 Okay, so we are recording out today is May 13 2020. This is the Amherst Conservation Commission by weekly meeting. And so the big news I would argue for today is that we have a new member with us. So I got to meet him probably about a month or so ago. And I got to meet him today. I was going to be a little bit late and Aaron got to meet him a week ago as well. So first, how do you pronounce your name? Oh, I think he's Leroy. Correct. Okay, sounds like we're having a little bit of connectivity issues on your side. And if Leroy, if you're having problems with connectivity, you could also call in on a landline or on your phone that might help as well. All right. Yeah, you actually sound better now just for the video off. So you may not be able to hear us, but we're very happy that you're here. Most of the agenda items tonight you probably won't be able to vote on unless you, I don't think he could vote the, I don't know, maybe if you looked at the older recordings he might be able to probably mostly observational tonight, but then as you move forward, obviously, it'll be great to have you participate. So, did we want to do a quick round of introductions. So, okay. So, Leroy, did you want to introduce yourself real quick? Hi, nice to meet you all. One of my first site visitors today and looking forward to work. Thank you. And so we've introduced you and I have met a couple times at this point. But again, my name is Brett Butler. I have the honor of being the chair of this commission. I don't know how long Fletcher you and I have been on the commission, but a number of years at this point, I think. So, I'm about right. So I work for the US Forest Service and I'm adjunct over at UMass as well. Oh, there you go. For a year and I'm a retired faculty member. Yep. Hey, I'm Fletcher Clark. And on a board commission for a number of years now and I work for Mass Wildlife as habitat biologists. So welcome aboard man. Thank you. Hello, I joined the board back in June, and I work in the solar development field. Never knew how to say your last name. My turn. Hi, welcome. I'm Jen. I've been here for I think like two and a half years. It seems long. In a good way. And I'm a research hydrologist at the US Geological Survey. Well, I'm Erin. We met in the field. I'm the wetlands administrator and I've been with the town now since late September early October of last year. I, as you know, because we talked, I work part-time for Tufts in Boston and I've got a background in GIS and wetlands and I'm super excited that you're on board and that we can that you train wonderful things. The conservation commission does. Welcome. My name is Dave Zomek. I am the assistant manager and have a lot of responsibilities in different departments for the town, but one of them is to work with the commission. Helping to oversee all of our conservation land and work collaboratively with with Aaron and the entire commission on conservation related issues land conservation land management. I work in wetlands, but I also work in zoning and planning and community development. So that is my role and I usually try to be present for part of the meeting so I'll be here for part of the meeting tonight. Thank you, Dave. And thank you everyone. So we have a number of other people who are on the line at this point so about seven other people as well. So just let people know the meeting has officially started and we're just going through some opening business. We have a new member with us today that we're very excited about the first item on the agenda official item will be at 730 and we'll try and hit that at about that appropriate time. At this point, Aaron, there are no items that are being continued. I mean, they're what that all the items on the agenda tonight will be dealt with correct. So there are no requests for continuation on the agenda tonight. However, I don't, I'm feeling like nothing that is on the agenda tonight is going to be closed out everything is going to eventually result in a continuation I think they're just items that we have to, you know, get some additional information on maybe have some discussion and make a decision as to how we move forward and then continue it to the next meeting. Okay, that sounds good. I just wanted to make sure if there's anything that would automatically be continuation that they could be they can know otherwise. Okay, so as far as we know the agenda is set. And you know we'll progress with that and let folks know as we go forward. So the first agenda item was just notes for me. Just to invite, or to say welcome to the Roy, and it's really exciting that this is the first time that I can remember in a long time that we actually have seven members so our commission is full. Hopefully that will help out a lot. That is not giving me an excuse not to come not to go to site visits hopefully we all try to do all that as well. We are finally up to full speed so thank you Dave and Aaron for helping make that happen. So as we know this is our second meeting that we're going virtual last one went well so hopefully this one goes well as well. So I don't really have any other comments so I don't know if Aaron or Dave if you want to take it from here. We'll yield to you and whenever you're done I can jump in. Sure, so it's been a while since I've connected with the commission and miss all of you and it's great that we're working remotely and making all the adjustments that many other boards and committees are making during this time. I just want to update you on on a couple of topics one would be field work, a quick update on community gardens, a quick update on land projects and then a little bit related to budgets and I'm happy to take questions and I usually just kind of roll through things but either stop me or or take notes and ask me to go further if you need to but out in the field. You know we really haven't missed a beat this year. Brad and Tyler have been working with social distancing as best they can throughout the COVID situation. You know the town has instituted a number of instituted a number of different policies and procedures during this time. Many of those have affected people working in offices and less so for people working in in the field so they've been going, you know, gangbusters out there and you've probably seen them on trails and out in our conservation areas. I just want to quick update some, you know, these strange storms we've been having kind of twisted winds, probably trees that are weakened by gypsy laws. We've had a lot of down trees on trails so they're trying to knock those off as best they can. And then yesterday I was out on the Epstein property in South Amherst and was kind of a little bit shocked by how many trees were down and these were not old trees dying trees these were, you know, 10 inch caliper trees that just knocked over by these kinds of shearing twisting wind storms we've been having so Brad and Tyler are working on those we get constant reports from trail goers. And of course, as you know during the COVID situation our trails have been really getting, frankly, a lot of a lot more use than normal years, there's there on the trails. We did some early brush hogging. We typically stop that during you know once the turtles come out so they did some early brush hogging like at Bluebird Meadow on Southeast Street finally got mode which was nice early before the turtles came out. They're kind of now transitioning to trail work, and we're kind of looking at 2020 in the context of, you know, are we likely to be able to hire any summer staff and this is kind of a big conversation we're having internally is, how do you bring young people on to work out in the field yes but how do you get them where you need them to go share tools, share vehicles, they say and and all of our workforce for safe so we're grappling with that a little bit I mean the worst case scenario is Brad and Tyler are alone the entire summer. And we just frankly maintain we don't take on anything big, no new bridges no bridge replacement etc etc so we, there's a lot of young people who are going to be unemployed this summer and we have an overwhelming number of applications so we're trying to figure out whether there's a way to do that. It also calls into question how can we staff buffer spawn and keep a presence there if it's really just to two individuals all summer long. So we'll keep you posted on on how that goes. Yeah, sure. Yeah, so one question for you on something that you're talking about that talking about there related to a lot of use that we're getting on the properties. And one it's great that people are out there and people mostly seem to be respectful and social distancing and I've seen the signs out there and that's all great. It's going to be a lot more challenging for that. And I know that some neighboring communities and some other lands are starting to shut down. Has there been any talks about that within the town about controlling access to conservation land or other town lands. Yeah, we, it's a great question we've had a lot of discussions with the town manager and with Julie Federman our health director and Julie has been outstanding throughout this whole or deal. I've been kind of an advocate for keeping the trails open. We did put out some signs with LSS C to try to just remind people about social distancing. For whatever reason I've been out on trails more this spring than I have been in years. And, you know, you all are users of our of our trails. And this is a way to do it safely. I think the most uncomfortable feeling you have frankly is usually in the parking lot if you go to Amethyst Brook or you go to the rail trail, or you go to one of these popular places like Wentworth farm. You want to move out of the parking lot, but but there's ways to simply get over to the side of the trail when a family group passes or individual passes and people seem to be pretty cognizant out there. We're doing that some people are not and that's all a comfort level, but I think if we're respectful of each other and we're patient. There's ways to keep the trail, I feel there's ways to keep the trails open unless more guidance comes down from the CDC or the state that we just absolutely shouldn't be out at all. You know, there has been some studies about the trails that we leave, if you will, as we shed, you know, if people are asymptomatic, but have COVID-19 runners bikers, etc. But, but again, the, the research and the guidance hasn't said definitively you should close trails. I will say that we focus a lot on buffers bond. And I apologize I probably should have sent out an email to you all but the town manager really many weeks ago, given the state of emergency that he called he really felt as though we should close the beaches that buffers bond. We close them primarily to beach goers, we've allowed fishermen, fishermen, men, women, people fishing to go out on the beaches because typically they're in individuals or in family groups, and you know they're they're solitary. So we are concerned about moving forward what happens at buffers bond. In fact, this weekend as we did two weekends ago we're actually Stacy stationing a police officer on the beach from 11 in the morning till 6pm at 10 to 6. Probably both days this weekend and they park on the main beach, and they engage with people and really say you can't linger here. And it's worked pretty effectively whether we can do that whether we can afford to do that the whole summer. That's a whole different question. So that's what we're doing for now but I do think we're going to have to come up with something when the weather turns really nice and people want to be at a beach so there's a lot of time right now. We might have to go something like they're doing at coastal beaches where you know they're allowing people to walk on the beach but not plant a plant a, you know, a towel but then we're going to have to have enforcement for that and that's going to be tough. I will say the other thing we've also talked about to cut down on traffic and and access is, you know, we have talked about blocking off State Street, and simply saying, you know that that sends a message that if you want to walk in if you want to bike in that's fine but we can have 100 cars line up there because then we have a situation that we can control and keep people safe. So I will keep you posted on that as the as the days go by and the weather gets better. Let me see what else is on our list out in the field. We've got a couple of the encroachment issues I know Brett we're we're trying to follow up on the issue that you raised adjacent to Wentworth Farm. We also had someone along a trail on Southeast Street down to the Lawrence swamp do some cutting. I don't think it was it was not purposeful I think somebody didn't know that where their property line was and they cut some some sumac. I don't think it's the end of the world I think the sumac will come back so we're having conversations with with that a butter. We're having some beaver issues around town. We had Aaron might fill you in on beaver issues up at Jerry Hill golf course. Pomeroy court is another one that might really come to a head and we might really have to do something more proactive at Pomeroy court there's a two large dams there. And that could seriously impact people having access to their homes on Pomeroy court off of Pomeroy Lane. So, unfortunately beaver solution says there's really not much we can do in terms of piping or cages, and their only option is really likely trapping that is conservation land at least part of it so it's always a last resort for me but we might be coming back to you with something like that we would. We would need your permission to do that and we would need the Board of Health permission to do that so we might. We might add that to the site visit list here in the coming weeks to really get you some of you out there as many of you out there's possible to take a look at that situation Aaron has been working with our town engineer on that and in a few minutes you may want to say more about that it really is a public safety issue and the dams are getting bigger and they're holding back a whole lot of water. Moving on community gardens. Stephanie Chickarello and I had a great conversation zoom meeting with Ryan carb today, and we are in principle, I think all set for him to sign. A license is one is a continued license for use of Haskins Meadow, and then a license for gardening. Amethyst Brook, as per your directive and your agreement on his proposal. What's exciting there is he'll we've come up with a plan that we can have for you next meeting where we're going to have 10 new plots community garden plots, right in the area that we talked about at Amethyst Brook. This is going to mentor those 10 farmers. I will have, I believe we'll have eight open if you will kind of first come first serve and then we'll have to for low or moderate income individuals or families. And then we'll have the people who are gardening in the central part of the Amethyst book trail system over. So there's five or five, maybe, plus or minus gardeners there. And then we'll have four or five plots open so it'll be a good start. It'll be a good transition year. Ryan's very excited to work with them. The meeting will have kind of Aaron, if you could add that to the agenda. Things are getting started out there in principle based on, you know, his proposal, but we'll have the license to get to you in advance it's pretty much a standard license that we've used in the past. I believe my understanding was you wanted to do a one year license, and then reevaluate it and then you'd give him more years if everything goes well. And we'll have the applicant's meadow for a number of years and doing quite well out there so I would propose and we'll talk about that next weekend that we give him a longer term license there. So that's going well and we'll get some community gardens going there. And David related to that. How are the new applicants going to be selected or will this be something available on the town website so people know that there are that this is available. I've enlisted Stephanie Chigarello's help and Angela Mills in the town manager's office. Unfortunately, we don't have 30 new plots. I have a feeling that when we move the folks over from where they are now over. We might only have three to five open spots so we, we kind of have a list of people who have inquired already this year and said, we'd love to get if you open any new plots. So it might be a first come first serve situation for this year. We had a good conversation with Ryan today and I was not able to attend the icon meeting last night, but they had a zoom meeting of the outcome and the outcome would very much like to get in. Kind of what we talked about in 2009 get into a role of helping to organize the community gardens which I would welcome. And I think you all probably would too. So the, the idea that we posed to Ryan was let's get Amethyst Brook going with these 10 new plots this year, and then let's get Fort River farm going with the new plots for 21 and the ag com could, could take care of all the promotion the, the review, you know, you know, all the sign ups and all of that stuff and help organize the community gardens the new community gardens at Fort River farm for the spring of 21. So, it might be kind of a phased approach to increase the number of plots down one. Yeah, I've seen that Ryan already has a black tarps or a black plastic laid out where I think the community gardens are going to be so that's nice. Exactly. Yeah, he wanted to do some, you know, we'd suppression there. So he asked me about that and I was like, yeah, absolutely. That would be a great start. In terms of land projects, we have kind of three active right now we have keyed handskins, which is out on Market Hill Road and we're finishing up the draft conservation restriction that will come to you at your next meeting with Aaron if you remind me we'll we'll get it to the commission a week in advance we already have it drafted. It's pretty standard language of what can and can happen out at Keith saskins. This is a requirement of the CPA legislation so we have to have a third party holder of the CR it'll be the Castro trust as you probably imagine. That shows out what the town can and can't do in the future and there's no big surprises we can't build tennis courts and cell towers and things of that sort. I've been out on the property a couple of times. The unique feature out of Keith saskins is our waterline for Mackins reservoir goes through under Keith saskins. So that's one of the reserve rights so you'll see that in the document so we can. That's, you know, we should have a brief agenda item on that next meeting Aaron where I can talk about that and we could show maps. We did acquire as you know there's all a property in North Amherst I've been out on that property a couple times this spring. I do want to talk to you a little bit about that eventually we'll do the CR process on that. It'd be great to get you all out on that property and talk about the trail system it's, it's between Catherine Cole sanctuary to the south and there are a lot of beaver issues out on that property as well so the beavers have had a great great winter. At one point I don't think I've ever done this myself but I realized I was so far into the hike. It would have taken me an hour to get back around and I encountered a trail area where the beavers have flooded the trail so I took off my boots my socks, and I just waited through the beaver pond. This was last Friday. So anyway, I don't know as that's a We can't bridge it we can, you know, so we're going to have to look at the beaver situation there. I think finally I'll end with Dave. Dave, can I ask real quick. Yeah, what's going do you have any idea what's going on across the street in the cell us this is all the property across the street. The like the industrial zone piece. Yeah, there's a large piece of property across the street near the substation. It's about Sunderlin Road in 116 it's about 49 acres. Yeah that's been zoned professional research park for over 30 years. I think we will see a development proposal for that in the next six to 12 months. Yeah. It was not on our high priority list it never really has been to be honest I think, going back to P West over my predecessor, we kind of shied away from it a little bit it's it's decent agricultural land but because it was zoned professional we were not going to have to go to the park and is not contiguous with any other conservation land or APR land, we really kind of said well, you know, we have to prioritize, and that was not a priority property. I will say that you all have seen the delineation of that property. So there's only on the 49 acres I think there's only about eight acres that are developed with the rest is wetlands so I think will be wildlife habitat. Eventually, so it is now and it'll be permanently protected if you will. So, we might even look I mean maybe in the future they might even donate the extra of the the non developable land to the town. So, finally, just on budgets. That's kind of what I was talking about before is all the good news work, moving forward and projects moving forward. As you can imagine, you know with a coven 19 situation the town is going to be facing some pretty severe budget constraints. We're not going to take capital and operating now. You know I'm hoping we're not going to take any hits to personnel. Certainly some of our capital dreams if you will like new new replacement pickup trucks and things like that are not going to happen this year. I think that'll all be pushed off to future years. So I'll keep you posted on that but it's going to be a tough couple of budget years like it will be for private industry and and other businesses. I neglected also to just give you a quick hickory update on the hickory, the hickory acquisition for now is moving forward. We're going to try to proceed with that. We're working on some kind of assessment of the property with regard to 21 E with some of the, the area that we found that may need some remediation but the owners of hickory have they're they're going to get in a smart program block for solar energy that is acceptable to them. So if it is then they will proceed with the sale to the town. So we'll need to focus in on that what part of the property is concerned what part of the property is available for future town uses. So sorry that took longer than I thought. No worries there's a lot Dave, it's been a while so thank you. I'm just let folks know on the commission I have been muting some people there was a weird background noise so I apologize for doing that but a lot does anybody have any questions, you know, kind of somewhat superficial on some things but I'm happy to take any deeper questions. Did I see Larry's hand or no. Well Larry's muted I think. Yeah, I was going to I was going to ask you earlier on but it had to do with Hickory Ridge and you came up and talked about Hickory Ridge anyways that's fine. Yeah. It's interesting you know hickory has been closed since last fall but people are still coughing there and I think they're trying to get in their last rounds of play before the grass grows so high and the greens are no longer playable so I think there's there parking on Farmington and then walking down the parking lots at the ridge are all closed so they park on our streets and walk down there to play. Yeah, I think it's a question of time that the grass is growing and when it grows too high. No people much there. Any other questions for Dave. Okay, so I have 734 so Aaron if it's okay with you will save your updates for later or is there anything that you'd like to get in now before we start our items. No, no, let's let's move forward with business I can sprinkle it in between if I need to. Okay, great thank you. Okay, and just for those attendees who weren't here last time on how this will work is. Once we bring up an item and if you're here to present on that item I'll ask that you raise your hand and then we'll invite you in as a panelist as a panelist you can share your screen and you can talk as you so desire. So at some point we will make sure that we open it up for a public discussion. And at that point, well, you'll have an opportunity to raise your hand so over somewhere on your zoom screen there's an option to raise your hand. And so take advantage of that and we'll make sure to call on you at the appropriate time. So our first item of business as a continuation for a request for determination for 214 Pomeroy Lane. And so do we have people here to present on this. I don't see. Well I see Mike I don't know if that's Mike. Mike Lou from Berkshire design. Let's just check. Yeah, so I just let him talk he has he needs to unmute himself. Mike. If that's you know to different Mike. Okay, thank you. Okay, so I'll just, I'll just give you a brief update since I don't see Mike on because there, there was a little confusion with that one. You guys might recall that we had back in February been reviewing a wetland delineation for I had pot wine but I believe it's it's Pomeroy Pomeroy Lane and basically they there was some back and forth regarding the the wetland delineation and there was some areas that were wet along the driveway and then there was some areas we weren't sure if they should be included or not. And so we had left it that we would schedule a site visit but at the time it wasn't really the appropriate time to get out there because there was snow cover. So we had continued to this date in hopes of getting out there and for various reasons I think just like we had multiple site visits that were sort of on the docket and we had a big site visit in particular today for another project. So and I got sort of mixed responses from commission members as far as whether they wanted to go out and walk the property again, or if they were comfortable with the delineation. I know there were some areas I think everybody agreed flags needed to be added. The flagging series a was one of those areas that I remember which was in the front of the property by the driveway. And some of the back the the other flagging series there was questions about whether or not it was it fell into the category of well and so I had inquired with Mike Lou earlier today to ask if that flagging series a had been added to the plans and he said no and I think his thought was just revise the plans one time based on the field visit. So I guess the question to you guys is how you want to proceed with that if you want to go out and do another site visit. If you want to ask Mike Lou to just reflag the wetlands a and come back with the plan and then continue the meeting at that point. So that's kind of where that stands. Yeah, I can say from my perspective a is definitely my big issue and so I would definitely like to see a reflag the other ones I think are more minor differences. And so I'm okay about the other ones but that's just my personal opinion. And I'm the one who brought up a bunch of those sort of issues before one reason that I've sort of pulled back from some of the ones besides a was I wasn't necessarily considering percent covered. So there are wetland obligates out there but the percent cover, you know after I looked at my notes is way too low. And so, you know, it's just that gradation and so because of that I'm okay. Does anyone else have any thoughts on it or Okay, so I mean I will ask Mike to add flags on wetland series a and then come back and we can extend this meeting to They had requested June. And actually our meeting on May 27 is pretty full. So I would recommend if we could do a continuation to 730 on June 10. Sounds good to me so be looking for a motion for a continuation. I move to continue. I'm sorry was the address again. 214 Pomeroy I think you're 214 Pomeroy to you say June 10, Aaron. Yes, 730. Yep. 10. That's coming up. So all in favor. I, I. So all opposed. So I'm not quite sure about Laura or Leroy. So I'm just going to jump in. This was going to be one of my other business items for the, for the online votes. We have to do a actual run through of everybody and say I, I know it's silly but it's a procedural thing that they're requiring so. So Larry. I approve. Fletcher. Aye. Jen. Aye. Laura. Aye. Leroy. I think. I think Leroy has to recuse because he wasn't on the board at the time. He needs to abstain. Yeah. Yep. And I. Okay. Thank you guys. Okay. So that's going to get moved. So we are good with that. And we have a few minutes before 745 Aaron. Okay. I don't know if you'd like to go through. There is. So in the link that I had sent everyone. For one drive. Sorry, I'm getting an echo in my ear. I'm going to just make sure you guys are all muted. Okay. That's weird. Okay. In the packets that I sent out on one drive, there is a, there's a couple of documents from. KP law. The law firm that. Gives us legal advice. And basically the question you may, you know, know, know what it is that we're talking about electronic signatures on wetland permits. Because as you can imagine, this is going to really become. A challenge as we move forward, getting everyone's signature. So, um, I can pull it up if it that's helpful to see, but, um, basically what they are recommending is that we make a motion. That we can get everybody's approval of that on vote. And I would actually suggest that we wait until Anna joins so that we can get everybody the full compliment of the board in agreement on it and approval on it. What's going to happen is once that takes place, we actually have to record that at the registry of deeds. And once that's done, then when we make a motion on a permit for approval. Then, um, we can put that it was, we can put a notation on the permit that, um, the electronic signatures had been authorized by the board. So we should save that as an other business item, but just as, uh, sort of procedural for all votes on permits, um, or continuations will have to do head counts just to make sure that everybody's accounted for. Because there might be people listening in who, um, don't know who can't see what's going on basically. And just so that they're aware. The other thing to be aware of, and this is going to be something where. If we approve an order of conditions, we should make, um, Applicants aware of, which is, um, Pretty interesting, uh, is that, um, Orders of conditions, any orders of conditions that are issued during the emergency declaration. Once the declaration is lifted, DEP has 45 days to appeal. So what that means is we can continue moving forward with business. But. We should be essentially advising people when we issue an approval. That if they proceed with work, they're doing it at their own risk. And there is a. One, um, caveat to that is if there's a hardship. Um, so for example, like if somebody has a failed septic system or something like that. And they can't wait until the declaration is over to repair it. They can apply for. Special consideration from DEP to be considered prior to that. 45 day stay. Um, but just so that everybody is aware of that, because that's really important and we definitely should make sure that we're advising people of that when they come before us. Um, So the town has a mechanism in place to do the actual digital signing, like docu sign or. Nope, it's not going to be docu sign. Essentially what it's going to be is we would make, we would make a motion on the record. Um, And everybody who is in favor of the motion will vote on it. And then once they vote on it, it'll be signed. And I would assume that, um, Brett, you as the chair would probably sign the document. And then we bring it to the town clerk. And the town clerk. Um, I believe notarizes it or certifies it. And then from there, we can record it at the registry. I'll give you, I'll show you what it looks like right now. So that you can. Yeah, the copy is in there and I've already looked at it. It looks fine. Well, it's not going to open it. Give me just one second. Yeah, I can, I have it up on my screen if you'd like me to share. That would be great. I don't know. It's, I've got two screens, um, in the office. And so it's being funky about letting me see both screens. So I assume that this is what you're looking for, Aaron. I can't see your screen. There's actually one that's a motion. Yeah, I can. Yeah. Okay. I. Yeah. So there's another document. Um, that is actually more of like an official documents. Um, And it. Is that under correspondence or someplace else? It's, it's in the correspondence folder. Yep. And it's, um, from cobaltman and page. Yeah, I don't see that one. I see. Sorry. I, I don't know. I don't see that one. I see. Sorry. I, I had these things all queued up and it, um, Kicked me out. Low e signatures. Down council. Huh. Yeah, I'm not seeing it in there now too. Um, I don't see it in there. I don't see it in there. I don't see it in there. I heard you talking about the one that says certificate of vote, authorizing signatures pursuant to MGL. C 11. There we go. I think that's it. Yep. The KP. Yep. Does that have to be done once or does that have to be done? Can we take a vote? Nope. It's just done once. I'm going to share that, Aaron. If you can. Yeah. It's, I don't know. It's easier for you. Sure. You guys see that? Not yet. Yep. Got it now. Nope. That's not the one either. One. All right. I'm going to, I'm going to steal the screen for a second. If I can, if you, if you unshare, I'll share it. There it is. Yeah. Yep. So, um, the motion is. Motion by whomever that the Amherst conservation commission here by. Recognizes and accepts the provisions MGL. Section 110 G regarding electronic signatures and that its members will henceforth execute documents, either with electronic signatures or with wet ink signatures, and that both will carry the same legal weight and effect. And then the, the second, and then running through everybody. And then the, um, The notary at the bottom. So I think when Anna joins the call, maybe we could address that. And as far as the docusign. Um, so for DEP permits, um, Like electronic DEP permits, there's actually a, I can just go in and write people's names in. So essentially if a motion is made and somebody votes in favor, it's as good as a signature. I'm not sure I've got to clarify that to make sure that that's acceptable or. If docusign is more appropriate or something to that effect, but. Okay. Yeah. So it's, I'm sure you'll get some sort of clarification on that. Yeah. Yeah. I think just getting the motion made and moving, then I can, you know, continue moving forward with getting additional info. That sounds good. Um, so I have seven 50. So is that it on that item? Erin, or should we move on to our seven 45? Um, yes. Let's, let's keep moving. Okay. Yeah. Um, okay. So let's, uh, open our seven 45. And this is a continuation that, uh, I don't know if it's continued from or started on 10, nine, 19, but these are for the Tefino associates properties on lot one, two, five, six, seven and eight. Uh, on concord way. And so I see one person wait. You are now the most a panelist. So Ted, you should be good at this point. Is there anybody else here to present on this? Okay. I have one more. Anybody else. Hey, Brett, if I'm going to abstain from this, do you want me to drop for this time period and then just rejoin later on? Uh, you're happy. You're more than welcome to just stay. Um, yeah, but yeah, you just won't be able to vote. I think you can even ask questions if you wanted to, but it's more just, um, issue about voting. So, okay. So, um, Ted and Kristen, so you're here to present on this. So, um, if the two of you wouldn't mind giving a update on where we are with this and then we'll move forward. Yeah, just, just one comment on something you just said, I think that recusal means that you're not allowed to participate in the deliberations either. Um, I mean, I think she can participate as a general public person though, but not as, as a board member. Correct. That's right. Um, so my name is Ted Parker. I was here in October. I believe that actually that these are six separate notices of intent. And I think the first time they were included on the agenda, they were six separate agenda items. And I think that, uh, it probably would make sense in some ways to continue to consider them as six separate agenda items. Um, that being said, the commission, there's been a question. This permit, this project was originally permitted in 2003, 2004. And, uh, many of the lots, uh, you know, 55 of the lots have been sold and built on. Uh, we're now near the end of the project. And these, uh, we have six lots, uh, one, two, five, six, seven and eight. Um, we're now interested in, um, doing something with it. And when I brought these before the commission in the fall, there was, uh, the question as to whether or not the, um, DBW that was originally delineated. Uh, now hosts, uh, obligate species for vernal pool was brought up, um, by butters, I believe, and by the commission. And so we have since, uh, commissioned SWCA to do a vernal pool, um, analysis and they submitted a report to you, which I think you all have had for a little while now. And, um, we're here to hear the commission's response to that report and, um, commission's comments on our, on our application on our, on our notice of intent. And, uh, questions about the report can be directed to me or to Kristen or Kristen, would you like to do an introduction to the report? Um, sure. I'll just introduce myself. I'm Kristen McDonough. Um, I'm an ecologist with SWCA. I did a vernal pool evaluation at the Concord Way property in April, 2019. Um, I believe that report was shared with the commission about a month ago. And I'm basically participating in this meeting just to answer any questions that might come up. But yeah. Ted, do you want me to present the results really quickly? Uh, sure. I think that if that makes sense, if that's what the commission would want. So, um, the results of the vernal pool assessment were that there was more than the minimal. Evidence of obligate vernal pool breeding. Um, so vernal pools are basically protected based on two different criteria, physical criteria and biological criteria under both the Wetlands Protection Act and, um, a little less so the Amherst bylaw. Basically the biological criteria is the presence of, um, obligate or facultative breeding amphibians and the physical criteria is fishlessness and essentially ephemeral, ephemeral pool without a permanent inlet outlet. Or perennial stream. Um, the, the evidence was pretty clear that I think it meets the biological criteria. I never went back in the fall to determine whether or not there was a dry pool or essentially that this area meets the physical criteria. It's my opinion it likely does. Um, but I never went back to document that fully. Um, I think it's a pretty productive vernal pool. Uh, as you can see from one of the figures in the report, I kind of sketched out an area of the area, biologically speaking, would be the basin, the vernal pool basin, which is smaller than the wetland. Um, and then just to give a little background on why I did that biologically, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, wetland doesn't always equal water, you know, standing water, but for a vernal pool basin, you really need standing water for two months. For these particular two species, the wood frogs and the spotted salamanders to complete their metamorphosis. So the area of standing water. Is smaller than the area of bordering vegetated wetland. So that's why if you look at figure four, you can see that the water is dilineated by. I think Berkshire design group, correct me if I'm wrong. And then the smaller area inside that. That's the. Vernal pool basin. I believe the original delineation was by Chuck. And the, uh, the drawings were done by, um, by Berkshire design. Okay, thank you. Okay. So thank you both very much. Um, so are there questions from the commissioner from commissioners or commissioners or commissioners or commissioners or commissioners. Um, is there a time or do you have any pictures or anything else you'd like to share first though? Um, Well, I have, I have not completed a site visit out here. Um, I do want to just address the one comment that Ted had made as far as keeping the hearing separate. Um, So for. Administrative purposes, we just scheduled all of the lots for the same time window. Um, we had a different time, um, especially when we were continuing multiple times since October, it just made more sense and it was easier administratively to just schedule all the lots, um, and continue them. So I just wanted to make sure that we weren't, I didn't want there to be the, um, Interpretation that we had grouped them all together. We're definitely still as far as if a motion is made, but we're still going to be able to do that. Um, So I think that's a good point to make. Each individual a lot. Um, I think. From, from what I recall about this project, um, there was, there's a couple things. I know that the commission had expressed interest in a site visit. And, um, I had sent an email out to the board asking. Sort of, Do you guys want to hear the results of the, of the vernal pool study first? You want to get out there and look at it first. And so I think number one, we should determine, do we still want to do a site visit out there to look at it? And then, um, The other element of this was that there was several other outstanding, um, revisions. I think as I recall to the plans for each of the individual plans for each of the lots, like, um, grading plans, um, being one of them. Um, And I know erosion controls were added to like a plan revision, but as I recall, and I could certainly look back in my notes to see what those were. I know Ted and I had emailed about them several times. Um, but I think. The bottom line is there, there may be some revisions that we're. Are still outstanding. And we should determine. If a site visit is necessary. And then I think the commission should, um, Sort of make a judgment as to. Um, How to move forward with this one. Cause it's a little tricky in terms of. The, um, continued order of conditions for the full subdivision. And I know there was some concerns that new information has come to light, which is impacting these lots, which was not known, um, prior to the issuance of that continuation. Can I, can I comment? Um, thank you for that clarification about, uh, why they were grouped together. That was, that was helpful. Um. Uh, yes, there was some comments, uh, and some changes to the original drawings that we submitted, but I made the decision that the, the big question here is about the hundred foot buffer from a vernal pool and. Um, I think that's what we're going to be allowed to do in there. And I think there's going to probably be some substantive. If the commission decides to allow us to, um, Build on the lots within that hundred foot buffer, then there was going to be some substantive conversation about how that's going to happen. And rather than drawing something and spending the time and the effort and the money to draw something now, we're going to have to, um, we're going to have to make a decision to wait until we had, uh, this discussion and then to, um, I think this is going to take up multiple hearings. And by the time we get to a hearing where there'll be a vote, if we get that far, then, um, We'll have all the drawings spot on, uh, as required by the commission. No problem. Thank you, Ted. Yep. And just let, um, I know there's at least one person in the, um, there's at least one person in the commission. Um, there's at least one person in the commission. There's at least one person in the commission. So thank you. So other commissioners, do you have any other comments or thoughts at this time? I think we have a couple of options on the table. Um, so, you know, from my. So just general questions for Ted or Kristen, and then how do we want to proceed? Do we want to do a site visit next and then have more substantive discussion or, uh, Is there another attack that folks would like to take. Um, probably like a site visit, it might be the best way to proceed. Um, I, the report looks seems pretty straightforward. As it is. Um, I maybe I just, maybe this kind of seems like people might be a little bit more comfortable to get, uh, get their eyes on it. That's just me. But like I said, I don't see any issues with the report. Um, it does come down to it's going to have, it's going to have to get down to the details on this hundred foot. Uh, working the hundred foot in the vernal pool. Yeah. Oh, sorry. And then, um, remind me, it looks like there's a letter from DEP saying there's not, we don't have a determination letter from. Um, uh, natural heritage yet. Well, I'll just jump, I'll jump in here. So I think natural heritage waved their review of this because they had previously approved. There was a, there's an active permit for the subdivision, which contained their comments from the original proposal. Can I, can I add something to that? Yep. Um, the permit was for this project was issued. Um, in 2004, 2003, 2004. And the area was mapped by natural heritage in 2006. So, uh, every time we've submitted an NOI for a particular lot in this project, we have been obligated to also submit a, um, um, you know, a parallel application to a natural heritage. And then we've received a response back from, uh, the commissioners. Uh, and then they sent us our money back. Okay. So. When commissioners are done with questions, I just want to ask a question if possible. Okay. Thank you. So Larry. To me, one of the things that's not clear is the delineation of the wetlands, things you've done here with the property layouts you've done for each of the lots. That's when that probably requires a site visit to be able to see what those things are. Cause that's not clear to be looking at them. Let's actually do the case with it. With your delineation here. And the actual lots. I'm not sure I understand your question. The, the lots. Each of the lots has on it marked the delineation of the wetlands and all the markers. They're each numbered that were in the original delineation and they were surveyed in the field. And they were recently reestablished in the field by a surveyor. That's my question. They were having to read that in relative to, I'm looking off to the side because I can see the map over here. Figure five. So they, they, the lines that are on the individual plot have been, have been finalized relative to figure five. You're looking at what five you mean? No. Kristen was talking about figure five in your. Oh, I'm sorry. So what I'm asking is, is. Yeah. Are the, are the actual plots on the properties, the individual loss. And the concurrence with that figure. I can, I can, I can, I can't, I can't, I can't find it. I can't find it. I can't find it. I can't find it. I can't find it. I can't find it. I can't find it. I can't find it. I can't find it. I can't find it. I can't find it. I can't find it. I can't find it. I can't find it. I can't find it. I can't find it. I can't find it. And you're looking at what kind of recurrence with that figure. I can, I can maybe answer that. So I got the assessors data from mass GIS for the lot lines. That may not be consistent with the CAD data. I got the wetland. Shapefile from Berkshire design group via Ted. to when Ted gave back to me in terms of information, but I suppose maybe it's different. I don't know, Ted, can you answer that? I would say that there's, because this is a combination of a shapefile that we took off of another drawing and we've plotted it onto the AMRS, oh, that's the MAS GIS system, or that's the MAS GIS system. The MAS GIS is the assessor's data, the lot lines, but the wetland line was from Berkshire Design Group. That was a CAD file. Right, and I don't think anyone could guarantee that in this particular figure in Kristen's report that that is absolutely precise in its overlay on the lot lines. I think that to get a completely accurate location of the wetlands delineation in relationship to the lot lines, you'd have to go to the survey plan. And parts of that survey plan are included in each of the six applications that we've made. And you can see the wetlands delineation flag numbers are each very accurately located on that plan. So Larry, just to clarify, so within our files, if you back out of the Tofino-Vernal Pool Report folder and look instead at lot one plan, lot two plan, then those are the CAD drawings that show the property lines and then the wetland delineation. And the Vernal Pool delineation is gonna be contained within the wetland delineation. Well, my question really was coming down to an end is that on those, because I've looked at the plot for each one of the properties, are those 50 foot and 100 foot lines associated with this final wetlands thing, are they up to date with that? That hasn't changed. The wetlands delineation has not changed since 2003. It's the original wetlands delineation which runs concurrent with the original order of conditions, both of which have been extended since the original permit was issued back then. So this wetlands delineation hasn't changed that? This wetlands delineation is the same wetlands delineation that has been extended with the permit since it was first issued. So Larry, I just had to jump in because this might help. So when the commission issued its original approval for the subdivision, those boundaries were confirmed and those boundaries have not changed in the field according to the applicant. The issue I think that Kristen is talking about is that within that bordering vegetated wetland, the vernal pool has developed and that vernal pool has not expanded beyond the limits of the existing BVW. So it's within it. So that's not gonna make the 100 foot buffer from the BVW extend further into these lots. It just means that that vernal pool has been documented as being within that existing BVW delineated line. So instead of a state regulated wetland, we have a vernal pool. It's a different category of resource. Right, and so the question I was gonna ask the board because I mean, part of me sort of wants to cut to the chase on this in a way. I think that the big elephant in the room with this project is there is one condition in the order of conditions and I don't have it verbatim in front of me but the condition was something to the effect of if new information becomes available, which changes the conditions on the site that the commission has the authority to require the applicant to refile an amended notice of intent. That's not what it says. It says the commission reserves the right to amend this order of conditions if change conditions or new information warrants. Okay. That's not filing a new, that's not repermitting the entire project. That's merely altering the order of conditions of the as issue. Right, not filing a new application but amending the existing. Order of conditions. Order of conditions for the subdivision. Yes. Right. So I think we were saying the same thing but just using different language. But I think that that's the commission needs to determine whether and actually maybe Ted, could you read that again? Just read it more slowly. Yes. And the reason I jumped in and I apologize if I was a little abrupt was that you said what you said was to file a new order of a new notice of intent. And it says very clearly it's number 25 and it says the commission reserves the right to amend this order of conditions if change conditions or new information. So warrants. Okay. So that's, so there you go. There's the language. So the new information has been presented to you. And the commission really, I think needs to determine whether you want to exercise your right to amend the original order to take this into consideration for these lots. And again, if you guys need a site visit to make that determination, totally understandable. And if you want to collect more information or have a peer review, completely understandable. It's just, I want to kind of understand, I guess get at what we're teasing apart here. And ultimately this information is here and this is what was kind of the impasse with each of the notices of intent that came before us. But if this new identified vernal pool, which is important to identify as a resource because they're very important in and of themselves. But if it is within a current delineated area, how is that going to potentially, are there any potential implications for buffer zones or other criteria that the information that Kristen put forth? Well, we have a 100 foot no disturb around vernal pools under our local bylaw. And all of these houses are located within that 100 foot no disturb. I believe each of the houses are just outside of the 50 foot. Is that correct Ted? I think that all but one are go right up to the 50 foot buffer. I think one of them is, I think lot number one, let me rifle through them, but I think lot number one actually is a little further than 50, 51 feet from the buffer. But being said, yes, every one of them is well within 100 foot of the BBW buffer. That's correct, the BBW edge. But that's not necessarily within 100 feet of the vernal pool though. That's an excellent point, Brett, which I think Larry was talking about that maybe if we could see the buffer to that vernal pool within the BBW, that would be some additional information that might be useful to the board. Cause that would just constrain it a little bit more, Ted, the area that would be under the stricter jurisdiction. Agreed, and I had the same thought, but I can tell you that from looking at the shapefile that the vernal pool and Kristen jumping here, if I'm misstating anything, please, and you know, is that it, but it comes pretty close to the edge of the BBW. So I think that for all intents and purposes, it's six or one half a dozen of the other. So we're still, we're thrown back onto the same elephant in the room to ride around until we decide where we're gonna get off. You're right, Ted, at the southern end of the BBW, it's more, you know, marginal wetland. They're, you know, so basically the wet, the vernal pool basin is very pit and moundy. You know, there's Highwish, Blueberry, and Clethora. There's, you know, little islands and little pools. And then as you get closer to the margins, it's more of a red maple swamp. So kind of the western margin is more red maple swamp. The southern margins, red maple swamp. And then the eastern margin is where you kind of see the majority of the vernal pool breeding activity all the way up to the northern limit of where figure four and five show the darker blue basin outline. And then there's a stormwater input at one end. I think it's at the southeastern end outlet that's, I called it an intermittent stream. Ted says it's perennial stream at the northwestern end. But again, I only looked at it in April, so I can't, you know, I haven't run a stream stats analysis on that. I think that it was an intermittent stream when the subdivision was originally built. And I think that some of the hydrology and topography that was changed by building the subdivision actually kind of turned it into a more, maybe it's not, maybe it doesn't run 12 months a year, but I've been out there every part of the year and seen water running under the road at the north end, you know, the cul-de-sac. Those figures do show the culvert locations as well. So you can, I mean, I can't use my pointer, but they're little gray squares with an X in the middle. There's one kind of in the middle on the eastern side and there's one at the northwestern, right at the Linden Ridge Road crossing. The stream crosses where it goes out. That's where it goes out. So yeah, so other questions from the commissioners? Again, we'll open up to the public in a minute. Okay, so I'm going to go to the public then and let's see. So there was somebody else who had their hand raised before. I see Blake with his hand, with their hand raised now. So, so Blake, you, no, almost. Can you hear me? Hi, can you hear me? Yes, we can hear you. I'm Blake Spirko at 53 Concord Way. I just wanted to kind of track what we're saying a little bit in terms of that. We talked with Ted Parker and Doug Cole when we moved into our house on Concord Way, which is one of the three. And because we heard all the frogs after we moved in and there were wood frogs all over our yard, we told them that looking into it was probably a vernal pool. And we called Doug Cole about this. We've emailed Ted Parker about this way, pretty close to after moving in. They've known about this. So this is not a newly developed pool that just happened to occur because of the paving. Just for the record, one that is to be put out there. They've known this. So it makes me feel like it's a little, I'm a little concerned about some of the sequel practice in terms of what they submit if it's not privately done. Okay, thank you, Blake. And yeah, I mean, to a certain extent. Can I, can I, can I comment? Can I respond to that because he mentioned my name? Oh, one second, Ted, please. So yeah, thank you, Blake. So it's important to know that. And it's also important that how wetlands come to be that has a little bit of implications, but in general, you know, we look at how they are now. And so that's gonna have a larger impact on what we build. I'm sorry, Ted, you wanted to respond? No, actually, I'll hold my thoughts to myself. Thank you. Okay. So thank you, Ted. And let's see. So Rebecca, let's see. And you, yes. Rebecca, you should be able to speak. Hi, this is Rebecca Schneider. I'm at 65 Concord Way. And I just wanted to sort of back up. Well, I guess I'd really just like to clarify. I'd like to see there being independent site visits. I think that's important at the stage. And I really do want confirmation of the plans being laid out against the mapping of these areas. And the fact that if there are different rules for the vernal pool, then I just want to make sure that those are carefully adhered to. Thank you. Is there anybody else from the public who would like to have any comments at this point? Okay. So commissioner, so any other additional comments or questions? Karen, you had a comment or did you already raise that one? Yeah, my comment or question to the board was whether you wanted to exercise your right to amend this order, the original order, which is the subdivision order based upon new information, which is the vernal pool study. Because I think that that is going to impact our ability to approve the orders of conditions for these lots. Now, if the commission doesn't want to amend and wants to just move forward, then yeah, I think you could make a motion on these orders of conditions, but it seems like there's questions about it. What other folks have to say or how are you feeling at this point? And I don't know, it looks like we might have lost Larry trying to find Larry, but I don't know where he is. So hopefully he'll be back in a sec. Yeah. Okay. So I mean, we basically have, I guess three options. So third party would be one. Site visit would be the next. So just thinking like, what our steps are for tonight or to start looking at stuff in more detail. The third party would be the most conservative and the easiest is the right word, but. Well, I would say that there's a third option, which is that you exercise your right to consider this new information and ask the applicant to amend their order of conditions to include this. But I was thinking, Erin, that that would be what would come after a third party review. Yeah. Do we need the third party review to then justify the amendment? Right, like, don't those have to go together? Well, it depends whether you think that the report from Kristen, I say, is adequate to exercise your right or if you feel like you want more information. The only thing I would argue is like, right now is the time to do a peer review. Like the eggs are about to hatch in vernal pools. So if you guys want to do a third party review, time is definitely of the essence to do that. If I could just say the wood frogs are out already. Spotted salamanders are still in their eggs. What wood frogs have hatched, most likely? You saw some wood frog eggs just today out in the, in some vernal pools, but. There are tadpoles out though. Okay. Yeah. And also I got 495 egg masses. I mean, I'm not denying this isn't productive. I don't know if you want to have a, you know, I mean, it's up to you Ted, but you know, I'm just saying it. From an applicant standpoint, how much more does there have to be to, we can all agree that it's a vernal pool? Right. Well, and that's kind of what I'm getting at here is the applicant themselves did a study and they're saying it's a vernal pool. So do we need to do an independent review to make a determination that the applicants already agreed to and shared with us? We've already shared with you information completely contrary to our interests. So you want that to be reviewed and confirmed that we gave you a report that's contrary to our interests. It kind of is, I don't know, it seems redundant, but. So my business issue is just delineation though. And so what did you do, Kristen, in terms of delineation for this? So all I basically did was document the ordinary high water of the basin. And I did not, it's just GPS'd. And then I flagged the communal egg mass locations and you know, documented where I documented the spotted salamander egg masses and the wood frog egg masses. And this was April 2019 that this occurred. So the wetland was already delineated and demarcated in the field with rebar. So I just kind of went out with the GPS and documented the basin boundary based on ordinary high water. Yeah, I mean, if the applicant wants to consider the whole wetland to be vernal pool and treat it as such, that's fine. I think that's what your bylaw says. Not the whole wetland. I mean, the vernal pool, two different things. Okay, I thought the bylaw said that the vernal pool within a BBW, then the BBW is considered to be the limit of the vernal pool. But perhaps I'm just ready. I don't know, Erin, can you correct me? I didn't think that was the case, but I could be wrong on that. I have it open. I don't know if I can share my screen. I have like 300 things open right now. That would be very helpful. I don't know, can I share my screen? Okay, I'll share my screen. Here we go. So here's the definition. So let me just scroll to the top so we can make sure I'm on the right. Not doctor document here. Am I making you dizzy yet? Only a little. Okay, so the wetlands protection bylaws for Amherst. So here's the definition. Select species of amphibians means species of amphibians, which depend on vernal pools, seasonal wetlands for breeding habitat, including but not limited to mole salamanders or envistamadids, for-toed salamanders, hemidectilium, eastern spadefoot toads, which we don't have here, American encephalos toads, spring-peepers for children. A vernal pool means a pool or pond, which is a confined base in our depression, which at least in most years, hold water for two continuous months during the spring or summer, free of adult fish populations and supports select species of amphibians. Defined land under water. This is more of the same. Let me just jump down to the presumptions. So where proposed activity involves removing, filling, dredging, or otherwise altering the seasonal wetland, the commission shall presume that such an area, as well as an area within 100 feet of the mean annual boundary of said wetland, is significant to the interests identified in the preamble and in the case of the plant pool, to the projection of wild I have, but to hear the mean breeding habitats. So I interpreted that as the breeding portion of the wetland. Of course, it's up to the commission how you define your own bylaw. Well, I would also argue that you're not removing, filling or dredging. Well, you could, I guess, theoretically say if you're doing work within 50 feet of it, that that could cause an alteration to it. So yes, it can be from the edge of the boarding vegetator wetland. That would be my interpretation. Yeah, I can see it going either way, but... I mean, to me, this is new information that wasn't known at the time that the order of condition was issued. Yeah, so it's definitely new information. We didn't know about the vernal pool. It's obviously a vernal pool. There's no doubt about that. If we assume that the current wetland boundary is concurrent with what's going to be treated as vernal pool, yeah, we can proceed. Again, if people want a site visit, we can do that. The wetland has already been delineated. So I don't think that we're really debating that at this point. So then what we are debating then is that we're saying, is this new information or not? So it sounds like we're saying that this is new information. So then we're leaning towards, we need an amendment to the order conditions. I mean, the other... I think that's correct. And I think the other thing to think about here is the applicant applied for the permit. I think you said in what, 2004 you said, Ted? Let me see. I have the actual order of conditions in front of me and it was issued in April 24th, 2000. 2003. So, and the commission has continued their permit including there was a continuation in March of 2019. So that was basically the same year that the permit was filed. The permit was continued now. So they have a legal permit but they've also presented this information at our request. If they amend, what that's gonna show is a hundred foot buffer around the vernal pool and my understanding is, and Ted, correct me if I'm wrong but if you drew, when you draw the hundred foot buffer around the BVW, that the entire buildable envelope on each of these lots is within a hundred feet of that vernal pool. Is that correct? That is correct. Okay. So if we amend, if you require him to amend and add a hundred foot vernal pool boundary and we adhere to the hundred foot no disturb around the vernal pool, then what that's gonna mean is that we can't approve the lots that are before us right now. Just to like put it in kind of chronological succession what the ripple effect of that would be. Can I add one other nuance here? Is that the original permit that was, you know, approved in 2003 had in it a provision. Let me see what the actual condition is. It's condition number four that required a separate notice of intent for specifically named lots. These six lots are among those specifically named lots. All of those lots were lots that were bordering on BVW. And the reason for that, the original reason for that was to allow the commission to have some input into the process of refining where the houses were going to go later on. It is a rather than having the permit, the original permit, the original NOI include, you know, a location of a house on every lot which then it would have been a done deal a long time ago. In a collaborative way, the applicant said, oh no, we'll continue to come back to the commission to allow the commission to have some, you know, refining thoughts about where the actual location of the houses as things progress. That condition, original condition included in the original order of conditions is what triggered the requirement that we file six separate NOIs for each of these six lots now. Otherwise they would have been permitted a long time ago. So it's kind of come back to bite the applicant in a, you know, in a not unsurprising way. I mean, nobody anticipated that this original assumption about this project was that the lots would all be sold in four to five years because this was 2003 when things were going great guns. Nobody anticipated that the financial crisis was going to happen and that things would drag out for 20 years. It's caused any number of problems, not least of which are these. So these houses in an ideal world from a developer standpoint would have all been built by 2009 and then this would be, you know, at this point it would be a moot. So here we are. We still have the developer still has, the owner still has these lots to sell. And so now they're trying to get them permitted, but because of this quirk in the order of conditions requiring an NOI for you to these lots we're here before you again. And having worked for three other towns, that's a very common practice for commissions to require that individual house lots are permitted separate from the overall subdivision. So just so that the commission is aware that's not like a very unusual practice to have that. And I think it's a checks and balance so that things can be adjusted and also control in the sense of when you file and when you file a notice of intent and issue an order of conditions, that order of conditions is recorded on the deed. And so if the developer put the house, say they were putting it in one envelope and then decided to put it somewhere else, the commission would be able to do that. But it somewhere else, the commission would have no ability to withhold a certificate of compliance. Well, they could consider it a partial on the overall subdivision, but it's much more clean to have an individual certificate of compliance on each lot for the sake of selling it. So that's the reason that they do that. It just keeps the deed cleaner. I have a little bit of a point of just administrative stuff. So we lost Larry, Anna, have you been on the call for all of the Tafino stuff? No, that's, I have that same question. I jumped in a little bit in, I think. Okay, so we have a little bit of- I came in while Kristen was making a report. Okay. Yeah, so we have to either get you up to speed or you have to recuse. Yeah. LaRoy is, he hasn't been here for the other ones and we lost Larry. So I mean, that means that we're down to three because Laura has to recuse. So, well, if you came in on Kristen's piece, then yeah, that'll take a couple minutes. Yeah, and I mean, I'm reading the report now. I'm happy to be brought up to speed. I think I've been there for the other parts of this and I did the first site visit. So I'm happy to be brought up to speed. If there's anything, I mean, I'm reading about the 495 egg masses right now. Yeah. Was there anything Ted that you said? So the main thing that's on a missed was your opening remarks. Is there anything that you'd wanna reiterate for her so that she can- No, it was just, I think it was like a three sentence recapitulation of the history of this particular set of notices of intent, which are pretty obvious. Okay, cool. Thank you. And I just wanna make sure that we're all legal. And so I think we're good. We only have four, but that's all that we need to progress. So- And I apologize for being late. I had a work obligation, sorry. I'm glad you made it. And so yeah, so you other two, you can't go anywhere for a while. Okay. So how do folks want to proceed? So yeah, John, I do see that you have, here, let's go to the, do Jenner, Fletcher, do you have anything you wanna add right now? If not, there's somebody from the public who would like to say something. Okay, so John, let's see. My name is John Hoover. I live on 103 Concord Way. And I just, after listening to everything, I would really like to see another, I think a third party evaluation to determine that those boundaries are where they should be, especially when we're talking about these, you know, the setbacks. Yep, that's all I had. Okay. Thank you, John. Okay, so at least a couple of folks from the public. Oh, so I don't know if Rebecca, if, trying to unmute. Okay, Rebecca, I can't remember if there's a new comment or from before. Hi, this is Mark Schneider, our Rebecca's husband at 65 Concord Way. Thanks for hearing me out. And I appreciate the honesty of the applicant's report. I don't think there's anything really to be debated here. There's a vernal pool. It sounds like nothing can be built within 100 feet. And so I guess I'm at the point where I'm not sure what a third party would bring to the table, other than, I guess I encourage the commission to just abide by their own bylaws and unfortunately for the applicant, that means protecting the environment above the interests of their desire to build. Thank you, Mark. Okay. So commissioners, thoughts. I'm not quite sure what third party would buy us at this point. I don't think a third party is going to add much. I'm wondering, you know, it's a tough situation because the original wetlands commission approved these built, these building envelopes that are within 100 feet of wetlands, you know? So we're in a tough, we're between a rock and hard place. I'm back. Can you hear me? Yes. I've been following on the phone, but I can't get in from the phone. My internet crashed for a half an hour for 20 minutes. And I have no internet at all. I could hear things because I connected by the phone, but I couldn't speak because I was muted. Okay, great. So you were able to follow the whole thing. So that's- I was following it, yes. Okay, excellent. That was different. Yeah. Yeah, I'm with you, Jen. I mean, it is, it's unfortunate what the initial calls were made and it's unfortunate that it wasn't identified as a vernal pool to begin with. I mean, that being said, we're at where we're at. I mean, so I don't think anybody's debating that it's a vernal pool. I'm not hearing anybody debate the wetlands delineation. Again, that's sort of a different issue, but I don't hear any of that. And so I think we just proceed as this is a vernal pool and what is demarcated and then there's a 100 foot no build around that. I'm not quite sure how else to- May I read a part of the bylaw? So. May I read a part of the regulations allowed? Please. Variants is to A, the commission shall have the power after the filing of a permit and the conduct of the public hearing in accordance with section three to grant with respect to a particular project a variance from the terms of the bylaw. A variance will be granted only when the commission finds based on clear and convincing evidence induced by the applicants that owing to circumstances relating to the soil conditions hydrological conditions, topography of such land and especially affecting such land but not affecting generally wetlands in the town that a literal enforcement of the provisions of the bylaw will involve substantial hardship of the applicants. In addition, the applicant must demonstrate that desirable relief may be granted without material detrimental values protected by the bylaw, et cetera, et cetera. So that you have a provision in your bylaw for granting a variance. So I just want to jump in here. I remember Brett asking- Can I finish? Just I just wanted to- No, no, what? Sorry, pause, I thought you were done. No, no, we- And that is precisely why we're here. We're here to request a variance. We're here to request six variances. One for each lot. Each lot has a value and the hardship that is imposed on the owner. And I'm not the owner. The owner is Doug Cole's widow and Doug Cole's kid, right? The hardship is that each of these lots would be- Their value would be rendered to zero, but they're not useful for anything else. They're not useful for- They can't be turned to another use. They can't be used for agriculture. They can't be used for forestry. They'd be essentially reduced in value to zero. And so that is the hardship that qualifies for the request of the variance. Thank you for indulging me, Erin. Well, I was just gonna say that at one of the previous hearings, I think Brett, you had requested some documentation as far as the financial impact of the loss of the lots and to quantify that for the board. And I think that was one of the outstanding pieces of information that you had requested from one of the previous hearings. I don't recall that very well. Could be true. Yeah, it's non-negative, that's for sure. So I don't know what it is, but I mean, these lots should never have been built on to begin with. Excuse me, what was the question? It wasn't a question, it was a statement. I mean, if these were correctly delineated to begin with, they should never have been built upon. That's presuming that it was a vernal pool at the time. Correct. Of which there is no definitive proof. There's no proof one way or the other, that is correct. Erin, do you have any guidance on this from your experience in any kind of similar situation or Dave, is there any town history in a situation like this? I mean, from my experience, just since you said my name first, I recognize the challenge that you guys face with this one. And quite frankly, I would request guidance from town council on how to proceed with it, would be my guidance to you guys, if you're feeling conflicted in terms of how to proceed, because I think town council could give you a potential path forward that would not be catastrophic in terms of a legal response to the town for whatever direction you go. I think that would be very prudent for you to do. So that's an option. I also think it would be useful to get the information from the applicant in terms of what the value lost on the lots would be because I think that is a consideration particularly because the question of bringing up a variance I don't think has been brought up until tonight. And so I think that's, it may have been and I just don't recall, but just since it was brought up that would be valuable information for you to have to consider. I can tell you that the individual value of each lot is approximately $150,000. And I mean, so one thing in my mind is related to what are alternatives? And I don't know for all of the lots, but it certainly looks to me on at least some of the lots where if they're reconfigured, houses could still fit and be outside the hundred. And so Ted, do you know if that has been looked into? I am going to say that I believe that each of these lots has to be considered a separate notice of intent and a separate application. Therefore, one has to assume and treat them as if they were owned by six separate applicants, each of whom would have a hardship. So that would be like asking two separate parties whether or not they would consider combining both of their building lots into one lot so that it would then have value. Ted, that was not my question or my point. It was looking at each one individually. And so for example, look at lot number two. Yep. Looking only at lot number two. It certainly looks to me that that could be shifted to the East and would be out of the hundred. And so I'd like to know, but I might be missing something about offsets. So you're not talking about combining lots. You're talking about just reconfiguring the lots with the same number of lots. Correct. No, haven't looked at that. I mean, so before I would consider variants, and you're right, considering each one individually, that would definitely be something that we would request happen that. So is there an alternative for these lots to be reconfigured so that there would be no hardship? Again, we'll move on. I'm not prepared to answer that question at the moment. Let me think about that one. I have to talk it over with owners and think about what that actually means. I mean, I, yeah, let me. So it's an interesting suggestion, but I would have to consider it in detail with a map in front of me. And it would only, that would only apply to lots one and two. Okay. Because lots four, lots five, six and five, six, seven and eight are already contained within other lots, unless the buddy lot owners want to donate some space to us to reconfigure them. But I don't think that's gonna happen. So, but I would certainly take a preliminary look at one and two to see if we could shift one and two, because there was some open space. Part of this entire plan, as it was permitted, it includes some open space. So- Wait, wait. I think there's still- I don't think you're understanding me correctly. Yeah. Okay. Let's look at just one individual lot. Okay. Let me take out a plan. So let's look at lots six. So just looking through this, Brett, I mean, I'm guessing there's gotta be a 40 foot setback from the road. And that's why all of these are forced off of the road and into the 100 foot buffer. That was my question, Jen. Yeah. So the question is like, is a variance to be within a 40 foot buffer from the planning board, better than a variance to be within the 100 foot buffer of a vernal pool from the conservation commission? Some of them that would work a little bit and some of them not so much. But- Yeah. So, I mean, Jen, it can only be within sort of the other constraints, but it is something that would definitely need to be looked into. Yeah. I agree. I agree on that, Brett. Do you see Dave Zomek has his hand up? And it looks like a couple members of the public also have come. I saw theirs. I didn't see Dave. So, Dave, you don't need to have your hand up. You can pipe in whenever you want, Dave. Can you hear me or no? Yes. So I've been listening. I don't have a lot to add, but I just, a couple of things. One is I just wanted to echo what Erin had said earlier. It seems to me that, you know, Ted, if you're coming in with a, with a request for a variance, it would be great to have that in writing, number one. And number two, having some sort of evaluation done of the lot so that the commission can see what the potential impacts are, financial impacts are, if those lots are rendered unbuildable. And then three, I think it would be a good idea if, depending on how this conversation ends, if we reached out to town council and got the commission some advice on options. I also like the direction this is kind of going is, it seems Brett, some of the, your questions to Ted have perhaps led Ted to think, you know, differently about a couple of the lots. So those were my thoughts. Thank you, Dave. So Larry, and yeah, and I do see the two people in the public and we'll get to them. Yeah, my question to say was that the idea of keeping them all separate and then asking for hardship on each individual one, if we said no on all of them, would that mean they would come back and consider trying to reach combined lots to make a different choice? I don't know. I mean, we have what we have in front of us, Larry. I know, I just, I'm raising that so Ted could hear me. Yeah, I think that would be another amendment to the original subdivision approval, which would need to go through other town boards. So I think that that would be difficult. As far as the applicant's concerned, that's not on the table. Okay, so I'm going to go back to a couple of folks from the public. And so Blake. Hi, hello again, 53 Concord Way. I just, in terms of this hardship thing, I really can state that they knew about this when they were, when we were building the lot because they said before the conservation commission could be here, Doug Cole said this, they wanted snow on the ground. So we were going to build earlier, but he ended up wanting later. And I didn't understand the process now, but now I do is they wanted snow on the ground before the conservation commission came and evaluated. So this is not, this has been a very calculated development. I probably wanted to say, thank you. Yeah, thank you, Blake. Yeah, most of the commissioners, well, all the commissioners, we weren't there so we can't comment one way or another, but that's helpful. Thank you. So I'm going to guess that this name is Ira, but I'm not quite sure. You should be able to speak at this point. Can you hear me? Yes. Okay. I live... Boston, there you go. I'm sorry, Ira, I might have hit the wrong button. So please begin again. And if you could just introduce yourself. He's muted right now. How can you hear me now? Now we can hear you, yes. Okay, thank you. I am not a no-butter. I live at 192 Shoots Ferry Road. I have been following this entire conversation because I'm actually interested in the next one, but just as someone who doesn't do this all the time, I really have to tell you that I think it's really more, I would hope it's more your responsibility to protect the wetlands and not to protect an individual developer or the finances of an individual developer. This seems pretty clear to me from following this, that you've defined the vernal pool, you have your rules for a vernal pool. It's clear to everybody that we don't know what happened in the beginning in 2003. They either made a mistake or even if it wasn't there, it's there now. So it would seem to me that it's up to the developer to have this knowledge at this point, be unhappy about the fact that it is what it is and come back with the best plan, they can come back to protect their interests. I'm not sure, it sounds to me, I know you're trying to be thoughtful about the developer, but it doesn't seem to me that it's really your responsibility to protect a developer in a situation like this. It's to tell them what the boundaries and limits are and that's what I would like to say. Thank you. Thank you, Ira. And yep, our responsibility, we are sworn to protect the wetlands of this town. We do have responsibility to think of the applicants as well. Yes. Yes. Thank you. Could I make a suggestion? I would suggest that Ted request a continuation from the board until June 10th at 7.40 p.m. in order to evaluate the lots and address Brett's question and also to give the commission time to seek guidance from town council. And in the meantime, if you could submit the variance request and writing with some information on the lost proceeds from the lots. So we have that all in writing. I think that those would be, that would be a productive way forward for us because it's nine o'clock and we have another hearing on the agenda. I would be glad to do that. And I had the bylaw said anything about a request and writing for a variance. I would have provided it before the meeting. I just read it through again. It doesn't say anything about being in writing. I thought it would just be requesting it during the course of the meeting. So yes, I would be glad to do that. And I do so request a continuance on all six orders of conditions until June 10th. Did you say, Erin? Yes. Yes. And at what time? At seven 40 PM. Okay. Yeah, before I get a vote, there is one more person who is trying to speak. But is there anything else on this from the commission before the person from the public speaks again? No, I think that just kind of seems the best way moving forward is what Erin just recommended. Yeah. Hi, this is Mark Schneider. Is it okay if I make a quick point? Please. Okay, thank you. What Ira said earlier, I think is the position of the butters in this case. And it looks as though we're still interested in finding out how much money the applicant may lose from these lots. If we're doing so as a way to sort of sympathize with that, it might be also important for the committee to get information on what the, all of the land was paid for, what the total amount that was and how much money has been made on the other lots by the applicant so that you have a full sense of what we're talking about in terms of hardship. There's relative hardship here. And the profit that has been made in this area needs to be considered in terms of not just looking at the loss column. Thank you. Thank you, Mark. Hey, Brett, do you think it might be instructive or helpful to move the conversation forward, especially with this many interested members of the public to just pull up one of the lot drawings and show, explain what we're talking about in terms of reevaluating the location of the buildings on the lot so that they could be outside of the buffer. Sure. Not or not, but it just seems like there's a lot of focus on the financial hardships and getting advice from council where there's another kind of train of information we're trying to track down here. Yeah, so can you see the lot two on my screen right now? Yeah. Yeah, and I'm not quite sure what that blue line is going across. I can't, I can move it. I can't get rid of it. But the idea would be that, you know, so here is the house or the envelope for the house and, you know, is there a potential to move that envelope, you know, out here outside the 100 foot? Because here's the 100 foot boundary that would be outside the 100 foot. So we would be doing due diligence in terms of wetlands protection and there wouldn't be, there would be no hardship. Granted, still do need to consider other setbacks. And so there's another property over here and or that's the street over there. There's other issues that need to be investigated as well. Thank you, Rache. I would like to say that it's not possible to move the houses completely outside the buffer and comply with zoning. And nor is it possible to build a house on a 100 foot buffer and not disturbed within the 100 foot buffer. Even if you put the house 101 feet from the buffer, you would still have to disturb an area within the buffer in order to actually construct the house. So I just want to make that point, you know. Would that even be true if the house size decreased? If the house size decreased, it depends upon the exact configuration of the house. I agree. If you limit another factor is that if you limit the size of the house so that it's so small and out of scale with the rest of the neighborhood, then you would also be decreasing the value of the property. Well, I agree, but that's one of the ways you could avoid taking a total loss on it. Correct. Yep. And then it's definitely something that crossed my mind too, Larry, about the appropriate size house for the appropriate size lot as well. And yeah. And there's a difference between, yeah, a big difference between getting no money from the lot and getting some money from the lot. And that all needs to be considered. Yep. And so yeah, our job is not to help anybody maximize profit per se, but... Right. Hey there, Aaron. Are we just to try to move forward here on this? Is it clear what we would be asking town council or any guidance on getting from town council? I think it's clear from my perspective where the impasse is with regard to the applications. And I think it will be clear to town council once I explain the background of the situation, why this is such a complex situation. So. And I think that piece also about treating them each is basically separate owners versus one set of owners who has developed this whole property would be helpful to get information from town council as well, Aaron. Okay. I'll make note of that. Thank you. Okay. So Ted mentioned that he is fine continuing until June 10th or something like that. Are there any other comments that folks have at this point? So we still have a number of things to go. Okay. So looking for a motion for continuation. I moved. Oh, sorry. You go ahead. I got it. So moved that we continue this bill June 10th at 740. Second. Jen, what say you? Hi. Letcher. Hi. Larry. Hi. Anna. Hi. Me. Hi. Laura abstains and LaRoy needs to abstain too. Do you need, do you need to hear them say abstain or you're okay with that, Aaron? No, I think that's fine. I'll just make a note that they abstained. Yeah. Okay. Thank you, everyone. Thank you, Ted. Thank you, Kristen. And so we'll be seeing you in a couple of weeks. Yeah. I guess a month. June 10th. Thank you members of the public. Good night. Thanks everyone. Bye. Good night. Okay. So let me just switch up. So I think that they are no longer panelists. So we're good there. Okay. So we are moving on to our eight. You still got Ted there. I'm sorry. Say it again. You still got Ted there. Whoops. Change role to attendee. Thank you. Should be good now. Okay. So why don't we move on to our 815 agenda item and this is the abbreviated notice of resource area delineation for the property on Shootsbury Road. And so for those people who are here to present, can you raise your hand and you will become a panelist like magic. Thank you, Maria. I got Maria. I see Phil. So while you're adding those folks, Brett, I just wanna make sure there was, there's a couple of sort of administrative things that we need to talk about on this project at some point before we move, before we continue it. Okay. That sounds good. And then M. Reagan, I don't know if that's Mike or if that's somebody else, but so whoever is here for this, if you would like to make a presentation about where we are at this point to get us started, that would be great. And please introduce yourselves. Hi, I'm Maria Furstenberg from TRC. I also have Matt Regan is here as well. I wanted to start off by saying thank you to everyone for going on the site walk earlier today. I know it was a big site and a lot of things to look at. So thank you for fitting that in so that we could have a discussion tonight about how to finish up the review for this site. Matt, if you want to unmute yourself, I think that it probably makes the most sense for you to give a little overview of what was shown to the commission and kind of talked about during the site walk, just to put everyone up to speed on timeline. TRC and your peer reviewer, Emily Stockman, have been out to this site multiple times and we have made many adjustments to the wetlands. They were originally delineated back in late fall. So there were a lot of indicators that were not present during the original delineation that have since become present and we've essentially made adjustments to bring those indicators in. Yes, just to follow off on what Maria said, I took members of the commission as well as Emily Stockman led the site peer reviewer. We all went to three areas that were deemed questionable. They are not on the map. They were not on this final map. However, they have since been flagged and will be added to the updated map drawings. And while we were out there based off of hydrology and wetland vegetation, spring ephemerals, we concluded that, yes, these areas are wetland. Matt, I'm sharing the plan. Can you be a little more specific about which areas? Yes, yes, absolutely. So the one area is that we went to first was, I believe it says here it's on sheet eight, TRC and the peer reviewer requests that the commissions review the area upstream of SMJR six, that's stream SMJR six. So right above that area there, correct. We walked down an access road that went by this area and it was determined that on the basis of indicators of wetland hydrology and the vegetation that, yes, that this area is a wetland. And so it was called out as such. The next area that we took the commission to is an area that says also on, actually it's on, sorry, sheet five, TRC and the peer reviewer requests that commissioners review this area, provided area with an old logging road is holding water. This area has multiple signs of skitter ruts from previous logging activity. However, there is still a lot of vegetation that has grew back in these areas. And during the early spring, these areas were holding water. And on the basis of recent review, there you still have a good bit of water and were called out as wetland, as an isolated wetland because it does not connect to any stream or any other feature that extends offsite towards a water body. So we took the commissioners to that area and we were all in agreement on that area. And the final area that we went to was down in sheet seven. And that was TRC and the peer reviewer requests and commissioners review this area above WMJR 12. So there's the access road that you walk along from the corner of shootery road through the site. And this access road goes straight to wetland MJR 12. And part of the access road, this trail was wet and on the basis of wetland hydrology and its connectivity to WMJR 12, this area was extended. So this area was extended. We did not have flags out there while the commissioner was out. However, after the commissioners left, I did flag this area and extend it. So it will be updated on the maps. After that, we went down, I believe if you can scroll down there, yes, there you go to an area that's on a sheet 11. This is adjacent to the actual project site. However, this area was noted to be necessary to review to get a better understanding of the width of Adams Brook. Adams Brook is offsite. It's not within the boundary of the project site. So it was not delineated. However, because of the 200 foot riverfront area, we need to get a good understanding of where does that begin? Currently on this map drawing here, we are using the stream line, the center line that's provided from USGS. So we're using that and we're putting a 200 buffer around that. We did walk down to this area that was circled that is actually part of Cole's property. And we were able to actually get down to the actual stream and actually take a measurement based off of GIS of how wide the banks are there. And again, this is just preliminary, just based off of the GIS that I have. It still needs to be post-processed and corrected by our GIS staff. But that area was approximately 23 feet wide from bank to bank and well-defined banks as well. Thanks, Matt. You're welcome. Thank you. So in addition to those edits prior to the sidewalk this morning, Emily, the peer reviewer had requested that we make some additional adjustments along wetlands one and wetland two. There's essentially been a bunch more scump cabbage that has sprung up. So the other thing that Matt and I did this afternoon is that we made all of those adjustments. So wetlands one and two on average, all of the flags were moved out in additional five to 10 feet depending on the spot and the topography in that particular spot. So the wetlands themselves are generally where they were, but on the next plan revision that you see, they'll be a little bit wider. So I believe that unless the commissioners have other areas that they wanted to see adjusted, one of the things that I was really hoping to discuss during this meeting was how to better show the riverfront area for this site. Obviously a stream centerline is not ideal. So we, since we don't have access to the vast majority of the stream because it's on land that's not owned by us or our applicant, we're hoping to discuss what you'd prefer to see for a better estimated line. Thank you, Maria. Okay, so anything else from Matt or Maria? No, I don't think so. No, no, I think that's it. That was the purpose of today's site visit. Okay, thank you. And yeah, it was a very nice site visit, so. Thank you. So Erin, do you have anything from today's visit that you would like to share? Well, I could certainly share some site visit photos if that would be of interest. There are also a number of administrative things to go over, but if you guys would like to look at photos, I'm happy to share them. I was out there, so I am good, but Fletcher would like to see some pretty pictures. So he'd like to see them look for all gigs. Okay, so let me. It's all right, it's not the end of the world. I've been out, I know the area pretty well. Okay, season picks. Sorry, if for whatever reason, because I'm remoteed into my computer, it's really like touchy. This is one of the areas that was in question that was not originally flagged. And we, and after today's site visit, it was agreed by all that, or I shouldn't say agreed by all, it was agreed between Maria and Matt that this area would be flagged prior to us even arriving based on the hydrology indicators on the site. But I mean, I think we can probably all agree looking at the photos that it looks pretty well like a wetland. This is an attempt to show, there was a potential rental pool on the property. I don't know if you can see my cursor, but right in between my shadow there, there's some wood frog eggs and there's more wood frog eggs that I took photos of while we were out on the site. This is showing there's a wetland in the distance. You can see that upturned tree. There's a wetland system that follows down that ridge, down that valley rather. And that's just another shot. And then this is Adams Brook. So just to get at Maria's question, the question is a legitimate one as far as how to display the rear of front on the plan. And I spoke with our peer reviewer about this. One way to do it is to use aerial imagery to estimate the width, but because we're under heavy coniferous tree cover here, that's probably gonna be difficult. So one of the, what we had discussed in the, well, what I had suggested in the field was that we measure the widest part of the stream and take that widest measurement and apply it to the centerline. So that centerline would essentially be, say 11 feet on either side and then extend that riverfront area from the boundary of the line, 20 to 23 foot wide line that follows the stream contour. That's Leroy, our new concom member. And just to let you all know, we were practicing social distancing in the field wearing masks, Anna in the background with Leroy looking at the stream. Beautiful, beautiful site. This is a snag that we saw on the property that was just spectacular. And I think this was another one that was not flagged, but I'm... No, that one was actually. It was, okay. Yes, we did go to that one, that one was flagged. Okay, great, thank you. Some of these was, it was towards the end here, I think of the site. This was the area, I think, that Maria was talking about where they were extending up the flagging slightly because the, you can see that the flags are here and then the scant cabbage is creeping up the slope a little bit. So those are the flags and a little background on sort of the field recommendation that was made. So a couple administrative things just to jump into because so right now where we're at is that we're gonna be waiting on a revision from the applicant for the next meeting whenever the continuation is. So they'll be submitting a revision to us. Right now our peer reviewer is out of budget basically. So she has no, there is still another revision and she can't do kind of a final sign off on the final delineation because she's run out of budget to do the review. So I wanted to ask the board what, how it felt with regard to the review of the final plan. If you would like Emily to get out in the field to look at those, all of the reflagging and just do one final check before she signs off and or if you would be comfortable with a desktop review of the adjustments of the flagging on the final plan. And I know that Emily was going to speak with Maria. Emily was going to speak with Maria. I don't know if that conversation was had or not. Yes, if you don't mind me jumping in. Emily did talk to me about that. I totally understand and whatever the commission is comfortable with is fine. During that conversation I also offered Emily in addition to the revised clean plan that shows you what we think the final lines are I offered her a plan that shows the original delineation kind of superimposed with the final so that it's easier to see what changes were made. We kind of all thought that would be a useful thing both for you and for Emily especially if you go the root of a desktop review but we understand that looking at things in the field is usually the preference. Yep. So whatever direction board members wanna go with if you would prefer either one then what I can do is get an estimate from Emily for doing the final review of those plans and for her final report. There is a final report from Emily that was shared on the OneDrive and it was also put on the current applications page of the town website for folks to review and one of the things, an additional thing that Emily had requested was sort of that the board indicate whether they agreed with her findings or not during the meeting just for the sake of her comfort and her professional impressions of the situation. I think she did an outstanding job. She really, really found some features that were difficult to see and difficult to find and I think she did a great job but so those two things kind of the final review process and then just concurring with her findings so that we can proceed to the next hearing and hopefully move forward. Thank you, Erin. So I'll open up to commissioners and then we'll go to the general public. So commissioners, those who are there and those who weren't there, do you have any comments or thoughts about this property at this point? Well, I'll bounce in. One of the things I remember from the last time this before us was at that point that really the wetlands weren't delineated and they were asked me to put in PB panels on that area and so now we look at a slight modification and it's not complete yet but we see all the wetlands delineated and so one of the questions that was asked at that previous time and it was postponed is where are they gonna put the panels and in particular how are they gonna get around and move around those delineated areas of weapons to be able to put anything in? So doesn't that not matter right now because that's not what we're discussing like we're just talking about the delineation. We're not talking about the purpose. Right, with respect, whatever they wanna do with this parcel is not part of this application. Right. Yeah, so what we have in front of us right now, Larry, is a set of wetlands boundaries that they could just be collecting for their own sake. They could be collecting it to do lots of different things with the property. Once they, if and when they decide to do something with the property in regards to some sort of development and assuming that they are within a jurisdictional boundary, then they would have to come before us with that but at this point, yeah, we have no information on that. Either way, they'll end up having to go before the planning board too. Right, yep. I'll just echo what Erin said. I did, I mean, it seemed that Emily did a really thorough job and I was happy with that just to kind of ditto that comment really quickly. Yeah, and the other way of also just verifying it was that I think all of her suggestions were very readily accepted by TRC and so. And yeah, I was very comfortable with what happened there as well. Okay, so why don't we, commissioners, anything else? How about people from the general public? Do you have any comments? Just use that little toggle switch to raise your hand if you do. Okay, so I'm not seeing any. Yeah, I mean, I think that what we need at this point is a new set of plans obviously. So we're gonna need a new set of plans with all of the final demarcations. We have the outstanding issue as Erin was saying regarding what we would like our third party reviewer to do. I personally, yeah, I'm more comfortable if she was able to go back in the field, if she thinks that's necessary. It should be a pretty quick thing. And then, yeah, she'd be able to give sort of her final blessing and then we can move forward. I agree, Brett. So any objections to that or? Okay, so I mean, so that's gonna be our, what you're looking for us, looking for from us Erin. So yeah, we would like on the third party reviewer to go back out there in the field and then if she needs to do field and desk, then she can do her final report and then we should all be good. And then we would be looking for us, her final report or her take on those final flags and then obviously looking for the final plan and then we can move forward. Oh, one thing that crossed my mind just regarding the stream delineation, I don't know if we've sort of come to closure on that one. I like the idea of we did have access that one small piece we're able to measure the width and I think we can figure out a boundary relatively well. Is that same width gonna be used the full length of that stream? That was our intent and we felt like that was a reasonable thing to do because where it was measured is, really should be the widest piece of the stream there because there's a confluence shortly north of that and it flows south. So in theory, you were able to see it at its widest point. That I agree, Maria. I think it's a very conservative. As you're saying, that's the most conservative piece unless there's something strange about the hydrology or just the channel formation, but we don't know that. Again, it's not, we didn't have access to it. So I think that's reasonable. Anybody have any issues with that approach? Okay, so I guess, so those are what we'd like to see happen, Erin, and unless there are any other comments, I think what we'd be looking for at this point is a motion for continuation to June 10th, and I assume this would be our eight o'clock. Well, I guess I was just gonna check with Maria first. Maria, would you prefer June 10th or May 27th for that? I was, originally I was gonna ask for May 27th, but given that Emily needs time to give you a new budget and stuff, I think it probably makes more sense to continue us to the June 10th. Yeah, I think that makes a lot of sense. All right, so let's say 750 on June 10th. So looking for a motion from commission. I move that we've send the hearing to June 10th with the new, make sure that everything, the new plans, I'm sorry, what else was that, the new plans? Eight o'clock, right? 750 on June 10th. Asking for anything else besides from Emily? Just a desktop review. Field purification. Field purification. Yeah, I'm not sure if all of that will be done by June 10th, but we can cross that bridge and we come to it. Sounds good. A second. Okay, so we have a motion at this point to move it forward. So looking for a vote. So Larry? No, I'm just, I'll be just voting. Yep, so your vote is? Aye. Aye. Fletcher? Aye. Ben? Aye. Anna? Aye. Laura? Aye. And Leroy, since this again is one that is a continuation, you're an abstainer and I for me as well, Erin. Great, thank you. Okay, so thank you, Maria. Thank you, Matt. And thank you, Phil. Thank you, everyone. Thank you. Okay, so I am just changing up a couple of things. To attendee, to attendee. Okay, so I think we are all set. So it should just be commissioners who are apart and town staff who are part of the meeting or who are panelists at this point. Obviously the general public is still more than welcome to stay for the extent of the meeting. And so, but at this point, Erin, I think that that was our last agenda item. And so now it's back to you for other items that you would like to share. Yes, and I realize it's getting late and folks are tired. So what I'd like to do is just start with things that require us, require action from the board. And that way, if we need to push anything to the next meeting for administrative updates, that's completely fine. So I'm just gonna move directly to the emergency certifications because those are what actually need action. Can you guys see my screen? Yes. Okay. So as Dave had mentioned in his report, we had two emergency certifications that were issued for beavers. The one on the left is a picture of the Pomroy Lane beaver dam. The one on the right is a picture of the damage that was done from the Cherry Hill golf course beaver dam. And the one on the left, what you can't see is that it goes under the road. And this is a road that's had extensive flooding issues over the last five to 10 years because the road itself I believe is located in flood plain. So it's, and you also it's difficult to see but there's a lot of water that's being held back by this impoundment. So as Dave had mentioned, we are currently strategizing us to the best way to deal with this situation because we know that a beaver deceiver is not a realistic option in this location and just taking the beaver dam down, all it's going to do is just, they're just gonna build it right back up. So we may end up needing to trap in that area to prevent this from happening. At the Cherry Hill golf course, the emergency certification was to install a beaver deceiver. So two emergency certifications were issued for those items. The one on Pomroy, I mean, that has been a very longstanding issue. And even if we get rid of those current beavers, Aaron, more beavers are gonna come. Yeah, yeah, I think a lot of it is gonna be an ongoing maintenance question. So yeah, I don't disagree with you. So before we render any approval on that though, because I just realized if we vote on that before we authorize e-signatures that then we would have to actually get hard copy signatures on that. So the motion that was referenced by KP Law, just gonna, this is really difficult for me to see what's going on because I remote it into my computer. Well, how do we move that? I mean, we've got a copy of what your, the authorizing signatures is. How do we move it to be able to get to that point? Somebody would just need to read that motion. I'll be happy to read it. Okay, so it's the, I can. If you're gonna vote authorizing signatures pursuant to MGLC-110. Oh, wait, Larry, Larry, one sec. Before you make the motion, if we can just update Anna, because she wasn't here for that conversation. That'd be great, thank you. Okay. So I'm just gonna stop sharing for just a second because this doesn't, I can't open and close documents, but I'll just give Anna a quick update on that. So we are working to try to authorize e-signatures because that way we will not have to go around and collect signatures during COVID on all of our permits. And so in order to do that, we have to make a motion basically that the board is in support of of e-signatures being authorized and approved. And it's essentially making a motion and then everybody on the board who has the authority to vote would vote in favor. And then from there, what I'm going to do is seek town council advice on how those electronic signatures are actually applied. If we just make a note that electronic signatures for the following individuals were approved during a meeting or if we're gonna actually do some kind of like electronic signature system or something to that effect. But this will just be the first step in initiating that so that the permits issued after this motion is made could theoretically have electronic signatures applied to them once we get to that point. Great, thank you. Well, let me do it. Please, Larry, go ahead. I move that the Amherst Conservation Commission hereby recognize and accept the provisions of MGL C110G regarding electronic signatures and that its members will henceforth execute documents either with electronic signatures or with wet ink signatures and that both will carry the same legal weight and effect. Looking for a second? Second. Thank you, Anna. Okay, so we need to go around and for a voice vote on this one. So Larry? Aye. Letcher? Aye. Jen? Aye. Anna? Aye. Larry or I'm sorry, Laura? Aye. LaRoy? Aye. And aye for me as well, Erin. Great, wonderful. I think we are good to do electronic signatures as soon as you can do whatever happens to that. Wonderful, thank you guys. That's great. Okay, so I'm just gonna try. Okay, so now for the motions to move forward with the, to ratify the orders or the emergency certifications. We'll just back up a little bit. So I would request that the board make a motion to ratify the Pomeroy Lane emergency certification that was issued for controlled drawdown and breach of the dam on Pomeroy Lane. So moved. Second. Okay, and so Anna, you weren't here in the beginning. We had to do a voice vote now for all of this. Oh, I'm so sorry. Oh no, we got, I got that, I figured that out. Yeah, so that's why we're doing that fun little thing. So Larry? Aye. Letcher? Aye. Jen? Aye. Anna? Aye. Laura? Aye. LaRoy? Aye. Brett, aye. Okay, next one, Erin, please. Okay, so I would request that the commission issue that they ratify the emergency certification that was issued for the Cherry Hill Golf Course to install a beaver deceiver on the existing beaver dam. So moved. Second. Larry, how do you vote? Aye. Letcher? Aye. Jen? Aye. Anna? Aye. Laura? Aye. LaRoy? Aye. And I from myself as well, Erin. Okay, wonderful. Thank you. Do you guys want me to continue on with updates? Everything else are things that I could address at the next meeting because I realized we're getting very late right now. So I mean, on one level I'd say yes, but the next meeting that we have, is that one being more packed? Or we're okay. I think it is, the answer to that question is it's probably less controversial. Yeah, so I don't think it's gonna be as intense, but there was nothing else that requires commission action, everything else I've been following up on and there's nothing that's really urgently requiring your action. And I think that that's really what these meetings are at this point. And so that's our goal. That's one of them, but yeah, are there any interesting or important things that came up, like any strange monitoring reports or anything that we should know about now? Otherwise I'm fine waiting. Yeah, monitoring reports are pretty good. They're gonna probably ensue with doing some dewatering down at Aspen Chase, but they provided the dewatering plan for that site and I didn't really have any objections to that. There was some invasives pulling going on on the Neurotic Trail and that was something that I felt like was a resource area improvement. They're just pulling the weeds and putting them in trash bags and throwing them away from garlic mustard. There was a report of a, you may recall at a previous meeting I had noted that DPW was drilling a test well for well number four. And we had asked them to install erosion controls, but we were considering it to be an exempt activity from filing since it was a test well. There was a report that there was some material that had gotten beyond the erosion control. So I contacted Beth and they went out and cleaned it up and provided me pictures that it was cleaned up. So I mean, things like that, but it's like things that were resolved. So I don't really wanna trouble you too much with them. And we would prefer not to be troubled. So thank you. Of course, some people start falling asleep on us here. So anything that any other commissioners want to talk about? No, just thank you, Erin, for all of the extra effort that it must take to pull these meetings together in this format. This is long and difficult and made more difficult by the circumstances. So thank you. Get through it together. I couldn't figure out what happened. I couldn't figure out what happened when I was going along. You're all of a sudden things died and you people were all gone. And I thought it was the whole thing that had crashed rather than me. And then I look at my modem and I say, oh, it's crashed here. We really missed you, Larry. It was very tragic. Oh, really? So again, yeah, thank you. I'm gonna go, guys. Oh wait, we just need a final motion to close. Can't leave yet, Jen. A motion to close this meeting. Second. Larry? Aye. That's right. Aye. Jen? Aye. Laura? Aye. Roy? Aye. Okay, we are closed. So thank you all. And yeah, as Jen was saying, yeah. Thanks, Erin. You, Erin, so thank you. You're all welcome. Great to see you.