HomeMy WebLinkAboutAgenda - Planning Commission - 04/27/2021South Burlington Planning Commission
575 Dorset Street
South Burlington, VT 05403
(802) 846-4106
www.sburl.com
Meeting Tuesday, April 27, 2021
7:00 pm
IMPORTANT:
This will be a fully electronic meeting, consistent with recently-passed legislation. Presenters and
members of the public are invited to participate either by interactive online meeting or by telephone.
There will be no physical site at which to attend the meeting.
Participation Options:
Interactive Online (audio & video): https://www.gotomeet.me/SBCity/pc-2021-04-27
Telephone (audio only) (646) 749-3122; Access Code: 661-939-717
AGENDA:
1. *Agenda: Additions, deletions or changes in order of agenda items (7:00 pm)
2. Open to the public for items not related to the agenda (7:02 pm)
3. Announcements (7:10 pm)
4. Presentation and Public Input Forum on Draft Environmental Protection Standards Amendments to the
Land Development Regulations [LDR-20-01] (7:10 pm)
5. Review of possible questions to share with City Council as follow-up to joint Council/Commission meeting
(8:30 pm)
6. Adjourn (8:50 pm)
Respectfully submitted,
Paul Conner, AICP,
Director of Planning & Zoning
South Burlington Planning Commission Virtual Meeting Public Participation Guidelines
1. The Planning Commission Chair presents these guidelines for the public attending Planning Commission meetings
to ensure that everyone has a chance to speak and that meetings proceed smoothly.
2. In general, keep your video off and microphone on mute. Commission members, staff, and visitors currently
presenting / commenting will have their video on.
3. Initial discussion on an agenda item will generally be conducted by the Commission. As this is our opportunity to
engage with the subject, we would like to hear from all commissioners first. After the Commission has discussed an
item, the Chair will ask for public comment.
4. Please raise your hand identify yourself to be recognized to speak and the Chair will try to call on each participant
in sequence. To identify yourself, turn on your video and raise your hand, if participating by phone you may unmute
yourself and verbally state your interest in commenting, or type a message in the chat.
5. Once recognized by the Chair, please identify yourself to the Commission.
6. If the Commission suggests time limits, please respect them. Time limits will be used when they can aid in making
sure everyone is heard and sufficient time is available for Commission to to complete the agenda.
7. Please address the Chair. Please do not address other participants or staff or presenters and please do not
interrupt others when they are speaking.
8. Make every effort not to repeat the points made by others. You may indicate that you support a similar viewpoint.
Indications of support are most efficiently added to the chat.
9. The Chair will make reasonable efforts to allow all participants who are interested in speaking to speak once to
allow other participants to address the Commission before addressing the Commission for a second time.
10. The Planning Commission desires to be as open and informal as possible within the construct that the Planning
Commission meeting is an opportunity for commissioners to discuss, debate and decide upon policy matters.
Regular Planning Commission meetings are not “town meetings”. A warned public hearing is a fuller opportunity to
explore an issue, provide input and influence public opinion on the matter.
11. Comments may be submitted before, during or after the meeting to the Planning and Zoning Department. All
written comments will be circulated to the Planning Commission and kept as part of the City Planner's official
records of meetings. Comments must include your first and last name and a contact (e-mail, phone, address) to be
included in the record. Email submissions are most efficient and should be addressed to the Director of Planning
and Zoning at pconner@sburl.com and Chair at jlouisos@sburl.com.
12. The Chat message feature is new to the virtual meeting platform. The chat should only be used for items
specifically related to the agenda item under discussion. The chat should not be used to private message
Commissioners or staff on policy items, as this pulls people away from the main conversation underway. Messages
on technical issues are welcome at any time. The Vice-Chair will monitor the chat and bring to the attention of
Commissioners comments or questions relevant to the discussion. Chat messages will be part of the official
meeting minutes.
13. In general discussions will follow the order presented in the agenda or as modified by the Commission.
14. The Chair, with assistance from staff, will give verbal cues as to where in the packet the discussion is currently
focused to help guide participants.
15. The Commission will try to keep items within the suggested timing published on the agenda, although published
timing is a guideline only. The Commission will make an effort to identify partway through a meeting if agenda
items scheduled later in the meeting are likely not be covered and communicate with meeting participants any
expected change in the extent of the agenda. There are times when meeting agendas include items at the end
that will be covered “if time allows”.
DRAFT Questions for Council [Follow-up to Joint PC/Council Meeting]:
1. The Commission has been wrestling with the “big picture” of future development in the SEQ.
The Commission is fully in agreement that land should be used efficiently; that single homes on
large lots consuming the majority of the parcel does not achieve City goals. There are a few
distinct paths to promote different City goals, though.
TND PUD: One path promotes and requires compact, pedestrian-oriented neighborhoods. Land
that is not otherwise restricted from development (the SEQ-NRP, and areas subject to the
Environmental Protection Standards) would largely become part of the neighborhood, as
housing, active parks, and a small non-residential component. South Village and the Rye
neighborhood are examples. The tool being developed by the Planning Commission for this is
the Traditional Neighborhood Development, which sets an active goal of using land for future
compact neighborhoods.
CONSERVATION PUD: The second path promotes enhanced conservation of land, with an
allowance for a limited amount of housing in a compact manner within a portion of the
property. As drafted, a Conservation PUD would require that a minimum of 70% of the parcel
(excluding any portion of the property in the SEQ-NRP) be conserved. This 70% could include
hazards and habitat blocks, however. The remaining 30% of the land could be built upon based
on the underlying zoning. In the SEQ, this would likely be set at a maximum of 1.2 dwelling units
per acre (measured for all land on the parcel that is outside the SEQ-NRP and excludes hazards).
In this scenario, such a development would not allow the use of TDRs from off the property, and
so the 1.2 units per acre would become the maximum (plus any allowances for affordable
housing).
CHOICE OF TND OR CONSERVATION PUD: The third option is to allow the landowner to select
from either the conservation PUD or TND type PUD for these areas. This is the approach that
the Commission has been operating under for the last few months.
The Commission notes, however, that having both options available for a given parcel or parcels
could lead to a lack of clarity in the community about what can be expected to be built and
could lad to future debate and contention over this issue. Furthermore, the choice of one parcel
to become a TND or Conservation PUD could place pressure on adjacent parcels to do the same.
RELATED CONSIDERATION: CONSERVATION: A fourth option, but separate from zoning, is for
City with partners pursuing conservation of these areas in order to not see additional
development. The 2020 Interim Zoning Open Space Committee Report could be used as a
guide. This option could employ the Official Map as a tool, but any property must have a zoning
designation in addition to any goals that the City may have for acquisition.
DRAFT
In practice, there are a limited number of properties in the SEQ that these options could apply
to, but they do represent fundamentally different approaches to land development and meeting
City goals of housing and/or land conservation.
There are essentially 5 areas affected by this choice: areas where there are parcels exceeding 4-
5 acres in size, excluding the SEQ-NRP and Environmental Protection Standards. They are:
A. The parcels south of Butler Farms and north of the Claire Solar array.
B. The areas immediately east and south of Cider Mill II (now called Edgewood).
C. The Dorset Street Corridor, south of Nowland Farm Road and north of Dorset Farms [note
that private easements have limited the northernmost two of these parcels, the former
Dorset Meadows, to only 9 homes each].
D. The small planned “village” area in the center of the Dorset Street corridor, centered
roughly around the Mill Market & Deli
E. The parcel at the SE intersection of Spear Street and Dorset Street
These represent, broadly, the bulk of the larger “undeveloped” and “otherwise unencumbered”
land in the SEQ. DRAFT
Figure 1: Red = approximate SEQ zoning area, Blue = approximate proposed LDR protections,
Green = approximate “conservation” areas. See slides presented at the April joint meeting for
further definitions of these areas.
The Future Land Use Map & associated descriptions in the Comprehensive Plan contemplate
neighborhoods in these areas. But the Plan also shows natural resources of value in these areas
that could be further protected via the use of a Conservation PUD. The TDR IZ Committee
weighed in, broadly on this subject and recommended that parcels identified by the Open Space
IZ Committee as not the “highest priority” be prohibited from using TDRs as a receiving area. DRAFT
Finally, if the City does elect to pursue a Conservation PUD approach to one or more of these
areas, that will place additional emphasis on the need to establish new “receiving areas” for
TDRs outside of the SEQ, and will place an important challenge to the City to find other, creative
ways of meeting the City’s housing objectives outside the SEQ, through compact development
of greenfield areas, re-development of higher-density areas, and likely small-scale infill in
existing neighborhoods.
The Commission is very interested in the Council’s feedback on these larger questions.
2. Related to question #1 above, there are several points where the existing and proposed Land
Development Regulations leave some grey areas in implementation of the 2016 Comprehensive
Plan. Largely this is due to tensions within the Plan itself: for example, geographic areas that are
both envisioned as compact neighborhoods and identified as containing natural resources of
significance. There are additionally some outdated elements of the Plan, including planned
roadway connections, that are in the process of being revised through regulatory means such as
an update to the Official Map. And finally, depending on the direction the City ultimately takes
with regards to overall planned conservation and development patterns in the SEQ, such
decision may warrant or necessitate an update.
The Commission is considering a strategic update to the Comprehensive Plan, to have the City’s
Regulatory tools and Plan be aligned. This would not be a full-scale update to the Plan – that
remains scheduled for 2024, but could be very important nonetheless since a municipal plan has
a formal role in Act 250 proceedings and an inconsistency between zoning regulations and a
plan could lead to regulatory uncertainty and appeals. An update to the Plan does not need to
be an all-consuming effort, but it would invite continued debate over the issues under
discussion presently.
Staff is recommending that the Plan be updated. The Commission welcomes Council feedback
on the subject. DRAFT