Okay. Welcome to this meeting of the City of Montpelier's Development Review Board. It is 7 o'clock on Monday, May 18th, and we are getting underway with our first Zoom experience. I am going to introduce our board members, and the way that I'm going to do that is I'm going to go through the list of who our members are, who are present, and I'll have each person raise his hand so you can see who they are. So here tonight are myself, Kate McCarthy. I am the Chair of the DRB. We also have with us Vice Chair Kevin O'Connell. Thank you, Kevin. RJ Adler, Roger Cran, Rob Goodwin, Joe Kiernan, Jean Leon. Hi, Jean. And then we are assisted tonight by our two fearless planning department staff, Meredith Crandall, our zoning administrator. Hi, sorry conference room. They haven't switched my camera around so you can see me. That's okay. Just look for the table. That's Meredith video feed. And then planning director Michael Miller. Okay. So what we're going to do next is I'm going to turn it over to Meredith and she's going to provide an overview of our remote procedures and processes because this is new for many of us. That will also be your chance to ask questions and let her know how things are going thus far. So with that, I will turn it over to Meredith. Thank you, Kate. And just a procedural note, I think we may have lost Roger. So he may be having difficulties with the internet connection tonight. So this is, I'm going to do a share screen here so that this is really more for people who are attending via ORCA and viewing the meeting. But I want to make sure that if anybody is out there just viewing it through ORCA, they know how to sign in and then a review of how to take part in the conversation once you're in. So give me one second. Okay. So due to the state of emergency declared by Governor Scott as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Development Review Board is authorized to meet electronically. So there's no physical location to observe contemporaneously with this meeting, but in accordance with temporary amendments to the open meeting law, the Development Review Board is providing public access to the meeting via video conference through the Zoom meeting platform, including both video and telephone access options. You can also access the meeting through a live streaming of the meeting. All members of the Development Review Board have the ability to communicate at the same time during this meeting through the Zoom platform and the public has access to listen and if desired participate in this meeting in real time. If you are on ORCA and are not on the Zoom meeting and you wish to be, there's a link right here. You can cut, you know, write this into your browser. You can also view it on the City of Montpelier Planning and Community Development website. If you go to the Pending Applications page, there is a link right there. It's this link. You can also call into the meeting using this phone number,<PHONE_NUMBER>, plug in the meeting ID and the password and you'll be able to participate in the meeting. If you do just the phone call in, you won't be able to see anything that people are watching other than through the ORCA, but you'll be able to participate if you have questions. We previously gave notice to the public on how to access this meeting on our posted meeting agenda. That was posted around the City as well as on the City's website at this link right here. If anybody has a problem accessing the meeting, please email the meeting moderator, mikemiller at mmiller at montpelier-vt.org. If you're on the Zoom meeting and you're having difficulties accessing either the video conferencing feature or somehow your audio is muted and you can't unmute it, you can message Mike through the chat function in Zoom. Mike is listed as the Montpelier City Council Chambers. So when you're participating in the meeting and have logged in through Zoom or called in through Zoom, you can tell the moderator which applications you wish to comment on. When the chair announces that the time for public comment for a particular application arrives, the moderator will unmute members of the public based on the order you've submitted your intent to speak or the chair will call on you specifically. If you're interested in speaking and you did not say that you would like to speak previously, please raise your hand. If you're on video or state your name, if you're unmuted and the city staff can add you to the queue, you can also use the chat function to reach out to Mike Miller and he'll let us know that you want to talk. There'll also be an opportunity at the end of every public comment section where we unmute everybody to make sure we have caught everyone that needs to talk. Once the chair is recognized you to participate, you'll be unmuted to confirm that you can be heard and then you're free to provide your questions or comments aiming to keep those initial comments to two minutes. Board members will then have an opportunity to respond to your comments or ask questions of you and the applicant may also have an opportunity to respond. The chair can grant additional time for speakers who have follow-up questions or comments and then after you've finished all of your comments your microphone will be muted again. The chair will then move on to the next person to speak. You can provide additional input later but only after the chair recognizes you again. If we have start having problems with the public being able to access this meeting, it will be continued to a time and place certain and then finally please note that all votes taken during this meeting will be done by a roll call vote um put in you know called by the chair. I'll now hand the meeting back over to Kate. Thank you, Governor. rookie error, rookie error. That was a demonstration of the requirements to unmute yourself in order to be heard by the other participants. And what I was saying was we're all learning and we're all going to do our best. Please bear with us. Please let us know if you have any questions and thank you in advance for your patience. All right, so I'm on. Hi Kate, I just have to step in real quick. We have somebody on the phone and I can't chat with them so I just wanted to find out who just called in on the phone. Hey, this is Michael. Hi Michael. Great, so that's Michael. Yes, sorry I'm having to take my time logging in. Oh, I'm sorry to hear that. Thanks for making it by phone. We will invite your participation that way until the point where we may get you your face to join us as well. But thanks for being here. Okay. Okay. So what we're going to do next is the approval of the agenda and I will do a roll call vote to have the agenda approved and please do remember to unmute yourself. This will be our little, our practice item. Are there, first, are there any modifications to the agenda as printed? Kevin, you have your hand raised. Please go ahead and please unmute yourself. Kevin. For some reason I can't seem to unmute him. Something's going. Okay. Kevin, we can't hear you. Can you hear me now? Yep. Yeah. Okay, just got to, got to click it until it works, I guess. Okay, so here's my, here's my question of having to do not with the content of the agenda, but for clarification of items number six, number seven, the two action items we have this evening. What is the intended outcome for these two items? Are we doing preliminary review? Are we doing final review? What exactly are we planning to do tonight? Go ahead, Meredith. Okay. Yes, please. So both of these items are full review. There's no preliminary stage to it unless for some reason the board feels that there are unanswerable questions or unanswered questions that need more information, in which case the meeting will be continued on that particular item. Okay, so just to be clear, the new ordinance basically says once it's on the agenda, it goes as far as the procedural review, as the review can take it and it's not like preliminary review and final review. We just do what we can with the information that we have and if it's not complete, we continue it. Correct. The only thing now with split reviews would be subdivisions and I think planned unit developments. Very good. Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you, Kevin. That's a good question and one that I had asked Meredith earlier myself. Do other board members have questions or modifications to the agenda? Okay. I have just one small modification, which is to note under item seven, that we're not reviewing a food bank as a use, we're reviewing a bank as a use just for the record. Thank you, Kate. Now I missed that. No, no problem. You must have been hungry. Well, I think it would be square foot. An understandable error. All right, do I have a motion to approve the minutes? With the modification suggested. Motion by Kevin? Second. Second by RJ? All right, I'm going to go through and say your name. You can say yes or no. So to vote, RJ? Yes. Yeah. Roger. I don't think he came back in. I think we lost Roger. Okay. Rob? Yes. Yes. Yes. Michael? Yes. Gene? Yes. Kevin? Yes. And I, Kate, also vote yes. Thank you. We have approved the agenda. Comments from the chair. I've mentioned that this is our first remote meeting and I'm glad to be doing it with all of you. Will, I expect great things and thank you for being here. I'd like to welcome our new Development Review Board members who are jumping right in. RJ Adler, Joe Kiernan, and Gene Leon are all here with us for their first official hearing tonight. So welcome. Looking forward to meeting many of you in person at some point soon, I hope, but appreciate your being here tonight. So with that, we're going to move into our first application, which is item six on the agenda for four college street. This is a review for an addition. It is before us because it is taking place on steep slopes. And first, what I'm going to do is just let you know how we take testimony on something like this. So you'll hear an overview of the application from the staff and then the applicants will have a chance to talk a little bit about their project. DRB members can then ask questions. Then there will be the opportunity for other witnesses who would like to be heard on a matter to present their cases or ask questions. And then DRB members can ask questions of those witnesses. We can have rebuttals if necessary, and then there will be a discussion of the application and deliberations and if possible a vote. And that's the same process that we will be following for the 105 State Street application today. So I'll say that again, but just wanted to let everyone know kind of the path that we will be traveling. I assume that people can hear me all right. Otherwise, I would have been told otherwise by now. You cannot or shake your head. I think Liz has, Liz has a question. So okay, I, there we go. When would there be an opportunity for public questions? Thank you. That's a good question. If it's a public question about a specific application, what we'll do is open it up after, yes, okay, we'll open it up to public for questions after the applicant has presented their project and after development review board members have had a chance to ask some questions because sometimes that back and forth will answer questions that neighbors have, but then we'll open it up. Okay, thank you. Before the vote. You're welcome. Absolutely. Thank you. Yep, you're welcome. Great. So the next thing I'll do is I'll swear on anyone who may wish to be heard on the application and that that could be a neighbor or anyone else who just thinks they may wish to comment. So if that is you or you're the applicant, what I'll have you please do is raise your right hand. Now administer the oath. Okay. First, I will just swear in folks for the four college street application that we're about to hear. So do you solemnly swear or affirm that the testimony you're about to give is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth under the pains and penalties of perjury? I do. I do. All right. Thank you. You have been sworn in. All right. So Meredith, could you please tell us a little about this application? Yes. So the four college street application, the applicant is seeking approval to build a 730 square foot addition of a ground floor master suite on the rear of the existing single family home, as well as a carport over an offense around an existing parking area. The building site includes slopes of greater than or equal to 30% and therefore requires approval by the Development Review Board. This is the only reason this is coming before the DRB. There are three really outstanding issues highlighted in the staff report. First, just the project meet the steep slopes requirement of section 3007. So this starts on page four of the staff report and I'll pull up a share screen after I've done the overview. There don't appear to be any structural or slope integrity issues, but there are some outstanding questions regarding stormwater management and the Board will need an official determination regarding the compliance with each of the steep slopes criteria. So that's big issue number one. Second, there's some stormwater issues. These are also discussed with regard to steep slopes, but you have to make a determination under section 3009 of the regulations regarding stormwater compliance as well. And then finally, I've highlighted some issues that remain regarding whether the proposed fence around the carport complies with the requirements of section 3101. I believe we have Liz Dodd to speak on this when we get to that point. I do know that there was another neighbor who had expressed interest up and she has signed on. So Christine Zekai is on this well when we get to that point. All right, I'll hand it back over to you, Kate, unless you have any questions. I do not. So thank you for that overview. So what I'll do now is I'll invite the applicants to unmute themselves and speak a little bit to the project, anything that they would like to add or any specifics that are that they'd like to highlight. And that and that could be the applicant or the applicant engineer or designer or anything else like that. Sure. So thank you, Kate. So my name's Dan Clare from Clare Construction. Elsewhere here co-presenting with me here is McCall. He is our designer and Peter and Therese Norman Mejo are also here as the as the owners. But I'll provide the overview and that this is this is a addition being built kind of behind the existing home. The existing home has its bedrooms up on the second level and we have designed a addition that goes off the rear of the home to provide kind of an aging in place addition, you know, allowing the owners to stay put in their home. And we've got some, you know, I guess we'll wait until we get to the the red highlights as far as the drainage, but kind of got some kind of some thoughts there. We can reply to when the time comes. But yeah, are there any any specific questions that I can that I can answer for anybody? I think what we might do is oh yeah, go ahead. Dan, if you want, you should have the ability to share your screen if you want to pull anything up, or I can pull up the application on my screen and share it at any point that you need that. Okay, very good. Great. Would would would Peter Kalman and Theresa McGow like to add anything? Go ahead and unmute if you do. No, Dan gave the gave the overview. We can we can only answer questions later. Okay, great. Kevin has a question. Go ahead. What is the what is the existing slope condition? What how steep is it? Michael, can you can you speak to those specific numbers? Yeah, if we look at in the application sheet, it's from a granular surveying, granular engineering. The slope analysis report based on the lidar of the site. The site is anywhere up to up to 30%. So we're just in the area. I'm looking at the color coding here and seeing what it is. Yeah, we're just just barely touching into some 30% right underneath that corner of the foundation, right? On the northwest corner. Yep, right there. Okay, thank you. Great. I'm adjusting my screen so that I can see more of the participants here because when we do share screen I can't see who's raising their hand. I have a question. I'm gonna figure that out. Who's that with the question? Joe. Go ahead, Joe. On that plan that you had up there when you were sharing the screen, it shows the carport has the similar 30% slopes, but there's an existing retaining wall there already according to the plans. Correct. So I guess I'm wondering, is there a 30% slope across the floor of the carport? No, this is based off of a lidar plan. And the retaining wall in the driveway was was leveled a few years back. Okay. That was another question I mind because I went on Google Earth. I didn't see the carport. It was a eight-year-old photograph. So I was wondering if that retaining wall could be built recently. Yeah, the retaining wall, I believe it was two or three years ago. Peter and Teresa will know the time frame on that. Okay. It is an existing structure. Good. Thank you for that question. All right. So I think what, if there are no other general questions from, I would take additional general questions from DRB members at this point. Rob, yes. Yeah. I just have one more question. Just a follow-up there. Could you just kind of run through the process or maybe clarify, like all of the slope analysis came from lidar. I guess I think I saw a note on maybe another sheet, maybe an older sheet, that it was a composite of the Grenier survey and the lidar. So I don't know if you could sort of go through the sourcing of where the slopes are coming from, if it's all lidar or if it's not. It is all lidar provided by Grenier. Okay. Grenier was on site and they surveyed the boundaries up in the lidar. They provided the lidar as well. Okay. Thank you. All right. Other questions from DRB members at this point? Here's not. So what I would like to do is kind of move through the staff report and talk through some of the standards. Actually, I'm thinking that through. Perhaps at this point I would like to hear from anyone else too, which is to speak on the project, who isn't an applicant or a DRB member. So, Elizabeth Dodd, would you like to speak at this point? Thank you very much for recognizing me. Can you hear me okay? I'm sitting outside of my deck that totally overlooks Peter's house just by way of orientation. And to my right is Christine, who's another participant here and a number of questions I'm going to defer to her. But between the two of us, we can perhaps provide some anecdotal background information and just wanted to share with you. First on stormwater. And I've been a homeowner here in this home for about 10 years. And we can look at graphs. And do I have a question? I'll try to make this brief. No, but just some background that speaking with neighbors who are uphill from me and in my own home, the bulwarks that have were put in place when this building was built back in the, I think my house was built back in the early 1960s. And so it was because of stormwater that ran off down this hill. It goes off through backyards and down the hill. And from another neighbor, the next two neighbors up the hill. So there is water and there is runoff, which has forces that necessitated building bulwarks in our basements. So again, we can look at graphs and then we can look at what's in place. So I am concerned about runoff particularly as we look at climate change and what's going to be happening and potential increase in changes over the next five to 20, 25 years on our slope here. And I think the homes down below us are going to be experiencing this as water runs off to the river below. So I really want to speak cognizant of this and what's going to be happening with the forces in my basement and in my home and also with Peter's home and people down below. So that's it on stormwater that it is there and it does happen. And well, it might not look like only one corner on a garage, it is forces that go across basements of all our homes. Thank you. Christine? Thank you. And I understand that Christine is another neighbor wishing to speak on this application. So I'd invite Christine to unmute and chime in. Hi. Thanks, Kate. Thanks, Liz. Good to see you. And we chose not to submit comments on the project. I think Liz's point about stormwater is a really valid one. And I understand that Grenier did a really thorough soil analysis, but my first reaction about this project was really deep concern about the potential for unstable slopes and unstable soil, given that we live on the same soils, on the same slopes and just having personal experience from having the slopes move really clearly over time just in the six years that we've lived in this house and in the past, this house is required work to be done on the foundation because of the slopes moving. That being said, I'm not an engineer and I understand that Grenier has been involved in the project, which is great, but on the face of it is something that initially caused concern for me. Okay. Well, thank you. I think what we'll do is we'll talk a little bit more about the features of the application as we go through the staff report and receive testimony on how it purports to meet the different standards that it's required to meet. So we'll take that into account as we do that. So as a next step, that's what I'd like to do is look if there are no other questions from DRB members and no other members of the public wishing to comment. So what we'll do is we'll start looking at the staff report. I believe the applicants have a copy of that and DRB members do as well. I'm looking down because I have it written and I have it in front of me. So we're just going to go through it and show how this project adheres to our standards. So starting on page three, once we get past the permit history with the general standards, we confirmed here that this will continue to be a one or two dwelling unit house. It's my understanding that won't change. And so it meets the youth standards of our zoning. So then we look at how the project adheres to the dimensional standards, footprint, height, setback. The size of the loss not changing. And we are, we learned from the applications that the lot coverage is within range of what it is supposed to be. The proposed changes will not exceed the requirements or encroach upon the setbacks. So we have evidence shows that it meets those requirements. Okay. I want to, I want to go quickly without rushing. So that's the line. I'm going to try and walk here. We don't need, there are no riparian areas, wetlands or vernal pools, nothing is being demolished. So we don't need to meet any requirements related to those. So then the bottom page four of the staff report, we're going to look at the provisions having to do with steep slopes, which as Meredith pointed out is the main reason, the only reason that this addition is before our board. So what we're going to do is go, go through our, just the standards, the results of the Department of Public Works and the standards for the steep slope construction. So as you can see on your staff report on page five, now there are VPW did not raise concerns about the engineer designs or the slope specific matters. And we'll get to the stormwater issues in a couple of minutes. But what I'd like to do is go through the different criteria for the slopes and DRB members, if you have any, anything you want to add or applicants, we will, I'll take your testimony on those. So the project must limit the amount of disturbance, clearing and existing and limit the amount of disturbance, the clearing of existing natural vegetation and impervious surface in order to minimize the potential for erosion, stormwater runoff, flooding and water quality impairment. Do DRB members have any comments or questions about that or the applicants? Staff finds that that standard is met. Similarly, the next standard not to create slopes of over 30% is also met. I'm going to look as best as I can for raised hands, but if I miss it because I'm looking at an iPad here, do chime in. And at this point, I'm mostly going to take comments from applicants and DRB members, but I do see with that, please go ahead. I'm sorry. So this has to do, it's tied into agricultural use. And that's another topic to perhaps come up is the use of the land that's next door to this site. And there's been in talking with the applicant on the use for this site, it may potentially be somewhat changed. And so I'm wondering what if any implications that may have for stormwater and runoff, any agricultural runoff that may happen. Now or in the future, should someone else come in? So, okay, that's kind of it. Also to watch the water that goes down College Street here, like the other night when we had the stormwater warning is just incredible. All right, I'll just leave it at that. Thank you. I think we're going to probably discuss that in the context of stormwater generally since it'll have to do with movement of sediment and anything else off the parcel. Meredith, do you have anything to add on that issue in particular? I would just say as a reminder that the DRB needs to review the application as the application. The applicants and owners at this point aren't applying to change any use on the property. And if they were going to, you know, that would be a whole separate application process. I think that's all they've got right now. And we'll deal with stormwater questions, like you said, when we get there. Okay. Thank you, Meredith. The next standard is a requirement to preserve distinctive natural features, the general topography of the site and the existing natural vegetation. And it appears that that is happening given that no extra no trees are being removed or woody vegetation. Do DRB members or the applicants wish to comment on how that standard is met or not? That is true. We will not be removing anything. There will be no trees being removed. Thank you. So next we move into the standard retaining the stormwater. Maintain or reduce the pre-existing rate and retain the pattern of stormwater runoff leaving a property. So we know that this is the addition of some impervious surface that is not there before, though the coverage is still less than the required, the maximum. So the comment from the Department of Public Works is that there does need to be additional review of the footing drain discharge to understand impact to the downhill property. And it may require, there may need to be an infiltration basin or direct connection to the municipal storm drain. And it's also not clear, at least from the material submitted thus far, how the new roof rainfall runoff, say that three times fast, will be managed. So I would like to hear a little bit more about that, both of those issues. So can I work backwards there? And I'll address the new roof rainfall runoff first. And the uphill side of the home, of the new part of the home, and frankly, the existing part as well. But the uphill side has a swale built into it. Is that Meredith? Is that your screen, Meredith, that we're looking at? So now I wish I had a, actually, yeah, so Meredith, if you can leave that screen right there for a second. Yeah, or feel free to share yours if you would prefer to be able to control that. Okay, I think I can just do this. There are some existing swales, there's some drawn in swales that are represented right around where I'm drawing those green lines. And so the contour of the land will be, the roof will shed its water this way, and any downhill, any water running downhill will run this way. And there will be a swale that kind of brings the water around and downhill. So I know that I think that if the staff reported said that, you know, it says, if not the additional detail is needed for a swale up gradient of the proposed structure. And in fact, there is already a a swale detail proposed on the uphill side of the proposed structure. Okay. Thank you. And as far as the any runoff that would come on the downhill side, how is that proposed to be handled? So the downhill side, you know, there will mean it's just going to continue to run downhill, not unlike it does, not, you know, not too similar to what it does present today. The way the site is presently naturally great, or presently the contours of the property, most of the water is going towards the corner where the footing drain is exiting. And I believe the current footing drain is in that area as well. And that's where a lot of the water is going to in a natural state now. So just to bring people up to up to speed, the proposed footing drain is is here. Yeah. Sorry, that's a couple of clumsy green circles there, but that line right there, right from the corner of the house down to there, that is the proposed discharge for the footing drains. Okay. And for my own benefit and for the assurance of the other folks on the call, could you just tell us real quick what a footing drain is and where the water goes after it's in the drain? Sure. Thank you. So at the bottom of a foundation, you know, underneath the kind of the wall is the footing. And that's, you know, X number of feet down as as suggested by the structural drawings elsewhere in this document. And right at the footing level is a perforated pipe.  Some of it will kind of sheet off down the down the hill. And some of it will go down into the drainage stone and into the footing drain. And it kind of keeps keeps the water away from the building and keeping the building, keeping the building dry. Okay. Great. Thank you. Do you have any members have any questions about about this? Just to be clear, because I was a little confused by that last comment. The footing drain is on the uphill side. It's all around the entire structure. Yes, structure. So this, this is the, this is the new addition we're talking about. What is the, how is the stormwater handled from the existing structure? There is an existing drain system up that's on the uphill side of the existing structure. And that that that will, that will, you know, that will be disrupted. The discharge of that will be disrupted by the proposed structure, but, you know, only temporarily and it will get tied into the new drainage system and discharged in that lower corner of the lot. So that water currently from the current structure exits the property where exactly? From in its, in its current state. Is that a question? Yes. Uh-huh. I will get my little drawing tool here again. So there is a drainage pipe that goes along the, along the uphill side of the building and it discharges something, something like that, Kevin. So, so the, the current structure and the proposed structure is, is perforated pipe with basically crushed granite or gravel or what have you as a, as a. Yeah. Well, some combination of perforated pipe and solid pipe, but. Right. Okay. And Mike's, my experience with that kind of system is that it works great in the beginning, but that requires ongoing maintenance to keep it clear. Yeah. So typical details would be to, you know, to provide a clean out access because indeed sometimes these things do need to be cleaned out. Okay. Thank you. Any other questions? Yeah. So that footing drain there would exit just as an open pipe. The proposed one in the lower corner of the lot? Yeah. That's correct. Okay. As it, as the engineer has drawn it, that is, that is correct. And would the gutters from the new part of the structure be tied into that footing drain? We're not proposing gutters on the, on the proposed structure. Okay. Currently the drain that you drew there that's gone now, is that also a single point that it exits out of? That's correct. Okay. Okay. Thank you. So in Joe's raising the question about a single point of discharge, I think that is a good one. Or I think we're looking at a little more square footage of the roof on the addition. And in the current, obviously it's an addition. Would the volume and velocity of that discharge have a potential for erosion or how does that work? Yeah. Do you want to? No. Go ahead, Michael. Most, most footing drains are subsurface and water, the little bit of water that, that happens to, to break the sod or get through the sod and down five, five and a half feet. So there's not a lot of storm water that reaches that level. And, and most of the time a footing drain has a trickle at best that comes out of it. Even on a steep slope like this. And, and talking to Don after you, after I read the concerns, talking to Don March about it, he would be surprised if, if the footing drain had water coming out of, I think he said 60%, 70% of the time. Mostly, you know, it'd be dry that, that amount of time. What we're looking at is rainwater or storm water runoff. And that would be slowed by the uphill swale system that we are creating naturally around the building. The existing building, it sheds to the front. And then the addition, it would shed to the back and then slow, be slowed by the flat and natural flattened area at the back of the corner of the property. Yes, I can report. This is Peter Kalman. The current drain, single point drain that comes off the backside of the current house have never seen anything more than a trickle, even in the hardest rains, even when there's a river running down College Street. And we actually have, we feed into it from two places. One at the footing and one about halfway up where the clay level we have also has water running over it. So it just hasn't been a problem. And this is sort of the same idea. Thank you. I appreciate that information. And also the footing drain 101, that is useful to me for this and for the future. Any other questions from other DRB members about that particular standard to maintain or reduce the preexisting rate and retain the pattern of stormwater runoff leaving the property? Yeah, Rob. So as far as the grading goes, you have on the downhill side and the footing drain, what is coming out from the building? Will that be graded flat from the building wall out before the slope downhill again? Can you speak to that? On the downhill side, it is a shallow slope, but there's nowhere on this property that it's flat. This is a, these are one foot contours. And it's about a one foot in three to three and a half foot slope. If we go up to the, I'll go down to the grading. It's falling the yellow in that area. So it's a 15. We're not changing the slope or we're not intending to change the slope in the lower area. We're just tying it back up into the building where it's been interrupted. So the, so the slope at which the downhill drip edge is that will be natural existing slope, right? Yes. Okay. Thanks, Rob. Any other questions on this from DRB member? All right, great. I'm going to move on to the other standards. The project needs to produce a final grade that is compatible with the surrounding natural terrain. And I think this appears to be the case. Straight of harmonious transition between the graded slopes and the natural terrain. Can you just help me out? What page are we on at this point? Sure. I'm on the staff report page six and I'm on the standard little five, little six, et cetera. Very good. Thank you. Yep, certainly. Avoid creating continuous unbroken slopes or linear slopes. This appears to be the case as well, contouring graded slopes by varying slope increment to produce a final grade that undulates both vertically and horizontally. I think that is also accomplished. I've just run through a few in a row. Do DRB members have anything to add on those standards or the applicants? Okay. I'll continue. Very cut and fill banks and terraces to produce a final grade that has visual interest and allows for naturalistic landscaping. Again, the slope is remaining largely unchanged around the addition. Consider the use of retaining walls and terracing rather than cut and fill. That appears to be what's happening. Vary the pad elevations on sites with multiple structures to follow the natural terrain. It appears to follow the natural terrain and we are talking about one structure, not multiple structures. No new roads or drives are created. Compact building forms and or multi-story buildings to minimize building footprint. We do have that in this proposal. And then use split or multi-level building forms that step up or down the slope. It has a step down foundation to fit into the slope. So those are the standards we need to include in order to approve this. Do DRB members or the applicant have anything else to add? Okay. So we have asked for clarification regarding stormwater management and we've discussed compliance with the steep slope design standards. So I'm just going to march right through the staff report. It may seem a bit belabored, but I don't want to miss anything. We're on page seven now. Erosion control. We've received the plan and it seems to be found acceptable by DPW. Are there any questions from DRB members about that standard related to erosion? No, it seems to meet what's required. Great. I agree. Regarding section 3009 stormwater management, we talked about the flows. We've talked a lot about the footing drains and how those flows are managed. So let's just talk a little bit. We've learned more about how the roof rainfall runoff will be managed. Could you just give us either Dan or the applicant or Michele a concluding statement about how this is going to avoid impacts on the downhill properties? Yeah. So to echo Michele's comments, the footing drains, we're told by the engineer that the majority at the time, he does not anticipate water to be coming out of there. And in the times that it does say, for his estimate, the 30% of the time that it does discharge water, it's not expected to be a substantial amount. And so for the engineer, they don't anticipate erosion or detrimental effects of the water coming out of that pipe. Thank you. And would the applicant be open to a condition that the Department of Public Works approve a revised stormwater management plan that reflects all of this? Sorry to say that in one time, Steve. Would you be open? Would Meredith can correct me if I've got this wrong, but would the applicant be open to a condition to submit an up-to-date stormwater management plan that reflects everything we've discussed, if that's not already part of the material? Oh, gotcha. Basically, in my tip to put it in my own words, are you asking the Department be granted a condition that the engineer put in writing what we've just discussed? I think the idea is Meredith can help me out here. Are you envisioning a visual Meredith or a written stormwater management plan? So, Dan, what I would be envisioning is something that's an updated visual stormwater management plan, something that has the actual swale details. Sometimes you'll pull that from the standard, so it shows what the actual slope is. You get a cutaway view of the swale, and that gets put in as well as where you would place, say, a clean-out, because you were talking about having a clean-out in here, have those details on the site plan, or even just a separate stormwater management plan that gets submitted to DPW for approval, and then it would come to me as zoning administrator before the permit was issued. Yes, of course. If that's what deals prudent to the DRV, of course we'll have. We're happy to provide that. And that would just be a condition of the approval. Thank you. So, and then the final review, unless we deem it otherwise, would be most likely DPW. Sure, we can certainly do that. Great, thank you. And I saw some nods from other DRV members that that is a desirable condition. So, thanks. Okay, so we've gotten through two of the three issues that Meredith highlighted is needing to be discussed, those being meeting the slope standards and discussing stormwater standards. And next, we're going to move on to the special use standards. And the special use in question here is the addition of a fence. Okay. And fences, I'm going to turn to the fence section of my zoning. It is section 3101A of our zoning for anyone who's playing along at home. Great. Okay. So, could you tell us a little bit about what's proposed specifically in the fence department? Yeah, Michele, you want to lead that one? Yeah. So, what we're looking at is a dual-sided fence. So, there's no back side of the fence. It is 6'3 and a little bit. It's above the standard. The thought is it is partially for privacy and partially for snow coming into the carport. The first floor of the existing structure and the main level, not the entry level, but the main level of the addition. At the foundation is 42 inches approximately above grade by the time we're a foot away from the building, it's almost four feet above grade. We're really close and that's my doing my best to estimate where the floor level is from the outside. So, it's really, if we have to take the three inches off of it, we can obviously. But the fence is really to provide a windbreak for the parking area and some privacy as well. Are there any DRB members who have questions about the fence that's being proposed? Can you zoom on it a little bit? Could we zoom into the image that's on the screen here? Yeah, let's try that. That is being attempted. So, there we go. Yeah, I haven't heard time zooming and then sliding the picture right and left for some reason on this laptop, but it's not my laptop. Meredith, thank you. No, that's my thing, a good effort. From our end, I'm sure. Michele, do you want to bring up your screen so we can zoom in on the fence? Yeah, let me see if I can do that here. Yeah. And Michele, while you do that, I'm going to ask Meredith, I'm going to have Meredith elaborate on a piece of this. So, the maximum height allowed for fences is six feet tall, unless the ground floor elevation of the principal building is at least four feet higher than the elevation at the base of the fence or wall. So, that's for, I'm having trouble translating that into a visual, Meredith. Could you help me understand what we're saying here? I will do my best considering we have never looked at this provision ever. This is the first time it's ever come up. So, I think Michele was trying to describe this earlier. It's just, unfortunately, I wasn't able to zoom in on the visual at the same time. So, the base of the first floor, I know there's, so there's a little dotted line here. So, this level right here where my cursor is, if you can see that, right there. That's the first floor, that's approximate first floor level. And from here to the grade at the foundation is just over 42 inches. And by the time we're here, we're at about the four foot level. And so, what you're comparing for this provision regarding fences, what you're comparing is where that first floor level is actually to where the base of the fence is. And the base of the fence is right about, is below four feet. Yes. Is below four feet, especially over there on the far side. Okay, thank you. I could add something because I'm a little familiar with this because we put up a deer fence and we went to put up the deer fence a couple of years ago. I spoke to people in planning and zoning and they mentioned the six foot. And the idea is they don't, we don't want, we don't want people building a wall around a house that looks like it's saying, don't come near us. And that is not really the intent here. In fact, when Michael said for privacy, that's the first I've heard about that. Our sole reason for wanting it is, we're old. We're only going to get older. We don't want to build a garage. We want to have a car port. What we're going to need in the winter to get out of the car and walk undercover to the front door. And if the wind comes in over our stone wall and blows in on that side, it's going to be pretty hard to do that. So this is really just a storm fence. Thanks. Okay. Thank you. Thanks for the explanations and the visuals and together those help help us understand the intent of that particular standard that none of us have tried before using before. So it's up to, it's up to, yes. Hey, this is Michael. Go ahead. I've lost a little bit of the boil here. So are we saying that the fence falls within that exception or doesn't? That's our, that's what we need to decide is whether it falls within that exception. And I'm, I'm seeing evidence. Go ahead. No, no. Go ahead. Oh, I'm seeing evidence that says it does fall within that, that suggests to me as one board member that it falls within that exemption. I'd be interested to hear from others. Does, does Meredith have anything more to add? It sounds like she was mid-thought and then we got a little sidetracked with here in snow fences. Oh, no, I, thank you, Michael. I appreciate it. So now that we have the clarification from the applicants so that we can figure out where those four foot lines are, you know, if I had had, if I'd been able to get that clarification before, I probably would have said this four feet higher than elevation at the base of the fence or wall exemption is where we would go in to allow this taller than what we would normally allow fence. Okay. And we're talking about about four inches taller than what we would normally allow. Exactly. This is an exemption. Okay. Meredith, do you remember the, the previous permit, and I know it's been months where we, I believe we denied the fence height, but what was the, and that was a matter of inches as well, if I remember correctly. Do you have any memory on that one? Yeah, I do. So that was a front yard fence set, front height limit, which is much more restrictive than the side in the rear yard. The front yard fence doesn't have any of these explicit exemptions. We were limited to looking at the dimensional 10% exemption under the section 3002. Right. That was one reason that that had to that, that that was so much harder to allow. But do you remember that? Well, because wasn't it like two or three inches that they were over? I think it was a matter of inches. It was a matter of inches, but here with the, with the exemption, it's the different, it's different altogether because front of the front of the house and then et cetera, et cetera, and it fits within an exemption. Exactly. Since we get over the two to three inch difference. Yep, exactly. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Thanks. Yeah, thank you. That's a new question, Michael. We have different tools to consider the exemption depending on where the fence is located. Question from Rob. Yeah, I just wanted to point out, I think that this may be logical as proposed, but in a way here we're building a fence on top of a wall. And I just think that maybe we should, you know, address, address what, what's specific here. I don't know if you would, you know, a retaining wall is different than maybe a wall is, that is intended to, as described in section 3101, but at first glance it's a fence on top of the wall. That's where I see it. So if there's a, any input on that? The wall is a retaining wall for the driveway. We expanded the driveway when we bought the house. The driveway was unsafe and narrow. We, we, we expanded the driveway. The wall is a retaining wall. This fence is actually located, you know, well in from the wall, four feet, I believe, in from the wall. Okay. Okay. Is that a drastic concern, Rob? Absolutely. Great. Thank you. Good information to have. All right. So, do other DRB members have thoughts on this four inch exemption or exception? I think we've discussed through and shown that there's an appropriate reason for, for allowing this request. All right. Very good. So with that, we have completed our review of the standards that apply to this project. Any other questions from DRB members or final comments from the applicant? Okay. Hearing none, I would entertain a motion. Liz, Liz has another question. Okay. I'll take one last question. Go ahead, Lizbeth. And I also like to give a nod to Chris and see if she has any more questions as well. But one has to do with lighting. And I haven't heard lighting discussed, which is something that and trees, which are something that has significantly changed in this neighborhood over the last few years. I don't know what section it may apply under, but there has been a loss of considerable number of trees, including one that was on this property. So there has been a change previous to this application for, for building on this, but there was a significant change in the natural vegetation that was here. Just put that out there. But lighting there, and I've discussed this was with Peter, there, whether it's reflection from another home, or whether it's reflection from a, whether it's a light on the back of this house, it, it really is detrimental to the lighting in this area for a number of homes that surround it. I'm wondering what standard this might be under and whether or not we could discuss lighting. It's just, and so just for that lighting. Thank you. I'm going to let Meredith add, but because this is only before the Development Review Board because of the construction on steep slopes, there are not particular lighting standards that this project is subject to in the same way that a change of use would be or a more intensive use of the site. Meredith, is that correct? Partly. I mean, it's not even just because it's only before the DOB on slopes. It's also because this is a single family home. And the lighting standards and the landscaping standards are part of site plan review, which only applies to projects that are of a use that is more intense than up to two, two units, two dwelling units, parcels. So single family homes and parcels with two dwelling units on them aren't, the lighting and landscaping just don't apply to those. Same with character of the neighborhood issues. Those don't apply in this particular application. So there's no way to address them, and that's unfortunate. Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you for your question. Question for Meredith. Meredith, with the new ordinance, is there a section that under general requirements that deals with lighting in residential neighborhoods? Um, not really, no. It's, like I said, the lighting, hold on one second. That's fine. And while Meredith is looking, you know, we're taking our time so that we can do this right. And I acknowledge that that's an investment of everybody's time. So as you're sitting here at your computer at the end of the long day, I hope everyone will feel very free to get up and move around. We, we're going to follow process, but we don't need to be overly formal. Please feel free to stretch and move around, since this is kind of an awkward way to be for a long period of time. So Kevin, just because I wanted to double check to make sure I wasn't somehow not remembering something. Yeah, the lighting requirements are all under site plan standards. So, I mean, it does sometimes apply to certain projects in residential neighborhoods, because you can have residential neighborhoods that have, you know, properties with three units on them and four units on them. But like I said, if you're talking about a property with just a single family home on it, or up to two dwelling units, you don't have other youth who's involved that are commercial and could trigger site plan analysis. We don't, we don't ask questions about lighting. It's just not something that falls under the zoning purview for these particular projects. They're exempt from those standards. Okay, thanks for double checking that. Yeah, thank you, Meredith. Okay, so Elizabeth has a chance to speak, so I want to invite Christine. Is there anything else you'd like to add? Thank you, Kate. I understand Liz's concerns, certainly. And I also understand that the concerns don't fall under the purview of the application as it's before DRBA. So, thank you. You're welcome. And I should allow the applicant to have any last comments as well. Yeah, thank you, Kate. I don't believe we have anything to add at this point. Okay, thank you. In that case, I'd entertain a motion. Just a procedural question, Kate. Oftentimes, this application is probably, it's not required, but I just want to make sure we cover this, particularly as we get into the agenda this evening. In applications that have multiple issues that require research and the fact that we're dealing with a new zoning ordinance, we as a board may decide to enter into deliberative session to consider and to rule on a particular application. I just want to refresh everybody's memory on that for those that have been on the board and just bring that up for the new members who haven't had this experience yet. Thank you, Kevin. That's a good reminder that sometimes we do choose to go into a private deliberative session to work through certain things. Are you proposing that, Kevin, for this application or just a general reminder? General reminder, not necessarily for this application. I'm going to defer to other members. Okay, thanks. I feel like we've vetted what we need to vet and there's not a lot that's lost unanswered or additional information needed. If others agree, I would welcome a motion. So moved. RJ, thank you. Would you specify we are moving approval for steep construction on steep slopes with the condition that a revised stormwater plan approved by DPW will be submitted by the applicant? Yes. Or something like that. Yeah, great. Thank you, RJ. Is there a second? Second. Okay, motion by RJ, second by Kevin. I'm going to do a roll call where we say yes or no. All right. The motion has been made and seconded. Is there any further discussion by DRB members? Oh, just the qualification that is conditional approval that we are requiring a updated stormwater plan that will be submitted and approved by DPW prior to the issuance of a permit. That would be a friendly amendment to the motion. Great. Thank you for more fully articulating that part of the motion. Kevin, I appreciate it. Okay. Friendly amendment accepted by RJ? Yes. Great. Thank you. Thank you. Michael, did you want to add something? Yes. Okay, Michael, is it yes? RJ? Yes. Rob? Yes. Joe? Yes. Kevin? Yes. Dean? Yes. And I, Kate, am voting yes as well. Thank you all for participating. Meredith will be in touch about the next steps to getting your project underway. Thank you. Yeah, so just as a reminder, and this is also helpful for anybody who hasn't been on here. So I will be working on the written decision that will get drafted. The chair will need to approve that and sign off on it.  You can feel free to start working on the revised stormwater plan before you get that decision because we've talked about what needs to be in that. And then, you know, if we've, if you've met all the conditions, even before the written decision goes out, then we'll probably be able to issue the written decision to the permit together. If we don't have that stormwater plan that's approved by DPW yet, you'll get the written decision first and then we'll issue it once we have that stormwater plan. And that would just be administratively approved at that point, correct? Um, yeah, I mean, it's not, yeah, kind of, it's not administratively approved officially, but it's, I look at it, it doesn't have to go back with the DRB as long as DPW is happy with it, I'll accept it in the file. And that's just the condition for issuing the permit. Very good. Thank you all. All right, thank you. Thank you. Meredith, one of the DRB there. I'm sure this was a big lift to get live on this platform. So thank you all for your hard work getting this, getting things moving along. I really appreciate it. You're most welcome. I just want to thank you too. I thought for the first one you guys did great. Thank you. Thank you very much. All right. All right. So I'm gonna pause. You too. Have a good night. I'm gonna pause for just 30 seconds or so while people sort of sign off if they're not continuing on the call because we're about to move on to the next application on our agenda, which is 105 State Street. Okay. I need a little technical assistance in getting myself back into the meeting here. I, I hit something. I hit something. I'm not sure how to get my, my image back up on the screen. So I can see you. You can see me? I can't see myself. I can see you. Do you have a little, minimize anything else you have on your screen? And then see if maybe it's reduced to a little single square and you need to enter full screen. Share, not share screen. Not share screen. They're at the upper right hand corner. You should have a little enter full screen mode. Okay. So show self view. I bet you that's it. Let me try it. There I am. Okay. Thank you. Just the new technology folks. All right. Are there any other technical questions we want to resolve before moving on? Great. Okay. I'm just making sure I've got the appropriate documents up on my computer. So give me. Okay. Very good. 105 State Street is our next application and this is being reviewed for a few different items. We are undertaking major site plan, conditional use and design review. So different sets of standards for this project. And I'll just reiterate the order of testimony. We'll hear from staff. We'll hear from the applicant. DRB members will ask questions. We'll hear from others who would like to comment on the project if there are any and then we'll continue the discussion deliberation from there. Okay. All right. So at this point, I will swear in folks who would like to speak on the 105 State Street application. So if you'd be so kind as to raise your right hand, I'll swear you in. Anyone wishing to testify? All right. Do you solemnly swear or affirm that the testimony you are about to give is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth under the pains and penalties of perjury? I do. Thank you all. We also, we had a site visit option for this project, which I appreciated. And so I would just like to have board members disclose by raising their hands if they did go to the site and look around. So board members, if you did a site visit, please raise your hand. Okay. Great. So just about everybody did a site visit. Thank you. You can't raise your hand. Can you just let us know whether or not you did a site visit? I didn't do a site visit, but I work at 107. So I'm familiar with the location. Okay. And could you just, could you describe 107? It sounds obvious, but could you describe 107 in relation to 105? I just, I think it's useful to have a disclosure if you work for a neighboring business. We should have left and gone back before. What is that? I didn't catch what you asked. Oh, so my question is describe where 107 is. And as in doing so, I would, I would take that as a disclosure that you work for a neighboring business. Correct. 107 is the old thrush pattern building six behind 105. And I work for a law firm in that building that has no affiliation with the applicant. Okay. And I think because of our policies related to contents of interest or appearance of I just, I need to ask you the, forgive me, I need to ask you the question. Do you feel that you can fairly and impartially review this application? Yes. Great. Thanks, Michael. I appreciate it. Okay. Meredith, would you like to provide an overview of the application? Sure. And just, just to make sure, is there anybody who is part of this that is going to be objecting to Michael Lizarchak taking part in the decision making on this application? I don't see any issues since he disclosed that he works next door, but I want to provide opportunity for people to object if they feel they need to. Oh, thank you, Meredith. No, Meredith. The applicant has no objection. Thank you, Tom. I appreciate it. Okay. So I'm going to, you know, I could go on a really long time just to talk about what this project is, but I'm going to try and keep it really short. So the applicant seeks major site plan approval for a new three story building with a commercial use on the first floor, including conditional use approval for a drive up bank teller and ATM at the rear of the building. There's also a new curb cut for vehicles exiting onto Governor Aiken Avenue. The subject parcel is located in the urban center one zoning district. This is important because there are a variety of requirements that might have applied in some other zoning district that don't hear a lot of those are like landscaping requirements on site parking requirements. Because this is in the UC downtown, we've been able to just skip over those and the analysis report. This parcel is also located in the design control district. And so it was evaluated by the design review committee. So just to talk a little bit about the history, this application was reviewed by the technical review committee on April 22. So this is a committee where it doesn't have a public hearing, but it's a collection of the departmental chairs who have an interest in the project. We have a meeting with the applicant and confer over issues and ask questions. That's all reflected in the staff report. And then the design review committee reviewed the application during a May 4 public hearing. Again, in the staff report, that review has been described. There was one recommended change and then a couple of optional changes. Those are items that the development review board is going to need to determine whether or not to incorporate into the any decision as whether or not to incorporate those as conditions or not. And then as Kate mentioned, there was an opportunity for site plan to go visit the site. And then there are really like seven categories of outstanding issues. So these are highlighted in the staff report, but I'm just going to list them really quick. So there's the vehicle access and circulation requirements under section 3010. There is a requirement in the the dimensional parking space requirements for a 20-foot aisle width behind parking spaces for parking lots when there's two-way traffic. There's a question of how that applies in the situation where you have three parking spaces with what is supposed to be a two-way access behind it. Is that really an aisle in a parking lot or not? It's unclear. It's a gray area. Another item is whether or not the drive-through portion of the proposal meets the special use standards of section 3115 as well as the conditional use standards. Again, I mentioned previously the design review committee recommendations, so that's one thing you're going to have to look at and make a determination on. Also, how the applicant has to meet planning specifications for the landscaping that is proposed. Whether the parking area has to be screened from abutting properties, which is required for parking lots. Again, is this a parking lot? Parking lots aren't actually defined. And then whether the applicant met the professionally prepared lighting plan requirement of section 3204. I believe we have some interested parties online just so that you're aware. The Patrick on here, I believe is Patrick Malone. And then there's Alicia Fieler and Phil Zallinger, who are all on with regard to the abutting property 99 State Street. And that is my overview unless there's overview type questions. Otherwise, I'm going to hand it back to Kate. Are there overview type questions? There will be time for questions, right? Very good. So with that, I would like to invite the applicants to talk a little bit about the project, elaborate on anything that you'd like to highlight. After you do that, we'll ask you questions and then we will proceed through the staff report in order to address the big seven that Meredith highlighted. So I'll turn it over over the applicant. Thanks very much. We'll defer to Brian and Jay to give you presentation and jump in where we feel if necessary. Thank you, Tom. I'm Brian Lane Parnas with DeWolf Engineering. I'm the site engineer for the project. You were all already introduced to Tom Lausanne, who's the applicant through 105 State Street LLC. We also have here representing the applicant tonight Jay Ansel and Andrew McCullough from Black River Design, who are project architects as well as the project landscape architect Bob White. So I'm going to take over the screen and start the presentation. While I'm going through sort of general presentation of the project, I'm going to try and pick up the things with staff reports. So excuse me if I'm going back and forth a little bit and shuffling paper and trying to point at the screen. But just sort of by way of introduction to the project, the project's a new three story building. I've looked at 105 State Street. So on this plan down here is State Street. Here is Governor Davis Avenue and then this is the intersection with Terry South. This is the Pavilion building owned by the state. Back here is 107 State Performer Threshold and then over here is 99 State, which people may know as the Associated Industries of Vermont building. So as I said, the proposed process is a three story building shown with this gray shading here. The proposed uses for the building are bank and office. One sort of distinctive feature of the project that's driven by the city flood plane regulations is that the first floor of the building is six and a half feet higher than the sidewalk elevation out in front of it. So I think Jay and the folks at Black River have done a really nice job making the building relate to the street and fit into the streetscape at the same time with meeting the Montpelier requirement to elevate the first floor of the building two feet higher than the flood plane. So there's a significant stairway here, a concrete stairway that leads up into the recessed main entrance to the building right here. There's a lower entry lobby here that will provide accessible entrance into the building. So when you go in here, there'll be an elevator, they'll have a half floor stop up to the first floor and then continue on up to access the other two floors. There are two exits from emergency stairwells here and there, as well as a ground story enclosure for storing trash back here in the northwest corner of the site. And then here along the frontage, there's also going to be a significant raised planter area. It's going to have two tiers in it. And when we get to that section, I'll let Rob describe that in a little more detail. We are planning to extend a five foot sidewalk up the west side of the building to provide access to the egress door back here. And we had some discussion about that with the TRC and in the end, that's going to remain a private sidewalk for the time being maintained by the applicant. As Meredith said, despite the fact in the UC1 district, there are no requirements to provide parking. We are choosing to provide three parking spaces here along the east side of the building, two regular spaces and one van accessible ADA space. And the other major feature of the project is that there is a ATM and remote teller window proposed at the back of the building here for the bank. So drive through coming up the existing share right of way and then going along the back of the building with one service space and two stacking spaces. And then an exit only, the new curb cut here on Governor Davis Avenue. So that's the sort of general overview of the project. Let's bring up the renderings here. So being the engineer, I won't talk extensively about the architectural design here, but as you can see, the building is well designed to meet the design review and specific district architectural standards with the brick and granite facade here. So in this perspective, you can see the stairway and then the tiered landscaping. This is the main door and this over here is the entry into the elevator lobby. So this is a general idea of the sort of architectural design of the building. As Meredith said, we did go through a review of the design committee that had one item that they had a recommended alteration to make the concrete match the color of the granite and then a couple of optional items for the applicant to consider. And then I would like to talk a little bit about the access and circulation on the project. So just to generally talk about access and circulation, we are providing pedestrian, bicycle and vehicle access to the project. Pedestrian access is mainly from the existing city sidewalk network and again several ways for pedestrians to access the building from the existing sidewalk. We are providing down in this area here, three of the sort of inverted U-style bike racks for bicycle parking at the site. There's a couple of benches which are a little hard to see on this point, so I'll zoom in here and here. We're proposing benches and then another one up here by the accessible way to get around to the front of the building. So these are what we designed to, I think the application says granite but they've been revised to be designed to match the other benches that are around in the city, so metal side rails and I think they're composite decking for the seats. In terms of vehicle circulation, there is a 10 and a half foot shared right of way along the eastern side of the property here. The right of way is shared with 99 and 107 State Street. This right of way has been here for a very long time and similar to many other properties in the downtown area, though it is less than what would currently be considered wide enough for two-way access. It is and has always been a two-way access in and out of this parcel and to the two abutting properties as well. If you think of where the old gas station was, you may think to yourself that this proposal reduces the width of the access here, but functionally we're actually keeping it the same as it was previously. So this is a Google maps street view image of what the property looked like back when the former gas station and service station was on the property and as you can see they regularly used the side of the building here to park vehicles that were either stopping by at the station or for service and you can see the back of the cars roughly line up with the edge of the 107 State Street building here which is more or less the edge of the right of way. Unfortunately you can't see it in this view, but the back of those parked cars in that picture were lined up right about at the back of these parking spaces here. So essentially this configuration maintains the previous and historical width and direction of access through this shared right of way. There was some discussion about cars accessing these parking spaces both in terms of the width of the aisle and in terms of the potential for conflicts with pedestrians walking along the sidewalk. So I'll address those one at a time. In terms of the width of the access, the 20-foot access is required for networking. So the regulations when you have an angle park, you know less than 90 degree angle parking such as we have it designed here just due to the space limitations of the site then it needs to meet engineering standards in order for people to be able to get in and out of the parking spaces. So the 11.7 foot access aisle here we've analyzed with our turning movement software and cars can certainly have plenty of room to back safely out of these parking spaces and leave the site. In terms of conflicts with the backing cars and pedestrians along the street after the TRC meeting we provided this figure because most of the concern was centered around the accessible space. So one of the reasons we put the accessible space down at the southern end of the site, one was to just provide the shortest path for an accessible route to the accessible entrance to the building and two because of the potential for conflicts with the pedestrians here we wanted to put the lowest use spot closest to the sidewalk but this is some output from our turning movement software which illustrates that because of this striped access aisle which will be restricted from anyone parking in it similar to any accessible space a car and this what is illustrated here is quite a large car it's what's called a design vehicle that the association of transportation and highway forget the O is officials probably provides as a design vehicle and it's a boat really so this even this very large passenger vehicle can back out in this sort of this red path here illustrates backing out here's the back of the car and it's rearward most point you can see there's a very small amount of conflict with sidewalk but certainly plenty of people are still passed by the car can then go forward and using the space of the striped aisle can then exit without having to back up any further dpw did review that and their assessment of the potential for conflicts was that they were still exist but are minimal and they didn't express any particular concern after we provided this illustration and then I know another concern that was raised in the staff report was the way that folks who do park in these parking spaces would be able to then leave the parcel without having to traverse areas that they don't have legal access to so there's two options for anyone who's parked here if the drive-through is not in use at the time they can certainly just turn left and go out the drive-through if the drive-through is in use then we would anticipate that they would be able to go up the right of way here and then using the backing space into the drive-through be able to turn around and head back out along the common right of way so regardless of whether the drive-through is in use or not there exists the possibility for people using those parking spaces to exit the property without going off of areas that the applicant has legal right to traverse I think of that let me just double check if there's anything else I wanted to bring up at this point around access oh there was some question about whether the width of the access is sufficient because it doesn't meet the b71 standard of 24 feet for 2a access again this is an existing access situation in the very heart of the downtown core it's common in the downtown Montpelier for there to be these one-way width two-way circulation access points they're kind of scattered all around the city and while you can't fit two cars down at the same time you know everyone is used to the situation and while there may be some times that you have to wait for someone it's sort of a feature of getting to the parking in downtown Montpelier and this existing situation here is really no different than any the other one-way width two-way access alleyways that access parking around the downtown core the b71 standards are really written for access onto state highways and so it's well many towns adopt them as their access standards to commercial commercial developments in the case of an infill development in the downtown core that 24-foot width really just isn't appropriate or applicable to this particular site there was also on the access section the if you have a corner a lot there's a provision that the the regulations want you to access the lot from the secondary street rather than from the primary street state street being a classroom roadway we can't shut down this access in nor do I think it would benefit the project or the safety of the general circulation of the downtown area to shut this access but the most relevant thing being this is there are other parties that have shared right to access this driveway off of state street so we have no legal authority to close it off and only access the site from the secondary road governor davis avenue just to point this out because it came up as a question in trc obviously we have very minimal snow storage on this site so we are going to have to simply remove the snow when it snows in the winter similar to other downtown developments the applicant is willing to use the two non-accessible spaces to temporarily store snow before removing it from the site so I just wanted to point that out so then there are also some comments and staff report about the particular use standards around the drive-through in particular the provision that light and noise from the drive-through would not unduly adversely affect adjacent property owners so you can see in the renderings and also per the that signs right no way here we go requirements of the zoning regulations we are providing a canopy over the drive-through so the drive-through lighting will be under this canopy and downcast and fully shielded so there's no particular excessive amount of lighting it will all the lighting will be directed down right onto the drive-through area in terms of noise the only noise that this drive-through teller remote teller window would create would be the actual talking between the teller and the the folks in the car so that's really no louder than anyone else who's walking down the street talking and also the teller will only be there during the bank hours so at night the ATM will really not generate any noise at all you know if it's available for ATM use it won't generate any noise at all so given the downtown setting and the really non-residential nature of the surrounding buildings we don't see any undue adverse impacts due to light or noise from the drive-through and I think the next section I may ask Rob to do a little presentation on the landscaping there's some question about whether the parking was required to be screened if it was a parking lot or not and then there was also a question about adequate planting space for the plants let me just bring up here we go the landscaping plan and ask Rob to just address those couple of things I'm sorry Bob I keep saying Rob and I need to say Bob my apologies Bob I think you're still muted though yeah go ahead when you're ready Bob there we go okay I reserve people who call me Rob for special treatment so it's all good it's all good so sounds like Mr. White is the way to go well that's what yeah then I'm really in trouble so so we we we worked with the project team to bring some in a fairly small space to bring to try to bring some landscape value to the building and I think really I think as we all know that you know the major landscape areas of the building are basically the street frontage onto state street and to some degree the sort of side driveway area with the idea that people viewing down that driveway it'd be nice to have a little break from just just hard pavement in parked cars but it's a very small space and so it's a fairly simple treatment that we're looking at so the as you as you saw in the renderings of the building the the major sort of feature of the front of the building is the stairway that goes up into two sets of stairs that go up to the entrance which is I think six and a half feet or so above above the sidewalk level of the street and so you know the first thing we wanted to do is to make sure that there was a landing on that is there a way for me to point and I claim a pointer anyway so right in the center is the stairwell and so the first really the strategy in terms of uh sort of addressing that grade there was the two-tiered retaining garden spaces that are on the corner of Governor Aiken Avenue and State Street and then wrapping those around the corner to engage with the stairwell or the stairway that goes up from the the State Street sidewalk so so you can see in the renderings these are probably a little small but there's public seating out in front and the first tier of that retaining wall there is is basically at sort of seating height to make it comfortable for a pedestrian to you know or something coming by and make it feel like at a sort of an approachable scale that it's almost like sort of a social edge and then we have two tiers of plantings that we've proposed in there the lower level being sort of a you know more of a garden-like feeling with room for annuals or perennials in the front and then sort of a baseline of plants of plantings and then on the upper something some plant materials more sort of a sort of a sort of a bar sort of a massive planting looking at winterberry in there to have wonderful red berries all through the winter and and have some seasonal different seasonal effect there to make people happy in the middle of the winter as they're walking down a cold windy State Street so that's on the left side and on the right side we have the lower entrance that serves as the accessibility so in a very small space we have seating areas we have accessibility to the elevator we have accessibility around the corner of the building down the driveway to the handicapped space and handicapped ramp and then and then the bicycle racks so there's a lot going on in a small space but I think really what we came to was that that would be a great space to have to be a you know to have a street tree and so looking at ways to fit that in so I know Meredith is going to go and give us a line and verse on the standard so I brought you two different approaches to this for conversation purposes the as as was shown in the drawing that was submitted I think that we didn't properly delineate the amount of space allocated to the tree planting to the landscape standards so we've gone back and sharpen our pencil on that so we really have two choices here of what we can do and it's basically a larger or smaller tree and so so we we had originally suggested in our in the application to use what's called a freeman maple it's a high it's a sort of a crossbreed of red and silver maple that's a really quite an elegant tree and but what I didn't specify on that was that there are different forms of it and so Meredith appropriately went and did a Google search on what a freeman maple is and found that the Morton Arboretum in Minnesota or Wisconsin said it would grow to be 60 feet tall so there are different varieties of a freeman maple that we that we looked at so so what I've got here in the lower right frame there is basically taking you know a more upright version the Armstrong freeman maple is a cross of the Armstrong red maple with silver maple so it's more of an upright form it's more compact more vertical and fits a little better in there than a normal wider spreading a freeman maple might be because again it's a fairly small space although we have the full extent to overhang on the the sidewalk also for shade so you can see in this picture as an example right there's it's partially cut off but to the right you can see one of the trees that's in the front yard of the insurance company that's right next door I think that's a character Bob I'm trying to give you control of the pointer so that you can point while you're talking I don't know if you want to give it a try okay are you going to give it to me I'm currently trying to you know I've said it to you I don't know if you see anything or if you can just move it around on your own I'm moving it around is that anyone seeing that no I'm not seeing it all right well we try keep going sorry okay so anyway so we tried out so we're giving you a visual for a larger tree the tree the tree that's in back into the driveway in recognizing that that was a small space we had originally proposed a columnar Siberian crab apple in there really handsome tree at a different scale so if you're uncomfortable that we haven't got the amount of square footage for the planting area for a larger tree up front one thing that would make sense would be to basically do two of the crab apples and have them be a little matched pair there um but I have to be honest I'll permission to speak freely is I think we might be disappointed out on the street to have a diminutive tree out there where we really want something a little more gracious a little more generous so so showing those different things now Brian can you scoot me off to the right and maybe zoom out a little bit there are a couple materials that we're using in the patio I'm not sure whether this has been used around Montpelier the upper frame there in color is a material it's called plexipave and essentially it's a pliable it's a it's a it's a material that is starts as a liquid is poured and troweled in place like concrete but it's it's permeable allows water to flow through it and you can mix different kinds of aggregate stone into it so that it looks like sort of a crushed stone like surface but people can walk on it and it's a very firm and stable surface that we're using around the trees because there's so little space people are going to walk on the on the tree wells but underneath that and this is the second part of the conversation you can go down a little bit more and pull to the left so you see the right there perfect so you can see in the lower right of the image is the was the is the footprint area that we're proposing for the Freeman maple and so what we had noted in the plan for the application was that that would be placed in silver cells and but I didn't really elaborate upon that and so now we are so what we what I think the issue with for the Freeman maple is that it is a larger tree and it requires a greater amount of soil volume in order to grow and thrive so the combination of the plexipave with what's called a silver cell this is essentially a plastic grid like framework that is set in underneath the level of the sidewalk basically holds up the sidewalk and then allows the space underneath it to be filled with good quality planting soil so the tree actually has the same volume of planting soil as long as it gets water through it which is why the plexipave is there is that it allows the tree to grow and be and thrive so this would contrast you know historically street trees in many in many New England cities and not my pillar is not no stranger to this and mostly they were you know you dig a you dig a hole in the sidewalk three or four feet square and you dump the tree in and try to get some manure and compost and water in there and hope that it grew and it usually would so this you know we're almost quadrupling a normal amount of street tree preparation for for this tree on the corner with the silver cells and then basically we bring the sidewalk over the top of the silver cells which hold it up and then we fill in the square so we essentially we can meet the hundred square foot requirement that Meredith has outlined in the requirements for that tree you know to to fit that in place and so those brown each of those brown rectangles is a two foot by four foot silver cell unit so we've got four eight we've got nine units around under the sidewalk and then under under the plexipave we can just use regular planting soil and just tamp it in you know firmly in place and and it'll be stable people who walk behind so I guess at the risk and there's there's a technical drawing up up to the upper to the left of that the silver cells can go down different depths depending on how deep utilities and other things are we typically go down we don't go down in an unusual situation we could go down as far as three feet I think we probably want to be more like two feet here so we're just a little below the level of the curving out of the street but not having a huge excavation you know right in the middle of but you know right next to the sidewalk on on state street there so these are well founded techniques for urban planting now so yeah I think at that point I'm going to stop and either questions or let Brian keep going and okay thank you Bob it's good to know that street trees have a much better chance than they have had in the past so into these technologies and that gives the board an opportunity to contemplate what different size trees could be appropriate because either could thrive um great so um Brian did you have have more or um yeah just a couple more things to to hit on uh from the staff report before we we turn it over for the board to ask questions um I think the next section was lighting which Jay or um Andrew I think from Black River was going to address all right I would invite um Jay and or Andrew to unmute and talk a little about lighting please go right ahead Jay it looks like you're trying to talk but you're still muted um just take you off share screen so that I can see what's going on with everybody now I can see my I don't appear to be muted here you can hear you okay okay so one of the questions that had come up uh we are we are not introducing any site lighting per se we're introducing lighting that enables one to see at points of entry just to come up the stairs um and at the the grade level door um at the one of the both of the side doors and also at the the drive up um banking location uh all of these are less than the the two thousand lumens for which one is required to have a a a lighting plan one of them a couple of our wall sconces have five hundred thirty three uh four of those um another wall sconce has a thousand lumen and then we have a a recess fixture which would be underneath the canopy at the drive up which would be seven hundred and seventy um so those are are the total of those are seven thousand I think there's also a break off at thirteen thousand that one might need a lighting plan so we should be fine relative to know some light spill beyond our property uh or a bright source um building I had to be you know last but not least I hope um do we or shall I go into some of the features of the building and why the design is as it is sure that would be fine Brian can you bring up the um on the elevation sheets the one that has state street as the south and west yeah uh well you're there you are okay done so looking primarily at the lower right which is the state street we are as you all know in the historic district and an important aspect of design in uh is responding to context Montpelier certainly has a mix of periods and styles materials uh and massings um and it's a challenge was as was mentioned we have to be six and a half feet above grade with our first floor um that was sort of a prime generator of the planting and two level planters on the left rather than simply have our building up six and a half feet and having the front facade have that sort of blank wall we came up with the concept of this stepped planter so that it would sort of mitigate a bit that that height and then the staircase has been uh indicated to go into the central and on the right hand side we are able to enter at grade we come into an elevator lobby which will then take us up a half a flight uh to the main level um in looking at sort of contextual responses these are there are a number of elements in this building that are seen in other buildings within the historic district much of our retail storefront you'll see where there's larger glass openings on the main floor and our first floor has some of that sort of larger glass and response uh the upper level in many of the historic buildings uh have what we call sort of punched openings or individual windows and this follows that pattern there's also a greater floor to floor height of the first floor as is evident in other buildings in in Montpelier and then you get sort of shorter floor to floor heights in the second and third level and windows in a similar fashion respond whether they are are a little smaller and shorter as as it goes up um we have some breakup of the facade with sort of the tower section on the right which responds to some of the functions there we've picked materials that you see in many of the quality buildings uh in Montpelier with a combination of brick and granite and those are the prime materials of the building more or less throughout um we created a granite sign band at this point we're not applying for signage but just to sort of generic but it does create some sort of banding division between that retail level and levels above we've also to help with the interest in the brick you see a number of sort of uh and perhaps you see it both in this one and in the the elevation to the left of these horizontal um soldier course sort of corbel bands where we create uh a lateral breakup of the building and then another piece that is evident in many of the historic buildings in Montpelier at their cap or top uh we do a fair amount of corbeling which creates sort of a proper top or cornice to the building again another element that you see in many of the of the downtown buildings um we had presented through before design review they liked the building but asked for a couple things that we might do where the elements that are concrete rather than the granite that we tint those such that they would be the same color as the granite which we will do one of the things that came out in technical review on that west elevation of the one on the left a concern which is understandable for sort of plowing we are going to that granite base at the bottom we're going to lift a couple more feet such that it would be plow damage along the sidewalk in that area um any questions on these facades otherwise we'll move to the other okay i'm going to go to the other drawing and this one will show um on the left is the northerly or back of the building and that's where the car the drive up is and that will be a there'll be a video screen there won't be a teller right behind that but it would be controlled by video and then on the east side there is a ATM machine beneath the canopy and then moving to the right there's a door that would provide access to the second and third floors and a directory one of the things that designer view asks is that perhaps we had a bit more sort of detail at that area as well as by the drive up there's an opening in the lower portion to the right that's where one of the advantages one of the few of raising our building sits on a half feet we're going to tuck a recycle and trash underneath that area in the doorway um now let's move to the perspective which you showed a little bit of so here's state street both south and west again showing them the main entrance in the planting areas in the staircase above and then the next one sort of east and south so this is certainly a prime uh a prime facade as one is coming from sort of the retail ass parts of of my pillar as you see there's still a fair amount of of visibility of the tavern behind and also to the left with view corridor being important you can see the pavilion and then the other two elevations so this would be the sort of north and east sides with the pavilion still visible behind and then the back so that's a quick tour of the building again we've tried to sort of repeat what we think are quality materials and what the combination is a brick and granite uh and yet be a product of our own time as a contemporary building as well great thank you thank you all for the comprehensive overview um of the project um at this point i will ask the um this applicant wants to add anything else then i'll have the d rb members ask a couple questions and then i'll open it up to the um to other folks who would wish to comment on this application so um tom i will turn it over to you and you can unmute if there's anything you'd like to add uh just thank you you really don't want me to add anything to you so thank you welcome your insight there's a lot of work here sometimes we're proud of it thank you very good okay so um d rb members keeping in mind that we are going to be walking through um um the staff report on this um would you are there are there any items that you want answers to questions on right now before we get to those individual items on the staff report general clarifications points of interest um from d rb members at this point just raise your hand and let me know if you're interested because i can see you all now um we'll go we'll do kevin and then gene okay just just quickly i mean i think that uh we should just we should spend our time going through the staff report there's a lot of good information in there we want to spend uh some quality time looking at the trc report and uh asking the applicant to respond to that thank you kevin i think that's a good direction to head um gene did you want to ask something at this point i'd welcome a question it's fair enough i agree with kevin thanks let's go through the reports right that works too okay great so um before we go through the reports i said that i was going to invite testimony from others who wish to comment on this application and i'm going to turn to meredith who i believe has a a list of those who express interest to make sure that we go through it systematically and and get everybody so meredith do you have that list and would you be willing to invite people to speak yes well we really have there's three people on that are really all concerned because of the same reason so phil and pat and alicia any of you have anything you want to say you might want to unmute yourselves some concerns but would we would it be better used as we went through the staff report for us to um insert our comments there as they directly relate yeah this is this is phil's allencher i have one preliminary question i think jay just testified that i might have misheard him is there an atm on the eastern side of the building or is the atm with the banking drive through window both on the north side of the building you're muted okay i'm up on the north they're both on the north no the atm is on the east east side but there's also a drive up atm correct there's a drive up i'm not sure what your other term would be but it'll be there would be where one would be like the vacuum tube you know what your traditional drive up window but there wouldn't be a tellers looking at you that'll be done by video and then there's a walk up atm on the east not the drive there's the drive through facility have an atm feature no oh no they don't believe so matter that's not planned to be okay i'm meredith is i yeah i misunderstood i thought during the the trc that there was discussion that during the off um when the teller was not going to be available that there was discussion about having an atm feature on the northern facade through the drive so that you could drive up and function correct that was my understanding but if that's no longer part of the design or i misunderstood then there'll be a i don't know that it's been defined as such an um tom will you have a feel for that yeah there would there would likely j be an option uh during off hours when the teller uh when the teller station uh does not have you know it's not operable there would be an atm on the drive side so there would either be a walk up that hasn't been totally defined uh my preference would be to have the atm through the drive in the drive at the same location as a uh teller so it could function both ways correct yeah okay obviously wouldn't have so the i would just note that the sorry i just note that the diagram we have indicates that there's an atm window and pneumatic tube positioned as part of the drive through okay so that sounds like that's what we should anticipate that's correct so just just to be clear two locations one pure atm the second uh with a pneumatic tube type of arrangement which could also potentially be an atm so two potentially two atm locations am i am i correct yes that's correct yes um so does that answer your question and um yeah you'd like to ask anything else well it's it's hard to uh to digest that subtle change in the project at this point um so i i'm not sure how the drb would like to proceed here um i would like to address on behalf of the adjoining property owner at 99 state some general issues so that when you do go through the the staff report you can uh the drb can appreciate some uh a different view of the evidence than brian may have expressed uh understand that please go ahead with those general comments now that's fine for context yeah thanks um so section 3010 requires pro projects to be designed to prevent traffic conflicts within the site i mean that's the affirmative obligation of a party who brings a project before the drb um this applicant is elected to include parking on the site even though none is required by the ordinance they've affirmatively elected to incorporate parking in the in the project design and that has wide-ranging ramifications for access and circulation both on the 105 parcel and on that portion of the site which includes the right of way the right of way for the drb's edification the right of way is on land owned by 99 state street so 99 state street owns the fee and it's subject to the rights of others to travel over and upon the right of way it was created in a deed in february of 1925 and it provided that the right of way to be kept open and to be used in common by the parties etc etc so there's an affirmative obligation and the creation of that right of way that it be kept open the drive with as brian acknowledged is 11.71 feet fully 90 of that 11.71 feet is on 99 state street it's the right of the 10 and a half foot 10.5 foot right of way on 99 state street that the driveway as brian acknowledged also is presently used also by 107 state street that's the rear building the former thrush building i wonder how many more decades we're going to call it the thrush i guess i will know someday they that's used by 107 state street for two-way traffic they have there's no other access there's no other 107 state street has no other capability of leaving a site unless it uses this right of way to get state street um 99 state street uses the right of way only for egress from its site although it could use it for ingress the the rest of the circulation on 99 state street makes clear that number one there's an ATM and ATM can only be access it's a it's a kiosk and it's set for a drive up and that is it's designed for cars exiting to the south to state street the former bank that was located there had a driving window and that was also accessed by using the right of way and 99 state street for egress from the site to state street and also the configuration of the parking spaces in the rear of 99 state street they're all designed for diagonal access and use and you couldn't use them effectively at all without a three or four point five point turn by coming in on that side of 99 state street in other words using the right of way for ingress so the circulation on 99 state street is if you're standing on state street is counterclockwise 99 state street enters to the right hand side of 99 state and proceeds around and uses the common right of way that's a part of this project really only for egress from the site because of the design features on 99 state um yes uh would it be helpful for you if i pulled in a share screen and pulled up the site plan and tried to point to where you were talking about or do you just want to say keep the way it might help the drb i mean i i'm certainly familiar with what i'm trying to say but not everybody who's listening to me as always is also completely familiar with what i'm trying to say yeah okay so 99 state street is over here you can't see the whole thing but there's a alley on this side of 99 state street where my arrow is it goes around and then they come out this way that's correct and that's because the parking at the rear of 99 state street is on a diagonal put your cursor over just to the left of the wolf right in that area there's diagonal parking on two on two sides okay and you couldn't use it unless you access unless the circulation was counterclockwise so my my point being that 99 state only uses the right of way for egress there's 99 does not enter there although 107 has no choice it has to use it for ingress and egress also back to the point that we made about the applicant's election to include parking all of the parking the three parking spaces that are provided all of those all of the vehicles using those parking spaces will have to back into the traveled right of way in order to exit that parking space brian pointed out that these vehicles could back into the right of way proceed north past the queue for the drive-through and then back into the drive-through queue is that your cursor merit yes do a three point turn and then come out and exit that way that's that's fairly laborious for each of those three parking vehicles and each one of those three parking spaces in order to have to use that parking space and exit the site to have to do that i'm not sure what brian meant when he pointed out that the the oversized vehicle that would use the accessible parking space he adroitly pointed out with his engineering equipment how it can back up and and proceed north but the question is when it proceeds north where does it go there's nowhere for it to go unless it too is going to back into the area where the queue is and then do a three point turn and turn around and exit and come back out yes i yes that's that's it i'm not sure where it's to go unless it just goes up and backs into the queue area for the drive-through but if any 107 is using its means of ingress and egress or other participant other users at 99 are using the ingress and egress and there's also cars queued up at the drive-through then that vehicle is going to have a hard time backing up and turning around to then proceed south to exit on the right of way certainly i think brian's design was was intended to show that it wasn't going to encroach too too significantly on the sidewalk but he didn't explain really how the vehicle's ruinics depart from the site so there's we have a problem with the obstruction of traffic in the right of way by the inclusion of parking on the east side of the project site we'd also point out that the drive-through only has two stacking spaces and and that means there'd be one vehicle at the at the site and two vehicle room for two vehicles to stack the third vehicle will not only obstruct the right of way in some small fashion but it will also interfere with the circulation of all three of the vehicle any of the vehicles who elect to leave the site from the parking spaces i should point out in addition that that my client patrick malone who is under contract to purchase 99 state street will be closing that purchase in just several weeks has no objection to the project beyond these issues with access and circulation it's a it's a handsome building it's um it's well designed and tom was on has a great team of folks advising him it's just in our view it's you're trying to fit 10 pounds into a fine pound back it's a small site and the inclusion of parking has resulted in an obstruction to the right of way that other parties have a legal right to use and enjoy finally just point out that the design defects were came about by the applicant's election not by constraints on their own site just want you to keep those in mind when we go through the staff report thank you okay thank you phil um are there others who are not the applicant or dr being members who wish to provide testimony at this time are we able to at um a later times yeah you know as the conversation continues or not um go ahead marita i was just gonna say that i mean alisha is with the whole group with with pat and phil um i think it might make sense to move on you know move through the staff report at this point and just check with alisha when she has questions if that works with uk um i'm sorry when you say check with alisha when she has questions let you mean invite her to chime in yeah invite her when we get through a section we can then invite alisha or phil or pat to to chime in sorry alisha i forgot you don't have video i think that'll work just as a clarification i think i think we should be able to take general comments as we work our way through the uh through this through the staff uh report and observations um i mean we control the dialogue uh tenor and and and so there's not a risk there it's i think it's better for the public discourse okay i think that's a good suggestion and i think it'll keep us organized um but i appreciate the general overviews and the airing of general concerns that we've heard as well um and so at this point i would like to turn to the staff report i would also like to acknowledge that many of us have been on the zoom call for two and a half hours so could i propose an eight minute break and bring us back at 9 30 would that be agreeable or would folks like to um soldier on a great idea um please since i've been on a call actually since 5 30 since i started to see i think that's it we'll do it for merida thank you you learned it all right see you at 9 30 yes oh this comes up i love it three thumbs up um all right well thank you again everybody for sharing with us we're using a new technology and we're dealing with um projects that we want to review thoroughly and so the investment of time i think is ultimately worthwhile so again my appreciation for that um all right without further ado i'd like to dive into the staff report um here we go everybody has a copy of it i'll refer to page numbers as i go um starting on page five of the report is a discussion of the overlay district which is where the design control considerations come in and um the suggested finding for staff is that um with the recommendations from the design review committee this project does meet that portion of the zoning bylaw but um and the recommendations are to dye the concrete to match the granite on the facade then there were also the additional the optional suggestions of additional um ornamentation i'm sure that's not the right word um around the eastern entrance um and so i want to see if drb members have any questions about that okay and do i gather from earlier testimony that the applicant is um amenable to the required change from the drc and open to the additional change the additional suggestions from the drc yes we are yeah very good um is there anything else on that on that topic that folks would like to ask or address and i would include um the butters in that as well no oh thank you um okay just as a yeah procedural matter just wanted to clarify for everybody that what would happen assuming this all gets approved is that the tinting of the granite would be a condition of the permit um the other optional items would just be as part of you know on the record in the decision as options they wouldn't be listed as specific conditions of the permit that's a good clarification thank you and we'll we'll tint the concrete we'll we won't tint the granite unless correct unless being from barry we know how to do that yes tint the concrete to match the granite excellent excellent i'm no engineer but all right great um thanks we will continue through the um the staff report thank you for that clarification um so we know that the uses here are allowed uses um we also know that the that the drive-through being proposed is a conditional use that will review further against the conditional use standards in a little bit was there a question nope i think that was filled getting out of his chair okay that's a lot um the dimensional standards for this site are met as laid out on page six of the staff report those include density height setback etc um the accessory structures and uses um is is the drive-through and that we're going to address under conditional use there's no demolition riparian areas wetlands or vernal pools or steep slopes um regarding erosion control another one of our general standards we just want to confirm from the applicant that there will indeed be um compliance with our erosion control practices during construction activities and if that were to be included as a condition kind of standard condition that would be acceptable that is yeah and i just want to point out erosion control front very quickly that um given the nature of this site the large majority of the excavations are going to be where we're generally termed in the worst control world contained excavations in other words they have no outlet um and so that would be the building foundation utilities and so forth there's no sort of mass earthwork on this site because of the small nature and urban nature of the site so pretty much anything that's not a contained excavation is going to be covered with gravel um and compacted gravel the state considers from an erosion control perspective to be stable so basically you're going to have stable areas and contained excavations so you're not going to see probably the traditional erosion controls that you would see on a larger site with more earth disturbance but certainly um meeting the city and state standards for erosion control good thanks for that description that way if there aren't hay bales on it people won't be surprised that that what you're telling us right unlikely the site will be surrounded by silt fence because then you couldn't get to it okay very good thank you um our next section of the staff memo and here we're on page eight is regarding stormwater management and no concerns with the stormwater plan have been raised by the department of public works so staff is finding that this um complies with the requirements um do any d rb members or others have questions about the stormwater management aspects of this kevin i see that you're talking but i don't hear you we're still missing you kevin i'm not you might have done a double click there that's all right i can okay go ahead that yes okay i was just affirming what what you said about about the trc and the dpw um that seems to be not a pressure point on this application okay great thank you okay so we'll move on um section 310 access and circulation is much of what we have been discussing so um we've heard from the applicant and the abutters so i'm particularly interested in in d rb member discussion on on the various issues here um sure we can we can dive right in rob go ahead well i just wanted to follow up here if there's any i think there's some documents maybe represented in the uh we got some deeds regarding the access um i don't know if there's any other that want to be added to the public record from any of the interested parties that are commenting um i know we just have one um deed and some analysis from uh that's in the record and it seems like something else was being discussed uh from the adjoining property owner uh rob i not to speak for the adjoining property owner but i don't know that anyone's disputing the rights that folks have to go up and down the right of way just a matter of whether um the parking layout creates traffic conflicts or not okay phil did you want to add something no i mean i can provide the the d rb with a copy of the 1925 deed which i believe is the source of the right of way um i'd be happy to submit that tomorrow or the next day yeah phil this is narrative email it to me so because it was mentioned so that it is part of the record i would appreciate it yes i will do so and i see another raised hand and it appears to be sarah hi i just um since we're on the topic of the access i did want to um oh sorry sarah would would you tell us i'm sorry to interrupt you sarah i can't hear you would you would you tell us um i haven't been introduced to you yet so would you just mind saying um who you're with or what your interest is i'm sarah field i'm an attorney for the applicant and um i'm just here to listen in and to speak to the right of way issue because i did all the title work for the applicant when they purchased the property and i'm familiar with the site and the history of the site from the title perspective and i'm also familiar with the use of the site historically so um i i agree with phil there is no dispute that that is a shared right of way the deeds are clear there's a 20 there's a there was a base deed of all three properties the first parcel was out to phil's client's parcel and then the next two pieces came out um fairly quickly thereafter so this right of way has been used by these three property owners for nine for 95 years without dispute so um i think that's beyond dispute i would just like to um to speak to the issues that phil raised briefly um and point out that the use of the space to put these three spaces there is no different than the gas station used pictures that the historical pictures that were showed showed the gas station with cars parked there so that's been a historic consistent use of that space um the 99 state street property uses would also have to back into the right of way to turn their cars around to get out that space they come in from both sides and they angle their cars so that when you're coming in for the 10 and a half foot to get out you have to back out into the right of way to turn around so everyone has to use that space the same way um and that's just the nature of that space it's fairly short sight distance it's you're not likely to go barreling in and not see what's at the other end so um it's been used for almost a hundred years that way and people seem to have been able to work it out and i don't i don't think that the proposed use of this space is any different than it's been going on for you know 100 years um and and and also i would add that if if you were to find that phil's suggestion is compelling and say that okay you can have parking you would be essentially denying um the 105 state street properties deeded rights you would effectively been shutting them out from having any access to that space at all they can't use it the way they always have so that's as we go through this i think what i just wanted to add to that analysis um make sure that everyone's clear that this is really not a change of use at all it's the same use it's always existed it just happened to put a couple stripes on the on the area um that the gas station didn't have on the ground that's exactly the same way the gas station's used it and and as far as 95 years um the building owner on 99 state street has used this space and shared it for 23 years so they're you know in terms in terms of objecting to the use of this space the clock has kind of run that's all i have to say about the shared use of that right of way okay thank you for thank you very much um joe you had your hand up if you want to unmute and talk yeah um about the former usage of the parking area the image that we were shown i would disagree that it shows a similar circumstance because if the conflict point in that picture that we saw the old gas station is well back from the from the right away well not the easement but the you know state right away um by moving all that parking up along the side of the building there now the conflict point is right at the entrance and that would mean that a car that's coming in would be stopped within the travel way or on the sidewalk whereas before they were in the interior of the lot and they weren't interfering with the roadway so i'm not sure that it's a completely apples to apples comparison thank you joe i'll say jean and then rj yeah i agree with joe and i i just want to make a comment i mean what it's a wonderful beautiful design that fits the cityscape and this is a long time coming and i think you know of the city's gonna be excited about a new structure there with the wonderful landscape design as well um and i do all the questions and concerns i feel about but i also have and joe made a good point right now that the use is different than what it hasn't been the same usage for 100 years considering that now it's not a gas station um it's going to be a bank with an atm drive-through next to um 99 state street that also has an atm drive-through so my concern is i think a lot of us our concern is going to be the traffic problem not the dispute of the right of way necessarily 16 rj the it looked like in that picture and for that from what i remember of that gas station that cars were able to park sort of facing front out as opposed to parking in against the building um so i feel like that would also change use based on the way that space used to flow um you know because you're you're suddenly having people back out which is kind of more dangerous than um people you know obviously facing forward and looking where they're going um uh yeah where that you know it was when when brian was was talking he was saying like that you know it's the back the the cars are gonna kind of be where the the front of those cars are now but i feel like you're talking about something different with the front of a car and the back of a car and the way people are driving in a tight spot in that picture they're actually in both directions the car to the rear has to back out this vehicle the truck can pull out the car to the rear has to back out and can i make a quick response on that as well yeah please um so the cars that are backed in against the building have to make that very movement that uh phil was concerned about in terms of blocking the 99 uh state street use of the right of way so in order for the truck to be backed in against the building they had to drive in the right of way and then back the truck up against the building um so that movement of going down the right of way backing into somewhere and coming back out down the right of way again is is was a historical way that that right of way was used when the gas station was there so regardless of whether someone poked parks notes in against the building and then backs out to use the right of way or parks backed in against the building they're still making that same three-point turn to get in and out well one point though is that they are stopping in between so they're pulling in and parking and then they're in theory not in the right of way for a period of time and then they're getting back in and pulling out instead of backing out of the parking space pulling forward backing into the drive through and then pulling again so the time that they're actually in the right of way maneuvering continuously or all in one piece is not broken into two separate maneuvers understood but um anyone anyone who's backing their back here so the visibility here is really good I went down there myself and parked my car in accessible park as close as I could get to where that accessible parking space is and you can see a long way down the right of way you can see backwards across the front line of AIV to folks coming down the street and anyone who does have to make the double maneuver when they back into the beginning the mouth of the drive group then has the opportunity to allow anyone coming down from AIV to pass through so there's still opportunity for people to pass by without necessarily having to wait for that entire movement to cycle and you know we're presenting that as because we were asked the question of is there a way for people to exit the site without going on to other folks property to be totally honest and and is similar to other properties in downtown what people are probably most likely to do is to pull into the front of the thrush parking lot to turn around and leave now do we have the legal right to do that no is it likely that someone's going to be standing out there preventing that from happening also no so you know we feel that there's no you know no more impingement on the right of way with our design has been historically the other thing I wanted to address was the issue of the parking space is you know making a situation where folks coming into the right of way from State Street are prevented and having to stop on the street of someone backing out from the space preventing someone getting in from State Street is no different than someone coming out of the thrush or coming around in the United States Street and then stopping at the throat of this right of way and blocking anyone from going into State Street so that we're not we're not adding anything more to the fact that people have to wait on the street to get in and out of this alleyway and I just wanted to quickly present one more illustration in terms of this sort of access and downtown Montpelier in general so we just did a quick exhibit here just to illustrate that this is a fairly common situation all around downtown where you have these one way one way with aisles the way access in and out of parking areas so you know just on this particular exhibit we've had illustrated eight other locations in the uc one district where that is a common situation and I'm sure everyone's aware of these but I just kind of wanted to bring this up just to bring to mind that people are used to this situation in downtown well how to definitely end the alleyway and see if anyone else is coming you know some of these are a lot more dangerous for pedestrians particularly these ones where you have to pull right up to the end and nose your car out onto the sidewalk before you can even see if anyone's walking down the sidewalk so just wanted to have show not to everyone and we looked at that as well because we were thinking oh how do other areas deal with this and we just one thing we noticed is that the majority of those are bounded by buildings not from from maneuvering vehicles so you see a car you wait kind of on the street um it's it just doesn't have somebody starting to back out from a parking space as you're already pulling in or pulling up go ahead Tom sorry oh no no no yeah and so the the one with the post office courthouse it looks like Brian could you bring that picture back up please Brian the original google picture because it'll give nope the one before that the google one sorry he wants to see her old school so these just for because it didn't really show well when mr. Salinger was trying to explain you know the traffic flow this is the right-of-way you see the right-of-way it's you know the 10 and a half feet it actually extends out beyond uh 107 uh what i'm with you feel the fresh tavern sorry i can't i can't not get used to it myself but as you can see the spaces if you go to the far rear of the lot at 99 those spaces also have to back into the right-of-way and that is a 180 degree uh turn it makes a 180 degree turn when you come in on mr. Becherra's right-of-way thank you and go around the building uh you know you're backing out of the 99 state street spaces and you're backing into the right-of-way they actually you know my only concern is i don't want to create a double standard here they aren't those already additional 10 feet behind those parking spaces so that is 20 no ma'am the right-of-way extends to within eight feet of the property line in the back there so if you're using the the front most spaces there's no way to back out other than just back into the right-of-way i'm gonna interject here for just a second this is kate um and um i'll shut up come conversation so it's a little bit hard to compare apples to apples when we don't have a slight plan of the of the 107 and the 199 or end the 99 properties so this is some this is some good data from people um experience i think i also want to point out that part of our standard is making sure that this is appropriate for the context of downtown and so comparing it to existing uses is appropriate but the other thing we need to do is compare it to the standards that we have follow so we are considering both of those things in our in our discussion thank you um yeah um rob yeah um i just wonder if we could run through on the site plan the choice for diagonal parking versus perpendicular um and that does up those design decisions um i think that would be i think that would be fine i also think we are um it's our job to review um it's our job to review what's proposed and um be cautious about redesigning the project um but if if i but we could take some brief testimony on the decision to do the angle parking versus the nose end