that would require the full conditional use review before the DRB with traffic character of the neighborhood, you know, other impacts. But you're saying before that that all conditional uses become permitted uses. So I'm still right. Things that are in the use table in the zoning regulations, there are permitted uses, conditional uses, and things that are not allowed at all in a zoning district through this campus master plan process. The board can authorize for just the campus to shift where those what those labels are, right? So things that are currently listed as conditional use can be moved to permitted. Things that are currently listed as not allowed at all can be moved to conditional use. This means you can't move something that's not allowed at all to permitted. Can't do that. The board is not authorized to do that. They're only authorized to move uses one step. We can talk about this more offline if you need to. No, I think I understand what you say. Anything that is not listed as conditional use currently and would be added would be subject effectively. No, not anything. Not anything. Only the things that the campus specifically puts in the master plan and the board agrees is in the master plan. It still has to be listed in the master plan specifically as one of those uses that goes towards its primary, I don't know what the exact language is, incidental to or supportive of the principal purpose of the campus and the board approves it in the master plan slash campus PUD process as being in that category. Okay. One of the things I want to sort of return to is this, this, this, you did make that distinction that you as a board would be reviewing these administrative. No, no, not the board. I'm not a member of the board. I'm staff. I'm the planning and zoning administrator. So I, I and my zoning assistant look through any administrative application. That's me speaking is the planning and zoning assistant. And that's why I'm answering this question because the board doesn't, the board doesn't handle the winnowing of which applications go where you will be right. So you and your staff would be reviewing those applications and there would not be community hearings for anything that is correct. And I am saying that while I understand that Katie is concerned about efficiency, there's also, and I'm in no way trying to suggest nimbyism, but I think there's an in between, which is, you know, a realist, a realistic front in which, you know, community members get to have a voice and, and the process gives them time to be informed and to weigh in and that that's really important in terms of community relations also with the college. I mean, I think it benefits them to engage the community around these changes and these relationships that build stronger relationships for everyone. The other thing that I noticed that is forgive me, it's going to take me a moment to scroll through this PDF in her comments. Oh boy, where is this? Yeah, back on page five or 29 out of 45 of the PDF. I think it's Katie or her team talk about a particular interest or elements that would fit naturally with the primary function of the academic institution and the needs of the community and include and I think they're talking about what, what would be activated, any housing options, one to four family dwelling units, housing, multi-family units, group home, congregate living and temporary housing, bed and breakfast in hotel motel. But I also noticed surface parking to convert the former tennis courts into additional off-street parking. This has come up before in the community. I'm not personally opposed to using that surface in part for parking, but again design really matters. You know, is there screening with trees? Is the basketball court preserved because I know while it's private land and of course it's been very generous to let kids use it, it is really part of the culture of our place now that kids go there and play basketball. So what is it going to mean to potentially turn that surface, which they're talking about doing through this process into a full parking lot? And again, I feel like, you know, show us the design, let us as a community weigh in, but just giving sort of a process where that just goes to the zoning board without our comment for something like that. I don't think that makes sense. And so I wanted to note that for the community that that's also up for discussion and part of what the college is talking about changing. And as for me, if, for example, Dewey Hall turned into a motel, it's not that I'm necessarily opposed to that, but I would like an opportunity to ask questions, understand more what the nature of that is. And I don't agree that just because changes are made to interior areas and not exterior surfaces, that it doesn't have an impact on the community in terms of patterns of use, traffic, pedestrian traffic, etc. I just really do not agree with that statement at all. Okay, I think I've sort of highlighted areas of concern and I thank you for your time and I appreciate your time tonight. Thanks. Thanks, Alisa. Mike, because you put your hand down, did you actually have another comment on your own since you were up there before others? Okay. Thanks. Really quick. I want to echo primarily the comments that Shayna Casper and Elvira Dana made. I support the application largely for the reasons they articulated in terms of being open and flexible to change that's going to, over time, enhance the prosperity and equity and diversity of our community. I also want to echo Shayna's comment of thanks to our neighbors who kind of got the word out and stuff, flyers and mailboxes and alerted me to this event that I otherwise would have missed and I intend to stay involved with the process and kind of see where this goes and continue to weigh in. That's all I want to say right now. Thank you. Thank you, Mike. Okay, James, you would be next in the list of hands. Hello, thank you. First I just want to thank you for the review board. Big thanks to Katie for showing up representing the college and thanks to the college. Sorry, James Ray. I live at 76 College Street and so just down near Marvin in college and like everyone else, a huge thanks to the college and what a gem it represents to the neighborhood. Two, just really sort of kind of questions and comments not really for answer now but just to log, I guess. One may sound a little out there but in my imagination of what I don't know it could would be has to do with traffic and speed on College Street. It's designated as 25 miles per hour now. Anyone who spends any time here on College Street knows that far too many drivers don't obey that speed limit speed limit and that's not the college's problem to be sure but I just my question down the road is if uses change and more people are brought there is there any trigger that that would amp up enforcement of the of the speeding speed laws on College Street in conjunction with that layered on that and again this is my really sort of hypothetical could this happen. Are there any uses change uses along the College Street buildings of the college that could trigger College Street being redesignated at a different speed limit and I just want to go on record saying I strongly oppose that because it's way too fast as it is so I just I want to raise those as questions from a person who doesn't really know what he's talking about but it was a homeowner here and concerned about the speeds that already happen. The other thing I will say and again if I unless I'm and please correct me if I'm completely misunderstanding this but from what I heard at the beginning that this the PUD laws as we're talking about here from up here are relatively new on the books and based on an experience we had with the city a couple years ago I would just hope that the city proceeds with some sort of not caught just I guess caution or basically we were working with the city on some stuff right right on the heels of the change to the what you could build on the grade the slope gradients and this I will say everyone in the city was so generous and so wonderful with their time and incredibly helpful but the change led to a ton of confusion and a lot of people not really knowing what the right answer was and that made the whole process very confusing and frankly more expensive and a lot of other things and I'm just imagining that if the PUD laws are that fresh and new this is a big project to be putting into a brand new system of laws and I'm not saying don't do it I've met going like it's more just I hope the city it's a big one to test those laws but I'll put it that way and to me that suggests some measure of caution in terms of how it how things proceed thank you very much for your time thank you James so next I have Erin Aguayo hi hi thanks for doing this and thanks to the college for all they do to keep things vibrant and interesting and I hope the students are back soon I live with Jose at one Kemp Avenue which is Kemp and College Street so most of our property is adjacent to VCFA kind of the back end and I'm really surprised at how long the list is of conditional things that might turn administrative like an office I don't think anyone here would notice if they rented out 20 or even 40 offices for quiet daytime use even with the traffic but when you add in like I'm especially concerned about the group and transitional homes like I know the college was talking with Good Samaritan Haven last year about possibly putting in a pretty significant I mean a group home or transitional or homeless shelter and it was something they were discussing and I can understand that having empty buildings that would be something you would think about and talk about but I am not comfortable with my next and it is my front yard but someone in my front yard making that decision without any public comment would be a significant change in the neighborhood dynamic and I'd be concerned about it like we had one drug dealer on our street who would deal drugs out of the college parking lot and it was so hard to get that under control and it doesn't take a lot of ununmonitored activity at the college to really have an impact on at least our experience of our neighborhood in Montpelier and I understand if the community decides they want to add transitional housing and group homes that's but it's it should be a community decision that the college is a small group of academics who run a private relatively elite institution for people seeking master's degrees and they don't have the experience to do this without community input or real supervision and it makes me very nervous to have set up our lives here and really try to participate and contribute and know that at any moment the college could decide to put in restaurants or movie theaters or hotels or think you know just and I'm not worried about someone calling it nimby like this is where we live and it's it really does affect our experience of our lives every day and at night and I would just hope that that list of conditional issues is made smaller maybe you know there are plenty of things where it would contribute so much to the community or you wouldn't notice or it's not going to change the neighborhood but some of the things on that list are really significant changes and I feel like the list could be smaller to be turned into administrative approval so the college could be more nimble about accepting leases for appropriate tenants but if you're talking about bringing you know bringing dozens or even hundreds of new people to live on college street it would be good for the neighbors to at least know that that's in the in process and ideally have some sort of say I mean because you're talking about worrying about parking but it's some of those are really significant use changes and it's a little scary living next to somewhere that is supposed we were told we were buying a house next to a college and and it's unsettling to know at any moment it might not be a college it might be something totally different and I yeah it puts us on edge it's a I don't know we appreciate their presence we want their success but we also for things that could affect us 24 hours a day like we live here they get to go home and this is home so when something could affect us like that I would like to know that it's not going to be an administrative check mark for them guess that's that's it thank you thank you thank you uh okay I have Nolan Langwell sorry I'm gonna announce that no one gets it right it's all good so I'm Nolan Langwell I live at 17 Kent street I've lived in Montpelier about 15 years but I moved into my house now I bought my house six months before the pandemic and I got to say that this is a great neighborhood and I was really thankful to have been in this neighborhood during the lockdown because I have the best neighbors I love walking to the green and seeing everybody or so and it's nice to actually see some new faces of people who I have not met so that said like I appreciate Katie's presentation and I I support the college's application they've been a good neighbor and you know I I've I've also wondered how they survive with all the empty buildings and I think we need to support their efforts to remain viable and to maintain to be to have revenue sources in which to maintain that campus that we all rely on and enjoy and I support the effort and it should yeah I also think that I've also heard that just because it's moving from conditional to permitted doesn't mean that there isn't still going to be a process so I think that moving those things from conditional to permitted there will still be a process for which us to have some say further and they're still have to get permitting and personally I'd welcome the addition of many of the conditional uses for instance I'd love to have a gym or a coffee shop or even a performance center center nearby I also say that given the housing crisis in Vermont we should have an open mind there are a lot of people in the community who are unhoused and I for one am opened even through some kind of temporary housing for some of the unhoused I know that's not a popular opinion but I'd be open to that not that I have a say because it's the college's choice and I would be open to them having that choice also just given the housing crisis in general the idea of a multi-unit dwelling nearby would also I'd also be supportive of that so I would just say that I'm supportive of the application and I appreciate giving me the chance to speak thank you thank you Nolan Erin if you don't have anything more to say if you could try to put your hand down on the there you go perfect Michael Sherman just put his hand up yes I'm Michael Sherman I live at 20 college street right across the street from Phyllis and down the street from Erin and and Jose and I also support this petition I think that if you looked at this list you'll see that the college has at one time or another done some of the things that are on it we we we have had well let's see the farmers market ran here for a while admittedly that was only on weekends but it was a significant change in traffic patterns and who and how many people were on the street the restaurant well the the college has had dining service and did have a cafe for a while done that performance theater there's a lot of talk about in in the city for more performance spaces and this is an opportunity to see if if a place which is teaching the fine arts includes performance has an opportunity to present more of that for us in the city throughout a movie theater why not if we can manage to get another movie theater in a time when people need to sort of get out why not I don't see a problem with that congregate living temporary housing group home I agree with with the previous speaker we need our state needs this our city needs this I think we need to be be forward-looking and welcome the possibilities of different kinds of people among us rather than shutting them out or at least if not shutting them out making it so difficult that the projects don't go through so I am I support this and I think that I taught at the college I've lived next door to the college for over 30 years I remember when the college students were the problem because they made so much noise at night we managed to live with that got through it it's okay no one was hurt by that so I'm the supporter of this proposal thank you Michael Jenny Sheehan it's actually my husband Sean we live at five five west street so the corner of corner west and and first appreciate seeing so many neighbors on here and hearing hearing people weigh in respectfully I think it's been a great dialogue I meant to being new to the to the process of of the conditional and the permitted and trying to come up to speed I mean just learned about it all in the last last few hours here but I'll say on the on the a lot of the points I think I certainly agree and respect a lot of what's been said the college is a great great neighbors we've lived in town here it's almost 19 years but like like Nolan lived on the other side of town until about two years ago and he moved over and moved over about a month a month later stalking him and I think with the college is everyone said too with I mean that you know feeling a lot about the how tight the housing market is what we need to do for that how much more housing we need to build in Montpelier looking back the last 50 years with Montpelier's population you know shrinking and pushing all the growth out into Berlin and all the surrounding towns you know I I I agree with a lot of I think Jose made some great points we are talking about about the college but I think it's possible to look at what the college is thinking or what anybody in town is going to be doing without thinking about the context of the last 20 years and the the reputation that that Anthony and spoke about and jocelyn spoke about there as being an anti-growth the town and knowing that all the efforts for for Sabans for parking garages for anything else that's come you know have have been pushed down and you know and continues to be pushing the sprawling sprawling growth out outside and so you know I think a lot of the which is clear I think what people are saying with the accepting of other people I don't think it's over you know racism or less than anybody's talking about but that's just the play of what happens in in places throughout throughout New England they tend to be more progressive and yet also tend to be very segregated because of because of zoning zoning regulations so I just wonder how much of that is the context at play not not fully understanding yet we're having read everything with the conditional or the permitting or the long list or the vagueness is just the sense of wondering if the college is thinking if they are going to make up play or be able to to attract you know housing or the PUD or any any piece do they need to get more control knowing that in the past when there has been more of a dialogue or has been a full process what that's meant is is no no development so that's more a question to me not expecting Katie or anyone at the college to answer that certainly I'd love to have be involved and hear more as the process goes on but in general I'm very supportive of the of having more more housing and in Vermont and in Montpelier and in this neighborhood and and and in having the college utilize the space as much as they do. Thank you Sean. Let me scroll through in case we still have somebody here who's physically raising their hand and not anyone else in the room have any comments yes if you could come up to the stand-up microphone my name is Steve Schoff I'm a 18 college street and so how do you spell your last name SH of F okay thank you I just I respectfully hope that we think about this as a community and not make this about racism I don't see that as a relevant concern I'm concerned is everybody about the homeless people but I think we need to really think about how we can make things work and how to make them safe one point I have is the the traffic up and down that road in the wintertime is horrific and dangerous so the only concern I have is if we have a more traffic up there there may be some real issues with accidents sometimes we have to call for the city to salt the road there on college so I'm very concerned about what that would mean the other thing that I don't know if people realize is that that gets used is a conduit when things get jammed up in Montpelier people go down that way so that's a real real concern but I I would like to not be I'd like to feel okay to be resistive to be concerned as everyone else has without being labeled a racist because of those concerns so I'd like to put that out there thank you thank you Steve and I'm sorry was it 18 college street yes okay great all right hold on let me I got it I've got two two screens worth of people so let me double check and a lot of people don't have their cameras on um so there's a lot of people who don't have cameras on so if there's somebody who doesn't have their camera on and wishes to speak please just unmute and announce yourselves because I don't see any little zoom hands and I don't see any physical hands oh Jose just popped up hi um Jose again um really quick I mean as an example and I don't know how the neighborhood would feel about this but you know right now um there are afghan refugees coming in right and obviously there's a shortage of housing well you know maybe if if the college spelt out a very conditional use for that specific purpose people would consider that you know but I think it comes down to communicating clearly what the intent is and if the intent is just trying to plug in a financial hole that's going to be very difficult to do but I think it's important for them to have a you know a clear purpose for each asset that they have and then lay it out and you know let the community uh participate in the process because um I think as Aaron mentioned you know we live here many of the people literally across the street and many people who work there and who would not be impacted like we are so we we clearly want to have a say uh you know it's part of the democratic process and it's actually they're asking for an exception um which is um something that the city has experienced with the college before I'm not trying to but it is it is the history in the past where where you ended up at the supreme court because they felt they were exempt of of something you know so I think it's important that we let everybody participate and by closing the door by shifting the conditional to sort of permanent use it's closing the door to our say and our input and I think it's healthy to have community input thank you thank you Jose um I do have another somebody else wants to speak Phyllis I was wondering if I could just add yep go ahead Phyllis I just um sorry Elisa I see you get just give me a minute first and then Elisa you got it I feel compelled to respond also to the accusation that the neighbors who are opposed to this are being racist or not wanting uh diversity in the neighborhood because that's clearly not where I'm coming from as a matter of fact I had conversations with Rick uh Dagestino last I can't remember his last name Rick from Good Samaritan last year and I thought it was a very interesting project for the college but what people some people have made those comments are ignoring the fact that one of the conditional uses that are several two of the uses are to um have a motel or to have a bed and breakfast that is not going to create diversity in the community or do anything for housing so that's why uh it's my opinion that either the list has to be narrowed down or more preferably it all remain under conditional use thank you thank you Phyllis uh Elisa I think you had had something to say you're gonna have to unmute yourself again though I'm sorry about that um I'm trying to look for the reference in the long documents forgive me I haven't found it but I do want to just highlight something that I recall reading about the designation and maybe you can help me with this sort of reserve space that it's not it's sort of generally alluded to but it's not marked where that would be in the plan which I just want to say is a little concerning to me because it's it's so vague so if so it's alluding to let's say the square footage that's in front of college hall that's now used very generously given by the BCFA are allowed for the community to use it's not clear in the plan whether that would be the specific reserve land that's held you know outside of any changes or development and um it would be nice if there was clarification on what that reserve land refers specifically in the site plans okay thank you Elisa yeah that that was a specific question that we did sort of want to get a general idea on and have you identified there's a 30 percent area to reserve open space have you identified where that might be or that's something that obviously that's also something the board's going to have to figure out what is actually required based on the ranks because it's not really a hundred percent clear on whether or not they have to specify because I mean it's also if it was a campus and they sold off part of it right yeah what they'd have to require for that 30 percent the 30 percent would shrink right it has to there has to be some moldability to it right um it's not the regulations don't say a certain area has to be identified as that 30 percent right right but it could potentially because it does use the word reserved so there's a it's a it's a it's a gray area in the ranks is there a different there's no different language on the open space in the other PUDs though it's possible that the other we don't have to look it up right now I'm just saying that yet there's something to for us to consider yeah yeah it's something that I need to research a little bit more and maybe talk to Mike Miller about yeah and Katie and I need to as I'll advise Katie on what but clearly it's a concern as one member of the board I mean I would think it would make sense to have a slight plan that identify the specific area you know with uh with open space um that's just you know one member of the board's opinion um but is there anyone else to comment up here billus has got her hand up still billus did you just not there you go great thanks uh hold on I'm gonna scan through so given that it's 9 p.m. here um we were like to wrap things up a little bit Katie did you have anything you would like to say a lot of public comment I'm sure and no I again I appreciate everyone's time and everyone's comments um you know it is a really important piece of this community and I've worked there for over 20 years and I like everybody else wants to see it succeed and be a good neighbor so as I said earlier I feel like this is the beginning of a conversation and I look forward to the next time that we're able to meet again all right thank you um any board members have anything to add I would just like to say thank you to everybody who spoke tonight I thought that dialogue was meaningful and respectful and certainly folks gave me um a lot to think about as part of the process so I just want to thank everybody for their comments tonight thank you so there's because it's a sketch plan there's no formal decision that we make tonight I think you've you've gotten comments uh you know there's certainly extra guidance um for some other minor issues in the staff report and whatnot and I'm sure the like always you'll be working with Meredith closely as your application you know develops and developing materials and whatnot so if we wish you the the best of luck thank you so much thank you Katie I will get you meeting minutes as soon as I can that's part of the process um the video will also be posted if for some reason you want to go back and listen to exact word for word stuff um our please give us a little grace period on the minutes our recording secretary is not available so I'm doing those myself absolutely thank you and I ask one quick question which is if community members who weren't here tonight are able to participate what is the best way for them to communicate their feelings about this topic and when would that be official record okay well so so you know there was no evidence tonight or anything right we'll take all this in it'll be reflected in meeting minutes and get put in a file the sketch plan file that goes in our planning department records um the next hearing that would happen on this topic would be after VCFA files of final application um and anybody who made comments tonight um anybody who you know would would need to repeat any of those comments although you know there's going to be a more thorough application so the hope would be that they'd review that new application um and hopefully a lot of their concerns would be addressed there um but the the next public hearing notice if there is one I'm assuming there will be um will be mailed out to all abutting property owners um when that happens we also post that information on our pending applications page um and anybody can email me who wants more direct information on how to get there um and then of course we also post the meeting agendas um to the city website the agenda and meeting minutes page I think that the best anybody who has questions specifically on how to follow this should probably just email me um or call the planning department I guess I was wondering you said something that we could subscribe I mean I'm adjoining a neighbor so I'll receive something in the mail but there are a few people here might not be immediate neighbors who who want to know when the hearing is right so the the subscription to the posting of agendas that's only going to get updated the week before the meeting um possibly as late as the friday before the monday meeting um so it might be better just to periodically check the there's a another page in there called the pending applications for public hearings page um and we post those within a day or two of mailing those public hearing notices which go out you know three weeks or more sometimes before the hearing date so you'll just get more time to look over the application I guess I would also ask any community members who are adjoining neighbors and receive the mailing to share news of this hearing with their community so that you know as many people as possible in the neighborhood in the meeting the chance to participate yes this college street does I don't know which did you guys have a can neighborhood network with somebody who's actually the coordinator yes okay and I did share information with that person so um but that wouldn't be I don't know that that exceeds the college every part right but but if there are a couple of can contacts up there we have been for some other applications um been agreeing to send that person an email um of when the public hearing notice goes out and then they can email it around to all of their people we just we can't that's a great trying to time to keep track of of everybody who wants something where we can't just pull it up on a map gets very very difficult um but going through that can if you have you know a spokesperson and the can neighborhood spokespeople are and representatives are a really good example of that where it's formalized and we can keep track of them um they can email me and say hey we want to be on the list for when specifically VCFA files their final application for this PUD um because we know it's going to we know that's going to happen pretty much because they need that to to do future development um and so it's a distinct item that's easier for us to track so that's a possibility all right so we should encourage our local can people to leaders to reach out to you and then hearing is you'll send them a mailed email email announcement an electronic announcement a copy of what's mailed out to a butters okay in a timely way like more than two days before you're talking about the three weeks before yeah okay well they'll get emailed the same day that we mail the physical notice okay well i'll alert my local can person and maybe people in the other neighborhoods can do that for theirs as well thank you you're welcome that was a lot of administrative stuff no it's okay um at this time i will entertain a motion actually uh do we got missing anything is there any new business the next meeting is monday december 20th at seven p.m okay and we do have applications all righty thank you marita is there a motion so moved to adjourn i figured that's what it's for all right catherine makes a motion to adjourn is there a second second okay joe how do you vote yes catherine yes abbey yes and michael yes and rob votes yes unanimously approves the motion to adjourn thank you very much everybody and we'll hopefully see you in a month or so thank you or later


The Enigo State Governor, Ifani Umani, has lauded the Nigerian Army for its consistency in maintaining security of lives and property within the state. Uguani gave the... The governor was represented by the secretary to the state government, Professor Simon Utwanya, who congratulated the battalion for a successful operational year. He also appreciated the Nigerian Army for assembling and displaying the rich cultural heritage of the nation through various cuisines and beautiful dance steps at various national ethnicities.