Montpelier Housing Committee - August 4, 2026 [MHC]

[music] [music] Okay. Well, we are going to call the meeting to order. 602. All right. Are we doing the AI note takingaking tonight, Matt? Can we? It will save Dan from taking copious notes. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> Matt, did is that working or should we >> I will I would endeavor to get it to work. >> Okay. You might want to take a few notes until that is is in place. Um well, welcome everyone. Thanks for being here. I think tonight might be a two-hour meeting. I indicated that in my email. I'm gonna shoot to get us out at 7:30, but I am not sure that's going to be possible given the amount of um agenda items that we have uh today. So, bear with me on that. Um here's the agenda that Matt has up um behind me and is on the screen. We're going to go through uh the review of July 7th meeting uh minutes. We're going to take public comment. We're going to talk about the uh some updates including the housing trust fund and the work that we've been doing with the planning commission on the development regulations and the city. We're going to turn it over to Matt to do some city updates, then discuss the development review board process, which I understand um Dan Wheeler and uh maybe someone from downstream too. Yep. Here will be uh joining us for that. Uh we'll Sheamus will go through the permitting process and what he's learned there and we'll talk about the vacancy ordinance as well as committee prioritization. So the last topic committee prioritization is really just like what do you want to do for the rest of the year. We'll look at what we have accomplished so far and so start thinking about that if you haven't put any thought into it yet. uh so we can talk about that uh soon enough. And if we have committee more committee members and they need space, we'll just like keep bringing chairs up and share our microphones. So just be ready to smush some more people in with you. Uh okay, we'll move over to the review of the minutes for July 7th. Were there any comments on the minutes or questions or suggested edits? All right. Well, can I have a motion to approve? Sandy makes a motion. Second. Lauren. All in favor? I. Okay. Any post extensions? Looks like everyone >> since I was there. >> Okay. Dan abstains. Dan Copic. Great. All right. Thank you. Uh, moving on to public comment. Do we have any public comment? Yeah, please. >> Uh, Steve Whitaker. The city is still playing games, not releasing the tax increment finance uh projections for the the two finalists. Uh yet they're proceeding to negotiate towards a letter of interest towards a development agreement. Uh the grant guide book put out by ACCD makes specific that HUD requires that no development agreement can be entered into until environmental clearance is granted. Environmental clearance is not on schedule to be granted for years because the city has repeatedly violated the brownfield rules with soil disturbances and any phase one environmental assessment older than 12 months has to be done over again. So we need to start back with a phase one environmental assessment and that will then incorporate uh this all the disturbances that have happened subsequently. phase two assessment in effect could be scoped to include and no longer need the supplemental site investigation which was really part of the phase two but a decision that still hasn't been made. We promised the the people that we would be able to do agriculture up there. It was in the RFP etc. And they're not on course. They're growing food and feeding it to the senior center on undelineated soil which is known to have toxins in it throughout and growing vegetables, growing trees, moving them around the city. So this is a disaster of non-compliance and the city has put out an RFP to two of the conflicted engineering firms. Uh VHB is conflicted as being the partner with DEEDW, the selected vendor, as well as being the city's engineer for the pipe. So they can't be doing an environmental review of their own work. And Stone Environmental did the FA phase one and phase two. So they can't be doing grading their own work. So federal law requires competitive bidding and the city is not uh proceeding to reissue the RFP. uh in compliance with federal. So, but most importantly, we cannot trust our city staff to negotiate behind closed doors a public planning process that we were denied under statute to design affordability for Montpillar wage earners. this DEW is likely to other than his 24 units of down street partnership uh it's mostly probably going to be half a million dollar plus homes and that's not what Montpillar people need and I would ask I would implore this committee to take a strong stand on that demand to see the tax increment finance and the housing mix demand to open up the process of there's no way to do this without a master plan can't do a master plan until the brownfield is completed because that will define if any areas are off limits for trenching or digging or piping whatever. That's probably enough for now. >> Thank you. Um Ben, >> yeah, appreciate Mr. Whitaker's comments. There's so much there that it's I think really impossible to respond to or nor appropriate to respond to in a point by point, but I would like just say go on the record and say that I think much of what he said is factually inaccurate. That's enough. Thanks. Okay. >> Um, any other >> the documents available to you if you want. >> Thank you. >> Um, anyone else want to make public comment? >> Okay. Well, we're moving then. >> Oh, >> when Ben speaks, Ben, could you please move your mic a little closer? Thank you so much. >> Thank you. The silver one, the black one. Great. >> Thank you, Alan. Okay, great. Um, okay, we're moving into committee updates. I'm going to first start with the housing trust fund update. The city council uh adopted unanimously um our proposal uh the so the if you remember there will be two rounds for the housing trust fund. The first round will be standard uh as it has been offering you know 10,000 in grants 50,000 for zero interest loans. second round will not have an affordability component um tied to it and will re is receiving the first round is receiving applications now uh and we will review them upon receipt and then the second round will kick in if funds uh exist. Would you like to say anything else uh Dan or Sean about about that? >> Did I get that right? Yeah. >> Yeah. Substantively. Yeah. >> Yeah. I' I'd say that there may be two rounds instead of there will be two rounds. >> There may be two rounds, right? Okay. >> Uh the housing committee will review the applications >> the next meeting or be a special meeting. >> Uh there we I'm not sure the timing exactly depends on when the timing occurs, but either will be this meeting or a special meeting depending on when we receive them. Uh assuming someone applies for them, which hopefully we will. So get the word out now. Uh Evelyn Prim has sent around a press release about this. I shared it with you uh in one of my emails and so if you could just spread the word to get some applications in. Uh that'd be great. Okay. So now I'm going to Yes. Yeah. >> It's also on the planning website. There's a place where you can link to get the application. >> That's going to be even better than my email. Thank you for flagging that. All right. I'm going to turn it over now. Uh, and Matt, you're going to, if you don't mind pulling up some of Sandy's uh that what Sandy sent to you, I'm I'm going to have Sandy and Tim talk about the planning commission, the work around the development regulations, and our recommendations to the planning commission and the process with the city today. >> We're doing development regulations. Okay. Yep. Thank you. >> Do you want to do that, everyone? >> You've done all >> um super quickly. Um the group loosely made some priorities and they were um agreed to by uh planning commission. Um we've been working on first at a higher like structural level of where uh uh the parts of the ordinance could be um merged so that it's only covered one time in the ordinance. And then very importantly, where can we eliminate overlaps, duplications with other reviewing bodies like the state of Vermont? And Sheamus is going to bring up that specific one in his time, I think. Um, and really use some direction. I sent an email to planning commission ear um uh as we wrap those up so that they can be shared at the next meeting. Um, oh, the the other questions uh for priorities that we'll we'll be asking for help figuring out what to do next. So, those include um recommendations to make the review process shorter. My first draft reduced the 140 days down to 108 uh possibly even shorter. And um uh then the other questions are uh well section bysection review and the idea of a priority housing overlay district. >> Um I think this is the time and place we're going to talk about the map. >> Oh, this is the Okay, that's a separate subject. Okay, so sorry. Um I put something out of order. So if you could please um Matt, >> parallel to this, our subcommittee has been working on uh the future land use area map which is called the LUA map. And um uh we've been working with the planning commission on this and it's um timely. Uh the first recommendations have to go to uh LURB which is the land use review board by this Friday. Um the whole process there will be multiple op uh opportunities to keep revising it and it has to be complete by December I believe. So, Mpilier has the opportunity and almost a I I I would say responsibility to contribute quite a few houses um in our regional planning district. So, that is the CBRPC. Um this is what um has been laid out so far for Montpielar. Uh up to 800 houses in the next four years and up to 3,000 in the next 24 years. Those are those are bold targets. Um, and you compare that to what we've been doing in the last uh 13 years, we've built 238. Uh, and in the last 5 years, for some reason, there's a negative 89. It has to do with seasonal uh buildings. And um this has a direct relationship with the number of parcels that can be exempted from act 250. Uh, next slide, please. Uh it's hard to read, but this is the map that we came up with Tim Sinnate and at the planning commission following the criteria for uh mapping that is produced by the Vermont uh planners and um developers association. It's a methodology being used statewide. the lavender are pro parcels that almost meet and um are lacking something that could be resolved in the next few years. Next map um it's hard to read, but this is what's online for the Central Vermont Regional Planning Commission. Um it's they're taking public comments now. Next map. Um, this is I'm sorry this is so hard to see. I was thinking it would make our conversation speedier. Um, this is the map that Mike did as a first draft. So, um, but comparing the purple map to the CVRPC map, we identified 27 areas that could be um, geared towards growth that were not identified. and Mike identified 12 and those are what are going in Friday. Next map we identified another 17. Um so 29 takeway 12. Next map >> there's >> oh there sorry I did already. Sorry M they're so similar. Um so if anyone wants to see it the the additional ones are are identified here as 13 through 25 and um uh the then next the spreadsheet uh we I developed this this um so I take all responsibility for any errors but uh these are the additional uh properties that we would like to see get added. Um, the ones that are green all the way across completely meet the uh uh requirements as far as I know. And the ones with white are ones that we had they were the lavender lots that we thought could be uh drawn into the growth area over time. And we're suggesting that they be called something transition infill. It's a category that would kind of lead open the door for them to be to transition to planned growth area. That's what the PGA stands for. So to summarize, we believe five more could be added in the next month hopefully. And um uh the transition infill as well. Thank you. >> So process-wise um thank you Sandy. That's great. And Sandy and Tim have done a lot of work, particularly Sandy, in drafting um you know, in looking at these maps and Tim Sinnate from the planning commission uh you know, looking at this uh and doing a lot of the mapping as well. Um process-wise, we have Did you have a question? >> Yeah, just a really quick one. Um under under 1,000 TPD, what does TPD stand for >> on the Oh, >> trips per day. >> Trips per day. Thank you. >> If if a parcel has less than 20 uh less than a thousand trips per day, which is about a 100 houses, or if the speed limit's 25 miles an hour, it's not required to have a sidewalk. >> Got it. So process-wise, uh the housing committee subcommittee of Tim and Sandy and occasionally me um went and proposed that first map with Tim Senate's help, the first purple map uh to the planning commission. the planning commission uh reviewed it and uh at the same night I understand as as Mike uh Miller's map and then uh determined to move forward with a map that will go in on Friday that presumably is still being um tweaked uh you know throughout the week. And so I guess I would just say that, you know, there are a couple options given that uh we could um you know make comments directly to the LURB given the planning commission is moving forward with something uh less substantive than we wanted to put forward or we could work through the planning commission. Um you know and we have decided to let that stand. What the planning commission will in their work with Mike Miller put forward will be what is put forward on behalf of the city. We will not be putting competing comments in, but we will I'm glad to see Mike here tonight. You can take whatever you want from this conversation and uh Matt has those documents he can send to you if you haven't gotten to see them in detail. And also uh we'll just look to continue to have the conversation in the coming months to try to get as many parcels into the process as possible. Okay, thank you. Okay, so moving on, we are moving into uh city updates. Matt. >> Um, this city was given a congressionally directed spending opportunity to uh provide funding to Down Street to raise the buildings at 87 and 89 Elm Street. When the CDS application was put in, the estimate was correct, but the application was put in in 2023 and the cost of construction since 2023 when we got the award has increased so much that the CDS is not adequate to do the work that was initially proposed in the CDS. Down Street asked that we decline the money. Uh the money was to elevate the buildings out of the flood plane because they couldn't make up the difference and our congressional delegation has said that we can't decline the CDS grant. So now the challenge is to work with the state um to find a project that FEMA will accept to use the money that is within budget that is still at those properties. And so that's something that's been consuming a lot of my time is that kind of negotiation with the congressional delegation, the state and FEMA and down street. >> What's the gap? >> $2 million. >> And does it have to involve the former Blanchard block? >> No, it does not. It's 80 87 89 or the the real I don't know. Is the I'm sorry. I don't know if that's what it's called. I think that am. >> Yeah. Okay. >> It's the Barrett block. >> Barrett block. Okay. Okay. Barrett block. >> Yeah. Way back when. >> Yeah. Way back. >> Uh does the state of Vermont still have at the flood um like buyout program? Do they still have money in the buyout program that you could leverage? >> That might be something to look at. No, they don't have any more of that. Yeah, >> that's too bad. Um the second project is trying to identify a property for um a daytime and winter shelter for homeless people in Montpielar. Um this is another big project and I think it would be interesting to have a joint meeting perhaps with the homelessness committee at some point. The spectrum of housing needs in the city is not often talked about by this committee and I think it would be useful to have at least a joint understanding about what we mean when we say housing. Um the getting the housing trust fund launched was something you already talked about and um tomorrow there will be a discussion at the Montillar Business Association meeting which happens on the first Wednesday of every month at the um uh Vermont League of Cities and Towns at 8:30 tomorrow morning. There will be a discussion about the challenges of the homeless population in downtown. I bring this up as part of the housing discussion because one of the only known solutions for reducing numbers of homelessness is to create housing. And that's our mission here. So, we need to figure out how to house more people. And I think that the zero AMI to 30 or 40% AMI part of that spectrum of housing is something we don't talk enough about in the city. Um, and so that's what I'll be talking about tomorrow when I meet with the MBA. >> Thank you. Any questions for Matt? >> Okay, thank you for the update. Um, and it's great it's a great time to put um the unhoused population for and housing for that population in particular on the radar as we talk about priorities. Uh we're moving on to the development review board process. Dan Wheeler and Down Street. Do you want to take it up, Dan? Sure. >> Um yeah, during my day job, I do a fair amount of work with Down Street and um currently working in one with one project in town here and Nicola Anderson is here with Down Street. Nicola, do you want to introduce the project real quick just so I can get you on the mic? >> Hi. Um, wow. I'm Nicole Anderson. I'm the director of real estate development for Down Street Housing and Community Development. So, we're here about our project Ellis Commons, which is located at 9 Heaton Street, which is currently Washington County Mental Health Services Office Building that we're looking to redevelop um into 20 units of apartments. This project is also fully funded at this time. Um, we've gotten disaster recovery funding from the state and VHCb uh funding and then non-competitive tax credit funding as well. >> So, yeah, right now we're we're in the development re review board process. Um, and just kind of during it's been five or six years since I've been involved in a project in town that's gone for the DRB. So sort of refreshing my memory of you know some of the challenges that um I think from an well from a designer I guess perspective but from an owner and a developer perspective. Um so right so it had to go through the before the DRB because it was major site plan review and there was a couple of um variances that we needed. Um the building's not in conformance within the zone that that it's in. Um, so, um, but I guess just to the the timeline of what the process is. So, there's so much that goes into getting the plans right it as far as what the DRB requires. Um, and that's I think that's has its own challenges. Um, but I wouldn't say that that's terribly different than other municipalities. Um, as far as what, you know, engineering is required. I mean, there's some steep slope things where this project didn't require. Um but other than that um you know it's pretty standard. I mean it takes a lot of work and there's a lot of boxes to check. Um but you know Meredith at the zoning department is so good at knowing exactly what is required and you know going through and working with the owners or the designers and the engineers um to get to the point um where then you know it goes before the DRB. So I think more I wanted to talk about kind of the timeline um where you know the DRB receives the plans um which is typically I guess within two weeks before is it 2 weeks or four weeks before the um yeah 2 weeks before the meeting um where the hearing is going to occur and so um but then there's kind of you know steps along the way I mean this was kind of a particular I think because of the it was a full agenda so our first meeting got was you know laid on the agenda so it the decision um was tabled till the next meeting um two weeks later or so um and so that was June 15th so it was tabled to the next meeting so June 29th um there's a hearing continuation so you know Nicola and and I were here um presenting the project um and there was some you know um neighbors that you know had questions and concerns and so that was there was a lot of back and forth and but I think that's even a whole separate conversation maybe um as far as the appeals process um and I think we we could talk about that but I think again that's kind of a separate you know and that you know has to do with with bigger you know state regulation etc. Um but I think just from like what we can do um as the city to make it easier you know for owner developer to kind of go through the process I think is important to look at. So, so June 29th, the hearing continuation ends in a deliberative session. I mean, we yeah, they had all the information. They could have made a decision then, they chose not to, and that's, you know, that's just that's within I wouldn't say that's a something to really look at, but that's just how it shook out. Um, and so July 6th, then we let's see. Oh, so then July 6th was the following meeting. So first it was tabled then the hearing continuation with a deliberative session then the decision was made that night but then we you know after the meeting so the sessions closed um and then so is July 6th before they the the deliberative session actions were reported in the minutes. Um and so so we followed up with Meredith and found that that was the case. Um but then the since So, I guess when the DRB makes a decision, they have 45 days to release the official written um decision. And so, that's basically starts the clock on June 29th. And we're still here, right? We have no no decision. And so then until that written decision is released, sent to email to you and me and I guess any of Butters, um then there's the 30-day appeal period which starts. So there's the decision made by the DRB 45 days can can pass with nothing. I mean the decision's been made right as far as I know. I don't you know I don't I think maybe Alice could speak more to it but um so anyway we're we're kind of in like 30 days into that. Um and which you know it's I mean you can speak more about like what that means um you know from a developer owner position as far as having to wait. So technically, we have like 15 more days that we could wait until this decision is um released and then that starts a 30-day appeal period, which who knows what could happen in there. So anyway, I don't know if you want to talk about what that, you know, >> means as far as >> and just a little bit for developers. I mean, Dan spoke to it, but the level of drawings that we need to get to a um to [clears throat] a permit, it is civil engineers, it is architects. Um that's what Dan's our architecture firm. Um it is over $100,000 worth of work. And then it is also I mean we're we are using state and federal funds. So we are up against timelines of using funds as well. But through this um it's also risk for us. So, we're really fortunate for this project that we are funded um and that we got funding early and that's um a risk that Down Street chose to take taking on that that on. But again, Down Street is sitting on over $100,000 worth of work and we're not sure um if there's any implications regarding our permit decision and it just is prolonging our timeline. Um, this is [clears throat] a project that is fastm moving that could start like if we had everything in line would actually be able to start this year but the longer we wait that gets pushed out. Yes, we also have to work with Washington County Mental Health Services about vacating the building but truly this is delaying our project which is actually just costing the project more money. um we've chosen to take the risk a little bit more because we have this funding secured but other projects we wouldn't um we normally like it depends on us to get funding in order with our permits in hand um so we would have even we would have more risk in that way so that is definitely something that has uh really impacted us here in this project and I think it yeah just about deliberative session and this going I think even for not many comments or concerns that came up through the application and through the hearing with the DRB as well. >> Yeah. And I think like behind it all like this is 20 unit 20 apartments of affordable housing in downtown walkable in an existing building. It's like this is what you know from my mind this is what should be happening everywhere and this is how we solve the housing crisis. So the city needs to do everything that they can to, you know, make this process as easy as possible. And this is just kind of one, you know, Sandy, >> you're ready for a question? >> Yes. >> Yeah. S >> is it on more than one acre? >> The whole lot it is. It's 2.3 acres. >> So you're going to have to get state permits after this. >> Correct. >> So what Sheamus is going to be talking about is exactly this problem. and made a couple just because it ties in. I'll just highlight them super quick. So, one suggestion is that what goes to the city in the zoning and subdivision permits the its first process is just only needing an engineers's concept of how they would solve the problems and then it would go through the state review process and then the paperwork would come back to the city. But we're actually suggesting that the city would no longer review what the state gives the permits for. Because in your situation, if the state changes the design, you actually have to take it back to the city for another hearing and appeal. >> Would it be a hearing or just an administrative? >> I don't know. Yeah, it depends. But it would if it's if it's first a major site plan review and then it's coming back. I don't know that you could it's not in I don't think it's written down in the ordinance. So they may have to default to a hearing. >> And I would say that we can't really come to the DRB with just sketches to [snorts] like we do need those further design drawings especially civil. I I would encourage you to stay for the conversation right after this because I think it's going to be really relevant to this. Um what I'm hearing though is like costs for engineering are high and uh if you need tweaks you then need to go back and do some of that work again. Uh and that time is like if we can those are the factors that we might be able to look at time and cost. >> Yeah. So I would I would say so for down street we cover Washington, Orange and the Loyal counties having this 45 days for a decision. I think that's longer than other communities. I think it might be 30 days but also it was not normal for it to take that whole time. Like we very normally get that report very soon after the DRB like within a week. So that that is also my experience with other communities. >> Um why don't I move to Alex who is on the DRB. >> That's also the case with the DRB is it's very rare for it to be as delayed as it has been in your case. I mean Meredith was injured. She was out. She was on vacation. So there's been a backlog, you know, a concatation. cannot speak to the engineering stuff but or the 45 days but the 15-day notification etc etc that's at the level of the state not pillar's discretion >> yeah I think for me it's really the 45 days that sticks out I mean the level of engineering is relatively common for most communities it's a lot but it's >> I don't know where the 45 days comes from I know it's not the usual practice >> yeah and I don't know right exactly and my experience it comes really quickly so and you know we we talked to Meredith about it and it seemed to be anyway it can you know it's an ongoing discussion >> in in the case of the subdivision I mean cuz we saw that property before for subdivision and it was appealed so that was a very long delay >> in down street's ability to figure out what they were going to do with that property >> we should figure out we should fold the time question into the conversation with you in just a minute Sandy >> yeah so that's relating to what I said at the very beginning of the meeting that I've I've been analyzing the permitting timeline and um I'm going to suggest that it either get moved up as a priority under Sheamus or in our subcommittee but that becomes one of the next ones. I I totally agree and we've been looking into this and just changing the name of the review at a certain point of time affects the appeal period. And then the the other thing that I've put out there is that requiring in the ordinance that for priority housing projects that um the timeline be even shorter for for deliberating bodies to to make a decision. >> Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Um let's talk more about this in just a moment. Anything else for us before we move on to Sheamus? Yeah, Mike. Okay. We'll we'll swap you both out and then we'll come back to this. Yeah. >> Yeah. If I could just give a little bit of background, Mike Miller, planning director. Um, so this was uh there was a lot of applications that were coming in all at the same time, not just for Down Street. We also had two major projects on Northfield Street and some some other projects that were all coming to the DRB. and there was a known vacation that was coming up for Meredith to take two weeks off in July. Um, so she really did work very hard and then of course got hurt just before and then continued to work even though she could have just stayed home. She continued to work at home hurt to make sure that all the staff reports were ready, everything was ready to go. We could have the meetings and uh in this case uh applications go by the priority of their coming in which meant Northfield Street when you look at all of the ones that were in there. Northfield Street I believe is 20 30 uh 38 units >> 20 >> 28 >> 28 units. So that was another affordable housing project. Same funding source. um their application was in first. So, uh she drafted all the decisions. Um the Northfield decisions did get signed right away. The this decision uh I don't know why um it's it's in the hands of the chair to sign it and that's what we're waiting on is >> Yeah. And that was as of July 6 it was in his hands. So that's you know I I think Meredith does yeah an incredible job and I think like without Meredith >> Yeah. >> that none of this would happen really. And and then a little bit of big picture. Um you know, yes, if you were to go and look at what were the the dates and and the times it takes to to do permits, you you'd come up with these 100 day things. We have a goal um in the department. You know, yes, we have under statute, we have 45 days to issue decision. We don't like to take 45 days. We like to get them out within a week because we meet every other week. And if you let these pile up, it doesn't get any easier. You you want to be able to process them in a week. And it was because she was on vacation for two weeks and the board chair was also out for um vacation as well. So yeah, we are this is unusual but the the longer those those longer day counts the reality is what actually happens in the real world. Our computer software tracks that. So we have a goal for permitted uses to get them out within 1 to two days. um a DRB decision we want to have completely processed and out within 45 days. That is our goal. Um there are certain requirements. You have to post it in the newspaper for DRB for 15 days. Um that means you have to have it 21 days in advance because you got to send it to the newspaper to get it in the newspaper. So there's built-in time that we can't reduce. Um but uh last year uh every DRB application except for three were in that 45day window and one was 45 days, one was 46 days, one was 63 days. So this is going to probably be our outlier for this year when we go and report out at the end of the year how long did it take us to issue permits? Did we meet our goal of 45 days? This will be an outlier. this will be one of those that just comes in as this was the exception to the rule and we apologize to everybody who's working on the project for the delays. Uh it's in this case was pretty unavoidable. Um but you know I I commend Meredith for her effort because what she could have done was to say we're just going to punt the hearing to August and start the hearing in August. But we didn't. We warned um the Jul um these meetings. We weren't special meetings to get people in. Um uh June 29th is a is an uh fifth Monday. So the DRB did come in on the fifth Monday to get that that issued. So um you know, everybody really worked hard to try to make sure this this all got in. And it's unfortunate that it that it missed that. But I do want to point out we do um try to get all the administrative permits issued within a day or two. Ones that need administrative site plans, those would be issued within a week. And then ones that are DRB would be issued within 45. And we very consistently make those targets. >> Um a couple questions for you, Mike. Uh first off, do you uh so you're saying there's built-in time? So you don't believe that the 45 days could be reduced even though most of the permits are getting through the 45 days and you know it seems like this was an anomaly with a vacation built in there but you don't think as a as a standard practice it can be reduced for 45 days. >> We can't we we typically do when I say it's 45 days some of those it depends when somebody gives us an application. If you gave us an application the day after the warning date for a public hearing, that means you're going to be sitting in the to-do basket for an extra 13 days before getting on the before getting warned for the next hearing because you missed it by a day. Um because we meet every other week, so it'll get pushed. If you were to look at the 17 DRB hearings that we have or the 12 or the 15, whatever the number is for the year, you're going to find a number of them were issued in 30 days, 31 days, 35 days, 37 days, but there were three. Our goal is 45 days and there were three that were 45, 46, and like 63 or something like that. So, um, most of the time we are shorter than that. If if the applications hit the right, you know, you give us the application the day before we send the notice to the newspaper, then then you're on the fastest, shortest window that hopefully we get in, we issue the decision on Monday, the RB deliberates Monday night, it comes out, Meredith works it up, gets it done by Wednesday, board chair signs it on Friday, boom, we're, you know, in a 30-day window. That's why the planning commission also worked to change the rules. and we have to not have projects go through DRB that often. So, we try as much as possible to not have projects go through DRB. And I think for benefit of anyone who hasn't heard me say this before, when I got here in 2014, we issued 140 permits a year. 70 of them, 50% of the permits issued in the city of Montpillar went to the DRB for approval. We now issue 15 permits a year. We still issue 140 permits. Only 15 go to the DRB. So we are we vastly and we did this by changing the rules to say this doesn't have to go to the DRB. Issue this administratively. So we've shifted this burden to the administrative duties to get these things out faster. That's how you cut the time down because once you're in the DRB, you're pinned into that you have to warn it in the newspaper. It has to be given 15 days notice. that requires time and expense [clears throat] >> and then to get all the way through. >> Two thoughts and then Sandy, I'll come to you with a question. I'll uh won't come back to myself, I promise. Which is uh it seems like with the DRB schedule and if it hits the chair and if the chair hasn't signed it, we go to nudge if that's the case. If this is sitting with someone, that seems like within your purview to push it along. So, please do that in this case. that. Yeah, that was a little bit of the hard part with the the nudger is the person on vacation. She got everything done before she left and >> Yeah. And then it's just like you know that happens with businesses all the time and you got to get coverage during those moments and flex people's schedules and you know when that kind of thing happens and I everyone's going to go out eventually but then how do you plan accordingly? and she sounds like she did herculean work even faced with um you know an injury. Uh and you know being able to flex your staff in that way can help keep keep things going. Alex, >> I just wanted you to be clear about what the 45 days is. 45 days from the time of application. >> So there yeah there are two 45 days. Could we mention the word 45 days twice? I don't want to confuse the two. There is a statutory thing that says once the DRB has closed a hearing, they have 45 days to issue a decision. That's not what I'm talking about. >> That's what I thought. I just wanted to be clear. So the planning department's goal that the window the 45day window is from application to closing >> from application to the decision being issued is our 45day window. >> No application >> as as soon as the application is in, it gets plugged into the into the smart gov. We have a computer program called smart gov. We plug it into smart gov. As soon as it's in that system, that system is tracking all the the steps along the way to make sure the boxes are checked for the different activities that have to get done. When the decision is issued, that last box will get checked and then we can query that system at the end of the year to go through and say, how long did it take us to issue permits that involve these these DRB hearings? I think the question was, is it 45 days from the when it's complete or 45 days from submission? >> Submission and complete are basically the same. We we don't accept incomplete applications. >> No, but the point is that they're two 45 days. >> We could we could make that longer. Yes, we could wait longer and take longer in issuing the decision that if if we did not issue a decision if if the DRB issued a a decision on day zero and we took till day 46 on day 46 that decision is deemed deemed approved. >> Right. Right. So I just want to be clear about where if there's going to be a push where the push is. Right. And the fact that they're two different 45day windows matters. Yeah. And and what I'm what I'm saying is >> your aspirational window and the other is the statutory window. >> Yes. And our aspirational window. Yeah. If we if we were to maximize your your statutory windows, you'd be out at that 108 140 days. What we're trying to do, what we've done is to shorten it to go through and say we don't have any applications that take 108 days. There's zero of those. I can promise you that. They once an application comes in and is is is in the books. The worst one we had last year was 63 days. >> Tim, >> is that my house? [laughter] >> I couldn't tell you. >> Like, you know, it's all perception. I can listen to you and I appreciate what you're saying. And then my perception is, >> oh my god, it was way longer than that. >> Well, I mean, there there are ones I know there was ones where we get and I know there was an issue with this the Marvin Street question. We were waiting on information. we needed to get we could not start the process until we had a certain report or a certain piece of >> so that's my point to the group is to understand that part of it it's not when you submit your application it's when the staff deems you have a complete application and then throughout the process it's not like we were told up front we would need all these pieces then along the way oh by the way now you've got to get a hydraologist to do a study or you have to get you know so it really did drag us out probably more towards six months to build a single family house on an approved lot in Montil. I >> I think we could debate we could debate this on on a separate side because we would we have a very different perspective. >> We were way more than 60some days. >> Yes. Because we were asking for things that we weren't getting and >> but you also didn't ask upfront in a way that an applicant could anticipate it. >> I I would have to talk I'm not directly involved. I'd have to work with Meredith to share with you the kind of headlines you're seeing in real life when you go through it. Don't feel like the aspirational >> and this kind of is what Sheamus is going to be talking about momentarily. I think though that we will have a set of recommendations to you on how to make things easier because if you have someone going through your process who's sitting in this chair going who's pretty seasoned saying I didn't know upfront X Y and Z maybe just add a checklist in so when someone applies say here's the checklist of the things you need. I mean there might be tweaks that can be made to increase efficiency on the front end. Um any other questions for Mike before we move to Sheamus? Yeah. Ben >> do we have a checklist? >> I usually the way it's there's no formal checklist because of the each project is so much different. So, you end up what what'll end up happening is there is going to be um we'll receive the application and she always responds Meredith always responds in an email in writing for this for this reason because we will go through and say right up front these are the things we're going to need and then we'll get half of that back and we'll be like no we still need we need all of this and we need all of this and we continue to follow up or we get something different than what was asked for and so um there's there's a lot that goes to, but usually it's very quick that we turn around when we get an application or if somebody comes in and asks us, we're usually pretty clear about what the request is going to be once we have the application in front of us. And we are we are occasionally surprised. Um, we have had cases where um I know uh James Morris had a project up on Town Hill and we went through a considerable amount of work. All of us went through a considerable amount of work and it wasn't until we got near the end that DPW discovered there was a sewer line that was right where we were planning to put the fill. >> Yeah. >> And those are the things that we can't do anything about, but those are the ones we just have to apologize for and say, "Yeah, we we're going to have to do a workound to figure out how we fix this issue." But those are the exceptions, not the rules. >> Are you able to stay and listen to this next section? >> Yeah, I can stay. >> I think that would be great. Sheamus, why don't you come on over and then Mike, you might have some things you want to say after this. So, this is the Millar permitting process project. If you could say your name. >> Uh, let's start with the Google doc and then I'll jump over to spreadsheet. >> All right. Hi everyone. Um, are we able to bring the document up on the screen share? Okay. Um, cool. So, um, I just want to preface this. This was a learning experience to me. I'm very eager to get all of your input and I didn't do this alone. I got input from a lot of different folks. So, just want to say that up front. I'm going to really um briefly kind of recap what this project is and my approach and then I'm hoping we can spend most of the time on Q&A and discussion. And I think you have some recommendations for us. >> Yes. Um so the motivation here was to compare the process and fees first try and understand them from ampielar and then see how they stack up against other municipalities in central Vermont. Um and the process was to interview local developers which you can see there in that like respondent sample underlined section. nine interviews or nine folks we got feedback from and we also got feedback uh from city staff um comments on the dock and uh this took a lot of time um so I hope it's useful um we did talk about this I think at the June meeting um so I just want to outline what the revisions are from that earlier iteration that you saw uh we've got more numbers and more developers in the sample size Um the developer interviews have been expanded from just smallcale folks to also large scale developers and from folks just in Montpielar to those who develop uh throughout central Vermont. Um and also the numbers if we just quickly jump over to the spreadsheet um are now from a diversity of development context. So there are people who provided numbers for remodels, for land development, for single, for multi-unit, and for developers that were planning to sell their properties and those that were planning to rent their properties. So um I'm not going to go through each of the numbers in the spreadsheet. I encourage you to take a look if you're interested. Um but I think the main takeaway is across a diversity of development contexts, these numbers are not insubstantial. Um so if we hop back to the document sorry um uh we also distilled from the developers feedback um opportunities and policy recommendations. Um, and I just want to say that this project started focused primarily on fees. And those are part of the conclusions, but developer feedback also focused significantly on what we were just talking about, which is the burdens and uncertainty of the regulations and the review process. Everyone I talked to would talk to me a little bit about fees and then really hone in on that category of issues as the main area of feedback. Um, also you'll see a lot of these takeaways are kind of perception, you know, de facto experience with Montpielar rather than dour um, letter of the regulation compared to letter of the regulation in Berlin. It's lived experience of the developers in these different towns that they were providing feedback on. Um, and before I jump into it, I'll just say I sought to synthesize and summarize, but not editorialize. This is all feedback from the developers that I interviewed, not my own opinions. Okay. All right. So, I'm just going to really quickly read through the key takeaways, these bolded lines here in the document, um, and then get to the policy recommendations so we can talk about them. So starting with the good news, um I heard from several different developers that people want to build in Mont Failure. Um there's opportunities for infill development. You can build large buildings. The property values are high, but they see municipal processes as a roadblock to those opportunities. And then you know some of what's here we just heard in the from the prior speakers. you know, development requires significant upfront and ongoing costs before returns are realized, if ever. And folks were communicating to me that those costs are pushed on to the buyer or the tenant. Oftent times, um, if we keep going down, um, folks did really, um, communicate that the city staff is responsive and developers are appreciative of that. Um however the perception at least is that there is more burdensome back and forth with city staff in Montpielar than in other municipalities. Again perception of the developers that I interviewed. Um also what we just heard in the prior session professional analysis is needed to comply with our regulations and that is very expensive. Also, what we heard, uncertainty in duration in permitting and appeals add to project's expenses. The longer these things drag on, the more expensive the project gets, sometimes people have to back out entirely. If they don't back out entirely, that added cost get passed on to the buyer or the renter. If we keep scrolling down here, um, and there are some examples of this, um, from my interviews, if you want to take a look at those, um, as, uh, Sandy was mentioning, uh, both fees and processes can be duplicative or have additional costs beyond the associated base fee. And these fees add up. Um, they're not usually the largest cost of the project. Um, but that doesn't mean they're insignificant. So, there's a section here that these are kind of like broad categories of opportunities suggested by the folks that I interviewed. I'll just read them out. And then there are policy recommendations below. So, folks would often say either weigh or delay some fees or processes where possible. I had anecdotes from developers of other municipalities in central Vermont uh doing this. You can see some of those projects cited there. Streamline the processes and committees where possible. Um, you know, they're important. Um, but can we reduce the burden of them? And then, you know, to the maps that we were talking about earlier, you know, identify areas for development and support development in those areas. Okay. So before I get to the recommendations, I just want to say again this is synthesis of the feedback from the interviews that I got and developers um largely have a theory of change that you know streamlining these processes and reducing these burdens will increase housing in Mielar. And even though we might lose out on some revenue from the fees, this theory of change states that this will be a net positive for the city. If more housing is built, you know, more tax revenue will come in, there'll be new properties, new residents, etc. So all of these recommendations are based around that acknowledgement that there might be less revenue from fees or processes, but that it would be a net positive for the city. Okay. So these are recommendations uh that Alyssa and I attempted to synthesize um from the developer feedback here kind of broadly broken into categories. So reduce the burden of fees. We could consider not raising fees or waving certain fees that are reduced that are related to fixed infrastructure like sewer and water that also bring in revenues uh recurring revenues. Um, I'll hop back to that middle one in a bit because I want to go to Sandy to briefly explain her contribution here. But there's also the reduce the burden of uncertainty in the review process. Um, you know, could we audit uh the various review processes to make sure that they are playing their role but also are within their remitt. Um, this is one personal anecdote I can actually give. I have been to a DRB uh hearing um or James's project that went well beyond the scope of what the hearing was about. So I actually have personal experience with that happening. Um and then this middle one here is reduce the burden of billable professional hours whether that's engineering or other processes. Um that second bullet is, you know, there were several anecdotes I heard that, you know, um perhaps inadvertently city staff would CC billable professionals on correspondence that would just continue to drive up this cost. Maybe there's something we can do about that. Um and then Sandy has done a really detailed analysis on particular regulations that we might be able to um reduce duplication, eliminate subjective criteria and you know in the long run reduce the billable hours and the burden of regulations on development of Montpielar. Do you want to briefly summarize those Sandy? >> Yeah. Did you do do you not have the >> Yeah, it's in the tab of So if you go >> and if you keep scrolling down, are you looking for the chart? >> Good gravy. Sorry. >> No, I think she's looking for the PDF that she did with some of the line edits. Um if you go to the doc >> I think that'd be really hard to read um on the big screen. Is there a way you could summarize that? >> I need to look at them. >> Yeah. Okay. Um thank you. Can do you mind? It's really kind of you. So, in a quick summary as I can, um there are four chapters uh that are related to um things that ANR gives a permit for. And my primary hypothesis is that Montpielar should not be duplicating review of a state entity. And so the idea is to figure out what is a reasonable area that that Montpillar and there is an area that Montilier uh would be if it were not for Millar no one would review it. So that makes sense to keep our rules for that and give over to the state on. So in a nutshell, it's anything that involves wetland would be reviewed by the state in my my proposal and anything over one acre would be reviewed by the state. This would cover wetlands. It would cover steep slopes, erosion control, storm water design, and they also issue something called a construction permit. So that is happening to all these projects. And part of the problem that was mentioned tonight is that a developer is asked to or land owner is asked to de to create all of the design for the city and then after that's done most people wait to start their state permits. The state permits could easily change the content which forces them to go back to a city for an amended permit. So that that's the basis. The other idea is to um regularize make uniform triggers uh for some very small projects. So in some places in the our ordinance it's 50 square feet. Smaller than 50 square feet does not trigger or in others it's 500. So I'm just suggesting 500 ft. Um then if something is triggered for a Montpielar review um my suggestion is that um it just be part of site plan review and it be at a concept level that the owner would hire an engineer to make a concept and say that it is feasible and that there will be a solution and address all of the design criteria that would stay intact in our ordinance and say how they would how they would respond without having to do the detailed drawings because that's where the huge amount of money is. So instead of $100,000, one could expect to spend between5 and $10,000 to get through site plan review. The other thing is that we right now that review for steep soaps tri triggers conditional use review which is a higher level with the state of Vermont and it's triggering longer um notice longer appeal periods. So the idea would put that under site plan review because these would be all under an acre. Okay. Um measuring slope. I did a lot of research last weekend and and realized that it's really not just a matter of slope, it's a matter of what the soils are. So, I'm suggesting different triggers for different soil types. I think it's pretty straightforward, but the the one that we would pay most attention to is soil uh excuse me, clays that truly absorb water and start collapsing uh hillsides that I'm actually suggesting that the special review would be triggered at even if the land's flat. So, we could make it 5%. But that is the at the point where you could start to have an impact that would cause a catastrophic failure. I think that's pretty much it. Um, so I'm actually suggesting that these four chapters be consolidated into one chapter called natural resource conservation. It fits in with a subdivision way that's written up and it also fits with the state of Vermont. Um, I think I've covered >> Let me get some questions um here. And Matt, would you mind putting back up the policy um recommendations? We can just go through that. We can use that as a baseline for the conversation, but questions for what based on what you've heard so far. We'll go through it one by one, but just general questions. Yeah. Lauren, >> uh, just on what you were just talking about, Sandy, um, I mean, I presume all of these were put in place because there was some belief at the city level that there were protections that were not happening from the state. So, I would just want to understand if we were proposing some, you know, major change like what are we losing? What are you know just thinking about for example the slopes and seeing the landslides in Barry and the flooding like obviously we don't want to be building in short-sighted ways that are going to lead to problems for the community. So is there any like what what might we lose or is it just duplicative or like confusing you know? So I just like I would want to personally better understand the where they came from and like what we think we have been getting from them that we and like are we willing to give that up because housing is such a you know crisis right now and so we might have different standards than when they were put in place but that's that kind of analysis would be helpful to >> No, that that's super I'm not suggesting taking anything away. The only thing I'm taking away suggesting taking away is the idea that has to go through Montpielar dei de development review board at the conditional use level. I'm suggesting that that be downgraded to site plan review with all the other site plan aspects that have to get reviewed. The other thing that I'm suggesting is that Montpielar give up on wetland review. Zero well sorry one square foot of impact in the wetlands triggers state review. There is no minimum. So I'm I'm not suggesting that I'm just suggesting that we don't duplicate review. The one weird thing where Montpielar has gone beyond state rules is vernal pools and we have a 500 ft radius uh buffer zone around our vernal pools. And I have no idea where that came from, but thinking that that ends up being the equivalent of about three football fields around it's it's 1,000 ft. You know, it's really big. And the state doesn't do that. And I'm suggesting that we back off of that and just let the state do their wetland review. They are trained scientists. Um, I think this is going to be the area that needs most discussion or most like looking into for people to probably understand it. And so I think I'm going to pick off easier topics and come back to that one. Uh, because some of these I'd like to vote on tonight and move them forward. Dan, did you have something on that or you want to hold it? >> But I mean, we will be recommending to the planning commission >> because these are matters for the planning commission >> or to look into these with a recommendation. Yeah. >> Yeah. But we um probably need a deeper level of understanding. I think cursory like this is just getting the baseline of this and we'll need a full probably proposal and a longer time frame just on that one topic. But uh Dan and then Ben and then I'm going to move into the other policy topics that we probably could vote on tonight. >> Yeah. Sorry. I just want to ask while Sheamus is here. You mentioned an audit process for DRB. Do you have any idea like what that would look up like or what the mechanism for that would be? >> Alex, you want to I can speak to that. I was also at that hearing that you talked about and actually >> the one of the things that um was most interesting about that hearing was the hydraological issues that we weren't allowed to talk about but that the people at the hearing wanted to talk about. So, exactly the kind of thing you're talking about. Um and later on somebody who was present at that hearing on behalf of the applicant um went to city council and demanded that the DRB get further training because they couldn't so demanded the sort of audit that you're recommending and we did a training with the Vermont League of according to them that we had done that was inappropriate. The difference being in the framing that those hearings are not only about I mean it's a complicated matter. It's not only about the self-interest of the developers which you have very well captured here but it's also about balancing a public good of some kind with the interest of the developers and they get imshed and zoning has a terrible history I mean in the long range. So, it's a very complex matter and at the DRB level when things get kicked up to the DRB, it's because there have been set rules and there's a space that the rules don't quite >> Yeah. >> fill and it's important for the for the public discourse to have a place for people to talk about this stuff. >> 100%. Um uh I'll just briefly respond to that by saying like I agree in in principle that these concepts are important and I'm just representing the views that I heard from these people but I will say that the perception and perhaps we could do a quantitative analysis is that that public good is significantly more burdensome in Montpielar specifically compared to other municipalities. And what I would wonder and I wondered when I looked at your data, I mean Montpillar is three square miles. The towns that you've been comparing to are 10 square miles. Montpilar, I just read a long assessment about a building that was going to be demolished and the assessors and the appraisers talk about Montpillar being fully developed. Well, that's obviously not true. But the places that are left for development are often the most difficult places in which to develop. Not all of them, but many of them. >> So, I'm going to any Did you have a question, Ben? >> Uh, this is a great conversation, but my I I just had a question about sewer potter hookups of what the average cost that >> uh the average cost of that is. >> I don't know if we >> um you Sheamus, you uh looked into this. The average cost of water sewer hookups. >> So, we have some examples on the spreadsheet. Um, you know, I wish this was more comprehensive. Um, but I can only work with what people responded with. >> Mike, do you have an average cost of that? No. So, it's a real range, right? >> It's an opportunity where we could make housing or needle. >> Yeah. >> Yes. >> We handle it differently. Yes. >> I guess that's my question. Like, why not just add it as like a service charge to the bill, right? I mean, they're paying that upfront for the connection. >> Yes. And I think that was the point that the people I interviewed were making is that like this infrastructure exists and you pay for it once it's hooked up and they were suggesting that it's kind of duplicative in a way to pay the fee the hookup fee up front. So it's an opportunity to just kind of >> reduce fees um and you know the fees are significant but also alter that perception uh because that's a key theme throughout all these interviews was the perception that like month failure is more burdensome and takes longer and so if we could you know communicate back to developers hey we're doing x y and z thing and maybe individually they're small you know it helps with that perception issue. Uh, I am going to move us forward in five minutes on this topic and so I I said we were going to go till 8:00 PM tonight and we certainly will. Uh, there we're not going to vote on anything but the don't raise fees this year piece of this and we're going to come back to this topic in the next meeting in more details. So I'll do Alex Sandy and then we're going to move on to talking about that top bullet to vote on. >> Last time we talked about raising fees. Um, we talked about Mike presented and actually he was going to bring back a a spreadsheet of fees, but doesn't matter. Um, and it was a balance between taxpayers assuming the burden or developers assuming the burden. Um and I had the idea that why not just have a partial fee jubilee um as in a debt jubilee and say starting in the fiscal year 2728 for the next three years there will be a 50% discount on fees for everybody. So, if you're Tim Heeney building a house, you get that discount. Or if you're Lucky Boardman putting 18 units in the former Capital Stationers building, you get that discount. Um, but announce it ahead of time and incentivize development of all kinds. Thank you, Sandy. Um, so I think what you're referring to is typically called an allocation fee. And the idea, the concept behind it is that a municipal plant has so many allocations available to give away and when they get used up, the plant has to be expanded. So it's actually payment kind of towards the future if that makes any sense. So it is part of a discussion. I think public works should be involved. And I also want to point out that that was the other trigger for definitely going through site plan review. um it's already in the um ordinance and I just said that that should stay that that would be a if you're connecting to water or sewer municipal then you have to go through site plan review >> y just that I'm I'm not suggesting on the water and sewer hookup this is a question that I'm asking I'm not suggesting really that they be waved per se but that they be spaced out over the life of you know amaturiz it over 20 years of paying the fee or something just as a service charge on the bill and I And the al the other thing I would say like totally get it Sandy about like the allocation but we have a lot of capacity too right like so maybe now is not the time to worry about it as much. >> Um Mike did send back the alternative fee proposal and this proposal I think I had sent around to you all in an email um but you've gotten a lot from me recently so I just wanted to pull it up here. uh based on the fees, what do you um uh thank you Sheamus, you can move so that Mike can come up to answer that and or you can alternate both of you sit up here for a minute, but I'm wondering if Mike is it $36,000 a year you're getting for fees or what's the total amount that's coming in for fees for the city review? >> So the city in the budget we're supposed to collect 30 $35,000 a year. >> Yeah. Okay. And what's the total city budget? >> We've been collecting 15,000. >> And what's the total city budget? >> 10 million, 12 million, 15 million. >> 12 million, 20 million. >> It depends whether you're talking general fund or all the enterprise funds added in. But yeah. >> Okay. Thank you. So this is a very small amount of the budget, tiny actually in the in the uh in the whole scheme of things. And I I just wanted to have a conversation and vote on this one uh first. And Matt, maybe you could put that back up just the reduce burdens on fees first proposal. Thank you. Because uh there is a proposal to not raise fees this year at all to avoid increasing the burden. Alex just put out another concept of like why don't we incentivize us to do 50% off all fees for the year. I my point is the amount of fees is so small. It's $15,000 a year in like a potentially $20 million budget or something like that. And if we want to really incentivize this, maybe we the city decides for three years there are no fees. And um if we need to take that, you know, backfill that money somehow, you know, maybe you look at the housing trust fun or you look at just it because or we just say we're going to take that hit elsewhere to cover the $15,000 that you've been getting because um this is such a priority and for developers. So, I just want to hear your thoughts on this and then in 5 minutes I want to take this to a vote. And the reason why, unless we have a robust conversation, I'll keep it going. But, and the reason why is because Mike needs to go in front of the city council at the end of this month and put forward his fee schedule. We need to say this is our recommendation at the next city council meeting. So, what are your thoughts on the concept of not raising fees this year? not having any fees for a certain amount of time. >> Sandy, >> I would totally support that. A moratorum on fees for a period of time. >> I'd just love to have people go around. Sean, where you at this on this? >> Yeah, I like the thought of having either limited Oh, sorry. Yeah, like the thought of either having a moratorum or having a 50% off for right for two or three years. I think a short enough time to really try to push the incentive um you know to get rolling in the next two or three years. I like that more than than not raising fees. I think when you don't raise fees then when you turn back to what they should be, you get that big bump on the other side. Whereas having this 50% or designated piece would be still communicating that the proper price is much higher and and that we're we're buying that down. >> Alex, >> I think a moratorum that's a term or a jubilee would be a a good time limited. >> Jubilee is such a nice word. >> Well, it comes from jet debt jubilee. It's an old political economic term. It doesn't matter. Um um >> little Dartmouth coming our way. >> Yeah. Thank you, Alex. Sandy, you're into it. Tim, >> yeah, I think more time at some level, I think we should focus it on creating housing. So, however it's worded, it'd be in such a way that it would help create more housing. There's also hookup fees for sprinkler systems if we want to encourage, you know, sprinkler systems be hooked onto the city lines. Maybe it is a complete moratorum, but I think we should look at it strategically. Do you have proposal of the limits? Um, >> three years goes by really fast in development cycles. So I that's actually a fairly short time. >> Would you do more like five? >> I think it's a good conversation. >> We got to look at the costs and how it affects running. >> Well, we have 15,000 is what we're losing from last year. They're putting forward 35,000. Those are the costs. >> Yeah. Because the other fees, it's not just >> Yeah. Let me if I can just interject really quickly. We we also have a building inspector and we have building permits and building permits raise $100,000 a year and it pays for a building inspector. >> So a full permit moratorum means >> more than more than just $30,000 of zoning fees goes away. It's also $100,000 of building permits. A position that pays for itself right now. >> Oh, we're just talking about the fees on water and sewer hookups right now. No, I was talking about all. >> No, we were talking about all of them. Different people are talking about different >> all the fees. >> Um and that is making me think that we should get a act a more um we need a proposal that's more fleshed out, but I do want to know where people are at conceptually and then we can flush it out. >> Yeah, >> there you go. I don't know about a full moratorium on every single fee like I but I I like the idea of there being some sort of discount or something like that. I do want to keep the punitively high uh appeal fees because >> yes, >> I think I think that needs to stay. >> Let's remove the appeal fees from the conversation. >> Like I don't want those in play, >> right? Uh I' I'd vote for the the uh moratorium on the on the non-p permitting and non-appeal fees. Uh I do think the cost argument cuts both ways. So if it's such a small cost, it's not a big ask of uh it it can't go back to the the developer way. What how much does it really raise the rent to add $5,000 in in in uh permanent costs? I think the the benefit of going forward with um with waving the fees is is PR and I think that is a real real benefit. Um I just want to be realistic about it. >> Yeah. It sends a clear message >> for for a very little amount of money. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. I agree with Dan. I think what you know well focusing on housing and you know I think it's really just Yeah. the perception and it's pretty small peanuts but and I think at some point you know we should also be focusing on you know what it takes to get to to get to permitting right so like that's where the real needs absolutely and I know it's another conversation but >> yeah we're going to put that up for the next meeting what I wanted to do is lay the groundwork in this conversation and people should read this document from Sheamus like in detail and and let's come to the next uh meeting with some proposals around where to look or a clearer instruction for Sheamus it should you be willing to stick with us into the future. I know you eventually get off parental leave and be back at your full-time job, but I to start looking into different aspects of this so we can we this isn't lost. Yeah, Lauren. >> Um I also generally like the PR idea of this. I mean the only thing that's going through my mind is country club and that size project. Are we forgoing something more significant funding wise for the city? But maybe that's we want to just encourage it. Um >> I'm wondering too if this if a big part of this is trying to send a message like it could be part of a package of when we've got fees, some regulatory changes and that like we really try to push that out um so people are aware so this doesn't just get lost or is like a little one-off thing, but we try to kind of show progress on a number of fronts and this would could be one piece of it. >> I love that idea and we need to be at the next city council meeting on this. I I mean I'm wondering in the short term this feels like hard to do tonight with like partial information like what exactly but I wonder if it's like >> we're indicating to city council that we want to come back with a proposal >> um at a future meeting with some detail around a proposal to you know >> or consider a future more like short-term moratorum or something to >> Yeah. So at least the recommendation could be don't move forward with fee increases. Allow us to come with a counter proposal and that proposal will actually be going the other direction. >> Yeah. No, that's it. I mean I think the proposal that's coming or the issue before council making correct me if I'm wrong is that we're deciding whether or not to approve an increased fee schedule. >> Yeah. I think feedback on that, you know, I mean, that's something we've talked about at council multiple times and I think understanding where the housing committee is on that issue would be helpful. >> Great. Are folks I want to just call a vote on getting your permission to go before council to ask them not to increase fees while we put forward a proposal, a thoughtful proposal about where to either freeze or cut >> except for the appeal fee. >> Except for the appeal fee. Okay. All in favor? Okay, I see everyone voted. I um so that's what we needed on this for now. Sheamus, I will follow up with you directly on like what we might be able to do between we being mostly you. I recognize with very limited input by me and thank you for that. um between this meeting and next meeting to make sure everyone is ready. And it might mean that you we have to collect some of your questions over email uh between now and then to get you the answers we need to have a more robust conversation on the other points that were brought up and maybe that's you know one of the only topics on the agenda because it will be a lot to talk about what you talked about Sandy and some of the things you're talking about too. Okay. Thank you. Thank you Mike. Uh, so I just want to add in the the one um piece from my perspective is that this doesn't affect my pocketbook at all except as a taxpayer. Um, I'm bringing this to city council because it's my obligation, my responsibility as a director to go through and say we're not raising enough fees. If the decision is not to increase fees, then that's that's a policy decision. That is in the city council's hands, and it doesn't matter to me personally whether we're collecting those fees or not collecting those fees. We're just trying to put together the best proposal that we could. That's the we feel is the most equitable way of raising that uh that amount of of revenue. So, from my my perspective, that's why it's going out there. If if council decides that they don't want to, that's fine. But I know it sounds like in a $20 million budget, $20,000 isn't a lot of money, but um having been on this side of the the budgeting trying to meet the budget targets that city council has. Um we all remember um the flood, remember the volunteers, the NYCC volunteers all out there hoing out the basement of everybody's businesses. And then the next March we cut their budget because we didn't have $18,000 and they don't get funded. So it this this does have a cost down the road. At some point city council is not going to say we're just going to raise the taxes. They're going to say cut it from somewhere else. And that's that's the that's what we have to and that's what I'm trying to make sure you're aware of is it's not just $20,000. Just $20,000 would get us um the Montillar Youth Conservation Corps back. >> Okay. Thank you. appreciate it. Um, okay, we're going to move on to the vacancy property ordinance and it would be really helpful to have that fact sheet up. Thank you so much, Matt. And because Rebecca is our local expert on this, maybe I will walk us through, but if you wouldn't mind coming up, then you can help with the Q answering the Q&A. Um, so this I wanted to bring this up with you because this has been on our priority list. This is the second time we've seen the proposal. We gave feedback last time on this concept and feedback was adopted. Um, but before we go into this uh ordinance, I want to just introduce you to the fact sheet that was developed um to hopefully answer some of your questions that came up, which is just some people are saying, you know, what is the goal of doing this? Why do we, you know, why are we doing this? And so I wanted you to just run down and I just want to introduce you really to this document which was you know what is a vacant property ordinance? Um and would you know would Montpillar be creating a new and untried policy? The answer is no. You know lots of municipalities 12 Vermont municipalities have adopted a similar uh vacant property ordinance. This would be in our proposal for both um residential and commercial uh properties. And there are a lot of different fee structures. So if you scroll down to the fee structures, there are, you know, there are it really ranges um in terms of inspections or annual payments. Uh you know, Burlington's up to $6,000 annually. Bennington's up to $16,000 annually. It's a real rage for what vacant um means and to and and what the p what the penalty is. So in terms of like the goal if Montpielar did something like this I really I want you to look at this number five here if we scroll down below the chart which is the concept is that allowing buildings to remain indefinitely vacant is detrimental to public health safety and welfare that they can propose a danger to first responders in and interfere with reasonable and lawful use and enjoyment of other buildings in the in the neighborhood or downtown and have a negative impact on uh engagement and if degraded can detract from the character of community. So the they also leaving buildings indefinitely empty also reduces the opportunities for economic and pop and uh population growth. We just also have fewer people, you know, here in the community if we leave these buildings in vacant uh vacant indefinitely and fewer people in our than children in our schools. So, you would never want a community that had a massive amount of vacant buildings. You're then not having a robust community. And so, what is our um what what do we want to do as part of that conversation? And so that's the goal. And there is a proposal. I think we can go over to the um unless you want to say anything by way of context, Rebecca. I think we could just go into the the ordinance and Yeah. Any questions on the concept or Yeah. >> Well, I have a question because at the last meeting, Matt said he'd been in contact with somebody from >> Yes. M >> um who was interested in using student interns to do an inventory of vacant properties, which would be a step on the road, if you will. >> Um and I just wondered what happened to that. >> I'm I'm waiting for the semester to begin. >> It's a long road. >> Yeah. Also, uh it's my understanding that other municipalities who have moved forward did not do uh you know kind of the registry of vacant buildings before they move forward because it's very hard to create that a lot. There's a lot of guesswork that goes along with that and instead it's part of the ordinance itself. Is that what you have found in your research? >> Yes. So, um I just want to say Melar would not be the first community to do this. There are other communities that have been had that have had a vacant property tax um or vacant property um ordinance in place for some of them many many years. Um and if you want this is the same conversation we had two years ago. If you want to collect data you have to put an ordinance in place and say I am demanding that you give us the data that we're looking for. Um it's not going to be voluntary. And we found that with the with you know [snorts] all the other um policies that we considered in this committee um if you make it voluntary it's not going to happen. >> Okay. Uh so there is uh if you go to the ordinance itself there have been changes here uh the intent and purpose and then I would love to just take any questions that you have and talk about next steps with this. So, this is a concept that's come before us a couple times. I'd love to get a read of the group after we go through this on if there's interest to move it forward. And if moving moving it forward would not be voting on this language, moving it forward would be uh you know me and maybe Rebecca, should she be willing, having conversations with a couple council members to say, you know, you were interested in this. You asked us to look at this. are you still interested in it? And if you are, then we will get into all the details of the language and we will have a formal vote. But the next step, I think, is to do another vetting. It's been a little while since those conversations have happened. But so section two is the overview, uh, which is the one I read earlier. And then the definitions, we don't really need to say much about that except on the vacant building. So that last bullet point. So, I want to point out to you that in the last proposal you saw, uh, it did not have this 33% threshold, but there was conversation in the last meeting about better defining what a vacant building is. And so this definition here talks about it as a single family dwelling in which no one is legally maintaining a residence in the building or a two family or multif family dwelling where 33% of the units are legally o occupied and a commercial building that is not at least 33% occupied. So that was the um concept there. And then the fee structure, if you scroll down to section five, where the fees are, is based on a square footage, that also came out of the last conversation. And so the larger the the more units that could be in a building would have a higher fee than a building that would have fewer units or be smaller. And so those are the two the those are the two major shifts. Uh, and then as you might remember, there's a lot of exemptions, a ton of exemptions to this kind of thing. So, if it's under renovation, if you're trying to rent it, basically, if you're active in any way on the property nearly, it is um exempt if it is um vacant as a result of a natural disaster, a state of emergency, season, you know, only suitable for seasonal use. All of these different things would mean it's outside of this ordinance. Uh and then in terms of enforcement, which I think is worth noting is that would be based on well the the vacancy uh enforcement be triggered based on water sewer water usage. Correct. So with residential um it would be water and sewer. With commercial buildings there would be an affidavit which is what other municipalities do. um which makes it seems to be working for them. Um and then people can also uh you know any in Burlington they have a a reporting system so if if I said I think the building next door to me is empty um the city city manager or their design could look into it and use their their human judgment. Um so there's in all of this there's a lot of human judgment based you know invested by the um the city manager or their designate. So it's not saying this is an absolute in any way. If someone has a an argument against, you know, why they believe that it is a vacant, they can talk to a person >> and then the fees from this vacancy ordinance would go into the Montilier housing trust fund which would then be given back out uh to the community. So what uh and in Burlington they they um enforce based on electricity because they have their local electricity, you know, the Burlington electric there. here. We don't have that. So, we we're looking at a different utility. What questions do you have about the concept or the draft before you? Yeah, I I like I like the language in this a lot. I know we're not necessarily talking about the specifics of the language in here, but I can't remember if the the phrase active extensive renovation pursuant to permits issued by the city was in there last time, but I think that's crucial. Um, so we got feedback last time that the exemptions needed to be tightened up. >> Okay. >> And I think that there was there's a number. >> It is here. It's here. >> It's under 61. >> And I think that was one of the ones that was needed to be >> No, I think I think that's good. >> It is tightened up. It says pursuant to permits issued by the city that have not expired that render it uninhabitable or unusable for its intended purpose as deemed by the city manager designate. I just wanted to highlight that for everybody that I think >> it would be pretty easy to if if if you don't have language this strict about renovation, it's really easy to send somebody into a vacant apartment for 20 minutes and be like, "Oh, I'm painting this wall. It's under active renovation." And you're like, "No, that I think that that is that's a loophole that someone's going to drive a semi-truck through if it's not there." So, just want to highlight that. Dan, >> um on the exemptions bit, um industrial buildings are something that um came to mind reading the uh the size. Is there thoughts about buildings that are in industrial zoning and so would not be suitable for residential conversion? >> It is a really good question. It's something we talked a lot about. Um and I think that's a question of of the committee and how you want to how you want to approach it. Um I don't generally you're not going to put housing in >> industrial area industrial area. So we didn't mention it specifically. Um but it's something you can >> like it could be added as an exemption, >> right? >> Yeah. Okay. I'm going to note that industry here. Anything else? >> Yeah. >> Yes, Sean. >> Um yeah, so I think one of the questions that had come up before was I think administrative cost and and piece on that which I agree. I think tightening up these exceptions seems like it should be easier to to administer, more affordable. But um so two questions on that was one with the fees that are collected feeding back into the housing trust fund. Are those gross fees or is that net after deducting administrative costs of it? Number one. And number two, for it was interesting seeing Bennington and Brattleboro on there. I know we looked before it was Burlington and say we're kind of apples and oranges to Burlington but Brattleboro maybe a little bit bigger than us but starting to get more in our neighborhood. So just curious what if we saw what their experience was as far as administrative costs and revenue coming back and so forth. >> I don't know how much um Bradboro spec Bennington is still a draft so they don't have experience yet but um I could reach out to Bradboro and find out what their experience is. um in the use of revenue section 10 um you can fund pay for the the administration of this ordinance through um the the fees that you collect. >> Okay, thank you. >> Yeah, that's a good point. It seems like there would be a hierarchy there like pay for your administrative fees then the remaining go to the um trust. So we can we can fix that. Thank you Tim. Oh, >> just listening to the talk about revenues makes me think about our parking fund and in some ways it's a similar thing. We've created a a an ordinance to manage a resource and parking fund, the parking meters, the whole parking theme creates more as much bad as anything I can imagine >> when you really think about it. I mean, you get a ticket, people go, "Well, listen." And then the parking fund with the cost to administer it actually loses a couple hundred thousand bucks a year. So, we're really paying money. We're not generating fees um to the positive and we're not creating a good perception for our community. So, it's a fair question to say, are we doing the same thing again with this? Because I think about trying to go through in my head like Rebecca, how many vacant buildings do we really have? And then when we take that group off when I was hike going down state and Maine and just trying to get the core stuff, most of the ones that are vacant are still vacant from the 2023 flood. There's a few that weren't, but there's most of them like all the state buildings. You can go down the houses on lower state that are in the FEMA buyouts. Um how many properties are really going to be impacted by this? What's the net positive for Montilier versus it will create some negative waves. you're going to have a few property owners that you we you know we all know who have empty buildings. Um you can go after them and they're just going to lawyer up. I mean some of this is just lawyer food, you know, in terms of the language. Um >> well, it's certainly not their first. Um >> no. So anyway, that's my thought. I'm not sure it's the priority that we should be doing right now. >> Uhhuh. It will be up to the city council ultimately. Um but that's good that's good to know. Um Sandy, >> so um I think my only concern right now is um I mean the the logical confusion that I see is that the number one reason is health, safety, welfare, but any building that's well actually even including single family homes in Montpielar, we have a building officer and it is her responsibility to examine buildings that are reported as is is is either nuisances or actual hazards. And I don't know why we would solve that problem with a fee that goes towards housing. I I'm just the logic in me is a little confused right now why it wouldn't be solved towards fixing the hazard and um which has a cost. In Germany, that is what is done. If there's an if there's a vacant building, actually, even if it's occupied, the owner has a responsibility to keep it up to a certain level of of safety. I saw three um vacant buildings on River Road when I was driving the other day, >> and I was thinking about those as I was thinking about this, but there there are others uh certainly um that are in town that we would discover through this. Any other questions about the language or the concept? Yeah, Lauren. >> Um, not so much a question, but just um I mean I I think this new version really tightened up and provided good clarity and like I think the 33% instead of like the wall piece was confusing and >> I think the adjoining wall. So, um I think this feels like in good shape to go back to council and get a will of the council to see are they interested in pursuing this? What questions do they have? And then this committee if there's like a majority interest there in pursuing it could help work through remaining questions that come up. Um I mean I think you know we've talked repeatedly about you know we're sometimes bringing 15 10 units online. So even if we're not talking about that many units, I think it's directionally a good thing to do and you know like we're earlier we're talking about fees that are also not determinative of projects but send a signal of what the city is prioritizing. So for me I think it's personally I think it's a positive thing and certainly seems worth bringing to council since they expressed interest in seeing it and getting getting a sense of whether there's support or not. >> Okay. All right. Well, thank you so much, Rebecca, for all of your research that led to this and for Justin Barard who read the language and helped with a lot of the tightening um of this language. I I'll we can talk, but we should get the will of you know, council essentially before we move forward back here with with questions. And so those can be some next steps for us. >> That's awesome. Thanks so much. >> Um can I just say as a final um I live on a very short road, very very short. And there are two properties on my road um that have been vacant for years that would be really wonderful homes for families that would make a really good neighbor for me. So it isn't just flood impacted properties. It's people that sit on it for various reasons. Um, and if they want to continue to do that, that's their uh prerogative, but they should be paying in to a fund to support housing for others if they choose to do so. Thank you. Um, okay. So, we'll move into the priorities. This is exciting. The last few minutes of this meeting, you all have been troopers. I know we're going a little longer. Um, is just what do you want to do for the next six months? So, first off, let's look at what we have done. So, if we pull up the priorities doc. Okay, so we have accomplished some good things, folks. We got $100,000 in the um in the budget uh for the housing trust fund. We updated our tax stabilization policy to match the state level. We changed the local sprinkle ordinance. Uh, and we just got the housing trust fund um guidelines updated. So, those were some those were I think the biggest things that we've accomplished so far in the last year as the committee. Of course, we've like reviewed ongoing proposals and we'll continue to do things along those lines. But that those have been the the bigger accomplishments. We have things in works. So, like the short-term rental registration, we got to figure out if there's something moving forward on that. The vacancy ordinance, I think we got to figure out if that is going to move. So, there's some open questions, but what else or different do you want to prioritize? Yeah, Lauren, >> uh, two ideas, one like both of which have been on our list. Um, one just building on something we were talking about earlier. I'm wondering about how I mean think of like Rutland a couple years ago had put out it basically felt like a marketing pitch like we're open for housing and here's like a couple things we're doing and I like it would be great if Montpelier could do something similar and we have a package of maybe it's whatever this you know fee reduction and we're we've updated regulations and we're going to you know support you through chip and we're going to do you know whatever like come up with what that package is and some kind of thing and maybe we host developer you know celebr celebration day. I don't know like somehow we get this out to people but you know put out like our target but I think like somehow send a signal that like it's a new day in Montpielar and that council and the community and our new city manager and new mayor and everyone's lined up behind um building housing in Montilar right now. So that would be one thing that I think could be building on a lot of like the actual substantive work we're doing but trying to like package it up in a way to make sure it's getting out there to people. Um, and then the other thing that I think we could weigh in on, so you know, we had talked a while ago about um, the appeals process. And so there is a stakeholder group meeting right now convened like that was created by the legislature. And I think there's a lot that we've heard and I think there could be having some kind of um, way to weigh in on that and provide feedback to that process I think would be valuable. So, um, I'm happy to think more about what that could look like. But I think just knowing that's going on and will, I think, be an active legislative conversation in 2027. You know, having our feedback into that could be another priority. Great. What else, Alex? Well, his hand up. >> Oh, sorry. >> Mine's too big and too dark. [laughter] >> Why don't you go first? I see how big how dark it is. Um, two things. one we talked about >> one we talked about before um and that is the idea of a land bank or I mean these are about working with working to protect housing from certain market assumptions. Um, and a land bank would, I know the state was considering it at one point, they may have sheld it, but a land bank would allow the city to hold property um, for uses it wanted and it wouldn't have to fall under, as I understand it, the appraisal code of conduct of highest and best use. Um, so it would give some flexibility, would need funding. I mean it's just um and the other is out and out alternative forms of ownership um cooperatives housing trusts but not funds but holding properties in perpetuity outside of the conventional market system and making them available and downre does that and has a number of ways of doing that but downstre has a lot of large commitments in a lot of places and I think Montpielar could do something local um and I think the housing committee has considered that in earlier iterations talked to the Champlain Valley the Champlain Housing Trust people and they have different models. Um but I think it might be worth looking at alternative ownership models. >> Thank you Dan. Bring on the dark. >> Okay. um catastrophe proofing would be the way to sum it up is we're you know we're about four weeks from the end of the um uh strategic oil reserve. So um the gas prices are going up, building materials are going to increase in price again. Um the there's also u uncertainty about whether we're in a bubble related to AI economy. So there might be another downturn like there was in 2008. Um both of those or uh in 2008 that was one of the things that was widely credited with why Vermont was lagging so far behind in construction was because there was just a period where nothing was getting built. And so all of the construction firms went away. all of the supply um um chains were were disrupted for you know and and so it's big and it's it's um uh but thinking about how we can learn the lessons from past downturns um and um inflation cycles with with building materials and see if there's anything the city can do to keep the building environment ment alive in case um in case of a a worst case scenario economically. >> Okay, thank you Sandy. I actually have two. Uh the short one is I don't know uh how the state has followed up on their I think they passed uh an act to um consider uh turning over land for development that they are not using uh inside the capital complex. So I'm or even outside the complex. So I would really like to get an update on that and maybe this group would be the group to try to talk about some of those properties. The other one is that it is getting more and more urgent to for this group to uh follow through on recommendations actually get them to the planning committee for the development regulation review. and um we've made progress on what we thought were the top priorities, but um they need to get kind of move on to the planning commission. I guess they need to be voted on. I'd like that process to start happening next month and um that may take preparation time from this group so that they feel fully prepared. Um, but then uh cuz they're already working on revisions. They're on chapter 2 as far as I know. And I don't think it's helpful if we come up with our recommendations too late. >> Oh, yeah. True. Other things. >> Yeah. >> Guess I'd put a second vote for development review rags. I think there if there's any one factor that that's a reason why we're not seeing housing created my player, >> it's our zoning rigs and they're crushing it and it's it's both the the the regs that are so thick and and cumbersome and >> they just don't work. Um but it's also the way they're enforced. >> I think that's a given. We're definitely talking about that next meeting. um both of the topics, Sheamus's topics and the topics that Sy's bringing up, but we but there's more to do chapter chap future chapters too that we haven't brought forward. Um >> and I'm just not sure we get through it fast enough because it's so thick. >> Well, we could always have a special meeting on it, too. >> And I think we need to take this on in pieces. >> Yeah, this is a strategy. Let's talk about it. And if we have to have a special meeting just on that because it's so dense with a lot of preparation ahead of time, we can do that. Yeah, we could do that. Um, I'm wondering about two things myself. One is we heard some from 802 homes about like formbbased or pre-approved type housing. I don't know if we can do that here, but I think I would I would think that would be interesting to explore. Um, and then I'm just making a note to myself because I'm have the list. Uh, and also, um, going back to what Matt said earlier about what I'm thinking about as like transitional housing, um, as helping people's like pathways out of poverty through, you know, helping unhoused populations have more access to transitional housing would be an interest of mine, whether that's like pods or so, you know, different housing units we could incentivize or something along those lines. other things that people have. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. Sean. >> Um, yeah. So, a couple I think along those lines too of what we heard. I think a couple years ago, we had heard from the the Home Share of Vermont uh people. I'd love to hear a check-in from them. Just again thinking about getting along the lines of housing for people. It doesn't cost more. It's not the building. I guess it probably doesn't count toward our our goal of creating new units per year, but it is it is finding additional housing for um for people and making it affordable there. The second being on the 2027 the start of the legislative bienium. I know in the past we've talked about what things we you know kind of hit a roadblock on that would need um need a state input and it seems like this is the right time to be thinking about connecting with other um you know maybe it's connecting with other housing committees around the around the state for where to be be heard on the um at the start of the bianium. I mean, even hearing hearing Mike talk about once you have to go into the DRB, you're stuck on having to warn it and you're already halfway down your 45 days there. I think there have been discussions about are there ways to, you know, could the statutes around needing to warn in newspapers and needing to take so long, could those be tightened up in our electronic age? Um I don't know what movement there's there's been on that, but I'm sure there's many a whole list of things um statutory wise related to housing. >> Okay, thank you. Great list. We'll have to prioritize this. Um so >> 30 seconds. >> Yeah, sure. >> Uh the there's some inextricable things you've been talking about. The future land use map currently does not tell us where water and sewer capacity is. It tells us where there's a connection. There's a connection to Country Club Road. It just doesn't have the capacity for 300 houses. And nor do we have a capital budget that in any way meets statutory requirements. So we need to prioritize also densifying housing where it's not going to contribute to the combined sewer overflows. We we need to basically re accelerate or be realistic about how long it's going to take us to separate the storm water and build in areas that's not dumping increased amounts of raw sewage into the river. So that's a justice issue which is part of the regional plan. So the f the current future land use map is being proposed puts almost 2,000 acres of Montpielar into plan growth area which could trigger into tier 1A act 250 exemption that just a heads up we're not going to get all that and so rather than be disappointed or shocked we need to think about it's much easier to add they made it easy to add incrementally so we should do a modest ask for what we want to plan, but we don't know. The capacity that exists here is 10 times the capacity that exists on our planning commission. So unless some of y'all are going to join the planning commission, it's this is you're basically headed towards a a derailment. So the appeal also even tonight there is no legal basis for our userious appeal fee. It will not hold up in court. And the fact that we are attempting to do it is going to further damage Montpillar's reputation, you know. So, uh, soft housing I can talk to you a lot about. >> Okay. >> Thanks. >> Thank you. Uh, so there's a lot to do between now and the next meeting. Uh, let me try to do this by memory. There's okay fees. I will go to the city council and ask them to hold on any fee increase while we come up with a fee proposal. We need someone to do the fee proposal and the assessment on like what that should be. Should it be 50%, should it be zero fees? Should it be multi-year? How many years? What fees? >> Yeah, I'm happy to do it at least coordinating. So, >> okay, great. Thank you. So Sheamus and in with input from Tim and Sandy, does that work for you? Okay. Um, great. Thank you. The next piece is the vacancy ordinance. I will talk with city council as I said to gauge interest on that and we'll take it back up when that makes sense for the council. We need to move forward with input into the planning commission on all the map and mapping pieces and also the regs that that are being reviewed and we likely need a special meeting just on that and preparation leading up to that because that'll be pretty dense. So Tim and Sandy if you could think about that that's your piece. Um, on the priorities, I will take the list of priorities. I will put together a spreadsheet or maybe Lauren and will do this and or Lauren and I do this. Yes. >> Yes. Happy to. Because I do want to be thinking too about like it's not too far off that it's budget season and stuff. So, if we have budget implication things that we're trying to give city council as much notice as possible around anything in that vein. So, because kind of look at calendar and what makes sense with legislative schedule, budget schedule for the city and things like that, >> right? And so then we'll come back to you with that. But then we need to put names next to these things and put them in order. So we need to figure out who's gonna who's going to be working on what. I feel like Sheamus, Tim, and Sandy, you're like locked down for the next like year of your lives on different things. So maybe you don't take on anything else, but the rest of us need to, you know, we'll take on our pieces. Um we're not sinking into massive amounts of regulations. We're just here to review your recommendations. Yeah. Okay. Anything else? I'm going to Let me wrap us up. Can I have a motion to >> 802 homes? >> Oh, 802 homes is on the list. Yeah, it's on the list. Can I have a motion to adjurnn? >> Yeah. Thank you. All right. Second. All in favor? Great. We're closed. [music]