Please rise and join with me in resetting the Pledge of Allegiance. The Pledge of Allegiance is by the United States of America, the Republic of which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. First item on the agenda is the agenda. Councillor Bushard. Thank you. My motion is to amend and adopt the agenda as follows. Note updated checklist for Consent Agenda Item 5.22, Communication Luke McGowan, CEDO Director, and Marcella Gagnier, CEDO AmeriCorps Program Coordinator regarding AmeriCorps Formula Grant, CEDO FY20 per Marcella Gagnier. Note written communication for Consent Agenda Item 5.35, Communication September 27, Letter from City to Brookfield per COS Rydell. Note correct version of the memo regarding Letter to Brookfield Properties, part of Consent Agenda Item 5.35, Communication September 27, Letter from City to Brookfield per COS Rydell. Note additional written material for agenda and noted additional written material for Agenda Item 5.35. Note additional written material for Consent Item 6.05 per Mayor's Office. Note proposed amendments for this agenda item per Councillor Hanson. Note revised version of the Agenda Item 6.06, Resolution City Reinvestment in Burlington Telecom, Councillors Wright and Bushard per Councillor Bushard. Note proposed amendments for this agenda item per Councillor Mason. Remove from the Consent Agenda Item 5.24, Communication Burlington International Airport, regarding requests for approval to contract with Hoyle Tanner Associates for the purpose of the Associated Design Permitting and Bidding Services for Terminal Apron Construction South Phase 7 and Glycol Treatment Project. And place that on the deliberative agenda as Item 6.09 per Councillor Hanson. And I so move. Motion has been made with amendments from Councillor Bushard, seconded by Councillor Hanson is under discussion on the agenda as amended. Hearing none, all those in favor of approving the agenda as amended, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? We have our agenda. Item number two is an item that actually, well there's a miscommunication that is going to happen at our October 28th meeting. So that's postponed until the next meeting. So item number three is a presentation. Car Share Vermont celebrates its 10th year of sharing in Burlington. Annie Borden, Executive Director. Good evening, welcome. You have a presentation and just make sure you have the microphone pulled in very close to you. That's a reminder for everybody speaking tonight. Keep the microphone very close. And it's where, are the microphones on? Try the other one. Not good, is there, is there, can someone check and see if the mics are actually on? Ours are. There's a button on there too, there should be. The question is, how many city officials does it take to get the microphone turned on? I'll share this one. Is there any mic that we can give her? Try it now. Is that better? Yeah. There you go. Thank you. Thank you, Olivia. She started pushing buttons back here and one of them worked. So, you have the floor. Thank you very much. My name is Annie Borden. I'm the founder and Executive Director of Car Share Vermont. Thank you very much for this opportunity to present. This year we're celebrating our 10th anniversary and we thought it was a perfect time to share with our partners our impact over the past decade and also share with you our ideas for the future, how we can continue to expand the benefits of car sharing. So we launched in 2008 with a small fleet of cars and a big idea that we could convince Berlin Tonians to adopt car sharing and get around with fewer vehicles. Today we serve over 1,000 members with 17 cars and we've experienced record growth just over the past few months. So there is still demand for car sharing and we want to continue to thrive and grow. We are among the few remaining independent car sharing operators in the country. When we started Car Share Vermont there were more than 20, maybe 26 independent car share providers. But this isn't a story of failure. It's one of success. Car sharing has grown so much in this country that many of our nonprofit peers have been absorbed by for-profit competitors. And sometimes that's been a good story but at times it has eliminated car sharing in communities where a for-profit model really isn't sustainable and where the nonprofit model should exist. We are a nonprofit by design because we really want to be focused on mission. We want to reduce the number of cars on the road and the amount that people drive them. We also want to improve the accessibility for people who don't have access to a vehicle because ownership may not be a choice for them. Our members are having a really big impact. So our members range in age from 18 or current oldest members, 86 years old. We have, anybody can join Car Share Vermont who has a clean driving record. So we do serve a really diverse group of people and we serve all of Burlington with the exception that we don't yet have a location in the New North End or we don't currently, we have in the past, but it was not successful enough to keep open. But we have a goal of serving every Burlington neighborhood. So 65% of our membership or Burlington residents, households in Burlington, about 35% are made up of the campus community. That includes students, faculty and staff. 87% of our members belong to a zero or one car household, which is a really important statistic. It is not that car sharing allows people to shift driving their personal cars and then drive our cars just as much. We're actually reducing the number of cars on the road by making car sharing available. We also provide free annual memberships to anyone needing financial assistance. That's not grant funded, it's just something we do with our earned revenue to make sure that our service is available to as many people as possible. Here are our locations. We're pretty well spread out with many vehicles in the Old North End and down to the South End and we're on campus at UVM and Champlain College. Eight of our parking locations are provided by the city of Burlington and we've got 10 that are on private partner, private property. We work with local property developers and property managers and property owners including UVM and Champlain to place our vehicles and we try to place them where they are convenient, where they're close to transit, where they're easily walkable and bikeable, safe and within about a quarter mile walk of where our members live and work. So in addition to providing a 24 seven self accessible car sharing service which relies heavily on technology and a small team where five person staff. We deliver a range of innovative programs in our community aimed at advancing our mission. We've conducted numerous outreach campaigns over the years that aim to advance our mission by helping people understand the financial and environmental costs of driving and owning cars and we work to shape policies that reduce car dependence not just here in Burlington but statewide and we've conducted a number of market research projects and actually pilot projects to help us understand how we can advance shared mobility to other towns in Vermont and get beyond our most urban area. Car sharing does not really exist in cities as small as Burlington. It certainly doesn't exist in cities as small as Montpelier or Winooski but we've tried and we are going to keep trying to serve those communities. So our impact, 65% of our members year over year report shedding or opting not to purchase a vehicle. So when a vehicle dies or needs a major repair they're retiring that vehicle and opting not to add a vehicle to the road. For every car share Vermont vehicle put in service 15 are removed because of the rate at which people decide to ditch a personally owned vehicle. Members report year over year that they reduce their household vehicle miles trivelled by about 35%. So that's really important to note kind of how that happens. It's not just that car share Vermont's an awesome service though I think it is. It's because vehicle ownership is the number one factor that predicts if someone is going to drive or choose another mode to get around. And when you eliminate ownership as that factor by giving people the choice to share instead of own cars they tend to choose more affordable modes. All other factors aside regardless of household income proximity to transit age if somebody owns a vehicle they're more likely to wake up in the morning and drive that personally owned car than choose another mode. But car share Vermont facilitates a major behavior change and that's how we achieve such a significant impact. There's all sorts of other great benefits our members walk, bike, ride transit more. A huge percentage of them report feeling more independent because they're able to get where they need to go. To be sure, car share Vermont for a number of people increases their VMT because we're giving access to a car where previously they might not have had a car parked in their driveway. But even when you account for the increase in VMT among that percentage of users as a group our members reduce their VMT substantially year over year. And as I mentioned we make car access more affordable for more people who otherwise might not be able to afford to own one. The Park at Pledge is an example of one of our campaigns. We just launched this last month. We went door to door in the old North End and recruited 18 households to commit to parking a personal vehicle for three months in exchange for free car share Vermont membership transit and a bike tuneup. We did a citywide Park at Pledge back in 2013 with 100 households and within the first month 12 of those households permanently parked a vehicle got rid of it. So this is a program by exposing people to car sharing. It works and it kind of can help people get over the hurdle of trying to get by with fewer privately owned vehicles. So the city has been a key partner to date which is why we're here sharing this update with you. As I mentioned we have 18 dedicated parking spaces. We have a brand new charger at the corner of Maine and St. Paul for our new EV Sparky which went live on Friday. So now if anyone wants to try sharing an EV or if having an EV in our fleet is extra incentive we're excited to offer that. We've had membership from a variety of city departments over the years. We now have one and I'd like to highlight the mayor who has not only been a member his entire time as mayor but he's been a member since we launched. So 10 years strong. So really leading by example we appreciate that. Support for car sharing is well documented in numerous studies and plans around housing, climate change, the transportation plan, energy plans, you name it. It's well documented as a strategy that can reduce car dependence and achieve a host of goals that benefit people personally and the community with the notable exception of the net zero energy plan that just came out. Which I'll talk about on the next slide. So future opportunities for collaboration. We think it was perhaps just an oversight that car sharing isn't highlighted but we do note that NCE, the NCE report calls for a 15% reduction in VMT achieved through alternatives although car sharing really isn't documented at all as one of the ways we can achieve that. I hope I've made the case that we can't expect people to reduce the amount they drive without giving them the choice to own fewer cars because that's such an important predictor of whether or not somebody makes that choice. So we'd love to expand car sharing. If our thousand members on average are retrieving a VMT reduction of 35% per household we would love to help achieve the NCE goal around using alternatives faster and we think we can with the expansion of car sharing. With an investment of eight public spaces we've reduced hundreds of cars off the road in Burlington paired with private parking for our vehicles as well. We're not asking for a ton of additional parking but when we do come to the city and ask for more parking for car sharing vehicles we'd love them to be granted. Although we know that parking is kind of held for the public and we would like it to be recognized that car sharing members are also the public the public is not just people who own cars and they need access to parking that's convenient for our vehicles as well. We'd love to see increased city participation through membership growth with more departments and more employees using our service to help reduce, make the fleet more efficient the city of Burlington uses reduce the need for employees to have to drive their personal vehicles to work but have access to car share instead. And we'd love to continue to convert more of our vehicles to electric as infrastructure continues to grow in Burlington we'd love to see more EV charging spaces for shared vehicles and not just privately owned cars. And we see these as all kind of feasible asks we have a great partnership with the city we work closely with DPW we're just asking for continued support so that we can have a greater impact in the future. Thank you. All right, thank you. I'll open it up to comments, questions from the city council please make your questions concise we have public form at 730 and I will be starting that on time. Councillor Bushard. Thank you. So when you first started, which was exciting my daughter lived in Boston and she told me that development in Boston at that time was mandating that there be car sharing as part of the component of approval and so I went to planning and I know that development sometimes asks for car sharing options but I wasn't sure if the developer actually buys those and how successful that's been because I know we try to have development up on public ways where there will be bus, et cetera so can you speak to that and does the developer own those car shares or are they part of the pool? I just wanted to better understand that if you can speak to it, thank you. Sure, this is an area that could be more formalized so in some instances we partner with a developer and we're part of the parking management plan and in some instances car sharing is there in lieu of building access parking and that's a great model. Cambrian Rise is an example of that where Eric Ferrell hosts a car on site and actually subsidizes the pod so if the vehicle isn't earning what we need for it to earn to cover its costs, Cambrian Rise covers the deficit and that is a great model of helping to anchor car sharing at a location which we may not be able to do on our own in some instances that's not the case we're kind of invited after the fact or we may be pursuing parking in a neighborhood where we know there's a development and we'll ask to be on site and some developers are really willing to have us and others are not but that is a great way to expand car sharing by making us part of a project before building a necessary parking. So the model that you stated, Cambrian Rise is the outlier so the developer doesn't own the cars all the time it's more of they take advantage of the pool. Correct and in this instance they subsidize membership for their residents to encourage that as people are moving to the site to the property that they can choose hey, I don't need to be a two car household or even a one car household we've got car share on site and that's a great model it doesn't always work that way. Okay, that's good food for thought. Thank you so much. Thank you, Councilor Bushard, Councilor Pine. Thank you, Mr. President, I appreciate the presentation and I think the mayor deserves some credit for giving up his parking space although it went around the corner when he allowed car share to take that over which gave it more visibility and I believe you pointed out his membership Councilor Hanson I believe is a member. I checked a little bit with some people and I figured it was worth just pointing out I've been a member for a while but I wanted to ask you if we relaxed the parking requirements for new development would there be a way to essentially put into that relaxed requirement a sort of something giving back to the community through perhaps a essentially a mandatory car share? Do you think that would help mitigate the impacts that will clearly be felt? Yes, I do think that would help and I think that it's not just serving the immediate property it can serve a neighborhood and thinking about the impacts of potentially increased congestion of new development in the area if there's car sharing on site paired with not building excess parking and kind of promoting car sharing as an amenity to the development that's an excellent way to reduce demand for parking and allow more people to live with fewer cars. And now that you have 10 years of operation you have about eight cars as you said, was it eight? No, now we're up to 17 vehicles. What would Burlington be able to support incrementally over time? Can we get to 20, 25? Absolutely, I mean in the next couple of years we'd like to get to 25 vehicles or we're experiencing record utilization right now which tells us that we've not saturated the market here in our small community especially as newcomers come to Burlington from cities where they've been able to get by without owning a car there's a real demand for car sharing. This past weekend every vehicle in our fleet was being used by local, not by tourists and some vehicles are being used upwards of 14 hours a day. In a given year, one of our cars can serve hundreds of different unique users. And lastly is if students are prohibited from bringing cars, do the universities have car share on campus and do they have enough to meet the demand? We have car sharing on campus. Right now our relationship is that the UVM provides subsidized memberships to 200 affiliates in Champlain 100 and we'd like to grow that pool. We'd like to expand it well beyond that 300 and we're working with the campuses to accomplish that. There's definitely, especially if there's further restrictions on parking among students beyond first years. I just wanna ask, is that a well utilized option for students if it's available? Yes, very well, yeah. Thank you. Thank you, Councilor Pye and Councilor Hanson. Thank you so much, this is great. What do you find to be the biggest obstacles or barriers to continuing the growth and success of Car Shivermont and getting a whole lot more people using it? You know, I think primarily it does come down to parking and being able to place their vehicles where they'll be well utilized and where they can facilitate long-term behavior change. Behavior change is also a key component, sometimes it takes people a major life event to be able to shed a vehicle but we wanna be available to them when they are. But we do need to be convenient to people and we need the flexibility that if a location isn't doing well or it's the middle of the summer that we can pull a vehicle from say UVM campus and place it elsewhere in Burlington and have it well utilized. In addition to parking policies, not just making parking available to Car Shivermont but it's making, you know, constraining parking in a way that's going to facilitate that behavior shift that's when it becomes uncomfortable for people to drive their personal vehicles a quarter of a mile they'll consider walking and biking using transit and, you know, using Car Shivermont when they need to drive. Thank you, Councillor Hanson. Last question goes to Councillor Jang. Thank you, President. So I think we needed to start by saying congratulations. Yes, congratulations. But my question is one of your slide you talked about if the infrastructure is enhanced you will be transforming more car to electric but who are you waiting for, for that infrastructure to be changed? Well that would need to be in collaboration with the city. You know, as an independent nonprofit without access to significant private parking and without access to capital it's really difficult for us to make the investment in charging infrastructure especially for a location that we might be trying and in two years time we need to relocate. So we'd be looking at working where the city continues to grow out infrastructure if there are say two chargers installed as there are at the corner of Maine and St. Paul with where we just launched Sparky that that model continues where there's dedicated space for privately owned vehicles and that would be paired with public and it may not be that we occupy them all at once but that it would be planned that as car sharing expands we're also expanding EV sharing, you know EVs are while they're becoming more affordable they're very expensive if it's a hope and a dream for somebody to be able to buy a car, fuel combustion vehicle we'd rather them have the access to share an EV as well. Thank you Councillor Jang and thank you Ms. Board and for that important presentation. Thank you. We appreciate it. I will now open the item number four which is the public forum and remember there is a light system in front of you when the middle light goes off you're starting to wind down at the last minute or so when the red light goes off you need to have concluded your remarks. All we ask is that you show us as much passion as you want and whatever you're gonna talk about just respectfully and don't personalize it and we will listen attentively. The first person up to speak tonight in the public forum is Albert Petrarcha but I understand Lee Terhune is going to speak for Mr. Petrarcha. Yes, excuse me, my voice prevents me from providing verbal public comment but I left a copy of my remarks in front of all of you tonight and the reason I'm here is because this is now the second anniversary of the civil disobedience against the racist mural on Leahy Way that began the citywide discussion about what should sit in our public square, whose narrative should preside and I would just remind you that as you do business here tonight across the street here, George Lewis is giving testimony to his history fighting racism and the fractured skull that he received crossing the Edmund Bettus Bridge to fight racism. So I would think to honor Mr. Lewis, I think it would be nice, Maro, if you would, in honor of his presence here, stand up tonight. No personalizing the comments, please. In state, well, he's the executive, sir, that you stand up and state publicly that you were not calling for this mural to stay up until 2022 but you demand that that mural come down as soon as possible, thank you. Thank you, Mr. Hewn, and everyone has two minutes tonight. A year ago, you passed a resolution acknowledging that the parade mural fails to convey an inclusive and welcoming message that the city seeks to project and the parade mural fails to adequately acknowledge Vermont's diverse history and the parade mural undermines our efforts to promote Burlington as a diverse welcoming place to live, work, and visit and many individuals feel hurt by the emissions and misrepresentations in the mural. You set specific dates, January 7th, for a report on funding for replacement of and location for the parade mural. That was January 7th, 2019. March 1st to replace the placard next to the mural with specific instructions of what that placard should say. And by August 29, 2022, to relocate the parade mural from its current location. Well, the January 7 report date was ignored and the March 1st date to replace the placard was ignored. But it's the relocation in 2022 that I question. Five years was up in 2017. Five years, not 10, is the timeframe described in the RFP, the contract template which is unsigned and in the commitment to donors. The ELAP RFQ included these expectations about the display. Number one, it's expected that the artwork will be displayed and have a life of approximately five years. And number three, the duration of the display is not contractual and may be subject to change. The donor on the task force and who spoke there said she was told five years and she allocated fund from her marketing budget accordingly, five years. Five years was up two years ago. And here's where we are today. City government and the police department are struggling to achieve a diversity of staff and officers. This is dated front page of the free press October 3rd, few days ago. Our dedicated teachers and guidance counselors strive to embed broad cultural awareness and respect in the educational experience of our youth and the caring community is becoming more and more uneasy about signs of virulent white supremacy in the form of neo-Nazi and KKK activities. You, the leaders of our community can sign our values, can signal our values of inclusion and unity by declaring that we all belong by moving the parade mural into storage now while decisions are made regarding its highest and best use. We know more about the parade mural now than we did a year ago. And I'm asking you to please lead by example on this. VARA, the VARA rights, visual arts rights contrary to selective information given to the mural task force and to city council, the Visual Artists Rights Act does not protect work for hire or commercial pieces. VARA does protect the mural that was damaged by the installation of the parade mural, covering another artist's work, replacing panels that have been removed and again covering the original artist's work and her artist's mark will be a repeat VARA offense. First Amendment rights do not permit harm that has been thoroughly adjudicated. And as for the artist's right of free expression, he was commissioned, he was told who to paint, how much space to allow them, depending on how much money they donated. And it was testified to the task force by the artist's assistant that when he objected to adding people for political reasons, he was overruled, he grudgingly consented and it delayed the installation of the mural by two months as more panels had to be reworked. Thank you, Mr. Hewn. I appreciate it. Thank you, Mr. Hewn. John Bassange is up next to be followed by Melinda Moulton. Good evening, Mr. Bassange. Welcome. Mr. President, good evening to all of you. Like everyone here, I have memories, beautiful summer evenings on our waterfront. It's been my home for 33 years, by day, walking and biking and by night, having a dinner and taking a stroll. As all of you know, I have great passion for our bike path and I share that same passion for the entire waterfront and our shoreline. For me, it's a lot more than a tourist magnet. It's truly spiritual. Sunsets, boats in the harbor, spectacular view of the mountains across the lake, thousands of people gathering to walk from Perkinspear to the new pause place in the urban reserve on our newly constructed bike path. You've all experienced it. There are not too many cities in America with this natural beauty of a lake and the mountains so close by. Together, we've done a great job protecting this treasure from developers and inappropriate business interests. No hotels, no extensive commercial development. It's been the people shoreline with few restaurants and buildings tastefully constructed, surrounded by parkland and accessed by our bike path. Who would ever imagine ever a rail yard extended into this treasured land, a second rail for storage? Find me a person who can envision a train parked overnight between King Street and College Street, right in front of Echo and our boathouse, being cleaned, serviced, and refueled. Find me a person who can justify destroying the view from this walkway and our bike path. This is the most popular section of our entire bike path. I'd like to hear from those who thinks that it's okay to return our waterfront to the days of yesteryear when our waterfront was an industrial pit. Thank you, Mr. Bessange. Thank you very much. I hope that you ask questions and continue to. I don't have all the information, but I hope that you continue to ask questions. Melinda Moulton, to be followed by Larry Sedbay.  Good evening, Ms. Moulton. Welcome. Good evening. I am Melinda Moulton, the CEO of Main Street Landing, and I have been a supporter of passenger rails return to Burlington for 30 years. I was the fleecer of America on Tom Brokoff's NBC Nightly News for taking $1.5 million federal dollars to build the train station. I negotiated a lease with the state of Vermont to build the station, and then sold it to them in 2017 for pennies on the dollar. I had Governor Dean proclaim of Vermont Rail Day, hosted Rail Day for 15 years around the state every summer for communities to have free train rides and lunch. And I issued the real advocacy award to some of you in this room, actually none of you in this room, but I wish it was some of you in this room. Anyway, my first award went to John Peneman, the president of Vermont Railway. I sang, she'll be coming around the mountain to 300 folks from the commuter rail pulled into the union station. Listen, I have been a huge advocate for the return of passenger rail to Burlington. But this proposed second track, just a few feet from the wing building reduces the most pedestrian active area on the waterfront to a mere narrow sidewalk. This is Asinine. The plan to locate a second rail line between King and College Streets, just a few feet from residents and businesses shows no consideration for human safety, air quality, quality of life, views, access to the lake, movement of people, access for emergency vehicles, sunlight, recreation, or any of the other things so perfectly highlighted in the Burlington master plan for the waterfront, which was approved by all of you. It flies in the face of it all. And the most galling thing is that there's a rail yard just to block away equipped to service and store trains. And we are supposed to believe that it will cost $50 million to do that. It's a completely fabricated figure. So we don't need a second rail line when Amtrak comes into the station. The city has a voice, and if you use it, the state of Vermont will listen. You do have the power to determine what happens on your waterfront. I suggest you use it before it is too late because once that second rail line is installed, it will be there for decades. If Mayor Peter Clavel could get 15 rail lines removed from the waterfront, oopsie, am I almost done here? I'll skip along. Main Street Landing has done so much to bring life and vitality back to the waterfront. We are deeply dismayed by the lack of communication. For many of you, all this has been going on without us in the room, without the public in the room. And now this is my change. Thank you, Ms. Moulton. We have a voice and so do you. Thank you. Larry Sudbay is up next, followed by Jean Bergman. And I just need to let channel 17 know that I have gotten a text from someone who listens regularly saying that channel 17 is not on. The meeting's not being carried right now. So, okay. All right. Good evening, Mr. Sudbay, you have the floor? Welcome. My name is Larry Sudbay. My wife, Jan, and I bought a 1,000 square foot condominium in the Wing Building, part of Main Street Landing on April 7th, 2016. And with renovations, we spent $400,000. We pay $8,700 in property taxes annually. Our plan is to eventually retire in Burlington and live along the beautiful majestic waterfront. We bought this property knowing full well that a train track was 25 feet from our second store unit. And that in the future, Amtrak passenger rail service would be returning. In the fall of 2018, we were horrified that a preliminary study by the Chittin County Regional Planning Commission had identified Main Street Landing as the top choice to store and service the Amtrak passenger train. Are they serious? This is nuts, were our initial thoughts. We needed to know more, much more. This is what we have discovered. One, Union Station was pre-selected by Vermont Trans Managers prior to the report findings. Evidence exists that the report was only created so there would be air cover for the Mayor and Joe Flynn, the Secretary of Transportation. The committee report has many flaws, totally biased and has been a waste of taxpayers' money. The study cost comparisons are outrageous as it appears as though Union Station is the least expensive, $300,000. However, their costs do not include the following. The installation of a second rail, eight feet from the wing building, less than the distance from me to you, Kurt. The removal of the bike and pedestrian path in the addition of a new bike path, addition of platforms, lighting, stormwater plans, et cetera. It doesn't include the condemnation of the wing building. There are 21 tenants, businesses, and residential people that live there. Think about it, who's gonna live and work there? Nitrogen dioxide is at poisonous levels, exceeding the national ambient air quality standards from 50 feet, and the southbound engine will be idling less than 15 feet from four residential condominiums. Two diesel engines needing to be refueled in the middle of the urbanized redeveloped neighborhood, daily pumping of sewage by the trucks, cleaning personnel, daily train extracts, and future potential lawsuits where those costs included. In closing, the existing one track can accommodate Amtrak to deliver and pick up passengers. Carl Flauer's suggestion is the way to go. You all have the power to do right. I bless you, hope you do. Please stop the installation of the second rail. Gene Bergman is up next to be followed by Gene Hopkins. Good evening, Mr. Bergman, welcome. I have three points on the housing policy resolution. The reforms before you, while basically good, don't go nearly far enough to deal with the real and substantial problem of low income and lower paid moderate income people not being able to find housing they can afford. The reforms will not, in my opinion, produce sufficient numbers of these types of units. They do nothing to deal with one of the elephants in the room. UVMs refusal to house enough of the students to make a difference. The increase in the housing trust fund can lead to building more social housing, but much more needs to be done than what is proposed. Number two, on eliminating the parking minimums, I have a problem with giving this big cost break to developers without getting in exchange the alternative transportation system funding that is and requirements that is desperately needed. It is much harder to get something back after you've given it away than it is when, then it is when, but that is what, I'm sorry, but that is what you've done by delaying the transportation demand management and the impact fee research until after the parking minimums are eliminated. I propose that tonight you amend line 129 of the resolution to require a TDM proposal to be part of the joint committee's proposal to eliminate the parking minimums. This is consistent with what you heard tonight from Car Share and also from Councillor Pines' questions on that. I want to note that people at the summits voice strong support for funding alternative transportation systems in exchange for eliminating the minimums. Not tying them together makes participation in those events seem to be window dressing. Dog and pony shows do nothing but breed contempt and cynicism and public cynicism is the very last thing we need in government, especially these days. And finally, I believe the lines with the caveat that the cap on the weatherization investment not be unreasonably burdensome be amended to add the words quote takes into account the fact that we are in a climate emergency and thank you, Mr. Bergman. To the beginning of line 76. Thank you, Mr. Bergman. What is unreasonably financially has to be viewed. Gene Hopkins is up next. With respect to the crisis. Mr. Bergman, please respect the time. Gene Hopkins to be followed by Carl Fowler. Good evening, Ms. Hopkins, welcome. Good evening, this is Gene and I am so happy to be here tonight to thank Car Share for adding an electric vehicle. A couple of months ago I heard that it was happening and I said I'm going to sign up. And today, in honor of its 10th anniversary, I was able to drive Sparky for two hours today and I am very happy and very thankful for all the help they gave me in showing me where to plug it in and it was much simpler than I expected. So please give Sparky a try, you'll love him. Sparky is the electric vehicle. All right. And I hope he gets many friends. We will all try to give Sparky a try as long as we're not in Florida trying old Sparky there. Carl Fowler is up next to be followed by Andrea Todd. Good evening, Mr. Fowler, welcome. Good evening. I have provided all of the council a copy of my full presentation, so I want to go mostly to summary. The entire tragedy of the controversy about locating the Amtrak servicing facility on the waterfront is completely avoidable if the state of Vermont and the city of Burlington insist on the foresight to repair the 7.97 mile long Burlington S extension branch line to a state of good repair, which would mean that a passenger train could pass over it at about 25 miles an hour. That would allow the train in the short term to be serviced at the existing Amtrak service facility in St. Albans, which fully has the capacity to do so and in the very short term to go directly through to Montreal, which would be of incalculable benefit to the city of Burlington in terms of tourism and business infrastructure and would permit commuter rail experimentation between St. Albans and Burlington and Middlebury. We are arguing about a tragedy that does not need to be argued about. There is no need to locate a service facility on the waterfront. It is a catastrophe even if the railway insists on a second track. There is no need to park a train there all night long and service it. And the city of Burlington needs to put itself clearly on record in support of that option that I have suggested of going in the short term to St. Albans and in the longer term to Montreal. Indeed, by 2022, which is the earliest we can reasonably expect the train to be into Burlington, it may very well be possible to go directly to Montreal from the first day. Have the foresight to do the project right. We currently have two isolated pasture rail networks in this state, one from Burlington to Rutland at Albany and one from St. Albans and St. Junction to New York. But for eight miles of track, they could be a network and flow. We could have service within the state and across the state. Edna St. Vincent Belize, Paul and my clothes with my heart is warm tonight with friends I'll meet and better friends I'll not be knowing and there isn't a train I wouldn't take no matter where it's going. Thank you for your time. Thank you, Mr. Fowler. Andrea Todd to be followed by Rick Moulton. Good evening, Ms. Todd, welcome. The wheelie thing always throws me. It's tricky to talk here with this thing moving around. I am so excited to be here today to invite city counselors to- Hold on, Mike, get a little bit closer, please. Is that better? Yes. Okay, to an event that has been months in the workings. I sent an email last week and thank you, Joan, for responding. So far, we've just had one person interested but we'd really like city counselors to know that they're invited to come on a learning journey to Montreal to learn how Montreal infrastructure is used for bicycles and what the Department of Public Works there does to make those projects possible and maintain the infrastructure. We've arranged to be able to see what the facilities of the maintenance, I guess like sweeping materials and machinery. I'm like very excited about this because it's a great opportunity for us to be able to look at a city and that's actually doing extensive infrastructure and how they maintain it and what they do that we can apply to Burlington in terms of things that work and don't work here. The roots of this project came through like a Facebook conversation where things are happening in Ottawa and Montreal that are very exciting and so the spark of that conversation was let's go to those northern neighbors and see what they're doing to learn from them and through really just individual community members, myself and Drew Pollock Bruce and we kind of got together and asked people to be involved and local motion became also involved. So this is three people that sat down at a table and said we want Burlington to learn more and we want them to, we wanna help facilitate this project for Burlington. So we have members from Public Works in Burlington, Parks and Rec, CCRPC and so we really would love representation from people from the city and council to kind of see what's happening as well. Thank you, Mr. Todd. Thank you. Rick Moulton is up next to be followed by Brad Penningill. Good evening, Mr. Moulton, welcome. Good evening, thanks. There's two rail issues I wanna speak to but as a serving member of the governor's rail council for over 20 years, let me offer a bit of background. Our state rail plan calls for an upgrade of that 7.7 miles Burlington to Essex as part of a prioritized re-establishment of the Western Rail Corridor. This upgrade could happen over a single construction season. The fact that this upgrade will allow the Ethan Allen to simply just stop in Burlington and continue on through was never taken into consideration in the study on a location to service and park Amtrak. Even though the pending upgrade will render such Amtrak overnighting as unnecessary or at least just a stopgap situation. So this first issue, overnighting and servicing Amtrak in Burlington should just be a window until the train can continue north to St. Albans in the largest rail yard in Vermont. Our rail council tabled its recommendation on overnighting Amtrak until December when your city's voice could be a major influence on that decision. The second issue, a second track extending actually past College Street is a decision that the city has considerable weight in considering. The track would be laid on state land, not railroad land. The double track will cross both college and King Streets effectively creating more separation of Burlington's main streets from the lake. Don't let anyone tell you this is a done deal. The sources to pay for this building second track, all the costs associated with it have not been identified. In fact, the total costs for the double track to the state and to the city have yet to be itemized and presented. Your voice, the city's voice will be a major factor as the legislature continues this yet to be proposed expenditure. So thanks again for your consideration. Thank you, Mr. Molten, Brad Penningill to be followed by Cindy Cook. Good evening, Mr. Penningill, welcome. I had three minutes, but I only have two, correct? Two minutes. Okay, I'm Brad Penningill, I work at one main street and in the past 30 years, main street landing has transformed an industrial wasteland into a bright, smart, people-friendly area teaming with activity. The businesses brought to the area, the bike path, the echo center, the boat house and the waterfront park have become Burlington's new cultural center. Thousands enjoy this beautiful area that celebrates our natural environment and inspires me to see this area revitalized. People come here for leisure, recreation, education, community activity, exercise, tourism and business. It's an open, uninterrupted space which encourages access to Lake Champlain, our city's greatest acts asset. Adding another rail line is a waste of money and precious space. It will be an eyesore, it would impede foot traffic, people would be subjected to diesel fumes, sewage disposal, unnecessary crowding, noise and confusion. The cast and construction would disrupt daily life and alienate people who walk and shop here. Businesses, depending on this foot traffic, would also suffer and it's unnecessary since there is already a rail yard two minutes south. The bike path comfortably accommodates cyclists, runners, families with strollers, seniors, kids, wheelchairs and people walking their dogs all at the same time. At a second rail line, all that goes away. The International Fire Codes is a fire department access road has to be at least 20 feet wide so how can this path possibly be reduced to a claustrophobic eight feet? How does a nine foot wide fire trucker, an eight foot wide ambulance, make an emergency call down an eight foot wide corridor between a train and a building and still have room for firefighters and EMTs to do their job? We are known as a city for our quality of life. Fresh air, mountain views, a beautiful lake and emphasis on a healthy activity and a great place to raise a family. We're pioneers in sustainable energy, environmental stewards and we must protect this extraordinary area. Let's not go backwards and return it to a monotone of steel, smoke and stink. Let's continue to improve and grow this unique treasure. Thank you, Mr. Pettigirl. Preserve it for our children. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Pettigirl. Cindy Cook, to be followed by Erica Reddick. Good evening, Ms. Cook. Welcome. Good evening. Well, these wheels are a little tricky here. Good evening, everyone. I'm here to speak to the proposed housing policy reform. So you'll be voting on later tonight. And I think these are an excellent start, but I do encourage you to have active stakeholder engagement to really look at the details to it because I think that some of them have unintended consequences. And the one I'll speak to is the short-term rentals because that's the one that I have most direct experience with. Two thirds of the short-term rental hosts are women. One third of them are over 60. I fit in both demographics. And for us, for this demographic, I think the income from short-term rentals is something that's essential for us to be able to continue to own our homes and continue to age in place. Obviously, we're already aging in place because we're over 60, but we'd like to continue to do that. I'm an active member of my neighborhood, my community. I think most hosts who live in the area are. I use short-term rental income to make improvements to the property. That helps both the property itself and enhances the neighborhood. If changes are made so that my short-term income is reduced, I'll have to sell my house. And so duplex, it's very likely that some absentee landlord will buy it because it's great income potential for that. And we know what that looks like when neighborhoods have more and more houses that are flipped from residential to absentee landlord facilities. So let's see. I guess I just want to make sure I haven't missed any points here. I guess what I'd encourage you to do is to take a serious look at making sure that the drafters make it possible for residents to continue to own their homes, make it possible for people to age in place and maintain the character and quality of the neighborhoods. Thanks. Thank you, Ms. Cook. Erica Redick to be followed by Alan Hunt. Good evening, Ms. Redick. Welcome. Simple addition dictates that if you make it more expensive for me to own my property, the more I will have to charge in rent. This will be the inevitable effect of most of the initiatives outlined at the housing summit. Another example of the city of Burlington deflecting blame for its part in causing the affordability crisis. I implore the council to vote no on every initiative other than ADUs. My tenants already have more rights to my property than I do. I assume all of the cost and all of the risk for everything that can and does go wrong, yet if I have a tenant who refuses to pay rent, I'm the one who loses my home. One real solution that would make it feasible for residents and businesses to start new and infill construction projects is to decrease the regulations. Right now, only huge, big, bad corporations like Brookfield can afford to assume the risk of building here.  Another obvious solution is to force UVM to build housing on campus and require students to live there. The university and medical center hold 20% of Burlington's assessed property, yet they only contribute about $770,000 of what would be an $8.2 million property tax bill to the city. In other words, they pay almost nothing for the infrastructure they utilize while owning over $1 billion in assets. In addition to what the university owns, it commandeers the rest of Burlington for its dormitories. Long-term residents are essentially subsidizing the housing cost for wealthy teenagers from out of state to attend our award-winning party school. Said college students whom I can't discriminate against destroy their apartments and us landlords have to pay thousands of dollars in repairs over and above the deposit we're allowed to collect. I ask again that the city council say no to all of these initiatives and that renters and landlords fight together against their common enemy, the city and the state rather than each other. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Radick. Alan Hunt is up next to be followed by Patrick Murphy. Good evening, Mr. Hunt. Welcome. Good evening. Point of clarification. I was here to talk about the Form 5 public hearing. It's gonna be held rather than, should I wait? You can, it's up to you, you can speak now or you can speak when we have that public hearing coming up in a short while. I'll speak now. I'll speak now. This is concerning the public hearing on the Form 5 boundaries. I live on Maple Street, 89 Maple. I've been following this issue for as pretty much as long as it's been going on. And I have to tell you, I'm very concerned about sort of the process, not necessarily the properties that are involved, but the process seemed to be a case where a group of people, presumably city employees in the planning department, decided that they wanted to encourage the development or the upgrading of certain parcels of land in and around Ward 5. And to me, it wasn't an open process. There was no process for anybody to come forward and say, I'd like my property to be considered. I happen to have one that I think should be considered. I was told by the city the committee wasn't interested. So it really smacks of spot zoning, frankly. There wasn't a process for allowing the public or certainly people that own property within this area to come forward and ask for inclusion. And as you might guess, if you get into this Form 5 thing, property values are gonna increase significantly. So I questioned the process more than the actual properties that were picked out. I did attend meetings and there was this back and forth. Well, let's put that property in, let's take that property out, et cetera, et cetera. So I ask you to consider that when you look at this process. All right, thank you, Mr. Hunt. Patrick Murphy, to be followed by Jessica Oskie. Any luck, General 17? We're on, because, okay, great, thank you. Good evening, Mr. Murphy, welcome. Thanks, sir, our mayor, city council, city staff, particularly at BED and DPW for their support of car sharing thus far. Not surprisingly, we think that with even more support in policy and in practice, we can greatly increase the impact of our collective efforts. There are a fair number of policies we propose, which we think could help better create conditions for car sharing and in turn, encourage more walking, biking, and transit trips as a result. A way of time constraints though, I wanna focus on the issue where many others converge, namely parking. We offer our support for our current efforts on tonight's agenda to reduce parking minimums, to explore parking maximums, to properly price parking, and to require that developers better manage transportation and parking rather than build more of it and allow it to spill onto the street. All of this stems from the notion that the resources of public and private space are better spent on good things like housing people rather than cars, and in order for car share of a month to help achieve shared city goals around energy reduction, housing affordability, and production, sustainable transportation, and social equity. We also need access to a relatively small amount of that space to expand our operations, our membership, a number of people who might not own cars, whether by circumstances or choice. Just one of our spaces can serve over 200 members of the local public in a given year, and so by reserving a few spaces, more for shared vehicles instead of those privately owned, we're able to open these up to a broader group of people. And so I thank you very much for your time, for looking forward to discussing more of these issues, specifically at a committee at a later date, and to working with all of you in the months and years to come. Thank you, Mr. Murphy. Jessica Oskie, come on down. You're up next. Welcome. Jack Daggett is up next. Jessica Oskie, 37 year resident of Burlington. I came when I was just an infant. I live in the South End, and I've been involved with Car Share of Vermont since its inception in 2008 as a member and as a board member. And I just wanna say that I'm really proud of what Car Share of Vermont has accomplished. It's not easy, this work is not easy, and Burlington is one of the most rural or low density communities in the world that's hosting a successful nonprofit car sharing organization. If it was easy and if it was profitable, you can be sure that Zipcar would be here and would be taking advantage of this opportunity. It's not an easy place to operate. So I want Burlington to take a moment and be proud of what we've accomplished and to know that together, if we're gonna work to achieve our climate goals, that car sharing needs to be part of that solution. And it's not easy to change behavior, but we've shown that we can do it and we can move it along, especially with the mayor's leadership. He's a great user of our service and we really appreciate that. So we look forward to you all being innovative and staying the course and thinking outside the box and working hard to improve this service for everybody. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Oskie and a happy belated 37th birthday to you. Jack Daggett is up next to be followed by Richie Burger. Good evening, Mr. Daggett, welcome. Thank you, I'm Jack Daggett. I live in Burlington in Ward three and the Church Street mural contains symbols that promotes a false narrative about Native Americans and people of color. The mural is clearly offensive and it's been up there seven years, enough's enough and I think it's time that it came down. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Daggett. Richie Burger to be followed by Donnie and Julie LaFountain. Good evening, welcome. Good evening, thanks for having me. I'd like to speak about the plan by the Agency of Transportation to force the city of Burlington to tear up the bike pedestrian path between King and College Streets and why it's unnecessary and I know Melinda has shared a notebook with a memorandum and documents and I know it's a long read but I would encourage everyone to read it. I don't blame the city administration in this because they've been muscled, deceived and frankly pushed into the situation of acquiescing essentially into tearing up that bike path when it's unnecessary to bring Amtrak here. Totally unnecessary. It's proven by the documents that Melinda provided you. Once that bike path is torn up, that pedestrian path is torn up, you're never gonna get it back and it may be impossible for the city council to stop it. I don't think it is impossible but I really truly believe it's in the interest of the city, its citizens, its future residents to say no to AOT on this. The lack of transparency and candidly, the frank deception by the agency of transportation since 2016 as to the shifting explanations as to why the city should be forced to do that have each been proven false, inaccurate and unnecessary and time is short. The city council, if it's gonna stand up for the city and for the bike path and the waterfront needs to do it soon, thank you. Thank you Mr. Berger. Good evening, welcome. Good evening, thank you. We're Julie and Donnie LaFountain. We are longtime car share members and we are honored to be speaking on behalf of Car Share Vermont. Why am I in trouble hearing you? This one? As testimony to Car Share. Sorry, there you go. It used to be a two car family until one by one they broke down and needed thousands of dollars of repair at the same time our son needed braces and was going off to college. So we were a no car family which worked all right for the most part except for there was always something we needed to get lumber at Lowe's or we needed to take our son to college or take our animals to the vet which left us beholden on friends and family to drive us around which sometimes worked and sometimes didn't. So we were looking at purchasing another car or some other option and then we met Annie. And Annie worked with my wife and we became involved in car share in part because we have pets and it's really difficult to get somebody to say oh yeah, go ahead, take my car, drive your pet to the vet when they're really sick. So that opened up a world of opportunity for us. Now we're avid car share users. We don't have a car. We definitely use it quite often. We do the share a lot part of the program and what that's part of what we helped us to do is not only do we use public transportation not only do we use the car share but we have saved so much money by using these alternative methods on a personal note we're able to buy a house. On other stuff we're able to donate back to the community through Hunger Free Vermont. It just has afforded us much more flexibility than we could have ever had if we had a $250 car payment with insurance with the maintenance and the upkeep. So we wanted to just come here and praise car share. Thank you very much for your time. Thank you very much. Rick Sharp is up next to be followed by Jeff Comstock. I do wanna make sure that people understand that the moving of the bike path does not necessarily mean that means that we're going with the option of Amtrak being done at the location that the committee picked. That is not necessarily connected together just so everybody understands that. Good evening, Mr. Sharp, welcome. Good evening, thanks for the explanation. My name is Rick Sharp. My wife Ruth and I run Burlington Segways 277 Pine Street on Burlington, so we're on the waterfront all the time and we see what goes on down there all the time. As most of you know, I've been active over the past 35 years in promoting the bike path. I've watched with great interest as our waterfront was miraculously converted from a derelict industrial wasteland to the park bike path and the waterfront we all enjoy today. The city has made some very wise investments over the last 35 years with the bike path, the waterfront, and the church street marketplace. The result is an explosion of new hotels downtown. The city went from one hotel to four hotels in the space of eight years. That's a remarkable event proof of a flourishing downtown. Clearly the future of our waterfront is tourism, recreation, festivals, events and people-oriented activities, not new unnecessary rail sightings. I support Melinda Moulton in her opposition to the addition of a rail siding in front of Union Station. Rail sightings belong at rail yards, not behind the students treatment plant or up in St. Albans. There are much better alternatives here. So I hope you clearly take a close look at this issue and I think the city does not have to buckle under to the railroad or to the Department of Transportation. What Mr. Berger had to say tonight is very important for you to recognize that there are other options there. I also think Mr. Fowler's idea of having the trains stored up in St. Albans, much better plan. Even if that takes longer to do it, that leads to a connection from Rutland all the way through Burlington to St. Albans and eventually to Montreal, much better plan for the city of the long run. So I hope you will be mindful of the investment that you made over the last 35 years that has resulted in the beautiful city we have today and not take a step backwards by putting another rail line in at Union Station. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Sharp. Mr. Jeff Comstock is up next to be followed by Cindy White. Good evening, Mr. Comstock, welcome. Good evening, I live in Ward 7. I have three thoughts about the non-citizen voting resolution. The resolution states that approximately 3,200 Burlington residents are ineligible to vote because their refugees not yet eligible for U.S. citizenship. Not yet eligible really has nothing to do with it. They simply are not U.S. citizens. Eligibility doesn't mean people become citizens. There is a path to citizenship for a reason and the right to vote is one of the most valuable prizes. Non-voting citizens in this case with a focus on refugees is nothing more than political pandering in my opinion. On town meeting day, Burlington had 40,426 registered voters and guess what? Only 8,112 people voted.  The resolution has grand introductory language about community building through engagement. Based on town meeting day participation, the city is failing miserably to engage the voters it already has. The city council is trying to fix the wrong problem. In addition, the population of Burlington is approximately 43,000. How is it that we have 40,000 plus registered voters? How many of those are non-resident college students that vote on our property taxes, our legislators, our city leadership, which includes all of you and much more and then move away? More political pandering. And again, the city council is trying to fix the wrong problem. And finally, my wife and I work as polling place volunteers on election day. Based on that experience, how does the city clerk plan to accommodate the need for multiple voter checklist? To vote in city-only elections and receive the correct ballots, voters will have to self-identify as non-residents. Think about that for a moment. We don't even ask people to declare their political party when we vote in primary elections. The identity logistic in this proposal is not okay. Just because Burlington wants to create special treatment for one class of people, if non-residents are required to identify for the purpose of voting, how is that any different than requiring them to use a special check-out line at the grocery store? The hypocrisy of this proposal is obvious if you think about it. Therefore, I contend that the ordinance committee should not waste its time on this proposal. Thank you. Cindy White is to be followed by Sidney Ovid. Good evening, Ms. White. Welcome. Thank you. So I'm here in my role as Director of Park Recreation Waterfront. I just wanted to thank John Bossange. He's not here now, but I wanted to thank John for his eight years of service on the Park Recreation Commission. John went to the dark side. He moved to South Burlington. So he could no longer be on the commission, but John did a lot of work for our department. He very often would be passionately if there was a Park Recreation Initiative going on right here that we wanted his support on. He was always willing to come to the meetings and speak up as he spoke up on other topics tonight, but so big thanks to John. And we're fortunate though, in that the Park Foundation does not have any lines drawn as far as where you can be from. So he continues to serve with the Parks Foundation doing great works for the city of Burlington. Thank you, Ms. White. And we all, I think, agree with that sentiment about John Bosange and a little round of applause for I wish he was still here. We did thank him down in the Board of Finance, but he has done an incredible amount for the city of Burlington. And also, Ms. White, we'll pass on your kind remarks to the South Burlington City Council. Sidney Ovid is up next. Hi, I'm Sid. I'm a student at UVM. I'm here to speak about the downtown mural, like many others here today. I have only been here for three years, but I didn't find out about it until this year. Excuse me, my colleague Lee brought it up in our racism and race relations class. I am studying to be a social worker. So as someone who intends to work with communities in need, I find it incredibly offensive that the city would not, or would excuse me, refuse to take down a mural that is whitewashed and that neglects the history of the Abanaki people whose land we are on today. Sorry, I'm very underprepared. I feel like as a city that prides itself constantly on being extremely welcoming to refugees and new Americans that this mural does not portray that welcomeness. I think if I were a new American and saw a mural that was supposed to depict the history of this new scary town that I arrived in, I would be terrified because it is full of white people and not a single person of color. And yeah, I think it's offensive and I think that it should be moved to be taken down as soon as possible so that less people can see it. It just reinforces white supremacy, which we already seem to have a big enough problem with. Thank you. Thank you very much. Lisa LaRocque is up next to be followed by Trisha Gray. Good evening, welcome. Hello, I'm Liza, you're close, though. I'm also here today to discuss the mural.  You and I have the privilege of looking at this mural and seeing ourselves represented in this city's history. We see a nice picture. For those who do not identify as white, it is a glaring, glaringly obvious about who is being excluded. This mural is a whitewashed version of our city's history and fully disregards the presence and contributions of people of color in the city. I'm here to advocate for the immediate removal of this mural and thus the condemnation of white supremacy by the city. Thank you. Thank you very much. Trisha Gray to be followed by Kelly Devine. Good evening, Miss Gray, welcome. Thank you. I would like to address some of the housing policy reform. Specifically, I would like to address how STRs are currently being defined, that's short-term rentals. Specifically, that they are being considered non-residential in use. Short-term rentals actually are and continue to be residential rentals and should be treated as such by the city. Owners and tenants who offer rooms or units should comply with the city housing standards for rental property and register as you would any rental. Those offering short-term rentals should also be compliant with the state and local requirements for rooms and meals, taxes and fire safety. Rental properties should not be forced to obtain a change of use to rent on a short-term basis as they are truly not hotels or bed and breakfasts. Short-term rentals are residential uses of the property. Renters are using the property for ordinary living purposes such as peaceful occupancy, sleeping and eating. This use remains residential no matter how short the rental duration. A home, apartment or room is used for residential purposes any time it is used as a place of abode even if the persons occupying the dwelling are residing there temporarily during a vacation or business visit. Short-term rentals should be considered in the same classification as residential rentals due to the fact that even if the properties are rented to different persons every night, the renters are using the property solely for ordinary living purposes. The need for long-term housing is understood and please acknowledge the value of short-term rentals as flexible housing whether it be for a night or six months or a year. Consider that restrictive policies also tread very closely to denying property owners the free and unrestricted use of their real property. In closing, please recognize that short-term rentals are residential rentals and should be governed by the same or very similar guidelines and laws as long-term rentals. Thank you very much. Thank you, Ms. Gray. Kelly Devine is up next to be followed by the final speaker for tonight, Regina Mahoney. Good evening, Ms. Devine. Good evening, thank you, President Wright. Just here to speak on behalf of Moving Forward 6.05, the slate of housing initiatives. As some of you know, our organization is very interested in figuring out ways together that we can expand the housing base. We've been working on this since 2014 when we held a housing summit because really the level of vacancy and the quality of the housing does not meet the real need we have in this city for mainly for anyone who wants to live here, but especially as we look at the problems of workforce development and trying to keep our young people here, they seem to be particularly challenged in finding adequate housing. As many of you know and thanks again for the support on the work we're doing on parking and transportation management, we've been working on that since 2015 and we had talked back then about the parking minimums and I think we've made some really good strides working in partnership with the city and the Department of Public Works and we'd like to see a robust discussion about the parking minimum piece and see how that figures into a real solution for our community that both allows more housing, helps reduce the cost burden of housing and also helps encourage alternative modes. I loved hearing from that couple who just were big fans of car share. I think it's a good example of how when people are motivated to have transportation choice, the community has resources for them. It's really a great coming together and I do think that piece in particular can help us take our transportation solutions to the next level. We're particularly interested in accessory dwelling units which is a way to allow people to, we heard a woman speak about age in place and allow more housing opportunities and a variety of housing opportunities and then finally the short term rental regulation really needs to be looked at. It seems really clear from the data that that's having an impact on our available housing stock. So we're really looking forward to having a further discussion and seeing these things go to committee and being part of that dialogue. So thank you for moving it forward. Thank you, Ms. Devine. Regina Mahoney is up next to be followed by the final speaker, Erhard Monkey. Good evening and welcome. Hello, thank you. Charlie Baker from Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission sent you folks some comments on the housing reforms last week. So I'm just gonna touch on a few of those. We are in support of the housing reform resolution. We really think they're going in the right direction for smart growth and will help increase more homes, decrease single occupancy vehicle travel and make improvements to energy efficiency. Particularly the Housing Trust Fund. We are in support of that and maybe even more so as a resident, let you know that I am in support of that. With the Building Homes Together campaign in the first three years, we have met the total housing target but we have continued to fall short on the affordable target and a lack of capital is one of the reasons for that. So any help that you can do here would be great. ADUs, they're a really great way to try to address our housing shortage without having a big land use impact. So anything you can do to reduce the regulatory barriers on those would be great. Short-term rentals, I love staying in Airbnb's when I go travel places so I understand the value of them but I do think in our tight housing market we do need to take a look at what impact they're having on our actual housing supply. We support the elimination of parking minimums and along with that really support implementation of the parking study. One of the things in the parking study was to try to put some wayfinding in place so that when residents and visitors come to the downtown they can easily try to find where parking is available. We think that would be a helpful thing to go along with that. And we support the energy efficiency work in the rental housing as well. And just want to say we've got about, at least by our count, 14 municipalities in the county really working on this stuff so we appreciate your leadership and just know you're not alone. Thank you very much. Final speaker, Erhard Maki. Good evening, welcome. Good evening Mr. Chair, good evening council members, mayor. Thank you for this resolution, mayor thanks for your leadership on bringing these initiatives forward through the summit, the two part summit. I'm speaking by the way just on behalf of myself as a long time person involved in affordable housing and community development in the area not representing any organization. Support in concept, all of the initiatives especially the Housing Trust Fund, it's been a long time coming. Mayor thanks for including the extra money in the budget for the last few years. I think it's high time to ensure that that's immune to any kind of policy changes and that it's embedded in the charter and that it's done in a way that is gonna survive the next reappraisal to make sure that the same amount remains in it unlike the last reappraisal where we lost ground and basically the value of a penny for the Housing Trust Fund was severely devalued to almost half a penny. I totally support ADUs as another way of increasing the housing stock. I would urge you to look at when you get to the details and the committee structure looks at these things to make sure that they don't become a new vehicle for short-term rentals. I am very concerned about short-term rentals as I know many of you are. I think we do need to protect owner documents especially people who are renting short-term rentals within their home, rooms in their home and I would say up to possibly one or two whole units in a multi-family apartment building. I would not go much more than one or two units. I really think that you're taking away from the real need which is the long-term rental market. So in looking at the detail memo from staff about the proposal for short-term rentals, I think there are many fine points there. There's many protections in there. I like making it subject to the demolition and replacement ordinance but I urge you to take a look at really severely limiting the absolute number of units because I'm concerned about the erosion. Thank you, Mr. Monarchy. Thank you. That concludes tonight's public forum. Thank you to everyone for giving us your viewpoints and doing it respectfully. For the most part. Item number, the next item is the Consent Agenda. Councillor Busher. Yes, I'd like to move to adopt the Consent Agenda and take the actions indicated. Councillor Busher has moved the Consent Agenda. Is there a second? Someone? Seconded by Councillor Pine. Any discussion? All those in favor of passing the Consent Agenda, taking the actions indicated, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? We have passed the Consent Agenda. I am now going to recess the regular city council meeting in order to allow the mayor to convene the Board of Abatement. The regular city council meeting is recessed at 831. Mr. Mayor. Thanks, President Wright. I'll call the order of the Board of Tax Abatement at 832 and would welcome a motion on the agenda. So move. Thank you, Councillor Polino. Is there a second? Seconded by Councillor Paul. Discussion? All those in favor of the motion, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries unanimously. And that brings us to the Consent Agenda and I recognize President Wright for a motion on the Consent Agenda. Move to pass the Consent Agenda and take the actions indicated. Excellent, is there a second? Seconded by Councillor Hanson. Discussion? Councillor Busher. Just wanted to see if anyone, if either of the individuals were here, the appellants were here tonight and wanted to speak before we acted. Is there anyone who would like to speak to the two Board of Tax Abatement consent items? Seeing no interest in that, I will go back to the motion on the floor and if there's no further discussion, we'll take a vote. All those in favor of improving the Consent Agenda please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? The motion carries unanimously and we are adjourned as a Board of Tax Abatement at 8.33 p.m. Thank you, Mr. Mayor, very efficient. Back to the deliberative agenda, item number five point, excuse me, 6.01, special event outdoor entertainment permit, Councillor Roof. Thank you, President Wright. I'd like to move 6.01, a special event outdoor entertainment permit application one day only church street marketplace district in front of outdoor gear exchange at 37 Church on the block between Bank and Cherry, Thursday, October 17, 2019, 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. for a film screening. Moved by Councillor Roof, seconded by Councillor Polino. Any discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor of the motion please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That passes unanimously. Item number 6.02 is a special event outdoor entertainment permit, Councillor Roof. They can move approval of a 24 hour total special event outdoor entertainment permit application for the Flynn Center for the Performing Arts, Church Street outside of City Hall by the fountain, 1024.19 to 1025.19, 12 p.m. to 12 p.m., 24 hours total, 24 hour protest song, violinist amplified music, yes, but restricted amplified music, no amplified music between the hours of 2 a.m. and 7 a.m. Moved by Councillor Roof, seconded by Councillor Hanson. Any discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That passes unanimously. Item 6.03 is a public hearing regarding the Comprehensive Development Ordinance, ZA-20-01, Form District 5 Boundaries. Councillor Mason. I believe the appropriate action would just be open to public hearing. So open to public hearing. Anyone who wishes to speak on that ordinance. Come on up and just identify yourself please. Good evening, my name is Jonathan Farrell. I'm here in the capacity as Facilities Director for the Committee on Temporary Shelter. We are the owners of 187-189 Church Street, better known to many of you as the Wilson-Hoked Hell, and we are in favor of our parcel being included into the Form District 5 Boundaries. As Burlington grows and changes, we would like to also have the ability to follow Form District code and potentially expand the most affordable housing in our city. Thank you. Thank you very much. Anyone else would like to speak in the public hearing. Hearing none, going once, going twice, gone, and we will close that public hearing and move to the actual ordinance 6.04, Councillor Mason. Thank you, President Wright. I'd like to make a motion to waive the second reading, adopt the ordinance and ask for the floor back after a second. Seconded by Councillor Bushard, Councillor Mason, you have the floor back. Thank you, President Wright. The amendment before us seeks to modify the proposed boundaries of Form District 5 to include additional properties located along the boundaries of the current district, which is pretty much downtown for those watching. Properties considered for inclusion in FD5 district were evaluated for their current use, future potential use, development intensity and compatibility with adjacent properties. They've been recommended to be included in the FD5 in order to include the type and intensity of future infill or redevelopment with adjacent properties to enable greater flexibility for expansion or reuse of existing uses and structures and to reduce existing non-conforming, excuse me, non-conformities. There are 19 parcels that are being recommended for advancement. I think it's important to sort of talk about procedure and how we got here before turning it over to the Planning Commission. So to go into the way back time machine, we started the conversation on adopting form-based code, I don't even know, 2015. This council adopted after substantial conversations form-based code in 2017. At that time, before the Joint Committee, they were recommended that the form district be actually larger than what was advanced. And that was based on the Joint Committee's recommendation that let's start small, see how this goes and then come back to the table if they're to consider those additional parcels. This was started as a result of that conversation and was spurred in part by Mike Trombley at Advanced Music who reached out to the Planning Commission with some limitations in terms of what he was able to do with his property. And that has one of, that spurred a larger conversation by the Planning Commission. Again, looking at specific blocks and trying to figure out should be, in terms of our goal, in terms of incentivizing infill development, should we be looking at allowing greater density and those surrounding parcels. So the Planning Commission did that, I've got to look, in 2018, the Our Ordinance Committee City Councils held a series of hearings in 2018. That was a different Ordinance Committee, the one that is constituted now. We advanced that forward. Subsequent in 2018, subsequent to that, I will admit that the public input at that point was limited to say the least. Subsequent to that, there were a number of neighbors, particularly on South Champlain Street that approached and King Street that approached. And that forced the Ordinance Committee to go back and revisit some of the recommendations in terms of the parcels. Based on that conversation that ended, actually there were a series of hearings that ended in June, that is a result of the 19 parcels that were put forth back to the Planning Commission. Again, because we changed what they were recommending. The Planning Commission then advanced this, which was verbatim what the Ordinance Committee had recommended in August. However, I will note for the record that they've reserved the right to say, look, we may not agree with you that the parcels you pulled out shouldn't be included, and they sort of reserved their right down the road to ask us to put those back in. So that's the process of why we got here. I wanna speak a little bit to some of the public. I appreciate it may have been a little confusing, but Ms. Tuttle did walk our Ordinance Committee as she did with the Planning Commission, literally property by property to see is this right? Is this a parcel that we as a body are going to recommend be subject to form District Five? I will say from my perspective, it was a reasoned process, and it was also, I think, responsive to objections and concerns that we heard from the public. So with that, I would ask sort of, I think we're on a good move here in terms of trying to move the infill development, the affordable housing needle forward, and I think this is an important step to continuing those efforts. I would note Ms. Tuttle is here to answer any technical questions, or also turn it over if you have a statement to make above and beyond what I've stated. Megan, do you have anything to add or? One small thing. I think Councilor Mason did a wonderful job of summarizing the history of this amendment and all of the changes that it's gone through. One thing that I will add is that in both in the Planning Commission's discussions and in the City Council Ordinance Committee discussions, as Councilor Mason said, we looked at every single property and the very specific reasons why each property was being recommended to be included in this district. In many cases, we did the same thing for properties that were ultimately not recommended to be in this district. And of the criteria that Councilor Mason noted, the Planning Commission was looking at, the compatibility and the relationship to neighboring properties was one of the biggest factors in determining where the Planning Commission and the City Council Ordinance Committee ended those boundary lines for these proposed changes. Oftentimes, the potential for commercial uses to expand further into residential areas was a great limiting factor. That said, the Planning Commission has identified the need to revisit the conversation in these neighborhoods that are right immediately adjacent to the downtown area and look at essentially a form district four kind of district which allows some more of that flexibility for the intensity of development, the number of units, but maybe not all of the commercial benefits of the form district five boundary. So I anticipate this will be a discussion that we will have again. All right, thank you. Start out with Councilor Shannon. Thank you, President Wright. I wanna thank Megan Tuttle and David White and Councilor Mason and the Ordinance Committee all for being really very responsive, I think, to public concerns about this. And the basis of a lot of that concern is that form district five is a commercial district. There was concern in the neighborhood that they were going from a residential district to a commercial district. And I think that that was a legitimate concern and I appreciate, Megan, especially your responsiveness, both in email and personally, to explaining kind of why you had reached the conclusions that you had and taking another look at this. I think it is better for all of that effort and not everybody will agree. But I actually was pleased with this process and would note to Mr. Hunt that it is an ongoing process and that we can still have more discussions going forward. FD4 is a more residential form district. And so perhaps that offers something that the neighbors would see as more amenable to preserving their neighborhood character, really. And I just wanted, I was hoping that Councillor Mason might clarify my understanding from reading this is that the Cots building, Wilson Hotel, is included in this FD5, correct? Yes. Okay, thank you. Thank you, Councillor Shannon. Councillor Pine. Thank you, Mr. President. I have succeeded in knocking this cup over all night. Luckily it's empty. Having been involved in several of these processes over my, during my tenure at CEDO, I know how painstaking it is. There are some parcels and I unfortunately recognize every parcel here, practically I can tell you who owns it maybe, but there's a bunch that don't seem to make a lot of sense to me because you've straddled two different residential properties and yet you left out a surface parking lot. So I'm just trying to, in the south end there's some sites that look like I don't really understand how they were characterized as suitable for commercial redevelopment. So Councillor Pine, I think that the challenge is knowing which parcel specifically you're referring to. I mean, because I will say, for example, King Street, like there's tortured history in terms of why we did this or didn't do that. So I don't know if it's possible to- Yeah, I could pick one. If I could, it's at the very bottom of Maple Street. It's a single family house next to a duplex. All the way at the bottom on the right across from Magline Arrows. That's the one that stands out. Yes, why it was recommended to be included, yes. So those two properties and the surface parking lot that you mentioned were all part of the discussions that Councillors Mason and Shannon referred to. Originally when the Planning Commission forwarded this recommendation, all of those properties on the west side of South Champlain Street between King and Maple were recommended to be included in the Form District 5 boundaries. They were particularly looking at those sites both in terms of their present use today. Many of the developed properties on that side of the street are non-conforming for various reasons. And they were also looking at the future potential of that parking lot. How would we like to see that developed if it were to ever be redeveloped? So a lot of the concerns were more around some of the development intensity requirements that are part of Form District 5 versus part of the residential high density zone. Ultimately in working through the recommendations with the Council Ordinance Committee, we heard a lot of feedback from residents that live on the other side of South Champlain Street about the concern about the encroachment of commercial uses. So we ultimately removed those properties that front on South Champlain Street from the proposal. And then the same question if we could just move one block north, and I hate to be a stickler, but that's a brand new social housing building called the Debtman Place. And I wanna know why would that be included when the surface parking lots that span the entire rest of the block that go up to August 1st wouldn't be included? The parking lots that span up to August 1st are already included. Well, they're in there. Okay, thank you. Thank you, Councillor Pine. Councillor Busher. Yes, I just wanted to say that this was a challenging process and it was not meant to exclude anybody who wanted their property to be considered. But as a member of the Ordinance Committee, it had come from planning with those properties already identified. So I can't really speak to that process that began in planning that was then handed off to the Ordinance Committee. Although the history, as I understood it, was that during the whole big city council planning process with form district five, there had been, as Councillor Mason said, some requests to expand the boundary that was being discussed and make it broader. And so these properties were part of that conversation. But I wanted to remind, as Councillor Shannon did already, but I think it's really important to state that zoning isn't stagnant, zoning is fluid, there's opportunity for you to ask to have your property looked at and if you want it to be rezoned and it's contiguous with a zone currently in place, so it's not spot zoning, that conversation can occur. That happened for me and my ward where zoning didn't make sense and I brought it through the Planning Commission and ultimately got that zoning changed to be more reflective of the use and the potential for that property. So I just think it's really important. I think also that Councillor Mason did say that during this whole time, after we made a decision in the Ordinance Committee, we did go back to the residents themselves to make sure they were aware of the changes that we had made to give them once again another opportunity to weigh in. So we tried to be as inclusive as possible. It's not a perfect process and so obviously some people didn't feel like their voices got heard, but we do the best we can and try to give people the opportunity for zoning changes. It begins in planning, comes to the city in Ordinance and then finally comes here for final adoption. So I'm hoping people are aware of their chance to weigh in. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Buscher. Are we ready to vote? The motion on the table is to wave the second reading and adopt the ordinance. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That passes unanimously. Great work to the team and the Ordinance Committee and Councillor Mason. Thank you as chair. 5.05 is a resolution on the Housing Policy Reforms. Councillor Mason. Thank you, President Wright. I'd like to make the motion to waive the re... No, we're gonna get caught up. I'm sorry. They can make a motion to waive the reading and adopt the resolution as drafted. Moved by Councillor Mason. Seconded by Councillor Paul. You have the floor back, Councillor Mason. Thank you. I'm sorry I got messed up because I thought that was a referral, but that's included in the resolution. Well, buckle up just based on public comment. This is gonna be a controversial process. The resolution before us is a series of proposals that would be referred, or at least four of the five, to the Joint Ordinance Planning Commission for Subsequent Public Hearing and the final proposed reform to the Charter Change Committee for its consideration. These proposals are a direct result of the BTV Housing Summit held on June 11th and the BTV Housing Summit to held on September 4th, 2019. At each of these two public hearings, input was heard from residents, stakeholders, and the public on these proposals specifically related to housing policy. This resolution recognizes that in addition to the four proposals to be referenced, the administration has asked CEDO to complete a review of tenant protections and deliver that review and recommendations to the council by month end. It also recognizes our efforts on an ancillary related, but tied to the city's net zero energy goals. At a very high level, these four proposals can be summarized as follows. The first calls for an updating of our standards for energy efficiency and rental housing in order to support our climate goals and protect renters from unreasonably high utility costs. The second proposal encourages the creation of accessory dwelling units to support homeowners aging in place, help owners continue to afford their homes and add affordable housing options within neighborhoods. The third proposal asks to consider implementation of a regulatory framework for short-term rentals that reduce the impact on long-term housing availability while recognizing the economic that certain Berlingtonians are currently enjoying. The fourth proposal seeks to revise the city's approach to minimum parking requirements in order to reduce the cost to construct, maintain and lease housing units, allow more space for additional housing units and support a robust system of transportation alternatives. The final proposal asks the Charter Change to consider the restoration and increase in the city's level of funding in order to support the Housing Trust Fund. I think for the public to understand, this is, because I got a lot of flurry of emails today thinking that we were adopting all of this. And I think it's important to note that if this does pass, there will be significant additional public process. There are already scheduled two or three or more hearings before the joint committee. And I assume the Charter Change committee will also have, it will also come back before this council for adoption. So I think it's important to send that we are not moving forward, other than to recommend that these different groups take up the proposals. And I would expect based on the input we received tonight and the flurry of emails I got today, there will be a very robust public discussion on a number of these initiatives. I think it's important to recognize the cross-departmental team of city staff that not only helped advance these proposals and formulate them, but also did it from my estimation an excellent job in terms of managing the public forums and engaging the public. I'd also like to thank counselors Paul, Chang, Roof, Paulino for their co-sponsorship, as well as counselors Hanson, Shannon and Pine for the active string of recommendations that came across over the past week. And with that, I hope you will consider joining me in moving this resolution forward. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Mason. Open to the council, to discussion with the city council who wants to jump in. Ready to vote? Councillor Pusher. So. I took a shot. This is a resolution that a lot of I really support and I support the mayor and his housing summits and I support the work that the departments did to distill all of that information and come up with some recommendations. What the problem I had with this is probably what Councillor Mason received emails about is that it felt to me when I read it that it was telling me that my role was to implement all of this without discussion. It was to implement to, I'll take the ADUs to make it at 30% or 800 feet and 800 square feet, not 800 feet. And I don't know if I'm there. I need to think about that. I need to think about all of these. I need the input from the community to understand if this is the right way to go. Yes, we want to make ADUs more available. One of the barriers that we haven't dealt with is the affordability piece, which was one of the things we identified that people can't necessarily create those. And so my point is not to belabor it because I could go through a number of these and say yes, I think yes for this and no, I have reservations about that. I need more discussion. So I'm hesitant to sign on to a resolution that says that I am supportive of all of these initiatives when in full conscience, I believe that we're going in the right direction but I'm not sure I'm there with the final outcome. And so here I am stuck with a process that I wholeheartedly believe in and want to engage in and feel reluctant to say yes to a resolution before me. That's very challenging. I've been here before and I am not sure how I'm going to handle it but I wanted to speak to that so that the rest of the council understood my reservation. So thank you. Thank you, Councilor Bush. My apologies, I was starting this off with remarks from the mayor. So we'll just do that now, remarks from the mayor and then we'll go to Megan and then back to the council. Great, thank you President Wright. And excuse me, thank you Councilor Mason for and then the other co-sponsors for bringing this to the floor and for introducing it Councilor Mason. I want to start by echoing the point that there has been a huge team of multi-departmental team really more so than any initiative I can remember over the last seven and a half years that has been working on this effort since the spring. Megan and Olivia in my office I think have been the leaders of that team in a lot of ways but it has also taken huge efforts from Chris Burns at the Berlin Electric Department, David White at the planning department has a planning director of course and Ian and Cito has been a leader, continued to be a leader with the ADU effort and I've started down this path and I'm gonna forget, omit people, not forget, but omit people, key people who have played roles throughout and have really made it possible to get through two major summits and involved contributions from hundreds of Verlintonians and get this tonight. Even that doesn't really fully capture the effort that has gone into this of course in that a lot of ways I see tonight is taking a step towards finishing the housing action plan that the council unanimously approved in 2015 and that Councillor Pine reminded me in a lot of ways started out in the early days of this administration when Councillor Pine was still our housing go-to person within Cito and conversations about what we could do to jumpstart this, to take another run at improving housing affordability and equity in Burlington and there's a reason that these items, these five items or four of them were in the housing action plan. We really hadn't grappled, I don't believe, with the short-term rental issue in the housing action plan but the other four items were all noted in one way or another in the housing action plan. There's a reason I think that these are sort of the last ones. They are in some sense, some of the harder work to do to address our housing issues. On the other hand, I think they are changes that could have an enormous impact if we can double buckle down and get to consensus and get this right. I think there's the opportunity to create hundreds of new homes for Burlington residents in the years ahead, relatively a few years ahead if we are able to make some of these changes and significantly expand our permanently affordable housing stock as well as do more to protect and support tenants that are living in this community and facing very high housing costs, including utilities costs. I'm gonna turn this over in a moment for Megan to walk through a few of the details. Not many, we wanna get to the discussion. We've been talking for a long time. Since the spring, it's now the council's turn with this. I would just like to inject a note of optimism as we start this. I think housing can be an issue that the challenges have been around so long that it can feel like an unsolvable issue, something that we really can't make much progress on. In fact, despite our all efforts and by some measures it seems like housing affordability just keeps getting worse and worse. I urge the council to see this as a problem that we can solve. In fact, I think if you look at recent years there's a lot of evidence that we are making considerable progress. We have built or preserved more than 500 permanently affordable homes over the last seven years in Burlington. We have continuing on, I really stress hurry to add, continuing what has been a very proud Burlington tradition of Burlington, building permanently affordable housing for at least three decades. We have made improvements with our code enforcement efforts. The code enforcement office is functioning better than it has ever and we are doing more to protect tenants living in Burlington rental houses from being victimized or unresponded to than we ever have and continue to improve those systems. We have notably, I think as a departure from some of the relatively recent history, we have made progress addressing the housing, our problems within the housing market of having the market actually create more homes and that has created more than 600 new market rate apartments in the last, in recent years and it has doubled the housing vacancy level, still at unacceptably low levels and it has started to have an impact on rising rental inflation. We actually are seeing rental inflation now, at least in the last couple of years, lower than broader inflation, which is a sign of some progress. I say all this to urge us to double down on the strategies that are having an impact and keep moving forward and have the courage that we can do something about this issue. Final point I want to make before handing it over to Megan is to say what is not here because I have found in talking about this for the last six months that it is important to acknowledge right up front that this is, although this is a comprehensive package and does do many things, it does not address all issues of the housing crisis and it is important I think for the public to know that we are working on those other critical elements. We are working, in fact, the last time we convened as a council, we extended our housing agreement with the UVM with the explicit intent of amending that agreement within this extension period, which is until next summer, so that we do see more progress on the creation of purpose-built student rentals. Not in this resolution, or it's referenced in the resolution, but not one of the action items on one of the resolve clauses is further efforts on tenant protection, rent or protection work. We have simultaneous with this task, I have tasked CEDO with coming to this council by the end of this month with having reviewed all the tenant protection work that is going on, that has been suggested in the housing summits and that has been going on elsewhere in the country to make sure that Burlington is doing all that it should to protect tenants in the community. So with those caveats, I hand it over to Megan for some additional detail. A few additional comments, Megan? Only a few. Again, Councilor Mason did an excellent job of summarizing what we've provided to you here tonight. Just go over those really quickly again. The recommendation, the first recommendation regarding energy efficiency and rental housing is specifically to look at amending our current time of sale ordinance to make it applicable as part of the minimum housing code in order to achieve those goals that Councilor Mason talked about, strengthening our response to the split incentive paradigm, improving energy efficiency and quality for rental housing, lowering utility costs, and making a significant improvement on our energy efficiency goals. The proposal to expand the construction of accessory dwelling units is specifically to amend parts of our zoning ordinance to further our work. We've been doing this for a few years to make it more permissible for ADUs to be built in the city in order to afford all of those benefits that Councilor Mason talked about for aging in place and adding affordable housing options within our neighborhoods. Creating a regulatory framework for short-term rentals is a really important one in that the proposal that has been put in front of you recognizes that there are different types of short-term rentals that offer varying degrees of benefit and impact within Burlington. And the proposal that we have shared helps us to actually disincentivize the most impactful of those uses in order to limit the impact on the city's long-term housing stock, but ensure that some of those conversions can still take place because we recognize that, like ADUs and other forms of housing, these can have benefits to the host and to the Burlington economy. Regarding the requirements for parking, we would like to amend our zoning ordinance once again to look at how many new parking spaces must be created as part of new development within certain parts of the city in order to help us reduce some of those barriers that drive up cost and actually, in some ways, dampen the creation of homes within our community. While we also look at other mechanisms for us to support investment in alternative forms of transportation and the systems that support that. And then finally, looking at how we can increase and sustain the level of investment in the Housing Trust Fund to a level that this council and the administration have been committing to the fund, but to make sure that that level of investment is sustainable over time and is not devalued by inflation and other changes in the market. And then finally, related to this, we'll be coming before you the proposal or the recommendation, the review and recommendations around renter protections. So the last thing I just wanna say is to build off of the comments that counselors Mason and Bush are shared is that this resolution is not a final vote on these issues. It's actually asking us to begin the hard work of digging into each of these issues and evaluating exactly how we want to move these forward. We have, as counselor Mason noted, we have been working with the Planning Commission and the City Council Ordinance Committee to get them prepped to have some meetings as soon as we're able to, to start talking about the three amendments that have to do with zoning. The short-term rental, the accessory dwelling unit and the parking proposals so that we can really work through the details of that. The City Council Ordinance Committee itself will then look at the energy efficiency in rental housing proposal. We will have the Charter Change Committee look at proposed language that would help us to ensure the stability of the Housing Trust Fund. And then ultimately the Community Development and Neighborhood Revitalization Committee will review those recommendations on tenant protections. So a lot of work in the months ahead, we're just kicking, we're asking for you to kick off that process with the resolution here tonight. And then the last thing I'll say, just for the benefit of those that might be watching, is that there is a web link on the screen for people to follow along with the process that we hope will follow from tonight. Thank you. Just before we start going to the counselors, I just want a process question just to be clear. And I know you just said this is just the beginning of the process. So if a counselor, me or any other counselor has, supports a lot of this, but has concerns about any particular item, this will all be coming back to us. It's gotta go be worked on. And how will it come back? And will it come back as there will be opportunities to vote on each one of the different items at some point or as one big proposal? So each one of these will have a different deliverable, I guess I'll call it, in terms of what the council will actually take action on in the future. In some cases, that will be the approval of language for a charter change question to be put on the ballot. In other cases, it might be an actual red line version of a zoning amendment that you would look at and consider through the typical process that any zoning amendment would go through. So the deliverable for each one of them will be, for many of them will be different and will be distinct. So the line about supporting the administration's goal of pursuing the above reference housing policy reforms, we're just supporting the administration's goal, but not necessarily the final product until it comes back. Exactly, you will have a chance to vote on each one of those when we come back. Thank you. Councillor Shannon. Thank you, President Wright. This does seem a little bit unusual to me in that it's starting as a resolution with a great deal of specificity. And usually we see this kind of specificity in a first reading of an ordinance, but I think that that's also okay because it kind of adds, I think it presents these ideas very specifically for discussion and I assume that it comes back to the, you will draft an ordinance for the things that are going to be an ordinance, that it will come back for a first reading. We'll have opportunity to have input on that first draft of the ordinance and then it goes back to the committee and we'll have it for more work and then it will come back as a second reading. Is that all correct? I'm kind of getting nods, but President Wright, is it okay if Ms. Tuttle responds? Yes. Yes, so each of these in the sense of zoning amendments that do first and second read, these will come back to the council for that process as any zoning amendment typically would. One of the things that we have been working with counselor Mason on is to actually bring the city council's ordinance committee into a joint process with the planning commission so that they can work on the zoning related pieces of this together. But again, when their work and their recommendations come forward to the city council, there will still be the opportunity for the council to have the first and second read and if they would like to make more changes to those proposals. Okay, thank you. With that, I share all of counselor Busher's concerns. My conclusion is I'm going to support this because I think that it starts a discussion in a very good way and there are, I would like to just state for the record some of the concerns that I have in the specificity of this language. So the first concern I have is line 88, eliminating the parking requirement for ADUs. Also, since I created my own red line draft here, it's possible that there's been some amendments and I have the lines wrong, but eliminating parking requirements for ADUs. I am not necessarily opposed to that, but I think there may be other options worth considering as well, such as allowing tandem parking to meet the requirement. So I'm not sure that eliminating the parking requirement is the best idea or that it has to be one solution in all areas. There might be some areas where a different solution is better. The next concern I had is line 104, limiting the number of whole unit short-term rentals within a building so that any building with four or more short-term rentals is considered a hotel. Actually, I would like to consider other options and possibly more restrictive, not allowing these short-term rentals in many cases because what we really need is housing for people who live here more than we need housing for our tourists. And I think that there was a lot of discussion about that at the work session, so I don't object to that particular solution, but think other solutions should also be considered. And then lastly, line 116, eliminating the requirement for a minimum number of parking spaces for new development that is within downtown neighborhood activity center and neighborhood mixed use zoning districts. I think that that should be reviewed, but again, I'm not convinced that eliminating parking requirements is the best answer. I know that some people believe that eliminating parking requirements will reduce our carbon footprint, but I'm not sure that that's really the case. I'm not sure that people will drive less cars. I think that sometimes they'll just, the impact is transferred elsewhere. It puts a lot of stress on the community when people can't find parking spaces, where they need to find parking spaces and often pushes the problem to the next neighborhood. So I would like that to be more broadly considered. Thank you. Thank you, Councilor Shannon. Councilor Hanson, are you prepared to put your amendment forward? That wasn't next to the staff, but sure. All right, let's get that on the table. Okay, yeah, so it's attached in the, it's attached online, proposed amendments. I don't know if we can put them on the screen or not, but I'll start with the first one. So I think in just speaking more generally, I'm really glad to see that we've included more work around renter protections, tenant protections and really wanna thank a lot of the tenants who came out to the Housing Summit and really pushed for that inclusion. I think it's really critical that we don't forget about that as we move forward in other ways. So the first amendment that I'd like to introduce is on line 26, insert after the word rating, comma, and the city is committed to increasing awareness of this information and making it more accessible and user-friendly. And I would ask for the floor back after a second on that. I was asking for the floor back after a second. Okay, so the motion, the amendments have been moved, seconded by Councillor Freeman. Councillor Hanson, you have the floor back. So this amendment is, there's a whereas pause, line 26 discussing, let me just read it. So whereas the city has also continued to strengthen, it begins on line 24, ends on line 26. The city has also continued to strengthen its enforcement efforts, including implementing the five-star rating system that allows tenants to see the compliance history of a rental before they sign a lease and indicates the properties compliance with minimum housing standards by way of a one to five rating. I find that very misleading and having attempted to use what we're referring to here through the city website, it's very hard for someone who's not deeply, deeply involved in city processes to understand what they're looking at when you pull up the document. Even for me, I don't fully understand what I'm looking at here. And the meaningful component of it that I can see, which is there's a line buried in other information, COC expires expiration date, and then in parentheses, one year COC. I know what that means. I know that one year COC means this is a property that has had issues with code enforcement, so much so that they were put on the faster cycle. But I don't think most people are gonna read that line and understand that. I'm glad that we're moving in this direction, but we really shouldn't say that we're there yet. This isn't a system that is usable for prospective tenants yet at this point. So I think it's really critical that we not only say that and acknowledge that, but also that we do commit to working towards making it user-friendly accessible, because it's really critical that people understand what they're getting into before signing a lease. That's all I've got on that one. Okay, have you completed your amendments? Just the first one. Just the first one. Okay, all right, Councillor Paul. Thank you, President Wright. So the five-star system came as a result of a resolution that was done in 2012 on landlord accountability. I remember it well because I wrote it. And the idea was to have a system so that tenants would have one more tool to be able to evaluate properties. In order for us to be able to use the system in the way that you are encouraging, Councillor Hanson, is that, or to President Wright, to Councillor Hanson, is all of the properties had to be evaluated. It wouldn't be fair for some to be evaluated and not all to be evaluated and be using the same system. So it took three years to do that. That was just done in the last couple of months. I have been in touch with Brian Lowe, our Chief Innovation Officer. It does take a fair amount of effort to get all of that online. And I'm waiting to hear back from him on whether or not that can be done by the end of the year. That will be put into a resolution that I'm working on for a subsequent meeting. I mean, I'm happy to support this now, but I do want the public to know that that is actively being worked on. It is not something that we just simply had the five-star system and now we're going to leave it. The entire idea behind the system was for it to be another tool for tenants to be able to evaluate a property. And the idea behind the five-star rating system was not to shame landlords or property owners. It was to raise the bar in the hopes that all properties would become five-stars. That being said, those properties that are one-star, the public deserves to know what those properties are. And that's the idea behind getting all of it online so that it can be looked at in a way that you're referring to. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Powell. Councillor Roof. Just super quickly, following up on Council, I see this, I'm going to support this. I see it as non-controversial. If anyone looks up community innovation proposal on the city website, you'll see something that's put out by the Chief Brian Lowe's office and as well as my professional work, BTV Ignite is partnering on this to create a lightweight app that's going to take all, much of what is being talked about here and put it into an app that can be disseminated for free out into the public so people can make those judgments as they go into the rental market. So this is good, right on the mark. The work is happening. I think this is non-controversial. Thanks. All right, great. Thank you, Councillor Roof. I think that it seems like we have solid support for this. Do we may be ready to vote? I'll be quick. All right, Councillor Hanson. I just wanted to say briefly, just thank you for that additional information. And I think, as you said, I think that plays right into this language of the ongoing commitment to improving this. So let's vote on this one. We can move to the next one. All those in favor of this amendment, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That passes unanimously. So that amendment has passed. And I'll give us the next one. Okay, great. So the next amendment is after line 129, insert derevising parking maximums so as to prevent an overbuilding of parking that would undermine the goals of this policy change. So this is in relation to the elimination of minimum parking requirements in certain zones. And I think we've laid out clearly tonight and we got to hear from several folks during public comment and from car share Vermont on the importance of transportation demand management and really shifting the system to disincentivize individual car ownership and single occupancy vehicle simultaneously incentivizing alternatives including car share, including biking, public transit, walking. And I think one of the goals stated out in this policy is to really reduce the overbuilding of parking because not only does it have an adverse impact on our transportation system but also on the cost of housing as well. So I think with that being the goal and wanting to avoid this overbuilding of parking that we've seen, I think a simple way to help to do that is to have appropriate maximums that literally prevent that overbuilding. And I think we can identify a level that allows us to do that through continued work. So that's the idea behind this. I think just to throw out there probably whatever level we would land on I personally would probably still see it as too high. I think it's gonna be a compromise but I do think we can get to a place where this is relevant and this helps us towards these goals. Okay, we need a second to this. Seconded by Councillor Tracy. And now we'll open up anyone. Any comments on this? All right, hearing none, we're ready to vote. All those in favor of this amendment, please say aye. Any opposed? Passes unanimous. No, no, no. Oh, okay. Raise your hands if you're opposed again, please. Councilors, there's two no votes. Councilor Polino and Councilor Shannon. So that passes by a vote of 10 to two. Councilor Hanson. Those were my two amendments. That's it. Thank you. All right, thank you, Councilor Hanson and we are now back to the resolution as amended. So I go back to the, Councillor Jang, you are up next to be followed by Councillor Tracy and then Freeman. Thank you, President. So I think what I'm about to say is also I've been, I shared it with the mayor and also asked a couple of questions to a couple of the city councils to try to understand the number 12, whereas these strategies have also focused on reducing chronic homelessness, including implementing a coordinating entry system. And the housing support to the housing support and to end resources for people experiencing homelessness. I think based on my understanding, it was a little bit for a lack of a better word, weird, how we have a summit about housing and not mention homelessness anywhere. People discuss in groups, but homelessness that the people did not talk about it at all. And to me, I think that there is a tie to it. And in this resolution, it's saying that these strategies are proposing, are strategically applying to it. So, and I wanted to understand to date, Mr. Mayor, how much of a, in terms of resources, have we been allocated to the issue of homelessness and why that issue was not included in this effort? That's a question to the mayor. Question for the mayor. Great, well, first of all, I think it's important to note that in a very significant way, homelessness is part of the resolution and that we're talking about expanding the Housing Trust Fund significantly. Expanding the Housing Trust Fund is the main mechanism the city has to invest local resources in anti homelessness efforts, which we have done in recent years, for example, with the, using really for the first time, local funds to expand the operations of the winter warming shelter. So, I very much see that this is really one of the most direct things that we, as a city, can do to address homelessness is put more resources into it. And that's exactly what the Housing Trust Fund expansion is in part aimed at doing. So, I guess that's one important point. I don't quite accept the premise of the, I think it's important to note, homelessness is very much part of the discussion. If the question is like what else has this city done or why is that whereas clause in there? Well, the city has made, had been, the city and the many partners who are involved in working on homelessness have made some real progress with respect to homelessness in recent years. The chronic homelessness numbers are down significantly from their peak several years ago. The family's living with homelessness has gone down consistently for many years, year after year now in terms of the number of families with children living in homelessness. This progress has resulted from specific policy changes that the city has either led or supported, been a part of notably the housing first model which was a real shift in the way the very substantial amount of local and state resources and federal resources that we have to combat homelessness the way that they are addressed, the way they are prioritized has had a big impact on that. Final point, the other, I think, major change to the landscape and the reason why that whereas clause is in there is that for five years in a row now we have had a winter warming shelter. That was something the community had not moved forward with until five years ago. This council and the administration came together to support moving that direction that's been a very critical change that I think has saved lives and which the city is actively for several years now work to expand and work to create some sort of low barrier option during the warm weather months. So I hope that addresses what Councillor Jang is driving. Not really, but it's okay. I think we can continue to explore ways that we can reduce homelessness. And I think to your report, it seems that what we, what have been reported in this community is actually chronic homelessness is on the rise while homelessness is going down. I think there is, it's important to make that distinction. But I wanted to also just really say to the member of the community that like many of you, all that we have been receiving in terms of communication is the city council is going to make these recommendation and today. And I think Megan outlined it clearly that this is just the second step. And I think the first step went incredibly well. This room was packed of people, the community members who came here, divided in groups, and then that led to this resolution. But still, we are now in the phase of refining it and also to bring real concrete proposal and that will allow us to move forward. And I think since Brian Pine, Mr. Consular Brian Pine was the director of CEDAW around housing, the issue has been here. I want to salute this effort because it is going to move us to the next step. Thank you all and thank you, especially Chip Mason and Mayor's Chiefs of Staff, communication person for being very diligent in reaching out to us in making sure that what we want to see, I think it was well thought. This is something that I'm very proud to support. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Jang. Councillor Tracy, then Freeman and Pine. Thank you, President Wright, appreciate it. And I definitely share a lot of the concerns that have been raised about these and I look at this as sort of a first step in terms of considering a number of these issues. But a couple of things that stand out to me are specifically around the parking minimums and really wanting to see a trade-off because there is a real savings in the part of developers when you don't require them to build in parking. That's really recognized in a lot of the documentation that we've heard and so I would like to see us consider balancing that out with some sort of something to really incentivize and create the funds to help us to essentially drive that forward. So that's something that I think needs more consideration and more balance as far as this ordinance goes. On the accessory dwelling units, I really agree with the concern that's been echoed specifically around the conversion of entire units. I certainly hear the folks who are saying that they need to rent out a room in their house on a short-term basis in order to stay in their house but the conversion of entire units and in fact multiple units within buildings has a really detrimental impact on affordable housing stock and just on neighborhood fabric. So I think that we need to put more pressure on short-term rentals when it comes to those entire unit conversions. And then finally, and this is really, this comes more in the line of a question which has to do with the last point which has to deal with the Housing Trust Fund which is that Burlington residents in a town meeting day referendum several years ago very strongly supported looking specifically at progressive forms of taxation to increase the Housing Trust Fund. So what I'm wondering and perhaps the mayor can answer this, perhaps Megan can answer this is if you can answer the degree to which the tax that is being contemplated to be sent to the Charter Change Committee would in fact be a progressive form of taxation meaning that wealthier folks would pay more and if so how it actually does that and then also in addition to that what other forms of progressive taxation were looked at before this partic