good welcome everybody we've got a heck of a night so again welcome to the town of wilson's development review board for tuesday september twelfth two thousand and seventeen we're going to bring the meeting to order at seven o four other three items on the agenda for tonight we're going to go a little bit out of order we are going to start with a south really good reality that should be an easy one get them in and out before all yelling and screaming start though first this is an application for a discretionary permit for south burlington realty passion type road in the industrial zoning district west some of the members may recall the site has a somewhat lengthy history of changes in amendments reconfigure and add to the building on the site to make it work for multiple tenan and in the course of doing the work already approved by the d or b the applicants added a temporary overhead door to the east side of the building and in the course of their work found that it was desirable to keep that door and to make access to that door permanent to do that because of the amount of site work and the overlying conditions of approval it's necessary for the application to come back to the d r p and be amended under this discretionary permit request so that's what you have in front of you the nature of the quest doesn't change the size or shape of the building it tad's and door and it changes the site in that it allows a driveway to be paved across what would offend essentially lawn to access that door again on the east side of the building there are no changes proposed to parking the project remains under any thresholds necessary to require a stormwater permit the kite site is currently served by municipal water and sewer and no changes to that are proposed were not in the design review district there are no changes to improve outdoor storage on the site proposed have a stream a name street on the western property foundry and that has been buffered already and there are no incursions into the fifty foot buffer to that stream proposed as part of this change we did have a review of this project by police fire and public works their comments are attached stating they have no concerns about the proposed project we did not receive comment from the police department staff has prepared recommended finding questions of laws and conditions of approval along with a motion for approval delegating the review of final plans to staff for the consideration of the board look at him like  don't have much to add to what matt has said to the door since the expansion went out the back of the building access to that space needed to be provided on the east side so we could continue to use it and like matt said after it was a couple pieces of housekeeping first  staffer suggested that this is a hero he continued until either the next hearing or the hearing after that for a number of reasons you've read the you have read the staff notes and i'm assuming that this is a response to the staff notes that the board is not in a position to review this until the staff were viewed your responses so that's going to go to staff and that's how i'm going to that's going to have to get  there and have to look at that it's not not appropriate for us to take a look at that until they do so we can we can go forward in hearing we can we can we can go through that go through your concerns but i think the choice i think the the chair will recommend this be continued until two weeks or four weeks  while four weeks from now we don't currently have anything schedule for the or b so unless something gets scheduled to that night either tonight or on the twenty sixth there will not be a meeting on october the tent of time which is enough time for us to review it i guess the question becomes for the board as to whether or not your going to be interested in the application making provisions to the plants in which case you may you may want to have open the public hearing tonight and then continue it to date certain but you know as we've identified in the staff notes we have serious concerns about some of the design elements of the propose subdivision and this could be an opportunity for the board to get some you know testimony information is certainly one possibility as you may say you may say that it has to be re for a for a lot subdivision of land proximately thirty five point four four acres on fieldstone drive in the agriculture a rural residential zoning district  so what is being proposed here is to a receptive asian a lot that was created by a subdivision over twenty years ago this and this particular request fieldstone drive the road that provides access to these lots it was approved and created as part of that's would be ninety five ten which is approved in december in one nine hundred ninety five  o there were five units of residential development that was approved as part of that request there was also a six no doubt implies it was approved under a much earlier set of regulations a different set of standards that we have today some of those standards are reflected in the standards today however it was a separate set of standards and that has created a rob with some of the requirements that we have today as are discussed in the staff notes and that were also discussed at the time of pre application so there was another pre application that was before the board back in two thousand and thirteen the applicant decided to withdraw that the pre application for this request was reviewed by the board back on may twenty fourth two thousand and sixteen because it's a residential project that required additional growth management allocation the d r p approved three units of growth management allocation becoming effective as early as july first two thousand and eighteen actually should be seventeen and that decision was made this past march march twenty eighth so some of the issues that the staff has raise with with this particular application number one or two of the propose lots lots seven and eight are proposed to encroach into what was defined as the no build zone approved under su being ninety five can our our feeling is there should be no part of any lot that from in addition to that the applicant has inserted at the last minute i know saying that they could build a building on the no built in the no build  area and that's completely contrary to what our regulations allow and how it is that we actually we actually operate so we have concerns about that no we believe that no should be removed from any if this is approved by the theory be that that note would be removed from the plants there is also a note in the staff notes having to do with public works so at the time of pre application there was a recommendation from staff that the applicant be required to meet the current public work standards and this really revolves around the hammer had  of fieldstone drive which was a standard that was allowed back in the day back in the ninety's but now we would require a whole the set and so staff the planning staff made a recommendation in accordance with the public works i meant back at the time of pre application that this road which we have an application today in two thousand and seventeen our viewpoint is if you want to come in with an application  p over roll those and the recommendations for pre application those are on page three of the staff notes so in staff i mean the planning up the staff had some discussions with the public works  department who are you know they're very clear in their own minds that the d r p does not have the authority to waive a public work standard which is adopted by the select board in as part of that discussion i said well we should get a legal opinion from the count's lanyards attorney which we did and which we provided for you so the legal opinion says a couple of things number one it raised some questions as to whether or not this subdivision this this additional crack at the subdivision should even be entertained at all which isn't necessarily my viewpoint but that's the viewpoint from our attorney secondly the a turn he is raising some some serious questions about whether or not that the therapy should be making independent determinations as to what the public work standards should be so that that information is there for you to for you to consider but again they the opinion of the staff in the planning i once again john would like to ask a question so let's say the d or b went ahead with the recommendation that we previously impose  to sign off on our set of conditions so in this case fieldstone drive is a dedicated public road that's been accepted by the town so a new points of access off of the street would require an access perm sells i suppose public works great could do that but it's as paul galluses legal opinion states the idea that the public works department adair beer fighting is really bad form and ideally we're all on the same team so you know and i'm in agreement on that you know on that particular position so i did the scenario you've just suggested so the applicant could come in to try to get a point of access public works is you've got to build this you've got to build this this whole this out which case if you  creation of a lot it may not be possible to be able to design that cul de sac and still meet all the conditions of the you know the byline terms of our development standards so ideally this would be resolved as part of this this proceeding because you're you know you're you're defining property lines if there's going to be a cul de sac it would be part of history which would mean if you get to cater to the town be part of the town's right of way so you know you've got to move the property line all that should be decided as part of this do anything more you wish to continue with not that's i was going to ask him it seems like the the first question is whether i guess i was asked if you could if you could translate paul's i've read this a couple times i didn't quite follow why he doesn't essentially what he's saying is you have a plotted subdivision that was approved by was the planning commission at that time in one thousand nine hundred five by that action there was an avenue of appeal that was available the application was either appealed people in the area were noticed they had some information about what it was that was being proposed and what it was that was approved and they either appealed it or they didn't which means they either said we're going to live with it or we're  know we're going to challenge it in court so but essentially that's what he's saying is that that after all is said and done you really shouldn't be revisiting this lot into that that what the plotted plots forevermore maybe that's what he sang it seems to me this is gone through all of this is been this is probably war and hearing this is a whole new set of foundry lines it seems like i mean barring any legal precedent that it would be appropriate to reconsider it in light of the back the neighbors have another chance to back again ask me for my opinion my opinion is simply if you want to command like an application today th today for example so this is in the agro zoning district we have open space requirements are open space requirements today are more precise and exacting than they were in one thousand nine hundred five so under no circumstances would i ever envision that you staff report that we will frank will go through basically using it as a basis for discussion black text is change text from staff read or so you know that's if you want to follow along and that's what that's how we're going to do it you can turn that over if you'd like but i think it's that's good information so we're looking at w what was going on in the eighteen ninety five when this project was approved and this is the opening and then here some of the layers have been shut off and all but we're really just looking at green space open space building envelopes and similarly up here this is our current site plan and again a lot of the technical areas have been shut off of we're trying to illustrate books open space what's commonly and area colored in combination of all three of these colors has thirty five acres back then there was no open space requirements this was a standard subdivision so last five was everything you see color here  lot five thirty five acres has to be common open space which amounts to about twenty six and a half acres we're providing thirty one acres so we're providing much more than what's ne for the seventy five percent of the lighter shade green which in comes as most all of last five is the proposed open suggesting that that mike green box is now part of a is now part of a as a result of the conservation committee they said they didn't want a farm farm structure on open space so we said fine we've got liter bottle it's it's not minor it's it is it's absolutely how we run this how we run this committee were not proposing the wider box to be a lot it's just called common land within the open space the open space around it is open space that is common land and things can be built on common land so that's why we're proposing to call that one acre common this was strictly to have not taken away from  the testimony here when our documents that you provided to us match up with what you wish to talk about and when staffers had a chance the only reason why we did that was because last tuesday that was suggested and by the conservation committee to do this that's why we did it and so we had it as a point of discussion it wasn't anything apologized it's the only change from what you see ok so goes back to my first my my earlier comment about part of the reason why we are going to continue this will be a lot will be to allow you to get your documents in order to get into step so well they are in want to keep on going for the documents are all in order that would be something that we were opposed to be part of the final plans the comments so we just have some comments on the you know it's all start with the page two on the open space where it talks about barn and then no build and its response to this is basically the statement is inaccurate and incomplete please refer to the discretionary hearing plan that we have prepared which is this so you don't you can ignore that however but it shows details that we justify there was no defined open space in one nine hundred ninety five the intent of the twenty six point five acre no build zone that we proposed was to conform to the then and still current town plans preservation of open spaces and cluster development additionally our accessory building  was a one point three four acre portion of lot five located along side the roadway directly across from watts one two three and four designated for binds and fire service type structure arguments we previewed previously presented that resulted in the approval by the d r b of our twenty sixteen pre application every zulfi in significant improvements of the quality of this subdivision by  limination of these areas and replacement with a larger and more carefully laid out with larger and more carefully laid out areas that further clusters development and we feel it does not counter the original attack intent of the no build zone considering the vast improvements that we are presenting as a whole when i talk about the view sheds i'm talking about lots one two and three and four as you can see on the south side of the road are directly across the street from the excess rebuilt original excess rebuilding and below potential buildings in  there would potentially block view sheds the wrong person gets in the lot five who knows what they're going to do with the property that's the whole reason why i wanted to do this i wanted to create a a better subdivision for everybody in the neighborhood i wanted to take out the risk that a lot five doesn't deteriorate and in the process hey let's add more open space let's take that whole chunk of land so the east of where modified lot five and lot six are let's add that to open space let's take all that excess rebuilding area add that open space and the buy location that in the open space we really feel we need to have the ability to have a buy into service this twenty six acres we're not asking to build a barn but we're just asking that down the road if necessary we have the ability to take care of our own land and this would all go to an association of ali people and for twenty two years it's been my responsibility where mandated by the state of vermont to keep this in agriculture for eternity and it's been my crystal and my responsibility for twenty two years to do so and we have let me tell you it's no easy no easy task the farmers we've gone through a lot of farmers over the years that have just gone out of business from one to another and they have it dipped barry difficult but with the weather in vermont and the milk prices etc so it's not an easy thing for  clear this land we've had a lot of issues but you know what we've done it with the help of these farmers year after year and but who's to say what's going to happen tomorrow so we're just asking for a little spot where we can have if need be the association could have their own equipment so we could take care of our own property that we are mandated to do so otherwise we go back to the original plan of what five and there's no proposal on your plan states that the barn has to be it meets that should be limited to agricultural practices as defined in the required ag practices rules if that's the case we don't even need approval from  i'll just say that we are meeting the definition of the state's definition of agriculture and farming into two different definite portions of their definition one we are  harvesting crops of more than four acres we're harvesting crops on very thirty acres ok here after year secondly we are being managed by a farmer that file's is ten forty and that's the second thing that we need so it is a court meets the definition of a state farm that's what we have to do we don't have any choice here would band aid to do this so we've done it and that's what's going on continuing to see radically now and do a whole new set of by lies and require seventy five percent open space so you know so yeah just like any i mean i'm sure you see a lot of projects where plots have been created and they're coming in to be receptive and that's exactly what we're doing to suggest this is something crazy an unusual it's beyond there on one hand yes we are but on the other hand we're suggesting the excess rebuilding envelope that was south of the no building zone to go away and add more no buildable land so we're offering conservatively more than we are taking away i don't know if that's right or not but anyway so as far as the comments on the conservation commission the first comment they were talking about lot seventy five seventy five percent of lot five twenty six and a half acres must be designated open space  lot seven eight must not encroach into the open space nor the development of any structures be permitted and the barn currently proposed should be relocated out of the open space out of the open space ok so my response and doug's response our response is watt seven and they do not encroach on the open space at the suggestion of a conservation commission member made on the last tuesday on the sixth we propose on the final plans to modify the open space area to go around by reducing the open space by about one acre in the barn would still be located on common land the discretionary hearing plan which we brought which we don't have to refer to shows this detail we further request that the open space be defined by designation only common land i don't know if you understood all that but anyway see is it c two this is c two right ok so this is common land sea two is what i'm saying here would be the entire parcel thirty one point seven one acres and that's common land and the open space within the common land is o around where that barn is behind those houses so we would still have well over seventy five percent eighty right now it's at eighty nine percent and with this proposal it goes down like eighty just slide the locks down a touch get it below the no build zone get rid of that building off around the barn and if the state of vermont let you build the barn and they're great at that barns are built all the time  even know about it because the we don't have a swell we just want to it seems like you're creating a lot of issues for yourself got it that's going to give you resistance right well we just want to be on board and over the table with you guys you know if we if we're going to go down the road some time to get a barn put up from the state of vermont we thought well why not just present it now and let you know what we're we want to do and if you don't think that's appropriate then that's your you know that's what you decide but that's where we came from ok so and as far as the lot encroaching over twenty five feet i don't know doug maybe you could talk a little bit about you know i mean it makes for a small building in the low down its simplicity that i mean we wanted more depth in the backyard and and that no build zone is just an arbitrary something that well i think the justification was we did so much more that we didn't have to do and just to ask that point one nine acres we thought we could meet some common ground here that's that's why why we did it we thought it would be a just a better head well we don't agree with the resistance of understand and we'd like to keep going because i think it's a lot of inaccuracies here and a lot of it is only three mistakes and i think that meant i have spent the past fifteen minutes listening to you and i have to tell you that i'm going to i'm going to say for a third time this is being continued and you need to go get everything that you're talking about in in terms of you know your belief about having a no zone and redrawing your lines and presented to the staff and then they can rewrite the report and you're still going to get resistance but that's that's that's your path for at this point well i think you'd still like to do a presentation a second paragraph after this the strikethrough is talking about the staffers obtained a legal opinion so i just want to say the project first of all this project has gone through two pre application hearings and the growth management process without any discussion regarding the legality of this subdivision we feel it is highly inappropriate to raise this issue at this stage of the product project at the design is one hundred percent complete and in addition the legal pinion was prepared over a month ago and the after my at my engineer was only provided with it last friday afternoon mentioned earlier prepared a letter on aug thirtieth to district for act of fifty specifically covering this rule a copy of this letter has been provided to you you don't have to use it tonight as you can see this subdivision meets the criteria given that both the towns regulations and state like regulations have both changed since one thousand nine hundred five therefore we conclude this is a legal subdivision and the state has issued the act two fifty permit traffic that's confirming their their concurrence with that opinion and the last part of the legal opinion letter regarding the roadway design does just does not apply for these reasons there is no road design proposed in this discretionary permit application the nuance utilized frontage on fieldstone drive a town on road since the pre application hearings public works it has offered no new justifications to support their position this issue was discussed in detail in the d r p made a decision at the pre application hearing on may twenty fourth two thousand and sixteen that this project is not justify making the applicant myself construct a new turnaround we see no reason to discuss this issue again tonight moving forward fire department he wants us to build upon so our response as with the above legal question we question now that the plans are complete why the fire department didn't raise the question at the pre application stage of this project nowhere was this issue addressed on the april twenty six two thousand and sixteen staff report this poses many potential issues that render this recommendation is simply imprudent first the only feasible location for the pond would be in the open space area between lot six and eight this area is designated as primary agricultural soils mitigation area and the construction of a pond and drive to a pond would likely eliminate this is being accepted by the state for me to gauge and secondly it is uncertain whether or not ground water hydraulics would even allow for a pond to be construction to sustain a volume of water suitable for the fire department considerations such as went to freezing summer algae blooms maybe issues typically dry hydrants or proposed in preexisting bodies of water with a history of water levels and hydrology are known this proposal request that three new house slots be approved only last year a three lot would see here the staff recommends it the r b i to direct the applicant to submit a revised development proposal or denies the current proposal we strongly oppose that recommendation and the findings of fact number six modified lot five and proposed a lot eight it should be standard that's no longer used in a town street standards we proposed to strike this finding for reasons we discussed before this meeting and that have already been dealt with conclusions of law number  two proposed residential subdivision does not meet the town current standard about development standards and we strongly oppose this conclusion of law we have it here to all aspects of the current development standard and we propose strikethrough of word not in the above statement and finally let's  in one of the conditions of approval that is to a that seems like it might have been pasted in from someone something else but this way is no seven point nine five acres or ten point six acres those numbers should be to achieve a seventy five percent threshold of his property its twenty six point five day takers twenty five seventy five percent of the thirty five point four four acres i just wanted to clarify that i cannot look like a cut and paste error it was a cut and paste and i thought i may have gotten from the wrong place big the willesden public works department comments dated april eighteenth two thousand and sixteen before the pre op hearing we strongly oppose this condition we propose strikethrough that entire comment for that entire condition and number see the fire department comments for the pond we strongly oppose this condition and we close strike through that to see condition of approval and on number seven we proposal the last sentence to be stricken from that were talked about no occupancy or use of the proposed buildings shall take place until a certificate of compliance has been issued and the part that says verification at the firing of the pardons which current different satisfied before a certificate of compliance we request that sentence to be stricken and we request that the proposed motion basically be replaced with a motion to propose to approve this discussion i would permit so that's basically what i think we want e been a fireman's that's what we plan on the continuing for terry dairy cows if you go back in history though google's go to google earth for instance and look back in history  see if there's been firm plots a number of things over the past since ninety nine not just not just morning hey there's been active large garden plot so here corn corn at different times  changes to it it's a lot that's off of the road town road that's been approved by the book before we even came to pre op so i don't really want to go down and argue that again if we don't have to the public works argument sounds like we're proposing a new road it doesn't meet today's standards as if we're building a spur something office i live in south region if somebody were wanting to  it were possible to create one more lot with they say well you know the standard to different now this road is now supposed to be thirty feet wide and south of the road is twenty eight so you need to widen the entire width of south or drove before will let you prove this lot that's the scenario we're being asked to do here is is reconstruct a road that's in place it's a town road all we're doing is creating frontalot simple as that we had this discussion and he will sat agree that putting a cul de sac in within per and you know increased impervious surface and the ability for people to you know speed around the end that we had homeowners that were here that have purchased lot three testifying that they were not in favor of a cul de sac that hammerhead slows people down it's it's inconvenient and that's exactly what they like right i think i don't i don't know the fire chief just thinks you can just take a pic of paul anywhere on any site and create a fireball and that's something that we should have had the ability to analyze and base our decisions to move forward that's a major major thing that we should have been known about that should have been in front of us at the last hearing you know right center are in standing a pre amp all the department heads get to weigh in yeah but it works weighed in you know various twenty five foot well i think the number three is the whole issue of a legal right to resubmit i guess that's right the legal right to receptive right this no build zone is to me that's a non issue that's and i think we need that legal right to receptive i'd based on my justification that the two major points in that letter we do need we need the act to the states requirements and we've gotten approval from them and and the right to subdivide based on the specific line item was the fact that changes have taken place since then and now and we went through this the last time but the  seven is the state dropped this requirement for two pleating fields per building lot went down to one so we're come in and say well let's that gives us the ability to we've got tenet ten complete approved septic sites let's see what we can do with up to the other five and how nice of a subdivision how much of a better subdivision we could make because of that so we thought that this is really turned into a great subdivision now you get a lot more open space a lot more protected land you've got everybody's got a protected view shed with the removal of that excess rebuilding envelope and we've just made improvements as far as we're concerned and our justification was yeah the rules changed back in one thousand nine hundred ninety five if we only needed one we would have come up with another plan that would have been different than the one that actually went through because at the time we were only allowed five so just want to make it a better place i mean open space there's going to be eight homeowners that have vested interest in keeping that land up to snuff and keep it attractive versus having one landowner have that responsibility and frank's not going to be around some day i do work hard on that property and making sure it works the way it does today and i think the neighbors are going to test to it and that might not happen down the road because you know i'm not a farmer so ultimately what we thought it would take that lot off the market and let's try to make this subdivision a little better for everybody so i think those were our three points we out that it's part of the discussion tonight but the state water wastewater permit for this a has been issued based on the plans you have in front of you as has the state storm water permit and as frank said the draft active fifty permit was  discouraged with the negativity of the feedback we got at the last minute from steph i think the legal opinion is incoherent and i think we've addressed what every issue they tried to raise and  i understand many of the arguments you're making what i'm finding problematic and still unresolved in my own within me is that in one hand on one hand you're making an argument that this is a new application and therefore that no builds on that was there superseded and therefore we don't have to pay any attention in the next breath i hear you saying well this hammer head is existing and therefore we don't have to we're going to hold headhunted to it and we don't have to pay attention to the new rules so in one case you want to ignore the rules you know when you want to use them and i just i think that's a little of think about that if the difference is the reality is the road is built and the road is taken over it's a physical thing that exists today as opposed to a simple line on a piece of paper i mean i don't really want to offer up the fact that you know the building the building envelopes for a lot it's really a lot a lot seven we're talking about just a very north east corner of lot seven falls within the old no built zone if you will and i can point to that i see you know we're right there so the no build them comes straight across and then goes up north so lots seven fifteen feet into that no build zone could that building envelope be brought down to the old mill built soon it could be made people sleep better at night but  you down the road if you need to go back and you know when you can prove that it's an agricultural use and it's and it's it's it's productive acreage you know then you know that you know the path to that so get rid of that language get the get out of the get out of the no build zone don't you know that argument is not flying i have to tell you that the hammerhead issue was a big deal only in that  you know we're being told as a board that the d r v cannot contravene the  the development stands right  attorney was providing i don't think we're asking to go against legal opinion i think it went to our favor and both both suggestions that he wrote it was fine with us that he with regards to the road he basically says that we're not days if public works and you folks you know we're was in you have these standards then you know we would be talking about a green rope well we're not proposing to build a road or do anything to the rock understand your and so that's no but the subdivision is for a lot off of this road we're not proposing it an extension of the road or anything like that you heard one board member members opinion that we thought we got a clear direction a preamp that this was you were totally on board leaving it in place so we went with that  to the next meeting you can think about what the what's been talked about i would suggest you talk with the staff and listen to them you may not agree with them doesn't sound like you will but it may if you talk to them and you may help you get this group  well we'll be glad to come back so let's do the bottom terms of the calendar ok if the applicant is going to submit revised plans then it should not be looked at a few weeks right there's no way this we just know from experience that timeline of him is is too aggressive so i would point out once again that right now there is nothing scheduled for october the tenth so the next meeting is september the next character meaning september the twenty sixth the next potentially scheduled meeting would be october the can't we don't have anything there yet and then the next scheduled meeting would be october the twenty fourth so we can get it get on the tenth or are you saying that there is no meeting and it is october twenty fourth the staff would really prefer that we didn't meet on october the tenth but that's a this is your call  deadline we didn't catch anything for that meeting so but but certainly if you can move it to the ten continue this to the twenty fourth of october cage consulting engineers for seventy eight player park road most i'm buck we're going to let staff go and this is an application for a discretionary permit to utilize existing barn in the agricultural the residential zoning district has a banquet facility typically known and discussed as a quote unquote wedding bar and i'm going to do something a little different than i normally do with the board with my staff reports which is i'm not going to read through sort of line by line but rather provide an overview and then get out of the way because i think there's a fair number of folks who would like to give testimony tonight back to work for my first note is that this staff report is drafted currently has a draft denial with findings of fact and conclusions of law that lead to a motion to denial deny the proposal and i'll get into why in a moment but a little bit of background on how the by law permits banquet facilities in the ag world zoning district yeah girl own district and liston it's the largest zoning district it is our lowest density residential district and other permitted uses are generally related to surprisingly agriculture and activities in support of agriculture there is a goal in the town plan and encompassed within the bylaws about attempting to preserve existing historic farms by water language was originally adopted in two thousand and nine and it had to do with the real utilization of an existing historic barn for residential uses in excess of a two family home which otherwise is the only thing other than a single family home that you can build for residential in willesden so the planning commission at the time had this idea if somebody had a historic barn and they wanted to keep it standing by converting it into with tri plex or four plex that the d would be able to consider that over the years we saw some demand in the planning commission heard about some demand for this wedding barn a facility that a historic barn might be able to be converted to something e then amended to accomplish that by tagging on the banquet facilities another thing that somebody could do with a historic barn with an existing historic  garden that process or rather that piece of the bylaw has so far been utilized once in the town's history by mike i should manocchio road and most of the board members here were around when that proposal went through so the bylaw very briefly says you can use a historic barn as a banquet facility if you can get a discretionary permit from the d r p to do so and it says what's a historic bar and it says the historic barn is either on the national register or of the state register or inventory or it's determined by the d r v to be historic question tonight is not on either west and so the first step for the d or b in processing an application like this is to determine if the barn is historic or not and the d r p is directed to do so by the bylaws with the advice of the historic and architectural advisory committee that committee held a meeting back on august seventh and they presented in as quoted in my staff notes some recommendations to the board about  the potential historic nature of the structure as it sits on the site today the by law goes on to say if you're going to use a restored historic barn for one of these uses multifamily residential or a banquet facility the applicant once the bard's determined to be historic is to present a restoration plan to the deal or be in other words i've got this structure let's say we all agree it's historic here's what i plan to do with that structure here's what i plan to do in order to convert it to one of these uses in the derby is to review that and the bylaw provides some standards by which the d r v would review that barn restoration plan what's the deal or be the fines that number one the barn to store number two the restoration plan is ductile the d r v can proceed with its normal discretionary permit review where as you've experienced on numerous kinds of site planning residential review we might deal with g management we might deal with where the dumpsters go we might deal with screening ourself operation noise parking access everything that our three hundred one thousand page long zoning bylaw asks the board to address w you use a proposal for new development so that's the process determine that the barn's historic review the restoration plan and then move forward with the normal course of site plan review for the project in this case the barn was reconstructed in a different place on the site than it was as recently as two thousand and eleven the barn was added on to it was expanded  it was it was reworked in its exteriors treatment and all of that has already happened so there is a structure in place on this site today that contain elements of a historical or a potentially historic barn that was on the site dating back many many years the restoration plan as it stands today is essentially what was done to the structure  it's there for the board to review just just like it was proposed except that you don't get much say about it now because it's there and finally the site plan elements there are things about set one set backs that the d r p would go on to consider and we have a no in conformity with the wet one set back to contend with as well so the recommendation for denial on this comes out of number one a recommendation that the deer be not kind that the barn as it exists on the site today is historic number two that the deer be not accept the restoration plan on what was done to the and number three that the barn a portion of it as well as a portion of the proposed developed site is within the fifty foot by her to a class two wetland where the williston by law specifically prohibits structures  pavement driveways etc in those well and buffers so i tried to lay that all out for the board as concisely and clearly as i can i do want to go back and has it a couple of elements of that review number one we had a very spirited hack meeting where we talked a lot about what was done with the structure and that the hacks recommendation to the d or b was not a blanket recommendation that the structure today be considered not historic but rather that the northern parchin of the farm that's out there today could be considered historic by the d or be based on a set of considerations related to how much of the original material is in that piece of rock ciar and what has been done with it in terms of design and exteriors treatment in that there's this larger addition appended to it as well so the staff recommendations a little a little stronger than the tax recommendation and that's the reason for that which i stated to the hack at their meeting was that so maybe something a little less than fifty percent of the structure that's out there today could be considered historic the intent of the playa lot here is very much to balance the flexibility of  and some of the impacts to neighbors and statics and everything else to come with that use against a desire to preserve historic bars this case you've got a structure standing out there now that it's more than doubled in size  with that added size comes intensity comes you know just the size of the event that it can hold and i would i didn't say this but i would very much not recommend the derby pursue a course of action of say we'll find that you know some portion of the barn is historic and you can have that portion be a banquet facility and use the other park for accepted agricultural practices or other allowed uses in the zone my reason for that is simple and a little bit selfish  operational conditions are really hard to enforce and i don't want to be the zoning administrator who goes out and says the wedding party needs to get out of this half of the barn and retreat to the historic half of the structure or do i nor nor this is my supervisor popular so i want to have a sort of done that part i do want to make of a little a little bit of a backtrack to the project history  relocation reconstruction of this barn as it stands today was originally communicated to our office as it real cation reste construction project for the purpose of pursuing accepted agricultural practices which have some  special treatment when it comes to local zoning there are state rules under the required agricultural practices rule that can take a fact there are even times we have been told that a structure can end up within a setback as a result of having some protection under those required agricultural practices so we we in the office and you in your packet saw communication from twenty thirteen that said i'm planning on rebuilding this bar and here's a drawing of where i want to put it it's for agricultural practices and this office did not pursue any additional permit ing from the owner based on that information it also means we didn't do a really thorough or detailed review of what was proposed nor did we take an opportunity to ask for it you know a weapon delineation or an engineer site plan or all of the things that come when we start thinking about issuing a formal administrative permit or  b side plan approval so that a portion of the barn is as presented to us by the applicant a quarter of a barn ended up in the fifty foot by her given that there are a class two items on either side of the barn isn't surprising it's not something that we would have caught based on the level of information that we had at the time it is something that's in front of us now the board may recall that just a few weeks ago you had a case in front of you regarding the expansion of a non conforming structure within the fifty foot buffer to a class two well and and somebody wanted to take non conforming pavement and build a building over it we were advised against that and you know the  arching message staff took away from that was and should be really very carefully and strictly holding the line on those buffer impacts so we don't have any evidence that when the bar was relocated constructed that it was granted any sort of official exemption from that fifty foot buffer requirement but we do know that it ended up intruding on it and we do know that it might be possible for an agricultural structure to do so legally based on these required agricultural practices but we also know that that exemption does it not extend to commercial structures or residential structures it's strictly related to required agricultural practices and it's very important in our world when we communicate this to people that if you get some kind of exemption because you're a farmer because you're doing agricultural practices that you won't necessarily be able to take advantage of that exemption to go into something else that's not exempt later and approving this in its current proposed form would really have that effect so it's a tertiary consideration here because you have the layers of the historic determination and the except believe the restoration plan despite it being tertiary to those two things i thought it was important to bring it out in what i for after them given to you tonight so a little bit of housekeeping of the note at the front end of this if the board in the outfit in their discussion tonight choose to move in a different direction and consider something cool staff does ask for the applicant to agree to a continuance because we haven't we haven't written approval for the board to consider the other thing is in my numerated discussion of the recommendation against approving the proposal based on her impacts there's a numbered list it's not hard to find fact it's number two it's one two three four five number four was placed in there in error it reads the existing so incorrectly that it just shouldn't be there it's not reflected in the findings of fact or conclusions of law so it doesn't need to come out and go finally you know in the consideration of a facility like this in wh did review the ice in bar once you move toward something that looks more like an approval there are numerous considerations related to number and intensity of events hours of operation compliance with the town's noise ordinance traffic generation  steps to meet with the various committees and the hockey conservation committee and have made some modifications to the site plan based on that obviously as i heard before you guys don't like to be surprised with lots of new information so i do have some information to share but i wanted to just really see if i could address kind of history of this project a little bit as well as see if there are some report is from i don't know the date but you guys and five two thousand and five so that's something that needs to be clarified that that is that original barn that was on the property when  however that is not the condition of the barn when organdie bought it it was on the ground and collapsed and we have some imagery of that so she purchased the property she has  number of properties where she owns barns and really wanted to restore this one so she went to the town i believed in met and met with mr bello who's walking out but  good and she wrote this letter and i heard this is actually in your staff report because it wasn't in my application but basically you know she asked for can i get some help inquiring as to what steps need to be taken to construct this barn and my understanding from speaking to laura is that can explain that agricultural barons are exempt from zoning as long as they don't impinge on some facts from property lines and that was it said to have a nice day so she hired a builder to build the barn for and that builder is here his name's elliot lothrop from building heritage and we'll get to him in a minute but she'd undertook hiring him to reconstruct this bar and to the best of his ability to what it was originally and just quite a fascinating story with as matt said we spent a good time at the hack talking about that and i brought it back to this meeting because i think it's really important to answering that initial question is this  historic structure and if this was historic structure then we move on to the next task which is if you know is it a good idea to restore and use it for this wedding or banquet type activity so again built in two thousand and thirteen the restoration occurred and fairly it would get into the reasons why it wasn't located in the same place that it was originally it's about a hundred and forty five  feet between the center of the old barn and shown on this google earth image generally easterly a little bit southerly direction it was moved about one hundred forty five from the center of the mass of the old barn to the center of the new barn more of a flat area the original barn was on a hillside and denounced i think laura or me or anyone else elliot discover that that farm probably wasn't originally built there in the first place and the type of barn that it was shouldn't of or wouldn't have been constructed on a hillside in the first place so that burn was about thirty or forty as i understand it the original structure and it had an addition on the side of it on the south which is shown on this image it's about swanny five by thirty so and then that building had two stories because it was built on a raised foundation so if we look at that under the original thirty by forty structure which by all measures probably existed in that location well more than fifty years it you know it could have been as much as twenty four hundred square feet twelve hundred up on the first floor twelve hundred below and then an additional seven hundred fifty square feet to the south so in that addition again wasn't necessarily original to the original structure so that's about three thousand one hundred fifty square feet and the barn that exists today that laura built is about thirty three hundred square feet so those are different only by about five percent it's true that the new section is slightly larger than the is larger than the old by about seventy five percent so it's twelve hundred square feet of the original barn which was restored in its original dimensions and the addition that she constructed the foundation for which was part of this thirty foot by ninety foot request was a forty two foot section by fifty foot added to the southern end of it so i just want to give you that clarification and again i think it would be good at this time so another really important point before i kick it o is again the rules that matt described didn't allow for weddings in two thousand and thirteen when this was deliberate and so the i think it says it in the report two thousand and fifteen well after the structure sounds as if lorica had a sixth sense and knew that the weddings would be something that she could use this barn for so she built it in advance of you guys meeting and in my case i'm coming in and doing all that so i want to set the record really straight has been allowed she saw what my question did and met with a wedding planner and said your property is great for this too so i think it is a really good use of this property i've been out there a number of times it's a beautiful structure  i think that if we were here showing you architectural ovations of what that was going to look like when she built it that it could be favorable there's a couple architectural elements in the construction that staff in the exception to and i don't see those as insurmountable for something that if it was deemed historic and the restoration plan said we don't like red roofs we want brown roofs this board could condition the permit that she paint the reproof brown and i think we have to be really careful about that because again once you hear the story of how this barn was built it's exactly i think what the intent of my law allows for so whether this is the perfect place for that and whether all of the steps that were done were done correctly is obviously for you guys to decide but i when i've gone through the staff report much of this can be corrected through better planning and some  and some engineering and i think we can do a really nice structure here that eventually would be allowed to to hold exactly the same type of use that migration is doing successfully less than a quarter mile away so something with this and it was immediately apparent to me that it was identical to my question barn probably the same builder being a quarter mile away same type here it's got this very unique style framing on the lower left hand side of these  the sort of the next adaptation from there so it's almost certain that it's the exact same bill or over the course of five or ten years to transition from this out of building to the next evolution so it tells us really remarkable story the su know important part of our history is that we learn something from it and you have this historical gem that's really important and this this this part of this that's that's why we're preserving things that's why they're important so he also has a class far unload your head into the ham out and drive through to the other side so we've never been built on a back you would never have used l'arche you are if you see sometimes smaller doors we'd let the wind blow through but they obviously drove it from one side with the wire and drove out the other side when the for original location and that's easily verifiable and so anyhow so of the term asian came you know it was move this to a site that's more similar to where it would have been originally so we can avoid the stores on both dialogue and so we systematically removed the layers you know starting with the roof in the roof boards and were able to figure out which pieces where each piece then got a metal tag and it was assigned a spot on a map and we knew where common for a bar that's two hundred twenty two hundred thirty years old that twenty five to thirty percent of the material is going to have to be new of the for it which is about our we've got to i think it's probably about seventy seventy five percent of the temper frame is original well one thing that she tried to do initially was apply for that grant that he mentioned there's a barn restoration grant program in vermont and they denied her application because the barn had collapsed and i think that the general sense was you know we can spend money on barns that are standing we might as well do that this one might be too far gone but she want to head and hired elliott and like i said i think here really excellent job of figuring out how to restore it and there was a mention again he said that to the hakken and also to you tonight so this is like the you know the findings of fact to reflect that seventy five percent of the structure was restored to its original seventeen ninety configuration up to cooperate twenty five percent give or take up new materials that that happens under the state program yes completely so there's a second in here standards and so all the work have to conform to those standards so you can't substitute  put as much importance on that on the outcome of this project as we could you know that there are certain kind of the bottom line doesn't matter as much as the finished product as a filter so is there is there a certain point at which you know there's too much material  seventy nine use what's called the scribe rule so it's the the earliest most primitive form of the term the framing which again we don't see much of it at all especially around here and so to have any portion of that really is you know i mean replacing more like thirty or thirty five percent over there and they did receive the state bar and and i could follow up on that so the grant program with day support additions to historic bar they would not so they would not fund certain things you can't you can never be able to use the grant funds to pay for that but again she wasn't applying for those funds we're not going to be used to that they're going to be used if we build a dish and we simply same exact way and then the barn sixty addition was built at a later date so it was moving the foundation was put in at the exact same time so it's all planned at the same time correct that's that was my point is that that the letter that war road was a thirty by never intended one of the things i thought stuck out to me at the hack made a good point about it was that there was never an attempt to make it look like it was twice as big as the original barn there's clearly a divide here between the new in the old that's architecturally different and so it wasn't and it reminded me of the green bridge in richmond to wilson where they expanded the bridge but i remember distinctly reading that they intentionally made it different so that no one would say that the the old part of the bridge they were trying to replicate the old part of the bridge they were trying to say we're going to make the bridge wider but the historical architecture was one thing and the new is new and i feel like there's some similarity here where she wasn't trying to offend the old building it was just complementing it with a new addition so everything that elliot did is very much intact and and just won't put comment on the red barn laura told me this story and i've seen this before i've worked for her family now for well over a decade and there's a lot of red stuff red barn roof red sidewalks red brick and their dad was a big fan of bright red things is a favorite color so they do that to honor their father it wasn't because she particularly loves red roofs other than i think everybody in the handy family likes likes to add some red flare to their  becomes historic so that a new part is the same age as the one you just built you used a bunch of old pieces and parts to put it up so you have the big addition which is you figure that out a foundation was poured all at once therefore it's all one building i know you build it another time but you faced it now you're not talking about seventy five percent of that building being the old historic stuff but it's seventy five percent of less than fifty percent of the total shot so that's maybe only thirty percent of the entire history yet but right so that i think that's something we as we try to figure out what has b clearly you know built and but yet we built a banquet facility on the back of that nobody tried to say that that was a historic banquet facility but it was a banquet facility but people go to that banquet facility because the equinox is historic  i think that those that you have to kind of get back to number one europe your bylaws have nothing about percentages there's no guidance there's no there's there's really nothing and i think spell that out that says one percent non historic is not allowed or ninety nine percent non historic is not allowed so that it is up to you guys individually to make that determination as to whether you think that's an appropriate restoration stor structure but i think that if you look at what the you know the bylaws asking it's to it's to come up with a reason to save these structures if if you couldn't you know i think laura might be  rmally in this world but most people aren't going to spend the money to restore that pile of wood and reuse it for some purpose and maybe there's a structure that might fall down and could be reused earn some income and be very  used for these purposes but you know dairy farming isn't going to be the economic driver of these barns anymore so we have to come up with new things to take to keep this horror in the this history alive otherwise we're all going to rot in place and you see that everywhere in vermont and it's really unfortunate so i think it's important that we see if there's ways to look at these regulations and find some common ground to make that happen process just a little bit longer at some point you have an old pupil that you put on top of an existing brand new barn does that make it a story you know it's in a different location it's a different spot but it's a very important piece does that mean that whatever building you put it on now becomes a historic structure in can now get exemptions from well and rules from set back with apartments from all kinds of other things you know it was used some pieces of an old building that you put in new structure in a new location i certainly understand the point you know and needle in the haystack doesn't make it historically don't mirror but it was called a start right but i think what eliot just described is a far cry from that i mean this we're talking about a very significant architectural section thirty one twelve and it says provided by the power of player the section three to four and it incorrectly says three six two with three to four it's as present present preservation and restoration of historic barns will be encouraged this is the theme of your plan and your bylaws encourage the preservation of these farms and i think kerry said if you do the repercussions are we in a hurry because people are going to stick with that then thirty one point twelve four sets out a standard and i think this comes within that standard or approving of it as in the value waiting in approving current restorations that the beast you consider quo how well they maintain agricultural of appearance and confidence it doesn't say how many square feet it is or is every piece of it old you have this substantial chunk of this building which someone has testified is very old seven hundred ninety and accurate when you go into this property you see the old par that's what you see first it is to store so i think you're well within your means to say yes this is it maintains the acar cultural the period and context so that if there were just ten square feet or something you might say it's insignificant but there is a substantial part of the just or when you go to by being reused for commercial and residential use it's the use of this that really costs preserving it for commercial and residential use that it costs about and this is where this is why you have wide open right here it says the store farms will generally be ones that are constructed prior to nine hundred ninety eight and then says and or on a list or whatever generally but specifically in this case start in the process but here this isn't something that is so preposterous and so out of proportion that it doesn't as i think come under your encouraging the use of these places because it's agricultural from context and that's what this topic is going to look like and that's what you i would hope would want to see in willesden that people go to a place that they look up in the sea in the present there is an old bar and i guarantee you most people who go up there won't know that the back together and they put them together so now it has this appearance of a much longer barn that they originally didn't exist in that configuration this has this semblance of the same thing these two barns ever shot together so again i don't think this is a big stretch to say we could move forward with looking at the site plan issues and if the board wants i'd like the least kind of go over some of the changes that we were able to make  and we'll certainly submit formally happy to continue the hearing and we were able to meet all of the requirements of the conservation committee and then we can talk a little bit about whelan's of if you guys want to do that as well and that the board will have to but and i think that brings up another point that i wanted to make which is the whole property not the whole property but a portion of the property is going to be used for weddings just like the oceans if you're not going to have a wedding and say everybody has to stand in this part of the structure the holy days you go to some place in williston that's role agricultural you enjoy the structure you wander around the property and you experience that they have tents or outdoor chairs or whatever so i think you have to open up your your view of what the intent here was a little bit and say is the idea that you can have a vent at this location appropriate and i agree that if it was a vacant lot and we built a brand bar in the middle of it you're by a lot as an allow that but that's not the case here you have very much of a unique circumstance a unique draw to the property that was restored and you know it's no different than the  places you go around vermont where you have these things and it selling farms or some of these other wedding facilities they have old structures and they have new structures you don't go and say we're not going to hang out in the new structures i don't want to go to the you know the clean bathroom i want to use the out house i mean that existed in seven hundred so i think it's important to recognize that as david and they were describing you know if you look at this in context it really does make sense to have this activity occur at places like this if it didn't and don't have a law that says that you can do this so anyway does the board have any other questions for the attorney or the builder line that says this is the fifty foot buffer of the building of cell i guess the first answer the question would be to what extent and we could understand posts use as being readily identifiable in the table parking if you can show that it has access to transit having said that i think the key task would be to what extent the board felt comfortable that that would actually really occur given the distances that would need to be traveled from any hotels that's existing today this facility we're talking about i don't know five six seven miles away so you know that there may be an idea that that's going to work i think the board the question for the board will be whether or not you think that would really happen in real life i personally be skeptical but i think i mean we can provide whatever part of the there's room for two hundred cars in that field i think that would minimize the impact of this problem and again i just wanted to get some feedback so that if we don't hear some comments from the board that we like this or don't like regardless of whether we can get past the first  about whether it's a store we can submit our site plan we don't have to hash out five more times so if you like something or don't like something please let me know we can make those corrections we did by the way for that application that we submitted in terms of the use was a carbon copy of the ocean cation so the uses that are proposed in terms of hours of operation all of the elements of the application that were submitted were were literally just transcribed from what was approved a quarter mile away inquired about warrants property and laura received a letter from the d c and we will be responding to that letter accordingly indicating that at such time that laura initiated an activity that talked about the seventy five percent of original materials and as i stated before i mean if we want to get into numbers i didn't see this barn before with oil down but am i correct that it was a two story barn yes it was  think seven hundred fifty square foot addition on the side and so again that would have been thirty one hundred fifty square feet of existing structure all within the by the way totally non conforming and we might have been in here applying for that to just be rehabbed in place what we are asking for you to approve is a thirty three hundred square foot structure which is five percent larger having spent many summers in willesden my wife and i decided to make it our permanent home about five years ago we live in the old village and then seeking a more country feel to raise our daughter moved out to south road where we live today you when i tell people i live in wilson often their first thought is the tap corners area and i mentioned i live out near lake here boy and many folks respond by saying oh it's beautiful over there i never think of that area as well well we all benefit from having the shopping amenities near tap corners it is a small pockets of country community that need to be protected and preserves to strike a balance which brings us to why we're all here today we oppose the approval of this preservation as he has twenty five years in the industry he worked as a historic preservation officer for the for my agency of transportation holds a master's in historic preservation and is qualified and  for reviewing historic properties whether they meet national and state historic guidelines to being historic and so he took this opportunity to evaluate the handy bar thirty one twelve three there was no restoration plan presented as required by the town by a law prior to the project commencing we believe that if the plan was presented for the structure that is there today it would not be approved and it doesn't conform the standards set forth by the town plan nor by a lot thirty one twenty three based on the application and revised life plan it clearly shows that there is no real use for the restored section of the bar the new bar  which is the new section to the south was clearly designed and labeled as being the function area as it has the dance floor and next and outside the patio flower garden the water fountain and it's  it is clear in this section thirty one twelfth five that the only way banquets can be allowed is in general is if it is in the restored historic mark just because you have a restored are on the property doesn't mean you get to use all your property for a wedding this is not a license to do what what isn't allowed otherwise in a structure or on other portions of the property and if you look at it there's a one little three by five picture a the new section there have been no sounds of traffic vibration studies submitted which we believe are property line being only one hundred ninety feet from the barn and our house only two hundred eighty five feet away from the from the base of a sound system can resonate for the sun itself and if you look in the upper right hand corner of a by photo that is standing on my property line on our property line i'm looking at the bar and you can see how close in number five as a consideration under eight hundred six the application has no mention of how many events how often how many per month and which months they occur and the capacity these are all factors that play into the impact of the surrounding  know waiting plan was submitted as chapter thirty four outlines the requirements commercial venues must adhere to outside lighting has been installed on the barn even though the obligation stated not what is proposed also some of the pictures are not fully shielded and you can see an example of that in that you buy ten as well additionally with the proposed parking lot area still farther far from the building i find it hard to believe they won't need it outside lighting for guests to walk or take to take a have more than sixteen parking spaces the application calls for forty and we've even heard testimony about up to two hundred if allowed would for the forty really be enough restaurants require twenty spaces for one thousand square  this is similar to a restaurant it would happen it would have enough parking as a bar in an outdoor area are more than two thousand square feet and number eight until this day west water wastewater plans are submitted in a group the proposed by plan meaningless because the roads and parking lots might have to be moved to meet wastewater standards we also have another concern about this project we have a sixteen month old stella our house is less than two hundred eighty five feet as i mentioned earlier my wife daughter and i can be seen walking down south road in the evenings we have the crazy ones with reflective year of flashlights many times during our hour walk there could be five to seven cars that pass us what happens when seventy five plus past to or from a wedding especially after they've had a couple of things the environmental impact on our property and drinking water from from using a non permitted septic system and portal that's the portal lets the use of which are not in it here and the environmental protection rules of practice outlined in two thousand and four from the state waste water management division and on the environmental front we support the recommendations of the willesden conservation committee and we want to provide a little bit of applicant should provide more details related to storm water management and erosion control and when doing so put on a record of the total square feet of impervious cover which includes a parking lot even though it stated as unlabeled s cracks so that sh feet from within our from our front door in within view so having being sandwiched between two wedding barns is also not super exciting there were references to his barn tonight and in the after can't project narrative however in our view these two projects are vastly different mike by self limits himself to only holding six weddings per year he lives on the property so he can monitor the events and the vast majority of his income still comes from agricultural related activities he grows berries for christmas trees i'm sure you've all been to his farm one point or another in our view he's using the provision exactly how it was intended to help supplement his income and diversify his agricultural activities unlike the applicant mike doesn't own two other wedding barn venues and shit in town and he doesn't have a wedding planner on staff to turn his barn into a full time wedding venue and unlike an investor isn't going to try and maximize his return on investment by hosting as many in weddings and events as he possibly can your decision tonight is an important one as it will set a precedent for what can and can't be done in the ag residential  what is to stop another investor from buying up historic barns building a structure that is more than twice the size of what was there to begin with claiming it's for agricultural purposes and then coming in front of this board tonight asking for a permit after the work has already been done and approval is now cation with a president that could turn our wills the countryside into a sea of small historic sheds with large additions to host weddings also i have to believe the applicants intention all along was to hold weddings and events on the in how the foot at the foundation was poured while the historic barn was restored twenty four to thirteen and we talked a lot about the historic barn and ellie's great work that he did on that barn but we have to remember that there's a whole afterthought also he didn't do the full barn he only did the small supposedly historic far not the new construction he's before closing we'd like you to recognize that approval of this application would be an exception to not in line in to determine whether or not it is a historic structure and in my twenty five years of experience i know no other way to make that determine determination other than to go other than based on the decision o mentioned previously about twenty five years in the business here in vermont was deputy state historic preservation officer for the state of vermont for sixteen years in that capacity were viewed two thousand two hundred projects for regulatory review of made the determinations on several hundred buildings in terms of their eligibility for the state national register story places and did it all covered you know crossed my desk can work worth approximately six billion dollars and i had to make decisions on the final decisions on behalf of state at the moment but other than that as a consultant i have been gauged in a fair number of work for private government institutional civic nonprofit clients including national register nominations project management tax credit applications one of my most recent projects that there's more on this if you're in here but i want to kill bill lilly on this my most hall's property and then i finally with with that information in mind i applied the national registry criteria as problem gated in the national register guidance and also found in the state of vermont multiple property documentation form for  l buildings to get this is kind of a tedious project but this is what professionals do in making a determination of whether a building is a store or whether it's not this is the process that is followed so i think i just want to read a bit from my executive summary so we don't go through so much of this to qualify for listing as a historic property i'm looking at the second paragraph here of the executives and to qualify for a listing as a store property it must be the national register criteria for both the significance and integrity of the two main paths that you need to all both not just one but both the significance of historic orange will generally fall under eighteen and see and those are detailed later in the report a is association patterns of development which in this case be the import of the pollution of farming on the development in the state of vermont whether it's feeling an association and a property not only needs to be significant but it needs to be able to convey that significance in its physical form what all six associates evaluated the handy mark for significance under each of these seven aspects of integrity as required in the national register guidelines we concluded that the head people are does not meet the national christer criteria and does not qualify as historic property and i'm not talking about the new section actually talking about the old section of the form in some cases such a determination could be marginal meaning it could be argued either way by experts this is not the case here based on conversations i've had with other experts and colleagues so we have a very high confidence level in  so that was commonly done to these early barns they were lifted in and allowed for most often the cows to be in the second floor in the first floor was used for manure and a shovel that back out of the field in this case it appears that the at least some of the milk extensions were down on that first floor what this project did was remove and we consider that evolution to a bank or to be a historic part of that farms evolution and what this project did it took away from being a back garden which we consider of his important in the history of the monoculture and returned it to being a flap barn in a new location i think there was some sense of this that the new location was chosen to be more like the original i'm not sure what the original was but i do know one thing the site where it is right now is not the original creation it was and it was changed from a back barn to  farm's evolution that was connected to farming practices that was fifty years old we would consider that a protective change even if it wasn't the original the barn when it was reconstructed  it was changed from bank barn back to the early barn status without regard to the to the evolution of the words if it had been reconstructed it should have been reconstructed hasn't banked barn and it should have been done in its exact the way there are you know there were questions asked earlier about well how much of a building needs to be kept as part of a reconstruction there are there is no specific answer to that question and the guidance won't give you a specific number but the guidance does give you a very specific set of criteria about that and they're listed under the national register the secretary of interior standards for reconstruction and they are very strict if there collapse structure that needs to be rebuilt and if it's to be considered historic after work it needs to have been based on on extensive documentation including archaeology the materials the side workmanship massing everything needs to know exactly and what i mean exactly based on evidence matched the original park so that's the answer to that question this structure which was reconstructed in a new location with many new materials and obviously doesn't meet those so i want to quickly run through the the integrity of the pieces and you'll see that each one is listed in this report one after the of the first has integrity of location from a historical connection so it does not meet the current the integrity of location of design so this gets a little tricky because part of the design is done well elliot's part was done expertly there's no question about that however the criteria states that the design reflects historic functions and technologies as well as the aesthetics to include such considerations as a structural system massing specificity specificity in its reconstruction the original borrowing was purpose built in the late eighteenth century with the utilitarian design to accommodate early diversified farming practices and provide only for that farm family as the national register criteria states additions to buildings can be expected and i think there was some reference to this those additions can be expected as farming practices of changing grown however the changes that we're looking at here have no connection to act as far as i can see there's been no demonstrated documentation about why this barn has moved to this space built exactly this way for this particular type of architecture i mean that context i haven't seen it and call it if it exists i mean i suppose that somebody could could could make that scale make that case in the case of the handy barn including some of the original salvaging and rebuilding a portion of the original framing the parness been dramatically altered to the point where the no longer possesses national register integrity of design it has been relocated away from its traditional location in the early farmstead it rests on a new concrete parts it has a do gable windows in new openings it has a new modern ridge put below moreover the barn is visually and physically overwhelmed by the modern structure to which is to which it is attached the new structure of prominently larger than the national credit national register criteria the design of the board interior has also been altered and i've seen the interior because i believe there was an indication to folks to go visit the barn and i've seen the photographs  them with me of the design of the barn interiors been altered with the removal of most of the gable wall where it connects into the newly constructed and much larger modern edition the results introduces an entirely new and  compatible design feature into the barn a static base in the foregoing we conclude that the barn does not possess the national register required minimum of design integrity and i don't have much the setting integrity of setting as number three setting is a physical environment to store property the national register criteria are excerpted there i stated earlier my evaluation relocating the barn away from the original horseshoe design of the farm complex without any documentation or reasoning and as to why it would be in a new design and what the connection would be to agriculture destroy the relationship with a born to the operation of the original  number for materials over the physical elements that make up the bar if you see what's underlined here it's the national register criteria is pretty clear the property must read and i quote from the gardens the property must retain the key exterior materials dating from its period of historic significance if the property has been rehabilitated the historic materials and significant features must have been preserved that's not the case and i don't think that's anybody's fault in particular the bar collapsed and had to be rebuilt however there were a number of changes made in the rebuilding on one of the more prominent ones from maine is the board and not inciting and you would not have had a board in bad siding on the late eighteenth century originally number five workmanship i can criteria of the national ministers excerpted as previously stated the salvage reconstruction of a portion of the barns framing by an expert is noteworthy but this does not mean the most new structure qualifies as historic and eligible for listing experts in the field would greatly be baffled by a bronze plaque on this structure that indicated a national register listing based on the retention of some timber framing from a collapsed barn in an otherwise newly constructed and an enlarged modern structure the majority of which has no connection whatsoever to agriculture and the mop based on the foregoing we conclude that the barn does not possess national register integrity of workmanship lastly feeling an association so this gets a little fuzzy and i'm not really a fuzzy historic preservation ist i think all farmers today would look out there and they wouldn't recognize that that was an eighteenth century thirty by forty dimensions were so commonly thirty by forty of them that's what the farmers call them it's not recognizable as i'm no longer recognizable as an early born it's recognizable to me or i think anybody familiar with farming restored preservation as a reconstruction it's an attractive building i give it that it's a beautiful setting but it is no longer a historic structure generations actually related to the nations so anyways the a dairy operation was in the basement has a very important context which is no longer here the here we are ration was actually buried for many decades i wouldn't even guess when it was started and it included in the very early one thousand nine hundred six the barnett everything would have disappeared the the former field bar which was put on top of the dairy operation and is now back as a field bar was moved from some place there really is no way probably of telling where every use to be that net property was a part of a huge farm in the area similar i maintain it's not that similar farm has been there six generations it's been an ongoing active agricultural enterprise all that time with one family still two generations live on the farm and the two barns that are there were moved there who knows where maybe a hundred years ago their boat and whom they are it excellent condition they have been restored  preserved in that respect but the whole farm in context is there your original house there is the original horse far all of the auxiliary buildings that would have been needed to keep that as an operating theory farm for and i think that we start giving exclusions for a potentially partially historic building then we start to open the door for somebody taking a genuinely historic barn from some other town moving section twenty four of the d d i'm thinking most of these uses be for parking lot or security and chapter twenty four of the deal some development by law says that for the for the zoning district parking lot parking lot lumination is discouraged as table twenty four dot the security line is also discouraged until twenty four about c so my thinking is that if there was conformance with a shocker twenty four there would be probably no temporary lighting but i want to clarify on the borders barnes is an add on the vermont dr magazine website and it says the wilson barn was a collapse historical barn rebuilt with an addition doubling the size of the original construction i'm not sure you can double the size of a thirty i would appreciate if he bowled might strike that piece of paper from your packets i'm not i have no idea how this gentleman was able to get a copy of an estimate produced for a private client but that has absolute she says  the talents historic designation process with the national and state register of historic places just so we get an outcome that looks familiar to other people ok second it is my understanding that the discretionary bankrupt facility use was intended to allow existing agricultural operations with a truly historic barrier and additional revenue opportunity to help support stewardship of their work in general i'm good with that however this applicant's proposed commercial operation within the amc the a or cultural rules only district does not fit within the vision of our account plan because it will be incompatible with our rural residential neighborhood transportation and celebration for one hundred fifty plus gas plus the help of associated with delivery of rental equipment catered food flowers weeds disposal and the requisite amplified speeches and music cannot happen without a negative repeating impact and existing nearby neighbors while you're working as a power to designate the is historic in the power to grant a discretionary permit these powers and waited with the responsibility of setting a precedent so please consider the intent of the bylaws use your power to reflect the intent of the law and set a they seem to have chosen to utilize the provisions of a man's right to farm law in order to facilitate construction and they chose a builder first seek permission later approach to abate of the instance standard permitting process i'm not a granddaughter my granddaughter can see this born out of backyard in her bedroom is like three hundred feet from the open door this poses a wedding bar and i just hope that she can fall asleep their house on the proposed bar with feet in the middle of the collapsed foundation so we know that development necessary change is in the bud and editable but how do we manage this train this trend right the right way and i say the first step is to don not deny this discretionary permit but also i believe that this war was built for the expansion of a wedding business not for housing animals i'm not a farmer but my guess is that our animals do not need polished wood floors track lighting soft loft and loft and y to be there and it just there's there's nothing about this current this animal friendly it's probably built as human friendly and about this of the subject system that was all installed without permits you've seen please the year in the package is the letter from the state saying that they have no record of it being a permit to install septic system and somebody said i thought that there is no plumbing inside well there's pictures of the sewer drain pipe to the sink drain pipe in a water inlet pipe and i believe them to be and some of the wording that they have here that it's already been connected to the existing domestic feel because there is no leach field for this year to use in the domestic leach field and so what might might might take away from this whole thing is about the intention of the bylaw thirty one twelve it was not to allow the building of new barns designed with wedding in mind and made to look historic so please deny this application and also please consider and bending the bylaws to make this whole process clear ever seeing an air conditioner hanging over any of their windows so they would have to try to sleep with the loose it's more than likely their bedroom is in the back of the house on the first floor and they would be needing us in the worst place to get important thing for me is that there's this important part of the history of the triple bypass joint i know it's that weird thing that sounds kind of weird but it's a really important thing is part of your history that should be embraced and this is the key this is the or not some farmer who decided to work up a little cold war and that's a master timber grammar and one that is deeply important to the history of your town that's why it's significant so significant stuff because he part of what triggers there or you know my thoughts when i saw this collapse fine i thought you know why it be great to have it resurrected and you know i didn't take into thought that i was going to have venue wedding functions there my town's i was going to move my animals there at some point and have a small farm so i tried to do the right things i went to the town i submitted a letter can came and visited my site i told him exactly where i was going to move my barn and the addition as well he thought everything looked good he also gave me a  party is going to continue to be an ag i have a farmer that's been farming it for the past five years i have a woman that i met a you're a girl initially she came to see me to  donations for blue star mothers and we were going to do fundraisers for veterans there put up therapeutic greenhouses so they can grow their vegetables maybe do some small dinner for them you know some some farm to table thing she works with  canine warriors which is a group that trains dogs to be placed with veterans with disabilities and initially she came to me for a donation and i said well is there any more i can do for you and she came and she wanted she came to see my barns and i showed you know she wanted to have fundraisers there for the veterans well she thought would be nice to have this not only for the veterans but maybe to do wedding functions and give five percent back to the vet back friends so it wasn't it was actually more of something from my heart then a commercial venture that my neighbors think that  i'm trying to do here i just want to be treated in the same respect as mr i seamus i'm sure when molly and mark potter place two years about when they were looking at it they knew there was exactly exactly so i just when you see my point of view that you know i'm here to work with everybody i do i want to be an could terms with my neighbors and i know they're concerned about noise  buildings from four hundred days certainly do not have the original siding or the original roof sheeting on the frame is important and you can preserve a temporary building for about seven hundred years with new scheveningen walls so the frame is the important thing that's the only thing that's going to stand like that none of the roof eating is written on the wall feeling or isn't it is original but it matches what would have been there originally again that's have been applied to the boards but we took great care to make sure there are i mean there are enormous forms i don't know if anyone noticed when they're there they're both had the applicant come knock on my door i've never met her prior to the event that well i actually have a hack meeting that we we attended i don't believe she visited any of our other neighbors until after the hack meeting when visited a couple because i believe she felt that this project was was not on solid footing as she had hoped whereas i lived in the neighborhood for two years we had many of our neighbors bring  bring us cookies our daughter was born in our house my neighbor he came over and told our longest are in the hospital for a week no one asked him to do that and those are true neighbors that i want to recognize very new addition that was put on it was there for a very few years it actually cost the barn a collapse it took out the old stone foundation that was there the the are still supporting wooden beams in the basement because after the whole theory operation was so the concrete foundation was only there for five or ten years was before that for many probably generations the  t any plan for that you but that's not connected to anything it's not it's not connected to the well it just has in the water line isn't connected to any water  more any more questions from the audience on either side anything else you would like t go to the opening if we go to as a group to see k we can do that continue to october twenty fourth and we have a  we're going to continue this to october twenty fourth so what about if you're going to look at the facility and you're going to have a quorum that has to be worn you can't you can't do anything as a quorum unless it's worn so i guess we should probably discuss when that's going to take place filter for the yes or the field trip unless you're going to go individually can zero in on them can't go as a quorum up can show up everybody anybody they brought is going to meet right it's a public hearing ok for anybody that wants to show up gets to show up you can exclude anybody everybody let everybody show up just like here tonight the doors open anybody that wants to show up they show up anybody that wants to speak they speak it's the same thing that's that's the deal and that's my advice to to this board is that it's a public meeting anybody gets gets to show up anybody that wants to watch and they want to listen to anything that the board might say they get a what the board would like is we have a member who would like to see it the board will go as a group whoever is attending the meeting we will reconvene here at seven thirty and continue the hearing last  that if the i think that if the horn is not going to invite them however if somebody here wished to invite them that would be fine and they would come to the hearing has been continued until the twenty fourth of october d p d p p dash zero one has been continued into october twenty fourth with at six o'clock