these are difficult and uncertain times it's important for everyone to understand our mission which is to slow down the spread of this virus in order to protect those at risk of getting very sick which includes the elderly and the very ill it's also important to understand that even though most of us will have mild to moderate symptoms if we get it we can all transmit it so we all have a role to play in making sure we don't pass it on to those who are at the highest risk to further the point the best information we currently have from the experts learning from other countries says that slowing it down is the best way to make sure the care is available to those who need it especially the most vulnerable who may need hospitalization this is literally in our hands we need everyone to accept this reality and be part of this effort slowing this down or flattening the curve is the most important thing we can do mitigation along with simple steps like washing your hands a lot staying home when you're when you can and social distancing can help protect loved ones friends and neighbors who are at higher risk on Friday to act on this strategy I declared a state of emergency and we put in place a wide range of measures to slow this pandemic from limiting public gatherings and restricting visitors at long-term care facilities and hospitals to banning state employee work travel encouraging and facilitating telework extending unemployment benefits for those who have to be self-isolated and much much more Sunday I ordered the dismissal of pre-k through 12 schools which began today with it came the challenge of coming up with an education plan so kids can continue to learn Monday I ordered the closure of bars and restaurants statewide though they can still offer takeout and yesterday I directed the closure of licensed child care centers across the state however I've asked centers and schools to provide child care services for those deemed essential personnel this includes health care and public health workers first responders and those involved in our state emergency operations centers and many others knowing we may need to add to this list I realize even as we asked many to step back to help slow the spread of this virus we're asking others including educators and childcare providers to step up and provide a critical service so those who are on the front lines can continue to care for the sick protect the public and manage the this ever-evolving challenge now I know some won't be able to and that's okay but for those who can we appreciate your help because filling the need by teachers childcare providers and school support staff is critical to our response understanding how challenging but important these directives are I've also asked Neil Lunderville and Liz Miller to lead this effort to support the agency of education for this critical work lives Liz who served under Governor Shumlin and Neil who served under Governor Douglas have a wealth of experience in state government and the private sector and have already hit the ground running and they're working on other projects as well I want to again remind Vermonters that more measures are inevitable we're already working on a directive for hospitals to postpone elected procedures more details will come on this and others but I will continue to make decisions based on science data and the guidance of an incredible team of leaders and experts I have working with me this is a moment of service for all of us and those working on the front lines and health care to those who are simply following our social distancing guidance to protect others we're all in this together and we will get through it just like during Irene we're facing new challenges every single day and I know some are feeling scared worried and overwhelmed just like after Irene but we made it through and we'll do it again because we're Vermont strong in times like this Vermonters rise to the occasion we help our neighbors we answer the call of duty and we get creative to solve big problems I'm seeing it every day from health care workers state employees school administrators and business owners from those adjusting hours at grocery stores and adding curbside service to organizing online card drives to send love to their grandparents who can't have visitors right now in so many more initiatives these people with their compassion and commitment to service show me that we will get through this and we'll do it together so I'm now going to turn this over to Education Secretary Dan French to share more details on our latest education guidance thank you governor good morning this is an unprecedented situation that's calling on everyone to make difficult decisions and to take quick actions I wanted to highlight a few aspects of this work firstly child care we issued new guidance to schools last night to support the provision of child care for the children of essential personnel these essential persons include currently educators health care providers and emergency workers first responders service men and women in our National Guard we've been activated for COVID-19 and state employees working on the COVID-19 emergency response schools have been directed to provide care to enrolled students up to at least grade 8 and where necessary to students from other towns or districts and we are currently working with districts this morning to support them in organizing this work our guidance also directs the continued payment of pre-k tuition to private providers as established under Act 166 these funds are already in school budgets and paid for out of the education fund mention our work underfeeding students we've received the necessary waiver from the USDA to offer reimbursed student meals on a distributed basis 39 of our approximately 60 supervisor unions have applications approved and are ready to start serving meals many are doing so today seven other SUs are in the process of having their applications finalized and we are working directly with the remaining SUs to expedite their application process labor issues have emerged as a concern we're asking a lot of our education labor force during the state of emergency we need their expertise and dedication as we navigate these uncharted and unprecedented times we have directed education staff to report to work during this two-week period of school closure to accomplish three main objectives one to maintain the education programs of students two to support our most vulnerable students and three to plan for the continuity of education programs in the event of a prolonged school closure we are not expecting school staff to report to work if they have concerns about their personal personal health specifically the following educators are not required to be in public school buildings educators with compromised immune conditions educators who reside with someone with a compromised immune condition educators suffering from anxiety expectant educators educators with infants and educators over 60 in other words anyone with a serious physical or mental health issue is not being required to be in a public building also I've directed schools to ensure all staff get paid for their regular scheduled hours during this two-week period lastly I just want to mention work we're doing around this issue of continuity of education as I mentioned we are using this two-week closure period to prepare for an extended period school closure if that becomes necessary we are actively engaged in planning work at the agency and at the local level to ensure all students will be able to continue to make academic progress in the event of a longer period of school closure many of our high schools can deliver instruction online even though student access to the internet and computers at home is uneven around the state we will need to be more creative with the provision of educational services at the elementary and primary grades we will work closely with districts to start and plan this work together and I'm very optimistic about our ability to creatively solve that issue now turn it over to dr. Levine thank you first I'd like to give somewhat of a situational update at the moment we have 19 total positive tests in Vermont to put that in perspective that's out of a total testing run of about 600 tests so clearly far more negatives than positives but obviously we're going to focus on these positives very intently we always discuss how many people were still monitoring in the state as a health department and I'm not going to give you a precise number because that changes so rapidly each time you have a positive test result there's abundance of surveillance and phone calls and interactions with people who may or may not have had contact with the actual case and if that case happens to be in a health care setting the numbers can get quite large so just accept the fact that there are hundreds of remuners that are being monitored and interacted with regarding these 19 positive tests I wanted to just spend a few moments and feed off of a bit what the government governor was saying about the overall strategy just so people can sort of see with some clarity why all this is happening so fast and where we're going both as a state and in some respects as a nation so there are some fancy words but everything began with the word containment and containment is kind of just what it says you identify cases to identify cases means you have to be testing so you need to have some capacity to test and you have to have some ability to prioritize those tests having done that you begin to identify cases and you rapidly isolate those cases assuming they're in the community still and not requiring hospitalization and we've had plenty who are still in the community that did not require hospitalization to be clear about that and then we do something called contact tracing so that we make sure that those who may have had some contact with the case know exactly what it is they should do to prevent further transmission of COVID-19 across our communities we are still doing that and that's what I would term a parallel strategy to the now more significant strategy of mitigation trying to slow but not necessarily stop the viral spread because we know we can't stop it at this point but we can slow it down and we've shown you curves before in the past that really focus on our ability to not have a rapid spike and overwhelm our health care system but to have a more gradual flattened curve which frankly may take longer to dissipate but will have a much lower burden on the population at large and on the health care systems ability to cope the prime mitigation strategy goes under the other fancy term social distancing which I hope everyone sees we're trying to practice up here on the podium today maintaining that distance from others that as human beings we don't do every day that's not what we're accustomed to we high-five we shake hands we embrace well we're asking Vermonters to go through a significant amount of behavior change and that's uncomfortable and that's something you have to kind of be actually conscious of every time because your tendency is to do the things you've always done so we understand that that's hard and may require a lot of support and all the strategies that have occurred since we really call this an emergency in a state of emergency are really falling into place in that social distancing category so some of them had to do with protecting our most vulnerable and our elderly regarding visitation pro policies to hospitals to long-term care facilities nursing homes etc some of them had to do with how we tend to gather in groups and you've heard numbers go from 250 down to 50 and to me the numbers irrelevant because people are already understanding that it's probably not a good idea to be in a crowd at a time when you're talking about an infectious disease that can be easily transmitted through the air from one person to another so people are already falling into line with that and it's just the idea that we don't get into congregate settings that are very crowded then they have all of the issues of schools which you've just heard about which I won't perseverate on changes in work policies changes in the way that workers can or cannot travel and then really as part of the gregarious nature of human beings where do we usually do that well we do that sometimes in restaurants and bars and you've heard new policies regarding those and the only thing I want to say about those is again every step of the way in managing this I think very manageable epidemic requires resourcefulness creativity innovation and even restaurants and bars can be innovative as they're all learning now with bring something to your car takeout priority interacting with people in ways that they have to to deliver food but still being able to actually do that even though people can't sit down at a table with one another inside their premises so again I know this requires significant behavior change and hard work and nobody's going to deny how hard it may be really does require sort of a social compact and an idea that we're all here to cooperate with one another and I'm confident that we as a state can rally to that cause the final stage of sort of where we're going and the aspiration of all of us in the United States never mind just Vermont is a state where they sometimes call it suppression so you've slowed the growth of the curve it's been flattened but eventually you want it to come down and that's when you enter that state we have good experience now just by watching the rest of the world because as you know the US was not the first country to be affected so even though China has received a lot of criticism they are now in a phase where things are much more controlled and they're seeing decreasing numbers of cases all the time especially in that hot zone but even in the rest of their country South Korea is another example of that and soon we hope we'll have some European examples of that we need to observe critically and learn from those experiences and I'm confident that we will we will also learn about the timing of these things we can set arbitrary dates of two weeks of this or three weeks of that maybe a month maybe two months but we'll actually get a little more certainty about how we actually figure that out because we'll learn from their experiences and see as they've eased up on some of these more restrictive policies how things have gone and is this something that in the short term can be managed very well or is it something that's we're really in for a long-term kind of approach to until vaccines develop sometime in the next 12 to 12 plus months so again these we know these things have a lot of impact they have impacts socially economically health wise etc but we will learn from other experiences and I think benefit from those and really begin to see where the light is at the end of the tunnel in terms of how the strategies you've heard outlined today can play out in the future I believe I'm the last speaker happy to turn over to questions right now we taking one from the floor first I notice that the date is now delineating between for monsters and non-residents who have gotten positive results and who have COVID-19 and why is that yeah thank you very much the the question was about how we report the numbers of those who have positive tests in Vermont that was a bit of a miscommunication on our part to be quite frank yesterday I wanted to make sure that we were adjusted we would have just one number of both non-resident and resident positive tests and to carry that forward what happened was they eliminated the non-resident and carried the red Vermont number so the point was and we've clarified this and now it's rectified we'll be reporting just one number of those affected in Vermont they have the positive tests in Vermont from now going forward okay so the next question Molly from seven days thank you I was wondering governor and if you could speak to any continued risk at the child care facilities caring for emergency workers and health workers obviously your order of closure was designed to reduce the spread I'll have secretary French offer a few words and then maybe someone else says secretary Smith thank you yes in our guidance that was published last night we talk about the social distancing measures and our continued disinfection measures to ensure that these workplaces are safe but it is a priority to ensure that those those employees and workers that are on the front line of this emergency don't have to worry about their child care needs and we're working hard to accomplish both of those goals Molly this is Mike Smith at AHS as you know we've limited the size of the classroom size for these facilities down to 10 that means no more than 10 people in that room we've also put the various sanitation requirements in place and if we need to make those stricter we will both Dan and myself have the ability to make stricter recommendations as we move forward so right now we we limited the class size we've put in fairly strict sanitation sort of requirements and we feel that will ensure or at least make people feel comfortable about the safety of the decision we've made thank you I wasn't aware of the directive from the president so I don't know the details of that obviously we have a few concerns we have employees who live in Canada that are part of our health care system in the Northeast region and maybe in the Northwest region so that's a concern I would think they would qualify as being essential and we have to do everything we can I know Canada has taken some extreme steps as well in Quebec and across the whole the whole country and and we're going to have do the same so I would assume that in conjunction with with Canada this is the right step to take while understanding that we have a lot of trade and we still rely on a number of employees from there anyone else want to add anything to that I was wondering are you concerned about the ability of be able to carry out this mandate to provide this child care you know especially in more family staff districts that might be a lot of staff say I can't carry out this work no either because I'm anxious for myself or you know compromise or etc etc I know yes I mean it is a concern and we've been actively engaged with districts this morning as they're trying to navigate both the provision of continuity of education and child care service at the same time I think we've seen some really creative responses and really positive support of teacher stepping up to help assist in this moment of emergency so it's going to be challenges but just one in a series of challenges that we're going to have to navigate but as Dr. Levy and the governor said our priority now is to bend that curve as best we can and I think is a moment of service for all of us and I know educators and teachers will step up and help in that regard. Super quick follow up I'm sorry.  In our guidance we had to make a delineation between students age zero for five and six through eighth grade so currently public schools are equipped to handle age six up to eighth grade fairly easily both from a safety and an educational standpoint we were less comfortable making a provision for younger younger children under five but we'll certainly reevaluate if the need becomes necessary. Let me let me just this is Mike Smith let me just sort of bring the pre-k up where we are right now as you know we've we have instituted a pre-k program for essential children and those child care centers were starting to contact now last night we contacted 41 programs in just one one and a half hours so far 288 children have been identified as essential people. We I've got to emphasize this there has been enormous collaboration among the private child care providers and we can't thank them enough in terms of what we're doing and how we're moving forward to this we've actually ID many potential additional staff to deploy to other facilities that may be limited to to a facility that needs those employees so we really are seeing the health care excuse me the I'm in so many different realms here but the child care community really stepping up to this and many center many centers have told us that they're willing to work extra shifts so we are grateful to all the kids all the centers we're working with organizations like let's grow kids to bring all this together and I've got to say just in what I'm hearing in the feedback that's coming back it's incredible how Vermoners are trying to help Vermoners get through this time. Do you hear me okay? We can. Okay so yesterday the state of New Hampshire announced that it was expanding unemployment benefits for people that have to stay home with school-aged children. Has Vermon considered and acted, discussed this at all? Yeah I'm going to have our Commissioner of Labor answer that. Sure so I had a chance to review the legislation that came out of New Hampshire and well I haven't been able to do the background on it. One thing that needs to be considered is it looks like there was some legislation passed that allowed those individuals to become eligible and that is something we are working with the Vermont legislature right now to expand benefits to those that have to stay home with a family member who becomes ill or is quarantined or isolated so yes we are considering it and it is moving through the legislative process but it does require a change in state statute. I would also add that the legislature has been very receptive to any of our needs and as you know a very willing partner so we're working through many of those initiatives as well as many others at this point in time. Pete Hirschfeld from DPR. Thank you. Pete, DPR? Thank you Brittany. Seems to be some increasing concern about Vermont's inmate population. Are you testing individuals that are entering the correction system right now as inmates? Can you talk about any other specific mitigation strategies like that you're using to address that concern? Sure we are testing in terms of screen testing inmates that are coming in to the facilities. If you're talking COVID-19 testing the answer is no because they aren't showing symptoms of COVID-19 or they wouldn't be allowed into the facility. So we are screening those. We've also put video visiting apparatus so that visitors are now can't meet personally with inmates but they can meet via video conferencing. We also are looking at how we segregate our population to be in smaller groups when they're in recreation areas. We have contingency plans that have been put in place in case we do have a illness within our facility. So the social distancing things that you see are a little bit different in our correctional facilities but we're putting in place those social distancing where we can and in many cases you'll see the social distancing happen within our correctional facilities. I do want to emphasize that we are being pretty stringent on making sure that those screening processes happening on entrance are really diligent as we move forward. We cannot allow a case to come into the correctional facility. So one last thing, Peter, we are stocking up on supplies a little bit more than we normally would in case we have an outbreak that includes math supplies for those who are under medical treatment for addiction. So we're doing all that right now and there's other contingency plans in place are being worked on. Commissioner Levine. Thank you for asking about testing. So I don't want to give the appearance. I'm talking out of both sides of my mouth but I do want to show reality and optimism at the same time. We have testing capacity now to do all of the testing that we've currently been asked to do in terms of physicians coming to the clinical judgment that their patients should have testing. We are grouping those into higher and lower priority. I think you'll understand that those in the higher priority group might be in a hospital bed or in an ICU bed. They may be a healthcare worker who has to know if they can continue to work in the healthcare system, etc. We have done all of our testing in-state at our public health lab because like most states that's what we have available to us right now. And in that public health lab we have supplies of test kits and reagents and everything that's needed to do the tests but we are limited in how far that supply will take us. We have literally 10 or 12 pathways that we're looking at simultaneously for obtaining more test kits, reagent supplies, machinery to do the testing with, personnel to do the testing. And that's at all levels, local, regional, national, that's public and private. So it's quite expensive. Vermont is no different than any other state in the country with regards to not being able to do what I would call expensive health surveillance. Knowing in the entire population how much disease is present whether there are people who are asymptomatic or only mildly symptomatic compared to those who are acutely ill in a hospital setting. But I think as a country you're going to find in the next week or two we are all going to catch up rather rapidly. So we're working very closely with the Health and Human Services apparatus in Washington with the FDA and with the CDC all in actually separate strategies. We are working very closely with the UVM College of Medicine and the UVM Medical Center and we are working very closely with the partnership you've often heard about from the federal level of public-private partnership with companies that are commercial. And we'll have testing capability as we speak. They're just coming online now. So what I envision is that we will have greater local support through our affiliation and partnering with the UVM College of Medicine and Medical Center. And that will help us with this more high priority group which will continue to maintain in state. And we'll have opportunities to do more of the lower priority but necessary not only public health work but reassuring our citizens work about their conditions through these more national lab testing opportunities. But I have to provide a realistic expectation that these national opportunities won't have the turnaround time we've come to expect locally which is within 24 hours. They may be 72 hours maybe even as long as 96 hours but we'll be careful to make sure that they are in the group that is lower priority. I do want all Vermonters to know that we still need to have rational and reasonable expectations of who should be tested who should not be tested. And our clinical community understands that and will work with their patients to help them understand that. Because at the present time it could overwhelm the system if everybody felt that their test was the most important and that they needed to have it done immediately. Because it was certainly not in a situation where we can do that today. Patricia from Bennington Banner. Patricia from Bennington Banner. Oh the mute button. I see in the guidance here that during the clothing period schools are directed to provide care to add a minimum student enrolled in their school up to grade eight. Would that be that does not include a pre kindergarten students correctly Secretary French mentioned this. It's just kindergarten up through grade eight that are currently enrolled at that school. The guidance speaks to age six as being the cutoff not necessarily distinguishing between pre K. The guidance also speaks to the eventuality of giving those essential employees the opportunity to place their student in a district other than their home district. So for instance if it was more convenient for them to access care in a school that's located in the community where they work we want to provide for the maximum flexibility in that regard. So they have to provide care on the school for age six up to grade eight currently as of right now the students that are enrolled in that school. And for eventually and if there's a need for those essential workers that might be working in those communities and find it more convenient to access care in that in that location. Thank you. I wondered how many. Hello. Yes we we have you. Yes we can. Okay great. I wonder how many child care centers in the state are going to be closed down because of this order. Does that have any idea at this number at this point. The governor's order requires all child care centers to be closed down with with the exception of meeting the needs of the essential persons. We don't have we'll have an accurate picture of that by the end of the day of how many that will be. But one of the things that I just want to emphasize as we're looking at this is we wanted to make sure that the health that the child care system was still in place as we rolled through this crisis and what we have decided to do is continue the subsidies for the for the health for the child care system as we as we move forward. So if a child care system does close down we will continue the subsidies for that child care system. And if they take essential people essential personnel's children will look at how we can make that more of an incentive for that child care facility to take those children and that's something we're looking at right now. Dr. Levine here I'll take the nursing home when it comes to nursing homes obviously by definition everyone there is a vulnerable population. So we have to have consistently across nursing homes adequate guidelines in place and adequate regulatory structure that would make it important for them to adhere to. And I want people to be reassured that that does exist in Vermont. And indeed this particular facility that we're focusing on if I could use the word past with flying colors without any deficiencies about four or five months ago. All nursing homes are of course petrified in the winter time of infectious diseases that can take hold there, not just COVID-19 but other viruses including the flu. So they have to have effective infection control programs in place. They have to have good advisement about those programs and they do. So we're certain that they have the programs at this facility. The health department and Dale were instrumental in sending out abundant communications as the COVID epidemic began regarding good prevention strategies, good surveillance strategies, etc. And now that we have a case obviously we have embarked on a significant venture here to work with the nursing home to identify all those in the nursing home specifically those who work there but others as well who may have had contact with this index case. In addition to that we have part of our public health team with skills in infection prevention actually going to the nursing home to actually work with them and support them in their activities and make sure that all the appropriate containment processes and prevention practices are in place. Collin, I believe you said furloughed inmates, is that what your question was, what are we doing in terms of those? Well furloughed inmates are usually outside the facility is what you're talking about. They are under the sort of the same guidance that everybody would be under in terms of making sure you self screen and making sure that you know you're going to be. My question is are we considering furloughing inmates who are in the prisons right now who may be vulnerable or hearing that? At this moment in time, given the fact where we are right now, the answer is no. Hi it's Mike Scherling from the Department of Public Safety. The Emergency Operations Center has a task order which is basically an avenue of work that is assessing who's essential and adding to that list over the course of the morning and through the day. So we can get that out to the child care centers and grocery store workers, folks who are distributing food and people in the supply chain that supply that food are essential people. So we expect additional guidance to be available as that list evolves over the course of the day. And as we've shown over this short period of time, this is evolving and we are making changes as we see necessary. So we'll be reflecting on that over the next 24 hours. Thank you for taking my question. I wonder what models or scenarios you're working with. National epidemiologists are saying that there's a difference between the reported infection rates and the actual rate from the community. I mean, if they're 10 to 30 times higher than what we're reporting right now, I'm wondering what scenarios you're working with right now. What's your model shown? Dr. Levine. We're relying to some extent on those models and we're developing our own as well as we speak. Suffice it to say that the countries like South Korea that show the lowest case fatality rates have the most testing capability and have tested huge swaths of their population. So their denominator of cases is very large. And since the mortality rate we think around the world is around 1%, they can show numbers that are significantly lower than 1% because they've identified mild possibly even asymptomatic cases with the abundance of testing. So there's no question that when we identify 19 cases in Vermont that there are more than 19 cases in Vermont that we haven't fully identified. Likely though is that the majority of those other cases are not very ill or they would have come to the attention of the health care system and been taken care of appropriately. So they would tend to be in the pre or mildly symptomatic or moderately symptomatic range and will do well with their illness, etc. But having said that and I know Dr. Levine will emphasize this, but that's why we put into place so many of these steps and measures because knowing that there are some who might have this and not even know it, they're still transmitting to others. And that's why social distancing, keeping away from others, taking all the precautions that we've been talking about is so important for everyone to adhere to. If you don't know for sure, just assume you have it in some respects and I'm not trying to create panic, I'm just saying keep your distance. Make sure you're doing the right things so you're not infecting others because you may be okay, but you may be harming someone else who is vulnerable. So keep that in mind. If this goes on beyond the... Can I ask a follow-up please? Can I ask a follow-up please? Yeah, go ahead, Anne. Do we have enough ventilators? I see you guys and guys in general in Vermont. I understand we only have 210 ventilators for the sample and that we might have, you know, staying one in a thousand cases at some point. What are we going to do about that? The other states are pretty upset about that. Governor, were you on the call with Mr. Trump when he talked about the states having 5-round ventilators? Yeah, I mean it was slightly nuanced from that, but yes, I was on that call when other governors were showing some apprehension in that regard. But I'll let Secretary Smith answer the question about the ventilators in bed space. And Mike Smith, we currently have 273 available beds in the state as of this morning. That does not include possible surge beds. It does not include the capability to open up temporary facilities using the National Guard or other sort of temporary facilities. We have 245 ventilators that are available in this state. Again, if this was, as the governor had mentioned, we are trying to ramp up to add capability as we move forward here. And I think one of the things that the governor has always told us is think ahead. Think ahead the next 72 hours to know what we need and where we're going in terms of our needs. And I think that's an important message. How many ventilators do you think we need, Mike? We're uncertain right now, Ann. We're working on that modeling in case we have to use it. But right now all I have for you is the number of available ventilators at 273. When will the modeling be done? When will the modeling be done? We're working on it, Ann. I'll let you know when I can. If this goes on beyond a couple of weeks, the economic damage to people's lives and businesses is going to be overwhelming. What are you going to do then? Well, obviously this is going to affect our entire country, our entire world from an economic standpoint. And it's just not a question of if it's going to happen. It's just a question of the magnitude. I've been in constant contact with our federal delegation. Congressman Welch, Senator Leahy, I had a call from Senator Sanders yesterday afternoon all talking about what is it you need? What do you need to get through this? And obviously we don't know at this point other than we're going to need federal assistance, flexibility in all kinds of different ways. And I know they're working diligently on this effort right now. It looks like it's going to be over a trillion dollar package that will be coming to the states. So suffice it to say we don't know what our needs are, but we know we're going to need some assistance in order to get through this. Yes, thank you. Dr. Levine, you said your state is monitoring hundreds of people connected to the 19 confirmed cases. Are there any counties in Vermont that do not have people being monitored? And can you state specifically to the Northeast Kingdom? Five or six counties at this point. About half of our counties have documented cases and half don't. But I have to be careful when you're talking about who we're monitoring as a result of a case. They may live outside the county that we're concerned about if they were out of gathering with the person or what have you. So hard to say. But consider the fact that half the state has documented cases and that half is geographically heterogeneous. So it's not like any corner of the state is exempt.  So there may be some self isolating in Caledonia County as well. In fact, most counties have some who are self isolating and more monitoring. Okay, so we have time for one minute. Thank you, Dr. Levine and Governor. Tim, Vermont Business Magazine. Hi, I talked to many educators and it looks like they're going to start the learning program this Monday, the 23rd, which would trigger the free and appropriate public education requirements of the federal law. As I read your document, Governor, these will be more complicated than just making up a packet of tool or doing an online course. What is the plan for kids on IEPs starting as early as Monday? Hi, this is Dan French, Secretary of Education. We put out guidance last night on special education compliance and we're certainly waiting for more guidance from the federal government on this. During this two week period, we're expecting districts to just maintain academic performance and progress of students. So at this point, during the two week period, it's not triggering necessarily a change in students' individual education programs under special ed law, but we do have to start planning for that eventuality if school closure is prolonged beyond the two week period. Again, I want to thank everyone on the phone as well as those who are here from the media for your great work in trying to keep your listeners informed and your readers informed. It's really important that we get this right, that we give all the facts we can to try and do whatever we can to help assist people as well as to calm their fears because this is going to be a long haul. It's not going to be solid overnight and we're all going to have to work together in order to get to the end of this. So I thank you for your efforts.


Okay, well, let's let's get started. Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Shaw Sprague and I'm the vice president of government relations for the National Trust. And I will be moderating today's webinar, which we've titled affordable housing and historic preservation opportunities for 2024. So very important subject, and we are very excited to have a great panel for you today. A few housekeeping items first preservation leadership forum is the professional membership program of the National Trust. And this webinar series is made possible by the members of preservation leadership forum so we're grateful for all the members that are on and with us today. So for today's webinar, we will be taking an in depth look at the intersection of historic preservation and federal housing policy. And we're looking at how these different but interrelated priorities can work together to help solve the affordable housing crisis facing the nation, and what opportunities and challenges lie ahead for 2024. We, again, have a great program for you today and a few more logistics webinar logistics for you. Our panelists will first present on their respective topic areas, and then we'll dedicate the last portion of the webinar to discussion. So you should feel free to send questions to the group via the q amp a function, but we will unlikely get to your questions but we do intend to do our best to capture questions, and we'll will encourage our panelists to answer. During the webinar but for those questions we can't get to we will follow up either in a communication to you or in a blog post or some other communication following the webinar. But you are all nonetheless encouraged to communicate to all participants via the chat function. A couple other items the closed captioning function is enabled for this webinar. And following the program, we will send out a recording of the webinar directly to the email that you use to register. And finally, all form webinars are available on our National Trust YouTube channel. So please be sure to check that out. And with that, I wanted to open our conversation with a few thoughts to contextualize the affordable housing crisis and the important role historic preservation will play in helping solve this problem. First, older and historic buildings have an important role to play in helping shape the policies designed to increase housing affordability and expanding the supply of market rate housing. The quality of the problem calls for an all the above approach to affordable housing creation and retention. According to the National Low Income Housing Coalition, there is an overall housing shortage of 7.3 million units in the nation. So new construction alone is simply not keeping pace with the demand for housing. The historic preservation requirements are viewed as a barrier to increasing supply of both market rate and affordable housing. But underutilized older and historic buildings represent a vitally important opportunity for rehabilitation and adaptive reuse for housing of all types. But how might the historic preservation movement help change the narrative in 2024. The Council on Historic Preservation recently updated its housing policy guidance suggesting ways for historic preservation can better support housing creation. We're looking forward to hearing more from advisory council chair Sarah Bronen on the updated policy and what we might expect in the months to come. Most historic districts play an important role in preserving architectural fabric, historic buildings, and community character. Preservation and planning work hand in hand to ensure the conservation of housing stock and while at the same time promoting economic revitalization. As calls resonate for zoning reform and ways land use controls might evolve to accommodate more housing. What best practices exist for harmonizing these historic preservation and housing objectives. We're very pleased to have Jason Jordan with us today with the American Planning Association. Jason is APA's political affairs director and he is responsible for strategic outreach to decision makers and influencers who interact with the planning profession. The APA is at the center of the housing policy debate and has developed robust guidance on preserving historic and cultural resources. Thank you for being here, Jason. And finally, since the start of the pandemic, we have witnessed a dramatic shift away from our downtowns abandoning once highly valued office space converting office space to multi use and residential uses puts of adaptive reuse solutions at the center of the housing debate. And this is good news for the preservation community. We find ourselves at a moment when adaptive reuse is being talked about by new audiences as part of the solution. In fact, as noted by the American Institute of Architects for the first time in 20 years renovations have overtaken new construction and architectural buildings in the United States. This is the language of preservation and a key moment for the preservation community to demonstrate just how valuable a tool adaptive reuse is and how it can be done well. And how well will office conversions perform in meeting this housing need with us today. Allison tune in to Lamo, an engineer by training and an associate with Klein and Hoffman in Chicago. Allison and the team at Klein and Hoffman have helped convert YMCA buildings into affordable housing rehabilitated properties that have historically provided affordable housing and converted office buildings into housing. So thank you for joining us today Ali. And we wanted to turn it over to our first presenter chair. So Sarah with, without further ado, we'll, we'll turn it over to you. Thank you for being here. Great. Thanks Sean. Thanks for providing that really compelling introduction to this issue and why we are all here today. As Shaw said, I'm Sarah Brown and I'm the chair of the advisory council on historic preservation. And first I wanted to talk about just, what is that I had next slide. I'd love to introduce you to our members. You already know one of them very well the National Trust for Historic Preservation. The council is an independent federal agency with 24 members. And it's those members that come together to vote on important policies, like the one I'm going to talk about today, and that set out the way that we will perform our other responsibilities that were designated as under the National Historic Preservation Act. And those include nine federal agencies and the architect of the capital at eight presidential appointees of which I am one and I guess I'm the only full time member of the council, a governor, mayor, a tribal member, and then the National Trust, the National Conference of State Historic Preservation Officers and the National Association of Tribal Historic Preservation Officers. And to give you this laundry list to tell you that when the advisory council does adopt a policy statement, it represents a broad spectrum of views in preservation, including what you might consider official views, like the federal authorities and the shippers and appointees and experts and public members are included among those, as well as elected officials and usually our tribal member is also an elected official like our current one chairman Reno Franklin is for his tribe is an anathema to playing a role in the federal historic preservation framework alongside the state historic preservation officers. So you get this, this array of views, which really helps to inform our discussions. In our next slide we'll see the two functions of the advisory council as I like to point out the first one is probably the one if you've heard of the advisory council you know best, which is our oversight of the section 106 review process. And this is a provision of the National Historic Preservation Act that triggers a review of federal agency undertakings to see whether these federal agency actions are have impacts on historic resources. So just flag that briefly brief overview of one of six because I'll mention it in a moment. But that I would say is the bulk of what the agency does the bulk of the staff is devoted to one of six reviews, and really managing that process and administering it as as we've laid it out in our own regulations. But the second function in very general terms of the advisory council is in fact embedded in its name and that is advice. So we're made, we were made by statute to advise the President Congress and state and local governments on preservation policy. I submitted a report to the White House, a triennial report on federal stewardship of historic properties. So we certainly take that seriously. In today's discussion about our housing policy statement. I wanted to first explain why we decided to, to update that statement. There was one from 2006. So I guess you could say we are revising now and in 2020, 2023 when it was passed. But that policy statement was in a way limited in scope if any of you were familiar with it or participated in the development of it. It was primarily limited to the way federal government agents federal agencies should treat housing in that section 106 review process that I mentioned. And its scope was limited to affordable housing. Now Shaw described in his introductory comments the need for us to consider and everything, you know, do it all approach, trying to promote the supply of housing that includes market rate that includes affordable housing. As he said, existing buildings, historic buildings can help address this crisis. It's sometimes seen as a barrier to housing. And I do think that as the federal historic preservation agency tasked with helping to set the stage for the federal government and our state local partners on preservation policy. We really had a responsibility to update that policy statement and really get to the very best practices that we can embed in it and demonstrate leadership in that regard. So in the policy statement itself, there are 13 principles. And I'm going to cover a few of them today that I think are maybe most relevant, but this provides you with an overview of the topics that are covered. First and foremost, the historic tax credit, a topic that has been the subject of previous National Trust forums preservation leadership forums and many of you have been involved in tax credit projects. The need for us to continue to support that program and expand it among states is critically important. Other principles talk about reuse and maintenance, building codes, accessibility, energy retrofitting, out leasing of public buildings, flexible federal guidance, which I'll talk a little bit about as well, and research education and collaboration. So that's the overview. I'm going to dig into a couple of these a little bit more. I guess you would say big categories of principles that we embedded in this policy statement, which is about 10 pages long. It's not not an extremely lengthy document. But the overview provided in that document with all of these principles is really for us to say, you know, as a federal government as our partners that are involved in the advisory council and for state and local officials, we should embrace these these principles. So the first one, as I said, expand historic tax incentives for housing that goes both the state level that I mentioned, but also expanding historic tax credits to ensure they can be paired with low income housing tax credits and renewable renewable energy tax credits. These, these really technical tax rules are in many ways key to our ability as preservationists to address some of the bigger issues that we are called on that are really obligated to address. So, you know, some of our eyes might glaze over and reading through those details, but the big picture has to be we've got to keep keep expanding that program. So the authorization and renewable energy funding, you know, again, just like preservation can play a big role in housing. We also have to think about the extent to which through housing rehabs we can play a big role in addressing the climate crisis. So supporting funding for that is embedded in this policy statement. We also recognize that there are other, I would say, enduring and potentially age related concerns associated with historic buildings that that tend to make less suitable for housing in certain circumstances. So hazard mitigation is something that's addressed in the policy statement, whether that's let as best as mold or other environmental health hazards. We as preservationists need to promote the resolution and mitigation of those hazards, even if it means losing some historic fabric, you know, balancing that with the need to protect human health is something that we prioritize in the statement. You know, in the next grouping, I would call it zoning building in the ADA. The policy statement really talks about tackling the questions that I know Jason Jordan will be discussing next on zoning. The policy statement calls explicitly for the kind of density that we used to have in many historic neighborhoods. So this is not a, this is an old idea that got edited out through zoning and other rules that mostly happen at the local level. But that is preservationists we should fight bring back in order to ensure that our historic neighborhoods have the density they once had. That includes things like accessory dwellings and includes things like making sure we can fill those those vacant lots that in many historic places have sat empty for too long office commercial conversions and multi family housing as well. Preservation standards that that we apply with building codes and accessibility requirements, both of those, all three of those regulations need to start working together a little bit more effectively. And we talk about some of the priorities that preservationists can set in the policy statement. Thinking about our review process. And this is where, you know, we get into back into that section 106. That concept on the next slide. We really do need at the federal level to update our processes for projects affecting housing, historic buildings that already are housing and conversions to housing. So thinking about ways to more flexibly and creatively address impacts to historic properties and effects to character defining features that again is explicitly stated in the policy statement as a goal and one in fact that the advisory council can can bring to fruition. Moving on to implementation. And here's Liberty tower in New York City. If we go to the next slide. Thinking about our agency's ability to carry forward some of the ideas in the policy statement. We've already started implementing it, even though it was just past December in December. We're going full steam ahead. Thanks to our excellent staff. And we're developing new guidance on housing, including articulating how adverse effects, which is that that that thing that federal agencies want to avoid shouldn't be considered under 106. How certain activity can or cannot be considered adverse effects on historic buildings when it comes to housing. And we're also considering a government wide what's called a program alternative a flexibility tool for housing. On the next slide, it kind of embedded in that process. We have been reviewing federal public comments, any of which you submitted, I bet. On the secretary of the interior standards for the treatment of historic properties, not to. Not to call out any one body, certainly not the park service, not local commissions, not state historic preservation offers, but to, but to reflect collectively on how the application and interpretation of those standards is actually done in the field. That should say publishing suggestions. I was maybe over optimistic. I think they'll come out on Tuesday. Let's go slight edit to the slide. But I do think that the report that I will be issuing to the council might help again for all of us as preservationists to reflect on the extent to which strict interpretations of the standards at all levels. You know, not not calling anyone entity out might be something that we as preservationists need to reflect on and and work to change to the extent that those that strictness isn't necessary. And then finally just looking at state and local advising. I just went to Charleston next week. I love that visit. So if any of you guys are out there calling in from Charleston. You're so lucky. But they had asked me to come in and talk about actually the housing policy and our climate policy and what at the local level might be embedded into local rules. We are doing more of that to to understand how you as a representative of the state or local government or a state or local entity and nonprofit might be able to request our, our advice on draft legislation that might implicate historic properties. Please visit that website and check out the ways in which a CHP might be involved. We did just submit a letter to the Florida legislature on a proposed bill that would negatively impact coastal properties and explaining how within the broad constellation of things we know about preservation and the federal preservation framework. Such a bill might might be in need of amendment. So check that out. I welcome your, your input. And with that, I'm going to pass it over to my friend at the APA Jason Jordan. Thanks everyone. Thank you, Sarah. It's always great to share a program with you and applaud all the great work that you're doing. At the council. Thank you, Shaw. Thank you to the trust for inviting me and APA to participate in this important discussion. This is a topic very much on our minds as housing and zoning reform have become a critical priority for not only APA but the planning movement across the country. And there's a great moment of opportunity and intersection with the preservation community. So if we could go to the next slide. Let me just say a quick word to sort of set the context here. I know this is something that seems obvious to probably everyone on this call, but it's worth sort of calling out at the, at the outset that the nation confronts a housing crisis that is in part a crisis of supply. And for a lot of people working in housing, I think historically we focused a lot on the demand side of tackling the housing crisis and that's appropriate. Those subsidies are critical and certainly APA supports them. At the same time, I think we've come to appreciate that part of the problem is very much on the supply side of the equation. And that's where a lot of the regulatory structures that my members are partly responsible for come into play. We also know through research that we've supported through the up for growth coalition that the problem of under supply in the country is increasing. It's getting worse year over year, but it's also spreading. So a problem that was largely focused on large coastal communities a few years ago is now actually increasing most rapidly in ex urban areas and in rural areas and certainly the trends coming out of the pandemic of work from home have only accelerated that. And what we're seeing is that this conversation about how do we tackle housing supply is now driving the political agenda in lots of places at all levels of government. So we see it turn up at the local level. We see it increasingly at the state level and even here in Washington where I am as part of our approach to tackling housing supply. I thought it was important to start with some definitional work. So when we think of supply, we're really focusing on diverse housing types. So creating new options for people across the spectrum, making sure that housing is attainable and affordable. Again, not just capital A affordable housing, although that's critically important but thinking about housing affordability writ large. And of course, no conversation about zoning and the land use rules in this country can ignore the fact that there's an equity conversation that's part of this as well given the history of zoning in particular. So the next slide, I think it's worth sort of talking about why zoning reform has become such a major policy concern at really at the center of this housing affordability crisis in the under supply problem because there's a lot of ways you could tackle under supply and a lot of ways you can tackle housing. But this focus on zoning and codes and regulations, I don't think is accidental. When you think about the drivers here of the problem. Some of them are clearly related to labor, whether that's about productivity, or the supply of labor, the cost, it could be about the materials themselves the so called lumber challenges, the cost of materials supply chain disruptions. And then of course the land itself housing has to be built on something and there are obviously market and political constraints associated with that but they're also the regulatory structure of zoning and codes. Now if you're a politician or an elected official or someone trying to solve this problem by pulling a policy lever. I think when you look at those those opportunities it becomes clear that the lowest hanging fruit really set tackle the things that you have direct control of and where a change now can make a near term difference and that's why I think the conversation about zoning reform has has moved forward as rapidly as it has. And on the next slide, sort of demonstrate the the widespread nature of this activity focusing on the states. So in just the last three years. A dozen states across the country have taken major actions and even larger number have taken smaller actions but the states that you see highlighted they're either past major zoning reform legislation, or the governor put forward in executive order. So that that's a significant amount of activity in a short period of time, but fast forward just to the first month and a half of 2024. We already see many of those same states coming back for a second bite at the apple of reform and a much larger growing number of states who are actively debating changes right now so we are certainly anticipating that the ranks of states taking state level action on zoning reform will increase this year and we're probably on the early side of the trend line with more states likely to take action in the years to come. If you go to the next slide focus a little bit on what exactly that action looks like. And it's different, of course, in lots of different places so in some places we're seeing a menu of reform options that locals can avail themselves of and if they select a certain number of those reforms and implement those and they qualify for various incentives whether that's an upfront incentive to do better planning or whether it's a backside incentive on the capital side to support housing development or in some cases the infrastructure related to supporting housing development. We are seeing a number of states moving to preempt local authority over certain aspects of land use controls. We're seeing states who are looking at the underlying planning statutes themselves what our communities enable to do under state law or setting policy goals and then allowing more local control as it relates to achieving those goals and objectives. Some places are focusing on technical assistance in other places, many of those other reforms are being combined with states at targets for production and affordability with back end enforcement mechanisms. We're beginning to see this more in the West Coast, a so called builders remedy opportunities that are essentially enforcement mechanisms. We're also seeing environmental review reform, because unfortunately, the environmental review process in some places sort of being weaponized if you will, against housing development in ways that probably aren't consistent with the underlying intent of those laws. And then lastly, emphasis on workforce housing and infrastructure development have a major housing component so you were seeing many states take action in concert there so that's just a look at some of the broad actions that the states are doing. On the next slide we'll take a little bit closer look at what's happening when you get to that local level because even when you have states that are taking major actions at the end of the day. Those mandates flow down to localities who have to handle the implementation and this is just sort of our thinking about what locally led reform typically looks like. First, no surprise probably coming from the APA, but you lead with planning planning that identifies your core assets and sets in place. The objectives that you're trying to meet and how you want to go about meeting them. Our view is that one of the most important aspects of overall reform is having the controversies at the right part of the process upfront as part of the planning discussion, as opposed to the project by project that it often unfolds now so leading with the planning process as it relates to the regulatory side once you have that plan in place once there's a community vision established. We need to do a better job of simplifying and consolidating things like zoning districts and the very sort of large layers of complexity that have found their way into many codes. Thirdly, you add flexibility. So if we simplify our codes, then we create more flexibility within the standards and within the constructs of the plan itself. Local government can do a lot to speed its own processes so that we're moving things faster in our conversations with developers. This is the most important thing for them and many instances from the financial perspective is making the process predictable and as fast as possible. And then lastly avoid excess discretionary reviews and try to move that more into a ministerial review process based on standards that everybody knows and understands. So that's kind of the general ecosystem, if you will, of what many of the individual look led solutions look like on the next slide. Just give you a sense of what we're seeing individual communities do in this space, some of which directly relates to the role of preservation and affordable housing and housing development not going to go through these in detail but just wanted to give you an overall sense of the universe here at the sort of low hanging fruit into the spectrum we're seeing a growing number of communities eliminate parking minimums. We're seeing a lot of work on accessory dwelling unit reform and not just permitting them, but actually changing some of the structures to facilitate their development. A big focus on that density that Sarah talked about in terms of legalizing various missing middle housing typologies. Moving back toward by right multifamily housing development, especially in the areas that it makes the most sense commercial districts and transit. There's a lot of have a lot of stuff happening around building codes, particularly some on the single stair design side of things. I mentioned the permitting and streamlining of review processes commercial conversions or an adaptive reuse are also very big topics at the moment. For all the reasons that Shaw articulated at the outset so we're seeing a lot of work in that space. We're also seeing the use of overlay zone techniques to try to advance the concerns about ensuring that we're protecting historic districts and historic properties that were protecting cultural assets and heritage at the same time and in the same context of driving additional housing supply. So if you go to the next slide. I'm not going to go through this at all this is a just a recent Pew study that's only about a month old that demonstrates broad public support across geographies and political orientation around these very specific kinds of reforms. So even though in any individual jurisdictions these conversations get very controversial. It doesn't that that controversy doesn't necessarily represent the broad range of views about these sorts of changes. Doesn't always make it easy politically but there is strong public support which again I think is one of the reasons that we see so much change and when you dig a little bit deeper into that public support. You see a very sharp demographic divide younger people who feel very much shut out of housing opportunity in this country are really at the forefront of driving this change. If you go to the next slide. I just want to talk a little bit about the federal level. We are seeing an unprecedented level of federal interest in what has historically been the purview of localities almost exclusively and that is all of these zoning and land use and housing related issues. And it's very bipartisan if you go back to the Obama administration through the Trump administration and certainly now at an even higher level in the Biden administration. There has been the steady drum beat at the federal level to evaluate exactly where the regulatory obstacles are to the provision of affordable housing and whether or not there are federal levers that can be used to drive some of that change. One new program that has emerged that I'll mention very quickly is hud's pro housing program, which is a new grant program aimed at localities to try to do the planning analysis and provide the capacity support for the regulatory reform. The changes in the zoning codes the updates of housing plans and housing action plans. It's a it's a new direction for federal involvement. It's clearly on the incentive side as opposed to the stick side, but it's an important new federal tool. It was funded for one year. It's up for renewal for a second year of funding. We certainly hope that that's the case. But we're seeing a steady drum beat of other kinds of federal interventions. Aimed at promoting incentivizing this sort of change that that communities are focusing on in terms of overall zoning reform. If you go to the next slide. I just want to start close here by thinking a little bit about the critical role for preservation in all of the reform efforts that I was talking about and I think, you know, preservation. Is really critical for anyone who's focused on housing and housing supply at the local level for the four C's there on on this on the slide. They're real climate impacts to focusing on preserving and reusing existing building structures opposed to just new construction. We know that the cost ultimately is less if we preserve existing affordable housing if we preserve the fabric of housing that already exists while we're adding additional supply so there's a cost element here. Certainly there's a cultural element as it relates to preserving the cultural assets of a community. And fourth, and I think this is something that we don't talk enough about, which is, it's one way to reach consensus amidst what can be a very, very volatile and hostile conversation when it comes to making these sorts of changes at the local level. People have deep attachment to the existing fabric of their community. And so if there's a way to talk about ensuring that that is protected while we're also adding new density and new housing supply. That's that's a big part of the overall equation for ensuring there's broad public support for the changes in terms of some thoughts about how preservationist can engage in this conversation in a productive way to be part of the coalition driving reform. One is, I think to come at this squarely inside a pro supply context. I think about this a lot in terms of how do we create processes that get us to yes, as opposed to many of the existing systems that seem designed to get us to know. Secondly, engaging in that planning process and being part of leading with planning and ensuring that these conversations are happening early on in the process is critically important. Third, and this I think is true for all of the advocates involved in the process. If we can focus on shared outcomes, I think it really helps us when we're debating the best way to get there. And then lastly, there are a lot of new tools that are important in helping the public understand and engage in making good decisions about what their community needs to look like, whether that's scenario tools or other other ways to use technology to help people understand what the real choices are in front of them and what the real outcomes are that they want. So if you go to the next slide here, I just want to close by mentioning an initiative that we're involved with with our colleagues at the National League of Cities called the Housing Supply Accelerator. And this is an effort that also involves the National Association of Realtors, the Home Builders and the Mortgage Bankers Association to really bring together the stakeholders across the full spectrum of housing production to identify those locally led solutions. We're going to be releasing a playbook in April, so encourage you all to take a look at that when it's released. I think there will be a lot of very specific ideas that will be valuable for your work at the local level. And lastly, I'll just mention some APA resources that we have available, a series of policy guides on these topics that provide deep dive information. Our advocacy agenda is also available very squarely focused on this topic. And then for those of you who are more involved in the professional practice side, a lot of resources that are more aimed at practitioners. And we do have a new policy guide in development right now that's going to be focused on the role of historic preservation in the housing conversation. We're very excited about that. So thanks for the opportunity. Appreciate being here. And I will turn it over to Ali to talk a little bit about what some of this looks like on the ground. Thank you so much. That was impressive. I want to quickly thank the National Trust for bringing out of work to speak on this panel discussion. I'm going to be joining these two powerhouse speakers. So very interesting topics. So hello, everyone, my name is Alison Tune and Talamo. I'm an associate three here at Klein and Hoffman based in Chicago, Illinois. So hoping to provide a different light when it comes to housing and historic preservation as a building enclosure consultant and how we work with the team on a project. Next slide. I want to give you a little background about myself. I received my bachelor's in architecture and my master's in structural engineering at Illinois through technology here in Chicago. I've worked with my firm Klein and Hoffman for almost nine years. And as a building enclosure consultant restoration architect, we kind of have a lot of different titles over the years. So in fact, as I've studied engineering and architecture, so I know both worlds within the world and within the firm specifically I work on a handful of various tasks performing proposal business development, performing historic research, hands on investigation, working on construction documents, you know, more or less from start to finish I'm working on a project doing something. This has been pretty good at introducing us early on into different types of projects, different types of materials so we've come well rounded individuals in our profession, and what kind of gravitated to us, like what we like. So with me, I have learned that my calling was historic preservation, and I worked with a lot of buildings regards to masonry concrete coatings and specifically cast iron is my thing. So my quick tie into the National Trust is I was one of the recipients in 2022 for the American Express Award. Next slide. Next I'm going to talk about my firm Klein and Hoffman. We are a structural and architectural firm here in Chicago as our headquarters and we also have a Philly and Milwaukee office. We have in addition to our professionals we have a lot of people that are licensed in various states so we do travel as well to tend to our projects. Next slide. So with our offer we with our firm we do offer a wide range of services depending on the project and the client's needs. We primarily work only on existing buildings, whether they're vintage landmark, or more of a modern era of buildings. We also work on moving structures if they need to be moved for new development or being threatened for demolition, we also assist with additions, and we do work with a bigger team when it comes to altering buildings for a new purpose. The next thing that highlights specifically on the architectural team is we do serve provide services in regards to exterior window roofing components of the building so we only really work on the exterior side less on the interior. Next slide. So I want to present a couple of case studies or projects that we've actually worked on over the years. One of them is Rosenwald courts on the south side of Chicago. So this property is got a very, very rich history of tenants and how it serves the community over the years. It's always been a structure serving for you know housing, and it's kind of changed in program a little bit but still in the tier of housing. One of the most key tenants that you might recognize is you know, Nate King Cole to Ellington Jesse Owens and Robert Taylor. So with that we always want to make sure that we preserve the history and also the tenants and also the community understands who's lived in this space. You can go to the next slide. So sadly, you know our time when it was constructed 1929. The doors closed in 1999, and it stayed vacant for very many years. Around 2003. Next slide. You could start seeing the movement of trying to protect the structure. It was listed on the national registry, or it was listed on the national trust endangered properties. And it was a big hunt to look for a new owner and trying to bring life to the community as you see here. Next slide. Our office specifically served as a building enclosure consultant and structural engineer team assisting with exterior facade trying to match in kind with the materials that we have there. And then also trying to provide any oversight in regards to the construction and cost impact and schedule. Our structural team specifically reviewed the structural elements design repairs. And if the design team was going to implement a new program into the building itself we were there to oversee and provide assistance. And you could kind of see a photo in the middle where we had new brick and mortar being incorporated into the existing building. So we were very keen and trying to match as best as we can to the surrounding areas. And then you could kind of see the new development on the, on the right hand side earlier. And then here's a before and after photo of what originally was to what it stands as now. Since the property was originally for housing related the owner decided to keep the theme of housing present but focus more on senior and family based systems. The rooms and square footage grew and provided more amenities for the 10 and it's because that was something that that was very important to the, to the community, as well as providing area for additional commercial space along the storefront. Next slide. So the next case that I'm going to show you guys is the Lawson House also here in Chicago on the north side of the city. With this it was built in 1931 originally utilized for affordable housing and primarily served for the community for different activities throughout the years. It's been 50 years, but it's actually been 90 plus years of serving as affordable housing. And then the switcheroo that they had in 2014 with the wholesome development is they sold the property for a dollar. As long as they could extend the concept of housing for this building for 50 plus years, which they agreed to do. And our team specifically served as building closure consultants, removing fire escapes, helping the team implement a fire proof stairwell system and modifications to elevators and trying to bring the facade to its brain here as it used to be. Next slide. So I'm going to show you photos of exterior but I'm going to talk a little bit more about the development of the property just to kind of give you guys a scale the magnitude. So with the delimited the old housing approach for this property wholesome development team was very keen on trying to increase the square footage. The, you know, the amenities that they originally had like a pool system. They more or less kept as a time capsule. In case someone were to purchase the building later down the road they have it pretty much set in place. They just have to remove the foam and plexiglass system to kind of bring it back. They're playing homage to the Chicago athletic club here along North Michigan. You can go to the next slide. So they were very keen on it. Again, you know we're showing here a lot of the exterior work that was being done we had a lot of damage to terracotta units and then we're trying to restore him to back what it was. So the interior side wholesome team utilize the fact that they had the existing windows there they didn't change the, the sizing of the windows they didn't change the construction they kept it more or less to what it was. They use the window systems and the hallways to dictate what the floor system or the floor rooms patterns we're going to be and then also implemented efficient kitchens bathrooms that were also accessible so all the tenant spaces are accessible for anyone that would come to this property. Next slide. Kind of showing how much of decoration was to the exterior facade we had a lot of issues with supporting steel. So trying to restore all that to making sure it's buttoned up for her to last 50 plus years. Next slide. And this is kind of the final product of the project of in regards to the facade what it looked like. We asked to find a couple of postcards of what the cert the rooms used to be. They were kind of dormitories very tight spaces they didn't have their own private bathrooms. They had a pool they had a chapel they had specialty rooms that were a log cabin, more of an Italian style location. So it's just, it's a very unique building when it comes to how it was constructed. They tell us that you know some of the floor plates actually were like Swiss cheese because over the years, changing of the program trying to accommodate more people trying to fit more offices for the YMCA was something that was very, you know, challenging over time so they had to go back pretty much start from fresh from the interior side, and being able to accommodate and give these new tenants more dignity, more humane settings for living. So I was kind of showing you that's how the turnout of it became the next slide. So with that that's kind of an example of some of the case studies that we've worked on on this property so thank you. Well Ali thank you very much that's, it's always fun for preservationists to see the on the ground work and some of the ideas captured from chair bronan and Jason Jordan. So turning now to our discussion. There do seem to be a few questions resonating that that we had that also seem to be resonating in the chat. So I'd like to start there. And first go to Sarah and then to Jason. Because you know we see here the word increased density and that that can shake some nerves as to what that means in terms of demolition. And Sarah a CHP policy guidance encourages public serving institutions to explore innovative ideas like form based codes to better balance housing creation and preserving historic buildings. I'm wondering if you might take a moment to just describe how the new policy guidance might help promote those opportunities, along with the concept of achieving density without demolition. Sure so within the policy statement the key provision to look at is provision number three, which is a bit of a list of potential tools that communities might use. And people in those communities might advocate for to promote density without demolition I mentioned a couple of them in my presentation. Accessory dwelling units, allowing for compatible infill removing minimum parking requirements that one is. If you really dig into the history of zoning it was something that was made up in the 1950s 1960s and included in zoning codes all over the country and resulted in lots of historic buildings including on main streets being torn down. Many of those buildings did have housing mixed in as well. So minimum parking requirements is a big one. And maybe a little bit of an off the wall or rarely used idea but transferable development rights, which could incentivize rehabilitations of historic buildings. By allowing those business those property owners to sell the rights to build more densely and in other parts of the city. And, you know, you mentioned form based codes. The idea of the pattern books the idea of design guidelines for new development. Those kinds of ideas be embedded in form based codes and should be considered. If what we want is compatible compatible new development, but as preservationists being involved in those conversations and proactively saying, oh no we actually want we actually want this. And here's how we'd like to see it happen is something that I think we should get, get more involved in and something that our members through the policy statement voted to endorse. Thank you. The creative approaches I think are all should be on the table and with that turning to you Jason and sticking with the zoning side. You know, there are there are concepted zoning like conservation districts and you mentioned overlay zones and we've we've seen recently research coming out of Los Angeles on historic preservation overlay zones as as as a new thinking about what that might mean how how instead of a traditional thought where they might be just preserving historic fabric and architecture, expanding that concept to include preservation of affordable housing. And diversity of how of different types of housing which you mentioned as a key part of the solution. Which we've seen have some success. You know, that's what these these some of these districts have shown to demonstrate is that they do do a good job of preserving different housing types. But maybe you can speak to some of those innovations in the different either existing zone path zoning that that could be refreshed and new thinking or just new ideas altogether. Yeah, absolutely. And I'll just second what Sarah said that, you know, I think there's a lot embedded in our existing structures that have actually had a pretty pernicious legacy when it comes to its impact on historic property. So this is a refreshing conversation to be able to go back and look at things like parking requirements but as it relates to things like overlay zones, conservation districts heritage districts. You know, I think the key thing here there are a lot of different tools and I would point folks to a recent report that we did just last month as part of our zoning practice resource that's on using those tools for the preservation of what we call naturally occurring affordable housing, which is an approach that a lot of communities are taking particularly when there are severe development pressures. You know, where there's a lot of interest in larger scale new multifamily construction, other kinds of luxury property development, you know, how do we protect so there's a lot of work being done there and I would point you to that resource for a lot of very specific examples. I will say generally though, one of the concepts I think is most important here is the degree to of intentionality behind these things are thinking very hard about what it is we want to preserve what stories need to be preserved in those communities and how can that be reflected in a more modernized approach to to our regulatory structure I think I think that's that's where it starts and honestly if we can get the planning process out of becoming the zoning police and back into the business of helping residents and communities think about what it is that they want what the vision is, then we can have better conversations about the rules that we need to have in place that allow us to get just that right the kinds of forms that we want to see more of in our communities, the kinds of forms that need to be protected and how we provide housing opportunity for everybody as opposed to trying to come up with one size fits all standards that have created. Unfortunately, a lot of bureaucratic layers that aren't really serving any of us very well including on preservation advocate so this is an opportunity I think to rethink some of those things without necessarily throwing all of the tools that we have away I'm not an abolitionist by any means here I do think getting the conversation around to things like form based codes and more flexible and adaptable approaches can be really helpful in achieving the goals I think we all share here. That's great and Jason there was a question about the name of the report you referenced so if you don't mind plugging that into the chat I think folks would be interested to to see that. Ali over over to you and just interested in your thoughts. We touched a few times on the notion of office conversions. And, and you mentioned different materials and we're coming up on the 19 mid 1970s as being 50 years old and a lot new materials to be to be thinking about and to speak to both opportunities and challenges of some of the new materials that are coming online in that 50 year span and and also just any quick reaction that you might have to the office conversion and and just some of the broad contours of the challenges and and opportunities that that presents. So within our team we have seen a handful of buildings that have been converted from former office buildings or warehouses into residential, but a lot of times we do see that in more of a condo sending than affordable housing, but it's, it's we do see a very big interest coming in the prior mirror that we have here in Chicago, she implemented like the LaSalle corridor so that was, you know putting funding to support office buildings that are pretty much left vacant or can't really support themselves and bringing in housing and commercial space to kind of bring the new life downtown area. It's kind of a slow moving target at this point, but the city hasn't given up with that idea and I do appreciate that and I hope it does go forward, because it will present a different topography and building stock and viewpoints. Very similar to what was discussed early in the conversations, you know, a lot of people do have that that fear of like oh it's an office building can't become a home for anyone. That's true you just need a good team, you need a good developer you need a good owner that knows how to be smart when it comes to finances and also keeping that vision moving forward, because we do see a lot of people that might just get scared off because they can't financially drive that project and that's if they just utilize the resources and tools that is doable and again this is kind of like out of my wheelhouse, but I do see that happening I do see that pressure I, I do see the space similar to wholesome development you know working on the loss and house like they weren't afraid they just went full force and they're what it really could to bring the structure up to what it needs to be and to serve the community better. Now, going into the concept of, you know, more modern structures and how, how they age out. That's a little bit of a different conversation because at least with our type of our position as an engineer and architect that we've seen as a forensic you know we study materials we know how materials fail in the city sense and the climates that we deal with. You know, 1950s is probably when we started seeing people playing around or exploring how materials can work. So that's why we see an influx on material failure like condensation. You know, if you do a full glass for the glass ceiling window system you know that energy performance is not there. It's just trying to retrofit new materials into what we have. But a slight different approach, especially with more modern structures, they build things quick and they build things fast. So we do see that problem when we have to go into, you know, trying to mitigate water infiltration or trying to restore something or, you know, just based on the building, upkeeping on the building, you know, it's a slightly different story but, you know, luckily, in the industry, we see people testing the material trying to find other ways that are means and methods that it's more appropriate for long term repairs and just working with boards and owners to understand what they want at the end of the day to be better stewards to their buildings. And I think that's one of the comments repurpose is taking on a whole new meaning and we we're just at the top of the hour so I wanted to cover three final slides but thank you to the to the panel today and the focus on local customized solutions and and I think that will be really an innovative thing that we will look to at the national level for for an important way forward. Thank you to the panel this has been a really we could go for another hour, I'm sure, with the expertise and talent on the panel so thank you. I did want to flag a few upcoming webinars for the preservation forum members we have a book talk for a new book dwell time with author Rosa Lowinger. That is on March 21 at 3pm. Please be sure to check that out and if you're not a forum member, sign up to participate in that. Please. And be sure to check out our password online symposium this is following our conference, and that'll take place in April, April 3rd and 4th, and this is going to feature speakers on mitigate and adapting to the changing climate so that'll be a really exciting section that we hope you all will come back for. Finally, final slide contact information saving places.org preservation leadership forum and to connect to our webinars. Please visit saving places.com upcoming webinars. Thank you everyone for joining and for staying an extra couple minutes. And please again in the chat. Let's thank this great panel for all the important work they're doing and inspiring leadership for preservation and for portable housing. Thank you everybody for joining. Appreciate tuning in.