i'd like to welcome everyone this evening to the to the planning commission meeting if you haven't just if you could make sure that you sign into the clipboard as you come in or some point before you leave that that just helps us keep track and keep a sort of a lead into this i don't think we have much else going on except for that you know there's nothing else on the agenda tonight not for because we're not taken testimony on the application so this is a presentation we're not taking that there we won't be taking action on anything tonight this is literally just a presentation on what's happening but there is room for some q and a given a absolutely so data so this is the first time that the full planning commission has seen wrapped e t c next plan and it still is very much a draft we haven't finished the last chapter yet which is one part and it's been guided along and so we felt that even though it's not complete it was definitely time to bring the planning commission in on this process because they're going to be the ones that are going to be making decisions and adopting it and with that before we get into the introductions i want to because i don't want to completely blow the agenda out of the water because some will get mad at us later i would like to ask if there's if anyone would like to offer any public comment this is not there's an opportunity for pretty much anything this is open for me to bring to us and you might want to say to us hearing on now would like to in today's are super front porch community planning in boston and they are really good team thank you for the invite it's also nice to see a bunch of the steering committee members here and as  said one of the things that when we began this project about a year ago little or near ago in earnest about a year ago we wanted to do is make sure we had a good steering committee that actually brought some very perspectives to the conversation so just to buy a  that master plan and asked the question is is it still serving purposes of the community adequately and that was one of the things that when we first became engaged with with dane and staff it was really evident was when we didn't want to completely throw out the existing master plan because there's a lot there that was actually good and i think this plan tries to pull in some of that goodness but also understand some of the things that we heard were really driving the conversation and as you go through this document what it's trying to present and draft form at least is a picture of here's what you've got today here's what the situation is maybe differentially from the from the earlier master plan is what is the regulatory structure you can create within the community to allow that that process to happen in the way you want so just i'm going to do my best to folks in the back see that second screen ok or do we need to turn lights on and all is that we can turn that monitor a little bit are know so you get on ok yeah i'm going to highlight the point so it's not about reading this i think hopefully you can get it from the presentation of the context so there was really three big goals that the project started off with one was trying to understand what that what does influence pattern of development yes i don't think it was one big thing second was just abolition vision what was the vision you want to have there and what kinds of development where kinds of uses should go on what's working today what would you like to have the third thing was what determines the set of tools that you want to have support that and if you want to make one critique or criticism of the the earlier of the existing master plan was that it's it's tools to steer development in the way you want to probably we're not robots they were both of us  we were asked to simply to make the colors nice existing maps so hopefully match up you know so just for reference for the audience who got at the top of the images and this is going to be pretty consistent throughout the top of the images is the is the is the intersection of old stage road towers  as it has been originally contemplated as you can see from the different color coding and i'm going to detail here but there are still a patchwork of different zoning districts that define the t c and some of the zoning districts are residential and focus some of them are more mixed use and focus but they all have a role to play in sort of evolving the land uses the land uses that happen and it's a fairly complicated set of this district has lots of  hundred two and the we had available to us landsat information satellite information sort of math those three time periods we could look at that gave us some good information and bottom line is the pattern developing a t c has not changed that much not much has changed now things have changed for sure but the pattern the overall pattern developing you know in around two eighty nine is still we're developing as we've heard largely there is still  or it's got one of the things that the plan also talks about is is the sum of the forms that have been built out and what you have been seeing over the last decade or so has more been more residential development with the essex county center so that's introduced some new so just to give an aerial perspective here one of the things we looked at it is really important part of this project was sort of understanding views and you know you know the community is going to live over the last few decades to really understand understand  for the use of camel's hump and so that was information that helped inform that later on in this process some of the conversations around hyped and some of the conversations around building pipes that might make some sense in terms of make sure to make sure that you can encourage more we also as part of this project we had the university of vermont spatial analysis lab fly a drone over the whole horrible over fifteen corridor and that proved to be useful information from a number of perspectives when you know there was a good imagery that came out of that there were certainly good contacts that came out of it but they also shot elevations and of everything the heights of everything in the t c and one of the things that we were able to do was really look it with more detail about the the changing terrain within the e county center and how that relates to what's happening on the ground so in this map for example the lighter blue green colors are lower in elevation in the darker blues and purples so the ground elevation is dropping down so just for reference fifteen's they're all stage road is right here this is the that by the intersection so you can see that in general terms the grades are dropping downward from from old stager oh down two to the to eighty nine corps that's really important we  because one of the things that what do you hear your current regulations do is they say heights height doesn't really matter how it relates to terrain so in in this case one of the things we discovered in and talked with the steering committee at several instances is about as well you know if the train is dropping away would taller buildings be ok and closer to eighty nine because the net effect of that might be to not have as much impact on the roof corpora that doesn't excuse buildings for being poorly designed or doesn't read excuse them for not relating to other viewpoints but as a general discussion point we thought let's look at this from a three dimensional perspective and see what that might do and this was really helpful and i think what this was particularly helpful in this area where we really saw this most pronounced trait chang vision the rest of the t c as you can imagine is fairly constraining to the a narrow band along the fifty or so there's not as much of that going on this is the one area where it really opens up and it allows for that conversation so that was another thing that came up obviously the the the on the real positive side is you have computer have a sewer core area and you have water infrastructure here which is great you're not trying to build something from you actually have a lot of infrastructure work with the biggest problem and this is where chapter and data i was alluding to in chapter eight which will be in there is right now the amount of allocation for sewer is not enough to support any significant you know suit a significant amount in the t c there's a gap and a fairly a fairly substantial gap and one of the things that will be a recommendation in the chapter is can we work can the community work so look at this all as allocation policy broadly and as you probably know as he probably shows up here quite frequently paul's a great resource to understanding some of these issues and you know paul was i think the last during to be saying give me five minutes a map i can give you a hundred thousand you know downs and capacity and i think that the point the other thing that we wanted to make sure was we're not sort of ignored in the process we did really early on have spent quite a bit of time was looking at some of the resources and you know on the positive side most of the a t c is free of drill a lot of the major ones there's not there's not like of a lot of the e t c a lot of the evolution d t c is going to be adaptive reuse it's going to be you know redevelopment in some way and you already have seen some of that conversation going on as a community and that's an important consideration so new greenfield development is not going to be as much of an issue particularly if we take another hard look at this golden triangle and ask ourselves is that the right area to include in that that is greenfield development the bulk of this is not so that was an important  so through you know just to recap some of the key things and give them the the draft talks about these in more detail we did a number of community outreach because we had a focus group discussion in may last year  and unfortunately picked the best nice is sunny a sedan in a six months but you know happened but we had a good we had a good crew there was all day all some of the folks that work for there are here today and that was very appreciative we had a really interesting to our block session of of keypad polling focus group discussions around different aspects of place making we looked at the kinds of boat building forms with western connections types and uses all sorts of stuff in that focus group of capture some of those key points sort of a magic in a scenario where all of that shopping and retail kind of goes out the window and there's also known all those reservations but i think the community was really around me to rally around the idea that one of the things that make different perhaps is that it does have this shopping entertainment element and get to be more mix yeah but don't lose that core of pieces of parks he grew fifteen and traffic in there was you know that's not the elf in the room i'm not sure what is but fifteen is an important regional you know road with it needs to be maintained for flowing traffic and i think one of the things that we took to bear was like whatever we propose we were thinking about we have to be cognizant of that so  couple things that are in the mention in the document that are really important thing to recognizing that growth can continue to happen and residential growth can continue to happen but do don't do some don't do some things to exacerbate the the flow so don't make some changes that are going to  density reparation becomes really important and open space and recreation related so that's another thing we will talk about a while we get back to the idea of a shopping entertainment district the retail piece people like the fact that if i have a mix of local one destination retail it's not like you know it's not like in manchester new remodel or it's just all the ash outlet malls and that's not it's not like church to where maybe just all the shop is a combination of things and people felt that that was a good good next open space and  everybody well not everybody but shoes percentages of people felt that maintaining open space and views are really important so that was a critical component of the vision elements  brown ok architecture this is where it got hard heavy and so you know not only long love about the architectural expression in the p c engine but i think what what people felt through the be the rich process we took as that is that you know trying to create something that was was distinctive and unique in character trying to promote some more unique characteristics would be good give it some identity  making sure that the height and mass of structures don't impede those long range of use that that's an important consideration keep that the human scale promoting a design of building design a relationship between buildings and and people it's a little more logical so one of the things that the the vision ultimately should jest is more of a grid orientation for example in the mixed use area so that the pedestrians can feel like they're walking down the street and it's just not a semblance of different diverse parking lot or some relationship nearby which is really good you've got a diverse already diverse mix of uses so ok double down and let's sort of see if we can get a density that actually maybe may actually increase the vibrancy of the area by adding people because that's actually one of the things that was sort of look at the overall if you see that's business is the number of people so there was a lot of discussion with the group and i think the diversity you know looking at a diversity of forms is actually really important so what came out of this  was hey you know let's give a vision statement and i'm going to read it for me the book basically it really is talking about trying to create some neighborhoods within the e t c to have some distinctive characteristics that you can look at like the  the historic center for example has some characteristics that are important to preserve and you've already taken steps regulatory steps to make sure that's the case but keep those and keep some neighborhood distinctions that actually provide some value but try to find a way to link them together and try to find a way to give them some common reference and common connection between them and also to shape the architectural expression more for formal use some tools and that's what the sluggers project is really all towards is figure out some tools to find some tools that help you promote good architectural outcomes and so like so that you're not you know in as new applications command you can clearly communicate some of the things you want to try to have two potential developer so they know what they're getting into so there's a clarity around the as opposed to well what's your what your pitch and we like it and how that's good and that's one of the things that we're working with staff to really is project was really clear was that we wanted to have better guidance towards the evolution you can see as opposed with that you know one of the first things we we came up with was this sort of block diagram diagram if you will of where the boundaries are so just for reference as those the big dash lines the is the outer c originally the c boundary and the colored areas that sort of toned in areas are the different districts or neighborhoods that we're talking about so we shrunk it by about twenty five percent as it will be nine hundred thirty business over time will be residential building around it will create a neighborhood with a room with a commercial core to it and there's obviously a lot of buildings in the uses in here that are home occupation take uses or what we're residential uses in our businesses so it's going to continue to have that and then the catch the other two are so the area the rail all the all the broken in the town forest is recreation and conservation that's what its function is now and we fully expect it to be going down the road and then there's other third last one is this residential recreation so yes we'll talk about in a minute we were dead a fight obviously this is that transitional land between the you know some more mixed use environment and sort of the more rural landscape of the rest of  northern essex and we saw that you know there is residential potential there there make some value to make some make some sense to have some residential development there but organizing that residential development around with consideration open space recreation would be really important because it could offer up an opportunity for the whole e t c have access to some recreation opportunities there that you don't have any of brick which is up here doesn't have you know it's a passive recreational farm so there's an area within the  that have a little more active recreation that might help with that and this is just of a different flap you version sort of sort of see but one of the things that we won the service has existing infrastructure on so you can sort of see you know oh a large majority you know mixed use north gives you sort of the basic pattern isn't by no means meant to be the definitive planned outcome for the e t c so that being made but was meant to explore some of the the opportunities and and to test some air towards the interchange because that could be a group the track of location for a hotel for potential and then as you go towards or towards the north it would actually transitions or more lower you know more single family or cottage style uses so there's a little bit of a transition there but still largely residential focused with a with an enclave perhaps of more commercial a key component of to this of this is to make sure that the access off fifteen is me again in a way that aside develops or if there's any redevelopment on on the north side of the it's done in a way that understands what it should be careful about too many curb its own fifty feet in the flow of traffic through the other kind of important part of this i think was the the notion that you know again there's a diversity of uses and what the things that were six suggesting is you're sort of see in this plan as it is a much stronger grid it's a grid that actually starts to really between what's there today don't touch it m what's there today and and what can happen around it so one of the things is the less the concept sort of illustrates is having a grid can help define where those we're building envelopes go can create a better relationship between those building overlooks in the street and allow for some some some better interaction between pedestrians and architecture the other thing but the other ideas is that and this is something i know that's been sort of talked about is is there's a big green for example down here in the center of it so the idea is  excited about that idea of having open spaces actually makes sense not just a fifteen you know subject to what was the issues and all of that there are some fairly deep plots there and there is some potential to develop land on that backside and one of the ideas that came out of our process was can we connect you know a road back there to the price drop or property to allow that intersection that that like the function of the access point to some of that development back versus limiting you know providing fourteen different corporate some fifteen which would really be defeating the purpose so it seems to make a lot of sense now obviously it's not it's rock with with development challenges you know that and lease not which is to you know making sure there's not a constraints that w that but the idea is that you know again thinking about adaptive reuse of this over time that shopping center starts to be integrated with the neighborhood around it those are customers those are people that might use that facility to walk down the grocery store so it really starts to give th connection on the towers road would be really helpful in some portions of this part of the the d c to allow for some a different access point that we see from for emergency egress and also just for flow so that's not all dumping  area and and the residential is this the brown that orange is nonresidential in open spaces and in the world of the percentages but you can see it's largely residential that's the key that we see is largely resident whereas in the next year south you can see it's large you know there's about half of it residential but the other half of the land allocation would be divided between the open space and and commercial use so there's a i think there's a recognition of the vision that that keeping a vibrant commercial enterprise going on in the d c mix juice out there it would be really helpful to keep that after  percentage actually there but still a very neighborhood scale commercial enterprise that would be there to serve that community and then open spaces i oops overlap here just kind of moving on to some of the other parts of the plan discusses mobility and connectivity so you know we i think went to great pains to make sure that route fifteen was not  turned into a mainstream you know one of the things we heard you talk about this early on the project was well it's true and you know fifteen of the mainstream put the buildings right on front of us like we didn't hear that we didn't hear that from the public that was not something that sort of came out of like let's do that you've done some things relative to the green belt for example you know in the in portion you can see that kind of create some buffering between fifteen some of the development and we think that's a great idea and the recommendations are to continue that on both sides of fifteen in the next two score  actually creates a nice sort of linear park along with the area which i think would be a huge asset but we also recognize that we want there are some really important plates you know things to do in terms of crosswalks and defining is one that's really i think particularly important is over by the price chopper where the you know the crossing is now in one of the things that we see again and as if that evolves into the access point into a neighborhood that becomes really important crossing point the other thing is we have if it articulated in the plan is the idea of actually creating a larger site path basically a wider ten foot wide bike lane which is already started on the south side of fifteen and has actually have the crossing point over to the north side happen at the price chopper which would allow you to take advantage of the signalized intersections for that cross will allow people to get over it ultimately getting to school venture so the idea is that that side path could keep go going on on the north side of fifteen minutes of the school cross towers or venturing on really important piece there is no real road bed to the kind of cuts through there that one of the one of the ideas that was communicated was maybe that something over the long haul could be looked at as another as another alternative multiuse path to a to allow folks to get around this you know the rest of fifteen in the interchange there there are sections giving and eventually get over to the school which would be interesting combination rush options but it may be a little longer term but this is the kind of thing that you know terms of mobility is to to weave these neighborhoods together now the other thing is the plan discusses internally sidewalks or it's that's a really important part of the diet in the over fifteen to put all the bicycle combination to do all the things you want to do but if we can get a ten foot wide side path that does a lot for at least some of bicycle accommodation roadway bicyclists john fluted will still be on the  the other piece that was really spent a lot to put a time always open space and really starting to look at open space not as as as i said just a leftover land from a development project but how does open space fit into separate types that may actually serve the ends of the community and this is a really this can be really challenging thing for communicative hands around because you know traditionally you look at open spaces open space has been the purview of the developer of the city ok we've got our calculation thirty percent open space and here it is when you start getting into some of the process we're talking about what you try to do is try to steer the conversation open space to what kinds of open space makes sense within certain parts of this overall area relative to what the community needs so as an example in the mixed use areas for example the types of open space big might include things like classes and outdoor park pocket parks and you know street almost streetscape elements as opposed to large vacant fields and that's a really important consideration to sort of think about because it gives you as a community ever to visit a developer we want your open space we love the open space who can look like this more blessed and more than th and that's a really important thing that the plan is trying to articulate is that there is a palette of open spaces a sort of types of open space we haven't defined still of the some communities do we have to find really specific parameters around you know you have to have a one park bench for every five people but we both you know we want for that there is also open space that serves the public role that serves the public in march only if you're building open space down here in the mixed use areas where there's a combination of commercial and more local to neighbor observing me maybe a community garden or just a feel for that and that's ok i think the plan tries to articulate some of those ideas on a round the definitions of those districts and that's one of the i think one of the big things on trying to promote is this idea that open spaces are your palate and you pick from those and also then this aligns with that connectivity point to make sure that you know if you're providing open spaces can you connect them together so can somebody go from this you know this plaza down time there's no there's no common unifying visual expression and whether or not you need a common unifying visual expression we don't have a fully strong sense of that from people but but there is some there were some plan talks about this it doesn't have to be ok we have one we have one sort of way of finding and signage piece here we have one way of finding signage because here maybe there's a common thread that can be woven throughout them that that sort of unifies the whole place but that relate to the the bulk of the t c that the mixed use environment is there something that can be done and a good locals case study for that and you've been to stowe you sort of see they use the same font throughout so it doesn't matter for the mountain or at the village there's a there's a visual motif that actually weaves it all together and there's a so that's that is an element that can be explored means we're going to recommend that that's something you think about doing is you know what you what could you do to bring this place together so when somebody says head over to a six town center right now they think of just this and there's a way to make that that experience maybe a little bit broader and give people a sense that this is a place within six that actually does have some connection to each other so one of the the big parts of this real document so far is chapter six which really brings together a lot of information about these districts that we're describing and we really concentrate on sort of the main distributed as we didn't provide this for the residential recreation district or conservation district primarily because the kinds of issues are just like what took it and residential district is meant to be a little bit lower lower density residential so not as and i think it's really important to recognize that that's one of the steps that this project ultimately want to get to go we go into is a regulatory process trying to dig into a zoning code but what it was really meant to try to get you to think about the really good the relationships between  these districts detail but just in general terms of sort of incoming high points is it really is i think for the first time at least in essex's experience starting to connect this idea that that its uses are really important you know as appoint a commission you spend a lot of time you know debating this you also start to look at the form that used takes so a commercial enterprise is not a commercial enterprise as on a commercial enterprise the form does matter and if you go back to the that also the you know where was the e t c of all from one of the one of the common refrains from people was you know the forms that have developed today have not done it's just they've missed out some opportunities to really create interesting place they don't really relate to people that well there's just some things that if we could go back and magically redo it we would we do if we have her death we heard that loud and clear so i think one of the things that we were trying to do in this or in this draft is to is to start to introduce some tools that you might consider to help you get those developing applications and hopefully prove before you get them and have those conversations and say you know use is really important to use is a really important the form those uses take is also important let's talk about that so back to density so one of the things that the bit that buildout analysis did is it is it resulted in we did a bunch of calculations a servant ok if we have why this as a general rule how many units we're going to get and this is a residential build out as you can see the red orange bar represents if you if everything happens as it magically can happen and the brown bar is with there today roughly and you'll see w now as i think the planning commission tains and from the public's benefit what you can get through the zoning process and what you can get the real world don't always a line up there's always silly things that affect that we have made  some provisions within the build out amounts to just for things like you know adaptive reuse versus the greenfield or is it really constraining all that but it is important recognize that this would represent probably a maximum commission certainly we've also made some assumptions in this and we get to this in a second about height and we go ok well if you're going to get this density you're not going to get it with one story buildings in the t t c so there is a congress that this is this is part of this general terms there is a you know the mixed use south and the mixed use north and the highest ends of these associated with residential development in the recommendation on and those are you know eight units creek or twelve newsgroup and those are densities that i that are consistent with with sort of the good more amusing ever been a very loose term but of a much more urban type density a much more neighborhood place making kind of density when you get to that level of density you can start to do so you'll start getting some things you'll start getting  some opportunities to make those other things you want like streetscape and place making happen because there's enough value intensity to actually support that it's also a rule of thumb and that's about the no density you need to support regular highest level in migration then anywhere else in the country more people are moving here does it feel like it but that's what the moving companies tell you here is a migrant from new jersey i knew that already so that's why i asked but no it's a really good point david so you know we give them you know the one of the things that sort of backdrops of this project and i think that's reflected in sort of the build out is is you have an opportunity within the d area in the area there's a lot of other competitors for sure i mean you know this has been doing a lot honestly burlington is going up significantly celebrations trying to build in a city center so there's a lot going on but you do have some i think some after abuse that are forward but the overall emphasis is is to you know allow for higher density residential uses because we feel like that it's going to give you a platform on which to allow some of those commercial enterprises to make some sense it will allow you to the let some other commercial enter in a non retail commercially live work environments actually happen because you need people there a little more so than the us and those are some of the things and i think the other thing that is really important to guys is that even even you know this number is not that scary relative to leetspeak i mean it's not like come back in you're five thousand residential you know twelve hundred fifteen hundred thirty hundred whatever the number and is it being you know twelve under the number is not so out of scale with the scale of your love this area that it creates all sorts of exacerbates transportation issues you know it doesn't it doesn't create the you know the possibility of a real catastrophic outcome and i think that's important because we did you know again we want to make sure things like fifteen don't get pushed because the densities don't mix of sets and this isn't level density that that and it only are our expression is it feels like it it's it's achievable it's doable it's supportive of the goals and a vision but it's not so aspirational that you would never in a million years get there i'm sorry if my voice is starting to go in i've been fighting a whole week so one of the things we looked at spent a lot of time talking with people about his height and i want to just you know i have these images on here just for reference and i think oh explain a little bit more in detail after but you know in the in some of the t c for forty feet so this is sort of a baseline but one of the things we really thought would be important to think about is that what a building looks like is also important in addition to the height so just because it's forty five feet or forty reality so you start getting out of this sort of rote discussion around well if it's over forty feet never and if it's you know if it's over if it's thirty five feet it's awesome because it's on your form that's the i think that's one of the fundamental things we're trying to introduce a pictures north we've got to height maximum height recommendations forty feet as you go to that more residential area sort of towards the old stage road and fifty five feet as you get to the interchange because again it's dropping down innovation and also it's behind people there's not a lot of obstruction of you from there you're not going to see anything from you know the the quarter there so it does it does allow we think it  for a taller recognition like there because of that similarly as you go from fifteen tours to eighty nine in the mix to south district forty feet up on long road because there is obviously those concerns about those long range use the impact on on those long ridge use from fifteen but when you start heading down past you know where the where the pena for his is sixty five feet can get you on the higher density and over that distance actually that the grades drop about thirty feet so the net effect is a sensually you know about the same height relative to the fifteen core this discussion though i think you know you know isolation so well gusher talk about making everything really tall this comes with also with going back to the it comes with consequence that you don't just get to build a sixty five foot tall building you get to build a sixty five foot tall building that actually relates to this street has good presence on the street has stepped back at certain heights because then the allows for the views to maintain the building doesn't look like a big being able to put a parking deck in our parking deck is not a proposition very expensive proposition but it also should relate to the architecture so that it's not standing alone by itself with nothing surrounding so this is kind of an example of a wrapped parking garage and at this point this figure illustrates a couple really important components of it and again the plan talks about this in the more detail but there's this again there's the parking garages back here on the end of the garage where the number two is the frontage  building the primary shriek you'll see doesn't look like a parking garage and that's important so that you your primary street is invigorating and vitalize the primary street also has what we don't we're defining as his primary  been working with setback requirements like thirty feet and the point ever built to line says you've got to build you can't go past that line you've got to bring that building close to the road you want to build we want that building here we don't want that building hundred feet away in a parking lot if you want to put that building here close to the roads and you actually start to create now these can vary by district so depending on the district or and they can vary with train primary roads and secondary streets of doesn't have to be  you also can't allow how and do people do allow for articulations of the building so there can be talking about this or are working on this is a move forward as parking is also in over time that others a lot within the e t c where the the community says you know what we want to have another key point of the of the structure is the point is to look at the own variations on on the street profile you know your your your current street standards do not fully accommodate the kinds of development that the d c is thinking about so and this is the i know this is going to be part of the process going forward but the idea of looking at street types as again a street different kinds of stories as types and applying th differentially in different parts of the agency and that's actually something that's really important to have a pop portfolio of streets now that has to be worked out with public works it has to be a thoughtful conversation around there but i think one of the things that this plan to try and introduce is this idea that that the relationship between where that public spaces and these buildings is really important and how much the community wants to control versus how much it's willing to let the private sector control is an important debate that needs to happen if you want to shape the outcome of a place as forcefully as you can then the more you control the better if you don't want to have then there are reasons not to cost a dollar sort of thing then you can sort of bring that in but having that introduces those for sure it also starts to introduce the open space types into the mix so just to get laid out so that it also starts introducing you know how the streets make the kinds of feeling in the imagery that might some support those things it talks about the verses that you know a larger commercial or a larger mixed use building does make sense there were guess goes back to that idea about the public ground so you know where you know what is the public realm and how does that relate to the architecture around it this is an important part of the you know the conversation with the t c is is what do you want this to do this is you know community responsibility developer maybe shared responsibility in some cases it's not only the proposition burlington is spending twenty three million dollars on a bunch of improvements that actually are here and spill over to here so they're actually doing and i'm not suggesting any way shape or form that this succeeds it's going to end three million dollars on that but it is start to start thinking about the relationship between the street and these buildings and have that conversation about what you want to do and what your expectations are happens outside of that is really kind of the main point and again back to i just mentioned in quickly the open space times before each district you know with looking at different types of open space within each district so in this every commercial parks and greens and pocket parks and community gardens playground are the kinds of pattern book that every house and every structure in a six time center needs to conform to that would be kind of an interesting thing to try to do with we did not dare try to do that but what we are trying to do is communicate you know some parameters fundamental parameters about the relationship between the buildings and the surroundings and so for example in this particular how you know this case it's a single family home and you'll see it the bill to line there is bigger it's going to bigger than a front yard that just makes sense it's going to  is a larger mixed use building and again it doesn't apply that corner in one of the things that came you know as a den a fight is put to some screening some architectural character on the front which it actually looks like part of the building and you can wrap it around to the corner so doing as a community and again is whether it's a short term long term is a question but the commission is thinking about doing in terms of promoting the vision and that could include things like starting to get the idea of the sidewalk improvements on fifteen so that it didn't put the process another big thing is right now fifteen is a class one state highway and so if you want to start doing some of these intersections where it's not of what we're talking about would be a nightmare if you try to get you if you control as a class one tell highway you can have the abilities are going to have this conversation look at speed limits look at crossing points the median becomes a function thing now the trans will still want to start thinking about that get going back to you know what didn't the original master plan do that would have been something that we will master plan presented a medium to govern of all of our two and you know you can do it right so having we have playing commission in terms of what you're thinking but when we got the r p a part of what we were charged with doing was looking at more form base codes types of regulations and what you see tonight reflects a lot of that in that we're really looking a lot regulations and so we were good in trying to got was that the current design business design review district is really hard to apply as it applies across a bunch of different types of developmental areas and it hasn't developed in a consistent fashion so we were this is the only charge was looking at the design review overlay district but also looking at  another option which would be a pure form based code you know and again a lot of what we've talked about tonight are elements of a base code i don't know how many of your are familiar with that process but it's a much different approach to local regulation that a lot of communities are considering but basically it would be taking this master plan taking all those forms attaching a lot of numbers to them and saying this is our zoning it's very prescriptive there's not much of a role for the planning commission or the develop if you have a development review board or the zoning board it's just you know you have to meet these forms you have to meet these dimensions if you check off the list you're good to go certainly developers architects who like that because it's much easier to get permits that way but it does not architects less so developer today for public input into the process but again a lot of the tools that mark was identifying that come out of the form based code are very useful in terms of applying to new development one of the other things we're considering the current zoning is based really on old tools as mark said it's conventional zoning a lot of it at the time the map first master plan was done was greenfield so there's a lot of reliance on things redevelopment more incremental forms of development so the suggestion is taking some of these forms as mark said in chapter six they're defined by district in hard wiring them in tears owning district so part of updating the zoning would be taking a look at the current districts updating them to match the vision in the neighborhoods or the districts that were really developed as part of the master plan but put ting those kind of form based design standards right within your your zoning district codes and so that might include you know updating the purpose statements again there's a lot of vision statements are tied to each of these districts that would go into the zoning and updating the purpose statements here make sure that it can happen elsewhere a good example that if we do if we redefine the use that makes sense to achieve the vision for the p c we don't i have a consequence of procedure someplace like that so it's going to be and that's another reason why looking at the district within the t c kind of you sort of separate belief from the rest of the community might be valuable so you don't create as many of those unintended consequences of a change here ripples through to some other part of town which you definitely i mean one of the things to be honest we've been looking at is the car repair things like that we're looking to make sure that they're allowed somewhere but not so we're basically taking uses in the tables and saying well these are the types of residential we want these are the types of commercial we want these are the types of city misses and each of those types have form types associated with them and it's also to make sure that mixed use is easy to do almost by right i mean not without any review under the current regulations a structure everything with a lease probably go through site plan review so part of this would be making sure your site is you know as he said there's things like built one of the things we're going to suggest is that you look at minimum and maximum as well as minimum to not just as a district type limitation but looking at building stories as they relate to building types and building forms so it's trying to introduce a lot of these design elements into your zoning district cable plan talks about parking at least of them at the this level and says you know one thing that we think is really important is we talk about different types of parking so there's surface parking and structured parking and integrated architectural parking and all of that those are all  think appropriate to certain districts certain types of parking access but the other part of parking is the idea that shared parking right now the three or four versions work is you can apply a shared parking analysis were recommendation of the master plan is to think you want to try and we could go for a form based code but again the recommendation now the report i think they start discussions with staff in the steering committee is going to be a more of a hybrid approach but that does mean that there's going to be a lot more individual decisions as you go through that process and less so than now you know in terms of what was on the industry's so that they don't float out there separately since they are more much more integrated in terms of uses forms and types there was a there was there was really three three rationales that i had and they think the sureness talked talked about relates to the use of a hybrid approach  one of them obviously is this the notion of flexibility and i think that flexibility is really important particularly here because so much was infill one of the things that for base code doesn't have as much it's harder for form based code to address some of the complexities of in film redevelopment because it's not it's not a greenfield it's not a blank slate you're starting with constraints related to just de adjacent architecture or site know that they have to deal with so that was another consideration another element of that was understanding the capacity of the community to to regulate relative to a form based code and i think as you should point out share in that it is a different animal and it's sometimes very tough for communities that have had a very traditional approach to sort of just give up some of the control they have relative to what the columbus code does because a core base code does have been it's almost administrative if somebody does exactly what's in the plan they don't even need to go to the planning commission of year and that's a really tough thing for a lot of communities to deal with it also can be tough for staff too because it it it makes it harder to have those conversations about unique circumstances and you know things that might come up within the committee that are you know that are priorities that won't necessarily put into the plan what it was adopted so i think that was one of those or some other reasons why i think that the recommendation is the rec in terms of other things we've learned talked about waste water but there's a lot of other things to think about them that's true in connectivity a lot of that stuff that that stage and also with looking again that plan going to development and how it might be applied in within this new context again it's not a lot of green field development but there may be instances where you still want to allow those kinds of modifications and leaders to have something in to the it is responsible for that you know we're getting much more into public private partnerships in terms of finances a lot things these days so that's one mechanism for allowing for that that the parking garage examples you didn't were at play be you know maybe make some sense for a development agreement to sort of capture the relationship between the private entities in this and the community and the development team and provide a mechanism to do that and also public works standards mark mentioned that right now your your street  street improvements are in your public works standards which is fine it's just making sure that they relate to some of the the types in for and also one of the things we may suggest is potentially adopting an official now especially for some of the like pen connection the sorts of things up there our understanding is right now you you've done that on your town plan maps and you have very detailed well i will say that if we're going to use the master plan as a basis for new regulations you're probably going to have to amend your in your town plan to at least incorporate it by reference or have it attached to the back so that there's some basis in policy for some of the things that we're suggesting but you can do that at the same time as you amend your your regulations so it doesn't have to be a huge stretch  process but obviously as you determine how the given area is going to be developed there's going to be impact on project the school how do you handle space allegations the new building the school residential units probably for decades so i think that you know any of the impacts that would be associated with a development every development occurs in address it's on impacts anyway at the time but if in the overall planning perspective i don't think there's a huge red flag in terms of being able to address that with the incremental the station that's been coming up when you have kids the type of structures in given areas i don't know if the town i don't think the town has has yet decided to promote certain energy clean energy aspects and that would affect the architecture and given plant if you planning a community say with a central courtyard in maybe some recreation facilities everything needs balance you know maybe there's a smart we didn't come back we heard certainly sir some comments about we don't we don't want to have flat roofs or only fly roofs and generally speaking that certainly was a commerce while people had and certain parts of the d c they probably don't make as much sense but in some parts c looking at the different forms may allow for that consideration of solar and i think that's a really important thing to make sure that the community as it's looking at the flowers who's this type the structure of belongs here and so as these changes are coming forward i find out about him after the fact and it becomes very difficult for me to assure myself that i'm not losing rights in the uk and so that's my biggest concern so i feel  but if we have your commentary on as part of this process so they can be included basically every step of the way that your concerns your questions or your your what your what you want to address is clearly laid out i'm fully expecting that those those would be included in your review in your review and in our review but that's as we move forward through this and that to me it's the best way to make sure that your voice is heard as it is to make sure you're able to outline for us and you said you don't want to lose right so what what does that mean to you when you're looking at this vision what are you looking what are you seeing is your loss you talked about a get an option maybe to carve your stuff out you know if if if you had that opportunity there sit with staff and draw that up or brought up yourself and presented to them i would completely expect it to be included in every discussion for all i think it's important for maybe dana could outline the process that happens this is a study with recommendations we study big recommendations and it's it happens the next day and i fully expect given the makeup of the commission that some of the recommendations that are put forth to us are not going to on my part to figure that out and so frankly i'm ok with it you know zoning as it is and i'm not a place where it's very easy just to say you know what we don't need to do more here just leave it as it is that and say you know in the u a e that actually be able to make decisions on that i don't know that we've gotten that i mean you haven't completed the draft yes i don't know that we've really got a timetable worked out yet part of this i think what we were our intention is to put chapter eight together within the end of the month just to wrap it up and then that would go to you guys as the final draft and then obviously  your chance to as you point out correctly that chance to digest it and i think it's really important to record what you just said that we fully expect i fully expect for sure that there are things you probably will take on and move forward in some way there are things that that long to do and i think you know mr sloan is you're you're you're concerned you're her journey think oh i want to make sure that you're clear that the the draft that we have in front of us today actually reflects some changes based upon this joint conference about density and  what was originally recreation conservation has been changed to record residential recreation so we actually have increased the density allowing to presidential development there so there's been certainly some movement on terms of understanding from the issues that were raised but just get back to the point the point i was making is that we expect the it almost be year long process to go through the process and i was expect there were other changes that occur around this other landowners look at the schedule so if i pulled a fight without without looking at what you the you know without really getting into the meat of this i would i would not really him to subpoena getting too much going for probably three months  and that might be conservative i don't know what the planning schedule is at this stage and you get we haven't seen that that's something that we have to talk about you you know i don't know that we can give you a time frame just yet but given your level of concern we can plus for the for the total process and it's going to be pieces and parts in that you know there's going to be state stages in between there so give this give this another month and we probably can actually come up with a timetable or we would know whether or not we can come up with  we all want you know still consider and talk about absolutely so it's it's we need to get this thing over to dennis and have  but and you know we're going to go through your process and then the regulatory process and that's going to evolve the select board this master plan is twenty five years stuff over and over and over again it might be a long time to we do this again and so it's important to take it thoughtfully and slowly with a lot of community input yes question saxon hill to open in book that's the real giant benefit something for you consider as you're going through this two part question for us it looks like based on what you're saying you're doing the footprint strategic vision no i don't think every street when we started off with the in the planning process with the community talking about the e t c as it existed today the gold triangle and you know in that in that mission conversations with people at the that the focus group and at the you know you start going all the way to the top of the golden triangle that gets really problematic because it's it's far it's a long walk from peter's project to the intersection towers are ordinals to drugs so that was another consideration they got into why the e t c was was designing there the smaller you make it the more concentrated things are going to be this is forcing you to go higher when you're going to the requirements of the building which is probably going to be an issue for the community on the high right but just something to think about  i like i like preserving the recreation areas three boys i'm raising your ten nieces and nephews right i think that's awesome what do you as the appropriate ratio of recreational land versus develop a pretzel for example i think in your book is eighty eighty five percent of your recommended t c or e t c sorry is that it he would ratio is a small ratio what is that ratio i'm not sure i got five to six hundred process that's where the town should be thinking about ok is there a place within the open space requirement for a new subdivision to instead of it being just a fallow piece of property is a ball field a better open space use there would it make more sense for that open space to be a are suggesting that when you're looking at open space you're looking at recreation the committee should be asking those questions about ok the words what's a long range recreation plan with a town plan say about recreation how does open spaces that might meet our right now a development happens in the d c has to provide open space is a requirement for open space development so what does that open space become is really the question that we are trying to trying to get to quest the community think about going to become something more than like i said just the land that's left match ups on the recommendation and then actually articulated quite a bit of that process about about looking at open space more from a broader per if right now you know does does the does the road networks and all of the infrastructure in the city and the community pay for it so you have to pay something to be part of the system and i was suspect that one of the conversations going back today for example will be looking at those those street standards what is the community willing to accept as part of the street in terms of cost and that will affect the value of it now does not  that's done again it's done division is meant to be the sort of the are the trajectory you're trying to go so let's let's keep this in mind that what this is is a is a proposal for us to to look at right so this is this is this is what we get  so once we start looking at this and we start digging into the the proposal then we look to the economic development committee we look to the to the landowners we look to everybody in the community to help determine whether or not that the aspects of the plan that i presented to us are viable and all these things are going to come into play as we start moving as we look at your your draft so you know it's the vision that we start with  it you get a step back and you got to remember the service that took place the community workshops the pride they're presenting the collaborative view that consisted right or wrong of percentage of essex residents that participated in this process absolutely and no tax dollars would be spend without a lot of analysis and review and public process and you know be part of the time body to be in front of this like board so this will not be the last we've heard of this discussion  and certainly it will be factored into any decisions that get made and i think mark and sharon in the stephens put a lot of time just getting at this point which is really a point i view is sort of a people stepping stone to a real great leap forward for the touchdown as we talked about next steps so we're looking to you guys are looking to do here we're chapter eight i think that probably we need to get together and talk about and flesh this out a little bit more  because we might want to go into a phase where we say like you know when we did the town plan every other meeting was plan right track until we got the plan done and that that may not be possible for sharing a marker with might not be you know that she will because of the development pressure whatever but this is what we need to talk about and i mean as far as next yes go what do you see i'm curious what staffs perspective is on one base code and somewhere you want to see us go and that's one question and then for a follow up to that question is has the case law and survive any form based company people's having been any challenges that i'm aware of yet i experienced starts and stops with the session we did in richmond probably ten years ago and i haven't had any experience with it since then well one reason why we went  good i think the hybrid is probably you know my personal feeling the weight will go only because we look at all these various factors and i think one of the overriding concerns that we want to come of with the zine is a design that is comfortable for the people who are going to be there and that you know big mix of building sizes land uses you know but then you toss into that all yours your street structures your street furniture lighting and those things so you know if we're going to get to this comfortable space i think we have to consider how we structure than having it stand separately out there on it so in terms of legal challenges i'm not aware of any i think the courts would view form based code as a type of design review basically and if you want to be safe on that front we can also adopt the master plan as a design review report which is required for that you know there's ways to address that as well but again a lot of the elements and it's funny because architects develop form based code the language around it again is different like they used to build two lines we use macs and setbacks and a lot of times we're still talking about the same thing we're just using different terms but the nice thing about form base could be are the forms the types that they've developed that make a lot of sense and give us more guidance in terms of how to apply some of the design standards and i think we all really appreciate that aspect of it so that's the part that we're trying to bring in to the regulation yeah i think that's it it's a sort of one overarching from a regulatory perspective that we're recommending is to the sec elevating your consideration of some of these factors you know work above where you are today oprah still provides you with a level of flexibility so you can adapt to that you know what you can do a constructive conversation with the well for but maybe with a better shared understanding of what the objectives are in that kind of war see that's where i think the hybrid code really makes some sense that let's you still have that give and take which can be really useful and beneficial to the outcome both from the developers perspective and the community perspective but frame dizzying john any thoughts comments well it's really exciting i've got the benefit of listening to the consultants and going through the process with others for a year or whatever now so i  feel like i've got you know a pretty good handle on where they're coming from i will warn you that this document is that they have done an unbelievable amount of work to put material together so it will  as a designer been on the application signed of done newport hasn't had a for years they seem to work well up there burlington no has that in their downtown who are in the you know we're starting to do projects down there with help the conversation about you know what do you want doesn't leave developers wondering you know what you want you tell them what you want so that so it actually has some pretty good advantages for the discussion but you know it doesn't need to be the only way you do it i think the hybrid idea is interesting transition to a state gives you know allows the dialogue in the and you know the review process the state somewhat manageable and in your control but it's not something to be worried about i would i would really look at it as a great opportunity for you to tell people what you know either as members of your community but let's get it all out there and say this is what we want to see enough just another tool to be able to do that the data do we next next step is potentially to just to revisit once you guys have the document to come together and then decide what form we want to go through it again and we need some time to digest it yeah so the end of the month some time it will be submitted so probably march is pretty booked out very now for a development review so maybe the first week first week in the april we started to have a more in depth conversation don't this and obviously there's the draft in that self and there's the recommendations and stuff and honestly your perspective input on that would be it's vital and also obviously other staff inputs as well and then you know going from this to the regulatory piece the the the thing i've been thinking about i'm really tensions timesharing about this but you know you can break this down into some key part parts like let's talk about the district out you know for accepting the premise that there's going to be districts and there's going to different character districts let's break it down and let's make sure we understand where those boundaries are and where they should be at was any adjustments we should make those that would be a good block of planning commission time ok you do that and you go on to ok let's talk about district a what are the forms that make some sense there what are the uses that make some sense of so you can kind of if you map out a year worth of time whatever you could break it down so you're starting off with that basically the spatial structure of the districts and the zoning and then you're breaking down each district in sort of working through each one and that goes back to you know specific comments that staff might have or the public might have it's it lets i think it lets you you know do each of those in turn and then at the end you bring it all together as a  know that way you're not you know again i think one of the unique one of things that this plan is trying to communicate there are some unique things within each potential district so having the time with having a block of time within each just to think about that one of the right forms w inevitably will be some housekeeping stuff we're running into that and so burlington and that can kind of go along in the background as we go through the process and if you look at zoning it's like watching sausage being made and there's lots of things that come out of it like ok we didn't realize that that was going to actually i didn't say cracker barrel probably should should work on that if we agree they do the section by section we probably should work on them and not necessarily wait for dennis's but but work on them simultaneous at least start because so it could take a while and then i don't know that we should just sit back and do nothing wait until he lets us know what he doesn't doesn't like about it it would be worthwhile to just to start know a lot of the a lot of the street sections for example i think a lot of those are you know that the actual public part of that would be very consistent with the with the current streets yeah you know public or standard so that's probably going to make it a little bit easier to have that conversation you had well you know we're talking about dennis and i think it's very important that he becomes a positive part of this program and we can sometimes tend to be more on the negative sides are so you know when we go with him you know we really have to get him on board with you know we're going forward with it because i think he's he is a key part and it's a key part of the you know whatever we do oh no arguments there so given that i think we've we've i think this horse has been flogged enough tonight this has been a great commentary if you have thoughts or questions don't hesitate to send them on to staff they can you know if they can't respond immediately then they'll get it you know as part of the discussion