 Okay, we are now recording great. Thank you everybody. And thanks, Stephanie. Welcome to the March 31, 2023 meeting of the solar bylaw working group parameters. We do have a quorum and let me just take a look at the list here. Are we missing anybody? I don't think so. Cool. Great. Okay. Great. So, my notes have it that Laura, are you able to do? I'm good. Super. Thank you. Janet, thank you for minutes last time. I don't think we got those to review yet. No, it was sick, but I'll have it next time. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Hope you're feeling better. And as I like to do, to get people prepared. Next time, Bob, you're back up. For minutes. Today, right? No, no, no. For next two weeks from now. Laura's up today. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. No, no panic today. But that way you don't have to. I was actually prepared. Okay. So in the next time you're next time you're, you're up, but Laura, you'll go today. Okay. Great. Thank you. Oh, we're missing Chris, but I presume she'll be joining us later. Yeah. This is Jack. I just popped my laptop into this docking station and the video is not working. So, but I'm here. So. I'll try to figure out the video part. Okay. Yeah. No, no worries. We can hear you. And I miss your sunflowers, but no, there's another background. Okay. And let me just. Check to see. In terms of any public participants, we do have a five and 10 attendees. So thank you. To the public for your attendance as well. And we'll get on with the agenda. Now. Which is first up on the agenda is our review of the minutes. And approval. If we can. We do have the minutes from still to review and approve for, from March 3rd. Despite the agenda, we don't have the minutes yet to review from March 17th, but. Does anybody have any questions, comments, suggested edits for the minutes. March 3rd. They were good. Yeah. I agree. I was just looking at them and who do we need to thank for those. Jack. Yeah. Thank you. Oh, the sunflowers are back. Good. Okay. Any comments or thoughts or emotion to accept the minutes of March 3rd. Bob, I'll move to a doctor minutes. All right. Thank you, Bob. I'll second. Thank you, Martha. Okay. And by voice vote. In no order. McGowan. Um, yes. Breger. Sorry. Yes. Yes. Corkin. Yes. Jem sec. Yes. Brooks. Yeah. Peggy Arula. Okay. Minutes are approved. Thank you. Okay. Next on the agenda. Our staff updates, which would be the Stephanie, if you have any for us. Sure. Just a few quickly today is the last day for people to participate in the solar survey. Um, everyone has received, um, links that's also on engage Amherst is probably the easiest place to find it. Um, so we encourage people who haven't completed that yet to please, please do so. Um, to date, there are over 500 that have been completed. So, um, we really appreciate people have taken the time and would really appreciate more people doing so as well. Engage Amherst will also allow you an opportunity to make an extended comment. That isn't just a multiple choice question. So if people wanted to leave comments, please do so because those will be incorporated into the report. The final report. By GCA. Um, and then my other update is that I did send it out to you all, but. The governor did sign the legislation to extend remote meeting participation. So our next meeting will be remote as it has been. That will not change. Until, and that's extended to March 20. I'm sorry, March 31st until 2025. Yep. When we'll learn again, whatever fate is. Yeah. Okay. Great. That's good news. Okay. Anything else? One question. Um, the extended period for providing. Comments to the survey or responding would go to when. So he's the last day, but you mentioned something. Oh, I'm sorry that the extension is for the remote meeting participation. Okay. Um, so remote meetings, we can, we are, we're extended until March 31st of 2025. Yep. And then also, I guess I, our last meeting was on the 17th. So, uh, just a quick update on the, um, outreach, the community outreach. There were approximately 25 or so people who participated. In the events at the Woodbury room. There were 21 people who attended the. Virtual presentation by GCA. And so there were lots of, um, comments that were collected as part of that initial outreach. And again, um, A lot of great conversations with people. Um, and I think GCA did a really nice job of sort of having it laid out so that it was, um, very much, um, A kind of self-service you could walk in and just do what you, if you wanted to do one. You know, um, of the, of the displays you could, you could participate in one or you could do all of them. Great. Thank you, Stephanie. Janet. When, when will we get the results of the survey from GCA and the, in the comments. In April, that's all part of the report. All of that will be included in the report. Great. Um, will we, will we get a chance to see the maps before they go into the final report and. Um, there is a map. You, I don't know which maps you're referring to. Um, the solar assessment is just one map. The map you've, she's, you've already seen that base map, that base map is the map that is the result of the solar assessment. Then at the end of April, and as I said, that map was going to our GIS expert and he, it's going to be the map that's going to be available. The solar assessment map is going to be available on the town's website and different layers will be available for people to turn on and off. So that's just the base map, but the final map is actually on the town's website and that will be available in April. I mean, I guess I'm confused, but it, will there be an overlay of agricultural soils. That people could look at on that base map or final map. Um, I can't remember. I'd have to look if that was one of the, there were a few additional layers that were, the town was asked to, to be able to include. So I'll have to take a, a look at that again. I mean the base map is all the assessment was set out to do. And then we did what they were meant to do. So, so the map that, that, I mean, we saw that in a very like hard to see the detail form. So, right? Because it's not the final product. The final product is, is available in April. That will be on the town's website and you'll be able to turn layers on and off. And I just have to go back to recall. I think there were a list. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. During our meetings, which layers. Were. Requested. So agricultural soils would be really critical to what we're, our work here. I'm, I, I'm not going to say definitively, but I don't know, Dwayne, if you recall, but. Not at the end. I'd have to look at that list, but the layers will be available. And it's just a matter of if, if that layer exists. Cause that they didn't assess every parcel for, for every grid, and they were only assessing it on the grid, not the whole parcel. So. I guess I'm completely lost because maybe I, so there are different overlays. That you can turn on and off. There, there is, when you have the map. So when you, when you get that solar assessment map. And you go to it, there's going to be different layers that you can turn on and off. So if you wanted to identify different features. You can turn them on and off. And then we have nothing to do with the solar assessment. Those layers or other GIS layers that, that are available. Right. So if there is, if agricultural soils are available, we could just turn those on and off. Yeah. If, if it's that specific level of detail. And again, I just have to double check if that, I don't, because I don't, I mean, it would have to be like a state. There would have to be some kind of state layer that has prime agricultural land. Identified. And that's, then if we do, then that's a layer you can turn on. Okay. So as long as we, I mean, if it's something that it already exists, they didn't, they weren't creating a specific other layer to do that. I guess is what I'm trying to say. Okay. Yeah. Their map is. Is mass GIS. Capable, right? Right. Right. Compatible. Compatible. Compatible. Right. Okay. We had. Martha and then Chris and then Laura, I think. Well, once, once the GZA is finished, then they are experts have. Done the overlays. I think it's, really critically important that we have one or a few presentations and discussions here in our open meeting. About the overlays and the salient points of the, of the, of the maps and the conclusions from them and so on. I think that's really important. I mean, the way maybe you and Stephanie are really conversant with how to look at the maps. On your own time and so on, but maybe the rest of us, including me, aren't necessarily, and it would be very helpful to be able to discuss them and, you know, what was going to be relevant to the actual by-law. So I hope we can, we can do that now that we've got the leisure of, of, of an extended deadline where we'd have time in May to, to do that. There will be a presentation by GCA of the final report, but I don't know that that would include specifically working with the map, but we could, you know, that's not a hard thing for us to do during a meeting. I mean, we can easily just have a session on using the map. So, and it just didn't even take that long. Yeah. More than even a tutorial on how to use the map. I mean, studying the map and say, ah, you know, here's the land that's been identified as prime land, or here's the land that's excluded or, you know, really go around the map and study where, where the potential solar locations are. I think that would be very helpful. Yeah. I mean, a lot of this work has been done before us to have, you know, a tool to use in our deliberation. So I would, I would agree with that. I would be a little bit cautious in that I don't think it's our. Her view or desire to start looking parcel by parcel, because that's not, you know, that's not quite in our domain. But in terms of just generally looking at. For the, for the, you know, apparently approximately one third of Amherst, you know, for the, for the, you know, apparently approximately one third of Amherst, it is not otherwise prohibited for solar development. If we want to start looking to get some general sense of, of what remains available, of what type of soils, forest cover open space, built up space, commercial, industrial commercial zoning on the various different segments. I think that's, I think that's what we will be helpful for us to have that in mind as we're developing, continuing to develop the, the bylaw. Yeah, that's, that's what I meant was, was the general sense of where the areas are because that might help us in deciding, you know, whether we want a maximum size or what the setback should be or things like that might be helpful. I think we will, we will try this because that's not going to be until the end of April. We won't get into that until May. We will want to start discussing some of those ideas and concepts in terms of our general perspectives from this group to, to move forward in terms of our principles. And then we can look at some of the data and details from the mapping a bit later, but I don't, I think we, and I think Chris in terms of starting to develop some language as draft as it is and some, some holes in it. We want to begin some of those conversations, even before we see all that detail, all the, have had the tool available to us. All right, let me go with Jeff. Sorry, I think I said Chris and then Jack. So I would just put it Chris. Do you want to go, Jack? Yes, I'll let Chris go. Oh, I just wanted to comment on what I understood was in the maps. The maps that we have now show areas that we don't think are feasible for solar and areas that we do think are feasible for solar. And I believe what was mapped was slopes. And I think it's slopes under 10%. In other words, a slope that faces south. So you have a reasonable chance of getting sunlight on whatever panels you put there. Exclusions. So anything that's owned by one of the colleges or UMass, exclusions of known mapped wetlands, exclusions of roadways, exclusions of already APR land, exclusions of land that has already been put under a conservation restriction or is owned by the town or the conservation commission as conservation land, land that is owned by the state as state forest or park land. So, and then, oh, I think I mentioned roads. So I don't think that the GCA consultant mapped soils. I think that's up to us to talk about and decide. We can decide that we don't want to have solar arrays on prime soils, but that's a conversation that this group needs to have. Those are mapped by others. They're not, they have, as far as I know, they haven't been mapped by GCA. So we can have that conversation, but I wouldn't expect to see that in the map that comes from GCA. I think they focused on slopes aspect, roadways, exclusions, and there may be one or two other things that Stephanie or Dwayne knows about, but they didn't map absolutely everything. They didn't map, you know, this forest is better than this forest or things like that. They did map land use. So just to be clear, land use was identified. So if it's forested or agricultural, that was identified. And as Adrian pointed out when she did the presentation, it was just very hard to see because of the scale. It was a PDF that she was viewing because it wasn't, we weren't looking at the final product. We were just sort of looking at the base layer that will be used for our GIS to put together, you know, the other, you know, the sort of, that's the base map that's used, but then you can turn the other layers on over that. And these are layers that already exist. So there, there is the, I think there's more information that you're looking for. It's just that it wasn't, they were just identifying land use. Right. And thanks, Dan, for the link in the chat, which I don't, I didn't think we had chat. He hacked in. Yeah. I have to ask you not to use that beyond the, that feature, but go ahead, Dan. Oh, okay. I would just find that add the, the farmland soil classifications are publicly available from the USDA. And so I don't think that would be very hard for GDA to add as a part of that. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Great. Jack, please. Yes. I'm going to lower my hand. I just. You know, like, it was here. It's the last week. Okay. So anyway, the open space and recreation plan. The area is on there. I don't know. That every, that all these layers that we have. Are. Are on the GIS system. Versus. You know, some of the stuff I think in that open space, recreation plan. I think are more static and not necessarily on the GIS. System. Okay. So anyway, the open space and recreation plan. The areas on there, I don't know. That every, that all these layers that we have. Are. Not necessarily on the GIS. System. You know, and. So I'm not clear on that. Maybe Chris or Stephanie can. Check on that. I mean, it. Because I remember that's why I was confused because I was looking at certain things that are. More zoning related. And I'm not sure that's on our, on the GIS. I know we have printed versions. We have colored maps and things like that. But I'm not sure we can toggle. You know, all the layers that we've seen. And that all the layers are, are, are, have a GIS. A layer to them. Within that. The town sponsored. Website. So let's just. Something I don't know, Chris. Am I wrong? You want me to answer. Yes, please. So the town has a GIS viewer. It has a limited number of things that it shows. And the town chose to show that limited number of things, because those were things that they felt that the public would be most interested in on an ongoing basis. Others here. And I believe Stephanie is one of them. Aaron Jacques. Other people in the planning department have access to arc GIS, which is much more full and robust and has all kinds of information, but all of that information is not reflected in the GIS viewer that we have online that's available to the public. Okay. Yeah, go ahead, Jack. Well, I'm just wondering if at some level without a lot of work on anybody's part, if they could just like. Have, you know, just. Have the maps like that are in the open space integration plan. To have the map that is digitized, just not not selective pieces of the units there, but just. The color. In a picture of the effective properties. And if I brought up one of their figures. For example, there while you have. Matt 5 Seneca resources and unique features that just has. like St. Troy and Grassland. So it's just a block, but it just, I would think you, without a whole lot of work, you just could get this stuff digitized and not where you turn off the individual units of the Forest Reserve versus the Repair Inn, Corridor versus Mount Oleg. You just have it all together as just one layer. It'd be nice is my thought. All right, good. Stephanie? Yeah, I just wanted to say we can ask, but I don't think we can make any promises because what sometimes seems like a simple request, especially in dealing with the GIS information may not be, especially when you're talking about having them sort of together as one layer, that might be a bit more complicated. So I think we can certainly make the request, but I'm not going to make any promises because we want to keep our GIS person. Yeah, well, so no digitizer. I'm just thinking like you capture the figure and it's just an overlay. There's no work involved other than scaling, but just very kind of approximate sort of thing, cartoonish, but it'd be nice, I think, to have some of these things in GIS format. Agreed, it would be nice. We'll find out what we are capable of being able to produce. Yeah, okay. All right, good. Okay, keep in mind we're still in staff updates and I think we're getting into some of the discussion that we might hold for later in terms of the work ahead and sort of how we want to approach the decisions that we have to make, but let's go with Janet and then we'll try to move on. So I just have a comment and a question. I just want to remind us that we're supposed to be doing a list of priority sites and a priority map for large-scale arrays. So that's part of our mapping future. And then I have a question, because I read this in the minutes and it said that in the excluded area was residential areas. And I had the impression that GZA was going to look at rooftops and how much solar we can get off of the rooftops. And so either large buildings or residences and things like that. I wondered if I thought GZA was going to map the whole of Amherst, including the college's land in various areas. And so we're not going to get a sense of how much solar we can get. Will they tell you, oh, we think of these rooftops we can get X amount of solar energy. Is that going to happen or no? Including big rooftops. There'll be more analysis within the report. So you have to wait the report. It's not going to just show up on the map. The report will explain all of that. And the college lands were never included to be included. We said that right from the outset that they were excluded. We have no control over those and they have their own plans. But it will include rooftops? It includes rooftops that are outside of those areas that we blacked out. Anything that's not blacked out, rooftops were included. It's just hard to see on the scale because again, it was a PDF, it was small, but all of that will be in the report. That's what the report is going to provide you with is a more analysis and a breakdown of what's potentially available in those different categories. Including larger roofs and parking lots to the extent that we have them that are not at the university and colleges. Okay, great, Laura? Yeah, one quick question or one question. No, wasn't there a assessment done in the past of the amount of solar that we could put on rooftops in the community? I thought that study had been conducted already. There was one that was done, but it was a very limited one that I was involved in. If there was something that somebody else did, I'm not aware, but the one that we had done more recently was a very kind of more narrow investigation. And is that the niche engineering report that you're referring to? I have to go back and look. Which one, what did that encompass Stephanie remind me? So again, I think that was just looking at, it was again, I think it was a very limited investigation for rooftop solar, I believe, paired with battery storage. And it was very limited to some specific sites. And then we had another Cadmus solar assessment that was also very narrow in scale. It didn't look town-wide. It only looked at specific properties and parcels that the town had. It's a Cadmus solar, I was thinking about. Okay, so that was a limited study. It's very limited. It was not community-wide. I mean, it was detailed, but it was just focused on relatively few town-owned sites. Yeah. It was just crown land. Correct. Okay. It wasn't really land. I think it was just, it was rooftops and parking lots. Yeah. All right, thanks. All right, good. Chris. I just wanted to say one more thing, which is that GCA was hired to do a map of feasible places to put solar. They weren't making any judgments. They weren't reflecting the town values. They were just making a map of feasible places. So that's all I wanted to say. Thank you. Okay, great. Okay. Chris, obviously you'll be running the show in a moment with regard to the zoning update, zoning bylaw language crafted as well as some questions that we want to start deliberating on as a group. But otherwise, do you have any staff updates? Yes, I have some very good news, which is that we have on board a new planner. So that's going to make a tremendous amount of difference to us and we will not be as torn in many different directions. And hopefully we'll be able to do our work in a timely manner and pay attention to the things we need to pay attention to. So I'm going to say hooray, hooray, because we have our new planner. Awesome. Okay, great to hear and congratulations. Yeah. Is that person, can you name that person or don't you want to be quite yet? Oh, sure. Yes, I can name him. He's here. His name is Rob Wachilla, W-A-T-C-H-I-L-L-A. And he's taking, for now, he's taking Maureen Pollock's position. He's dealing with the zoning board of appeals. And as he gets more familiar with things, he'll also be taking on some of the boards and committees that we support. And he'll probably be getting involved in projects. And one thing I'd like to share with you is that he came from where and where currently has either 12 or 14 large scale solar installations. So where has gotten to be kind of sophisticated about how to deal with these things? They have a solar bylaw that they put in place in 2015. Rob has worked with Pioneer Valley Planning Commission on a bylaw having to do with battery storage. So he's gonna be helpful in that regard. So I've been kind of picking his brain about what they did in where and he sent me a copy of the where solar bylaw. So I think he'll be a good addition in many ways, but I'm hoping that he will also be able to help us out with the solar bylaw that we're working on. Great, okay, there, that's really good news. All right, very good. Anything else before we move forward? Nothing. Go ahead, Janet. Are we doing committee updates right now or is that next? It was next, yep. Okay, sorry. I don't have my agenda, so I'm kind of, okay. Yep, you're on cue. Any committee updates, Janet? I don't have a planning board committee update, but a planning board member did ask me to see the, like basically they would like to see the draft bylaw that working on. And then also, I said, well, it's kind of in bits and pieces. And, but also the person also said the planning board, he thought the planning board would rather see it earlier in early draft than just before it goes to town council when it's all baked in. And so I thought that was interesting and good useful feedback also because like the planning board, like the ZBA works with the bylaw a lot. And so a lot, they might have comments about how it reads or, you know, different kind of things that, you know, from a little more, you know, being practiced or tortured by the bylaw. So I just wanted to pass that along. Great, thank you for that. And I think that's consistent with Chris's thinking as well in terms of trying to begin to, obviously this thing's not complete yet, but it's in pieces, but she did talk a little bit about trying to organize it together as starting to look like a more coherent whole in terms of the outline, table of contents of the outline and then the sections that we've had worked on so far to sort of make it start looking like a holistic document as opposed to the pieces. So I think maybe after today or at the end of today's discussion about the latest drafting and so forth, we can talk about at what point would we be comfortable and Chris would be comfortable sort of sharing it with outside this group? I just have a follow-up question to that. Yeah, Laura, yeah. So I think it would be helpful for me to better understand the process and what the group and staff agrees in terms of presenting it to town council and the planning board. I have to say I was a little bit concerned because I've actually run into town councilors and they mentioned that some people on the committee had been speaking to them about just kind of like, showing them drafts of things I wasn't aware we were doing this, like survey questions and things like that. So I just, I want to make sure we're all aligned in terms of, I've been sort of operating under the process of I'm not sharing anything with anyone until we decide as a group that that's what we're doing until we're ready to solicit feedback. So that sort of guidance would be helpful for me. That's an important point. And yeah, I would tend to agree that we're all individuals and can voice our opinions individually but certainly not as a group until the group so decides that that's the position of the working group. But I would like, maybe Stephanie, I think may have some guidance for us with regard to just discussion at all outside this group. Go ahead, Stephanie. I was just gonna say, I think you're, you should certainly try to as much as possible keep your discussion within the group. But I was gonna say there might need to be some clarification of which council we're referring to because there's legal council that will definitely be looking at this document and town council. I mean, town council. So I think that's, it goes to the town manager first and my guess is the town manager is gonna have legal council look at it. And then I'm not sure and maybe Chris is probably more versed with the process of whether it will go to CRC before it won't go to legal council until CRC reviews it. So Chris might be more able to sort of address that piece but your draft goes to the town manager first that's much I know. Why is that? Why is what? I think maybe coming out of a history where the planning department would work on zoning bylaws more informally before it kind of got into a more, there's a certain point when you submit it to the planning board, they have to act within such and such days but there's no issue with the planning department. Planning board could look at that earlier, give feedback and that's also often very useful of a useful time for that. But I don't think that we're particularly limited in terms of like we have to submit our first draft to the town manager first. I don't know where. I was talking about the final draft we're having a few different conversations. I was there were several points brought up. I was only addressing the difference between legal council and town council and also that the final draft goes to the town manager. As far as review of this, I defer to Chris as the planning director who works with the planning board. I think Chris would be the one to sort of best assess how the process will work easiest for all and I defer to Chris not to put you on the spot May I speak? Yeah, please if you have some guidance for us. Yeah, so I think it would be a really good idea as we move through this to have the planning board take a look at it because they have been historically the group that works on zoning amendments. I'm also planning to have Rob Mora and Nate Malloy in our office look at it, which I haven't done yet. As Jana has noted, it's kind of a patchwork right now and I wanted to have a coherent package to show them but I think we're moving into that time. And this brings up a topic that I don't know if Stephanie has broached with this group but we have spoken with the town manager about the potential to extend the timeline for the group's work. And this may not be an appropriate time to talk about that but at some point during this meeting I think it would be a good idea to talk about that because I'm not thinking, I think it's unrealistic to expect that everything is gonna come together by the end of May. And so whenever Dwayne thinks that's a worthwhile topic to bring up is fine with me but I just wanted to mention that I am acknowledging that it's going to be extremely challenging to get this done by the end of May. Thank you. Thank you, Chris. And just to follow up on that, unless my memory is faltering, I thought we already did express to this working group that we have received an extension from the town manager. I wasn't aware of that so thank you. Yeah, absolutely. So everybody should be aware of that. It's not to suggest we can relax completely but we don't, even part of it was that, obviously we're not getting the results of the survey or the GZA work until late April. We're gonna have the chance to look at that through May and obviously Chris has been short staffed as well. So I think with all that, the town manager did recognize and the importance of this by-law that we were up against a really infeasible deadline. What is the new deadline? And so the new deadline, maybe I need Stephanie to be precise but it's the end of the summer basically. September 1st, I believe is the date that we identified. Yeah, which will make summer scheduling and meetings a little bit more challenging but we'll need to get our way through that and then finish up in the summer and late summer if everybody can sort of accommodate some of this in their summer schedules. Okay, good, Jack. Yeah, I was just gonna follow up with Laura's comment. It seems like there's some misinformation out in the general public about the availability of a draft. I got some feedback and that I would like to confirm everything on the website for the solar by-law working group is for public consumption. So people wanna see, you know, drips and draps of drafts that's all there for them. At this point. And we can share freely, obviously, but not discuss our opinions and things like that for sort of open meeting law. But anyway, someone told me that like the Chamber of Commerce had a draft. You me too. Yeah, so what is that? I don't know. Chamber of Commerce? I don't know. I guess they could download the drips and draps from the website. We can talk about our opinions with other people in the community, not amongst ourselves. Four of us can't talk about issues that we're facing amongst ourselves, but there's no limit on our conversations with other people. We're not, that's the question of theory. That's what you've been saying, you know. As long as they're expressed as your personal opinions, not opinion of the group. Yeah. Yep. Okay. All right, good. Are we good to move forward? Great. Well, any other committee updates? Nothing substantial for MeCAC, just a reminder. We have the Sustainability Festival part of Stephanie's work, or is Stephanie's work. But MeCAC showing up with a booth. And so there'll be some presence from MeCAC and questions may come up, I guess, with that group about the Solar Bylaw Working Group as well. But we'll be prepared to sort of address those in generality at least. Okay, any other committees that we need updates? Great. Okay, so let's move on to sort of the meat of the agenda, which is really continuing our work through the bylaw drafts and sections. And Chris has prepared both some updates on the previous section. I need to find my minutes with regard to the title of that. That was Design Standards that we looked at previously. And then I came up with some other things in the last few days, dimensional requirements. So whatever order you'd like to look at those, we can look at them. Yep. Would people like to maybe not do a whole read through, but just the highlights of changes and edits in the design standards first and then move on to the dimensional standards. And we can also in the design standards discuss the potential to sort of shift out some of the language for the language that I drafted. And Dan, was it you who provided some input? Who was it then, Rob? Bob. I got you. Yeah, Bob, thank you. Yeah. On, on this section that could go into that. Into that language with regard to trying to maximize ecosystem services. So I guess I would suggest we start with that, Chris. The design standards move to the dimensional stand dimension. Dimensions. And then see if we have time, hopefully to start looking at and deliberating a bit on that. Set of questions you put forward as well. Okay. I'm Stephanie. Can you bring up the design standards? Yep. It's coming up right now. So I think we've reviewed this on two different occasions. The end of February, middle of March. And then I made some changes based on those two, based on the middle of March. Discussion. So in terms of lighting, we talked about the yellow highlighted material is new. So lighting of solar. Lighting of these installations shall be directed downward and shall incorporate full cutoff fixtures to reduce light pollution. Unless otherwise approved by the permaculture. So that's what we decided on at our last meeting. Moving down the page. Someone mentioned that there was the lack of a comma. So I added a comma. Next page utility connections. There were concerns about this. I did read a number of different. Solar bylaws within the last week or two. And I did read a number of different. Bylaws within the last week or two. And I would say all of them strongly encourage having the utility connections underground. So we're not out in, you know, left field about this. But what we said last time is where technically and economically feasible reasonable efforts shall be made to place utility connections from the solar foldable take installation underground. So that's what we decided on. So we decided to delete the last sentence. Because we thought it was superfluous. But Laura was going to look into that. I'm not sure if Laura's had a chance to do that yet, but in any event, that's what we came up with for utility connections. I think this is all reasonable language. Anybody have a question about that? In terms of glare, I did send an email to KP law about a question that had been raised by Dan and Dan's question was if the solar installation is put in place and then someone comes and builds a house next to it and you know, complaints about the glare. Does that person have, you know, grounds for action, I guess. And the answer I got back from KP law was really well. Someone who comes and builds a house next to a solar installation should be aware that the solar installation is there and should, you know, take into account what the impact of that might be. In other words, there is a phrase called coming to the nuisance, which describes this situation. You're, you're coming to a situation where there is potential nuisance. You weren't there before the nuisance was put in place. You're coming afterwards. So you should be sort of aware that these issues may, may occur. It's like sort of like buyer beware. So KP law's assessment was, yeah, the person who builds the house doesn't really have too much of a like to stand on, although, you know, if obviously if there's anything that can be done by the solar owner to mitigate that issue, then, you know, that would be good, but they probably aren't going to be able to sue the, the solar owner or how could I say this? No, they're not going to be able to win a lawsuit. They can always sue. So that was the answer to that question. Does anyone have other questions about that? Martha has her hand up. I received a question or comment from a member of the public asking, what about upward glare? Was there ever a case where upward glare would impact low flying aircraft, particularly, I guess, private planes that tend to fly lower and have an impact on the pilot's ability to see. Has that ever been a question or an issue anywhere? That may be a question from Laura. Yeah. So any time you have a solar project that's in any kind of airway, you will have an FAA study is required. So that's an important one and you'll never get your permit unless you have that study in place. But those are very specifically specific areas that the FAA determines flyways to and from airports that are designated not for your meandering, low flying, lightweight flying vehicle. We're hot air balloon. Yep. Go ahead, Janet. Did all those air force planes be impacted, the ones that they fly quite low over Amherst quite frequently? That would absolutely be included in an FAA study. Any military planes for sure. All right, good. So I mean, my sense is our, our bylaw doesn't need to address that because it's going to be addressed at the federal level. Okay. Moving on down. We talked a lot about visual impact. So I think we're going to be able to see exactly how much we want to include about that, but we have a section. If we want to include it, it's there. Unfencing. We're making the statement that we acknowledge that appropriate measures shall be taken. And really this is based on the owner of the project that they would like to put in. They want to put in fencing appropriate measures taken to prevent the solar arrays from being damaged or tempered with. Fencing. The need for fencing shall be determined by the applicant unless such fencing is needed to comply with town bylaws and, or as required by the national electrical code or state regulations. If installed such fencing shall be no more than eight feet tall unless permitted by the permit granting authority. She'll be placed at least six to nine inches off the ground, having quite determined which one we want to say there. Insufficient portions of the fence to allow migration of small wildlife. So in other words, we're not expecting, you know, herds of moose to come through here. We're expecting that they, there would be, you know, rabbits or, you know, whatever kinds of small wildlife we have in the forest and that those would be allowed to traverse under the fence, but other larger animals probably wouldn't be able to do that. So does anyone have any questions about that? Yeah, I would just say on my end, I, that was sort of an area that I, I would propose for discussion that that language is taken out here and out from here and, and that a more general requirement with regard to maximizing ecosystem services as a design feature be, be included as a separate requirement again for discussion. And then Shootsbury had a requirement that the color of the fence be black and black fencing is really expensive because it's essentially, you know, a chain link fence, encoded chain link fence, but then it has an extra coating of vinyl on it. And so if you're talking about a vinyl covered fence that's hundreds of feet long, you're really talking about a big expense, but I'm bringing this up because Shootsbury has it in their bylaws. So is that something Amherst wants to have? If you did want to have it, it might be better to say that where fencing is visible from a roadway that, that it should be black. So I guess I wanted some feedback from this group about whether that's a reasonable requirement and, you know, where you think it should be. I don't know who is first, but Martha. Okay. If you want feedback, my, my feedback would be that I don't think that's important at all. We have so many other requirements that are higher priority. I would recommend dropping that requirement for the color of the fencing. Okay. Janet. So I had a few thoughts. One of them was, you know, it seems to me that you'd like the fence to be seen by wildlife owners. I don't know if they don't run into it. So that was kind of, and I assume if you're buffering, if you have a vegetative buffer that buffers it, you know, year round, that should take care of the fence and the look of it. But maybe that's, you know, I hope that's the result. And then in terms of like expense. So, so, you know, if you said to me, you know, we'd like you to put, you know, in, you know, a square mile of what, you know, a half square mile or something, that's a lot of money for me, but I never have an understanding of what the profitability of the solar arrays are. So if you're pulling out, you know, $50,000 a year in profit, half a million, five million, you know, what's expensive is very relative. And so I feel almost in the complete dark about how profitable these different arrays are. And so if we're saying we want all the lines to be underground and someone says, well, it's too expensive, then you have to tell me how much you expect to make from this. So I just feel like that that financing or the profitability part to me is just like a black box. And so I would like to know more when someone says this is too expensive. I'd like to know how much someone's, you know, what the profitability would be. And I just not not in a mean way, but I've been wondering this the whole time we've been sitting here. Yes. Yeah, good. Laura. I just want to note that I agree with Martha and that I don't see it a need to put up further obstacles or aesthetic requirements like this for solar farms. Black fencing is very expensive. And I don't, you know, typically the farms are buffered by landscaping and so forth. And, you know, I think a part of her black fencing just somehow strikes me as the leadest. So I would, I'm agreeing with Martha there. All right, good. Thank you, Laura. Okay, moving on. Let's see. Applicants. So this has to do with planting and screening applicants are encouraged to install plantings within the array. We had said below the array that people said, well, you might want to have it elsewhere in the array, including native species, pollinator friendly species and species that are supportive of wildlife rather than installing non vegetative materials such as stone mulch, unless otherwise permitted by the permit granting authority. So there may be some reason why you might want to have something other than planting below this array in certain places. So that would be a negotiation between the permit granting authority and the applicant. And then I think Dwayne said that there were specific requirements and practices that the state had with regard to solar arrays and an incentive structure to encourage the planting of plants and pollinator species. I haven't had time to look up that information, but if Dwayne has access to it, maybe he could send it to me. Yeah, they do have incentive. It's not, you know, again, it's not a requirement for developers to do, to do this planting, but there's an incentive for those that choose to do so. Okay, ready. What else? Okay, so let's see control of vegetations, synthetic herbicides and pesticides may not be used to control vegetation or animals, except as otherwise approved by the permit granting authority. So the thing that I noted here was that the permit granting authority would look positively on solar installations that include agrivoltaics. Now I'm not sure why I put that there that, oh, I know because this is under the topic of dual use. And this should be perhaps moved elsewhere in this patchwork of things that we're working on. So in any event, this was something we talked about last time, we had said give preference, but that indicates some sort of competition between one company and another, and that doesn't really make sense in this application process. So Laura suggested the wording look positively on installations that include agrivoltaics, and I think that's reasonable. But again, we may want to put something about dual use elsewhere, which I think I may have done in the draft that I sent out last night. So that's as far as I got with, or that's how I have altered, edited this section that we looked at in the middle of March. So now we could move on to a section that I just wrote this week, which has to do with dimensional requirements. Oh, and Jack. Sorry, bear with me. Yeah, sorry. Before we go there, Jack. Yeah, I was just curious about vegetation control. Maybe Laura can shed some light. But like for landfill, they're required. You know, they don't want trees on the landfill to impact the cover. And so, you know, usually you got that mo, you know, once or at least twice a year. Is that sort of the frequency that is being utilized for these ground mounted fields? Like for operations and maintenance, like mowing and things like that. Yes. Yeah. So typically in the leases, there's a requirement for not letting a grass like grass above a certain height. You know, so, you know, maybe twice a year mowing, or when you're planting that you're planting, if you're planting closer to the arrays that you don't plant a species that, you know, exceed a certain height when they're mature. So that's one of the requirements like that. Is that helpful, Jack? Thank you. And Chris, I wouldn't. I wonder if before we go on to the, the dimensional. Section, if we can take a quick look at the language. To potentially add. And to discuss with regard to. Which is more of a design standard of maximizing. Ecosystem services. So Dwayne, I'm sorry, which document are you asking me to? Well, I would, I would, I provided. This is some language for consideration. And then I will say that Bob did some editing on it. So I think it might make sense to show the version that Bob brought forward. So it already has his suggestions on there and comments. Okay. You're going to have to give me a moment. If you could share that would be great. Okay. Everybody moved to my other screen. Do people see this language with its kind of yellow highlighted. Does Dwayne want to read this because my voice is failing. And I'll save it for the next section. Okay. Yep. Yep. And I guess the idea here was. To motivate. The developers and the solar installers to. Try to restore, make use of the land that they are using. To. Maximize other services, ecosystem services that are being otherwise. Lessened by the fact that land that was previously undeveloped is now being put into solar and there are some. Important and valuable ecosystem sort of services that can be restored or provided. In these arrays. With care. And again, the idea was not necessarily to absolutely require it, but to require that the applicant or the owner. Demonstrates that they have a plan to maximize. So, Such ecosystem services. Unless they can otherwise, you know, that, that, that are not. Detrimental to the system performance. Or to the. To the. Safety of the system. So. Let me read through this and see what people think. And this would be sort of a category. So, So, This section that could then incorporate some of the other language we had about fencing being off the ground. And so forth. So this section and I'll try to incorporate some of Bob's comments as we go. Provides that large scale ground mounted solar PV installations. That involved the use of over five acres of land. That was not previously that was previously undeveloped. So this would be, you know, larger scale systems that are not. That might be on the ground, but over a parking lot, for example, wouldn't, wouldn't require this. Shall. Shall demonstrate to the satisfaction of the PGA and the director of conservation that the site plan for the entire footprint of the project seeks to maximize ecosystem services of the land. To the extent feasible without substantive harm to the performance or safety of the solar project. Any thoughts on that? Keep going. Such plans. And enabled ecosystem services. Which again, we can get back to Bob's. Bob's comments here, which are. Important in terms of how, how are these things defined or, or do we need to define them? But anyhow, such plans and enabled ecosystem services shall be applicable to the surrounding natural conditions. And may include such actions as. Providing small wildlife and pollinator friendly habitat, following published best practices or certification requirements. And providing appropriate and sufficient gaps in perimeter fencing at the ground. To allow for small wildlife passage. It's meant to. Suggest what might be involved, but not limit. The design to those things. The plan shall demonstrate that the site will be vegetated with native species. Avoid the planting or growth of invasive species. To Bob's point, maybe that should be avoid the planting. And manage the growth of invasive species. Avoid the use. Avoid the use. Of, I think should be in there of any herbicide or pesticides. And limit the mowing and limit the mowing of the site and timing of such mowing. To accommodate ecosystem health. Unless approved. Probably should say unless otherwise approved by the PGA. And to Bob's point there, yeah, the, the intent there, I was not trying to be specific to nesting birds, but that's kind of the primary, my understanding is the primary. The, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the concern about mowing at certain periods of time when nesting is, is, is going on. The applicant or project owner shall. And I'll go with the Bob's suggestions here. Shall assure the ecosystem services plan is implemented throughout the project. And I'm going to go with the PGA. What is the purpose and actions taken to demonstrate the implementation of the plan. And to the extent that the site is failing to meet the ecosystem services objectives. The applicant or owner shall specify and propose remedial actions to be approved by the PGA and take such actions to further these objectives. So. We have language that requires that this is given. Deep thought and good thought by the applicant. If there's reasons that it can't be done, there's, that are legitimate and approved by the town. If PGA, there's an out. But otherwise you got, let's, let's use the land. For some, let's. Let's make sure that the land provides some value for ecosystem services as well. So interested in comments on the concept as well as specifics of the language. Martha had her hand up first. Yeah. Okay. I didn't get the order, but we'll go with Martha. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you. I mean, I think, I think this is great. And the overall intention is great. I didn't have a chance to read it be. And I think the wording tends to be a bit vague. I don't know whether everyone even knows what the meaning of ecosystem services is, but maybe if we have a little chance to, to think about it and reread it, we could, you know, polish the wording a little more. I would be in favor of putting in specifically about the timing of the mowing versus nesting birds. I think that would be better than just saying timing of mowing for ecosystem services there. But there are a few other places where it may be some, some more little more specific language could be, but I like the overall tone and intention of it. Thank you. Thanks. Jack and then Janet. Yeah, I'm again, the definition. When I read this ecosystem, ecosystem services just made me think about. I don't know, HVAC or something, you know, I'm just like, I'm wondering about like, is that standard language that you call it services versus like functionality or. I've been hearing it all over. So I don't, I don't know exactly if it is. Okay. Yeah. And that's what it is. Well, maybe it's worth. Investigating and seeing if there's any actual definitions out there that are sufficient, but it's a bit more specific, but specific, but specific, but sufficiently vague to be incorporate the types of things we're looking for. Okay. All right, good. Janet and then Laura. So I agree with Jack and Martha. I thought that the ecosystem, ecosystem services could be in our definition section. And I know both the. Ecosystem services, the ecosystem services can be in our definition section, but the description of the ecosystem services. 2025, 2030, climate action plan and the towns. Climate action plan list, you know, defined ecosystem services in the sense that they list all the possible services provided by open land. And so that might be useful because. It just saying it is so broad, like, I don't know if we're talking about grass or a sequestration or. should be defined and probably in a definition section. I also didn't really know what I also wondered what previously undeveloped land kind of that definition in a town that's like you know we're 400 years old in an ecosystem that was used before we were here like the the colonists came and so I just kind of thought is a farm previously undeveloped or if it was that I just I just thought that was really vague too but I do like the idea of it of trying to maximize the ecological benefits and I also wondered why like shouldn't every array do that at some level like not every single one but like is five acres the tipping point or is three would you you don't mean I wondered if we should just require this for everything or just be very specific like oh we want native grasses and mowing you know just to to do that um so that was because one of the questions I had was you know at the end it says to meet the ecosystem services objectives and you know if you don't know what you're going for and you don't know you know if you're not very specific about what your objectives are what services you want to maintain then you can't really say you know I met them or the plan meets them and things like that so so I do think it needs to be sort of tightened and clarified but I did like the idea of it very much so all right thank you Laura appreciate it thanks Dwayne and Robert for the section I think it I think it's a nice addition um I totally understand what you mean by ecosystem services and I agree with others and and defining it because I think there's a lot of a lot of good benefit here and when I'm reading this section um you know I think there's nothing but upside in terms of including this language um my only thought is and I don't think we're making it so prohibitive but what I have found is that sometimes those quick I don't know the small trees are called but those quick growing like tall thin trees that you see they're kind of furs that you see in Italy a lot um maybe not but they grow on the outside of the solar fence I don't believe those are native but you know sometimes I just wonder if that if the um landscape architecture that will want to hide a solar array might not always be native so um and of course it's not invasive but um because I think that's great to ban that but um I just want to just make sure we're not shooting ourselves in the foot before we get started here. Yep all right good um Janet and then maybe we can move on yeah I had a very quick thing I thought you should delete the phrase without substantive harm to the performance or safety of the project the solar project because I think you basically said when you say to the extent feasible you could just end it there because if it's you know like that kind of says what you're saying and I just thought that longer clause is something maybe more to argue about in a way like well is it substantive harm or is it mild harm or is it unsafe the project doesn't say for its substance you know I just thought in a weird way if it's infeasible and it's not going to work the the planning board or the zba is going to you know know that and not say well we're not going to require you to do blah blah blah if you can't do it kind of thing so I thought just sort of maybe I don't know I just thought that that extra phrase might be something to like start dickering over more than just it doesn't work I guess my thought there was that um you want to maximize the extent feasible ecosystem services uh in that that might that itself might be planting tall trees or something that would then be uh oh I see you're saying on the on the array I thought it was as feasible you know with the array so maybe that's just you know okay okay I don't get the other way all right okay uh lard did you have a comment on that or you you put your hand back down okay busy ready over here oh yeah right okay all right okay good uh so um we can work on on sort of reflecting on on uh these comments bob's comments are in here and uh and have something revised to to put into the into this um I think would be the design section Stephanie sorry I'm looking at this language I just um I'm wondering at the beginning where you say um demonstrate to the satisfaction of the program granting authority a permanent granting authority and the director of conservation I'm not sure that that's actually the accurate pathway so I think we would want to investigate that because it might be in some cases it might be the conservation commission so I just thought that might be something that chris or I could look into okay yeah good I figured the pga may not have sort of expertise in this particular area but I I I appreciate that yeah okay great may I just ask that you forward this to us because I didn't check my email maybe I've already received this but I don't remember having received it so um it was but I can I can make sure chris gets it yeah exactly okay thank you okay all right um okay great um let's then move on to the new section um that chris has drafted for us on um uh what was it dimensional I think it's the term dimensional yeah let me stop sharing okay just give me one moment here did we just get this today this morning I think so or maybe you got it last night yeah I apologize things have been very challenging here no I don't I don't blame you I just I felt like I didn't know what we were talking about I think I only said it this morning I believe because that's when I received it so just bear with me one moment so let me introduce this whole topic by saying um there are many questions that I have about what we should do or shouldn't do and as I said I've read through multiple um zoning bylaws and they're all different and they're all particular to their town on the other hand some of them are all the same and they look like they were all you know created by one body say Pioneer Valley Planning Commission or whatever so I'm trying to get to what does Amherst want and there are many questions I sent out an email I guess it was last week maybe um where I asked a number of questions about different things and um and I'd kind of like to get answers to some of those questions but in any event I made an attempt to start uh writing what I think Amherst might like Amherst might want in its bylaw and um so here let's talk about these particular things and then we can go back and talk about more general ideas so this is a dimensional standards section and it talks about setbacks and it talks about an open space requirement and I can't remember if there's anything else in here um energy storage systems okay so um in terms of setbacks um what I have written is for large-scale ground mounted solar photovoltaic installations the project shall have a minimum front yard setback of 100 feet and to me that seemed reasonable given the scale of these things um but others may have different ideas about that I know that the uh installation along West Bay Road um that Hampshire college has is I believe it's closer to the front property line than 100 feet um people have found that to be disturbing some people um some people think it's beautiful so in any event that's a question what what do we think a front setback should be and we are also remembering that in a previous section we have a buffer I believe a buffer of 50 feet of vegetative material so you know keep that in mind when you're thinking about the 100 feet um and then I thought well we have scenic roads in Amherst which are actually mapped and we should you know think about those in a special way so here's my my stab at that where where the property line runs along a scenic road as designated by a vote of Amherst town meeting in 1974 in accordance with mass general law chapter 40 section 15c as shown on a map entitled town designated scenic roads front setbacks shall be 200 feet so um I'm thinking about these things in light of the fact that shootsberry actually has a front setback of 400 feet which seems excessive to me but I'd like to hear from all of you about what do you think and different ones of you may have different opinions on this so um what's your take on this about the front setback great thanks chris um and let me before we go before we um get comment it looks like from janet but uh can you um it is like is is every parcel is a is every parcel defined with a front and a back and a side uh or uh um you know I get I kind of get that idea from a house but but even some houses it's kind of sometimes hard to tell what's the front what's the back that's a good point because there are properties where um the front is actually you know 100 feet from the road already because there's another parcel in between so maybe we should say something like where the front yard when the where the front property line runs along a roadway then the setback would be 100 feet if the property is away from a roadway and the front proper the front set front yard setback is not visible from the street maybe we do something else so that's a good question but I would say you know there's probably a neighbor deserves a bit of a setback to an adjacent property too and then the other question I had was when we talk about a 50 foot buffer um that would be for you know screening plants and so forth is that um would that be within this 100 yards uh or sorry 100 feet or is that um 100 feet of nothing and then you screening and then the solar project or with this yeah I think the buffer would be within the 100 feet yeah okay it would just be where the solar array actually starts which would probably be where the fence is that's where it would be 100 feet back and um so as I said the one on Hampshire College is closer than 100 feet um Shootsbury has 400 feet other towns have other measurements but what do we think about this for Amherst yeah okay great um Janet um so I I I know this is a hard issue to wrestle with in terms of the scenic road I would just um just say scenic road you know designated in accordance with MGLC 40 section 14c because um you know in case the town council wants to designate more scenic roads like I don't know why we would limit to what we did in 1974 yeah I think it's actually designated quite a few roads and you know so but I just think that would just delete that because it's sort of it's sort of frozen in time um this makes me really want to go like to what an idea what I think we talked about in the fall is let's go visit some solar arrays because you know for me I would need to kind of sit and look at it and say okay this is 100 foot setback this is 300 feet you know to when you're looking at a large array it's going to have a very different impact standing in front of it than me sitting in a computer thinking about it you know and so I we did talk about going to see the two arrays um with Cinda Jones one on the north Amherst and then one in Shootsbury which is in a forest and one's just on farmland and she had invited us or invited us to meet with her solar person and so I just think we you know maybe with the spring not that we've had much of a winter if you could time for like a saturday site visit or something and um just since we're all familiar with it and work could easily drive by at the hamster project um do do we know what the setback do we know how far that is from the road just to give us a personal point of view I do not know but I can find out Steve would know he's listening and Steve may chime in if he's so willing uh when we go to public comments yeah he knows that maybe we could even ask him now is that kosher um Steve if you have a response do you want to just electronically raise your hand and if you don't you don't have to okay Steve go ahead you can unmute yourself hi there Steve um I don't know the official answer to that but just a moment ago as this came up I just I'm bringing up google earth maps on which I could measure it and you want you want to know the distance in feet I'm guessing yeah so on google the front property line rather than from the edge of road or you could give it to us from the edge of road and then we'll figure out where the property line is I don't know what the property line is technically but I'm looking on bay road just off of where um kind of the closest panel the corner from a panel to the edge of the road is shows us 44 feet okay so quite a bit less than 100 yeah yes and then the distance from the fence that surrounds the array to again like the white line on the side of the road is 34 feet so that that's just one spot elsewhere it's a little more than that on the corner that's sort of closer to the Eric Carl museum that's 50 feet from the corner of a panel to the edge of the road again I don't know what was specified when during approval process if I remember I believe that we use the setback that was required in the dimensional table so that could have been I don't know if it's RO or RLD but if it's RO it would be 25 feet so we required that to be 25 feet away from the road or from the property line very good thank you Steve you're welcome yeah just in time learning thank you all right um actually yeah that's actually pretty good perspective to think about that being you know 30 to 40 feet at the closest um compared to 100 feet um that that is um proposed here by Chris all right Martha yeah I think that you know my response really is so much of it depends you know it's hard to make a hard and fast rule I mean I in some cases like by the by the Bay Road by you know where you have just a field or something I would think that something on the order of 50 feet would be fine if it's next to someone's home it would be nice to have the hundreds it really just depends on the location so much and domain your question of what's the front so I don't know whether we could say like 50 feet from a road or we could then refer to some of the other dimensions in terms of you know if there's a private residence whether we could define things specifically that way I don't know but I shouldn't think that it should always have to be 100 feet from a road given the example that the one at Bay Road is more like 50 feet I mean maybe that again seems like it has some merit to define it more in terms of proximity to a resident or to a road I just remember from the wind when work that I'd done earlier there was there was rules with regard to that not so much just setbacks but you know so far from any home or residence or occupied building I think it was I guess I could also just say that you know in Massachusetts there is discussion of putting solar panels along by roadways so you know but that's open land so then that's yeah okay uh good uh sorry I didn't get the order here but we'll go with Jack, Laura and then Janet sure yeah I mean good comments by Martha I guess I'm in the it depends camp as well but um but you know I think you know the hundred I always thought it'd be a you know about 100 feet but you know 50 feet sounds reasonable I the 400 feet I can't I can't put my arms around that that seems a bridge too far but with regard to this the scenic road I'm just wondering if the word we have spoken about doing the visual analysis where something like that kind of calls out for well let's look and see it is is the slope going up where the solar ray is going to be down so we in the roadway that you actually see it or it's going to descend where it doesn't really make a difference sort of thing um but the comment that that Martha said about you know roadways or you know medians and things like that or like where you know those are ideal parts but we don't really have you know at the top of the head that we have that situation but yeah there's some things to think about here but thank you what I say who would I say next I'm Laura Laura go ahead just real quickly um so I you know you mentioned the wind farms you've worked on before and I did a lot of work in wind years ago too and those are actually required for safety purposes um yeah because of the technology and solar doesn't obviously present any of the solar safety concerns um so I I think it was really helpful to hear you know the actual setback for the for the you know 15 feet of the Bay Road farm because versus 100 feet and I don't know how to capture that in the language but you know it's very different I feel if you have a solar array on a scenic highway you know I remember when I was working in Virginia we were like we did a whole GIS this is years ago in grad school we did a we built a GIS tool and of course you're building you know when you're talking with the Blue Ridge Parkway it's very different than when you're talking about off of Rue 81 um because it's just a totally different dynamic so I don't know how to capture that but um I think it's important um for our profile good um yeah maybe um if you can hold on just a second Janet is um just following up on that I Chris or anybody else I mean in terms of the the um the designation of scenic roads in Amherst how how widespread are scenic roads in Amherst is is that a lot of we have a lot of scenic roads in Amherst but I don't know if they're at the extent to which the designation is is um covers a lot of roads yeah um there is a map okay and I think it's on the planning board web page and um let me see if I can find it I'm not going to be able to find the time that I need but I can I can um circulate it if people want to see it and that would be a good thing for next time yeah okay great all right Janet so so I actually disagree with Martha respectfully of course um I think the Bay Road solarway is way too close to the road and you know it wouldn't even give you 50 feet of a buffer and when I when I that that array to me just takes over the whole view I think Bay Road is a scenic road and I would have loved to have seen that pushed back more um and maybe buffered but it to me it's like the purpose of having a scenic road is the scenery and it's kind of a tourist attractiveness it's it's recreational thing it's people enjoy it I live on a scenic road I can't tell you how many bikers come down that road you know in groups of 40 you know all fall and spring long and summer um so I do think that these are decent these are good numbers I still would like to see them sort of in practice um and I know Daniel has brought this up about is does a solar survey ask this question about scenic roads or setbacks or give a sense of where people I don't recall remember that question about why don't they actually get back to like someone's call so that that was my information I think the music is good thank Jen okay are we ready to move on um let's just go with Jack and then we'll move on yeah I just want to say with regard to the Hampshire College one I I live just going through from there and I um again I didn't really even notice it was there for a long long long time so I guess the difference in opinion but I just wanted to say that that one really doesn't seem again if I didn't notice it for a period of time it doesn't seem to be up to just but thank you yep we'll go with Bob and then and then move on so I two things was I just pulled up to scenic roads and I assumed was northeast and southeast street but there are a lot of them on there middle street a snail street some of them I can't believe our scenic roads I think in 74 they probably were and the other thing I also live a stone's throw from Hampshire College and I have to agree with Jack I hardly noticed it I thought Chris had a good observation at that time they used the zoning I don't know the terminology but the dimension table you said I have no problems with that just using what we've used which is maybe Chris can elucid on that is that just standard setbacks for all sorts of different construction it's standard setbacks for structures yeah structures yeah which are more on the 50 feet variety or no they're in the rld zoning district residential low density the front setback is 30 feet and an ro residential outlying it's 25 feet and an rn which is like echo hill neighborhood it's 20 feet so they're pretty they're far less than 100 feet um now you know I think people have different views of what solar arrays look like I drive by the solar array at Hampshire College and I see this beautiful undulating wave of glass and I think oh that's really beautiful but I know we've heard from other people in town who find that offensive so there's a broad range of views about the opinion about the way these things look so I'm I am trying to be sensitive to the people who don't want to look at these things and try to figure out how do we make it not obtrusive all right good okay um um bob is your hand up again or um it just hasn't gone down great okay um Janet real important or should we move on it's a little a contextual thing is that so it's a 25 or 30 foot sitback for a two and a half story house and so I think you know when we're talking about acre five acre or 10 acre 20 acre solar farm you know being 25 feet from the beginning of the road is very different from you know a single family house or duplex or what triplex or whatever you want to build so I just think that context should be considered and also we have to put a buffer in there and we can't put a buffer in a 25 foot setback so I do think these are if we look at other towns fairly consistent I guess the um I'm the other context in my mind is like the size of the parcel I mean uh if you're trying to put in a you know an array to um you know use up most of the parcel and it's a hundred feet on either side then you might be really constraining the potential size of the project if it's on a huge parcel it probably doesn't matter so much um so I'm trying to grapple with that in my mind uh as well okay so Laura yeah I just want to make a quick note I know we gotta move on but I just want to say that um I certainly appreciate uh Chris's comment about being sensitive to people's opinions I think we can all agree that you know um we're all uh very subjective in terms of how we perceive the visual aesthetics of things but I also just want to remind you know the reason why um I'm here and I think the reason why we were on this committee is that you know the state has set pretty um aggressive renewable energy goals and Amherst is a part of this so um I think we really need to try and be reasonable about what constitutes a view shed that requires protection we we need to you know there's gonna be a requirement to bring solar to Amherst so um I'm just hoping we can you know try and keep the emotion out of it but also um you know make smart design decisions so and there's a lot of landscaping that can be done I just need to emphasize that I've seen tremendous variation across the board so good for thought okay let's um I think we've got a lot of food for thought there and Chris does as well in terms of approaches here um and so let's move on to the next section so the next section is about side and rear setbacks um and not all properties are rectilinear some are odd shapes so you have to imagine that side setbacks aren't going to be coming straight necessarily straight out of the um front setback but in in any event um for large scale ground mounted solar photovoltaic and I want to remind us that we have defined large scale installations to be essentially anything over an acre I think it's anything over 250 kilowatts if I'm not mistaken and that constitutes approximately an acre so some of these aren't going to be enormous some of them are going to be relatively small anyway um for large scale ground mounted solar photovoltaic installations the project area shall have a minimum setback of 50 feet from other property lines side and rear property lines um so what do you think about that I mean my general thought is that this sort of um all the setbacks have to holistically be um you know I think we brought up a lot of issues in the previous discussion in terms of the front which I think applies to the sides as well um in terms of this notion of it all depends and how do we how do we write something that is um has a little bit more dependency on the situation and I don't know if there's precedent for that um but let's see what else um we have Janet Chris I have a question about how this ties into um a buffer of like adjacent properties is there like a vegetative buffer requirement that we've written if there's a house next door there's a vegetative buffer required that's I believe a 50 foot buffer so this whole 50 feet would be filled with vegetation and then so I mean it's hard to picture a one acre um one acre of panels that would include a buffer and fencing and setback I mean it seems like that just seems like a parcel that's never gonna you know happen you know it also just seems too small to me although there is an acre in front of my house um so I just want I just I need to sort of see how those interrelate you know and so I'm having trouble because yeah I mean if a if a house or a farmer uh wanted to put up a 250 kilowatt ground mounted array in an acre in front of their house in a 20 acre parcel that they might have uh we wouldn't necessarily I don't think want to prohibit them from doing that um though it may be closer than 50 feet from his his or her own house I kind of yeah I feel like we just sort of think through the difference it doesn't need doesn't need to have he or she may not want to have vegetative buffer around the whole thing uh yeah yeah okay so are there other comments on this yeah Martha yeah just a quick comment I as I sit here thinking I really think that the setbacks and buffers depend on what's the size of the array as we just mentioned for a one acre array we may not care about big setbacks for a 20 acre array we may want bigger ones so that's something for us to think about for for the future for our final wording of things yep yeah good point okay all right good yeah let's get through this and then we'll open it up to um finish out the agenda yeah so the next paragraph actually there's a mistake in it it shouldn't say the 100 foot setback it should say the setback may be waived or reduced in all districts when a budding railroad tracks upon the approval of the permagranting authority where site conditions allow for reduced setback without negative impact on screening so that makes sense because people you know I guess well anyway I won't editorialize but I'm going to change that to take out the 100 foot part um open space requirement now this is something that Palmer has Palmer has a one and a half times whatever area you have as your solar array they want you to preserve one and a half times that area and I think it's for clearing uh specifically Shootsbury has a four times uh a clearing so if you clear you know 20 acres of forest in order to have a solar array you have to have 80 acres of forest preserved and it has to be for the life of the solar array so this is really a question does Amherst want to have this kind of requirement do we have enough land to have this kind of requirement um so let's read through it for all projects where there is clearing of forest land a minimal minimum area equal to the total area of forest land that is cleared must remain as natural open space for the life of the project this natural open space may be on the same lot as the large scale solar photo will take installation or may be on another property in Amherst owned by the same property owner now there it could be another property in Massachusetts owned by the same property owner so that's something that we can discuss this area shall be clearly depicted on a site plan prepared by registered land surveyor the land designated as open space shall be deed restricted for the life of the large scale solar photo they'll take installation and the deed restriction shall be recorded at the Hampshire county registry of deeds so do people think this is a good idea or not yeah i know i'm not gonna i think we're all gonna have very different opinions here but my opinion of this is that this is first of all i don't know i don't i don't feel as than Palmer and Sheik'sbury unnecessarily model bylaws that i would look toward in terms of reflecting the values of Amherst and i i believe this requirement is overly burdensome so i really would be curious to look at other bylaws this is just a very expensive proposal um to you know deed another part of forest and for the preservation of land and in a sense of like are we doing you know i i feel conflicted about this and i would i would really like to know what other communities besides Palmer and Sheik'sbury. Thanks Laura um i i didn't catch the order so i'm going to go with Martha Bob Janet okay so my just my views here i i i do think it's a good idea to include this it's specific to forest land cleared and it is good to say the total amount of forest land cleared because if somebody goes in and clears a large amount of land to have the roads and the make the construction easy etc etc um but i'm not in favor of that and so i i i do feel it is a good idea to say an equal amount i do feel that we should specify in Amherst and then i question uh it says leave an equivalent amount of quote natural land does that mean you can cut down a forest and then preserve a field i would prefer to say if you're cutting down a forest you need to preserve an equal amount of forest land somewhere because that's where you're getting the carbon sequestration and again my view is we've got to have a balance here between the solar arrays that we put up which are a very good idea to give us fossil free electricity and the real strong need for having the drawing down the co2 from the atmosphere which means the forest land so that's my view thank you for that um yeah um no who would i uh dan uh dan let's go with you um so i'm have a question for the folks who are on like the zoning committee here um what's what are the existing requirements uh in Amherst for for non-solar projects regarding preserving forest land are there any at all there are none i i yeah if it was wetlands if it was wetlands you might be asked if there was some interference with the wetlands you might be asked to set aside like four acres of wetland rights i can i can speak to that yet so if it's um disturbing a wetland then you have to replicate um on a two to one basis for or mitigate on a two to one basis for the impact however it's not specifically you're encouraged to do it on the parcel or you could do it elsewhere in town i was just going to actually raise my hand to say the way this is worded actually assumes that the developer of the project has other land in Amherst and there may be a point where someone who's proposing a project doesn't have other land in Amherst so um to me i wonder how that would pass legal muster so i'm not saying you wouldn't i mean i i think to say it's other you know it's going to be replicated on other land that that is owned by the same property owner if it's just other land in Amherst where you know i just think it is it makes an assumption here okay great um still enough yeah janet and then jack so um i agree with laura about looking at other towns and um dug marshall started and not just on this issue but the setbacks issue and the other different requirements dug marshall had put together a chart looking at like belcher town and like a couple other towns i think jack might remember this and i was going to ask if we could do that for a lot of these new requirements that we're talking about and you know maybe picking some sister towns like pelham and belcher town more towns that are kind of like us you know in the connecticut river valley um so this is like a mitigation requirement that i've seen in other um in other bylaws i do want to say that forest land is quite cheap per acre so it's it may not be you know like you know i i think some of the places have a one acre of forest land 10 or four times requirement but it may you know since forest land is much cheaper than farmland it may not be a really burdensome requirement and i think the idea is you know it's like you've lost all the environmental services of this forest land like much very dramatically and so you want to compensate for that by making sure you know some land is set aside but i would i think we should look at other towns um and other you know other kind of things but also for setbacks and different things like that because i think that would be useful and also be useful to find out well why did you pick this number you know if belcher town picked 10 times or four times like where did they get that number what was their thinking because i i have found great usefulness talking to planning directors because they've been down the road before and had the discussion or they had the experience great jack um who uh oh stephanie that said you know legal ramifications of something like this that's the first thing that came to mind when we you know we're looking at you know that reasonable public health safety or a welfare justification to limit that and then you know and then above that is the quality of the forest and you know i for me you know there's there's good stands and their poor stands there there's more you know like a scrub forest and there's a road forest which i don't think that we have any enamors but um so there's this entire spectrum and i just i don't know that one size fits all is appropriate for this open space requirement uh this is just my initial thoughts yeah great uh lauren and then i'll put in my thoughts i wanted to i wanted to make sure i'm understanding this correctly um are we actually saying that if i was a landowner in amherst and i am going to build a project on 10 acres of land and i have to cut down two acres of forest i am going to be required to buy another two acres of land in amherst to set aside because of that forest i've cut down is that what this language says i'm not sure what the language is but i think the intent is that that in this proposal that the not necessarily the landowner but this the project owner the solar project owner would be required to not own not own and set aside but to um through a land trust or or some other entity um uh enable a similar amount of land or some x times the amount of land uh to be put into preservation for at least the duration of the of the project lifetime so they would have to own it but they would have to um uh work with i think that's usually done through land trust or some other or maybe or something yes my other follow-up question is and i think dan made a good point you got to cut off but do we have this requirement for any other kind of commercial development in the community because it just it just seems like i i i personally have never seen this requirement before where it's i i gotta better understand the language but and perhaps i'm not reading it correctly um whether it's you're paying for a conservation either or or something but um i i really um want to better understand this section yep my understanding is there is that that president for wetlands but not for carbon issues or for forests um just to add some comments on my own um is that i i think there is an issue with regard to well we're not asking a commercial developer to do this if they cut down some forest or a home developer to find similar land and you know one of the differences at least the solar project is providing substantial carbon reductions itself that's unlike a commercial building or a home which is actually adding uh more carbon into the atmosphere along with good things for the economy but more carbon to the atmosphere i would also um i i would not limit it to uh property that's owned by the project by the by the property owner because that's really limiting i would also not limit it to am amherst i would also question if we're really really trying to well two things if we're really trying to get to the carbon reductions um then um and the carbon sequestration um it it raises issues with regard to verification but you know four acres uh in in the amazon uh is going to do a lot more carbon sequestration than four acres in in in amherst or the northeast uh so um is there an argument to be made and it may reduce the cost of such set aside uh and assuming verification is dealt with uh is there an argument to be to open this up more globally and then i would also suggest that the language that i had suggested with regard to maximizing ecosystem services um i think helps to address this issue without necessarily going to a separate set aside because it does for for such situations where where it's on previously on previously undeveloped land in the case of clearing clearing some forest land that would be trigger this maximization of ecosystem services and while um uh while there may be some negative net negative impacts it's not um uh those ecosystem services of more open open field grasses and so forth uh does have some value in terms of diversity of the ecosystem in um uh that can add add value to the to the to the land and reduce the negative impacts um so um let's hear from dan and then jan and then we're going to need to um uh maybe bring this up as a discussion next time along with other important questions that chris has sort of put forward to us not to deliberate on so let's go with dan and then jan and finish out yeah and just like to voice my agreement with dwayne here and philosophically i'm in agreement that it's a good idea to preserve forest land in amherst but what does it say about our values we hold um solar developers to higher environmental standards than any other developers in this city um i think that really what we're talking about here is is beyond the scope of of this working group if we want to be fair in our application of environmental standards thank you dan uh jan and then we'll um close out the agenda yeah but basically yeah you know i think chris will agree with miss we do have zoning where there is a requirement of setting aside open space like and i'm thinking about like there's open space developments and then also like in a cluster development you get sort of you know if you had you know like you know five acres or 10 acres i'm thinking about that place on pine street i think it is so you get to build greater density if you cluster it in one area and you might get like duplexes and blah blah blah you get greater density you save a parcel and i think they did that at puffers pond with those condos that are along pine street like they got density and then they um more density but they set they set aside a whole bunch of woods around puffers pond and so that is in our zoning thing and reading this is i'm just thinking and i haven't seen it for i didn't look at it for a while is i think ultra town has this kind of requirement like there's a limitation on the size of forest cutting and then also on the same site there has to also be trees too and i think that's kind of a buffering thing so they don't have project after project you know stripping the land and having another project and stripping the land and the idea is to preserve some of the you know the forest and the ecological services so i i don't think it's phrased this way but i i'm i'm sort of grappling i feel like we have some examples of that all right good um i suggest we um close out this discussion um and bring this uh sex uh was a dimensional section uh back up in the context of the other set of questions that are really interesting uh and and important for us to deliberate on um that i think chris did um or stephanie circulate that as part of this agenda but um i suggest we we have that as an agenda item itself um next next meeting not to discuss continue this discussion on this section as well as um these uh broader questions that chris could really use our feedback on uh to make her work easier to as she starts crafting some of this language is that sound okay with you chris yep great so that'll be on the agenda for next time um uh anything else on the agenda next time um there is a possibility of um if the if the committee or the working group wants to potentially bring in um jonathan thompson from the harvard forest um was recommended by somebody um anybody have any thoughts on that yeah pretty awesome discussion about that last time join if i recall that we were at least sorry to raise my hand um go ahead i uh that uh i think i i really wanted to learn what we invite any speakers what the intent and what the agenda is for that speaker to cover um i really you know i think there are so many experts out there that we can invite to present this group so i just want to have clarity in terms of what we're looking to achieve from that conversation because we have a lot of work to do summer's coming and not a lot of time let me suggest that we in the conversation that we actually just had right now uh as well as deliberate more on this and other questions particularly dealing with force um uh next week that we um see if we if there are some pithy uh specific science-based uh questions that we really feel like yeah what we hope to gain from any presentation as it relates to our work drafting a bylaw um and because i mean i i know a tremendous number of experts in multiple you know battery storage solar you know and you know i'm not um i just i would not want to waste the committee's time unless we had a clear agenda for those individuals to come and present um i'm sorry guys i have a hard stop at 130 see you all next time okay so let's uh my sense is let's postpone that and have a discussion about that next time as well when i actually thought he was invited possibly for this meeting and so so i i didn't think that was a discussion item so i he's willing to come the next meeting and so didn't i mean did i misinterpret the emails between you me and Stephanie i thought that was already kind of a given well i did uh i mean i think um you know if we don't want to hear from farmers and foresters about the importance or the effects or anything let's i can just close up shop and we can just proceed speculating and making i just i don't get it i'd be happy to hear from Laura's experts i'm dying for information but i can't keep on inviting this person i asked him if he could come today and then he can come in two weeks and do we not want to hear about the doingland forest and but doing if i could i believe when it came up um at the meeting and i think janet had offered and there was discussion about it so i think we were following up and i think people were open to hearing from him so i think we were following up on that specific oh good our request so that's that's my recollection we can certainly go back but i i think the invitation's already been extended and janet was going to try to get him on this agenda and he wasn't available so okay thank you if that was if that was discussed before um then i stand corrected and i'm all in favor of hearing from him i do think uh again i i part of me just you know it's like let's ask let's let's figure out the questions we want answered uh and and and then so you know let's all think about that uh for uh jonathan next as we meet with him next week what you know i think we all respect in regard and um like the forest um so that's not really the question but it's it's um you know some specific questions uh with regard to uh these ecosystem services the preservation of forest around the commonwealth um the different types of forests um what is open space created by a solar collector due to a forest particularly if there's maximizing ecosystem services in that area and and so forth um so let's um let's go with uh jonathan if he's available next time we'll put that into the agenda but um again i don't think we need sort of an education on generalities of forest uh but um some specific issues that we're grappling with if people want to email me questions i'll send them to him for sure or stephanie if you want to do it through stephanie why don't if why don't we say that people get me questions um by the end of next week and then i can compile them all so that he has them all at once and i'll get them to janet okay all right um jack and then we'll go to public comments yeah again i i don't know much i don't know this person and just wonder if we can get some sort of you know information on them uh yeah we all knew we all know who davis omack was um i can send that information his his his publications list was so long it was endless well you know let's let's stephanie yeah send that to him yeah um but i just i'm just kind of like sort of like not quite where laura is but i'm wondering what the objective is you know forest ecologists yeah okay okay all right great okay let's um and apologize for going over but let's we do have seven members of the public um with us so i'd like to open it up for any comments thoughts uh from the public uh and if stephanie if you can orchestrate that that would be great okay by lapinski i am allowing you to speak so please unmute yourself uh yes you brought up a number of different interesting topics today unfortunately here we are at 136 and now the public is a chance to say a few things and the biggest supporter of solar is already left um i'd like to ask you to think of a few things one is the tone i hear a lot in this meeting today is kind of looking out for the solar companies you know it's how can we make sure that solar companies can can find a place to put them in how can we protect them how can we make sure that the fencing is not going to be too expensive it seems to me that you guys need to have a little bit different approach which is how can you protect the existing citizens that already have homes and residences and have commercial properties how can you look out for them first not look out for some international company that's going to come in and put in a giant solar field let me give you a couple examples um you talked about screening today there was a lot mentioned about screening i'd love for you guys to take a simple field trip you don't have to do it together all you have to do is drive down sundown road towards sunderland go a little past the old annies and go to a place which is matusco trailer repair it's on the right hand side right next to it is a small solar array it has screening around it take a good look at that screening it's a it's about 50 skinny arbor vita plans that look ridiculous to provide no visual screening at all i'm sure someone put together a plan and said we're going to put in screening we're going to make sure the public can't see this it's ridiculous the deer have eaten them some of them are about the size of pencils and yet that's considered to be screening that's the kind of thing that can easily happen in any of these projects you talk about a 50 foot setback from existing homes do you really understand what that means i understand what it means if you're in a neighborhood and someone's going to put a shed 50 feet away from your house but what if someone puts a 27 acre solar facility the same 50 foot distance away you have to think in terms of scale yes the shed's not too offensive but what about 27 acres of solar panels 50 feet away from your existing yard in an area that's already zoned residential and now you have a commercial facility 50 feet away from it and you put in a few blueberry bushes and you put in a few aquavita plants and you say there's your screening what do you think happens to the property value of someone's home in that situation please take some consideration for people who already live here who already have have lived here for a long time and consider that when you consider setbacks it's one thing to be 100 feet away from the road fine 200 feet away from the road but consider side setbacks in particular i'm speaking from experience having a solar plant proposed to be a short distance away from the house i know what it looks like i know what 50 feet looks like i know my neighbor is 200 feet away and i'm looking through the screening at his house there's plenty of trees in the way there's plenty of bushes the house is still there i can easily picture 27 acres of solar panels they're not going to be invisible please consider individuals that already live here bylaws are are intended to not look out for the interests of developers they're also intended to look out for the interests of people who already live in places who when they moved into a place and it was declared residential they expected it to be residential not be turned into a commercial industrial facility in their backyards thank you michael appreciate that jack did you have any did you have a comment on on that and then we can go with another public comment yeah i know the last speaker's a little emotional but i'm just i just got caught with the size of the pencil of the screening and i'm sure that's not what he meant but just trying to be factual i guess in terms of what's going on there but i don't try to make an attempt to go up there and see yeah yeah all right very good um stefanie do you want to let rene speak stefanie i can hear you i don't know if you all can hear me i'm sorry rene i did just say that i i muted myself again i was just saying that we can hear you and oh okay thanks um well i but i raised my hand before mike well before i knew what mike was going to say i was raising my hand but first of all i just want to support strongly what what mike lapinski just said and i do want to also the one of the main things i wanted to say was that it these meetings are really frustrating in that almost every single meeting public comment is after the meeting is over the person taking notes who as mike said is a real proponent of the the companies that build the solar arrays and who gets to be referred to all the time she was taking minutes and now she's not even here for public comment so i i think and i have spoken to one of the town counselors about this issue that for this meeting the comments are almost always after the meeting is officially over and i think that's very unfair and i almost i i don't know robert i don't know the rules of the town but i i think it violates the these the town meeting these these these meetings these committee meetings so i just want to um just want to express my concern about that you know i i've come to all of your you know all of your um outreach to the public and everything and i think that this is really a sham this this public comments at the end and i i feel very hurt by it and very um i'm very angry about it so um and especially that that even jack spoke during public comment time that he was cold on before me anyway i but obviously that won't be in the minutes so thank you thank you for your work rooney i just wanted to know that i'm taking minutes i picked that up after laura left thank you great thank you rena and um right and maybe um stefi i can i can reach out to stefanie and chris to to um talk about the public comments and make sure at least that we're on solid ground legally but i think i believe we are but uh appreciate the um the concern rena okay kathleen bridge water yeah you can go ahead and unmute thank you um i guess what i'd like to speak to is the issue of the forest and the forest ecology and i cannot get over how time and again janet in particular brings up the issue of how we absolutely must understand what is going on in the forest before anyone thinks of raising it and i don't understand why there seems to be such pushback every time she opens her mouth to recommend that we have an expert attend these meetings who can give information about forest ecology and the the recommendation that a forest ecology should be ruined permanently ruined and put in its place a 20 to 30 year possible solar uh what solar they say farm but it's really a solar factory that will become obsolete and which will need to be replaced and i just don't understand why we are putting the cart before the horse thanks thank you okay um appreciate all those comments i don't see any other um comments uh from the public we have one more jenny callak jenny go ahead you can unmute yourself thank you all thank you everybody uh just to follow up about the idea of setting aside land uh to equal the forest that's being cut two points on that the developer can limit the size of the array so 50 acres are available if there's a setback requirement uh the array can simply be uh made smaller so it is it doesn't have to do with going out and buying land somehow regarding uh the point that dan made about we don't require anything about forest for other builders if you go back and look at the master plan the recommendations there to protect forest were strong were developed with what the master plan says was a thousand residents participating carefully developed the fact that the town never acted on the master plan recommendations is doesn't undercut the fact that the town values and what the town agreed to do in relationship to forest is absolutely firm and clear so the idea that we never thought about forest land before is incorrect it's very clearly delineated in the master plan so i hope people are referencing the master plan it's really a fantastic document to show what the town believes about itself and wants uh for land use thank you all very much thank you jenny okay um any other uh public comments i like what you mentioned jenny great okay uh appreciate people's um going over time here and apologize to the public for taking comments late um martha did you have one last comment to make so i mean in light in light of this uh i would like to recommend and maybe we can discuss this next time setting aside a specific time that we would start public comments even if it means cutting off something else we're in the middle of doing uh sometime during the middle or the last 15 minutes or whatever that we actually conscientiously agree to some specific time that we would just move to public comments and then uh have our closing up uh afterwards that would be something i'd like us to discuss not right now but you know next time okay thank you um okay uh with that and appreciate that and appreciate everybody's time and effort on this um let's uh adjourn the meeting and we will reconvene in two weeks uh is still looking good and and um uh yeah and my note that it might have to be in person is no longer valid so we'll uh we'll remain remote as we've been doing okay thank you everybody and have a good have a good weekend