Sarah, Abby, and Connor just joined. Have you heard from Joe lately? I saw him on Sunday. They had that antique what are we called, Rochelle, the Historic Society. Oh, right, right. He was there. I heard from him a few minutes ago. I thought he was coming. I think he's probably in a show off. Okay, I was just curious. Yeah, but he didn't say for sure. He didn't say he was. Right. That's what I had to say. I just hadn't heard from him for a little while. See if it was. Let's start. Are you ready to go? Recording in progress. Okay. I'm going to start with the commission meeting of November 9th. 2023. We start with any changes to the agenda tonight. During none, we'll move on. Next item is public comment. This is for folks. If you want to address the planning commission on any item, not on tonight's agenda. Things on the agenda. You will be able to speak to when we get to those items. Does anyone want to speak on anything other than what's on the agenda tonight? Okay. And we'll move on. Next is approval of the previous meeting minutes. So copy of the minutes were included with the packet. I also like noted a couple of typos that I corrected and then sent out updated minutes based on those. They were not, they didn't change any of the substance, just simple spelling errors. So those I sent out in a subsequent correspondence. So you should have the corrected minutes. For your consideration. So I'm looking for a motion from someone to approve the minutes with any other changes. I can approve the minutes. They look fine. Okay. So that's a motion by Sarah. Someone a second that. All second. Connor. Okay. Any discussion? Any changes edits? Hearing none. Then all those in favor of the motion, please signify by saying or raising your hand saying I or raising your hand. Okay. And so no one's against it. No one abstains. Thank you. Mike, are you voting on that or no? I mean, we have, we have enough to pass it. I just wanted to make sure that. Okay. I mean, I would be in favor of it, but no, that's fine. Just wanted to make sure I was recording it correctly. All right. Next item is public hearing on proposed amendments to unified land use and development regulations section 4.4 at all related to local resource protection. You want to give an intro to this? Yeah, I'll just do a quick introduction. And there's a couple of items that I wanted to highlight that are that I added since we last reviewed this. You can if so tonight this is on for public hearing for consideration at the end of the hearing you can choose to make additional amendments or forward it onto the council for their consideration or hold additional hearings if you so choose these amendments primarily as you as you recall relate to section 4.4, which was previously design review and is now intended to be a local resource protection section. So this includes changes to section 4.4 section 4.9 on non conforming lots structures right away drives and uses section 6.2 on subdivisions section 6.6 on site plan review article 8 on administration article 9 on definitions and article 10 on the zoning map. The bulk of the changes are included in section 4.4 and articles 9 and 10 and partially article 8 just more to clarify the creation of the local resources advisory commission. So the two or the changes that I wanted to highlight since the last since the last time you reviewed this and set the hearing I'm going to share my screen here quick. So under section 4.4 I and 4.4 J I added in a section under 4.4 I to clarify that for so this is the section on listing of properties so that any of the applications any of the information related to the application or other items would be done by would be paid for by whoever's making that request. So it's clear that any fees associated with the work or information that's needed would come from the applicant whether that be the property owner or another entity so just added that language here under item 8. Eric I just want to interrupt for folks here and who may be listening we're talking about for getting on the historic register. That's correct yes thank you for that yes so any properties to be listed on a local register of historic places or sorry a local resources register I believe is what we're calling it any fees associated with the application would be would be born by the whoever is making that request whether it be the property owner or another entity because we do allow for that in in the listing of properties and then similarly in delisting of properties under item J I've added a new item 7 basically saying the same thing that any costs associated with the meetings or application materials to have consideration in the listing would be paid for by the property owner in this case since it would be the property owner that would need to make that request so they're slightly different but providing generally the same information so that's one change and the other change that I realized earlier tonight is that under the definition section and I'm going to apologize for the scrolling definitions I included certificate of appropriateness I realized that this was actually included in the suite of amendments that were recently just approved by council what what should have actually been in here was contributing element which is this definition now on the screen so we can easily make that switch if you can make that as part of your recommendation I would say if you do choose to forward this onto council it can be done with those with those amendments but the definition for certificate of appropriateness was just approved by council so there's no reason to have that included again it should have been contributing element so otherwise no differences from when this was before the planning commission to set this public hearing Any comments or questions from the planning commission? I guess sorry Mike did we open a hearing official? Oh I guess we probably should do that too so in case we didn't the public hearing on articles unified land use unified land use and development regulations is now open so any planning commission anyone have any comments? I'm making a different comment I just tested back before Joe he's trying to get in I don't know he's having trouble he's not on my attendance list and the mayor will be here in 10 or 15 minutes okay any again any other comments about this specifically from the planning commission? I'm okay with it Abby and Connor you're okay? Follow me anyone in the audience have any questions I don't know if you understand what we're talking about right now but it's really talking about article 4.4 which is wording we put in to try to put restrictions on or help us save historic properties or properties with cultural significance or archeological significance in the city that's what we're dealing with right now and I would just say for folks in the room and online typically what we'll do is take comments from people in the room first and then move to folks online for comments in the public hearing since we do have a number of folks in both locations so anyone have any questions about this? Can I get you to come up to the microphone so folks can hear you and introduce yourself if you'd like? My name is Nick Brennell I use the name Brennell for clarification 4.4 is strictly regarding the historical properties and those amendments were added to this document prior so prior public records don't have 4.4 included into it 4.4 was reserved previously right? Now but it's under the heading of design review so it's basically a complete rewrite of section 4.4 is what we're proposing here. There is currently a 4.4 included and actually I will scroll back up to that section. And the reason for this is primarily because we recognize that a lot of our historic properties should say a lot but a significant number of historic properties have either been torn down or whatever and we're trying to get some wording in to help save those structures that we as a city find important. And the proposed amendments so far to summarize have mostly been about any inquiries that would maybe be submitted to the town the inquirer would have to pay for. If there's any costs associated with listing it on the historic register or delisting it from the register so that it's not a burden on the city. So I think to be clear just so that I understand your question this would not relate to requesting any records that exist currently. The costs. What these amendments are setting out to do is to establish a local register of historic cultural, architectural and archaeological resources. So we have a list that we've built currently so if people wanted to have properties added to that list or removed from that list these amendments lay out a process and specific informational requirements and surveys and studies that need to be done to support either that listing or delisting and the creation of those materials would be the cost of that would be the applicant would be responsible for providing the cost. Okay, thank you. Anyone else? Sorry just really quick can you try the other microphone? Somebody online is having difficulty hearing off of that one and I know we have at least one that's not very doesn't work very well. My name is Felipe. I live on Hickok Street I'm wondering if these amendments are setting an appropriate bar so that the city is not burdened with an excess of historically designated properties that would then inhibit updating the city housing stock to something more modern that is more efficient in heating that holds more families I guess I think it's fine to preserve historical structures but you could run into a situation where the city is riddled with them and then you don't have that turnover of old buildings being turned into new buildings with amenities and things that make life better in the long run. Hopefully our housing stock there are codes that will make the housing stock safer and safer for folks living there and that would include any historic structures but just because a house is old doesn't mean it would make the historic register. There's going to be a what we call a design advisory committee or local resource advisory commission that would look at properties and determine if it's got historic significance or archeological significance or cultural significance. But the basis for that decision isn't necessarily laid out in this document it would just be up to the opinions of whoever's on that commission. Based on I guess that commission is going to have to have some guidelines as to she can't look at a house and say it's 100 years old so it's automatically on it's going to have some characteristics. So those have not been decided. To my knowledge we don't really have that laid out specifically do we? Yeah Eric's probably able to define that basically a survey of the property needs to be conducted by a qualified historic someone who has either an architectural historian or similar type of background that can speak to the historic cultural, architectural, or archeological significance of the property or structure and in that case that would be used as a factor to determine whether or not a property would be listed or listed. In addition the members of the specific the members of the local resources advisory commission will have to have some level of expertise in architecture, history, landscape architecture, things like that. So it's so they there's an objective basis for adding or taking properties off of the list. Additionally to your earlier question interior changes that would do things like update HVAC systems would not be impacted by this. This would only impact exterior changes to a property. Abby do you want to add something? Yeah because I and it's good I guess from my understanding too I thought that the only things that were protected were the things that are identified on the state registry and otherwise the owner of the property would have to be the one to bring it forward to add it to the registry. I thought that's the way it was written. So as of right now yes we basically took the state's register and made that our local register so the properties that are currently included on a state or sorry state and national register and districts are what we are establishing as the local register. So these properties are already listed somewhere else. We haven't added any new properties to our list currently. Which means that we'll be going through that process anyway. That's correct. Because even though they're not listed when you see the state or the national register will force the same process on them. Yeah so just to be crystal clear like if it's not on the state or national registry it's not you're not going to be seeing your house added to it. It's really if you own a property and you want to add it to this registry that's the one wrote in that I understand adding to what's in the state and national registry. So I just want to make that really clear that it's not this commit this group that's being formed is going to like decimate your house historical historically significant and then add it to the registry without your Yeah there needs to be consent. I mean you may be reached out to about your property at some point. But there's no mechanism for this group to like force your house or your building or anything to add it to the registry. It's really just using. So there's a really clear current list that Eric could probably share that shows like what properties are on the state and national registry that's sort of what this is protecting potentially. And I also want to make the point that even if a property is on this list doesn't mean it can't be polished. It's just that there's an extra review process that has to happen. Looked at on the individual basis like what is how important is the structure. What is its actual condition. What's being proposed. So it's not like if something is on this list it can't ever come down. Yes thank you for those clarifications. But yes that's correct. I'm assuming you don't have that list right now. I mean I do. I've seen the list in the amendments. Okay. There's not a overwhelming number of properties on those lists at this point. Anything else from folks here. Did you want to ask a question sir? Go back. I thought your hand go up earlier. Are you okay? Okay. Alright. How about folks online? We do two people online with their hands raised. So first I'll start with you Ryan. You can unmute yourself. Yeah my question was just clarifying the map that was produced. And there are a couple specific properties on there that I am a far owner of. And there's two different designations. There's clearly the state designation properties but if there's some additional ones are those just recommended properties to be added. In example the monkey house is not like on the state registry but that one was highlighted like purple I think. And I'm just wondering are those properties going to be added automatically and is there a process to remove a property prior to it be added to this new local registry so it's not going to incur costs later if needed. Also I do want to point out that like the previous comment made like it may not impact the interior items of the building but if that building is situated in such a way that it's in the middle of a lot and you have to save the exterior structure then it does create a burden to the development of that property to add more units. Which are needed in our community. So those are my comments or questions. So to your first question I'm going to pull up my screen again that has the map of the properties just for clarification on what two properties or what two distinctions you're referring to. Are you able to see the map Ryan? So everything on here that is showing up in the kind of I'll say the yellow color is to be included in this with these regulations. Those are properties that would be included in the local register. The other colors the red are the distinction here is whether they're inside the downtown corresponding district or outside of the downtown corresponding district and the reason we're distinguishing between those two is that properties in the downtown corresponding district have their own design review process that go through city council as part of the act 250 amendment. So there's already a layer of review either through the state or through both the city council and the state if it gets to that point of the act 250 amendment. So that's why we're calling out those two colors. Okay, I guess I'm referring to a different map where there was two different colors where for instance the Winooski block was one color and then 79 LaFalle Street was a different color and there was two different destinations and I don't have that from here on out so I'm not having a computer. Was that one that Britta did that showed? It shouldn't have been. It may have been Ryan, it may have been an earlier map where we were looking at design review districts rather than the local resource protection where we did have multiple areas highlighted on the map. This is the only map that we are proposing to include with these amendments. There was a map I think what you're referring to Ryan that showed properties that were significant properties that were potentially significant and something I forgot how she did. Those were only looking at the gateways though, so Mallets Bay Avenue Main Street and East Allen Street, so your LaFountain Street property would have not been included on that map. Okay, yeah. I'll have to look back. It was definitely in one of the drafts and it showed the Winooski block as like being like a state registered property as well as like 75 Main Street and I think some others and then I think the Monkey House and LaFountain were both a different color and it was like a proposed to be added too. I wasn't aware that 30 Main Street where the Monkey House is or 79 LaFountain were on any sort of state registry or national registry. Yeah, they're both currently listed on the state register. Okay, so maybe it was state registered versus national register? Okay. Without seeing the map, Ryan, I'm not sure I can... In any event, this map we're looking at right now is the map. That's right. Whatever other maps might have been out there, this is what is going together under this plan. Right, this is the only map that's under consideration. Same question though, there's no way to preemptively examine yourself from this point. At this point, I'm going to say there is not but that's not to say that changes to this draft could be made before it gets adopted. Okay, and also... But what we're going for is if Ryan, for example, if you came in with a proposal to rip down 79 LaFountain Street, it would be looked at. That's right. I mean, that's what it's about. It would be looked at by this design review commission, whatever we call it. Local resources advisory commission. It's too long a title. Yes. Right, or that even if, okay, also Ryan, it could be, yes, it is listed but you want to polish it or change the structure and that it doesn't, being listed doesn't necessarily mean you can't do that. It's just that there's another review plan. I say this as someone who... I understand some of the concerns about this but I just want to be clear what's actually being proposed. Yeah, I mean too, that's why I'm asking. Yeah, so I'm going to share my screen again here. So there's only specific actions that would trigger review under these regulations. And so the covered actions are... Let me zoom in on this a bit. Basically these seven items are what would trigger the need to be reviewed under these standards. If one of these actions is not being proposed, then there would be no reason, then you would not be subject to these regulations or this review I should say. Okay, you all set Ryan? Yep. Okay, thanks. Anyone else online? If anybody else online would like to comment, you can use the raise hand feature and you can be recognized. Seeing none. Okay. Again, any other comments from the planning commission members? Nope. Okay, so what's the wishes of the planning commission? I was going to ask if you want to close the hearing first. I should probably do that. I'm way out of practice. Yeah, I've been doing it 22 years, right Mike? Yeah, something like that. So do I have a motion to close the public hearing? I suppose I should have. I see Sarah wanted to say I so move and Abby seconded it. All those in favor of closing the public hearing, please say aye. Okay, public hearing is closed. Sorry, who seconded that? What's that? Who seconded that? Abby. Whether she knows it or not. Great, thank you. Do you have a question in the back, sir? Nope. Okay. So what's the wishes of the commission? We can forward this on to the city council for their review and public hearings and approval or we can table it and come back to it again? I make a motion to move it forward. Okay. Sorry. Are you moving forward what was presented with the additional definition? Yes. Okay, just to clarify. Any further discussion? Any further discussion? If not all in favor, please say aye or raise your hand. Anyone opposed? No extensions. Okay. Moves on to the city council then. Thank you very much. Great. Thank you all very much. Okay. Next item on the list is let's see. Continue discussion on uniform land use and development regulations. Amendments related to statutory changes. This is related to Act 47. Yes. Thank you very much. So this will be a continuation of our discussion from our last meeting where we've started looking at amendments to our land use regulations based on the statutory changes that were incorporated into Act 47. So we are primarily we started looking at Article 2, which is mostly our land use table to look at some specific uses that we need to change or add or amend and our dimensional standards. So I made some additional changes since that meeting. So I'm going to start again there. What was included with your agenda packet were changes to Article 2 and Article 5 since they have the majority of the changes so far that I think we need to incorporate to comply with Act 47. I may jump back and forth because some of the changes to the land use table are based on changes in Article 5 or some of the language in Article 5. So there may be some jumping back and forth that we'll do here but just to set the stage for that. So I'm going to go ahead and share my screen for y'all. Give me one second. Okay. So starting off again in Article 2, in Section 2.3 this is just again to clarify that there was some we looked at this language last time but it was a little more vague. So now we're saying that each lot shall have only one principle or primary structure. I think it's said it's the previously it said something that the effect of it's intended to have only one. So this makes it more clear that we're looking at just one principle or primary but as many accessory structures as the lot can support. Sorry, I'm just shuffling some papers around here. So as you go through this, if folks on the commission have questions anyone online or folks here just raise your hand and we'll acknowledge you, okay? Okay. So next is our use table. So there's some additional changes here. Some of these are for again for clarification and consistency with the regulations. So for example under what used to say group home, it's now been changed to group boarding and residential care home because that's how we refer to it in the definitions and in Article 5. So it's more just for consistency. Nothing there is changing as far as where it's permitted or what we're talking about with it. It's more just the clarification of the wording. So one of the changes that is being proposed here is under accessory dwelling unit. Since we're considering eliminating our detached cottage option, I'm incorporating this now as a permitted or conditional use and the distinction there is state statute requires that a single unit owner occupied property incorporate, be allowed to add an accessory structure as by right. So since we're looking at eliminating the detached cottage, the reason I've included this as a conditional use as well is that there may be an opportunity for a property that is either not owner occupied or developed with something other than a single unit dwelling that has the capacity to add an accessory dwelling that still meets the same definition of accessory dwelling that being no more than 900 square feet or 30% of the primary structure has adequate water wastewater and is meets the dimensional and parking standards for the zoning district located, they could still add an accessory dwelling on to that property. So it's basically the same as the detached cottage except we're categorizing as basically an accessory dwelling in a situation where it's not either owner occupied or there's more than one dwelling on the property. And that can be attached or detached from the primary structure? It could but it would need to be subordinate to one of the units. So if it's, for example, if it's a multi-unit building, if it's, let's just say it's a two-unit building, it would have to be subordinate to one of those units. It couldn't just be another unit added on to the building somewhere. It would have to be subordinate to one of those individual units. But it could be detached. It could also be detached, yes. Provided it meets, again, provided it meets this setbacks and other dimensional standards of the zoning district where it's located. And that's why we're getting rid of the detached cottage because you can do a detached accessory unit which is the same thing. Correct, which is also a conditional use. So that's where this would come into play. And so Section 5.1 has also been updated to reference a non-owner occupied or a property that's either not owner occupied or is not developed with a single unit dwelling. Any questions on that? I have a quick question that I'll probably basically explain it. So what excess, you mentioned that some sort of accessory dwelling unit is allowed as of right. It's understood it's basically like if it's attached to an owner occupied and single family dwelling. Is that right? Close. So right now if you have a single unit dwelling on an owner occupied property, then you're allowed by right by state statute one accessory dwelling unit. That could either be attached to the existing structure or detached. Provided it meets all the setbacks and parking and lot coverage standards. And it's smaller than the primary unit or 900 square feet? It's limited to either 30% of the primary unit or 900 square feet, whichever is greater. Okay, so if you're in that bucket, if you will then an accessory dwelling unit is just permitted. Correct. So let's say it's like the exact same situation except the primary dwelling is not owner occupied. Under this you could still build the same accessory unit but it would be a conditional use as opposed to as of right. That's correct. Yeah, and basically it's yes. We have that same process now except we call it a detached cottage instead of an accessory dwelling. I know we've talked about this before. I hate to get into the weeds again guys. So is that the best use, the difference between I mean, does that get us the more housing we're trying to add? Well I think it's an option to add additional units onto properties where we wouldn't otherwise allow them. So conditional, can you explain again how that works sorry? Yep, so conditional use is a process where it goes to the development review board for their review and consideration in conjunction with site plan review. There's a public hearing that's held. So it's really the only difference in the process is that one requires a public hearing and the other can be done administratively. So if it's owner occupied, single unit, it can be an administrative approval. So even if it's an owner occupied two unit building it would still have to go through conditional use approval. The only allowance right now for the administrative approval is single unit owner occupied property. Owner occupied property, they have the right to put an accessory or a second. What would be the conditions in which you wouldn't get the conditional use on the not owner occupied property? Well that's a good question. So there's an entire section of the regulations, I believe it's 6.7 conditional use review that outlines standards of that review. So it talks about things and I hate to use this one because statute has also changed to put some limitations on it, but things like character of the area impacts on water, wastewater, impacts on road networks, impacts on other facilities, community facilities were otherwise. So it's more of a specific review of the impacts I would say rather than the project itself to have some conditional review. In some cases, so I've seen these go forward both, I've seen these go forward as conditional use and be approved or denied and in the cases where they've been denied there's been concern over how parking is being added onto the property to support the new dwelling and the size of the dwelling in comparison to the overall lot itself and other structures in and around the area. But like I said, those standards have also been amended by statute, the character of the area has been, well it can't be used as a, I forget exactly what Act 47 says, but yeah. I know we've done this before, I know we've talked about this in the past, but why are we separating the two? If they're both going to be Yeah, I understand what you're saying Sarah, it's like what if the only, at least in the case where the only difference is whether the primary structure is owner-occupied, it seems to me that that shouldn't be a basis to like deny one accessory dwelling unit and allow another one as a right. Yeah, and that's a great point I mean we, so I'd say it this way, we have to allow by right for owner-occupied, so we could make them both allowed by right, we couldn't make them both conditional. Right. So Connor I see you have your hand up. Yeah, actually I was going to kind of make the same point that Brendan just made and so if the considerations for conditional use I assume are the same considerations for permanent use anyway I'm kind of in favor of just having both by right. So by right though they have to come to you administrative approval. Right, they need to get a zoning permit and they have to meet the setbacks in all the different requirements of the zone. Yep, absolutely, they'd have to meet all the all the dimensional standards, parking standards, they'd have to meet all the requirements of the zoning district where they're located. So right now we're talking about you have a single unit that's either owner-occupied or not owner-occupied by right being allowed to put an accessory unit. Well, if I understand it correctly what we're talking about is in any of the residential districts if you have the space to put an accessory dwelling regardless of how it's developed you can add an accessory dwelling. Am I understanding that correctly from you Sarah, Connor, and yeah from you guys is that what you're saying? I think that's what I'm saying. That's what I'm saying. Again I know we actually went through this a few years ago and there were reasons that we left it this way or created this language and I guess times are different. There's just so much demand now and need for housing. Abby do you remember any of that stuff? Abby's got the best memory of all of us so I know you are muted. Your mic is not working again It wasn't. So I guess I was a little confused because the accessory dwelling unit is a right if for a single unit property owner-occupied. Yes. And what we were talking about is a single unit property that's either owner-occupied or not that allowing that accessory unit by right. I think we're talking about that and if it's not developed with a single unit property that's developed with a two unit or three unit or whatever that they could add an accessory dwelling if they meet all the other standards. Right. Lot coverage, setbacks, parking, etc. for the property. So that'd be an administrative approval as opposed to conditional use. And if they came in that circumstance, if they came to you looking for administrative permit, you could push it up to DRB if there was a question in your mind. Yes. I mean anything could go forward to the development review board if there's something where there's a concern or would need some additional review or consideration. Yeah like if they wanted to encroach in a setback by six inches. Well if they want to do it so that's a different case. If they needed a waiver for something, if they needed to encroach into the setbacks then that would require a waiver which is conditional use through the DRB. Right, right. Or sorry, is the waiver process through the development review board. Okay. So, all right, Abby, let's give it one more try. Okay. Can you hear me? Yeah. Yes. Okay. Yeah, the reason we left it as a conditional use for the non-owner occupied was like a couple different reasons. But one was acknowledging this vast investment from non- when you see people into when you see buying up owner occupied homes and then developing for income and so taking homes and putting them into a rental market that is quite expensive. So like it was one way to sort of keep people like hey you live in when you see you can throw this AD in the back and have an income stream that will keep you when you see and it was also a way to with all of the short term rental developments that are happening a way to have an owner on site to deal with any of the externalities of the short term rental and that there would still a pathway for people who are just investing in not living in when you see to do a detached building and add buildings to their property but that it would have, you would have a process where public would be able to come in and learn about it and have a say in that process right? So it's like acknowledging that when you see is heavily invested in city there's been a lot of interest in retaining our residents and providing pathways for ownership. One way somebody could become an owner here when you see is to have an income generating building versus somebody coming in who has no interest in doing anything but making money off of when you see and having friends or having short term rentals in the case of my neighbor who went through the detached cottage process for short term rental and now has a front for main building short term rental too so it's like a hotel next door so it's sort of like providing the community a little bit more of a voice in that process and then maybe incentivizing people to stay here or living when you see as like a primary residence. That's also what I recall that I felt like it was worth kind of going around it again since times are different. I mean that makes logical sense to me in terms of like intention but I'm curious I'm sure like in that period we don't have any type of analysis or study around impact where it's just like such a short period of time as that data is probably just hard to gather anyway but I'm wondering if that would be better regulated through use case regulation like just like regulated short term rentals rather than at that front end of like development. And I will say the city is in the process now of developing as part of the municipal code regulation for short term rentals that may I think the way it's drafted right now is that there's at least a registry that folks need to sign up for and get licensed and potentially there is an option for city council to put a cap on the number of short term rentals and there is a distinction between hosted versus unhosted as far as if it's their home that they rent out during the year and they live there that when it's not being rented versus it's just a landlord or it's being used for rental income. The owner does not live there or has no affiliation to the property other than renting it. So anyway that's something that's in process completely separate from our processes as that would land in another part of municipal regulation not in the land use code. But it does affect our thinking a bit. It does it does but it's you know it's yes it could I should say. We can I mean we can change it to being permitted for anything or leave it permitted conditional with the with the additional information included in section 5.1 but I'm fine either way. So let's let's see anyone in the audience here want to make any comments can you hear okay by the way can you come up because I was curious given the attendance here if someone on the council could move to move up the public hearing on this topic this agenda topic because I think most people here in attendance just want to communicate the urgency this isn't really this isn't a public hearing it's just we're taking comments on or we're discussing this because we haven't adopted it at this point. So we can make comments on anything regarding the ULUDR. Well what I thought we'd do is we go through them each item that Eric talks about if you have questions about that let's talk about it rather than so we can handle it you know write that in there. Gotcha. I know it's a pain it gets dragged out we're scheduled to end at the meeting it may go longer we'll see. Yeah. I apologize for that but that's the process I guess. Sure. I will say if anyone in the audience has to leave and wants to make a point I'm happy to have you come up okay. Yeah the risk of overstepping and speaking too strongly for everyone else I'd say probably most people here just want to communicate the urgency of the current situation to the planning commission and not speak to specific line items in the amendments. Okay. And the proposed amendments. So I don't know how you want to handle that and I don't understand that it's sort of bizarre and not not a typical item. We want to give you the chance to address us so yeah I'm going to pause this right now then Eric. Well I was going to say Mike I'm wondering if the comments are being the general comments on housing should have come forward under public comment at the top of the meeting since they're not related to the specific amendments that we're talking about. Yeah. Got it that was unclear at the beginning. I don't know if we want to. We want to reopen that. So yeah let's pause and we'll go back to public comment and I'll let you folks here or anyone online. It might have been a little confusing because we were having a public hearing about the other report. And I'll also just note that I'm not going to say the same comments but similar comments were raised at the city council meeting on Monday night. The mayor was going to provide some context under city updates but the mayor is on now. Yes yes. But I know that I invited folks to come tonight because I heard their concerns the other night so let's pause and go back to public comment. Before we do that there's a person online who had their hand raised so I don't know if it's in context to the discussion on detached cottage slash accessory dwelling or not so do we want to recognize them first? Yeah. Okay. So Evan you can go ahead and unmute yourself. Cool. Yeah so I have comments on particular like zoning issues. I'm happy to hold them there on the accessory dwelling units. So yeah my name is Evan Gould. I'm actually a Burlington resident. I'm on the DRB in Burlington but I've worked closely with Burlington as a member of the public in their planning commissions Act 47 changes called the neighborhood code and I'm going to all I can speak more about that during public forum but on the accessory dwelling units I would encourage just the permitted use regardless of ownership of the unit. At the end of the day the thing that is actually crippling people's ability to afford homes is the amount of their income they have to spend on rent and so I understand that we want things to be an avenue to home ownership but if people cannot save money they're not going to be able to save for a home and so increasing housing supply should be the primary focus and I think limiting the barriers to use is a good way to do that. Looking through data driven the amount of permit applications in Burlington which is much larger and has much larger population. There were less than 117 permits applied for ADUs in the city so and I think that it's not a particularly restrictive process. On the DRB we don't have to see a ton of them when we do they're pretty much for our stamp but even with that uptake is pretty low so I think lowering the barrier to entry is important with regards to this particular line. Thank you. Can I ask you a question? You're very familiar with the Burlington Code. Are there ADUs? Are they permitted if you're not owner-occupied in Burlington? They're not, no. But we are so that's a neighborhood code part and some of the changes are actually not just ADUs but allowing more than one primary dwelling unit on a lot is part of that to allow a form of missing middle housing called cottage courts. But those primary dwelling units are slightly smaller so they have footprints kind of matching what ADUs look like without being an purely accessory dwelling unit. But yeah they have to be in Burlington. Okay, thanks for that. Thank you. Okay let's come back here. Would anyone like to address the council? Sorry, I forgot where I was. Hey, you put it in my head Sarah. The planning commission on items related to I'm assuming you're all here about housing. Whoever wants to come up please feel free. Sir, I would ask you to just sit down at this microphone closest to me and state your name so that they can get it for the record. Yep, right here, right there, it's perfect. Thanks. Hello, my name is Hydroelsamurai and I just have a few stuff to say about housing. What do you have to say to families who are currently having housing problems and including other families who are having difficult, let's say, maintaining their house because of how old it is or, you know, I've been in a certain situation where I have to call the landlord for at least ten times this week because the basement can't flooding and just over various things we would get a no specifying that we shouldn't be doing this, shouldn't be doing that, and I get that as a landlord you have plenty of other responsibilities, but the responsibilities that should be taken seriously is families who have children in their home who are breathing this toxic, you know, this toxic smell and is currently being taken granted in other immigrants' houses as well. I hate to say it this way, but that's really not an issue that we deal with, but I would suggest we do have a building code enforcement Sorry to interrupt, but that wasn't my question. My question was other than this type of problem there is a lot of problem that immigrants suffer because of housing and other than immigrants, I'm sure there are other people who are suffering with housing problems, so what can we do to take... What we deal with is zoning regulations, not that, so I'm trying to answer your question best I can. We have a building code enforcement office they deal with issues with housing, so if you have concerns your landlord is not, and I know the mayor is on the line she can step in and correct me if I'm misspeaking, but you can talk to them about issues that the landlord is not addressing Am I correct in that? So a couple things, the city has what we call a minimum housing complaint form, really that's used for any property, whether you own it, whether you rent, whatever the case might be, that you're having some issue with the property, whether it be the landlord is not responsive to fixing a leak of the faucet, whether there's trash on the neighboring property that's collecting and it's bringing in rodents, things like that. We use that as the process to start our investigation of these issues, and then that's when our code enforcement folks are able to go out and start actually making contact with the landlord, come and visit the property to see what actually is happening to see if there's any other violations that you're not aware of that may need to be corrected in conjunction with that and start working with the property owner to correct those issues. There's also, we're looking at, I see the mayor has her hand up so I'm going to defer to her quickly, so Mayor Lott. Thanks, we are actively in the process of updating the ordinance that regulates that code enforcement that Eric was speaking to, trying to clarify definitions and process so that it's easier for our code enforcement staff to actually hold landlords accountable for things like that. There's a public hearing schedule for December 4th of those changes pending public input. I anticipate we will adopt those changes in order to move forward with having a better process in place. We are also working with the Champlain Valley Office of Economic Opportunity to provide training and info sessions in the community to help residents understand that they have these rights and how to access them to ensure that they are receiving safe housing, that they know what their rights are and they know how to who they can reach and how they can reach someone if their landlord doesn't meet those minimum housing qualifications. Thank you. It's been a known problem that we didn't need to address for a while and I'm sorry that it's taken this long but we are trying to improve that process now. Christine, with his first step tonight get one of those forms that Eric was talking about. I can drop the link in the chat. We have those here at City Hall and they're on our website so you can fill them out electronically and submit them that way or fill them out in person and hand them in. You don't have to provide your name so you can do it anonymously as well so that there's potentially not any retribution from a landlord or property owner. That's the process that we use to start our enforcement actions to do our investigations and to make sure that it's in our system that we can follow up and have that mechanism to continually make sure we're updating our records and reviewing the property to see, one, what the issues are and two, to make sure that the changes are being addressed. Eric, are those forms right out? That's a good question. They might be. I'm going to go check really quick. Go check. And if they are, why don't you bring one in? So I hope that helps you. Good question. And as the mayor said, the quality of our housing stock is important to the city and that's why we have this, we call it the rental registry, where we go out and inspect residential units every so many years. I forget. Is it now three years or four years? Every four years unless a property comes online or if there is an issue they will reinspect until those issues are addressed. Right. So as the mayor said, the council is working to strengthen those regulations and anyone who's interested in that meeting she talked about with CVOEO December 4th. The public hearing is December 4th. Mayor, when is the information meeting? The info meeting, the date is not set yet. We have one for, we're doing a series of them in various language groups. So we have one coming up December 2nd for Nepali speakers, but we're working to set a new date for other language groups. We've done a couple, but plans to continue doing them. Okay. So there's one scheduled December 2nd for the Nepali folks? Yeah. The next one will be before January 14th. We just haven't settled on the date and we'll push that out through our channels when that's available. Like Facebook and the city updates and all the channels. It'll be on the website. It'll be on the website. So you can, if you look at the Monewski website, you'll see when those are. Okay. Great. Thanks for coming. Okay. Anyone else? Any issue with housing? I know that there were comments at the city council meeting. If you want to reiterate those here tonight, you're more than welcome to. No? Yes. I'm sorry, your name again was. Yes. My name is Nick. So I'd like to kind of just quickly say that while I am very grateful that the state helped pass the Homes Act and some of the things I feel like it is kind of up to the Monewski City Council, our local government to try and push for more than what is just sort of the minimum of what is like wired. I feel that Monewski, like many cities and many towns in our state, we are experiencing a housing shortage, whether it be rental or whether it be purchasing homes. And what I would really like to see us be able to do is try and push more towards building more housing and not just individual homes, but more like apartment buildings, trying to help with allowing that in our city. I feel that like small additions to previously existing homes can really only add so much. You know, if you have a house that is being used for renting out to other people that can only house, it only has a four unit, three unit building and you already are, that's already sitting on another lot, you can only add so much to that lot. And I do feel that we should really be prioritizing building much larger and more housing for people, while also ensuring that that housing is affordable as, you know, more than 60% of Monewski are renters and the average income is roughly around the same average income as the state, around like $40,000. Many people are not renting because they are choosing to necessarily but because that's really our only option. What I would really like to see I mean, I've said it a couple of times is more large scale housing. I think we really need to build or encourage building more affordable housing that can fit multi, you know, many families and housing for to purchase or for rental or both. I think mostly for rental. I think as it stands, someone made a previous comment but you know people aren't necessarily people aren't buying houses because some people can't buy houses because they just can't find it or perhaps a little bit out of the price range. I think the majority of people in Monewski aren't buying houses because they just don't have enough money to buy a house period, whether that you're talking prior to 2020 or right now. I just think that a large population of Monewski are renters. We don't necessarily have as many rights as a property owner would have and so I feel that the best possible option that the city can do is going forward with a plan that helps to bring more housing on a large scale to people rather than focusing on really converting a single, whether it be a single whether the owner of the home is living in it or not. I feel that only it's a band-aid solution. I don't believe that that is necessarily going to really solve anything. You might have a couple more people who will be able to find homes in Monewski but there's still a large portion of people that will not be able to move here or if they find themselves not being able to live where they currently are, they're still sort of they might have to move somewhere else. That's basically the issue we're dealing with is housing and one thing we've talked about considerably at this commission and with the City Council is how do we try to get larger units, three, four bedroom units built to take care of families. I know I think you at the council meeting and I forget your name sir, I'm sorry talked about there are families who have 11 people living in a two or three bedroom unit need bigger units and that's one of the things we're trying to figure out how can we spur that type of development as opposed to what we've seen over the last several years which is predominantly studio efficiency in one bedroom units that are being built. Something we're wrestling with so I appreciate your comments. Again it's hard for us to control what the developers build. I mean we can incentivize but they are for profit for the most part and the lower income stuff has to come from sort of a different marry price be a little better on this but we can't just simply say developers we want all this low income housing and not make it viable financially for them to be able to do. It's really frustrating honestly we've had a lot of created and heartfelt conversations over the years on this here and we're trying. We are trying but it gets tough. I think to Sarah's point one of the things that we've found and I've been on this commission for a little more than two years so most of my colleagues have been at this a lot longer. It means we have our gateway zoning districts so basically now they have Main Street and Allen Street where the process for building large scale rental properties is it's like administratively easier. That's why you do see more big buildings going up in those areas but what we've found is that developers will say that they make the most money and there's the most demand for studios in one bedroom so there's a real shortage of housing that fits families and larger groups of people living together so I think we've now become cautious about just sort of trying to make it easy to build without sort of trying to direct what type of housing is being built and we just a few months before Act 47 was passed we did make some fairly substantial changes to our zoning regulations to try to encourage more affordable housing. It's basically you could get incentives to build more and we built units with three more bedrooms and or that were affordable and now Act 47 has kind of subsumed some of those changes and so we're working through what to do or about it but we certainly appreciate your comments and we understand it's really difficult and it's hard for a little commission like us and frankly a little city like Wimewski when there's these really big regional and national market forces but we do, we hear you and we appreciate it. And it feels the same way. We would prefer to see that kind of housing going in that you're describing. Thank you for acknowledging that. I appreciate it. I still feel like there is, you know, I know obviously it's not an easy task but I do feel that we can do more to I mean it's incentivize building but I mean it doesn't just have to be necessarily housing. I know that Wimewski as well you know we're, we don't have a lot of I wouldn't say commercial development but I suppose, you know, sort of what I think it could possibly help Wimewski in getting more apartments built, getting more outside developers to invest in Wimewski is also helping with building like necessary businesses as well. I mean Wimewski itself doesn't necessarily have a large grocery store and we mostly have like a lot of small markets which are really great to visit but I mean I know the, probably the largest market that I've been to since living here was probably commodities which has since closed down. I feel like that's something of a boy that the city is also missing is a more centralized place where people can go and get their groceries. I mean markets are great especially because a lot of the markets are also owned by new Americans and it gives people a chance to run their own business but I do feel like there's in general and I don't want to take much more time but there's more that we can do to incentivize growth within the city and incentivize more housing being developed for more people and I think there's things that we can do that could make that also affordable for people that are living here as well. Thanks very much and any specific ideas you have feel free to let us know. Yes sir. Hi again, my name is Patrice LaMumba and I work at Wimewski School District and advocate a lot on the housings. I know you guys are talking more about building some self and other housings so I guess you can open up more housing for people on their own property but if you guys think about buying people out to develop more housing for people, we know that housing are big issues in Wimewski especially and like we say multiple times many families come to Wimewski because of diversity and many are living because lack of housing and that's the biggest thing in Wimewski. I work at Wimewski and many staff are living because of lack of housings. I've talked many places before about family being in small housing and how it doesn't meet the city code many many times and again like you said like what can you guys do for low income family? What can you guys do for minority family? And again this is not the thing that they ask for but I think that I just don't know what can you guys really do for many families like myself like others in this room right now because I know housing is a big big deal. It's no easy task of course but it's a it's a lot of process but my question is like can we buy people out to be a more affordable housing, bigger housing right? And I don't know the answer to that. We the planning commission can't. We don't have a budget. I don't know if the mayor wants to step in and answer this but that's a difficult question. I know what you're saying and I think Sarah or someone may have said it. We can set up the zoning regulations to try to incentivize people to build more housing and maybe build more affordable housing but we don't do that. It's the developers and so we need to get developers who maybe build not the affordable not that the upper end stuff but you know one of the missing pieces in housing is the middle type you know beginner type homes and that type of thing and obviously affordable units but affordable units with the cost of land and the cost of building it's difficult for a private developer to set up an affordable project. One of the things that was mentioned the other night was I know some towns have inclusive. Inclusionary. Inclusionary zoning. Sorry. Inclusionary zoning that requires you to build so many affordable units. That's something I think we have to talk about whether we ultimately go that route I can't say. That is one strategy that is in place in I know in Burlington. South Burlington have it too. I believe they do. South Burlington. So communities have it. So it's something that will help get affordable units in from for profit developers. The risk is okay if you do that will they come. There's a lot of different pieces that have to be considered but I think we're going to have to take a serious look at inclusionary zoning especially given the direction that the council appears to be going and the input that we've been getting and the issues that are around affordability for housing not only in Winooski but in Chittenden County and the whole state. It's a very difficult issue. So I hear you. I appreciate your comments. I hope that somewhere somehow the problem gets solved. We'll do what we can to help but I'm not sure that we can do a lot to require Yeah no and again that's what I'm asking for you guys to consider that look into it because like I said I think a lot of people are moving out of Winooski and I hope that it's not a blindside to you guys. I work at Winooski. I know families are living every single year because of lack of housing and it's a big, big issue. I come from this community and I'm not saying you guys will change this today or tomorrow but I think it's something to look at and ways we can talk logistics about with families and like what can we do to make sure a family stays here. Otherwise you're really going to be just a widest city so we have to kind of think that. I do with you that the diversity we have in this community is a positive factor in the city. It's a great thing that we have. I grew up and it wasn't like that. Yeah you're right but before you know you guys will lose it all and it will be tough to get people here. We want to pay people to move to Vermont but where? So we need to think about that for a second for our city so yeah that's all I want to say. Okay thank you very much. Mayor Lott I see you have your hand raised as well. Yeah I want to know that. Sort of build off of what Mike was saying and I would like the public comments to continue. These are similar in pain to what we heard at Monday's City Council meeting and the reality is the housing situation is there are many factors impeding what we need to have here. Part of it is zoning. There are things we can do in zoning to make stronger incentives potentially I think we need to do more research into this but like what can we require but we also need to come at this from an ordinance perspective which doesn't happen through land use regulations things like replacement ordinance requiring if you tear something down to redevelop it you also include the same kind of units that you got rid of and that's work that we're going to have to run through our housing commission so I don't want our planning commission to feel like there's nothing they can do about the housing situation here but I also don't want to feel like this is the only answer and like this is the only body responsible there are a lot of pieces here and we all need to be contributing to addressing that we did at the City Council meeting vote to provide some direction to both planning and housing commission on where we are headed I was saying that for city updates per kind of just our functionality but well I'll paste it into the chat it's not formatting well but essentially we are very we very much want to prioritize the preservation of existing what we've been referring to as priority housing and that is affordability like three plus bedrooms to keep families here and home ownership opportunity and so we are looking towards as we move through updating in response to the Homes Act how can we think about changes that will preserve that priority housing and then also asking our housing commission to think about what are new mechanisms that we need to have in place to do that for us I attended the meeting on Monday too and I came away I was going to actually bring it up at the end of our meeting as well but I think we've talked about this before but there's part of me that thinks can we have some sort of a joint meeting with housing with this commission I mean it just feels like I don't know how we structure it or what we really talk about but I often feel like I'm talking in the abstracts I mean Christine you and I have talked about this in the past are we talking 200 bedrooms are we talking 50 are we talking 25 how much low income housing does the city really need how much market housing would we like to have to increase the bottom line the grand list to take it out of this sort of abstract and I don't know can people from the public sometimes even understand the level that we're talking at and could we get it down to really talk about numbers and say okay how do we get you know 15, 3 pluses or whatever these numbers are and so I wondered if talking with housing and seeing if they have a better idea of what are we and then we can actually look at property within the city and maybe even target some of those properties there were two listed today that I saw and I thought both of those would be ideal I mean they're in the market and now they're just listed with realizations would be ideal ones to convert I think one was unable I don't know I don't know if anyone else feels like that would be useful to try to get a more graphic actually go ahead Christine my great reason to me I've talked to them about it before we just have to figure out what the timing is right there what makes sense for where you're at housing is wrapping up the short-term mental stuff and then they'll move on to the next thing and so what we just have to figure out the timing on that but it will happen okay good yeah even having inviting is she the housing director the new position inviting her to one of our planning position being just to sort of give us like a little bit of a summary of what they're working on and like how it aligns could a better align with our work we try to incentivize stuff but our incentives are not are never that great because we're really easy place to develop right we have like a pretty low bar for development so seems like I don't know we have our incentives in place for a couple weeks we'll see if that's anything but that's what I'm always struggling with is like what are the levers that we actually have and how do we successfully use them to create those types of housing that we've been talking about for a long time so as the mayor said there's different levels there's us the planning commission there's a housing commission that's dealing with this topic and the city council and so trying to get our heads together to address it is what we're looking at so Mike I just want to point out that we have two people online that have their hands raised as well just for your information Felipe I think you want to you're sitting there I'm assuming you want to address it you're chair okay I'll move on the point very well taken and completely agree I mean the planning commission is not going to go out and get a loan from the bank and start building housing right but what you guys can do is liberalize further the zoning code so I think currently and even the proposed amendments prescribe lot sizes that I think are excessive for the number of units that you would want to build on there you know we were just having a discussion about accessory dwelling units why couldn't die as the owner of a 50 by 100 foot lot build three units in the back I feel like that should be perfectly acceptable and everyone should feel good about that because it's providing three more homes for people in need land costs you rightly mentioned are a huge component of the affordability issue and land costs here are high so that would then prescribe the need to fit as many units as you could possibly fit on any one parcel of land so that means minimizing setback requirements minimizing lot size requirements maximizing minimum height requirements further than what the zoning commission has proposed and has put in their amendments so those are my ideas right and I know that sometimes you guys hold out on some of that stuff as for the purpose of providing incentives to developers if you build three plus bedrooms or something then you can breach these rules or whatever but that also adds cost right they got to come here they've got to make the proposal they've got to hear public comments I just think that if you allow more of this stuff by right someone earlier mentioned the Burlington neighborhood code I think they're doing great work in minimizing lot sizes and maximizing so we could look across the river and see the positive changes that they're doing their density is obviously a bigger city but their density is on par with ours so there's no reason why a good idea over there wouldn't also be a good idea here in Manuski okay thank you anyone else here before I take the folks online okay Eric you want to sure Colin you can unmute yourself and speak hey can you hear me yep hi I'm Colin Larson I live in Burlington I've also like Evan been involved as a member of the public with the neighborhood code process I wasn't quite sure what the public comment format was going to be here but because this is the general comment I do want to respond to some stuff that's come up and kind of frame this for you all I think the planning commission here is really selling themselves short with how much power they actually have here I understand that there are market forces at a regional and national level that are affecting the ability to build housing you know lending is costly borrowing is costly we don't have a lot of labor supply but zoning is the tool that has restricted housing more than any other factor over the past four decades in the United States right the fact that the majority of Manuski's land has been zoned exclusively for single family detached homes since I don't know when your zoning code was updated last that is why we are in the situation right it was the same in Burlington it's the same in South Burlington it's the same in every other state you can look at California which is the only state that's worse than Vermont when it comes to homelessness right so when we're talking about creative solutions to addressing the housing crisis I don't really understand the you know the degree to which everyone is wedded to our existing zoning code you can go through this and cross out probably half the regulations right now and it will materially impact the ability to construct additional units in Manuski some of the stuff has been mentioned right minimum land sizes they're enormous in your residential districts right setback requirements the fact that you can't build multiple freestanding structures on a lot that all of this stuff is out there and I think that the planning commission is from what I've heard right you're trying to maintain the existing building mass density of Manuski and add housing which you can't do you need additional housing and I'll make an additional point here urbanization density will be good for Manuski the only way that you can grow the grand list right now is by adding infill development and when you grow the grand list you increase municipal revenues that allows additional public services and I'm speaking about well can the town buy people out and create housing that way you can't right now because you don't have the money but if you had additional density that is something you could do social housing projects like that public funding to intervene where the market will not provide housing that's only possible when you have the tax revenue to do that and that's only possible when you have additional density I think I'm at times very perplexed that zoning department zoning commissions you know they're not really willing to question everything about the zoning code and why is it in place right now and does it help us because that's the process that you need to be undertaking here if you really want to add to the housing supply and yes I understand right there are additional factors but you know you can do more you do have the power and I think that should make you feel good because you don't have to sit here and dwindle your thumbs and tell people whether there's only someone you can do there's a lot you can do and so there's one more thing that I want to note earlier this week there was a presentation between before the joint fiscal committee and the state legislature about the housing gap so I don't know if you have heard this number from last year from the Vermont housing agency but the state will need 30 to 40,000 year round homes by 2030 which means that there's more than 4,000 homes constructed per year so last year in the state which was the most built since 2006 only about 2,000 homes were built and this doesn't account for population growth which we need and this doesn't account for housing units falling out of the supply which you also need to account for so realistically we're going to need even more than 40,000 units by 2030 so imagine how many units you think we need and then triple because that's how many units we actually need so what I'm trying to say here is you really need to get creative and you really need to understand that there are a lot of tools in your toolkit that you haven't even touched yet you're trying to inch your way around the margins and the state's housing and community development agency has said specifically that that's not going to work in this situation we can't just throw money at the problem and not change the regular regime and expect that things are going to get better because they're not so anyway I know I've said a lot I'm very passionate about this I can hear it in your voice thank you Colin we have one more Evan Gould again so Evan you can go ahead and unmute yourself yeah so I just thought I'd get in the kind of the rest of my thoughts as part of this versus I'm happy to also speak on light items but I just wanted to put some of the numbers in perspective of what is proposed as far so one of the things right lot sizes so we Winooski has 7,500 and 8,500 square foot lot sizes only a little over half of all lots in the city meet that 7,500 square foot lot size so almost half of the lots in the city are non compliant with the current zoning regulations in the proposal if you go up to the 8,500 number it's 612 so more than half of those lots are not do not meet those requirements if you look at the triplex requirements that you're proposing 79 lots on the Grand Les that actually meet the 17,000 square foot minimum outside sizes so 79 lots in the city that are available to be used as triplexes which can be a nice like affordable housing option for a lot of people and when you get up to quadplexes which I think staff mentioned last time you're down to 40 units and then I think also something to keep in account look at the existing character of Winooski looking at the Grand Les right now 92 Spring Street is on a 1,300 square foot lot you can drive by that house it's a single floor ranch it fits into the neighborhood character and when you're talking about that and you look at a single family home there that potentially is affordable and you look at infill development and you're talking these lot sizes that you're trying to require that's four of these houses potentially on what is the minimum lot size for a duplex so I think one of the things that has been the guiding light for the neighborhood code because I think Winooski have a lot in common right they developed in around like the 1800s majority and a lot of the housing stock was built there in the early 1900s their industrial systems that have modernized and changed in a lot of ways but a lot of the housing stock that people are able to buy is no longer able to be built in a lot of these places or is even illegal where it currently stands and so I think re-legalizing what's on the ground would be a good way to continue the growth of Winooski without like changing right we're not talking like increasing requirements but just allowing these infill developments to really can be fit both preserves the existing housing stock which I think is a problem because the current regulations at these large lot sizes require the developers either merge lots or demolish existing structures to build new housing which is pushing out the people who are living in those affordable units now versus how different is it if there's a flag lot on a particularly deep lot where somebody can build an alleyway with property in the rear and that's a new affordable unit that gets built in that way so I really do if none of you have looked at the neighborhood code presentations that stuff is all available online and I think the strides that it's trying to make to actually help and solve the housing crisis can help inform the decisions here hopefully right okay thank you appreciate it Evan it sounds like Evan did some good research I'm wondering if you can provide that to Eric for us to review Abby I have a lot of that same data already that I've done analysis on for our properties you may recall it's been a couple years now but when we made some amendments to the RC dimensional standards we looked at basically every lot to see the frontage and depth to make sure that it matched with what we were doing and we did make some changes based off that analysis so I mean I'd be happy to look at what he has but I also have a lot of that same same data okay so it is 8.07 you guys all set perfect I think I'm getting tired so I want to see if we can stop but anything else you want to no I don't think at this point I think we can definitely pick back up at our next meeting on specific changes and I apologize for the confusion at the beginning on public comment but it is what it is and we got through it so okay so let's move on to the next agenda item which is city updates Eric and Mayor lead off okay so as I already spoke to a little bit earlier we had a public hearing on the previous amendments we did pass those amendments very pleased to say that now in public hearing things trended similar to this right like they circled around this frankly a growing problem of displacement of existing families and residents in Wemuski which I believe from some real and some anecdotal data is actually a growing concern here and council does too from both the lack of affordable housing units large enough to hold families and development changing what's available we also expressed concern or heard concern in the public hearing about how that impacts the newly renovated school building that we have we're actually seeing declining enrollment even though previously we've been projected to increase there is I think frustration around the incentives that have been in place you know you all worked to update those last year because the initial incentives informed base code like the bonus story wasn't functioning we made changes last year I don't know if those have been effective or not I do know that at least two different developers have declined to use them saying that they weren't strong enough incentives to create those priority housing units of like three bedroom or affordable and I think that is connected to some of the public comment we're hearing like there's frustration about displacement changes that are happening and the incentives that we do have not functioning so the council wanted to provide direction to the planning commission because we are going to you all are going to have to reevaluate those incentives based on Act 47 to make sure that we do that with a lens for how do we preserve existing priority housing how do we create new housing as I shared earlier this also this direction also moves to our housing commission because it's not just going to be zoning it's also going to require some ordinance and I I want to also make sure that it's expressed as we received information from our staff about concerns about how rapidly we add units because we're frankly already strained to do code enforcement and provide some other services in the city so we need to be thoughtful about you know this kind of gets to what you mentioned earlier Sarah like the pace at which we are increasing volume of housing but I think what's primary to hear is that whatever decisions are made we want to make sure that we are thinking about the preservation of existing families, family supplies housing home ownership opportunity affordability in those larger units so I'm going to I showed in the chat I'm going to email you all with that directly and we were reminded of some specific recommendations from the 2017 housing needs assessment at which you connect to this which I think will help guide this discussion I would encourage you all like based on this council direction you know as came up before when we think about how we update these our regulations related to the home act how can we maximize incentives to create that specific housing that we want so I have some thoughts on that but a personal so I won't say enough because they don't fit within the council narrative but I think as we get to those discussions the council has said like we want to keep that in mind these are these three priority areas that we want to think about as we move through that work and I also made one comment I sat in on the meeting on Monday night and one thing that Elaine the city manager said too is there's going to have to be another level of this it can't simply be that we incentivize or zone these problems away that we have to find other resources to build these properties that we want and I don't know it's just another element of it that's where I think the housing commission comes in and why we should be thinking of a joint meeting in the near term in the near future like I mentioned replacement ordinance earlier if we're moving forward in inclusionary zoning it would be a part of that if we want developers to somehow pay into the housing trust fund it's multi-pronged because really I do believe if we eliminated all zoning we still might not end up with what we need or what we want so we still have to be I mean I know it doesn't really feel good to have other people in the other communities looking at us and telling that we're failing terribly but it is Winooski is not Burlington, you know? what I want to be clear about is there is work we can do in our land regulations but that is not the only thing we like that is not the end all be all solution Brandon do you want to say something? no I mean I think everyone's frustrated like I'm sure Burlington people can't afford housing there and I think we're all in the same place in that we don't want Winooski to just become a bunch of box buildings I think what I would like to see a lot more I live right near the fountain street where single family homes exist next to quadplexes and five plexes and six plexes very very comfortably and it's great like it's free like it's sort of an ideal mixed income type of community and so I think we want more of that and I think that there's more we can do to try to incentivize that in a smart way but you know we can't as Mayor said like if we just allow over development that has its own challenges too so I think we should take what everyone is saying to heart like I think we need to do more but I think that we can do it consistent with our I think this commission tries to think long term and think about what actually everything that makes Winooski feel good in trying to make it sustainable for people to stay long term and really contribute to the city and so I think we can need to do more but I don't think we're as way off track in how we're thinking about it as maybe as being suggested. Carter? Yeah no I just wanted to let you make a comment quickly about that meeting on Monday and just to put another fine point on the Mayor's comments I mean some of those comments are pretty emotional in terms of you know people being forced out and then there was I think pretty strong consensus and obviously you can see that from the policy direction from the city council from a lot of the city councillors that said basically we should not the commission in reviewing Act 47 parameters should not do the minimum and so I think you know I think we were talking about last meeting Mike you were like well we shouldn't have made it do we want to have ten units on one lot and I think that our consensus that's way too much but I think I've been pretty personally I've been pretty tempered in the way that I approach these conversations just because I really respect all of you in terms of your respective areas of expertise and how long you've been on the commission. I also think I'm getting a pretty good diversity of opinions on this commission but I think this is an opportunity for us to I think review and revisit like the Home Act is a really good opportunity to review some of the areas where we have been in my opinion kind of walking around the edges a little bit and I say that both from a personal opinion just because I think I've mentioned this before but I'm a pretty I don't say radical but I'm a pretty accelerationist when it comes to these conversations I'm fine with ten units and what a lot. I'm fine with really like getting rid of setbacks and whatever but I also know that that's a pipe dream anyway and everybody has they come with their own missions and like what they bring to the table here but so there's a personal side but there's also in my opinion like I'm just wary of what if we do all this work send it back to the county. I know this is a supposition anyway and hypothetical if we do all this work again like with parking regs and then city council sees it and they're like nope not what we wanted then I think that's a lot of wasted time too so I think if we check point with the mayor and city council more often in this process I think it would be beneficial to both sides if we just continue pushing a little bit more at least in the middle and just not the bare minimum. Abby and then I'll let Philippe wants to make a comment too. Yeah I just see I totally agree that there needs to be a better line of communication so that we're getting feedback throughout the process from the council but they're also understanding the nuances of what we're trying to do which isn't very digestible you know to a lot of people if you don't take the time to dig into it. I will say that when you see as a student of urban planning when I got my master's degree in somebody who's dedicated their career to transportation planning for bikes and pedestrians the reason I think when you see is because we're doing so much right so I just want to acknowledge that like when you see a freaking cold place it's super dense, it's super diverse, walkable, bikeable, we have transit so Act 47 doesn't impact so much of our code because we're already more dense than like our densities are higher than what's required in Act 47 and getting rid of one parking spot is a big deal because we're already pretty much doing it but through incentives right so I just want to acknowledge that like it's really for the real estate in Milton and everybody that's not doing that fair share for housing so without being said I think that we're just going to have to get more creative I mean so Act 47 doesn't give us the same leverage friends with us but there's still a path forward and I think one of the things that Eric had mentioned like making things a conditional use unless they have affordable units, 3 plus bedroom units home ownership opportunities then it's a permanent use so it's not like oh if you do that you're going to have to come to us and go in front of the board and spend money it's like no we're going to pass you through that process and then really highlighting what form-based code that was huge the city undertook that whole effort to basically streamline and rubber stamp any development in our gateway which is supposed to be the densest developed huge apartment buildings to get a lot of units built right so the units that were getting built through form-based code aren't our priority housing style units but it is allowing the larger developments so I'm saying all this to like I often think that we are trying to fix a broken city and I do think that we have an awesome city and a lot of things that are working really really well it's how do we uplift these areas that have been identified in the city and being that we're not developers like what's understanding that tools and mechanisms to get this priority housing I think is a continuous conversation I think looking at neighbors like Berlin didn't helpful in other places to see kind of how they're successfully navigating it but yeah I just wanted to say that Brandon on his bed there he's like I guess the last thing I want to say I do think the point about really laughing what's on the ground is an interesting one and something that I think is worth thinking about right because it's often sort of odd to me like one of the things people really like when you ski because of the like the neighborhood feel and the neighborhood feel and all that and yet a lot of what a lot of that was built like 100 plus years ago and actually wouldn't be allowed to be built now even though it's what we claim to really like and what we want to preserve and I know that like you know there's this like on the I think it's one of the properties on the list it's like this current Victorian house that was built in 1901 and it's amazing and it doesn't even build anymore it sucks like that's just not going to happen but I still think the point as well taken that like somehow a lot of development that happened pre-zoning organically we really like and yet it's actually not technically allowed even though it all continues to exist as a pre-existing non-conforming use but that becomes a challenge if you want to change anything and it's something to think about as well I did think that that was a well taken point right Philippe you want to one more comment yeah well I know I know I was tired but I think this topic is extremely important so I'll give you 30 seconds Abby I completely agree I moved here I fell in love with the city because you can walk everywhere you can bike everywhere everybody it's super friendly the density is heartwarming and what I said at City Council meeting on Monday is that I want more of it and so to the you know to the gateway issue that has been extremely visible and that was extremely encouraging and you I think in the data you were able to see at least a planning of rent increases in Winooski during that period whereas in Burlington they were significantly increasing at the same time so that those efforts helped and we should continue those efforts and maybe not just limit them to the gateway districts but expand them into the RARBRC districts or maybe eliminating that three tiered system altogether to encourage that kind of organic growth and the point is you know you don't do that you do that things don't change over night right but the next time someone has an opportunity to develop a piece of land they can be sort of a maximalist about it and put a sixplex in an RC district right now where they can't right now and another big component of this is there's a lot of money for housing vouchers and nobody and no way to spend them because the housing is so expensive and there's not an available so if you think about the pool of money available for housing vouchers if housing were cheaper and more easily available you'd be able to help more people the same amount of money and that's something that a city like Houston is really good about where they've you know if you take it at the extreme that's what you would get a city where there isn't the homeless crisis that you see everywhere else in the United States because they have social workers that are able to very quickly place people into somewhere to live and the federal and state dollars that they get for housing vouchers just stretch a lot further so I mean at this point I'm rambling a little bit but I I do take issue with the idea that Winooski isn't Burlington I mean they're very similar cities the great advantage that we have here is that our politics I think are a lot better it's a lot less contentious but the density is high the diversity is probably even higher lower income maybe we've got great bones in this city and we could do a lot with it and I'm I'm extremely optimistic about our chances or about the growth of this city if we if we here in this planning commission set it up correctly you're establishing the rules of the game that everyone comes here to play and it should be as permissive as possible because that's what great cities are great thanks Philippe Evan has his hand up online if you'd like to recognize him as well otherwise we can continue moving on with city updates Evan I'm going to give you 30 seconds okay this is just one thing that I was reminded of from what the mayor said about the city manager's concern regarding increased code enforcement and city staff requirements if Winooski increased density there was an urban 3 study they do municipal studies basically based on tax revenue per acre so to see what parts of the city contribute most to the tax base and the cost of running the city to see the dichotomy between single family and similar build styles to certain areas in Winooski that maybe as you get towards Colchester don't exist the old north end generates about $1.1 million per acre in revenue the old north end generates $4.4 million in revenue and then downtown generates $8.4 million in revenue and I imagine if you looked at Winooski you'd see something similar where the affordable housing in Winooski that is more dense subsidizes the more expensive single family units on the outskirts you want to wrap it up? Thanks very much. Mayor are you still there? I am. Thanks Christine. Eric? The only thing I'll just mention is as was mentioned earlier we are working on short term rental regulations so that is in process with the housing commission primarily coming forward to city council shortly I think maybe December but don't quote me on that and I believe that is all I have for city updates. I did get a question from one of the planning commissioners who is not here tonight do you know what is going on with the armory? I know they have a permit to demo it but as far as any type of sale or redevelopment I don't know anything about that but the mayor just raised her hand. It is late 24 or early 25 now. It keeps pushing out. Do you know why they are planning to tear it down? My presumption is because they have moved out of the building and it is pretty heavily contaminated with either lead asbestos or some other form of PCB or something else so I think in order to either sell it or redevelop on that site they need to remove the building that is there now and clean it up. Anyone else have any other business? Any updates on development of proposed development across from Bebe or the one by the school? So I'll start with the second one first. The one up by the school I believe you are referring to the 379 3D1 Main Street. So they have a zoning permit. I don't believe they have gotten their building permits yet. I believe they are working through that. The site I think has some the soils are fairly wet so in the near future they are going to start a process where they start to dry it out which I don't exactly know what that looks like quite possibly so they are planning to move forward with that project here as I think starting some construction in the spring is my guess but they do have their zoning permit so they are on the clock with that before it expires to move forward needing to get their building permits. The project on East Allen Street across from the Bevy they have conditional approval but they are still working on meeting some of their conditions. I actually just reached out to them the other day to see where they were with it and they are they are looking at some design changes that may reduce the overall number of units and potentially some of the construction methods but they are looking they will most likely be bringing back some level of redesign so whether that is going to meet the thresholds where it needs to go back through the process completely or have some other level of review is to be determined based on what they come up with. They have some conditions they need to meet before they will be issued a zoning permit but they are trying to figure out what they need to do to move forward. Basically the conversation I had was that the costs of what they had designed were so high there is no way they could build it. Where are they from? The applicant was Giles Wagner and Brian Libby Where are they from? Do you know? I don't know offhand. And are those, do you know if that's one bedroom studio? It was a mix. It was going to be a mix of ones and twos and I think a handful of studios and maybe one or two three bedroom but I don't know. I think they were going to do it all as a market rate though. And the one up on Main Street is that all one bedroom or two. The Main Street project up by the school is a mix of ones and twos and I think a couple of studios as well. I know it's really late but I'm going to ask one more question. No, no! I haven't even gone through my other business yet. Oh, sorry Eric. Go ahead. It's just going back to trying to be aware of which staffing and regulations and development. I just want to point out to you you've heard this before but our building is having some serious issues which are costing us a lot of money. More than half a million dollars we'll be putting into our balconies. One of the problems is that I guess what I'm asking is are these new buildings that are going up being scrutinized and the regulations are really tight and corners aren't being cut and we don't have enough staff to cut to see that everything is being built properly to code. And I'm just putting that out there as another yeah you can develop fast but we also have to be careful that we're doing it correctly from that building point of view, literally. And the same with the building across the street here that have all that sprinkler problem I think was last year and everybody had to move out for a while and nobody has to answer it. I'm just laying it on the table. Well I will answer it if you'd like an answer. So I guess what I would say is for the larger buildings, the public buildings, they are all reviewed and permitted by the state Division of Fire Safety. While we do issue a local building permit, we do not do a separate review of the project itself. So the state actually does all the project review and permitting for the construction plumbing, electrical, etc. of those projects and then once they start construction generally like for example when the school is being redeveloped every week the state inspectors and our inspectors were on site to go through another piece of the project as it was under construction. So depending on the project they could be there every week every other week or some variation thereof but I would say it's every situation is different but it's not for a lack of trying to ensure that the projects are meeting all the applicable codes and are being inspected appropriately as well. Any more updates Eric? Yes so the only other thing I want to update you all on is that this will be our only meeting in November so there is not a second meeting this month. We will meet again on December 14th that second Thursday so please mark your calendars. We'll continue our discussion on the amendments and see if we can make some progress and then that will be our only meeting for December as well. We will not have a second meeting in December. With that we will however start back with two meetings a month again in January so be ready for two meetings a month again. Okay. Coming up soon. So I'll be looking for a motion to adjourn but I want to thank everyone that came personally here. There was quite a crew here folks online and of course the commission Eric and the mayor for coming and I thought this was a very good meeting. I'm looking for a motion to adjourn. So moved. Okay. Brennan Abbey seconds. All those in favor? Anyone opposed and wants to stay longer? I guess not. Thank you for adjourning.