Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAboutMinutes - City Council - 01/17/2006CITY COUNCIL 17 JANUARY 2006 The South Burlington City Council held a regular meeting on Tuesday, 17 January 2006, at 6:45 p.m., in the Conference Room, City Hall, 575 Dorset St. Members Present: J. Condos, Chair; C. Smith, M. Boucher, S. Magowan, D. O'Rourke Also Present: C. Hafter, City Manager; D. Gravelin, Assistant City Manager; J. B. Hinds, Director of Planning & Zoning; L. Graham, Police Chief; members of South Burlington Police Department; R. White, M. McCain; A. Parent, The Other Paper 1. Consider entering Executive Session to Discuss Litigation Settlement: Mr. Boucher moved the Council meet in Executive Session to discuss a litigation settlement. Mr. Smith seconded. Motion passed unanimously. Regular Session: 2. Comments & Questions from the Audience not related to Agenda Items: No issues were raised. 3. Other Business & City Manager's Report: Mr. Condos: MPO meeting tomorrow night. Mr. Hafter: Local Government Day at the Legislature will be 15 February. Arrangements can be made for Council members who wish to attend. Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors Meeting, 28 February, Noon. City Manager's Association meeting, 19 February Lake Champlain Housing Coalition meeting, 1 February On 26 February, there will be a meeting to discuss project costs of the proposed Exit 14 project. Mr. Hafter reported that he attended a conference on Avian Flu at which communities were told that if there is an outbreak, they are "on your own." Mr. Hafter is now participating in the Isolation/Quarantine Advisory Group. The estimate is that there could be as many as 6000 people in quarantine if there is a pandemic. Fire Chief Doug Brent has been asked to update the city's emergency management plan to include pandemics. There is a list available of what a family would need for a natural disaster; this list is the same for a pandemic. 4. First Reading of New Southeast Quadrant Chapter and related amendments to the South Burlington Comprehensive Plan; Schedule Public Hearing of same: Ms. Hinds briefly reviwed the process for revising the Comprehensive Plan Chapter on the SEQ. This process include early public workshops, stake holders meetings, Planning Commission workshops, etc. Along the way, there was a "Goals Based Plan" created, a subdivision moratorium, open space strategy, environmental studies, and a second subdivision moratorium. Ms. Hinds cited the active engagement and involvement of the public. The Planning Commission's initial concern was that the large setbacks did not promote areas of meaningful open space. The original "Goals Based Plan" had created developable and non-developable areas, but the problem was that these areas were very broken up and did not result in a consistent corridor. The idea had been to put houses back in the woods to hide them, but this was in direct conflict with what people were really interested in which was to preserve those wooded areas. One unfortunate result of this plan was that Dorset Farms ended up in what had been one of the most important parts of the Great Swamp natural area. Ms. Hinds then showed a map of areas identified as important to wildlife. From this map, the Planning Commission considered clusters of features worth protecting. They then considered the property owners and the needs for housing, services, etc. As a result, the Commission came up with a set of 5 principles: 1. Preserve areas of ecological significance 2. Create cohesive, publicly accessible open space (rather than the "leftovers" the city had been getting) 3. Encourage and create zoning to result in walkable neighborhoods, a range of housing choices, and a unique sense of place. 4. Create a "village" center for the SEQ to include a link to the rec. path, a mix of housing, etc. 5. Create a circulation system to balance automobile, bicycle, pedestrian, and transit modes (to include traffic calming for at arterials and revised road standards for local streets. As a result of these principles, the zoning map for the SEQ will now be divided into 4 districts: a. Neighborhood Residential (NR) b. Village Residential (VR) c. Village Commercial (VC) d. Natural Resource Preservation (NRP) Two pieces of property will be rezoned as a result of this: 2/3 of the Rye Property will become NR and the Goodrich property will become NRP. Ms. Hinds then showed an overview map identifying each of the new zoning areas. Mr. White then reviewed the nature and characteristics of each of the new zones. 1. Natural Resource Protection: will maintain the 1.2/acre zoning with the assumption that the majority of those units will be transferred our of the district via TDR's. This area includes the Great Swamp, Cheese Factory Woods, the LeDuc Farm, and the area between Hinesburg Rd. and Muddy Brook. 2. Neighborhood Residential: zoning at 4/acre with interconnected streets in a pedestrian friendly pattern. Mr. White showed photos of this neighborhood design concept. 3. Village Residential: zoning at 8/acre, also with pedestrian friendly, interconnected streets. Housing would include multi-family units. 4. Village Commercial: very small area of neighborhood retail, 8/acre hosing, pedestrian friendly. No strip malls! Mr. White then showed a concept for block and lot patterns for the SEQ indicating deeper, narrower lots with interconnected streets (no cul de sacs), neighborhood parks with housing facing the parks, and connections to the rec. path system. Street designs standards would be keyed to different zoning districts and would feature 9-foot driving lanes, on-street parking on at least one side of the street, and sidewalks on both sides. Ms. Hinds said there would still be enough right-of-way emergency use and snow removal, but homes would be set closer to the edge of the right-of-way. Arterial streets would be treated more like a village street, narrower in places, with sidewalk/rec. path on both sides and housing closer to the road. Ms. Hinds said this concept would be worked on further in the Dorset Street corridor study. Traffic calming would be considered at intersections to insure safe pedestrian crossings. Following the presentation, Mr. O'Rourke moved to waive the first reading and schedule public hearings on 21 February and 9 March. Mr. Smith seconded. Motion passed unanimously. 5. Discussion of conceptual plans for Police Facility at 575 Dorset St; selection of preferred plan for development of floor plans and cost estimates: Mr. Hafter said the Council is being asked to choose one of 3 options so the project can proceed to the cost projection stage. Mr. McCain then reviewed the basic attributes of the project that would be common to all options: 20,000 sq. foot building with free-standing maintenance/storage building and communications building, 166 parking spaces, use of existing curb cuts, separate mass of building community/conference room, good signage, landscaping, identification as a public building. He then reviewed the 3 options as follows: 1. Two equally weighted masses on Dorset Street with entrance in the middle; 50 feet between Fire Department and Police Department with green space between buildings; community/conference space to the south end with less building mass along Dorset Street. 2. Community space to the north side between Fire and Police buildings (25 feet between the buildings), very visible lobby, clear entry. 3. Building rotated 90 degrees to create more frontage on Dorset Street, all public spaces on south side, separate entrance for community/conference space from south parking lot, 20 feet from Fire Dept. building. Mr. McCain said his and the committee's preference is option #3. Mr. Hafter asked if option #3 could be expanded in the future. Mr. McCain showed possible areas for expansion. Mr. Condos asked if there would be any way to add another floor. Mr. McCain said it would be possible but more costly, and there is a question as to whether it would work programmatically. Chief Graham said he and all the Police officers prefer option #3. The Council agreed to proceed with cost estimates based on option #3. 6. Acceptance of Streets: Mr. Hafter said portions of Farrell Street (connecting to Shelburne Road) and Bacon Street have passed all inspections and are being proposed as city streets. Mr. Boucher asked how the Farrell/East Woods Drive intersection is working. Mr. Magowan said he felt that people have figured out how to drive it now. Mr. Condos was concerned with the dead-ending of the bike path. He felt that should be dealt with. Mr. Smith moved to accept sections of Farrell and Bacon Streets as presented. Mr. Boucher seconded. Motion passed unanimously. 7. Review Development Review Board Agenda for meeting of 17 January 2006: No issues were raised. 8. Approve Minutes of 9 January 2006: Mr. Magowan moved to approve the Minutes of 9 January as written. Mr. O'Rourke seconded. Motion passed unanimously. 9. Sign Disbursement Orders: Disbursement Orders were signed. As there was no further business to come before the Council, the meeting was adjourned at 9:45 p.m. Clerk Published by ClerkBase ©2019 by Clerkbase. No Claim to Original Government Works.