It's not, it's not actually. Testing, okay, welcome to the South Burlington Development Review Board for Tuesday, April 16th, 2019. First item on the agenda, directions on emergency evacuation procedures from the conference room. There's the way we entered, if there is an emergency, there's the way we entered. And if you can't get out that way, there's these two exits here. And we should meet, if there is an emergency, we should meet in the south parking lot, which is right behind me, to make sure everyone's safe. Additions, deletions, changes in the order of agenda items. We should get the minutes done first to make sure that our recusal folks can take off. Comments and questions from the public not related to the agenda. Are there any comments and questions from the public not related to the agenda? Hearing none, announcements. We'll have two openings on the board as of July 1st. So if anyone's interested, please apply to City Council. Paul, is that right? City Council? Or apply to Paul. Okay. Great. Thanks, Paul. Many other announcements. So let's go to minutes first. Everyone had a chance to review the minutes from April 2nd and from March 19th. We can improve these both if anyone has comments or questions or amendments to them. April 2nd, page 4 in the last paragraph. Mark's last name. Oh, on page 5, Marla, your last name under other business number 10. You don't need to tell me that. We approve both sets of minutes subject to the corrections noted. Second. Been moved and seconded. Approved these minutes. All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Minutes approved. Okay. Next item on the agenda. Appeal AO 1902 of Denny's Inc. Appealing the decision of the zoning administrative officer to deny the certificate of occupancy at 730 Shelburne Road. Who was here from the Africa? Paul Conner, director of planning and zoning and zoning administrator with the city of South Burlington as the, I guess, issuing appellee and Delilah Hall as well as our active administrative officer. Okay. Wait a minute. The applicant is in here. Right. Marla, please. Thank you. Do you want to find yourself? Yeah. My name is Shaheem Boumaroun with technical group or a consulting firm for Denny's. I'm here on behalf of Craig Malvano, who's not able to join us. So here I am. So if you all raise your right hand and promise to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth and a penalty of perjury. I do. Thanks very much. Who goes first? You probably. Delilah's figured out and I should have read. So what I would offer is that the board invite the administrative officer to explain what happened. Invite the appellant to describe it from their end. Allow each of them to respond and then discuss with the board and then invite public comment, if any, and then close the meeting or continue as necessary. Sounds great. All right. Thank you. So again, thank you for giving us the opportunity to speak here. My name is Paul Connor serve as director of planning and zoning with the city of South Burlington as zone and zoning administrative officer with me is Delilah Hall acting zoning administrative officer. So this particular project began back in the spring of 2018 then administrative officer Ray Belair was the principal point of contact from the city answered the initial questions and then issued the initial decisions on the project timeline for various different issues, subsequent changes, inspections and communications are in your packet. I won't go through all the details there unless you'd like to. The issue here is about exterior lighting in the building. The structure contains a newly built parapet wall. In the summer of 2018, which hosts the Denny's wall sign and is made up of a series of red slats that faced faced towards Swiss, Swiss street to the south and over to the east. The red slats are lit up at night. And we're going to have Marla, if you don't mind showing the screen. There's two different sets of photos in there one from January 25th. The closest up to one first so not the one that says it's labeled January 25th. That's the one. So that's taken January 25th. And those are the red slats there that surround the Denny's sign. And if you'd like to show the other two. That was less fuzzy. Oh, there we go. That was taken this month from a little bit further away and then there should be a third one. And that's just a little bit further away again on Swiss street. So that's taken from various points along Swiss streets. They are visible also from Shelburne Road from the corner of Shelburne Road and Queen City Park Road. And I actually observed them from the south end of Pine Street in where it hits Queen City Park Road as well. The issue here. The section 1307, the land development regulation says that all exterior lights for all uses in all districts except one family and two family uses shall be of such a type in location that they shall have and shall have shielding as will direct the light downward and prevent the source of light from being visible from any adjacent residential property or street. Light fixtures that are generally accepted are illustrated in Appendix D. Source of light shall be deemed to include any transparent or translucent lighting that is an integral part of lighting fixtures. Site illumination for uncovered areas shall be evenly distributed where feasible energy efficiency, energy efficient lighting is encouraged. You also bring up just quickly Appendix D here because since it's referenced. So Appendix D is just a little cut sheet that we have to the back of the zoning regulations that shows on the left the types of lights that are generally considered unacceptable and the types of lights that are on the right that are acceptable. Major difference between these two is that on the left you can see the bulbs and on the right you can't see the bulbs. That's obviously these are not the kinds of lighting exactly that we're seeing this evening, but that's the primary difference there. So in addition to the standards of the land development regulations that I just read, we draw your attention to the two site plan approvals. We note that in your packet SP 1827 and SP 1843. There's a condition in each of them that reads the same and says all exterior lighting must be installed or shielded in such a manner as to conceal light sources and reflect our services from view beyond the perimeter of the area to be illuminated. Following completion of the project staff undertook a site visit and found what we see here the flats to be lit and reached out to the property owners. We indicated to them that the slits being lit was not allowable. Later after discussion the property owners filed a formal request for a CEO and asked that it be denied so that it could be appealed to you tonight. So that's where we are. Or I'll understand that. Okay proceed. In your package you have received also the sequence of events that basically started from the first day this project was thought of until construction was done and never during that entire process those lights were brought up to us as an issue. They were on the set of drawings that was submitted for approval for the building permit inspectors inspected it during the construction. And this is where we're facing here is why weren't we told about it before we went ahead and spent $15,000 putting the onyx system on. It's it's an issue that would have a hard time swallowing especially that Denny's is a as you all know a publicly traded company so we basically have to justify the expenditures so that's why we're here. I have a question for that please. I guess staff. I see a potential disconnect or between the permit condition. And the requirement you read from the permit condition is pretty clear. It says this project shall not have the light that you can see beyond the perimeter of the property. Would you read it again. All exterior lighting must be installed or shielded in such a manner as to conceal light sources and reflect our services from view beyond the perimeter of the area to be eliminated. Okay. That's pretty clear. What's a lot a lot less clear is what we started with which is the requirement of the regulation which can be read to mean and frankly. Well, let me ask you a factual question. Is there a residence or a residential street? Is there an adjacent residential property or street? It's a Shelburne Road and Swift Street. I mean this is it's commercial. They're not resident. There's no way to describe those as residential streets. I think that that's generally accurate for those two streets. I would note that our reading of the language would be that it says that it the language in there says that shall have such lighting as will direct the light downward and will prevent the source of light from being visible from. I understand you can read it that way, but it doesn't make a lot of sense to me. In other words, what makes sense is to read and as essentially because we don't want you.  I think that's a better reading of the section. I think there's another point to be made, which is that we're close to what the courts call an estoppel based on the on the points that you raised. How many times was the property inspected during construction? All kinds of framing inspection, electrical inspection, plumbing inspection, building inspection. Was there an occasion or more than one occasion on which, in fact, these lights were often visible to the inspectors? They were not turned down because inspections were taken place during the day. I would just also note that the inspections being referenced are from the fire department for life safety and electrical codes. That's not the same. So the only inspections you make are for certificate of occupancy, is that correct? For zoning purposes and anything that we did were after the... Was not during the course of construction, is that correct? I have a couple points that I think might help to focus the discussion if I could. First, I don't see there being a problem that the conditions are worded slightly differently than the regs. The conditions can be broader than the regs. The remedy, if the applicant isn't satisfied with the conditions, is to take an appeal. No such appeal was taken, so I think those conditions are final. The second thing is I agree that it seems as if the appellant is trying to set up an argument for estoppel, but I would also observe that estoppel against a municipality in Vermont is almost never given. And the usual test for estoppel that's applied in a commercial context is not applied in this context. Instead, the courts look at whether there's an overriding public interest to be served by stopping the municipality. I don't see that public interest in this case at all. I agree with that. We could have specifically about receiving responses from previous zoning administrator. Paul or Delilah could speak directly to that. Sure. I spoke with Ray Filaire on the 10th of last week and asked him if he considered that in the approval. And he was not, he was only aware of it, these are his words, if it was called out in the plans, and he only reviewed what is referenced in the approval, the first one that he signed. And I have a set of plans here that he was reviewing for that approval, which does not show anything about the Onyx Tower in the set of plans that were referenced in the approval. Would you say that again? Ray said that he only reviewed what was referenced in the approval, the six page set of plans that's here, and that Onyx Tower is not part of the approved set of plans. Did you submit the tower as part of the plans? On 529, a complete set of construction documents was submitted to Ray. That on sheet A5 shows the lighting. Is that in the, I'm sorry, is that in the thing that you sent us? Correct. Do you know what page? It's architectural A5, page 32 of 37. It's upside down, but it's there. It's the one before that one. Two before that one. There we go. The dark mass at the bottom. What data are those plans there? So the set of plans that I have have elements of the plan set that was emailed to Ray in early May. But the plans that were referenced, the six page set of plans does not include that sheet. Why not? I don't know why. The 20 page set got reduced to this set that's connected and referenced in the approval. And I, there's, you know, and I... You don't dispute that the entire set was submitted, right? A set was emailed to Ray on, on the, in May. The set that is referenced in the approval, a 20 page set was sent to Ray by email. The set that is referenced in the approval is a six page set that does not include that sheet. And the pages, some of these pages are the same pages as what was in the 20 page set. Some of them are not in this 20 page set. How that transpired is not... Can you explain how that could have happened? We sent in the first package that we sent in for Ray was a preliminary set of drawings that shows the ONNEC system, but it doesn't show it in detail. It's basically the new proposed floor plan, the new proposed elevation, just a basic set to get his feedback as to what is required, what is needed. And he responded to us on an email actually same day, May 2nd, telling us that we need to go through a zoning process, some approval process, and gave us the fees. At that time, we developed the construction documents and submitted to him on 529. That is the complete set that we attached to this. Okay. So I see some... I see why you feel the way you do. At least for me, I'm more impressed by what Mr. Sullivan has to say, which is that it's true that the conditions can be a little broader than regulations, and secondly, they're unmistakable in their language. So I can't, despite going this way and that way trying to give you some room, I can see a basis for your having not complied with the black letter of the permit, which says it's got to be shielded. If you have an issue with that, you need it to, as has already been said, you need it to appeal it. So if we shield those lighting, because the slats have a gap between them, if we cover that gap, then the lights are shielded. They still come through the translucent. But the lights come through the dining room too. But it doesn't... wait a minute, for our purposes here, that doesn't matter. The physical effect, I realize, is very important to you, but has no legal meaning in this context, because you're looking at a permit that says you have to shield it. And it says it plainly, it's unambiguous. And if that didn't work, you needed to appeal it in a timely way. I don't think we have... pardon? But that's not this venue. That's not this venue. That's not what's going on here tonight, you know. I understand. You're stuck with the permit you've got. The zoning administrator was really equally stuck with the permit he's enforcing.  Well, the only excuse that we have is that we submitted the drawings that clearly show the lights. That has less force than the permit that was issued by this board that clearly says you must shield the lights. That's what counts here. I'm looking at the architectural plan. I'm blowing it up as best I can. But that top right drawing that you see there, right there, has one little spot on it. It has lots of things on it, but it has one little spot that says LED modules. Correct. And one could easily miss that the electric whip that's on this section is not just for the signage being Denny's. It's not overly clear on a large plan that this... I would not say that this was clearly called out. But with that said, are these red LED modules, or are they white? They're white. Okay, so we aren't seeing the white lights. No. Okay. So this is only a question of the reflective surface. Correct. Yes? Is that how you see it too, Paul? I'm not sure that I understand your question. So when you see this from a distance or up close, what you see is red. And the red is the metal, is it? Or the ONX material. Having light bounced off it from behind it. Oh, it's translucent. I'm sorry. It's translucent. Okay. So, all right, then it is... My knowledge, the lights are pointing out. So they're shielded, but not... Shielded by the ONX, but they're not downcast. Well, shielded, but also... They're... Yeah, right. They're filtered. Filtered, not shielded. Got it. They're filtered with the ONX system. Correct. And there are slats between the ONX? The white light comes through? I'm sorry. Go ahead. No, please. Space, space, space. Open space. Yeah. Yeah. So are we talking about putting translucent ONX on those white spaces? No, we're... So to go back to a point that Marla intelligently made, we're not trying to come up with a solution for you. We're just saying that the light has to be shielded. So if I... And downcast. And downcast. Right. So essentially, as parking lot lights point downwards, that's really what the intent is. Yes. Yes, for sure. So basically, though, if I'm looking at this thing, and I'm an architect and looking at this huge set of drawing construction documents, I agree with John that I would have missed that. You know, especially given the fact that it's a terminology that's not standard. It's sort of more of a proprietary type of system, the ONX system. And talking about LED diodes, you know, you would have no idea in reviewing that that this is your final outcome, you know, what you're going to get. And... But I think the bigger issue is that even if these LEDs were pointed down, you would still get the exact same result because it creates this giant glow that makes this thing radiate red.  It just seems as though it's... The assembly that we have initially is not the specific LED whether they're pointing out or down.  That's the idea. Well, of course, exactly. That is the idea. Mark. And that's exactly what is contravened by the permit. Now, I'm going to vote against you, but if you were coming in with an amendment that said... That made the point that the regulation itself as distinct from the permit doesn't go as far as the regulation, I would support you. Well, beyond that... Beyond that, the proposed scope of work on that exterior and the finished schedule, neither one of them are clear on a light... There's a signage with... But neither one of them are clear what this ONX... It speaks to ONX, but it doesn't speak to it being lit. It does in that one spot. I have problems with this, too. I wish we wouldn't confuse the two things. I understand from a human perspective talking about the difficulty of seeing it and the rest of that stuff is a human thing to want to do, but the determinative thing is what the language of the permit says, which is black and white. Maybe if he made a mistake, you lose. Can I just read from... It's a Vermont Supreme Court case from 2005. I just pulled it out, but I haven't determined whether it's still good law, but I think it is. It's in Ray Lyon, L-Y-O-N, 2005 V-T 63. The statement from the Supreme Court is as follows, in prior cases, we have declined to a stop the government where an isolated agency employees' actions resulted in some form of reliance by a single party. South Burlington is the government. As far as I can see, there is an isolated employee, Ray Bolaire, who may or may not have acquiesced to something. If he did, it only resulted in reliance by a single party, Denny's. So it meets all the tests for not applying a stop-all as the Vermont Supreme Court has established it. So I think what I'm hearing...  I do just briefly want to, to Brian's point, reiterate that the approval only references a six-page set of plans. We unfortunately don't know exactly what transpired. Ray's emails were archived, and they're sort of a little garbled, unfortunately. But that six-page set, as a subset of the 20-page set, or a slight variation on it, does not include that sheet. Any speculation about how it got from 20 to six? I'm not certain, but I'd just like to know that it's not in there. But even if we assume it's Ray's error, I don't think it matters. Right, I'm just noting that it may not have been an error either. It wasn't a systemic problem. It was one employee's actions. So that's why I'm saying that there is no stop on this case. Greg, please. Actually, it didn't go down from 20 to six. It went up from six to 20. The six sheets were the schematic that we sent him first, and then the 20 sheets were the set of construction documents that we sent him for a permit. Okay. Just for the record. Very good. So I think that I hear us leaning towards denying the appeal, upholding the administrative officer's denial of CO. Comments, questions on that before we turn it over to anybody else? One second. How's the board? We do have a question. Yeah, just a second. How's the board, Mark? Everybody okay with that? Is that where you're leaning? I'm in agreement. Yep. Yep. Okay. Go ahead, please. So our options right now are either turn them off and leave the sign on or that's it. That's the only option we have. Or can we table this and try to come up with a solution that is acceptable? Please. So right now the board is giving you their temperature on whether they will approve or deny your appeal. The board will have a deliberative session in two weeks to make their final decision, after which you'll get an email from me or a hard copy mail from me that says what the actual decision is. Your options then are to turn off the lights. I suppose you could have a discussion with Paul as to whether that would meet, but I believe based on my conversations around the office that that would probably be okay. And then the other option would be to appeal if the board indeed denies your appeal, to appeal the board's decision to the Vermont Environmental Court. Or I guess the third option would be at whatever time that the applicant chooses to submit a different application. Propose a different solution. That's what I'm asking. So the vote doesn't take place tonight. We can submit an option that complies with the zoning. If you want to do that before the vote takes place and you want us to take action on that before the vote takes place, you do have to withdraw your appeal and we can start to take action on your new application. Or you can wait till the decision is made and then still you're not losing the opportunity to submit an alternative proposal if you wait for the board to make a decision or don't wait for the board to make a decision. That makes sense? Yeah, but what would you recommend we do here? Wait or let you vote on it in two weeks and then appeal to the Vermont Environmental Court? I'm going to suggest that we not comment on that. We can't provide guidance like that. Okay. At least you know the options. Okay. Delilah, did you want to say something? No, I'm good, thank you. Okay. Paul. Comments from the public? There are none. And to an emotional close. I move that we close A019 02730 of Shelburne Road. Been moved in second. We close this application. All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Thank you very much. Take care. Thank you. Thank you. Take care. Next on the agenda. Continued preliminary and final application SD 1907 of City of Burlington, Burlington International Airport to amend a previously approved plan for an airport complex. The amendment consists of raising an existing car wash facility, constructing a new 7990 square foot, 7,990 square foot auto rental car wash facility, and constructing a 2,353 square foot six position fueling canopy at 1200 airport drive. Who is here for the afternoon? Thank you again for having us. My name is Nick Longo. I'm Deputy Director of Aviation at the Burlington International Airport. And I'm John Lennwall with Stante Consulting. And we've already sworn you in, so we don't need to swear you in again. So if we can continue to the staff comments. Five staff comments and four of them pertain to just bringing the landscaping plan. This evening, prior to the meeting, I gave Marla Keena a copy of the revised plan, so we've made the changes on the civil drawn. So I can step through these if you'd like. What you have are the revised drawing I've highlighted, the changes on there to help you find them easily. The first comment was the staff notes that the landscape plans to not reflect the area. Being pervious and recommend that the board require the applicant to update the landscape plan. So this is referring to that trapezoidal area between the existing building and the dumpster enclosure. And originally when we submitted that was a pavement and we intended to leave it as such. And there was discussion about making that pervious or grass. We agreed to do that. It was changed on the civil drawing. What you see there is another symbol that shows that being grass and a note that says that. The second comment, I guess any questions on that? Second comment, this was the last meeting we talked about bringing the site plan into compliance with the LDRs with regard to islands in the parking lot. And we addressed that by putting an island on the westerly face of the building and adding four shade trees in that area. And I believe the staff determined that that met the LDRs. And again it was a consistency thing. The landscape plan drawing of that island was slightly different than it was on the civil plan. So we brought that into conformance as well. Everybody okay with that one? The third one. So this had to do with the applicant specifying that the soil on the island be replaced with planting soil and a continuous planting pit. So we've added a note on the landscaping plan that basically says that. The fourth one, the city arborist had made a comment about the spacing between the, I think it was the Norway pines and maybe one other deciduous, excuse me, evergreen. And we did change it to 15 feet. We thought we were meeting his expectations on that but he asked that we increase that spacing to 20 feet. So the details show that in the planting table shows that spacing increased to 20 feet between the trees. That's it for the landscaping changes. So any questions on those? Mark, you good? Yeah, I'm good. Okay. Just from my own writing this up, did you change the number of trees when you changed the spacing? Okay, thanks. The planting schedule will stay the same. The last comment, number five, says to do with the fire chief's comments and basically he was reminding the applicant that the gates are to be operated on an OptiCom remote access control system. That note is actually on the plans that we resubmitted that it's kind of a inconspicuous noise. Thank you. You may have missed it but it is on there. And our intent certainly is to provide that OptiCom system for remote access to the emergency vehicle. Any second comment was that the queuing lanes, one and two should be shortened to enable enough room for the fire trucks to maneuver once they get on site. And again, our plans show that. We did shorten the lanes accordingly but we can make that clearer if that would be helpful. Just because I was talking to the fire chief about this, he was talking about where, oops, oh dear. That was the wheel path drawing. Yeah, so where it clips the end here, he was asking that these lanes just be shortened so that they don't clip the end one and two. And our intent was to do that. We have a civil drawing that shows the, it's basically pavement markings that are altered, but we can, I can see where it might be helpful to make that a little clearer by perhaps putting a horizontal line across there maybe so that it's clear to the people that are parking those cars that they aren't to use that space. So we can address that further if you'd like. So you're saying on the civil drawing those lanes are in fact shorter than are shown on this drawing? Well, you'll see essentially what you're looking at there and that the line, the painted line on the, which you're looking at this on the, if you're sitting in the lane one, that can not be viewed any further back than basically where the normal one is. So we can clarify that by putting the equivalent of a stop bar or something in there so that it's donated better. And then lane two would be the same. It would be shortened slightly to the intersection of that painted line in the wheel path or perhaps a little bit more. So we can put, I would suggest putting a horizontal painted line in there to give the people that are a little more good. Good. More comments, questions from the board? I'm all good. I think that lane shift is clear in C101, but we'll see. Other comments, questions? Mark, you're good. Okay. Comments, questions from the public? There are none. I was going to motion to close. Move that we close. SB1907, 1200 airport track. We turn around. Second. We'll move them second. We'll close this application. All in favor, say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Next, preliminary and final qualification, SB1911 of the city of Burlington, Burlington International Airport to amend a previously approved plan for an airport complex. The amendment consists of constructing a 102-room, five-story hotel adjacent to the southern end of the existing parking garage at 1200 Airport Drive. Who is here for the applicant? Well, there's three of us. I'm Greg Rabbit-O from Rabbit-O Architects. I'm the project architect. And with me is Chris Gendron. Or Gendron? Gendron. Chris Gendron from Stantec Engineering. And they are the project civil engineer and Adam Portz from S.C. Group, who is the project landscape architect. Very good. Thank you very much. Before we go, conflicts of interest. One is left. Yep. For the record, Brian Sullivan had a conflict and therefore is recusing himself. Many other conflicts. During none. Please describe the project. Thank you. Since we last saw you at Sketch Plan, we have started the engineering work with Chris and his team and Adam and his team. One of the things we discovered almost immediately in the process of starting to look at utilities and things is that there was a major bundle of communications equipment that followed Airport Circle into the project site and connected to the terminal. So we have reconfigured the hotel building into an L-shaped building. Number one, avoid those utilities and number two, address the concerns raised by Commissioner Coakman among others that the street-facing side of the building was a bit plain. So if we could just go back to that second image next, the next one. No, the one that shows it from the street. There. So this was one of the big changes made and it was made because there was conversation about if we're going to give you a waiver to the front yard setback then we want to see a more active facade-facing airport drive and that's what you're seeing here. This is the side of the building that would face the public street and there's a mixture of materials, siding materials, horizontal siding, some panels, brick and stone. And at the bottom of that facade you can see just about the middle of the significant pedestrian entrance which is served by key card access. So people who are staying at the hotel can come and go from this main entrance to go to the airport deli or to go on the walking path here or, you know, any number of reasons. And the parking garage, excuse me, I'm sorry, would be to the left? Parking garage is behind this view, yes. Okay, yep. That's the major design change but that was done in response to issues raised by the board. The building is a little bit shorter as well. That's the result of a decision to not have the units modular construction technique. So we're going to go to a more conventional framing technique and that resulted in an overall change of the overall building height. Excuse me. Has there been a total floor area change? Or a number of rooms? The actual floor area went down by like 300 square feet. It's, I would say, an insignificant difference in the area of the footprint. The number of rooms has remained the same. And so I think what would be efficient is for us to go through the staff report with a focus on the red letter items which take these thoughts and expand them into a more complete discussion. So on your page 2 of 12 the first red letter item that comes up is a discussion by staff asking us to reiterate that a hotel of this type is an appropriate accessory used to the airport. In addition to the fact that airport patrons will be able to take advantage of the lobby level amenities whatever food options beverage options are available there as well as the outdoor seating area that's associated with the lobby there's going to be an integration of use at that level but we remind you that our discussion that the idea of having a hotel at the airport started with the airport they identified it as a need that they had and this whole project came about in response to that request but I think it's a worthwhile point made by staff and I guess I would ask the board if there's any if there's need for additional discussion on the use of the project. Not for me anybody else? The only thing I would bring up is that you know one thing that is discussed directly in here was the walkway from the terminal to the hotel supported classification on the walkway from the terminal to the hotel well I don't want to be contradictory but there is a walkway from this project to the hotel we'll get into that further down then we'll come up as its own kind of red letter item later in the report but I will say talking about the one that was connected at like the third floor from the parking garage directly into the hotel oh yeah the sky bridge was eliminated due to cost but there is a I didn't love that because of the fact that you know then people parking would have to come with a key card access or get buzzed in because they have a security issue but we can get further into that in the staff comment okay I think we will come back to that issue and it's multi-layered when we start talking about parking but the pedestrian access for now I'm just going to say that it was moved inside the garage at the ground level that we've mapped out a pedestrian pathway to go from the hotel to the airport through the garage and there were several good reasons why the airport wanted us to do that you're going to get to that later in the when we get to the staff comment that talks about that particular pathway and the parking I have a general question comment I'm not even sure if it's appropriate but we're stuffing we're placing this hotel on a very small parcel where many houses have been removed across the street ownership is the same tax is not I think I may be wrong but I think this is airport land and is under a tax agreement with the city and I don't know how this gets I just bring it up because I think it's interesting that we're trying to stuff it on one side of the street I understand that the opposite side of the street is residential and may be problematic to get the zoning changed but plenty of room I question its location that's just a comment so in terms of staff comment about is this an appropriate use I'm not hearing disagreement about that right I think it's a mild stretch but it would be worse if it was on the other side of the street Mark I hear you're suffering okay I won't misinterpret your suffering alright we're good with that staff comment number two number two relates to the setback waiver and I think if we could go back to the site plan if you have access to a site plan in your there we go I'm going to stand up for this part I guess I'll bring a mic with me so I think I should be able to do it from here yeah so here's the footprint of the hotel airport drive is to your is to the left of the screen airport circle which is the access to the terminal is on the right of the screen and this utility corridor that I talked about goes up through here so this building pushed that way in order to avoid all that communications hardware there were six or seven ISPs plus power from BED there's a number of things coming in there we had estimates as high as a half a million dollars to relocate those utilities so that's kind of a hardship that we didn't foresee when we went out and looked at preliminarily utilities were thinking in terms of stormwater and stuff we weren't worried about the wiring but as you can imagine the airport really cannot live a minute without those communications lines so we have to be very careful to avoid them I bring all that up because the building here does poke out into the setback as it did at sketch plan more or less the same degree you can see the face of the garage just at the top and this dashed line represents the proposed setback at the time we talked about this I think there was there was some agreement that that could be acceptable but you wanted to see a better looking building more attention face to the street and as my comments earlier pointed out when we were looking at the rendering we have addressed that concern head on and given that a proper front facade so the setback would be modified a little bit but we think in the end it's in the best interest of a good project what's the setback the amount of the setback waiver again the required setback is 50 feet and they're asking for 34 from a future proposal right away sorry that's from a future proposal right away not from the existing right away what is that from the existing right away existing right away is 66 feet proposal right away is 80 feet 40 7 foot difference so it would have been 41 it's 41 now so why should we be governed by anything except the existing right away when we're considering the waiver because there's a section in LDR article 3 that requires consideration of the proposed right of way so I'm good with this I have no issue so number 3 we're probably good with this too the height waiver unless people have changed their minds and sketch I think the building's improved it looks dramatically better so height waiver is good right number 3 mark you good yes and I'm good with the setback waiver because I do think that they've done exactly what I know that was my main concern and I do agree that the building has definitely become more attractive and has more pedestrian friendly there's definitely an access I'm good with that front setback waiver request very good number 4 number 4 speaks about lighting and I think the staff is generally concluding that the project meets the lighting standards but they're concerned about other standards that relate to the airport and they're looking for some positive statement from us that we'll meet that I don't feel qualified to make such a representation to you but I think on behalf of the applicants I can say there's a willingness to do that if you think it's necessary I think it would come from the project electrical engineer who's we're just now in the process of selecting an electrical contractor to provide those services but it's certainly our intention to make sure that we don't provide electrical interference with radio communications or provide lighting that could be a hazard to air travel I think the airport is quite diligent on as far as keeping track of those sorts of things how strongly does the board feel about requiring an affirmative statement to this effect from the applicant well would it be difficult to get I don't think so and I think we'd be happy to make it it's in regard to these four criteria for the airport district standards so it's in response to your law you know we're proposing shielded downcasting light fixtures for the most part I don't think the lighting would be the issue I think the radio interference thing could be we just have to do a little research on that there's no onyx no onyx Mr. Chair if I may so we can also request similar to the previous application with a QTA we can request what's called 7460 which is exactly what this specifies that's that statement from us and from the FAA specifying that these are clear to both the height and for those others so one of the things to submit that 7460 was the hybrid party and that's why it's so important to submit that please identify yourself for the my name is thank you thank you very much good point, please raise your right hand and you also should please raise your right hand all of us anyone who is going to offer a testimony on this do you promise all the truth and hold the truth and nothing but the truth is only a poetry thank you you affirm everything you've testified to so far I do very good number five staff comment number five please we're going to have to go back to the site plan for this one this is a conversation about the access to the parking garage this is a complex issue before I talk about the specific design and I may like Chris do some of this I do want to point out that the airport has a people who look at this full-time you know the deal with logistics of moving cars around the site and a lot of conversation back and forth between the design team and the airport to try to get this right is part of this when you come on to airport circle the principal access to this hotel will be a left-hand turn on to this drive lane you can see described there the shaded area adjacent to the front door is a special pavement that'll be a textured pavement and that's a sort of tactile signal to people that that's where they can pull over and unload from cars the unshaded area the main driveway will be left as a regular driveway sort of indicating that that's where cars that want to access that secondary access to the garage would go I'd like to add to that that is specifically meant for hotel users at this point the BTV is looking at reorganizing their short-term parking so that is now a specifically meant for hotel guests is my understanding at this point so the geometry of it is driven by the need to get to the front door the hotel the need to get to that secondary access to the garage as well as the need to be able to kick people back out on to airport circle to continue their journey on around and exit the site if that's what they're planning on doing we have agreed in principle with the fire chief's comments that we should eliminate the parking space that's shown along the edge of that driveway the the rest of the geometries were all based on truck fire truck turning movements and and vehicle access movement so the geometry of it it's like a swiss watch but it really does need to work this way could you please show the parking lot that's being removed parking space that's being removed right there that would go away and and then obviously the pardon me the other conversation is in the staff comments is that we eliminated a road that went around the hotel and kicked back out to airport circle that was done for a couple of reasons one of which was that it was just one more thing coming into this intersection which was going to complicate life it was apparent that the space between the hotel and the garage wasn't wide enough to accommodate turning maneuvers from that into the garage so in the end we've decided to turn that into more of a pedestrian access to get to the two rear doors of the hotel and it's also where our non-enclosed bike storage will be and we've got a small holding area for waste and rubbish that is being held until it can be taken over to the main dumpster enclosure which is adjacent to the tarmac on the airport so if I could just redirect the conversation a little bit the staff comment talks about a lot of the things that Greg just mentioned says there's generally no concerns except for the crosswalk which is significantly skewed from being perpendicular to traffic flow causing pedestrians to have to look nearly behind them before crossing the road staff didn't really have any concerns with the proposed configuration aside from the fire chief comment about the parking space and the skew of that crosswalk and I don't know I'm going to leave it to Chris if he thinks that that crosswalk could be straightened out I think one of the things we're trying to avoid though is to bring that around to the point where it's sort of there'd be a conflict between cars waiting to go into the garage at that key reader and so there's two things we're trying to do here we're trying to obviously protect pedestrians but we're also in a way trying to protect pedestrians by getting them to the safest point to get to the terminal possible and we've found that that through many discussions with BTV is through the garage if you start bringing people out to the towards the airport circle they're going to cross willy-nilly anywhere they want so we made it like that so it's a path to direct them to that sidewalk to that entrance to the garage to a lit path from that entrance all the way to the ambassadors crossing where they have lit up stop signs giant pedestrian warning lights they have markings on the ground and a stop sign to help protect pedestrians out of that area so that's where we want people to cross we want users to coming to the hotel and leaving the hotel to cross at that ambassadors crossing to get to the terminal so it's not the location it's the length and the angle right and that's where I'm saying the angle is like that to get so people won't cross over that's the path they're going to take if it's not like this they'll go over here but they'll cross this way and go like that or they'll just cross the road they will ignore the crosswalk and cross the road that's my thought if the board thinks differently I'm totally open to making it the only issue is like Greg said maybe you'll have a car within that crosswalk when they're going into the garage people might not follow that they might not but I should argue that there's going to be like I think where traffic numbers show 39, 52 cars within the peak hour so it's not now it's dedicated to hotel traffic so we've taken out additional traffic it's a very pedestrian friendly area it's supposed to have the feel of the entrance of a hotel there's also just one way traffic and one way traffic as well which means that somebody crossing well if you're walking head on coming from the parking lot this way you'll see oncoming traffic but Marla's right if you're walking this way you have to do this and if you're in a hurry because you're running late for something you might not do that look back because it's awkward and you're in a hurry but cars aren't going to be going and the cars will be it's a the crosswalk on the pedestrians do you know the length of this crosswalk if they went straight across because they want to head to the terminal they don't want to take that medium to the what do you call the ambassador's crosswalk is that two lanes that are going one way or is it two or three lanes sorry if they were to just so right if they went straight across would they be going that's like five lanes sorry is there no sidewalk hugging that curb because dollars to donuts there's going to be people that are going to walk on the grass or right along that curb because they're not going to want to cut through the garage it's irrelevant but possibly a sidewalk that hugs the curb would make sense where you have the top of the crosswalk instead of going into the garage I bet you they're going to go bear right and hug that curb one thing they'll see since that parking spot is removed that sidewalk there is no longer there and we're going to heavily landscape that area so they won't be able to do that so lighting Delilah just mentioned someone just mentioned that people will be able to see pedestrians in there so a shirt like this something like Greg's wearing you're going to want to have really good lighting there kind of 24-7 so I'm hoping that your lighting plan will show something that really lights that space up I I think that I mean I see the point that staff raises but I given that it's very slow to say one way traffic so that as you come out from the hotel if you are gently nudged to walk this way and there's landscaping that prevents you from walking where you shouldn't walk cutting across the airport drive as long as it's well wet and as long as it's fairly clear what you should do and there should be a little sign there should be signage little signs that look for traffic that way also about directing traffic there's going to be plenty of signs that say terminal this way there's going to be lighting that attracts walkers to go that direction through the garage can I have her please Mark when you're looking at the plan the only thing I don't have an issue with the angle of it or the fact that it crosses perpendicular and again maybe this is just looking at straight site plan aerial view but the fact that you cross over to the pavers but then you come back and you're on the concrete service concrete pavers and then you walk back over to the brick pavers is there anybody to extend the paving pattern so that you're staying on the pavers the whole way do you want to talk about like you mean through the crosswalk right where you're extending the sidewalk to the crosswalk if it can be the same material if you move your mouth all the way up to the crosswalk then that can be the pavers can extend to there I think that would look better we have to make that change great I'm looking at the landscape plan which seems to have a little bit more depth in it when I get in deep to the bollards that are marching across the face of the hotel and march across that walkway are they lit okay and is there lighting that comes down in some way and hits this crosswalk there's a new light pole kind of right at the receiving end of the crosswalk kind of on the garage end of the crosswalk where you can see that label upper left that says new pole light so that is kind of directly hitting this area in its entirety and lit bollards along that sidewalk entering the garage I believe as well right and you said in the garage as well lighting in the garage now we're talking with BTV about making it more lit okay great great so I think with those changes I think what you've described works for me any other comments from the board I'm sure you've picked this up but the orco share is high enough for the fire department I take it great comments from the board on to staff comment number five I'm sorry Jennifer number six well this is this calls back to something I alluded to a moment ago in the sketch plan design in the roadway between those two buildings now it's more of a hardscape with some interesting landscape and maybe you might want to describe the features in this area so before we launch into it too much I often have any concerns about this they just wanted to bring it up because it's different and if the board is okay with it you know I like it a lot better I never like that I like this much better Jennifer Frank do you have a breakfast does Fairfield do breakfast yes so you can see how you can extend outside on nice days no it's too bad it's still good going to the sunny side you could describe those features because it's not a back alley it's been treated to be finished obviously this area won't catch a tremendous amount of sun there is a fitness room facing and looking into this area along with two hotel rooms and some back of house but it's kind of this more of a stone grotto, stone garden with different textures on the ground some stone blocks, ferns just so that those rooms in the fitness room has an aesthetic to look into and it's just not looking right at the end of the house Frank, Jennifer good shady mossy area super number seven this is about landscape value we saw our proposal I think we're in agreement on the amount that we're trying to reach I think the substantive issues here are what the board is willing to grant credit for existing trees hardscape treatments other non-plant related landscaping features and so I think there's need for discussion between us about that and I think Adam can explain better than I can obviously the regulations outline that perennials and grasses are not counted towards the landscape cost I think in the case of this project there's a great interest in maintaining that character and arrival to the hotel I think perennials and ornamental grasses play a big role in that particularly if we've worked really hard with the airport staff and team to understand planting heights and visibility and obviously it's a very tight site so we're making the case that the perennial and ornamental grasses component of the landscape plan contribute to that value I would also say that in collaboration with Chris and his team on the stormwater infrastructure piece that those stormwater areas planted with perennials and more of a stormwater garden and so that planting is also contributing to that stormwater permitting and that function and also the aesthetics of the site all which is really occurring at the entry to the airport and I think everyone has a great stake in maintaining and making that a significant arrival so good thank you very much in the case that that value be included in the budget the point that staff makes is that maintenance is harder for grasses perennials and therefore may present problems in demonstrating compliance with the approved landscape plan I don't think there the first question is should the entire value of grasses and perennials be included I strongly agree that they should but obviously we need to have we need to have some teeth in enforcing that you know there is reasonable there are going to be economic downturns first thing you get cut is landscaping one of the first things get cut but we do want some teeth in a maintenance plan that says that for the stormwater reasons as well as aesthetic reasons that we do want this grasses and perennials features, these grasses and perennials features maintain appropriately comments if you look at the if you throw the planning plan up it is it is heavily landscaped you've done a nice job I would point out that with Bartlett Brook Apartments Pizzagalli project a while back we did approve perennial grasses that were in the stormwater area this is along the stormwater area they're not in your plan your plan shows the stormwater area as a small area and stand alone and surrounded by junipers whatever they are and I guess I would suggest it's trickier to maintain the plants that are physically in the stormwater area but you'd get a little further with me if you so maybe just as a clarification in the valuation of the landscape budget as part of our submittal we've allocated based on the spacing we haven't detailed that planting yet we have allocated a budget line to planting within the stormwater basins so we are counting that and John I think we've worked on the Bartlett Brook Apartments project so we're familiar with that and obviously the soils out on this site given their permeability and drainability we think it's reasonable and a great opportunity to highlight the stormwater aspect to the project and make that something that's just not off to the side and get it into the front terrace and the front island that the canopy is resting on so we think it all can be made whole as a feature and successful you're building very close to a lot of pre-existing trees it's going to be a trick you'll replace if you need to with similar size well I think the first step is to have a proper tree protection plan so you know I think it's incumbent on us during the management of the construction phase to make sure that tree protection plan is implemented speaking to the notion of how do we keep these people honest I would mention that the airport is keenly interested in maintaining the landscaping of the entire airport property and also overseer as well as the Marriott Corporation we will bring periodic property improvement plans to maintaining landscaping as well is there some form of way to address the maintenance issue in the permitting process well the board discussed recently on another project the idea of potentially asking the applicant to provide and record as a condition in the land records a landscape maintenance plan as a PUD the board has the ability to make this request we have been burned there is a project nearby that is not positive how would you feel about submitting a landscape maintenance plan having the plan incorporated as compliance with the plan we have to have some agreement with the airport to the extent that it is something we are already going to be doing to be able to share well that would become mandatory it would be incorporated into your permit I expect so I know in many years of experience it is out early and it really had an influence on the cities that the investment could okay so bottom line you will submit a plan okay great so staff feels that on the next book under 7 only the incremental value of the patio and entry area pavers should be allowed compared with the cost of standard concrete make sense to me staff comment board comments? yeah I agree with that okay are they pavers or is it asphalt that's been that's been scored yes under the canopy would be a stamped concrete product the patio and some of the other back areas would be and they are pervious I want to point out I was only claiming $10 to square foot as a value so I think that really does kind of represent the difference between concrete surface especially pavement surface $10 a square foot would not be enough to get that done do all of that but we can calibrate that when we come back for final plaid great staff comment number 8 staff comment number 8 is really Chris's comment this is about storm water and I'll let Chris describe what's going on I think we have a very good idea of what's going on with storm water we just have some details that we have to pick up the general concept here is we're going to install two tier 1 in accordance with the latest storm water their tier 1 practices and they're very cost efficient and very effective their infiltration basins essentially you dig a hole and you need to have a pre-treatment forebay for all surface runoff rooftop runoff doesn't need that forebay because you're not picking up dirt and particles so we propose to install both two separate hotel site will flow to location south of the patio and the other location will be just east of the port to share to collect all the new road impervious runoff and the port to share runoff as well and currently we're working with the Tom D. Pietro and Dave Wheeler on finalizing this at this point I've done all my calculations we're just waiting on some soil data as you know there was a giant snow pile there all winter long we hadn't had a chance to do our test bits and infiltration tests so we are actually performing those this week and we'll be able to coordinate with Dave and Tom a little bit better and get them up to speed on what we're doing sounds good I would just add to that it would be our request that the board if and when they feel comfortable take action on preliminary plaid approval so your application was for preliminary and final so that would be a request to split into preliminary and final or make this just preliminary or with the intention to come back and do preliminary and final all in one hearing next time well it would be a continued hearing continuing to address the outstanding issues you wouldn't have to go through everything again you just tick off like we just saw for the quick turnaround just tick off the last couple items you have two things to present the next at the adjourned hearing which is the stormwater design the planning maintenance plan that we just discussed right so that should be submitted to the staff in anticipation of the next hearing that was doable this is the staff that wants to report by the applicant to correct the erosion control plan as described and the staff on this we don't typically show true protection on our EPSC plan because that's shown on our landscaping plan so we have no problem doing that that's not great staff come number 10 so the board should discuss among us whether we agree with the proposed 25% reduction in peak hour vehicle trips from 52 to 39 based on the fact that a lot of their cars will be parked out of the traffic will be for cars that will be parked in the garage and therefore not flowing through the not flowing through the can I clarify that please the 25% reduction accounts for airline staff no vehicles whatsoever so that's what that we took an educated guess at what an estimate at what we feel that would be great thank you we have contractual arrangements with airline staff yeah 52 PIP trips is not an insurmountable barrier but we do think that either because people will arrive by a shuttle or they'll be but this isn't like a hotel someplace else a lot of this traffic is already being accounted for in airports it's still significant to allow the 75 PMP threshold that would trigger an interest in the state level you have some way to quantify your general sense that some of the traffic some of the trips are accounted for 25% is that anything other than that in a way to not overcomplicate this I don't know if going from 39 to 52 it doesn't make a difference at the state level to increase our PM peak trips I don't know if it makes a difference here I'm okay with accepting 52 peak trips and just forgetting about the 25% reduction we did that as an engineering exercise to just see if we had the available how many cars are coming in at a certain rate so it was just to see what our queuing would be in front of the hotel but if it doesn't have any bearing here I'm okay with changing that in our application and making it 52 if you guys want me to do that so the repercussion is really in the traffic generation fee which is $995 or something like that approximately $1000 per trip so it would be $13,000 difference alright, yeah so since you're going to come back anyway if you want to think about it decide if you want to substantiate it if Gene tells you no way have I have I substantiated enough with my conversations tonight because that's all I really have to offer no okay it's completely arbitrary not completely arbitrary but it's vague so if there's any way to yeah but $13,000 is this very concrete quantifiable number you know what I'm saying I mean of all engineering firms has the reach to be able to look at other airports and other hotels to show us why that's the why 25% is right we could do some work we'll talk to our client about that and I'm sure once they hear $13,000 they'll want us to do that so so we will substantiate that further sounds good that's good number 11 fire chiefs comments now this is a big one blocking the main airport driveway when there is a fire truck on site that's that's a big deal so um step through the three bullet points please um maybe taking the easy one first excuse me Craig could you go back to the to the comment again so we can read the comment more easily the staff recommends the board discuss fire chiefs comments with the applicant prior to closing the hearing to include the following three main points blocking the main airport driveway when there is a fire truck on site parking space on the exit from the hotel driveway and he has some fire items and taking those in reverse order because it's easy there are fire hydrants shown on the site we don't know he must have just missed it but there's one on the utility there's a fire hydrant within 100 feet of the mechanical between airport circle and the port to share and I had this discussion with him we actually flip flopped our he needed his fire connection a little bit closer so we actually flip flopped a room on our floor plan to make that happen but it's just I can point it out it's probably not you can barely see it but there's a fire hydrant located right here an existing fire hydrant and our mechanical room is here in that distance he requires to be 100 feet to get to the fire connection here we talked that over with him he was understanding all of that and I talked that over with Terry last year so his comment if we go back just up a little bit his specific comment is it would need to be on the same side of the street as the hotel as fire hoses cannot be driven over if you're telling me that he's okay with it being driven over I guess I would just need confirmation from him I mean that's a driveway it's not going across any it's a hotel driveway so I would argue that if the hotel is on fire you're not going to have anybody driving through there if you've talked to him I'll just ask him to confirm it absolutely the parking space we discussed previously to remove so that brings us to the blocking of the airport driveway where there's a fire truck on site there is in the application set an overall drawing of the airport property it's like one of the first ones in the engineering set it might be worth going to that yeah that's the project sites down at the bottom of the page you'll have to scroll up the pattern is with the area ladder truck that they would want to get to the southeast corner of the building setting up their apparatus on airport circle as was pointed out I think this is something we'll have to come back with paperwork on if I can do this they would set up roughly here they'd have their outriggers on it would be possible to bypass them using this utility drive but I think beyond that I think I'd rather come back to you with something worked out with the airport because that's going to affect them in a big way so we assume that there'll be if there were a fire going on that we'd be diverting people from coming into the property but let us come back with something more firm than that Terry also told me that this there's more than one reason you have a fire truck if you have they show up when an ambulance shows up every time he said in that situation we're not shutting down the road it's only in the situation there's a fire and he was also amenable to using that we'll have to discuss with BTV but if they did have to redirect traffic it's going to be a pretty rare situation when that has to occur so okay we'll hear more were there issues with fire access in the alleyway no often four sides have to be received I spoke with him he did not bring that up because he said the chances of us going down that alley to fight a fire are very minimal we'll not position my truck there he said this is no different than two tall buildings being next to each other which he sees all the time okay thanks comment number 12 lighted and generally downcast and shielded we did talk about the bollards that are along the front entrance I think the cut sheets were inconclusive as to whether or not they were down casting light fixtures we will either get a positive statement to that fact from the manufacturer or we'll pick a different picture those are those are intended to light the surface of the private surface where guests come and to provide a barrier to vehicles running into the hotel building so 13 this is again about the storm water section you know we're very close when we come back the test pits are supposed to happen hopefully this week if we can get those done on Friday there's no reason why we can't get back great 14 the bicycle plan I think you may have spent some time talking about in the last hearing item there is a master plan for bicycle storage on the site I think you might have discussed it earlier but it's generally been concluded that to the extent that your regulations require actual lockers those will all be in a commonly held place of the airports choosing the master plan the BTV needs to for safety purposes have all their bike lockers in one location they're a see-through type so they can when they check this routinely they can see through them and they're also equipped with bluetooth handles so not anyone can just open them and you have to reserve them to be able to open them but the idea was to since the QTI also required a bike locker they are all located we wanted to keep them all in one spot so we put them all in this kind of green zone where we have several short-term bike racks a set of four bike lockers that house eight bikes and we also and also near that zone, it's a green zone because it also has the EV charging stations we should also I should also note that as part of this the terminal and the FAA building is getting, is upgrading to provide enough bike racks for that facility too and it's going to be in that same location I think a total of 26 bike racks for the QTA building in the terminal and then we're going to have 12 spots for the hotel so six bike racks at the hotel site because they don't pose any security risk so staffs comment here was just because this was sort of evolving to make sure all the plans match each other and your actual proposed plan staff comment number 15 was pertaining to the sort of auxiliary facilities related to bicycle parking which is the hotel must provide one changing facility one unisex shower and three closed lockers meeting the minimum standards of 13-14 C2 and we recommend that the board have the applicants show those on the floor plans the hotel staff has a staff break area that includes lockers for everybody who's on shift and there is a bathroom changing room shower area as a part of that so this is a normal part of the program for the hotel and we will be happy to show you that on a floor plan can you show it on the floor plan it's in the basement I don't know if it shows on the current sets of plans but we can make sure that it does for five hours that was a recommendation so it's there, the lockers are there they're required elements by Marriott are they required to be public no the hotel guests will all have a bathroom I understand it's for that strange person who comes up and just wants a shower I don't know the bathroom's at the end of the hall for everybody good on to number 6 John do you have one 16 just remove all signs from the plans including calls to sign locations agreed comments from the board Mark all good yeah I'm all good yep comments from the public yes please the building will be solar ready I can't I can't represent that they'll be provided in the initial construction but the conduits and the extra here and stuff required to make it solar ready so who would have to pay for solar panels sorry so who would pay for the solar panel you know I don't want to make a promise for the hotel without talking to them about it but I think it probably would be a function of cost and whether or not there were still tax credits available we're trying to do it on everything we do but it's up to them I encourage a DRB to encourage them with solar panels on I don't think it can be a requirement but absolutely we do Mr. Hyman to my knowledge tax credits is fired in June and is one fire hydrant enough for a building this size so you're referring to the solar tax credits yes I think they reduced from 30% reduced from 30% to 26% is my understanding that's he might have something good point and I think they've talked with Terry the fire chief so far he's saying it's fine is there a hydrant and Simeese on the building or no well there'd be a fully automatic fire suppression system in the building so there would be a fire department connection in the outside of the building right now that connection is required to be within 100 feet of a hydrant and it is so that mechanical room is where your Simeese connection is sticking off the building so you've got both the flow through of the building and the fire hydrant on the street and the fire suppression system is tied directly to the water system as well so it'll deploy first other comments from the public first raise on hand depends if it's testimony or public comment comment first off I would say impressed with the landscape plan and the protection of the trees that are existing and we appreciate the stats comments and the applicants dialogue around the maintenance plan the board is pushing that point a final comment on the landscape plan I think it's one slide down or two slides down that one's good if you notice that there's that one you can see the trees if they're protected and the new tree planning in the airport row area after you go to the next one down oops, next one up next slide that one I noticed that this is a public it's an airport road but it's similar to a public road and there doesn't seem to be any trees on that now I can appreciate the landscape architecture and all that but just as a comment personal one of maybe following the same sort of tree pattern now I say that with the understanding of the trees and landscaping they're pretty quiet but just a comment for the airport to consider and there may be security reasons for it well it's a good comment I appreciate your comments the primary reason there's no kind of alley along that edge of airport circle is primarily because of the utility banks that are paralleling that curb line and they're fairly significant a few marquee kind of vertical stems that do compliment the facade of the hotel that can be seen in the planting plan so we do have some verticality happening on this front facade but along the edge of the roadway that is the utility that's why thank you other comments from the public I'm going to have a date to continue this so I need to pull up my calendar here there's a May 21st hearing I would have to have everything from you by May 10th and I'm not loving that date because I have a pile of four things already scheduled for that date do you think May 10th is easily doable for you or do you think you'll be scrambling that's what I need materials by May 10th four of the 21st we're talking about them being on the hearing from May 8th that would be scrambling what we could do both of us so you're okay with going getting materials tomorrow by May 10th in order to have a hearing on May 21st first on the civil side no problem given the short list that I think we're anticipating and the specific items that Frank pointed out during good discussion I think it's not too much work on our end if they get all their ducks in a row it's not a lot of comments left well I would move that we continue preliminary final plot application SD1911 in the city of Burlington Burlington International Airport for May 21st second we continue to May 21st all in favor say aye opposed Frank are you an aye excuse me Mark are you an aye aye I am an aye very good okay see you May 21st thanks very much I appreciate it take care next item on the agenda yeah why don't we reset the tables yeah let's reset the tables and take a time out I guess it is I'm not sure if we've seen you have you raise your right hand and you'll swear to tell the truth under penalty of burgery thank you very much Matt so a couple of things before we begin one of the things that we discussed at the hearing before the hearing before is that we wanted to make sure that we had an opportunity to hear from the public particularly those that wanted to speak before but had not an opportunity that doesn't preclude if you've already spoken that you'd be able to speak again however a lot of things have happened over the last three or four months and I'd like to read the staff comments just to set the stage for some people that may not know all the permutations if that's alright with the applicant so on the January 29th meeting the board continued hearings for the purpose of taking public comment and that was continued to March 19th but on March 19th continued those hearings no public comment without discussion in order to allow certain matters before the environmental court potentially affecting the application to develop the staff memorandum of March 19th 2019 describe the related court matters since that date there's been activity in each of the court matters as described below sort of a long way of saying it's been complicated what we're doing here but to those two points on February 28th 2019 environmental court issued a judgment order on docket number 114-817 which pertains to an appeal of a final flat application approved by the board for a project referred to as spear meadows not dorset meadows a different project the judgment order concluded that the TDR bylaw transfer development right bylaw is invalid as it does not comply with 24 VSA SS4423 and that the TDR bylaw is institutionally vague this is what the judgment order said judgment order was appealed to the Vermont Supreme Court on March 27th of 2019 staff considers the applicant may proceed at risk but if the project is approved with TDRs the use of TDRs may be overturned in court so these are the challenges facing the applicant given that court hearing but then also on March 19th 2019 a judgment order dismissing the appeal of the board's decision AO1801 this is the appeal this was the appeal made by Mr. Saff and some of his clients that the current applications MP1801 and SD1829 what we're reviewing were complete on September 26th 2018 the judgment order was appealed to the Vermont Supreme Court on April 4th 2019 and it's been decided as of yet the Supreme Court has not ruled this staff comments here to us the board should the board determine to allow the applicant to proceed with the hearing at risk and assuming the applicant still wishes to do so on April 16th today staff has prepared a discussion of the modified plan submitted by the applicant which the applicant has indicated attempts to mitigate the risk associated with the use of TDRs so where we're at as a board to figure out how we proceed is number one if the applicant wishes to proceed at their risk we as a board will invite them to do so we also want to make sure that the public particularly those that have not had a chance to comment yet do have a chance to comment we've also received a letter from Mr. Saff I personally did not read this letter until just before the hearing I read the first two pages as directed and skim the rest but I understand the context of it which is to say I want to mischaracterize you and I will give you an opportunity to speak later but let's wait until the Supreme Court makes their ruling and stop talking about the issue continue until after the Supreme Court hearing we have talked about that as a board we decided that's not going to be that we want to hear if the applicant chooses to what their revised plan is we want to hear from the public both those that are appealing neighbors anyone that wants to speak we want to hear from them tonight and we also want to hear arguments from Mr. Saff as well regarding this letter so that's how we've sort of laid out how we're going to proceed in this matter so then we turn to the applicants to say how would you like to proceed we would like to proceed so can you tell me a little bit about tell us about the revised plan that you have submitted can you put up the phasing plan for us please the plan set has not changed since the last time we have the same number of units we have the same street layout same utilities, same storm water everything's the same except for the phasing plan so what we're asking for on the new phasing plan master plan remains the same by the way no changes there so the new phasing plan splits the project into five separate phases the first four phases are similar to what we're presented before however the first four phases have a total of 83 housing units including the existing house the fifth phase has all the units that will require TDRs and on the plan you can see any lot or any unit that's in gray would be the fifth phase so what we're asking for the board to approve is the master plan that shows the 154 units and phases one through four of this plan so at this point time we are not asking for approval of phase five which would require TDRs so if I may so Min Mark we still have you right? so the goal of presenting it this way is that you're asking for approval for phase one phase two phase three phase four and those four phases would not require as I understand it in order to maintain the density that you want any acquisition of any TDRs that's correct can I ask a clarifying question you said you're asking for master plan approval of all phases does that imply you're asking for preliminary approval for the four phases as opposed to you said you weren't asking for phase five to be approved but you didn't say specifically preliminary plot I assume you mean you're asking for all five for master plan correct but just the first four for preliminary that's correct before we go further I'd like to add the board to comment on the goal of this phasing plan and how it would in the merits of it yeah go ahead Mark I'm looking at it from this standpoint because it's similar to previous projects that we've looked at where we've talked about analytic bonus for density and if we didn't have these additional units that are contingent upon TDRs that may never get built we could be looking at a totally different way of building this project because if let's just say down the road TDRs the ultimate decision is that it's not going to happen we're going to have a project that looks incomplete and has blocks of data and if we only were working with what is it 83 units or something which is the base density in 1.2 and you looked at that as a total complete project you would be addressing this project totally differently than phasing it and stopping at some point when you hit that 83 units I have an issue with it and I'd like to add the board I personally just I don't like moving forward with it from this conceptual standpoint as well as no multifamily it looks like can you talk a little bit about what you're taking away or what is it now in phase five look at the plan everything that's in gray would be in the fifth phase so anything that's colored would be phases one through four and it's our understanding that that's not an unusual quest with the board to only get certain phases approved now we've we've located the units such that the units that we're not building particularly if you look at the single family lots would add to the open space portion of the project for instance on the west side we have those units that wouldn't be built that would add to the open space we have some blocks of units on the interior space that would just basically add to the open space that's remaining it is true that we wouldn't have any of the multi-unit buildings at this point in time although we're open to a discussion with the board about potentially putting some of the multi unit buildings back in phases one through four but it is true that if the TDRs are not approved or at some point in time the density changes on the project it's the TDRs that allow some of the variation in units to be built if we're limited to the base density then it becomes less likely that we will build many of the multi-family so we're banking on the TDRs being upheld or some similar mechanism that increases the density back to what this plan shows and that would allow for the full build out we say some similar mechanism referring to a change in the LDRs the change in the LDRs that's correct we already said that we'll come back for the fifth phase but to address Mark's concern a little further if you imagine the project without and we could prepare a slide and just delete the gray units that is a standalone cohesive project where essentially we just have more open space the open space areas that we've established in this plan get bigger all the amenities remain all the paths that we propose of the 154 unit plan are in the first four phases basketball court, the recreational facilities the path connection out to Dorset street all of those elements remain in the first four phases that we're asking approval of in Marla and Delilah this is a point of clarification if we were to approve phase 1 2, 3 or 4 if they were to come back with phase 5 they would have to come back to the board and present the fifth phase correct for approval so this would be very similar to what the board recently did for O'Brien home farm O'Brien home farm is slightly different in that phase 1 and phase 2 were geographically separate whereas this it's a little bit integrated but otherwise it's approval for an overall master plan and later approval for sketch preliminary final for a later phase I want to raise the mixed procedural and substantive point you're basically cutting the density in half for your preliminary application so why is that not a material change that requires a new application the master plan approval we're asking for I'm not talking about the master plan I think you could go forward at risk you understand I think your risk is substantial it goes beyond what what Matt laid out and Matt was a little more enthusiastic speaking for the board than I feel about going forward although I think it should be your call I agree with that but you have two additional risks here one is that it appears to me that this is a material change master plan aside you're where it appears that you're materially changing the preliminary application when you make such a drastic change in the number of units why is this not a material change of the type and I guess I'm asking Matt more than I'm asking you I don't think it's a material change because it's the same plan that's set out there the only issue is timing when the units get built so I don't think it's really changing the plan at all it's just building for real life contingencies as to what's going to happen in the future I think you could say look we're going to build all five if the TDRs are approved in the Supreme Court then there's no issue or you have to build all five if the municipality passes a new TDR then again there's no issue so the only real issue is a the only issue here is some contingency which the applicant doesn't have complete control over and I don't think that's really a material change in the overall plan I'm not sure I think you know Marla pointed out in the staff notes that the LDR allows phased approval of projects 15.08 C2 but that's that's not what you applied for you're making a change the point is you're making a change in what you applied for and the question I'm raising is is that change a material change because if it's a material change it requires a new application I think the application is the same the question is the issue and the timing and the building of it so it's to me it's not a material change but I understand your point it was always a phased project phases that showed how we were going to build out the units the difference is that at this point in time because of the issue with the TDR is we're not asking for approval of the fifth phase we're getting kind of we're playing semantic games here I think it's a different application the question is is a materially different application that's a legal question I'll come to a separate determination of that for myself the board may or may not agree with me when I do I don't want to take that with me you have other risks here too I'd just like to point out with you and I'm frankly raising it because although I do think it's your call I want to point out what I think the full scope of the risk is you have the jurisdictional question raised in Mr. Sepp's appeal I don't know have you seen his memo, did you get a copy of his memo? I don't mean to discuss that at length I don't necessarily agree with it I don't either I'm sure you don't I think it's an up in the air kind of thing and I think partly on gut partly because we have a confidential internal memo that addresses it and partly because just in my gut it just makes it too easy to hinder and cripple a project up front and there's something as a matter of legal policy that is offensive about the idea you can stop it in its tracks by appealing that at the sketch plan stage but that aside I could be wrong about that that's a risk you run you run the TDR risks and I think in my mind a very real risk you want and one of the point on which I think Mr. Sepp is right is the riparian connectivity if you're confident about that you can plow right ahead but I find that and always have found a compelling argument for why you lose but so we're not going to make a determination tonight whether this is a material change this is something that we have to raise the issue is another reason for you to consider taking your option of saying maybe we don't proceed but there's two other points that brought in staff comments before we start opening up the public comment which I think you started to address them Paul but one is in phase five we lose the duplexes and multifamily homes that's one comment and then the second the other comment the staff made was regarding to once if phase five does happen we've had this the people that live in this neighborhood if this were to be built live in this neighborhood are accustomed to this open space and that might make it more challenging to get that approved just reflection on those two comments please so on the first comment we're certainly willing to discuss with the board whether we change the mix of the units that are in the first four phases in other words the 83 units that don't require TDRs certainly something we would consider adding some of the multifamily units into the first four phases so that we had a better mix no problems with that the second phase we always take the chance that with a future phase that residents are going to oppose all we can do is make sure that as they come and as they buy units that they they're shown the master plan that they fully understand that there will be a fifth phase and that there will be additional units put in some of the open space areas that's the best we can do on a purchase in sale for the purchase of a new house first state law that the buyers need to get a public offering statement and the fifth phase in the master plan would be part of that public offering statement so that would be disclosed prior to them making a decision to purchase you understand I wasn't raising an issue about the master plan you can make it you can have the master plan for the five phases that's not what I'm talking about I'm talking about the change in your application for preliminary plan but nevermind any other comments from the board before we I'd like to just make a brief comment on map seven the overlay I'll keep it brief but as presented before we've always maintained well the map was came from the conservation folks who basically came with open space plan plan got most of their information from the and our biofinder map so that's where it came the biofinder if you go on to the website it clearly says that there was no field delineation done it was strictly a a desktop survey and that it required field delineation to be accurate and if we look at map seven if we look at what's on map seven and how we interpret it one of the items is areas that have a slope between 20 and 25 percent certainly something that we wouldn't rely on the map that we would go out and actually create a topo map and we would show you whether it was 20 to 25 percent again there's an item on the map seven that slopes greater than 25 percent again wouldn't rely on the map we would go out and delineate it we have rare natural communities shown on the map again we go out with an expert and they look to see if rare natural communities do exist on that parcel and what the extent is so again field verification next item is the 100 year flood plane 100 year flood plane is elevation based in other words at any one point in a stream there's an elevation that's the 100 year flood plane so if you have a property we would typically do a flood survey and we'd go out and verify just where the 100 year flood plane is the next item is the source protection zone zone one source protection zones are for water wells typically it's a fixed distance you would find the well you would look at the fixed distance and that would determine where it is you wouldn't rely on the map next thing is rare species if you look in the map there's big circles on the map that shows potential areas where rare species are going to be well I'm pretty sure the board wouldn't say well you can't develop anywhere within that circle you would require us to go out and identify if there were any rare species or any rare plants there with the state would identify those areas and we would not develop there and finally you have wetlands and we know the map is widely inaccurate when it comes to wetlands in fact the map doesn't even show any wetlands on our parcel and we know that we have a substantial amount of wetlands and then we have the riparian connectivity and again we say just like every other item on map 7 it's subject to field verification and we've been out with the state stream corridor folks we've been out with the wetland folks we've been out with all the state agencies and have defined how far we need to stay away from the brook to protect those features so I think when you look at the map and you look at all the items on the map and you look at how we typically interpret it now it's a dual edge sword because I certainly wouldn't come in here and say well there's no wetlands on map 7 therefore there's no wetlands on my property you would laugh me right out of here you would expect that I'm going to go out and do that field verification for all of these items you know in this case we have we've had a consultant go out and look for rare species we've had a consultant go out and look and see if it's Indiana bat habitat or other kind of you know rare habitats and so our view on map 7 is it provides a guideline but everything on that map needs to be field verified and everything on that map is when we go out we look that's all I have on map 7 thank you anyone for the board have any comments before I open it up to the public I'll make a brief comment on that for what it's worth and again I emphasize I speak only to myself the very eloquent statement I'm sure the rest of the board took it in it makes no impression on me because what I think the comprehensive plan says is that see these horizontal these diagonal lines on map 7 you can't build anything there that's what it says that's the end of my comment I don't mean to start a whole debate we certainly haven't followed that on other applications because there's plenty of applications out there that have been built in the last few years in areas that showed up as riparian connectivity or something else on map 7 well if I was sitting at the time I missed it any comments from staff before I open it up okay so go ahead Mark I'll just make my comment on map 7 and I've said it in the past but you know someone that's been on both sides of the table has sat on the African side that's been on the DRB side you know but in my professional capacity as an architect and a land liner I've seen blocky splotches on the map it's clearly indicating as an area the afternoon stage is to then to center on further study and it states right on the map and they're sort of like in contradiction to each other but one is general and one is specific and the specific is that it says to further study clarification which is what the applicant has undertaken and I'll just leave it at that is that you know I find it difficult to say that something that not clearly identified but more of a broad stroke is something that we have to just immediately negate this comment because I just can't we disagree on the meaning of specific so I'm going to try to organize this Mr. Saff give me a chance we try to organize this and be as fair as possible and recognize that we're a little bit on the honor system here in terms of one of the things that I certainly committed to and I think what Mr. Saff did was to hear from people that had not previously got a chance to speak that said we are very interested in what Mr. Saff has to say and the contents of his letter and we understand that there are people that may want to seed their time to Mr. Saff and that's certainly understandable what we're going to do is limit it to three minutes and if you go over three minutes and you have to make your point no problem but if you continue on we ask you to politely to wrap it up so we can allow everyone an opportunity to speak I know a lot of you here we all know a lot of you here some of you are neighbors I still ask you to state your full name so Charlie and the TV camera and Sue in the minutes we'll be able to record that so there's no sign up sheet but if whoever wants to go first go ahead sir go ahead and have a seat and state your name Frank Landry Matt can I just put the camera be adjusted back over to include the thank you hello okay Frank Landry go ahead Frank so thanks for letting me speak I'm actually here to support the development I actually lived in Burlington the Hill section in the Cider mill about six years ago sold a big old house with taxes that were $20,000 a year moved my business to South Burlington and bought a very efficient home in the Cider mill and I'm sure 15 years ago people opposed the Cider mill but go through that development now there's no resale houses there they're selling like fire if they go on the market one across the street from me sold in a day last week we love the neighborhood there's walking trails we're very interested in actually purchasing property there and building a smaller home as well as encouraging my two children who are having children now that are going to be moving to this area to support South Burlington as a taxpayer in South Burlington this is the type of project we actually need and who wouldn't think that land would be developed you go south of here we have Dorset Park north of here we have Dorset farms across the street we have the Cider mill driven by a five year saying when is that going to be developed so it makes sense that there's development and it makes sense to have affordable houses on smaller lots and that's what people want today if you look at the Cider mill I bought a carriage house in there you would believe it would just be retired or older people there it's full of families and kids so we see the school buses, kids playing a real neighborhood we have houses and townhouses we have walking trails we have my business from Burlington to South Burlington after I moved here we find it to be a very convenient place to live and let me look look at this trail here on Dorset street people want to live here and as a taxpayer I want to see the schools do well that helps my property values I want to see more kids this is the type of development that gets children and so I'm a proponent of this and I think we're we're not thinking right we're thinking of this type of density in development we need it's what people want, young people want this type of development retirees want this type of development we have to support our mall the city center and most importantly our schools South Burlington is where people want to move that is where people are coming to from all over in their families that's all I have to say thank you very much Frank anyone else like to speak I'm going to give you but I want to be able to give people opportunity to cede your time to you you're going to be our closer I want to be able to cede your time to you if they want to and I want to be able to hear from everyone that hasn't had a speak but I promise you will get ample opportunity to speak come on up have a seat my name is Denny Blanchett I'm of the existing house that's at Dorset meadows I lease it would hopefully option to purchase it sometime when all this gets approved with separate logs one is sort of mimic but Frank was saying I didn't know what he was going to say but this is some vocal opposition and there are a silent majority that are comfortably, quietly on Dorset Park they do a good job they're and they honor their contracts and what they're trying to do is present a reasonable plan for the city to approve so that they can run their business, provide homes most everybody that buys a home from them ends up with some equity from day one and the opportunity to enjoy all that South Brompton has it's no secret, this is a great place, great town to live in and the idea is to be respectful of what they're trying to do and reasonable, that's what they're looking for and I think they deserve to try and work out something that fits everyone and I don't know who you've built but I think I've been at most of these meetings and I think you've done a great job thank you Denny anyone else like to speak, come on up and I know we know who you are but we're going to ask you to do the same thing as everyone else thank you Denny who owns your home who owns the home you rent Noah just for public comments just to address the board of Dysingenuous he's complimenting the board and he rents the home from the people who are proposing the project what's he supposed to say, and do you ensure them as well? No, just to keep it to us that kind of concept and then the previous comments about Dorset about Sardinum obviously we all know the tremendous conflict that has happened over Sardinum and the properties around it and directly across the street from it and this is just another one of those things and I just I feel like this is the first time the public has had a chance to speak in three months we've listened to nothing but developer developer developer and then I look at this picture and I'm thinking about just everything that's happening with the TDRs I mean I just it's very frustrating and to sit and sit and sit and then hear the things that I've heard tonight I really hope that the board will look at that type of picture and see that the density is all over the place and that nothing is taking consideration for wildlife where's the repairing corridors on that you know I just had to say after I heard what I heard from the last two speakers that there is no silent majority looking forward to this development at all there's never been a majority or never been anyone else here except for people who work for the developers or friends of the developers promoting this ever for any development in this community so when I hear a silent majority saying that we want development I don't know what they're talking about because they've never been here and everyone who has been here is a citizen, a taxpayer I mean does anyone here live in South Burlington besides the people who are against this no I'm sorry I just need to make one very quick statement no problem go ahead and then I'll sit down hold on go ahead very briefly Matt if you read my letter it's the position of SOS South Burlington the 14 people that I represent this board has no authority and no jurisdiction to hear these applications so any statements if that's the way it's got to be but any statements that any of my clients make tonight are under protest we don't think this board has any authority or jurisdiction to hear this and by making statements of the board we are in no way conceding that this board has any authority to go forward and that's not me talking, that's Judge Walsh we understand that point other clients of mine are going to be speaking but it's under protest because we don't think you have any authority to make any decisions while our appeal is in the Supreme Court but since since Mr. Heimann started speaking I felt I should say that before any more of my clients get up and speak understood, understood, thank you very much is there anyone else that would like to speak Mr. Chalmick could I have you state your name my name is Andrew Chalmick so three minutes is really not enough but I'll try I also sit here frustrated not really being able to adequately respond to have the time the multitude of misleading statements that come in from the applicant and his experts, it's really startling I'm a lay person but it's just obvious so Mr. Larry just stated another one Map 7 doesn't have any wetlands on the property of course it does, here's on my phone he just says these things on that basis in fact it's startling and it's been frustrating sitting here and listening to this over and over he made comments about you know where parents should be delineated everything's delineated well again I'm a lay person, look at the LDRs the LDRs tell you look at the map that's in the back of the LDRs respect the map but if the applicant wants to come delineate they can the LDRs address that, that's why it's delineated because the LDRs say it's supposed to be if the applicant wants it to there's nothing in the LDRs that says you have to delineate your parent connectivity the town didn't require it it's not in the comp plan there's nothing to do with this that's not law it's something that was done by a committee that the town then took into consideration and come up with a law so our attorney submitted a letter which has a lot of points can I use one in three minutes to go through these points it's too much to do in three minutes it's a complicated subject summarize as best you can Andrew okay they contend that they've mapped this 50 for corridor so that's official I'm a lay person I read everything that the state puts out the state talks about valley bottoms they don't talk about valley bottoms the state says this component parent connectivity includes in addition to rivers, lakes, streams, ponds valley bottoms in which rivers and streams flow and then they talk about the buffer they talk about finally the component also includes a band adjacent to the river that's what they talk about the buffer they ignore the firefighter talks about the valley bottom and the firefighter tells you why the valley bottom is important and why it's included we it's in the letter was the city you know appropriate reasonable to rely on that state mapping the state doesn't say that it has to be limited the state tells you that the valley bottom effectively captures flat valley bottoms this is the biofinder report and associated soils and wetlands effectively captures partially a GS model major portions of the valley bottom are based on soil mapping by the natural resources conservation service and wetland mapping by the natural wetlands inventory for which there's a relatively high confidence of course the town was in its discretion to rely on that why would the town want fights about what their parent connectivity layer is they decided this is it this is the rule they did that rule to address J.M. Gulf then they say that the fact that map 7 says that you know it can't guarantee accuracy somehow means we should ignore the map that's boilerplate language that's boilerplate on every map it's on the wetlands map in the back of LDRs that language can't mean the very purpose which the map was designed can't be relied on it's gotta mean something else it's gotta mean you can't rely on the map to know the exact you know contour of shoreline or the exact placement of any house you know if you want to do some kind of survey why would the purpose why would you make a map and then say you can't rely on it it doesn't make any sense that can't be with that boilerplate language it's on every map means it can't be interpreted that way so is the map accurate the map exactly matches what's in biofinding we showed in these images it's exactly the same the state the city's map exactly matches the best data that the state was able to put together and more than that the state says that this particular area is the highest priority for conservation the highest priority and they say this is an area of critical importance for water quality flood attenuation a road to prevention and wildlife movement this is based on the very high value in this component and its contribution to biolock diversity I'm just quoting the words from the state appreciate your comments thank you very much come on up excuse me thank you Art Shields 1350 Dorset street I have several concerns one is regarding their setback of their houses on Dorset street I believe there's a 50 foot minimum setback on Dorset street and Nolan farm road I discuss this with Marla and I think she was going to look into that I also have a major concern we went from sketch plan now to preliminary plan I think there was a major change in their plan which didn't seem to excite too many people and that was switching exits from Nolan farm road back on Dorset street another exit on Dorset street there are now two major exits on Dorset street with their new plan 629 feet apart that's the existence there's going to be another one probably when I do the southern phase another 600 feet apart I'm not sure if that is what the city is looking for having all these entrances on the Dorset street your major north south highway I also have some real concerns and I'm not sure how the board makes determinations on plan unit developments and size allots there's no real guidelines for the board what these people have asked for are 550 waivers from what is set out on the southeast quadrant if you take all of their side yard set backs on both sides of each lot their front yard set backs it's a total of 550 waivers from what is the guy and as I say I don't know what guidelines you are given there's nothing specific as far as under a plan unit development all that basically says is the minimum you can have a five yard set back between units and you can have a 15 foot front yard set back and they're asking for a waiver on that they're asking for a waiver on their lot coverage I mean everything they have asked for is basically your waiver and I don't see where it tells you as a board how you to make these determinations on what is allowable and what isn't do you have guidelines of how you grant waivers we're just listening to your comment but I would point out to you that to call the allowance of the a reduction in the set backs of waivers a little bit of a misnomer but we're authorized to do in a PUD is literally change the zoning ordinance that's not quite, it's not exactly the same thing as a waiver but it gives you seven individuals of power to make that decision without any specific guidelines to go by all it tells you is you have side lot, you know, minimums that you can grant and you're based on what I see you've granted every single waiver that these people have asked for we haven't granted anything no if you, well it's it's proceeding from does understand we haven't granted anything nothing officially but it keeps moving through the process from one sketch plan to preliminary also in the sketch plan I think that they did not do the right calculations on lot coverage they don't even give lot coverages on their multifamily and I don't think we should look at the map that a lot of their details are correctly, their setbacks from Dorset Street, Nolan farm road are not correct there's a 50 foot setback if you read the regulations another point is this will be your last point Mr. Shields, right? okay good is a granting them a between zones the way I read the regulations it said that those properties had to be in single ownership as the date of those regulations to grant a 50 foot setback between zoning zoning districts these parcels were purchased in two separate parcels one in 19 I mean in 2017 and one in 2018 so I don't think they meet that requirement of being under single ownership at the time the regulations were adopted thank you Mr. Shields for your comments can I just make a quick comment because it seems like Mr. Shields is a little bit rushed just to invite the public they're always welcome to submit comment letters and those will be fully reviewed by the board if you have additional points that don't get made tonight that's a great point Marla thank you for making that put it in writing if you didn't get a chance to get it out in three minutes go ahead can you say your name for the record yeah Dunia Partilo and I live in an area adjacent to the development that is being proposed I'm sorry can you say your name one more time Dunia Partilo I just want to respond briefly to the pro-development neighbors that they're making these arguments about having more families more children I understand that but honestly that is not justified by breaking the wildlife linkage that is I don't know how this works that happens you know in this area so the only one of the only neighbors that can see day by day what's happening here I have a clear view what's happening here and what's happening here every single day the other day I shot a family of nine deer and I counted them right here feeding and they went back to these woods that they are proposed to be cut okay so I witnessed this every day along with some of the neighbors I also now it's time for mating so we see a lot of turkeys you know doing what the wildlife is supposed to do right looking for females and you know what their program to do we also see I saw today ducks here in the stream it's just ridiculous and honestly I rather to have those animals here than children okay so I rather to protect the wildlife than having development and families because honestly there's other areas where this is a protected area and I'm just going to finalize my argument with I haven't written down because just as a conclusion development would severely interfere with an area that is designated by the complaint as primary conservation area as map 7 would say would indicate and would also interfere with the mobility of wildlife across habitat blocks and that's what I just explained because I see it it's not like it's in paper I witness it every day so you have to the ones that are pro-development and children and all that argumentation stay there do some while do some field study and stay there for a few days you will see that that is actually happening it's not only in the book just for being in the book so we'll interview with the mobility of the wildlife across those habitat blocks and and all that existing wildlife linkage that is happening day by day so I just wanted to say that thank you very much for your comments I would also like to say that in following off your comments and off Marla's that there are a number of written submittals that are in the packet that's publicly available that address some of the similar comments you had about wildlife so just one on the shirt that people could read that it is publicly available come on up and I did try to speak the last three times and I can talk fast but three minutes I don't know I am the one that submitted the little video with all of the wildlife I am in a butter I've been there about 13 years and I have documented 84 different species of birds and those are just ones that I noted and in the 13 years I can say that all of the development on Cider Mill and the Long Burset Street that the wildlife has diminished greatly and yes thank you and we are knowingly snuffing them out we are paving over their homes there are not a lot of spaces left in South Burlington in general and you know just look we can knowingly look right over their homes like we already have and it really it's something to really consider because once they are gone they are gone so please really think about that it's important thank you very much for your comments so anyone else that would like to speak yes come on up can you state your name for the record my name is Roseanne Greco I am a resident of South Burlington and industries and Andrew and art today I was going through the comprehensive plan and I don't have enough time in three minutes to quote everything but I want to tell you this the Dorset Meadows development runs counter to at least 4 of the 11 visions and goals that are on page 1 in the comprehensive plan it also runs counter to at least 4 other key areas in the quality in green infrastructure. You can find them on pages 1-1, 2-48, 2-77, 2-84, and 2-98 since I don't have to read them. The Dorset Meadow proposal also runs counter to quite a few of the recent city council statements related to abiding by the Paris Accord on climate chains. The city council has gone on record to say we want to reduce our carbon footprint. The Dorset Meadow not only not only reduces it, it dramatically increases it. One of the biggest disconnect is that this is so egregiously opposed to what we're trying to do in South Burlington, and that is to preserve our climate, to reduce our carbon footprint, to reduce our energy usage. This development will use massive amounts of fossil fuels to construct. More over the 100 or plus houses they will put on it will demand massive amounts of fossil fuels for decades and decades to come. It's built on a rural pasture, far from transportation lines, which means it will further demand fossil fuels because the only way to get there and back is from cars. In our energy section in the comprehensive plan, it says transportation is the number one use of fossil fuels, and if we can reduce our use on cars, this does just the opposite. In fact, you're probably going to have traffic lights needed to be put in there for the hundreds of cars it will add on the road. It not only will it not contribute to the cleaner air and cleaner water we want, it will further pollute our air, it will further impair our already impaired watersheds. And in addition to that, it runs counter to everything in here about conserving natural resources, to preserving open space, to protecting our scenic views, to protecting our animal habitats. Our animal wildlife carters have shifted because of other developments. You can see Louise and Dunia, they photograph, there's coyotes. I counted eight ducks in the meadow, which is close to being a pond with the recent rains and stuff. We've seen mink, we've seen beaver, coyotes, fox, deer. That's where the animals are traveling. We have photos of them. So I really encourage you to keep in mind the bigger picture and that is climate change, reducing our carbon footprint, reducing our energy and conservation. This development does just the opposite. It sets us back. The fossil fuels this will use will go on and will be directly counter to what the city council has said they want to do, to what the company hence a plan said they want to do, to what the pity people of South Burlington want to do. And every server you look for, they want to be responsible stewards of the environment. Protecting our natural resources, protecting open spaces is right up there under quality schools. Thank you. Thank you, Rosanne. Anyone else like to speak? No, Mr. Seth. I think everybody knows me, but I'm Daniel Seth, MSK attorneys. I represent the 14 people named in my letter of yesterday that I guess you all received. How much time do I have, Matt, before I begin? More than three minutes. First, I'd like to start with a question for the chair, if I may. Bill, can you elaborate, please, on the nature and extent of your recusal? If not recusal, I am simply turning over the chairmanship temporarily to Matt. John made the point, John Wilking made the point that that it appeared as though I was giving more weight, more credence to the arguments of the applicant than to the arguments of the opponent. And that is true. I do not find the arguments of the opponents persuasive so far. And so unconsciously, and I apologize for the extent to which it appeared that I was biased. I'm not biased. I am simply unpersuaded by the arguments that I've heard so far. So it's not recusal. It is simply turning over chairmanship. So I guess you're assuming you're referring to the comments that you made at the January 29th hearing about the property values of my client's homes and that sort of thing? I think John would refer to that and would say that, yeah, would say that's one of the things that makes it sound like I am partial and biased. Because their home values, their assessed values of their homes have nothing to do with their arguments about, and our arguments about the nature and protected status of this land. And those comments were very concerning to my clients and to me. And if you're not recusing yourself from the matter in terms of the vote, we would like to know if you can be fair and impartial on this going forward. Yeah, I did not present that as a as a as a rebuttal to your arguments. It is simply a fact that is publicly available information. And I simply wanted efforts to achieve affordable housing to rise to the surface of the 11 priorities that Roseanne Greco referred to the first is affordable housing. So that's what I was referring to. Can we come together on achieving affordable housing? But okay, Bill, but the by by by by January 29, it was very clear, I think, from our written submissions.  If you have a request for the chair to recuse himself, I think you ought to do that. This is making me uncomfortable. My experience with Mr Miller is frankly contrary to Mr Wilkins. I don't find him biased at all. But if you do, you're entitled to ask him for a recusal. I don't think during the public comment period, you're entitled to interrogate him. I'd like you to stop there enough. But you can request a recusal to save that as a point of appeal. Okay. So you you you feel that you can be fair and impartial. Absolutely. Okay. So all right. So my point was only that there was an appearance not not that Bill has ever been improper.  I've never thought that you were biased at all. I think you're very fair and generous with public comment and giving people equal time. Um, we were concerned about those comments. And that's why I asked particularly after you recused yourself from serving as chair. And that's the extent of it. So thank you for clarifying everything and we can move forward. I appreciate it. Mr step. I wonder if you could step through your letter that you talked about. Will you address you because we are going to need time to process this if you would care to summarize what's in the letter. That would be helpful. Absolutely. So I'm only going to summarize because Mr Chalonic spoke to the sit third through ninth pages of the letter already concerning riparian connectivity and mapping. So I don't want to be redundant there. But I do I do want to speak to the first two and a half pages of the letter because I think it's important. And I think that my letter came in somewhat late. But the reason it came in somewhat late was because I didn't know until late Friday afternoon of last week that this hearing was going to go forward. I assumed wrongly, apparently that because Judge Walsh was so adamant in his March 19th decision that this board cannot proceed on these specific applications while there is a pending appeal that this meeting would have been tabled. And when I saw the staff memo that talked about the fact that there was a Supreme Court appeal, but that the no mention at all of Judge Walsh is ruling holding that has not been appealed that this board does not have any authority to go forward. I submitted my letter as soon as I could. So let's just review what happened briefly here. This board allowed the applicant from sketch to preliminary plat and master plan without a formal vote on sketch. We've had a lot of interesting discussions about that, whether that's required. We appealed that decision to the Environmental Court. At a February 19th status conference, without any prompting from me, Judge Walsh said, I just want everybody to be clear while this appeal is pending before me in the Environmental Court, the DRB is not to act on the preliminary plat or master plan applications. They can't do it. I didn't ask for that ruling. He came out with that on his own. On March 19th, he granted the developers motion to dismiss the appeal in a four page decision. He didn't say we were wrong that the DRB has to take a formal roll call vote on sketch. He said it wasn't a final enough decision to be appealed at that time. He never reached the merits of our appeal. At the very end of that decision, he went out of his way. It was on page page three to say because the developer did not know when it filed its motion to dismiss how long that appeal would be pending and was concerned that the DRB would take that admonition seriously that it could not act while the e-court appeal was pending. We're not talking about the Supreme Court appeal here. Filed papers saying we want you to clarify, Judge, that there's no stay here, that the DRB can go forward. After Judge Walsh dismissed our appeal, because in his view it wasn't final enough of a decision to be appealed at that time, what did he say? This is quoted on page two of my letter. Dorsett argues, that's the developer, that despite the present appeal, and at that point he was referring to the e-court appeal, the DRB retained its ability to decide on the applications, that's preliminary and master plan, in the next phase of review. The DRB, however, did not have control over the review ability of those applications while this appeal was pending. The question of whether the DRB could properly proceed to the next stage of review was the basis of the neighbor's appeal and constituted the matter before this court. The DRB could not decide this question for themselves. Any steps taken by the DRB related to the Dorsett Metals Preliminary Plan, master plan applications during the pendency of this appeal was carried out without the power to do so. And he cites the leading, Vermont Supreme Court case on that point. That decision of Judge Walsh saying that our appeal of your decision that you could go forward on preliminary without having voted on sketch, is now on appeal to the Vermont Supreme Court. So under the law of Cots v. Cots, which Judge Walsh, again, and this is brought out by Judge Walsh without any prompting from the neighbors, this board does not have any power to go forward. Even if our appeal to the court and to the Vermont Supreme Court are baseless, which they're not, you have to wait until those appeals are over. And why is that? Why is that the rule? It's exactly what's going on here right now. My clients are being forced to pay my law firm for me to be here while their appeal is pending. They're incurring fees right now while we're sitting here. That's not supposed to happen. This this proceeding under this long established law is supposed to be in advance and let the Supreme Court appeal play out. So now what's going to happen? Let's say this board agrees with us that you can't build an riparian connectivity zone and denies the applicants preliminary Platinum master plan application. We win, right? That's great for us, right? Wrong. What's going to happen is the applicant is going to appeal that decision from the DRB to the court and tell the court that this DRB didn't have any power to act and deny its applications. Conversely, let's say you agree with the applicant and say, oh yeah, you can build in this riparian connectivity zone and it doesn't matter that there's no TDR by law, so on and so forth. My clients are going to appeal and say you didn't have any power to issue decision. So why are we here? Why are we doing this? Let's stand down. Let's wait in here. This land has been undeveloped for thousands of years. A couple more weeks isn't going to make a difference, okay? I have a deadline now to file my Supreme Court brief of May 16th, four weeks from now, in the appeal of Judge Walsh. Their brief is going to be due three weeks after that. That's seven weeks. I get a reply brief that's due in two weeks. That's nine weeks. In nine weeks, the Vermont Supreme Court appeal on whether this board needed to vote this thing out of sketch will be fully briefed before the Vermont Supreme Court. I don't understand, frankly, as I'm sitting here, why the applicant, my clie