I'm guessing that the mic's on our back, what do you think? The mic's on our back, can you? Good luck. But it is coming through the, it's in fact online on the streaming. Because if that's good then we'll just go. Okay, alright team, welcome, good evening. So we're going to call this meeting to order. And as I understand it, we're still working on getting the speakers turned on in the house, but apparently they're on online. So team, we're all just going to have to use our outdoor voices. I don't have a problem with that. Okay, alright so that the people in the back can hear. Is that cool? There are seats in the front if you want to move to the front so you can hear better. Okay, outdoor voices, it's okay. Alright, so the first thing is to review and approve the agenda. We've got a few changes I'd like to make. Just a heads up, we should probably pull E, the school board appointment from the consent agenda, only because there are a few of us that need to recuse ourselves. So just a heads up on that. I think if you want to check the online agenda. Yep, so online it has the housing task force update as being after the proposed parking garage structure design. I'd like to switch the order that let's move the housing. And then a couple other changes we're going to move to the end. Just a heads up, we are in fact not going to be applying right now. So we can talk more about that. In fact, I'd love to have a brief discussion about that later, but just so you know the substance of that of applying for a grant is not in fact happening. At least not right now. So those are all the changes I know about. We also have other changes they think they would like to see. Okay, great. So without objection we'll consider the agenda approved. So moving on to general business and appearances. So this is a time for members of the public to come speak to the council on any item that is not otherwise on our agenda. And if you could try to keep your comments to about two minutes or less. As with any comments as is our custom. If you come to comment on any item that is on our agenda, if you keep your comments to about two minutes or less, and Donna will be here and help us navigate the time. There's a little bit of grace in there, but I will cut you off eventually. So, yeah, go ahead. Yep, and if you'd also say your name and where you are from. There's Webster from Montclair. And so the people at home can hear you. There's not many desert cities that I walk in in streets. I'm going to also mention one other thing because I forgot it a week ago. I want to thank City Council member Don Bates for participating in the pedestrian scramble last year. And for her leadership support of all the kind of altering transportation committees, including the peace committee. It really feels good to have City Council member there and listening to us. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Harris. I'm Jeff Dworkin. I'm here with Kathy Metz. We live at 24 Liberty Street. We'd like to say a few words about the proposed parking ban on Liberty Street while the elementary school has its reconstruction going on. The parking ban seems like a good idea for the reasons stated by Tom McCartle for safety and for large vehicles like the school bus to be able to pass because it is a fairly narrow street. Fortunately, it's also spawned a problem as reasonable as the measure is. The problem that's spawned is an old one. And just to give you a moment of history, some years ago the residents of Lower Liberty Street drew up a petition and presented it to City Council to request that speed bumps be installed because people fly down that street. And there are, I mean, kind of count them. There must be 100 school kids that walk down Liberty Street to one of the two schools twice a day. The problem that the regulation is spawning is that we have had parking on both sides of the street which has acted as an informal traffic calming device. Sounds kind of odd, but it's been effective. When you have that street narrowed by parking on both sides, we can definitely see cars slowing down. It may be kind of an ad hoc and unapproved calming device, but it has worked. The problem now with a ban on one side of the street is cars are going to start flying down there like they do when there isn't much parking on the road. And it's a serious danger to the school kids that have walked in two or three schools twice a day. We made that request quite a few, probably a dozen years ago to City Council that speed bumps be investigated and put in. Council didn't act upon it. You have put in speed bumps in the meadows. Interestingly, they're far less danger to school kids in the meadows. They're far less foot traffic there and to the two schools. But we're quite concerned about what kind of a danger we're going to be inviting now that the street is wider in effect for passenger traffic. So we are here to ask that the council reconsider speed bumps by way of perhaps referring it to the Public Works Department to come back with an opinion about whether, like in the meadows, but even more importantly on lower Liberty Street speed bumps can be investigated with an opinion back about whether it's feasible. One way or another, with a wider street and inevitably faster traffic, we seriously believe that a greater danger to school kids is being invited and should be headed off. Thank you for that comment. So just as a little bit of information about that. So there are a number of places in Montpelier that have requested speed bumps and as a response, one of the reasons why not a lot of speed bumps have been put in place is because there hasn't been a really clear process of how we go about deciding where to put them and how do we vet them properly with the public and being informed with a DPW process. And so we had actually tasked the Montpelier Transportation Infrastructure Committee to come up with a process to determine whether or not speed bumps were appropriate. Now, because this is a temporary measure, it may make some sense to sort of evaluate that separately and I know speed bumps can be put in on a temporary basis. So that seems like at least a worthwhile thing to look into. So if we can just make a note of checking in on that, that'd be great. Thank you. Can I just ask for a point of information? Sure. We can ask Tom McCartle about whether or not we can go outside that process and speed up, you know, just the process looking at whether or not we can do this as a temporary measure. And particularly what I would be interested in is looking at temporarily installing speed bumps on Liberty Street. Donna. But there are other elements of traffic coming and that's one of the things this transportation group is looking at the whole picture and trying to have a real clear process. And so even without that, though, DPW would want to look at it holistically what would be the best way to slow people down. And that makes sense. I'm just asking the council to pay special attention to that new problem because of the traffic that's still in children. Yep. Great. Thank you. I'm glad he asked what is checking into it, because I want to ask directly, are we going to get the crosswalk shimped to drain before this winter snow and ice season? You want to introduce yourself? Pete Whitaker, I'm here related to the safety of having water back up into the crosswalks and frees. And I called it to city manager's attention over a year ago, right after the paving was done. And it's been ground, but it hasn't been shimped. Secondly, in tonight it's very obvious that the priority on getting the system tuned. I look at the minutes and the minutes give very short shift to the issue of crosswalks. I complained about the crosswalks. It doesn't get into the detail, but it means we're relying on the video and the video without audio is deficient. So we really need to get this room tuned quicker so that people can meaningfully participate here from anywhere in the room. And that's not something that can be put off month after month. Thank you. It's just worth a reminder because this pops up every now and then. I follow what's considered best practices and take action minutes. So I don't characterize what people say or I do as minimally as possible and that's considered best practice. Just so you know. I'm saying that it's okay to rely on the video, but only if you're getting good video with audio. Yep. And just so you know, Bill has been out for the last week. So we'll I'll follow up with him about that. Thank you. Yep. Okay. Anything further? Okay. Move it. Oh, yep. Go ahead. Okay. Well, what topic did you want to speak about? We're from up here. We're here. My name's Laura. We're here from the Citizens Against Plastic Pollution Group. Is that charter change? It is not on the agenda tonight. And we will not be taking it up tonight. All right. Yeah. And I also just wanted to thank you for sending us the stuff about the grant. And I think we are going to apply for the grant for our citizens. Great. And do you want to clarify what the grant is about? The grant is for reducing solid waste in our town. And what we're asking for is and what the charter change is about, is about banning single use plastic bags in Montpelier. And so what we would apply for the grant, what we wanted to ask for was money to get a bunch of reusable shopping bags made that we will hand out for free. Great. Thank you so much. Great. Okay. Anyone else? Great. Okay. Moving on. Consideration of the consent agenda. I move the consent agenda as amended. Second. Okay. You got it. For the discussion. Right. When do we recuse ourselves? Well, as amended was less. Was less that. Okay. So we'll recuse ourselves next. Okay. Great. Thank you. All right. So no further discussion. All in favor. Please say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? Great. And I'm going to recuse myself for this next bit. All right. So I believe that takes us to the consideration of the appointment for the school. Yes. I know it's not usually, I'm usually, can you please be quiet? So at this point, we are now going to take up the appointment to the school board. I believe that there's only the one applicant. Andrew, I believe is here. Would you like to address the council on the public or just wanted to give you the opportunity? Okay. I suppose at this point, do we have a motion? I move to appoint Andrew Stein to the Montpelier Rocksbury school board. And a second. Second. Any further discussion? I'm going to recuse myself because of my job with the agency of education. Okay. I think we have enough. I'll have to recuse myself too as an employee of Vermont. Oh, I don't know. We won't have enough. Well, I think I'm also recusing myself. Great. But can I vote? Yeah. Okay. I wasn't sure. All right. All right. So any further discussion? All right. All those in favor of appointing Andrew Stein? Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. seats or two types of seats in this situation. So if you have preferences as to, I'm not looking at it, I think it's either one year or two year. If your preference is either for the one year or the two year seat, if you can express that that would be very helpful. Just coming to introduce yourself, that'd be great. And a process question? Yes. Can we hear all three groups that are having appointments so we have one executive session? Sure. That's fine. Is that okay for everyone? Okay, go ahead. Good evening, Mayor, City Staff and Council. My name is Brian Evans. I'm a resident of Montpelier. I live up on Elm Street. I put my name in for the Planning Council Commission just because I want to get back. I'm doing my best. I don't know if this mic is getting back there. I could speak into it, but I don't know if it's coming through. So I work for the State of Vermont Department for Children and Families. I'm the financial director. I've been involved in public policy planning work from a capital construction point of view. I have a sort of diverse skill set that I think would be very valuable to the Commission and just put my name in for consideration and thank you. Any questions? Okay. Thank you. Hold it. Good evening, everyone. I'm Leslie Wells. Can you hear me back there? Okay. I'm the current chair of the Planning Commission and everyone on the Planning Commission, I believe, has entered their name seeking re-appointment and I just want to say the group is working really well together and I would be, you know, supportive of every single member of the Planning Commission being re-appointed. I think we have, we cross a lot of demographics right now with our group. We have a lot of thoughtful discussion and it's sort of an exciting time. We're starting our work on the new city plan. We had a great meeting with a lot of various committees and some of you are in attendance at the meeting. Thank you for coming and those of you who weren't there, I mean, I guess everyone stay tuned because we're going to keep working on that process and the immediate work, I'll just use this as a quick update since I'm here, the immediate work that we're working on right now and I'm sure Mike Miller has been keeping you appraised is doing zoning fixes as they work through, as they receive permit applications, they're realizing there are some difficulties here and there and so we've identified a few items that probably need to be sent to you immediately for immediate correction and some others that will send more package later. Thank you. I guess if there's any questions, of course. Well, I think Leslie took care of that but I'm Barbara Connery. I'm current member of the Planning Commission and I'm very excited about the work that we're doing on the city plan and really look forward to being able to continue. So, thanks. Hi, I'm Kim Genie. I sent you all a note saying I'm going to be away for a good part of the winter. I don't want any special treatment if that's an absolute requirement and I wouldn't be qualified. On the other hand, if possible, I'd like to serve. I think kind of being at the beginning of the zoning process and working with the prior plan and seeing how it worked out, more importantly, working with Mike and the Planning Department and the fellow commissioners, I do think we have the opportunity to have a really productive group and it's fun to work with. So, if I can be of service to the city, I'd like to continue. Thank you. Hi, Stephanie Smith. I live over on Charles Street. I'm a current member of the Planning Commission. I was appointed back in February, so I'm one of the two newest members of the Planning Commission. But it's been a really great experience so far getting caught up on what happened with the zoning since I missed what actually happened but now talking to the punch list. And I'm a planner. I'm particularly excited about getting to work on the city plan. I currently work for the state of Vermont doing climate change adaptation planning at a state level, so it's good to be able to bring that to a more local perspective and work with my planning experience on the community where I live and help to continue to keep this a vibrant place. So, I would very happily stay on the plan. All right. I think that is it. So, yes, Rosie. I move that we go into executive session for the purpose of, in accordance with one VSA section 313. I'm sorry, Rosie. I can't even hear you. Oh, I move that we go into an executive session for the purpose of an appointment in accordance with one VSA section 313. Second. All in favor? Aye. Okay. We will be right back. Testing 123. Testing 123. Testing 123. Testing 123. Testing 123. Testing 123. Testing 123. Testing 123. Testing testing. This is awesome. Stepping away from the microphone. Motion to come out of executive session. So moved. Second. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye. Okay, so we're going to go in order here. So planning commission. I move that we appoint for the four two-year terms Leslie Welts, Barbara Connery, Kirby Keaton, and Stephanie Smith, and for the three one-year terms John Adams, Arianne Kasim, and Aaron Kiziki. Second. All in favor? Please say aye. Aye. Opposed? Okay. And I just want to say directly to Kim Cheney, thank you so much for your service since 2011. We're so grateful. And best of luck in all your travels. And I also want to invite anyone who, I guess I'm speaking to Brian now, but anyone who was not appointed, I want to specifically invite you to apply for the design review committee as there are positions there that we're still looking to fill. So thank you so much to all. All right. And so moving on, design review committee. All right. I'd like to make a motion to appoint Liz Pritchett as the alternate on the DRC. Second. For the discussion. All in favor? Please say aye. Aye. Opposed? Great. Congratulations both. And thank you for committing to serve. All right. So moving on, we're going to go to the housing task force update. And so I think I'm, you know who you are.  And just to make a note of that, I'm going to go to the housing task force update. So I think I'm, you know who you are.  And just to make a note of that, I'm going to invite you all up. And just to make a note, I think we don't have to make any decisions tonight on this topic, but it's nice. Yes. But looking forward to the, this update. Just educated. We're not beyond begging. No, you're going to get back. No, you're going to get back. Totally fair. Kevin or somebody could sign you. So yeah. Just go. Now the pressure. Well, Kevin's calling this up. My name's Jen Haller. And with me is Polly Nickel. And we're the co-chairs of the housing task force. And this is the first time we've appeared before this council. So what we'd like to do is kind of give you just a quick overview of what the housing task force does, what we're up to currently. And then talk a little bit about one of the tools that we oversee the housing trust fund and make some recommendations as you head into the, into the budget season. And with us in the crowd today are other members of the task force, Jim Libby and Liz Gange and Mary Alice Bisbee and Joe Triano and Representative Hooper also often join us along with others on occasion. So we're grateful for their contributions. So actually throughout the presentation, you'll see a sprinkling of pictures from various housing, affordable housing neighborhoods and properties around the community. And here is a picture of the groundbreaking for Taylor Street, which is very exciting and underway. And then on the bottom are North Branch apartments, which are along Elm Street. And we're redeveloped by Down Street Housing and Housing Vermont some number of years ago. So you're familiar with this, but our basic job is to advise the city council on housing issues. We also have the specific task of developing guidelines for the use of the housing trust fund. And then we make recommendations around that to you. We'll be doing that a little later on in addition to recommending funding levels for the trust fund. And basically what we're about is trying to promote an adequate supply of safe, decent housing that's affordable at a range of income so it really can serve everyone in our community. And we're supported by the Department of Planning and Community Development and most specifically by Kevin Casey. Things that we're working on right now include developing recommendations to you for an update to the guidelines that provide for the oversight and use of the housing trust fund. That was something I think you discussed a few months ago and thought maybe there needed to be a revision and an update so we're happy to dive into that. And there's a subcommittee that's working on that. We'll bring those back to you when it's a good time for you later in the year. We're also, we participated in the kickoff meeting that the Planning Commission held around the new city plan. And we'll be coordinating with them around the housing element or the housing chapter of that. And we'll be supporting and looking, the Good Samaritan Haven as they enter into the second year of hosting with Bethany Church the warming shelter and seeing if there are things that we can do to help them with that work. So as part of the Planning Commission process we went through the development of what should the city's goals be or the housing task force goals be for housing. It's pretty detailed. They're structured as aspirations in order to be consistent with other committees. And essentially it's about we want to have enough housing available and affordable to serve the people of our community. We want housing that's safe, healthy, energy efficient and in neighborhoods that are vital and have easy access for people that are accessible and also allow people to easily access the important elements of our community. And then finally, we want housing that's available to all, that's absent discrimination and that provides for really inclusive community. So all pretty basic stuff, but it's important to have it down somewhere so you can reference it and look back to it. So things that happen in the housing world and the housing market go far beyond our city borders. And much of it is, we're at the whim of larger economic trends and things that we can't really control but there are lots of things that municipalities can do and Montpellier is already doing a lot of them. And they're in these kind of four general areas around regulation. And examples of that are permitting. They've just updated the zoning. Building codes help set the stage for the kind of housing that can happen in our community. There's of course planning through the master plan but also housing and economic development strategies that people are updating and working on. And of course funding is an important element and that happens through the Housing Trust Fund but also in terms of how the city chooses to fund infrastructure. The TIF district is an example of that. And then by being willing to sponsor and secure or apply for state CDBG grants that brings a lot of resources. So that's another way in which the community supports housing here. And then there's education. So one example of that is the Montpellier Housing Task Force helped host a community conversation on homelessness about a year and a half ago, I think. And I think that helped people understand what was happening in our community. We were seeing more homelessness. A lot of people was concerned. What's the best way to help people? What isn't helpful? And then I think that it actually helped make the community more welcoming to the warming shelter when that was proposed. Another example of education is just how does the city talk about housing? How does it represent itself to developers? How does it communicate with people who come in for permits? How does it characterize what kind of funding is it going to be for housing? What is the message to sort of the external world about the city's intention around housing? Another example is just that we just got an email today from Jim Libby that the federal tax reform included some incentives for private building owners to sprinkle their buildings. So maybe we'll look into that and the Housing Task Force can have a session and encourage people to come and see if that's one way in which we can get some of our older buildings sprinkled that aren't currently. So housing's all about the people who live in it. Fundamentally, it's a basic need. We need to provide it for our citizens.  You can't be a good citizen. You can't be a good parent. You can't be a good student, employee, advocate. So that's the primary purpose, but housing is also the foundation for lots of other benefits and public goods that we want to see in our community. And these are some examples. So for example, when Montpelier supports unaffordable housing development or new neighborhood, that comes with a high standard of energy efficiency and often includes renewable energy sources as the heating. That's been the case in many instances. Diversity is another thing we don't always think about when we think about making sure there's enough affordable housing in our communities. But not only is it ensure economic diversity, but it also brings cultural diversity. Often new Americans that first come to Vermont from different parts of the world, other refugees or others can find their first homes. I mean, they're just getting their feet under them, and often they need affordable housing as a place to land and build their lives here. In fact, the property that you see here in the background, the top is a picture of what the North Branch apartments looked like long ago. It was an incredibly distressed, blighted, and then ultimately flooded a section of Elm Street, and it took a concerted effort on the part of many led by down street housing and community development to revitalize that. In time that became home to many of people who were fleeing the wars in Central Europe, and there were a lot of Bosnian and Serbian families who lived there for quite some time. That's just one example. It's also an example of neighborhood revitalization. You can see that many of the affordable housing projects that we do end up in historic buildings. So that meets that goal of keeping the historic character and preserving unique spaces and places in our community. Whenever there's a project like that that's done, it brings dollars along to deal with lead, asbestos, off and brown fields. Some of the properties that I'll show you in a little bit were on contaminated sites, and those projects bring along resources in order to clean that up that we wouldn't otherwise be able to do or be hard pressed to do. Those dollars can be really expensive. And then it grows the grand list. You saw the memo that Pauli and the task force prepared. There's lots of information in there, but it's pretty substantial the grand list growth that the affordable housing projects in Montpelier have contributed. So all that's great. So what's the challenge? What are we looking at here in Montpelier? And these are sort of the main things we're wrestling with. And they're all going to sound familiar to you. Rising rents, rising home prices, very low vacancy rates, a shortage of moderately priced homes, and there's statistics and data around that in the memo. And unfortunately, persistent homelessness. There had been a dip in statewide homelessness and in Washington County in 2015. It bumped up in 2016, again in 2017, and it's remained kind of level in 2018. So it's a problem that hasn't gone away. So these challenges are consistent with national trends, but they're exacerbated by Montpelier being a highly desirable place to live. That's putting pressure on our housing prices, both rental and home ownership. This is a quote that just kind of characterized that. It comes from the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard, lots of data there, but it kind of puts what we're experiencing here in Montpelier and the national context.  And there are a lot of reasons for that. So we feel the pinch here in Montpelier. Hadn't done what it has done, it would be a lot worse. So some of the mechanisms we have in place are helping. And here are some signs of recent progress. So created a successful home buyer program. Gone through the zoning update, which has reduced some of the barriers to housing development. The sprinkler ordinance was seen by many as a barrier to new homes being built. There are several housing projects underway. There's the French block, Taylor Street. There's a private project on Maple Lane down by River Station Condos and the co-op. All those are really encouraging signs. The warming shelter has been welcomed and successful the first year. And the city has very strong partners in down street housing and community development, the Montpelier Housing Authority, and the Good Samaritan and Haven, among others. Paul, is there anything you wanted to add here? Or I can just run through a few examples of... Okay, so here's a few quick shots of properties that the Housing Trust Fund has been used to invest in before. 58 Berry Street, Old High School. Many of you will remember that there was a fire there some years ago and a lot of conversation around how are we going to restore this building? What should it be? There were housing trust fund dollars helped bring other state and federal sources. The city applied for community development block grant and that is now 18 affordable senior apartments. Gorgeous apartments, which is what you sometimes get in historic properties and then, of course, an incredibly active senior center. So the Housing Trust Fund was a key element in that. And my day job is as I'm working for a housing funder and I can say if the dollars are really competitive, really lots of communities are stepping up and looking for those state and federal dollars. And if the funders don't see that a community is willing to invest in itself, they're less likely to want to commit the dollars that they have to those communities. This one's a little bit further down on Berry Street called the Bianchi Building. It was formerly an auto bond auto parts. It was vacant for a time. You can see it's all boarded up. But again, it's been redeveloped and is now is eight affordable apartments right across the street with river station apartments and condominiums. That was in a former industrial site, Brownfield, hazardous contamination. And the city played a really central role in helping to make that possible. And now, you know, when you think about it, those are affordable, desirable homes that are on a section in a part of our community that is changing a lot. You can see a lot of people investing along Berry Street. There's Caledonia Spirit, it's happening. You can see people investing in the buildings, the privately owned buildings all around these properties. And I think when our community continues to grow, the bike path, it's going to happen down that corridor. And it's really fortunate that the city has invested in affordable housing here, and those are required through housing subsidy covenants to stay as affordable housing. So there's always going to be a place for people of all incomes in that part of our community. And this is the one that's underway right now. The French block, 175,000 in housing trust funds help secure a total of 6 million in state and federal funding for 18 mixed income apartments. There will be some dedicated to the homeless. There'll be some that are market rate and just rented at fair market rents. And it's clearly right in the heart of our community. It's just across the street. And I think this is where I'll pretty much finish up. But so the housing challenges, I mean, the government can't do everything, but government must provide public funding to provide housing where the private market can't do it. And the private market can't build housing and rent them at affordable rents and cover their costs. So that's why government needs to put in subsidy, essentially, and that's what the city's doing when they support the housing trust fund. And also, the private sector can't take on challenges. These are pictures of the upper floors of the French block. There's lead, there's asbestos. There's more lead paint hazard there than even the equipment our lead program has could even measure. It was a really challenging layout. And for 70 years, the private sector wasn't able to step in and make that work. And so it's taken the public funding to do that and it's going to be a real resource for us. So those are examples of what the housing trust fund has been able to support in the past. And now Polly will talk about the home buyer program. Okay, well, I wanted to just spend a few minutes digging a little deeper into the housing trust fund. The housing task force truly believes that the trust fund needs a predictable and growing pot of money. And as Jen said, it's really been key to redevelopment of projects in Montpelier. $635,000 has been spent since 2007 when the trust fund started. But that has generated an additional $4.3 million for the city's grand list. And when the French block is completed, that number will go up. And that $4.3 million is almost $120,000 annually in new taxes. And as Jen said, it's leveraged tens of millions of dollars in state and private investments. To remind you of what the Economic Development Strategic Plan says, it calls for a variety of housing types, quote, to build the pipeline of workforce talent. And it also says an adequately funded trust fund will be an important tool in financing the variety of housing types called for in this economic development strategic plan. So, brief history, it was in the memo, it began in 2007 as one cent for housing. And the public support, it was a valid item and the support was so strong that after a few years, the council decided it should just be part of the city budget. Jen showed you some of the projects that it has funded, and it has also funded a program which is the first time home buyer program. In terms of projects, the trust fund has facilitated the creation of 94 new multi-family units, mostly apartments but some condos, and the purchase of 16 homes by first time home buyers. So, we think that both programs are important. The multi-family rentals bring lots of investment and resources to the city. They clean up blighted or vacant properties. They add to the housing stock. And it's an important tool to maintaining an economically and culturally diverse community. And as we said, it adds to the grand list. First time home buyers program encourages young families to buy in the city. It enables older homeowners to downsize and it puts kids in our schools and it brings in state aid to education. And the community development staff did a little survey of people who had received first time home buyer program money in the past. And here are just a few of the results. 75% of those surveys reported the program made them more interested in buying in Montpelier. 75% said it made it possible or helped them to afford a home in our community. And 87% said it was the best form of first time home buyer assistance as opposed to something else like a rehab loan. So just a couple quotes. One simply said the first time home buyer down payment assistant program made it possible for my family to purchase a home in Montpelier. But this one I think really captures it. Scratching together the down payment was difficult, especially trying to save while paying off student loans. That coupled with childcare costs and decent but not great wages. We looked at other local communities that were less expensive, mainly Berry and Berrytown. But with the down payment assistance we were able to move to Montpelier, thanks. And that just I think captures the essence of the program and what we're hoping for. So what do we think the trust fund needs? We had a long conversation at the housing task force about how much we should ask for. And what we decided was we would start with what we really thought was needed to keep it healthy, to fund a multifamily development like the French Block every two to three years and to have a modest first time home buyer program. And the number we came up with was 150,000. And we know that's a bold request but that's what we think is really needed. And in the memo, and we're not going to take your time to go through it today, we did give you some suggestions that have been used elsewhere in the country by other municipalities to generate money to support affordable housing. To date it's come from the general fund. It would be great to maintain a base allocation from the general fund, but there's also some other ideas that we've laid out for you to explore to augment it. So just in conclusion on the trust fund, we want to say we think it's been highly successful. The photos that Jen has shown you have illustrated that. It's leveraged millions of dollars in other resources. It's allowed the city to demonstrate to funders specific projects. It's commitment to providing affordable housing. It's restored vacant or underutilized properties. It's added to the housing stock. It's added to the grand list. The first time home buyers program has enabled young families with children to buy homes in the city. And many of these families would not have been able to do so without help from the fund. It's also, and I think this is really important, it's sent a message that Montpelier wants to encourage young families to move to the city. Realtors know about it, they talk about it. It's a positive message on behalf of the city. So we also wanted to say thank you to the council for the past support of the trust fund. And we hope that as you begin to build next year's budget, you seriously consider requests for increased funding and look at our suggestions for ways that that might be accomplished. And I just wanted to close with this picture. And the little boy there is my father. And he's sitting on the front porch of their apartment on Berry Street. And he lived in rental housing through his childhood. His dad worked on the railroad and helped build 89. His dad's dad was a mailman. And his dad's dad's dad was the station master at the Depot building across from Shaw's. And it wasn't until I was 10 when my parents were able to buy their first home and they bought a ranch on Berlin Street. And it was from there that they were actually be able to build some equity and some assets and they were able to provide opportunities for my sister and I and then ultimately our kids that he and his previous family hadn't been able to enjoy. But the reality is that my family or people who have those kinds of professions couldn't afford to live in Montpelier now. So I think and then there are a lot and they were I mean they were fine but they couldn't afford to live in Montpelier and there's a lot of people who struggled and had less than they did who certainly couldn't afford to live in Montpelier. So I think it's really important that we stay mindful of making sure that our community is a place where people of all walks of life can live and make their lives. And that's it. Thank you so much. So questions. Yes Rosie. So I have one question. I read your memo and I was interested and intrigued by the idea of a property transfer tax on housing houses sold above $500,000. And I don't know if you did any research or if maybe city staff can look into whether a charter change would be required in order for us to implement that. I think it might be and before we kind of investigate that idea further that would be an important piece of information. And that was Mary Hooper's sense that she said yeah I think it would require a charter change. So that would be, I would be interested in having city staff look into that a little bit more if others are interested in that. I was also interested in that one. And part of the theory behind that is there aren't a lot of sales yet in that price range but you can just see them creeping up. There's a lot in the $400,000 range now and information that the Regional Planning Commission gave us said there was 29 properties a month here that are residential properties that are valued over. You know it seems like the time to do it is now. And I would assume that if we did we would put a tag it to inflation and you know that sort of thing. But I think a first step is to figure out if we even have the power to do it and if we don't then that makes sense to me. That makes sense to me. Yeah we should definitely do that. Rosie, I mean Rosatana. I was interested quite at $500,000 and not before $400,000. So I just, is there some parallel of other communities doing this at that level? No it was, it just you know it's a nice round number. It also seems that at that level then that's not going to create a hardship for anybody who's paying that amount and maybe it's okay for them to provide some funding to help for people who aren't able to buy a $500,000 house. Yeah or $400,000. There are a lot of houses that you would think that just three or four bedrooms that a family might need that are in the $400,000 range now. I just wanted to thank you. It seems as though the housing task force over the years has been really mindful of the impacts of gentrification on communities and I think that while well-intentioned often gentrification leads to a complete lack of diversity and it's clear that that's something that your committee has considered and I think that the council is also really trying to work on but I just, I felt it important to acknowledge that it seems like people in town are aware of that and are actively working to prevent that from happening in our community. It's been along the same lines. I've been working with the Community Justice Center. The biggest thing I've noticed is some of the folks getting out of prison you know probation or parole really the key to their success is being back in their communities where they have that support system and we see people getting sent back to prison just because they can't find proper housing. So I'm just sort of curious are there conversations with the Community Justice Center in cases where there are publicly funded like housing units available are there restrictions put on somebody with a criminal history? I just want to make sure these folks have a shot when they do get out here. Yeah it is a little tricky because if there's federal funding unfortunately you can't have ever had a mess lab in your house and you can't have a criminal record or the two things that so those are but I think that there are some ways there can be an appeal and some things that can be done but it does present a challenge but I do know that the Community Justice Center has been in touch around some of those things and that's certainly a population we want to serve. And Liz who's the property manager for Downstream? Let's hear that if that's okay. Can you say your name? Hey Liz can you say your name? Liz Gage Great thank you And also a member of the task force that agreed on this but I do want to just say that the Community Justice Center is not familiar and we are going to be masquerading some of our market movements that presumably do that with the service bureau do that for this market shelter so things like that those partnerships that one household has Thanks very much Anyone else? Jack This isn't a question but I just want to observe we've got two new co-chairs and I've been on the housing task force for a long time and I go to the meetings now there's tremendous very positive energy the people on the task force are very knowledgeable and experienced and I think things are going as well with the task force as they have gone in maybe ever and it's a real contribution to the community So I guess I would just add I mean you did in your memo include some alternate funding mechanisms as well and I'm certainly interested in having a conversation about what's the right level of funding it was $150,000 and I think probably the best time to have a conversation is around budget time but I'm looking forward to to that but then also thinking about these other avenues as well and I just wanted to put out there that I would be I'm just going to obviously just speaking for myself here I would be interested in having a further conversation around you know the gosh it was like one, two and three and four anyway what were they so it was the reinvestment of a percentage of revenue from added value value added due to y'all's investment the second one is reinvesting a percentage of new revenue from development in general I think you know that's I think worth a conversation talking about meals and alcohol attacks I mean we dedicated that to infrastructure development I think this certainly counts so that would be interesting but especially the one Rosie brought up the surcharge for homes itself for more than $500,000 and if it's really 400 you know whatever the right price is I think that's fine those I mean I think those would be that would be a lot to talk about and you know I don't know if we wanted to try to do try to focus on one of them I mean it probably makes sense to try to just like do one at a time but I just want you to know that I'm certainly open to those great Eileen did you have something you want to say yes so I just talked loudly yeah really close or you can take it out of the stand alright just two quick comments maybe also introduce yourself thank us fun but two things I want to highlight and Jen mentioned the issue of getting community investment in projects so we've had some great success in the past few years and you know there's a lot of factors that play into it but in no small part was the fact that the city was able to utilize the funds from the trust funds who you know get french block to happen those kind of projects it's an incredibly competitive environment the needs are you know nationally all over the state so it makes a huge difference having that money available when the time comes to try to do a project like a french block so critical funding to have that trust fund and I feel it's done a great job and there are not you know we that's I get to highlight that asking for money and support and the other thing I really wanted to highlight is the first time phone buyer program it's super popular we administer the program but the quote that Holly shared just really speaks to it and I'm not sure you know how aware everyone is of the college debt and childcare crisis that young families are facing today it is a huge issue we are now sort of talking I've been speaking to Northfield Savings Bank and the state treasurer about this that we feel like this could be the next housing crisis coming our way because young families just cannot afford home ownership and we saw the quote from the Harvard group that it's a national problem so having that little extra bit that $7,500 or whatever we decide it's going to be makes a huge difference so I really support the recommendation that the task force made for the $150,000 and I think given the history you can really understand any other questions also that was but you know I think I'd like to just tie a thread together I've asked that the commission council consider devoting some real time to broadband planning and its connection but here's the connection is that the affordability of housing is directly tied to your other expenses and if people are going to spend $100 a month extracted by Comcast and taken out of state our broadband plan can provide circumstances like downstream one building can be fed with a gigabit circuit and it might cost $10 a month to the tenants living there so there's planning that you need to be engaged with that can bring the cost to this housing down in more ways than one thank you my name is Laura Gephardt and I'm the executive so I just wanted to come and speak in support of the housing task force and their requests tonight I do want to highlight from the great presentation a very thorough presentation and memo that they provided that the vacancy rate is across the board so we're feeling this tightness in the housing market at all levels of income and I think it's so wonderful and we're very fortunate to have light down the street and the people who sit on the housing task force but I do want to bring attention to a large majority of the folks who work in Montpelier that still cannot afford to live here or are barely able to afford to live here and it just highlights a really challenging situation that market rate housing is really difficult to build from a private standpoint so I'm encouraged by the continued conversations coming out of the housing task force and I look forward to being part of those a little bit more and just bringing some perspective from the business community as well and some of the challenges that they're facing and attracting future talent how do we do so for the talent that wants to live in proximity to where they work and for the talent that wants to be living in an engaged community like Montpelier so I just want to have you keep that in mind as you consider their requests as well the housing task force serves as a whole host of housing needs in this community Thank you Laura Okay, thank you so much Thank you for your time Thanks for taking the time Okay, moving on to the proposed parking garage structural design update Do I understand correctly that you were projecting something also? Yeah I'm going to try Okay, good But by way of backup I'm going to give you a slice Turn it out Is that what you were going to do? Is that what you were going to do? I'm going to put this image up and leave it up there are other images in the package and I'll use those if people have questions When last we met with the council we talked about the form of the garage the way in which circulation worked and the council made a selection to go with a switchback or single helical style of garage We got a lot of great input from the community regarding the design of the cladding of this garage and we've been focusing in the last week on that issue as well as a couple of critical permit issues The image that's put up here is a view sort of from about 80 feet in the air looking to the west over the garage towards the proposed Hampton Inn the gray box you can kind of see in the background is the existing capital plaza the far left-hand side of the screen you can see just a small piece of the One Taylor Street project close by it's a little difficult to discern separate from the capital plaza is the mass of the proposed apartment building that Christ Church made at some point do The big change here I think in terms of the floor planning one thing that I do want to point out is that after hearing from the public and working on this this proposal shows a ground floor that is more or less level and the idea behind that is two-fold one is it helps us advance our design issues with the with the flood plane managers but it also creates some additional utility to this structure and allow for alternative uses of this ground floor if a policy ever evolved to make that possible and I think it's it's an answer to people who had hoped for the whole building to have flat floors but it's also sort of strategically in the best possible place because it can act as a continuation of the Haney lot which as I understand it will continue to host at least a portion of the farmer's market and so there's a possibility of some creative crossover there. So the other thing about creating a level ground floor is it allows us to more closely design the structure to comply with section 2101E of the unified development regulations which is essentially not sure it really applies in this case but it's a good guideline to go by in terms of articulating the structure in more interesting ways. So as you look at it one of the things we've changed is we've alternated the pattern of solid and green wall systems in order to more closely conform with the regs any one bay of material is going to be about 42 feet long. None of them are longer than that. So what you get is you get a solid spaced with a green piece with another solid with a green piece and from a distance what that will do is give the impression of smaller buildings and hopefully goes a long ways towards making it so that it's not it doesn't read as one big building. Also as you look at the corner of the structure here where the masonry is you see a sort of clear delineation of the bottom a strong band at the top of the first floor a sort of shaft and then a strong cornice at the top this is also a reflection of the LDRs the unified development regs in Montpelier and so we wanted to address that specific concern it was raised you can also see that we've provided a lot more glass into the stair towers so you can kind of see the stairs switching back and forth inside the stair tower and lastly we've created places as you can see about halfway down the south side there where there's that big arch which would be a granite wall and above that we're showing gallery panels for some pretty significant public art those are paintings I like they're not necessarily what I'm hopeful is though is that a public process could begin to sort of start thinking about what that art might be a great way to bring the citizens of the city back sort of into the process in a more creative way but we also since this is going to be this side of the building the south side of the project is going to be facing Confluence Park the new Confluence Park it sort of creates a more interesting and more lively backdrop to that public event oh boy this is not my computer so I'm not quite sure I'm going to pop up exterior elevations oh can I open the other one sorry about this this is not my computer no I'm just not that clever when it comes to these things I just want to maximize the image and here you see it in elevation form and I think that makes it a much more clear case as far as the alternating patterns of masonry and green grovey stuff with the with the gallery panels and the big stone arch sort of centered on the facade facing south you're seeing the obverse view of that which is the the side facing State Street a little more closed in for a portion of that but that's where we would overlap with a proposed future apartment building at Christchurch yeah it's it those are openings I'm not sure why that one particular came off as dark but all those large rectangular openings I still am advocating for a sort of sculptural effect inside those portals and you know we'll work out in more detail as we go through the design advisory committee and the development review board but that was an idea the first iteration of this garage I'm not ready to give it up because I think it's got potential to be kind of interesting and exciting way to handle that but what this what this facade does do is it does allow us to have enough open space in the garage that we don't have to mechanically ventilate it and it also goes a long ways towards addressing flood issues and principally I think it's a much better fit with the with the unified development regulations now written so cars are in there you won't see straight through though right so where you have those angular well they correspond with openings on the other side of the building right but in between there's cars so you can see cars there would be stuff inside the garage I just want to bring up the civil site plan this is a an image of the footprint showing some key features the civil engineering our under development I bring this up to point out we're maintaining a drive driveway access to the adjacent property you can also see it I don't know if I can use a cursor yeah so you can see in this area here where we're showing a secondary means of exit from the garage and also access to this adjacent property younger there is a 20 foot setback from the top of the bank in this district the plan as presented now complies with that but the property line cuts right through here so we have set the corner of the building to comply with that regulation even though they're intervening property over one other thing I want to bring up since it was a very important part of our discussion last time was hang on a minute I don't know if I can do this well there are multiple sheets so I need to go to sheet and close this one please bear with me I'm sorry I don't know if I'm seeing it anyhow in your application packages there were utility drawings showing our accommodations to the people at Christchurch I think there was some concern that because the display materials at our last meeting didn't include that that there was some diminution of our commitment to making that work and I just want to reiterate that we have made plans in the design of these two properties to address stormwater concerns raised by the folks at Christchurch and vetted by their independent engineers I know that's continuing concern to the church folks so I'm going to continue to bring it up this is a more for a drawing of the original the original subdivision the original plan has approved in case anybody wanted to see that this shows a relationship with the top of the garage the parapet at the high point as it addresses the Hampton index door so you can see that the top of the garage extends up to about the floor level of the fourth floor of the garage except for this little bit of a tower here on the on the end which is as tall as it is because there's an elevator inside there that needs to go to the top level and so I know that that also shows pretty well so can I ask a question about that drawing that makes it look like there really isn't a pedestrian walkway between the garage and the Hampton Inn has that changed now to the other side or is there still intended to be a there will be a there will be a if sorry I'm trying to do things at once there will be a ten foot space between those buildings with an imaginary property line between them and a five feet off of each each structure you know the the illustrations are sort of artistic conception doesn't show that space as wide as it should be but I think I don't know why that is but the working drawing show that space we are still contemplating some kind of pedestrian access via the Haney lot to the rear portion of the site and those details will emerge as we go through development review this this view in particular was created to help show that relationship with the overlap of the garage even though they are close together that overlap is fairly short because this portion of the hotel is narrower than the rest of the building so from here on down to the the remaining corner that's all open and in that latest version of this we've included some green screen facing westward towards the Taylor Street entrance of the project and this also shows the degree to which the facade is notched out there's a fairly significant break in plane there and then the individual planes are sort of going back and forth as well so lots of improvements in the sort of fine grain detailing of the garage as been our primary focus since we last met with you the engineering drawings are proceeding at pace and a major application package will be submitted to the city tomorrow morning reflecting these changes with any comments that members of the council and the public may have to see that's the broad overview and then I'd like to set myself up for questions I'd like to Thank you Alright Jack go ahead this picture on is there am I seeing a wall on the ground there sort of at the left of the picture we have the railroad tracks and then parallel to that over to the right a little bit it looks like a wall is that what it is because the grade is higher at the parking garage level what we are proposing is the project site will drop in volume by about four feet that's going to do several things for us it's going to allow the south wall of the garage to be remained open for flood flows it also sort of takes the balance of this site and kind of puts it all down at the Haney lot level so that the pedestrian features can work together and most importantly that's volume that we need for the flood plane management to work in this part of town I think everybody should know as I mentioned at the last hearing our goal here is when this project is done to have no net increase in the amount of no lost volume of storage capacity relative to flooding and so what you're seeing is yeah that we would drop grade in and around the building to expose more of it to open up the ground floor facade to compensate for the balance of the development thanks so I would oh you go ahead sorry I think this is going to be a quick one on the same drawing I'm curious about just how the green walls work this is something that was pointed out to me after the last presentation that the green walls in these renderings don't go all the way to the ground so it looks like they must be structures or something like that especially on that what would that be the east wall well I don't know if you know this if you look at the south side you'll see those do come down to grade the ideally these will be planted in soil around the building and they'll train up to grow on it this north side the rendering was a little quick but I think what we haven't illustrated yet is there needs to be a green buffer at the bottom of that wall for those things to be planted in they can grow up the security grade that we have below on that side of the building I think in the hurry you get the rendering out today though we just we've stopped landscaping at like three o'clock but the idea is generally that they would be rooted in the ground soil yes these would not be there are some living wall systems where there are like little buckets of soil watering systems and things those are generally that's not what we're trying to do here what we're doing is kind of a robust trellis and we're looking for more native plants to grow from ground level up sorry are you talking about this portion as well here yeah I guess I'm a little worried about that because there is part of me that likes the option of having that be open and just like visually having it be sort of a part of that anyway I just want to express it what are some of the best feelings about that I wonder so I think the reason I'm like you maybe like the idea of it being open is that potentially you know farmers market could move under there on a rainy day or that kind of you know maybe has some interesting like you're talking about with the flat floor and so then if there's not a way to get in there if it's all maybe some sort of interesting rod iron gate or something that could be opened up and then the rest of it is vines sure you know and I think those are the kinds of things that we'll sort out as we go through the design review process pedestrian accesses will be facing states both both up adjacent to the hotel and also down at the other end of the project say here on the east end we talked to also the police department and you know one of the things we want to do in terms of safety thing is sort of sort of have control over entrance and egress so that you know people can use the garage of confidence you know it just creates a more secure environment to sort of control where people come and go from but yeah I don't think the entire length of that green screen has to have events that they can get up there once they climb up the building they'll spread wherever they can so before you go down I just want to jump on that I'm glad that you mentioned police review because that's something that I'd also come up in conversation after the last presentation which is making sure that you know the police have had adequate you know time to review and and give their input into what they think is safe we've met with them on several occasions in service of the original project I think the values of the issues that we talked about then will remain in place we are talking about some form of video surveillance inside the garage and around its perimeter and I also mentioned the availability of emergency phones or intercoms on each level okay and they have looked at these drawings and the fire department have looked at these drawings once and they will look at them again I have two or three points one I'm really impressed that you took all the suggestions or so many and came out with something that looks really reasonable I actually like that arch where you put it and the art above it I don't like that you kept the towers flat but so maybe they could be arched too but also the conversation you were having about the opening one of the pictures was the the rooted plants like every parling so it wasn't the whole thing but instead of being totally open there would be like two so you still had room for cars and people so this makes it more feasible have it pretty open but yet still closed I'll incorporate that thinking into the east elevation as we move forward also I want to come back to Glenn I feel like I interrupted you did you have anything else okay I love that you have an archway in there and coming back to Glenn's comment the last meeting I like that it seems structural right at least I like the archway too it looks great I have a question this right here there's some kind of barrier there right yeah we look at the drawings you'll see there's a sort of a wrought iron fence that's about seven feet tall around the ground floor on the back sides I love the windows in the stairwells and up at the top of the parapets there and I think the art is great and I like that there's more like sort of detailed moldings I think that's really nice it's just it says it's an interesting building I really like it so thank you thank you other comments Rosen I had a couple I'm a little bit so this retaining wall on the railroad track is a new thing right it is well there let me back up and say throughout the process of the original Hampton Inn project and the original garage design there were always walls in the backs of these buildings but this this approach this sort of carving into the land is new so I just want to make sure we're really thoughtful about making sure we're in p pedestrian access to the park and that we do have good access points in spite of that wall and that you know maybe it's there's some I think there are opportunities but I want to make sure we don't forget that can I comment on that yeah I was actually glad to see that there was a wall there because I think technically people can't cross railroads anyway right so this is actually right so we put them where we want them to cross the road okay and that anyway sorry continue and then so we are supposed to have an ADA accessible access to the bike path and I'm very confused now about where that's going yeah I don't have I don't have a finished drawing illustrating exactly how that's going to work yet but it's it's an issue that's arisen out of this whole storm water thing so we're working on that the bike path sort of this little triangle green space you see here by the arch just about where it says type here to search it's where the bike path kind of comes around and we'll have to ramp up to that somehow because because we need to solve this volume problem so is the thinking now that that just that comes through the Heaney lot sorry that comes through the Heaney lot that's the thinking now yes I think based on the opportunity and the suggestion that's brought up I think that the plan situation I think we'll want to continue to have some kind of access from the hotel to that and I think we also want to provide a similar facility coming through the Heaney lot okay even if it ends up just being green stripes on the pavement we do want to make those connections back through and then the last question I have is about lighting and we didn't talk about that at all last time I want to make sure that we're really thoughtful about that because I think that there's a difference in how safe people feel and also in how the whole building fits in around to the the buildings around it so I don't know if you've got thoughts on that already or if that's to be decided and I was just going to try to find a so that's one thing we've been talking about right along is we want to use LED lighting everywhere we can because we would like to be able to sort of get this to a status of net zero in terms of energy use this would be the typical ceiling mounted light it's pretty big in diameter but we've got this kind of curvy theme happening in the elevations I guess I'm thinking more about exterior lighting so okay and then I show that because it comes with a I don't think that's going to be the right one okay here we go it corresponds to a matching site light so the lights on the top of the structure would be this out along the driveways and stuff previous approval showed a more traditional gas light looking fixture with an LED with LED guts and so for the surface driving areas in through the hotel projects and stuff we're going to continue that but inside the garage at the top floor the garage should see something like this and are these ones that'll reduce the light pollution that'll just be a good downward they're full cutoff fixtures okay and they're also completely LED so very energy efficient and dark sky they'll meet the dark sky requirement for this type of zone okay great Ashley did we ever resolve the issues that Christchurch raised at the last meeting well I think it was a concern mostly born out of the sense that they maybe hadn't they were looking at new drawings and they weren't seeing our earlier conversation reflected and that's why I was trying to bring my copy of C5 which I know I have printed out large scale I don't see it on the thumb drive unfortunately but our engineering package has always included I'm just going to hold this up for people this is a civil engineering growing C5 from the hotel project and it shows the improvements that were proposed to make the Christchurch people whole which included careful grading analysis some kind of drop inlet structure and a pathway to get to the main sewer system and some secondary yard drain just to protect the Memorial Garden from flooding our engineers worked through that designed it and then the church had engineering ventures of Burlington review and comment on the original design and changes were made so all of the output of that process remains in place and I think just because you were seeing preliminary drawings they didn't have every catch base drawn on it but I those items are still defined in our work and will still be part of this as far as the setback issue goes I think that's something we'll take up at the development or view board level but we are maintaining a green buffer space on the north side of the garage it may not be exactly what the previous iteration of the application showed but it is still a major concession in a no setback district I think there's ample opportunity for them to continue their plans to develop their property in a way that will work and you know we continue when we do visual analysis and stuff we continue to show their building as a place holder I don't know if they'll ever get happy but I can say that we've kept our commitments thus far and we haven't been we haven't retreated from any of the major elements that were necessary for this to work for them if I can just add to that Ashley we've met with them several times and we continue to meet with them and we've taken the MOU that they had through those issues on 8 out of 10 of them we're in complete agreement and we continue to work on the couple that we're just still working on but we meet with them regularly great thank you Donna in our packet last week we had the C4 but we didn't have the C5 could you get us whatever hey Donna can you speak into your yes thank you it's on this side we have C4 in our packet from last week but we don't have C5 and that would show us more clearly what you're talking about as the church potential housing sitting can you get that to us or the latest revision of it of course of course and bear in mind C5 is in the public record already it's part of the record drawings so it would be in the website well it would be in the packages for the original Hampton and Sweets application and improvements yeah but I'm happy to resubmit it for this application it would be helpful yeah I don't know why it didn't end up on the thumb drive I guess that's me in a hurry to get out of the office so I just want to check in any further comments from counselors and then we'll go to the public yeah sorry just one more so there aren't windows in the mid-section on this one here right is there what's the reason for that well that was me being architect I guess let me because the elevator's on the other side right so that's not it's on the opposite corner of the building right so she's referring to this blank section of wall here and it was okay I don't have a strong feeling I just was it was meant to put some ground space between this big panel of windows and this sculptural element here there's a bit of texture there that you know in an LED projector that is the part of that masonry forms columns on the corners and there's a little bit of a recess there okay and there's some interesting bonding going on in the brick too we're showing a Flemish bond which is a little more interesting so we've done some things here that aren't readable but that was intended to sort of space those two elements okay okay further questions from counselors okay any comments from the public looking forward to comments it's okay Steve Whitaker Chief Critic we continue to cut corners here I learned today that the driving force causing these corners to be cut is this supposedly secret document a thread from Hilton to the draw the franchise if we don't start building if Bashar doesn't start building this year I'm told that's available to the public in my frame of reference anybody who's asking for public assistance which Bashar is doing is required to disclose some of their privacy details a document proving that Hilton is not willing to extend this franchise into next year should be demanded by the council otherwise we're cutting corners for no good reason at all so if I may comment on that we work with Whitenberg and they're a third party and so they've been a great go-between for us carry on I'm still asking for the proper response if somebody's going to claim an exam or even give me a redacted version maybe the numbers of lease fees license fees are redacted but the threat to cancel the franchise I'd like to see that in writing a casualty of this among many that I'm talking to is faith and trust in government if we're barreling along it seems like some business leaders have made up their mind and you know we're going to duck and run like this was Kavanaugh and y'all were Republicans so they take that for what it's worth the garage economics are absolutely flawed we applied into a TIF plan for this district and I have confirmed that the cost of maintenance of the green wall are not factored in the air conditioned room for the servers the video equipment is not factored in there's a lot of the expenses of running this garage could be two to three or four or five times what they've been estimated at so and as I understand that the Bishara agreement is structured so he's got a fixed cost which means the overage of operations and maintenance last week my brother was here from Santa Monica and they have six of these garages in Santa Monica and the cost the necessity from all the brake dust and the rubbed off tire rubber chokes any plants and they require a weekly or biweekly power washing those costs are not built into our into our estimates here our maintenance costs similarly I heard about the maintenance of the drains the drains and filter system for the store water getting some real numbers at the cost of that maintenance and the frequency of it is essential the renderings they really misrepresent what here this is new that we're going to have a fortress wall whereas last week we were going to have exit from the garage out to the park and now we're told that you're not going to have an exit out in the back of the garage to go to the park you're going to hit a retaining wall this doesn't show the railroad bridge the railroad bridge extends 20, 40 feet into where this footprint is I just walked over there during your meeting and walked over to measures to pace off 20 feet it's literally 19 or 20 feet to the river at this corner but we're moving too fast we don't have our economics right we don't have our planning right we're trying to design aesthetics by committee and it's just reckless there's no traffic study I'm told that by our assistant city manager that we've contracted for one now but those take considerable amount of time to do when prior parking studies that I've looked at indicate two or three turnovers a day and if we have 300 spaces that are going to turn over two or three times two or three times we've got 1200 cars a day coming in and out of this driveway that's not going to be a quick traffic study I understand that state employees stay longer at hotel or off clock conflict with prior plans we have a Montpelier 2030 sustainability design sure that came out with a great vision and true it hasn't been fully adopted by the powers to be but it runs directly in conflict with this size of a building at this location so you're basically going to saddle and preclude a real confluence part the 2000 river front part talked about not putting the parking up against the river and open space and performance space and you're going to foreclose those opportunities if you just keep barreling down this road we need to get our alternative our rail and satellite parking plans done first before we determine whether we really have a need for this big of a parking structure at this location many people come to Montpelier because they like Montpelier the way it is not because they want to park in a garage to get to the stores you know street parking is part of the charm of Montpelier and I think the biggest risk is that the traffic created by this is going to necessitate turning the Haney lot because we didn't factor in that this driveway from Taylor to the north field saving banks cannot handle the load of traffic so I think I'm happy to elaborate at another time but I think I've made myself loud Montpelier thank you Steve other comments from the public okay thank you we're going to move on thank you so much thank you for your time if I may I'm actually I'm I'm looking at the public records in the state law in title one and there is a public-private partnership and there's some benefit derived by a governmental entity it kind of does seem like that agreement might actually be subject to disclosure if have we received a request at all for that or for the the development agreement because this city is going to be using TIF to the agreement between the Hilton and the Becherras well I think I mean so the only way that's going to happen is if the parking garage happens right is that correct so I think that it's sort of almost by default becomes part of a government project because the only way it's going to happen is if the government acts so I mean I think it's something that we can talk with Whitenberg about and the Becherras and go from there I mean it it just it just strikes me that if the the representation has been and I have no reason to doubt that it's just it seems like if that's one of the questions that is being asked like I would just say that it's a city garage it's built by the city it's owned by the city it's paid for by the city the Becherras will be leasing 200 spaces at the same rate that pretty much everybody else will be renting them at for 30 years so it's not quite as clear cut perhaps as Stephen makes it sound no and I'm not saying that it is clear cut but it seems that there would be at least a colorable argument that you could make and I know that you know the way that our statutes are drafted on the FOIA sort of like how this works with public private partnerships and I know it's an ongoing issue where we're contracting and subcontracting state business or other governmental services but it does seem as though it may be something that is subject to disclosure at least in part where particularly maybe the part with regard to well if this doesn't happen then by this date then this I think it's worth asking thank you okay moving on any other further comments okay great so we are moving on to thank you again thank you everybody and there will be other just so actually as we are moving on there will be other further opportunities for the public to weigh in if I'm not mistaken right you know I design review meetings etc review development review meetings at a minimum by legal requirement and there may be more if if people raise substantive issues great thank you thanks everybody okay so moving on to parklet ordinance so we we've got the parks commission oh I'm sorry why did I I think the park is so patiently sorry two minute break two minute break and then we'll okay so we are up to the parks commission so we want to welcome the parks commission up to the front here and I know Rosie you have done a lot of thinking and work around this so I may turn this over to you if you're okay no rush I think that we had had a lot of miscommunication with the parks commission and you know we thought we were communicating to you communicating to us and we set some goals around parks and maybe you have some goals that we don't know about and so we had a really great tour a bunch of us I think not the whole council had a nice tour a month ago of Hubbard Park and then also some other spots around the city and that was a really great start to kind of hear where you're focusing some of your efforts so we just kind of wanted to invite you here today to open up some of the lines about what your thoughts are how we can best communicate with you and how you'd like to communicate with us we have a couple potential new ideas and projects coming down the pike on our consent agenda the night was the purchase of a new piece of land and I know that some of the preliminary thoughts on that where parts of that might be park land and so wanting to get this year was to get a park on the south side of the river the other side of the river and so when we had that tour we started talking a little bit about that so this is sort of meant to be an open conversation and love to hear your feedback and what your thoughts are and just kind of start that conversation it's myself and most of you know me or at least I've seen me at this point but I'm Dan Dickerson I'm Dan Dickerson and I'm a member of the Parks Commission and I'll go ahead and have these two introduce themselves before I go on my name is Fabian Patterson my name is Fabian Patterson and also a commissioner and Bill Johnson also on the commissioner so I just want to say thanks a lot for having us I think this is a great opportunity to open a dialogue that frankly has been missing at least in the few years that I've well I don't even think it's that yet the time the limited time that I've been on the commission there hasn't been much dialogue between the commission and the city council aside from and I want to thank Councilman Bate she's actually taken a lot of her time to attend our meetings and she has provided some sort of valuable I guess city council person perspective to us which has been really helpful but I think I want to I want to lead it off by saying that you know we we in fits and starts we've sort of tried to take some initiative on you know coming up with you know a strategic plan that builds on what what is already contained within the green print so we have this park screen print document that basically you know it's really looking more towards expansion of the parks and a creation of of recreation trails but it also sort of touches on you know preserving existing spaces but not in a tremendous amount of detail and I think what what I would like to and I think what other commissioners like to do would be you know in the vein of what the city council does is says you know here are goals for this year how they correspond with you know the broader goals of our green print you know what the cost is or what we need to put together for staff time in order to do these things and then sort of key our budget off that you know I mean our budget currently is really sort of an ugly spreadsheet that shows you know salaries FICA health insurance equipment so it'd be really great I think for us and for you know you and the residents of Montpelier to see you know our our vision for a given year that shows these are the projects that we want to accomplish and you know here's the cost this will be a part of our greater budget and you know so people can vision that wow you know they're going to improve the gateway park or they're going to you know redo a trail and hubbard park and so that's I won't say that we've gotten there yet but that's sort of what we want to work on and I think our FY20 quest will sort of have some of that spirit I think going into the following year I think we really wanted to take this process forward and hopefully it will what we want will align with the city council that would be very helpful but I I do think that you know it would be nice to hear more from you about you know what you want as an elected body we have some autonomy but in the end you know you control the purse strings you write the ordinances so we're you know to some extent we're subservient to what you really want and hopefully we can all agree and you know communicate those things but I sort of wanted to I guess lay out the reality but you know I would like to hear more about what you're envisioning and we can certainly have a conversation about it amongst ourselves when we have our meetings sorry I'm not looking so glad you're here glad that we're having this conversation especially with having goals that overlap I think it makes sense that we're here and in fact it seems a little overdue you know one of the things that I thought was interesting from the memo that we got that included some language from our lawyer I found it really helpful in the parks commission sort of in the same way that people might think about the school board that it is a separately elected you know body that has this jurisdiction and and that it's in a certain sense like kind of parallel and that that was just a helpful framework for me but I think because you know because we are the sort of the financial body you know having closer interactions even like scheduled interactions I think makes sense and one of the things that I'm hoping to do with our next goals setting session which would probably be roughly next April you know so we'll back up this last April we included department heads as a part of the conversation of setting goals but I think it also makes sense to include not only you all you know in our meetings as well not that other committees are the same sort of standings but just getting just all the stakeholders in the room you know having all the interests represented and you know knowing actually going to that planning commission meeting where so many different groups were there to say what their goals were that was so enlightening and I wish that we done that sooner so other thoughts, comments so I guess there were a few areas that I'd like to at least start the conversation on tonight one of them is the areas of responsibility you know what are you going to do and what are we going to do especially in terms of developing these new parks and then I think there's been some confusion about who oversees the park staff and so that might be just an area for us to clarify if you feel that the parks commission is currently directing the park staff there's some confusion about who's giving them priorities and so we should clarify that because it's certainly going to be confusing from their end if they're hearing from different bosses and also confusing if they're not hearing from any bosses so talking about that and then as we've kind of alluded to those goals and priorities which sounds like that should be the sound sure I can I can take a stab at that so I think to respond to your first question which dealt with these the responsibilities of the parks commission as opposed to or not as opposed to but and then the responsibility of the city council so using Confluence Park as an example you know there's a piece of land the city owns it you know and I think you know in Paul Giuliani's eyes the parks commission can't say this is park you know that's up to you and that's what you did a few meetings ago although I you know it would still be nice to see sort of what the ultimate boundaries of the park would be but I doubt that will happen until the buildings there and the bike path is there but then you know the way I see it and I think the way his email sees it is from that point on this space of park it falls under our responsibility to to construct the park to maintain the park and control the park and so you know like I said before you hold the purse string so there's not a whole lot we can do without the money but you know on paper and in the in the charter those responsibilities for maintenance and if you fall to us and that's what we happily do because you know it's a really exciting space to have a new park I think on your on your second question as far as staffing you know we had a conversation about that we actually just had a special meeting last night to sort of set budget priorities but you know the way the way it was laid out to us from park staff and you know I mean I fully agree is you know they're ultimately they fall under you know Bill Frazier and Sue Allen's control so they're you know I mean if we tell them to do something there's so far they can go before they have to say you know we value our jobs and so then it fall you know if it's something that you know is directly conflicting you know a priority for us then it's up to the parks commission as an elected body to really push back to Bill Frazier or to the city council or Sue to say you know you know and then we would have that conversation you know diplomatically of course but I you know I think that's the way I see it I don't So it sounds like what you're proposing is that for the practice is that you would be communicating with Bill about what your priorities are and then having him communicate further to park staff about accomplishing those instead I think I think you know when it comes to the budget process we we work with them to figure out what funding we want and then you know Jeff takes that to you know to the staff meeting that they have within city hall I don't know what that entails but we've we've never or at least my knowledge we've never been a part of that process I don't know that you know I would I would want to I feel like on the budget subject you know if we really wanted money for something and and Bill Frazier wasn't willing to give the funding for that or at least propose the funding to that to the city council then I think you know we would have the power to come to the city council and say hey we really want this this is the reason why and you know lay out our our cause and you know it's still ultimately up to you to make the decision and I realize I missed another thing on here was communication which we've kind of alluded to a little bit but how would you prefer and we've done these kind of letters back and forth occasionally and that feels not the most productive so I might want to set some you know what how would you like us to communicate with you and how should you communicate with us one of one of the things that we just actually talked about yesterday to increase communication and we would like to actually increase our visibility in our presence and our connection with everyone so that as the projects develop they would be it would be a lot easier to develop them jointly we would be more involved with you guys I think so that the whole process I think would be clearer and I think easier and so if we're more visible that means it includes to the public the website we talked about you know just to so people know continue to educate people to so that they know who we are and how so come back I would work in process Bill Johnson I do have something I think we just need to communicate better up until now there really has been very little communication between the council and the commission an example would be when you set your goals for parks we weren't part of that discussion and I think that that has to change personally somehow we need to be at the table when issues having to do with management and maintenance of the parks are at issue and that really hasn't been the case and I actually talked to a couple of you about it so I'm glad we have this opportunity today to talk about it and hopefully work toward this we could have liaisons to talk back and forth I think primarily we do need to deal with because the other part of the puzzle that we haven't talked about too much is the manager's position and then the manager has considerable amount of power in the city and we just need the communication not to be just between the council and the commission but also the manager's office and there there has to be some sort of flow now exactly how did we accomplish that I'm not saying that I have any tremendous idea other than if it's a park issue let us know we would be happy to talk with Sue and Bill and or you and we can move forward from there it is a sort of an awkward position as people on the council have mentioned and it's the result of what John Hubbard wanted this is what it can be changed but that's what he put in his bequest and that's where we're at right now so at least until an ordinance changes that changes our relationship we just need to communicate better so if I may jump in there so we we did just talk about goals and having you be a part of our goals setting schedule really and I wonder if that schedule aligns with your goal setting schedule like I don't know when roughly you like if that would align because if you had goals that you wanted to accomplish the things that we would like to do and then I mean our goals setting and then our budget is often a little funny right because we set goals in April for the year but then you know some like kicking in in July is the next fiscal year right so and even now like in November we're going to be starting to talk about budgeting for goals that we haven't made yet which is a little weird so that's sort of an inherent quirk of our system but that seems like the other area of overlap right is the budget and so I mean I could picture like if you all had I mean your tasks with like control and maintenance of the parks and there's a third thing which I can't remember at the top of my head but but in any case if with any of those things I mean I'm sure you know Jeff and Alec come up with a budget but if there are other things that you want it in I'm sure probably they consult you on that as well but if you wanted to be like if we wanted to set that off to highlight it that this is coming from a really like a separate body you know I wouldn't mind calling it out as its own thing and giving you all a chance to speak specifically at during our budget session I mean what do you think about that there Rosie maybe okay I mean we're all just we're spitballing this right now like so I mean it's if Jeff and Alec if that sounds okay or interesting to you great if not like let's keep talking about it but I think especially since you know we want to honor that you know you all that you have a specific charge and and the overlap there is with the budget that feels like a way to honor you know that that parallel entities yeah the other thing I've been thinking about is you know since Donna has been going to some of your meetings I wonder if we should actually appoint a council representative for a council liaison to kind of be your point of contact with the council so that if you have an item that you want to draw our attention to you have some rather than trying to contact all of us you've got one person that you know you can have an you know go to and have an informal discussion whether you can have to come to your meetings or that kind of thing I don't know if that makes sense to others well as this conversation was going on one of the things I was struck by was that we have a whole lot of boards and commissions and committees in the city and most of them we have council members appointed to serve on those boards and commissions and for institutional reasons you know the council could not appoint somebody to be on the parks commission but it certainly leaves a gap an institutional gap in terms of communication and everything else and so I think formalizing it by appointing a liaison would be a useful thing I think that's something that we would certainly be amenable to and you know we would be happy to do the same so that we have a point person for you you know when issues come up dealing with the parks I know you know a few meetings go when I was here and I think we were talking about canines but you know which hopefully that won't go any further tonight but um but you know I think several counselors you know stated that they were getting emails with complaints about you know canine issues that were potentially happening in the parks so I can't recall the conversation precisely and that really concerned me because we weren't getting those communications and and I think to some extent you know maybe I think we do need to put ourselves out there more and make it clear that you know so you know having a liaison from the parks commission that you as city counselors can contact when issues come up I think would be really helpful and I think we can certainly do that and we would happily have a representative from the city council you know attend our meetings or you know just stay in touch with us to let us know what's going on so what you're saying is that if we get emails complaints about canine issues in the parks forward then yes we do want to know those things because actually you know and I guess I'll beat a dead horse a little bit more although talking about canines is eating up so much for a time but you know I think on this issue specifically I mean we really haven't gotten much you know negative feedback on the continued you know freedom that people have to walk is you know you know we weren't trying to sort of contradict what the city council concerns were it was really you know we're not getting communications that people are having issues so yes if you get you know canine complaints or cat complaints or bear complaints in the parks please please let us know and we'll do what we can to solve it and you know Jeff and Alec will help and will come to resolution okay thank you so much Connor and then I would love to I think we're wrapping this up seems like I was hoping to get the party started here and appropriate to make a motion to appoint Donna as the liaison member of the parks commission second yeah is there a second okay great all in favor please say aye aye opposed great thank you thank you all nice I had one final thing that I just wanted to know was on your radar I noted that that Morse Farm is no longer doing cross country skiing this winter which is very sad but I am expecting that that's going to increase the cross country ski pressure on the parks trails that are maintained for that and so I don't know if others feel that that you're thinking about that and thinking how you're going to manage that yeah one of us brought that up I don't think it was this I don't think it was yesterday but it was a couple weeks ago but you know yeah that's I think we're going to have an in-depth conversation about you know where can we improve our our capacity and you know whether it requires improving some trails to make it cross country skiing or what not but but yeah we're definitely going to have that conversation because I mean it's saddened me to read that article that I can no longer see there but it's it's on a radar anybody else anybody can come we'll keep posted okay we will communicate excellent excellent look forward to it alright well thank you so much thank you for having me earlier so this is an amendment to an existing ordinance and one possibility is that we can sort of look at it section by section another possibility is that if counselors have specific concerns or objections you know we can just go right to those sections and then we'll take comments from the public so my inclination would be to say well I'm literally just back up and say I'm going to assume that you all read it that's thing number one thing number two is did anybody have specific concerns suggestions changes they want to make you know whatever it's all good yes I guess the only thing that stood out to me in the revised draft is on can't tell that page yes page three it is in the second to last paragraph and the strike through or may was substituted with and otherwise must be open to the general public the only thing I fear that that may trigger some additional insurance liabilities or other things I don't think that any of the parklets are closed at all but if it's a city requirement and something happens in a parklet it just seems like there may be I don't practice that kind of law for a good reason but it just seems like something that may be we do require in a fairly large insurance certificate somewhere else in here it's like a million dollars or something it's fair maybe they'd have to build that into you know there's improvements they have going to their insurance company though and the other question I'm assuming that the expectation is that the businesses will assume the cost of the signage in that same paragraph I think I mean just speaking myself I think probably both of those things are reasonable as long as we just tell people up front that we expect you to include this in your insurance it's probably not going to be lots more I guess and they have to include a sign I mean they're going to be they're building a parklet anyway they've got to how does that signage factor in with the zoning requirement because they thought there could be any signs any permanent signs of the the planning department Audra does walk over and go through signs with the parklet owners and they have to pass certain standards to be used great well but this is now requiring these these signs they're they would have to comply but what I think though I guess what I'm saying is though my recollection although I haven't looked at it recently is that there was a prohibition on permanent signage on parklets we didn't do that we talked about doing it and I was voted down so there's no prohibition on there I remember because I lost that one good question good while we're in that paragraph I have a little language quirk the second sentence parklets may only be restricted to use by patrons of a particular establishment so on I would move that only so that it says parklets may be restricted to use by patrons of a particular bit only during their operating hours does that make sense to people this may be restricted to use to use by patrons of a particular establishment or group or company business only during their operating hours because that's what the only refers to every week I don't know who you think and there was something else could you get on your mic a little bit oh yes I'm sorry thank you and I've already forgotten what the other thing was so pass on okay other thoughts open the public hearing that's what it was thank you I forgot this is a public hearing I will officially open this as a public hearing I mean we'll take comments from public shortly so yes officially open thank you any other comments from counselors at this point go ahead Jeff well one question I have is that there's one parklet that does not develop pursuant to this ordinance and I just think we need to at some point determine what exactly the legal status is do they have a permit for a fixed period of time just all of that so that once we do this everyone's on the same so just to clarify my understanding is that they our grandfather didn't like their permit was for three years and so once that runs out they'll have to if they wanted to keep they'd have to reapply under these rules I think it's three years so sorry yes has it been three years or plus or five so they might have to so rights yes I mean that's true unless I'm wrong and then someone can tell me that I'm wrong later but I think that's true but I'm thinking of the one on Langdon Street obviously more than that so that one's gonna be harder to modify but three years and then we'll they'll have to you know comply with this Chancellor go ahead three hour public notice required by the city within the right away so it would be an example sign under some thank you okay other comments? public good evening Richard Chair everyone on console knows that my wife runs a downtown business many of you watching on Oregon knows safe I'll just come to the question basically of the Parkland itself and its role in the street and the commerce that goes on that street we just got out of an extensive session on parking public parking and this is parking as well parking for gone and the real question becomes is the console choosing winners and losers and now my wife has gone through this with this console the console before and the console before that on the question of Parkland and she's finally come around to some degree to say that the Parkland when the city has ample other parking that the Parkland really does exist and can coexist with the neighborhood merchants but the premise of the parking garage was a parking survey that showed that parking in the street particularly state street was parked out during the day and this maxed out those two parking spaces would be used by customers perhaps a positive by perhaps some other businesses they do have a meaning if you talk about the Parkland in May that's fine June that's fine July that's fine August that's 13 weeks before we start to need that parking when the leave season starts what she doesn't understand and I don't understand is why one business should have approximate parking to their project during the entire of leave season when all of the businesses need that parking now were she here tonight she would say let's make this a summer project and take it down after Labor Day now one of you on console who I will not reveal had said let's compromise this to October 1st which is halfway through leave season one business can have those two parking spaces exclusively for the first half of leave season the other 22 businesses can have those parking spaces for the second half of leave season realizing that after October 1st very few people are sitting in that because weather is not conducive to sitting outside and let's not forget that both of those parking spaces but both of them have sidewalk dining it's not as if you took this away they would all of a sudden not be able to treat their customers to the outdoor experience so what I'm saying is about a month ago maybe a month some change she wrote to you about the question of the end date I didn't hear any of you in a discussion of the end date two things one is the business community's opinion taken seriously on this that's the first and then second can you guys state a reason why October 1st wouldn't be a good time to bring those things down and go back to full parking for the second part of leave season is there a coherent reason why those things have to stay up when the weather is down in the 40s and 50s I'll listen I'll take mine off the air so I mean I guess I would just advocate that should the weather be nice I mean the more opportunities to sit outside I think the better I think it is weather dependent and for sure if the weather is unpleasant enough that people don't want to be sitting outside October 1st then fair enough my understanding was two that we want to give people as much time for that as possible and anyway I'm open to discussion about it but yeah Jack I think outdoor seating for businesses is a good thing when business when weather permits you may have noticed in the draft ordinance that we did cut back three weeks on the on the time limit it may not be everything you're looking for it clearly isn't but I think people are torn between saying well we need the parking plus and on the other hand saying we sometimes get really nice weather into October that enables people to enjoy being outside if if we do and so I think this is a compromise leaves business over really efficiently by the time you end it hang on Richard sorry I'm going to let Jack finish yep I I'm certainly aware and appreciative of that as a concern I don't think we've heard from what you refer to as the business community on on what we should do we are going to have another public hearing on this and I certainly welcome other views on this question because I don't think that there's anything magic about November 8th or October 15th or any other particular date we might pick Glenn, then Ashley then Tony I think Ashley is first okay sorry so I actually am not opposed to October 1st that's five months May 1st to October 1st is five months that leaves the remaining seven months of the year you know I know that at least in my time on the council so far there was a lot of business community opposition to having the down home on Langdon Street and so it seems to me and it seems to me that October 1st is reasonable I mean you know the goal here is to meet everyone's needs in town you know it would be taking off five weeks but it would still be five months and it it just seems to me that that's actually a pretty reasonable compromise in terms of meeting the needs of other businesses and being mindful of the value that I think Parklets do actually add to our downtown I frequent them regularly so I'm actually okay with October 1st and I'm happy to make a motion that we move it to October 1st for a second but she just made a motion I think I've been swayed for a second okay so we're going to have some further discussion and in that we're going to go to the other people okay so I'm happy to say that I was I think the person Richard was talking about earlier that went unreviewable thank you I appreciate that but I I'm not sure that despite having suggested that we might consider moving it to October 1st I'm not sure that I am completely in favor of that I don't think it's a bad idea at the same time I want to point out that it was interesting the way you framed it that Parklets are for the or that is parking spaces are for the 22 businesses for example or for the one and they're also for the people who want to park there regardless of whether they're visiting those businesses or just parking and walking somewhere else and speaking just personally as someone who never drives all parking spaces in town are nearly useless to me unless there's a parklet in them and I can sit there and have dinner so that's not to say that I think we should get rid of all parking spaces now but I do want to point out that there are more stakeholders here than just the immediately adjacent business and then the rest of the businesses along the street I'm also an employee of a storefront business and we definitely have lots of customers who like to park right in front of our store so I do see that as a a valid concern Tana and then I got a comment I couldn't resist I put it up I was home keyed and I didn't respond I didn't agree with her but I did respond and the reason I didn't agree and don't support the motion is that it's preferred death streets and they may keep saying what more people on the street and I actually because we had it I think posing before I saw so many clearly she used the park roads both the ones from the restaurants and the public park went home weak and when the weather is good you see people using them in the shops you know it's chilly out so I preferred keep it till November that's interesting and I think you're both touching on the point that I wanted to make which was interesting to set up like the dichotomy between is the park lit for one business or for their their benefit of of their restaurant let's say versus parking for the remainder of the businesses that are in the area and for parking but I I guess I would also see that even if the park lit is there as a park that that serves the other businesses as well right like retaining people downtown having them hang out on the street might actually be another reason for people to come downtown and actually spend more time in those other businesses like it doesn't doesn't necessarily feel like a it's either this or that I think they can both be beneficial yeah I think in response to one of one's points though it's parklets for those businesses serve the people who can afford to eat there you know and there are a lot of people in our community who can't and there are a lot of people in our community who do drive to work on the weekends who you know need places to park it's open parking on the weekends and they can't park there so just you know it is it is a balancing but but to me it's about meeting everyone's needs and doing that in a way that seems equitable because unfortunately one of the hard lessons that I've had to learn on the council over the years but you know it just seems as though we can strike a balance and I think that the October first you know change up is is kind of reasonable and you know it gives five months of being outside there are still places to be outside in downtown Montpelier I was just looking at the October degrees on October 7th that night really seemed like the kind of time I'd want to be hanging out outside so I just I just like to counter that so I don't really have a strong opinion here because the only stakeholder we've heard from on this is the Corgi Pet and so I understand where you're coming from you've got a good case to make I would assume that other businesses have opinions and I don't know what they are so I would welcome additional comments on this from the additional stakeholders at the second hearing I guess I'm willing to go along with it this time with the understanding that if people feel really strongly about a different date that I would hope that they would come out next time and we could potentially reconsider it then if we hear that it's just about to ask you in your role as parliamentarian which is if we if we pass this motion tonight would we be able to reverse that action at the second public hearing of the same ordinance yes you can edit it you can change it that's why you have the second hearing I think so too even with the exact same motion okay John is saying as far as he knows so we've done it in the past not for nothing you do it to take input and make a final decision and the other thought I had was could you table it until the next meeting I would say please don't table it but I have to put it back I'm not sure I'm following all the language but I think it makes sense to me since this is the first time we have discussed in council the idea of moving it to October 1 and it would be useful to have other opinions I would think that we should keep it at October 1 for now and plan to I'm sorry October 15 excuse me keep it at October 15 for now and solicit other opinions for the second hearing and reading and change it then if it seems recommended that's with my inclination as well I would have a vote right now but Ash is not here and that seems unfair so one possibility that we can stall for another possibility is any other comments from the public any response okay okay well I have one other thing to say well Ashley's out of the room that this whole discussion about who gets to use the parklets who benefits from them that both Glenn and Ashley have raised really gets back to the interest that Rosie's made over the years which is non-commercial parklets are of real value one further note if we do change the date this meeting or next or ever we should just also adjust the cost because it's a cost that's linked to the time it wouldn't be effective this year that's not here oh no you mean like right now yeah no and actually that's a good point I wonder if we have to build in because if we vote on this next time it could oh yeah it doesn't go to effectively yeah so but I mean one possibilities so this has enacted oh that so the enacted date the original one we might just want to forward date like when it's going to be enacted so it's clearly not this season can we make that or effective date yeah an effective date that's I think that would work can we make a note of that for next time soon I mean is that okay team I know I didn't really make that emotion but Donna do you have something I'm proposing also that we set the second hearing for the third or for the tenth oh I would suggest the tenth okay so actually we didn't vote while you were away soon she does that for everybody I would hope to do that for everybody okay so we have a motion on the table to move it to October 1st for the discussion all in favor of you say aye aye aye okay I'll pose okay okay so how oh my gosh I think it's four in we're setting the hearing four in two I think it's four is that clear I'm sorry I thought yeah I guess okay so I think it's three in three three in three so I got a vote this is the first time I've had a choice anything it's becoming mayor saying and then the mayor votes nay so which is to which is also to say like if businesses are unhappy with October 15 would gladly welcome more feedback on that so to be continued not opposed to that it's a hard line but just would want more feedback yeah I would have equally happily voted yes on a motion to the table because I and I'd be happy to be persuaded to change my mind next time no great thank you and you do make a good point and for me it is also weather related so anyway by the 10th you should have a pretty good idea what it feels like there in the late afternoon yeah that's a good point that's a good point next year could be like the year before okay thank you so we're going to close the public hearing and we need to set the date for the next hearing of the second reading do you need a motion for that I think we do I would move to close I don't think we need a motion to close the hearing I would move to set the date of the second hearing for October 10th second for the discussion I'll bear with you say aye aye close great thank you okay okay building and zoning permitting reports I love your charts you like the charts I think I know while we're getting logged in here for what's hopefully going to be the shortest power point you'll ever get I'm Mike Miller I'm the planning director so Mike if I can just ask a little bit about the context for this this is really to just be an update about how we are progressing towards EDSP goals is that or is there a different understanding that you have I was asked to give a presentation on permits to update the council on okay this is if you intended intended outcomes of the yes sure economic development Mike sure it happens sure alright so let me go through real quick feel free to make it quick I'll make it quick so I just have a handful of slides here to just go through so what I put together a couple of summary charts of what's going on with permits so to be able to compare apples to apples we just queried our permit software issued between January and September of each of these years from 2014 to 2018 and as you can see the number of permits hasn't changed much either for building permits in red or zoning permits in orange really kind of has stayed relatively flat which kind of surprised us a little bit because we have been extremely busy so what we kind of dug in a little bit and started to realize was that a lot of this came out of the complexity except we're seeing now one permit for a fence one permit for a garage there's still one permit but one permit for Caledonia Spirits one permit for Taylor Street one permit for a hotel offer considerable amounts more of work so where that would show up is actually in the amount of fees because more complex projects receive more reviews and generate more fees so that's where the second table came in which looks at by fiscal year because that's how it kind of runs through the system FY 15 through FY 19 so we only have two months of FY 19 which is why that's really small but the the red bars again are building orange bars and zoning the three years FY 15 16 and 17 total $232,000 FY 18 and two months of FY 19 or 226,000 so and we have a $90,000 permit that we just added in so in 15 months the last 15 months we've generated the same income as the previous three years combined so and the fees have not increased for building so this is apples to apples the zoning permits we did increase after FY 16 so there was a jump but I think that doesn't account for all of the increase that you see we are we are really getting a lot more fees FY 18 we doubled the budget in estimates so we're supposed to get like $130,000 and we got $250,000 of combining so we're definitely generating a lot more fees and I think that just comes back that helps to show how busy staff are downstairs issuing permits so the final graph was start to look at you know performance so each one of the bars going across represents a different project the orange in the red you'll see kind of moving across those are the building permits for either public buildings or single family dwelling so they're moving across a few years ago we were generally issuing building permits in four to eight days you'll notice that's starting to building permits are now taking between 14 and 23 days to get issued and we'll get back to that in the last slide we'll talk a little bit about that and the next bar which you can barely see is zoning administrative permits so an administrative permit is something that doesn't need any reviews it's a permitted use I want to build a house I want to build a shed I want to build a fence those take one day that's always our goal in our office is if we have a permit that's complete and ready to go we should be able to issue it within 24 hours and that's what we strive to keep doing the next bar it's kind of a greenish bar those are design review permits the thing to note on this one is actually just a look at 2017 and 2018 you see a big drop on those two green bars as it goes across that's actually by design we talked when we met with you to talk about the new zoning we talked about we were going to build this new abbreviated zoning process where if you have a DRC permit you don't have to go to the DRB it used to be you'd go to the DRC make your case the DRC says this looks good and then we would put it on a consent agenda item two weeks later to get on the DRB so the DRB could vote by consent to approve well we just said if everybody agrees we'll just say the zoning administrator can issue the permit if you disagree with the DRC then you'd go to the DRB well that obviously made a big difference in the amount of time it takes to get a permit through the DRC because it dropped from 23 days to 5 days so there's a little bit of good news there the final bar the blue bars those are projects that had to go through DRB and we actually had to truncate the tops of the first two bars in 2014 and 2015 when I got here in 2014 we had a lot of problems getting some decisions out in fact it was almost reaching six months to get decisions out we made a number of big structural changes and we brought that down to 40 to 30 days there's a certain amount of you can't get much faster than that we can review applications so really 30 days to 45 days is a target to shoot for a lot of the delays of these permits also are not the fault of staff applicants many times are the reason it takes themselves longer to get applications approved at the DRB they either don't put in full applications change applications don't show up for hearings and that would show up the push of our time so those times are actually quite good to be in about that 40 35 to 40 day range so the final are just a couple of things going forward so if this was just going to be a little bit of an update on how things are going in the permitting world downstairs building permits Chris Lumbra who's a building inspector he's doing an excellent job but he's under a lot of pressure he's got a lot of stuff that's going on the timing of permits is starting to slow so this is going to be a little bit of policy question the delay you know at what point is the delay unacceptable I haven't heard complaints from builders but it's worth keeping in the year out for but that slip in time starts to build up but it's not a result of anything other than the fact that just Chris is swamped and he's doing the best that he can to keep things going Chief Gowans has gotten certified within a couple of months maybe a month or two ago so he also can now do inspections but he also has a full-time job but it will be helpful to have that when I talk to Chris about what his concerns are trying to meet his obligations as a building inspector his number one concern is actually for the extras he would prefer to see some items like the health officer junk ordinance vacant building ordinance these other ordinances that creep in and steal hours and days out of his schedule that he would rather be focusing on the building inspection role but he also is the health officer and he also is a junk officer and he's also the vacant building officer so those are the things that kind of come back my job as kind of director I'm trying to keep an eye out for the short and long-term concerns if this development amount of development is going to continue into the future we'll need to have some conversations about expanding the department to get an assistant but we're kind of playing a lot of things by ear at this point and we will see how chief gallons now being certified how much does that help and we're just going to really keep our ear out we don't want to burn out Chris he's a really good inspector but it's busy so regarding the zoning permits we've made good progress improving permit times we've increased our fees so sometimes increasing times the amount of time it takes us to kind of get things done are a little bit higher this year due to the new regulations and a new zoning administrator at the same time so it takes time to train people Meredith is our third zoning administrator in four years I'm pretty good at training zoning administrators but it still takes time and she's doing a great job she's a quick learner and the zoning fixes will help some of the delays that we have right now are just from the little things that kind of caught us and we were like oh it didn't think that it was going to work that way and we will get them to you soon and you'll kind of see what we mean again there is some potential need for office help downstairs when it comes to Audra's workload and Meredith's workload Meredith is still part time she's now four days so it's better it used to be when I originally was hired one of the changes was the help to reduce those times was the fact that it was a half time zoning administrator that we moved to three quarter time now 80% so that's helped to improve those times but other things have also kind of come to a stop the community rating system E911 we really have not been doing a bunch of projects that we've been wanting to get to we're keeping up on the zoning at the expense of not being able to do some other projects so it's just another thing to keep on the radar it's not something I know there's a lot of departments with a lot of needs and I'm more concerned with Chris's but Chris's fees actually would pay for his own assistant I mean he has a department with an expense line of $85,000 he's now generating $210,000 in permit fees