for public participation before we begin. All votes taken in this meeting will be done by roll call vote in accordance with the law. If Zoom crashes, the meeting will be continued to February 27th, 2024. Let's start the meeting by taking a roll call attendance of DRP members participating tonight. Nate Andrews. Here. Paul Christensen. Rosa. Lisa Brayden-Harter. Here. Scott Riley is absent. David Turner. Here. John Hemmelgarn is absent. The chair is present. We have five in attendance. We need four for our quorum. So we do meet the quorum requirements. Next up is Zoom instructions. Simon. Okay. Item number one on the agenda is the public quorum. This is an opportunity for members in the audience or participating by Zoom to address the board on any items that are not on tonight's agenda. Is there anything anyone wants to bring forth to the board at this time? Okay. Very good. So now we'll go into agenda item number two. This is the public hearing of tonight's agenda. We have three items on the agenda. HP 24-01, which is a request for a certificate of appropriateness on 77-79 Penny Lane. Next item is DP 24-14, which is a pre-app for a 72,000 square foot building on Redmond Road. And lastly, there's appeal 24-02. This is continued from January 8th of 2024. Okay. First up is HP 24-01, Michelle Carr. Are you present? I believe Chapin is zooming in. Okay. Great. Is Chapin online? Yeah. Okay. Great. Chapin, would you say your name and address for the record, please? Sure. This is Chapin Caner, 77 Penny Lane. Great. Welcome. Staff goes first. Thanks, Pete. This is a request for a certificate of appropriateness to replace the roof. This home is located in the Williston Village National Register Historic District, known as the Lion Apartment House. This house has seen many changes over time, including being moved back from Williston Road to its current location. The slate roof, there was a slate roof on the home. It was removed in the early 1980s and is currently an asphalt shingle roof. There is a addition to the home that was put on in the 1990s. So what the applicant is proposing to do is replace the asphalt shingle on the main historic block of the home to a standing scene metal. And also on the more modern 1990s addition, replace the shingles with standing scene metal as well. There is a turret on the home, which was added in 1894. In 2020, the homeowner did some restoration to it and repaired the slate. That would remain slate. And the applicant is proposing a charcoal gray to match the slate color. The hack reviewed this on February 6th and recommended compliance as proposed. Thank you. Great. Thank you. Okay. Jaypen, what else do you have to add to this? Nothing really. We would prefer to have standing scene metal for two primary reasons. One is that it lasts longer and another is that if we put solar on the back side of the roof, it would be nice to have something that doesn't need to be replaced as often. And standing scene seems more appropriate even than the asphalt shingles that are on it currently. Okay. Thank you. DRV members. Any questions? So will you be doing, this is Dave Turner, will you be doing the porches and everything with the same metal roofing? Yes, there actually are no porches at this point, but the idea is that we would use the same roofing on the additions as well as on the main block. The second picture you have shows the way it is today, more or less. Okay. Last picture. That looks now, yeah. Okay, so basically all roof services will be standing scene metal roof with the exception of the turret. Yep. Yes. Okay. Thank you. Okay, DRV members, any other questions? Members of the audience, any questions or comments? Any final words, Chapin? No, just we are pretty aware and have, as you know, replaced the turret with slate and that addition that you're seeing there with the garage lower and the two over two divided light windows, we tried to match everything with every change we've done to this house. Okay, great. It's 709. We're going to close HP 24-01. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, next up is DP 24-14. This is the pre-app for Chittenden Solid Waste District, who is representing the applicants tonight. You would state your name and address the record. I am Greg Dixon from Krebsen Lansing Consulting Engineers, the civil engineer on the project. And Josh has the director of the finance and hazardous waste for Chittenden Solid Waste District. Great. Welcome to you both. Just a little bit. Okay. Who has this for staff, Simon? Yeah, I've got this one. Okay. So this is a request for pre-application review of the new materials recovered recovery facility. I believe known as the Merck on Redmond mode in the industrial zoning district east. The applicant is the Chittenden Solid Waste District. The applicant probably do a better job than me explaining what it is, but it's basically where large loads of gluten recycling are sorted and prepared for market. And it is going to replace the existing outdated Solitude on Avenue C. The building itself is approximately 72,000 square feet, as well as the industrial aspect of the sorting facility also includes office floor space and then the site work on this parking lot, access road and an outdoor storage area. Staff is recommending that the DRB take testimony, discuss any issues in the report and allow the application to proceed to the discretionary product. We did not receive any written public comment on this application. DRB should probably know that the development is a regional solid waste facility, so it enjoys partial exemption from our bylaws. This means that the CSWD must comply with them, but only to the extent that it does not interfere with their intended functional use. So if there is an element of development that does not comply, they are allowed to do that if it interferes with their functional use out of the burden of demonstrating that does rest of the application applicant. In terms of dimensional standards for the IZEE, there's a maximum building height of 36 feet. If the building exceeds this height limit, as I mentioned previously, the applicant would have to demonstrate why that's necessary for the functional use. For example, if there's a large piece of equipment or something along those lines, we do anticipate some signs for the other dimensional standards and bylaw. Can you stop for a second? So is the proposed building going to exceed 36 feet? So no, by the calculation of taking the average elevation around the building, because the building, as you can see, kind of is into a hill, it will meet that. We'll add that calculation to the plan during discretionary permit. But the reason that it is so tall is because of the equipment inside of it. So. But using the average. The methodology and our bylaws, you meet the 36 feet. Correct. Okay, continue Simon. So we do have an outdoor storage area proposed next to the new access road, which is sort of on the way in just for the scale. See it there. WDB 35, it is not 25, does state that they should be buckled in public ways and adjoining properties. We do have a residential property, 511 Redmond Road, which is opposite of the new access road. And while it is some distance, we are recommending that the applicant does just sort of plug gaps, so to speak in the vegetation on the road, to provide a bit more screening. And that sort of ties in with a wider recommendation on landscape uproaring, later on in this split. In terms of access, they're proposing access directly to Redmond Road, which is acceptable, taking it from roughly the existing position of the curb cut, serving the residential dwelling that will be demolished on the property. Recommending that the square train permit, the applicant does confirm that they meet all the detailed requirements by law in terms of things like grade, alignment and sight lines and so on. We are recommending a traffic study, which the DRB can do with the application. These traffic studies typically determine whether traffic would warrant intersection improvements for access improvements for parcel. So we're just recommending trip data for cars and trucks and an explanation of whether intersection modelling is required, and if so, to do that modelling. In terms of parking, again, we do anticipate compliance. You're probably familiar that we have maximum parking standards and that applicants are required to provide 80% of that maximum. Industrial uses are very diverse, so we'll sort of take their lead on what's required for the sorting element, and then we do have a little more detail of the standard for the office aspect. So we're just recommending that they provide a detailed breakdown so we can make sure we're compliant. Short-term bike parking for visitors and long-term bike parking for employees. Should be provided. Ultimately, the quantity is derived from the amount of car parking they're proposing, but they should meet the requirements of bylaw for that and probably provide an end of trip facility as well. For on-site infrastructure, it's on town water, but not town sewer, so there are a few people to deal with there and it's satisfied public works on the water supply and also provide us with information.  Maintenance in terms of snow storage and solid waste, we're going to display compliance and the site plan should show these two items of discretionary permit. With regard to WDV-18 nuisances, litter removal is a continuing condition of approval, which means they are expected to continue doing that, same as any other development in the town. It does state the where solid waste water materials may become airborne, they must be fenced or screened to express blowing litter. So in the sort of the storage area we talked about earlier, should we just discuss whether any sort of loose materials might be stored there that might be distributed across the hillside and whether any screening is necessary and if so, what should be provided. Moving on to landscaping, the DRB probably already listed an area where they enjoy considerable discretion and they're disturbing. Determining landscape buffers is an important exercise of adjustment. In this case, you can see the property lines to the East and South Port of Belka and there's fairly good type one landscape buffers there, so we're not recommending anything additional. We normally don't require buffering between parcels in the same ownership, so CSWD do own the land to the North, so we're not recommending a buffer along the Northern property line and then you are required to buff the public ways. Normally this is through street trees or in some occasions that's like four landscape buffer. There is an exception to the street tree policies where the road goes through public, sorry, existing woods. So I think on this one, we have a staff belt that street trees might be out of character with this section of the road, but in order to make sure we do meet the buffer requirements for this large facility, we're just sort of recommending that they plug the gaps again with some informal landscaping, sort of the type of, I believe, probably landscape buffers fill in those gaps with some larger instrument trees. And then lastly on landscaping, my point is the parking lot in more than 20 tourist spaces, it doesn't need to be broken up with landscape dialing is 25% of the parking area. Conservation areas, the subject of, it's subject to the minimum well up back area. You can see the core habitat, which is shaded in green there, and then the wildlife travel corridor which is the ground hash. Happily they avoid most of the core habitat, they're mainly developing the white area. They do have a kind of across that wildlife corridor with their access road. So we're recommending habitat disturbance assessment and the voucher proposed mitigation. We did discuss that this in detail at Conservation Commission and I think we're pretty confident we can come up with some mitigation that's going to work for this particular proposal. Again, with watershed protection buffers, there are delineated wetlands on the proposal. We have shown these on the site plan and them together with their 50 foot buffers are outside the development area. There's also an unnamed intermittent stream which sort of runs just to the norm for that wildlife corridor there. They are crossing that stream but that is acceptable as it looks like they're minimizing the width and length of crossing. And I know they're speaking to them on A&R about that crossing. Outlaw lighting, really that recommendation that they comply with our very detailed requirements and also provide us information about light timing to make sure that those turned off when the business is in on an operation, perhaps through the use of motion sensors. And then lastly on official map, you're probably aware the official map shows future infrastructure planned by the town including such things as crowds of connections. And so required to accommodate the infrastructure in that proposal. So just to clarify something as I know of course a little bit of confusion with the recommendations, the design connections so the infrastructure is actually outside of their past. The town does already have these mental and velcro for a footpath in that area. The official map is what we should be flying in this particular case. So I've struck through that conservation recommendation on providing trail easement. I'll probably just amend the procedure for conservation commission staff reports to clarify that in the future. So that's it, probably just an interesting point that has them up as a public facility, CSWD do not pay transportation fees. Instead they actually have a host town agreement with the town which is negotiated with a select board and sort of a massive agreement for all their operations which sets up limits what they can do and also provides for them to provide us funding for impacts and in lieu of taxes. So what follows is a recommendation and a motion for approval. Great, thank you Simon. Okay, walk us through the project. Yeah, so I wanted to start out by just sort of mentioning the Murph is, the existing Murph is on Avenue C as Simon mentioned but not to be confused with the Cassella transfer station that is on Avenue B. So those are two separate facilities. The Murph is actually kind of tucked up in the back corner of Avenue B. But what this facility is is it takes bulk recycled goods and then using a machine in the building processes those goods into their different materials and then preps them to be hauled off. Simon did a pretty good job of explaining it. There's the large access road and a lot of pavement on this project that's mostly for large vehicle turnings as well as queuing of different trucks to get them off Redmond Road and onto this road. There is a queuing issue with using the scale. So that's the reason for the long road. Some other aspects, as Simon said, we will have an onsite septic system. The system is designed for 30 employees and then also some visitors because the Murph does have groups come and see what goes on there and checks everything out. So that 720 covers all the employees plus some flow for that as well. That'll be a mound system that is kind of tucked up in between the Velco laydown road and the top of the parcel. And we've done quite a bit of soil investigations to make sure that that was the appropriate place to put it. We will be also receiving a state stormwater permit for this project. We obviously have over an acre or over a half acre of impervious surface. So we'll work with state stormwater to develop a system. Most of it will be gravel wetlands. We'll have three gravel wetlands and then one infiltration basin on the project. Simon did mention the laydown area. This area is gonna be primarily used for storing of processed glass product. It's a process that takes sort of the glass that comes in the facility and crushes it to be used as sort of a sand or in lieu of sand and construction projects. People are looking at it for actual use in wastewater systems as well as just sand under structures. So it's kind of a recycled process that uses it for another purpose. But that is the planned location to kind of stockpile that as they create it and then people will come and take it away from that location. I think that's sort of it. Besides everything that Simon covered and we'd be happy to answer questions on this. Okay, DRP members, questions. So in the area where you're gonna store the glass, will other material be stored too? Paper, products or anything like that? That's not the plan right now. It's strictly for that glass product. Yeah. Other questions, Paul? Hours of operation. Yep, so the hours of operation are actually a big thing and it ties into traffic. So the existing facility on Avenue C has the same hours. It'll be the same hours as that. Meaning that we're gonna close the facility at 330. This is to avoid putting large amounts of traffic on the roads during the peak PM trip. This was agreed to as part of the process for that facility and we're continuing it with this to avoid some of those traffic impacts. We've already reached out to V-Trans to talk about that. We created sort of a calculation based traffic already that we're reviewing with them and they seem pretty happy with sort of our commitment to keep the timing. What's the opening time? I believe six o'clock? Six o'clock. What's your water usage? Glass operation, I'm assuming there's a bit. So I don't know if there's a ton of usage of water for the actual machinery, but the usage for the personnel in the building is 720 gallons a day. There's no usage of water for any of the machinery. There's no glass washing that happens or anything like that. So that's all that care before it gets to you guys. There's no glass washing in the recycling process for glass. So it's basically domestic water? Yeah. Other questions? Other than employees, these are all commercial vehicles. And what's your, what are the average visits per day now? So we just did a calculation with V-Trans and I think we found somewhere between 70 and 80 trucks a day. And how big are these trucks?  Okay. And then the occasional, when we're marketing material, we ship out on a 53 foot trailer, just like a semi, and then the occasional inbound load of recyclables in a walking floor trailer. Are you closing the Avenue C facility when you open this? Yep. And are you relocating the scale from Avenue C to this new facility, or is it a new scale? It'll be a new scale. Is the pinch point the scale in terms of moving trucks through the new facility? There really shouldn't be a pinch point. The pinch point really is the first, a lot of trucks like to come in in the morning time.   So that's really the pinch point. So getting them off of Redmond Road and into a queue on our property with some buffering was really the intent there. The off chance that there's a mechanical issue or something where we need to line trucks up, that's the added benefit of having that queueing line. Okay, so it's really industry time of day preference. Yep. Yep, got it, okay. So the employees have to fight through the truck back up potentially in the morning? Oh, there should be plenty of room to get by. Oh, we got to get in. Do I think that they're all coming in on the same road, right? Yep. We did provide a queueing lane and a through lane. I know it's hard to see on this plan. When we come for discretionary permit, we have closer plans, but there are some ways to get past. It was the last time you saw a truck driver actually stay in the queueing lane. Yeah. How much are you building this to anticipate the increase in the number of bits per day? Yeah, it's mostly the reason why we're relocating the facility. Aside from that being able to keep a facility open and open a new one at the same time. Yep. There's built-in anticipated growth in this facility. And that's why it's a significantly larger facility than our current facility. And what number anticipated growth do you quantify that for? So what are you building this to accommodate 150 visits per day? Oh, I wouldn't be able to say a number of trips a day, but there's a significant increase in the volume of throughput in tons that we can process. That's sort of how we quantify it. I didn't get it. We quantify it. So you got it. Okay. So we can, it's at least 150% of what we currently process is what this facility will be able to do. That helps. Okay. That was what we were looking for, thank you. Okay, members of the audience, any questions? Sir, if you would state your name for the record, please. So I'm Jake Reed with Belco. Down in Rutland, we own the property behind shouldn't and solve waste property. I did just want to, you know, make it record that their building as proposed right now is within an existing Belco easement, but we are working on a resolution with that, with them to ensure that, you know, they can build their project and we still retain that easement. So I just wanted to state that we drove this way to take part in the meeting as well. Okay. So how substantial is this easement? What do you mean by substantial? Like is it 50 P wide? Is it 400 P wide? It's a 300 foot wide easement. 300 foot wide easement. Okay. And what was that 300 foot wide easement intended for originally? Originally that property was purchased for the potential development of electrical infrastructure. At this point, we don't have any concrete plans of building anything there, but we do recognize that with electrification and things of that nature, there could someday be a need to build electric facilities there. So we just want to protect our rights to that easement and ensure that they're aligned, you know, real. So is the footprint of the proposed building in that easement? A portion of it is. Yeah. And so at this point in time, I realized that the deal isn't struck. What are you going to do? We're working on an agreement between the two of us. Things have been going well at this point, but. To relocate the easement or potentially that's on the table. Okay. Yeah. Okay. All right. Well, that's for you guys to figure out. Yeah. I mean, like I said, I figured we should mention it when it came up here.  Great. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Other members of the audience. Which didn't address the board. If you're online, you'd like to address the board. You're welcome to do so. Is there anyone online? Chris? Just just been. I'm sorry. Okay. Okay. DRP members. Any last questions? I'm good. I want to check in on this item F provide events or screen for event materials in the outdoor storage area from blowing. Once you're since on that. So I guess that. Maybe we should have asked the board's opinion on that a little bit more.  I feel it might be unnecessary. I'm also a little worried about it getting beat up with sort of heavy equipment and stuff like that. So I guess there's opportunities that we could also screen it with continued screening that Simon mentioned, but I didn't know if the fence like you would have around a dumpster location was appropriate for this. But I guess I love the board opinion on that. Do you have a similar stockpile at your existing facility? It is roughly similar. It's not processed to the extent that what's being proposed would be. The material that's proposed being stockpiled is called process glass aggregate. It's a final product that's currently being stockpiled at Wickham Square in Colchester, but all it truly looks like a pile of sand. The stuff that is currently at the facility in Williston has been through a primary processing, but not a secondary cleanup, which removes a lot of the added fibers that are in the glass product. And so as Greg mentioned, in the final product, there's very little loose fibers that is able to be windblown. And in fact, a lot of it dissipates over, because it's so fine, it dissipates over the course of a couple weeks. And so fencing, in my opinion, biased, obviously, wouldn't really, there's not a lot of windblown particulate from this material. It's not like if you go to our current facility, you see some of our bales stored outside with loose materials ready to be sent to market. That's not what we're proposing here. It's only this glass material. So with the expanded bale storage inside, we shouldn't have any need for outdoor bale storage at this point. It's really just this sand-like material. What about the, can you pull up the site plan? Can you show us where this file would be? You feel free to, if Simon, if you don't know, feel free to go ahead and point to it on the screen. That's where I thought. So one of my thoughts, and I don't have a good handle on the grade out there, so if you're on Redmond Road and you're driving by, I'm wondering about this, this, I'm going to call it a sand pile, if that would be unsightly. I mean, it's, we'd probably consider it consistent with the industrial use. But yeah, I mean, there could be that thought. And this area sits somewhere between five and 10 feet higher than the elevation on Redmond Road. So you would see it. But that's why we're sort of asking the board if, if putting like a row of arborbite in front of this thing to allow that to grow in. Simon mentioned we are going to fill in the gaps there on Redmond Road. If you've ever driven along this section, you can see that there are some developed woods in that area. We're actually planning on kind of leaving that whole area out front to just sort of passively also fill in. Right now it is maintained. It's mowed from time to time. Those pathways through there are actually, I believe, how the person gets back there to do the mowing. Or you're leaving, you're leaving all the trees that are along. Yeah. Yeah. And allowing it to fill in passively as well as adding material. So that was what we discussed with the Conservation Commission is that kind of the whole front of the property that's not either the roadway and or the stormwater ponds will kind of just be allowed to fill in as well. So we do expect that to happen, not instantaneously, obviously, but over the years. But yeah, that that's why we've sort of come with the question to the board. If you felt that was appropriate to kind of have something like an arborbite that might make more sense than having a fence. What's the anticipated height of this sandpile? I don't have a great thought on that. I will say that that lay down area is about 50 feet. The angle of repose for sandpile is two, two on one, one on one, something like that. So I mean, the tallest it could get in the middle would probably be 25, 30 feet. I think that's in a perfect world. And that also requires some bigger equipment. So I kind of doubt it would get to that.  I mean, especially given the size of the lay down spot that we're talking about. Yeah, probably more appropriate. Okay. I was just trying to get a scale. Yeah. Yeah. How frequent is the truck away? Currently, we have trucks leaving the facility every day with this material. Is that your intention here too? Yeah. Daily or weekly? That would be great. Yeah. I mean, the goal is to keep it moving as long as the market is there. I mean, I think Greg mentioned it's really the lay down spaces for anticipated lolls in need and being able to control that a little bit. Because, you know, apparently we're paying to have it trucked away. And the goal is to have it use beneficially in projects. And if we can have some area to keep it until these large projects pop up, that's the goal. I think the material has a promising future as wastewater sand. And just out of curiosity, the worst case scenario is you still have access to dump out of that coal chest or so, right? Correct. Yeah. So there's always a there is a back right fallback position. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Oh, great. And Sarah, if you would state your name and address for the record, please. Yes. My name is Sarah Reeves. I'm a resident of Milberg, Vermont, and I'm the executive director for CSWD. And regarding that storage area, I don't think that we had mentioned that the intent is to keep that area very, very contained. So whether that's with some block wall or snow block or somehow to contain that pile. So it won't be kind of an overflowing, visible pile. It will need to be able to be accessed. But if not, the intent to be able to actually even see it from the road. So, but even if that containment is not adequate, we are more than happy to put up some other ID or something along the road to help screen anything that could possibly be visible. But it is the the intent to keep that very, very well contained. And as Josh and Greg mentioned that the goal is to not have much there at all and to keep it moving on to projects. It's really for that seasonal time of the year, like now, where there's not road building activity where it could be used or septic system activity where it could be used. So the goal is for overflow only in seasonal off season use. And then it will be contained with some, most likely because the no block type of the situation. Great. Thank you, Sarah. Thank you. Anyone else online or in the audience that would like to address the board? Any further questions from the DRB? Yeah, one question.  The radio guys used to go out in the parking lot. The ambient radios. Will they be able to still use that for their little exercises out of curiosity? Have you been approached by them? I believe it was before by time, but I believe last year we told them that they were going to have to find a new location for the next... So they're aware of that. Okay. Any last comments? Okay. I'm going to close DP24-14 at 744. Thank you very much. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Next up is DP, I'm sorry, APP24-02, continued from January 8th, 2024. If you would please come forth to the table and state your name and address for the record, please. Alex Duttrich, 1119 Southrop. Mary Seifel, 1021 Southrop. Welcome back. Okay. Staff is, staff is up next with an update. Yeah. So just to recap, January 8th, 2024, the BRB public hearing regarding the appeal of the notice of zoning violation. The notice of zoning violation was issued for RVU succeeding duration limits in an unpermitted establishment of the mobile home at Publicly South Road. So the installation of the mobile home on the existing footprint of a former mobile home is a violation of the Wilson Unified Development By-law because it constitutes development for which a permit has not been issued because the mobile home's location encroaches into the 50 foot setback from South Road and because the landowner no longer has the right to replace the former mobile home in its original location in the setback because it was not replaced within a year of being removed. The BRB wanted to continue the public hearing and requested staff to obtain a legal opinion on the question of whether the mobile home can legally be placed within the 50 foot front yard setback if the foundation has remained within the setback since the removal of the former mobile home. And this current mobile home occupies the same footprint of the foundation. So we did receive a legal opinion on February 5th, 2024, which is attached in your packets. Summarizing that opinion, the attorney stated that the landowners lost their right to replace the old non-conforming mobile home because they did not do so within one year, so they are now prohibited from being able to replace a new mobile home within the setback area occupied by the former mobile home. And the legal justification for this opinion is based on the fact that setbacks are viewed in three dimensions, which is well established in case law. So because the landowners left the foundation in place, while they do have a right to that foundation, it does not afford them the right to occupy the volume of the setback above that foundation. So staff is recommending the DRB consider this legal opinion in your decision to uphold, modify, or overturn the zoning administrator's decision and in issuing findings of back and conclusions of law for AP 24 to APP. Great. Thank you, Melinda. Okay, so I'd like to keep things. I would like to only introduce new testimony tonight that pertains to new information, which is really the legal opinion, because we went through a thorough discussion about the appeal in early January. The board was not comfortable with going into deliberative session without receipt of the legal opinion. We've now received that. We feel comfortable with going into deliberative session and having a discussion about what to do next. But I didn't want to do that without giving you an opportunity to weigh in on the legal opinion that we've received. Well, I have a statement. I would like to read that. Is that okay? Yes. So my first question is how many of you lived in this town your whole life? Okay. How many of you lived in one place for 50 years? My parents moved to this town in 1974, 50 years ago this year to start a family farm. Farms dotted the landscape, neighbors looked after neighbors, and the general general population had an understanding of farming. Boy, how things have changed. But I digress. Cyple Farm is a 318 acre island in a growing metropolis. We were the first farm in Chittenden County to sell our development rights, ensuring open, non-developed space in this town. Houses and businesses are popping up in many of this town's remaining open land, changing our landscape. At least our farm will never change. In these tough times, a farm must diversify to survive. For years, we were a dairy farm, but things became too difficult to continue, so we changed our focus to hang. With the weather becoming ever more challenging, we decided to diversify a little more by renting our unused barn and some land to a cannabis operation, in hopes of supporting a fellow small Vermont business and stabilize our income. I believe this is the true issue here. I believe that people are unhappy with the cannabis operation. People hate change, hate to give something new a chance. People have a strong case of NIMBY, not in my backyard, but the nearest neighbor is half a mile from this lot location. I own all the land surrounding this lot. There are cries for housing in the state, in this town, which this trailer would provide, and maybe a single family dwelling, but it's still a family. One of the main reasons we want to put this mobile home in is to provide housing for our farm health. As you all know, good health is hard to find. Having help living on the farm saves us each time and money, because the weather is always changing, and when the hay is ready, it's ready. So can you honestly tell me that this one small unit is harming anything by remaining in the setback? Nothing much has changed on the property in the 50 years we have been there. We have asked nothing of this town or our neighbors. All we want is to continue to keep enjoying a way of life that this land provides us. Thank you, Mary. Are there any other comments? Yes, you would also have to take consideration where we would have to ask for a new building envelope with land trust. Again, this was something when Waldo and Arlene bought this property, was set inbound, it was already passed by Williston and allowed. Well, obviously it's a bit of a shock to hear that we're going to set a whole new concrete pad, which would mean we'd have to move our septic, which I can assure you that Mary and Waldo don't want to lose any acreage that is productive. By us moving that trailer back, it'd be setting on its old septic or even close to where we can put a new one without interfering our fields and groves. Thus, we'd also have to ask the land trust, the poor concrete and a different pad that already existed when they signed the contract.  There's a whole other party that has to be involved now. Where before, I understand that things have changed, but maybe we could ask for a variance. I know it seems harmful, but I can't see anything in the near future that you'd have to dig was in that 30 feet that you're asking for that. You're not even asking the concrete to come up? What does it matter if it's a 14-foot building on top of it? It baffles me to hear the define of a basement and a slab, but yet six inches above us is out of the question over height when I hear you ask other companies to maximize their height at 36. Again, we're hearing what you're asking, but you have to understand we have to ask permission from others where this is already existing. It's already in our easements. Nobody has to ask a thing. What you're asking us to do is spend money that we don't really have. For no reason. Thank you. DRB members, any questions? Members of the audience, sir? Do you have anything to add? Okay. Thank you. Any last comments? Well, we would ask that you would consider another building envelope for us, so we can move this away from the setback and not in our field where land wouldn't be used for that. Tonight we're addressing the appeal, and that's the extent of tonight's hearing, and I appreciate what you're saying, but tonight we're limited to the appeal. So I'm going to close APP 24-02 at 754. Thank you very much. Okay, 754. We're going to go into deliberative session. Recording. Okay. Thank you, Scott. Welcome back to the Town of Williston Development Review Board for February 13, 2024. It is 837. First item up was HP 24-01. That's a certificate of appropriateness. I have signed that document, and that will be with planning staff, so that was approved. DP 24-14. That's the Chittenden Solid Waste District, 72,000 square foot building. Is there a motion? Yes. Can we bring it up? Oh, good. As authorized by WDB 6.6.3, I, David Turner, moved the Williston Development Review Board, having reviewed the application submitted to all accompanying materials, including the recommendations of town staff and advisory boards required to comment on this application by the Williston Development Viola, and having heard and duly considered the testimony presented at the public hearing of February 13, 2024. Accept the recommendations of DP 24-14 and authorize this application to move forward to discretionary permit review. We'll change recommendation number F, we're going to strike the existing line that's there and replace it with WDB 18, provide an evergreen landscaping screen of a minimum of 10 feet in height for the proposed outdoor storage area. Containment wall height shall not exceed 5 feet. Okay. Thank you, David. Is there a second? Second. Paul seconds it. Any discussion? Yay or nay? Nate Andrews. Yay. Paul. Yay. Lisa. Yay. Dave. Yay. Chair's a yay. Five in favor. None opposed. Motion carries. Is there a motion for APP 24-02? Yes. It's authorized by WDB 5.4.6. I, Lisa Braden-Harter, moved at the Williston Development Review Board, having reviewed the appeal of the administrator's decision, all of the accompanying material, and having heard and duly considered the testimony presented at a public hearings on January 8th, 2024, and February 13th, 2024, except the findings of fact and conclusion of law for AP 24-02, an appeal of the issuance of a notice of zoning violation and uphold the decision of the administrator to issue this zoning violation. Thank you, Lisa. Is there a second? Second. Paul seconds it. Any discussion? Okay. Before we vote, Nate, you were not present for the December, I'm sorry, for the January 8th meeting, so you're going to abstain, correct? Correct. Okay. And Paul, you were not present for the January 8th meeting, but you watched the entire meeting on video, correct? Correct. Okay. And I was also present for the 13th. Okay. So you, okay, so you're eligible to vote. Okay. So with that background, we've got four voting members, which we need for a quorum, and let's vote. Paul Christensen, yay or nay? Yay. Lisa. Yay. Dave. Yay. Shares a yay, four in favor, none opposed, one abstention, motion carries. So we have upheld, we have upheld the zoning administrator's decision. Okay. Is there a motion to approve the meeting minutes of January 23rd? So moved. Paul has a motion. Is there a second? Second. Lisa seconds it. Any discussion? Nails. Approval of the minutes, yay or nay? Nate. Yay. Paul. Yay. Lisa. Yay. Dave. Yay. Chair is a yay as well, five in favor, none opposed. Meeting minutes are approved. All right. Is there anything else to bring forth tonight? Is there a motion to adjourn? So moved. Second. I'll second. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Okay. Thank you all.


Welcome to the Open Stage at GitLab Commit. I'm John Coughlin and I have the honor of being the stage architect for this stage and I'll also be your host today. I feel so fortunate to have the opportunity to work with this group of speakers and share their amazing stories with all of you. The Open Stage represents so much of what I love about GitLab, our all remote culture, our transparency and our open source community. On this stage you'll hear from engineering leaders and open source maintainers, educators and students and everyone in between. There are talks from startups, open source partners and companies that you know and love. The talks will cover inner source and open source, remote work, education and team culture. I'll be hanging out in the chat throughout the day so please say hi to me and our speakers and share your stories with us too. Let's get going!


I would like to invite the Vice President of the European Commission, Mr. Validislav Roskis, to give his key speak note. I would like to thank him very much on behalf of the SRB of President Draghi. Mr. Vice President, could you take also, would you have also time to take two or three questions? Thank you very much. You have the floor. Ladies and gentlemen, it's a pleasure to be back for a second time in the ESRB annual conference. This summer marked the 10 years since the beginning of global economic and financial crisis. And at this turn, we can look back and appreciate what that we have put crisis firmly behind us. EU's GDP per capita exceeds pre-crisis levels and Europe's economy is expanding for a fifth year in the role. Today, unemployment is at its lowest level since 2008. Banks are stronger and better capitalized and public finances are in better shape. This shows that our policy mix of investment, structural reforms to strengths and competitiveness and responsible fiscal policies is working. With the help of European Fund for Strategic Investment, we have already mobilized investment corresponding to more than 225 billion euros. And we have taken decisive action to make our financial sector safer and address the shortcomings of the initial setup of our economic and monetary union. We need to continue along this path. However, challenges remain. Levels of public and private debt are still high, productivity growth is lagging and our economy needs more long-term investment. There is a warring slowdown in the momentum towards international regulatory cooperation. While major systemic risks of our financial system may have receded, dispersed problems remain. One example is high levels of non-performing loans in some member states. The Commission is working to address these risks. We want inclusive growth and economic recovery that benefits everyone. In today's speech, I would like to briefly touch on the macro-economic situation and non-performing loans in particular, then turn to yesterday's proposal for a review of European system of financial supervision, starting with macro-potential aspects and ending with macro-prudential aspects. So let me begin with macro-economic situation. As I was saying, European economy is growing steadily and many indicators are moving in the right direction. This positive outlook has now broadened to include all EU member states, which shows that our policy mix of broadly natural fiscal stance and accommodative monetary policy is delivering results. The improved regulatory and supervisory framework, as well as recent increase in bank funding, how likely contributed. That being said, we cannot afford to be complacent. First of all, the current climate for international regulatory cooperation is unpredictable. Now that the crisis has receded, we need to ensure that the progress that has been achieved in regulation is not unraveled. I'm strongly pressing this because the financial crisis illustrated the international nature of our financial system. Hopefully with a common approach to the financial regulation can we ensure a level playing field of our financial institutions and minimize the risks of regulatory arbitrage. And second, idiosyncratic risks are waiting on the recovery in certain member states. High levels of non-performing loans in certain national banking systems are a prominent example. This is particularly an issue in Greece, Cyprus, Italy and Portugal, but other member states are also affected. By increasing funding costs, these NPOs negatively affect the resilience of the banking sector to shocks and wait on the recovery of the wider economy. There is also the potential of spillovers to other countries given the high interconnectedness of EU banking system. Based on historical experience and current trends, if we do not accelerate the NPL cleanup, it would take another decade to resolve the legacy of NPL stock. With the action plan adopted by the council in July, we now have a clear political commitment to address non-performing loans. This plan comprises 14 policy actions in four key areas. Supervisory policies, structural and legal reforms including insolvency and law enforcement frameworks, fostering of the secondary market for NPLs, and support for restructuring of the banking sector. The European systemic risk board alongside these other key actors at the national and EU level will play an important role in this plan. On our side, the commission is determined to support this action plan. We now have our public consultation running on fostering secondary markets for non-performing loans and on possible legislation on secured creditors. The support of the European Parliament Council will be crucial in delivering these steps. And we are working together with ECB, European Banking Authority and ESRB to develop by the end of the year the European Blueprint for National Asset Management Companies. More financial integration and deeper capital markets will also be helpful for dealing with these scattered risks. We need to consolidate the ongoing trend of financial integration by completing EU's two flagship projects of Banking Union and Capital Markets Union. In the coming weeks, the commission will set out some ideas on the way forward for the Banking Union and with a midterm review of the Capital Markets Union in June. The commission raised its level of ambition for completing the single market for Capital Markets Union by 2019. More financial integration will support jobs and growth by increasing the pool of capital available for productive investments. It will benefit market users thanks to increased choice and competition, and it will help guard against the effects of financial shocks, thereby reducing the need for public intervention. This is a key for a more resilient economic and monetary union. Now moving to the review of European supervisory authorities. Yesterday's proposals linked directly into this. We have put forward targeted amendments to improve the ability of European supervisory authorities to monitor cross-border risks, ensure supervisory convergence and adapt to the new developments on financial sector. The proposals we have made fall under four broad categories. First of all, we are upgrading the supervisory convergence tools of the SS and giving new responsibilities to the EU-wide supervisor for securities and capital markets, ESMA. Today there is almost no EU-level supervision of capital markets. Our proposal would expand EU-level supervision in areas where common supervision is either for firms operating cross-border and more effective for supervisors. This includes certain new prospectuses, EU-labeled cross-border investment funds and services of systemic informant importance such as critical benchmarks and data reporting service providers. Second, we are improving the governance and funding of all three ESAs. Our proposal will create new executive boards with permanent members for quicker and more EU-oriented decision-making and it will make the ESAs financially independent of national supervisors by introducing proportional contributions from the financial industry. Third, we are proposing changes to improve the coordination of supervisory authorities and minimize the barriers to cross-border financial services. This would be achieved by having the ESAs to set out EU-wide priorities for supervision and perform rigorous and independent reviews of the national supervisors. We are also reviewing supervisory relations with the third countries to ensure proper management of all financial sector risks. And last but not least, we want the ESAs to promote sustainable and green finance and FinTech. This is why we want to require them to take these areas into account in their work. In my speech at the last year's ESMB conference, I highlighted the major progress we have made in establishing an institutional and regulatory framework for macro-potential policy in Europe. Today, the evidence shows that the ESMB is already playing an important role in safeguarding financial stability in Europe. For example, last year the ESMB issued public warning about vulnerabilities in the residential real estate markets in eight member states. These warnings contributed to discussions and improved knowledge on the topic. On the commission's side, we are integrating ESMB's analysis and recommendations within our work in the context of the European semester. The ESMB has also done substantial work to coordinate macro-potential policies and their consistent implementation. Together with yesterday's proposals to strengthen the three ESAs, we also proposed to amend ESMB regulation. Overall, the commission is satisfied with the functioning of the ESMB and its contribution to the financial stability in the EU. The ESMB is a relatively young body and its work has been improving since its creation. In particular, it has managed to effectively use resources and expertise provided by its broad institutional membership. In this work, ESMB has acted as a hub, supporting the balance of centralized oversight and decentralized implementation of macro-potential measures. In reviewing the ESMB, our objective has been to maintain this balance, we want to preserve and build on the existing framework. Accordingly, our proposal is one of targeted changes to the ESMB's governance. As ESMB chair, the president of the European Central Bank has conferred authority and credibility of ESMB and ensures that ESMB can effectively build and rely on ECB's expertise in the area of financial stability. We therefore proposed that the ECB president serves as ESMB chair on the permanent basis. At the same time, we propose to enhance the standing of the head of the ESMB secretariat by making the appointment procedure more transparent and by specifying and clarifying his or her tasks, including the possibility for the chair to delegate the task of representing ESMB externally. As a large assembly, the ESMB general board benefits from being inclusive and combining a range of cross-country and cross-sectoral expertise. To reflect the establishment of the banking union, we propose adding the SSM and SRB as voting members on the general board and on the steering committee. We also propose to ensure that ESMB can issue warnings to the ECB when it comes to banking supervision. This would correct the current asymmetry between national and the banking union level in this regard. Our proposal also ensures that European Parliament and the ESAS would be systematically notified about the use of these tools. We trust that these changes will allow ESMB to carry out its mission even better than it has done since its establishment in 2010. So let me conclude. The package of proposals that we proposed yesterday seeks to make improvements were necessary without upsetting the balance that proved to be functioning. At the same time, it's ambitious in seeking to enhance the ability of the ESFS and ESSE in particular to play a key role going forward. So we are looking forward for constructive discussions on those proposals. Thank you very much.