can either bring it back for further discussion at the 20th Or I like councillor coda's a suggestion where I can send this in advance We can have you respond in written form I just want the public to know my concerns because they have a right to frame the Issues to poll in questions. They will be public And then he can address them Right Okay, uh subdivisions. So, uh, this is a little bit drier than some of the other pieces. This is um separating out subdivisions from puds which today it's all sort of intermixed um They uh, it lays out a process It places hazards and habitat blocks in their own lots Whether this is regardless of whether ultimately you'll become a pud or subdivision This is just this just the division of land Uh establishes block standards that are essentially based on the seq standards That would apply. Um, again regardless of whether you're a pud or not Um requires regular shaping of lots Um so that you get these sort of funky weird things that are just trying to avoid our our regulations The most significant new thing in here and this is sort of going back to Um history in south berlington is to require that a minimum of 10 of developable land be dedicated to civic spaces Civic spaces is a new term that we're using to mean um Spaces that are designed for active public use as opposed to the word open space which might be a farm It might be a forest. This is intended to be a gathering place for people. There's lots of different kinds But that's the simplest way to describe that so paul. We've got to eliminate You know if you drive through butler farms, there's a couple lots That are not developed. They're mode. I mean there's one in Your your place too. That's just I mean they couldn't build there. I guess because there's a little wetland or something But it's not a public place per se. I don't know who moves them That wouldn't count for this civic space the civic spaces are very clearly defined as to what they are What the function is, you know, whether there's benches and the size and okay, and so there's there's standards But the plan might eliminate having those lots. I mean you just move the houses You share some of that ravine. I guess what I would say about a place like butler farms is Had and not to pick on anybody who's involved with designing it or anybody who lives there today But had those lots been more thoughtfully designed as to where they were And let's say they'd been at the corner of two streets And then instead of being just sort of this piece of land that nobody knows who it owns It was an active use little park at a couple of key corners Those could have been real neighborhood amenities. Okay, and that's what you're kind of aiming at for this 10% Correct. Okay. Thank you. Yeah, that's exactly The drawings on the right are just showing some some Research that the planning commission had done around block sizes This was measuring all sorts of different block sizes all around south burlington to show that What was being proposed matches South Burlington and you know pretty traditional neighborhood block size I'm just going to skip by the slides very quickly except to make reference to as councilor really indicated on the right hand side there That's a little diagram of how One could design civic spaces in a thoughtful manner And that comes most specifically into the traditional neighborhood, but it really applies to all of the All the types of subdivision Um, okay traditional neighborhood. So jessica, I believe presented on this in april to the commission council The focus of a traditional neighborhood is to create a strong sense of neighborhood a sense of place for the people who live there It has a center is focused on connections both in terms of natural resources and Um and people it has in this in the in the drawing that I'm showing there But but also built into the regulation a focus on civic space a place in the middle of the neighborhood where people can really convene Um, it enables a mix of uses to take place as long as it's of a of a certain size And in exchange for all these things um, what is done on the development side is that uh The regulations, um incurred smaller lots Density to councillor coda's question from before is done in a completely different manner rather than density being a question of units per acre Density is based on each building type so so thinking of The way that villages were built historically Uh throughout new england where there might be a single family home next to a duplex And then the building next to it was once a victorian house But now is a fourplex and they're all on essentially the same size lot But they're of the same scale and they fit together That's what the traditional neighborhood is trying to do And so you can have a single family home on a lot of five to ten thousand square feet You can also have a duplex on a lot of five to ten thousand square feet um There are some design standards that come with it in order to Achieve some of these things so as you get down to a smaller lot Your ability to have let's say a front facing garage Might be a little bit trickier. So if you're really on a five thousand square foot lot you may be um Doing an alley like in south village But that's a developer's choice to come up with a design that works for them In the traditional neighborhood, there's a minimum of three different types of housing that need to be integrated Um, and so that assures that it's not all single family homes built are all multiplexes built The traditional neighborhood also and this is to counselor emory's question Focuses heavily on transitions And so there's a center of a neighborhood, especially a large one that where it's intended to be a little bit more intense and then there are standards for the Applicant to review to to consider and then the board to review as to what's happening Adjacent on the next property over so in some cases what's happening on the next property over is a natural resource That's um in which case That would be a good place to be mindful of Where you're putting your natural resources and back to this slide here the top right drawing of a Civic space you might choose to attach your civic space to that natural resource so that it Has an active use part and then it blends into the natural area next to it So the feeling becomes a larger one overall and that's um What they did in this example in the top right you see the green that's up against the natural resources Another property might be very intense development next to it in that case you might want to transition downwards To where most of what you're doing might be single in two family homes but it might make sense to do a multiplex or town homes next to the three or four story buildings so that you're stepping downwards into your neighborhood a third one might be single family homes on large lots the Applicant can actually apply. I gave the example of five to ten thousand square foot lots If what's next to them is large lots With single family homes the board actually has authority to grant larger lots To give a transition upward Or downward, I guess towards those neighborhoods. So it's never a jarring one up against the other And there's inclusionary zoning potentially in there too Correct So across the board and i'll get to that in the standalone amendments But the planning commission has proposed to expand inclusionary zoning citywide So all All neighborhoods involving 12 or more housing units would be required to have an affordability component Regardless Um, I'm going to just keep pushing through here. Please do. Yeah, keep going Uh conservation pudes So the conservation pud has a different starting purpose. It's starting purpose is land conservation first and foremost so Its arrangement is that a minimum of 70 percent of the parcel is when somebody is a is a conservation beauty Would be conserved. It can be more than that if the applicant chooses It includes all hazards All level one resources and anything in the southeast quadrant that's in the natural resource protection district Similar to the traditional neighborhood, there is land allocation, but the land allocation is mostly resources Residential is a component of it and then there's a small civic space requirement similar to the other ones In this case densities calculated differently. So density in a conservation pud is the Is the acreage Of the entirety of the parcel less hazards. So that is a change. Uh, council of coda um Based on the underlying zoning Reallocated to the 30 percent. So if you had a 10 acre parcel and it was four units an acre That would conceivably be 40 dwelling units. This would reallocate the 40 dwelling units to The three acres That's a mathematical number. I understand as the density goes up Just like under today's rules in practice that may not be fully achievable So a better example might be somewhere like the r2 district at two units an acre two units an acre times 10 is 20 20 on the three acres The commission is aware that it will lead to Compact development in those areas However What is being returned to the community is 70 percent conservation In the southeast quadrant, um The commission had to figure out how to tie in the tdr program and how to tie in um the Uh inclusionary standards and so The in order to make to to make the tdr program work They capped the net density in that 30 percent buildable at six units an acre So you can buy tdrs Depending on the property depending on the amount of natural resources that exist But you can't overload the property so that you wind up with You know, uh, something that's completely out of character of the southeast quadrant. Sure Tdrs can be used Um under in in the draft that is in front of you right now Um in any of the receiving zones So, uh, the same zoning districts it can be today If it's below the threshold of a of a pud So below four acres they can also be used Uh either in a conservation pud up to the six units an acre Or in a traditional neighborhood Uh, though I said density is not calculated. Um based on units an acre if you're choosing to go above 1.2 You would buy the tdrs up to whatever the neighborhood design allows Not only within the seq For now Yes, there are two Aren't you discussing or will you be discussing in the future expanding that So there are two expansions outside the seq right now One that you adopted last year which was to allow for some additional lot coverage along shelbert road And one in this draft When I described this, um Six units an acre that's also included in the R1 and r2 pud districts So it's allowing places like along allen road or um There's a portion of swiss street and in theory old farm road But it's already been approved for development that would allow tdrs in this draft It's the top of the commission's work list for the remainder of this fiscal year to identify additional receiving areas Yes, so I really appreciate this time and I I know that I haven't vote Voice these concerns prior to uh this meeting so so forcefully But it's because I I I recall that meeting two weeks before the pandemic started and I remember you presenting those puds And I remember very clearly throughout the process that there were four and it was always going to be sort of an option for Landowners, but I understand now that this is more Mandatory that this is the only conservant only pud available to seq landowners or that this is the by de facto standard for lands in that part of town My my fundamental concern is that this council has committed to this is my long question and then i'm done I promise um that this council is committed to whatever the vermont climate council comes out with from the global warming solutions Act their report just came out a couple of uh a week or so ago And one very important passage from page 29 of their report which we are committed to to following Which was not information that I don't think the planning commission had when they drafted these conservation priorities Is that this is quoting from the report lack of infrastructure chiefly community wastewater and waste systems which the southeast quadrant has Okay, many parts of vermont do not Makes compact settlement a challenge thereby causing housing development to follow the path of lease resistance Which is dispersed single-family home development on large lots along rural roads This is emphasized this de facto development pattern will only Exasperate energy use patterns that will make achievement of many of the goals of the objectives of the gwsa a challenge And underscored the need to create an effective land use planning and regulation rubric that can achieve housing development and accessibility compact settlement smart growth and just transitions policy imperatives My concern is that we are going to be working against what the gwsa is putting forward that we need to foster here in the state So my question is say this does get passed by a majority of counselors The conservation pud puts the easement to the city I'm guessing not a third party I'd like clarification on that and then my my second part of that question is if a new set of counsel or a new A state regulation a statewide zoning that looks at available wastewater and wants to overrule A unit which I believe the state can do what the state wants to do can overrule municipal constraints such as conservation pud Is restricting housing on land that is arable and near sewer and so on What would it look like three years from now if these regulations passed five years from now If there was land that was forced into this conservation pud and that was then Changed the rules changed with those landowners Whoever they are at that time have the right to get those That that right to the 70% of the land that we have chosen to force them to conserve back That's my big question and where I have I wanted this tonight so that you all could hear my serious concerns Because I'm not ready to support these land development regulations for the habitat block concerns raised earlier in these conservation puds So if we don't have time to answer tonight I still feel like I've done justice to my constituents and clarifying these concerns as to why as of right now I'm not going to be supporting these these did land development regulations with that. I'll be quiet. I swear And you know, I'm not going to do a full answer because some of that was legal but um You know, I think the point that's up here about the minimum plan density for units per acre Really was what kind of balanced the requirement for a lot of us commissioners in that In the areas that are being developed Um, we are getting an actual neighborhood with an average of four units per acre. So um in the areas where these happen um You know, we're really efficiently using the land that is developed by transferring The development that would have happened in that conservation into the neighborhood area And and essentially ensuring that we're getting that level of development in any area that someone's choosing to develop so um What it doesn't do is require A development for the whole 30 percent that's left someone could say um I really only want to develop a very small portion of my land At this time And what they do need to do is for whatever portion of land that they're developing They need to develop in this efficient manner With the planned density of four units per acre Even if they're choosing to reserve some of that development for the future, they need to at least show a plan that says Um, we could develop At the four units per acre. So so instead of getting that kind of spread out large Lot development that isn't using our our infrastructure very efficiently We are setting aside some additional open space But we're retaining kind of that Development potential on the areas of land that we are In some people's words giving up to development.  So it's it's really both. So you're really getting the neighborhood As well as the open space and you know, we have a map I think it actually might be on the next slide here that shows. Um, it's not all of the southeast quadrant where These conservation PUDs are required um It's only portions of the southeast quadrant the more rural existing zoning districts so within the the village Village area it was it's still choice As well as other parts of the city. So it's it's only Some of our most rural zoning districts where that that requirement would be in place And I think I'm going to take the opening that was given to us The other half of your question on the legal items I think would be a good one for us to not give an off the cuff answer to but Come back with a thoughtful answer to Um, one last thing I just wanted to Make note of quickly, uh, because they they look slightly different in the in the style of the design but intentionally this, um Theoretical parcel and this parcel are the exact same parcel So it's showing how The same exact land with the exact same circumstances around it Could function as a TND or could function as a conservation PUD This was a parcel selected by the consultant. Uh, it is an actual parcel in South Burlington, but it's not intended to imply anything to anyone Uh, it does happen to be in one of the zoning districts that allows either or but it's really just illustrative But I think you just quickly flip back to the other. Oh, okay Yeah, so it's so it's interesting that both are responsive to their context But in different ways and can show How to expand resources how to expand housing and how these things are both community goods I suspect some of the saved property here addresses other issues from the climate report To take one statement There's the whole thing page 219 is more so well Okay, well we're gonna keep going here This is this is Matt. Do you have a quick question? I just think we've we've gotten a lot of feedback I'm sure you have as well about these mandatory minimums on the conservation PUD And I think of it in a very simple way and I'd like you to correct me if my thinking is wrong um A 10 acre lot Where it's a conservation PUD it's been designated by the LDRs as a conservation PUD 70 percent seven acres Has to be kept in conservation Three acres can be developed at four units per acre. That's 12 units that can be developed If a rich person says I don't want 12 acres. I want one big mansion Can't do it correct. Well, that's actually not true. So we didn't get into the carve out option. So essentially to address that kind of concern Um, a landowner can do essentially whatever they want. Um, well, that's I shouldn't say that so so there's We'll allow a landowner to use a carve out option the carve out is to take up to two acres of the property And and do what you're saying maybe maybe split it up into three lots for their children put one large Thing there, but it has to be contained to that carve out area um To give more flexibility essentially so Before triggering a PUD where you have to get into the whole PUD and the minimum density and everything you know, there's this option of You know containing what you're doing to the two acres and not triggering the whole process So so that that is illustrative of saying even though we're saying we're giving to give you a bonus We're gonna allow you to go four units per acre on a conservation PUD The landowner doesn't have to build Four units per acre right, so there's there's really um Three ways that somebody who didn't want to do all the development could do it one is as jessica's saying Let's say you had a 10 acre parcel If you would like to take up to two acres of that and not trigger a conservation PUD not trigger any requirement to conserve any of it You can you can do that and then you're just under the subdivision regulations no minimum density Do as you choose Right, so you're only doing the two acres nothing else is happening with the rest of the parcel that's been designated as a conservation PUD area In a parcel that would otherwise have triggered a conservation PUD It's a carve out from the conservation PUD. You don't need to do a conservation. That's option one yes, it's It's one carve out of two acres Of up to two acres so it can't be one carve out and then two years later you carve out another two acres It's it's a one-time thing The second option of somebody who chose to do who wanted to do less Is they could choose to conserve more of the land so somebody could say I have um 10 acres. I'm conserving nine and a half of those acres And i'm building two homes and those two homes will get to enjoy nine and a half acres of Conserved land around them what they're committing to in that case is conserving the bulk of the land the third option as Jessica alluded to is um It's a planned minimum density of four units an acre So you would need to demonstrate in a master plan. Let's say you've got your 10 acres and you've got three acres left over You'd have to show How you can build your 12 units Let's say phase one is only two homes unless you take the two acre carve out Correct. Yep. Yep. So I was just moving on to if you chose to go into the conservation beauty You could choose to have a multi-phase project Phase one you build two three four homes whatever And then future phases if you choose to do it you can and if you choose to let it expire you do that too And then somebody else can pick it up In 10 years time if they want under whatever rules are in place at that time So those are the three ways that somebody who wanted to to do less than the minimum could Thank you All right, what's up on the screen now? Is a simplified map showing three colors This is the draft PUD applicability So the green are areas that would be if you have four acres in the Seq neighborhood residential neighborhood residential transition or neighborhood residential north Must be a PUD must be a conservation PUD. So that's your mandatory area The orange represents areas that could be if you have four acres in in those districts Either a conservation PUD or a traditional neighborhood And the blue are areas that your choice would be to be a traditional neighborhood The little dots that are on top of this are Not an exhaustive list, but it is our best Quick review of all of the parcels that would actually fall into this So, you know, you see a huge amount of the cities in the blue. That's because that's our our four neighborhood There are one two three four Five or six dots of properties that would actually be um Potentially a traditional neighborhood I'm not being where there's more than four acres of developable land on that a map parcel Um, this as with all the other maps if you click on this It's a it's an it's a link to an interactive map so you can zoom right in on them change the background, etc um What did I want to mention here other than that carve out? um We talked about The uh, so a couple of very minor little quick things Um, the current zoning has sort of this odd quirk where In the r1 and r2 districts if you have five acres And you're a PUD but a PUD doesn't really have any standards with it. You're granted A density bonus that gets replaced with how the traditional neighborhood works here where it's a it's additional density but based on building type rather than just being Granted um, and then in the southeast quadrant um Many parcels are below this four acre threshold of a Of a PUD the commission wanted to make sure that if somebody somebody who owned a 3.9 acre parcel Didn't build more homes Than somebody who had a 4.0 acre parcel and were required to be a conservation PUD as such They have adjusted the amount of TDRs that can come into the smaller properties Down to a maximum of 1.8 units per acre That is a little bit of a drop from what is today theoretically able to be four However, our analysis of it is that most of these properties are parcels where there's a house on two and a half or three acres and What we have seen as development in the last 15 years is Nothing anywhere near four units an acre somebody is choosing to build an additional house on it because these are largely, you know Pseudo neighborhoods that already exist places like Meadowwood Drive and Highland Terrace and so While conceptually it's four units an acre in practice. It's nowhere Nowhere near that Uh, this is the most text heavy slide I promise this is um Trying to do a summary based on what counselor really was asking for us of what's actually changing in the development potential So we identified 22 parcels that would be required to be a conservation PUD um Of those total Approximately 460 acres in the southeast quadrant um Under the conservation PUD that would mean that Uh 139 of those acres would be able to be built on And 324 would need to be conserved Had there been no conservation PUD and we just stuck to the rest of the regulations it would have been 265 acres were undevelopable because they're either wetlands or natural resource protection district or it's permanently conserved And 198 would be developable. So it's it's a difference of about 60 acres worth of additional conservation and this was um, the commission's debate about how to address Other natural resources that there was a lot of advocacy for in the community grasslands ag soils things like that and by um, the way that they chose to do it was rather than to regulate additional resources Make for this mandatory PUD to Be context sensitive to each individual resource. The result is about 60 acres of difference in development potential Um, we tried to look at what this means in terms of number of homes on putting all sorts of asterisks is all over the place with this um in theory The current regulations in the southeast quadrant on the on these 22 acres would allow for a little under 1200 units um, I say that in theory because We've never seen a development that hits its maximum potential Invariably there are wetlands. There are design considerations um Jessica spoke to Right sizing neighborhoods in accordance to the resources One of the challenges of our current rules is they say x number of units in acre Regardless of the resources. So if you have 10 acres and nine of them are wetlands in theory You can build in a You know in a our four district 40 units on one acre, but in practice you can't do anything close to that So I give that as a number the proposed regulations We came up with about 834 which is mathematically a Drop but those 834 are on land that is actually buildable So I don't know that it's even that that the difference is as much as what it shows there Can I just just to show your math here the 834 is that assuming The rezoning of the hill farm and 500 homes. That's only the southeast quadrant Not the hill farm. Okay. So hill farm. We don't it's not in part of the seco farms Right, that's at the bottom of the screen there. So the hill farm I put in there industrial open space change That's okay. So 834 does not include the change in zoning to hill farm because it's not in the seco correct Yeah, no, it was part of interim zoning, but not part of it. It's yeah So it's calculated at the bottom of the chart separately. Yeah, it's it's a little bit confusing because it is in the seco As far as the set the comprehensive plan divides the city into four groups, but it's not part of the seco zoning district So It's industrial open space. It's not So the numbers up above do not include the hill farm property the number at the bottom there My 300 to 500 homes. That's The new in theory it's one home every three acres today could be built in the industrial open space district In practice as I said, it's not the highest and best used because if you could build a Something that wasn't residential rather than a house on three acres. You wouldn't do that So Megan and pal Jessica is the number that I've heard of 1400 homes that are currently in the pipeline. Is that accurate? Uh, I think it's about 1200 city-wide About 1200 city-wide. So then we add these numbers on to that right, you know 1100 to And this is only the seco whereas I know that there are any develop Development opportunities outside of the seco Um, so I guess I should note that of the 1200 I I broke this down a few months ago for some folks The vast majority of that is either O'Brien area or city center Or some in quarry hill road. There is obviously A number in the southeast quadrant in other places, but that sounds like a really big That's probably about right. Um, but you know, just as a matter of scale There's a building that's been approved behind Healthy living that has 131 homes in that one building. So there's 10 percent or 7 percent of the total that would go into one building So something to make note on these numbers specific to that is that um The number of homes in the southeast quadrant would not be going up There's no there's no new TDRs being created and the TDR program is still in place. So um You know in order to kind of have these denser Like in the village area like paul was saying you would need to buy TDRs to You know Get above that base density and We're not creating new TDR. So So as all this shakes out, there's there's not More development in the southeast quadrant than under existing But it's rearranged into more compact neighborhoods In order to have additional open space. So that's the idea of balancing Kind of efficient neighborhoods and more open space and and not winding up with more development And you know, I was going to mention it later But I mean our our plan like we alluded to is to continue to work on the TDR program and additional receiving areas and other parts of the city that might make sense as well as the neighborhood commercial Additional pu d type that's not included here So, you know a lot of these blue areas and other parts of the city Um, you know, I think our goal is to have an additional pu d type the neighborhood commercial type that would be A choice in in those areas. So You know, that's the piece that that we don't have in front of you today because we're not finished with it And just one last quick thing on this. Um, we talked about the southeast quadrant and and the term mandatory I think it's it's important to note. I think um For everyone that Uh, the village residential and the village commercial areas have the option of being a traditional neighborhood or a conservation pu d And that's all the areas in orange here. So just to be it's not the entire sq Either way Okay, we're almost done with our slides. Good because we're an hour over This is my last one very quickly. Um, I can go into as much details any counselor would like Here is a series of standalone amendments that are not directly tied to the puds solar ready roofs For new commercial buildings and acts this option under the commercial building energy code to design a solar ready zone We've already talked about expansion of include of inclusionary affordable housing Residential design would set a base of some some basic residential design features that currently exist in southeast quadrant to be city wide The nrp district It tightens up the language a little bit to make sure that the housing that does occur there is in Smaller areas or small ish areas not necessarily smaller than today, but there's some there's some lack of clarity in there today accessory dwelling units matching to the new state law that was passed last year expanding opportunities for accessory dwelling units accessory structures This is separate from dwelling units Opens up a little bit more allowance. Um, right now those who have small homes are disproportionately, um restricted because the size of your Uh, accessory structures like a shed is a percentage of the size of your house so the smaller your house the less of a Of a shed that you're allowed to have this tries to straighten that out a little bit more And a whole series of small amendments of just being tidying up the regulations last slide Oh, yeah, okay, I'll So Monica pointed out it's actually not I just said that we weren't expanding the number of tdr's But that's actually not true. I did show some areas where we're expanding the nrp in a few spots. So Um In some of those locations it would increase the number of tdr's I think except in south village where they've already used those areas Um Yes south village used the entirety of their density under the old old rules. So so not all of the areas where we expanded the nrp Did it create more tdr's? Okay, so as a wrap up here, so we um We did achieve a unanimous vote to bring this forward to you as a package And I think the fact that it was a package is a big part of that um We So not everyone agrees on on each individual issue, you know, and I think we're hearing the same from counselors You know, you talk about one issue that you're maybe uncomfortable with and we we really did the same thing. So um As individuals I asked all of the commissioners to identify areas That influenced their support of the draft, you know, and that was both for for and against just their comfort level and um Knowing that each of us had to set aside items that we were particularly passionate about to get to you know, one cohesive package here So as part of that I did ask commissioners um To kind of identify areas and we had a big discussion about this and As part of bringing this forward, um You know, I agreed that I would talk through some of the issues where we did have either split votes Or a lot of discussion and not everyone was comfortable. So um, you know, I'm gonna kind of list off some of these Items here where you know, we we weren't um necessarily completely unanimous in the item, but um, You know, I think some people in balance were comfortable because different items were balancing each other. So um, some commissioners wanted the individual protection of agriculture soils and grasslands While others felt that the chapter 12 covered the most highly prioritized resources And that the expansions of the nrp and the conservation puds Would protect protect some of these other resources and open spaces that weren't individually protected in chapter 12 Um by requiring conservation puds in the more rural areas of the city and expanding the nrp Some of these other resources Would be conserved So as a compromise the areas for development in the conservation pud Have a minimum density requirement to efficiently use the land and the city resources With some of the exceptions that we noted such as the carve out which was a big point of discussion So the conservation puds In higher density areas would only apply when resources on the property Make up over 50 percent of the property. So on that map you saw there were some blue areas where Um, a conservation pud wouldn't be necessarily a choice until you had multiple resources on the property And some felt that the conservation pud should be applicable everywhere So Others felt like the 70 percent number was maybe not the right number. So that number Was a debate And some of the habitat block adjustments were not all unanimous The zoning changes to expand the nrp near nolan farm road And the change in zoning to the r7 in the industrial open space were not unanimous Um, the wetland standards we adjusted and had significant debate Some felt we should really match the state regulations And that we were being too strict and others wanted expanded buffers beyond what we even put forward. So expanding some buffers on wetlands As well as removing the class three very small wetlands were some of those those um, you know debates and compromises we made Um, and I think, you know, there were a few commissioners that, you know Expressed it with the word of like more time and more vetting and more images But you know, I think that that's always the case when I with our review So, you know, a lot of these issues are related. Um, and I think You know, some of us may have felt differently about the whole if some of these items are pulled out. So I think, um, you know, everything works together And, you know, some of these different things we felt like we're balancing each other Um, so I think that's something to keep in mind as we're kind of talking through individual items And, you know, I'm really just very proud to present That we were able to come together with so many varied opinions along the way Um, we also have as part of bringing this package to Forward, um, we've identified specific items in our 2022 work plan Um, that commissioners felt were very important to kind of compliment what we've brought forward now with Our ongoing future work. I mentioned a few of those Uh, one is the tdr program update, you know, really looking at additional receiving areas additional pud types including the ncd And, you know, just general other tools to incentivize development and redevelopment in the built areas and areas where we We know that we do want development As well as, um, there were items from the public comment and commissioner comments that we've identified to Kind of work on more as part of a future round And one of those was the potential to change the name of the document to the land use regulations To really show that we're as a community not just only focused on development, but we're regulating Kind of the the use and the layout of our open spaces Both resources and parkland as well. So, you know be a little more, um, specific to what we're doing in the document, so I think that's the overview there Well, I I want to commend your work and compliment the entire Commission and the staff that really put this together. It's very complex. It's covers an enormous amount of Information I appreciate that we have Some differences of opinion on the council. You surely had them on the commission But the bottom line was you looked as a group at the the whole And felt that for the most part this was a real improvement. And so I have to say I hope the council can Um, approach this in a similar manner But thank you very very much.  So thank you very very much And you're very welcome to work through difficult questions with passionate opinions Right. Really you deserve I second Helen's comment I feel obligated not a question, but a statement. I just want to say I do like some things in this So I hope I didn't come across as too negative I just wanted you to hear my where my concerns and my hang-ups are so it doesn't surprise you But I like the 500 year flood plan planning and definitely the hill farm as well as a lot of those things at the end Those individual bullets so great work. Thanks for all your volunteer hours Okay, thank you very much. Yeah Yeah, and I mean it's it's really all the commissioners and oh absolutely. Oh In the room here. Have you got a couple? Yeah, so much time drafting items. Oh, yeah For sure. So thank you Can we take like a five minute break? And then we'll move on to the next easy topic a budget So thank you And city council meeting of December 6th and we'll take up Item 10 which is our proposed f y 23 budget with a presentation by our city manager And deputy city manager, I suspect and I just want to say before you start that I Very much appreciated how you laid this out. I thought it was really clear and easy to follow and Clearly a lot of work. So thank you So budgets Very exciting So I'm going to be talking through the presentation tonight, but please know that All of the work behind it is really Martha Machar's work Putting together the budget And I'm doing this tonight because Andrew didn't put together this presentation So I thought it was unfair for me to ask him to there then present it But he will be answering questions During the process. I also want to thank the department heads This is really while I have the privilege of presenting this to you in the community This is really the product of a lot of hours of department head leadership team Effort to bring forward a budget that we hope meets your goals We presented I presented this budget to the at an all staff meeting on Friday And it was fairly well received by them as well.  So lots of fun things Finally, I do just want to acknowledge that the and some of you have heard me say this before the three most important things councils do Are decide what to do with other people's money what you're starting to take up right now Tell people what to do with their land what you just spent two hours talking about So you're hitting two out of the three in one night, which is really impressive higher manager We don't need to do it again You're good So this is what we're going to talk about tonight. I do want to note that Link to your agenda is this presentation And then we've also included the link to the website where all of the budget materials Thanks to martha and her team are saved in detail At the end of this presentation, we will be asking you to set a public hearing date of this for this budget, which is required per our regulatory requirements So just by a way of reminder on september 20th You get set for us a number of high level council goals You did not take a vote, but you had a discussion So you directed us to maintain current levels of service stay Around under a 3% tax rate increase although again no vote To fund municipal operations Ensure that there's a sustainable level of fund balance for future elected officials And maintain our investment in capital projects that you specifically called out Striping and paving So we made some assumptions to build this budget and I wanted to call those out to be very clear We are assuming in this budget grand list growth of 1.4 percent. That's based on Martha lion's review of the permits permits that are currently in progress in planning and zoning and building We are making the assumption that the local options tax will rebound to pre-pandemic levels and I'll speak a little more about that in a minute We are assuming a cola of 3.5 percent Which is high but not actually as high as it's been month to month in recent months We are All staff all staff Not the what We are seeing a health insurance increase of 8% with other insurance Increasing at 15.5, which is primarily for this building. This building is insured at a much higher rate than 575 Insurance is going on right and beemers has sent us an increase of half a percent So we focused on the leaders in conversations with the leadership team. We focused on four major priority areas That we want to share with you. We focused on maximizing the service delivery of this building We have this great new facility that has all this potential and we really want to make sure the community who is invested in this building sees the Sees that come to fruition. So specifically we're recommending adding two new part-time employees in library And expanding one 28-hour employee to a full-time employee and increasing the sub hours That will allow us to expand the hours of operation of the library and you'll hear more about that from jennifer We are proposing hiring a handy person. He'll hear more about the The physical plant budget in a minute We are also focusing on information technology and ensuring that we have as resilient service delivery in the it field as we can so adding a employee in it but also focusing on modernizing our cruiser cameras and body camera technology implementing office 365 and doing some permit automation And then we are also trying to focus on Investing in capital planning strategy and connecting that to maintenance as you've heard me talk about before So adding one fte to oversee capital planning citywide Which will be split between the funds general fund and enterprise fund This is also a position that is not Hugely mapped out at this point It's there's funding in the budget in the hopes that a new public works director really comes in and puts their Fingerprints on it and and decides what he or she Sees as the need And then our fourth priority Was really maximizing The use of our ARPA funding for one time costs So as you know, we have previously approved ARPA funding for bringing back some of those salary positions and stepping them down over the years So fy 23 Has those staff covered at 80 percent with 20 built into the general fund that will decrease in the out years And then we have about 672,000 of one time costs for capital investments and you see that list there This will Leave us about 4.5 million in our pro funds to still be expended And we have other ideas that we've heard listed here Specifically the million dollars for the housing trust fund As well as business support stormwater and wastewater projects As well as I know there's some interest in the community of having more of a community conversation about how those dollars are allocated And 2024 So here's the actual Presentation again all of the line item budgets are linked on that On that website So we are proposing general fund expenditures of 28.4 million With 10.4 coming from non-property tax revenue. That's a pretty significant increase I will call out that the majority of that increase is the ARPA funding So that is a one that is a over these years increase that will not carry forward into the future So 18 million coming from as the general fund tax levy with an estimated tax rate of 0.4438 And then we've marth has broken down there the if this is approved as presented the impact to the average condo and primary residence taxpayer of 25 and 38 dollars for next year annually Stop me if you have questions That's the 2% So thinking about revenues and expenditures for a minute I'm what's one of the things quite frankly having worked in three municipalities in Vermont is seeing Only 63 of your general fund budget paid with property tax dollars is pretty amazing. That is not the breakdown for most communities I you see the Oh, so I do want to call out the local options tax reverting to the pre covid levels Um, so we are seeing really strong local options tax numbers in the beginning of this fiscal year We are budgeting now. I think actually pretty conservatively to just get back to FY 20 numbers the November The November receipts that came in the Came in 111,000 dollars over the FY 19 rates So the first months right before the pandemic compared to these months More than 100,000 dollars higher in receipt. So we're pretty confident that we will hit this revenue target But we're not obviously going above it either We are projecting still continued lower program revenues in in recreation Specifically where people are still not ready to kind of connect the same way they used to But are seeing pretty significant increases in permitting revenues. So we're projecting that as well and you'll see that a little more later on This is a quick slide on the general fund expenditures and where these dollars go Again, this presentation is in your packet. So you can Zoom up and see those numbers. Um, I also do want to note that Um, one of the things that is Different about how South Burlington has historically done budgeting like this is that the Retirement and health insurance is not allocated out to the service area department. Only the salaries is allocated to the service area Um, so you see that pretty significant HR and benefits administration chunk, which is really where health insurance retirement Sits not out into the into police or public works or whatnot So there are some basic salaries in HR as well for our HR team But um, but the the salaries for all the other departments are allocated out to their departments What in the world do we spend for 73,000 73,000 for city council. Is that all the Publishing of the warnings and things we've had so many meetings warnings public hearing notices town meeting tv Oh, okay town meeting tv's in there. Okay. Thank you In our super duper salaries And then we have the pennies the two cents for Penny's for paths and open space. I do want to call out that with the reappraisal both of those pennies are going up 95 thousand dollars each. So it does have a pretty significant impact on On what they will be able to do into the future It's a 30 increase from last year just based on the reappraisal And that represents an additional two cents on the tax rate So I want to spend a little time talking about capital The capital improvement plan because we have fully integrated that into the general fund presentation this year Again mentioned we're proposing adding one fte This represents a million dollars of increase from our f y 22 spending levels As you can see f y this community really made some strategic smart strategic financial decisions to stay Solving and fiscally secure through the pandemic, but a lot of that was born on the back of the cip So trying to build that back up over time to ensure that we're staying up to date with our infrastructure if we thought was really important Again about over a half a million of that comes from one-time ARPA funding So that's not a sustainable tax capacity funding source, but it does allow us to move through some big capital investments For example buying an ambulance that is it's usually hard to do in one fiscal year Um, so um And then future years just as a foreshadow to you right now The capital spending sits within the operating budgets of each department We decide not to pull those out for this year because it was going to be a lot of work In a in a already transitional year, but in future years We hope to separate those out for you so you can see really what what are the operating costs of a department? And what are the capital needs costs of the department? What is a property tax investment? What is a property tax investment? A quarter million dollars increase in property tax investments for you So 268 thousand dollars Of funds from property tax are going into our our funding the cip and fy 23 above what they funded the cip for an fy 22 That was a really backwards way of saying that but Thank you understood And so more more excitingly talking about what are the projects we've prioritized So this is just a handful the complete list is on the website So we are including 75 thousand dollars for planning for the recreation center We are maintaining the 100 or 860 thousand dollars for the city center reserve, which is The previous rate at which it had been maintained. We are increasing the paving budget by 50 000 We're increasing the park improvement budget by 65 000 Definitely hearing folks talk about feral park the dog park at feral street, etc And then again where we're dedicating some of those arpa dollars for cip planning I do think it's important to call out all of the other funds you know the Obviously the big lift is the general fund because it is what how we how the taxpayers fund our operations But there are also a lot of other funds that we Operate to serve the residents of south berlington Those are also paid by the our neighbors through their utility bills So I've tried to capture here What percent of each fund is funded through either property taxpayers or ratepayers? And you can see that breakdown here We will be asking you to approve the enterprise budgets. It's part of this Budget approval again. Those are on the website As you'll see we have very low Very small rate increases projected for storm water and sewer Under about you know a dollar and a half for storm water increase for the year And six dollars and eighty cents for sewer We don't know the water rate yet because the champlain waters district is still going through their budget process We have been promised. We will have that number by the time. Justin does his budget presentation for you Um, I think it's always important to provide for you in these conversations the tally of where we are with fund balance This is your savings account across funds How we have used previously how we have set aside previously allocated dollars for those purposes Obviously, I'm not going to read through all of this, but I think the Two big things to call out are the 1.7 million you have in our recommended minimum balance for the general fund That's um cash on hand. That's what we need to make what our auditors say. We need to meet to maintain our operations And then the bottom line bottom right hand corner line of 400 000, which is really the The unassigned general operating amount. So that is your savings account. That is Where we would quickly pull one time Funding needs if we have them. So overall, I think this presents a picture Um, you know, you see we have really significant And by really significant, I mean healthy unassigned enterprise fund balances in our utilities. That's really great when you're talking about Utilities that have big capital cost vehicle costs, etc And then I did want to call out just a couple of merging issues in Providing you this FY 23 recommended budget So one we are as everybody in the united states and across the world is tracking inflation And costs of the unpredictable costs of goods We've made some assumptions about that in this budget, but we don't know really where that's going to go Our three union contracts are under negotiation now, but not settled We are still continuing to talk about regional dispatch and what that may look like Into future years as you probably know from kevin that That wouldn't necessarily require new money as the idea was always to use the existing budgeted money to stand that up But it is a kind of uncertainty going into FY 23, although our dispatch is great and can continue on no problem as is The work our volunteers and staff are doing on the climate action plan development that will be wrapping up as this budget kicks off. There is No additional funding Built into this budget for that plan, although there is funding allocated in this plan for purchases that could be influenced Given different priorities additionally, I do think that Through the state there is likely to be grant opportunities for changes and you know and And we will have to make different decisions over time um department heads wanted me to be very Clear that while it was really understandable last year to set a 1% tax rate increase It does still feel like we are catching up Given that a 1% tax rate increase is really a cut So specifically again, you see that in the cip planning and then currently we are Budgeting about a quarter of a million dollars in revenue from our health center partners We are looking to add a fourth that is not built into this revenue budget yet So if that happens that would increase that revenue budget So this is what's next. So tonight you'll hear from those of us who are here He'll hear from public safety public works and community development and pennies and energy Um, we are asking you tonight to set a public hearing on this budget including the capital improvement plan for January 10th 2022 and then approving that And the enterprise funds with the steering committee on January 24th Annual meeting on the 28th and coming day on the 1st. Okay So can we have a motion to set a public hearing I'll move that we set a public hearing for Monday, January 10th at 7 30 second Okay, any conversation or discussion On So this is Monday, January 10th. Yep Okay, uh, just to clarify, uh, I would love at some point pinning down Martin Luther king day and president's day Are we just moving the council meetings to the Tuesday right after into those? Okay. We always do that. Thank you Okay Well, the we'll probably have that would be a meeting so we are we just doing the budget hearing No, there there'll be other things so it'll be 6 30 and then we'll have the budget hearing to start at 7 30 Could we do is this a special meeting? Yeah, this is two weeks in a row. We're doing means so in So in January you have pretty much weekly weekly council meetings for the budget, um as we have What that cuts with the schedule? Um included so the third the 10th the 18th and then The 24th is the steering committee meeting Is that an email? That was in um when we first I guess that september 20th council Memo where we talked about the council goals It was in that sorry Didn't make that clear No, we we we talked about it. We just probably didn't put it down our calendars. Did we So Can I can I recommend a friendly amendment to your motion? Oh sure Can we do the public hearing? Warn it for seven because I anticipate that night you may also have Conversations about the ldr's and it would be good to do one and then the other and not have to bounce Yes Since we have a new manager, uh, I would love to just put something forward that uh I put forward with in kevin's reign if I may say and it was uh killed But we're using at uvm a lot more I would love it if you all sent out meeting requests to our south berlington accounts for all of these meetings So they would just be on there and magically appear on my phone. Uh, that would be awesome But I'll just say it leave it at that via does that for the leadership team I'm sure she would be happy to add you to the Make me so happy Okay, that's very friendly January 10th is oh, sorry That was 2021 2022 I know okay Um So now we're going to move on to Oh, yeah, I'm sorry. So you're ready for that vote. So we have a public hearing on the budget Commencing at 7 p.m on january 10th 2022 All in favor Thank you So assuming you have no questions on that. I'll just keep going. Yes, please Unless anyone has questions. I mean, I think we asked a few All right, so this is going to be really fast to get to the much more fun Library and recreation and parks presentations Um, so this is our fyi 23 Presentation on administration um, you will see So administration is all of those Uh service areas at the city that support all of the departments of the city In support of our operations We'll talk about staffing big budget items emerging issues and some fun spotlights More or less. This is the order that all of the future budget presentations will follow So this is your administration staffing So it represents about 25 of us who support the entire city team. So it city legal finance Tax collection communications and hr physical plant and of course the city clerk Many of these folks are here in the audience and several are also on Go to meeting as well. Um, and again really want to thank them for Their efforts to build their individual budgets and work with the whole leadership team So on the revenue side of things these are the big changes within the admin budget So again local options tax, um projected increases from last year Donna's revenue budget is going up quite significantly based on the vital records changes And the recording fee changes And then as I mentioned the permit revenues are increasing as well. So those are up 12% We do have a number of changes on the expenditure side So you'll see in the complete budget and guys i'm going to fly through these but Mike and greg jump in if I say something wrong We have created in this budget an entire physical plant budget pulling from other lines Across the general fund That's again really to recognize that previously Those those efforts to maintain a building Sat in each department's budget and we were requiring our content experts in Police and fire to know how to maintain their own buildings. So we're centralizing that expertise into greg's department under physical plant So Additionally as I mentioned before Adding to this a handy person or a facilities manager position Again to maintain this building that's getting a lot of use as well as to have that that team start Really getting their arms around all of our physical plants across the city That's one big change on the expenditure side the other two Are really in the it world. So we are Recommending the implementation of office 365 You'll see some of the advantages of that system for us moving to that Again builds up a lot of the resiliency We've seen recently some of the challenges when we don't have that resiliency So want to make sure we have that can be ensured at an adequate rate going into future years What are we on microsoft 10 What do we currently use So for those on go to meeting exchange on premise 2013 This is why we have a mic because a jesse does not know these And then we're recommending the implementation of permitting and development review Software that will allow us to automate that process not only for improved customer service and workflow management by paul and his team But also for data collection and data management over time And then again adding that it person Oh in the clerk's office. We are increasing expenditures for elections We have two big big elections in fy 23 And of course that always comes with The additional costs other than that expenditures are pretty stable And then we are also proposing adding a part-time position in the welcome center This is really to manage with the retirement of Todd um Really went from a two-person assessing and tax collection team to martha lions who managed through the reappraisal transition exceptionally well with support from meredith But as we come out of that really understanding that one person In that team and one person the welcome center is not sufficient to back each other up and to maintain that level of customer service For our constituents, so we believe that with a part-time person Kind of staffing in the middle of the day will be able to be more nimble with meredith in her time And then just a couple emerging issues to call out Martha lions is already working with nemerick on some of the inequities that kind of presented themselves as part of the reappraisal and wanting to ensure that with The next grand less those are corrected We also are anticipating the rollout of new Um camera grand less software at the state level that we will need to interact with this year um the clerk's office is is working on putting all their land records online and Doing that with a subscription fee which donna is doing yeoman's work to manage through with the vendor And then again additionally reappoint the reapportionment that you all know a great deal about May change how we staff elections into the future What is nemerick? nemerick is the new england martha what's nemerick? municipal It's the financial system for the city and for most cities in vermont. So it's it's all of our AR AP budget management technology system The municipal resource center. Thank you Um and they historic for decades have also been the holder of the state's List for the education property tax and the state is moving to a new system, which means that the municipalities have to link Our old system our nemerick system with that system or opt for such change um Almost done here folks promise um We have been having a number of conversations about Data-driven decision-making and how we either hire consultants or work with interns to get The right amount of data collection expertise on the team to be able to make decisions that are based on what's happening on the ground here Not only in kind of demographics and permitting but also in budget management and overtime management and things like that So we are we are Shadowing to you that we may come to you at some point in the future with a specific request for this with You know a 50 million dollar budget and 180 plus employees I think this this is really an investment in future years that could Make us much more efficient and effective I mentioned the climate action plan and future funding the implementation of our captive and and Health center and the addition ability to bring on a fourth partner and then As with all organizations in the u.s. We are seeing pretty significant recruitment challenges Is there a chance of even more than a fourth partner There is a chance of more than a fourth partner but also In want to strategically bring them on incrementally not do a big rush onto the service because we do want to Make sure one of the values of that health center is Folks can get in quickly to see a provider if they want and we want to make sure we keep that right level of level of service So then I included some Fun and great things really successes that the team saw this year Read all of these you know about most you know about all of them Your appraisal And new building. Yeah, we know about those Okay So I just wanted to end by Acknowledging that this has been a huge period of transition for our staff With the return from coveted the transition to andrew and myself The moved for many of us moved to this new facility many of us moving from having our own offices to an open office concept And all the other real life changes everybody is experiencing and the team is really just stepped up and managed that with Grace grace and patience and positive attitudes and curiosity and I am so very thankful for that That is all I want to say So I think next Okay, I like to see that you are working with the businesses on that and how to adapt and The public health aspects that tim raised before I think you I feel that the city you know managed I think that I take Eli at his word that there were no infections at his at his supermarket and I think that's That's really important for just maintaining You know safety and health and all those good things that make for a stable So thank you for stepping up and taking care of that frontline interface with all the businesses Thank you. All right, so Jennifer come on down And are you sharing signs and Ted I guess is helping you Great welcome Jennifer Murray with the public library Accompanied by Ted Lenski. Who is the treasurer of the board of trustees? So I'm assuming that you all have seen the actual numbers. So my comments are more narrative than Here we are So um our our significant increase is as Jesse's already mentioned Some more staffing hours We currently have 10.75 fte at the library And we're open 47 hours and we um In this budget, we would be moving to 12.4 fte and be open for 55 hours Great So when we're looking at revenue the projected increase Will be largely determined by meeting room and auditorium rentals, which Of course, all we can do is project at this point So one of the big changes is we have some facilities increases in there in addition to the library staff and The my picture is not there. Oh So I included a picture of mark pushing the Trash can because it was bright yellow and had all this cool stuff on it Facilities staff are very responsive to the library's needs thus far And this budget helps to maintain the library and other existing buildings So we have some money that goes towards that when you note that spending is down Does that mean you've reduced it and there's still things that you need or that last year was the initial purchase so The latter Yes, so last year we had special purchases, but we do not have in the coming year. Okay So overall the library's Emerging issues revolve around Continuing to serve people who are maybe not coming to the library during covet and need service at their home And developing best practices for collaboration and inviting new people in to visit and use library services So that's kind of a summary of what you see there That includes new americans Families and senior citizens who may be reluctant to come to the library, but how can we help them anyway or how can we include them in a way that's safe and providing electronic resources Canopy is very frustrating canopy We'll talk about that. You can't pause a movie and go back the next day and watch the rest It counts it as a full movie viewing Just so you know, that's sorry. No, thank you for sharing that Oh, you don't have to allocate enough time when you rent a movie No, that's helpful information. We'll talk later So Spotlight of course as jesse mentioned is we moved in so that was a big that's a big spotlight And I want to invite all of you to come by anytime and take a look at the guest book That we have at the door to help you understand how happy the residents and the visitors are With the new library Any questions? No, I think it I only get good feedback about the library and it seems to be More and more people are using it. So I think that's terrific Said one. Yeah, so you're expanding to 55 hours. Tell me is that just later into the evenings more on Sundays or weekends? So we don't have this This increase does not include enough Bodies to be open on Sundays yet But we would be opening at 9 in the morning and closing at 8 at night as opposed to being open at 10 and closing at 7 Gives us an opportunity to as needed Perhaps have two story times in the morning instead of just one And most programs a lot of our programs We end up having staff who have to stay after their regular hours because people aren't ready to leave yet And then we have to juggle that with the schedule I think the other key is the incremental staffing costs for the gain in hours the ratio is improving significantly So you're making a small incremental salary investment to gain more hours Than what you currently have. So these small incremental salary investments will start expanding the hours more So as you build that baseline that'll help as well, right? Can I tell one quick cute story? Yes. Well, what I perceive is a cute story About the budget. I mean come on You know how to have a good time, don't you? So we did the budget a little differently this year and that we The department has all built their own budget and then we came together and made decisions about what we should recommend to you Altogether so it really was the budget that's before you is the entire leadership team's budget So Jennifer actually in her initial budget request Called out and was going to add to her staff Really focused attention on it and av and and mike had not included that in his budget request But as we talked at the leadership team level and really realized how critical That capacity was to the entire city Jennifer's request turned into mike's request and there was I think a lot of support on the whole team to Prioritize funding in that way And I think I just really want to thank you Jennifer and mike for the the open-mindedness and the Sense of camaraderie to get to holistically what was best for the community and not just the individual siloed department Thank you for letting me tell a cute little story. Thank you Well, thank you very much Okay, now we have holly Wow Could I report that some of the lights are not functioning at the display it better? Do you know that? No, okay How do you know that I drove by it on the way here and it's there's a blue tunnel Yeah, the blue tunnel was off when I came down just so you know Good to know It's a good thing that we have staff that are monitoring that and I'll have to worry about it I'll have them check in on it. It is rainy. It is rainy. Could be a frozen something So good evening. Jennifer was really prompt and quick. So I will try to do the same holly reese Thrilled and proud director of recreation and parks our small but mighty team So we can start by doing introductions. So there's myself as the director We're thrilled to welcome Rebecca Isham. She is basically the senior center programmer Although she does do some adult recreation programs as well Brett Leonard is our other recreation specialist So he is taking the lead on all seasonal sports right now as well as additional inventory And things like community events and travis lat is our special projects coordinator So he does marketing pieces kind of all design aspects as well as field and facility requests And the like and then we have a vacant position. So Was that ashley? Nope, ashley is independent. She's not while she interfaces with our department a lot. She's not under our umbrella Oh, okay. Yep. So this position was held by Ben McShane two years ago He left during covet the position remained vacant until last July We hired a lovely woman named lauren She was with us for about a month and a half and then got a random teaching position that she just couldn't pass up And so we've been vacant since then So I would just like to give an extra shout out to again both Well, all three of the staff but specifically bret and travis for Really now for two years picking up the slack of being short staffed in addition, we traditionally had always had a Registrar or an administrative assistant and When we moved into this building that Duty got shifted. So we're all, you know, we have a new software system, which is fairly intuitive. We're excited for that And just working through those, you know, growing pains as we go So we're hopeful that the welcome center does get an additional staff person So they can take on registrations in a more timely manner as well So that's us Um, it's just a little bit about our budget expenditures and just I put the actual of 21 just to really impress upon people in the world of recreation The negative financial impact that covet has had on the flip side of that The impressive impact it's had in people really connecting with recreation specifically with nature and being outside So while we don't see the money coming in from programs We have seen a huge increase in people interacting with our parks, which is great Um, and then really any change that's significant is due to the cip as jesse said being embedded into the general fund So under revenues, you're already there reading my mind So under revenues, here's where we would, you know, point out some of the Loss of revenues or anticipated, you know impacts of youth programming adult programming You know, we are still using school services or school facilities as much as we can Those are definitely impacted still although we were thrilled to support a basketball season this year last year We couldn't so we were really excited to have kickoff day on saturday Fingers crossed that that keeps going. We made the decision to do in-house leagues only so we won't play brollington and shellburn and Outside of our district will will stay in house and and hopefully will be successful with that and keep everybody safe Last year because the school couldn't offer driver's ed. We offered four driver's ed programs and It's money and money out, but on the revenue side. It's a chunk of money So it's it's about 11,000 dollars for each session. So I wanted to highlight that We have streamline that breaks even you bring in 11,000. We make we make money, but it is a big payout. Yeah. Okay. Yeah Um, I we make about 6,000, you know in each session, but the payout is about 11,000 to the instructor And that's just the extreme hours It's about 780 dollars for a session Um, as my girls are wanting to get into them. I'm like, oh save your pennies Um, and then so we night out just of you know years of streamlining that event It doesn't cost as much anymore. We have some additional sponsorship Um Dollars that aren't coming in as revenue, but they're taking care of some expenses So that's a little adjusted and then we used to run a discount ticket program For vrpi, so the Vermont recreation and parks association as a fundraiser for them That was basically ticket sales for great escape and now those are at every grocery store. You can never imagine So we don't participate in that anymore and that was money and money out, but you'd see that on the revenue Next So the big piece for us is cip projects. I know it was definitely mentioned that You know, there's concerns at the feral dog park and while that's not specifically called out here I would like to take the opportunity to say that this project list While we're thrilled to support it is a drop in the bucket compared to what needs to be done to maintain our parks And so We'll call that out in the next couple of slides It's just something to think about in ongoing years is that we have a lot of deferred maintenance in our parks And some of those are big ticket items like the red rocks bath house um And other of those that you might not think about as big ticket items have been deferred maintenance on our ball fields And ball fields need to be recrowned irrigation needs to be replaced You know all those kind of pieces and and they add up to pretty significant expenses. So They're lumped together for the 2024 cip ready and waiting But we will have to have a plan to kind of incrementally chip away at those Do do we get any income from the baseball fields? We do. So, um, the the fields that we rent Anywhere between 35 and 55 thousand dollars a year is what we make off of those fields And those go right back into paying for the seasonal support to actually maintain them As well as any supplies so paint, you know Ball field mix like those kind of things have those rates increased We did increase those rates three years ago You know, we did a chitenden countywide survey. So we're on par certainly with where everybody else is It's something that we need to look at and I think you know the The odd piece of recreation and parks is the one foot in and one foot out We don't have any responsibilities for maintenance of recreation and parks or the parks But because we facilitate rentals then from our department, then we facilitate what needs to be maintained in those rentals So we staff the seasonal folks who maintain the ball fields that we're renting But dpw staffs the seasonal folks that take the rest of you know The mowing piece and the garbage removal and you know all the other functions. So For this coming season, this is what we have. We still have the south village recreation amenity, which has long been imagined as a Youth soccer field. So that's coming closer and closer to fruition coming through those specific rec impact fees So not the general fund We have the long deferred skinned softball field at jc park So south burlington doesn't host a skin softball field and it's been a long desire from You know adult league play as well as the south burlington youth baseball softball league So they will work with us to get that done What is the skin softball? It's where you take you take the grass off of the infield of of You know a softball field. So it's you know the red clay So, yeah Highly desired and most communities host multiple softball fields So and then can anyone use it or is it? again limited to bonafide softball team Well, so youth softball would use it and our adult softball leagues would would certainly use it that they're more of a summer and fall Where youth softball would be spring and summer so Yep um The shimansky court pickleball creation as well as basketball court resurfacing So this was something that we had in the fy 22 budget in terms of resurfacing But then there was a pretty strong Uh contingency of pickleballers that didn't feel it was sufficient just to have pickleball lines on tennis courts and we had some restructure um to Designate to I guess there's now going to be four pickleball courts As well as a tennis court at shimansky park. So that will happen as as close to the beginning of fy 23 as we can get So it'll be open for the season And they we do have modest improvements at the Veterans Memorial Park athletic field. So that $10,000 will basically redo the three baseball mounds at veterans memorial And then we put in money for utility vehicle out of that Helen as you were saying out of those gross monies that we collect from the fields And right now we currently have one utility vehicle and we split it between you know red rocks And whatever our needs are at veterans memorial, but oftentimes With issues that have been going on at the parks the fire department needs the gator down at red rocks for rescue recoveries Our parks crew needs it for exploration of trails You know, we want to have it as an option for police as they're doing more policing At the park. So this would offer an opportunity to have a utility vehicle at each location and not have to worry about coordinating with trailer services and that kind of thing And then roof replacements at our two pavilions one at red rocks and one at jc So that's what we're anticipating for 2023 And then you can kind of read through the list of the deferred cip project. All of a sudden there's more zeros Yes. Um, and so those, you know, just discussion points to come so you can read through those at your leisure There's a couple pages of them. So you can just pass through those Whoa um Yep, so the one that I will go back one Yep, and I also wanted to just highlight the need for a parks master plan So this can be pretty comprehensive but as we're talking about open lands and um, you know, we're talking about where are the gaps in our park district And we want to lay out the next 10 15 25 years of growth So we're not looking at the next new shiny thing There are certainly areas in our community that are heavily saturated in recreation opportunities and certainly gaps So I would highlight that as a priority of something that we want to kind of, you know Be thinking about in the pretty near future. Um, and something we've talked with the planning department about collaborating with So next slide. So here, yep. So on the previous one, I thought I heard council memory raising a concern dog park amenities How do we as a council? I just got to say I think we've been neglecting dog park amenities for too long And if we can move this out of deferred into this year, I just as one counselor I want to say we need to do something about the dog parks And I don't know if that $60,000 needs to be put back on the table or not to do that Yeah, so I can say for the dog park, um, because I too have had some conversations with Betty Melizia Um, and so we kind of talked about where are we with current money? um, and I think that there's $20,000 in the current cip Um, and there's nothing in the 23 cip. So that's something you can certainly talk about Um, improvements at ferrule while I know that the common area for dogs committee has a list I don't know that they have a pricing list or if those have been, you know, verified With a civil engineer, for example, they want to hire one So I think there are opportunities for that discussion And you know and where we go from there, I know there are going to be some transitions as Justin vacates his position, so Certainly something to discuss so they have $20,000 I believe that that's the case for for this year, but I don't know where Justin is in terms of that budget Yeah, so that would be something that we would want to verify with him Would would have messed up parks master plan um consider um like bonding, I mean there's I don't know probably a million dollars worth of stuff that is on all these lists that's deferred I mean, maybe that's an exaggeration, but there was I think it's close 100,000 so Yeah, so I'm just curious we we keep Kind of you know, we bring on another park and we have some more open space and we've identified dog parks and I mean the numbers just keep going up and not as much can get done um, and I'm just curious if uh If that would be an output from a park's master plan is so these are all the things we need to do And can we bond for it or something and just get it done I think that there's a lot of opportunities because as we go along We have certainly added a lot of land inventory, but also developed park inventory I mean even since my leadership, we've had city center park come on board We've had a play a playground at baycrest come on board There's also, you know two development playgrounds that we're going to be onboarding and there's potential to onboard other development You know recreation amenities as well So we really do need to get a handle on Right, so what what are our what are our needs? What's the full-time equivalent of maintenance that's going to be required? Whether it's the open space parcels our natural area parcels our pocket parks And making sure that we're not continuing to add to our inventory without adding on the other side of maintenance as well And and a park's master plan can help figure those pieces out as well as suggest funding sources So if I can interject from it, um, I think just add to what holly just said I agree with everything she said But I think a park's master plan is much more about what are our values about Parks and open spaces as a community and to what extent are we meeting those So we did for example one of these in winewski where we said we want to have every resident within a seven minute walk of a park And are we achieving that goal? That's that's I'm not saying that should be our goal. I'm just Right, I understand. I think it's a fabulous goal And so then we then we can start Strategizing about where we make those future investments of new infrastructure I think a bonding question is interesting But I think that's the next step once we know where we are and hopefully, you know What's on the policies and procedure or the policy and strategy document? Is how such a plan would intertwine with the update of the city's complaint? Because those two things really should go hand in glove as we think about You know, what where are we going as an infrastructure city? Parks and open space is a big part of that infrastructure Yep Okay, so on to some of the department highlights You know been really nimble during these really challenging times and bringing our community together even though Maybe there's more of a frizzle at the park at the moment as opposed to spark, but we'll check into that But that was definitely really such a downer He's checking it out. That's that's the mark. I guess somebody was observing which is great So a really great opportunity does, you know, it costs the city only the cost of of lighting the event which is nominal So we've got a great sponsorship with north country and So they did 20 000 last year 20 000 this year And so we'll continue to to build so it's great to see what is traditionally You know sports heavy park be kind of utilized in a totally different way off season And in addition, we had always hosted or traditionally had hosted a pretty significant indoor halloween event that needed to switch to an outdoor We were able to take really great advantage of the You know the the beautiful goose pond water retention pond that's right down the road and bring traffic into 180 market street Ahead of the building opening and so we grew that again this year and a ton of people come through So two kind of new Events that we wouldn't have thought about without kovat. So we're trying to take full advantage of the spaces that we have And then the next one is The senior center opening so really excited that we finally got here and it's thriving So people have been starving for that connection Definitely are enjoying we will be mindful of meals. So we do two meals a week We have the holiday meal for seniors coming up this friday night. So with you know, masking will be extra sensitive But there's stuff happening all the time there. So three and four activities a day Sometimes we see around a hundred people and we're also trying to diversify to use it for some of our community events so you'll see that we had the pumpkin carving event there and We've got a lot of people that are interested in renting the facility whether it's for birthday parties going away parties Homeowners associations. That's a really nice spot. So we're thrilled to be taking advantage of that and having that grow And then last but not least is An opportunity ahead of us. So last slide Is the indoor recreation center So just couldn't miss an opportunity to kind of keep talking about this and have this on the radar So the budget does include $75,000 to kind of continue with the process I know a lot and I were sitting in front of you not too long ago kind of Looking for some direction and giving some options. So we just want to make sure that that's still there There's also big conversations to be had with the school. So As they kind of continue through their master planning and strategic planning and figuring out the the growth or the overgrowth And and what they're doing with their facilities. I think it's a really great opportunity for us to have community conversations about Our community facilities whether, you know, those are school facilities or we we grow them to additional facilities as well, but real opportunities there And I think we're all really excited about the success of the senior center and seeing, you know All the synergy that we could have with an indoor rec center as well for our community Despite where we decide to put that And then also just really trying to be nimble and meet the recreation needs of the community I like to say post-pandemic because I hope that we'll get there And, you know, I think people are just going to be really hungry for that once we can kind of get back to that on a regular basis again so lots going on Amazing staff they are working all the time And I couldn't be more proud of them and and they love what they do so That's us Well, thank you for your great leadership a lot going on Yeah questions. Are there any questions? What's the program schedule for friday night? Um, I know the concert's at seven. So I think the meal is at five 30 These are entertainment A green mountain chorus will be performing here. And so we will leave After dinner and have everybody relocate here. Okay. Yep, and they will be masked for sure So, yeah, what's the menu? Um, I think it's I think it's roast Pork, but it yep, I'd have to double check that that's kind of rebecca's specialty I'm vegan and gluten-free. Will it be okay with somebody? You just need to let somebody know that You may just be getting mashed potatoes. I'm not sure but there'll be an option I can't have any potatoes either. Sorry. Okay. Well, then you'll receive smiles and a concert And then we'll put you to work in fixing the lights is tomorrow too late to respond. I forgot No, I think the only thing that we'll need to do is just make sure that it's warned if um, there's gonna be folks there Yeah, no business I will not sit with that tim barrett. I'll tell you Hmm Well, thank you for your time Thank you Okay Item 14 reports from counselors on committee assignments. Are there any? Okay. Yes. Yes. Yes So I'm sorry. I wasn't here at six o'clock for the other reports, but we did have a queen city park, you know bike scoping meeting with ccrpc and it went very well and We looked at some of the possible configuration plans that they might have and and the relation to the work on the The parkway and things like that. So that was that was productive. That was our second meeting, by the way And they haven't scheduled the next one yet. Um I also attended the first uh impact fee for the school district meeting Last week on thursday, I think it was with the superintendent and the finance person and myself and uh jonathan slayson from rsg So that went really well. We raised some Oh, and mr. Conner was there. Yes, and we uh raised some really good questions and and talked about data and talked about effects and so It was a good first meeting. I really appreciated the effort. So Look forward to the next one too. Great. Well, thank you for participating in both of those Um any other reports? Did you want to say anything about the airport director? You were talking about it last meeting. Yeah, and we've um I don't have anything additional to report. We worked on a Um that description a job description and send it off and what they're going to do with it. I don't know We did get some good updates on the tsa. So I mean the airport continues to get A lot of money from um The faa to do numerous projects It in some ways, it's kind of surprising because it's a pretty small airport But they I guess know how to write a application and get it. So um, they continue to get funded to do um the tsa thing and um, you know some other um Improvements to the runways and where they wait and so You know, it's how about the insulation projects for or noise mitigation They are working on identifying The the process they have a process and they are They I think they have identified the homes. They have to meet with the Homeowners to see if they're interested but that they got the funding for that So do you know when that will start? Do you have a timeline? Um I don't but I will find out for you. I can't remember But that is certainly moving forward and they continue to get the money for it. So do this to them So Um, so if there's no other Count committee assignments, is there any other business? Okay Then I would entertain tim you have all your You may be late, but you got the paperwork. I have the paperwork. So good enough Uh, I would like to move that the council enter into executive session to consider candidates for appointment To the recreation and parks committee inviting in jesse baker and andrew bulldock second All in favor And I also would like to move that the council make a specific Finding that premature general public knowledge of the council's discussions with the city's attorney regarding the proposed LDRs or land development regulations for the purpose of providing legal guidance and advice to the council would clearly place the city at a substantial disadvantage second All in favor I Having so found I now move the council enter into executive session to consider Confidential attorney client communications made for the purpose of providing professional legal services to the city council and inviting in jesse baker Andrew bulldock Collin mcneil paul connor and amanda lappardee second All in favor I Okay, and I need the little red book so I can sign it Yeah, the warrants the warrants. Oh Okay, we will not be coming back into session I don't believe so Okay, well good meeting. I'm sorry