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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMinutes - City Council - 09/19/1977CITY COUNCIL MEETING SEPTEMBER 19, 1977 The South Burlington City Council held a regular meeting on Monday, September 19, 1977 in the City Hall, 1175 Williston Road, South Burlington, Chairman Farrar called the meeting to order at 8:00 P. M. MEMBERS PRESENT Chairman Paul A. Farrar, Frank H. Armstrong, Martin Paulsen and William Burgess MEMBERS ABSENT Michael D. Flaherty OTHERS PRESENT City Manager William J. Szymanski, Free Press Reporter Scott MacKay, Nelson Russell, George Mona, Karin Larson, William and Ethel Schuele, Patricia Burgmeier, Chris Jessulp and Planning Commissioners William B. Wessel, James R. Ewing, Sidney B. Poger, W. Kirk Woolery and David C. Morency ADDITIONS TO AGENDA The Council unanimously agreed to add the following items to the agenda: 1. Update on the progress for improvements to the Dorset Street-Williston Road intersection. 2. Sign renewal note in the amount of $25,000 for Phase V sewer construction. READING OF THE MINUTES OF SEPTEMBER 6, 1977 The minutes of the meeting of September 6, 1977 were unanimously approved as written. SIGN DISBURSEMENT ORDERS Chairman Farrar announced that the orders were on the table for signing. REVIEW PLANNING COMMISSION AGENDA In referring to the Planning Commission agenda, Item No. 2, (Discuss Amendment to Act 250), Chairman Farrar stated that the amendment to Act 250 would be the deletion of Criteria No. 10 regarding compliance with local Master Plans. Councilman Burgess made a motion that the Planning Commission be advised that the Council is opposed to the proposed amendment. The motion was seconded by Councilman Armstrong and passed unanimously. DISCUSS ZONING AND SUBDIVISION AMENDMENTS It was agreed that Section 5.405(g) of the Zoning Regulations should be strengthened as requested by Councilman Burgess and this should be made explicitly clear. The Council then approved the draft of the proposed Zoning and Subdivision Regulations amendments dated 8/15/77. CONSIDER APPOINTMENT TO REGIONAL PLANNING COMMISSION Since Mr. George Mona, an applicant to the Regional Planning Commission, was present at the meeting it was decided to interview him at this time and also to schedule interviews with the other applicants for the position. Chairman Farrar explained to Mr. Mona what the duties of the Regional Planning Commission's representative from South Burlington would be. Mr. Mona expressed his reasons why he desired the appointment and answered questions from the Councilmen. DISCUSSION ON GROWTH POLICY WITH REPRESENTATIVES FROM THE PLANNING COMMISSION Planning Commission Chairman William Wessel stated that the Planning Commission initiated a new policy in which it intends to present planning changes prior to such changes being approved by the Planning Commission. The Council felt that it was a very good idea. Mr. Wessel asked the status of the growth policy. The Planning Commission has set conditions on approval of developments. He stated that this was sort of arbitrary and that the growth should be based on the limits of services. He then asked if that is the course on which the Commission should proceed or would there be another growth policy based on the master plan which has a definite rate of growth. Mr. Wessel asked whether, if all the services were available, the Council wanted to slow growth anyway. Mr. Armstrong said that might be academic because many services were already at the limit or close to it and he felt that the Master Plan dictated that the rate be held constant or the people told why. Mr. Wessel replied that the Master, Plan was not enough authority to slow growth by itself and that currently the only way to stop development is if it will overload services. He asked if the Council wanted to slow or stop growth in the face of adequate services. Mr. Armstrong said that he would like to know how to tell the people that the Master Plan was not legal. Mr. Farrar said that if the city told a developer that he could not build because his project would use up 10 year's sewer capacity in one year, he thought that would be upheld. If the city had all the services and still told a developer he could not build, then they would be open to suing. He said that the city should plan for services at a certain growth rate and that if that is done well, the two will match. He said that they were dealing with phasing growth so that the services will last a certain number of years and prevent growth from happening before that. This was agreed. Mr. Wessel said that in order to allocate growth among different competing types of housing and make it work legally, a lot of time and effort would have to be put in. He said that a Capital Budget and an Official Map were necessary in order to get a grip on this. It will be complex and time consuming. To his knowledge it has not been done elsewhere in the state and it is not a sure thing. Mr. Burgess said that it would be one of the best things, though, and would give the city control over where the services were going to be available. Mr. Farrar said that presently the services favor certain kinds of development. Much of the R7 land is reached by the services while little of the R2 is. This creates pressure to build in the R7 and if services are not extended, an imbalance will occur. He said that a reasonable plan to control the rate of growth would be easier than a plan that specifies what uses can be put where. Mr. Woolery said that they wanted a legal way to control rate and type of growth even if all the services were in place. The Council agreed. Mr. Wessel said that the Council and Commission had reached a mutual agreement and asked how they could reach this goal. Mr. Wessel said that the Commission wanted an engineer with traffic expertise planned for in the next budget and that in the short term they needed a traffic study done. Mr. Poger is trying to locate a consultant for this purpose. Mr. Wessel asked how the problem should be approached. Mr. Ewing felt that more representation from the Council on these committees would be very helpful and suggested one major committee with individuals working on parts of the traffic problems in the city. This, he said, would be better than one large committee working on all phases of the problem. Mr. Paulsen asked if he was looking for a committee of about 10 people and was told that was about right. Mr. Farrar was asked if this kind of work was within the scope of private citizens or more rightly belonged to a professional and he replied that professionals are no use unless you know the right questions to ask them and can limit those questions. Mr. Paulsen asked if he was suggesting that the committees form the questions to ask and was told that was a possibility. Mr. Ewing said that he would like it better if the consultant had the best interests of South Burlington in mind and would oversee the traffic problems. It would be much better to have one person taking care of traffic year after year than to have someone make one study and move on. It was pointed out that, perhaps because the city has Bill Szymanski watching, the city has few sewer problems and that maybe people would be willing to spend some money on someone to keep the same kind of watch on traffic. Mr. Burgess said that he was not sure that the city could keep a full-time person fully employed. Mr. Poger said that according to Bruce Houghton, when the phase 1 improvements suggested by the Williston Road Task Force for the improvement of the Dorset Street intersection are completed, and University Mall goes in, the city will be no better off. He said that the Task Force had done a good job but that it had not been implemented earlier because there had been no one watching over the situation and telling the city what to do next. He also said that the Planning Commission does not have enough traffic expertise to tell a developer his plans are unacceptable because of what they will do to the traffic problem. Mr. Farrar said that he did not know if the city needed a full-time employee to do that, and Mr. Poger replied that the Commission was thinking of someone with traffic expertise that could also help Mr. Szymanski with his work load. Mr. Wessel said that he would like to bring the discussion back to the Map and Budget. Mr. Farrar said that he thought that the Council had a Capital Budget in place. Mr. Wessel disagreed, saying that the City Attorney had said that the Budget had yet to be legally adopted. Mr. Farrar agreed that it had to be adopted, but felt that it was all there. Mr. Wessel said that it had to be carefully tied to other city documents, and suggested that the City Attorney be consulted on the issue. Mr. Farrar said that he would contact Mr. Spokes and get an answer on paper. Mr. Morency said that the Growth Policy had to be tied to a Capital Budget Growth program. If the city wanted to stop growth because the traffic is too high, it could not do that legally unless there was something in the Master Plan which said that there were plans for improving the roads. Mr. Farrar felt that would force the city to plan for unlimited growth and Mr. Morency disagreed, saying that the idea was to phase capital improvements to control the rate of growth. Mr. Wessel said that Mr. Spokes would be contacted about the Capital Budget, and that after that was done, the Council wanted to begin work on the Map. He said that the other question left unresolved was what Council wanted to do about the Transportation Committee and the traffic. Mr. Farrar said that he had thought that a specific committee would be appointed to work on the Route 7 problem, since that will be necessary for the Environmental Impact Statement anyway, but that they should give feedback to Mr. Ewing's Transportation Committee so that things will be integrated. He felt that any other questions should be resolved by the Planning Commission internally. Presentation of Planning Commission Subcommittee Report. "High Traffic Generators". Mr. David Morency Mr. Morency explained what his sources of material had been. He said that most roads are designed to carry traffic at level C and that some of South Burlington's intersections are far beyond that level and that they (intersections) are usually the limiting factors in road capacity. 75% of capacity is level C and usually is an acceptable level. More than that leaves little room for future growth. Mr. Farrar wanted to know if there was any place in law that anybody had used this but Mr. Morency did not know. He said that one could put restrictions on parts of a street with severe problems, however. The capacities refer to peak pm. level. He discussed Williston Road from Spear Street to Hinesburg Road and Shelburne Road from Swift Street to Laurel Hill Drive and said that several of the intersections are at level D or worse. As far as accidents, he said, 33% of those that occurred Over a 2 year period in South Burlington occurred on those two sections of road. About 500 accidents occurred in that period, and 5 accidents per year in one spot is considered a high accident area. Mr. Morency said that Zoning and poor road design caused the problems. Accidents are caused by unlimited access, strip development, and the presence of high traffic generators (businesses which allow a high volume of traffic over a short period of time particularly at peak). High traffic generators also reduce road capacity because they interfere with through traffic. As far as road design, he said, changing the green cycles on some of the traffic lights would relieve congestion and some of the intersection capacities could be increased by changing the design of them. Another problem, he said, was that when a project came before the Commission for site-plan review, they could not discuss the impact on traffic no matter where the project was located. The Commission has tried to put a bandaid on the problem by making Conditional Uses out of some of the uses so that they have to go before the Zoning Board, but that does not always work out. Expansion of a business is another problem, he said. Once a business has the use, the city cannot control his growth or turn him down because of the traffic problem if he comes in for site-plan approval. He said that the city has to define him as a subdivision and said that Middlebury has done that. Mr. Farrar asked how to do that and Mr. Morency said that they could just put some criteria in the definition and he recommended doing just that. He said that he would like to see a formal procedure for following up on Act 250 approvals and have approvals given expiration dates. The Commission has already begun to do the latter. Mr. Morency then went through the recommendations in his report. He would like to see a Limited Growth Zone established on the bad sections of Williston and Hinesburg Roads and on their side streets to the nearest intersection away from the main road. Only low traffic generators would be allowed in the zone. Mr. Farrar said that such language could be incorporated into the Zoning Regulations as to make this apply to any area of the city automatically when traffic reached a certain level and become void when road improvements were made. A second recommendation of the report is to establish a Planned Commercial Development (PCD) to accommodate high traffic generators. Mr. Morency saw this as a floating zone that would not be allowed on the main roads. It could be located in the present BPD zone, and the goal would be to control access to main roads. Other standards such as minimum lot size and frontage, minimum distance from an intersection or another PCD could also be added. A geographical location could be worked out if the city had an Official Map. Mr. Morency said that he would also like to establish standards for medium traffic generators in order to discourage further strip development. One way to do this would be to use lot size to restrict use. A pre-existing small lot would be allowed few uses. Owners could be encouraged to combine lots and use one curb cut for all of them if by doing this, they were permitted a higher use. Mr. Farrar suggested making any high traffic use a Conditional Use in the interim. Mr. Morency said that all existing high or medium traffic generators in the limited growth zones should be non-conforming uses and added that he would like to be able to phase out existing uses. He also recommended establishing standards for traffic safety, road capacity, and traffic studies submitted to the Planning Commission for the review process. He recommended establishing a way to measure road capacity and thought that the Commission should review use variances and conditional use permits granted by the Zoning Board. He also felt that there should be more communication between Commission and Council and that it should be more formal than it is now. As far as needing help from a traffic expert, Mr. Morency said that they could do something with the Zoning Regulations, but they are now faced with the traffic Digital will cause, and that Pyramid may cause. The impact of the South End Connector is not known, either, and it is hard to evaluate traffic patterns or measure capacity without knowing these things. A traffic expert could also make long range plans for road improvement and set priorities. Another problem is that when the Commission is given a traffic impact statement from a developer, they have no way to evaluate its contents. If the city adopts standards for road capacity, it will need help in deciding what are reasonable and legal values. This applies to establishing other types of traffic standards. He said further that the city is always on the defensive and that they need someone with the city's best interests at heart to help them out. Mr. Burgess felt that those were very logical reasons for getting a traffic engineer. Mr. Armstrong suggested that there be a list made of low traffic generators. Mr. Morency felt that was a good idea, and said that the only problem was documenting the traffic data - finding some place that said what kinds of uses produced what kinds of traffic. Mr. Farrar suggested attaching numbers to the descriptions of high, medium and low traffic generators. Mr. Woolery said that City Hall should have some kind of inventory of streets and who owned them and that a traffic engineer could keep track of that as well as looking into changing green cycles on lights and applying for federal funds, etc. Mr. Wessel said that the big question was whether Council was dissatisfied enough with the traffic situation to want to do something to control it. Mr. Paulsen suggested arterial roads to get through traffic off some of the worst areas. The Council agreed that it liked the idea of a limited growth zone, and of using Conditional Use permits as ways of slowing growth while the long range solutions were being put into place. They also seemed to feel that the Commission should develop standards for a PCD of high traffic generators and try to work on the long range solutions to the traffic problem. Mr. Morency asked how Council felt about the traffic engineer and Mr. Armstrong said that the city could only afford an inexperienced person. Mr. Burgess did not feel strongly one way or the other but said that he had heard good reasons to have one tonight. Mr. Morency said that the Commission was talking about a full time engineer with traffic expertise who could also help Mr. Szymanski. He said that they wanted someone they could talk to easily. Mr. Paulsen asked about the $4,000 the Commission has been given for consulting work and Mr. Morency said that the traffic problem was bigger than that and should be separate. Mr. Wessel said that when the Commission had asked for the money they had listed why they wanted it and that they had not nailed it down specifically yet. Sanction of the Water Department - Champlain Water District operating agreement Mr. Paulsen removed himself from this discussion. Mr. Szymanski explained that this would be a pilot project subject to cancellation within 60 days. He said that out of the 5 present employees of the Water Dept., 2 have retired and 2 more will in 3 years. Under this contract, South Burlington's water will be managed by Champlain Water District and supplemented with their employees. Mr. Szymanski said that the bookkeeping would be the same and that water rates would not go up. Mr. Burgess said that he did not understand why this was being done and wanted to know what the advantage would be to the city. Mr. Szymanski said that the office was losing staff to retirement and that eventually the whole area might be managed by Champlain Water. He said that there would be no great advantage or disadvantage to the city right now. The costs are basically the same but it would be more effective. He reiterated that this was a pilot project. The Council decided that it would like to talk to a Water Commissioner about this. Update on highway construction Mr. Szymanski said that he hoped the improvements to the Dorset Street - Williston Road intersection would be finished this year and that the latest estimate of the cost was under what the State had allocated for the work. He said that it was out of his hands now. He then updated the Council on other road work being done in the city. Mr. Paulsen brought up the question of closing the curb cut on the cul-de-sac at the end of East Terrace and Mr. Szymanski said that he would look into it. Sign renewal note in the amount of $25,000 for Phase V sewer construction Mr. Szymanski said that the interest on the note was 3.6%. The Council signed the note. Mr. Paulsen moved to adjourn as the City Council and meet as the Liquor Control Board. The motion was seconded by Mr. Burgess and passed unanimously. Mr. Paulsen moved to approve the application from the Court Club on 70 Farrell Street for a 7 piece band to play between 9:00 pm and 1:00 am no more often than 4 nights per month starting Saturday September 16. Mr. Armstrong seconded the motion which passed unanimously. Mr. Paulsen then moved that permission be given to Gold Star at 733 Queen City Park Road South Burlington for entertainment consisting of recorded music, dancing. and live music entertainment between 4:00 pm and 2:00 am on a 7 day per week basis. Mr. Armstrong seconded the motion and it passed unanimously. The meeting adjourned at 12:00 pm. Clerk Published by ClerkBase ©2019 by Clerkbase. No Claim to Original Government Works.