 All right, everyone. We're ready. Let's start off with a meeting for the next meeting on the 23rd. November 23rd, I know I'm not going to be there. So should we just, is everyone comfortable canceling. Yeah. Okay. We don't need to do a voice vote for that. Do we? Excellent. Well, that was easy. It was a good start here. No comments from Jen. So here I am for Patrick Clark and be chairing the conservation commission today. And my comments are just stick with us and we'll get you all through. Dave, you got any comments you want to give us fill us in on. Nothing, nothing too extensive. I know you've got a full agenda, but a couple of quick things. We did complete the culvert removal out at Plum Brook pond. This is something that the commission permitted many, many months ago. I can't recall whether we covered this. I mean, the work has really just happened in the last two weeks or so. Right, Aaron. So we hired a company out of Belcher town to remove the crush culverts south of the Plum Brook pond. They replaced it with a very simple bridge. I think it works really nice on the loop trail around the pond. We've seen a lot of people using it over the last two weeks. I will say that with the warm weather and the work on the bridge, we have, we've picked up some of nature's engineers have been very interested in the area around the bridge. And so with the warm temperatures, the beavers in Plum Brook pond have just. Really complicated our lives a little bit. So they are. They are very active. More active than they ever have been before. So we're struggling with that a little bit. I think. Aaron will talk to you about an emergency cert. Later. For reaching some of the new dams that they've started there along the, one of the tribute or tributaries, the inflow streams of the Plum Brook pond. What else just related. We did, we did, or we are saying bye to one of our planners in the planning department, Ben Breger is a, is a wonderful young professional in our office and he is moving on to work with mass DOT. Ben has been hugely helpful on a lot of conservation related projects, including Hickory Ridge and others. So we will be hiring a new planner. So if you know anyone out there, I don't, it might have been posted already on the town websites, but direct people to the town website. And we're, we'll be accepting applications soon for a planner position. Who also helps us out in conservation as well. And then lastly, I think Michelle will be joining the seatback right for the first meeting of proposals tomorrow night, tomorrow night is housing. I put in a very simple, not very extensive, I must say, proposal to the seatback for kind of standard bridges, ADA, ADA access, parking, kiosk, things like that. I'm not sure if I mentioned to you before, but I actually put it in this time under recreation. I've never done that before. And I'm not sure if I mentioned to the commission that by putting it under recreation, if the seatback actually funds all or part of the proposal that I put in, we can use those funds on any land in the town of Amherst, not just land purchase with CPA dollars. So this is kind of a little, I wouldn't call it a loophole, but it's, it's a nuance of the CPA legislation and that legislation, I believe changed in 2012 to allow towns to, I guess it's under kind of enhanced improve trails, et cetera. So it's seen as passive recreation, hiking, running, things like that on trails. So we'll see, we'll discuss it with the seatback. I think I might have mentioned previously that the seatback has about $1.8 million available to them and they have $8 million, roughly in proposals. So the seatback, Michelle and the seatback have their work cut out for them over the next couple of months. But it's going to be, going to be interesting. So Dave, so that's a different because when I was on, this is just when I was on before you couldn't apply for trail work on land. That's under conservation. But under recreation that changes the game. Yeah. If you do it under conservation, which we've done it before, you can, you can, if funded, you can use those funds, but you can only use them on CPA related CPA purchase property. That's how the legislation reads. So we can't use CPA dollars on my Pollux, Amethyst Brook, Puffers pond, and the list goes on and on because those were all acquired before we had the CPA CPA in town. So it limits. Puffers pond under conservation. Couldn't do it under conservation. Might be able to do it under recreation. That's what I meant. Sorry. I meant recreation. Yeah. I'd be able to do it under recreation. So it's a little bit of a. A branch on the tree. The CPA tree. So. But anyway, a lot of proposals, a lot of good proposals, historic reservation, affordable housing. So, so we'll see, you know, the seatback. Is a great group. They have very spirited, very detailed conversations. So. Should be, should be good. I think I'd present. I can't remember sometime in December, I believe. So that's. Thanks, Michelle. For. Hopping on that. It is important. It's nice that we're all working together on. Well, it's nice here on that. Thank you. It's a, it's a fun group. It's a fun committee. And as I said before, when Michelle was considering it is. You know, one of the few committees where you can kind of make some pretty big recommendations to the council on. You know, well over a million dollars and spending. So. Really great projects. But tough, tough choices to be made this year. For sure. You say they have 1.8 available. This year. Such as. Roughly. Yes. Proper taxes. Anything else, Dave? Great. Thanks. I'll just briefly brush in. I actually have been in contact with Brad and Tyler a little bit. They're interested in some. Possible habitat work across town. Properties. And we had to reschedule. A time to meet just a chit chat about some certain things and trying to get some. So I've been kind of touching base with them and a little bit. We haven't really got anywhere, but just let you guys know. Yeah. They mentioned that to me, Fletcher. And I think at the last. Meeting, which I can't remember whether you were at or not, but I, I believe. There's some relation to the conversations you've been having and. A course that you mass interested in doing some. Just some. Kind of modeling, if you will, what, what, what. What could be done out on Amherst conservation lands with regard to management. I think what I've told Brad and Tyler, and I'll, I'll say that. Commission here is, you know, definitely interested in, you know, I know there's some grant funding out there. I think what I told Brad and Tyler is that, you know, right now we, we. You know, the commission working with staff has decided to create this subcommittee to look at land management. So I think funneling. Some of the, you know, some of the, you know, some of the, you know, some of the, you know, some of the, you know, some of the, you know, some of the, you know, the main thing that we're doing is we're trying to create this subcommittee to look at land management. So I think funneling. Some of these discussions, you know, broadly through that committee makes a lot of, a lot of sense. We're coming up on winter. You know, we're not doing anything. Dramatically new or different. You know, we've got plenty of stuff on our work on our work list. But I think over the next couple of months, this subcommittee is really going to dive in on, okay, to do in the future, what are some things that maybe we, we discontinue, you know, as we look at at early successional habitat, as we look at forestry practices on townland, as we look at, you know, everything in terms of land management. So I think it's a good time to be having those conversations, but I want to kind of channel things, funnel things, at least through that committee and look at decisions, you know, moving forward. So I think, I think it's, it's a good time to be looking at that, but I wanted them to know because they don't have as much contact with the commission as Erin and I do with, with all of you. So I just didn't want them to kind of get their hopes up too high to say, hey, we're going to do X, Y or Z, Eastman Brook or, you know, Houston Gauge or wherever without realizing, well, we actually have a subcommittee with staff and, and I'd like to invite them into some of those meetings where we talk about where we want to go with land management. So does that make sense to everybody? So thanks. Great. Thanks, man. We'll move on to our agenda item of 710 land management issues, land use policy feedback. Jen's got your name on it, but maybe we should maybe put this aside and bring it up for the next meeting. I think I have, I have the land use management plan. I'm the last review. Erin sent it to me on maybe Wednesday. So I'll get it back to her like at the next week. Yeah, thanksgiving, please. Yeah. Take your time. Take your time. Okay. And then, so, Dave, you just alluded to the latest, you just talked about the land use planning subcommittees that we were just referring to the land, or did you say land management subcommittee? Sorry. It wasn't the last meeting. So I think the document that was just referenced is really kind of codifying bringing together everything we kind of currently do from dog policy to agricultural licenses to things. And Erin and others have done a tremendous job at pulling that all together in one place because it's been this place on the website. This is from 1986. This is from 2006, bringing that all together and kind of saying, okay, what are what are what are some of the, you know, the current practices, the current policies, the current regulations we have. And I think that will kind of provide a good springboard for this group to look and say, okay, how do we want to manage some of these areas? Do we want to change some of these policies and, you know, policies and practices out there on the land? So I think Jen was going to look at that document, get comments, and then I was going to take one last look at it and that would, that now includes the entire commission, Erin, myself, and then we'll dive into that, dig into that deeper December, January. And that subcommittee is essentially the conservation department? Who it is. I know it's Michelle and who else volunteered? Alex, I can't remember. I did too. Okay, and Cameron. Yeah. Okay, so it's a subcommittee within the conservation commission. Yeah, and Fletcher, that wasn't clear. Just because you missed a couple meetings and we had talked about it, it's basically to look at the conservation land and our management of conservation land to come up with, you know, for example, like mowing schedules and or like if we're going to abandon mowing on certain properties, properties to focus in on for ag use, dog issues, all different kinds of, you know, issues related to land where we might want to reexamine specifics related to each property. Gotcha. Great. And I think we needed to formalize that in this meeting, right? Because we have the commission members, so we just need to do whatever, vote or nominate the members. Do like a voice vote? Like want to do like a nomination of? Yeah, like I nominate Michelle to be a member. You can form me if you want me to say that. No, I just nominate her. I think we need to like nominate and second and then vote people into the subcommittee. But that is if these people want to be nominated. Doing that right now. I nominate Cameron to be on the subcommittee. Or are we voting on each person? I second that Cameron should be on the subcommittee. So how many people? So can I just, I think it would make more sense if we do one motion and say the nominees for it to serve as on the subcommittee would be Michelle, Laby, Alex Hore and Cameron McCooch. And that the committee would begin in January 2023, meet twice weekly or I'm sorry, twice monthly and report back to the conservation commission as we're going through the process of developing sort of holistic land management plans. Yeah, that sounds good. So I'll make a motion. No, I'm the chair. I probably shouldn't make a motion. Would somebody like to make a motion to nominate Michelle, Alex and Cameron? I'll make a motion to nominate Michelle, Alex and Cameron. I'll second that. Excellent. Thanks. Voice vote. Andre. Guy. Laura. Hi. Jen. Just give a thumbs up. Michelle. Hi. Alex. Hi. Cameron. Hi. And I for Fletcher. Great. Thanks, guys. Well, I have a question. Sorry, go ahead. Committee, any idea what the expected product is? Yeah, I think we should talk about that a little bit more. I think it's going to be sort of like holistic land management planning for all of the properties. And so the actual tangible product that we're producing, I think, is to be determined what format that'll be in, maybe like a tabular format or like a matrix of some sort where we identify what land management is happening on which properties and when. But yeah, I think we need to sort of dig into it to determine what the best formatting is for the deliverables of the committee. Yeah, I would just add, I think Erin spot on on that. And I think to some degree, that's going to be up to that subcommittee to propose something back to the full commission. I will say that a couple of years ago, before Erin joined us and before the pandemic, we did, we did come up with a template for land management plans. We need, you know, we can certainly blow the dust off those. We made some progress. I think this goes back to, oh my goodness, yeah, probably three, three and a half years ago. And, you know, Stephanie Chicorello, Brad and Tyler, some of the planning staff, Beth Wilson, you know, who preceded Erin as well as administrator, all contributed to those and they started with some, you know, they started with Mount Pollux and, you know, they, you know, we can, we can, we can pull those out for the committee and share those and and decide is that a good format? Is that a good template? But yeah, we did make some progress and they included things like, you know, the history of the acquisition, the purpose of the acquisition, rare and endangered species on, you know, a habitat on the, on the parcel, current land management practices, you know, goals and objectives for public access, for passive recreation, etc., etc. So, you know, there's, and we're not reinventing the wheel, lots of land trusts and state agencies and, and other others have, you know, wonderful templates that we could use or, or pluck from, borrow from, as Erin said, whether it's a matrix, you know, part of a matrix, etc. So, yeah, I think that's yet to be determined, Alex, but I think it's going to be an exciting project. Maybe Michelle will bring it up at the first meeting. And I have, I'll ask, I think I know the answer, but I assume that the committee can meet offline. So, yeah, I mean, I, like for our subcommittee of our bylaw regulations, everything was posted as a public meeting. We held, we held, you know, webinar meetings just as the concom does. We had minutes just as the concom does. I felt like the inclusive public process, you know, people, people watched people came in and asked questions. It was, you know, it was nice to have that format. And I think really from a, you know, I think from an open meeting standpoint, we would have to do it that way just because we have three members of the, of the board on the committee. It's a little more work, but I do agree with Erin. I think it's really good in particular, particularly because of the subject matter. I think there'll be a lot of people interested, you know, you know, Montpolox is a great example. Every year, all of us go, maybe go to Montpolox with, and look at it with a different lens. And, and there'll be, you know, many, many people who say, well, why did the commission make the decision that you want to go in this direction with management or, you know, abandoning that field and no, no longer mowing it. Well, that's been my big backyard for the last 30 years. And I bought my house there and, you know, et cetera. And the list goes on. I mean, I've heard a lot of things from a lot of people through the years about our management and, or lack of management in some areas. So I think it'd be good to have them as public meetings. It's a little, you know, to be posted. Some, some, sometimes it'll just be staff and, and three commissioners other times, we will get people interested. So it's a little more work, but I think it's worth it. We'll say, Alex, that we got a lot, we got a lot of discussion. It was a very focused hour of meeting, you know, comparatively. So I'm not worried about it affecting our productivity or anything. So we can't meet face to face? With that. Well, I mean, I was hoping to do it sort of during lunch, lunch hour. And, you know, if I have to commute somewhere that's half an hour. But maybe we can discuss that. Okay, I would also put it out there as I have in the past that I think this committee is going to need to visit some of these areas. I think there's going to need to be site visits. So, you know, we may put together a foundation, a format, whatever, in the winter months and make some progress. But I think we're going to need to get out on the land and walk and talk. So I think there's the opportunity for some face to face come better weather or doing it on nice days in the winter. You can't quite see all the vegetation and things like that. But I think there's work to be done in the field to really see these areas understand, you know, why they were purchased, how close they are to adjacent neighborhoods or schools or trails or whatnot. So I think it could be really fun to get out there and learn about the history of these acquisitions and what's happening. And we might even invite people who live, you know, for some of these areas, invite people who live and use them to meet us out there and learn from them what they know about the, you know, say, Mount Pollux or Amethyst Brook or whatever. So Dave, first of all, Michelle, you'll send out a doodle or something like that to figure out what dates and times. You won't have it during lunch. That's fine. But you'll canvas to figure out what dates work. I think probably Erin will, right? Will Erin do that? Yeah. I mean, what we did before was we did Fridays at noon. That worked out really well for my schedule, for Michelle's schedule. Let me know if that will work for you guys. And I think we did the first and third or something, the first and third Friday lunch hour. And we just met, we met strictly from noon to one and just for our Zoom meetings. That's what we did. Oh, well, if it's scheduled that far in advance, that's terrific. Right. Dave, so we had commissioners on it. Dave, you're going to be on the Zoom committee? Well, I won't necessarily. So Erin and I, our role is to kind of support you, bring the staff perspective, bring some of the history. I'm very interested in this. I think it's been something that is long overdue. And I think the number of questions and the, honestly, the number of conflicts we have been having and will continue to have on conservation land is only increasing with more use. And we found that during the pandemic. So I think residents and butters and users, visitors to Amherst have questions about, you know, what can, what can they do on conservation land? You know, from, you know, the dog walking challenges we all face, but, you know, what can a butters do? I mean, we have fascinating questions that I can share with the, you know, with the subcommittee about, you know, well, those trees are getting too tall. Can I, can you cut them down because they're ruining my view shed of the conservation land? Those are very, you know, things like that come up all the time. Can I use this area for horseback riding? Can I compost my, my manure on the conservation land because I don't have enough room on my property? And the list goes on and on. List goes on. You guys are in for it. Erin, you got something? Well, I just wanted to say that Michelle and I spent a great deal of time preparing some mitigation information to present to you guys and we're coming up on the first hearing time and I was just hoping that we would have a little bit of a time window to present that to everybody before we open the first year because it applies to multiple hearings tonight. And now, is that something that Michelle you want to do or is that Erin you want to present that? I think Michelle is going to be doing the presentation. Okay. But I'll be here to support with backup as she needs it. Good. How much time do I have? What should I shoot for? I got 10 minutes reasonable. No? Five? Five? Okay. Five to seven. I'll try and do it. No more than seven. I can click around quick enough. Okay. I'm going to need to share my screen. You should be able to, Michelle. Okay. Okay. I can't see what you're seeing. Is it showing? Okay. Yep. Got it. You're seeing? Okay. All right. I didn't want to rely on just myself to get all this information across clearly and accurately. So I'm just going to put it on the screen for everybody to read at their leisure or very quickly in five minutes. So this is just a brief presentation of in loopy cost structure scenarios based on mostly regional research that we did until like programs and the purpose of this is to explore some options for Amherst, especially as we may see more and more of this coming to the commission. So very brief presentation here into it. So the basics of an in loopy program and that's the acronym that you're going to see throughout this presentation. So it's a compensation alternative to a permutative responsible compensatory compensatory mitigation for impacts to protective resources. So the subject here is wetlands. So it's a monetary payment in lieu of providing onsite mitigation. The funds for an ILF go into a pool, which allows larger projects to be funded generally with the hope of a greater likelihood of success. So not very small onsite, you know, mitigation, but maybe bigger projects like I think maybe Plum Brook got ILFP funding. So there's the program sponsor, the permutative grantor, which is generally an agency, a regional conservation organization that is the agency or the entity that determines the cost collects the funds and then assumes responsibility for actually making that mitigation happening. And then there's a compliance and reporting. So it's just the basics of any in loopy program. So here are some in New England, most of the New England states, if not all of them have one. And this is from 2016. This is somewhat outdated, but you can see the town of Orino actually has a city wide vernal pool in lieu fee. It's actually more of a real estate transactional program. But that was the only municipal one I found in the region. So some, you know, key as principles and assumptions here, obviously, this is the last course of action after avoidance and minimization. That's pretty fundamental. There's a legal authority. In this case, it's our wetland bylaws. And very importantly, when considering the rest of this material, the ILF is a transfer of the full cost burden and responsibility of mitigation to a different entity. So in this case, us. So that's that's pretty key to consider that it should be considered what the in house costs and responsibility will be to the person that accepts an ILF. So here, again, please look at this closely, because these are the key cost components of a in lieu fee. So the mitigation site, so the real estate, the real estate acquisition and all the costs associated that the cost of the planning, design, permitting and construction, the cost of monitoring and maintaining the project until the performance standards have been met. So we use three years generally for is the separate cost of long term monitoring that's highlighted. And I'll get to why, but I think that's going to be a little outside our scope tonight. But it basically is perpetual or long term monitoring past the performance period. So annual site visits, general maintenance and perpetuity administrative overhead costs, basic budget stuff and a contingency amount. Those are pretty, pretty core costs. So this is, this makes up the key components of the in lieu fee. Oh, that's funny. Okay. I wonder if this works. So here's one, I didn't realize it affects sorry. The first one that I'm just going to cover real quick is the mass DFG Army Corps of Engineer ILFP rate. So the Army Corps issues permits and has designated the mass DFG as the project sponsor. So the ASOE issues the permit and the funds go into a program overseen by mass DFG and they have an entire program that accepts the fees and does the mitigation project specific cost calculation. I'll just show we did a mock up of that one and I'll get to that with some Excel spreadsheets. And then number three is that blue highlighted one. So this is project specific cost calculation, but including long term management. This one's different. And again, maybe outside the scope of tonight, but this includes perpetual long term monitoring. So it includes it necessarily has a non wasting endowment to fund that annual monitoring and management cost scenario one. This is the mass DFG. They have a per square foot and linear foot cost. So this is from 2016. Aaron was in contact with a program administrator and they're actively revisiting this. I think there was a sense that maybe they needed to because they are responsible for actually making this mitigation happen on the ground at certain mitigation ratios. And I think they're revisiting their assumptions about what this cost should be. So it's broken into four service areas. The costs are determined based on that slide six of the key core criteria. Also the challenges of doing the restoration and some development pressure considerations go into that. So these are the core fees, but the fees are negotiable as in army corpse can put temporary project costs impact costs in addition to these and DFG can institute greater fees if it's a more complex or costly frustration mitigation enhancement project. So that's scenario one is just a number by the square foot by the acre project or scenario two. This is the project specific cost calculation creation and compliance only. So you know in you know in my speak this is called the initial and capital phase. This is the creation. It's generally a three year period while an endowment gears up and builds enough to support annual monitoring but it includes all the restoration the initial monitoring compliance period and it's generally for like a three year period. So actual project budget it's a line item budget. And it's very carefully thought out because all those costs have to be done by somebody and you don't want to shortchange yourself because money doesn't grow in wetlands. So the mock the example that I'm going to present later is consistent with the state ILFP cost inclusions that I presented except that they this scenario does not include any long term management. So scenario three same thing except this includes perpetual management costs for periodic site visit. And this could be as very basic as one site visit a year pick up some trash pull some invasives and you're done for the year. It could be you know depending on permit requirements much more involved like spring herbicides and maintaining certain amounts of sensitive species populations or something like that. So those are the three scenarios process. Okay so this scenario three you know you have to determine an annual management cost which I just discussed and then there's an establishment of a non-wasting endowment to fund the perpetual management. So I'm not sure I think this is just I'm throwing it out there because this is pretty standard for permitting any kind of permitting entity that has permit requirements and accepts funds and puts it into some real estate like the property management just so that it gets beyond benign neglect and you can ensure that the property maintains its resource values in perpetuity with its original intention. Yeah it's a little more complicated I don't know if the town has something set up like this but it something maybe to keep in mind if the town is considering growing conservation lands and having funding to adequately manage them especially with our land use goals. Okay so any questions probably don't have time for questions about this basic stuff so I'm going to just show the cost okay so here scenario one let's just per acreage so this is what it looks like for we can't see your screen we see questions okay see an excel spreadsheet yes okay so category task unit number of units is just very basic I guess what I just want to point out is that it's line by line items that are required to be done if you're going to create any a bbw of wetland so it's just being very specific and finding actual quotes actual numbers and then how many years you're going to do it three years of monitoring don't forget your mileage etc then you put contingency on it you put an administrative cost on it I'm not sure what the towns is and you get a total so that's just what this looks like and this is what I would call the initial capital period but this is basically the creation period it has no long-term monitoring and I didn't include things here like supervisor meeting sales tack actually putting a cr restriction on the land things like that so this is very very basic here scenario three I didn't include the initial capital phase because I just didn't have time but this is what it would look like if you had just the most basic annual management at you know just a few hours of this is a budget of $150 a year this is what an endowment would look like at a 3.5 capitalization rate so you know just throwing it out there as a scenario for the town ever okay so that is the very basic overview of in-loofy calculations and three structures to consider Aaron do you want to add anything about I don't know you yeah so I mean Michelle and I I talked with a person who administers the program through division of fisheries and wildlife and I think that just based on the information that I could gather sort of the first scenario that Michelle explained where it's like a line item by line item estimate would be the most effective for us and also sort of capture all of the costs that are associated with this particularly because the town like so for example if we get x number of dollars like let's say a one acre restoration if we just were to throw together an estimate and not include all of those factors when it comes time to actually implementing it it ends up costing the town quite a bit more money to do it in time resources and additional funding so that I think is the truest picture of what the fees would cost for us to actually take on the replication or restoration project and we have tonight a project already sort of queued up which we'll be talking about later but we used that one as an example for that first scenario so I would be hopeful that the commission would consider using that scenario as we begin because like as we discussed Canton Avenue we did the best we could to put together something to kind of patch something together to include in the permit process but it wasn't a great precedent we didn't include a lot of the costs that would have been associated with us actually replicating what they're doing and so I feel like this is would provide a truer cost of what the cost would be to the town. I just want to add that you know as a land management agency which I work for and do these budgets like per acre costs have not been used in you know since the 90s because it became very clear very fast that every project is different and has different you know considerations plants complications everything and so that the project specific budgets are really the way to go in determining like an an in lieu comparable mitigation but also an actuality of implementation. So I just jumped in Fletcher I know we're short on time tonight I have lots of questions because this is kind of the first time I'm seeing this and tonight might tonight might not be the right night to go into great detail so I guess I would just look to Michelle and Aaron to kind of say where do you where do where would you like this to go I know there's something you want to consider related to a you know a permit an application before the commission tonight but I guess I you know I've I've got a whole kind of list of questions going on on what I've seen so far so where do you want this to go relative to tonight yeah I mean I think at the at the last meeting we identified for at least one project we have some mitigation that needs to be done but it can't be done on site and Michelle and I were asked to sort of look into how to calculate the mitigation fee that we would ask of the applicant and so this is our sort of due diligence in terms of breaking down what the actual cost would be to replicate or mitigate the impacts of what they're proposing to do and and so really that's what this is is just us demonstrating to you at the lead up of the meeting that we've done due diligence to investigate and try to come up with a defensible rationale behind our ask for the mitigation funds can we refine this absolutely and I would see this as a living document so what we say tonight we would use we may change and refine and improve over time or adjust over time but I think we're just trying to get some more solid basic system established yeah no and I totally appreciate that and understand that I guess my question would be so the you know the what you're using tonight though is not I think my biggest concern is it doesn't it doesn't commit us to a specific project it is showing it is showing an equation to arrive at a a dollar amount for the equivalent mitigation or replication you know based on the research you've done so it doesn't commit us to doing x y or z out in the field in 2023 or 24 rather it it creates a number by which an applicant would need to contribute to this fund and we would then identify projects in the future exactly yeah you would it be appropriate to like kind of put like put this on the agenda another meeting to kind of formalize I mean I hate to say another subcommittee but sounds like Michelle and Erin are on this yeah because I'm also curious I mean I know we're just having a discussion about this so how do we move forward with this and like a kind of accept yeah I mean we can talk about this process sort of like after the hearing or hearings or during the hearings or you know we can talk about it at an upcoming meeting we can go into more depth about it and also like this is all information that you guys could delve into looking at a little bit more in between that now in the next meeting like we could upload these documents these are literally hot off the press like we were working on this today trying to finish it like at the last minute no I you know I think this is really exciting to kind of standardize what we've been doing and you know Erin has been very effective through the last couple of years you know essentially negotiating I'm thinking of Eversource and other applicants but there's been no real standardization or comparison to what other entities are doing out there so I think it's really exciting to look at at the information you've put together and yeah I would love to go a little more in depth for sure all right um I think we should move on but um great job but we do have to figure out a way how to implement and kind of just sure up the process that you guys put in place and see that make sure everybody's comfortable with that yeah yeah absolutely sounds like we're going to talk about it in a couple here it's here so thanks for all your work on that oh yeah thank you thank michelle because I was out sick almost all of last week well just doing the basics of what I could do and so she she did the lion's share but um tried to support her in that ledger it looks like alex has his hand up you know alex you do I couldn't see it through your uh you got the pine board in the back I didn't see the yellow on the uh stain yeah thanks go ahead alex you got like you have 30 seconds I I heard that uh michelle's gonna or erin's gonna post it or michelle's gonna send it out to all members or something like that so we could look at it in between now and the next time it's on the agenda yes yeah okay you'll just put that as share point yeah we can upload it to the to the one drive for everybody to to view before the next meeting excellent um before we move on we just let everybody understand our general procedure of fairness for all applicants um we try to do these tricks for 20 minutes but we're already over time but we're going to try to stick with these with the uh process that we have five minutes presentation from the applicant representative five minutes from comments from the staff five minutes of public comment the pop comment that has each public member has two minutes I will cut you off of two minutes um for comment and then we have five more minutes for the commissioners the commissioners commissioners commission wow sorry about that no that's all right I'm just trying to read like a powerpoint and you know maybe I shouldn't do that because nobody likes to just read from a powerpoint um but we got you thank you and for all applicants remember to bring up send all your stuff in before um all planning revisions by friday prior to our meeting at noon um friday before noon how's that yes and we'll start at the 1220 belcher town road notice an intent um Aaron so we're ready to open the hearing we are all right i'm gonna read now i'm gonna read on my paper here so this is notice the tent this public hearing is now called to order this hearing is being held as required by the provisions of chapter 131 section 40 of the general laws the commonwealth and act relative to the protection of the wetlands as most recently amended in article 3.31 wetlands protection under the town of amherst bylaws general bylaws okay we have um the representative for this um app this application with us you're muted Aaron yeah um I think it's Ryan and I just promoted him if there's anybody else on the call who wants to be a presenter just uh raise your hand it will add you in excellent ryan you're already sharing it looks like you've done this before yep hello everyone ryan nelson from our levec associates representing the applicant service net for this project many of you probably familiar with the site 20 belcher town road this is formerly a restaurant that is now vacant um zoom into the overview of the site here um there's multiple buildings on site however we're just concerned with portion of the property called unit one and that would be very most southern corner um where the restaurant building formerly was there's an existing paved parking lot on site so this is this red kind of dotted hatched area as well as the striping areas the applicant would like to repave the parking lot the stormwater structures which consists of catch basins and subsurface piping would remain in place if anything maybe they would just shim and shore the the grates on those structures to make sure everything drains but essentially repaving the parking lot in place and then also adding some walkways and handicap accessible ramps to proposed entry ways of this building these are going to be transitional housing apartment units there's going to be a total of 12 so you can see you were extending the sidewalk at the very east end of the parking lot constructing concrete steps or wooden steps and stairs to each of these dwelling units the little triangle to the entryways as well as building a ramp for handicap accessibility at this end of the building we have a stream that is located on the property there's a stormwater easement from the town that goes through the property in discharges through a head wall here and then the streamer continues offsite so a portion of the work is located within the buffer zone 100 foot buffer zone is this dashed line right here so we have about 8,130 square feet of repaving or or limited work I should say within the buffer zone and approximately 336 square feet new impervious related to these concrete walkways to the units there is a small section of the building right here this is a former entry way porch area that's going to be demoed so that was taken into account for that calculation we had a site visit this morning my boss Rob Avec attended as well as Aaron and perhaps some others they had no or noticed some potential mitigation measures that could be taken along this brook head wall area there's some debris and trash as well as some old fencing that we are proposing to remove as part of this project there's some large trees that would likely be damaging this head wall so those trees are going to be cut flush to grade adjacent to the head wall there's some kind of not I wouldn't say erosive but some bare slopes that could be more vegetated along the head wall in this stream so those slopes would be repaired loan would be applied seeded with a native seed mix and then erosion control blanketing applied we're also proposing some shrubs to provide cover and stabilization and shade around that head wall and those we are showing consist of alternately dogwood and serviceberry so just to recap the only new impervious is these concrete walkways and the limits of repaving are within the boundaries of the existing parking lot so it's about that just to be happy to answer any questions from the commission thanks Ryan um Aaron do you have you want to share anything uh photos yes and I apologize I didn't get a chance to fully download these um before the end of the day today so um I'm going to have to kind of click through them to share them with you um so bear with me so this is um standing with the building behind me facing down toward the fairing brook this is another view looking over and it's difficult to see here but there are um a number of um culvert um out outlet discharges um that come into the fairing in this location there was also um a sump pump discharge immediately behind the head wall closest to the building side which um is definitely causing erosion um and it was actually discharging water while we were standing there so um you know that is another issue that needs to be addressed to relocate that and properly armor that um make sure that the source of that is clean water and um address that so it's not creating an erosion issue and not damaging the head wall there's also quite a bit of dumping that's we've documented on the site this appeared to be grass clippings probably from the landscaping company that does grass trimming either on this site or a neighboring site just like dumped behind the fence so this is looking closer to the head wall side and you can see there is um another small head wall or another small culvert outlet um here which is actually we believe the um outfall for the storm water structure in the parking lot uh Aaron so for the last um culvert outflows we're just further down on that same bank that we're looking at now exactly so if i just turned left straight ahead there's a there's a gas station there it's there like coming out from the area behind sort of the gas station location and that's also where the sump pump drainage was no that's on the opposite side so this is the old michaels billiards building and it's coming out of the old michaels billiards building gotcha a good spot and then so this is actually you can see some some erosion happening here behind the head wall the sump pump was just up up gradient of this so you could kind of see i mean i'm not saying the sump pumps 100 percent responsible for this but it's definitely not helping matters this is a view of the sort of full culvert outlet just another view you can see the trees there's there's trees very very large trees resting on this head wall which is not good um the removal of these trees i would say is very important because the the root systems not only are they that these trees resting on it so putting a ton of weight onto that that is damaging it the root systems are also growing into the concrete and causing cracks so the sooner we could get those trees removed and i would say put in appropriate low growing vegetation around that that's not going to be damaging it and also stabilizing those corners where we're already getting seeing erosion that's going to be really important um so the site visit was today um excuse me and we just got the revisions this afternoon um i haven't really you know had too big of a chance to review them um i will say from my perspective and actually i i do want to just add i don't think we have a dp file number on this yet but correct me if i'm wrong ryan but i think it's a relatively simple project and i think that for a small what is it 336 square feet of impervious surface the commission would be getting um some potential significant mitigation around the fairing brook which i think is really important so these are my comments sure thanks ryan i do just want to clarify we do have a mass dp number um 089 0709 did you get that today um i don't i'd have to go back and look and see when it was issued but i'm looking up on the ea portal right now it may have been late last week fletcher and i was out sick so i'm still sort of catching up a little bit copy but there were no no comments in that letter issued no dp comments okay thanks um before the commissioners before we talk um is there any comments from the public um raise your hand and we'll let you um speak again two minutes that pertain to our jurisdiction over this um application fletcher do you want me to let people in if you see any hands raised yeah okay i'm sorry is that mine i don't see it i i don't see any hands okay i see it tom miranda i think he might be associated with the project that'd be great i just promoted him to panelists so hopefully he pops in there you go tom yes thank you yeah just quickly yeah yep go ahead i'm attorney for service net offices at 64 gothic street in north hampton i have no comments at this time i just raised my hand in the event that there was a need to make the comment copy all right thanks tom you see anyone else there um erin i don't okay so you just got the revisions erin so we haven't had time to review it we're just learning now that we have the dp file number so clearly we're probably going to be continuing this but commissioners do you have any um outstanding questions you want to get out of the way now seems pretty straightforward um it seems like you know if you get those trees out of the way laura no i was gonna say no questions fletcher okay um so it looks like here ryan we're gonna just i've recommended a corporate mitigation plan i'm sorry did we get a mitigation plan erin well so the mitigation is what we discussed today in the field which is the stabilization of the slope adding of plantings and and so forth um and i don't this is completely at the commission's discretion if you're feeling like what they're proposing is adequate then i don't want to stand in the way of you guys moving forward if you do want additional time to review the revisions then that's completely fine and at your discretion i just wanted to make sure i said that i don't have any particular objections to what's being proposed um i i am in favor of the improvements and the trash cleanup and everything um around the brook okay alex you have a question you're muted alex or maybe it doesn't have a question now i i was lucky enough to attend the site visit with erin today and the impact is from the storm water being deposited into the brook and the brook suffers from a lot of erosion and i was just curious there's a large parking lot that um where the storm water is is deposited into the brook is there any way you can calculate just what is being deposited into the brook on a on a storm water standpoint you mean like volume of water or like volume is set on it or what i was trying to do is get a handle on what additional water is being added to that erodes the stream and that seems to be our tie to asking for mitigation is a storm water uh deposit into the stream and also the proximity of the work to the wetland itself to the stream itself but i was just curious how much water actually gets deposited because you can see that the parking lot goes around the building hi alex this is ryan i i can speak to that uh so we we have contributing storm water from our onsite parking lot there's a catch basin located right here and there's also one located here those are low points of the site but there's also a town storm water easement which carries drainage from the road i don't know to what extent that upgrading drainage throughout the town is it's probably multiple properties and roadways um and those discharge uh at that head wall there's you know a 60 inch invert pipe is a 48 inch so uh they are substantial in size but uh i don't know without really delving into town records i i can't give you a number as to how much volume is coming out of those it wasn't so much interested in and i was just interested in your contribution that's all yeah so our our our paved area is about 16 571 square feet um but we don't have any new area contributing to those catch basins because we need to find out more about the other storm water contribution to the fearing there is probably beth wilson or whomever is now running the ms4 permit um for dpw because they probably have to sample if not that outlet uh there's nearby in the fearing um so that could be a question just to get it some history on kind of impairment to that particular reach of the fearing could be good background to know for any mitigation planning yeah so with the parking lot are there oils there's no oil and water separation it just goes right into the stream so if there's oil on the parking lot or other contaminants they just go right into the stream that's a that's a question so there are catch basins alex which presumably would do some um capture of the pollutants i don't know the age of the catch basins i did ask today if they were functional and i was told yes um i guess a good question for ryan would be um is service net going to be doing regular maintenance on those and what is the regular maintenance consist of like are they vacuuming those units out regularly and sort of what's the maintenance schedule for that thank you and so i guess to say that again separate from alex's question about the contribution of the proposed project to fearing i just want to flag that if there's a mitigation plan that we're considering that's um that ryan you or other kind of represent representatives of the applicant um propose it might be good to find out from beth wilson at the dbw what the ms for permitted kind of discharges are to that section and what our understanding is of um kind of impairment to that water body because it could be something that would be interesting to try to include in mitigation costs or propose for as mitigation for impairments on the project and i don't get through that now i'm just flagging it as something to look into um for future yep we we could look into that uh my concern is you know how much are we really capable of doing on site there's just a very small portion of that stream within the confines of our property line um we're already proposing to you know clear up or clean up the banks we repair the slopes i revegetate things um yeah i would say the vast majority of the flow is coming from other sites in town upgrading so i'm not sure what more we can do to alleviate any problems sure my only hesitation is you go ahead and repair spend time and money repairing those slopes but we don't change what's causing the slope failure right and i i you know i sympathize and understand those concerns but i don't know if service net is the one responsible in doing that so what will the maintenance schedule be for the catch basins ryan are there is there going to be a regular operation and maintenance plan for cleaning those and maintaining them yeah we have a typical we could submit operation a long-term operation maintenance agreement for stormwater systems typically spring and fall they're inspected twice a year and then cleaned out if necessary like a back truck would suck out the catch basins that would be great if you could submit that i'd definitely like to include that in the order of conditions okay thanks for the clarification channel i just want to make sure the water that comes off the parking lot and is deposited into the brook is clean any other commissioners thanks for sharing that ryan sure um oh tom you got a you got a question tom no i just have a comment that the use of the property is going to be for transitional housing and the individuals that will be using or living there are not the types of individuals that will oftentimes have motor vehicles so the the use of motor vehicles on the property likely will be for vans to bring people to and from various appointments and things of that nature and the even though we have a large parking area here we don't we do not anticipate that there will be a motor vehicle a large number of motor vehicles because most of the people that will be living here just will not have the means to have their own personal vehicles i just want to make the the commission aware of the type of use of the property that were uh the service that will be making of the premises yeah thanks tom go ahead erin i was just gonna say um ryan in the restoration plan what was the proposal to do about the sump pump that's flowing out right now like is that being relocated and also it looked like the um roof gutters were filled up and or failed um on the roof and i didn't know if the plan was to keep the roof gutters or to do sort of drip edges and if there was any plan to stabilize along the side of the building to um capture that runoff yeah i'm sorry go ahead go ahead i was just going to ask erin so you're saying the um or the the drain where the drainage of the um uh gutters going they go into the um catch basins are they going right straight out to the bank of the brook yeah so uh anybody know that right about here there's a um uh roof leader that comes down and goes into a black pipe and then disappears um so we don't really know where that water discharges it might be under the leaves there um or it might be going all the way down and discharging here not really clear the sump pump was um coming out say like here and it was discharging like right there um so the water looked like it was just moving directly down by this head wall and that was a concern of mine that it was it's almost like flushing out on a regular basis and washing down right behind that head wall sure erin so to answer your question i did add a note to the plan to reroute that existing sump pump discharge my thought would be to place it somewhere in this area here past the head wall to the east um so you would just place it there and it would just discharge on the bank of the river or would you guys armor that or like oh no yeah yeah we would have a flared armor outlet okay so is that added to the plan because i don't see it uh not that actually not the not the proposed outlet location no okay so that should definitely be added to the plan if you guys are going to do that um and then what's the the issue with the um roof drainage the um gutter drain that came down or is that going to be repaired or replaced or do do we know what's happening with that uh i unless tom knows anymore than me about that i'd have to check with the architect but i would think they would try and use what's in place now um that just needs to be cleaned out and so be it but we can look into that yeah that would be great if we could just clarify it because if i mean if it's functioning and it's getting cleaned out that's great but it would be also nice to have some sort of a a stabilized flared end where that water is discharging to sure yep you can have that okay so sounds right it's seem clear so far of those couple things the sump pump the gutter um Aaron we're going to see a maintenance we'd like to see a maintenance plan for the storm water or the catch basins um we'll see the mitigation plan too where we got with the mitigation plan so they this is their mitigation plan you're kind of looking at it here um plant list and the stabilization stabilization obviously i suppose that rerouting the sump pump outlet would be kind of part of that commissioners anything else that you want to consider i mean that one one thing that i would just say and i'm i hate to keep jumping in here but just from my observations what the area that they're showing mitigation so this is the head wall and the area they're showing mitigation is is like sort of directly around the head wall but it's hard to tell because it's kind of zoomed out but there was like a tremendous amount of erosion like in this area and in this area i was sort of envisioning that plantings would extend down into that location as well um is that on the property that part is yeah i think the property line goes right here so just trying to get whatever we can and this is this area is very badly eroded down here and this corner down here is pretty badly eroded as well the whole stream gets pretty beat up yeah the whole corridor is really eroded so if they're going to repave the entire parking lot correct yes yeah and then add the cement walkway yeah so if you do not anticipate a lot of cars maybe you could reduce your contribution to storm water by not paving the entire parking lot and turning some of it back to grass or something of that sort it's that something um let's play a little hypothetically here ryan if that's or that is that possible with the planning board or with the amount of units and parking for the uh for zoning oh that's great yeah there is a planning board side of it and also if that was the case now you'd be severely limiting the site for future uses if it was ever sold or converted to something else and there's also i believe a kind of a master deed allocation of parking because this is uh kind of shared with a greater condo complex so i i'd be hesitant to want to remove any parking spaces yeah there are buildings in the back and they were working back there today so i understand now that the parking lot is shared with other buildings anyways it was just a thought so ryan what about the possibility of extending this um the mitigation further to those um sure that's not that's not a problem yep you can do that um maybe we can see some revisions or something on the plan that actually shows that heron you have um a little bit more specifics about kind of when you were drying those little polygons yeah i mean what we had discussed had to be a little bit more specific i guess yeah what we had discussed on site was like erosion control blankets seeding and planting um to stabilize a little bit around that head wall um it's where the water you know it's very flashy similar to the tanbrook a very flashy very storm water influenced water body and so anything that can be done to stabilize around that outlet immediately what where water is going to be shooting out of that head wall uh will go a long way to reducing erosion and also protecting this property long term um and stabilizing that head wall so that it the health of the head wall um lasts longer well does the head wall need to be resealed or anything once those trees are removed you said they were creating cracks i mean they're gonna be like frost and water damage once those cracks are opened up just just thought resealed with concrete you mean i don't know what you would reseal it with um but i'm just picturing you know cracks that are not filled with where they're rotting tree roots now and possibly water is going to be getting in there and freezing and making it worse i don't i don't know i think that's a question for for ryan and i and again i think if it's a town drainage easement that would be a town structure but ryan correct me if i'm wrong yeah something along those lines that that would be uh another animal to evaluate the integrity of the culvert and you know sizing and how how to replace it or i i can't speak to the condition of it oh i don't think we're looking for replacement i think michelle's just saying because it is cracked in several places and she's just asking are you going to be repairing the cracks the concrete headwalls yeah i'd have to check with the town to see the responsibility of that and michelle there are two culverts and if you look at erin's picture where she shows both culverts where the two arches come together and uh go to the ground the concrete i believe was deteriorating um we didn't take a close look at it but i think erin also noticed that the concrete was deteriorating where the two arches come together in the middle down down at the ground but i you see where our concern is here ryan so just when when you know when we're gonna have to continue this and get the new revisions and everything but um something to see i think you should really just consider is looking at you know when you start specifically you know we're all for the tree removal to maintain the integrity of the culvert so that's something to um i think michelle's question is valid if there's tree roots reaching in there and breaking open the culvert which happens um and now if all of a sudden you pull those root systems out and let the water get in there and freeze thought we're going to have issues further down the line so um i think that's this if you could you know consider that we'll look into that and just see where we're coming from with that we're very concerned about the integrity and that's why we're okay with you removing the vegetation off that which is right on the fearing brook so i think um yeah just keep an eye on that and um see if there's you know be uh willing to be creative on maybe if there's something once those trees specifically those actually were you taking the stump side or were you just flesh cutting them sorry you know just just flesh cutting you did um so you know we'll just i think that's something we're gonna have to you know keep an eye on that specifically when you're operating in or in and around that area you're going to be seeing a lot more especially when you start doing the reseeding and doing the erosion control so fletcher i do see that there's somebody from um the public that wants to speak um i'll promote them to panelists but i do think that we need to move this along sure hey tom you're all set right you got your hand up i'm all set for now thank you take that hand down be great thanks and we'll just take one more comment from the public and please keep your brief yeah just and also um just state your name and where you live please you got anything i oh there you are hi pat okay yeah my name is pat pat and i'm the real estate agent that uh this is my listing i'm with the jones group yep and i just wanted to point out because and this was alluded to earlier this um building is unit one of a three unit commercial condominium complex with uh corresponding exclusive use areas and the um if you look at the plan the condominium development plan and you overlay that onto the site plan that's been developed by the engineer um i think that he was aware of the boundary of the exclusive use that goes with this particular unit one um if you start extending some of the mitigation work or the greenery to the east northeast that was sketched out i think maybe erin was sketching it in red um you may go over the boundary into the other unit the other ownership not under the control of unit one okay yeah i appreciate that pat that was my question as well so i'm sorry you can finish yeah the the condominium documents are very specific on it and the there's a common wall as the building kind of goes at an angle um so where that common wall ends is the end of the uh structure that they're talking about purchasing but it there's a bend there and i think that you just want to be careful that you're not or i would suggest that you not try to um require service net to do something on the abutting property in other words that they you know that that kind of all fit into the plan so i just want to as an observation thank you um definitely agree so i think obviously ryan you clearly have a pretty well good knowledge of the site and the detailed plan you have here so i think that's something you we trust that you'll be able to uh to find and not cross the cross the boundary yep thanks thanks for that info pat we'll keep that in mind okay so i think we've got this one down i think which we need to do a um we have to have to continue this to get the revisions that we just talked about um would i'll make a movement to continue the hearing um erin what's the date we're continuing to pull that plan i have it december 12th all right um movement to continue the hearing to december 12th at seven thirty p.m second excellent andre second then thank you uh voice vote cameron hi michelle hi jen hi uh alex hi or and andre second um and i for fletcher yeah i for me yep all right you guys have to do i too even though you did the motion a second sorry um thanks ryan does it pretty clear was that clear what we're looking for yep yep i got my list uh thank you all for your time and we'll get your advice planned soon okay thanks ryan take care thank you okay um we're gonna move on to fearing street and i will um i'm going to open this uh hearing so this public hearing is called to order this hearing is being held as required by the provisions of chapter 131 section 40 of general laws of the commonwealth and act relative to the protection of wetlands as most recently amended and article 3.31 wetlands protection of the town of amherst general bylaws this is a notice of a tent for 46 fearing streets and if there is a representative um here please uh let us know this is the ongoing hearing that we've been um continuing and continuing um you know i should probably remember that no it's been so long since we've actually talked about it yeah it is um got it so um thanks gen and um since i opened everything can i get a motion to yeah i'll make a motion to continue the public hearing um for 46 fearing street to December 12 at 735 thanks Laura so i can did camera the second all right excellent um voice foe gen sorry i voice foe andre hi alex hi michelle hi cameron hi laura hi and i for fletcher great job everyone moving right through them all right so we're ready to move open 515 sunderland road all right i'll open this hearing this hearing is being held this public hearing is now called order this hearing is being held as required by the provisions of chapter 131 section 40 of general laws of the commonwealth and act relative to protection of wetlands as most recently amended and article 3.31 wetlands protection of the town of amherst general bylaws is there anyone here for um sunderland road for this notice of attempt yeah fletcher just so you know this is another one that we've been talking about for the past couple a few meetings is this a battery storage yep over at 515 sunderland road okay just letting you know it's been open oh i'm trying to do this every time yeah only if it's a brand new the first time we're opening a hearing but and you all just read away you just like me here i didn't want to interrupt you were doing such a good job right really hurt my feelings i mean you're making it for all the times that i've never i forget to read it so i figure i'm like holding on to this anyway we'll break even break even right hey josh welcome back um you mean we're back so um take it away sure yeah um wasting no time um so familiar with me um unfortunately no one from wood can make it tonight just do some scheduling conflicts but um i'll uh pull up the plan most current plan set um and share my screen uh just to aid here let me know if everyone can see that um yes yeah okay perfect um so since our last meeting or after the last meeting the discussion mostly centered around the secondary containment proposed on site um and so we took some time with wood to look at uh the design of that uh the secondary containment system and measures uh how we can improve it and per the feedback at the last meeting we submitted those uh updated these updated drawings to erin on friday i think we i don't know if we made it by noon but i know we got it on friday so um but uh so um erin of course we'll wait to hear your feedback but for the commission members um effectively so the main changes uh on our previous plan set we showed uh basically a line containment trench around the perimeter of the battery storage enclosures that then kind of fed into the larger infiltration stormwater infiltration trenches around the perimeter of the site um taking consideration the feedback of the last meeting we've changed the design um so what you see now is that uh each uh pair of enclosures uh will have um its own uh line trench surrounding the enclosures each of these trenches will have two outlet structures with um filters uh at the corner basically the southern facing corners of each each trench uh then there's going to be horizontal conduit additional conduit trenches um kind of you know running along all the the rows of enclosures um to you know carry stormwater that may enter these trenches uh through the site and then into the larger infiltration trenches uh that were existing on the previous plan set so that's that's the main change we um we felt like this was more in line with what basically the commission members were uh discussing the last meeting you know would hopefully satisfy um uh what what you were envisioning and i do think it's a certainly a better design um so that that was the primary change uh from last meeting to now uh really no other aspects of the site changed the only other change uh really that's noted on the plan or the plan set um we did as part of our process with the providing follow-up information to the planning department um for our special permit um we did conduct a sound study for the site looking at the the sound the system produces um how it might affect uh you know nearby residences in correlation with mass DEP noise policy so we we had taken we were already in the process of taking ambient sound measurements on site um and then following that up with the formal analysis that was wrapped up um based on the analysis we have updated our plans to show um sound some sound mitigation really the only difference is that rather than the perimeter fence the the chain link's perimeter fence that was there previously now that will need to be turned into or rather be a sound barrier made a official sound barrier constructed around the site on all sides to to dampen noise that may make its way toward the residential utter to the north and the south um otherwise it doesn't uh the design of the system otherwise and you know we'll still uh the system is designed will still allow for storm water to infiltrate into the trenches um uh and getting carried throughout the site through the the horizontal called condo trenches so i will stop there uh to just open any questions um thanks rash lord you had something you want to say right away i don't know if we'll let erin go first and then i can wait yeah if it's okay is that all right yeah here take it away erin yeah so i i did take a look at the plan set today um there was two comments that i had the first was the culvert replay repair replacement at the driveway because that was an issue that was raised the last meeting that the culvert is failed on one end and i know um they were going to look into um because it's partially within the mass dot right of way um repairing or replacing that culvert so that's question number one because i don't see it incorporated here but i also may have missed it because i was didn't have a ton of time the other question or comment i have relative to the proposed containment system um is i guess twofold um i would expect to see sort of a concrete a solid concrete pad underneath this system and i am i guess sort of confused as to why the um this all these trenches and things are being installed as opposed to just doing a concrete pad and doing that because i feel like that provides sort of more of a true containment um situation there um the i guess the lined containment trench number one i wonder what is it lined with so that's one question and then the lined containment trenches are being directed to infiltration trenches so i just want to make it clear to the board if something was to happen there was a lightning strike or some kind of damage to these structures and there's let's say 1600 gallons of toxic material leaching out of it it's going to go into a lined infiltration trench then into a i'm sorry a lined trench and then into an infiltration trench which is designed to infiltrate water into the ground so to me it's kind of counterintuitive i guess the plan and i'm i guess a little bit confused about why the containment trenches are being directed to infiltration trenches um and i guess is the commission comfortable with that and um and also the question about lining what is it and why not just do a concrete pad sure hold on real quick josh before that um yeah let me i'm gonna let laura go in and then let's do a couple more things we'll just get you a nice big list i think my comments are similar to what erin said so obviously standard in the industry i wasn't sure erin if we had directed them to not use concrete pads but that's that's standard practice so um and then i'm wondering because i i definitely am not comfortable with um drainage and infiltration um i actually i mean i think the point of containment is just that containment so i actually wonder if you know there's two approaches here um if we can't do a concrete pad without some sort of lit um in the event that there was ever any you know any issues with the battery itself um and then and i don't know if that's possible josh but then you know i don't know this is kind of a question for dav i think um origin uh or erin but um you know in in situations like these where there's some trepidation about um allowing a project to go forward i mean i think i think battery storage is primarily safe but in the event of any sort of fire or something like that you'd have to spray a chemical onto the battery um and the concern is that obviously it's in a resource area um or i sort of fast forward to like the decommissioning of the battery system um and you know like if there was a leaky battery for example yes you want a containment but you also want it removed so i'm wondering josh do you guys do we ever do bonds can we can we can we do a bond here um for the cost of decommissioning the battery or leaky battery or you know like something to that effect those are my comments okay thanks laura um anyone else from the um commission well kind of skipped over the public part but um since we're going we'll just stick with it if anyone has some i guess i'm just curious so laura is saying the concrete pad is standard and possibly i could see a lip being standard like what what is protocol for a leaky battery with rainwater like what what is the emergency response is it like a suctioning up of a lot of hazardous wastewater or i'm just curious michelle i don't think there has been like i'm actually not aware of a leaky battery you know what i mean i just think like if we're if we're talking the long term here and if these batteries are designed for you know 10 20 years just to be safe it's nice to have something underneath it to catch it but i think the battery would have to be i don't actually know what protocol is because i haven't experienced yet yeah i guess i'm just curious as to what emergency protocols are what the general assumption is for the containment under those circumstances um other commissioners before i get to dave um yeah i have um more of a comment but i'll go ahead dave yeah no i was just going to jump in and maybe you know defer to josh on on his conversations with the the zoning board of appeals but to laura's point or questions about decommissioning bonds typically the the zba you know addresses that i'm not i'm not familiar i guess i've not had that experience with the conservation commission requiring bonds but perhaps josh can speak to that with regard to where he is with the zoning board of appeals again recognizing that battery storage this is our first uh full you know uh first battery storage project you know not associated with with solar panels in town so but josh do you you know have you had those conversations with the zba i'm not sure exactly where you are in that process uh just hold off one second josh thank you um anyone else i'm just gonna get the list oh yeah and like and then i'm just gonna add in my understanding of why there wasn't a concrete pet from a wait a certain a wait actually once the discussion going erin do you have something you want to say i just wanted to say that the commission has held bonds and that we can hold bonds okay just putting that out there that we can okay thanks so um um josh you i think you had it's pretty straightforward there so why are we why are we having infiltration or you know filter conduits going into infiltration areas why not concrete pads i'm assuming concrete pads around the why are the batteries sitting on top of concrete is that what we're asking because i remember there was a hole yeah well because we didn't because the we're trying to get away from mitigation from that but um i think josh could probably get into the details about about um why you guys chose not to do that and am i missing anything else so we're worried about containment and where is it going to go yeah um no those are all great questions so happy to tackle them in turn so um i'll start with the secondary containment so um uh flutter to your point you're correct yeah so originally we had proposed that one foundation design to do is kind of these concrete piers rather than a slab underneath all the enclosures um i will uh confirm i will confirm with wood uh just because they're on the call and it just want to confirm that it was used in the updated stormwater calculations but based on the last hearing um and the comments received with secondary containment all the enclosures are now located on so they are being modeled with a full concrete slab underneath the containers and then the impermeable trench lines the the slab um so so there there is a impermeable surface underneath the containers uh and then the trenched side um in terms of the design again i will confirm that um but i'm almost probably that's the case um in terms of why we were trying to do this design with the trench uh as opposed to say a concrete bout the lip primarily just well a it's a design that um i've seen used or proposed on another energy storage project in massachusetts um and i thought you know it was it was a good design uh i i definitely agree with the comments that you know the most standard basic form secondary containment would be just a lip on a concrete pad um so typically the reason we went with this as opposed to just say a concrete bout the lip was you still you know typically you know as far as i'm aware even with um uh basically there still needs to be some way or most of the time secondary containment is designed such that there's still a some way for water that is in the basically once the the lip pad fills up with water you want to be able to drain that water somehow or have it removed from the pad because if it sits there you know it could cause issues with the concrete cause cracks over time etc so typically they'll you know the secondary containment system will have some kind of um additional equipment or system uh that or design they'll to allow water to uh eventually make its way out of the pad so that it could be like a sump pump system that has a filter in it so in this case the intent was to um um water would go or you know any runoff of any kind would go into that trench and then again it yet at the corner of each of the impervious line trenches would be um a filter placed to treat the any any runoff or water catch anything that would go in before it then goes into the the additional trench that um would then carry water to the larger than infiltration trenches so the idea would be that there would be filters installed at those alley structures such that they would catch material or prevent material from you know filtering the water out or filtering the material out of the water so that that water could then go um exit the system from a storm water perspective um you know I think we could you know I certainly think we could pivot I would say to instead of just a line trench we could do a um a a lift pad that with the same kind of idea that you know there's some some some kind of uh alley structure with some kind of filter or treatment system of some kind um that's that would be kind of the other way to do it um I think both effectively are accomplished in the same thing but typically you can again you can do a lift pad with no outlet it's just that um from my understanding there could be just more maintenance of all you just might have to like after rain events you'd have to come potentially clear out the building pads of the water um just to make sure there's not filled up there in terms of uh or just addressing Aaron your quick point on the culvert I yeah actually we don't have the detail shown here um so you know we've obviously discussed it and and we have followed up with um uh MAST DOT so you know there would be an act they would likely require an access permit for the work in the the easement drainage easement but don't anticipate that being an issue so we are um we are fine you know we're totally on board with that being a condition of the approval um that we have to make those improvements and you know uh to the to the drainage features in that at easement um and if if I know um if if there's a desire to see maybe details either it could be a condition where we provide those details for those improvements you know as part of our process with DOT and getting the permit there or you know we if we need to do it now we can we can work with that would provide those details um on the decommissioning bond so where we're at with the ZDA so we submitted an initial application and it began in August to the planning department um it took a while to get comments back just I think they're pretty backed up with applications uh so we did it took a couple months to get um feedback from planning but we finally got that um earlier in October if they had a bunch of follow-up items uh that they wanted to see address um primarily additional information submittals which we just read uh just at the end this week um submitted uh as a you know follow-up materials um they didn't actually specifically address uh decommissioning bond in the comments but Blue Wave is part of all of our projects do propose um or would propose the ZBA that we would have a decommissioning bond put into place you know we obviously want to give that comfort to the town and the the landowners well uh that they're not going to be left with a project that they can't remove so um you know likely what we would work to do with the ZBA would be to submit uh prior to construction um you know based on the final approved design uh decommissioning estimate for the cost to decommission the system uh and in that bond of course you know we look to set up that initial amount we're new every year and escalate uh the bond amount by some percentage every year to account for uh general inflation um uh so so we wouldn't we certainly wouldn't look to address that and have it be callable by both the town and the the property owner um in terms of you know that bond being used um believe laura you you raised the the point on can be used for like like uh or maybe with the general procedure process if something happens during the operation of the project um obviously during the operation of the project the town wouldn't need to call the bond because Blue Wave is on our operator would have to spend money to to do the cleanup or any necessary procedures if we're in responding to an emergency event um so the bond wouldn't be called that instance but Blue Wave would be you know spending funds necessary for cleanup um and when I say cleanup again you know as that has been mentioned I think Laura you were saying this um you know it is expected that these batteries the way the the lithium ion battery cells actually function um yes there is some manner of liquid electrolyte in the battery cells it's mostly absorbed into the anode um so there isn't actually real in reality in the operation of the system there's not that much free-state fluid um all the individual battery cells are chrometically sealed um you know it if you're talking about some kind of large amount of potential electrolyte that would come out of the system um you'd be talking about um like some kind of meat cash traffic event like uh something like crushed the large amount of the enclosures or or battery cells all at once um and then of course you know you're there's a lot of things to worry about in that situation um but um yeah so that's and then what the procedure would be though if so basically the the cells and the enclosures are monitored 24-7 um for temperature voltage current um there's atmospheric so gas detectors in the containers as well but basically if they're so if a battery were to be leaking so and and really again the only way would leak is if some kind of physical action caused this the cell to rupture um more or less we remotely being remotely monitored we would know if there was an issue within any individual battery cell or any of the the enclosures so we'd respond to the site if there happened to be some kind of rupture just like contained within the enclosure um then obviously the system would be de-energized um and handled by technicians to to remove any damaged battery cells um you know do a root cause analysis and figure out what happened and replace them if needed but obviously the system would be shut down during that time so um and we have submitted uh a draft emergency response plan to as far as the process with the zba um but that would be those you know those kind of procedures and process would be detailed uh there as well uh laura you have one more thing you got something else yeah i just you know i i think the bond for decommissioning is okay i just you know i i i agree that there's it's a real outside risk um that something would happen to you know cause a rupture in the batteries um at the same time though like i'm not sure how it works um because our bonding would be something i actually would be interested in knowing historically what we've done because you know i would imagine that legally let's say say let's say a tree fell in the battery i don't know if there's trees in the site but or or like you know there's a fire or something happens and we want it removed like immediately um a bond would allow us to avoid that legal process and just basically pay to get it removed um so erin i don't know you know perhaps this needs to be another um discussion but and i guess my other comment is we don't have to talk about it tonight but if there are in fact infiltration um you know devices i'm really curious to know sort of the o and m plan for that you know like how often someone's going to change them is it i certainly don't want it to be like install it and be done um so i'd be curious about that before erin yeah um just piggybacking on laura's comment um and i know josh had mentioned you know obviously with a concrete pad you need some form of drainage um i would say something similar it's like what you would see in a parking lot like an oil water separator a actual structure that would capture the material and contain it so that it wouldn't be discharged or at least um hopefully it would contain it to a maximum extent so it wouldn't be discharged and infiltrated into the ground and then that structure could be cleaned out hopefully preventing um toxic material from getting into the ground or the groundwater um i was also to comment to you know per laura's comment i know that he mentioned that there are filters um i was curious about how frequently those filters are replaced and also what is the capacity of those filters so if you have a battery or two batteries that leach 1600 gallons of liquid that's toxic are those filters going to actually capture all that material it seems unlikely a small filter is going to do anything there um and then the other thing was for the culvert replacement we would definitely need some sort of spec for a plan on that because we can't just condition it and say oh yeah replace it with you know whatever you come up with we'll definitely need to know is it an in-kind replacement are you increasing the size and i would definitely encourage you to increase the size especially because the current culvert obviously um didn't really function well it's very very small um are you saying culvert on both sides of the drive each entrance are just one yeah well there's a there's one culvert that goes from one end of the driveway to the north all the way to the outlet to the south and yes it is partially functioning but the outlet on the south is is failed so you're specifically talking about the south one well it's all one culvert okay the culvert goes it starts here so you're talking replacement of the whole thing okay and it goes and it comes out here i mean it's a straight line obviously don't mind my scribble but it in inlets here and outlets here so it's like one big culvert that goes through and you know if it ends up being that the culvert's in great shape and you're just repairing the tail end of it that's fine but um our preference would be to increase it so it can handle the velocity of the water coming through there oh okay so we you hear that josh culvert issues so we i don't think we've gotten anywhere with the the infiltration idea in terms of commissioners being comfortable with it i mean you just said you guys want to hear plans you know is there a maintenance plan with these can you just jog my memory a little bit on this the first proposal you're putting these you're going to put these batteries on piers and therefore you weren't going to count those that area in there as impervious surface is that right correct but now you're saying we're going to put them on concrete pads and so you've had your new revisions now calculate that as the impervious certain so that'll be an additional impervious surface correct yeah and and originally we did have also that the access road was kind of dual functioning as an infiltration trench which was pointed out as a concern so um that's where we added basically this additional you know uh additional infiltration trenches on the excuse me on the perimeter of the site especially this uh southern edge here you can see that the size of the filtration trench does increase kind of along the southern boundary as well to account for that increase storm water flow so that yeah that is correct that's the okay that's the revision you see yep um Aaron did I did I see a couple people from the public raising their hands I didn't see anybody from the public raise their hand on this let's just let's give the public opportunity here um to comment um about the our jurisdiction over this um application um please state your name where you're at and um please keep it to two minutes um got somebody Lepinski yes also yeah we hear you okay uh Mike Lepinski uh 167 shoot spray road Amherst um it's I think it's encouraging to hear that the developer is is moving to concrete pads underneath the batteries and I'm not sure it's if it's within the ZBA or within the conservation committee but I think one of the issues here is it's a tremendously crowded uh proposal that you have here right now it has 51 concrete pads in a relatively small area it's hard for me to see at home because I don't even have a sense of the scale here I'm just going by the size of the driveway but if you look at the way it's laid out there's almost no space between these units which makes you wonder how would they be serviced how would they be taken care of in an emergency if there was a fire it doesn't look like it's big enough to to drive anything through them and I think that part of the drainage problem might be solved by having a project that isn't nearly as dense and that that's leading to some of the issues here okay thanks Michael okay that's the that's the question for all of them I think uh Josh you did point out last time that that that is you can access in between they're serviceable with they're 12 feet no it's not 12 what's the yeah so the we did talk about this uh last time yeah so there is um yeah so there is so the spacing between the enclosure so there's doors on the the long side of each enclosure so the spacing between the enclosures allows for the doors to fully open um so yeah I think it's it's uh on the short side it's five feet and on the long side it's uh I believe it's 12 feet so um so that's on the the rows of containers so that's and I that's again we typically so any site we're we're going to start with that's the manufacturer uh recommendation for space or minimum requirement for spacing we start with for servicing and maintenance um in terms of interior access obviously so there'd be gain and for servicing um you know you'd be able to drive in here I'll zoom out sorry um you know service trucks etc would drive in here be able to walk through the system for access and then you know in an emergency response situation uh maybe you know emergency response vehicles would pull in an existing driveway could also pull into the the proposed access road um you know there wouldn't actually be a desire to put pull-in vehicles closer than that um you know in the event of a fire it is recommended for for sponsors to keep the distance from say if there's a specific enclosure uh that you know has a fire concern um then you would want to maintain a specific distance from that so um I believe typically it's recommended you know approximately 75 feet uh except you know um safety perimeter if you will for many affected in closure so um you know you'd want to uh to make you know really there's no need or I guess overall need for uh emergency response to get closer than that okay thanks Josh Aaron I just wanted to say I don't you know the drive access isn't really a con-con concern per se like in in terms of right layout and understand it but um well what we could though how are people feeling though with the current layout here with this infiltration system or you know the trenching going into the infiltration system I know we just I feel like I'm repeating myself again but are there what other options would there be for containment um that we would be feel comfortable about yeah working within this resource area um I'm not a battery containment here so um go ahead sorry I was just gonna say said another way commissioners I think we're kind of at the point where we need to give the applicant some concrete feedback um yeah go ahead Laura so one of the things that I would be interested in Josh you have an an engineering team what would they suggest to address our requests and rather than mocking something up in its entirety um I'm actually really curious so I think concrete paths are um like a really good move here you know I think that was like one of my biggest concerns um but is there something else that you guys have done elsewhere that we're not seeing here sure so um you know I certainly could circle back with wood to see what other designs are seeing obviously with regard to applications for energy storage um there hasn't been really I'd say many systems I've seen installed across the country examples of systems there really hasn't ever been secondary containment proposed on sites typically so um in terms of specific to energy storage applications are limited I certainly fall but what obviously there's other types of developments that have secondary containment um for various reasons whether it be like a gas station you know other types of developments that might have spill concerns so um yeah we we can we can take another look and see if there's anything else I don't want to throw anything off the top of the head because it would be probably just um you know me just trying to brainstorm live but um but certainly I think to what Aaron mentioned you know there oil oil uh oil water separators is another there's kind of like I mentioned kind of these like some some pump devices that can be used or have been used in the past depending on the site and what you actually are trying to contain so um I think boiling down it sounds like what the commission's looking for is just a very clear concrete no pun intended uh way for everything to be contained and there to be some device whether it be the filter and if it's a filter what are the specifications that filter uh to Aaron's point of load and and replacement but if there's another device that could be used um that uh just you know is very clear on its its function um that would say you know again I think that was the intent certainly of the filters and but we'll we'll circle back up with wood uh and can provide you know I guess call it final clarity on what we do think the the best solution here is um I do want to I think one clarity to be helpful is you know again this kind of lined trench and Aaron I know you asked on what what it is like if it's obviously uh or not obviously excuse me it's a an impervious uh membrane um that would be used to line the bottom so wouldn't be con we wouldn't propose concrete it would be a membrane um so if it's I guess what would be helpful is if the commission you know if we can you know give greater clarity on this solution with the trench or if you'd like to see concrete power with a lip and then figure out the same kind of like drainage you know treatment uh uh concern as well with with that solution effectively from a stormwater perspective they're really I guess you know you could just imagine instead of there being an impervious trench you just are expanding the concrete that slightly and I let it's more you know from a stormwater perspective it would be the same um so we're kind of you know coming to the same you know solution either way and a calder don't forget about the culvert sorry and yeah and the which yeah then and what maybe what could be helpful is we can circle the wood um and then um through the end of this week and and obviously early next and then Erin as your availability um allows just try to meet with you potentially early next week and just go over what we come up with some ideas and if you know and just talk with you and if and if you want to share the feedback or you know what we're able to relay um both on the culvert and the containment um I think that could be the the next steps Erin are you okay with that yeah definitely I just want to make sure josh is aware our our next meeting which is was scheduled for the day before Thanksgiving um is canceled but our our meeting next meeting would be December 14th I believe um so that gives plenty of time for us to meet and discuss and go over whatever your um adjustments are and I'm happy to accommodate meeting with you and having a look at it and I you know I think one thing I just want to express is I'm extremely grateful that you're taking our comments into consideration and trying to come up with creative ways to address this and so thank you for doing that and um I think this is our first battery storage system so we just want to make sure that we're doing it responsibly and that we're protecting the resources so we appreciate that you're adjusting the design to make us feel more comfortable with what what you're doing thanks for saying that Erin yeah um Alex you you have a question let's keep it just real quick for those who might have missed it we're talking about containment and other than water or discharge of water when you come back uh could you tell us what what contaminants we might be containing just a list I think is that provided already I don't know it's it's a lithium ion battery so that's a lithium ion battery correct and I don't I don't know I believe it was part sorry maybe Josh could answer that was that already provided I thought it um I think I believe we did but the brief answer is um in terms of normal operation so there's there's really two things there's well three things on this side I would say that we're concerned to be um uh transformer dielectric fluid which in this case we would propose to use a non-toxic soybean-based dielectric fluid so in actuality I would argue that these the pads appear don't really need containment because that's primarily what that containment is for is the transformer fluid um the batteries themselves are lithium ion uh based chemistry battery so they'll have they will basically what your what the concern is is in regard to any liquid electrolytes in the individual battery cells they could if the battery cells were ruptured spill and first into the container itself for the enclosure and then potentially you know the concern is to get outside of that and then um uh my brain was just blanking that's okay yeah I think I'm with you man um yeah we've got another hearing we've got yeah we yeah um Alex that a lot of that stuff is in the documents but we can also talk about that later so I think we're gonna um Josh was that you you just outlined yeah pretty well what we're looking for um thank you um I think we're gonna make them obviously we're gonna make a motion to move um to continue hearing our next meeting is not until December 14th but as you discuss maybe you can start touching base so they are sooner than later and you guys can start um spitball and um yeah yeah absolutely new ideas that might become in front of us that make us a little bit more comfortable in terms of filtration part on um water catchment systems sure I did also add a folder a battery storage folder to our one drive I saw that that was good you have some good stuff there's a ton of research papers and stuff in there on the battery storage so Alex if you're interested in reading more there's more in there on them yeah thanks Erin actually Alex that's where I read about it it's all in yeah yeah it's not in the about the um what the chemicals were it wasn't the absence I'm sorry yeah that was in all your research thank you for your bibliography there so can I get a motion to continue this meeting to um December 14th I'll make a motion uh to continue this hearing to December 14th 740 740 second second oh Andre got you sorry Michelle uh voice folk Cameron hi Alex hi Jen hi Michelle hi Andre hi Laura hi hi for Fletcher thank you commissioners appreciate it thanks Josh you'll be in contact with Erin sure thank you thanks okay containment all right so we're going to move on to the next hearing at 47 Olympia Drive it is open so I don't need to reopen and we will get uh Alex um we'll get moving with this so the applicant can be represented for the um 47 Olympia Drive Mark can you uh say hi to us again and now just say um who you are where you're working with and where we're at um hi my name is Mark Zanicki I work for SVE associates um and I guess I can give a quick overview again of the project um share my screen so um our client acaplago is proposing to raise an existing fraternity house located at 47 Olympia Drive and construct a multi-story apartment complex that will impact the buffer of a finger wetland that has development on three sides the proposed storm water system will collect a roof storm model and run it through a um double call tech or not call tech retain it um if it will retain it storm model system out the back um there will be a six-unit retain it system that is here that will infiltrate or provide infiltration and the larger retainer system will just be a detention system to retain water to control the storm water offload um then the storm water discharged to a small rain garden before discharging to the conservation land to the east um water storm water that falls on the axis alley will be collected in deep sump catch basins ran through an oil water separator before being um directed to another retain it retain an infiltration system that's located within the courtyard that retainer system discharges to the municipal system which is actually UMass Amos system um Kyle acaplago needs to get permission from UMass to be able to um use their system which is also part of the planning board process which I believe he's in discussion with them about um so one of that falls within the courtyard and on the sidewalks is collected in deep sump um nyloplast strains that will provide treatment pre-treatment before those get discharged into the um retain it infiltration system mark we're looking at your email I don't know if that's what your intention is um no it's not I don't know I was like yeah okay I'm sorry okay let's restart no no you don't have to restart all over again we're following you yeah just I guys just I don't know mark if it's okay for a second I think the two things kind of outstanding on this permit are a contribution to the mitigation fund which we were all comfortable with we just needed to come to some details on that after the last meeting and the second thing was permission from UMass for the connection to the storm the sewer system storm water system um so it sounds like mark addressed that Kyle's chasing that down he also needs it for the plant for the planning board um so I think really the outstanding thing we needed to discuss here was the how we come up with a contra the amount of the contribution and the amount of the contribution to the mitigation fund right this is a reminder seven percent um alteration to the bbw so actually the permanent go ahead mark permanent um alteration the remainder are you guys seeing the same screen do you guys see a landscaping player now yes the remaining disturbance gets mitigated by natural pollen oh by native pollinator plants and native trees within the riverfront um or not riverfront but the well and setback or buffer zone sorry it's late and um as you can see on the landscaping plan our native plants will be um planted and seeded along the eastern side of the proposed building and down the slope so um those impacts or the majority of the impacts um are just temporary and they'll be mitigated by reseeding and replanting of native plants so the only permanent would be this section of the building here um which is 28 percent of the wetland buffer zone on the property which is what was discussed last meeting right so i'm just going to jump in here i know it's late and everyone's tired um run it so we michelle and i met and and mark i don't know if you were on at the beginning of the meeting but we did talk about sort of like our strategy because this is a new process in terms of our alteration limitations in the buffer zone that we have currently under our bylaw regulations so we're trying to establish sort of a standard that we would hold hold all applicants to and that's what we are discussing on the on the front end um michelle would you be able to pull up the table um that was sort of formulated and see um i'm not sure mark was you're in and michelle while michelle's pulling that up mark um because the outstanding approval from you mass was your intention that we continue again tonight in order to allow additional time for that i think if i believe well is um and you see kyle on i don't um i wish he was on to speak to that um i believe it's part of the planning board requirement or it would be part of the planning board requirement um and if that's the case then that connection needs to be made for kyle to get a permit anyways um if you be viewed jason's letter jason believes that the storm water system will work it's just um whether or not kyle can get the permission to do it um yeah and i mean i think you guys have have addressed my issues with the storm water system pretty extensively and and everything now is is over 80 tss removal for the for the storm water system so um okay so are you suggesting that we would condition the permit to require um you mass uh approval prior to the project starting or something along those lines or would you rather that we wait to get the permission before we close the hearing so that if you need to make adjustments to the storm water plan you can do that with the hearing open um as i would prefer that it would be a condition um as that's um in my opinion outside of the jurisdiction because that's going to the municipal system um i don't eventually it goes to probably your jurisdiction but it's more along the lines of jason's area of concern um and if he believes that it works and it's just a situation where kyle needs to get the okay for me mass i think that's something that should be conditioned instead of um continuing the meeting till december 14th okay so just to make sure because if you can't get the permission from you mass you might need to redesign the project and if we close the hearing then that would eliminate that your ability to do that but you're comfortable with that taking that risk um if you masses know then this project is pretty much in my like i don't really foresee a way to okay okay do the projects without starting from scratch again i don't think kyle wants to do that okay fair enough so michelle can you pull up the table i think i need him to stop mark about this stop sharing you okay is this the table from yes budget yeah the itemized budget so michelle can you zoom in just a little bit sorry i don't have an updated version of this because we this was like last minute completed how does this look it's better so mark just to run through this with you um and can you can we get the header yeah there we go so michelle ran through a presentation at the beginning of this that sort of outlines all the assumptions and reasoning behind the information that we've included here but um basically if we're allowing mitigation off-site then what that means that we need a piece of property to do it on um so that's sort of the first piece and then um plan development which you know might include delineation wetland delineation elsewhere um also like a design component then there's the materials themselves the seed mix the plantings that would be planted fees associated with the plants staff time fuel costs any herbicide treatments that are required um compost soil issues signage equipment rentals watering um and monitoring of the project and so we this is very um you know we're doing our best to come up with something here and this is what we came up with to try to take all of those factors into consideration and so um for this project it came out to thirteen thousand one hundred and seven dollars and twenty nine cents that was that's what we came up with um can I add something Erin that um this is based on a seven percent permanent alteration so the twenty percent is loud through our bylaws so we calculated it for a seven percent and that's the area square foot is used in this calculation are you sure about that Michelle about which part are you sure that this is only seven percent calculated based on seven percent of the site so that was the land acquisition cost and then the seven percent of the site is five hundred and eighteen square feet I mean that was the basic numbers that okay but but the planting numbers does that reflect that same square footage five hundred feet that's what I was asking for feedback today so this planting I think this is a similar number of trees used by Canton okay um but yeah I mean if somebody would like to you know contribute numbers this is another benefit of this kind of approach is that it's very transparent and can be discussed yeah what don't you like Erin well 500 square feet I just I thought it was based upon 27 or the full 28 percent um and so I guess that was the one assumption that I was unclear on and so that and then for the number of plantings like for me in a 500 square foot area uh that number of plantings would be a little high so I that's why I assumed it was based on the 28 percent total but I'm comfortable with this and I'm comfortable with the number and I'm comfortable based on the different criteria that we've included here and I I think it seems fair to me and and well documented sort of how we arrived at this um and I guess it makes me even more comfortable that there's sort of enough plantings here to accommodate potentially even more area than um but I can live update it so if you want me to change the numbers it will automatically change the totals no I I think it's fine I think that's okay okay well sorry Alex you have something you would need to yeah in line two um I question seven percent the amount of the buffer that will be permanently altered is 28 percent and so finding mitigation for 28 percent is founded in our regs it does say that the commission can allow alteration up to 20 percent but it doesn't say without mitigation and um I think it's squares with our regs to require mitigation for 28 percent or 27 percent whatever the number is and not give away 20 percent without mitigation Erin I mean I I do agree with Alex um I guess it really comes down to the commission's discretion and and I think about like for example a single family homeowner you know and and I know like recently we had a single family project where they were the regs allow for 20 percent right right so the regs say the commission may it doesn't say will allow it says may and we're working on this one live um yeah I went I went back and and read them and I talked to Erin about it we had we had a fair discussion and we have this scenario here with seven percent I just think she needs to change it to 28 percent or 27 percent or whatever the number is I just did so there's a new I just changed the square footage so um where here's the hundred percent oh am I not is it frozen it didn't it didn't change yep it's formulas which hell they didn't update so I was pausing sorry so I just want to show you this is the um land calculation so here's 27 percent 2000 square feet estimated here we go from 13 to almost 19 grand yep thanks michelle well just to be clear that doesn't mean we all agree on that yeah I mean it sounds like the commission needs to so here's where um I think uh mark thanks for I think the the applicant has definitely um put some um has tried a lot to get the drainage that going into the conservation area has been how am I trying to say this there's been a lot of work on the application to um help us feel comfortable more comfortable about this project regs a laugh for 20 alex you're arguing that this there's a may in there um it says may allow the alteration of up to 20 of the area it does not say must allow alteration of 20 and that no mitigation is required for altering 20 percent it's just not there and I think the commission needs to follow its own ranks so may allow the may allow 20 percent there's a huge discretion discretionary issue there it may and it may not it may or may not it may not and it does not say without mitigation but it doesn't say with yeah correct so we could do so I want to ask um so so we're trying to are we trying to close the hearing tonight or we're just trying to agree on this first if you if you agree on this and you're comfortable with conditioning the um you mass permission we could close tonight if as long as the applicant is comfortable you know with if we can come to an agreement on the number for the in lieu contributions contribution so mark are you sure uh go ahead andre um I think we still have a little bit of work to do on um on agreeing on the kind of the standard uh on what are we going to do uh for it to for uh this to be this kind of a uh mitigation to be a standard or for which by the way this is a really good uh really good table and great way to calculate this um if it doesn't make a lot of sense to me to try and figure this out on the run while we're still while we're uh trying to uh reach a conclusion on uh Olympia Drive or uh you know approve or dis or disapprove um Alex is to me this is again through from my opinion Alex uh it makes a lot of sense what you're saying that um you know uh the we're looking at a 27 28 percent but we're only uh um we're only thinking of uh of compensating for uh for the overage if you would I think we should take this on this discussion on at a different time and try to agree on a way to uh to decide yay or nay on uh on uh 47 Olympia Drive and to me the uh the the the total here of 13,000 based on uh seven percent I think is is fair for uh uh for now as we are uh continuing to uh figure out a more of a standard that we may propose then um something you know if if people disagree there we can that's why we're here yes and no that's fine um Erin can do something so maybe to try to move this along and if Mark's okay with us trying to close this I'm kind of interested in trying to close this um possibly if we have enough agreement tonight we close the hearing with obviously the conditions and then we close with this mitigation in lieu of mitigation discussion but this this doesn't seal a standard right this doesn't seal like okay this is what exactly what we do in moving forward but at least now we have this document here that shows okay we're going to say right now with this one only applicant right now we're going to say this is a seven percent mitigation uh percentage against the mitigation that we're going to ask the applicant this one time is that how do people feel about that idea um yeah I like that idea I feel good yep yeah I also like that idea yep um I will vote against the precedent yeah say it again I'll vote against the precedent even if we say president that's fine that's fine but so one point I want to make and I'm go ahead Fletcher I just want to make sure I say it before is Andre and Fletcher have both missed two of these hearings so Andre and Fletcher can't vote on this even though I watched yeah you can only watch one you can only miss one hearing I watched both of them I'm not sure I I did all of the math and I know both Alex and Cameron we need their vote to vote on it okay um first I thought I was there at the first one of the meetings that um first uh put out but I did miss the last two meetings yeah so if you miss more than one hearing for one given project you can't vote on it unfortunately it's a mullen rule state law because they were here 12 I think Laura only missed one and the other Alex and Cameron weren't appointed for the first meeting but both of them did view the September 14th proceeding and told me in writing that they viewed it so they can both vote on it this was something that I had investigated offline and I'm sorry to just be bringing it up now but I did confer with the town clerk on it because we had two members who hadn't been appointed at the first hearing and we wouldn't have had a quorum without them but that doesn't mean that you guys can't express an opinion and it doesn't mean that you can't share what you think is reasonable it just means that your vote yeah can't go yeah so I'll get it and I think I think the proposal here is fair I mean I don't think we're establishing at least in my mind a precedent I think this group still needs time to digest the detail that Michelle and Erin put together but I think it's also unfair to penalize as applicant with a more sort of severe interpretation of uh of the guidelines so um so it's just gonna make a motion then to make a motion yeah but yeah let me make sure but wait so just to clarify so mark understand so what we're doing is closing closing the public hearing and then so Erin don't we have we need to issue an order of conditions in 21 days so does that mean we need to have a special meeting to issue an order of conditions because so um so yeah so all great points so I guess the the first concern would be I would want to have mark sort of weigh in on whether he thinks what we've come up with is fair because I wouldn't want us to issue something if he's feeling that it's unfair or that you know we haven't done an adequate process on it just because then it could be appealed and you know we we want to just try to work with the applicant to you know come up with something we can be agreeable with um but the other issue is if we do close the public hearing tonight we will be over 21 days and so we would need mark to grant us permission to exceed the 21 day threshold so that we could issue it on the 14th of December um I'm not I would like to see have my client um look at the total that is being proposed for the mitigation fee um I don't remember what he said that he was fine spending up to for the fee so I mean and he's not on tonight which I wish he was um so if the commission wants to um continue it again I guess it seems like um either way he's gonna have to wait um to get a order of conditions anyways make sense yeah that's reasonable okay um I think we've done our due diligence for the most part on this um can I just add something um so mark said it was eight percent so I just changed the date percent it's it's not a huge difference but um I was just going on numbers thank you said if you want to give like a an actual square footage that would be best but I was just going with numbers on the plans let me show my screen again hopefully this works so if we're continuing anyways I think we've got other couple other business items we have to cover tonight and it's getting really late so I think we should nail down the square footages we can refine the table um get that number and then confer with mark offline make sure that the applicant's comfortable with it and then discuss it on the 14th would be my recommendation but the board proceed what as you see a great idea I appreciate that so um stand by mark we're gonna make a motion uh continue this and then just exactly what just Aaron just said was that is that alright with you uh yeah okay I think we should just say for the record mark that we appreciate your um patience with this process the town is trying to figure out how to do this in a fair way for situations just like this one um and it's come up we kind of got several applications at the same time with this and they've all been different for different reasons so thank you for bearing with us we're trying to be like transparent and fair about it um so we appreciate your willingness to work with us oh you're welcome um yeah I just wish Kyle was on so he could give his opinion about the fee and we could get this moved along but as he's not on and I can't get in touch with him um I guess it's gonna have to be continued and we can uh on that subject I make a motion to uh continue the public hearing on 47 Olympia drive to uh December 14th at 745 p.m second Michelle the second thanks everyone uh Alex hi Jen hi Laura hi Michelle hey Andre hi and I for Fletcher I for me I'm sorry Cameron no I was like I was gonna remember it because I wasn't looking and I forgot sorry it's harder than it seems because everyone's boxes move around got it all right mark um we're gonna be in contact with you really Erin will be um and um I do hope you did hear what Jen said and we do appreciate it we're not trying to use you as a punching bag um you're just trying to do this the right way and let's you know if this is the process so I appreciate your patience thank you all right have a good night you too ma'am you too bye and also his that landscaping map he had that's actually in the Sunderland folder by Erin it's in the what folder Sunderland folder oh sorry about that I got really confused hey guys I'm gonna I'm gonna check out and go takes a lot more Tylenol yeah that's a good idea maybe thank you some bourbon or something thanks Jen thank you for showing up great bye all right what do we got Erin um okay so um there's a couple things so there's an emergency certification which has not been issued yet I'm gonna suggest we table that discussion um that will be on for the next meeting December 14th um the other thing is that the the white paper discussion is taking place tomorrow morning at 8 a.m and I wish that I had mentioned that before Jen jumped off but it's tomorrow morning at 8 a.m um the white paper discussion with the water supply protection committee um and talking about incorporating staff comments and things so just to cap that on your radar screen if you wish to attend um the other issue with the subcommittee where the water supply protection committee that drafted the white paper that I sent around to you guys there look for the link where um if you go to the town of Amherst water supply protection committee web um web page did you put it in the packet didn't you um I don't have a link to their meeting in there but um the the white paper was in the meeting yeah I was in the um packet so if anybody wishes to attend to see what's going on um I know Dave had suggested that um somebody attends to sort of explain the commission standpoint and I know the hope was that Jen would but I don't know that she's going to be able to um I'm actually not going to be able to attend either unfortunately but I already gave my comments on the paper um but anyway I just want to make sure that's on the commission's radar screen and then the other thing is Simon Hilt is here from Eversource this was like a um very last-minute request for a minor modification to to the Montague Fairmont order of conditions from Eversource it's the last business item on this agenda um I told Simon I didn't think we were going to be able to do it tonight and it's really late and Simon is hung on to the call if we do do this I would say we five minutes on this discussion because we really um you know if the commission is feeling it should be yeah it should be really straightforward I'm just gonna promote him to a panelist and then um the the information that is in the packets under the change um but Simon if you could just do your best to keep it um very succinct for us because we've had a really long meeting and I am um I think we're all we've all sort of reached capacity here probably including Simon including Simon yeah thanks very much you guys are all hard workers really part of the midnight oil here so um just really quickly thank you so much for squeaking this in here um I'll share my screen let's see I want to share screen too you know if you can see that yes okay um so this is one of the work pads on the uh the substation tap line so we're just a couple of structures east of route 63 um this this work pad for structure 14148 was originally permitted typically as we do 125 foot box here um so basically what was permitted back when we came before you originally was um we've got this portion of the of the work pad that's within the outer outer 100 feet of the 200 foot riverfront area and uh in that permit we had proposed to restore this portion of the work pad yet we had planned to keep the access road that basically leads down to Eastman Brook and gets us across here um so ultimately what we're what we're looking to do as a field change here we typically you know the work pads never end up being square so this is this is what ended up getting built is this entire polygon that you're seeing here um overall uh the project has had about 5500 square feet less impact so we've been riverfront area than was permitted again that's overall not just for this pad um so what we're looking to do here if possible is rather than restoring everything within riverfront area we would restore what is kind of shaded out here top and bottom and then this green part would be loamed and seated so what would be left with would be essentially a very small like bucket truck pad both beside the structure for future maintenance activities and a continuous access road that leads us to you know from what's existing here this white dash line to what we've built and is permitted to remain here so basically we don't lose access to the remaining structures out by the sewer field um so with with this proposed change we would still be uh you know grand total of about 2,200 square feet under what was permitted for riverfront area impacts in town that's it in a nutshell erin you've been out here was this is all you guys are pulling the mats out there right now right i haven't been out to this specific site no yeah so we we have matz stock piled from the other places this section that we have stock piled now and that's what they're in the process of right now is it's removing mats and that's was part of the original proposal is like so this wasn't part of the original proposal to keep the permanent gravel area for the let me say bucket truckers on it for whatever reason i wasn't part of the original NOI that was filed but you can see our note here in general we try to restore when we have work within riverfront area but because we've got several structures beyond this point here i think there's uh seven or so structures six or seven structures beyond eastman brook before we get up to the tap line the railroad up there so the the road was was proposed to remain but this this note here to remove uh gravel and restore basically you know we said that we were going to restore everything within the riverfront area so again we're just looking to basically keep a small area next area of gravel next to the structure and then keep a contiguous path through here this figure here is a little bit funny looking but um the black is outside of riverfront area so it's that red gravel it's inside and again what we're shading here would be fully restored shading here would be fully restored and we'd load them and see this area as well essentially that would be restored too but to insert this kind of really be just what's unshaded as far as this red hatching that would remain and it's roughly 2350 square feet to me it kind of makes sense because you're gonna you already keep in the road so you're gonna have a half road that goes through there anyway so other commissioners have issue with this speak up i mean i just i guess i would just want to make sure um simon you in the permit we and i haven't gone through the permit so all fairness um we allowed a certain number of alteration for riverfront area and what you're saying is that if you include this you're not going to be exceeding that number correct so so so as you can see just i'm going to flip between the two the two um images again so what we what we permit is a square right so what we build out in the field is typically never a square it's how much we need to get the work done so this this structure here was several thousand feet uh less than was permitted and again overall for the entire project because we had a few of these instances where a pad was built smaller than permitted we have a net negative 5500 square feet of riverfront impact so even if we even if you allow this will be 2200 square feet below what was permitted for town so i just and i just want to clarify that because those pads are temporary and this is a permanent fixture this gravel so i just want to make sure that the permanent impact the permanent alteration is going to be balanced out somewhere else on the site the permanent impact for the project where 5500 below so we this one right here um yeah it's not it's not the example as far as where we have we do have other areas where we have permitted permanent gravel that we did not basically use all of so that's that that's the justification here um again we we're just kind of at the point where we're winding down the project and we're looking to have the contractor wrap up the final pieces here um i apologize that this kind of slipped through the cracks here i didn't realize that there was such a push to get the contractor out of there at this point um so i mean we we could certainly restore this this whole site we will have the road leading down to the river there um and you know if if there is future need to to come back through here we could repermit construction of a road or we can you know say that it's kind of all coming out in the wash here and there's no wetland impact with this gravel it's just riverfront correct yes the outer outer 100 feet as well okay i mean i would be comfortable with it based on the statistics that simon is outlining to me that they're under their permanent impact numbers and that this will you know hopefully prevent future need for a permanent alteration here um or even temporary alteration here since they have the pad in place um but it's really up to the board at this late hour if you're comfortable approving this change to the order of conditions or not um i don't know with it sorry feel free to make a motion we'll see where it goes so it would be framed as a minor administrative change to the order of conditions to allow this if they're under their alteration thresholds for the permit yeah um i'm trying to figure out how to word it um i make a motion to accept the uh minor alteration on um the ever source permit for the monagu pheromone order of conditions on the uh uh ever source permit for the monagu pheromone um work i second that motion okay we got we got a second all right let's start with it get some eyes out of here cameron hi hi lora um alex hi michelle hi andre hi and i for me excellent thank you all so much for speaking in a sense that i'd really appreciate it i i know the question we're the commission looking to do um any site visits before we before we close things out i know we've had kind of ongoing water concerns over on spalding street i actually was out there uh erin i think i mentioned to you last week uh i i ran into any gates while i was out there and she seemed to be okay with everything and i just mentioned that we you know we're obligated to keep an eye on things and if there's any issues that come up we'll we'll have perfect vaccines in place yeah that sounds good so i mean let's check in offline i wouldn't mind having a site visit or two out just to see a couple examples but we don't have to figure it out tonight great all right thank you very much good night man erin if there's a site visit please let me know just so i can continue to get to know the town of course thanks okay team i think we're ready for i'm gonna make a motion to adjourn again who is that hi hi hi hi hi hi hi lora hi michelle hi wetter is an i oh i guess okay thanks for your patience did you guys already stop recording nope that's all you okay sorry do you want me to do that