Welcome to the South Burlington Development Review Board meeting of November 16th, 2021. My name is Dawn Filibert. I'm chair of the Development Review Board. And with us tonight, I'll introduce other board members. To my right, Dan Albrecht, Stephanie Wyman, Frank Kochman, our newest member, Quinn Mann, and Jim Langen. And also our staff, Marlekeen Development Review Board planner, and Delilah Hall, our zoning administrator for the city of South Burlington. There are a number of ways to participate in this hearing, one of which is in person, as you folks are. Also people can participate virtually, and also by phone. And we'll talk a little bit about the guidance for virtual attendees.  If you wish to participate during public comment periods, please turn on your camera and raise your hand. You may then unmute you when you're recognized by the chair. Lastly, the chat function is for administrative matters only. Comments submitted in the chat will not be recognized as part of the meeting record. So let's proceed with the agenda. The first agenda item is emergency evacuation procedures. In case of emergency, there are two sets of doors in the back corners of the auditorium. You can exit via those and go either left or right to exit the building. Number two, are there any additions, deletions, or changes in the order of agenda items? Hearing none. Number three, announcements, couple of reminders. Thank you for all of you. Thank you to all those in attendance on the phone and watching online and to those of you in person. As a reminder, this hearing is being recorded and anyone who wishes to participate in the hearing should sign the sign-in sheet at the back of the room or the virtual sign-in sheet online or on the chat box. This is necessary in order to be considered a participant should you want to obtain party status in order to appeal a decision made by the board. Anyone on the phone that would like to sign in to be considered a participant can send an email to Marlekeen at M-K-E-E-N-E at S-Berl.com and provide your contact information. You can also submit comments in writing. I forgot to say that if you are participating virtually, you will have the opportunity, of course, to listen to the hearing and also participate during the public comment section. Okay. Are there any comments and questions from the public not related to tonight's agenda? Hearing none, we will move on to item number five. And this is continued preliminary plat application SD 2119 of 600 Spear FJT LLC for a planned unit development on an existing 8.66 acre lot developed with 7,000 square feet storage building and a single family home. I won't read the rest. It's available for you to see. But the applicant after discussion with staff requested continuation of this hearing to December 7th, 2021. So I would entertain a motion to continue that hearing. So moved. We have a second? Second. Thank you. Any discussion? All in favor of continuing that hearing to December 7th, say aye. Aye. Opposed? Okay. That hearing will be continued till December. Number six. Continued miscellaneous permit application MS 2104 of Larkin Realty for stream alteration and stormwater drainage modifications at 1195 Shelburne Road. The board continued this application from 11 to 21 in order to allow deliberation to determine whether to invoke technical review. No packet materials are provided. So the board did in fact have a deliberation earlier tonight. And we decided that this application does not meet any of the exemptions laid out in the LDR 12.01C4. And we looked at it carefully. We had legal counsel, but we came to the conclusion that it does not meet any of those exemptions. So with that, I will entertain a motion to close that application or the hearing. Before we get into the motion, I just I agree with the board's decision and then the overall discussion. But for the record, personally, I found this project, what's the word, a relatively minor project, but it just doesn't fit within our bylaws. So I'll just, for the record, that's just me saying that. And that happens sometimes, and it's tough for all of us. Don, we're going to further. I'm recused from this, so I'm just going to. OK. Thank you, Stephanie. You know, well, I wasn't present since we haven't formally acted yet. I saw that Dave Marshall was attending. We want to give him a chance to speak to the matter before we close the hearing. He knows which way we're leaning. Is he is he? I saw I thought I saw him on the as one of the virtual attendees online. OK. I certainly have no objection to that. Frank, does anyone else object to that? Well, OK, Dave and for the narrow question, is there an exemption that you think applies and why? OK. Thank you. Dave, are you with us? Dave Marshall here. Frank, thank you for the invitation. We'll admit that this is a direction that we had not anticipated. And at this point in time, not sure if we're in a position to basically provide a suitable response to the board's determination that nowhere in the regulations can a project of this particular type before. But at the same time, I respect the comments of Dan Albrecht only because of his specific understanding of what these particular projects do entail and with his own experience in the industry. You know, if that's the boards, unfortunately, if that's where the LDR has put us, then there's really no other position that we can proceed with. So I find it extremely frustrating. But nonetheless, I wish I could provide you a silver bullet in order to basically move forward. But the board, through its own deliberations, as well as with, I presume, input from the city's attorney has come to this particular conclusion that the ability for a project this particular type to be approved by the board is just not there. So I find it frustrating. But nonetheless, it obviously represents an item that needs to be corrected in the future as far as the planning commission's work on subsequent modifications of the LDRs. So out of all that, I guess I'm not sure what else I can provide to the board. Thank you, Dave. And for what it's worth, we found this frustrating, too. We really struggled with this. So that's the nature of the beast, I guess. All right. I move we close MS21-04. Thank you. Have a second? All second. Okay. Any further discussion among board members? All those in favor of closing miscellaneous permit application MS21-04, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Chair votes aye. Any opposed? Okay. The hearing is now closed. Okay. Number seven on the agenda, site plan application SP21043 and conditional use application CU2103 of Burlington Tennis Club to amend a previously approved plan for 2,500 square foot indoor recreation facility and outdoor recreation facility. The amendment consists of adding a third platform tennis court at 12 and a half C East Terrace. Who is here for the applicant? If you feel more comfortable sitting farther apart, one of you is welcome to use the podium, but if you're comfortable, feel free to sit where you are. Okay. Just make sure the little green light on your, it's green, but it'll be bright green if it's on. It looks, it looks on you. Please introduce yourself and then I'll swear you in. My name is Jacques LaRose. I work for Civil Engineering Associates, the engineer on the project. What is your first name, please? Jacques. Jacques, thank you. And I'm Errol Natres. I'm the tennis director and membership manager at Burlington Tennis Club. And your first name again? Errol. Errol, thank you. All right. Would you both please raise your right hand? Do you solemnly swear the testimony you're about to provide is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth? Yes, yes. Thank you.  Sure. So this is an existing seven and a half acre site located off East Terrace. It's an existing tennis club. They have a main building, a pool, a number of tennis courts. As part of those courts, they also have what they call two platform tennis courts. I think they're also referred to as paddle tennis. As part of this project, we'd be looking to add one additional platform or paddle tennis court. The courts are made of aluminum. It's actually elevated and heated underneath to allow play of the sport during the wintertime. It's lighted. As you know, it gets dark early in the winter. And it's pretty much exactly the same as the existing courts that exist today on the site. Thank you. Do you have anything to add, Errol? No, that was quite a good summary. Okay, good. Thanks. So let's... Can I ask a quick question? Sure. Would these paddle tennis courts be used year round, or? No, they're only used in the winter. You can play the sport year round, but just the nature of the ball, it flies through the air pretty quickly. It's like a compact rubber ball. I remember, vaguely. So if you do play in the summer, you have to adjust the ball and change it up, and we don't do that here. I know that... But it's an outdoor court. It's an outdoor court, yeah. But it's primarily used for winter. I remember playing it decades ago. Okay, thank you. Any other big picture questions before we go through it? The first staff comment is actually asking you to state for the record that there will be no significant change in the use of the facility resulting from the addition of a third platform tennis court. Could you just provide that in testimony for us? Yes, yeah. One of the main reasons was last year our members just struggled for court time, and we really wanted to give them some more playing opportunities. So adding that third court will alleviate some of the pressure of trying to get everybody their times. Okay, thanks. Do you allow pickleball? We don't have pickleball at the club, no. Okay, thank you. I think that satisfies us. And the other staff comment is the second one. And it's about the photometric drawing and the question of how do you reduce the glare to the other properties and show how the light can be phased down? That's probably not the correct engineering word, but. I think that was, it's generally correct. I mean, so these lights are 23 feet high. Generally, the higher the light, the less glare you have as the intensity is not as bright off surfaces. The actual lights themselves are a significant improvement over the existing lights.  They use much less energy, they're LED. In general, these lights are actually a very, they're a safety upgrade primarily for the courts. As they'll allow better viewing of the ball. I think, so we have provided to the board a revised photometric plan that addresses the comments of the existing lights and the proposed lights working together and what that light output looks like. So that's what I believe Marla has up in front of you. In general, the light is not leaving our property. That's. I'm sorry, the light is not. It is not leaving the property as far as measurable foot candles beyond this property line. I will add that in addition to the lighting plan, we've shown additional vegetation that is on site today and we did take some photos of that. I think that provides an additional buffer for any potential glare or light that, I wouldn't expect it to reach that far, but in the event that somehow it did, off glare or whatever reason, it would be diffused by the existing vegetation. Thank you. I noticed that the comments said glare on other courts. Was that intention, was that just a slip? I mean, it's the issue address was whether it leaked over to other properties. I did mean to say properties, yeah. Okay, that's. Good catch. Okay, does the board have any questions about the applicant's response? Any additional questions, okay. So I had sent around some extra photos that I took this weekend, kind of showing the view from the existing court and the view from what I assumed to be the corner of the post court based on the location of those propane tanks. I kind of stood at the propane tanks and it estimated from there. So you can kind of see. So you just said, Jacques, that the lights are different than what's out there today? Yeah, well, they actually, they were recently upgraded. Okay, so what's there today? So by the time I submitted the application, initially the lights have been upgraded between then and today. So the old lights were, I believe, halogen tight and I found in the original approval, they weren't cut off either. So anyway, so the lights that are out there now that you saw, Marla, this weekend are the same lights that are proposed as part of the new court. Cool. So this first picture kind of shows the lights and then if you go through the pictures, the next one kind of shows how the existing courts are screened by this evergreen hedge. And so the homes are to the left of the hedge. The court is to the right of the hedge. You go to the next photo. I'm standing at the corner of the existing court and looking towards the homes that are gonna be most affected by the new court. So you can just see in the middle of the screen behind that tallest tree, there's a little bit of a building there. And then if you go to the next slide, I'm now standing at the corner of the proposed court and you can see much more of both that red building and the building to the left of it. It's white. And you can see that the screening is more of a deciduous type rather than an evergreen type. And then I think there's one more photo, one before that. That's just sort of an overview of the whole thing. So this is just showing a zoom in of that vegetation, contrasting it with that evergreen vegetation. And then the final photo kind of shows a panorama. You can see the existing veg on the right, panning into the veg that's gonna be between the proposed court and the homes and then the rest of the property up to the left. Would you back up one photo please? Can you do that? Yeah, that house looks familiar. Oh. That's 22 East Terrace. Okay. So are you, and we'll find out soon, but are you aware of any neighbors who have concerns about the glare and the lighting? I'm not numb. Well, if you have, I assume these are shielded and are downward pointed, right? And what you've made the representation that the light does not extend beyond the limits of the property. That is correct. So what glare would we be concerned with? Well, this is me as a person who's lived next to a property that has lights on it. And I look at this photometric drawing and the peak values at ground level are 50 foot candles, 56 foot candles, kind of across the middle of the courts. And then by the time you get to the edge of the courts, this is at the ground. So I'm thinking if you're looking at these lights, it may not be shining in your window, but you will look out your window and see a bright light. So I just wanna make sure that this is not, I don't really have a good feel for lighting design, but 50 is a pretty high number compared to our standard of three. But our standard of three is related to public nuisance. And I don't know that a tennis court would qualify as a public nuisance. So I didn't really wanna play that card here. Yeah, I interpreted the glare comment as basically a reflection off surfaces, right? Cause the light is pointing down, but it's possible that it could reflect off a surface. And that's perhaps what you're seeing from a, in your case, living next to a bright, a facility with bright lights, I will say, and maybe Aero can elaborate on the actual nature of the sport. Yeah, we have small diameter balls flying at high speed and visibility is absolutely necessary for safety. So I believe, I mean, these lights aren't on all night by any metric, Aero, I don't recall what time, how late you- The latest playing time is 9.30. Are they on like a, sorry, I'm jumping in, but I've been to sports facilities where there's like a little hut where you go and turn the timer on when you wanna use the court. Is it like that? Or are they just on till 9.30 every night? They're on till 9.30. So people generally have a court booked and it starts at the last court that you can book is at 8 p.m. And they'll go to 9.30 and then people turn off on their way out. What color is the surface of the court? Green. Hmm, so not black, right? What's that? I believe there should be some, perhaps some photos we might be able to- Sorry, green and blue, my bad. It's green on the outside and blue on the inside. So not particularly reflective. Other questions? So that is it for staff comments. Thank you and we will, we're now gonna ask if there's any public comments. So thank you very much. Are there any members of the audience who would like to comment? Would you like to come up, please? I'm Mike Briner, my wife, Linda Little-Hagan.  Hi, okay, I'm Mike Briner, Linda Little-Hagan. We live at that little red house, 22 East Terrace. And my first question was answered when the existing spot is going in beyond a stand of cedars that was planted by the tennis club years and years ago. It stops at 20. So I'm a little bit concerned about the lights. There has, I have noticed this year that the new lights do have less glare. It's more of a presence than it is a glare, much like the ambient sound of the players themselves. At five o'clock when they start to play, you know they're there. It's not obtrusive in any sense of the, but the lights do stay on beyond 9.30. They've been, I stay up quite late. I've gone to bed over the years, you know, 11 o'clock, 12 o'clock and the lights will still be on on occasion, but it's not an obtrusive. It's just a simple, someone didn't flip a switch. But since this new court is going in past the barrier that the club put up itself, and it does switch to a stand of Box Elder and Maple and behind our property line, I was kind of curious to see what was being discussed and now I know the third court is beyond the line of cedars and I don't know if that's an issue to ponder or not, but I just wanted to put a voice to that little red house that was being mentioned and spotted in the photographs, so.  It's just a new ambience in the soundscape of East Terrace, you know, so just wanted to say that. Thank you. Thank you very much. Anyone else in the audience who would like to comment? Is there anyone online who would like to make a comment? Do we see any comments now? Anyone on the phone? I'd like to make a comment. Yes, tell us your name, please. My name is Liam Farley. I am at 20 East Terrace, so right next to the red house of 22 East Terrace. Okay. My question is, not so much about the lighting, it's more about the noise when the two courts are operating, and it's not a great problem. It's just now I've had kids recently and there is a lot of, how do you put it? Sometimes obscene language, which can be, I can see it being a problem down the road as my kids get older and ask questions, but I guess my one concern is with three courts, would all three of those be operating at night simultaneously? Is there any thought to, with three courts, the increase in the noise level? And I'm not really opposed to it, I just, that's just a concern I had going forward with trying to, I guess, live together as a neighbor with the tennis club, which I haven't had any problems with, but except for the occasional excited paddle tennis player screaming some obscenities here and there. But yeah, that was my main concern is the noise level more so than the lights. Thank you. Do you have any response to that? Yeah, well, first of all, both can't say on behalf of the club, I apologize if people kept the lights on longer than they should have. I will certainly address that with the members. And enforce it, that it needs to be turned off at a certain time as far as the language goes. Again, apologies for that. I'd love to know who that is, what night it is, because we will address that and that's not on. And the people know that the members really want this court very badly. And if they will be embarrassed about the noise level and going past the 9.30 block, and I'm pretty sure that they'll make it right as far as that goes. Thank you. I have a question. Sure. This has to do with when the lights go off. Do you have a closing time? What is your closing time? You know, it's one of those situations where there's no staff necessarily hanging around there. So the members have a door code to the paddle hut. But they have to book a time ahead of time. And that last booking ends at 9.30. All right, so if the last booking to start playing or you're done. No, it starts at eight o'clock. They're in one and a half hour increments and it goes to 9.30. So it's a practical matter. And if they're walking off the court at 9.30 and it's nighttime, you don't wanna shut the lights off at 9.30 on the dock. So how would you feel about having in your permit or in our approval just a condition with a hard stop on time? Like, you know, reasonable 9.45, 10 o'clock, something like that. What's reasonable to allow people to get off the court but to have an absolute stop time for the lights? Yeah, I mean, I think 9.45 is very reasonable. Can I ask, would they then be allowed to have a light on inside the paddle hut? Yeah, we're just talking about the courts, right? Yeah, you know, not the court lights, just another sub so they can find their way to the car. Right. Yeah. Jacques, are these lights capable of having some sort of control? Like, could it be something where they're full on until 9.30 and then they dim? Yeah, I mean, most lights are capable of timer functions and I do not know if these lights are dimmable. Definitely would talk with the paddle court manufacturer who's actually the most knowledgeable on the light requirements for the paddle court itself and what's necessary. So I can attempt to answer that. I don't know if these lights are dimmable. Do you mean dimmable as in like reduce the... Yeah, so when people are supposed to leave, you turn the lights down so they can still find their ball and find their car and whatever, but maybe they're 50% or something. I think you submitted something that said they were dimmable. Yeah, I submitted the cut sheet. So if that cut sheet has, it listed as dimmable, it's possible, it's very likely possible that a certain controller could be put in that could dim that sunlight. Yes, Dan, go ahead. I have a more important question to me is can an automated shutoff be in there so at 10 o'clock it's out? I thought that might have been what we were talking about for the 945 time. I just want to be great at just something like dimmable will be great because the... You mean like on an actual timer? Actual timer or just the electricity shuts off, boom, 10 o'clock. Right, yeah, that would be like a problem. Except for the obviously inside the building and stuff. To me, that's the most important thing that you don't have to worry about nagging your members and stuff like that. Well, if we have an absolute cutoff time, whatever it is, I mean, I just want it to be reasonable how they get it done doesn't matter. It's their responsibility to get it done. Figure it out, right, the engineering. Right, I just would think an automated one would just be. Make it, if it's feasible cost-wise and engineering-wise, then you don't put it upon human behavior for somebody to forget or kids go on there and flip the lights on or whatever. That's all. Okay, but we can't leave it with that, right? Did the sound good? Any other questions or comments from the board? I would entertain a motion to close this hearing. So moved. Second? Second. Any discussion? All in favor of closing the hearing signify by saying aye. Aye. And you pose, no? Okay, thank you very much. Thank you. Okay, number eight on the agenda, final plat application SD 2125 of Green Mountain Development Group, Inc. for the next phase of a previously approved master plan for up to 458 dwelling units and up to 45,000 square feet of office space. The phase consists of two four-story, multi-family residential buildings on lots 10 and 11 with a total of 94 dwelling units of which 79 are proposed inclusionary units and two city streets at 255 Kennedy Drive. We'll let Andrew find what he's looking for. I don't have my pen. It's all right. I'm sorry, he's got an extra line. I haven't done a external meeting here in a while, so.  So he's to be at home where we have everything. Oh, yes, exactly. Thanks, thanks Andrew. Okay, please introduce yourself. Andrew Gill with O'Brien Brothers. And Tom Getz with Summit Properties, Green Mountain Development Group. Thank you. I'm going to go ahead and swear you in. Please raise your right hand. Do you solemnly swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth under penalty of perjury? Yes. Thank you. Okay, this is a big staff report. We have a lot of ground to cover tonight. But I'm wondering if you would give us a very brief introduction and overview. Very brief. Just before we begin, I wanna make a disclosure. Oh, sure, I haven't asked for those, yes. So I work for a company that has previously helped O'Brien with some path configurations, bike lane alternatives and streetscape alternatives for Old Farm Road. But I don't think that's gonna impact my judgment on this project. Thank you. And that reminds me, I have a disclosure as well that I live in a property in O'Brien Farm, Hillside and O'Brien Farm, but I have not recused myself from any of the hearings so far and I think I can be impartial. Any other disclosures or, okay. Okay, tell us a little bit, very brief overview of your project, please. Sure, so just from a high level, the O'Brien Brothers Project here in South Burlington has been going on for a few years now. It started in 2016 with a master plan permit that is still in effect in the development of the Hillside neighborhood, which consists of 115 single family and town home style homes. The road network that's shown on the screen is mostly built with the exception of the connection to Kennedy Drive. Move it closer to you please, Andrew. So in the project and the master plan, there was an overall density of I believe 458 dwelling units. 115 were constructed in the form of single family and town homes. The remaining density was shifted to the six commercial multifamily lots located at the north end of the project. That project has been in the making for some time. We have been in front of the board most recently for preliminary plat where we proposed a concept of six separate multifamily buildings consisting of the total density that remained 343 units as well as a bonus density of 51 units for the new inclusionary requirement. Today, subsequent to that preliminary plat being issued, we amended the plat and set it up so that we could proceed in phases of final plat so that smaller portions of the project could be reviewed by the board. The six lots in one permit, six multifamily buildings was a bit much. I think we would all agree. And so this is the first phase of that phased final plat consisting of two buildings in partnership with Green Mountain Development, primarily of affordable housing. And we can let Tom speak to that a little bit more. But that's sort of the high level picture. So we're here tonight to talk about those two buildings, lot 10 and lot 11 of the previously approved hillside master plan. Great. And yes, and Tom gets the CEO of Summit Properties and here on behalf of our development arm, which is the Green Mountain Development Group. We're a South Burlington based affordable housing developer. We develop and manage affordable and mixed income properties across Vermont, New Hampshire, upstate New York. And this is our first time partnering up with O'Brien. We started talking to them about nine months ago about this project. And we're really excited about this opportunity to propose two buildings on lots 10 and 11 at hillside at O'Brien Farm, 47 units each, mixed income housing that's gonna have a mix of market rate, apartments affordable to folks earning less than 60% of area median income and apartments all the way down to those that are homeless and at risk through a partnership with COTS. So this is a model that we've done multiple times. We have two recent projects in Winooski that at some point tonight like to show a couple pictures up to give you an idea of the type of feel and project we're proposing here. If all goes well, we would love to be under construction by the summer of next year, because we're currently in the process of applying for the multiple layers of affordable housing financing like with the Vermont Housing Conservation Board, Vermont Housing Finance Agency, and the other organizations that are critical to bringing a high impact affordable housing project like this online. So looking forward to diving into the details and hearing feedback to help improve our design. So thank you. I just got a preliminary question. What's the state of the single family homes below lot 10 there? Are they built? Below lot 10 meaning, yeah. So yes, so the on the lower road, the road on the left-hand side, the last two town homes are currently under construction. And how about immediately? Yep, on the upper road, we are not all the way to the end of the road yet. I'm not exactly sure, because that plan doesn't have addresses on it, but we're about three quarters of the way down there. But that's clearly in process. I mean, that's going. Yeah, those homes are being built currently. Do you think that'll be completed before you start construction on that? We're expecting to complete the homes in the hillside neighborhood the end of next year, early the following year. Okay, so there'll be some overlap on the construction problem. Some overlap, right? But most of them will be underway at the point this project started. Thank you. Thank you. So I'm glad you clarified. This, because when I was reading this, I was really confused how this compared to the, I thought I remembered four, but I was wrong, it was six properties. So this is two of the six, correct? Correct. Okay, because it looked different to me, but we can get into the details of that as we go along. So just on a side note, Evan Langfeld at some point is likely to call in to the meeting. So he might see him and he might like to speak as well. So I'm not sure if he's here yet. Oh, he might be testifying. So we'll have to swear him in. I can't see the screen, but yeah, if he pops up, maybe just... Evan, are you online? No, okay. Also have Carolyn Orban and Scott Homestead, the landscape architect and civil engineer calling in as well. Okay, thank you. Okay, sure, go ahead. One more question. So the remaining, the other four buildings of the original six lie immediately to the... I'm sorry, I don't know. It's not clear to me where North is. North is up on this one. Okay, so immediately to the Northwest, that's the other four buildings. Right, the other four lots that are drawn in white there to the to the left, upper left, Northwest. And why are these considered Kennedy Drive if they're by Four Brothers Drive? Sorry, this is me having too many things that I need to do. These two lots will eventually have addresses that are on Two Brothers Drive or Ombryan Farm Road. I just didn't get that far. So the overall PUD is on, is that 255 Kennedy Drive? Okay, all right. All right, let's start going through the... Does anyone else have any big picture questions before we start going through the staff comments? One big picture question. How are the affordability gonna be managed? Are they perpetually affordable in the deed or how does that work? Yeah, it'll be perpetual affordability through a housing subsidy covenant with the Vermont Housing Finance Agency. Gotcha, thanks. And these are rental, all rental units? All rental units. Okay, thank you. Any other questions before we dive in? First comment. Staff recommends the board discuss and make a determination on this request for separate zoning permits. So they're asking if within this final plot, they can have essentially two phases of zoning permits, one for lot 10 and one for lot 11. And I guess the question here is, well, this is not just lot 10 and lot 11, but also the roads. So what's your proposal there? Yeah, so the, I could speak to the road question. So it's a little bit of a dual discussion here because the O'Brien brothers are sort of managing the roadway common infrastructure element, recreation paths, Kennedy Drive intersection, portion of the project, but we're not managing the building portion of the project. So if there are questions related to the road and that sort of thing, I'm happy to sort of jump in. That shouldn't be our concern. Right. I'm just saying that I'm going to try and, I'll be responding to those questions and more Tom will be handling the questions related to the building. But the, remind me of that question again. I lost my train of thought. It's in relation to staff comment number one. Oh, right. So yeah, so we're fine with the zoning permit for the road proceeding. I think we had submitted a phasing plan for the roadway construction. I believe there were two phases of road shown on the phasing plan. One was the connection to Kennedy Drive and the other one was the wing that heads up toward lot 11. So our sort of working assumption was that either of those could be constructed under a zoning permit sort of per the usual guidelines. And so we'd be happy to pull those zoning permits one or both if required. Does that give us what we need? I'm mostly, I'm sorry. I didn't actually see, you submitted a lot of stuff including 56 pages of text which I will complain about till the day I die. The, I didn't see a phasing plan for the roads but what you're saying is you would be okay with attaching a requirement to pull the road permit with the first building permit? Sure, yeah, that's been our plan with these guys. The distinction I'm trying to make is if, you know, I don't know if you want to pull the plan up or just the cover sheet that shows the white lines but there's a portion of common roadway that's north of the four-way intersection which would not be required if lot 10 were the only building to be built. And so that's where I'm saying if lot 11 is the first building to be built then we would build both sections of roadway but if only lot 10 were to be constructed we would build to the four-way intersection and not north of it is what the distinction I'm trying to make. Why is it you don't know which building you'd built first? And this was one for me to answer. So with the two buildings we currently have simultaneous applications going with the Vermont Housing Conservation Board and Vermont Housing Finance Agency so it's some overlapping but separate funding sources. And some of those sources are only allocated on an annual basis so if we were denied on one and got the other we wouldn't necessarily know which building we could go with first. We're gonna keep pushing on both but in terms of being able to guarantee which of these goes first we don't know that yet and we're in that application process right now. Okay, that's helpful. Wait a minute, in other words your applications with the funding agencies are building by building? Correct, so yeah actually to get into the I'll try not to go too deep in the details in July we applied for one single project, 94 units. Unfortunately the amount of financing that that required it was about $6 million of American Rescue Plan funds and they just said we don't have that right now for one project. So we broke it up into two and we have two simultaneous projects going on both. That way if some of the funding sources don't come on one we can still go with 47 units. So the American Rescue Plan are you saying that six million isn't available or it's not available for a single project but it is available if you break it into two? So on lot 11 we are applying for 9% tax credits but that doesn't require any American Rescue Plan funds. On lot 10 we're applying for a little over two million of Rescue Plan funds with the 4% tax credits which give a little bit lower equity. Yeah I understand. We couldn't, yeah so yeah and you know the affordable housing program so there wasn't enough of all of those resources to give in one project. So we broke it up into two and have one project going where we're hoping for 9% allocation, a separate project going and I could be happy to run through the. Okay so the 9% but the 9% is pretty competitive. Very competitive. 4% is almost a walk. So my question to you is which one is the 4%? 4% is the 10 which would be a walk if we knew that the American Rescue Plan funds were going to be eligible which right now there is question at the state and federal level whether they'll be eligible to pair with the tax credits. BHCB is very optimistic that that's going to happen but if for whatever reason those Rescue Plan funds fall through then that could delay the timing on 10. Is there some legal proviso there? Cause I mean let me be clear here I want to see the road get built. Yes me too. Probably, yeah. Is there some reason to think that you can't pair them? So the current Treasury guidance says that American Rescue Plan funds cannot be paired with any loan greater than five years. Technically those are neat to actually if it's going to work with tax credits it has to be at least 15 years. So until Treasury changes that guidance and says that American Rescue Plan funds can be loaned on a 15 year or greater loan they're technically ineligible. The state if you talk to VHFA, VHCB they're very optimistic that this is going to change. That's why they've allowed us and every other affordable developer to apply for these funds right now, pair them with tax credits without that confirmation yet from Treasury. There's always that possibility that takes months and that drags. And so these 4% projects that need the ARPA just sit there. So that's why we're going for one with ARPA without the ARPA on a straight 9% deal. So if you got the straight, so help me understand again why you can't commit to the road regardless of which one you get. Well, we would need the road to serve our project. So, I mean, the building 10 we would need the intersection and the road. The roadway connecting to Kennedy Drive, we're saying we would build in both scenarios. The portion I'm talking about would be the portion north of the four way intersection which is basically serving as a driveway to lot 11 and dead ends at Old Farm Road. We don't need that portion until 11s build. If we, as long as we get the four way intersection we get the access to Kennedy Drive and we get O'Brien Farm Road all the way to that four way intersection. As long as we have that, by the time we are at 10 then we're, our residents need to be met. If you get 11 then you're gonna need. If we get 11 we need the rest. I got it, I thank you, I understand. Yeah. And that we understand that and we're fine with that. We would just ask that if it's not 11 that it would be the one phase. Any other questions about this? All right. So are we good with number one, Marla? Yep. Okay. Board, yeah. Number two, staff recommends the board confirm with the applicant that all units in the multifamily mixed use portion of the master plan are proposed to be rental units. And you've already said. Well, that's for the ones that Tom's proposing. Are all the other buildings proposed to be rental? Andrew? So currently, yes. They are. We'll go with that. Yeah, the only thing, you know, it's a, it's a odd request but I guess I would say, you know, there, there's always a chance that, that some building or some person might want to do something different potentially a condo unit or something like that. And so I guess to the extent that, that it can remain flexible, that would be great. If it can't, then it can't. I don't know all of the different workings but this is planned as a rental development currently. It would be very difficult. No, it would not be possible to allow every possibility that may occur in writing a decision on this application. Specifically, the number of required inclusionary units varies whether it's, if it's rental versus ownership. My recommendation would be to write the decision according to the best plan that they have and amendments are always possible. Okay. Yeah, we certainly understand that those rental units are different based on for sale or for apartment. You know, we're proposing the inclusionary units first. So those would be being built anyway and we wouldn't be seeking to go back and reduce the number of inclusionary that were built. If an ownership proposal was made, we would look to build the required inclusionary ownership units within that proposal. So I guess I'm just saying we just don't want to preclude the ability to do that as well at some future date. Thank you. Moving on to staff comment number three, Reed. Wait a minute. I don't think that's the resolved issue yet. Okay. Would you back up to the staff for recommendation? To number two. Yeah. Okay, go ahead. What I hear the applicant saying is, no, we're not going to confirm that. I mean, we should require that, no? I guess it's unclear to me why that would, the point that I'm making is that we have a phased final plat permit. We have the first phase coming in. We have a second phase that we're going to be filing for two multifamily apartment buildings imminently within a number of weeks, which will be the next two lots in the development. There will be two remaining lots that are four-ish years out in the phasing permit. Maybe, maybe, maybe I misunderstood. Marla, your comment goes to all of the multifamily mixed use and not just these two lots. Okay. Now, well, why do we need to know that now? Because the number of inclusionary units that are required depends on the mix of rental and for sale units. Okay, but we don't have to nail it down now. We can, if they're not, if they're proposing something that violates the inclusionary rules, we can simply say no later, right? When they come in for those additional lots, for those additional units? Yeah, we would write this decision on the assumption that all of the units for lots 10 through 15 are proposed to be rental. And if that changes, cross that bridge when we come to it. And as part of their condition, there will be a restrictive covenant that they have to record with that number from that formula for this decision. If they choose to amend it later, they would have to get a new restrictive covenant. I'll leave it up to the board for deliberation. We'll do it as we see fit. I think that that works. All that I'm saying is that if you base the decision on them all being apartments, then there'll be 15% of that entire number required as inclusionary. We're going to satisfy that with this permit that's in front of you now. Should we decide that one of those lots would make sense as a 30-unit condominium building instead of a 30-unit apartment building in three or four years? That would mean that 10% of those 30 units, three units in that building would need to be sold as inclusionary. And that would be how we would proceed with that. So I'm not saying that we would seek to have these past built apartments. We would have overbuilt the inclusionary apartments at that point and then would build building more inclusionary ownership units. So I'm not sure that I see a conflict with the ordinance. I just wouldn't want something in the permit to preclude us from doing that. Should that be something that we thought of doing in the future? You good with that? I understand. Any other comments or questions? Okay, let's move on to number three. Staff considers the board should defer the decision on whether to allow the requested additional 32 total units to such time as the applicant demonstrates the preliminary approval project can support them, but that they allow the proposed increase in inclusionary units. Staff considers factors in the future decision to allow an increase in total units to include traffic, adequacy of open spaces and adequacy of parking. Staff recommends the board discuss whether to accept staff's recommendation and if so, what conditions to place on such an increase. So the background, I'm just to give a little background if that's all right. Please do. The board's decision at preliminary plot says, you will provide 47 inclusionary units plus or minus 5%. They are now proposing 79 inclusionary units, which is much more than 47 plus 5%. So that would be fine if they weren't attempting to take credit, you know, inclusionary in the decision, preliminary plan decision was inclusionary units for which you get a bonus. And so if they said, well, we're gonna do 47 inclusionary and get a bonus for that. And then we're gonna do an extra 22 and just out of the goodness of our hearts, then we don't have a problem. But if they wanna take the bonus for that additional 22, 32, then that's 32 more units in this development overall. And so we haven't looked at traffic, we haven't looked at open space, we haven't looked at parking. And so I would recommend that we say, well, if you'd like to take advantage of those extra 32 bonus units, you're gonna have to show us that they work. I understand, I would accept staff's recommendation on that point, which is logical. So what does that mean in terms of what we do with this, Marla? So if the rest of the board tends to agree, we can just write it in that they are welcome to apply for an additional 32 units if they can show that they work. Yeah, I think we're used to working within the construct of this master plan. We've had for a number of years, we've always had this 343 units that we had as density in the plan, but it's always been the case that they needed to work or we wouldn't get a permit for them. So I think all we're looking to do is acknowledge that we have these extra units, that increase in that number of density units that's available gets noted in the permit. And when we come in with an application, if it doesn't work, it doesn't work. We're fine with that. Okay, any other questions? Okay, number four. This is about the integration of the inclusionary units. Staff recommends the board discuss whether they continue to consider the physical integration element of this criterion to be met. The discussion of the remainder of the criterion is incorporated into the discussion of the criterion below. So this is really about whether, I believe, this is about whether these two buildings of inclusionary housing are consistent from a design and finished standpoint with the other buildings that they will be proposing. Is that correct, Marla? No. Yeah. Yeah. So would it make sense to move on to number five so we understand the full? So this one really dovetails with six and seven, yeah. So six, then you get a seven, eight, nine, 10, whether it's like the big discussion. So this particular one is whether the units are physically integrated and complement the overall scale. And then this was when we had CHT come and testify that having them all in one building, it allows them to achieve greater affordability. Right. So I would propose that four through 10, I guess sort of be reviewed as a lump, but if there's specific things you want to address as we go along, that's fine too. Can I make one comment on that? Sure. So just in terms of the two issues on integration that I see, one I see is actual, the location of the buildings and then the second being the design of those buildings. I would hope that we can all agree that there was gonna be all in lot 12, all of the affordable buildings was the previous proposal. There was 47 inclusionary units. The revised proposal now is that between lots 10 and 11, all the inclusionary units will be in two separate mixed income buildings. So from a location standpoint, I would propose that it's actually, it's more integrated than it was before. There's inclusionary units in two buildings that are still at the core location within the property. Then obviously later in the memo, there's questions and comments about the actual design of those buildings, but in terms of physical integration, having location and then design it, I would propose that we would feel very confident that this is a more integrated location by breaking them into these two buildings. You sounded like you were going to make a comment or ask a question, Frank. This is a concern of mine and it goes back to, it's a slight aggression. I guess there's a lot to do. I'm gonna say it anyway. What I've noticed though in recent years, the last decade and maybe more ever since maybe longer is that there's a tendency to get away from the integrated housing concept and the pressure, the reason for that is because it's more expensive, but nevertheless, it's a critical social policy element that was originally behind the congressional decision to get away from large, and I'm talking about the federal decision to get away from large public housing projects which were a disaster and I see a creeping tendency toward getting back to that from the standpoint of quote, financial efficiency. And I think we should do everything we can to resist that, not to the point of impracticability, but really push back and question the condensing desire, the condensing pressures. You understand what I mean? I mean, this proposal goes more toward that than what we said was okay a couple months ago. But it doesn't impress me. It's still a way over-weighted with affordable versus market if I get to the buildings and that's disturbed me for a long time. Yeah, and if I actually, there is one update which did not make it into the packet but I've had some back and forth with Marlon. Our new proposal has a reduced number of inclusionary units from 79 down to 71. So it's 39 affordable in building on lot 10, 39 affordable, eight market rates and then 32 affordable, 47 market rates. So you're at that ratio that's closer to that 20, 25% of market rate. So you got, yeah, you have your 71 out of 94 are affordable and that's you got the three tiers of affordability or the 30%, 60% and market rate. So I believe the original proposal was 47 affordable in a 51 unit building. So in terms of pushing toward that true income diversity across multiple buildings, I think we've made a lot of progress. Always more can be made, but we are really proud of that. Progress from where you've started, but. And I would say for where folks are able to in the state, just what they were able to achieve. I think this is kind of at that leading edge of true income diverse buildings. I don't think the board is gonna push you further on that point, but I want to get that out there and have it understood as a major policy issue. So it sounds like it's a balance. Where is the appropriate balance between financial efficiency and true integration? Right, and there's always gonna be from a developer's perspective, and I'm not condemning it. I'm just saying there's always gonna be a natural bias toward making it more cost-effective. Right. And that just bangs against the, feel like the political and the social policy. We should be, as far as I'm concerned, pushing on that every time. Madam Chair. Yes, Dan. I mean, for what it's worth, and I hear what you're saying, Frank, about what's the relegation and the history of large public housing projects. But this building is integrated into a larger neighborhood of a variety of sizes. And that helps. Yeah. And all that. But there's still two big buildings standing at the end. I get it. I get it. And we also have a 2% vacancy rate and we also have, we don't want to be at the perfect, be the enemy of the good here. So that's just my comment. I don't disagree and broad picture with what you're saying, though. We've dealt with this in other projects. We want to avoid the buildings where the poor people live. Exactly. I'm done if you want. Any other questions or comments about them? Marlon, go ahead. So Tom's comment that he just made about 71 affordable units. So I think that we're probably going to continue the hearing just because there's a lot to review. Let's make a point to really dive into that because we can't accept new information after the hearing is closed and the final application is the final application. So let's just make sure I fully understand what it is you just said and we can update the board on the details of that at the next hearing. Okay. And just to be clear on what we're requesting, we have applications submitted. It's currently for 71 of these units will be affordable. As we submit for our affordable financing, that final number could change based on if we don't get certain resources, it could end up being 67 or 60. So we will submit, and I guess at the end of the day, however many we can get, that will be the inclusionary number that these guys that are applicable. But I can't tell you until I get the financing how many of those units we can then income restrict. So you'll notice Delilah and I kind of making confused faces at each other. Tell us, talk to us. Well, with the way that the formula is written and with the way that the restrictive covenant that would be a result of this decision would be on file. I mean. I would propose say, I know that right now as it's written, there's a minimum of 51 inclusionary units that if they don't provide 51 inclusionary units, they don't get to build the amount of units that they are permitted to build. Anything above that would be potentially eligible for future units down the road. So I would propose to say, these will have a minimum of 51 inclusionary units. And then if more are delivered, it's up to them to come back later and say, we'd like to have more density, but there's no need in our opinion. We're gonna go down and getting as many affordable units as we can, but it'll be at least 51. If we get the 51, they can build what they have proposed right now. And anything else I don't think should be part of our, because if that boxes us in like those inclusionary units, the extras above 51 are for our own proposal. We want to get as many as we can, but how that impacts, how many extra units they can build, I'd prefer not to see it. So now that I hear it's not a fixed number, then all the more reason why we shouldn't be making any statements about your additional 32 units, right? I think that the point with the additional units to Tom's point, as long as there's nothing that precludes us from acknowledging the fact that we built more inclusionary than was required and getting that density bonus at a future time, we don't need it now. We don't have a proposal to build the units now. So it doesn't need to be mentioned now. Well, with the exception of, as long as that doesn't preclude us from coming back at a future hearing and saying, hey, we were required to build 51, we built 60, those nine units are above the requirement and they're also eligible for a density bonus. So we're proposing to use those additional nine units in this building now. Well, you can make that argument then, but we're not going to make a commitment to you now. I think that's fine, as there was the condition in the permit, the plus or minus 5% for total density if something can happen to that, so that it's open to. Right, that was to it. But that said, you have to have a hard number at final plot. So the question we haven't looked into, which is I think what everybody's saying they'd like to do is sort of have the ability to retroactively count affordable units towards your bonus in the future. We're not sure you can do that, but we'll look into it. Okay. Okay. We're going to look at these as a group. So number six is the elevation and many of the subsequent comments I believe are about the appearance and the design. And if I remember correctly, when you...  When you presented your designs, I remember specifically saying this has a very urban feel to it and you and Evan said that that was intentional. That there's definitely a transition from the kind of traditional homes to this complex and that the design being more modern or urban was intentional. But it looks now like the design of the proposed two buildings is very different than what I remember it being. And I'm wondering if you can speak to that. Sure, I think certainly the case that we expected a transition from the more residential to a more urban setting in this area of the site as the project continues to the north toward Kimball Avenue. The roads are getting bigger. Parallel parking is getting added. We're increasing the landscaping and street type functionalities as we're heading that direction. So absolutely the case. And in terms of the specific architecture that's proposed, I think we send some pictures in and maybe Tom wants to speak a little bit to how they came about their designs. Yeah, I know we have a lot of specifics I know in the staff comments to get into but I'd love to be able to just give a little overview of how we came up with this design. And I don't know if you could give a 3.1 that one of those you could just kind of shows the elevation. The delilah runs the screen. Oh, sorry. 38 in the packet, it's in 30. And I can start before that. So overall our goal was to come up with a design that include varied high quality materials that took a transition from the existing single family homes because these lot 10 is that's the transition point. You've got the single family homes and then you have a transition to these buildings on lot 10 and 11. So what we wanted, we looked at the initial sketch plans which were pretty heavy on brick and glass without any of the sort of some of the colors that we've added here that the cement clabbered siding. So what we're hoping for was a building that made a transition from those single family homes into this more urban streetscape. And we obviously spent a lot of time reading the staff comments or things like the, you know activating the intersection. So we have these amenity spaces that are gonna be usable in many spaces at the corners take a lot of those elements that were in the last the sketch plan in terms of the mix of brick and cement siding the four story urban flat roof feel. And then what one of the biggest things that we did is we have two projects that we just recently did in Winooski that have this same issue to deal with which is you're making a transition from single family homes into urban areas. So how do you make that transition? How do you make the building feel urban while also feeling like you're integrating somewhat into the community that is that you're on the border of. So I have a couple of photos here because I think that our design ideas were really pulled from two recent projects that we have and I don't know if you're able to pull up some of those photos cause I think it's really helpful to see the real life inspirations for what, you know, on elevations don't always really speak as well as the real photos. While she's doing that, could one of you explain to me why flat roof has seemed to become almost a universal design feature of everything we see as opposed to a nice transitional peak roof from residential to quote urban? What is it? That flat roof is definitely more the urban feel. The urban downtown feel with the flat roofs it was one of the elements that we thought would be you can speak to how it was discussed at prior hearings. I all I my knowledge of what was discussed was from the staff comments and the minutes which were they want the urban feel that flat roof at these intersections to leaving the single family home section. So that was my view on how staff and the board and why is flat roofs anonymous with urban feel? Downtown. I don't know the pitch roof is more residential and those and I don't know if I have a deeper response than that. I don't think that there is, you know, I think it's an architectural preference. That's it. Yeah, hi guys. This is Evan Langfield from O'Brien Brothers to him started joint late and Frank one of the Evan, this is Dawn. Can I interrupt you for a second? If you're going to testify, I need to swear you in raise your right hand please. Do you swear soundly swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth under penalty of perjury? I do. Thanks, Evan. Go ahead. Thank you. Sorry for interjecting late. Yeah, so one point that I just wanted to make to answer part of Frank's question is that in addition to the design aesthetic, being more urban, I think the rooftop equipment when you have a densely sited area like this, otherwise you have to have put a lot of the rooftop equipment that would otherwise be on the roof on the ground nearby. So I think it was a design aesthetic and I think it was a practical decision as well. Thank you. For our buildings, that is the actual impact because these are all heated with energy efficient mini splits and all those condenser units would otherwise have to be around the side of the building. There's our most recent building right there in Winooski, which does have those mini splits up on the roof. But what you see here, this is Park Terrace Apartments. This is a mixed income development that just opened in September, which is right on East Allen Street, going into Winooski and up to the closest side of the building, that's Manso, which is single family homes on the border here. And you'll see a lot of the elements that we pulled over into the proposal for lots 10 and 11 with the clabbered fiber siding, the corner brick tower with the commercial, and in this case of Park Terrace, the commercial space on the first floor and then at these proposals, it's active amenity space on the first floor. And kind of the same street entrances, although similar to the lots 10 and 11, the actual street is due to the sloping nature, it's actually a parking garage. So if you go to the next one, this is the actual building that as built now, just kind of looking at that angle that this is akin to the angle you would see coming from the single family homes where you've got, or I mean, sorry, akin to the angle you would see from the intersection, the four-way intersection, where you've got the brick, the windows, then the first floor commercial space.  Or was it already? It's got this one corner right there, so that's a cafe space, that's a time.  No, it does not have any commercial, all residential. This is the look from the street view and just included this picture to highlight what you're seeing in the bottom row there, that's actually looking into the parking garage and based on the way this sloped, we had to have parking garage on the street level. It's not ideal for a residential feel, we prefer to have apartments or other space, but given the sloping nature of this building and lots 10 and 11, that had to be parking garage. So the way we tried to activate the street space was to have this nice cedar siding on the entrance and then we end up in this design using actual windows into the parking garage. I saw that in the sketch plan, the proposal was to use slats and some decorative inserts. Those are, to me, I like the windows because you feel like you're walking by more of a residential, but I'm also open to if the board aesthetically feels that the slats and decorative inserts are preferable that that works too. There are two ways to address this issue of you have a parking garage on this level. And then this is an example of the building right across the street from, it's another mixed income, 39 units, 27 are affordable, 12 are market rate. The one we just looked at was 45 units, 33 affordable, 12 market rate. Again, mixed income, the mix of the siding, the brick, the fiber cement clover, just another example of how we've, in these communities where you've got this single family component and you're trying to transition to urban the way that we've accomplished it. Of the ones you've shown, this is the most similar to what you're proposing. Yeah, the other one had a couple of the important elements that I thought were the corner with the, in one case, commercial and in the case that we have at lots 10 and 11, it's the active amenity space. And then I think another important element at Park Terrace that we just looked at is how to deal with a parking garage on the street. What choices do you make to really feel like you're not just looking at a parking garage? And there's a lot of ways that you can solve that. Question about the buildings. So I drive by the Winooski ones all the time. For the proposed buildings, are there what kind of amenities in the building? You know, laundry, workout space, meeting rooms, any things like that, or is it all just? Yeah, yeah, the Winooski ones and what we're proposing a lot 10 and 11 have a gym. So here at lots 10 and 11, the corner, one of the corners is gonna be a gym and the other is going to be a sort of a work at home lounge space with computer. And for folks that are more and more people, even at all income levels are working from home. So having one space that has that lounge work feel, and that's the two buildings we just looked at. One has a business center that has a dedicated computer. They both have gyms, laundry, on-site laundry, storage lockers, things like that, underground parking. Okay. Thank you. Frank, did you look like your post to ask a question? I wanna limit our ability to affect the aesthetic decisions is limited, so I don't wanna take too much time with that. All right.  You know, the project that we had, the preliminary flat renderings, we filed out a lighter colored brick. And so, you know, Tom had switched the brick, you know, to have a complimentary tone to, you know, the buildings that we would soon be proposing on lots 13 and 15. And just for like a, some disclosure, we have a good idea of where those are headed because we're working on getting that permit to you guys. And it'll likely be in here simultaneous with this at some point. And so you'll have a good understanding of what that's going to be. But there is a brick of that similar tone.  So the other four buildings will, you're proposing, now I can get confused. What are these here? This is what was approved at preliminary plot. Okay. And so the reason this is included in the staff report is because to contrast to what they're proposing today. So lot 10 is one of the lots they're proposing. And in the decision, there's a lot of discussion of this corner stair tower that is replicated on all four lots on this corner and creating a strong urban activated street presence. And that is really, in staff's opinion, gone from this proposal. You know, there's a list of things in the staff report on page seven, talking about the things that the applicant needs to do in order to get final plot approval for this project. They need to have a theme and variation approach to the entry towers. They need to have an entrance into street level common space near the center of the garage that is not present on this current proposal. They need to have complimentary entrances at the main four-way intersection, which again, based on the preliminary plot approval, these two are not proposed to have the entrances that compliment the two that were approved on the other side of the street. And there's a whole list of other things as you go through the staff report that just aren't really showing up in these buildings. One of the things that I specifically wanted to call out is the main entrance of the previously approved buildings is at the corner. And this current proposal does have an entrance, but the entrance is to a stairwell. There's no lobby at all and there's the elevator tower and the lobby is actually at the rear of the building or the parking lot. And so the board kind of said, you can have these much taller than normally would be approval buildings if you construct them as you've shown us. And so now that you have this totally different proposal, I'm not sure that it qualifies under the framework that the board laid out at preliminary. So why should we not just reject it? Is that a question for me or? Well, I'm asking anybody on the board, I mean, you're coming with basically a new proposal that is that contravenes the decision already made. Is it in the preliminary approval? I can say, again, there's what I was able to read in the staff, in the approval and in the minutes. And what I read was that the key requirement was that it would be high quality construction and varied and complimentary design. And then when I read through the minutes, I read commentary that was, this is, yeah, these examples you're showing us would meet that, but that they're, it didn't say that there are other ways to meet that too. So when we went through and read this, I said, okay, we want to make sure that we're high quality design. And as I go through each element of that design, some we're able to keep and some, for various reasons, we're not. And I think it would be really helpful to just, as Marla was saying, there's a sort of a whole checklist of points that are aesthetic choices that I think it would be really helpful to just kind of go through one by one so we can talk about why we made that choice compared to, because we should remember what we saw in the preliminary plat was six, the same building copied and pasted six times. So it was clearly not the ultimate design. And we were hoping that there would be some willingness of the board to say, we would like to see a little bit of variation within this community. We don't want the same building six times. So we made some choices that we thought would enhance the design, but I would love to go through each one of those and sort of talk about them. But what I'm getting at is that I'm staring right at a replication of the board's findings. I'm assuming they're accurately replicated. Does this have slatted, just being very specific, slatted ventilation and decorative inserts to screen street level parking, street level garage openings? Does this have that feature? And if I can answer that two ways, the first was, Well, well, let's, I'm gonna do a little as long as I can expound upon the no, the answer is no, it doesn't have that. Well, then it violates the terms of the preliminary approval. No, because, well, again, as I read the preliminary approval, the decorative inserts and slats were one way to accomplish an engaging street presence. We proposed windows instead, because we thought that was another way to accomplish the same thing. If the board says, look, we like the slats and we like the inserts, could you get rid of the windows? I'd say, sure, it's actually cheaper to do the slats and inserts. I like the look of the windows better because it makes you feel like you're walking by a residential neighborhood. That was why we made that choice. But if the board says, we don't like your choice, I'm happy to do that too. But we didn't make changes without thinking them through. So I think it does help to talk through each area that. Let's go through them a little more. The next bullet is an entrance into street level common space near the center of the garage where it faces on a street. Right. And we do have that. Do you have that feature? We do have that feature. And as Marla pointed out in the staff notes, that street entrance enters into the parking garage and staff comments where we'd love to see where you enter from the street into the parking garage. We'd love to see that entered into a usable space instead of just entering the parking garage. So we do have the street entrance. The choice there was, we only have 23 underground parking spaces. We want to take this balance between a really active engaged street presence. So you have a door and one thing I do agree with staff, we can improve that door, we can improve that entrance. What I would love to have still is once you get inside the building, put our residents hat on and say, do we want to turn that into a space that is some sort of common area or maximize underground parking with only 23 parking spaces underground, we know what our residents would want and they want us to maximize that parking. So that's why we made the choice, have the door in the center of the building to allow for that street engagement but still maximize the parking spaces. So we could make that change to say, okay, have that be a walkway where the hand is right there. Have that be a walkway? So we still maximize parking spaces but not try to turn that into a large amenity space that removes several parking spaces. That was the design choice that we made and why we proposed it this way. So you're saying that door where the hand is is actually a proposed door? Yes.  Right, and so I agree. Rather than turning that into a large, if we turn that into a walkway and that's how we did it at Park Terrace, the building that we just showed you, we had the same requirement from Winooski and it made sense. You want doors, you wanna feel like you're walking as you walk by a building that you don't just want no entrances but to maximize your parking and thinking about it from the resident side, sometimes those doors do just walk into the parking garage and so making that change to eliminate that space and have that be a walkway, I think would be a good visually from the outside, good usefulness from the residents and not get into having to turn that into some additional room that takes away parking spaces but never really gets used. That was my thought in trying to incorporate the comments and revise the design. Can I speak at a turn? No, go ahead. So the finding is an entrance into street level, common space. I would not argue that a walkway would be street level, common space but you have a big lobby in the back of the building. Why not make that parking and put your lobby in the front of the building so that someone who has a stroller or large bags of groceries can use the front door rather than the back door. With the slope of this lot, this has to be parking garage because the slope, there's no way that anything on this level other than accessible from the corner. This is the only area that the parking garage can go. We can't have. But why not move one of those other areas to the center of the building like they had proposed at preliminary plot? It's a zero sum game with parking spaces. So we have 23 parking spaces. Our thought was that what's gonna be most useful for the residents would not be to eliminate three, four, five, six parking spaces of underground parking, which we know... Sure, and I'm not proposing to eliminate them. I'm proposing to swap the things that you have shown on the plan that's on the screen right now. So where were the parking spaces? Tom and I talked about this a little bit and the idea of moving the elevator to the front of the building, I think the idea of coming in from the street with bags of groceries is a little bit misleading because I think most people who have a bunch of groceries are gonna park in a parking lot and come in on the parking lot side, which is where that door and elevator are located. So there is consideration given to the fact that most folks are driving to the grocery store and driving home, there isn't a grocery store and walking distance to the building. Okay, but there's also people with strollers, people with limited mobility. And in this scenario, that was the thought process. They could park in the parking garage, they could take the elevator to the parking garage, walk out the door to the street sort of thing.  That door, there's stairs, there's I think seven stairs leading to that door. The only accessible entrance to this level is on the corner of the building. So you can't have that be the main accessible entrance. That's one of the reasons we didn't try to highlight that as the primary entrance on that side. Would it be helpful to just remind that at preliminary plat, the applicant did discuss that the activation of the common space at the corp. Be helpful to discuss it and remind everyone and the applicant that at preliminary plat, they stressed quite strongly that the activation and those common spaces at the street level of the four corners would lend itself to enlivening the neighborhood and beyond just having a garage. I mean, that was the underlying premise for the board sort of thinking about those four buildings having a similar feature on all four corners and for carrying it up through the building so that there would just be motion and activity in common areas for people. It was strongly stressed by the applicant at preliminary plat. Thank you. So we continued to believe in the four corners intersection being a prominent feature of this development. I think we're looking at one aspect of that intersection in isolation right now talking about this building. You have in your packet a landscaping plan that includes hundreds of thousands of dollars of landscaping to the four corners intersection. Rick pavers, colored concrete, different patterns of integrated colored concrete to create recreation paths, tree grates and tree wells, urban benches and bike racks, seating walls, planter boxes, ornamental grasses. We've proposed an enormous amount of investment in the streetscape for this project in line with other findings at the preliminary plat proposal. And I think that viewing one entrance in isolation sort of doesn't take into account the whole picture. And so I think we do have an active space on each corner in this proposal, lot 10 and lot 11. One is an office space and one is a gym. They're fully glassed, storefront, aluminum storefront, glassed in areas. The landscaping plan outside is for pavers, for planters, for bike racks. And you can go to that plan and look at that. And I think the element that we had talked about of a stair tower on the corner and the glass windows, it's a very cool element. But there are challenges with that. And I think as anybody goes through a project, and we made pretty clear at the preliminary plat level, I think everybody would probably remember that the sort of amount of investment and time and effort in architecture sort of gets, goes from zero to 100 as you sort of head toward final plat, things come up. And one thing I think that had come up for Tom was just a restriction in terms of that physical amount of glass they can have in the building. Yeah, and happy to talk about that. I mean, because I do think that if we're moving on to that element, the corner element, I guess, if you could pull up our A3.1, just so you can see what we propose. Yeah, I'm kidding. Okay. So yeah, I did read through the comments and the staff comments that that prominent corner, that big, the glass towers were really important. In our design, you know, doing a project through the, through VHFA and the Vermont Housing Conservation Board, we have to comply with their design and efficiency standards and then the efficiency Vermont high performance track. One of the requirements to meet Vermont's, the efficiency Vermont's high performance track is no greater than 20% of the place of the building can be windows. So that's an energy efficiency. So the proposal that we have now is 19.97% window. If you tried, if you added big glass towers on the side, you go above that high performance track and then you're not eligible for the same incentives and you're not complying with VHFA's requirements. Now, I did, I think that we could kind of kill two birds with one stone here, hearing that staff and the board really think that the decorative inserts and slats are important. We could take all those windows off of the front row and increase the glazing in the towers to make those towers more prominent. We can't do necessarily full glass towers all the way up, nor would I necessarily think that that would be desirable but we could make those a more prominent glass feature so that, you know, those are more attractive. Yeah, you presented, it's bothersome. You presented a, you presented a very nice elevation to get your preliminary flat approval. That frankly looks way better than what you're showing us now. I mean, just in the simplest possible terms, you know, that's, I think other people, you know, taste is a matter of individual disposition but to my eye, I don't know if anybody disagrees. That lot 10, the building a lot 10 in the elevation, in the rendering, approved the preliminary flat is a really nice looking building and these with not just the corner tower but variation on the depth of the various vertical elements and what I'm saying as far as I can tell is and also in the height. I mean, it was a variation in the heights of the roofs that I don't see here. What I see is just a massive block that you've gone from bait and swish is harsh.  But you have a really nice looking building and not such a nice looking building that you now want to approve for final and that's bothersome to me. Is your incentive, is the efficiency, was the efficiency incentive contemplated at the time you did the preliminary plan? We were not involved in this project at preliminary flat. We came into this project in March of this year. So we had no one, but we came in completely fresh-eyed. All of my involvement was reading the minutes and reading the decisions and then trying to design a building that we could be proud of. I mean, I would love to invite the board to come and just take a tour of our buildings in Wenuski because that is what we're basing this on and see, I think we do design and build really high quality buildings. I think that on a small lot, the variation that they had shown in terms of depth of vertical elements and height differences, you couldn't get 47 units here and meet the height requirements you have right now. So I tried to design something that was attractive and maximize the ability to build affordable units. If you couldn't get it, why is it being shown? But we're, I'm sorry. Go ahead, Jim. This is what's being proposed. And so, I mean, if we don't like it, we should say why we don't like it and what we want. I keep going back to the regulation. I guess, I think we're, this isn't, I mean, we're, they're saying this is what you have to, they're not gonna propose this building. We have, they're moved on that things have changed since preliminary plot.  And, and, and I think we just have to get past that. That's not what they're proposing at this point. We haven't given them final approval. So we can't make them re-propose the same building. So they did get a preliminary plot, preliminary approval for a height waiver. Standard height is 35 feet. Buildings on law 11 and 10 are allowed to be 56 and 55 feet if based on the provision of high quality, varied and complimentary architecture for all buildings and landscaping. And then, you know, I read the preliminary plot decision to sort of further define what the expectations are for complimentary, varied and high quality architecture elsewhere in the decision. So I guess my point, Jim, is that the preliminary plot establishes some additional standards for this project. And so I would say, I agree with always looking at the LDR, but I think we also need to look at the preliminary plot findings. In other words, where the conditions impose the preliminary plot, which were quite specific, lawful, that's the only question. If they were, then they ought to be respected. They're very specific, you know, they're very specific. I mean, as far as... Well, then if we were entitled to impose them. Well, are we not, I mean, this is a question, are we not entitled to change them at this point before head final? Yes, I guess we are. So they're different than the LDRs. They're not, right? I mean, what am I missing? Well, the board reached consensus on these findings. And to change them should be done with cause and to... And so if their proposal is to dramatically alter what was contemplated, maybe it needs to go back for a preliminary review.  So what we're doing is what we do frequently is talk to the developer about... Yeah, I'm not saying we shouldn't. What the developer ought to do to comply with what the board said at once. And that ought to be valid. We can't go back and deliberate and come back with a new design, you know? If they're not... So I think the discussion is entirely appropriate. That is, it's lawful because it was a condition. These are reasonable conditions of a waiver that we granted. I mean, that's sort of the... Isn't that where you're coming from, Boyle? Mm-hmm. So are the conditions unreasonable where they lawfully imposed looks to me like they're reasonable, they were lawfully imposed as conditions of a waiver? But can't they...  I mean, can't we alter those at this point? Well, I think what I'm getting at is we can't redesign the project. If we want to modify something, this is a back and forth. If there's something... It's the developer's design that we have to rule on. All we can really do is say no. I don't think we can say, yes, if you... Well, they've redesigned the project for them. But they've changed it, they've redesigned it. So... So you say, hey, fellas, we've designed it again to comply with what you said you'd do. What do you say? Other board members, do you have any thoughts, sir? No one has any feeling about this one way or the other? I know, I do. I'm just trying to think of how I want to word it. I mean, I liked the idea of... Like you said, okay, I can take away the windows at the garage, right? And put in the slotted ventilation that was in place at preliminary and then we'll take that glass and create a somewhat of a variation of an entry tower. That won't be identical to what was shown at preliminary plot but still gives the desired feel that we're kind of looking for. And I would be willing to entertain that and say, okay, you know, we're looking for consistency that was kind of proposed previously. We understand that you can only make 20% you said for windows, right? So, you know, within that constraint, what can you do, what can you propose differently that gives that feel and still meets your requirements? Well, wait a minute. The 20% is only a condition of a certain pot of money which is an efficiency incentive. Did you have that incentive in mind when you did the preliminary plan? At that point that we were partnered with a different, we were working with Champlain Housing Trust during the preliminary plot. It was a substantially different proposal. So I think I'm not sure what they had in mind, you know, but this is the specific issue that's arising at this point in the design process with the full details and architectural elevations and financing process underway. So I understand you're trying to thread a needle through a whole bunch of requirements, financing folks, us, whatever. So this is difficult, but we're faced with having to look at a project that's substantially changed from preliminary plan. And I know, Tom, you weren't involved in preliminary plan. So this is more addressed to you, Andrew and Evan. So what can we at this point do? I mean, so we went with what Stephanie is suggesting. It still would require some modifications on your part. So what would be the process to get there in terms of your work, our work, whatever? I think, you know, I'll speak for myself or for O'Brien Brothers, but I think that that would be the most useful thing that we could do would be to say, you know, here are some elements that we think need to be enhanced or here are some ideas and, you know, that we could come back with, you know, something that we think gets a little bit closer to where we were previously. Okay. That's right. That's what should happen. But what I also just briefly would point out, you know, a lot of things in the application have changed. You know, previously we were proposing 47 inclusionary units located in one building that was almost exclusively inclusionary, which was approved preliminarily from the board. And so deviation isn't always bad. Now we have more inclusionary units in more buildings with more market rate units mixed in with them on different lots, right? And so I think, you know, to Jim's point, this is, it is different, but, you know, we have this proposal here now and so we'd be here to work with you guys on how to make this proposal work. Well, you know, we've heard, I'm sorry. Let's listen to what Evan has to say.  And then. Yeah, I was just gonna say that I think that the goal was always to have four strong corners that created, you know, a real kind of, it was placemaking on those four corners there. And I think, you know, we're hearing loud and clear and I'm not gonna design Tom's building for him, but I think we're hearing loud and clear that the board would like that corner strengthened a little bit. And so I think that there's a creative way to, you know, guide Tom's architects to come up with some ideas there. But I think, you know, I 100% agree with everything Andrew and Tom have said, which is, you know, this is an iterative process and, you know, what was submitted at preliminary plat doesn't come out in final form at preliminary plat. It gets, it transitions over time and, you know, time has passed and other considerations come into play, including this energy efficiency requirement, but time has also passed and things have changed in the world too. And I think that the goal here, at least on O'Brien brother's side, is to really activate this whole corner with, you know, a placemaking situation, which includes landscaping, includes the streetscape, includes all those other elements that Andrew had pointed out that I think you're sort of, you know, maybe we either haven't addressed them yet or sort of being lost over the vertical architecture as one piece, but the entire streetscape also needs to be considered here. Thank you, Evan. Frank, Frank, you were gonna say something. I think I've said it. Okay, all right. You know, I- And not the proposal that has been made to go back and come back with something closer is a good idea. You know, I think that it's reasonable to assume that there will be some changes between preliminary plat and final plat, but at some point, there's like a tipping point. I mean, this is just me talking. There's a tipping point where the changes are so significant and material that it seems like a different project. And it strikes me that that's kind of what we're dealing with right now, that it just seems very different. Does anyone not agree with me? Am I reading it right? And I guess I have a question for clarification to the, you know, notion that things change from preliminary to now. But I think that my understanding is the difference on these design elements is that they are specific conditions tied to that height waiver. Is that correct, Marla? Or- Some of them are height waiver related. Other ones are discussion of streetscape, but yeah, let's see. I guess it's the height waiver. And then the other ones are about road utility. Sidewalk design. I'm just skimming quickly through the preliminary plot decision to find where those really specific things are discussed. Right, right. So I guess I just wanted to, I guess, make the difference of their specific conditions versus the general what was approved, where there's variation, but there are specific conditions that have to be complied with. I don't know if that's a helpful point of there's variations in some components that there's flexibility, but that approval had some specific conditions that aren't being complied with currently. Is that accurate? I think- Yeah, I'm thinking, yeah. I think, I'd like to, we're a little bit in a gray zone. And I kind of, I like Dawn's formulation. It's true that you can come back with some degree of variation between plot and final. Even if you've gone too far from a, it looks like universal, I don't know, I haven't heard everybody speak. Jim sounds like he's not leaning in the direction. Yeah, we might be in different camps. We might be in different camps on this one. We may well be in different camps, but I wouldn't do it so hard and fast. I'd say, do the best you can to get a lot closer. And if I could just ask, I mean, the way that I read the decision is, it has to be varied in complementary and high quality architecture. Here are some ways that we would view it as those. And so I didn't say anything that said, it must have X, and which is why when we talked to it, we made decisions like, let's replace those slats and decorative inserts with windows and see if the board likes that better. Now, if the board says, just go with what we said was gonna be varied in high quality, don't come to us with this new thing that you think is also, you know, varied in high quality. I would hear that, but I don't think that that was the intent. I think the intent was that here's ways that you can do it. And if I would love to get more feedback from the board kind of point by point to help us with our redesign, like does the board say, yeah, we think that those slats and decorative inserts are much better, please come back with that. We liked it then, we like it now. That type of feedback would be really helpful for our redesign because all the changes, we made some changes, but we didn't make them, you know, without reason. So to be able to explain why we are thought process, say, oh yeah, I do like that feature. I don't like that feature. That would be a helpful process for us. I think that ought to be something that you could work out with Marla. I agree, and I think that if you go back to the conversation of the last hour, it seems like those four, I'll call them cornerstones around the intersection. That seems to be a theme of concerns that we have. I do have a question. And this is probably for you, Andrew. Is it your thought that the other four buildings would not match, but be congruous with this, your latest design here? That's a good question. It is something that I actually wanted to mention, which was that, you know, I think at the last hearing, at the preliminary plat hearing, and I know internally, you know, with all of our landscape architects, architects, and you know, with Tom and with his team, that you know, the sort of all six buildings looking identical thing we proposed at preliminary plat has sort of always been a question of whether that was the best way to build the development, to have all six buildings look exactly the same. And I think it has a little bit, you know, of an institutional feel when all six buildings are uniform. And so I think, you know, the proposal for the two buildings that are forthcoming from O'Brien Brothers is very much in line with the proposal from the preliminary plat in that style. It's not the same material, the same, you know, form that Tom's proposing. And so they would be different and they would be closer likely to the proposal from preliminary plat, which was our proposal originally for those buildings. So no, I don't think the intent is for all of the buildings to now look like this. I think the intent is for the other buildings to potentially to look different than this. And for the buildings to have their own identities and to sort of use that in a way to help as well. But doesn't that violate the principle of common elements but with some variation? I'm probably not using the right words, but I think we would not want to see six identical buildings, but we would like to see some integration. And doesn't that also violate the notion of that inclusionary units can't look that different from other units? But what specific elements, I guess, do we want to identify that we want to see across each building so that way that like, is it the entry tower? Is that really something that means a lot to us? And say, okay, on each of the six buildings we wanna see this tower. Or like, I feel like that's the kind of guidance that we would need to provide to say, yeah, I agree, I don't want six identical buildings. But what are the elements that we wanna see carried through on each building? So then they have the ability to vary other aspects of the buildings to make them unique. Well, I mean, I'll speak very directly to that, very simply. Look, what you presented in a preliminary plan is a whole lot nicer looking building than what you're presenting tonight. And the elements that make it a whole lot nicer looking on the glass tower on the corner and the variation in the depth of the vertical pieces. Now, if you restore those two things, I'd say terrific. But it sounds like they can't. Well, I think that if you were- What the terms would can't mean.  It's a requirement now, VHFA and VHCB turn that into the high performance track is now a requirement for applicants to VHFA and VHC. You can't get any of the financing unless you meet the energy efficiency. That's how it's written at this point, yeah. So then you're proposed them, then we're back to your, then it gets modified, you take away the ground floor windows and stick them in the tower, see what that looks like. But you can still do this instead of that. Right, and I think that's what they're asking for is what is it that we want to impose? What are the, this is- I'm answering only for myself, I don't know how the board sees it. We brought up the preliminary flat decision, which is on the screen right now. Theme and variation, that was the term. This was the discussion that resulted from preliminary, from at that time and the elements that the board- Right, so when I replicated it in these staff notes, I left out the things that I thought they were already doing. So this is the- Preliminary flat decision. Right, okay. I guess I view this, I mean, the LDR says X, this is how we say you will satisfy X, or that satisfies X, they're making changes. And so we have to tell them, I mean, if we're telling them now, you're not satisfying it with this, you have to do A, B, and C to do that. I mean, I guess we have to be clear, but I didn't see these as, if you don't do these bulleted items, you can't get a permit, to me that's not- It says this was supposed to be done- This was proposed, yeah. Through modification to the buildings and surrounding streetscape to include the following. And that was the premise on which they got their approval. What, I mean- I'm not a lawyer, but my reading of that is, here's the deal, here's what you have to do. I don't think that this is that, if they don't do every one of these bulleted items, they can't get final approval. I don't think that's what that, I don't think- They put it on the waivers that they received as well. Yeah, so there were the setback waivers and there were the height waivers. And I think that was it for waivers. We do have all of those, except the slats there. And then obviously tonight, Frank brought up one that we hadn't seen anywhere else, which was variation in depths. That was never discussed as far as I knew anywhere. So there's some things that you guys, like that could come up with tonight, be like, hey, we never talked about this as a condition before, but the board actually feels this one is- Wait, wait a minute. You can't put up a beautiful elevation as the premise that you want the board to have in mind when it's writing its opinion. Come on. There's so many elements of these that I think are great and important. I'm just saying that was, of all the ones that we focused on in writing, that was not one that I had actually seen. And I understand what you're saying, and I'm just saying that this is not an exhaustive list. We have actually hit that entire list with the exception of the slatted ventilation. We can probably improve on many of those, like we've talked about tonight, which we'll go back and say, all right, here's how we can improve on every one of those bullets. But I mean, I think we do those. So what do we do now? Well, I think that from Tom's most recent statement, it sounds like you're feeling like you have some direction from the board to enhance your adherence to this list plus the depth and height variations. I don't know that we can do much about the height variation. We have a height limitation in place from the board that we're hitting. That would just take off. I think that the variation is like a little, a parapet kind of play. We're at the top right now. So I think- But your building already has some play. Yeah, there may be a little bit. We can't go, I'll look back. I'll do as much as we can within what the board has said as our height maximum. If there, we actually, I would have loved to have done this tower on the corner higher, but it is at the max that the board set. Cause I think that would have been a nice architectural feature. And so we did go as high as we could. And if we go lower in any areas, we're going to have lower roofs for people. So that's- So you've got a portion of your building on the right of the screenshot that Delilah is pulling up with. That's a little bit lower. Maybe you make another section that's a little bit lower right next to the tower to make the tower look taller by comparison or something like that. Yeah, we can, we'll do everything we can within the- So what I was saying is that it sounds like they have some direction. And if the board still has the energy, maybe we can move on from the appearance of the buildings and discuss the other leg of this stool, which is the roads. Cause there's a lot of staff comments about the roads. I don't think it makes sense to go over any more nuances of the buildings at this point, but we might as well make productive use of everyone's alertness. And I just, I should have said this earlier, but we are going to close the hearing before 10 o'clock. We're not going beyond that. Sure. Okay. So- Do we wanna run through- And stop before we ask public comment, so that way. How do we want to handle that? Are folks in the audience here to give public comment? No. Sir? No. Is there anyone online that you know of who we haven't asked yet, but- Well, but you know, we've just announced it. So if you are interested in making public comment either on this project, can you just give us a little note in the chat box so we know to expect you? And we'll allow time for that then. Okay. So the, thanks, Stephanie. The stuff on the road kind of starts when we get into the plan unit development standards. And that starts on page 11. And the first comment is comment number, the first red comment, we're welcome to talk about anything of course, is- 14. 14. And 14 is about some very specific design details. Which are mentioned above 14. So, you know, for some of these, maybe it'll be fairly quick to get through the few before this, I think it probably makes sense for us to connect with staff about some of the bedroom counts and things and relates to the moving inclusionary unit target and how best to handle that. And then- Andrew, you need to speak up. Sorry, so thanks. For comment 14 related to the traffic study, you know, we, I did speak with Roger Dickinson who had done the traffic study. I can provide a letter that sort of outlines the answer to the question, the land use code for two family homes. The result of the change to the manual, I think when he did the report, he was using the 10th edition. And since then the 11th edition has come out and there's the 10th edition didn't have a duplex code that the 11th does. And so now he's corrected it to be the duplex code. And the result is the reduction in trips of like five or six trips to the development. So it doesn't have an increase, it's a decrease and we can provide a subsequent letter outlining why that happened so that it's clear for the record. So that's number 14. That's part one of 14. Three bullets under above 14. There should be a crosswalk with a pedestrian beacon on the uphill side of the driveway. That's fine. We can add that to the plan. The driveway out of lot 12, lower than the adjacent O'Brien farm road and may have site distance issues. Did you talk about that with Scott? I think that one comment, we might have to connect outside of the meeting with public works on just to understand it and we can certainly. Yeah, so this is about lot 12. And I, Justin and I met to write these comments together. So I'm prepared to answer any questions you have. But for lot 12, it's coming up to O'Brien farm road. And so the question is whether there's site distance based on where you have your landscaping. If you have low shrubs, then they're at eye level when you're driving your car. Okay. So we can work with you guys or with Justin to remove those or amend the landscaping plans so that they're not on the way. Yeah, one thing we've seen done successfully is proposed trees that don't have low limbs. Sure. Yeah, that's no problem. Okay, 15 safe crossing across the four proposed to be five lanes of Kennedy drive. Staff recommends the board as the applicant whether they will install the signal as designed or whether they wish to propose an alternate temporary solution. Yep. So it was snuck into the back of our traffic study. I think it was in one of the final pages that he had recommended a flashing beacon be installed until such time as the signal was installed. And so that is the proposal. I don't know if it was on the plan or not. What level of flashing beacon? Sorry. So there's the, I wanna call it like a tiger but that's not the right word. The one that's up at Fannie Allen that's like a hard stop for the cars. And then there's the ones that just flash like we have on Swift and Spear. It's like a viper tag. It's some sort of animal, some wild animal flashing. Cause they used to be what the rapid flashing weekends where you can't. Right. I think that it's the RRF. Yeah, so that's the soft one where nobody actually has to stop where there's the harder one where it has a traffic signal that only turns red when someone pushes the button. Sure. And so given Kennedy drive, you know, we would expect to see that level and then you would have to evaluate whether that's even worth it or you're better off just doing the whole darn thing. Well, so I think that the analysis for the signal wasn't warranted. I think that Roger had thought that the flashing beacon worked. I mean, you know, there is a crossing in either direction with a sidewalk going to it. And this is only the first 94 units being proposed. You know, it's, so that was the proposal. I don't think we can certainly look at whether, to your point, I mean, that would mean installing the full signalized intersection at that time, which isn't warranted for traffic considerations given this number of units. Right. So what's interesting is that to answer Stephanie's question, there is no such thing as a pedestrian warrant. So it's sort of a judgment call on whether, and it's not just 94 units, right? It's connecting the 115 homes to this portion of Kennedy drive. So you're making that improvement to the intersection by adding lanes. You've changed a four lane road to a five or six lane road. And now you have people who are going down a rec path to that intersection, not just the 94, but additional 150. One solution might be to not propose the crosswalk to Kennedy until the traffic signal is installed at a later date. I mean, the rec path goes to a sidewalk that connects to Kimball Avenue, a few hundred yards up the street that has a signalized crosswalk. It would seem reasonable that folks could walk up there to cross Kennedy in the interim before the signal was warranted for the investment of installing it. Could you pull up to Lila? I think page 27 or maybe 28 of the packet. Just so everyone can kind of see what the conversation is about. I mean, this is the board's decision, but Justin and my conversation, again, taking off my supporting the board hat and putting on my professional engineer hat is that you're dumping a lot of people onto a high speed road. So I guess what I guess my proposal would be to take the crosswalk out so that folks could walk up the sidewalk to the existing signalized intersection at Kimball Avenue to cross to the rec path. Is there currently a sidewalk in both directions? In both directions, yeah, one heads up so that in either direction, no matter where you were going, you could walk to a signalized intersection and cross the road without going out of your way on a sidewalk or off street improvement. And we are warranting to put the signal in and certainly in future projects, I mean, the next phase of this project, the two buildings that we'll be filing for within a few weeks will be for an additional 200 plus units. And at that point, we would absolutely just be putting the signal in. So I think it's sort of a distinction without a purpose, but to tie the investment of that signal to the potential construction of one of these two lots for Tom, 44 units to make that investment, it's just, it's not something that we can, we can, that I could commit to right now. I think we'd have to look at it and come back to you with a decision on that, if that were the ask. That's kind of reasonable. So I've just been informed that we've allowed it on another project until he drives. So I think, I think it's okay. Seems reasonable, what he's saying seems reasonable. Likewise, I agree. Because it's not that far. I mean, it's about a thousand feet to the next, to the intersection, so less than a quarter of an hour. But then you can go both directions so you don't have to go right away. Right. Okay. Thank you, Andrew. Sure. Moving on to 15. Oh no, I think we're moving on to 16. I wasn't quite clear what your comment meant. Marla, I have a note here. What does this mean? Oh, sure. So this was just that Justin hadn't had a chance to review the wiring diagrams and all the thorny details of the traffic signal. And, you know, he's more qualified than I am to review electrical conduits and stuff. So we were gonna have him take a look at that. And if he had any major comments, provide them at a later hearing. But I also would recommend that there's just a condition that the thorny details be allowed to be prior to his owning permit. Sounds great. Okay. I don't know anything about electrical conduits for a traffic signal so I think it's okay. All right. Let's move on to the next page. Staff Comet number 17. Sure. Before we got, I think that dives back into some design questions. I think we skipped over Comet five, which was just that had some impacts on the number of inclusionary units. I was wondering if we could potentially. I think that's when we began the discussion of lumping everything together. Right. And right. Right. So five is now moot, right? That's why I wanted to make sure that there wouldn't be any minimum or maximum number of inclusionary units on lots 10 or 11. Just. Well, what I had noted the board had said about flexible number of units is that we were gonna look into what the rules allowed and talk about that at a later hearing. Okay. So four lots 10 and 11, then this is now moot. There's not a. Right. Okay. Thank you. So, where are we? 17, thank you. Staffer commends the board, ask the applicant to decide, describe the use of this area as it doesn't seem to serve the building on lot 11. And that's the pocket parking issue. Tell us about the pocket park. Please. Okay. So do you guys have the landscaping plan? Could you pull up? Probably take a second to find it though. Thank you. We'll help to have, yeah, to have that in front of small. I think it's page 34. Maybe 35 either and we'll show it. No, 34 shows it better. Okay. If you have that up, yeah. So this is just a small, basically a small park space off the corner of lot 11. It's got some honeysuckle shrubs and some other street shrubs that are actually off of our lot in front of it. It's a small resting space associated with lot 11. It's the only lot 11 and like 10, these two properties are all gonna be non-smoking properties. Oftentimes in our developments, we'll have one small area where we do allow smoking. If this is contemplated to be that one area, we could actually, I did agree with some staff comments that it could use more either screening or some more landscaping maybe around the front, especially if there's gonna be folks smoking there. But then you've got the benches inside and it's labeled as pocket park, which I know is not very descriptive. But that's the space and the only access to it would be either out the main door through the park or the side door through the parking garage, which is now shown through a parking space or the man door, the person door, which is right next to the garage entrance. But it's not, there's no sidewalk to get to. Yeah, through the garage entrance, you would have to walk out the driveway or through the main, you'd have to walk through that parking space, which that was another comment that I agreed with making that entrance a lane, a walking lane rather than a parking space. So do we have a board, a sense of the pocket park and? Just to clarify too, I don't know if it came across that way in the comments or not, but I mean, the intent is that it's it's sort of connected to the street. I don't think it's meant to be fenced off or. Well, it'll be fenced off. Or sort of exclusive. I mean, we hear about these, oftentimes hear about having like a place where the bench that somebody could go outside and sit and read. I mean, that was a specific comment actually in regard to our plan at preliminary plan. You know, where does a resident go with a book to just sit on a bench outside and read? And this is basically, you know, that's another use here, right? So I think that was the intent of the design was to have a spot outside that folks could go and sit, you know, people from the street, somebody who's riding their bike or walking with their kids who wants a snack or whatever could also sit on the bench and give the kid an applesauce or whatever. So I think, you know, that's sort of the meaning of it. You know, and to Tom's point, you know, if people are going to be using it a lot from the building for that purpose, maybe it makes sense to add screening, but also, you know, the way that it's proposed, I think Wagner Hodgson saw it as being more open to the street so that it didn't feel like it was, you know, walled off or closed in or something like that. I'm just thinking, is it the only place that people who want to smoke can go and smoke? We've designed buildings both ways where we have a designated space on the property somewhere that's connected but somewhat removed from other commonly used areas.  It's, I think everybody's seen properties where sometimes that can become an issue where people feel like, oh, they don't like the interactions with a lot of smoking. I kind of like the idea of this being the only designated smoking area on the property. I think it's a kind of a good compromise for accommodating smokers and having it be connected but somewhat removed from other areas of the property. I have some just concerns with people that live in the units that are close to a designated smoking area, right? Because like in the summertime, you get your windows open and now all of a sudden I'm trying to sit and, you know, hang out with friends and all I can smell is someone else's cigarette smoke from outside which is incredibly disturbing, especially if it's that's a designated area because that's always going to be what you smell. Always a concern. And then folks will a lot of times just walk to the street so which is not too much farther from the window. Stand on the sidewalk there. One thing that we've done that we could do is put on the far side of that area, put a little covered section so that kind of may have that like the farthest point away on that pocket park be the emphasis of the smoking area. And then I feel like if it is a designated smoking area, it's less likely that the non-smokers will actually go and utilize that space for reading or sitting or enjoyment. And there's, I don't think there's any easy answers on this one. We've done it where there's no designated areas that can create conflicts. You've done it. So I agree that it is a balancing act. Where I come out for what it's worth on this particular one is to have an absolute prohibition on smoking in an affordable housing project is not, is almost punitive. That's what I think. So you prefer to see that designated? I understand that it's offensive to non-smokers to have to even share an outside area and close proximity to smoking. But I think if we want, particularly if you're, if you're housing any homeless people or people of very low income, that is who our smoking cadre is. And you're telling them they have to suffer what it's for. I'm not gonna do a wholesome advance. Everybody understands my point. So are you? Second that, I mean, if you don't provide an attractive place for folks to go, they're gonna find their own place. And it's not gonna be as attractive. So I think what Tom is proposing here kind of again, threads the needle. So thank you, Evan Frank. Are you suggesting that people be allowed to smoke inside? No, I'm suggesting that I would leave this alone. Okay, I see. All right. Sorry. Yeah, I mean, I just hate it, but that's fine. Like I live in a building and it's a non-smoking property. And there are people that occasionally will, they'll just smoke like in their car or in the wintertime they'll stand right in front of the door because they don't wanna walk to the street. And I get it, because it's, I don't know, I just find it gross when I have to walk by it, but there's just like. The comment was about the accessibility of the public park space, correct? Oh, the public open space. Right, so the comment was, what is the purpose of this space? It's kind of hanging out there. It wasn't really a judgemental comment, but like, what's going on? Help us understand. Yeah. Does everybody understand? All right, that's just fine. Pardon? The non-secretory just hit me. I'm sorry, going back to something that was said earlier. You have 23 spaces in the underground garage and you have 47 units in the building. The rest of the parking is exterior, right around the parking. All right. Is it open season or does everybody get a sign of SWOT? Typically, well, we've done it two ways. We have some communities where everyone gets a spot and it's first come, first serve the parking garage. Others where the parking garage is a additional amenity. So like the one you parked here, so we just showed you the parking garage is $40 a month. On these, that is the proposal is 40, I think it's 40 or $45 a month for if you want underground parking above ground parking is. So basically, none of the affordable housing is going to get an indoor, is going to get an underground parking spot. A lot of the 60% units do. We don't typically have a lot of the homeless at risk folks. Some have vehicles, but a lot of the 60% units will also choose and have the means to get an underground parking spot because we don't set the rates exorbitantly high on those underground spots. So those are assigned, those are assigned slots because they're purchased. And the ones that are surfaced, are they assigned or they just random? You just wanna be parked wherever you can. Okay, let's just do a check here. Have we heard from anyone from the public who wants to? Okay, so thank you. We'll just push ahead. Can get through a few more. If you seem like like fairly straightforward. 18, this is about photometric computations and some missing information around that. Yeah, so I did email the lighting consultant. He asked for further clarification about what it meant. I can connect with Marla via email and get a bit more information and send it back to the lighting consultant. All right. We're gonna adjust the plan accordingly. Thank you, Andrew. Number 19, staff recommends the board discuss whether any lighting will be needed on the exterior of the buildings near entrances or dumpsters, for example. If so, such lighting must be shown on the photometric drawings. And same comment from Marla. So we're coordinating on the building lighting as well. So we'll follow up as soon as we can. All right, thank you. Okay. There will be some exterior building lighting. Yes. Is the answer. All right, good, thanks. Okay, comment 20. Applicant met with bike and pad. Staff has requested confirmation from the committee that they are satisfied with the plans as submitted. Sorry, I turned off my mic. We did get a letter from bike pad. I think Delilah had it up earlier. It's very brief. And I can read it. And I can open it. Says regarding O'Brien development plan review, the updated plans were reviewed by the committee this evening, that being November 10th. It was noted that recommendations from prior meetings were incorporated into the current submitted plans. The committee is satisfied with the plans and endorse it for buildings 10 and 11. Great. We did meet with them. I was racking my brain because I've met with so many committees recently. I thought that we had met with them and they had liked the plan, so that's great. Okay, good. 21. Suggest the board ask the applicant to present their design and consider whether the established goals, A through E, are satisfied. Staff generally considers the goals to be met with minor recommended changes discussed immediately below. Yeah, so this would be a great time to just kind of share the streetscape design with you guys, which is on the landscaping plans. So if we could pull up either of them, I suppose, probably the one that shows, I'm forgetting the name of the road, O'Brien Farm Road. So I think that's the one that we were looking at just a moment ago with the Foggan Park, actually. Oh dear. That's kind of it. Yeah, so actually, even if you just kind of scroll down, it shows a little bit of the match line there. The sheet with the four-way intersection is probably the best one. So right there is good, even how you had it. I think what he wants is to kind of show both pages like you had it split between the two. Does this page do it, or does the other one better? So like the way that you had it, this is fine. We can look at this. Okay, I can just go back up to this one. Yep, okay, all right. And then scroll so you're showing half of the one and half of the one. So just to kind of talk through what the issue was before we kind of get there, we had had a previous road design in this area permitted back with a master plan. When we came in for the preliminary plat, there was some feedback from a bike and pad, the committee and from staff about how this whole area worked from a bike and pedestrian standpoint, how folks were getting down to Kennedy Drive, how people were getting through this sort of more urban area and how to accommodate a rec path and a sidewalk and the parallel parking that's being proposed. And so we had worked with a consultant from WCG, Corey Mack, who had submitted a report to us with a number of recommendations in terms of how to sort of make this all work.  You know, the key aspects of it are that we did include a 10 foot rec path heading down Two Brothers Drive toward Kennedy. The previous approved plan was for an on-road bike lane. So we swapped that. We got the rec path off the street. So that's the big change to the sort of Two Brothers connection. It has a sidewalk and a rec path at this point connecting down to Kennedy. For the transition of the rec path that's coming from the townhome. So there's a, it's an eight foot wide rec path, I believe, because that was the standard when the neighborhood was built. And that comes into this four way intersection. And the talk, the sort of conversation was how do you accommodate that in a more urban way that sort of fits with the design aesthetic of the buildings that we're going for? And the solution that we proposed you can see on the screen is to transition to a concrete path. So it would go from being a 10 foot or eight foot asphalt path to an eight foot concrete path with the scoring kind of shown there. So you can see the different sections of sidewalks. And at the points where the parallel parking is proposed, the path sort of the material between the path and the road changes to a sort of paver or you know, an impervious material. And you sort of see these tree grades start getting put in with the street trees like set in like a silver cell, which is this big thing that makes it grow, even though there's not good soil there. So you can see where each tree grade is and sort of along the path, there are these darker gray squares, which you can point to sort of on the wider sidewalk, like heading out of the four way intersection. And those are colored concrete. So that's an integral coloring put into the concrete to create sort of a sort of feeling as you head through there, that this is sort of not just a wide open rec path. It's sort of a safer, you know, probably want to go a little bit slower. It's sort of a subtle cue to that. So that's a good shot. So you can see, you know, the sort of, you know, the three by five tree grade called out. You can see the integral colored concrete and you can see the band three foot wide colored concrete band between the sidewalk and the curb. So that's sort of your unloading zone for your parallel parking. So rather than put grass there that won't grow, it's a stabilized surface that folks can get out of. So we're really excited about it. I think between all of those elements, the raised intersection. So if you scroll over a little bit, you can see the central square of the four way intersection is proposed as a concrete. So a dark gray colored concrete with brick, real clay brick, paver crosswalks surrounding it with flush mounted granite curbs set into the pavement to sort of create like a really nice four way intersection there that's really pedestrian friendly. And you can see how it relates to the different plazas and stuff around it. So that was the sort of gist of the plan. You know, we're happy to hear staff thinks it works. You know, there's a number of comments here in blue and I went through them today. I think we probably would like to just sort of either talk with Justin or with staff offline about any questions we have for these and then come back to you guys and just say we're in agreement with this as amended or better understood. If that works. Can I ask that we talk about just one of them? Go ahead. So the one about perennials in the right of way. And this comment is echoed by our city arborist as well. The city, and we also talked to the city manager about this. The city doesn't have the resources to maintain perennial plantings in the city right of way. So as the board is looking at these plans, the city is going to say, we're not gonna consider these, I mean, if they wanna plant them, it could potentially be throwing away money because then we're just not gonna maintain them. So we would recommend you remove them. But as the board looks at these plans, imagine that anything other than trees in the right of way isn't there. So grasses, little shrubs, flowers, that kind of thing. We don't have the resources to maintain that kind of stuff. Yeah, and that's one of the items, frankly, we'd like to better understand because I mean, I don't know, at least for our part, for our buildings, I don't think we would mind maintaining five or six plants on the corner to keep them looking nice for the other four lots. So I don't know if that's an option or not, but that's one thing that we wanted to talk about, whether I presume if the lot 10 and lot 11 is maintaining the bushes on their property that the three or four in front of it wouldn't be a big deal,