Calling the meeting to order, it is seven o'clock. First thing on the agenda, considerations reserved for changes to the agenda. We don't have that tonight. Comments and questions from public not related to the agenda. We're all good there tonight. All right, now we're into potential items for inclusions for supplement 46 of the Colchester Development Regulations. Kathy wants to add on. Just one, very, maybe two, maybe two. This will be the last of them though, I promise. I said that before. All right, let's just get this bigger so you guys can see it. Okay, so I'll walk you through this. You do have the memo that shows you. This guy not working down here. Oh, it was a little earlier. Let's try, maybe it turned out wrong. You can come on, it's not my fault. I'll zoom down there. Usually. It's not zooming right now, I'm assuming. Okay, well, let me see. Does it figure down there too? Yep. All right, tell me when to stop. Is that good? You were fine before, but. Nope, that's good. Okay. He's back, back to our list. Okay, so everything in orange is new since the last time we talked. Some of this is not necessarily new, it's just updates that we talked about last time. So I'm gonna walk you through this. This is a complete listing. So everything that's in black, no changes since the last time we chatted. But they are still here, for anyone who wants to follow along who hasn't seen them before. So I'm gonna bump down to 2.09A8 exemptions. So this was that patio exemption. So you guys liked it last time, but the more I thought about it, the more I started to practice with it. The more I thought, what about people who have driveways? People have driveways. And we wanted to make sure that it was clear that if you had a driveway, because we made this cumulative, because we just said hardscape surfaces, that it was clear that driveways were not intended to be counted. They're not meant to be exempt, nor are they meant to count towards that 300 that would put you over just for having 300. It's a pretty easy number to hit with a driveway. So what I've added here, I added it here just so you can see. So this, it's not a red line in the regulations because it's all new text. This is a red line of what you saw in October, okay? So we had an recommendation to add stone and similar. So that's been added here. The idea is to differentiate from wood or other things that function more as a deck. Just cleaned up the language a little bit here. And then this is new. Specifically, driveways and parking areas are not exempt. They're not exempt from permitting. If you are to expand your driveway, you would still need a permit. And that's very important because DPW is very particular about the width of your driveway at the road. And so we do like anytime there's a large expansion of a driveway or expansion of a driveway at all to have that permit in so we can take review of that. So they would not be exempt regardless of their size. But they also don't count towards that cumulative 300 square feet.  Does that seem okay? You know, the word specifically kind of, it was hard for me to read that because I was saying, okay, we're being very specific now about this. And I want to go back, talking about patios and walkways, you're saying specifically it threw me off. Okay. Is it okay without that word? We just removed that word. Or you can say note, driveways and parking areas are not part of this exemption. Note. Yeah. Any other thoughts from anyone? Do you prefer note? Do you prefer? I like note. Nope. Okay. Speaking of notes, I have to take my own tonight. So bear with me. So we will remove specifically and replace with note. I agree, Rebecca. Thank you. I think it looks better. Any other thoughts on that one at all? Okay. I'll move on. Moving on, screening or buffering. So this is just to reflect what you talked about in October. So I had proposed 65, you said go back to 55. All the references should now be back to 55. Okay. Did I miss any? I don't know whether it's, I think it was a one. Further on where it said 65. Yeah. Under definition. Okay. I think it was in definition, it was on page. Is section 191 90, I think it's in 90. Let's see. 12 dash nine. I did it in 907, I might have missed the definition. Ah, thank you. So I will make that edit. Any other thoughts on that section or the definition? I just don't, if you could just help me understand the Congress, Congress housing bonus density. It's not, I'm not, you know, I'm not against the poor. I just, can you explain that a little bit, that means? Excuse me, please. So, yeah. So there were existing in the regulations and I don't know the full history of it. I don't know how long it's been in the regulations, but there were several pages dedicated to providing a bonus amount of density to congregate housing as defined here. So when you say density, density to housing. Yes. Density units per acre. Okay, thank you. The interesting thing though, is that it goes on in great detail for several pages prior to the changes that I'm recommending to you for all of this. But at the very end of it all, it says this only applies in areas with water and sewer. So really the only place that this is even going to occur is in the growth center. Growth center doesn't even have density caps. So this is not a bonus that I believe has ever been used and is likely not to be used. But rather than strike it completely because there could still be some instances, just wanted to clean it up so that it wasn't taking up five pages of regulations. And it was very detailed about these kind of agreements you need to file. It just seemed a bit too detailed for something that is either likely not to happen or if it does happen outside of the growth center, would be in very exceptional cases. Thank you. There are, you know, congregate housing is on the spectrum of housing types. It's sort of the lowest level before you get to assistant or skilled nursing. And those are a different use and they're allowed in quite a few places in the town. Congregates just wasn't interested with a service. At one time, the fourth quadrant in the severance corners, wasn't that going to be? Yeah, there was an idea for it. Oh, on the Northwest? Yep. It was a big sign up there at one time. And I wonder if this pre-mated the changes to density there. I don't know. Any idea? I don't know. It was long. I was thinking it was for a whole across to tell you the truth until you got to the sewer and water park. Yeah. Yeah. So maybe it was a thought, maybe they had discussed it. Yeah. Anytime I worked on a growth center, I don't remember any of this coming up. I went back a few sets of regulations out of curiosity but it started to take up more time than I thought it was worth trying to figure it out. It's been in there for a while and I have to believe that pre-dated changes to density in the growth center. So, I don't think it has as much of a need as it did.  Okay, thanks. By the way, if that window's bothering you, feel free to close it. It was a little warm in here earlier time. So we'll go back through the memo. Stop me if there's anything from last time that you want to rediscuss. I'm just moving on to stuff that's changed. In, okay, so this is a brand new one. We talked about in as part of supplement 45, if you recall, because in allowed up to like 60 units and we're basically like, that's holiday in. Not what people think of as an in. So we make some really nice adjustments, I think, to try to reflect what was intended, especially when we were talking about, it came up with East and West Lakes Shore, mostly LS1, LS2, LS3, LS4. But we've come across another little loophole in the definition that I thought could be cleaned up a little bit more. So there are uses in town that call themselves an in, but they are really just buildings full of fully functioning apartments that are self-reliant, have no shared spaces, no on-site staff. They're just multiple units within a building, put up a sign that say in. So I took a look at the definition again and I thought it could be cleaned up a little bit. The last changes that we looked at will help some because it does say between, there's a minimum of six. And the definition also used a reference to services, but some of those services were very broad. So what I'm showing here, let me go to this, we're gonna go back down to 12 definitions, is to reflect something that, at least in my mind, reflects what most people think of as an in. I like that, I like your definition. In, okay. So again, along this was changed just when we redid East and West, like the LS3 and LS4. Welcome, the one, it's on Dropbox, it's different than... It is? Yeah, I'm in it. In the packet for this week? Oh, because I'm... Okay, let's see what happens here. I am in Dropbox, I'm showing you that, well, I'm in clerk base, which is the same, it's sourced from the same Dropbox. Okay, don't know how to get out of this thing now, it's not going to do what it usually does, it is. PC meeting, 11-7, right? That's the pay, that's the agenda. May have come up from last week. The one I had in here, it popped up, so maybe in from last week. Oh, okay. So now I have to go back to that. Yeah, so this was changed from your last meeting? Yeah, that's what I thought. The October meeting did not have this and I moved in there. So there, I did find a typo from the last one, it said 30 days, but then it wrote out 300. So that's why that's crossed off. And then just spoke a little bit more about what is an on-site service. This is just a starting point for discussion, feel free to amend. But I've included at least 12 hours per day on-site registration or similar hosting services, as well as housekeeping, I thought Bellhop's a bit outdated. Just trying to bring us into the 21st century. And furnishing or laundering of linens falls under housekeeping. So I just cleaned that up a little there. And then I added, so really there's two things. There's somebody on site for 12 hours at least. And then I added that there should be at least one indoor common area. So in all the definitions or ins or anything I looked at that was an in, one of the common features is that there is a common space. It's either usually a place where you might have a breakfast or a library space. So I've left it sort of open-ended as to what it is, but that there has to be some sort of common space. This largely resembles a bed and breakfast definition, except in our bed and breakfast definitions, the owner has to live on the property, thus the bed and breakfast. And they're limited to no more than four rooms for a bed and breakfast, because they're allowed in more zones than an in is. So an in, bed and breakfast in more zones, and slightly less hotels and slightly less than that. So question would be, bed and breakfast you have the owner's living there, an in, could you have the owner living in an in? You have up to 20 rooms. You could have a large, large house. Still have more than six rooms. So I missed the question. So are you suggesting they should have to? No, no, I'm not. I'm just saying, are you, my definition, are you excluding an owner living at the end? No, not at all. No, they could. They absolutely could, they're just not required to. Yes, just ask. She has to go right ahead, jump right in. So would they be required to provide either breakfast or some kind of meal? Yeah, I think what I've got in here is that there's some sort of service like that, but I didn't want to get so specific as to provide a meal. You know, I've tried to think of some of the ins that I've stayed at through the years and not all of them have provided meals, but they still, they were more intimate than a hotel.  There was a common area where you could go and lounge around a fireplace, or I think this particular place had water and coffee out all day long. But they didn't necessarily provide a meal at that one place, but I was thinking of. Just when you said dining, right? Just dining. Yeah, I used it as an option. It's an option. Yeah, if you were to have a game room instead or a large lounge, but if you- There's a bar in there. Like a bar. I think a tavern, I think. If dining is important to you guys, just let me know. This is just a starting point. No, when I read it, just I assumed then there was a service that there was gonna be a kitchen and the people were gonna be making meals. I didn't know if that had to go with the definition of an inn, so it's optional. As I've drafted it here, it's not required, but it could be one of the things if somebody were to come in and say, I'm proposing an inn, I would say, show me a layout, what are you proposing? So really what we're trying to do is not have fully self-sufficient units that are calling themselves an inn because inns don't have density. And that's what we're seeing. We're seeing things that are falling under the umbrella of inn simply because they can. But really they're just Airbnb's that happen to exist in a single building. And I don't believe that was the intent, I think. If it is, we can delete it all. Yeah, no, I definitely was thinking about it too, is between the bread and breakfast in the inn because we stayed at both over the years and then I had to start thinking about which one was the bread and breakfast in the inn. I think definition definitely shows the difference to me anyways. When I read it, I felt like, oh yeah, I get it now. So for me, I read it and thought, yeah, this makes sense. Definitely. And the 40% I think was added last time, so that helps as well, so that already helps a little bit to differentiate from independent Airbnb units or short-term rental units. But I thought we could clean it up just a little bit more. We, I was very proud of you. Sorry. All right. Thank you. Oh, thank you. Have a quorum for me. Oh yeah. Oh yeah, we're good. It's good to see you. Yep, take care. Sorry, thank you. Do you need anything? No. Okay. We are good there. So, I do apologize for sort of adding that on from last time, but it looked fairly short and I think kind of important just because we're seeing a lot more short-term rentals popping up. Okay. Let's move on. Table A1. There's a couple in here. I'm gonna try to read this list and then I'll pull up Table A1. I wish I had dual screens up there. So primary residence with accessory apartment. That's really not its own use and it's redundant to single-unit dwelling. There's enough state law about accessory apartments. But that's not necessary. It doesn't change anything functionally. It just doesn't need to be an enlisted use. So I'm gonna talk to you a bit about this conditional use one. Let's jump down to that. Single-unit from conditional to permitted in the LS one. So this comes from, you don't know how familiar you guys are with conditional use criteria. But conditional use criteria, you've probably heard me go on about it sometimes. I actually think it's a fantastic set of criteria for certain things. But it tends to get overused. Conditional use criteria talk about like impacts to municipal services, impacts to roadways. It's really so that, if you're kind of thinking about light industry and all of a sudden you've got a meatpacking plan, those are great criteria to evaluate that meatpacking plan. When you use conditional use criteria to discuss a residential dwelling, it's almost never gonna apply. A single house is not going to impact roads.   That's another one of the conditional use criteria. And so labeling any sort of single family, single dwelling unit as conditional use is kind of pointless because it's never gonna meet the criteria to say no. So either allow it or you don't. So what I've suggested here, since it doesn't seem anybody has been specifically opposed to it as a use. So here I am here. I am in LS1. LS1 as a reminder is the lakeside of West Lakeshore. That's LS1. It extends a little bit on the East Lakeshore. Kind of till you get to the dip. That's all LS1. So this would allow singles as a permitted use. If the intention is that they should not be there, we can change it to blank, but conditional might as well be permitted, I guess is what I'm saying because the conditional use criteria, it forces an application in front of the DRV for them to review against criteria that have no impact. First two should be anyways permitted. Okay. I wasn't sure. I wasn't sure when you guys were discussing at the creation of LS1. I imagined there was some reason. I imagine it's because there wants to be a focus in that area on commercial uses from what I understand. And so maybe that's why that was not like, let's just absolutely make it permitted, but conditional is essentially permitted when it comes to a use like this. It's never going to meet the criteria. For a low house, we have to allow mobile home. If you allow a house, you have to allow mobile home and you have to now under S100 allow a duplex. Try it. That doesn't mean that a duplex is still being argued throughout the state by planners everywhere. It doesn't necessarily mean that you double the density. And that's my read of it. But it does mean that if those two units, those two density units exist, that they could exist in a duplex form as opposed to two single detached units. I definitely think the intent was that we didn't want as little residential as possible on that side of the road. No doubt about that. I think now we don't have a choice anyways. You could remove it as not allowed. You could say that single units are not allowed there. You do have that option. No hard to do and there's existing. Yeah, we already have a few houses. Those that are there would be grandfathered. They just would not be able to, you would not be able to create new lots that would have a new unit. You would not be able to, you could tear down and rebuild an existing unit in its exact place, but you wouldn't be able to expand it. Most of those can't be expanded anyway because they're in the flood plate in the shoreland protection zone. It's really not that much land. There isn't, yeah. I don't think there's any open lots anyways. That could place. I don't think so. I mean, once you get further away from like the park, theoretically there's some commercial land. I don't know the name of the plaza across from the general store. Is that a name? Yeah, Bayside too. So like that plaza's in that zone. Oh, you talked about Dick Maz's, I'm sorry. Yeah, across the street from there. Yeah, that one's, yeah, Lakeshore something. Lakeshore something? Yeah. Yeah, where the pizza place is. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.  I would say highly unlikely. Yeah. Especially not with sewer kind of going to that part of the town. So, so, houses that are already there, which would be if you're looking at Bayside Park to your right headed towards the dip. So we have some there. They're now being turned into Airbnbs or whatever. Those we won't have to worry about them ever having a problem with it if we. If you were to move that completely. Right. So not allowed. Right. Those would be then become non-conforming structures. Right. Which means they can continue to exist. They can remodel, they can replace if they were to burn down or just say we don't like this anymore. We'd like to take it down. Selling all that. So our non-conforming structures say you can rebuild in the same footprint. So as long as they keep that same foundation, they could rebuild. But if you had a double lot for some reason, an unbuilt lot, you had a commercial lot or commercial use that wanted to become residential, it would not be allowed to. I don't believe there are any open lots left. And there is. Rebuilds going on. And if someone could buy two lots and say, okay, I want to tear down both houses if you're running one house on that lot. If you were to say. Like I'm thinking of, for instance, I'm thinking of it's not a house right now. It's that little four bedroom house, Vermont, you know. It's like a B&B because I don't know what it is there. It's an inn. They bought two pieces of property to do that, but they ended up having to buy the two pieces because I think of the septic system. Possibly. But they own two lots. Yeah. Yes. Now someone instead of building what they did, someone could buy two lots and build one single unit. If there's still separated lots, the sewer pipe goes through that open lot, which is no longer needed for sewer. They could still build an Airbnb there, but not a house. If we eliminate the residential. No, just no residential of any kind. So it would be if you had a vacant lot now. Supposedly say the inn sitting there and suppose they have an open lot right next to it. Yeah. But they're using for their sewer. Yeah. Once the pipe goes through, they no longer need that open lot as a sewer. That open lot, would that have any way of still becoming another Airbnb? Obviously it can't be residential. I get that, but would it be considered or would they be looking at building an inn? A little inn? Probably not a buildable lot anyway. No, you're okay. To be honest with you. Okay. Regardless. You know, most likely what this is gonna impact is anything that's, I think all of those lots that are buildable have been built. Yeah. What it's gonna impact is anybody who wants to convert from a non-residential use to a single family or duplex. I don't know the likelihood of that. There's not a lot of lots. No. But I do know that there was one that was a house that was torn down and rebuilt but did not want to go to the DRB as a conditional use for whatever reason. They were going to expand their footprint but because they didn't want to go to the DRB, they decided not to. It's the only thing I am aware of. Yeah. I guess for me personally, this way I look. Anyways, is I don't know every single, I know we did the whole thing already but not in this thought. If somebody could look at it, Zach, somebody and go right down that thing and make sure that we're not affecting anything or unless you've already done it, you've decided they were not gonna affect anything. I don't know that everyone know. Well, it sounded like the one you just explained where it was permitted instead of conditional use. That household would have applied to expand their house but it was permitted and they made all the zoning requirements. Yes. So I don't think I wanna restrict people that are already there.  They really can't expand too much. I guess it could go up, I don't know. And again, a third option. So I'm telling you, your option is to either leave it as C or change it to P but a third option is to say, or sorry, a third option is to say, Kathy, I don't wanna think about this right now. Please just leave it at C even if it's not the best. I was leaning towards yes, permit it so that one issue, because it's housing doesn't become a big deal. Yeah, I think the... If we leave housing in, I'm all aboard about permitting it. I think also. What it does, I think is not discourage housing. I don't know enough of what's going on with the market on that particular street to know if it's going to have an impact on commercial uses, unlikely. But again, even as a conditional use, even if the strip mall with the pizza place in it says, where I went out of this business, we wanna put a duplex here and be done with it. Today they can do that. They just have to be reviewed under conditional use criteria and the conditional use criteria is gonna say, are you gonna have a major impact on the traffic? Well, it's hard to argue that a duplex has a major impact on traffic.  No. So it doesn't really change much. It's just the process. I would say that by having a C there, you already have a P there. They can knock down that whole mall. Just a different process. And put housing on the top of it and put their commercial on the bottom. That's all right. I always think about that. What's going to happen? As soon as in two years, there's a whole new discussion in two years. There's no doubt about it. You're right. With the view of the lake. Yeah, that's going to come. There's no doubt about it. I agree with that. Can I get a view of the lake down there? If you go high enough?  Yeah? Yeah. For sure. Then you're getting to the multi-filling unit, right? Yeah, yeah. I love that. That's conditional. That's conditional. I didn't touch that one because I think when you start to get larger than a duplex, it's a valid question to say, is this going to impact traffic or services or whatever else? Yeah, because that's what I look at is that nobody will knock down any of that stuff and build something small. They're going to be big. Yeah. I mean, it's just, not that I think it's bad. I think it's a great idea. It's the whole idea of building a little village-style deal down there, sure. Yeah. I mean, I think once the sewer goes in, it'll be interesting to see what happens. Yeah. Don't worry. There's not a lot of left over capacity to see much change, but there's a little bit. Yeah. But can people not, just buy a house and tear it down and build probably not bigger than the footprint, but just build another single family house there? Currently? Yes.  You've seen it on people. I mean, we see it, sure. Not so much on West. Although there have been a few. I think the very first one next to the park did that just two years ago. But most of the rest of them are newer. I think they're in nice shape. Is there like a worst case scenario that we should, I mean, and it'd be like a 10,000 or one chances of it happening? I don't think so. It doesn't sound like there's a lot of risks. The work that was done a few years ago was really thoughtful and slow and a lot of scenarios were considered. And I don't mean to insult that in any way. I think there was so much work and thought put into it. It's just the conditional use for a single family dwelling. Across the board, I just, I don't see the point of it. This district or otherwise, no DRB is ever gonna find that a single family house triggers anything that conditional use looks for. So that's all. I didn't mean it to be like sort of a policy change, just that it kind of is the same thing as permitted. Yeah, for sure. It's just a process. It's just like attached criteria to something that doesn't have much impact. I'm on board with permitted. You on board? Yep. I'm on board, I'm on board. You on board? All good. All right, we'll leave it. So while I'm on this chart, there is the piece I showed you. Primary residence with accessory apartment just struck it entirely. It's kind of a useless category. You had some conditionals for ADUs. You can't allow conditional use for ADUs anymore. ADUs being accessory apartments. Let's see. While I'm on table A1, this you saw last time, emergency shelter. So that's the one you talked about, GD2, that is the sole location. Home occupations. I just, I had a question about the emergency. We had, Paco, the definition of temporary. And I didn't know, you know, is that up until someone can transition to transition housing or permanent housing? I mean, how long, who defines what temporary means? Well, that is a wonderful question to bring back to the legislature, just to explain it. I think that that's something that we, in the planning world, have identified as something we would love to have clarified. Okay. Because temporary doesn't really have, it's used elsewhere in statute. Temporary in some places refers to 30 days. Right. In a lot of places, it's 30 days. In some places, it's six months. But for any of the new legislation, it's not really well-defined. I'll see what I can do on that. And the other thing that we talked about, that I think a lot of people are talking about too, is not here while we're on it. The emergency shelter piece, I think, is pretty clear. It's the hotel program. When does a hotel stop being a hotel? So that's another thing that, we haven't really dealt with in the regs here, but we are keeping an eye on. The other piece, oh, hang on, I skipped over this one. Let me go back up here. Holmock, you want to run a catering business out of your apartment. You can do that. The differences in our regulations, we also allow home businesses. Those are different, they're more restricted. They're not allowed in as many districts, and they have additional restrictions on them about what you can do, what you can show outside. They're a little bit, they're a little bit more intense than a home occupation. Like you know a home business is a home business. You can probably pass a million home occupations and never know it. They are meant to be internal, and something you would not see whereas a home business is, I also have a daycare, or I also have a small cupcake shop with a window. So a bit different.  How many home businesses exist in Colchester, but I didn't touch those, so I didn't look it up. So again, that's just getting us in line with statute. The last thing to show you, there we go, that's what you talked about last time. I go buy it every time because it's so tiny. Large equipment sales. This is what you talked about in the GD2 to align with large equipment rental, now conditional use. You guys are gonna know more about conditional use than ever before. So it is a very good use to apply conditional use criteria too because some large equipment sales can really be use intensive. So, great use of conditional use there. I think that's it on Table A1. So let me go back up to my memo. Sorry if you're trying to follow me while I'm scrolling fast. Yep, that's everything from Table A1. That's it. Table A2, you made some changes. What's that? Table A2. Table A2? Yeah, those are from last time. That's from last time, okay. Yes. Those are the ones that Zach talked about. If you have a duplex, it has to have the same standards as a single family. Well, you reduced them all, right? Yeah, we just, yeah, we brought them and reduced them, yes. Across the board. So the next part of the memo is just a repeat but in a different order. This is what a warning would look like for public hearing. So all the same stuff, but in a more formal printed matter. I just have one question about signs and it says schools. Do we need to say public schools? Where's this? When we're talking about signs, having like little signs. Oh, do we have to be that specific? Great question. Yeah, because is it a ballet school? You know, I think from an administration perspective, if someone came in and said, you exempted schools and I have a ballet school, I would just say, no, we're going to use a common use. But I just didn't know because I had my senses just seeing what's happening, there's going to be a lot of kind of private schools going up or down. Well, you told me. Because there could be a small private school. A preschool? They'd hear it. They probably wouldn't use that kind of sign though. What? They probably wouldn't use that kind of sign. And we're talking about the light and signs. It's like one of the digital signs. You think we need to be that specific or people would just know? I don't know. I've never thought about it from that one. I don't like those signs. I would go like no. I mean, they make sense to me like at gas stations at the high school and stuff like that. That makes sense to me. I just don't like a lot of them. Yeah. Let me look at that because maybe we have a definition of educational institution. I call those school, but maybe I shouldn't be using that word at all because we don't have school or... Yeah. I'll check. Yeah. Thank you. It'd be good to be consistent anyway. Yeah, because definitely one's private, one's public. Makes sense. Because that would probably, we say educational institution. I don't know. Talking off the top of my head. But I will look into it. Okay. Because there would be St. Mike's that could do it as well. If it's educational institution, it would be. I mean, probably even if it was school, St. St. Mike's. But we may be okay with that, right? Okay. St. Mike's to school. Yeah. Yeah. And they're not really a public school. Right. No, that'd be fine. Yeah. Okay. But your idea is that it's a school. Right. It's like a instruction of facility. Right. Gotcha. I'll see what we can do. Type on the case. So my thought on all of this is that at your December meeting, I will bring you a very nice, clean copy.  Zero thing new added. Except maybe this school thing. And then we just added one. Potentially there, but there would be no new things to really discuss. You could look at it and be very nice and packaged and have a report done for you as well. And you could consider, in December, a warning of January public hearing. So, seem like we're on track. Yeah. Yep. I would suggest, since we're talking about a January public hearing, your January regularly scheduled January meeting is the second. And it might also get tight with our timeframe for warning. So, I might suggest to you, January 16th instead of the second as your meeting. Is that? It works for me. I mean, I don't know if you ever, I don't want to make a assumption about it. It should be in session by then, right? I can come home. Okay. When do you start? Third. The third. Oh, so maybe the second was better for you. Yeah. It's fine though. Yeah, it's fine. I'm fine with the second too. I'll have to check dates though. I don't know if it gives us enough warning time. Newspaper deadlines tend to be a little tighter in December. Whatever works for you too. It's good for me. It's up to you. 16th, that's fine. We're talking the second or we're talking the 16th. One meeting, 16th. We can't do the ninth because the select board hasn't made it. Yeah. That's fine. Looks like we're good. And the meeting in December would be the, what date? December would be... Working ahead here. December the 5th. Yeah, you'd be real tight for a warning for the second anyway. So I'd have the 16th. It's fine, the 16th's fine. It's good. Just, it's busy here. And would you like to skip? I assume you'd like to skip your January 2nd meeting. Yes. In favor of the 16th public hearing. Correct. You don't need a motion on that or anything, I just... Okay, and we'll see each other again in December, so. Okay. Is that it? All set? Yes. Okay. Under your informational items, staff updates. Informational items, okay. We'll go through these quickly. And I may... Yeah. Give you a few things here. So you have the permitting report for October. Nothing really exciting to point out there. It's like a lot of houses being done. Yeah, they come in batches. Yeah, they're permitted. At the start of October, there's a conversion over at St. Mike's at the Fort from dormitory housing to that's a CHT project. So that counts for a lot of those units. It also counts for a really big planning and zoning check. It's about a third of our revenue for the year. For permitting, interestingly enough. That property was tax exempt, do you know? I don't know. We charge permitting fees regardless. Yeah, okay. Yeah, even non-profits pay permitting fees. The only ones exempt are the town and school. But now it's going into apartments. Does that mean you have a new tax base? That's what I'm like, you're asking us. I think so. I am not an expert. I understand that there's a reduced taxation that applies to certain types of affordable housing. I don't think we collect 100% of market rate. Tax assessor explained it all to me one time. I took a lot of notes, but I still don't fully understand. And there's a lot of ifs. Yeah. So we will add some tax base, but not the same as a market rate. That much I can say with certainty. Okay. Is it all affordable housing? How many housing? I believe so. Some of it is market. I don't think CHT does market, do they? Is it just one building then? It's like 55 units. I think it's a single building. Might be two. The permitting took place a while ago, or the DRB level of review took place some time ago. This was the actual, here's your permit to go out and do the renovation. It's like a $15 million renovation. So that's pretty big. I think that showed up in the October report. All apartments. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know the sizes. I think they're small because it was like a dorm conversion. Yeah. So that showed up there. Updates on S100. So I'm continuing to meet with my peers to sort of talk about, there's just always meetings to talk about what, what is this legislation actually saying? Because there's some different interpretations and that's normal. It's just, it's a very big act. So there's a lot to interpret. The big things, as I've shared with you before is, where it says, you must allow a duplex. There are some people who are interpreting that as meaning anywhere that a single unit is allowed, two units are regardless of what the density is. Even if your density, if you have a half acre lot requirement and you only have 0.52 acres, does that mean that you now have two units allowed? Or does it mean that where you are allowed two units, they can exist in a duplex? Cause that's a thing. There are some towns in Vermont that do not allow anything but a single family regardless of where the density is met. They don't like them, they don't like the look of duplexes, the character. So we are at this point interpreting that as meaning that you can have a duplex style of housing. And not that your density doubles. The big concern that we talk about when we talk about this is, okay, if we have a subdivision that comes in on Mill Pond Road tomorrow, and that subdivision creates 20 new lots. And they have the exact density for 20. We have evaluated the traffic impacts for 20. We have collected the impact fees for 20. We have evaluated everything that's needed for schools for those 20 units. And we now say those 20 units are 40. That is a pretty big impact. Whereas there are some folks who are saying, well, if Rebecca owns a single family and she wants to turn that into a duplex, what's the harm? That creates an additional unit. There's no change, you can't see anything. And a lot of people think that's a fantastic idea, but you can't pick one and not the other when you're translating the statute. So, we all continue to sit around rooms and argue about it politely. Interestingly enough, VLCT, the League of Cities and Towns, has a different interpretation than DHCD, the Department of Housing and Community Development. Two of the major players in helping to craft the legislation, they disagree. So, they disagree, and the RPC, I don't know, they're like, they waffle depending on who they're talking to. I mean that nicely if you're watching. So, there's just a lot of stuff going on there. There's a lot of that legislation that doesn't necessarily apply to us where you're talking about five units per acre, just because it applies to water and sewer areas. It seems very clear how it impacts coal chester. There are a lot of other towns that are like, what does it mean? You have access to water, but not sewer. So, a lot of chatter in other communities on that. So, we're all continuing to talk about it. ours will be based on bedroom, no matter what, for septic. You can't break it, right? Yes, so we're exempt from a lot of that. Yeah. And the exemption language in the statute for S100 is written very well. It's very clear in my mind. So, it does say, so somebody says, what about Mount Spade? We're gonna have a sewer line. Does that mean that five units per acre must be allowed? And the answer is no, because the exemptions were written that do talk about predefined capacity. Pipes just can't carry it. We can't put five units if the pipes can't carry it. And I think that that language is very clear to me. I have no concerns about that language at all. I was talking to Seth who wrote the law because I had spoken to you. And I was just like, all the time he sat right behind me, and I would like to say, does this take into account the capacity of the pipes? And like I think the fourth time I asked him, he said, yes, it takes into the capacity. Yeah, it does very well. I think that's very well written there. Yeah. Well, you tell him I'm not concerned about the duplex part though. I will. Yeah. So, that's that. We're continuing to talk. Housing convening meeting, just wanted to give you an update on that. So, last week Pam, Jackie Murphy, and I participated in online housing. This is twice annual. Housing convening meeting. Is that Senator Russell? I don't know, had a chidnant housing authority or? No, somebody from CBOO, I think, did the guest speaking. It's organized by the RPC. Yeah. And they usually have one big guest speaker. This particular one was somebody from CBOO. And people from around that county come and talk. I think that was the only professional planner on there. I was a little surprised by that. And so Taylor kept calling on me. But it's helpful. It's nice to hear where other people are doing, to share what we're doing, to talk about things. I always think it's a good meeting. It's very round table-ish. You're really just sharing things. Did you hear some things that other communities are doing? I hear about some other grant programs and other things that are going on. So that was good to do. Glad I did it. Building Homes Together gave an update. They always do. If you read the news, they're always having targets. They never hit them. But I think it's because they're optimistic. I think they know they're not gonna hit them. But it's good to be optimistic. They're gonna be putting together new targets as the EECOS plan gets rewritten. I haven't seen them yet. Just today I received new targets for future land use categories for the region. I'll report on that next month, because I haven't read it yet. I just got it this afternoon. So they are looking at all of Chittenden County, the member towns, and doing sort of a generalized land use map, like you do in your town plan. But they're doing it. County don't necessarily consider, we will know what the topography, we know the sewer limitations, we know, and those things don't always show up in those. So it does require us to sort of keep a close eye on that. So we'll do that. How big of a committee is that? That's doing it. It's being done by staff. Staff. The staff at the Regional Planning Commission. Oh, okay. Part of it was mandated, there's some update that's mandated on the legislation this year. I haven't followed it closely that they have to do some new targets and report back by December, I think ahead of the next session. So their goal is to figure out how to stuff more houses in our master plan or everybody's master plan. It's kind of like the same goal that we have, right? Where we say, this is our buildable areas and this is our don't build and protect. They're also trying to satisfy the unbuilt areas, the protection areas, the forest blocks. So it's not just a housing map, but I'm gonna reserve judgment until I see it. There is one that exists already, but it was done maybe some 10 years ago. So they're working on a lot of that. They're working on a lot of the direction that was given to regional planning commissions. Got a lot of work out of the last legislative session as well. I haven't followed it as closely because it's not work that was assigned to me. But I'll check back in on those and see what they're doing. So they're hustling to get that stuff done because I think it all has a December or something deadline. You think they'll bring that up at the meeting that's coming up? I think we all go into that meeting. Which meeting? Is it a regional planning? To send me a meeting in a week or so, a couple weeks? I feel like I have a lot of regional planning. So it's hard to keep. If you wanna send me that one. Okay. I'm trying to think who Aaron sent us. I mean, maybe it's just for representatives, but I thought last time I, are you going? It's a legislative breakfast. Yeah. Oh, so it's a legislative. I didn't get to let it be. It's sometimes planned. No, it's probably planned or since, you know. I never go to this. You never go to this. I never invited. Oh. Interesting. I don't think, I think that's just open. Legislative breakfast. Yeah. That's just put on by. But are there any questions you want? Should I bring that up and ask about that? Not yet. But I'll touch base with you. Okay. Let me know if there's any questions and don't bring it up. And then our pack, we call it a pack. It's our planner's advisory committee. So it's all of the planners, well, a representative planner from every, we meet monthly, so we'll be, we'll be talking. We'll just continue these conversations. So yeah, I'll give you, I'll prepare in December to give you an update on anything that we're seeing legislatively. Planners as well, usually schedule a year. We have a legislative committee. The Vermont Planners Association has a legislative committee with a legislative liaison. So we usually meet to talk about things that we want to see or hope to see. So that's that. I'll move on to grant updates. So you guys gave the thumbs up and some grants. The select board did as well. So they are filed. They are applied. It'll probably be next month before we hear. Just wanted to, whether they're funded. We did two. Just two. Yeah. Well, there are only two with deadlines for now. We will probably in December, January, sometime apply for a UPWP grant. Mostly because those, it's not money. It's time from the regional planners. So if we have stuff we want to do and just want a little help, like we get someone to do the research on this. So we might do that just because that's a very, it's like having an extra body that helps here and there. It's a very, very easy one. But that's not, there's no deadline for that yet. But I've seen. I think that's all I have. Understaffed updates. Beautiful. That's good. I think we kind of did six. Yep. So, yeah. Also, can we go on to our, I need a motion for the minutes. Okay. I'll make a motion that we approve the minutes of October 3rd, 2023. You have a second? I second. I was going to hold up. I'm in favor. All right. We covered the, I skipped over the meeting schedule because we did that. So now we just need a motion to adjourn. So it's the 5th and the 16th, January 16th. Yeah, 5th and the 16th. And there won't be a second one in December. Correct. Just one. Oh, too much pressure. Okay. I'll make a motion and then we adjourn. Second. I'll hold in favor. Aye. Aye. We hear adjourn. It is time to close. It's pretty good? Just like that. Your hand, please. Uh-huh. My hand?


Did you know that food that is obtained from animals can now be made from cell cultures? Cell-based food production is one of the innovations that can help us feed a growing population Cell culturing entails taking cells from an animal and growing them, but how does this work? A small sample of cells from a healthy animal like a cow or a fish can yield hundreds of kilograms of food product Egg and dairy products can also be produced from cells The cells are grown under controlled hygienic conditions in a device called a bioreactor Which mimics the body of the animal depending on the product. This can happen within a matter of days The cells are fed a mixture of nutrients like vitamins and amino acids and are developed into fat or muscle tissue When the cells are ready, they are taken out of the bioreactor Some products are grown in the form of slices of fish or cubes of meats and thus need no further processing Cell-based foods can be mixed with other ingredients to make the final product before they are packaged for the consumer FAO is working with members and partners to ensure good practices are followed to keep cell-based food safe throughout the production process


I'm going to show you how to allow parents in and out of your Zoom conference meetings. So the first thing you've already done is you've already set up your Zoom meeting for your conferences.  Now you only have to set one conference time for both days. As long as you're in the meeting, parents will be able to give in. So what you're going to do is you're just going to go ahead and hover over that conference meeting that you made and click the start button. Zoom will go ahead and start loading and here we go. I'm going to go ahead and start and join with video. I'm going to mute myself just because I'm going to invite myself in on another device and I don't want to have the backup noise but you'll just go ahead and leave yourself not muted. And then your parents will sign in at their time. So I'm going to go ahead onto this other device and I'm going to go ahead and sign in as a parent. So what will happen is they'll go ahead and click and they'll join just like you would join a normal meeting and you'll see their name pop up here during their conference time.  You can continue with your meeting. Maybe you're in a previous conference and you can just continue it. When that parent leaves with just you in this meeting, all you need to do is go over and click admit and what that will do is allow this other parent into your meeting. And now I've got both of the two people in this meeting. So it's really easy to go back and forth and do that. So all you need to do is click that admit once your other parent is gone.  So on the same thing, if I were to leave this meeting as the parent and another parent were to start coming in. When they join, they're going to show up in the waiting room. So another way to admit your parents. There we go. So now it says one person is waiting. So at any time, you can go back to this participants tab down here and it'll bring up who is in your waiting room and you can admit them from here as well. So either way to do it, that's just how you're going to let your parents in. So if that pop up comes up and you dismiss it or you get rid of it and you're like, oh, I've got to let that parent in. Just click the manage participants down here at the bottom and right over here, this person's waiting. That'll be your next appointment. When you click admit, they will join. Super easy, super fluid, you'll do great.


The plague had continued through the day and the night to present the Empire with a terrible plight. The Queen and the General were at each other's throat while the Kometos Emperor for weeks had not spoke. The Persians and gods continued to fight while the Byzantine chances seemed ever so slight, but Justinian's will was strong as an oak and against all odds the Emperor awoke. Hi there viewer. If you enjoy my content, please consider liking the video and subscribing to help the channel grow. Enjoy. Fatigued. Exhausted. Dabilitated. Listless. These are a few of the words that described those who survived the plague. Even after recovery, the victims who had once been touched by the plague would continue to experience fatigue, the energy of their youth permanently sapped. Many would have difficulties speaking, their vocal cords damaged by the plague. Yet in spite of the plague's potency, in spite of all the potential complications and its horrific destruction of the body from the inside, it would not claim Justinian. When he awoke, he was older, now approaching his 60s. It was a miracle he had survived the plague at all. The Emperor's hair had grayed, his face had become more wrinkled. Yet in spite of his more elderly appearance, the Emperor had not lost a step. He was still as energetic as ever, his attention to detail never faltering and he continued to engage in the same behaviors of staying up all night contemplating on religious doctrine. Behaviors which perhaps in the minds of the day's conspiracy theorists lent some credence to the suspicions that Justinian was not actually human, but demon. But before we get too far, let's take a moment to remind ourselves of what was going on when Justinian awoke. 1. The deadliest plague yet to be seen had a stranglehold over the entire empire. 2. The immediate death caused by the plague contributed to large-scale food shortages across the empire. 3. The immediate death caused by the plague led to a dramatic decline in economic activity with the living barely leaving their homes. 4. The drastic economic collapse destroyed the empire's ability to collect taxes and the empire's treasury was virtually depleted. 5. The empire was having difficulty paying its troops. 6. The troops the empire couldn't pay were surrounded by enemies. 7. The enemies surrounding the troops were Castro who was costing the empire thousands with his pillaging and Totila who was successfully retaking Italy and winning its people. 8. Justinian did not trust his best general to handle any of the aforementioned military issues. And 9. The empire's best general and emperors had feuded and caused major discord within the government. Okay you got all that? Wow I think we can all agree it's really nice to not be in charge of all that. Justinian however did not agree and immediately set out to solve the heaping mess of problems that laid at his feet. To be quite frank there simply wasn't much Justinian could do to stop the plague or any of its immediate consequences but the empire's financial situation needed to get under control yesterday. Doing so would at least help resolve some of the other issues. Before the plague the tax reforms of John the Cappadocian had brought an immense wealth to the government but it also gave Justinian the liberty to spend spend spend which he did not hesitate to do. He had become engaged in a number of wars which required thousands of expensive troops to fight. Many of these troops were now dead and needed to be replaced. This would not come cheap especially given Justinian was already scraping the bottom of the barrel and there were few living men left to actually join the military. In the wars he had taken territory that was not currently turning a profit and needed to be sustained by the rest of the empire as they too were being consumed by plague and famine. He had also spent lavishly in the rebuilding of Constantinople after the Nica riots most notably with the construction of the Agia Sophia a building which still stands today as a landmark in Istanbul and a monument which was as expensive as it was massive in scale. Justinian knew he needed to tighten his belt and that the empire needed to be pulled up by its bootstraps. To begin, Justinian took a hard look at the empire's budget. Spending was out of control and they barely had enough to keep the lights on. He drastically reduced spending on civil infrastructure such as building projects, road maintenance and the civil post and courier service that had gone on in one way or another since the days of Caesar Augustus. These are important projects for sure but we just can't afford to keep them going. Next on the chopping block was the largest expense of all, the military. Even since before the partition of Rome the empire had funded local militias on the frontiers which in the case of an invasion would garrison nearby fortifications and try to slow down or hold off the enemy until a larger Roman field army could arrive. They were a pretty important part of Roman military history but their days as an effective fighting force were long gone. Now they could barely fend off a roaming band of marauding huns let alone hold against a massive Persian field army. Justinian took one look at them and decided nope he was done paying for them. It was far more important to pay the field armies, you know, the ones that were actually doing the fighting against the persians and gods. Still this was easier said than done and even with all the fiscal belt tightening, Justinian had trouble adequately paying his forces. As many people throughout history can attest to, not paying huge groups of guys with spears and swords is a bad, bad idea. Justinian also knew this but there really wasn't much that could be done about it right now. He paid the troops when he could and they seemed to be okay with this for the time being and hopefully soon he could make up for it. To go along with the austerity measures already taken, Justinian also did the other thing governments do when they need to balance their budget. Can any of you guess it? Yep, you got it. He raised taxes. Now the thing about taxation during this time is it was not an individual burden, it was a community burden. Justinian's tax collectors with tax communities, namely villages, based on an assessment of the value of their land, value in this case meaning agricultural productivity, they would then tax the village as a whole. This means if 40% of the village suddenly died of, say, a devastating plague, the other 60% would still be responsible for coughing up the entire tax. There were other taxes too but the lion's share of the imperial tax revenue came from this land tax. So Justinian not only continued to demand the same taxes as before the plague but ensured not a single couch cushion penny would remain uncollected as he bolstered the number of collectors under the ruthless leadership of his newest council member, Peter Burismis, who made sure everyone paid a little more than their due and didn't want to hear any excuses about plagues or famines. Peter Burismis also declared that they were done lugging around the Italian freeloaders and it was time for them to pull their weight. So tax collectors were sent to the holdings still under their control to extract everything they could from the beleaguered Italians. In addition to experiencing years of hardship and the devastation of war, the Italians were now being thrashed by the plague and famine that followed. With the tax crackdowns giving them even more reason to resent Justinian, the remaining populace of Italy became further estranged from the Roman identity that was supposed to unite them with the Byzantines. Yet as the tax collectors did their work, the financial issues began to improve. Now let's be real, this was an incredibly harsh taxation policy to enact on communities across the empire that had already endured unimaginable suffering. Oftentimes, villages whose populations were a fraction of what they once were had no way of meeting these quotas and many of their problems were magnified as a result of this. There was now even less money to go around for essentials like food, but as the Benjamin Franklin quote goes, the only certainties in life are death and taxes, and here that was really put on display. But I digress, Justinian's fiscal reforms for better or for worse put the empire on significantly better financial footing than it had been before, even if they ruffled a lot of feathers in the process. In the war against the Byzantines, everything seemed to be breaking Castro's way. Belisarius, who is now recalled, had been months late allowing Castro to thoroughly loot Byzantine Syria. The gods in Italy were thoroughly kicking the Byzantines' butts and the plague was devastating the empire and a wreaking havoc on the Byzantine military. Belisarius, before being recalled and almost arrested by Theodora, had been a genuine threat to Castro. He outmaneuvered Castro on multiple occasions stopping his raids and had even threatened the Persian capital of Tessiphon at one point. He was now gone and his military talent would most certainly be missed. Now, there didn't seem to be much standing in Castro's way. Perhaps he would start raiding Anatolia as well, maybe even marching all the way to Chalcedon, where he could view the great Theodosian walls of Constantinople from across the Bosporus. There was just one problem with this. Castro was terrified of catching the plague. Because of the hostilities between the two nations, trade and commerce between Persia and Byzantium was minimal. As such, the plague had a far more difficult time really crossing the border. For now, the Persians were safe. But just because there was no trade, does not mean Castro had no contact with anyone across the border and he was well aware of what was happening in Constantinople. So when I say he was terrified, I mean terrified. So much so that during one of Castro's raids, when the Byzantine sent diplomats to negotiate, Castro made a hasty and sudden retreat back to Persia when one of the Byzantine diplomats fell ill. No deal was made, no tribute in hand, Castro just packed his bags and left. Now that's not to say Castro was doing nothing. He made sure to spend as little time as possible in Byzantine territory. But his occasional raids were costly and with this time he had entered the kingdom of Lasica, who if you remember were unhappy with Byzantine rule, and he set them up as a client state of Persia. Now he was planning an invasion of Byzantine Armenia, it all seemed to be going his way. Suddenly, in the midst of drying up these plans, the flaps of Castro's tent were thrown open. With a palpable tension in the air, a man rushed in carrying an urgent message for the emperor. As the message was read aloud to Castro, his cheeks flushed with anger and frustration. In the south, one of Castro's sons had risen arms in rebellion. He meant to take the throne, Armenia would have to wait. As Castro withdrew his army to deal with his son, the Byzantines on the other side couldn't believe their eyes. They urgently informed Justinian, who without hesitation ordered all of his forces into Persian Armenia. This was it, Justinian's big opportunity to turn the tides in this war had arrived. With these orders, the Byzantine generals had begun their preparations. There was just one problem with all this. After Belisarius nearly took the Gothic crown while he was in Italy, a paranoia snuck its way into Justinian, a paranoia that he could lose everything to an ambitious general. As such, Justinian was wary of Belisarius and was hesitant to give him control of a large army. But this paranoia wasn't just limited to Belisarius. The event in Italy had made Justinian distrustful towards all his generals, and he refused to give any of them control of large armies either. As a result, the invasion of Persian Armenia had no real chain of command, and after the generals couldn't agree on what to do, a couple of them just rushed their armies in with the rest following soon after. The disorganized, uncoordinated mess was swiftly beat back by a tiny Persian force, and the Byzantine hopes of taking purse Armenia were crushed.  He decided to launch another invasion into Syria as soon as he could. When the time came, Kostro marched his army across the border to the most prominent city in the region, Edessa. He set his army up outside the city's powerful walls, trapping the inhabitants. But the city was tough, its garrison tenacious. They would meet Kostro's fire with fire of their own, sallying out to disrupt Kostro's troops and make their lives miserable, and even sometimes tunneling underground to set fire to the Persian equipment. Eventually, Kostro assaulted the city. Tense fighting had erupted all across the walls, and it was close. For a while, it was looking bad for the Byzantines, that the Persians might win and be free to march across Syria for a second time. But eventually, a horn signalling retreat. The Byzantines watched as the Persians returned to their camps. It was over. They had held out. Kostro's assault had been defeated. Having tasted defeat, the Shah knew it was about time to throw in the towel. He was able to secure some tribute from Edessa before he met with Byzantine diplomats to discuss an armistice. The diplomats agreed to meet with him, and a short time later, a truce had been signed between the two nations. Relations more or less returned to their previous state, with fighting continuing between the Arabic and Caucasian client states, but the two great powers were not directly engaging with each other. With the truce, and with some semblance of peace, Kostro's army set out to return to Persia. As they crossed deserts and fields, stopping in towns and cities along the way as they traveled, with the comfortable sense of peace that came with the truce, the enemy lurked behind them, slowly creeping in on the unsuspecting Persians. Soon, the comfortable feeling of peace would turn to terror. As the troops dispersed visiting their homes all across the land, they invited the terror with them. While they had been insulated for some time, there was no stopping it now, and the pestilence was knocking at the door, here to collect its dues. Just as helpless as the Byzantines, the plague reached the same unholy havoc on the Persians that it had in Constantinople. On next week's episode, join us as we catch up with Tatyla. What was he up to all this time? How has the war been faring in the West? What was Justinian's plan to reconquer Italy? To find out, tune in next week to Contagions. Be sure to subscribe to stay tuned and like the video to help the channel grow. Over on Patreon, your host Sean Sharp will be regularly posting content that delves deeper into some of the subjects we would like to explore further, but don't have time for, on the YouTube channel. Go check it out and become a patron for more content and to support the channel. That's it for us today, we'll catch you next time viewer.