So, as we're transitioning into the final panel, we're going to take a look at sort of the way Susie had prefaced it, a new avenue in which you can explore playwriting. Today we have Seth Hoderman moderating the panel, and we have three people representing two different groups of radio playwriting, and Seth, if you're the one who's going to play. Yeah, sure. Hi, everybody. I'm Seth Hoderman. I'm the fan of online media at the Dromadist Guild. Next to me is Claudia Catania, who is the host and producer of Playing on Air, which I just have to tell you, I'm a huge fan, and I recently got into it and I put them up there on my iPod, and I was putting them on the way to work. So, I'm a huge fan. And then we have Sheila Cowley, who is the, hold on, hold on, Operations Manager and Writer and Operations Manager at WMNF in Tampa. Oh, you're good. I'm going to memorize the WMNF. And then Matt Cowley, who's a writer and sound designer at the Radio Theater Project and at Studio at 620. Okay, I was trying to open my notes. Okay. Can I open up with just a general, what drew you into wanting to produce Radio Place? I work in radio station. About 16 years ago, I started a radio theater career. So, I was a writer and didn't really have experience writing, so I really wanted to try that. So, kind of, we went to the Library of the Theatre workshop, which is kind of a national audio theater festival, so I learned about that. Could you be a little bit of a logistics of it? And I would just, I think I would just start by saying, you know, nobody's talking about slamming doors and never making a molly or anything, you know, this is all new work, it's modern, it's not recreations of nostalgic stuff, but it's all new and, you know, it's relevant. It's not linear.  It's another outlet for new playwrights. I think the Genesis for me was a little different. And I think there's room for a huge amount of writing and playwriting to go on to radio stations and podcasts and streaming and whatnot. But my niche, what I do and what compelled me to do this was it bothered me that we live in a big nation and the vast majority of us do not know a thing about theater, you know, maybe they've been to their nephews' high school performance or an occasional outing. But for the most part, I've done unscientific research and I've asked people if they can name a living playwright and maybe they'll come up with an Audi or Kirchner, but maybe not. So this is appalling because we have a treasure, you know, a treasure of playwrights and a nation that really doesn't understand very much about theater.  Why not the nation? Same amount of time, why not?  So I also thought if we could somehow, you know, create a platform that's essentially a stage as large as their ways can go and as ubiquitous as the internet, maybe more Americans would start to understand what theater's about and as a result become, you know, patrons. You know, in terms of audience development this might be a long-term way to gain support for theater as a whole. So it seemed the way to get into most people's lives was either through radio or the internet and the way to do it at least in my estimation was through the short-play genre because people are on the go and they're used to consuming those particular old and new forms of technology in short skirts, which is perfect for the short-play, whether it's, you know, six minutes or 26 minutes, it's still the amount of time they're used to consuming theater, music, discussions, whatever, on technology. And it's a genre that I think is magnificent and has tremendous potential but is unexploited. So it seemed like a perfect, a perfect thing. And given there's no money, there's no way you could really compete for anything but something languishing in somebody's hard drive or drawer. And that's how it happened. So I just decided to do it. And the first person I called was Chris Durang and he was really nice and he said yes. And then Alex and Rickerson said yes. And Jack and Michael said yes. And it was enough yeses to put together a demo to take to a radio station and that's how the poll got rolled. So it's two different approaches. So it's very different. You're doing studio work that you're distributing. We're doing, we've done a lot of studio work and stuff that we've distributed at other stations but we've been focusing on the ones that are just like performances. Could you both kind of talk about your process of producing? Because it is a little different. Can you talk about what goes in behind the scenes and how you put this all together? Sure. So what we do for the past five years, part of this project is called the Radio Theatre Project and it started out as a collaboration between an art space in St. Petersburg, the studio at 620. Which is a great little incubator art space for all kinds of things and they said the answer is always yes. So there's theater and music and dance and anything else and our radio station WMNF which is a community listener supported kind of station. And there's kind of a group of people there. We live in St. Pete so there's a lot of retirees and some of them in the community there are kind of have had long story theater careers for instance but are not acting actively anymore. So this was a way for them to kind of create opportunities for themselves. So what we do is once a month, for about six months out of the year we do a live show and it's usually three plays, two to three to four plays acting in front of the mics and then there's a table of sound effects and things. And we have about a day's rehearsal. They do a read through and then we do a tech rehearsal in front of the mic with sound effects and then just put it up the next day. So it's a very short commitment for the actors. I do a little bit of kind of pre-production sound effects stuff that weekend or whatever the weeks before. It's a Monday night so a lot of the actors are in current shows but theaters are dark on Monday so we get really good actors who are free on that night. So we record those shows and then broadcast them later on the radio station. The audience is built slow but now it's kind of standing room only. It was helped a couple years ago when we got a grant from the Florida Humanities Council to always include a Florida writer and because of the grant it had to be free so a lot of people started coming but the last year we hadn't had the grant and it's just been like a donation at the door and it's done really, really well and it's gotten even more popular. And I would just say you don't have to have a radio station. We have a radio station with a bunch of microphones on as you guys do. The kind of thing, if you don't have a radio station you can still put work up with actors reading scripts on mic for an audience with sound effects. You can record it if you want or not. I mean there's a group in New York that sell out multiple key things of shows of the same show, multiple performances and they don't even try to record it. They're doing it just for the house audience and things change for us because we first, we're doing it to focus on the recording and then we realize more people are in this theater than are probably listening to this show on the radio. The whole issue is just the house sound and we're kind of, I know you have kind of selling sound effects but we kind of ramped up the sound effects and made it a little more prominent. And I used manual sound effects, more than recorded. Right, we started doing the radio theater in the studio so I did all the sound effects on the computer later kind of post-production sound kind of process thing but we discovered that people just love watching me open and close doors and walk on things. That's crazy. So as much of that stuff as I can do manually, that's just part of the show now. I'm so glad that you threw that in because I don't want to assume that everyone knows what a sound designer does but I mean if you can elaborate a little bit of your process and then we'll go into what playing on there is in health insurance but I don't want to assume that everyone knows what it is. So the short answer is it's anything but the voices on a radio play. You know, on a film it's a whole different thing working with other stuff but for us it's just anything but the voices but the kind of slightly longer answer is that the cool thing about radio for me is like I think Steve said yesterday that in a film that you have, you know, pull in 1945 it has to look like pull in 1945 but on stage you can put a sign and people will bite into it. On the radio you can say it's pulled in 1945 and have a little bit of wind or you can say this isn't a submarine grade and have a little ping sound and in the listener's mind they will see the complete set. You know, they'll see Das Boot in front of them even though you haven't built it. So what I do kind of as a sound designer and fully guide thing is kind of just push them in that direction. I give them just enough sounds other than the voices to say okay this is really where this is and crowns it a little bit so if they're in a diner I might clink some glasses so it just makes it feel a little bit more realistic if there's a fight.  Or if it's, you know, something that I can't do manually there might be a battle sound and that's compete on the computer and it's just anything that pushes the audience to be their own cinematographer. That's what I would just say as a corollary to that. I know one thing that Steve Yackey said that he's here I can never write for radio because my stuff is so visual but I think, oh, that's the huge freeing thing of radio because you can do stuff on the radio and create these visuals that you could never do on stage and that, you know, maybe you'll never get a chance to do on a television but you can really do it easily on the radio. I would just mention the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Universe. Which was this huge, beautiful world on the radio and in a TV and film it was written originally for radio that's what it was created for and something like that you can do like one of your famous first ones was Caramel in my Pocket. Do that on stage, you know, you can do it on the radio. It's a lot of fun and I can attest to the entertainment value of that sound because I was at a table with him and he was doing the sound effects for this play. It was great. And also, when Michael was talking earlier today about animals and this and the other, and it is true, you know, we did a war and light piece called The Final Interrogation of Francesca Chau's Dog, the Romanian dictator's dog and it as no played the dog and it was, I think for the listener, a lot more fun than because they could have their imagination and that happens in a lot of the plays. Someone mentioned Jackie Reingold earlier too and she has a wonderful fervent and whimsical, delightful sensibility. So she can write a play about a 12-foot guy sitting on an airplane next to a 2-inch lady and on the radio, no problem. Is there something that really attracts you to a script that you're like, this will fit really well or this will not fit very well? I suppose. I mean, since this is more about theater on the radio than radio plays per se, I look for a well-made play. That would be the first thing that would attract me.  It's just a good play. There are certain things that I know won't work even if I adore the play. It is highly physical and highly, highly visual or it has an FCC infraction every second word. You know, that could be problematic. But little adjustments. I mean, I've actually been quite amazed myself how little has to be done to a stage play to make it work on radio and quite wonderfully.      It's all settled. Almost always the playwright is on site. So, very often, last minute, you know, they'll say, oh, no, no, no. And they'll just rewrite a little something in it. It's wonderful to watch them work because they just make a slight adjustment and it just kind of reshapes the whole moment. So, we've been fortunate. Is there something that, as writers, is there something that you have in your head that is, this is what we have to do? I notice on your website that you accept submissions. I guess you accept submissions, too. We both do. But I notice that you have, like, a list of, like, keep this in mind, playwrights. And that's a good point because we've had a different experience with adapting stage plays and some spectacular and infamous failures that live in people's horrifying embrace of stage plays that people didn't want to change. A lot of stage plays that people didn't want to change anything is where we run into trouble because a lot of stage plays work fine on the radio. It's all about dialogue. And where we've had problems, it was produced already, you know. It's fun just like it is, you know. You can change your thing. And what we found is that it's a whole different medium. Yeah, and that's a really, that's an approach that we differ a little bit from people of quality where she's putting a stage play on the air. And our, what we try to do is make radio plays. So that's a different medium. And so, when I'm writing for that, what I try to do is take advantage of things that are specific to that medium. So things that you can only do with sound or things that are enhanced by the use of sound or things that have not worked have been things that are visual, obviously, or kind of, you're asking a lot for people to kind of sit and listen for a long time. So length is an issue and there has to be something really compelling. So just like any other stage play story is key. And it has to be, there has to be enough action, even if it's two guys talking in a bar to use the sequence analogy. There has to be something to keep the action going to keep them listening. So things that I've tried to do are just anything that's, there's an example I think of visually, like in the silent movies, there's scenes in like Charlie Chaplin where he's walking down a train track and there's a train behind him and he doesn't hear it because it's a silent movie and so he just keeps walking where there's a crowd behind him with signs and things and he doesn't notice because it's silent. And you can do that kind of thing on the radio kind of in the interest. You can, I'm trying to blink as people are staring at me, but things that you don't see, you can take advantage of the fact that you can't see it and kind of reveal it later or things like that. Things that only work because people can't actually see what's going on. You know, it's a beautiful use of radio. So I've written little sort of things that are on walkie-talkies or people talking to the phone or anything that's just kind of a way that might not work on stage very well but works because it's a sound thing. I think you asked about the mechanics and some of the simple mechanics are people have to talk or they disappear. You can't have people standing around in the background of a radio scene so the fewer people that are on the scene, the easier it is on the listeners. Two or three, four people. Once you get beyond that, it starts becoming a little chaotic for people on the scene. There's not as much of this if you're focusing on people watching. But on the radio, if it's truly on the radio, there's only so many people you can tell work really at the same time, which is the old kind of classic. There's on the radio, there's an Irish guy and a Jewish guy, the German guy. So you can tell they're at the same time. So you can do more at the same time. We love that sense. Casting actors from their tone of voice, you can't help people that sound identical. Or it's like you've got the same person when you get twins on stage. YouTube? I'm sorry. No, no, no, just to say that I find YouTube's very helpful because you can't quite remember an actor's register. It can refreshes your memory but I've made mistakes nonetheless. One of the things that's really strange is that it's really strange because it doesn't matter how old you are, it doesn't matter what you look like. You never get cast in that part eventually, maybe. It doesn't matter because it all is what you sound like. And so you can have you just have these plain beautiful women. It's how they sound. It doesn't matter how tall you are. So actors really love it. Do you have questions? I'm curious in your situation if you mic your audience so that they become a part of that process. Yeah, and I think Sheila talked with Nan Barnett who had a brilliant idea. They did some live stuff where they had the audience do some of the Foley effects. You can look at two cards. Which I think is great, but we do have a house mic sitting up to catch the reactions and things because if you're listening to the live, to the broadcast later of the live show you'll find the live a little bit later. Clearly we're the steel man. Although one quick horror story that we saw a science fiction, the science sci-fi channel used to do radio plays for a while on their website and they did a live show of dial-in for murder and another play. And at the end of the other play I think it was, they were in this field and this tension was just building and building was really scary and finally at the end, did end with the other guy with a shovel to the head basically, right?  So, if you're listening on the radio that's a really scary moment until the crowd in the theater sees basically Gallagher, right? The crowd interrupts and laughter. Oh, that's terrible. That's terrible. That's terrible. Yeah. If any of you are in New York we also started to do it occasionally in front of live audiences and I don't know, I don't think we have time but I did bring a sample if we do have time. Oh, good. No, for sure. And I would say if you're doing it yourself you know, actors are fantastic to work with them. There's basics of like stuff and we have an incredibly interesting handout that we neglected to print out that we can email people. It has a lot of resources for people that are doing it live now like I wrote over there and we just met who's getting paid to write radio drama and you've got like 70,000 subscribers to your podcast. That's a really good podcast I have to say. It's cool. Cool. If you divide that by 10,000 that's how many we have. I think it's a there's a tremendous potential for the sort of work that we're doing and I think more and more people will do it because for a long time you know, the days, the glory days of radio were over and they were just vanquished by television and film but now everyone is constantly plugged in so there's a huge need to content. So I do think there's potential there. Oh, I have a question. Sure. Do you guys have to work with after or I work with SAG After yet. SAG After and what about you guys? We don't because we basically have no budget and I'm not an expert on this stuff but we have a couple of SAG After people in there and equity people we've never had a problem our audience is small enough and the pay is low enough it's basically gas money so maybe that's what the cutoff is. I don't know. And they're reading too so many times if you're holding the script they only have to pay for transportation. Yeah, I should tell that to SAG After. Yeah. Equity. Equity. Exactly the time for question to ask getting more toward whether you have any written agreements or licensing with the actors or with the playwrights to do this considering that I'm assuming it's recorded for maybe future rebroadcast what do you do about licensing your rights? Everybody. In terms of the actors it's negotiated by the union and it's favorite nation but everybody gets the same and the whatever back end is the same and what's paid into health and retirement it's just otherwise I think I would commit harry carry so that's done and then it's just a question of whether the actor wants to do it for the writers again it's essentially a favorite nation again I'm a one man and here and pretty much it is what it is there's a flat fee there's a sharing and revenue we should be so lucky to think of other forms of revenue other than radio broadcast I thought going into this that there would be income of some support from what are called carrying charges but when you're an independent radio producer and you're starting and the program director chairman of the oh yeah we'll air you but we won't pay you anything it's you have to wait do I want another 400,000 people or do I want 26 dollars so what are you going to do once you're successful it's a whole other thing and you have that revenue for us what we do in the studio is typically stuff that we write or friends of ours write and our actors are friends of ours and for the live shows we do take submissions and right yeah there's an agreement with the writer and part of that agreement it's just understanding that it's going to be podcast and broadcast live and they get a small stipend some people that float from California to come to the show but the nice thing is that you know we're recording it for broadcasting so you actually get a permanent record of your play and a link on the website to the podcast that you can share with all your family and friends this is my play and this is what it sounds like for our actors it's mainly a core ensemble but it's all we're not blessed to live in New York for the most part our names are smaller not to comment on their talent which is great but their names are not they're mostly from our name so the contractual stuff is smaller and we're also under the umbrella of a couple of non-profit groups both of you I think mentioned about length of piece what's the average length of a piece you said short play the average is between 10 and 20 minutes kind of 20 that doesn't mean there are any sections for us we found for the live shows we've done some that are like an hour and a half and those are really hard to keep an audience in place for an ideal length for us is like two half hour plays and then a 10 minute play or something like that within an intermission we've done it kind of depends on what your target is there's a lot of people producing podcasts now which is great and so that can be really variable you can kind of just what the story demands if you're aiming for radio broadcast there are specific time links like you're shooting for 53 minutes to answer your I have to come in in a hard 53 minutes so that means if I'm going to have two interviews in two plays or three interviews in three plays you have to restart the program not only do you want it to be dramatically some sort of dramatic contextual sense but it also has to fit together in terms of minutes and then on top of that there's an episode intro and an episode credits and then there's a play intro and credits for each of the two or three little plays and then there's an interview after each of the two little two three little plays and then there's music composed of the two three little plays and then sounds like what has worked also well for us has been playwrights who have taken full length plays and adapted them for radio into basically two half hour episodes that run 100 version in between and some of the really great ones that they've done have been, we did Marcus Gardner just this last year as part of the rolling national career with the large program which the well run has done the last two years adaptations that we've convinced them and worked because of the whole full length stage but it's just too much for a radio audience but you can kind of get the essence of it I've also done a lot of really short plays on the radio like one to five minutes I had to for a while I was doing one of those a week for like two years which is a great way for me and it's a great way to try out ideas and since it's radio you can kind of do everything yourself so it's a great way of making an opportunity for yourself I would just say if you're doing it yourself and you're working with actors and actors are fantastic, if they're stage actors you may have to tone them down a little bit so they don't just blow you another next week because it's kind of like it's very intimate but you know what we found is people that will act with their whole bodies even though they're on microphone your body affects your voice and if somebody just stands there and talks to them like they've never moved it really affects their voice and they don't sound as alive as if really good voice actors can move and still not be off-mine and that's just something that you know is because you're working with people that keep in mind it's okay to move it's okay to shrink your voice and it's okay and it's okay to vocalize too step out whatever because you can't as you said you can't have those clauses or people think they've lost power so some kind of vocalization or sound effect to fill it in if you must have it but basically Claire it's been very good about letting it go and you know if there's time to shift gears there's a lot that can be done of course production even when it's recorded live if there are any other questions we're going to see a little bit about a little bit from each of these what they do do you want to start with maybe then there'll be some questions we're going to do the video for yep we're pulling it up right now where is this video from in March we did two evenings of three short plays each at a fantastic new facility in downtown Brooklyn called Brick Brick Arts House it's just adjacent to Bam Harvey and they have an amazing black box with bleachers that come out a little U shaped balcony so they really have received we had 230 people in there but they were terrific we had a lot of fun so it's a long story why we did this is because we are on nobody's radar and a playwright said to me David Ives Claudia you're never going to raise any money if you don't raise your profile so he said call meeting and I did I called meeting six playwrights showed up and they all concluded so I said that's going to cost a lot of money and everybody just acted like they didn't hear and I just you know put it together but they were right because it has helped and I think we need to do it more so this is one of those two nights and then from the first night I was able to cobble two of them together to make a show second night hopefully too and then I still have some extras because you always have hanging inventory sometimes it's there for these wonderful pieces could be stranded and orphaned for a year or two before you find an opportunity where they fit in thematically and in terms of the minutes are we good making sure this is loud enough for you all to hear it given the music any questions just in terms of funding I think when we had a conversation at one point you guys have been able to get some funding from the state of Florida Department of Humanities that was great right that was great that was done through the Studio 620 that art space and that was for two years and it was to fund plays either about Florida basically or by Floridians preferably both and one thing that we found really works for us is locality so even after the grant has ended we have this kind of running series where there's a continuing story each time that's really really hyperlocal it's based in that town and there's a co-writer with a former newspaper writer and it's it's popular because people like to hear their town mentioned in the radio show Hi question have you experimented at all with times of day that you program your show and what is or isn't more or less successful? we have no control yeah it's like you were like you know no I mean the program was like the program controls that that channel for a couple of years so most people are either listening to the podcaster or they're at the event most people are not listening to the actual live broadcast that's a good question the show used to be on the main broadcast channel on a Wednesday night or something and now it's basically a podcaster we haven't really pursued promotion as aggressive is we should which means basically at all but it's it's difficult to it's listenership I guess focus is really good with live shows a lot of shows are what get local pros can I ask so neither of these programs have been put out as paid podcasts this has all been a podcast for offered free online yes except I'm glad you brought this up because I'm you know not in my brains out trying to figure out how to bring in a trickle of revenue and the concept is to deliver a theater to everybody for free and on demand so that will remain in there right over free streaming for free podcast a few at a time for free but it did occur to me that if we had a store where people could access shows that weren't available at that moment for free let's say there's five shows up for free or for some reason they wanted to download it I was thinking we should probably do that and I wanted to sort of ask what you thought you would be a reasonable price to pay because I'd like it to be inexpensive but also going through the exact same thing because I'm working on an audio project and it's trying to figure out how to price it for podcasts and also you know obviously there's nothing that would be at the store couldn't be somehow done for free but some people you know just convenience and it's worth paying something our podcast the drama skill are all free I'm from the school that you don't pay for podcasts money shouldn't come from listeners should come from sponsors I just came across a lot of research about the pricing of how you want to do that and how you want to sell it but there's even a few sites and I can't cite any of them but you can put your podcasts into it and you don't even have to edit they'll do all the editing and they'll cut into sponsors that they think are more suited for your program this is all via Google are we ready for the video? Matt are we good? no she can always get it because it is not all on the podcast alright well here is playing my hair pause that for a second my sexy boombox nice this is a this is a a tablecloth are we good now? we should be is Connie up there? yeah Cliff she's here take my name man yeah only not too good oh she said attractive one day I was out in the patio thinking about how I'm almost 26 and I'm out of work and then I look up and I see these little underwears a woman rather I noticed facts looking at me the second day he moved in I knew his uncle next door a long time you ever notice on girls I mean women's underwear how they got those little ribbons in the shape of a bow that's cute genius my mind started going everybody celebrates someone when it's hot do not people sleep when it's hot your people sleep my people would picnic and all that should have never followed you out here but I didn't start the play thinking I was going to write a play about recovering addicts I was going to write about two damaged people that were desperately trying to connect in some way that one of them happened to be an addict and her friends happened to be an addict that was just sort of the texture for the play but really it was about these two damaged people that shouldn't connect that we're trying to really connect so Rosie do you think Connie will call Banny? yeah John you often work in one person comedic shows you've written like ghetto clown no freak, there's been a lot of it about the attraction or the challenge of doing someone else's comedy doing my own one-man shows is being up there alone it's a weird kind of lonely environment this is so much better it's so much better to have stuff to bounce off people and have them to share it's a much more groovy thing the one-man show I just love I love the storytelling of a one-man show more than anything but it's a lonely racket and I'm in a great time David's a really good playwright he's a crafty playwright I think the play sort of masters the form it's a short play and within a short play there are all these reveals and that's really what makes it fun you know going in it's a short play and you're kind of wondering where it's going to go and it's unpredictable and I think all the little doors that are open in the play make it for a fun experience and so I like that your expectations are kind of thrown off you think a lot of things are going to happen and the opposite happens you think they're going to maybe connect and they don't and that's why I like it and obviously the crowd it works thank you alright by David Bradziano yes it was we produced that play at Summer Shorts probably 10 years now and we took it out into the school tour the high school tour and the kids loved that play they loved it so it's fun to see it like that the audience liked it a lot yeah Charmi yeah you guys have some I'll give it to you so I thought as a serious we could do this thing here yes please and all weekend I've been incredibly intimidated to do that get your submarine so I just need so much weight so I need for this one two actors if you have any volunteers one in the back get her get her did you want to I think this is a good example of one of Matt's that he wrote that takes advantage of the fact that you can't see what's going on and I would certainly encourage everybody to write per radio and use it you know instead of constraint how could you just take advantage of that because you can do things you can't do on stage it can be a carry ornament incredible do we need one more actor one more actor come on up so you'll be Terry and I will grab my extensive sound effects kit over here you didn't break a door okay fully arts hi if you guys can hear okay we won't bother with microphones or anything it smells good sorry the last line is cut off might be the best direction you've ever it was make a mess for the I got the first line I know that one okay well this is cozy all tucked up like this yes shoulder to shoulder as it were it's actually fairly comfortable not bad I mean usually when I lie on my back like this it's really uncomfortable hurts my lower back this isn't bad at all that's good it's padded just right I think thoughtful of them it's a pleasant sound if you close your eyes and listen it is kind of nice and it's way exactly like listening to the ocean at night or rain on a roof a tin roof yeah rain on a tin roof I love that life great sound indeed what's that the Smithsonian it's great you should go they have a pendulum there this big weight on a long long rope in the middle of the building amazing I don't remember what it was supposed to show you but it looks cool neat of course strictly speaking that's not a pendulum no it said so I remember not the Smithsonian up there thank you a pendulum moves in a bit of a circle I think that's more straight back and forth true of course the one at the Smithsonian doesn't have the big ax blade at the end I don't imagine I think it came to a point and drew lines in the sand or something like ultimatums no the circles the other one in DC wasn't slowly lowering down either it was just in one place and you didn't have to get tied to a bench to watch it that's an advantage not that I mind being this close to you of course not nice of you to say not at all still it'd be nice to be able to move a little escape maybe if it came up of course what do you think will happen when that lowers all the way down well it'll cut us right in too I should think that doesn't sound fun at all no sort of thing that would kill a person I think that's the idea actually evil geniuses can really be fairly unpleasant of a Sunday afternoon to a spy at least still comes with a job I suppose absolutely and it's been nice spending the afternoon tied up next to you you mean that? I do I've always felt like there's been a distance between us I've never known how to cross it you wanted to? yes I did I don't know what to say it took a mad genius to bring us together life is funny isn't it isn't it just well I feel like I can die a happy man now thank you thank you it's been a thank you guys so much and we can email you I'll do us resources for you and you'll be around for the rest of them thank you everybody information this weekend which will go up on our website as well so that you can have some of the resources to link back to what we've been doing and also please feel free to email us you're going to be getting like surveys and stuff but we'd really like to know what has worked for you and what you'd like to see more of but we may we don't know but really this was great and Seth, thank you thank you these new episodes and whatnot you can go to the site and put your name and the contact thing and we won't bother you other than that so we are we're at six? be back here at seven thirty for cocktails and to start sort of chatting each other up a little bit and drinking so that we can start enjoying the finalist plays that will be next and the other thing I will tell you is this because I think this might have gotten lost a little bit and we'll probably repeat it later but all of you who are at city rights with playwrights although our submission process begins August 30th through September 30th because you are here you can direct


I'd like to call the meeting of the village of Essex Junction Planning Commission for August 1st, 2019 order. Before we start, is there anybody in the room that would like to disclose any conflict of interest concerning anything that we're going to talk about tonight? And just a reminder, anybody who's going to be participating or in the audience, if you could make sure you sign in, that'd be great. So right now, so Robin, do we have any additions or changes? Yeah, I'd like us to talk about the codes of colors for the road rescue. Okay, we can add that on after the conceptual plan review. So first up, we have the minutes to approve from May 16th, May 23rd, and June 6th. And you guys all have a chance to take a look at those. Go ahead. I'm all set. Do I hear a motion to approve? The minutes, A, B, and C? So moved. May 23rd and June 6th. Correct. Seconded. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Okay. All right, now to the exciting portion. See if I can do this the right way. I've only been the chair for... So we have to elect a chairperson, a vice chair. So I think the way this works is I need a motion from somebody.  So I think that, correct me if I'm wrong, we need to do a motion to make that happen, correct? You need to make a motion. I'll make a motion like being a chair. Do I hear a second to that? Second. All in favor? Aye. All in favor? Opposed? Okay, so I would like to make a motion. So the chair will stay the same. And I would like to make a motion to elect John Alden to vice chair. Second. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? All right. That was easier than I thought. That was tough. It's playing my strategy out there. Okay. You can't get away with that. Did everybody sign their ethics review and hand it to Robin? One person did not hand it to me. We're in process. Okay, all right. All right. So there's an item on here for the comprehensive plan. Public hearing on the comprehensive plan. That was a placeholder. Correct. So that's correct. Just to make sure everybody understands if the trustees have made any changes or recommendations to what we had sent them, we would be talking about it right now. But because they did accept it, there's nothing to talk about. Okay. Just so everybody understands that. All right. All right. On to the public meeting conceptual plan review for a proposed mixed use building and removal of existing buildings at, excuse me, 9 and 11 Park Street. Are the applicants here? Excellent. We can switch it off. Let's switch it off. I'm putting it there in the band. Do you want boards up for you guys as we're discussing? Sure. Yeah, that'd be nice. You can use the... It's okay. All right. Before you guys start, can I have anyone who is going to participate in the application raise their right hand? And I hereby swear or affirm that the evidence I give in the cause under consideration shall be the whole truth and nothing but the truth under the pains and penalties of perjury. You can do it. Okay. Robin, do you have anything you want to comment on before? I don't really mean this conceptual plan group. It's quite a list of stuff from the staff that they reviewed again and confirmed. But it seems this was conceptual. It's not a reason to believe that to find it. I'm interested as part of this introduction. We're approved for demolition my first year here. So we'll find and get into that part for this time. Do we have to do anything specific to the demolition or is it just rolled into the... It's just rolled into the... Okay. All right, gentlemen. Okay. Well, we're here. I'm from Gravity Architects. My name is Tyler. This is Greg. We're working with Milot Real Estate and Lamarrow and Dickinson for the 9-11 Park Street Project, which is obviously right across the street or right down the street. We're proposing to have a mixed-use building that consists of approximately 9,000 square feet of commercial space on the first floor. And the upper three floors are all studio apartments, 48 studio apartments. We're proposing to have below-grade parking, surface parking, as well as an elevated deck, which we feel will also relieve some of the parking pressures that are in that area. We've really tried to do what your town plan is looking for in this area with the mixed-use and also regionally trying to consolidate development into these urban areas and provide mixed-use to get some diversity into the areas. Just to add here, this is Arc Terrace on the north side of the site. The recently completed building right across the street floor, Pearl Street, is right here. And then, of course, here's Park Street. There's a private road that goes back to the project site here. And movements on Arc Terrace have been limited in the past by other permit actions. Just to help orient you to that. Just to add one other thing. At Park Terrace, it neck-downs, I believe, two feet at Park Street. And we're proposing to open that intersection up so it's a full 24-foot intersection. I have a co-worker that lives nearby and he just says that intersection's always been difficult to turn out of. So we think that's going to be advantageous as well. I will say that I spoke to a few residents on Park Terrace. They haven't seen this plan. And they had said that they always wanted the intersection with Park Terrace and Park Street to be wider. Oh, it's terrible. It's terrible. It's got to be a chance. What happened to that? They also didn't mention the fact that they're putting a sidewalk here. Side-side Park Terrace, right-side of the building. Which will also help. Mr. Henson, are you going to give us a civil tour? Or I would include the sidewalk. I don't want you to be sitting there and not get to join the party here. Thank you, Mr. Henson. Mr. Vice-Chair, no. Sorry, as these gentlemen have said, Park Terrace right now is about 20 to 22 feet wide. It will stay that width to the west of this project. But as it approaches Park Street, it will widen out to be a full 24 foot wide building street. We're going to accomplish that in two. We'll pull this existing curving back a couple of feet and then just shift our sideline. Anything we're doing will shift to the south to create that. In addition to letting people come in and out, it will also make it easier for truck drivers to search both of these buildings. There will be a new five foot wide concrete sidewalk that will allow people to park here and have a dedicated sidewalk to get down to Park Street. There will be another one on this side of the development. So anybody who's parking here or the residents of this new building that's almost down, will be able to walk down and have a good way to get down to Park Street. This will be a shared driveway that will serve this project as well as this elderly housing project back there. It's wide enough as a two-way driveway. There will be a ramp down right here to the low ground parking. I believe that's actually labeled wrong, Doug, where down should be the northerly ramp. Southerly ramp is actually going up to upper level parking. So the one that's on the south is going to go up, not down. So that means everything inside is also left or switched, right? Yes. Inside, there's some ramp. This ramp will come up to the upper deck. That'll go up, and then this will be going down to the lower, the underground parking. So if you look at, I don't know if you guys have a copy of the 52. It's something that's not civil worthy, but it gives... I'll say that the parking section of this was a little tricky to figure out. So we'll be looking for, we'll talk about that. In this area, we haven't done the full design yet, but in this area, there will be an underground storm water treatment facility called Infiltrators. We can't make it too deep because the bed of groundwater is not very deep in this area. But under the ball of a parking lot? Yes, sir. Yeah. And then there'll be a set of stairs from this sidewalk up to this level where this park terrace climbs the whole way. And this driveway climbs the whole way to get up to here. So this deck will be... The surface parking will be at green here. This will be a grass slope between this curve for the parking lot and the sidewalk. What else would you like to know, gentlemen? Well, it relates more to the parking garage. I don't know who the appropriate person is there. And who's going to describe the front raised plaza and the stairs and all that? That's not you, that's these guys. Well, we'll meet this tree guy, right? Yeah, that's Sivlin. Sivlin. Yeah, ask him about the pipes in this one. Well, actually, no, I'm more concerned about the city cells that I didn't see here. Make sure these trees stay aligned. Because there's a lot of concrete and not a whole lot of green space. So... Well, there also might be a parking deck that I... Yeah, that could be. Okay, but I mean, as I was looking at... There's a sheet. No, SKP2. And what's this other one? This is sheet 3, proposed gradient landscaping. You've got trees that are... Yeah, well, and FH3. There's two trees that are planted in the left... Left, next to the new alley or driveway. Okay, there are two trees in... There. Yeah, okay. So, tell me about those. Because quite frankly, I'm trees. Well, it says trees. Yeah. Okay, so, I mean, that is the symbol I'm reading. Those are proposed to be trees. Okay, so what level will those on? Because isn't that... Those will be on surface level. Surface level. Right. The parking ends here underground. Okay. That's the part that's a little tricky is the... There's no connection between the parking drawings and the site plans. Yeah, that's... Well, we'll do a cross section right here. That's okay. You'll see lower level. Here's the wall. Here's the ground level. Here are the trees. And here's the center. Yeah. Okay. And maybe it's a dotted... Maybe there's a... Well, you'll have a landscaping plan, right? That's different from this? Slightly. Yes. Is it, you know, rendered up or done some... Landscape architect will do something, right? Yeah. Anyway, one of the site plans should include the front, you know, the perimeter of the garage or the deck so that we get where that exists in relative in relation to the rest. Okay. We'll make sure that we're financing our system. Yeah, we'll say that. There could be an airplane as long as we don't... You know it for piping or something, you know. Okay. This plan is certainly more conceptual in nature than the civil plan. It's just to provide... The second deck was shown on the civil plan so this is the reason that this would have been to the set. Well, you got three levels to show on the zone. Correct. And to show one of them on the zone. Yeah. Okay. So my next question is civil, is that I believe on the current plan or that was approved by the Planning Commission for what is now the up ramp is currently being put in as a... I saw it yesterday as a gravel driveway. So I don't understand that there's supposed to be more infiltration slots. Okay, they're going... So how does that work in this project? Those go away. Those go away. Those were installed on behalf of this project. Yes. But when this landowner sold this piece, part of the plan was that whatever... From this point on, whatever this owner puts in will be removed to serve this project. So all of this stormwater system will handle everything that this project develops as well as this. So... Go ahead. So those current infiltration cells that are under that rub right now are going to be removed? Yes. Can they be utilized? We hope so. We don't know. Okay. That's... It will depend on, to a certain extent obviously, it will depend on the contractor who removes them. If they remove them carefully then yes, we hope that they will be reusable. I think that would be helpful to include on the demolition plan just so that we can all keep track of it. And then you'll have to give the calculations to the engineer so that they can sign off on... Yeah, you've got the capacity. As well as the state with their storm equipment. Right. Excellent. And the... I think we've got more tonight. No, I'll wait. Go ahead. Well, Don't Office also put together a lot of parking and traffic studies. And as long as you're right there talking about the roads, maybe you can just flesh out the... I mean, there's more to the vehicle circulation than we're seeing on this because you're now tying into the spur that goes across the east side of the senior housing. And then that ties into Park Street School, right? It does. So, what do you see as the relationship between that, you know, so the Park Terrace is two-way and this new piece at the west side of your property is two-way? Yes, it is. And is it also two-way by the senior housing? No, Gage is one-way. That's one-way. One-way to come in on school, on the school street. What? One-way. I thought it was outgoing out that way. Right. That was what the school districts had in mind. Yeah, so all the traffic going into the senior housing and come to Park Terrace and fix the new corner and... Right? That's what we think. And that's fun.  They can actually go either way. I think so. The right or left? Yeah. Excellent. I think so. If you were coming into a further part of... No, I just want to understand it because it might be helpful to include the rest of that circulation in some smaller plan, but just so you can remind everybody about it. Sounds like you've got to figure it out. We will. I mean, we've kind of hit on the high spot so far, so I'm not sure there's a whole lot more for me to talk about other than address questions. In terms of the scalability of the sidewalk on the Park Street side, are we kind of mirroring, you know, the same look down? Yeah, it's a little bit like Pearl Street and sidewalk, so that's why. There's more restrictions on this side. But again, the applicants work in the village and respond very positively to what we're asking. Okay. Okay. So speaking of the sidewalk that's on the south side, I'm not sure which one of you guys to ask. This is compost recycling and trash bins. How are those accessed? Are those rolling out to the street? Correct. So Myers or whoever the trash company, I spoke specifically with Myers regarding the size and the ability of them to be able to move them. And as long as they have a four or five foot sidewalk, they can open the gate, bring the... I can't remember if it's a four yard or three yard container. I can't remember exactly what they are, but they will roll those down the sidewalk to the truck that will be able to back up into the parking lot. That's the sidewalk labeled ramp right now on the drawing? I guess... No, no. Just directly to the east of where those bins are showing. You have to see the gates on the plan. And that's a great... It says ramp ramp. What's that for? I'm on the landscape and grading plan. And it says ramp. 345... It does say ramp. 680. It doesn't say that on the site. If it is a ramp, you're looking at less than half a foot from one side of that storage container to the other, looking at the spot elevations over there. Just take a hard look at that in a bigger scale because that seems like it's pretty tight there. What is the distance between the parking garage and the building? 5 foot sidewalk. 5 foot. The thing is the truck that they're going to dump these into has to be kind of nearby, right? Well, that's why you asked. You've got a 5 foot sidewalk, meaning a 5 foot sidewalk. But where's the truck? So the intent is that the truck would back up down the drive lane, adjacent to the ramp that's going down.  That makes sense. Depending on the company. They don't like to get out of there. Oh, I know they don't like it. It's pretty similar to the one down the county road. It's one of the locations where the dumpster is around the wheels. Okay, so there's a side gate, too. We have the college street. We're even not seeing the parking garage. That's being pulled down the town of Skyland. There's a toast restaurant that's right there. All of their dumpsters are actually in the parking garage. And they get wheeled out. They have to wheel them out to the street. The drive lane of the garage is very similar. It's easier because an attacker can either drive in if it's a front load or a back in. Right here, just wheel those to there. It makes sense. I'm a little interested in what really happens along, let's say, the business end of the parking area. So west side of the property. So you've got a new street there. And we're seeing the ground level plan, which it's all street from the property line over to the edge of the parking areas. You can't really tell where the parking garage sits on that. It's a little tricky. I've got a little island with some trees on it. So I've got an in and an out here, kind of like in two places before I get to the ramps. I've got an island with two trees and all the rest of that is just paved. There's no sidewalk for walking that way. Not through here. This is not a street. This is a drive. That will not be offered or accepted. Anybody coming from a senior area has a sidewalk to get down to Park Street. Anybody who's on the other end is walking on the new sidewalk down to Park Street. So if they're wanting to go the other way for whatever reason, they're in a drive. And we don't have any elevations or any other descriptions of the parking garage. Vertical. Currently, no. We do have a structural engineer that's working on it, and that's going to be really the first step to... So can we imagine there's a... at the ground level, you either got legs or you've got some wall or something that separates the parking from the parking place? We're certainly going to have columns at the very least. And it's... I'll just say at the moment, my thought is that that's an opportunity to integrate that edge of the structure in a way that is pleasing. So it's still a driveway. It's still not the front end of anything, but some people are going to see it. And everyone driving by can see it. And it might be that the two trees there are expanded upon with some treatment that happens along that side. And again, I don't know what material is it left concrete? Is it got a brick face on it? What does it really look like? I know you haven't really gotten to that yet, but I think that's going to be an issue for the surrounding area. Just make sure that's been dealt with on the left. A lot of it's going to depend on the final design and how much face is actually there to cover. It is going to be a lot of open space because the track cars are coming in, coming down from the ground level. So what is actually there to be covered? Just from a comfort standpoint, an open parking garage typically is more comfortable for someone being inside there. So having as far as viewing. I want to say, I'm really impressed that you're going to be able to get that much parking because that's a huge benefit to the project and to the surrounding. I don't know if it's appropriate to ask you about how you see the used working, because I know four Park Street need more parking at certain times, and this has 87 spaces. I believe that's correct. And you've only got 48 studio apartments, so theoretically you may only have 30 cars assigning on not everybody may have a car and certainly there are a few people who are going to have more than one regulation, not withstanding. I think the parking piece that was done by Roger is pretty interesting. We've just finished a similar project in downtown Burlington where we're well under two spaces per unit. So, especially when you start looking at the shared part of that, I did my own quick calculations on your parking study. On paper, your demand is 100 and something, right? And you're providing 87, but once you look at the shared number, it's down at 47. And so I figured that the right number was actually... Well, I came up with it on my own at 88, so the 87 I think is ideal. I appreciate that that much parking is there. We probably don't have as sophisticated an analysis tool like Burlington did to actually figure out how all that's going to work, but Roger's analysis does a great job in laying out the demand, laying out the shared parking arrangement for times of day and all that. And if you believe those numbers, you may have significant additional parking available at most times of the day to do something with and I think that's pretty nice. It's certainly incentive to the commercial property as well to have open parking that could be accessible to...  I think you can just pay a little bit of attention to what that back cycle is like. If we have a Burlington, that word will spread quickly. It could. There's an available spot here. Well, it's maybe a management thing. There's not going to be a blue sign with a P on it down on Park Street. We don't know who's using this yet or how it's operated, but you guys may want to think about that a little bit because it is, like most people don't know, there's 65 spaces right here and they're there. So, municipal spaces. So anyway, it's just something to think about. I was really excited about the parking. I think it's a nice thing to do for that spot. Anybody else on? Well, given that we have design control in this area, my concern is while you're putting this together is what is the face going to be like on Park Terrace?  Because that building will indeed see that parking garage effect. If that property does get developed in four stories, they will be looking into that parking lot. So I guess I will be looking for how is that being portrayed and designed because it isn't just slabs and concrete there. I'm going to expect something that's nice-looking. Don't ask me how to describe nice-looking, but I'm not looking for raw cement that's not been tailored or anything. Because I did go over and look yesterday and said, okay, if I imagine a two-story cement structure as I'm looking at it from the back of the Ford Coral Street parking lot toward the senior center, what's going to be interrupted? How much of that senior building am I going to see? What are they going to see as I'm standing on the corner in their parking lot? What am I going to be seeing down this way? What am I looking at? Okay, and knowing that there's at least 24 probably tenants that will be looking at that parking lot from the top of there, from their windows. So it's what's it going to look like? I like each other right now. This, as I said before, there's a green space in here. So that will be a mixture of grass and trees and shrubs. I can't tell you what species yet, but that's not mine. I kind of doubt it. I'd offer a couple things to help you feel better about this. Number one is when we did Ford Coral Street, we didn't assume there was a frontside and backside of the building. I think whether or not you care for the traditional design, I think the backside materials are precisely as nice as the frontside materials. And that would be the case here as well. And I think one thing we can offer next time we come back is we are really good at 3D visualizations. And the ones that we've provided for Ford Coral Street prove to be really accurate in terms of how the building integrated into its context. So when we come back for final, we'll bring some 3D graphic images to help you understand that. We understand that for the customers of our retail people and the tenants who live in this building, the garage is really how they're going to approach the building every day. So I think we're all on the same page here. We just need to illustrate what you and John are both saying, I think in different ways. So we'll come back with some 3D stuff so you can really see how it works. With one level of elevated deck, it's not going to be like a looming parking garage, but there is a design solution to be had there. We'll detail that more fully moving forward. Awesome. Yeah, that was going to be my big request, just following in some of the other projects we've seen. The really 3D visualizations, especially in a place where we have oversight over design. It's really important and it helps us. It makes it a lot easier to see. We will do that. That makes sense. And along those lines, which John was saying about the west side of the building, what are your plans along the NAFE property? Is there a visual buffer plan there? Like, what's that side of the mountain? At this point, we're proposing, I go and tell you this has changed already a little bit. So we actually have added in a 2-foot, really by necessity as much as anything else. We've moved this curb line this way a couple of feet, which I'll have to chat with our landscaper and ask him whether that's enough of a green space to get any sort of structure. I mean, I hate to put up a stockade fence, but we'll have a couple of feet of green there before the curb and then the driveway. I can't tell you more than that. Can you talk to the property owner to see what their thoughts might be? I have not yet. Do you have a fence or trees or a shrub? No, I have not yet. But we will. Alright, so we get on to the building now.  I don't know if we have that color somewhere. We might have one. Maybe I see the brick samples a little too. I think we have all the materials with us. Nice. Okay, well, obviously we are in historic area. Area for the village. And we try to pick up on massing and rhythm that we've seen just historically. Material-wise, the lower level is mostly brick. Something similar to what we did at Fort Pearl Street with sections of the building broken up with a product called Nichiha, which is concrete or cement-ish siding. It's kind of like a panel. It goes on almost, I think, the sheets are 16 by 60 inches. Something like that. So it's a large panel system. That would be in these bays that kind of break up the three masses. Above those broken masses we have a vertical, it's also a Nichiha panel. It would be a custom gray color, darker than the base. But still in that gray family, trying to hide that receipt behind the main, the three main portions of the building. The upper sections are going to be lap siding in a hearty or similar proposing hearty with a larger sandwich, you guys can see. But with the darker, the lower section and the lower section in the middle and the two outside wings would be this, which is called aged pewter. The upper section in the middle is supposed to be this Monterey toe. So it's staying the same family. Although it is a darker palette than what we see much of at Fort Pearl Street, it still has the white windows and the white trim. We're looking to have a black or a dark bronze storefront system along the entire lower floor. We're just really trying to break the building up so it doesn't reach one large mass. You may have a little more work to do on that. Just looking at it from here, assuming those colors are somewhat respected to what you're describing, it looks like the base. I've got a nice strong brick base and then I've got a larger gray mass above it and that's what I'm reading. I don't see that the breaking up is happening quite the same way. It's all shade to gray. These are really much more brown on the three main masses with gray being in between. This is going to be back to when the 3D rendering is going to bring this out. If you get this digital, the colors will come beautifully. I do it on the computer. I send it to someone to print it and it comes out. It does all that the way I want it to. It's crazy to see what the printed version looks like compared to what you have on the screen. That's good to know. We certainly want to work with you and I think we all want the same result in the end. In the drawing, I'm not sure how this was reading, but there's the horizontal band between the first commercial floor and the apartments above seem a little understated in this. In terms of your really heavy cornice on top, you've got some other strong horizontals and then that band could just be the shading or maybe it's being rendered in brick here, but it's not really consistently strong across the whole base as far as here. Where it's breaking here. That's everything where you're carrying this. Maybe some of this has to go away so you don't read it coming through and this really recedes back. That's what we want to do is have these sections recede back. I want you to think about are you trying to say I've got a base and I've got everything else in which case you might want to strengthen that? If you're not trying to say that, you really want to play with the pieces more than maybe it's fine and again, I think with a different style of rendering or the 3D piece is going to really help us all see that. I think it'll help us all, yeah. Can you tell me about the fenestration on the north side because it's totally different than what I'm seeing on the... Just in terms of proportions of narrow slots, lobby verticality, I guess with the north side and I guess in the south side of the center, they're just more rectangle. So it's kind of where... For these windows here on the tube, in the middle can be where the hallway is and those windows are all driven by the fact that these windows here are going to be in the kitchen. So they're going to be up over a sink. So obviously we're not going to get a full-size window there and just to not have too many things going on, those three sections are all using the same windows where on the outside we're back into the living room area. Just from the exterior side, it looks like you've changed the style. If that's what you're intending, that's maybe okay. We're still in the historic district. We're still in downtown. We still have a certain pattern and rhythm that wants to come around the corner and maybe be a little more consistent. But, you know, I understand what you're doing there, but if you might want to, instead of what we said, one big window, maybe it has a, something like that. And back on the east elevation, and I'm looking at the one, I'm thinking our little brackets, but actually if I look at the north elevation there, they actually extend out quite a bit. Is that a bristle there? It's a canopy. We have not yet selected it. We're hoping that it's going to be something we're going to be able to select as, you know, it's not a designed element. It's a chosen element that already exists somewhere. We have not yet selected it. I'll just say that, comparing to Fort Park, my, almost the only thing I would wish was a little stronger on that building are the brackets that hold up the, they seem just a little underwhelming. Where do you all feel the same way? That's one of those phone calls where somebody found a substitution and something that's supposed to be this big is always bothering us too. I think that the floor system got deeper there than it was anticipated. The brackets had to get smaller around Fort Pearl Street, but we all, so I guess what I'm saying is that on this building, if you are paying attention to those proportions, we can see what will happen there. It's a very different canopy. We don't have the mass of the building overhanging as we do on Fort Pearl Street. We're looking at a glass canopy that's overhanging so it kind of goes away in some ways. So metal and glass kind of... That's kind of what... All right, so anyone else? The cornice pieces are pretty big. I'll just say that's just my own personal feeling there. There's a lot, especially on the two ends, that's a lot of what will lead as a cap. I like the way the windows are arched at the end of that.  And I'm just... I'm being stressed to know like how does the material really work? Are there joints in that? Is it all one big piece? Or, you know, is it fiberglass? How does that really get handled? Because it's a pretty good chunk of material that you're showing. Are you looking for smaller cornice? I'm not sure. I think that, you know, the projects that we've seen, you know, we're all referencing back to the Brown Hell building, which is a very strong big cornice up there, but there's quite a lot of detail to it. Some of the recently approved projects across the street have also provided heavy cornice. I mean, the one across the street, or four corals, not, and I would probably say it's probably less than this. I'm not trying to say that it's too heavy. I'm just trying to figure out how it really... I mean, a lot of times big, if it's kind of flat, doesn't go as far as a little bit smaller, but a little more detail. And it just seems like I just don't know quite how it's gonna flesh out yet. I read it, I'm expecting that it's abrogated in fiberglass or something, and I don't metal, I'm just looking for a little more information about metal. We have not yet nailed down exactly, you know, there's multiple ways to do it, you could have something, a form made where it does make it out of fiberglass. You could skin it with, you know, a sheet-good kind of thing, like a hardy panel, something along those lines. But I think, again, once we get into the 3D perspective, we'll be able to tweak it and look at it different ways and hopefully come up with something that... I'm gonna get a little more... I'll say decoration, but happens on that somehow and helps to bring some scale to it. This corner does not have the details, the posts and all kinds of things. It would tell me if it was wood that it was helping hold it together. I don't see that in here, but I'm assuming that those little details, okay, that are, in this case and in the Brownville block, are there. You have the wavy lines or the vertical pieces that are telling you it's keeping together. This is so plain Jane. I guess I'm looking for something of those detailed pieces for the next drawing. This building, I see the grays. I see this gray. I see that color there. My first impression is kind of like somebody's gonna say, well, I'm going down to the gray building. That's the idea that you want to give. I'm going down to the gray building. This really shouldn't read as gray. Well, gray Brown, yeah, okay. I think let's just remember, we've said it like five times now, we need to have a 3D version that everybody can see and it'll be more clear how everything looks. This is what we have today, but if you're looking for more detail in the corners, I appreciate that. I'd rather have them here now. I can see that the vertical piece here with the brick, that you've got the layers and whatnot, but you can't see that texture in this black and white that we've got. I can see, I'm sure if I went over there, I can see more of the vertical pieces for the headers in the brick that go between courses. So I guess I'm looking for that, those old style pieces that's told me, this is how big things are and gave me that human scale piece that I guess I'm looking to see that's there. So I can't see that in this drawing, but I'm sure that the next one will tell me about the vertical bricks. So you're not reading any of the different, it's almost reading like a flat block? No, especially well in this black and white. I can see that on a reduced size, but it certainly doesn't happen. But I could make some educated assumptions on that vertical course of bricks or brick picture of what's going on there, which you can't see, and I agree with you John, and I don't see other than the fact that it goes from brick to gray, that vertical course of brick, this case is textured. Are we actually going with bricks or are we going with some treatments? This is all brick here and here. This would be this kind of a panel system between. That would give me the texture cues that I can't really see on it. I think it's hard to read this in its current state and yet what he's telling us. So we're hearing one thing, we're seeing something else. And I think we want to all get a little more comfortable that we're understanding what you're really doing there and that it reads that way. I mean, grays are pretty popular right now. There's a lot of people using gray siding of various types as either large portion of their buildings or accents or something. While it may not necessarily be historic, it's not an inappropriate use and I just think we want to figure out how that looks because from where we're sitting, it looks like a one-story that looks normal and historic, red brick, you know, even with nice interruptions of materials fine and then the whole rest of it is reading at one thing. And I appreciate that you're telling us that Scott really liked that but until we have the evidence to see that we're a little stuck. I'm ready to move on. I'm not going to dwell on it anymore. Anybody else? David? I'm good. I'm good. I could come if you want me to but I'm good. Anything else? I have just a general question that's maybe directed towards us as well as you guys. There's a lot of proposed developments that are really focused on the studios or the small one bedrooms. Is that just something that the market is seeing now and where are the families living in these apartment buildings? Are we just not seeing that? Is that not part of the demographic? It's got a lot to do with cost rentals and this is fairly in terms of development on a small lot but as the price of two bedrooms has gone up and up we'll see related couples moving in one bedrooms and so at the lowest rental tiers in the market rate rents there's not a lot of stuff available. Next door we have units that are twos, there's a couple of really fantastic penthouse things with the round windows so there are bigger buildings next door but we're trying to reach into a segment of the marketplace that's just not happening. We finished a project called Larkin Terrace on Sheldon Road down by McDonald's and then that's all one bedroom for a lot of the same reasons. Workforce housing, it's on a bus line you see you can live there and afford the rent so you certainly have to have a car. So that's the strategy I think is that's what I'm at need and we think there's a lot of rental potential there. I think it's great. I think it's really needed too. That's echoed in all the research that we've heard from the housing people and basically one bedroom apartment so you can't find one. We're building, we're just down the street right now we're building 31 one bedroom units and the building doesn't open until October and we're happy with that. Excellent. It's truly, you know in this also too by you know it is an increased density but as we're always saying whether it be within a building yourself or within a neighborhood increasing the density does allow us to bring costs down and that's truly what we're trying to do here is not only providing not only providing what is desirable as far as the layout goes but also trying to hit a try to hit as far as new construction goes try to hit a desirable price point as well and also smaller units like this allow us to do actually nicer things in the units. Granted counter tops tile showers including washer and dryers in every unit so that's you know and then all tile bathrooms, wood laminate flooring tile backsplashes in the kitchens so these are all kind of things that we're we're trying to do to to try to kind of I don't want to say spruce something on this but to try to increase it in our ability. So just to remind me did you say there are all studio apartments or are they all studio apartments? There's no the bedroom is in the same room as there is No, we have a couple different designs so that we're calling it a studio but what we've done is there's kind of a pseudo bedroom in the unit but what we're going to do is design it with pocket doors on two of the sides so that essentially if you want to you can close them and it can be a bedroom or if you want open them up and the doors disappear and then it almost opens up to the living room kitchen area so it really expands the size of it for people who don't want that just the full-on open you know the style of the old murky bed and that kind of stuff then there's a design that it's just wide open. We're looking at doing that path and path. Right. Excellent. The last question I had was related to being interfaced with Park Street and raised front platform tits it gives you a little sort of vibe that you own lots of ideologies that's not necessarily the side of what the sharing space the staff report was talking about a fountain and I just wanted to know how do you guys see that space working and whether you had any comments on the staff report? I don't I've never had much luck with fountains but you know and I think what we're trying to do at Fort Pearl is you do have the wider area next to the building which is basically hoping to just promote the traffic by the building itself. We have benches and everything on it as well as the trees that are growing there and it promotes people to hang out there and sit and enjoy the outside from the building. I think from what I've heard just recently today that Park Street cuts is planning kind of an open house celebration for their first year in business they're talking about 95 triple X or a radio station or something setting up kind of out front. This is just what I've heard I don't know how far they've taken it but that type of expanding the usual space in front of the building which was the goal here because we did push that building back at the request of staff to create a kind of a prominent area that is inviting to the general public. I think that's what you're going to want eventually all the way down the street. I don't know I really like the concept and I think the businesses that are in the lower level that are going to be able to take advantage of the whole space and the various interactions we don't necessarily all want to be right on the sidewalk but just a little bit of a separation would be great. I think eventually here and the goal of everything going on is more you know more units here right at the central part of the five corners and that's going to only help to spur the commercial world to because they will follow it when the people show up. Let me at the moment you have four sets of steps up to the elevator and you go out and I can see why you wanted steps because there are also doors in the building I was just trying to lift a little bit change it a little bit I mean it's great to have wider sidewalks trees and benches but can we have something else? If you really don't want to use a fountain can you still take the step side and bring the upper plaza out to where that was a cluster of trees something that people could sit underneath which just breaks it up and gives people something extra I thought it could have been a little simple fountain just spilled over at the front and dropped down into a catch base at street level and maybe there would be a little seat there you could come with a kid and a water supply we can recover the space and take the stairs out as far as bringing space I wasn't picking it in terms of the fountain I was just thinking something very simple very simple but if you really want to do a fountain you can do that it just lifts the street a little bit more and it's great what you did before giving us your property giving us your property but we just push it a little bit further so in other words there's an event that happens there of some kind that is interactive and interesting and it may give you more plaza space to work with as well as providing some interest, point of interest actually there's a plaque on the lower side that people can look at as they're walking you can come pause points or something just have a cluster of trees in that upper area just a little bit wider something happens there and you guys correct that's good the fountains can be awesome make sure that happens there personally I spend a lot of time in Syracuse and one of their main plazas is all fountains it was all done in brick and they had to be built literally 5 years because it just couldn't handle that's why you didn't lose any gold well it could be a seasonal fountain no matter what you want if it's a fountain because that's all that it could be a piece of Connecticut it could be great there's a lot of possibilities but the idea that we're creating this really strong pathway and that periodically there should be strong nodes on it so as you walk from city hall down to the Crescent connector and all that that's a good idea mm-hmm we'll refine that there's probably a lot of better ideas than I found personally there's nothing worse than a fountain in the wintertime with no watering just stare at the thing it doesn't there you go even worse no offense Robin well I think our general message that's good something happens I think the message is with projects like this the aesthetics of the thing are really important and we have to show in every little detail to the people who live here and make sure that everybody's happy with what we see especially after this project it's super important to make sure that we have as much information as possible so that everybody feels good about it it's a great project yeah exactly any other questions parking garage SKP2 it looks like there's 21 spaces is that the image in the uproar it shows the stairs I don't know I'm going to assume that that one square block is an elevator is this true you're going to have an elevator machine room you'll have your sprinkler room, mechanical room and a set of stairs inside the building from that parking garage so I'm going to see that reflected piece since that's down somewhere it's going to be coming up it's inside the building it's below the building there you go the only below grade is in the basement of the building itself so there's no below grade here there's surface second level here there's below grade below the building so it wasn't really feasible to put below grade on the surface or at the main parking lot but looked at it with the water treatment and everything it just didn't make sense or much better at waterproofing keeping this below the building having that separate from the other parking garage we even looked at going down half a story for this and then half a story up and it just didn't work with the water treatment so we are we are where we are anything else? I guess I should ask if there's anybody in the audience that has any questions for your applicant John you're the 110% I'm not understanding the announcements the renderings would be very helpful I would like to request when you do the renderings let's show some of the surrounding buildings so you can see the comparative fights we can certainly at least walk out so you can get I don't think we can probably be showing a lot of detail on them but if you're saying we're passing great anybody else? Robin do you have anything you want to add? no I think you guys have to know in the head it's just conceptual in the final if you say it on the staff it's a shall be provided in the final so with a lot of information it's going to be back to Village Engineer myself I think it's coming along with the additional parking it's really going to help everybody the rest of the parking just yep okay thank you very much thank you do I hear a motion to close the public version? I guess second favor? opposed? do you guys have anything we want to talk about before we vote on this? are you guys ready for the vote? yeah I'm going to lie with you because I'm not familiar most of the parking lots that we have dealt with in the past have been service or under building and I'm wondering if there's our land park code speaks to having parking lot shading and we have all kinds of landscaping options and things and in fact we've talked about gizibo grills or whatever things solar panels and things that's 20% of the parking lot two of the three decks are going to be under perception so they easily beat 20% so it's here I guess it would be a matter of there's one underneath the building there's one underneath the top set 60% I'm not going to count the one that's under the building but if this above grade will be open to sun and we've talked about solar panels gizibos or something in the past I'm wondering if we it's going to be more it's going to be more important for the average person to see what the side elevations are agreed because when you're walking down the street you won't see anything up there because they've got to have walls high enough to count as you know they've got to be 42 so you're going to see so there is no shading from I'm concerned about meeting the shade requirement in our regulations and just 20% he wants to apply to the parking deck itself not to the overall talent right because basically they're going to build parking that now has no shade right no shade up tons of shade and I'm going to start talking about that upper deck because we have not done underneath before just 20% should be shaded and I don't want to make sure that we comply and everyone complies do we need to in the future talk about because this may become something of the future do we need more education as to how broad is our parking structures of this nature so that we're familiar because our layout will be something that we deal with at least if we do put the solar canopy on top of the elevation now everyone I was drawing online because the parking deck elevation and you can only tell because on the back side of the building elevation you can see where the little connection is to the right that's the deck the walls are going up 40 inches from that so the people on the second floor of the back of the building are going to be looking out of their kitchen and they're going to be cars right in front of them called chance of space and it's like 5 or 6 feet separated or something so I think we should be careful that the second floor people and the third floor people and the fourth floor people aren't getting stuck with a bunch more stuff to stare at like the side of the solar panel or something like that so I'm kind of okay with not asking them to put anything up there I can't actually recall any parking deck that we have around here that has plantings on one of the upper deck we don't have any parking lesson, I have decks not in s-extruction but other places around Burlington you wouldn't find anybody that has anything up there you know like I was just in other places where there are tennis courts and there's basketball and there's stuff that happens on the roof of these things but that's not what we're proposing here we're saying so I think it's a good question I'd love to see it stay kind of whitish so it reflects the heat a little bit you know have cars up there a lot but I think we're going to get a lot more mileage out of treating whatever the edge is like maybe the edge like Robinson has some kind of planters or vine potential or there's something there that lets nature and life and green just drops down on each level you know again it's only a two story well it's really one story yeah it's not the same height as a room in a building right it's pretty close because it looks like we walk into the second floor so I don't know that's up to them to figure out how that works but I think I just want to make sure that they were complying and we're complying by encouraging the correct thing and I'm going this is the first time we've had an elevated parking structure because most of ours have been underground or surface and I just want to know it's pretty you know the rest of the criteria are all ideal it's behind the building and totally screened you can barely see it from anywhere but it does have three sides that will be visible from from you know something and we want to make sure those are the side is really not going to be this way why not? because there's going to be another building the other side of that access driveway is at all and there's vegetation along that side if you go onto the roof of the senior building and we like squint it to the right you might see a problem those are great ideas we should definitely look into you know what sort of even if they just put a pergola above the open level and try to group lines on it something like that I was in the one place well they could just do pergola in a couple of corner bays or something and that would take care of the percentage yeah not a bad idea okay we'll let them off on the fountain but we're going to have some pergola there's definitely let them off on the fountain maybe there's a pergola above the open level it used to be they've had it up already I know alright so do I hear a motion to if there's any other no we're not going to I'm looking for a motion to approve or not approve the conceptual plan I make a motion that the conceptual plan be approved as including the stipulations and comments that were made in the staff report and by the planning commission can you accept a friendly number about the it's shall we have an addition of a fountain do we want to found them consider a fountain did you put shall it that's because Amber's not here anymore to strike the word fountain and include a point of interest yes that's a good catch thank you okay so do I hear a second it might be a second okay second all in favor all opposed okay now I know you guys are all open arms about the paint color on the building so let's talk about that real quick I think the black is a bland nothing you've been staring at that building we haven't liked it from 30 years it's blue right now it's grey it was dark green wasn't it it's all grey no no they're looking at road rescue it's road rescue that's one this one it's grey and blue it looks like green it's grey it's grey with green underneath it's grey green I think those colors would look excellent on that building anything's going to look better in order to that's a good point that's kind of my point too I was thinking about that I mean his colors are kind of what black and orange and yellow because of the fire burn thing the whole inside of the dining area is red well he's got this red that's what I was saying why wouldn't he do a red why wouldn't he do red and black instead of the yellow and orange yeah I mean I would encourage the stripe to be a little bigger okay encourage the stripe to be more consistent with the sign so red the firebird red for the strap I think that was especially since he just told us the interior of the restaurant don't you think that was they have a way to go apply orange I just like it I don't have anything against orange it's just they can look good too if it's the right orange it's going to look great I agree that painting it something you know but the black just feels so if you make the stripe why do you have less of a black just don't get the black why do I want a big stripe a big band of black do you want to double if you double do you want to put in three straps all the same width and just have them closer we don't want to look like we don't want it to look like the Italian flag it's been serious no if the yellow stripe gets bigger but it's still less than half and it's that would be a stripe double would be more than somewhere between I agree with that I mean it's there's a red stripe over there now we can't he can't do yellow let's just talk about the black black across the top you've got the storefront elements which are dark bronze those doors which is fine there's a band of material between the overhead doors which is a door there's a door between the overhead doors no there's two doors there's one into the old office and there's another door between the two garage doors it's hard to read but it is I guess I would be tempted to make a statement with the vertical door element because it's it looks like it's at the moment the same color that the top well I think he's going to have a glass door there he's going to have a glass door so he gets more light inside and is it just the way the sun hits the door is that a mill finish aluminum door going into the office that's the cooler door he's got his cooler in there it's hitting the back that's the original door that's the original door on the inside the one in the office that's the original door is that what's happening with that he hasn't proposed anything to them it kind of stands out like a ruby little sword on there anyway I would see the paint anything that's not pre-finished like the blue storefront colors ought to be integrated into some so anything that he can paint if the top is black give me a reason to understand why any of the other colors go there what about painting the brick correct is that show paint for it it's a challenge we didn't even want to do gray yeah we thought gray what do you need to know I mean sorry I'm too far away so let John say that my point was if you just make the strike a little bit wider double it like you said that would do a lot for it I don't have a problem with the black I think the gray looks good it's different one of the reasons he's painting the brick John is he's done so many modifications to the brick that's all there I see nothing in this lower thing that tells me Firebird in any way, chamber form if I was a fan and a patron or a neighbor of the current Firebird I think he's going to have a sign on the building as well as the sign why do you have to disguise everything my point is that's it's trendy and it's modern but it no longer has any connection to his current business and the sign doesn't look the same you decided you didn't like the old sign I have tried to get into so never mind I got two points because one is we don't really need to worry about what his old business was this is a proposal coming to us in our building we have design control, we have color approval, etc is it appropriate that's the bottom line is whatever they're proposing appropriate is business decisions notwithstanding is that image going to be appropriate for the center when we're done when we're done it's an odd building it's going to stand out anyway it's one story, it's an old garage there will be vegetation in front of the building I just find that all this gray and black so he's ripping up the front he's putting it on oh by the way I suggest you put a pergola across the front of the building that's a good idea and at the base of the pergola I shouldn't have heard of build quite large planters around it with insulation board in and I suggest it trumpet vinyl because it's very hardy and the pause in the winter sound like maracas going to hit together in the winter do we end up seeing after you got done the culture did we get to see what's really going to be there or is this I asked him for pictures when he decides what the pergola is going to do so he is doing the pergola I'm just going to break up the color in the front once the trumpet vinyl goes you're not going to see it alright so I'm seeing at least two potentials here for signs on the building it's got a green in the middle of the two bay doors plus a green no that's a door as well I guess there's so much brick in the village already and it's such a normal historic component I'm more in favor of seeing its stained brick than having a painted brick my feeling is that would tend to make it a little after meaning we should go over there and walk around that might help because there's a lot of things going on the sign on the building idea I don't think is necessary at all why would you have that awesome sign out there that's already there why do you need to sign on the building we can't mandate that sign no I'm just saying as part of this breaking up the colors I'll show you when we look inside is raised the cooking area that's quite high I want them to put it on the face of the raised area inside we don't have anything to say about that I've got a key to the building we can walk through it I'm not opposed to having a sign green boxes why do we do this we close the meeting then we can because I can't really see if we can walk past yeah that's fine so we're not quite ready to render determine if we're going to table it is that a play on words render so we we'll add in the minute notes that we will table the question of colors okay okay all right I think if people don't mind a couple of times in the past Jon and I have met and discussed colors for people who weren't actually coming in for an application it was just they wanted to do something in their building if we all want to meet that's fine too so it's more than just that color is pretty to me I do often compliment them so how about me I would be okay accepting the black and the stripe and not saying okay paint the grid until further I want you to walk around the building with me you might see why he thought about doing that my moral is red no I don't care about the color I'm just saying I do for this conversation I don't care I just think let's get to the point where we think yes he should hinted and then let's talk about the color there do I hear a motion? do I hear a motion to close the meeting? do I hear a motion to close the meeting? I have a question do we have a next scheduled meeting coming up? we do not have one for August 15 we do not okay we're going to have a couple coming quickly okay well make sure I know early enough because I'm you're not going away again I'm on the town public commission maybe on Thursdays other one from our normal meetings but we're in the middle of maybe a couple special meetings I know that's your secondary obligation I agree I don't want to have to pick oh no you wouldn't okay yeah we don't have anything yeah as of now I'm not going to be around much and honest I'm going to for the next week and a half well that's it after August okay September then and we were going to Greg Duck and his ass Dan Hadley to try and organize can't remember but there's two or four joint meetings a year we tweeted to the planning commission and the way we're going to try and do it is if the time the planning commission has a meeting then we'd go on the night of their meeting and then they'd come on the night of our meeting we do not we should be doing them all over there how the joint meeting has the room so much bigger and it's a lot easier to do that there's so many tech people it's a lot better over there yes go through the venue that it works then okay do I hear a motion to close the meeting did I hear a second thank you all in favor thank you have a good night