that we expect, Tom? Yes, we do. Okay. In that case, I'm going to call the meeting to order. This meeting is being recorded, not only by Christie, our recording secretary, but also by Orga, right? Correct. I'm recording on behalf of the town of Berlin as well. Okay, excellent. So we have one application before us tonight. The application is the applicant actually Fecto. Is Fecto the property owner? No, it's been sold. The owner is five and six, Overleft Plaza, Berlin, LLC. Okay. So everybody that tends to give testimony in this matter before the board tonight, please raise your right hand. This is where I tell the truth. That's the truth. It doesn't matter before this board tonight. The penalty is a perjury. Josh, not only your attorney, but you're not testifying either. I saw you raising your hands. I thought it was supposed to do that. Better safe than sorry. So we'll start right off with the application. And we'll ask Jeff to give us an overview of this application so we better understand it. And then we'll go through the criteria. Lately, I've been letting myself get away too far before we get the criteria. And then we end up covering half the criteria before we get there. So let's just do an overview. And then we'll go through the criteria. People have questions at that time, but we do need to understand the project. So those questions are legitimate. Absolutely. So again, for the record, my name is Jeff Olesky with Catamel Consulting Engineers here on behalf of Vestam alluded to five and six overlook Plaza Berlin LLC. I believe it's called, but it's ultimately owned by Jay Carr. And what Jay's done recently is purchased two currently undeveloped properties from the facto commercial overlook drive or overlook Plaza commercial subdivision that was done. Gosh, I guess 20 or 30 years ago at this point originally anyway. If you're familiar with the area overlook drive is a kind of dead end road right now that services the I think it's auto zone and the AT&T store there right off route 302.  And so my clients purchased two of those lots with the intent of developing them with a mixed use commercial development. The two properties are roughly together just over two acres in size. It's about half wooded lot now and half of an existing gravel parking area that facto has historically used for like laid out area or parking some of their trucks and mobile houses and things of that nature, but developed with no real development or utilities. And what we are proposing at this time is essentially five buildings.  And then there'd be four additional accessory structures or additional buildings that would all be cold storage storage units self storage units. The property essentially would just be accessed directly off of the would ultimately be an extension of overlook drive. FECTO having permitted this through the town, the state and Act 250, the commercial development as a whole had done that and ultimately it was intended to be three phases. Phase one, I believe is complete, which was the extension of the roadway and utilities to serve essentially the auto zone property and the AT&T property. Phase two would involve our development as well as provide them the opportunity to develop on the east or north side of overlook drive. And then phase three would be completing the cul-de-sac and opening up two additional lots up above at the end of this commercial development. If anybody's interested, I'm happy to share a quick overlook of that. If Tom's willing to allow me to do that, I can just get people oriented a little bit. It sounds like everybody knows what we're talking about, but sometimes it helps to take a quick look at the area. I would be interested, so are you are you talking about the master plan or? No, at this point I was just pulling this up, Polly, so you could kind of see exactly what we're talking. Can anybody see this okay at this point? Yes. So, you know, here's the overlook drive I was just referring to. We've got the auto zone, auto parts here, the AT&T store here in 302. So, the area we're kind of developing is the south side of this next extension. So, this is the gravel parking lot I was referring to. And then our properties also involve some of the wooded area up here. And so, FECTO actually would be continuing and constructing phase two of overlook drive, which would extend it from the paved surface or about here to kind of about where the end of the gravel ends. And our curb cut would just be, you know, direct extension off of that. I guess it's probably a good time. I'll just transfer over to the existing proposed site plan. So, as you're looking at this now, everything has been rotated 90 degrees. The north is to your right, unfortunately. But so here's the AT&T store, auto zone would be over here. And this is the gravel parking lot area. And this is the wooded area. Jeff, you haven't pulled up a new drawing. Oh, I'm sorry. Let's try that. Try one more thing. Sorry, is that better? Yeah. Yes. So, this is the existing condition site plan. Again, it's rotated 90 degrees. So, north is to your right at this point. The AT&T stores is down here and auto zone is over here. Again, relatively undeveloped other than just having this kind of constructed plateaued gravel parking lot right now. So, I know other utilities on site to speak of. So, unless anybody has any questions about this, the existing conditions, I'll just go to the proposed site plan, give a really brief overview and then turn it over to the chair to lead us through. Pa, you have a question? What are the two buildings to the left of AT&T? Yeah, those two. These two here, I think, are associated with the Mid-State Dodge car dealership here. They own this property as well as the property further to the south here. Actually raises a quick brief point. We've had some recent correspondence with Mitchell Jay, who I think either owns or manages the facility here. And I think I may have seen him even pop in. So, maybe he can confirm that if he wishes. He is on the call. Yeah, we talked to him last week. Apparently, just one really random side note. You see this kind of crossed, hatched area over here. What this is, is an existing paved driveway at a lower elevation than really the rest of the property that Mid-State Dodge uses to get back and forth between two parts of their property. And as I understand it, Mitchell and Vic Fecto had essentially an agreement in place, and Mitchell has provided us a copy of that, that essentially allows Mid-State Dodge and the property owners to utilize this encroachment, so to speak. And it's one thing that we maybe haven't properly addressed yet, but we, I think, in contact with our client Jay Carr, Fecto, and Mitchell Jay, we probably will update this to formalize the easement on a site plan as we move forward. Just, I want to bring that to everybody's attention. We're not proposing any changes to that area, and my client has no issues with Mid-State Dodge continuing to utilize it, but because it was kind of, I don't want to say handshake deal, but it was an agreement that was never formalized with a permit or a plan, I think we all prefer to just kind of finalize that as part of this process. So something to keep in mind that we may adjust on the site plan just to cover that, whether it's part of the path down the road. But anyway, does that answer your question, though, Paula? Yeah. Bob, I have two questions. Is the use of the gravel parking lot, was that permitted, or is that just something that's developed over time? It is because it's flat, and then you started showing stuff there. Yeah, no, it is permitted, and it's part of the Act 250 permit. It actually isn't has some stormwater treatment associated with it. So there is a history of that parking lot. I mean, the whole development was, they did a lot of kind of spec, you know, they've gotten some traffic, some heavy traffic allocations associated with property through Act 250. They've dealt with a lot of the environmental factors with Act 250 already. When I say them, I mean FECTO commercial when they did the subdivision originally. But with any Act 250 amendment, obviously we're proposing something different and it will be amending the Act 250 permit, as well as obtaining all the necessary state permits as part of this process. Okay. The second question, are you merging the two lots together? Yes, they would be merged. Yeah. Thank you. Okay. Anything further, Jeff, in terms of general overview? I was just going to briefly pull up the proposed site plan and outline just the building locations orientation and utility connections or something. Okay, please do that. Okay. Then we'll go into the specific criteria which I'll voice. Yeah. So again, so here's a proposed site plan. Again, the extension of Overlook Drive here, this being the primary access to the property, the light shaded area you see here is essentially intended paved surface. And then the darker boxes are the proposed building envelopes, or I'm almost saying envelopes, building footprints. So this is the main larger 8,000 square foot building in the front that would have an 1,800 square foot self-serve laundry mat here and then climate controlled around the remaining portions of the building. And then there are these before smaller scale cold storage buildings used for self-storage. We have municipal sewer and water would be extended as part of phase two of the Overlook Drive construction that factors would complete. We would just have municipal water and sewer connections off those directly. We already, factors had actually already acquired and has been paying on significant amount of sewer allocation to the town of Berlin on all these properties historically. And as part of this contract and sale, they've allocated and I believe they provided Tom already with a letter of transference for lack of a better term with regards to the amount of sewer capacity we need to serve this project. They have. Okay, great. And where we've made a request into the city of my pillar, who ultimately will serve this municipal water. Again, it's it's not a high flow or high use site. So we don't envision a problem with that. With regards to stormwater, we've got a subsurface collection system on site, a bunch of catch basins all throughout the paved surfaces and areas and some grass whales that ultimately all drain down to the far east side of the property here where there's a four bay and a constructed gravel wetland that will manage and treat the stormwater to state required standards before discharging it back into the drainage collection system on overlooked drive. And then I guess the last thing I'll point out is because there was an act to 50 permit on this property already. And there were some requirements within the traffic analysis of that initial act to 50 permit that required any amendment to provide a traffic impact study. We commissioned a traffic impact study a memo through VHB. Again, this, these two sites combined were allocated for a pretty heavy traffic impact as part of the commercial development originally, because I think they were intended to be, you know, retail and residential or some combination thereof. But the long and short of it is that the intended uses are generate far fewer trips than what were originally permitted through act to 50 on these properties. And so we've provided a copy of that memo in this application, but it's, I think it's, it pretty much just confirms what everybody we all assumed was that it should cause no impacts and no mitigation is necessary as part of the project. So again, I could go into landscaping and lighting and parking. Please don't. Yeah, I'll let Bob take it over from here then. We'll get there. I did have a general question, two general questions. One is, are those one-story structures? Yes, they're all one-story structures that the main building is, I think, a little slightly taller than the others, but they're all, I think, in like the 15 foot range. I believe a profile of the main building was provided in the application. But yeah, they're all single structures. Okay, I didn't see any elevations or profiles. I see if I can, I might be able to kick one over and share that with everybody here tonight, if anybody's interested. What type of construction, Jeff? So standard concrete slab with footers for all the buildings with the main building would have a steel substructure with wood framing roof. And I think all the cold storage units are all just wood frame, I'm sorry, metal prefab framing structures. Yeah, that's good enough for me, unless somebody else wants to know more. It's not really a criteria per se. I just try to get a sense of the size. Yeah, I have a curiosity question, Jeff. Yep. The climate control phase of this, is it, are you going to use heat recovery off the laundry for that? That mechanical or HVAC type of question, I can't answer to be honest with you. I do know that building going through Act 250 will have to comply with the efficiency standards that Act 250 employs and the CBS stretch code and things of that nature. But I don't know if, to be honest with you, if Jay has gotten that far with the building design yet to answer that himself. One more question I had to do with timing of the project. Sounds to me like the project is predicated upon Fecto proceeding with his project first, i.e. extending the water, the sewer lines and the pavement. Correct. And they've, I think that was worked out within the, there's a specified timeline that Fecto has to complete their, and there's different phases even within the subphase, as far as getting utilities up and then actually getting the road and pavement constructed. And, and I want to say, I think Jay gave him to like end of July, maybe to complete the, you know, the utility work at least. And then I think the, the paving needed to be done, you know, a month or two after that, if I recall correctly, but that it was discussed between the grantee and grand tour, so to speak, when they sold the property. So the, any permit that you get here would be predicated on the water, sword and pavement all being stalled first? Yes, yep. Absolutely. You wouldn't have a problem with that? No, no, I mean, we couldn't, he couldn't be operational without it. So he's aware that he's tied to Fecto still in some form or fashion with this. Okay. Anybody else have a general question before we go through the criteria? I guess, I guess I'm going to ask you to explain one thing, which I was going to have a big issue with, but I think Thomas calmed me down. And that is, you've indicated that these uses are permitted uses. And you indicated that the Laundromat was an essential service, which as you now recognize is incorrect. Yeah. And I apologize. That was an error on our part. There's a couple of things that I'd like to clarify as part of the meeting tonight, but that was certainly one of them was in our review of trying to define specifically what the, because there's kind of two primary uses here, obviously the Laundromat in the, in the storage and the storage was clearly defined, but in our initial blush through the permitted and conditional uses within the commercial zoning district was in which we fall under here. We didn't immediately see a Laundromat option. And it wasn't until Tom brought us to our attention and we at the same time over the phone went through the, I think it's office, office business services or something that is defined within the zoning regulations within the definitions and a subsection of that specifically outlines you know, laundry as one of the subsets. So this would not fall under the Laundromat wouldn't fall under essential service. It would fall under office or service business, which again, I believe is a permitted use within the commercial zoning district. I just wanted to point that out to the members of the board that, which does specifically identify as laundry and what else? It does a whole host of things, Bob, but, but germane to this application is laundry. Where do you find that I looked at the essential services and said, no, it's not essential service. Gosh, it's, it's, it's page five dash 17 of the zoning regulations. And it's that's under definitions yet five two zero one O was an Oscar. Office of service businesses. Yeah. And we're so we'd be subsection, subsection E, which is offers personal services such as laundry or dry cleaning. Yeah. Okay. It did seem to me that Laundromat should be there someplace because there's quite a few laundromats around. So yeah. Well, interesting enough, I looked hard and long until Tom basically did the word search on line. So that's a general question I have. Yes, Polly. Um, and that is so it's just self laundry and not dry cleaning. Correct. It is. It's just a self served laundry facility. Correct. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Well, and you, you said you have this lined up, but so you have commitment of water and commitment of sewer capacity. We do not have a formal commitment of water yet. That would come again from the city of Montpelier. We've made the request to them for the specific amount of water that we're will need to serve the project. We know that we have eight inch municipal water main that currently is truncated at the end of Overlook Drive. So we again, we don't anticipate any issues there. And this building, I don't believe is going to require a sprinkler system. So there's there's no fire suppression requirements. It'd be strictly for a domestic water service. So we, you know, I don't think we're obviously a laundry mat uses more water than a lot of traditional commercial uses may, but it's, we don't envision any issues with that as we proceed here. And I forgot your answer, Tom, but the wastewater allocation is there. Is that correct? That's correct from the town of Berlin. Okay. Thank you. Okay. I'm going to proceed with parking and loading. And if you want to tell us quickly, respond to some of the issues that you have online. Yeah. And so again, I'll fall back a little bit on the summary we provided, but I mentioned earlier, there was two components that I want to clarify. And so one was the, you know, the misdefinition of the laundry mat use. The second was really the summary of the required and proposed parking onsite. So within the application on the design plans, I think we highlighted the requirement of meeting nine parking spaces and we've proposed nine parking spaces in, in conversations with Tom and then further review of the parking standards. What we're proposing, what I'd like to propose now, at least the board tonight is a summary that essentially breaks down as such. So the laundry mat would fall under, you know, a laundry mat with regular turnover, which requires a parking space for every 450 feet, which would ultimately require four parking spaces. The climate controlled building, because that does have internal hallways and uses and probably does need some parking associated with it. You know, but that doesn't have a regular customer base. There's a definition with the parking standards there that requires one parking space per 1500 square feet of gross floor area, which again, at the 6200 square feet we're proposing for climate control storage would be another four spaces. So what we feel is really required to serve this project is eight, is actually eight parking spaces. We're proposing nine as part of the project right now. I think what really comes into question is the remaining four cold storage buildings. And if any parking is really necessary or needed for those buildings or to serve those buildings, I guess what we'd like to propose to the board tonight is that understanding that these are, you know, lockheed self storage units where 95% of clientele are going to come drive directly up to their storage bay, either drop off or pick up, you know, items that they're storing there and then directly leave the site. We don't necessarily feel that any site specific parking would be necessary to support those four cold storage buildings. You know, obviously, and everybody here is probably pretty familiar with storage facilities and they really don't have a whole lot of traffic associated with them because even the few time that they are used, it's usually pretty sporadic throughout the day and evenings and, you know, there's no peak hours associated with them and there's certainly really no parking oftentimes associated with them, a standalone cold storage site. So anyway, that's a quick re outline of what we would like to propose. It's pretty much stick with the proposed plan as it's shown, which is nine standard conforming parking spaces, one of which would be ADA accessible compliant. And we feel that that certainly serves the purpose of the project and our client's goals and how they see the facility operating. But if additional parking is warranted by the board, then we can certainly find a way to accommodate some more on site. We just feel it may just be more payment for no real use. So I don't know if Mr. Chair, if you want to touch on that all before I go into the other parking or loading conversations. Oh, you've anticipated my questions at least. I agree with you. I think my sense is that's what transpires in a self storage facility is people just drive up to their door, they park there, they're there rarely. Let's course you're doing math. If I look at the chart on page 324 minimum parking ratios, it has under industrial. It says the only place I see self storage, it says wholesale trade, self storage or industrial uses with customer traffic. You need one parking spot for 600 square feet of general of gross floor area. What does that refer to? Does that cover this particular type of self storage or something else? Well, what I was actually referring to, Mr. Fitsu, was under that same chart, the figure 3-02, under industrial, the first line says manufacturing or storage uses with no real customer traffic and then requiring just one space per 1500 square feet of gross floor area. If we felt we needed parking, I guess that would be the one that we would propose be implemented, which if I did my math right, runs would require about another eight parking spaces or seven additional parking spaces from what's being proposed now. But again, I feel like that's really underlines a different real intention within industrial manufacturing as opposed to what we're proposing for this site. Yes, Pa? I have a question. I agree with you.   Yeah, yeah. So all the paves width between buildings are a minimum of 20 feet wide, which is certainly plenty enough to accommodate two cars passing by each other.  Yeah. And so that I mean, it really, as long as the cars were both perpendicular to the buildings and parallel to each other, that wouldn't be an issue. Certainly if someone's backed in is trying to pull something in or out of their unit that way, there may be a time delay between someone else being able to get through or by. But again, you look at a lot of these storage facilities all throughout the state and country. And generally speaking, and we've done a few of these for Mr. Carr and Barry and Williamstown in the past. And this type of lane width between buildings is kind of been the standard and what's been utilized. And it's worked operationally from him throughout to a point where he doesn't feel that's necessary. The only really other thing we were concerned with was making sure that fire protection, ambulance or fire truck could get in and out adequately. Thankfully, we're not dealing with large spaces here or long driveways. And I know I feel like Tom maybe sent an email out to the fire department police chief. I didn't think I saw a response on that. But I do. Yeah, go ahead, Tom. They have not responded. I do know that Jay did reach out to, I believe, Stan Baronowski with the, you know, the State Department of Public Service and asked some of these same questions very initially as to what the next thing would be from fire truck access and whatnot and asking if our kind of standard 20 foot wide traveling would be sufficient under this scenario. And we provide them a plan and they gave a preliminary sign off on that. But you know, if certainly if the fire chief or has some concerns about it or needs some additional width, you know, we may need to reevaluate something. But you know, we think we have adequate width. We have some turnaround potential at the majority of all these kind of dead end areas we have here on site. And we'd like to have a little more circular motion to the site, but unfortunately given the site constraints in the kind of the plateau area that we have available to us and understanding that we were trying to maximize storage space from a cost benefit ratio for the client, you know, this is ultimately the layout we decided on. So how many how many individual self-storage units are there leaving aside the the heated storage building? So there's a variety of size and shaped all those if you look at the proposed site plan, there's some dash dotted lines inside all the four cold storage unit buildings that outline the different interior breakdowns, at least tentatively. I don't have an exact number for you. But if I had to guess, I'm looking at maybe like 100 units, something like that, you know, anything from five to 10 all the way up to, you know, 20 by 30 or something like that. So are there any statistics about if you have 100 units approximately how often people will be there? So we have more than one car there at any time. I mean, is it like, is it like 10 visit today or something like that? Yeah, I don't honestly, there may be some of that information detailed within the traffic impact study that VHB did, but I do know it was very, you know, once the units get filled, you know, obviously they tend to sit there unattended to for extended periods of time. And the chances of any two units crossing paths at the exact time time are probably pretty minimal, given the scale of this project. Will it happen? Possibly certainly, and maybe as part of that initial infill. But again, I know, again, Jay runs three or four of these facilities throughout Washington County.  As Polly pointed out, these are all one-way, you know, there's not a one-way trip here.  All these avenues, basically. Correct, yep. Yeah, if you read the report by VHB, they note that there is no standard traffic type data for this type of use. And so they relied in terms of number of trips and peak hour trips on data received by the applicant based on their other facilities. And they came up with a peak hours trips from the mini warehouse. I mean, yeah. Do I have that right? Yeah, so. No, they do. They do have a traffic. They didn't have it for the laundromat. I think it was the laundry mat that they did. The laundry mat, they didn't have it, right. Yeah, the IT trip generation manual doesn't have any laundry mat numbers, but they did have storage unit numbers, I believe. Yeah, so they did come up with a weekend peak hour and weekday peak hour, a.m. and p.m. And as you look at that data that they provided on page three of the VHB report, yeah, it's not a lot of trips. But how did they get out of there? They have to back out, right? No, there's essentially, and I can pull this up, for really any scenario, there's at least a hammerhead type of ability for them to turn around. Let me maybe share screen again and I can. I guess that's true. You can go forward and turn around. Yeah. So yeah, and if you go all the way down here, we've got a hammerhead kind of scenario here. We come down here, we've got a hammerhead here, and if you come down this way, we've got a hammerhead here. So we were kind of cognizant of understanding that we need to provide that potential for any of these scenarios, yeah. I speak from personal experience, I'm not a good backer. Well, you may also notice we've installed quite a few steel ballards that also building corners. Jay's learned his lesson on that one too. How do you get into the proposed climate controlled storage building? As you were speaking, I pulled up the floor plan here. So there's ultimately three doors. Can everybody see this? Yeah. Yeah. So there's three doors, you know, one on the northwest and south face of the building, and then an internal hallway system to all the units, essentially. And then for anybody who was wondering before, here is a kind of building profiles, you know, that we're looking at. So it's kind of a, just a shallow sloped roof with kind of an overhand hanging end with some decorative stonework associated with the laundry mat to distinguish that area a little bit. That's, you know, nothing too fancy, but that's the building profile as it's been designed to date. Fortunately, I don't have a color scheme for you at this point, but this is what's been provided to me. Do you have that as part of the evidence? No. I'm sorry, would you say? No. Could you provide that for the zoning administrator, please? Absolutely. Yep. Thank you. We have gone from tank parking to actually access and circulation, which is okay, which is next on the, having the else under parking, needing for the explanation of how we arrived at the number of spaces. So, okay, then so let's continue with the access to circulation. We talked about the ability to turn around and get out of there. The fact that they're all roads will be 20 feet wide is a minimum. The access off of room 302, we've all received a copy of a letter from the state saying that no further permission from them was need necessary at this time. And you've indicated that the right of way will be constructed before this project begins. And that, I assume that that will be a condition of your permit. Was there any other questions about access and circulation that somebody would like to ask? Do you have anything further you want to tell us, Jeff? Not. That wasn't outlined in the cover letter. I'm happy to read. There's a couple other bullet points on there, but if everybody's familiar with that, there's no point to rehash it if there's no questions. I'm good. Let's move on to landscaping and screening then, if we would could. Yeah, so again, we've developed a landscaping plan in conjunction with Jacob Miller landscaping, which is plan sheet C2.2 of the application. I'm happy to pull that up maybe, so we can take a look at that. So as you look at this, what we've got here is the green shaded areas represent the existing wooded vegetation that we're intending to keep. We're really minimizing the tree removal just to portion here off of Overlook Drive to facilitate some grading. And then same thing on the far south side, but based on landscaping requirements as we understand it, and it was something we talked about at Tom with Link a little bit and we want to confirm, but as we read the landscaping definition requirements, when they're talking about building and perimeter of building that relate to the primary building, and for our purpose, we designated obviously this front larger 8,000 square foot building as the primary building and determined our landscaping requirements off of that with regards to, you know, street trees and well, that's more frontage, I guess anyway, but with regards to the smaller trees and the bushes and whatnot. So the summary of that is all included down here in the bottom center of the landscaping plan, but what we're really proposing is a series of street trees both along the future cul-de-sac of Overlook as well as a combination of trees and bushes along the frontage of the parking area in Overlook Drive. And then additional screening trees and along the south portion to kind of recreate this vegetative buffer between Midstate, the backside of Midstate Dodge and the storage units here. And then one last big one is this constructed wetland stormwater facility will have a series of grasses and shrubs and plantings associated with it that's outlined here. And, you know, the full landscaping schedule is provided on the bottom left here. It's pretty extensive, obviously, when you look at the tabulation here. But, you know, the only other thing I'll point out was, you know, we did ourselves and the landscaper designer included looked at if we took the perimeter of all these other four buildings and applied that to the landscaping standards. There literally isn't enough room on the property to come close to accommodating all that landscaping. So, you know, given that this is in a commercial zoning district and not even directly on Route 302, you know, we feel the intent of the landscaping and the aesthetic breakup of the frontage and the screening of abutting property owners is well kept and maintained with the proposed landscaping plan. But I'm happy to turn it over to the board with any questions on this specifically. Questions by the board? Well, it looked good to me. There are no questions on landscaping. I like the format, by the way, outlining what the regulatory requirements are as you interpret them because you could have used all the buildings. I think we did the math and it was something like 615 trees or something like that. You could use those trees behind you. Well, I think we were, that was going to be, if the board was intent on utilizing that, I think I'm talking to Tom that was going to be our first go-to was go out and do a tree count on how many trees. Because we would have needed every one of them to count. Outdoor lighting? Yeah. So, go to the very next sheet, 2.3. So, really the majority of lighting here is low-level security lighting. Jeff, can you drill down, make it a little larger? Oh, yeah, yeah. Thank you. Yeah, that's better. Thank you. Yeah, I do apologize. I think even at the large-scale plan, this is probably a little hard to interpret. But there is a lighting-level legend here. So, as we look at the smallish dashed lines, we're all the way down to almost 0.1-foot candles. It's pretty low. We hit a maximum of like four or five, which transpires kind of along the primary building frontage here where we've got the laundry mat. But I think the intent of this is understanding that we have the 2-foot candle maximum average lighting level, which I've learned very well from the Wolfswagen Mazda dealership lighting plan that we all went through last year, that we were able to essentially minimize the lighting level here so that the average is well below that. We're to a point where we really just try to make sure that all the areas that we're going to have potential for needing visibility during nighttime hours for people getting in and out of the storage units were met. So, again, this was done in conjunction with the lighting manufacturer and designer. A summary of the lighting schedule is included here with regards to minns and maxes and averages. I believe the lighting cut sheets were also included within the application. The only thing I can confirm was that we do have zero light spill over at any of the property lines. I know that's another concern of the board and the regulations that we adhere to. So, other than that, I do have some pretty pictures if anybody wants to see a 3D night image of what this all looks like when it's put together. But otherwise, I'll turn it over to the board. Although I'm sorry, I should say there may be a question with regards to hours of operation or timing of the lighting. Predominantly, I think we outlined this a little bit in the application is that the majority of this, and everything here is building mounted lighting. There's no pole mounted lighting on site. But that the majority of this lighting is intended to be on 24 hours a day with only the lighting associated with the laundry mat being shut off between the hours of 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. The hours of operation of the laundry mat are 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily, seven days a week. If anybody has any questions about that, I believe the intent of all the storage units, the climate control and the cold storage, is for clientele to have access 24-7. Hence, the request to have lighting on throughout the night. So, anyway, yeah, I'll turn it over to the board of any questions on the lighting. Well, let me ask you to clarify that. So, you know, in your text, you say lighting exclusive of base security lighting will be set on a timer. It shuts off at 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. What did you consider to be base security lighting? Yeah, and I apologize. I didn't make that very clear. But to be honest with you, the almost majority of the lighting is base security lighting because all the lighting within the travel ways to access all the storage units really should be provide some level of lighting, you know, at all times. So, the nine base would be the lighting in front of the laundry mat right here on the frontage of Overlook Drive. And there would obviously be no lighting associated with the frontage of Route 302 here. You know, not that this is up the hill quite a bit, not off the, oh, pretty far away from the right away to begin with. But, you know, it really would be consolidated to an on-site scenario. What is the purpose of having lighting on all those buildings full-time 24 hours a day? I think it's for to prevent vandalism and to allow clientele to feel safe going in and out of a unit during the night, if that's when I know a lot of people are moving in and out at odd times. That being said, if there was a desire to minimize that, I would think the next best option would look at some type of, at least in part, some type of motion sensor activity.  But, and I do know Jay doesn't tend to have a security camera system in place for the facility to cover all avenues. But, you know. He doesn't have one or not? No, he does. He does intend to have one, yes. I noticed some of these units, the one on the way to Plainfield is as under a gate. So, you have to open it with a, you know, entry into the complex with a gate of some sort. There's no gate here. So, this would be open anytime people would just drive in. Correct. Yeah, there's no, all of Jay's facilities. He owns the couple on Route 14 in Berry Town that were recently constructed. If anybody's familiar with those and as well as some off of industrial in Williamstown. And yeah, he prefers not to have a gate system in place. Yeah, I was, I wanted, I was sort of thinking that most essential lights would accomplish security. And, and probably be a minimum requirement for at least some of the lights, but but I can't, I don't see how it's necessary to have all those on all the time. Yeah. So, I don't know how I'll listen to you about that. Well, I was going to suggest motion sensor lights. Instead of, I didn't realize the lights were going to be on all the time either. So, it seems to me maybe some of the lights on all the time, but others motion sensor. Certainly one other factor, you know, to keep in mind is, you know, we're within a commercial zoning district with commercial properties abutting and on all sides with no residential abutting properties or lots to mine out their souls to the property or the potential to be in the property. For what that's worth. And I don't know what, for instance, you know, the car dealership Midstate Dodge, if they have for security lighting or lighting that's on through the night. But I would think the intent is to ensure it's not being a nuisance to abutting property owners. The potential for that here would be pretty limited. Jeff, I think the build on over the drive could be residential. I mean, I know the factors have discussed that with me. Oh, the remaining undeveloped plots. Yes. Yes. I think I tend to agree with Bob. I think that given given the infrequency of visitation to this to this storage capacity or storage complex means you're not going to have very little traffic and why leave lights on when you have very little traffic going to be there.  You don't want to become a hangout for people. But playing devil's advocate here. If the chief of police was here, I think he'd say he would prefer the lights to be on because if the lights are off, people will be hanging out there who aren't who aren't necessarily customers of the facility. I think I might just agree with that that if the police try by and see the lights on, that's an indicator. If their emotion activated that there's somebody back there, they may want to check it out versus if all the time they can't really tell from driving by in 302 if there's somebody back there or not. I'm also concerned about light pollution in general. If there's not a need to have the lights on all the time, I would say let's just go with motion centered. I think it should be partially lit. I think once they're there, the motion detector doesn't tell you that they're there. A couple of thoughts on that too. Certainly in review of the cut sheets to keep in mind, these are all LED low level, down casting, fully shielded light fixtures. Certainly we don't have any uplight and the lighting pollution would hopefully be minimal. With regards to Kyle's comment, if we were to say 50% of the lights, every other light was essentially left on and the other 50% because I know you certainly have that ability and control these days with lighting systems and the other 50% would be motion censored. That may potentially at least address both issues where there'd be some base level security lighting there to waylay vandalism or squatters or whatever the case may be, but then someone did go into the site, it would still indicate that there's presence and activity in the full lighting system would come on to a point where maybe it's a little more easy and prevalent for someone to feel secure and safe while they're using the facility. What is the applicant's current practice at the other sites? I can't speak for the Williamtown site, but I know the Barry sites, the security perimeter lights on the cold storage units are on 24-7. Again, security perimeter, that's not all lights. Well, it is because I only know just because I designed both of those sites. When I say perimeter or control, I'm referring to essentially everything I'm talking about here, which is any of the building melted lights attached to the cold storage units. Let me ask you a question. My vision is being relatively low single-story structures. You're saying the lights could be mounted at 12 feet. Yeah, which is essentially at the top of the structures. I think these buildings are about 12 feet or 14 feet. They're not very tall, but I know that- Are they slanted roof or gable roof? They are slanted roof. That's how you get to 12 feet. Yeah, and I think it's only because that additional couple feet come from, I think the access bay doors are eight feet themselves or something so that people can get larger furniture or whatever in and out of the units, as I understand it anyway. If anybody's interested in seeing what these units may look like in practice, that facility on Route 14 in Barrie as you head south out of Barrie City, those were just constructed a year or two ago. I believe it's the same track team manufacturer who's going to provide the building materials and construct these units. I guess I'd be interested in- I hear an argument for having lights on and having lights on motion sensors, and maybe the best answer is a mix of both. I'd be interested in the applicant's opinion on that. Yeah, and I don't want to speak for Jay, and I feel like if Jay were here, he would prefer to have the lights on and feel like the site is more secure and there's less opportunity for any issue out there, just as being an owner of the property and trying to have his client's best interest in mind. Like you, Mr. Chair, I can kind of see both sides of that equation, which is why I just more or less proposed, if we said 50-50 and had left 50% every other light on, and that couldn't necessarily be every other light because there's obviously certain configurations, the lighting plane when there's only one light on the end of the building or something, but more or less say 50% of the perimeter of building other lights were left on and the other 50 or on motion sensors, we could certainly propose that to Jay and see if it's something he's comfortable with.  Yeah, three to four, right? The darkest smaller circles are usually three or four, and then you get out to the perimeter and you're down to a pretty small amount, you know, the 0.5 and the 0.1s. So, yeah. One of the problems with having such short buildings, too, and not having poles is that you don't really get the distribution necessarily that you'd like from a lighting fixture. Anybody have anything else to add? I think we've heard a lot of opinions on this. I don't know who resolved this right here. Anybody have anything else to add on lighting? I have a question. Please, John. Yes, the units themselves, will they have lights inside some of these larger ones? It looks like one could easily walk in and there's no motion outside, and so if we have motion sensor lights, they could be left nearly in the dark. Yeah, and I, my gut instinct is that they do not. I know the cold storage units at the two berry sites we've recently constructed do have no internal lighting capacity. They don't have fixtures and they don't have outlets. That's what I figured. Yeah, and I think part of that is for insurance, probably insurance requirements. That would suggest that very little activity will occur at night, legitimate. Well, let's hope not. I certainly have stored stuff at those kinds of places. I've never used them at night, but people do. Does that change in headlights? Yep. He's had. In the interest of moving on, let's do something further on lighting. I would just like to make a comment to just opening statement of that he's learned a lot since the last application. In all honesty, Jeff, everyone on this call has learned a lot about lighting. You're not applying for a sign at this time? No, no. So moving beyond signs, let somebody has a question about a sign that's not here. And you're not proposing any outdoor use areas? No. No chairs and benches out in front of the laundromat? Not as currently proposed. No. Take the tables out there. Close lines, close lines. We have, I don't know if it's shown on one of these plans, we have included a bike rack directly adjacent from the kind of laundromat front door, and we potentially could. Yeah, it's actually not shown here, but right in this, there's this one flat green space area here with not a lot of proposed vegetation that we could certainly put a picnic table here if it pleased the board. I don't think that'd be a problem. There's certainly an area there for it. What's looking for it? I'm just surprised. Not having visited a laundromat in a lot of years. Um, the performance standards, several performance standards. Yeah. So, you know, again, the site may generate some periodic low level noise associated with a laundromat and then, you know, but again, the hours of business here would be limited from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. with regards to that. The other obvious potential is if, you know, these are ungated, unattended to storage facilities, potentially people who'd be going in and out of these units pretty much anytime at night and it certainly can create some, some noise I suppose with regards to moving items in and out of the units, but I don't think it's anything that would be consistent or problematic to the area. And again, there's no hazardous waste that would be generated from this site. No, does the applicant have any rules with regards to the storage of hazardous or flammable materials? I know I can't answer that with 100% certainty, Mr. Chair. I do know that they sign a contract when they rent or lease one of these spaces. I would imagine that there are some restrictions on what you can and can't store in here, but I don't know that for, I can't, with certainty, answer that right now. If you look at section 3113 on page 3-8, it has some standards involving self-storied facilities and one of the standards is that they have no hazardous waste and it can be stored in the facility. In practicality, I would imagine that's the case, but I guess I police that either. Not to buy a PID, I guess. Jeff, curious, does this mixed use model, has your client used it someplace else? It seems a curious laundromat in storage. Yeah, so ironically, the facility, I'm just talking about the second phase of it down on Route 14 in Berry Town, he has a, the primary building which is on the right as you enter into that facility has, it also has a self-service laundromat as well as office space. He actually runs, in part, his real estate business out of that facility and then again, there's seven or eight independent standalone cold storage buildings associated with the remaining portion of that site. So it certainly seems like a unique model to me, but it's one he's comfortable with and has worked for him. So yeah, I don't know, he must be doing well enough if he keeps building more of them, but I'm not sure how it operates. We make a condition that I would, I'm sorry, I'll go ahead, Josh. In that section I referred to earlier, I mean, if you've heard the next page, it says no activity other than storage of property may be conducted on the premises by an employee, storage unit, renter, or other person, including but not limited to vehicle maintenance or repair and use of tools or equipment. I'm not quite sure why that's there, but it does seem to say that you, if you have a storage facility, you're just supposed to just do it for storage facility and not, and not, you know, I guess maybe the concept is if you put other services associated with storage and people start using it not just for storage, but they use it for, you know, working on their car or something else, I don't know. Any further? Performance standards? Erosion control? Yeah, we, so with regards to erosion control and stormwater management, actually I'm sitting here at the, we have an erosion prevention sentiment control plan in place that highlights the perimeter controls with regards to project limits, silt fence, construction entrance, inlet. Control down to get a little bit more, please. Yeah. You know, construction entrance, inlet protection, final permanent stabilization, the scale of the project is such that we will require stormwater construction, general permit in conjunction with the project, and then to piggyback on that, although this standalone project does not, wouldn't have the amount of impervious area necessary to initiate a stormwater discharge or stormwater treatment permit as a standalone independent project, because it is a common plan of development and under previous Act 250 jurisdiction, and also has an existing stormwater discharge permit associated with it, we will be applying for and amending the stormwater discharge permit, and we'll be fully complying with state stormwater treatment standards. And so, you know, where the system is currently designed meets those standards, and actually above and beyond that as part of AOT review of the site, because right now under state stormwater regulation, we only necessarily be required to match a 10-year rain event as far as pre- and post-construction conditions and stormwater runoff from those two scenarios. AOT requested matching a 50-year rain event, which we have complied with in an effort to satisfy AOT comment as related to the Act 250 permitting process. So maybe more information than we needed on the road to control right there, but I'll turn it back over. I handled that in stormwater management maybe in one little synopsis, but I'll turn it back over to the board. I didn't catch the last part, what you just said. So you're designing what standard? So we're required through the Agency of National Resources stormwater discharge permit under the new general 90-50 stormwater permit to, you know, there's five criteria there that we're complying with fully, but the most severe from a runoff standpoint is matching the pre- and post runoff from a 10-year rain event. My last comments stem from AOT independently requesting because they have a, we essentially tie into their collection system that goes underneath route 302, they asked us to match a 50-year rain event, which we have complied with. So the site's actually over designed for beyond what would normally be required for a state stormwater discharge permit. Actually, I consider that excellent because very frankly, we have stormwater problems on the whole Barrymont pay road. And I don't think it's over designed given the climate change issues, yeah, yeah, more storms, etc. Yeah, that seems to be pretty specific standard that AOT is requiring for any time you're tying into their drainage system is applying a pre and post 50-year rain event match. So those are pretty severe cuts and fills. What are your slopes? One and a half and one, I believe, but the areas of that, which are outlined on the high side and the low side here would be stabilized with a stone blanket, essentially, like a riprap surface protection. So once those slopes are cut to subgrade, there'd be essentially filter fabric and stones set in place as a permanent erosion prevention measure. I didn't look at your detail sheet. How are you stabilizing that for your section? So actual stone blanket. Right. But what are you using for filter? I will. This is the maybe the reduced set or maybe we didn't include the details. Let me bear with me one second, Mr. Chair. I'll pull that up. I don't misspeak. So we are using, you know, an AOT geotextile stabilization fabric for under stone fill compliant with AOT spec manual. And then we're requiring ultimately 18 inches of a light type stone riprap material, also AOT compliant, to be installed on top of that. It's a detail that we used at the Berry site that's held up very well and had discussed with it. And that's what we're implementing here or proposing to implement here. Is it a woven fabric? I'm sorry. Is it a woven fabric? The geotextile is. Essentially, it's almost like a roadbed type of fabric. I mean, it's high puncture strings, high tear strings. You know, it's not like an erosion control filter fabric. Maybe that's what you're thinking. Yeah, I didn't see that detail. Would you send that detail to us? Yeah. Yeah, I'll send all the details. We have it available. I just think in an effort to minimize the size of the plan file going to Tom. We had removed them, but I'm happy to supply those as well. Well, I think it's essential. When you started getting, talking about one on one and a half, you've done some pretty steep slopes. Yeah, that forebays. That's not gabion baskets in there, is it? No, it's the same thing. It'd just be a type two stone fill material, like a riprap type of thing. How do you maintain that after it gets tilted up? I mean, it's usually handwork, to be honest with you. Again, thankfully, we're in a position here where as long as the subsurface drainage collection system is properly maintained during construction isn't silted in, the thumps within the catch basin would fill down a good chunk of the sediment associated with a small amount of pigment we have here. You know, the other thing is, is we've got high side drainage swale cutoffs above all sides of the project site. So really the only thing going into the stormwater treatment system is the paved in building area. Everything else is essentially diverted A so we don't cross contaminate and B so we limit the amount of water going into the system. Jeff, all the roads and parking areas are all paved, right? Yes. Yeah. So anyway, you'll be getting your rows and your rows and sort of sediment control plan approved by the state. Yes. And as well as your stormwater management plan. Yes. Anybody want to hear more about the stormwater management plan? If not, a couple other things I want to ask you about your riparian buffer. Yes. I don't want to say it's a point of contention, but I'm going to zoom into the existing conditions plan here because it may be hard to see at the scale and at the half size plans that everybody was provided. But we have had quite a bit of conversation. We've met with Geron Borg from stream river management. We've had some communication with Shannon Morrison from wetlands. And we've also had some communication with Susan Baird with Act 250 on this. And the reason being is understanding that defectos had essentially created a master plan for this and permitted through Act 250 several years ago. Back at the time, they fought relatively hard to ensure that the riparian buffer, because there is essentially a stream that just cuts into the backside of the property here. I don't know if you can see, there's like a dash dot line existing stream, we call it out in a line that goes kind of zigzag through here. And then this is all relatively steep bank and it's wooded, but it's steep up to a plateau that starts here at our real construction site. And as part of the original Act 250 permit, they got approved with a 30 foot riparian buffer, which we're showing here is previous 30 foot riparian buffer that was based in the centerline of that stream, which here we have a very narrow stream bed. There's really not much distinguishment between the stream and the stream banks. And so we show that riparian buffer on the plan, which is this dash dot line. And then we also, in conjunction with our conversations with river management in wetlands, determined the approximate wetland buffer, what would be class two wetland. But again, unfortunately, we have not had the ability to formally delineate yet because we started this project too late in the growing, it was past the time where the state was had the opportunity to confirm a delineation or even our independent wetland ecologist to delineate the wetland. But we did meet with them out there and in conjunction with river management's evaluation, agreed that the total slope essentially would be the definition of any wetland boundary in this stream bed area as the adjacent slopes are too steep and don't meet the criteria for a wetland in their own right. So we've shown that class two theoretical class two wetland delineation and what the state would recommend as a 50 foot buffer under today's standards. And we show that 50 foot buffer on the plan as well. And so what we have proposed, and we've gotten preliminary approval from river management, we are still waiting to hear from wetlands on. And I believe that 250 has agreed to go with whatever recommendation those two independent and our agencies agree upon is that as we get to a proposed site plan here, is that the area within the 50 foot buffer by today's standards that was already previously impacted, which is kind of this area here of the proposed building where the existing gravel parking lot is that we would we reserve the right essentially or they would grant us the right to redevelop that as long as we were not compromising that existing bank or slope any further than what previously was permitted through Act 250. As long as any areas that were currently undisturbed, which is this slope up here, we maintained that current 50 foot buffer because this area was previously unimpacted. And that's why this building in this drive here don't theoretically we'd extend we could extend these further south. But we're trying to maintain that 50 foot buffer in the areas where we can. But we're only maintaining the 30 foot buffer in areas that were already impacted by this gravel parking lot in previous development. Again, that all sugar off as part of our Act 250 review. But that was, I apologize for the long winded answer, but that's kind of why the design fell as it's currently shown here. We also have a 30 foot buffer zone, which is specified in the zoning regulations section 3005 on buffers, riparian buffers. And so you have the state's version of what's okay. Then you have our 3005, which effectively says you will not disturb anything in that buffer. Yeah, excepting the previous insert, but it looks to me like you really are not disturbing anything with that 30 foot buffer. Are you? No, we're not. So the 30 foot buffer that's shown here, we've essentially designed the entire site to stay completely out of that 30 foot buffer. And the only area of the 50 foot buffer that we're impacting is this small section here that already has been graded and has a gravel parking lot on it. And right now just sheet flows actually down into the stream bed. Again, we'd be redeveloping that and collecting the runoff from it and further protecting that riverbank, which is at the heart of the email that Geron Boer and from River Management provided us. Tom, did I forward that to you yet? I can't remember if I had or not, but we do have some correspondence at least from River Management that they're comfortable with that proposal. Jeff, is that the stream that becomes ultimately conveyed through the Burger King property underground? Yeah, it is. And it's a funny, I don't know if it's a funny story, but maybe what I can do is let me pull up the ortho photo one more time. If people wouldn't mind bearing with me. If I recall, that used to go underneath the Burger King building itself. So it's a little unique. So what happens, can anybody see this Google Earth image now? So you can kind of see this cut drainage way here through the woods that comes down from the highway.  And there's a drainage way that comes down and goes under Burger King and then ultimately out to the Stevens branch. And at some point, the primary stream bed about in this location, and this is based on field verification by us, and this is not on our property, but that was either purposely or through Mother Nature essentially blocked off. And so what's happened is this section of woods in here behind the Mid-State Dodge has kind of become a low level flood plain with three or four fingers of stream that kind of branch out. And one of those, the furthest to the north is the one that you see encroaches onto the small section of our property. So at this point, it branches out to again two or three different fingers, and then all and then in this wooded area, and then ultimately all collects into a head wall and a collection area and a covert right about here. And then I don't know exactly how or it gets the Stevens branch, but I just know it's all subservice obviously at that point. So I don't know if that answers your question, Tom, but that does. Yeah, it does. Yeah. And I think it was another reason why A&R was comfortable with our design as long as we were taking all of our stormwater runoff and sending it to the overlooked drive collection system versus sending discharging anything back over to the high Mid-State where it would cause a potential bigger issue down there. That system remains private all the way to the Stevens branch, as opposed to the other system, which become part of the highway system, I think. And that sounds correct. It's pretty convoluted. Yeah. And I won't go any further. What's interesting is where that all comes from. Tom knows the answer there. I do know that answer. Okay. Well, I wanted to cover that riparian buffer <IP_ADDRESS>. I think you've satisfied that criteria, which is you would not disturb anything within the 30-foot riparian buffer or very minimal. Are there any other questions by the members of the board? Is there anything that the board wants to see from the applicant that has not been provided or has not already been discussed? If not, do I have a motion to close this hearing? Second. Motion by Polly. Second by John. Yep. Discussion on that motion. All those in favor of that motion, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? Abstentions? Hearing none. This hearing is closed. Thank you, Jeff. Thank you, Jeff. Thank you, everybody. Have a good evening. Thanks, Jeff. Have a good night. While we're on the subject, why don't we go to the liberal recession? You want me to, I can back out because I'm not voting on this, so I'll let you take it from here. Did you want to vote on this? No. We have six of us here and 35 of us. I'll tell you what, I wouldn't take any comments you have, John. I think we'll all be of your insights. Unless you need to run, I appreciate you have to leave early tomorrow. I do. I believe early tomorrow, so I just, no, I think it's, I mean, I think they're packing a lot in a small area. I think they're going to, I'm not sitting, I won't, I won't participate in any Act 250 matter that comes up if they should come up with that, but the 50 year, if they stick with that 50 foot buffer, it'll lock down the number of units that he has to have there, but that won't affect the viability of the whole project. They don't think it'll just reduce the number of units in that, in that section over there. It may not make it, it may not make it to the Bible. It says a number, quite a number of units that would be affected. Yeah. Yeah. It sounded like to me that they had dialogue that let him to believe he may get approval to have that impact, considering that the area is already significantly disturbed. Obviously, our permit will be conditioned upon it. The state's permit for straw mortar offers and wetlands. I was looking for our wetland provisions in our bylaws. I couldn't find it though. We have provisions in these bylaws. Probably underwater. We have, we have. It doesn't, it doesn't matter. I don't think, I think as it falls under natural resources and unless it's a conditional use, we don't do natural resources. I really like to have a conversation with the Planning Commission in the future date about why we don't do traffic and natural resources and site plan. I think if the intent is because the state regulates that. The state already heavily regulates that, right? Yes. Yeah. Except for when it doesn't follow the state regulation. But yeah, it's a conversation worth having the other day, not today. Bob, I'm just, I'm gonna take my leave and wish you all the well. Josh, have a good trip. Save travels, Josh. Thank you very much. Take care. Judy's here. If you want to find out what they scored one. Sorry. Yeah. I think I. So are there minutes or no? Let's just go through this. Does anybody have anything with regard to this application? Bob, we're not in deliberative session yet. Okay. Do we do the minutes before we go into the deliberative session? Because Orca needs to leave for. There's a couple of people here that need to leave. Okay. Why don't we go ahead and we have minutes of the meeting of somebody. 16th. Yes. February 16th. The minutes that I made comments on and Paulie both made comments on. Christy has since incorporated our comments. Yeah. And she sent out a revised version, the corrected version on three two or not corrected because it really wasn't voted on. She just adopted our comments. So does anybody have anything further with regard to those minutes? It looked good to me. I move to accept the minutes as corrected. And I'll second. Most of the made second discussion. All those favor that motion, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. The abstentions. Opposition. And the minutes have been approved. Thank you very much. Okay. Now I need to take a motion to go and deliver the session since I moved back to her second by John. And all those in favor of that motion, please see if I'm saying aye. Aye. And you can raise your hands. Thank you. And we are in the session. Mr. Chair, I need to, I need to move some people here. All right. Remove some people. Do we have more people that I can't see? Yeah. That's scary. Everybody is back, Mr. Chair. Okay. Who's everybody? Is there any other business to come before this board tonight? Hearing none, do I have a motion to adjourn? I moved. I'll second then. Motion to be made by two or seconded by Pully. Is there, we don't, there is no discussion on that motion. All those favor that motion, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Good night. Good night, everyone. Good night all.


What does snowflakes and cell phones have in common? The answer is never ending patterns called fractals. Let me draw a snowflake. I'll start with an equilateral triangle. Then I'll draw another equilateral triangle on the middle of each side. Pull out the middle and repeat the process, this time with 1, 2, 3, 4 times 3, which is 12 sides. If I do this over and over, the shape will look something like this. This is called a Koch snowflake and it has a special property. No matter where I look or how much I zoom in, I will see the same pattern over and over. Never ending patterns like this that on any scale, on any level of zoom look roughly the same are called fractals. We can actually draw a Koch snowflake on the computer by having it repeatedly graph a mathematical equation. Each time we add a triangle, one side of the Koch snowflake will turn into 4. After the first repetition, we'll get 3 times 4 to the first or 12 sides. After the second repetition, we'll get 3 times 4 to the second or 48 sides. After repetition number n, we'll have 3 times 4 to the n sides. If we do this an infinite number of times, we'll get infinitely many sides, so the perimeter of the Koch snowflake will be infinite. The area of the Koch snowflake wouldn't be infinite. If I draw a circle with a finite area around the snowflake, it will fit completely inside no matter how many times we increase the number of sides. So the Koch fractal has an infinite perimeter, but a finite area. In the 1990s, a radio astronomer named Nathan Cohen used the fractal antenna to rethink wireless communications. During the time, Cohen's landlord wouldn't let him put a radio antenna on his roof, so Cohen decided to make a more compact fractal-like radio antenna instead. But it didn't just hide the antenna from his landlord, it also seemed to work better than the regular ones. Regular antennas have to be cut for one type of signal, and they usually work best when they're laying a certain multiples of their signal's wavelengths, so FM radio antennas can only pick up FM radio stations, TV antennas can only pick up TV channels, and so on. But fractal antennas are different. As the fractal repeats itself more and more, the fractal antenna can pick up more and more signals, not just one. And because the perimeter of the Koch snowflake grows way faster than its area, the fractal antenna only takes up a quarter of the usual space. But Cohen didn't stop there. He designed a new antenna this time using a fractal called the MENJOR SPUNCH. The MENJOR SPUNCH is kind of like a 3D version of the Koch snowflake. It has infinite surface area, but finite volume. The MENJOR SPUNCH is sometimes used in cell phone antennas. It can receive all kinds of signals, while taking up even less area than a Koch snowflake. Now, these antennas aren't perfect. They're smaller, but they're also very intricate, so they're harder and more expensive to make. And although fractal antennas can receive many different types of signals, they can always receive each signal, as well as an antenna that was cut for it. Cohen's invention was not the first application of fractals. Nature has been doing it forever, and not just with snowflakes. You can see fractals in river systems, lightning bolts, seashells, and even whole galaxies. So many natural systems previously thought off limits to mathematicians can now be explained in terms of fractals. And by applying nature's best practices, we can then solve real-world problems. Fractal research is changing fields such as biology. For example, MIT scientists discovered that chromatin is a fractal, and that keeps DNA from getting tangled.


Welcome to Family Affairs, coming to you live from the Think Tech studios. I'm your host, Lisa Kimura, here to discuss the issues and policies affecting families in Hawaii and how we can collectively impact change. With me today are my guests, Kerry Wheeling and Vivian Choi from Healthy Mothers Healthy Babies Coalition of Hawaii. As many people know, I've been the executive director of Healthy Mothers Healthy Babies for the past few years and I've been very much focused on improving lives for mothers and babies. Now I'm going to be moving on to a new role at Aloha United Way and I wanted to talk about what the future of H from HB looks like. Vivian and Kerry, welcome to the show. Thank you for having us. So we've worked together for a while. What do you love the most about being part of Healthy Mothers Healthy Babies? I'm going to let you go first, Vivian. Thank you. It's been a pleasure being able to work with Healthy Mothers Healthy Babies because it really takes you throughout that whole journey before, during an act of pregnancy, for all families. And even though we're Healthy Mothers Healthy Babies, we do the full family because it does affect every mother and child. And I think the reason that I enjoy working with Healthy Mothers Healthy Babies so much is I have evolved with this organization. I have been involved with it since 2001. I started as a project coordinator, just like Vivian here, and did a little bit as an interim ED, then went on to school, came back, was a board member, and now coming back as a clinical services director. And so I think with me what I can see is the longevity of the organization, how it's changed, how it has evolved, and still seeing those pucas, if you will, in the community where there are still gaps and there's still a purpose because we provide a very good niche that we're not a facility. We go out into the community and we work with families. And the good thing about Healthy Mothers Healthy Babies is that we collaborate so well with our perinatal providers. That's been a key of our success, and it will be an ongoing key to our success as we evolve. I think so too. HMHB is so well integrated in the community. I think our partnerships are so strong and what we're able to do to connect people to services and connect organizations and fill in the gaps is crucial. You talked a little bit about the evolution that you've seen, but what does that look like comparatively, say 10 years ago, to what HMHB is doing now? Well, 10 years ago we didn't have picopals. 10 years ago we didn't have cribs for kids. Probably what we were working on was focusing more on perinatal, improving the system of care for perinatal support workers. So we would do training and education, but I don't think we had the established services that we have now where we can actually work more one-on-one with women and children. And I think that's been a critical or a pivotal point with Healthy Mothers Healthy Babies. Definitely. So Vivian, I know you answered the mother's care line. You take a lot of calls and we used to get, or we still absolutely get, a lot of people looking for postpartum support. Tell us a little bit about the services that we've added. Yeah. So most recently we added a maternal mental health counselor to our on-site services. So it's great because since we do get these calls from mothers all over the island, even statewide, it's nice that we have a direct referral to our two counselors and that way we can get them to help right away. And even if they're on another island, one of our counselors does... Telehealth. Telehealth. So that way you'll still be able to get the help you need, even if you're not able to have transportation or you can't go ahead and fly over to another island, which some mothers do have to in order to get the help they need, including like some hospitals to give birth or whatever, but for mental health we're able to take a step forward with that. Right. And so kind of getting out in the community and things like that and knowing that these questions that moms have are all about how to find support. Tell me about the start of PicoPals and what that program looks like. So the start of PicoPals, it was... I think it was you and a group of friends that had babies at the same time but wanted to... Find a way for moms to get better support, get connected. And especially during that first few months of together with their infant. So PicoPals is for new parents with infant zero to four months and those first few months are very important with the bonding of the child but also a lot of mothers tend to feel isolated and especially when you get to bond with other people with babies of the same age, you start to understand and know that it's normal to feel the way you do and actually get to experience the same things with other people with babies of the same age. So I think that was what got it started and we've been starting to try and expand PicoPals every day. It's a learning experience. Yeah. And Carrie, you led a PicoPals group and you've been there since the beginning of the formation. What was your experience as a leader for a group? I absolutely enjoyed it. What you get out of it is just amazing because you're able to see these women come together and come to realization that, oh, my God, I'm not the only one going through this. It gives them comfort to know that they have other women that they can share and collaborate with and just watch them grow their concerns, their issues and just knowing like what Vivian said, that they're not alone, that there is support out there in the community. And I think that's one of the hardest things for new moms to find is where are those support systems? Definitely. Because they don't know. And so being able to reach out to them, and I think the coolest part about PicoPals is even though you're with them for 12 weeks, you see the development of the kids and how the moms collaborate and come moderate. But it's also after the fact because you're still connected with these moms. So you're really able to see the kids grow and mature and how everyone just kind of evolves and then submerges back into life after having a baby. And it's really a neat thing to be a part of and to know that we are a resource for them even as they continue to age because oftentimes moms have baby number two, baby number three. And so it's just nice to know where the resources are in the community for them to go to. Well, and I think the thing that's most impactful as the post-group surveys and they talk about how without PicoPals they don't know how they would have gotten through their first year. The fact that they've grown so much in their confidence and they were so scared to leave the house before but then all of a sudden it's like second nature and they look forward to going out and they have connection. From the group leader perspective, what kind of support does HMHB offer in terms of getting new potential group leaders interested and trained? Well, we offer a continual train the trainer, so to speak. So we have a coordinator who really volunteers her time when she comes in and who has helped establish the program. Leanne, Leanne Lam. And she'll come in, provide the training which is a national curriculum that we follow. This is not a curriculum that HMHB just made up out of the blue. This is a curriculum that we follow national standards and have adopted it culturally to meet the needs of Hawaii. And so what we do, we actually pull from the moms who have been part of the program which is how we really, they become so vested. They see the purpose of it, the importance of it and so these moms want to be able to give back to the next class. So actually our PicoPals leaders are often mothers who have participated in a PicoPals class. So we bring them in, we train them, and then we let them grow. And Vivian, what does a typical training look like? Typical training, so we go through, first of all, just go through experiences like if you went through PicoPals, if you haven't, then why do you want to be a group leader? Most of the time people want to give back to community and just see how HMHB, they see the Pukas in the community, how they can give back and how they can connect other moms as well. And then they go through different exercises and just explain what a facilitator is. We're not an educator per se, but it's not a class. It's not a class, but we want to facilitate relationship building with everyone in the group. And make sure everyone gets their rightful and respectful time to speak their own thoughts, their experiences, and just train the facilitator to be able to understand everyone has their own experiences and such. And then in the training, we have certain prompts, and each week we have a certain topic the moms will talk about. So we'll practice going through certain topics and how to lead conversations and such. How many families have gone through PicoPals now? As of right now, I believe the number... So we started in 2017 and we've been gaining momentum, so we should have... The program has served over 130 families so far. And how is it only moms or is it open to everybody? No, it is open to everyone. It is not an only mom group. All partners and spouses are available and they're welcome to come at any time. And I know one of the really thoughtful considerations when the program was developed was to ensure that working moms who need to go back to work also have the option to. So tell me a little bit about the thoughtfulness and the consideration in terms of when groups are scheduled, where they're scheduled. So it really depends on... So one thing that we are definitely trying to work on is doing more group leaders in different areas, different time availability and such. So for working moms, and some group leaders have actually come forth and said, I want to give back to the working mom community. So some group leaders have said, oh, I want to go to lead a weekend afternoon or morning time just to give back and be able to have a group because working moms aren't available in the weekdays. For sure. I mean, I know I went through that myself. I have three children and it's really hard to find things that are open to moms. And the stresses that people face when it comes to caring for family, making sure they make ends meet, figuring out ways that they can engage their children and be good positive parents who are helping them learn. There's a lot there. And on that note, HMHB is very, very big on advocacy. So tell me a little bit, maybe in a nutshell, we're going to take a break in just a minute, but real quick, tell me about some of the priorities that HMHB has had legislatively. Legislatively, I know we're looking at family leave, making sure that moms can have that support in families, not just moms. It's mom and dad can have that support once they have baby to take the time off that they need to be with baby, cultivate that family and come back. HMHB has always played an important role in our advocacy efforts in improving our system of care for moms and babies. So we have the family leave and... We established the maternal mortality review panel. And the reason for that... For really looking at deaths that occur after birth and why that happens. Because really as a nation, our numbers, as United States, our numbers should be very low, but we still continue to experience death after birth. And so we need to have a better understanding of why that happens and how can we prevent it? What are we doing as a state? What are we doing as a nation? And how can we make those improvements? Right, absolutely. And a lot of it too, looking at the integration between poverty, racism, how those social determinants really affect somebody's life expectancy and their health. Talk to me a little bit about reproductive health education and priorities for that. Well, that is a huge hot topic. It always has been and it always will be. And it's just the importance of being able to have that accessible to women when they need it. So whether that be birth control, whether that be a breastfeeding pump, which we've made huge strides in over the past years, but it's making sure that those services are available to women when they need it for whatever their lifespan gives them, working with teens, working with new moms, working with young women, making sure that they have the choices in life that they want and can make when the time is appropriate for them. And having those services available to them is very important. Absolutely. One of those initiatives is the one key question initiative that's for health professionals. We're going to take a short break right now. We'll get a little bit more into that. Stay with us. We have a lot more to discuss here on Family Affairs at Think Tech Hawaii. Hey, loha. My name is Andrew Lanning. I'm the host of Security Matters Hawaii, airing every Wednesday here on Think Tech Hawaii live from the studios. I'll bring you guests. I'll bring you information about the things in security that matter to keeping you safe, your co-workers safe, your family safe, to keep our community safe. We want to teach you about those things in our industry that may be a little outside of your experience. So please join me because Security Matters. Aloha. Aloha. I'm Stan Osterman, a host here on Think Tech Hawaii, a digital media company serving the people of Hawaii. We provide a video platform for citizen journalists to raise public awareness here on the island. We are a Hawaii nonprofit that depends on the generosity of its supporters to keep on going. We'd be grateful if you go to ThinkTechHawaii.com and make a donation to support us now. Mahalo. Welcome back to Family Affairs on Think Tech Hawaii. I'm your host, Lisa Kimura. With me again today, Carrie Wheeling and Vivian Choi from Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies Coalition. Welcome back. Thank you. So we were talking a little bit about Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies and what the contributions have been. What would you say HMHB's greatest contributions have been to maternal child health in Hawaii? Wow, our greatest contributions. We have done so many things over the years. I think even if we start to span back to when I was involved, one of the things that we worked on was improving emergency contraception, access to emergency contraception before it even went available over the counter. We worked with the pharmacist. We worked with the community to see how we can improve access to emergency contraception. Well, many, many years later, here we are on a topic of what's called one key question, right? So one key question is a national initiative that Hawaii is working on and it's really about educating our providers or anyone who has any contact with reproductive age women, right? So spanning many years and asking them really to begin to think about when do you want to be pregnant. Because most people don't, when you're young, you don't think about that thing. You don't put life in that kind of perspective. You may think, oh yeah, I want to have kids, but really being able to plan it so that you have a healthy pregnancy and what does that look like? Because in today's age, we're working with pregnant women who have a lot of health conditions which makes their pregnancy very, very high risk. So the key concept of one key question is to start talking about that early with women. Plan it out with them, what would that look like? How can we make it as healthy as possible? Because even the idea of planning a pregnancy is not a universal belief system. Right. Half percent of our pregnancies in Hawaii are unplanned. Yes, unintended. And just like the national average as well. And it doesn't really vary that much today to say sometimes a little bit worse, but really half of pregnancies aren't intended. And I think the interesting part is that a lot of times the focus is really on how to avoid pregnancy, but we don't often talk about how to have a healthy pregnancy. Correct. And so I think the critical difference with one key question, question being would you like to become pregnant in the next year? So there is a real declaration of intention there, not just about you ever want to get pregnant.  Do you? Like those aren't very constructive questions, nor does it put it in a framework of only the next year of their life. Right. So it breaks it down to a much more manageable time frame. Right. But how does that differ from how clinicians are now typically screening women? Well, I think, and from my own personal perspective, I feel like one key question is very proactive. We want to get them early on, educate them, work with them, whereas when you see them, when clinicians see them in the hospital, they're already pregnant. So they already have to deal with it at the moment instead of trying to work with preventive measures or planning measures to ensure that they have a healthy pregnancy. And that's what one key question is, you know, really pointed at, trying to get them to where they want to be in life. And if within the next year they don't want to be pregnant, then okay, let's plan for that. What are you doing to prevent pregnancy? And it really opens up a better dialogue instead of coming into the provider's office saying, oh, I missed my period. I think I might be pregnant and sure enough, you know, and then having to backpedal from there. Right. Well, and I think the other half of the equation also is making sure that there's access. Correct. So if someone does desire to get pregnant, or if they don't, they need to be able to have health insurance. They need to have access to contraception. We need to make sure that insurance plans are covering everybody adequately. Right. So again, that's a role that HMHB has really filled in terms of that systems-building component. What do you see as some of the next frontiers for HMHB's role in that systems-building advocacy? Right. This is a very exciting question for me. I'm glad you asked that. Because as I have evolved with HMHB, you see the same issues appearing over and over and over again. So, you know, it seems like in some sense we keep doing the same things and expecting a different outcome. So really what we need to do is do something different so we can improve our outcomes. So with Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies, I think the next step for them is really building a clinical arm so that we can collaborate better with the community. The beauty about HMHB is that we're not a facility. Women do not walk into our office and expect to receive services. We can go into the community and help them where they're at. The other big plus for us is being able to work with providers. Where do they see their gaps? Are they having a hard time reaching women? So that clinical arm is helping with tobacco, smoking cessation counseling for those women who smoke. Hopefully growing into providing centering pregnancy or some form of that. So we can work with providers. And then I think doula services. So really working with new parents in Hawaii to help fill those pucas again where they may not know these services exist or for whatever reason they're not able to access them in the facilities. And so having Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies create a new arm, a clinical arm, I think is exciting. Absolutely. And something to look forward to. Absolutely. So kind of on that note of looking forward and future, tell me a little bit about first of all the accomplishments that HMHB has had over the years. Yes. Well, we have had some great accomplishments and they have all been due to the collaborative work of you, Lisa, as the executive director and the team here, Vivian and Caitlin, right? And those big accomplishments have been establishing Cribs for Kids and Peacopals so that we can reach the women when they need the help. And I think one of the biggest things that we've accomplished is your recognition. Lisa was just awarded the Pacific Business News 40 under 40 for her work at HMHB. Which was really exciting. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah, that was really fun for all of us. Yeah. I can't celebrate. So she's really, the team there at HMHB has really built a good foundation for us. And like any nonprofit, the challenge is being able to continue it. But how do you sustain your activities without being fully reliant on grant funding? So that's why we're looking at trying to see what we can do with a clinical component and bill for services. Sustainability, peace for nonprofits, is really the key. And I think something that people who aren't part of the nonprofit industry just don't understand. Yeah. And building that in is such an important part of sustainability for revenue for the future for all of the efforts. Tell me about the new baby and me tobacco-free program that's starting. Yes, that's exciting. Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies was just awarded a four-year grant from the Hawaii Community Foundation, which is our stepping stone into trying to bill for services so we can generate a little bit more income. So what we will be doing is, hopefully, collaborating with the OBGYNs and other perinatal providers who have any moms who are smoking during their pregnancy. There are other hospitals and clinics who do offer this, but it really is a smoking cessation program that works with moms who smoke and it gets them to stop, begin the process of cutting back and stopping smoking. So we reach out to them a few times during their pregnancy. We actually test them because the tobacco and baby-free program offers support, so we can test them to see if they're still smoking. We can offer incentives so that when they are tobacco-free, we can give them vouchers that is good for shopping, whatever they need for them, or baby, and so it's a program to really address smoking cessation during pregnancy and reaching out to the moms. And smoking being one of the highest causes of preterm birth and many, many other serious issues, including, of course, death for mom and baby. But tell me a little bit about the referral channel. It's going to be coming from Cribs for Kids. Yes, yes. So our referral channels right now, we're going to work with Cribs for Kids, our existing programs, and PicoPals. Then from there, what we'll do is we'll reach out to the perinatal providers and it's all about collaboration. This is not about trying to coach any women away from any other programs because it's all about supporting them where they're at. And specifically mothers who have really specific needs. Yes, and sometimes the OBGYNs that they are having their care through does not offer smoking cessation services. So it would be a nice collaboration because then that OB can say, hey, I can refer you to a program if you're interested in quitting and then we're able to reach out to them, meet them where they're at. Absolutely. And so how does HMHB most effectively reach people where they're at? A lot of it is grassroots community efforts. So have you speak to your... Yes, so following on that point with the Tobacco Free Program that we are doing with the Cribs for Kids channel, it is a safe sleep education class that we do have referral agencies. So we do work with partner agencies for that program. And on the referral form, there are certain risk factors that we do check off and one of them is do you smoke?  And that way, as of right now for all our Cribs for Kids participants, around 20% have already admitted to have been smoking while pregnant. And that's already the first step, getting to know who is smoking, identifying who has been smoking if they're going to be smoking afterwards. And then that would be our first step in following up with them after they take our class. So for Cribs for Kids, it's very special because only one of us kind in Hawaii will follow up with mom and baby all the way to their first year of life. So that way, it's a good channel for us to follow up, keep track of baby's health, and also being able to follow up with our, have you been, you know, that's the channel of being able to connect with the tobacco-free program. Right. And also a good chance to follow up with whatever kind of case management they might need in the first year because moms are struggling with a lot of things a lot of times, including mental health often. And now we have women referred to HMHB's licensed clinical social workers for support. What does that new mom experience feel like? Can you speak to that a little bit as far as the isolation and feelings? Oh, well, I think that that's one of the biggest aha moments that we get with Pico pals is moms come in and they're so thankful that they are not alone because they don't know who to talk to because they don't have anyone to talk to because dad's off at work, you're home alone with baby. And so that's true sense of isolation and being alone is very true. And that's one of the main things we don't want to do with our moms. We don't want to isolate them. We want them to get out. And so I think having this program lifts the weight, so to speak. They have collaboration. They have other women that they can share their worries with. They have a lot of friends that they can share. I guess that's what I learned today. This is what my baby did. What's different about Pico pals is people don't intentionally tell people, oh, you should do this with your baby, but most of the time it's family members who've already had kids. They're a little bit older or your friends that have already babies, but they're not going through it so it'll get better. Don't worry, it's fine, but you truly don't see it happening at the same time as you. You're not going through the same experiences. It's not intentional, but at the same time being able to see other moms with their babies. 100%. Thank you so much for sharing all this. Thanks for being here today. I know that working with HMHB has been absolutely a joy and a pleasure. And I want to thank you both for being here and sharing your experience and helping to contribute to make Hawaii a better place for moms and babies. So with that said, thank you. Thank you for joining us on Family Affairs. I'm Lisa Kimura. Aloha.


And to other parts of Africa, now former President Jacob Zuma has applied to the constitutional court to rescind its order on Tuesday that he is guilty of contempt of court and sentenced him to 15 months in prison. He has also made an urgent application to the high court to stay the artist that required him to turn himself in by Sunday or be arrested and to interdict the police from arresting him depending his recision application to the constitutional court. This comes after the constitutional court on Tuesday ruled that Zuma was in contempt of court and handed down a 15-month sentence. He was given until Sunday to submit himself to be taken into custody.