Okay, well, let's get started here. My name is Josh from the community and economic development specialist for the city of Montpelier. Thanks for joining us today for the third spring engagement session for the country club road project. I want to just give everybody a reminder on what we are doing during this phase, which is we are master planning the property. And the master plan is a is going to be a living document. It provides a roadmap to move the project forward. As you know a document that lays out the framework of additional analysis to be performed in the next stage with recommendations so the actual master plan itself is not just a conceptual plan. There'll be a whole document with a bunch of different recommendations from the consultant team. So to kick us off on this presentation from our consultant team is Stephanie Clark from Wayne Burke. So take it away Stephanie. Okay, thank you so much everybody can hear me. Okay, I'm going to open my news the PowerPoint here so apologies you won't be able to see us all the people as much but we'll, we'll cut shut this down so you can see everybody after once we're, once we're done with the presentation. Again, I'm Stephanie Clark with my bark real estate advisors I am the consultant to the city and I'm joined today by Dave Saladino from phb. Also on the consultant team and our other team member is sorry. We also have Evelyn Primm on who is the communications coordinator for the city, and I believe Kelly Murphy the assistant city manager has also been joining us today. So we can field questions as needed as we finish, but we have presentation for you today that will take a little bit of time to get through because there's a lot of content update for anyone who's been following along with the process but also orientation for anyone who hasn't been. We appreciate you taking this time it's a really important topic it's a really important project in the city, and we appreciate you taking the time and the attention that this deserves. And we will try to get our way make our way through the presentation, fairly expediently but trying to hit the high points and then be able to answer a lot of question and answer at the end, and take your input. So again, we, everyone will remain muted until the end when we, when we have time for q amp a and we'll answer questions then. So I will get us started here and really just we're going to walk through the process that we've been through talk about the findings we had in our last sessions if you participated over the winter, or you just want to hear what happened over the winter, we're going to talk about the, the concepts, and the three concepts we're talking about. We're going to go into some costs, and we're going to go into funding scenarios in that park it's a little bit dense. So all these materials are on the website this presentation of these these slides are on the website. There is another. This is being recorded. There's recordings of our previous two meetings. So if you have any questions that don't get answered today and you want to do a little bit deeper dive and sit with it. That's perfectly okay. We're going to highlight what the survey which is out right now and we'll talk about that a little more but we're going to highlight what those survey questions are and what that's going to what we're asking of the community this time, and hit what's in the actionable master plan before we open it up to q amp a. Kind of the summary of our process with this master plan, since it was acquired last spring the city took community input last spring, and continued that through the fall. And to listen to what the community was looking for for priorities and uses at this site concurrently the consultant team was working on due diligence and analysis of the site, looking at the natural resources and the different physical physical elements of the site as well. And then the winter brought a opportunity it's called opportunities and constraints plan forward to talk about what the different limits of the buildable areas were on the site, and to get public input on all of that. Now we're in the spring stage and we're bringing forward the concept plans that actually reflect the results and the feedback from our winter stage. And we are bringing this back through the council. We've been bringing the city council along because ultimately this is a city council decision the concept plan as a city council decision, and what gets adopted into our actionable master plan. So, essentially, just to sum up what this particular stage in the last last bit of this is called phase one all of the work that our consultant team has been hired to do. This is where we are right now is the public meetings right in the center of the screen you can see we're in our third public meeting we've had two others. We have had a video online on the website that's a short nine minute video that we did to try to just hit the high level highlights of this project. And we've released a survey that is available for folks to complete by the end of this week which is May 12. And then our plan is to submit our feedback to the council in a few weeks next end of next week and to meet with the council on the 24th. And at that point the council is going to decide on a concept plan that gets incorporated into the actionable master plan and the actionable master plan itself is to be presented at the end of June. And this is not a final land plan. There are many factors that are very subject to change as a result of time and due diligence and the next steps and the next phases that we have to do on this work. But it is a vision as Josh said it's a living document it's a vision for the site, it really sets the tone for the scale and the density and overall. Overall uses for the plan. But we know there is an immediate need for housing and recreation, which is what this site is being intended for. And there are there's a housing crisis there are recreational needs not being met. And there's more steps required until that point of construction, but there's also this really important need to be filled. So we're trying to balance this this little bit of tension between being inclusive, thorough and transparent with taking immediate steps with due diligence to move along expeditiously. So in the winter time, some of you have participated I sealed some familiar names and faces. We had several meetings in the winter. We had a lot of attendees that came out for this we conducted two different surveys one of high school students one of the community. We had lots of input and that yielded almost 12,000 data points because we were generating a lot of different conversations with stakeholders as well. And basically, the biggest support was for a balanced approach that in the winter we had three different kind of test sketches of how the site could lay out, one that was more heavily housing one that was more heavily wreck. And really the desire was to have something kind of balancing the two to address both of these really important needs for housing and indoor outdoor recreation. The support was highest in housing for mixed product so different product types that could serve a lot of different income levels, have some variety of style. There was also a support for balance with conservation, open space, incorporation of spaces for abnaki recognition celebration and gathering. Also, strong support for connecting wildlife corridors, strong support for connecting this site to the rest of the city, connecting this to budding parcels development opportunities and infrastructure in a budding in the abutting area. And there was strong support for energy efficiency and minimizing the impact climate. On top of that, minimizing the impact to taxpayers. So, just a short list of all the most important things to everybody, which is a lot to try to accommodate. But we did our best and we have developed some concept plans, some concept alternatives, and Dave Salvino is going to walk us through those in a moment. But essentially, we have been able to incorporate a lot of that data and a lot of that input from everybody into some of the into these concepts, and these will go forward to be incorporated into the actionable master plan. But what's not shown is the developer specifics. So getting into market analysis, for example, is not going to be part of these concept plans, level of housing affordability, or the exact housing product or specific technologies and design innovation. Those are not going to be incorporated here because that's really up to a developer to start to refine when they bring forward or a development partner to bring forward to when they when we go out for an RFP. Other things not shown but will be considered in future phases are neighborhood amenities, things like amphitheaters and playgrounds and gazebos and gathering spaces. Those will emerge in future phases. This is not that level of detail. This is phase one concept planning and specific locations of abnaki recognition and celebration are not also reflected here because we are going to be recommending after meeting with a few representatives from abnaki tribes, we are going to be recommending a process that the city form with a working group of abnaki stakeholders and city stakeholders to look for opportunities for incorporation in this site but also citywide. So those are not shown yet but rather the process has been established. I also want to note that wildlife corridors have been accommodated in these concepts and will be accommodated in the final concept plan they're just not specifically called out, but it's inherent in the site design. And also you'll note that in this all three concepts we have what's dedicated known as a community recreation community zone. And that zone is a 12 acre area of the site that has been right sized based on all of the due diligence we've done so far. Actually being run and programmed on a separate but parallel process that city is running. So the city is running a process on a concurrent path and timeline to create the programming and address the demand for indoor and outdoor recreational uses within that space. So this looks at the balance of the rest of the 138, 130 something acres, and Dave is going to walk us through with those concepts look like. I'm going to give you my remote. Hey. Are you seeing my mouse now. Yeah. Okay, all right. Thank you Stephanie. Okay I want to walk through the three concepts as Stephanie alluded to these concepts are very much a variation on a theme as Stephanie alluded to these came out of the the feedback that we received from the first round, which really drove us home of kind of the mix of housing and recreation and so as we go through these concepts I wanted to just start and identify some common themes on or common elements on each of the plans and then we'll get into some of the specifics on each of the three concepts. So just looking overall here just to kind of orient folks. So here this is country club road and the intersection with route to is just at the bottom of the screen here so coming up the hill country club road. You can see the former Elks Club building this kind of white square just under the green area here so that's, you know where that building is and kind of orient yourself, and then the rest of the site is here. The root to and 302 roundabout is down here in the corner. So hopefully that that helps to orient you. So the other things here on the kind of in the base background but there's been quite a bit of evaluation of just the site itself, the context. And so we are reflecting a number of those things so we've got all of the stream channels and stream buffers are noted here with the blue lines and the white buffers around. We want to make sure to avoid any of those stream channels or buffer areas. So we do have some wetlands and buffers that are noted here in this the lighter green, this dark purple line which appears and all the concepts plans concept plans is the proposed you 32 trail. A little bit later here these black dotted lines show proposed trails walking trails walking paths as part of the community. And so you can see connecting connections running throughout east and west and north and south. So number six here this is showing where those walking trails would tie into the country club road trail the cross cross mount trail at this point here. As Stephanie was alluding to here this great big green square here is the area that's been reserved for those future discussions around recreation and community uses. So this is that 12 acre zone that Stephanie was was referring to the connections here so off to the left here. These lines here show potential opportunities to extend the roadway connections either in this case to the west or to the north. Those are potential opportunities for connections wanted to make sure we're showing where those locations could be found. If this darker green here this what's on this one is number seven. This is where we're envisioning some type of community gathering space as Stephanie alluded to we haven't gotten to having at this point, down to the details of you know whether there's a gazebo here or play playground amenities but this location was identified as a nice central easily accessible area for the for the neighborhood. And then just lastly kind of one of the common things to each of the plans are these the the trees that are shown here so the green circles. These are all existing mature trees on the site. And so as we're getting into the layout of these concepts wanted to make sure we're preserving or preserving all of the existing mature trees on the site there's great specimen trees out in this location so we're going to make sure we're not bulldozing those down only to build you know put in smaller trees in their place really want to want to respect the existing trees that are out there. What's not shown on here are our future or additional landscaping amenities you know certainly as this community develops want to want to add lots more trees and and trubs and other landscape plantings. That would come in a subsequent phase of design as this gets more kind of from the master plan into concept and construction level design. Those are kind of the common common themes across the concepts will just talk through each of the concepts and they're fairly similar so we can go it will start to see kind of the differences between those as we go through. They all have a similar kind of spine roadway which which follows largely the cart pass on the existing country club. And so we've got this in this concept, terminating in a turnaround here location so be the housing that's shown in this concept is comprised of two different types of housing. What's shown in the kind of the northern side the back backside here are townhouses and these could be either duplex triplex or quadplex buildings depending on you know the market at the time the size and the scale. That's in that is in demand at the time. The other housing products shown here are the red rectangles here so this is closer to the entrance. These are all envisioned as five story multifamily apartment buildings. Each of these has a mix of one and two bedrooms. Overall across these five buildings we see you can see down here about just under 200 units in those five. Five story buildings here. And then as you see down here as shown on the plan we have 96 of the townhouse units. So this concept day which is that has the most housing the highest density of housing is just under 300 total units or 292 overall. So that's that that's kind of overview concept day we jump ahead here to concept be we retain many of the same same elements and see the entrance here coming with the the five story building multifamily buildings around the entrance. I didn't know it but also on concept day here we do have some community gardens kind of ringed by those those larger more dense housing. And then we retain this this stuff of townhomes here this cluster of townhomes and the real real difference here in concept B is rather than having townhomes here at the end of the roadway we replace those with single family homes. There was some desire in the surveys from the first round to have some portion of the of the area potentially reserved for single family homes. So concept B has that integrated here. Because single family homes are less dense there's fewer of them per per acre. Our total number of unit counts here does go down as we're swapping out townhomes for single family homes. So we went from 292 on the previous one down to 268 units total here. And then concept C has the lowest density overall of the housing. You can see a similar similar kind of layout to the roadway. This initial cluster of housing here this is a little bit less dense so the retain the five story so the C shaped building here is a vision as a five story apartment building. The other two facing it on across the street would be three story buildings. So two three story building so a little bit lower overall and less unit count here. So across these multifamily units whereas before we had just under 200. This has about just over 130 132 units in these in this pod here. We replace what had been a townhouse pod here with some open space that could be used for a variety of things potentially some additional you know community recreation or just some open space. And then we retain the townhomes further down towards the end of the end of the roadway. So overall here we're under 200 units so 184 total as shown on concept concept C here. So you can see the range is we're going from the most dense at about 300 units down to concept C which is at just over 180 units. I think that's it I'm happy to answer questions but with that I think we'll roll into. Thanks Dave. Do you want to speak a little bit about why the sighting of multifamily was down a little bit lower. Yeah, instead of up higher. Yeah, yeah so the couple reasons why the kind of the most dense cluster of housing is located in this location here. I mean this is one of the flattest locations on the site so it makes sense for this kind of density of uses to its closest to the entrance and so this is where of the uses on the site as shown here these will generate the most auto trips in and out. And so the idea if we can capture those trips closer to the entrance so that they're not driving in front of either you know people's homes or other uses that are further back in the on the site. The idea is to really locate those uses as as close as possible to the entrance. Right. Thank you. You will know if anyone has spent some time on the website looking at these at all there is a summary down here on each of them talking about the, the coverage of each of these types of uses and it shows that all three actually have 80% of the full site as non impacted. And so there's a minimum on this concept see actually it's it's higher. So there's a large amount of preserved and open space on all three plans which again reflects what we heard during the those for the winter and the fall sessions of feedback. I will also note that the trails that are shown on all of these plans. Those are the dashed lines here, and those are all conceptual still they have not been fully designed or anything with the parks department, but that would be a further step that would happen in the later phase as well. So really the, you know, very the the three options are really variations on a theme coming out of that winter phase stage where we had the most support for unanimous, you know, overwhelming support support for test sketch scheme see, and it really shows a strength of process that there's been a lot of consensus built around some of the density scale and overall uses that are here. So at this point, it is appropriate for us to get into the issue of cost, and the scope of phase one and our teams charge was to provide high level estimates of costs. So, again, we have to look at these from a city perspective so this is the city's investment into the infrastructure to support housing. So this is not the city building housing, and this does not include that recreation component that we that is shown in that zone, but rather, this is to support additional housing the city is getting invested in this the reason the city took this on in general is to be a catalyst of the kind of housing the city wants to see here. So with the most conservative for the purposes of this discussion at phase one of this process, we are looking at what's the most conservative and most the highest cost to the to the city. If we were to do all the infrastructure ourselves, not asking for a developer to do it so that the developer has the feasibility to do the type of housing we want. This is the, these are just the baseline assumptions. And not though reflect any individual units or driveways or other amenities that the developer will build. So we looked at what it would cost for the city to build onsite infrastructure. So you can see those costs here. I'm going to show you this little area line by line. It also includes and those you can see differ between the three scenarios but the A and B are quite similar. So as Dave showed you the spine of the road, the road infrastructure is generally the same is is the same for both and B but C is where it starts to differ. Similarly, if the option were to go with set concept sketch see there would not likely be around about our signal needed, it's possible, but not as likely as the other two because of that's when the trips threat trip the traffic for the amount of traffic to go through that intersection. So there is a differential there. Once you get down to offsite costs. Actually there's no difference because these are all the costs it would take at any of these three densities to support the site support this level of development at the site so building upgrades to the pump and bringing out the water sewer lines upgrading them to the site itself, as well as we've already bought the site as the city, and that purchase has been made. We'll get into the financing of that but the tent that city already voted on it there's already a bond for the purchase. And we're assuming that between the three, it's going to take the same amount of like work the same amount of due diligence this has not yet. Not yet spent that amount of money by any means but rather that will be what it would take to get the due diligence done for any of the scenarios. So you have these three costs, the amb being 18.8 million and 15.3 million for concept see what I'm going to do we'll get to takeaways at the end. I'm going to do is to talk for a moment about how could the city be able to fund this and not impact the taxpayer, or what impact to the taxpayer would there be. So we looked at some funding scenarios, these are by no means set in stone, the cost that I just showed you also not set in stone that is these are high level order of magnitude estimates in 2023. The fact that this isn't going to be built for a few more years at a minimum that would take that we have to take into account any inflation or any other changes, any changes that come about as a result of the future due diligence would also affect the cost. So we really aren't asking anyone to get wedded to those numbers exactly, but rather look at it on an order of magnitude in a comparison perspective. So when we talk about the funding of it similarly, these are hypotheticals. So we have a million dollars has already been invested to purchase the site from the recreation reserve fund. We know that much, we also can assume that we will seek grants and there's lots of grants available at any given time, but right now we don't know exactly which grants those could be. There's Northern Borders Regional Commission grants, there are recreational grants for trails, there's congressional earmarks, those types of things that will not be known until we're ready to break ground. But we've made some assumptions in these scenarios. We're also like I said assuming no developer contribution in any of the scenarios we're showing you today. But it's very likely that when we do put out an RFP, we could ask for a purchase price of these individual lots we could ask for their contribution to extend some of the infrastructure themselves. There's ways to do that could be impact fees. There's ways to do a financing structure with a developer, but that's something we absolutely want to wait to see how it emerges as part of the partnership. And then we're going to talk about two financing mechanisms. One is TIF, which is tax increment financing, and the other is using water sewer fees. So we'll talk about that. Again, this is a little bit dense. I encourage you to look at the slides yourself when you have time but also there's recordings of this and other presentations we've done the same presentation a couple other times. If you want to go back and rewatch it to break it down. Essentially what we're talking about is if we have this total infrastructure cost as we talked about the 18.8 million and the 15.3 for concept C. If we assume a million dollars has been invested and brings down that cost overall because it's been invested by the reserve fund, and then we could assume about a million five in possible grants, that's an assumption ballpark for now. That gives us a gap of 16.3 million for a or B or 12.8 million for concept C. So those are the, you know, nuts to crack when it comes to looking at different options for financing. So I'm going to take a moment and focus on TIF what tax increment financing is, and what this means what are two different options the city could have to make to use this this mechanism. TIF is an instrument that a municipality can use to fund infrastructure, essentially only to fund infrastructure that's going to generate new development. So essentially a town or a city can bond for some piece of public infrastructure. And then the resulting development the private development that happens as a result at direct result of that infrastructure has new taxes and those new taxes pay down the bond. So that's what happens in this cycle. And there are lots of examples of this done across the state, we have examples in Barry and St. Alvin's Burlington, Hartford, Killington's doing one right now Bennington's doing one right now. And they're very successful models, when done right. And in other parts of the country there's been examples of it done wrong, but it's when it's done right there it's done in partnership so the city and the entity go and lockstep and a public private and they build the infrastructure that has a known revenue source from those taxes. So in the municipal version, you would just retain your municipal taxes from those new development projects to pay down your infrastructure. But there's also a state program. And the state program, if you get a designation go through a rigorous application process, you're allowed to retain up to 70% of the general fund, sorry education fund taxes of those new development projects. Again, it's only the new infrastructure, the new development and new infrastructure that you'd be generating taxes on. And what I mean by that is, it's but for the city making an investment into the infrastructure, this development project wouldn't have happened. And if it wouldn't have happened you wouldn't have those taxes anyway, but because you do you can retain 70% of those unit that those education fund taxes to pay down the infrastructure. So, this tries to get at how much revenue, these different scenarios could produce because as Dave said, concept a has 292 units, but concept C has only 184 units. So if we assume conservatively a flat tax rate just using today's tax rate and projecting it over 20 years. municipal taxes and state taxes. And these are the total volume taxes that would be generated over those 20 years by by each scenario. If you were to use if the city were to use a municipal only tiff, where it takes those taxes from just these properties just this development to help pay down the taxes. And again, we have these, these infrastructure costs, this is the remaining amount to be funded so 16.3 million and 12.8 million. You have some interest costs because you'd be bonding for it so you've got cost of financing. And then you take those revenues, and you devote the revenue entirely to tank paying down the debt service. You decrease that gap by quite a bit down to 2.9 up to 5.7 depending on the concept. So you can see how we start to chip away at that cost to the taxpayer because this would not affect the tax rate, if we can get it down to zero. It doesn't affect the tax rate there's no bond for the taxpayers to pay. And then further what we've decided what we looked at and this section here is the exact same section we just saw. So you've got the 2.9 up to the 5.7 as your gap. What would happen if you devoted the water sewer user fees toward the water sewer infrastructure on site. And you factor in some cost of financing you get to this point with with concept a it means that there would be zero cost to the taxpayer it to fund all that infrastructure just using those two financing mechanisms. Or if you concept B, you'd see about $2.1 million gap to be closed, whether that's done with any kind of grant funding or whatnot that would then close that gap. So again we're just showing this as a theory, more than anything for folks to think about. Again, a state tiff retains 70% of that education fund increment over over and above what you retain from municipal municipal revenue. What you're looking at here is the remaining amount to be funded the 16.3 million and the 12.8 add in your cost of financing your, your debt, then you retain that's that portion from the state. And actually in these situations you actually have a surplus. The package it could be that it's incentivizing to you to establish recreation. At this site, if you establish a recreation center or facility or other uses were in that recreation zone. There's actually a surplus of generated taxes that could help expand your bond capacity so you could have additional capacity to invest this amount these amounts to the recreation uses. Again, I know that's a lot of information and I know it's pretty dense but the whole I'll get to the takeaways. The cost takeaway high level, a and B you saw comparable city cost, there's comparable cost because there's comparable infrastructure between the two concepts. Concept C though is overall 20% less to fund, however, it also has the fewest housing units. If you look at that by unit in concept A, you actually have the cheapest cost to the city. So this is the city's cost of infrastructure to invest to generate these units at 47,000. But in concept C it's actually 56,000. So it's really more costly per unit. And just the recreation and community zone is not known at this phase because that's being undertaken under a separate process, but those costs will be once they're known, this will all become part of the bigger takeaway, which we'll talk about in a minute. So, just from the financing perspective, as I said, this is high level or doing gross order of magnitude, and there's a lot of unknowns, but the takeaway should be that if we were to use a municipal only tiff which is within the city's power to implement, the water sewer user fees you actually cover most of the cost, which is great. If you could get a state tiff which is authorized by a department of the Agency of Commerce Community Development. That could cover the entire cost and possibly have a surplus capacity if you package it the right way to fund some recreational uses there too on the site. As I mentioned more due diligence is needed. And once we get into further phases of planning it could be clear that there's additional costs that haven't been considered too premature to consider now, but it could also increase your possible for funding sources, different funding sources might become available in the next few years we don't know. So more will also evolve as development partners are selected, and that and the recreational programming is developed which can generate income as well. So there's a lot of things that are still unknown, but this gives you the overall big picture. We will continue to look for these costs and these at the cost and looking for funding streams but ultimately the city voters if this will come back to the city voters if there is any kind of bond to be issued. But that's not what's happening at phase one and phase one where we are right now is not a vote on spending we are not in asking for incurring any debt. We are focused on finishing phase one, creating the vision for what the uses should be on the site, so that we can take the next steps with due diligence for phase two. The survey that will be up till Friday asks two questions one is to rank choice the concepts we we showed a B or C, and in your order of preference, and also to help the parallel process with the recreation and community zone. It's asking to rank support, whether or not you actually support a, a facility a building a rec building on this site or not. And so that those are the two questions we're asking for almost almost complete here. The last two points here one is the actionable master plan which is what's going to be issued in June covers a lot more than just that concept plan the concept plan is an illustrative vision vision representation. But the document is actually comprehensive to include all of these pieces that you see on the screen, and, and more. We know for instance we have to have further conversations with the railroad because there's a railroad crossing as we, we get on to the site. We know we have to have further conversations with, as I say here, forming an amnesty working group. We know that we need to look and explore different transit options because this is outside of the downtown. We're looking at rezoning, and then to be able to do that before you apply for a growth center expansion because this is not within the growth center but it is clearly within the city's intention to make this part of the growth center. And then you need those before you can even apply for a TIF district. With that, I'm just going to leave it that we're asking everyone here to please take the survey. That's the number one thing. If you'd like to review the concept plans again on the website. There's also an FAQ on the website as of today, with some questions we've heard over the last few weeks, especially from the previous public sessions we've had is and from city council. We've heard FAQs that you can also refer your friends to. So if you have neighbors and friends who are interested in this, please let them know there's lots of information on the website. These sessions have all been recorded. There's a video that's less than 10 minutes for them to watch. There's the FAQ and we'd really appreciate them taking the survey. I'm going to go ahead and stop my share. Whoops. So that we can take one another. And from Josh, I think you're going to moderate questions, but we can take questions I can pull slides back up as needed. Yep. And just to get people in the queue for questions, please use the raised hand function that you can find in your reactions at the bottom there.  Thank you. We can start with you. Hi. Yes, hi. Hi. So this is a maybe a minor question I don't know. But to start with the three plans, the maps are actually not consistent. One of the things that I noticed on concept C is that there's a wetland and buffer zone. Noted right above the community space neighborhood gathering space, and that buffer zone isn't wetland and buffer zone is not noted on the other two concepts. There are trails going through that and I don't know if that's, I don't know how to think about that. But I think it's a good idea to pop in with that responsive. You're muted Dave. That is a very good point. It's not it's not incorrectly labeled what what is shown on. If you look closely if you have it up. If you look at concept C you can see just above the W and wetland and the D and the word and there's kind of the little white semi circles that head north. That's what those are labeling the white buffers. And so in concept B that does. I guess here we go. Sorry, I took me a minute. Do you want C or be up. Well, I guess if we do be like I can show you.  Go ahead. Okay. So it's really these it's it's really hard to see at the scale but these little white. These are the buffers here. So there's there's a currently culverts. This is part of the cart path for the the golf course. And so the these streams are not above ground here as it's shown here they do go underground to the wetland and buffers are just north and then just south if you can see the white area. It just got too busy to put that the words wetland buffer. So those words are talking about these little white areas. Does that make sense. It does make sense but it runs into some other issues like right now the Imperial Commission Commission is in the process of marking out vernal pools for amphibious protected species. And that area may be part of, you know, I, we don't know yet what's happening in that area. I so for me, I don't know how close to, I don't know whether that's going to have an impact on this two trail that you've put in or or that the housing sites and in concepts a and B but that might be part of what you're talking about for phase two. I don't know. I don't know how to think about it. I will know we did we did do a full wetland delineation of the of the site and so all of those areas and the buffers that are noted were based on a wetland delineation it was in last fall. So that's a very different recent delineations. Right, but I'm talking about, well, okay, I'm talking about vernal vernal pools which you may not have seen when you did it because it's definitely not not in the fall. Yeah, exactly. Thank you Kelly. We'll go to page next and then Norita. And if you'd say your full name and where you're from, it would be helpful. Thank you. I'm in Montpelier. This is a lot to catch up on. And I need to, I need to spend some time looking and reading, but my I just got back to a trip from a trip to Scotland and I noticed that probably 95% of the houses in Europe and houses like that are townhomes. And so I'm actually really glad that you have concepts that are the majority townhomes and not individual houses. I think there will be individual single family homes left after people from Montpelier move over here maybe that want to downsize. I'm not sure we need single family homes. But the other thing that struck me is that I would recommend facing all the buildings not toward the road, but to the south, so that potentially they can get even passive solar gain, and possibly some solar rooftop solar down the road. So rather than facing, and I'm pretty sure the zoning for that area if they're has the buildings facing the road, which I think is a mistake. So that's just a thought. Just rotate the buildings the C shaped building should also be oriented to the south and then you'd have a nice warm courtyard area in there even in wintertime that would get sunshine. Thank you. Thank you. Huge amount of work. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah, well thank you and yes it is a lot to catch up on so. Josh is also his emails right on the website if you have further questions follow up questions he's available. I did want to mention that yes the orientation of the buildings is a good one is a good example because in the actual master plan itself. There's some recommendations from our team to the city about the RP that's going to need to go out to the developers. So a developer will make those ultimate decisions about orientation. But it's also relative to zoning so you make a good to the points because there's the zoning that's going to have to be written for this area that hasn't been that hasn't been updated yet. So they'll have to comply with zoning but also we're encouraging that there are main major goals of the city and one of them is minimizing impact on climate. So the developer is going to be and because the city's in control of this parcel, we have some control over saying which developer gets the project and the developer who brings forward a project that is taking those things into effect into account is going to have a higher ranking, including yeah rooftop solar opportunities as well as more creative possible, you know, technologies incorporating things like geothermal technologies or other emerging technologies that quite frankly in two years or four years and then beyond when these further parcels might be developed. We don't even know yet. So we don't want to be prescriptive necessarily at this stage in the plan but really making the point that it's going to rank higher for the city to evaluate these development proposals, if they're focusing on minimizing impact climate. So we'll go to Norita and Susan. Hi. Yes, I'm not getting my camera to work, but my name is Nora, and I live in Montpellier very close to where the site is. A couple of comments is, first of all, I'm not completely clear on when and how you're bringing in the indigenous Abenaki group. Are they being involved hopefully sooner obviously than the city council decisions because it's not just enough obviously to just leave this little area for ceremonial ritual things but to actually get them to give an enormous amount of input on this entire project. So that's first comment. The second thing is in terms of the Abenaki plans, if all of the town homes for example in the winter to better units are those rentals or are those for purchase. And if those units are rentals, how are we as the city and community going to keep the rentals low income available. Who's paying the taxes on those buildings. If, you know, there's for example down street if that's one of the partners that's going to be doing this development. How many of those units can actually be designated low income, then with that if they're low income they probably will not have cars, what about the infrastructure to and from into the city. They're going to be grocery store a small community store that they can get groceries. They are on site. So things like that, then the infrastructure of how to get to and fro is they're going to be a free train or a shuttle that goes into the city. Green Mountain transporter whoever sorry just dumped my deals. That's okay. That's good. No, that's great. If those were the two main questions I've got some questions that you said as well that I'll respond to. Yeah, the good question on the abnaki group we have met with representatives from two different tribes, a few times already here in the last few stages of this phase. And we are originally we actually had some spaces on the plans designated as possible areas for celebration or recognition or education. And we ended up taking them off the plans because it became clear that it needs to be a much more collaborative process that it needs to be much more like a working group. And so the recommendation in our master plan is for the city to form the working group with city stakeholders but also with representatives and that they would then look for opportunities on this site, but also citywide because there's parks there's other spaces that might be better suited for certain uses versus this site and we don't want to prescribe that from the city's perspective that's not appropriate so this is a collaborative process we've we've we've set up at the, at the, from now. And then you asked the question about rentals versus purchase. So, we don't know yet that that's going to have to come forward when the developer comes forward to put forward their proposal. What's the, what's the ownership structure, and then at that time the taxes will be paid by the developer because we're intending to subdivide this this is not cities not in the business of building housing. So the city would be subdividing these parcels and selling them to a private developer so that they do start paying the taxes, and the exact structure of whether you know what proportion or rentals versus owned will have to be evaluated by the city at the time when the proposals come forward, and there'll be many factors that might influence that. And so, between financial feasibility to do the project, but also based on the market at the time. Again, we can't know in 2023 what 2025 2729 might look like in terms of the demand. So we're being open to the market piece of that. You asked about the transit and retail are both really good, good points I did not mention the retail I did say in transit we absolutely know that's a component not just for the housing piece, but for the recreation piece. How do you get people to and from the site who want to recreate their especially youth. So, you know between the bike path connectivity. Like you said green mountain transit, these accesses to other parts of the, you know how do we connect over maybe to savings so that we can connect more west into downtown those are all important due diligence items forthcoming. So retail is one I forgot to mention so thank you for bringing that up. We have put in the master plan that based on feedback and based on our recommendations, very small scale retail is the only appropriate retail for this space it's not something where we're going to want to do recommending any like large scale commercial as you can see on the mess on the concept plans, but absolutely small first floor mixed use. Within the building to serve the community is appropriate and that will be accepted. Excuse me. So we'll go on to Susan and then Deborah. So I had some of the same questions as Nora about rental versus ownership and I realized that that also ends up affecting budget expectations, you know in terms of when you're calculating the amount of revenue that the city is going to. And we don't know that now I realized that so I need a little clarification on what it means that the council is going to be making a decision on this on May 24. What does that mean. I don't know if I can write down both of these. The affordable piece by the way, yes, it could affect the taxes that we could generate but sometimes it doesn't. You know both the in the, it depends on the type of structure I mean you know if you have inclusionary zoning in certain communities for example the taxes aren't affected by that I mean it's. It's affected by that so just keep in mind and if it if it's a nonprofit that does the development they often do a different structure of taxes but they're still paying taxes so just keep that in mind. Because we see that in Tiff a lot in tax increment financing you're relying on the tax generation but affordable housing is one of the goals. So it's like how do you make that math makes sense and so it is a component but it's not a deterrent I just don't want it to appear that it's a deal breaker, you know affordable housing and tax generation are not exclusive. And then. Sorry, what was your second question I couldn't. What I'm trying to what I'm trying to figure out or understand better is. So, you've got the survey it's closing on Friday. And then the council makes some kind of decision on May 24. That's right. And, and if I'm understanding it right, they're going to pick one of these three options and tell, you know, working white to move forward on engineering and all the next steps is that correct. They will be taking into account the survey data and the input we get during these sessions and during the outreach that we've been doing for the last few weeks. And we're going to package that in our recommendations to the to the city for their decision ultimate decision on one of the three plans to be incorporated into our master plan. Yes. But given the, given how much none of us know either, you know, those of you doing the initial planning and those of us that are supposed to fill out a survey and I filled out the earlier one. There is so much we don't know so you're asking a sort of to go into like a big shop and tell us all the things that we'd like to buy, having no idea what it's going to cost having no idea what the end product looks like and that concerns me greatly because it feels to me like we're putting the card for the horse and and so can you talk about that a little bit because I find it troubling, very troubling actually. So the, the concern had the hits on a couple of notes and essentially, excuse me. I've got two elements here. One is this is master planning. So you have to have some sort of direction to go in, in order to set up due diligence steps if you don't have a vision and a direction to go in. How do you know what to explore so as a good example of that, we can't go to any of the state agencies and talk about impacts like the primary Ag soil impacts or wetlands or streams without some sort of site plan without some sort of impact plan to show them where you can see development, and that very much could have could have varied along this process it could still vary between the three different plans so we need to be able to have a plan to show them to be able to take the next steps, but master planning in general is iterative. It has to be because you have to look into the due diligence for each of these steps before you can bring back any of your findings to be able to rule out yes or no. And certainly, we're not making a decision at this point we're not asking you to buy all of those things in the store for example, right now, but rather in a few years when the bond actually is before the voters to decide where to spend money. If there's a cost to taxpayers. That's the point at which there's going to be more opportunities for for input to city council before a decision is made to actually bond for anything. Right now it's all about research and planning. Based on this, you know, initial concept, and so we need to have a direction we need to have a vision and if you don't have a vision. We're not facing something without any kind of input from the community, because in some ways, you know what I've done in a lot of my career is commercial development and if you have a private client. They tell you what they what you want. They want to build, and you figure out how to build it. In some ways, this is a public process and there are, you know, thousands of stakeholders, so we couldn't just say what the city would would like to build or what white Burke thinks you should build there, but rather get a sense of whatever one wants to build then go figure out how much how much of that is feasible, and then come back with a cost with a real cost. Now we tried to do order of magnitude costs so that people could understand. It could become an $18 million project for this component, but also here are some possible revenue sources. So it starts to look at the impact without asking any for anybody to put their money where their mouth is yet. And at what time, at what point does the developer come in because the developer, we can have the best, you know, we can say we'd love to have these 10 things and the developer comes in says, I can't make that work for anywhere near the cost you're thinking I need to fit into. Exactly. Yeah, and part of what this is all about is creating the menu of what we could offer a developer and what we can offer development partners I really want to be specific about that because the developer suggests one big entity trying to do this but it could be partnerships with downstream it could be partnerships with habitat for humanity. It could be, you know, all kinds of different partners that come forward. It could be multiple partners for multiple parts of the site, I should say as well as somebody who came in to do the whole thing. And we need to understand what our options are as the city to be able to offer so that we can generate the interest we want to get creative. And then it's a negotiation. So you asked when, and I don't have a specific date in mind because we haven't gone through the next few phases how long is it going to take to rezone it how long is it going to take to get the growth center designation how long is it going to take to get through conversations with active 50. Those are all things that are beyond our capacity to know, but we expect, you know, at least a year out or more to issue an RFP. And at that time it really will depend on that negotiation at that time to figure out what can be done and a lot of that will depend on the market. So, you know, for example, we had had this conversation three years ago, and then pandemic it market changed market demand changed beyond just the construction cost environment so there's a lot that could change, but we can't have this process be transparent without saying that it's going to change. And that's a hard place to be so I recognize I recognize the challenge and it's a it's a balance that we're trying to strike as best we can. I understand that. Deborah and then Cali again. Hi. To talk to Bob could I didn't mean to say just Deborah I'm sorry. Go ahead. From on pillar. So, I'm aware that early on the community. The community said that we were interested in verticality that that was an important concept. I'm but I'm a little bit concerned about the five stories. I don't know if I'm the only one out there with this concern. It seems to me to be sort of out of scale with the city and out of scale with the landscape. I'm wondering if is it possible to, but I do want to say that first and foremost I am concerned about climate and environmental impact so my question is, is it possible to achieve similar environmental impact actually similar to our economies with somewhat lower buildings, perhaps I know on on the one, the on the one plan there's a five story and a three story. So what about two four stories or just is there some way of achieving some kind of similar economic impact with a lower building. Good question. I mean, I think you've basically answered part of your own question which is like it going up is going to help the financial feasibility to do more debt housing right and so to accomplish those still those same density goals, particularly because this density was selected out of that winter process it's not the 500 that we saw on test sketch a back in the winter, where it was that super high density, but just to get within 180 to 300 units which is more modest density. It's going to take this verticality or it's going to compromise one of those other goals of the city which was around conservation open space and impact environment. So, to get the density. There's a vertical component that being said, what I think we should keep an open mind about and I hear your, your concern because I think one of the things we would love to do. And it's one of my, I don't know why I dream about this but having wish we could have a holographic ability to model on sites because how incredible like I think that's going to happen I really do at least in my son's lifetime. Like, it's to have some sort of sense of scale is so important because we just don't know, going out on the site, when we were on site couple weeks ago, I guess, not this past weekend but the weekend before for the first public meeting. Dave was able to say like, that's the direction of this building. And it was a rainy day so we couldn't fly a balloon but sometimes you can fly a balloon up and get to see like where the height of the building could be. It's different when you're on site versus seeing it in a plan or just thinking about it but it also matters Deborah what you're saying kind of hit some hits home of like, how, how it's done, because design as you, you've actually shown me some designs that are really creative and so, you know when we're talking about these plans were we're on a concept level. Still, we're very much in concept planning phase one, but when a developer comes forward with their proposal. That's going to be the time when the city can evaluate the actual visual impact and they're going to have to go through DRB and all of that at the time. So that's going to be where the rubber hits the road, but really, there's some creative ways I mean I'm thinking about the, the hillside, you know you've got how could you utilize a developer into the hillside to be able to minimize those impacts so there's some creative stuff out there. We're not designers on that level. So, we want to reserve the right that there's better developers. And the other thing. I think it was actually you that sent me maybe one of the links for a different development that happened up here in in Chittenden County, and one of the things we could we will do is my recommendations and the master plan is to send the RFP to specific developers like go seek out the ones you like, you know, city, you know, who are doing creative things. Don't just if you build it they will come blast it to the community, you know, to the ether, but rather, you know, seek out some people, they could be northeast, you know they could be East Coast, they could be Vermont based because it's not a huge scale project but find the ones that are doing some creative stuff and get that in their hands, so that they really do present something that's more creative. Thank you. Thanks. Great. Hallie that's back to you. Thanks Stephanie. I just first want to say thank you to Susan and Deborah, and you for the conversation the level of conversation we're having today. It's, it's great to hear. I agree with everything Deborah and Susan were saying, and you're fleshing it out Stephanie has been really helpful. Okay, so now I want to get down to a teeny weenie thing. Again, I go for the little things. And what I'm thinking about in comparing. I'm thinking of concepts a and B as kind of comparable financially, and then see shows a really different picture. One of the very small pieces of convenience in my life because this is my neighborhood, you know that that much of this property is on my property line is tell me about this idea of the traffic light, because I'm looking at the distance from the road to the roundabout. And in some of the materials that I was reading I remember exactly where I read it it's either a traffic light or a roundabout. So are we looking at a traffic light, then, you know a minute later around about, or two roundabouts or I can't, I can't. Yeah, and I'm also thinking of what's going to happen on that road for traffic.  There you go. Knowing when to delegate to the other pros, here you go really, and just don't forget to unmute yourself. Yes. Thank you yeah. Good question. The wording, I guess, just to start the high at the, at the high end, the wording signal roundabout is really just to leave the options open. That is also it's one of the state's protocols is whenever, whenever a signal is is found to be at a certain intersection around about all have to be looked at so that's kind of the alternatives that are evaluated. For conservative pricing purposes we did include the cost for the roundabout which is more the more expensive of the two. So, you know, looking at around about at about two to half million a single about half a million so so a good bit less less money. The decision on that would be a community decision real well and a state decision since since root two is the state right of way so as this process moves forward that there certainly be much more engagement with VTrans and the city to talk through kind of options and alternatives so that's, that's kind of when you alluded to the two that's that's why those both are listed there. In terms of overall operation, this would have to be designed, you know, a traffic engineer would typically look at you know the projected volumes on route to how much will be coming down the hill from this development, and we'll have to design the intersection to address traffic into the future so the idea is that all of that gets worked out as part of the analysis before anything opens up so that you don't end up, you know an opening day having cues that back up so the nature of the improvements will address any projected future volumes so that there isn't congestion on route to. Okay, I think I understood all of that from a, again, on site, being in the moment right there from a practical perspective as a driver on route to trying to get to my occupational therapist at 1311. Well, how much am I going to have to like be hiccuped just to just to get there so I guess what I'm saying is that one of the attractions of Concept C is that we don't have to interrupt traffic along route to where it already gets congested with the box stores and other things and you know whatever is going on on the other side of the road. If we then start to either put in a traffic light or another roundabout and literally a minute less than a minute later. There's another one of those traffic interruptions. It becomes problematic that that's that's what I'm saying I understand the need for it and concepts a and B. What I'm saying is that I think concept C becomes more attractive for anybody who has to travel those roads, because we're not. Yeah, we don't have to worry about the traffic light or a roundabout. And again I think the other piece of it is, you know, two things actually the sparks one is the DRB will be reviewing this whenever it comes forward so there's an opportunity there to be talking about the traffic impacts but the other piece is that it's very likely this will happen in phases and that you know depending on the market depending on the feasibility, you know, can we achieve 300 units can we achieve 180 to be determined in part because we have to see what the feasibility looks like for the city but part the feasibility for the developer so you know this is visionary and it because of the way we've laid the plan out. It's going to be done in phases so the city could do the first part. And if the other two nodes don't happen for whatever reason, you know, then we don't need the traffic light it's not like it's going to go in day one. The roundabout or the signal so I think that's important to keep in mind. Okay, thank you.  You'd unmute yourself weekend. Oh, we can't hear you. 10 sorry. I can't hear you. Again, let's try. Regarding the roundabout light issue. The plans and be called for one of the other. See was a possible. And my concern is having the cost of that left out of see if that is a possible. It kind of puts the plans A and B on an unlevel playing field with sees in terms of popularity and overall cost. So, from my standpoint would be if it is a possibility. Put it in there, put it into the formula and have it there as a more true comparison and put in a notation may not be necessary or maybe avoided or something to that effect but to leave it out and say it as a possibility down the road. So, the plans on on the same level, and just one other question, as far as the surveys go, how many have you received or do you know, do you have a count on how many you have received in this latest version. That's up to Josh. I think there is around under 10, 115. Okay. And last survey we had almost 600 responses. And so, you know, our promotion materials and our promotion efforts and it's, you know, this week are ramping up a lot and we've got other efforts that we're working on to get to get responses but we also acknowledge and it's something that's known in community development how difficult it can be to get people to respond to surveys as the weather gets nicer. It's a, it's a fact of it's just a part of the planning process which is unfortunate for the timing, although I will say that we particularly constructed this, this process to run during non summer, when, you know, when the participation is the lowest, and the time of a lot of input that we really needed that was a very much directional to get us to this point was done over the winter so that we did get them the most we could along the way so it was done intentionally, and there are inherent drawbacks and challenges to getting input so that was one thing we're working on Dave did you have anything else you wanted to add. Yeah, I intersection. Yeah, I think it was a fair comment. One thing just to note, based on our traffic analysis kind of looking at current traffic volumes on route to an estimating how many trips would be generated by these different concepts. What we saw is about 280 units, approximately being that that threshold, which gets traffic volumes to a point where a traffic signal around about as warranted. So 280 being that breakpoint. Concept a has 292 so that's over 280 concept B has 268 just slightly under 280 so that one felt fairly confident and then see is 184 so that's about 100 units less than where we found that breakpoint to be so I think we felt fairly comfortable in leaving that price out but you know there is that asterisk this is all still conceptual on those numbers you know the volumes on route to change year to year and so even if that the volumes on route to go down a little bit maybe you could get 300 units without having to add a signal you'd have to. You'd have to run the numbers at the time when you're looking at it but we think it's somewhere around 250 to 280 units is that trigger point. Okay. Peter, you're up. Yes, thank you Peter come up earlier. I've attended parts or all of all three of these sessions and they've all been terrific and I want to compliment Stephanie on the job she's done, and I express my gratitude to the for the baby waiting a bit. I think that the reason you only have 110 or so surveys filled out, and the reason why there have been so few attendees relatively at these three events is that the PR for this has been weak. And I've had people complain that say, and I've heard this from a number of people that they will not fill out the survey, because they're being required to give their information to a company. They would have filled something out that was done by the city using survey monkey or something like this, but they hand over there. They have to register for this to polko is very off putting and I think that accounts for why they're somewhat accounts for why there's so few. I would like to hear at the end, how many unique people attended and filled out, not how many, like, I would. Today's zoom meeting shows 24 attendees, but only 15 of them are not city employees or people who are doing the presentation, you have 15 members of the public here. And I don't know about the other counts bill Frazier gave me an account, a very large count for one of the previous zooms, I'll bet that included quite a few people who are working for the city or on the project. And I will bet that most of the people who have come to these sessions are also the people who filled out, filled out the survey. So how many people are actually involved in this public engagement process. I think it's not very many and I'm disappointed in the result because these sessions have been great. Thank you. Really noted Peter thank you. Do we have any other questions from the attendees today we have again an FAQ on the website so a lot of questions actually some of the questions that have been asked today are actually in that document so they can be referenced and again please do send this to your, your neighbors and stitch on some friends, Eric. So just unmute yourself. Thank you. Thank you. Has anybody sort of gone up to 60,000 feet and figured out what a cost range is per unit on this and these various pieces. They're vague and in order of magnitude figures but it's anybody come up with any. That's one way I think to assess feasibility is to say, are we going to end up with affordable housing at any level with this. So you're saying the cost of the developers cost to build the units themselves is what you're saying. Post the infrastructure what's going to cost the end purchaser for a unit. Yeah, we don't we don't have that information and that was something that we were talking about earlier about market, the market information and the actual product going to be in part because there it depends on so many factors that are beyond our knowledge and 2023. What I can say is that, you know, right now what we know from the housing data we have and the developer data we have is that the cost to build is just so astronomical and the amount of rent you can get in these in any market. And, you know, the cost to build in Montpelier is the same as it as it is to cost in callus, but your rent is going to be very different. So you've got these, you know, these inherent issues which is causing the housing crisis, what the city is attempting to do with this process and like what the tool tiff tax increment financing does is it gets at reducing that infrastructure cost to a developer to help take that component out of the equation to enable affordable units being developed, because then the city owns its infrastructure, you still it's still public asset, but then this, the developer is not responsible so if this was a private parcel, this developer would have to build all those roads, extend all that water sewer, and that's really, you know, that's why it's not. There wasn't another purchaser for this property that was a private developer who came in and beat out the city, the city got this got this property, and if the city puts in the infrastructure that could pave the way to being more affordable to your point Eric I mean that is absolutely the name of the game is to have a variety of affordable and workforce units. That we that's part and parcel of the recommendations to be looking for a while doing an RFP with a developer is, you know, more points awarded to developers who can show how these will become perpetually affordable or workforce which is a different category just to make that distinction workforce housing does not qualify under affordable definitions but is meant to be at the market point of a lot more people that are that are living here in the state currently. At this point you think it's feasible and you can come up with some workforce and affordable housing in this. I'm going to tell you today by today's numbers we have not run them from a developer scenario because again there's a lot of factors that need to go into that. And we need to actually engage in the partnerships and explore that with them because, for example, let me give you an example. If a developer came forward we have these conceptual volumes densities here. So we have 300 units in, let's call it round numbers 300 units in scenario a. A developer came back with 400 units that they could develop affordably, and still minimize impact to climate, still minimize impact to taxpayers, and the tax, the city was able to make that feasible. The city has the opportunity and has the flexibility to make that happen. So we can't be prescriptive and and try to run the numbers on exactly this scenario now, but rather pave the way and create the soil for these conversations to happen. And then the city will have to remain flexible and figure out what is the right blend to support these development projects that we want to see happen under the terms we want to see. The other thing that concerns me is that the TIF financing these properties may not be producing taxes for a few years. But it seems like that would affect the bonding and all that. It does that's that's an inherent part of TIF though, Eric that's actually pretty well maneuvered because in every TIF district you have this issue. Infrastructure has to be built before you can have the private development built. So you're going to have the cost and incur the debt before you see the revenue generation. And then in the program at least at the state level and what a municipality would have to do is at that point it's a cash flow issue, and you you project how much increment or you're going to need and how much revenue you're going to generate generate it to pay down that infrastructure debt, and you have to float the cash debt service but there's ways to structure it with interest only bonds for a few years things like that that really bring down that annual cost, but that get recouped with the TIF revenue over time. So it's done in every district and that's just how it has to because there is a sequencing that you've identified there. One more question is, have you considered a design competition with an award the price. Specifically, it's one project, and it was very successful because you get a full range of kind of proposals. And you're talking about design of the units themselves. The unit said the layout of the property whatever. I mean, essentially that's what the RFP process is. I mean the RFP is going to need to come back to the city the proposals need to come back to the city. And there's going to be a variety I assume of different concepts that come forward again that's why the plan looks the way it does its conceptual and high level so that it allows for others to fill in the detail. And then it's a matter of deciding between them. And they're not restricted to the exact plans that you're developing. Exactly. Exactly. They have an entirely different concept for the property that met the requirements. Exactly. And meeting the requirements is the is the, you just hit the nail on the head. It's really a matter of, you know, in the in the master plan, it's going to hit the goals. What are the goals, the requirements for the plan, and for the for the land. And if you can hit those goals and do it in a different layout or a different style. Great. I mean, we're not those designers were not those private entities that have that expertise at this time or know or know how to make that feasible in 2025 2728 so it will make sense to to leave it flexible but as long as they hit these goals. That's the requirement. Thank you. If there was a design competition, you might get a more innovative projects. And, and, you know, putting innovation as a high requirement as part of the RFP process is definitely part of it and also putting design in there as a, you know, again things that get them additional credit or points or consideration is what we're talking about. Thank you. Thank you. Deborah, I think you're back right. Yeah. Hi, I'm Eric I just wanted to put this out there about innovative ideas that might really have impact on afford affordability. Since the idea of tiny homes, it seems that there's a big appetite in our community for tiny homes, and I happen to know that the Norwich School of architecture one design competition for designing affordable, but well designed tiny homes that with zero with net zero. There's things out there also in White River there was a bunch of companies, including what happened to remember the Hanover co-op was one who are all faced with this workforce, severe workforce housing problems. And this is national, but, but what these companies did was they pooled money and then it was, I think it was leveraged by ever source. And, and then, then housing was built specifically for worker for local workers because right now and on Piliar, you know, for instance in hunger mountain co-op people can't afford many people can afford to live in town so they live far out or have to go somewhere because their rents are cheaper. So there are these innovative things that can really affect the affordability. Yeah, you're referencing that. Yeah, ever North project. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, but that is exactly a great example Deborah of like somebody who could come forward with something creatively packaged to like a creative financing package of their own that says, you know, I'm not going to be from the city, but here's how I'm going to make it happen on my end. And, you know, these public private partnerships are really symbiotic, and they need to be, and they need to be dynamic and iterative because each, each municipality is different, but also, you know, each community is different so each communities needs are different and these will evolve and by the time, you know this actually gets implementable in a few years. So, yeah, we absolutely want to leave the door open for that creativity. Okay, any other questions were a little bit of time but again Josh's information is on the website. He's happy to receive your questions and comments. Please do take the survey. If you can please encourage others to take the survey to go to the website. And then we have a city council meeting on the 24th but the June 28 meeting is going to be a big one where we get to unveil the actionable master plan and all the recommendations that the team has put together over the course of the year. And capturing that document will capture the feedback we've gotten along the way and the process along the way as well so hopefully giving a it's a living document we don't want it sitting on the shelf. And that is the main point that kills me a little to imagine it sitting on a shelf after all this work we put in so that's why it's focused very much actionable on the things that the city needs to take on next. So stay tuned. Thank you so much everybody for participating today we really appreciate it on such a beautiful day. Enjoy the rest of your day.


Hi welcome to our second video lecture in this lecture we will talk about measures of inequality and poverty. Now again last week we introduced the basic concept of development economics and said what are some of the major questions we talk about and in that light inequality and poverty are certainly two of the major themes that we need to talk about. So what do we know about inequality? First these are two very powerful quotes that I want to direct your attention to. Adam Smith considered the father of modern economics famously said that no society can surely be flourishing and happy of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable clearly an indication of the existence of poverty as being a detriment to a society's well-being and a society's happiness. The second quote is on inequality by Thomas Piketty who was the author of this famous book capital in the 21st century. He says for millions of people wealth amounts to little more than a few weeks wages in a checking account of low interest or low interest saving account a car and a few pieces of furniture. The inescapable reality of this wealth is so concentrated that a large segment of society is virtually unaware of its existence so that many people imagine that it belongs to surreal or mysterious entities. That is why it is so essential to study capital and its distribution in a methodical systematic way. Now the question to be asked here is what is the role of inequality what is the role of poverty and whether one takes an ethical lens or whether one takes an economic lens or whether one takes a social lens how how is it important how is it that these issues of inequality and poverty affect our our contemporary world. Right now again there is obviously no consensus on this so there's a traditional view on say inequality which says that inequality creates incentives for hard work and innovation for instance only if you see that I have a better than a bigger card then you have well you get an incentive to work hard in order to get that card if you want that. Another important point is that higher inequality allows higher tax revenue to be collected which can then be which can then be used for you know the development purposes. Now so this was the traditional view that there's nothing wrong with inequality inequality is good inequality may help you know help propel economic growth however there's a lot of new evidence which sort of contradicts this traditional view for instance excess inequality creates distrust and reduces investments in long-term projects inequality hinders people's access to health and education and economic inequality weakens political democracy. Now in light of this new sort of evidence one is forced to relook at inequality from a more critical lens and this is what this presentation aims to do. So basically in this presentation what will be interested in will be interested in measures of inequality will be interested in the impact of inequality on economic growth and likewise measures of poverty and the impact of poverty on growth right. Now finally before I end this presentation it's very important to think of what Adam Smith had to say on this again the poor man is ashamed of his poverty he feels that it either places him out of the sight of mankind or if they take any notice of him they have however scarce any fellow feelings with the misery and distrust he suffers to feel that we are taken no notice of necessarily damps the most agreeable hope and disappoints the most ardent desire of human nature the poor goes out and comes in unheeded and when in the midst of a crowd it is the same obscurity as if shut up in his own hobble. Now this this is a functional impact of poverty which is something you don't see in you know hard-hitting traditional economic reasoning but here is a functional impact of what it does or what poverty does to one's behavior one's attitude towards life coming by no less than Adam Smith it does give us some idea of the extent of the problem and how we can deal with it. So I will end this video presentation here but in the main lecture the power point for this for this for this section you will see a detailed discussion of the various measures of poverty and the various measures of inequality how to use them what are the benefits what are the what are the negatives of using those and how is it that we can use those measures to answer questions like whether inequality is good for the economy or whether it's bad for economic growth all right so thank you so much for listening to me but make sure you go through the entire main power point in detail thank you