of the few residents there. My son Luke was crocheting in the corner so I heard Patrice and everybody talking about property and enjoyed going through that process and had public comment was involved a bit in that. I was also on the Catamount Outdoor Family Center board and I still am since April 2017. I served as the president right when Catamount transitioned to town-owned land and then I worked to implement the lease agreement to make sure that we followed all of those. That was part of my role. I'm currently still on the board and you know I attended a number of the CCF meetings but I attended the one before and Jeff said well is there any conflict of interest if I'm on this board and that board and I'm open to whatever you know you guys have to say about that but my view afterwards Jeff I thought we have a shared goal that the town is enjoying the property and invited out to use the property that's well maintained taken care of. I do a lot of volunteering probably 40 to 80 hours at least at Catamount pulling invasives. I joined Laura Meyer and Terry and this was like two three years ago they had Boy Scouts. We pulled invasives all day long and my trail work I pulled invasives a ton. So I really just enjoy the property. By work I've worked at G Health Care which was IDX since 2002 with Tim, Kenny for a bit and I'm currently still with G Health Care working remote the office is no longer open. I'm the global commercial operations director. I lead a team of 25 people responsible for our IT systems for all of our service and support organization. I was a mechanical engineer.  You know I was on the I was on the board for our homeowners association and with GE we had some volunteer activities volunteered up at Camp Avonackie Boys and Girls Club as an annual activity so a number of things there. So I just really the last thing I'll say is one of the main reasons I'm interested in the CCF is I really enjoy getting to know other people in the town and working together with them on that. I did the mobility committee to do the official town map and I work with Stuart Meyer, Dave Westman, some others and I just really enjoyed getting to know them and like Stuart was such a wonderful person and then I met Laura who was on the CCF so I like these committees as a way to get involved and I'm a doer, I'm a worker so I would be very active and participate. Thank you so much. So thinking about the Catholic interest and Jeff usually asked that question but it rises to the level of we probably should discuss that a little further. I can remember a number of years ago that we had a person who served on the Solid Waste District Board from SR Appointee and he also was on a board of the organization that was opposed to Landfills and so and raised the question with him at that time as to whether that would be a conflict of interest. He gave us some interesting tidbits on that that he didn't think so and as it turned out he was a very good member of both organizations for quite a long time. We currently have another person who's on the Solid Waste District Board as our appointee who works for Cassella and so we were looking at what conflicts might pertain to that and I think they've worked that out at this point. So I guess the question that I would have for you is since there are two boards that you would be involved with what would what would you do if there was a disagreement between the two boards on an issue? Well I think the I mean correct me if I'm wrong but I think the select board ultimately has decision-making authority over a recommendation the CCF makes we would take recommendations from the committee. I mean I think you know it's all about disclosing like why you think something some way so I mean I would just be transparent and say like well from the catamount you know vested interest maybe they want this and CCF wants that like maybe you know it becomes an asset that I can kind of see both perspectives and vocalize both perspectives you know if the renewal agreement is for $30,000 a year instead of a dollar then I could say well then catamount's gonna go bankrupt because we don't make any money we're a non-profit you know so I think I think I could bring kind of multiple perspectives to share my thoughts I'm not sure what the nature of the disagreement right it's hard to conjecture on what what I would do exactly but I mean I think the goals are aligned I think right but if there's like if it becomes clear that there's like conflicting goals or conflicting interests then I kind of disclose whatever conflict I might have and say maybe I shouldn't vote or you know whatever the case may be good thank you so other questions from the board question slash recommendation one thing that I've done as a select board member a couple of times where there's an issue that the town that's before the select board and it involves people that I as a lawyer either represented as clients or even worse was against and had cross-examined them in court and the thing that I've done in those circumstances is recuse myself and actually physically leave the board and just go sit in the audience is if I guess what I'm saying is that there may be specific moments that are finite that would be you know well you know where you wouldn't be comfortable or maybe you shouldn't partake in a decision and just throwing that out and now it's supposed to be a question so would recusing yourself for a specific issue that's be something you'd be able to do oh yeah sure I'd be fine with that right I mean I can just if they say hey we really don't like the board of directors at the outdoor family center I'd say well maybe I shouldn't be here because I'm one of them but yeah I can see that okay I'd be happy to step out I think it's other questions a good point that the one I hadn't considered when you and I just happened to talk about this is the license agreement is something that would be I assume approved by the select board and not by the kind of community force management committee so I still would urge being cautious with conflict of interest sometimes it's not whether there's a real conflict or an interest or not it's whether it's perceived yeah and I also would recommend you seek guidance you know go to both boards and say here's the situation what do you think is it a conflict of interest or not so you don't mind a couple questions and you've had the opportunity to see the catamount community force management committee in action what do you think we're doing right doing wrong I think the scope is fairly narrow of the CCF I think the personalities maybe of the leaders and their own personal interest has kind of influenced what they've spent more time on and it's hard to tell as whether it's in the capacity of an official CCF activity or just the personal interest so you know there's a strong emphasis on birding which is wonderful like I'll go out in early Sunday mornings and see many people out there the bluebird boxes are great there's a lot of things around birding in the birding community which is a whole new set of people that I don't think in that really didn't come out to catamount before that I don't think it was the CCF's decision on deer hunting but I think you know listening to Ethan Tapper I think there's more work to do there and like you know figuring out whether or not we need to consider deer hunting again I but I know that was that was not the CCF's doing currently but I think that's something they should probably take up and that's because the damage the overpopulation exact and he's doing that study now so be curious to see what comes of that whether you know he finds this controlled area you know has better growth of hardwoods or whatever he's looking for right you end up with just nothing with beach trees because the deer eat everything else so for the diversity that forest I mean I think they have done a decent job on trying to plan ahead for the logging that's going to occur in 2023 in the one section you know there's like $10,000 I think set aside to try to repair the trails there's just a lot of uncertainty there that's where personally I'd like to be help helpful and be involved you know like what is the condition of the trails where to return it to I think maybe they're doing a good job I think their scopes fairly small and I think maybe what they could do is carve out more of what what they have as a mission things that they've done have seemed helpful and nice one of the concerns I have in every I'm on I'm on this camera community forest management committee it's a select board whatever representative is the barn and yeah if you don't maintain the barn it's it at some point it's no longer going to be usable your thoughts well Jim's finally getting his stuff out of the barn so that's a good thing that's step one I guess no I mean I guess it was pulled back together with this with the first thing that the architect recommended I mean it's tough we've got that barn right there the entrance of Brennan woods right and you know that one's disintegrating I think the Boy Scouts or somebody cut away all of the sumac that we're encroaching on it so it wouldn't rock quite as fast you know but I think these historic structures are expensive to maintain and preserve I mean it seems like the best that we're doing is trying to minimize the decay on them absent a big grant to repair I'm not sure what I would have any magic answer for that and then this will be my last question is what are your thoughts on how well is the relationship working or how well does it work that there's the town-owned community forest but there is a nonprofit operating programs under under a license agreement I think it works well I think the CCF is concerned about the viability of the land and like and working with Ethan on the forest management plan like that was a that was like the first six months or so of the whole CCF I attended a lot of those I think like taking care of the forest as an asset with Ethan and you know as a I mean it's to conserve it for the town to use and then the programming gets taken care of by catamount at the outdoor family center to maintain the trails specifically and then to have the camps and the other things I mean at one point I talked to Todd from the rec department that said like hey should we collaborate on summer camps you know you've got a summer camp listing catamount as a summer camp listing like I that's another possible synergy but I think the way the CCF is defined it's like they're ensuring this piece of land is well cared for and taking care of and catamount runs the activities there if I if I had one complaint it would be the new special events permit which we have I just went through our budget we have a bunch of large special events and bike races that people saw the permit said oh we're not doing forget it so you know there's like a little bit of a gap there with not fulfilling the mission of bringing people to the forest to enjoy it and use it because of the special event permit scared okay so thank you other questions just to comment you know it's really nice to hear how involved you are and how passionate you are about giving back today it was I spent most of my day building fence on our family farm or the friend of mine and it's not about money it's about maintaining the land and just think it's really neat how you're obviously have that much passion and enthusiasm and how involved your family is I can just not only read but hear your voice how how you know appreciative and how dedicated you are to that so yeah I applaud that thanks I appreciate that yeah feel it's a privilege to be able to land and work on it yeah there are no further questions there was a motion suggested I'll move to appoint Hans Bueller to the Catamount Community Forest Management Committee for an unexpired term through June 30th 2024 second during discussion of the ocean well said Gordon during the discussion all those in favor of the motion say aye aye opposed congratulations and look forward to having you on the committee yeah thank you yeah one Thursday night of your life is now going moving on to tax sale authorization Eric you're gonna talk about this yep okay can everybody hear me okay which is yep good evening everyone so as of the writing of my manager's report last week there were 17 outstanding delinquent tax accounts but balances over a thousand dollars that have not been in communication with the town after written correspondence was sent to each of these parcels at the beginning of the month asking the contractor town finance director to discuss paying the balance and fuller creating a payment plan you have a memo from finance director Shirley Videl Lacky included in your board packet the outlines the current status and next steps to consider each of these accounts has been receiving monthly invoices with a delinquent amount plus interest added and per the recently amended policy for the collection and payment of property taxes the delinquent tax collector myself the town manager would next like to initiate a tax sale process working with a town attorney how this would work is first the town attorney's office would send letters to the delinquent accounts to seek resolution through payment or creating payment plan with a deadline to do so to follow up on on our staff correspondence from earlier this month staff anticipates this will clear up a number of accounts for accounts that remain delinquent or that a plan in place to pay the outstanding balance by the deadline established those properties would likely then proceed to a tax sale before you this evening's a motion suggested by the town attorney to engage his office with the tax sale proceedings should the board wish to consider that motion this regarding the process one of the things we discussed was kind of getting a history of each of the property so this before this is just the initial stage is my understanding to send the letter from the attorney so before it would actually go to a sale we would get would it come back before the select board yep that's correct this would be the first next step but in this process to engage the attorney to our ultimate goal here is to resolve all these accounts working with the delinquent taxpayers not go to a tax sale if the select board would like we can update the board as we go we can certainly share our history with the board as we get this number down if we are going to consider going to a tax sale certainly staff can can provide any additional information as we go along here thank you questions the only question I had was a real technical one this all sounds fine to me is when the town attorney is going to send these letter on his or hers firms letterhead how do they sign it do they sign it as the town attorney or just representing the town I anticipate that that's how they approach it chef I haven't had that conversation with the town attorney just shut but so I can follow up with them this week and I was reading this and it said on the firm's letterhead my first thought it was shouldn't be on town letterhead but you know probably maybe not first thing a letter like that's going to say is this office represents the town of Williston relative to a delinquent tax okay so be very clear to yeah okay good thank you any other questions there is a motion suggested for this as well I'll move to engage the town attorney to assist the collector delinquent taxes for the tax sale process is there a second a second people to it any discussion on the motion during that all those in favor of the motion say aye aye opposed alright moving on then to the Chippin County Communications Union Union District the and Eric you're going to talk a little bit about this we do have a letter from the town attorney as well yep and we've also got a Regina Mahoney from the CCRPC and Rob from the Vermont Community broadband board on the call as well if there's any questions for either of them during this discussion maybe Aaron if you went mind just connecting Regina and Rob to the webinars panelists I can walk the board through here so as a reminder communications union district it or CUD is a new government that enables multiple communities to work together to bring broadband internet to addresses currently not served after analysis working with the CCRPC it's been determining that forming a CUD is the current best approach to access federal funding through the Vermont Community broadband board to assist with this work and as a reminder we'll send out 170 addresses as of last May does not have access to a broadband level of internet which is a download speed of 25 megabytes per second and an upload speed of three as Terry mentioned the town attorney distributed a legal opinion for the board this past week answer a few questions staff generated and as a reminder free to see to create a CUD voters in at least two communities must support its formation through ballot item but currently the communities of Essex Shelburne South Burlington and Jericho are discussing a CUD this month as of the writing of this report the Essex select board has indicated the plans to place the question to create a CUD on on the November ballot will be considering action the first week of August to do so I know Regina attended that meeting so I'm sure she she could share any additional information she has on on the Essex discussions there this evening staff is seeking direction from the select board whether like to proceed with asking Wilson voters to establish a CUD at a special town meeting to be held on election day on November 8th other options for the select board to consider a way to see if the CUD is formed for other communities and then considering asking the voters to join or doing nothing and not participating in a CUD if formed process wise should the board wish to warrant a special town meeting for election day in November staff will create the warning about language for the town attorney for consideration an extra select board meeting the first week of August the only scheduled select board meeting is August 23rd and the deadline for inclusion for local ballot items on the general election ballot is August 9th and certainly the the board doesn't have to take any final consensus or action tonight if there's additional questions if the board wants to meet to have any additional items answered that first week of August as well that that's certainly another option is Regina on the zoom and perhaps she can she has the information about other towns in there what they're doing hi everybody can you hear me yes great yes so we have had conversations at Essex Shelburne and South Burlington just last night coming up on Thursday night is Jericho and I was not unfortunately not able to attend the Shelburne meeting but I can say with confidence both Essex and South Burlington seem very confident in moving forward and putting this question to the voters certainly they have the same questions about not wanting to be the only ones who do that so we are doing our best to keep everybody informed as best as possible I know both South Burlington and Essex will be meeting on August 1st to finalize the language that they'll that they'll put on the ballot and this is this is Rob I was in attendance at the Shelburne meeting and there was the response was very positive so are there any burning questions that people have at this point do we discuss this now a number of times and if we have any further questions to resolve between now and the first week of August for a special meeting the only question I have is do is there a difference or what I don't know how to correctly ask it is there a difference would there be a difference between being one of the communities that helps form the CUD versus being a community that joins and already formed CUD does that question make sense first of all anyone for that one sure I can take a stab on it if you would like in the legal sense of it no it does not make any difference in the sense of in terms of influence the founding members always have a little bit more say because you're going to be part of the founding effort that's crafting the the bylaws that's part of the initial public push that is making some of those initial decisions we also do encourage more than just two towns to to vote at the first town meeting things so vote of confidence this is your announcement to the world both to your residents and providers that you are on board and your residents need service so I would I would encourage and my recommendation would be to vote but that's would be to vote now but if you join later you're certainly still going to be welcome then my my question is is is somebody going to be able to help provide the wording that should be warned and I ask because I don't know if it makes a difference again whether the wording says will ascend is voting to create a CUD or to join a CUD and and so I I'm guessing we'll need some advice on how to properly word that yep yeah oh sorry all right go ahead I was gonna say Jeff if the board would like to place this on November ballot it would be part of the the formation phase for the CUD we have some language and statute for for the form of the question and should the board want to proceed I'd work with the town attorney to to review a special town meeting warning and the ballot item the the one real critical piece of synchronicity here we had an email conversation last week is what to name this new government and to make sure everyone votes to establish the same named government so we make sure we shore that up okay and then it's a question for you Eric there is going to be staff time involved in this is that okay yep I'm if the board like to proceed I'm I'm committed to make this happen administratively certainly to have a representative if we have a community member who has real good background and broadband that would be certainly welcome but if we we did not have someone I would certainly make the time to be at least our initial delegate to to see this effort through okay unless they're here objections it looks like we're ready to move forward with this and talk about the the wording for the ballot at a special meeting hopefully in the first week in August August 2nd is the proposed date at this time which is a Tuesday I can be in Cape Cod but I can zoom in from Cape Cod yes I would just be a little cautious having a bad experience with that I'll have I'll have my beer in the fridge just in case in case all right all right then we will move forward with that and we'll be in touch as far as the the date the time for everybody's access to to the special meeting but right now we're we're thinking it's going to be looking for August 2nd at this point probably if six o'clock would work that would be nice but if not we can we can work on that okay moving on to the local articles on general election ballot at universal mailing and Eric we had some information that we received this week on that yep this is a little more procedural for the board to consider but it comes from the Secretary of State's office the Secretary of State's office will be mailing a ballot for the November general elections all active not challenged registered voters in Vermont communities Secretary of State's office has notified the town that there are any local articles including election of justices of the piece that action is required by the local governing body to authorize these articles to be universally mailed on the general election ballot. Town clerk Sarah Mason is planning to include the election of justices of the piece on the general election ballot and as the board just just discussed adding the inclusion of a local article regarding the creation of communications union district on that general election ballot to meet the requirements by the state of motion suggested for for the board's consideration. Mr. Eric regarding the the process then there is a motion suggested. I'd move to approve mailing a ballot to all active non-challenged Williston voters for any local elections and articles that are included on the general election ballot for November 2022. Is there a second? Second. It's a discussion on the motion hearing none. All those in favor of the motion say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? No abstentions. So we're moving in quickly and right on time actually to item number eight and that's our development bylaw amendment work session so tonight we'll be doing that and Eric want to leave it off then start with Matt and the memo that he has prepared for us. Sure. Is Matt over in the room yet? He's in the house. Okay. I see him on zoom too so well I'll uh I'll just kick this off quickly and toss it to Matt. So this agenda item this evening is a work session for the select board to discuss the transmitted development bylaw amendment for consideration that includes the establishment of a form-based code overlay district in Taft corners and the creation of a town-wide official map. The select board can discuss the transmitted amendment proposal and whether we'd like to make any changes to assist the board that's discussing you've received from planning staff materials with the agenda that align major policy items that have been a topic for discussion over the past two months with options to change each of them and the proposal and their effects should the the board decide to make any substantial changes as a result to the proposal especially a new public hearing would be required. Staff can take any feedback from the select board as a result of this work session to prepare for additional discussion on August 23rd. At that time the board could decide to consider action to either warn a new public hearing with any changes made if no changes have been made could consider adopting the zoning changes as transmitted by the planning commission or could also decide to continue with this work session at the August 23rd meeting. Additional time is required or additional information is sought from staff to follow up. This evening staff seeking direction on begin this conversation on any possible changes and on process for the board moving ahead in this review. Good thanks. So Matthew prepared a nice memo for us with options that we can take a look at on six different topics. So if you want to start we can take the one by one and see what kind of discussion results from that from the board. Sure let's dive right in and Eric or Erin I I'm on the zoom meeting so I can screen share if needed or if somebody else wants to screen share elements of the memo that's just fine. It's not totally necessary but there may become a point where a visual is helpful on the screen for everybody. So thank you Eric for for teeing up the you know where we are procedurally portion of this and the memo the board has in front of them has six items that staff perceives and or board members requested as the ones to address for specific discussion for direction to staff on changes prior to the development of a follow-up hearing draft of the of the form-based code by law amendments and official map. So let's dive right in. The first item for discussion is the Essex Alliance church property with comment from Chris Snyder Snyder group and this is a relatively mechanically simple request from Snyder which is to remove this property from the overlay district which would remove it from the purview of this code. This property is entirely within the Taft Corners zoning district. If it were removed from the form-based code area it would be subject to the development standards of the Taft Corners zoning district and chapter 22 design review district as well as other relevant chapters in the bylaw related to access signage nuisance etc as we've been reviewing development in this district for the last many years. A little more background on this we do have a proposal that was submitted prior to the warning of the first public hearing on the form-based code for this project and that means that the applicant is vested in that proposal if they continue to pursue it and more pointedly vested in the version of the zoning that existed at the time they submitted it which is our old or current bylaws. So we're in process with that review staff's working on a staff report for the first DRB meeting coming up next week to begin review of that project under those bylaws and the proposal that's vested in the Taft Corners zoning district version of the bylaws is all of the infrastructure the streets sidewalks bike paths most of the park spaces and I would just as a very rough estimate say about 75 of the buildings on the site. The graphics we prepared in the memo show that the street layout as proposed is is somewhat different from the one that would be required under the regulating plan if that were to move forward. Again the applicant is proposing to plat streets as as it shows on their proposal and if they were to continue to pursue this development it would prevail over anything that was adopted later on including the form-based code. So the request is very simple remove the property from the overlay district. The implications of removing it from the overlay district would be that all development going forward here would continue to be reviewed under the Taft Corner zoning district chapter 22 design review guidelines would be the major controlling chapters if the property were to be left in the form-based code district there's a lot of the form-based code that would not be able to be applied to it if this approval was continued to be pursued. The street layout would be vested we would not be able to say no now you have to follow the regulating plan because the platting of the streets and their design would all be part of that first phase. The design of most of the buildings on site would not be up for discussion for compliance with the form-based code. What the form-based code might apply to would be the design or at least architectural treatment of buildings that are in future phases of the project because those buildings today are just expressed as a footprint to the extent that the applicant has that footprint on the site plan they might have a right to that footprint but the building form would have to follow the architectural standards to the extent that they're not in conflict with that established footprint on the plan. So how many windows how many doors how tall what kind of materials what arrangement of materials etc would be applicable going forward and it would be a large element of staff review of anything going forward would be to say well we're under a project that's vested in the old rules but has some element subject to the new rules and here's how we think they ought to be applied and there might there might be reasonable minds that disagree about exactly how to do that such such as zoning. So with a very brief overview and you've read the staff description of the question staff just looks for direction in a in a future hearing draft would the select board want to see this property included or excluded from the form base code overlay district identified for new streets or not identified for new streets in the official map and regulating plan. Questions. Well I assume it's the obvious question is is I'm going to ask it in the in the dumb way which is what does that mean and what I mean by that is how compatible is the existing zoning requirements with the form base code kind of asking the question of so 75 falls under the current zoning on the property 25 using you know what the way you divided it up falls under the new form base code are we going to have a 25 of the project that just can't move forward because they're so incompatible are we going to end up with will the result be a project where when you look at it you're kind of like there's that piece of it and there's that piece of it and boy do they look different. I'm just trying to figure out what does this mean you know to the developer and doesn't matter who the developer is it's just when you and I assume this is probably the only property this is going to happen to potentially happen to I hope. Well you know we do have some other examples and and there they're a little more firm in what's going to happen in that there are future buildings that will be constructed in both finny crossing and cottonwood crossing that are part at least as a footprint they're part of an approved final plan but there will be some applicability of architectural standards when those buildings come in for review and permitting and you know it kind of goes both ways I would say on the balance the architectural standards in the new code call for a type of construction that's likely a little more expensive. They also allow for some building heights that allow that new expense to be spread across a larger building potentially and you know that was some of the some of the balance that we're trying to strike in the draft code was was upping some of the requirements the town was looking for while offering more units on the same parcel of land a more rapid approval process etc and you know when you have a project where you're not designing the entire site but maybe you're really stuck just fitting a building in there are going to be some elements where you come to the administrator and say you know I I really can't meet this or that requirement of the form base code I'm down to this footprint that was approved that I have a right to but here's what I can do and then it'll be up for the to the administrator to determine how to apply those standards so you know will the buildings look fundamentally different they would look different I think there's there's one very small detail that we've taken some stakeholder feedback on in this new form base code requires windows to be inset three inches from the building facade and we've heard that that's very expensive to do unless you're doing a masonry facade so somebody might be making that decision you might have a neighborhood that's mostly other materials but goes to masonry or goes to something that's responsive to having to meet that architectural requirement so I'm not sure if I'm answering the the what happens question but I think that's a start well yes and that's that's very helpful and there is I mean it's kind of hard to bound what is the answer to that question one aspect of it that you didn't address that maybe will help me is the form base code is really around pedestrian friendly and having the buildings look and feel in a way which encourages that pedestrian friendly atmosphere for lack of better words is that going to be is that going to be difficult to do on on in this case because this is the example before us on that 25 percent of the remaining property that will be subject to the form base code or is it going to be just a really odd situation where yeah it's kind of pedestrian friendly but because it's surrounded by 75 percent that was done under a different set of zoning you really don't achieve that goal at all so luckily does that make sense yeah I mean luckily the Taft Corner zoning district standards as they are require things like pulling buildings up to the street and they are a very good attempt at creating a pedestrian friendly environment and I wasn't trying to be critical I'm just trying to understand the difference you know these this these new proposed standards represent a refinement of that and you might see a little bit different placement related to the street under the new code but again the footprints are already in the vested plan here and my opinion as zoning administrator is those are part of what what has been vested what lives on top of that footprint isn't and if somebody wants to change it they need to do so in the direction of compliance with with whatever code is in place but what you're likely to see at the building scale around pedestrian friendliness is saying for example building needs to have a door on its street facing facade every 70 feet we don't have anything like that in today's code so you can have and we do have in Williston some very large expanses of building that you can walk along that you know don't don't have a door we have a percentage of street facing facade that needs to be in windows we don't do that today we have some rules about window elevation and proportion that we don't do today and those are all things that our our expert help has counseled us really do create help create true pedestrian friendliness because now that street facing facade of the building is an element of the outdoor room that's created by the public street space so we're really getting into how does it feel to be a pedestrian there whereas where we are today is well we know we want to get the building on the street that's that's a basic element we're refining it I think I think old and new codes are are actually quite compatible when you're just trying to build on top of a footprint for a building whose location was pre-planned it gets harder if you're trying to change what a street is you know halfway down the street we're not doing that okay other questions I think the the intent tonight is to get as many questions answered as we can and at a future meeting we'll hopefully make some decisions on the entire code including any any of the options that we're considering tonight does part of that getting our questions answered is part of that hearing from let's say the affected landowner what their opinion about that is well I think we did that at least on this one that they want everything under the existing code so that's that wasn't what I was going to information I was trying to find it I was trying to find out how numerous they believe or not they believe having 25 percent subject to one type of zoning versus 75 to the other you know what would be the impact to them of that not I think we heard that okay certainly but we can certainly ask them to give us something to write okay which I think would probably be helpful to all of us we can move on then to item number two and I just say in working through these I'd encourage individual members to look at the options at the end of each section and yeah think about internally where where you are and that what would really be helpful for staff is if there's majority or consensus on any of those and we can winnow these issues down or prepare specific language for you to look at as you continue to workshop this that'll be really helpful to us so topic two we're crossing over to the borough knoll and La Pierre lands these are the lands that surround cottonwood crossing and the borough knoll where the water tower is behind maple tree place and we received comments from the stakeholders both during the public hearing and in writing about the regulating plan lay out that was proposed for this area and there was a desire to do a couple of things one was was to align the regulating plan street with an existing easement over into maple tree place another was to provide for more developable area and so in the six panel illustration that we've provided you there's a panel in the lower left corner that was provided by the landowner and and a version of that drawn in regulating plan version in the lower right corner showing what that would look like the red areas are the expanded or newly reconfigured developable areas on the blocks you see some developable blocks to the east of the outer ring road originally our consultant recommended leaving that outer ring road edge blank as a place that carries a bicycle pedestrian path and provides a view shed out into the more rural portions of Williston from Taft Corners the other thing I didn't mention is in words the applicant asked for an area ending pictures the applicant or owner asked for an area to be excluded from the form-based code overlay district and that area is represented by the area in blue on those lower maps it is lands on the other side of the Velco easement from the maple tree place property and bounded to the south by interstate 89 and so we've just drawn it in blue on the regulating plan the request is is to take that out of the form-based code overlay again if that was done the zoning underneath it would would prevail in this case that's the mixed use residential zoning district and design review etc etc and so consideration and options for the board to think about here are what version of the regulating plan would the select board like to see in a package considered for adoption generally one that is a little more contained or one that extends out to the east and to the west and south or west and north on to the burrow knoll and then I think separately to consider whether that area of land I don't know if you can visualize it it's vaguely visible from the highway in the winter months but right adjacent to interstate 89 and behind the Velco easement so those are the things to consider there in this case we don't have any vested or pending development proposals for this land we do know the land has significant and undelineated constraints the map we provided in the upper right corner of your graphic shows some very old wetland delineations that were done over 20 years ago and may or may not be accurate today but there are there are wetlands at the periphery of this parcel and I often refer to regulating plan map and and street and green space layout as a wish list that's very likely to be refined as as future examinations are made of constraints and desired development pattern etc so the question here is what would you put on the wish list probably knowing that it's a starting point for a conversation in the future as these as these streets are laid out so the the burrow knoll under the current regulations is not available that's correct it's identified as a conservation area in chapter 27 of the bylaw is required to be avoided and it's not quite the entire green on these maps it's a reddish circle that fits within the green that comes out of a town plan map from the former open space plan now continue to be not available under this plan under anybody's plan so under this plan you know we map it as that green area and I I would say that if developable area would be mapped on here it would be seen as a refinement of that current sort of red circle designation I I think this if it to the extent that this regulating plan allowed developable area up onto the burrow knoll this this would control another question I'm sorry I didn't when you said this would control what would I didn't understand that I'm sorry so we have a restriction on developing portions of what's green on this map around the burrow knoll we have a proposal that would add developable area to the burrow knoll to make it crystal clear if the select board said add the developable area to the burrow knoll we would go into that other map and essentially reduce the burrow knoll restricted area so that the two were in accordance with one another okay okay well the question I have here is the one about cost and needing to purchase green space and how would that work so you know the the property owner comes in under under the form base code and says here's my proposal it actually makes it you know you look at it or the zoning administrator looks at it and you know it's workable I mean there may be some tweaks but it's workable how does the piece where they say but I need compensation for the green space how does that work so I'll think about it two ways okay so in I'd like to shape your example a little bit and imagine that we're looking at one of these designated green spaces on this regulating plan that has street frontage but it's designated green and there's a building and accompanying site that the applicant wants to build on that piece of green space and it's workable it's physically workable you know it's on the street front edge it could be built that triggers the 120 day process we've been talking about so the zoning administrator's job is say that's great I'm I'm denying this application right now your step is to go to the select board and find out if they really want this green space on the official map or not the applicant goes to the select board and says I've got a plan to develop here you've got it as green space on the official map do you want to pursue acquiring this from me and the select board has 120 days to enter a good faith effort to do so so we need to you know have an appraisal done we need to determine what the compensation would be we need to negotiate that etc etc so the first thing is compensation in that scenario is determined on a you know a case-by-case basis it's based on a real appraisal that everybody can agree on and that's if the select board decides it wants to enter into proceedings select board also might say well let's get a rough idea of what this would cost us because maybe once we have a rough idea we just know we're in no position to try to require this land and so you could have that meeting and or you could say come to think of it this isn't our highest priority right now it's it's on the wish list but it's not really where we're looking to go or we really like the idea of it being developed we're going to we're going to waive our right to to make that decision and at that point the application can be taken back up by the zoning administrator and reviewed as if that green space was not there so the reason i describe that as a sort of a single site is because i think that works better when you're imagining somebody building one building on one site the other way to look at a property like this one oftentimes in williston properties like this are our master planned by an applicant developer land owner and there might be a bunch of things on the official map and regulating plan that don't align with constraints or just desired development pattern etc for the landowner if they were looking at the whole property and trying to master plan it i would probably say well let's not do the permit and and denial thing let's get you in front of the planning commission and select for to ask to amend those two documents so this is the you know i i want to build in a different pattern option and and you know the applicant could come in and say well i i have a plan for development i can show you what it is i can tell you i'm going to meet everything else in the form base code but i need to rework the baseline regulating plan including where the streets and green spaces are in order to make it work and you could do that and now what the applicant wants to do in terms of street and green space placement and what the map says are one in the same and you're not entering into that um sort of negotiation or decision point because if you're master planning the whole thing let's just all agree on the map up front and then development can proceed on a per site basis and and would that be what's described as the bonus option so after let me scroll down to my bonus option um so yeah and and really i think what we're hearing from our stakeholder community is yeah that sounds great but bylaw amendments can take two years they can they can sort of languish and if these things are bylaw amendments we're concerned that um we'll just we'll just sort of die by a thousand cuts or by a thousand days of process um so the bonus option says um and this might be one to think about regardless of any particular project is to develop a select board policy that the board members can agree on that says we will handle these requests efficiently efficiently we will give folks who want to change the official map and regulating plan a timely answer to their questions we won't take two years to do it you're not committing that the answer is yes right or yes exactly what you're asking but you're saying we won't use procedure as a tool or or time as a tool to say no we'll just review it and we'll say yes or no and we'll say why and there are some boundaries expressed within the draft form-based code about mostly about street layout and walkability that say you know what's a good walkable pattern and what isn't and what are what are the boundaries under which those changes should be reviewed um there's also a map in the regulating or in the code an illustrative map that talks about for example having green spaces showing the two and a half minute walk shed around them in the coverage of the taff corners area by that that might be a boundary say well we don't want to lose a green space or move a green space so far that we're creating a bunch of taff corners that's not not quickly walkable to a green space so again it all happens at the select board the bonus option would be to come up with a policy that might offer a little more um of an olive branch to the development community saying we take this seriously we take our need to be involved in this seriously and we will commit the time to considering those requests in a timely manner all right good thank you haven't haven't we done that before didn't we change the zone well we have the specific plan process also well yes which is along those lines i mean it's it's to change zoning for a particular piece of property when there is a public benefit right this to me feels somewhat similar to that and if not very similar it is and you know our experience with specific plans has been well it's been a long time some some of them took a very long time um including some that didn't come to fruition our most recent one was about an eight month process that ultimately did not get to the select board because the planning commission voted no the other thing we've talked about is writing in a policy that says we always want the planning commission to transmit requests to make these amendments to the select board with a yes or no recommendation but always transmit again don't make the procedure the barrier right but just put the decision to the select board as efficiently as possible okay and just a nuts and bolts thing that that process that you've just described where the the planning commission always forward a recommendation one way to the select board that's that wouldn't be part of the bylaws that would be part of a separate that would be policy i think policy that would have you know i and it's really everybody sitting down and saying we're committed to operating this thing in a way that that works for everybody and you're kind of self governing to say that okay other questions on topic number two moving on to topic number three okay so this is our third of the the stakeholder requests and this has to do with the Taft Corners Associates property so we're west of root 2a and south of root 2 generally speaking and a couple things we're talking about here and the board received a late so it wasn't in your packet but emailed later a letter from Jeffrey Davis i think expressing most of what we've summarized here but i'll try to make sure we cover it all so the first the first issue is is another boundary question where should the southern boundary of the form-based code overlay be in this part of town and so the the upper left map you see on the graphic shows the boundary generally following the outer curve of harvest lane around by the Home Depot and Walmart parking lots and then coming up behind rei and then dog legging out over to cross root 2a just north of the soon-to-be former police barracks so this was this is the boundary we went with i think when we had our preliminary presentation of the select board we discussed how it's growth center all the way to the interstate but our consultant's initial recommendation was not to include everything all the way to the interstate in the form-based code overlay the underlying district here is mixed-use commercial it's essentially the big box district but it actually has some standards in it since about 2004 that make it awfully hard to build a conventional single tenant big box store requires buildings to be brought to the street includes a smaller wrap of stores it's been pretty difficult for folks to develop under anyway so there's that boundary and that was based on an idea of well you know what what might be a logical boundary that still leaves some of that more conventional large box development out and you know nearby to the highway and close to a trucking route on Marshall Ave etc so the the request we've had from Jeff Davis and Jeff Nick is to move that boundary to the north to Marshall Avenue in other words everything south of Marshall Avenue would continue to live in that mixed-use commercial district and their reasons as expressed in their letters are we you know that they don't necessarily see multi-story residential as being especially viable here they see a multi-story requirement which is in the draft code is being incompatible with some of these larger retailers who want access to their roof either for skylights or mechanical etc or they just don't want people or even another use upstairs from their use and so it's it's a question for the select board does the select board want to move forward with a regulating plan that takes more of those lands and leaves them in the mixed-use commercial district doesn't want to leave the boundary where it is the compromise position that the planning commission discussed is the is the version in the lower left corner of the graphic that black line it could be a different southern boundary it's about 150 feet south of Marshall Avenue and the rationale behind that is to have like kinds of development on both sides of Marshall Avenue which you know will continue to be a really major corridor in the area so you wouldn't have multi-story residential across the street from from single-story retail you you might have multi-story mixed use on both sides so that's that's the boundary issue the other things that we saw in the davis letter one will get to which is the question about green space and the designation on the regulating plan an official map of the large area of green space in in about half of the harvest lane island this was something we had some planning commission members felt very strongly that there was potential to create a large outdoor civic space within within that part of town and not a lot of other places in this district where that could happen thought that it ought to be on on the town's wish list as i as i've been referring to it and in mr davis's testimony and letters he sort of talks about does does that really make sense is that something that would work in williston and we'd like it in his words to you know remain developable under the the base zoning so that's something else for the board to think about in the last comment we received from mr davis i also have a separate point on which is the discussion of procedure and what's what's administrative what goes to the drb and what happens in front of the planning commission and select board so i think i might save that one as a component of that but the the biggest concern is there's not a lot of room in this code is drafted for the drb to hear something and make adjustments to the requirements of the regulating plan so there you know the regulating plan says you you you build a street here and you build a green space here and especially you build a street here and then it allows the zoning administrator to let that street be built anywhere within 75 feet of where it's shown on the map so it essentially can be moved you know the size of its own footprint one way or the other but it cannot be eliminated under any kind of administrative approval and it cannot be shifted any farther than that with an administrative approval and as drafted there's no route to go to the drb and ask for that change the route is via the planning commission and select board under a regulating plan amendment so i'll maybe touch on that when we get to to the procedures conversation those questions we are in this number three so image 3c with that demarcation on it is an attempt to um i don't know what the right words are so if i choose the wrong words sorry to hide the big box retail by putting form-based code light buildings in front of them so that the form-based code area on the other side of the street i guess that would be the north side of marshall avenue aren't necessarily looking at big box single story retail stores instead they're looking at structures that conform to the form-based code primarily they'll know they're behind them the retail viable option is that a viable option yes yes i mean okay um so what it does to expand on the way you described it is it makes marshall avenue a cohesive public street that you know if you walk down it drive down it bike down it's going to feel like something uh and you know in the street specifications that come with this we do imagine a different sort of marshall avenue with not fundamentally different but with a cycle track and a little different bit of a layout but even if you imagine what marshall avenue is like now um that you would you would be walking or biking up through that street and and you would have this sense of enclosure with buildings around you you know ultimately would not be seeing interstate 89 or you know the walmart home depot buildings back there you'd be traveling along something um that had a frontage with again you know doors and windows on the street and life and activity etc and how would parking work um so how would parking work the the boundary here is about 150 feet um south of the south of the edge of marshall avenue and we're talking about a maximum building depth in the in the building form standard of 80 feet so most likely similar to the way the code envisions access happening with alleys in other places you would you you would come in through a limited number of either curb cuts or new streets that stub into this and then get in behind the building so you know with multi-story residential if you're truly maximizing the potential you are definitely talking about parking underneath the building to some extent but there is also room in that depth for utilities and surface parking so you know at 150 feet you've got 80 feet of building but you've got another 70 feet to work with for parking utilities wraps um whatever else needs to happen back there okay and would there be a a traffic impact so that the marshall avenue as as envisioned can't happen because of the amount of traffic it needs to support because of the retail draw does that make sense that question um so marshall avenue as envisioned in the street specifications would still be capable of carrying the traffic that it carries today plus planned expansion in other words we're not taking away turn lanes at intersections or anything like that which is the you know none of marshall av is really multi-lane it breaks to multi lanes at the intersections there's no proposal here to take any of that away does that answer the question it does but it equally raises a concern of to to either concept of pedestrian friendly and encouraging um you know folks to park get out of the car and walk around if they're driving there or taking transit there is somewhat thwarted when you have heavy traffic on on the streets that are part of this so i have the same concern about route 2 and route 2a how are we going to integrate those into this how are we going to make it so that the amount of the volume of traffic they need to carry doesn't thwart the goals that we have for this overlay district which is the truly pedestrian friendly a place people want to go and get out and you know kind of you know do that shopping kind of like you do a little bit on church street you browse so we we we do have in those new street sections you know thinking really far into the distant future configurations of that right of way that provides some separation between pedestrians and those busier streets so whether it's the space that the street trees go into the fact that you're dealing with like a curb or a separated bike lane as opposed to an on pavement bike lane the integration of street parking in some places where where the parked cars now begin to serve as a barrier it's it's not going to be a quiet side city street and you know i think the other end of the spectrum you're describing is some things have really adequate pedestrian facilities but can't really be called walkable because they're just not very pleasant to be on so you know a separated bike path along a 50 mile an hour state highway it's totally safe to be on but it probably won't be the first place you you choose to go if you if you don't have to over time you can maintain the flow in terms of vehicles per hour while also calming the traffic you know so you add the granularity to the side streets because now you have trees now you have parked cars stuff is moving it's but it's not i don't know if you i i've bike commuted through marshal avenue many times and there's a lot of jackrabbit starting that goes on because when the light turns green the lane width and the road width says florid you can design a street that moves the same number of cars per hour that does not communicate that kind of behavior to the driver and that's really what those street specifications are about and they they need to work in concert with one another okay the planning commission did consider image 3c they did and why did they not do that um i i brought planning commission member with me i don't know maybe how you feel about taking a stab at that i'll need to have you forgive forgive the tone of the question if that sounded bad i don't i don't it's a sincere question i'm not judging anything okay i don't have the color vision so i have to get up to speed on what 3c is adjust the overlay district boundary right so this was one of the compromise scenarios um so can ted can you repeat the question what the planning commission considered but did not adopt that um what was the rationale you can you can get back i don't mean to put you on the spot so so this is the that was the original that was the transmitted one okay and this was the compromise to move it all up so it was just right okay so the one we transmitted i think the really big difference is is uh maintaining the um is that is that correct my read this correctly so the one of the big differences is maintaining the large green space on harvest no well there's there's a question for everybody about whether you're going to designate green spaces outside of what is ultimately the formace code boundary i think the other thing is um the transmitted version includes this this added grid that would would be these are the light orange streets that would be south of the heavy black line 3c so there's there's more potential for this sort of granular residential development to take place if it's kept in anything further ted no anything further from megan before you go sorry okay um could you i i know this has been asked before and it's been answered but i think it might be useful to hear again because we're talking about you know the single story retail the area that's um now occupied by home depot walmart and i forget the name of the um the third building those were removed from the overlay district what was the rationale for that i don't think they were ever in the overlay district well i believe at some point at least they were considered because i remember having a discussion and to be honest with you i was a little bit excited by the concept that you know these uses that are there now may not always be the uses that are there and and so they should be in form base code because that provided a lot of options for for change if that made sense but now they're they're out and i i never quite understood that sorry and maybe you're not the right person in it that's the case i apologize yeah i know i mean map map may be able to give you more history there my recollection which is not perfect um is that we we never really considered we were it it was sort of delivered to us already that way excluding those properties so i don't think that ever really came up for us an active discussion for us um and i believe it was the consultant and map who would probably know more about it and i don't i'm hiding anything i'm trying to figure out what's the difference between what's already been excluded or is not in the overlay district versus what is being proposed also to not be in the overlay district or not proposed but is on the table for consideration okay all right thank you i can i can give you just a little bit more on that so part of it is you know remembering that the code comes out of the vision plan process and the vision plan process involved a lot of public input it also involved a team of designers looking at this area and giving a first draft vision back to the planning commission which which included this boundary that was not the same as the boundary of the growth center so we started our process with our request for proposals and our consultant saying what's on the table is zoning in the growth center okay tell us what to do and when we asked our consultant why why did your team choose to leave these properties out so the first thing is each of them is is already developed with something there's there's proximity to the interstate and and just starting to get into some noise impact issues for residential there are there's some topography at work here that starts to separate these from the rest of the growth center and then the last part that i don't know if it was ever discussed at the planning commission level directly in relation to these properties but one of the outstanding issues that is in the vision plan and discussed by the planning commission is how to bring focus to this relatively large area there was there was quite a bit of concern at the planning commission level in the visioning process that you know taft corners growth centers about 987 acres it is sort of developed in this kind of spotty pattern where there's opportunities for infill or redevelopment scattered throughout and what do you what do you do so that the phase one redevelopment of taft corners under this code is is at all cohesive and so i don't think we ever necessarily said well one way to do it is to shrink the the boundary down here by wal-mart but it does sort of have that effect um and you know i view the the code in its draft form as a framework where if in a number of years it did make sense to expand to provide those additional opportunities for other types of development or redevelopment on those sites certainly something the planning commission select board could could consider so it's kind of that concept of of the overlay district can be too big and because you lose that focus right and and we're you know we're we're dealing with an area that's just naturally got a boundary and it's it's going to be so big no matter what we do what the town can do beyond boundaries is think about where it might focus investments in infrastructure or you know other incentives things like that and and so that may be some follow-up work to to actually adopting the code okay any further questions uh let's regarding topic three we'll move on to topic four building right all right so i think it's safe to say that the the predominance of negative public comment about the code that that the select board heard was was about building height and we've provided in the graphics a couple of illustrations that i'd like to go over in in providing some context around building height and also a little bit about the draft code and i think the bulk of negative public comment was about maximum allowed building heights but it is worth understanding that there are also some minimum required building heights in this code varying between two and three stories minimum and and this is again about you know creating a cohesive pattern along the street to some degree having the town make efficient use of this land that is really hoped within this district to contain the vast majority of new development in Williston for the next generation you know that was that was sort of the numbers that we were seeing when we projected this so and of course building height as the planning commission wrestled with it was always talked about in relationship to what it might or might not achieve as it relates to affordability and at a very basic level allowing additional building height allows somebody to put more dwelling units on the same size piece of land and therefore allows the cost of that land to be shared across more dwelling units reduces the land cost per dwelling unit in a project so there's some other nuances to building height i've talked about them a little bit before the way building height is measured in the draft code is different the first thing is the building form standards all limit height by stories but they all talk about a maximum height to the top plate of the top allowed story the tallest districts allow five stories with that top plate at 64 feet so the top of the top floor is at 64 feet the illustration provided the photograph provided at the bottom of this page shows some buildings across the street from one another in finny crossing and the reason we chose to show this illustration is because in the draft code building height is measured from the average elevation of the sidewalk along the street facade and that's different from the way we do it today where we use the average finished grade at the foundation you can see in the photograph that the three-story building on the left is elevated quite a bit above the sidewalk uh and and and soil is mounted up over there you have sharing rights too by the way i'll see if i can do it uh i just need to be enabled and i can yeah you are a presenter so you should i'm getting most disabled participants okay let's look at that happy to happy to do it if we can while we're while we're trying to get a thumbs up when we figure it out all right so while we're trying to do that i'll just keep going but the the point is you can't mount dirt up around a building to short its measured height in the new code but the new code allows taller buildings it it simply does the current code allows three and four-story buildings maximum height of 52 feet um mechanical equipment in the current code can extend above that 52 feet foot height i don't have an example where that's happened it has happened in other places where we limit height 36 feet so in the new code the tallest buildings are allowed at five stories and 64 feet and there's a desire in this code uh coming out of the vision and the idea of doing something unique to encourage uh a pitched roof configuration one of the ways that's encouraged is that you can have occupied space within that pitched roof in the form of an attic story there's quite a bit in the building form and architectural standards about what an attic story is it's not just another story you know on top of the fifth story with a wall that's pretending to be a roof the roof has a required maximum or minimum pitch dormer design has some limitations around it so that dormers are used and they're real again not just pretend window projections from an extra floor and um with the steepness of roof pitches allowed it is possible to build you know the tallest building with the steepest roof pitch and end up somewhere at the maximum depth of 80 feet with the gable on the short side of the building like most buildings are built 111 feet so functionally that's where the draft is today there are a number of ways in response to that larger maximum building height the select board could ask for revisions to this draft that would reduce it um one is there could be an absolute number of feet above clear sidewalk above which nothing is allowed to extend in other words you can have that pitch roof but if you've got five stories maybe you can't always use the very steepest pointiest pitch roof so there could be there could be an upper limit there could be a simple across the board reduction in the number of allowed stories in some of the building form areas and a commensurate reduction in the number of maximum feet to that top plate so there's a lot of ways to deal with building height it's just a question of of the board having heard all the testimony of the commission and the public giving the staff some direction about where it would like to go could you take a second to explain where the various building heights came from for the different districts so for instance why in the town center and storefront uh this well it's described as storefront subset of town center which both had the 64 as the the maximum just what was the thinking why that was the appropriate elevation or height to use sure so in a very general sense and each of the quadrants of taft corners is a little unique the idea is to start with the maximum heights in the more central areas and transition out to the lower heights at the edges and especially at the edges that that butt up against the existing residential districts so the the strollable neighborhood with the three-story 42 foot height limit that's the yellow on the top of the the page that actually represents a reduction in potential maximum height from what the zoning allows today and then and then we go taller as we move toward the middle and shock front which has the same height limits as town center is just town center with a required retail capable first floor so it's the same buildings but it's the one place where we say we really want to see retail on the ground floor everywhere else we say you may have retail or residential it's it's the choice of whoever's building the building okay as part of the zoning administrators discretionary permit review and I don't know approval or issuing process if a landowner came in and said I want to build a five-story building with x-roof on top of it pitch roof on top of it would and and and further there in let's say the town center part of this could you say no to could the zoning administrator say no to that because it just doesn't fit for one reason or another or are they allowed to do that no matter what because that's the way the code is written the zoning administrator could not say no based merely on height there are a whole lot of other things that come into play once you're doing that though number one the taller the building is the bigger it is that the more parking you've got to come up with we have relatively low parking minimums here but you're going to have to come up with the parking and at some point you're either not going to want to go any further underground with it or you're not going to want to consume any more surface space with it or or we'll simply run out of lot area keep in mind you know we have a 30 foot parking set back throughout all of these districts so there's parts of somebody's site that are simply not accessible for parking you're going to have to come up with your 15 minimum open area some of which is going to have to happen on the parcel somewhere 15 has to do with the footprint of the building so it's really difficult to max out a building in every single dimension within this code and when we've modeled this on a couple of sites we run into that you know pretty quickly go well yeah we could do five stories if the first two floors were a parking deck but then there's no reason to build five stories so there's some inter there's some interplay there but whatever these maximums are and however they're expressed if somebody stays within them then that's not a that's not a reason to say no to the project okay so you know you want to set them at a level that is is acceptable to the to the select board would reducing those stories or heights be detrimental in your opinion to the goals of the form-based college yes everything we've heard in the vision about affordability and honestly also just some of what we've talked about in terms of flexibility sometimes it might make sense for a building to go up like that or as or as one developer told me about the shopfront frontage if you're going to make me carry empty retail space for a year and a half on the ground floor of this building because you really want the retail space you've got to give me four rentable residential stories up above it okay and that's you know that's one person who developed properties like this expressing their experience you know but there is there is a balance there and sometimes extra height might make it pencil and and at our most great heights what you're doing is you're getting that pitched roof and remember there are ways to build flat roof buildings in this code the easiest one is is to represent that that roof is solar ready planning commission really landed on a point of saying we don't want to require pitched roofs to the point that we're precluding somebody's ability to develop solar solar ready means the roof can structurally support the solar panels and and the conduit is there for the wiring if they need it and that's we're not saying you must install the panels we were advised that we couldn't say that we're saying you need to be solar ready so there's there's very little in here stopping somebody from building that flat roof if they want the pitched roof they do get the added benefit of being able to occupy some of that space in in you I realize this is a difficult question to ask so in your opinion is the concern about building heights and its impact on views you know and just the the look of buildings at what is proposed to be permitted is is that being somewhat overblown i when i actually see a buildings or set of buildings that are at these heights and and number of stories my concern i'm not going to have the same concern as i feel i have right now because they sound high to me well i think number one the concerns you're hearing about height are real and and heartfelt and and not made up change is hard growth and change is hard and especially when it feels like it's fast and we certainly entered into this process having heard an awful lot of criticism about the pattern and design of growth and change that has occurred in Williston especially in the last 10 years and really set out to try to address a lot of that in the in the architectural standards and in the idea of adding the organizing element of a regulating plan to the town's toolbox from my personal experience buildings look the worst when they're under construction and then you kind of get used to it it's hard when they take longer to build we've all heard an awful lot about the four-story Blair Park hotel and i certainly wish there was a better example architecturally and process-wise of a four-story building in in Williston there's any number of things i could tell you that that building does not meet in terms of the architectural standards and site layout standards that it would have to meet under the new code it's four stories slammed up under a relatively flat roof for one in order to make our 52 foot height and you know somebody might say well why don't you just only let them build three and then the roof can be a better pitch that's true but the other thing i think is that because of the openness of the development pattern in Taft Corners we do hear a lot about views of the mountains whether it's the Adirondacks or Mount Mansfield and the i would say at least 80 percent of the time when someone says something to me about the view they say when i drive through Taft Corners i really like being able to see well when i drive through route 2a i see and we refer to that as the windshield perspective and when you put buildings on the street they're going to block the views of the mountains from the windshield they they they will and they do you know we've had that already in some of our our development pattern and it's different we talked about traffic flow today and the reality that people are still going to drive cars for a very long time and we need to move them but i would not say that this code or plan is focused on creating the most visually exciting atmosphere for someone who's behind the wheel of the car it's it's people-centered and you know when you're walking down the street on the sidewalk and the building is 10 feet to your to your left or right it doesn't really matter how tall it is anymore right because it's it's just a wall that's next to you and what's more important is am i walking by a big blank cinder block wall or am i walking by by some windows um are there other people around because there's people living in the buildings or is it the side of a warehouse or a loading dock other qualitative things come into play and you know it's it's it's a question of being a rural community that's turning into something other than a rural community and has been for a really long time there are places in williston where there will continue to be views of the mountains uh and nice sunday drives to take this might not be one of them under under this or or or the current zoning frankly okay could you touch on the bonus option that is listed here um at a metric to limit the maximum height of a pitched roof above an attic story yeah so i sort of alluded to this earlier um this is the idea of saying you can have so many stories you can have a pitched roof with an attic story but in no event can you go above some number and so the numbers here are a little funny um i gave the example of limiting total building height to 81 feet and the reason i picked 81 feet is because with a building at the maximum depth of 80 feet with a gable going on the short side of the building because we're not going to build a gigantic gable facing the street um at a 512 pitch our minimum allowed roof pitch you're at about 81 feet so in other words that's the that's the shortest five stories plus an attic story building you can build under the the flattest pitched roof that the town would allow if you if you start thinking that you want an absolute height lower than 81 feet it's probably time to think about dropping a story from the maximums so you know going around kind of thinking about what you're looking at i mean i i've been doing this for a couple years now in williston and it means every single place i go with tall buildings i'm counting stories i just walked by a six-story building i just walked by a seven oh that's a three okay what does it feel like to me um and i'd encourage you to think of places you've been the same way and then imagine that applied to williston and you know again changing the numbers is mechanically very easy it's it's thinking about what it means when you do that as as you were exploring about viewshed or as we talked about about affordability um viability economic resilience etc if i'm standing on the porch of um it's a big sky did i get the name of the restaurant correct in richmond and i'm looking across bridge street do you know what how many stories those buildings are three or four okay probably just three yeah just just curious it's it's a wall of buildings but there's something about it that doesn't feel bad a lot of i was in bristol over the weekend um a lot of bristol is three and four okay a little bit of it is two it's a you could take all of main street bristol and build it like in the mable street is tiny but the buildings that front the street are generally mostly three and four with a few twos and the very occasional one mixed in yeah it's big spruce that's what i'm gonna say yeah big spruce sorry came to me just sorry restaurant approximately how much of the the overly district um presented was i mean you may not have this out of the top of your head but would the maximum height of the five story apply to probably about 65 percent and it is very ballpark but if you think of your regulating plan map uh anywhere you see red orange or light orange we're talking about the five story maximum right now or sorry um red or dark orange i gotta go back to my graphic um light orange we go to four and 53 instead of so uh red and orange okay on that so you said like approximately 65 yeah um but it's it's quite a lot of it it's it's not a small portion of the district for sure not to go backwards matt but the the attic story if i'm understanding that that's that's an option it's not like has to be done that's correct so i've just had a bunch of emails this is like the hot topic that i've gotten through email for the for building height um and i i get the the viability of sharing the cost as multiple stories were built has it been considered aesthetically and for housing like doing three stories with an attic so therefore not reaching that maximum height or that obtrusiveness that i think a lot of counts people are worried about we certainly thought about different numbers um you know one of the ideas was we we we allow four right now right for with with if there's an attic above it nothing in the attic essentially so one of the thoughts was well what's the right we want to take a step up from that uh at some level because we we know what we have isn't quite getting us where we want to go just just what we're seeing in the field is is not a lot of affordability um and we know we want to follow up all of this code work with with some discussion about requiring some affordability so what's the right context in which to do that so um in the in the planning commissions sort of wrestling with this um the most they ever considered is what they transmitted to you i don't think we ever talked about you know six plus one anywhere they did struggle with it some and you know i'm not i'm not here to give you numbers about what it does for affordability because i just i don't have them it's just a gradient where more units share the same cost of land and no no some of the same cost of interest i i guess like that i totally get that point i'm just thinking of like a three-story with you know you know a 14-12 pitch that aesthetically looks different and adds some context to different buildings around it um obviously there's the shared cost is not going to be as great you know but i'm just trying to figure out where my my heads at with this sure what things will look like yeah and i you know we talk a lot i was earlier we were talking about village standards with the hack tonight and i said you know planners live in the worst-case scenario world so we're always thinking like what's what's the worst most unesthetically pleasing building that everybody's going to hate that someone could feasibly do under this and so we talked about those maximums so like the 80-foot building depth um realistically most residential buildings um are built with a hall running down the long way right and the apartments face out either to the street or the back and most of those max out at about 65 or 70 feet of depth because you've just got space that's just too dark and and and the apartment units are too big and long and narrow once you once you go much beyond that so is every building going to be 80 feet deep and therefore be able to carry that maximum pitch roof no um in fact it's it's generally more likely that they won't but there's a maximum out there so somebody doesn't go you know 100 so we we talked a lot about the interplay between all of these things and the the best answer i can give you is this was a assertive step beyond what the town's been doing so far that was palatable to the commission but also that the commission felt might thank you for the questions or comments regarding number four um just real quick so what would be from a development perspective what would be the benefit of having like the maximum allowable 14 12 pitch roof on a five-story building versus having the the 512 pitch roof it's just increased space in the attic for what i mean honestly you know once you get above that occupiable story it's it's not something anybody's paying rent on um it it might be that somebody's just got an architect who says i i want to create an iconic building in williston or or that just you know i'm building a replica of the chateau frontenac and i want that green tower yeah you know we i've seen building you know there are some tall buildings on the uvm campus with these very steep pitched roofs that was pretty much i think an architectural choice and a style choice and i've been a sort of a statement thing but in general um it makes probably not a lot of sense it's it's more materials it's more space to deal with it's more height to deal with in the construction process and it's not paying rent at the end of the day um you know there there may also be a building where it does make sense for somebody um and and so that's that's why we landed with that range and you know when you talk to architects about form-based codes what they're almost universally going to say is give us flexibility so we can do cool creative stuff and so you try to do that but also preclude the things that you think you know you don't want moving on to topic number five green spaces which you've talked a little bit about yeah um let me say one more thing about building height yeah sure uh there has also been some background conversation about added flexibility of reducing some of the minimums um so you know even including allowing in some areas one story and if if folks have follow-up questions about that a lot of that did come from Taft Corners Associates it was accomplished by the boundary move we discussed earlier because just more land ends up in a zone where one story is allowed another way to go at that is is to allow shorter buildings um and just say you know hey you could do all this but if you want to do one or two stories that's fine again it's a shifting of these numbers and just something for the board to think about okay so let's talk about green spaces and I understand I think the the desire to revisit this on the part of the board to be a lot about the official map um and the process of potentially acquiring green spaces and the potential responsibility cost and liability the town might um take on in um constructing and maintaining them um and and acquiring the land so if if that um is the case the options we looked at we're really talking about how much or if at all uh desired green spaces show up on the regulating plan and show up on the official map um and what we gave you in the illustrations I think were just some of the reasons that the commission felt the way they did and conveyed to you a draft that does include these planned and and it essentially required um public green spaces within the area and I think the the interesting one I talked about a little earlier is 5B in the upper right corner um that shows these green circles and that's a two and a half minute walk uh radius around each of the greens that the plan anticipates would be public and would be developed as some kind of structured park uh by the town and accommodated by the development community as they built those places out so really general sentiment from the planning commission people who live in Taft corners in the future ought to be able to walk to someplace public and green um COVID showed us that there's a need for places for people to gather safely and that those may be outdoors um and also you know in an environment like this where we're not talking about a you know a more conventional subdivision that just provides a playground somewhere um there's a need for people who are living in this sort of a pattern to have access to green spaces that they can walk to and public makes more sense than necessarily just relying on the small green spaces that would be required as part of every development and I think throughout the vision process and the planning commission process we heard consistent public comment there should be more green in Taft corners planned for so here we are with the map and what we think is the strongest and best way for the town to actually achieve that that green space um but with some questions from the board about well what does this all mean for us and and um what are we uh maybe what are we committing the town to what are we signing ourselves up for and if we really want this how do we really do it so I'll maybe start from there and hopefully I've captured what the what the question was and I think so but the questions are our comments the only question or comment I have is back in topic two we had the bonus option which is this um there'd be a policy for there to be a a uh there'd be a selected or adopted policy that relatively quickly would address questions about changing the regulating plan based on a project that's going through the approval process would that doesn't that kind of address the green space question I mean if we have such a process in place um we would keep we might keep the regulating plan the way it is right now but when it gets to a specific process and we're starting to weigh the benefits of the project versus the green space versus all the other things that go into it I mean is that the place to actually have that conversation versus trying to do it overall right now for the whole overlay district right so I've used this metaphor a lot um the regulating plan an official map as it shows streets and green spaces is a wish list um you're you're saying as a matter of policy if this were adopted these are the things we'd like to acquire and and put into that statutorily enabled process where we the town get to at least think about trying to require them when they're when they're imminently otherwise up for development and I revisit the answer I gave earlier which is to say if it's somebody developing one particular site with a green or portion of green on it that's kind of one thing and I think that follows that you know 120 days to make a decision about pursuing acquisition pattern if somebody's master planning an area and you know this whether we we showed the Trader Lane green here which is a new idea that came out of the vision it's not part of the long-standing idea for Trader Lane and if through the process of working with landowners to develop Trader Lane there's a a different idea part of operationalizing that idea would be to amend these documents in other words that's that second option of you know select where I'm kind of looking globally at this whole area and this the street we're going to try to build and everything else and really the map that's in the official map and regulating plan isn't quite where we want to go let's just change it and then let's follow that second process the 120 day process going forward in the future so official map and regulating plan is a wish list it does it does put these desired greens in a in a position where the town can assert itself and say yeah we really want to enter into an attempt to acquire that or no we don't and then it's as if it doesn't exist and development can proceed as if the land is developable as it is under the rest of the building form standard so that's a lot of my answer the putting on or taking off of the map is putting on or taking off of the wish list right and I think where the planning commission landed was let's have a wish list that's like encompassing of everything we we think we need or at least a consensus on everything we need I think there were voices on the commission who still said there should be more so the basically the green spaces are kind of a right of first refusal for the town yes um and what's I'm sorry I should know this but is it a hundred 120 days how long does the town have to accept that so the town has 120 days to decide if it's going to enter into good faith effort to acquire okay the the appraisal and acquisition timeline could take longer than that I think what statute imagines is everybody's working together pretty closely at that point and you know we when we talk to our neighboring communities about how do they handle this under official map there are some communities like heinsbergs told us you know we don't we don't put parks and green spaces on unless they're ones we've already gotten into our capital plan that's one way to do it is is don't put it on the wish list until you know you can afford it but the other thing we heard from a lot of communities is often it just makes sense for the developer to provide that green space as part of the project they're planning and you know we've offered this up in concert with a bylaw amendment that would make the value of that green an offset to the recreation impact fee that that is otherwise built all all residential projects so the hope here is that that right of first refusal process is not the one that's followed most of the time but rather there's a collaborative process and the town has set the incentives in such a way that this stuff just happens in the course of the development being designed I guess with with that as a possible future and it sounds plausible um coupled with the fact that there's you know what I'm when I'm calling right a first refusal concept here um I'm not I guess I'm kind of wondering what the what the critical need to change the green space aspect of this is anyway I think for some folks both in in the public and on the board it's a little bit of a reality check are are we really going to be in a position to to do this stuff financially I should say that what statute says is developers shall accommodate so you can it can mean set the land aside for the town to develop at a later date you don't you don't have to turn it into a park that very minute or take a turnover that very minute it could be privately developed within a revocable offer etc but I I think that's really it's it's it's part of another more general and kind of consistent public comment I think we've gotten throughout this process which is this looks like an awful lot of public infrastructure that the town is anticipating will be in this area and the answer is yeah there there is an awful lot of public infrastructure um the intent here is that it's built very incrementally and that you're not getting a new green or a new street to take care of unless somebody's building a pretty substantial chunk of grand list value next door to it um and that those things are going to be complementary. Other comments or questions regarding green spaces? Moving on to topic number six, administrative approval process which is before we begin should we talk about the copyright violation of the how a bill becomes a bill? I thought that was 75 years old and I'm 85. We used to have a print of that tacked up to the wall in here so the the graphic we showed is is actually just illustrative of today's today's process and really just intended to work with a lot of public comment we get at the DRB which is you know generally some criticism that's often provided to the DRB that's really a criticism of what the by-laws allow and explaining those roles so select board adopts laws that are recommended to them by the planning commission and the DRB administers and in the form-based code the administrative approval process we envision does change the DRB's role and you know I've been talking with you folks about this since it was in the draft back in December. There are still some elements of development especially the planning and laying out of streets and parcel boundaries that just have to go to the DRB but building insight design wouldn't as this code is currently drafted and I'd like to though there's there's been a number of comments made to the effect of the form-based code takes the select board out of the process so to the select board members here I'd ask you what what role do you feel you have in the development review process today and and you know you you adopt by-laws and the DRB administers them well this specific plan would be the only when when you're changing the zoning yeah okay right yeah and that's a great segue because so what does happen under this draft the DRB is removed from some of the development review process they are removed from reviewing the construction of a new building on a new site in this district the draft is written to place the burden of that review on on my shoulders as zoning administrator that's how it's drafted if the board wants to change it you can it's one of those things that form-based codes often offer up to the development community as an exchange for the heightened architectural and design standards say well we're going to make you work a little harder on your design but we're going to shorten your your review and make it administrative so that's the way it's drafted a couple other ways the DRB's remains involved is of course any decision made by the zoning administrator is appealable to the DRB we've also written into this draft a requirement for a butter notification by mail that's very similar to the butter notification required for a DRB hearing so letting neighbors know that something is up for review and when it's going to be discussed and the meeting at which that permit is discussed in in terms of approval is a publicly accessible meeting and I might have mentioned we actually went and attended one of these in Winooski to to see how that process works the other thing is I said the a butter notification process is similar it's actually greater than the current statutorily required a butter notification with the DRB in that we require not just the owners of properties adjacent but anybody living in the properties adjacent to be notified because are you really going to know in a 50 unit apartment building that your landlord got a letter that there's a big building going up next door and maybe you want you know you want to go participate because you're a citizen of that site a citizen of the town you just might happen to be living in an apartment with a landlord not in a home that you own I should dive tangent for one second to explain it in the background of all of this conversation we've we've had a complete legal review of this draft one of the things our attorney did was he crossed that out he said don't do this statute doesn't say you have to and and we look at it and said well that's true they don't say we have to we were asked by the planning commission to really make sure the process was transparent so even though it's administrative it's still participatory it's still open to the public to understand what decision the zea is making and why and and to understand the rights of appeal shouldn't approval be made that said there's not a lot of judgment calls in here and that's intentional in a form based code so hopefully what the zea is doing is formulaic and in fact by statute the zea is not to be making interpretations they are actually what says is shall interpret the bylaws literally which means don't interpret them but that's what statute gives us so i just i wanted to highlight that because it does change the role of the drb there are approvals that don't happen at a public hearing and i'll go back just one second to the select board's role which today is limited to when the zoning is changed or when a specific plan is proposed i would anticipate that functionally the select board is a lot more involved in the shaping of development in taft corners under this code because of the times that somebody is going to want to change that regulating plan to move a street to shift a green space to give the select board the chance to acquire or not acquire one of those things i think sorry if you adopt this this code places a significant workload back to the select board to engage with the development community in the master planning and layout of taft corners so we'll be meeting three times a month we'll have one meeting a month that's just for development um no i i just i do think that will happen more than it is happening now under the specific plan process yes so you know the the options we gave you to think about here would be to change the permit procedure and take what the zoning administrator would issue in the draft and just make it something the drb does um we could take that project review committee meeting format um we could take this review we could take um the application checklist and findings memo that we're already anticipating the zoning administrator would write we could write it and we could hear it at the drb you know in in whatever time it made sense the difference of course then is if somebody doesn't like what the drb said the appeal goes to state environmental court if somebody doesn't like what i do it goes to the drb okay but that was one of my questions how does i mean the drb obviously at least agreed with the concept of having a discretionary permit issued by the zoning administrator was there any dissent on that whether those who strongly felt it should stay with the drb and i'm thinking back to the days when we used to have a planning commission that did both roles the planning current planning commission's role and the current drb's role and there were members who were pretty upset at the split and so it could be that there were drb members who were not happy with this proposal on the other hand it could be members who were dancing out of that meeting where that decision was made so um we held a couple of training nights with the drb to to talk about this draft and to talk about how it it could potentially um change their role and and and what the code could potentially allow and and not allow and i was really surprised there was actually very little pushback on that idea um and i think i know why um and if you were to go look at um any number of recent site plan or subdivision reviews that our program has staffed in front of the drb what you're going to find is a very lengthy staff report with a recitation of all of the various ways in which the project meets the development by law like 99 percent and then there's going to be a note that says but the drb should decide if a condition is necessary to determine the sequencing of the installation of the public art and that is to say when we're reviewing especially a site plan um and and uh individual building and site we're really often drilling down to um very small details and where we've struggled and debated um a recent example would be the l l beam building there was tension around the sort of general way in which the current by law says we really like buildings in this district have pitched roofs and of course l l beam uh and and and the builder of that building not wanting a pitched roof and in fact there was even um sort of a design that kind of tacked on some pitched roof elements didn't really make a lot of sense um and and ultimately before the drb that it was refined and the drb just sort of their role in that was to kind of weigh the the towns stated kind of in a should sort of way have pitched roof by law standard against the applicant saying pitched roof really doesn't work on this building and so those are the kinds of things the drb ends up weighing and those are the kinds of things we're trying to clarify in here um so I think in working with the drb to talk about that to talk about the way this would make the development standards more prescriptive there's a lot of options but there's some very specific language about what those options are um I think I heard from at least one or two members well well what would we do if we were reviewing this it's either going to meet this or it isn't and that is very much the intent okay and um you know that said again much like building height um if the board wants these projects reviewed by the drb instead of the administrator it's a few lines in the code to change that and and place that responsibility on the drb and we the staff will write the staff reports and set up the hearings and present what we think the the draft findings are to the drb but they would be the ones taking the vote you mentioned the piece about wanting to keep the process transparent and the ability to uh for residents to participate under the under the uh proposal where it would be an administrative permit issued by the zoning administrator what would be the opportunities for the public to participate going to make me open the code so if we go um into the administration chapter which is chapter eight in your binder and I I'll just correct you we've given this kind of permit a new name it's a certificate of conformity okay but it it's functions like a discretionary permit review um in front of the drb so um we have a bunch of sections here um and we talk a little bit about um procedure in let me see where I go I think we're mostly in section e but there may be I'm looking for the section with the additional or butter notice and not finding it so it may take me a minute on d at the very bottom uh operational procedures number two I skipped right over it um so this this bylaw change creates what's called a project review committee it is a staff committee it's it's the same people who look at projects today it's the zoning administrator the fire chief police chief public works director um but the the difference is um they have a meeting it's not a hearing it's a meeting and that that means we get a little bit of flexibility about when we can hold them and how we can schedule them but we do require seven-day notice of that meeting we do require a written staff report um and I'll also say that because the planning commission asked for a lot of transparency what we've had done is we've had all of the requirements in the form-based code drafted into the form of a checklist where the applicant goes through their proposal and for each requirement that's applicable they mark yes I need it and here's the page of my submittal where you can go read about how I need it and then there's a third place for the zoning administrator say yes I looked at that and I agree so we want to we want to make all of that available um for folks to see so they so they know what's going on as projects come in under review here I mean the process I think I get the process which is a quick it's seven days enough I'm just thinking you're on vacation you get the notice and you don't even know the hearing happened because you didn't return until day eight so that's a minor little thing I'd like to go back to the the appeal process so let's um the zoning administrator issues their certificate of conformity the landowner is not happy with it and appeals to the DRB the DRB let's say supports the decision that the the certificate and says yes we agree it should have been issued and this is how it should have been issued that appeal and it goes to the environmental court what would happen there what what are the what are the you know how would that work I guess so so generally um there would be an initial statement of questions prepared by the appellant that would be the we you know we get noticed that that that it's happening that the decision has been appealed etc but the first thing we really interact with is a statement of questions um where the appellant lays out why they think that the ZA and the DRB got it wrong is it true that this project meets XYZ requirement is it um you know I mean these are it's a little different because these approvals aren't really very conditional it's it's either you perfect your application or you don't get a permit whereas you know DRB approvals often say what you told us you want to do is okay as long as you do this that and the other at your final plan and sometimes there are appeals about those conditions so so here um I'm trying to imagine someone who got an approval they didn't like it would be more likely they would get a denial they didn't like and they would appeal that can we go with that example sure so um they propose a site layout that I I as zoning administrator believe doesn't meet some element of the requirements in here and they say well I don't think that means what you think it means and the DRB agrees with me but they disagree that that's put in front of an e-court judge and we would make our they would make their statement of questions we would make our response there would probably be motions for summary judgment we're saying we we really think we're right and this should all just be thrown out and they might say we really think we're right and to just prevail etc and we might even go to trial um we might even do a site visit with the judge we've done that in the past um but but really we would be presenting you know the the the e-court judge basically becomes the DRB yeah and they're they're saying okay now I'm reviewing this like I'm the Williston DRB give me the facts what does the code say what does the proposal say um and you know asking for help from the appellant and the appellee on that um in the form of briefs and statements but um they become the DRB essentially yeah um and re-review that um and you know they might decide the DRB was right they might remand something back to the DRB and say we don't think you got this quite right we think you need to look at it again um you know I'm not quite sure um there have not been a lot of appeals in Vermont of form-based code approvals or denials that I'm aware of um and compared to the appeals of DRB decisions that I have experienced most have been about something in the bylaw or the conditions that felt vague to somebody somebody said I don't think that means what you think it means um and and that becomes the appeal a concern I have is in order for us to see TAF's corners develop in the way we would like to develop you need two things you need um a landowner who's willing to develop and you need the town with the appropriate you know code in place that lets them develop if if landowners just find that they can't live with a form-based code and we have nothing happening is is that is that a potential liability that we're going to get into this sort of dull drone state where nothing is happening because we can't landowners aren't interested in moving ahead with projects because they don't feel that those projects that they're allowed to do will work for them does that question make sense and is that a concern sure um I mean the main concern is if that were to happen that the vision that the public worked on at the beginning of this process just would not be achieved um goals of the town plan would not be achieved right and there's always the possibility that you've become so strict and so prescriptive or or required a type of development that is so expensive to build um that nobody will will build to it um that sort of thing tends to work itself out pretty quickly um comes evident very quickly yeah yeah maybe okay you know I I struggle to think of examples of places big places or or fast growing places with a lot of development pressure that have truly been able to regulate themselves into stagnation um good word for it it's or or a sort of a sterile environment yeah um I think where you do see it is um small resort communities with historic main streets that that have just so much regulatory weight on top of everything because there's so much concern that somebody's going to do something wrong or you start to get an atmosphere of of um participants saying well I had to go through XYZ onerous process so should the person next to me and uh you can get a little more of a gridlock that way unfortunately the um the the real outcome of being overly restrictive is only those who can sue their way to victory end up getting to build anything and and that's not really a good way to do planning or growth or development either um so you know I think I've had enough conversations with folks who are thinking about what it would be like to redevelop properties in Taft Corners under this code to believe that there are feasible projects that are doable under the code um you know we we hired a consultant who's developed a number of these codes um and I I shudder to make this comparison because I think a lot of people have a hard time with it but our consultant wrote the form-based code for the corridors in Winooski where there is certainly a great deal of of development and redevelopment taking place. What was that part of Winooski again? So it's um East Allen Street, Main Street, Mallets Bay Avenue, um the the main corridors in our under a form-based code if you were to go look at it some of the maps and illustrations would look quite familiar to you um and we we watch it with great interest because we have the same author working for us and and can can test some things out that way but you know certainly as evidenced whether you like what's happening there or not and our architectural standards are different or site design standards are somewhat different um people have found ways to develop in some pretty challenging sites and environments and and meet that code over the last five years. Okay that's good to know and and if I could put up what you're saying is form-based code such as what's being proposed here has survived legal scrutiny we you know we we are not so much taking away a landowner's right to develop that there's laws against that type of thing. So I I ended up this winter on the chairlift with a prominent Vermont land use attorney and and unfortunately somebody had told him who I was and what I did for a living and he said all right he said what is this form-based code stuff you've got until we get to the top of the map. And this was a land use attorney. Yeah okay hadn't hadn't worked in form-based code but lives in a community in Vermont where it's become a hot topic not Williston and I said okay well you know how zoning says like how tall buildings can be and where they go on the site and and maybe says some things about you know the architecture and all that he said yeah I said it's form-based code it's a kind of zoning it's not all that fundamentally different from zoning it is a different way to express those ideas and and in the case of a place like Williston which really fundamentally different is there's so much master planning to do because we're not redeveloping a walkable urban grid with with a compatible building form we're evolving and we have significant land and undeveloped places that give us enough big question marks that it's it's time to do some some really careful planning around I said but at its heart form-based code is about what buildings are going to look like how big they're going to be where they're going to go it's even a little bit about what you're allowed to do inside of them despite everybody saying it's only about form there's a there's a use chapter in here it's it's different but it's there that's that's what it is in Vermont where statute gives us the official map tool there's a real opportunity to partner form-based code with master planning and and set up a whole regime where there's collaboration between the public and private sector around the way new development is going to lay out and that's what I really am excited about and think Williston is getting to hear that's different from what I perceive as a little bit of a disconnect between many of the Williston Taft Corners master planning efforts that occurred in the past and the implementation via zoning which often happened years apart in time and and and fairly distant in concept that said you go back to 1987 and there's the ring road diagram that says we ought to have a way to get around the Taft Corners intersection well that is that has carried forward and and you know I think to great benefit of the town again this is a refinement of those same ideas the final questions on this tonight it's been very helpful I think for us to hear this tonight and I think going forward I'll be looking to start the process of making recommendations or adopting particular parts of the code as we get to the next meeting which will be August 23rd uh we will not be joining as far as the special meeting except for the uh the CUD. Can I just make one one comment? So I missed last meeting and I did watch the the video actually it was incredibly helpful partly because I have trouble in public hearings trying to take notes and and listen at the same time and this was great because I could hit the pause button but I wanted to pick up on a comment that a resident made where they they said you know finally the community is asked and gotten involved feels so much better than what's happened before and that's just I think a real comment about this process that you and the the planning commission have have embarked on we have not had this level of public participation in our any of our ordinances as long as I've been on the select board and I've been on the select board for like 25 years I mean that is I mean you know kudos for you know for that you know it feels good this is the way a community like Williston ought to consider something so important such as you know what we're talking about well you know thank you and I extend that thank you to the staff the police division we've had a great team both working to create the capacity to be able to do this for the last many years we've been we've been working towards just having the training the time and capacity to do this sort of thing we've asked our planning commission to do an incredible amount of work over the last two years and they've really stepped up to it we've asked the community to engage with us in the depths of COVID we've asked them to go to yet another zoom meeting and they have we've asked people to ask us hard questions about this and they have we've thanked people who are having trouble with this for their continued engagement for sticking it out through again what can be a very difficult process imagining change and growth and development and you know in in many ways confronting um some hard facts that things don't stay the same and you can't go home again it's it's just tough um and and having to envision those things but also understanding that there are these opportunities out there to shape that future and I I do believe just in in sort of its are Williston and Taft-Corns in particular is at a really critical moment where where something can be done and and it probably won't last forever and it might not come back again for a while so we really appreciate the community's engagement with this the select board's dedicated more time to this than anything I think we've ever brought to you as a planning staff and we very much appreciate that I would just close by encouraging each board member to look at those options we created think about if there's others that you'd write in there as options you're interested in we did a lot of straw-polling with the planning commission when we did similar work sessions kind of do that for yourself fill it in where where do I land on these um and you know the edits again are all pretty mechanically easy for the staff to make at this point um we just we just need the direction if we get that out of a work session uh we can we can say okay you know this is how much time we need for a hearing and we can continue to move on so I do have a couple things I would like to talk to you that aren't captured in the six topics for tonight I would look to you and Eric to see if that's okay to do that okay yeah absolutely thank you thank you very much thanks man thank you for that question so we're back to uh Eric for the manager's report all right I'm back um just a couple brief items I'll touch on my written report to see if thing uh fiscal year 2023 tax bills have been mailed um this will be receiving those if they haven't already and I'm out of the first installment will be August 15th um to recognize our two new police academy graduates officer Sabrina Bhutan and officer Kelsey Parker graduated from 113th Vermont police academy last Friday July 15th uh big congratulations on on their hard work in the police academy and then um this has been shared the last couple of weeks but just for the public listening we've transitioned our dispatch to Essex police primarily Sunday Monday and Tuesday our lowest volume nights of the week so it's done with a change in level of service from from the state police things have gone well the first couple of weeks I've heard this is our lowest call volume of the week this is a temporary agreement through September with Essex to allow our departments look at some additional options and certainly bring this to the board in August and September to to discuss the options here and as we look at this Chilling County Public Safety Authority to provide regional dispatch is still moving forward working through the final steps to get all the capital costs lined up for for that project and we'll have that operational in the next coming period of time here to to look at that as as a as a next option as we as we work through this transition phase here then also share we have the COVID-19 antigen tests in town hall available we receive four large boxes from the state we have them available at town hall in the library a lot of folks have come in and to take advantage of that you can have four boxes that have two kits into each so we'll continue to make those available at town hall and let's see if we can get some more if we run out here and that's all I have for my written report this evening thank you if you're enjoying your vacation separate night and thank you so well there are other business we do have a catering permit that came in today and Erin has provided us with a copy of that but if you could give us a quick overview of it sure so today 802 Cocktails LLC submitted a request to cater they're asking to serve beer wine and spirits for a wedding to take place at 3515 Oak Hill Road on August 6th from 4 to 11 p.m. there will be approximately 110 people in attendance so this approval would require a motion from the slot board but thanks any questions for Erin the the address 3550 I shall I shall fire I'm sorry I'm sorry did you say that I didn't I don't know that but now I do yes okay any questions for Erin I'm looking for a motion move we approve for a second second discussion on the motion very none all those in favor of the motion say aye any opposed any other business to bring it forward tonight Terry what one other really brief item we forgot with our reappointment list back in June for the CCRBC Clean Water Advisory Committee so Mark Croy and Christine Doherty and Public Works Director Bruce Hoare have served on that Christine as the primary and Bruce as the alternate should the board wish to consider a reappointment we just asked that they're reappointed for a two-year term through June 30th of 2024 is there is there a motion to do that so moved second motion is made in second is there any discussion on the motion if not all those in favor of the motion say aye aye any opposed all right well last chance for other business if not we are adjourned thank you