 Yeah. Yeah. Does that mean that we can't even have a presentation? That is true. We shouldn't have presentations if there's not a quorum of the, of the commission. Yeah. Unless Laura can show up, if Laura can make it, then we might still be able to. Right. Her plane. She emailed me. She said. Yeah. Jen, my flight lands at seven 30 and I will join then, but I'll be participating from the car. So. A bit of a stretch. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe Dave has a long report. We can use chat. Yeah. So let me just get this started. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then we'll announce what's going on. So welcome to the October 12th meeting of the Amherst, Massachusetts conservation commission. I just want to announce at the top here. I see we have four people in attendance. It seems like we are not going to have a quorum for this. Meeting, which means we don't have a majority of the commissioners and we can't hear anything on any of our hearings. So all of the hearings scheduled for tonight will be continued on. October. 12 plus 1426. So two weeks from tonight. So I'm sorry about this. This was unanticipated. Usually we have a good idea of what's going on, but. We're, we're struggling here. COVID has hit the commission. So. Yeah. And we're sorry about this, but please tune in again on October 26. Okay. So we're going to go ahead and look for the agenda posted online before the meeting for the timing of the hearings. We're going to go about some business hearing an update from Dave and Aaron. And probably at waiting to see if we get another commissioner joint to join, in which case. We could technically hear updates on a couple of our hearings. But we're going to have one of us will be staying on to announce the continuations at the times of the scheduled times of the hearings. But just to let attendees know what's going on. Very unlikely at this point that we'll have any content in any of the hearings tonight. We're likely to continue all of them. So with that. That is my update. Thank you. Sure. I wish I had more. More content tonight. But a couple of quick updates for the commission. And again, if, if there's airtime to fill, we can. Please feel free to ask me questions around the edges. So, you know, just to remind the commission and anyone in the audience that we are rededicating the Emily Dickinson trail. This is a collaborative project with the Fort River. A watershed association as well as the Connecticut river conservancy, the U S fish and wildlife service. There has been two. New kiosk. Installed at either end of the Emily Dickinson trail. There will be eight to 10 new. QR code. Posts if you will stations along the trail that have been permitted by the commission and those, each one of those stations, those, those places for folks to stop and ponder the Fort river. We'll include additional information. If you follow the QR code on everything from wildlife, fisheries. Geology and, and many others. So that's 10 a.m. On Saturday. Down on the lower left. So that's 10 a.m. On Saturday. Down on the lower level of graph park. Right at the trail head at the Emily Dickinson trail. So that should be exciting. I know that Mindy Dom are state rep. The chair of the select, excuse me, the president of the, I almost said chair of the select board, the president of the council will be there as well as. Our town manager. I am going to be out of town. So I will not be there. But anyone else is welcome to attend. Let's see. A project that the commission. Permitted some time ago. We'll be getting underway later in October. This is the culvert, the crushed culvert replacement at the. The plum. Plum Brook pond near the Kestrel office. We have bid that project out and we have a successful bidder from. The Kestrel trust. The Kestrel trust. We will be doing that project. This is a, there's two crushed culverts on one of the. Inflow streams to the pond. And so we're really excited to get this work done. They'll be, of course, working with Aaron on a pre-construction meeting. Working with the Kestrel trust and, and us to make sure that, you know, there'll be a short disruption in the use of that water. So we'll be able to make the loop. But it's a wonderful project. And those culverts have probably been in there since the 1960s. And water damage and, and filled with sediment. And probably beaver damage as well. So. And rust and everything else. So it's great to get those out of there. The, the final treatment over that small stream will actually be a bridge now. So the two crush culverts will be removed. And we'll be able to do that. And we'll be able to do that. And that's another way to kind of enhance the plumber upon. I'd say, sorry, I see that Mark just joined the meeting. And he is the 47. I think he's the applicants representative for 47 Olympia drive. Mark. I don't think we're going to have a quorum tonight. So it's likely we're going to have to continue until our next meeting on October 26th. I'm not sure we're going to have a quorum tonight. There will be a presentation on the project. But this will be a continuation. No matter what at this point. So Mark, I just wanted to let you know about that. Thanks. Sorry, Dave. Sorry for the. The only other quick update. I know that the land use policy rules and regulations is working its way through the commission. I have not connected this week and likely won't. But early next week we will and we'll get that moving out. Through the commission again. I think it's in a pretty, you know, pretty good shape. Lots of good, good comments from the individual commission members. I will say that. Two things that came up this week that I think are relevant are the issues of kind of reoccurring, reoccurring events or events where say we have a relationship with, you know, as an example with Kestrel Trust, you know, for them to do educational programs around Plum Brook Pond. It seems rather inefficient and probably foolish to have them come through and say, you know, we want to do sawed owl banding every year and have them, you know, come through the commission, take your valuable time. We could be spending on kind of other, other priorities. Likewise, the Fort River Farm, you know, community gardens. If they want to have an event down there. So there, you know, as we talk more about land use, I think there are a couple of options. One is to go, as Michelle may have recommended toward MOUs with these, these organizations that have long-term relationships with the town through the commission and the staff. The other option is that there are, I think, certain cases where kind of an administrative approval might be fine. You know, if they're just, you know, no impacts, you know, somebody wants to come out and do a one-time plant survey. And, and they, they need to, you know, they need to get on the land quickly because the plant is going to flower or whatever. I'm kind of making this up as I go along, but you get my, my drift here. So I think we can talk about that in the, in the context of land use policy. So I think we'll, we'll keep that moving through. There was another, yeah, there was another thing that came up this week, which was interesting on land use, since we have a couple of minutes, a gentleman came into my office and asked about, asked about trapping, which is interesting. Did somebody else join us or? Yeah. Alex had a question. I just don't know if it was on the past comment, past topic or not. I think you're muted, Alex. You're still muted. We can't hear you. I'll pause while David talks about this subject. Okay. Sorry. Thanks. So the other one that came in this week was interesting. A gentleman asking about trapping on public land in Amherst. Town land. And you may recall about 15 years ago, leg hold traps were outlawed. But box traps are still legal, which I didn't realize. So for some mammals. You can box trap. So I think it's one I, you know, sent out to Aaron and we can add it to the list. We allow fishing. We allow hunting. Currently we allow fishing. We allow hunting. Do we allow. Should we allow as a, as a town, a community, the trapping of certain mammals for their fur, essentially, it's not to catch and release. This is for, you know, the, the harvesting of, of pelts. So it's, it's just interesting. I'm more. Target Dave. Is it beaver? It could be beaver. It could be raccoon. Could be mink, I suppose. Yeah. There's a certain, there's, there, there are certain mammals that are allowed under state law to be trapped in these, you know, live trapped. And then the, the animal is euthanized. And then the pellet is harvest. The Pelt is harvested. So. Interesting. I had just. Never had that question come to us. So anyway. So it is legal in Massachusetts. So presumably right now it is legal to do this on town land. But the commission needs to decide whether that's something you want to do in the long term have and have available. So. It would be interesting if that subject was a referendum on a ballot. During an election, how the town of Amherst would vote. Yeah. Yeah. So it's just all of this brings up a lot of safety concerns too. Yeah. These are, you know, these traps are safety for, for people or. I mean, yeah, I mean, I was essentially, they're essentially have a heart traps. Oh, okay. Yeah. Yeah. I don't have to check that Alex. I don't. I think Massachusetts outlawed most of those about 15 years ago. Well, that's how we were our product. Um, uh, maybe by a licensed trapper, but I don't. I don't think you can trap without a license. Yeah, I don't think. But with a hunting license, you can trap them. You need a trapping license issued by the statement. Right. With a trapping license for beaver. You can trap them. Yeah, we should. Yeah, we should clarify all of this because it does bring up these. These questions for sure. I'd be happy to do some home or gonna. Yeah, that'd be great. That'd be great. Oh, Dave. The last time you talked about the land use plan. You gave us an idea of what you were after. And as I recall. You said that you wanted the policy to document status quo. And my comment to Aaron about that is I've been here on the commission long enough to know what status quo is. So I wasn't quite sure what I could offer. Other than changing which to that, which I would tend not to do. So, and then you said we'd like to then dig deeper to see where the policy might want to go. And I'd be interested in, in that, but I, I don't know enough about status quo to provide worthwhile comments. Well, no, I think, I think that's accurate, Alex. I think what we talked about was, was kind of codifying what we currently have. And, you know, in the short term, IE, like, let's, let's get this all done, you know, this year. And we'll, we'll know what, what the current rules, regulations, policies are on Amherst conservation governing Amherst conservation land. And then take a look and say, okay, how do we want to approach this long term? I'll give you a great example. And the reason for that, some of that is efficiency and some of the fact is that if we're going to take a long term look at things, it's going to take some time. So looking at what is the commission's policy on rental of agricultural conservation land that could be used for agriculture. That's a pretty in depth conversation. We should have it. The commission had it about 10 years ago and developed a policy on that and that policy is part of the document that Aaron has, has pulled together, compiled for the commission to review the dog policy, for instance, has been looked at many times through the years and has garnered some, some controversy through the years when that was proposed to be changed. So I think what I wanted to do is bring it all together. We agree this is, these are the current rules, regulations, policies governing Amherst conservation land and then say, okay, let's organize those into categories and then say, which ones would we like to take a deeper dive on? I think we can all probably agree that open fires, that alcohol, that glass containers at Puffer's pond, there's some kind of low hanging fruit here that I think is fairly easy to tick through what are, you know, but as you go a little deeper, you know, even in Puffer's pond, what are, you know, are we, what about, you know, you know, the, I know historically there has been a regulation about playing loud music at Puffer's pond, where dogs are allowed at Puffer's pond or not upstream. So there's a number of areas we can dig a little deeper in and I think that'll take some time. So I think let's get them all together. Let's agree these are the historically what past commissions have approved and then we'll look at those and say, all right, let's take some time in 23 to really dig into those areas that the commission would like to focus on. And then other ones, I think we can just kind of tick off and say, yes, yes, yes, yes, but let's take a deeper dive on, you know, for instance, agricultural rentals. Perhaps you'll want to take a look at dog policy. I don't know. Just to touch on this quickly, the land use policy as it currently is drafted is in the one drive. And I was actually hoping, Cameron, if you want to have a look at it this week, like say between, if you could finish up looking at it by next Wednesday, and again, there's no pressure to modify anything if you just want to read through it and kind of get a sense of things, but if anything jumps out at you where you say, oh, you know, we should change this or whatever, feel free to put a comment in there. And then once you finish up next Wednesday, if you have any changes, let me know. If you don't have any changes, let me know. And then Alex can have a week to have a look at it before our next meeting. I did look at it before this meeting, but not in depth for edits. Okay. And Herman, don't hesitate just because like this, Alex, this goes for you too. I mean, so Dave is saying like, let's get this in writing and get it done. And then we'll come back and revisit some of the issues that either haven't been revisited a while or 10, you know, 10 to come up often. But again, you guys have fresh perspectives, which we could really benefit from. I mean, we've all been, you know, or a lot, or I guess I've been here for a while. Dave's been here for a while. So if you have fresh perspective, it's more than welcome. So do not be shy. Certainly. And Alex, I can tell you're not shy. It should be fun. I mean, you know, there's some, some interesting and complex issues, you know, camping. You know, years ago, the commission allowed camping on the Mount Hoyoke range with a permit weddings on Mount Pollock's were allowed with, with, with a permit, if you will, and rather large weddings. So there's, there's all these areas kind of dig a little deeper on and fees to recharge fees for certain activities on conservation land, things of that sort. So I think it should be, I think it should be fun. And really kind of challenging to intellectually to kind of go through these things and figure out what, and we can also talk to other communities and see what's worked in other communities and what hasn't worked. So yeah. We're so unique in the amount of conservation land we have, it'll be interesting to try to find an analog. Well, there may be, there may be things that we do that are similar. For instance, there are a number of communities in Eastern Mass that actually lease out a lot of their land. I'm thinking Lincoln, Sudbury, or an area that runs on the Nadec Newton, Needham in that area. Oh really? Okay. There's a lot of farms that that really operate a 501 C3 on conservation land and that land is basically leased to them longterm and has been for years. So, you know, what are some of the models out there that, that we think might, might work here in Amherst. Great. I just want to make an announcement really quick. If you're here. In attendance for the meeting and planning to listen in on some of the hearings. I can say with a great degree of confidence at this point that we are not going to have a quorum of the commissioners for this hearing, for this meeting. So all of our hearings that are on the agenda will be continued to our next meeting on October 26th. So I would encourage you to come back. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for the hearings on the 20. 26 and keep an eye on the agenda posted online before the meeting to see what time specifically those will, those hearings will be. But if you're here in attendance as a member of the public or an applicant's representative for any of the hearings happening tonight. Very unlikely. We'll have any content covered in any of those hearings. They will all be continued. So just FYI. That's fine. Those were the only quick updates. I'm happy to take any, any questions. We're continuing to do early successional management with, with brush hogging and actually field staff is taking a little much needed vacation right now. So for the next week or 10 days, it's a little bit slow, but Brad and Tyler, the other thing I would just announce is that we're, we're planning to have both Brad and Tyler come in and do a presentation. And then my goal would be to have it maybe be at the second. Meeting in January. First or second meeting in January to kind of do kind of a 2022 summary of what projects they worked on. Where some of the successes were, where some of the challenges. And we want to get them coming before you on a more regular basis. My goal would be to have them do a quarterly. And then I'm going to be able to do that. I'm going to be able to update for you in a PowerPoint form. Talk about trail work. Talk about other things they're working on and, and really get them a little experience. Presenting to you and get commission members to get to know Brad and Tyler. I look forward to these. Meetings in the quieter, supposedly quieter months when things are frozen. Although I feel like we didn't have quiet months last year. So maybe this year. I don't know if you have any questions or comments. I was just going to say. There was two items on the agenda specifically. And I don't know if Dave wants to touch on them. One was the CPA funding request. And the other was. Dave and I had talked offline. About. I know Michelle had. Started a sort of. Some questions pertaining to. Field mowing a couple of weeks ago. And, and it prompted a discussion with Dave and I about. Sort of our process for field mowing and that. We may in the future want to. Establish in the not so distant future established like a committee to. Look at our policy for land management. Similar to what we did for. I'll let you talk, Dave. So very, very briefly, no, this is spot on. Yeah. And it goes to Alex's earlier question. So I think the idea would be that it would be much more efficient. If a subcommittee of the commission. Took this on in 2023, we codify everything. We get everything in one document. Here's what we currently do. Here's what past. What past practices have been for the department and the commission. We've had a lot of, you know, across the board from agricultural licenses, leases, Puffers pond trails, hunting, fishing, trapping, et cetera. Get that all in one place. And then see what we have at that point. And then a subcommittee. Like the, you know, the, the wetlands regulation and bylaw subcommittee. The, the full commission along through reports, you know, by meeting or by month in 23. And again, Michelle, Michelle, I think. Was, was, was stimulated by this idea in talking about, you know, what are, what are our current practices with regard to early successional habitat management for grassland birds, pollinators, and, and the like. And also putting a, putting a lens on with regard to, you know, global climate change and, you know, all of these activities that we undertake have a carbon footprint. So whether we're buying, you know, extensively buying lumber for, for trails and trail work or, or, or mowing, you know, 200, 300 acres of early successional material, that. What are some of the implications of that long term. So, and do we want to keep doing that? Are there some early successional fields that maybe we, we let go and, and, and enjoy succession for the next, you know, 20, 30 years until they're, you know, going to be what they want to be depending on their location and soils and whatnot. So. So yeah, I think a subcommittee makes a lot of sense in terms most efficient mode of operating. It just went so well for the bylaws kind of keeps things moving. Yeah, in terms of CPA funding, I did put in a request for $100,000 to the CPA committee. That's actually the largest ask I've ever had for a non non acquisition project. I put that in, you know, with some cautious optimism, there's certainly $100,000 worth of trails bridges and other work we need to do out there. We're finding that the cost of materials is like anyone, whether you're building a house or a garage or doing anything is skyrocketing. So to build a simple footbridge or a more complex bridge, you know, might be $8,000 now or $10,000. So $100,000 really doesn't go that far when you're maintaining 80 miles of trails. So the CPA committee will kick off their work. I believe their first meeting with presentations I believe is on November 10. And of course, I think Michelle is the your representative to that committee. Yep. While we're chatting, I do know that there are a couple of APR agricultural preservation restriction applications into the state. These are owners of land off of Southeast Street, South very much south toward Bay Road. A couple of farmers have at least applied for APR funding. I'm going to find out more. I have some some cursory information about the applications, but we're meeting with one or both of those farmers in the next week or 10 days. So I'll have more for you at your next meeting. And there are certainly some farms as you look at our conservation map, there are some farms in South Amherst that are that are not in the APR program and certainly do have some prime soils and are part of blocks of already protected conservation land or agricultural land. So we'll have more on that at your next meeting. Okay, it's 730. So I think I can make the announcement about the first continuing the first hearing. So I'm just going to go ahead and say 730pm. The notice of intent SWCA for 52 Fearing Street LLC for the relocation construction of single family house with associated site work in preparation and the 100 foot foot buffer zone to BVW at 46 Fearing Street will be continued to October 26 at 730pm. And again, if you're here as a member of the of the public, looking forward to hearing any Oh, we have a Laura. That's interesting. Laura, are you there? I'm here. Yes. Okay. Is this sustainable for you to participate? Because we, you make a quorum for us. So it's pivotal whether or not I, I can fully participate, I reviewed the materials, but I will be driving. So that is your decision. I wrote you that email. Yeah, yes, I did know that you would be taking this as a call. At that time, I did not know you would be the pivotal member for a quorum. And I note in the attendees, we've lost a few people. Yeah, because we thought there was a very good chance that we wouldn't have a quorum. Laura, we weren't banking on your flight being on time. How should we what's the best bet here, Dave? I also noticed that when I said that there was a chance we would not have a quorum. The representative for 47 Olympia Drive just dropped off immediately. I would defer to Aaron, but I'm inclined to continue because we have lost, you know, we had six or seven attendees. I don't know all of their associated, you know, but Aaron, do you have any advice for us? Yeah, I mean, the only thing that was really super critical for tonight was the there was a diesel spill at the Podic substation and there was an emergency certification issued, and I was hoping that that would be ratified tonight. I know Melissa Cody left the call. She emailed me. I just messaged her and asked if she could rejoin, but, you know, we will see if she gets a message or not. If not, then we can just carry on with continuances and who Melissa Cody is involved in the emergency cert. Yeah, she's the contact from Ty and Bond who who facilitated getting the emergency certification for the cleanup out there. Okay, that was done this week. So would you not feel comfortable ratifying? I mean, ratifying it without her input? I mean, I reviewed the emergency shirt. Yeah, I mean, you guys can. She was just going to give a little presentation. She left right as Laura was joining. So but yeah, we can, we can certainly talk about it. And you guys can vote on it. That would be completely fine. That would actually be a good thing for us to tick off the list for the next meeting so that we're not, you know, too overwhelmed at the next meeting with other business. Yeah. Okay. Um, okay, let's give us 30 more seconds. We'll continue the RDA for New England Central Railroad. That's at 735. And then we'll discuss the emergency cert. Yeah. And relative to the New England Central Railroad, as long as I mean, it's not, I'll just kind of give a little update while we're waiting for the hearing to hearing time to approach. And actually, I can give you a little bit of information on 46 bearing that they may be coming back to join us. I'm not, I'm not entirely sure. I know they're doing some site due diligence right now. But I'll keep you posted if if any, if any information comes in that indicates that that hearing is going to move forward. I'll let you guys know right away. The railroad project, the issue was they were trying to get around doing a butter notices. They didn't reach out to Paul Backelman to try to see if Paul would sort of try to override the commission in terms of requiring a butter notices for the RDA. And Paul said, no, I can't do that. So they did request another continuation. I'm starting to feel a little uneasy with the number of continuations. And this is the same thing that happened the last time we had a railroad RDA and they like never showed up to a single hearing. And ultimately, the commission couldn't get questions answered. Yeah. So I do think at some point, and maybe tonight's not the night, but at some point, we should say, okay, kind of enough's enough with the ongoing continuing continuations and that at some point, a decision needs to be made, I think. I've done this before. Yeah. And I don't mean a decision on the application. I mean a decision relative to the public hearing, like, are we going to require a republication of the legal ad and tell them you need to notify a butters and then we'll reopen the hearing from scratch or, you know, something to that effect as opposed to voting on the RDA because it's technically not even really a public hearing if they had the butters haven't been notified. Yep. Yeah. So let me go ahead and continue that hearing. So the 7 30 the hearing, the request for determination scheduled for 7 35 p.m. Keith Morris on behalf of New England Central Railroad Company for verification of sensitive area locations along the New England Central Railroad right of way. It's the right of way extending from Leverett to Belcher Town. That hearing will be continued for now till October 26th at 7 35 p.m. So, Erin, do you want to just do you have the energy to give us an overview of that emergency cert for the diesel bill? And we could at least Yeah, let me bear with me just one moment and I'm going to pull up the the No, that's okay. I'm if I have a an angry baby that wakes up, I'll jump off, but I think I'll be able to get just a view of what's going on here for you. Oh, you know what? I can't share. Jen, could you you have to make me remake me a co-host? Make a co-host. Okay. So this is the general information October 14th. An unknown volume of diesel was released from a Sunbelt rentals mobile generator that had been staged on timber matting outside the Potix substation at 325 Sunderland Road. Based on the unknown volume, Eversource contacted DEP Bureau of Waste site cleanup. And they were issued a release tracking number. They identified a 40 foot by 40 foot area of grass underneath the timber mat and the soil that they wanted to basically excavate. And the sketch below shows that location. This is locally jurisdictional bordering land subject to flooding. It is not mapped 100-year flood zone, but there has been evidence of ponding in this area. And so and it also is in a buffer zone. So just FYI. They requested the emergency certification to remove 25 cubic yards of soil on the west side of the substation. Again, isolated land subject to flooding under the Amherstwell and Biola 100 foot buffer zone to the north also impacted the site. And see there they took the material in a in a dumpster to be analyzed off site. And once they received the laboratory analysis, they'll have a better sense of what happened. They plan to restore the area with mulch mulch seed straw and then install temporary erosion controls. And that was basically the reason for the emergency cert. And so the emergency cert was was granted to Eversource for 325 Sunderland Road. I signed it and it just needs to be ratified by a motion and vote of the commission. I'll make a motion. Yeah, Jen, do you want me to make a motion or do you want discussion? Also, Laura, what you can't see is that Laura, we just lost Laura. I don't know if she lost her internet. No, I'm here. I'm sorry, we lost Jen is what I meant to say. Sorry, we lost Jen. Sorry. Wow, this is a we're all a little bit of a hot mess. Okay, she's back. She's sorry. I just totally dropped out. So I just presented and Laura was on the verge of making a motion, but I said we lost Jen. So just pause for a second. Yeah, sorry, Laura, you can jump right back in. Yeah, my question is if you want me to make a motion or if you want to have any sort of discussion, Jen, I'm comfortable with this. I think the right call was made. This was the right thing to approve an emergency cert for this sooner. They do the work or have done the work better. I agree. So do you so I'm just going to make a motion to approve the emergency certification? What was the address again? 325 Sunderland Road. Okay, a motion to approve the emergency certification at 325 Sunderland Road. Can I second that? Yeah, thanks, Cameron. Voice vote. Alex, you're muted, Alex. Hi. Cameron. Hi. Laura. Hi. And I'm an I. So that's unanimous with Cameron, Alex, Laura and Jen. Wonderful. And I do see that Jeff Squire has joined from Berkshire Design Group. So this is and again, for those of you who don't know, I'm home with COVID. I'm not prepared. I'm not prepared because I have been out of the office. And so if the presentation goes forward, I'm just not prepared within conditions for an order of conditions tonight. But definitely if the commission would like to review Jeff's responses to the commission's questions from the last meeting and then close the public hearing, we could be prepared to issue the order at the next meeting. Okay. Let me bring Jeff in. Can I do that? Uh-oh. Did I lose my co-host status? Let me re-enlist you. I think when you, I'm going to- Okay. All right. Jeff, I'm going to bring you in to the panelists. Hi, Jeff. Hello. Good evening, everyone. We're struggling along tonight. So we barely have a quorum and Erin is really being a trooper here. I'm so sorry, Erin. Yes, you are a trooper. Apologies in advance. If she wasn't already the best what, like, contribution agent in the history of the universe that she definitely is now. So, Jeff. Yes. I think the outstanding question, so as Erin just said, we're not prepared to issue an order of conditions, but we could close the public hearing on this and issue an order of conditions at the next meeting on October 26th, if that's okay with you. I think the outstanding question was kind of a line of query from Commissioner Alex, who is here, and that was why did the lean to have to be on that side of the house? Why is it the proposed size that it is? So just still on the lines of kind of minimizing that impact as much as possible. If you could just fill us in on that, that would be great. Sure. And there were, I think, a couple of other, you know, questions or comments that I, at least I had mind notes that I'd be happy to talk about, you know, particularly with the owner's willingness to spot treat some of the autumn olive and invasives. Oh, that's right. As the former treatment for those invasives was certainly one, and so that, yeah, I spoke with them, they're certainly willing to, you know, to do that and do that as part of the plan. And then if I can, I do have, I did do a quick sketch showing what a lean to would look like on the other side of the house and show the additional impacts, you know, I think the, and I'm happy to share those with you if you want to give me sharing capabilities. But in general, the, you know, combination of a couple things, the setback, the 15 foot setback is pretty tight along that edge of the property. So the lean to, you know, barely, if not, you know, exceeds the setbacks on that side, plus getting a driveway across the front of the, you know, front of the property or, you know, somehow into the law or into that side of the house creates an additional, I don't know, 580, 600 square feet of disturbance within the buffer zone. And so, again, if I, yeah, I don't know. You should be able to share a draft. You're a panel. Yeah, I don't seem to be able to share. At the risk of asking a dumb question is there a green button at the bottom of your screen that says share screen and when you press it nothing happens. Just host disabled participant. Oh, I figured it out. Here we go. There we are. Look at that. Perfect. Okay. So this, if everybody can see this plan, this, this was the, you know, what is proposed. This plan shows, if you can see in red, that same lean to structure on this side of the house, there's a couple of bump outs, chimneys and other things that sort of complicate things on that side. This is the 15-foot setback that you can see. So there's a little bit of an encroachment with that. You know, they need at least a minimum of 8 feet to be able to get a boat in there. Then additionally they would need to get an access, you know, route in there somehow and seeing as how buffer zone extends almost entirely across the front yard. You know, there's an additional 500, 550 square feet of disturbance and, you know, in all, you know, honesty, this location across the front yard right next to the neighbor's house just isn't really the most appropriate location for it. This is really sort of out of sight, out of mind. Recognize that there are wetlands there, but, you know, this area is already, you know, lawn and was previously disturbed. So, you know, I think, you know, to be honest, there's probably less disturbance and less disruption with this site versus, you know, versus all of this on the other side. So, plus the addition of Winterbury, Holly and native to actually a little bit more of a buffer in the drain. So for me, the addition of, you know, plus or minus 300 square feet, or no, the driveway is 550 square feet. Right. That, for me, justifies putting the lead to on the other side of the house. But I'm interested to hear what other commissioners have to say or any outstanding questions. Any questions or comments? No, I agree with that approach, and I think that makes sense. Thanks, Laura. And sorry if it says this, what does it say that the driver will be made of or the path to the other side? This, I think the intent here is to leave what they can as lawn. This is only going to be periodic, you know, I guess, bi-annual access that they'll be, that will be needed. So they don't intend to, you know, gravel us or anything under here. You know, I imagine it will be either dirt or some sort of, you know, gravel. It'll be under cover anyway. But I don't think there's any intent to really improve or, you know, put pavement or anything on this side of the driveway. Okay, thank you. Good question, Cameron. All right, barring any other questions from commissioners, I think what we should do is have a motion to close the public hearing, and then we will revisit this. Let me see what time Erin sent it to me. So you don't need to set a time, Jen. If we close the public hearing, we can just do it under other business at the end. Okay, we don't have to have it as a agenda item. Okay. Yeah. All right. It seems like every time I get a hang of like procedurally what we're missing, there's like some special case that exists. So sorry. All right, Jeff, okay with you. So I would think that's great meeting will issue an order of conditions. So I think we're looking for a motion to close the public hearing for the NOI for Nathan Wilson for the construction of addition to existing garage and lean to structure in the buffer zone to BBW at 30 Castro lane. And so moved is fine. So moved. So moved. And that's a, or we need a second. All right. So that was motion by Laura, second by Cameron. Voice vote, Laura. Hi. Cameron. Hi. Alex. Hi. And I'm also an eye. So it's unanimous. And Jeff, we will issue that, that those that OOC at our next meeting on the 26th. Okay. That's great. I appreciate everybody getting to this. And yes, best of luck, Aaron, and I hope you feel better. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks, everyone. Good night. Good night. All right. In a fun wrinkle, we also have Mark back. Mark, if you can hear me, we have a quorum. So 745. Oh, yeah, we're good. That's the last one. 750. Okay. So we just need to continue the NOI, right, Aaron, for Wood, Massachusetts, and things on behalf of BWC Eastman Brook. They requested a continuation to October 26th at 740. Do you want us to do a vote on the continuation? Okay. Commissioners, we need a motion to continue the NOI for the battery and energy storage facility in the buffer zone to BWC at 515 Sunderland Road to October 26th at 740. And so moved is so moved. And now we need a second. Second. Seconded by Cameron Voiceboat. Cameron. Hi. Laura. Hi. Alex. Hi. And I'm also an I. That's unanimous. All right. 752. Mark, I'm going to bring you in as a panelist. Hi, Mark. Hello. So apologies. I'm glad you're back. We are working with the Bear Bones Commission tonight. We do have a quorum. We have four members. But as I'm sure you're aware, Aaron is very sick and just hanging in here. So she has not had time to do the staff review of your project as proposed. So we have a couple options. We can wait till the next meeting on October 26th when Aaron will have gotten to complete a staff review. And at that point you could present the project. We can take public comment. We can take commissioners comments and we'll have the benefit of Aaron's full review and potentially more information from you to move that forward. Or we could kind of split that and you could do a presentation now on the project as proposed. We could take public comment, take any commissioner comments kind of off the cuff. But we would have to continue in order to hear staff review of the project on October 26th in either case. So it's up to you. I can do a presentation of where the current revised project is and if we could ask the commission and Aaron if she can send us any comments that she has as soon as possible. That way we can work on those because I know Kyle needs to have this project in front of the planning board in November. So he's really hoping to get a vote or a letter from the commission to the planning board about this project. Okay. Okay. So just so you know in that next meeting in our next meeting we will still have to keep the public hearing open and take public comment and because hopefully at that point we'll have more of our commissioners. They will have been able to listen to this meeting and come up to speed and they could have questions too. So we just have to be prepared to talk about the project again the following. Yeah that's fine. Okay. Alex do you have a question? Yes I do. If the two commission members that are not here miss this presentation under the rules they will have missed one meeting. Does that mean they cannot vote on this project when that comes? No they can miss up to one meeting. So they have to come up to speed. They have to literally watch the meeting, watch the hearing and come completely up to speed either by watching this recorded meeting or reading the minutes in order to vote. Thank you. Project yeah. Good question. But Fletcher and Michelle and Andre were here the last time we talked about this and I think they've been in attendance the time before as well so we should be okay. All right Mark take it away. You guys see my screen? Yep. So Accio Palago is proposing to raise the existing sorority house that's located at 47 Olympia and construct a five-story dormitory style apartment complex. There's BVW located located off property within the conservation land. This would be how the proposed building would fit into the property and the adjacent 57 Olympia. As you can see this is the 50 foot no work zone. This is the 75 foot no building. This is the 100 foot. Only a portion of the building falls within the 75 foot no building zone and it's approximately like 60 feet away from the BVW. As you can see if you look to the north or to the 57 that existing building is quite closer to the BVW floor drainage. I can walk you through the plan. Right now we're posing that the roof stormwater gets collected and directed to two retainant systems on the eastern side of the building. The first retainant system would be an infiltration unit and the lower 12 unit retainant structure would be a detention based system. This was due to the soil test that I conducted on site. We found sugar levels of coves within the lower area which would prevent infiltration. So instead of trying to infiltrate there I decided to just retain that and then it outflows to a little small stormwater garden before flowing over concrete curb level spread. The driveway, the drive aisle gets collected into two deep sump catch basins and then ran through an oil water separator before being routed to another retainant system within the courtyard. The sidewalk drainage and the courtyard all gets collected to the retainant system within the courtyard that gets discharged to the municipal drainage system. We are proposing to use double erosion controls so fiber roll and silt fence around the eastern part of the site and then just fiber roll along the northern and southern edge with filter sock on the deep sump catch basin inlets and then filter sock and gravel bag in the protection for the area drains within the courtyard and then we propose on all the newly created slope on the eastern side to have erosion control matting laid down to prevent erosion. This is the proposed landscaping plan. It's only a draft at this as of now as I've made a comment to the landscape architect but we're planning on having native trees planted shrubbery planted out on the eastern side in a pollinatal seed mix planted all the way on the banks to make up for the impacts to the well in buffalo zones if the commission has any questions. What percentage of the bvw on the lot is being impacted by the building as proposed by the building itself by the proposed work? 87% of the buffalo zone that's on the property would be getting impacted and only out of that which is 6200 square feet and of that 6200 square feet only 2,000 of it building. So the rest of it would be replanted with the pollinatal mix and with the natural trees or native trees. Just so I'm clear so out of the 6200 square feet impacted only 2,000 square feet of that is building. The rest is plantings and so forth. Correct. Do you have a detail of what specifically you know what specific native plants you intend on using and if you don't can you provide that? I believe this was sent to Erin at the beginning of the week but she's been out sick. So I'll have the landscape architect revise this again and then we will send it back to Erin for review but this would be the schedule of what would be planted on the eastern part of the project. And Erin I mean Laura I think you probably I don't know if you can see this but basically it's a list of what looks like majority native but yeah Mark for your benefit it would have to be native plants and trees. Some of those some of those don't look like they're native based on my Hello Bush for a nice and to turn I'm not the expert but certainly Erin's review can reveal that so unfortunately we're just gonna have to wait until our next meeting to discuss that further. I see Dave has a thanks Laura I see Dave has a question. Um yeah and I may not articulate this well but again it sounds like we're gonna have to redo this presentation in two weeks anyway but I was curious Mark you mentioned a connection to the municipal stormwater system and I was curious could you say a little bit more about that and I I guess I was maybe I'm not sure if I'm thinking incorrectly but but could you say a little bit more about that? So the way the drainage is proposed on the site is the roof drained or the stormwater from the roof and the stormwater that falls on the eastern portion of the site will be drained or will head into the the existing direction that it's already going which is towards the east um the courtyard and the traveled access alley will all be collected in storm underground stormwater system and retained in infiltrated or some of it will be infiltrated and then the remaining would be discharged to the municipal system okay so what was what was attempted was a balancing of the site so the stormwater is even well equals the existing conditions the existing runoff conditions off site and has that been reviewed by the town engineer? I do not believe so yet okay it would be Kyle I don't remember if the I would have to inquire with Kyle if they wanted yeah the planning board is going to review that well it's going to be part of the planning board review yeah okay no I'm just again this is the first time I've seen this I I think I was not present maybe for the last meeting so I'm just you know putting it out there that I think you know like to hear more about that so Dave what's the what's the likelihood of the planning board looking at this and then send you know if there's revisions they would then have to send it back to us correct if it if there's changes in the in the conservation or the buffer zones yeah so that's that's kind of case by case basis Laura so if like hypothetically we were to issue a permit within order of conditions and the planning board then required revisions to the plan that were significant enough that our permit in order of conditions needed to be revised then we would go through that process similar to the southeast commons project if you remember but it's all a matter of kind of like timing and this has not I mean this again this has not gone through our town staff review not to mention with the town engineer but Dave's comment makes me say that I think that if Jason skills could review this I think we would benefit from that so to the extent that we can ask that and I can't see it out Erin I see now that you have your hand up I think Erin I know Erin knows a lot about how these storm water management plans have to come about I think you know I'm struggling a little bit with the technical details but I thought all the water had to be retained on site and personally I would love to see a design where the storm water management plan the storm water infiltration and detention basins are not in literally the buffer but Erin I want to hear what you have to say about that yeah so the plan changed pretty dramatically from the last version that that was originally submitted you guys might recall I had like two pages of comments on the plan so they turned around some revisions really quickly and also the test pit data that they got back it looked like there was even additional changes made based on those and so you know that's wonderful and that's why we require test pits right there because the proposed infiltration area wouldn't have function because there wasn't adequate the soils weren't adequate for infiltration in that location I've asked Jason to comment on this one specifically and in the original application the original submission there was only 25% TSS removal for the impervious surfaces at the front of the building prior to being discharged into the town storm water system the global storm water system yeah and I know Mark you had you had made an adjustment I think you added a more technique unit at the front could you talk a little bit about that and one of the questions I had looking at the plans which if you could just confirm is is there only one treatment train for all of the water on those infiltration on those impervious surfaces there's one treatment train that's going through multiple systems or is there multiple trains and different systems for each train could you just talk about those really quickly before the water gets into the municipal system so we can understand that a little bit better so the area that's going to have your salt and all the chance of oil and grit mostly is going to be the access drive to the storage area and trash that's going to be collected or the storm water that falls on that is going to be collected in deep some catch basins and then route it through an oil water separator which then will route the water to retain an infiltration structure and that infiltrator or that retainage system is designed to match or equal or be below the existing runoff to math those drives that existing retainage system gets you like 80% full the walks and we have an additional 44% for the drive with the deep sunk catch basins in the oil water separator are there two separate treatment trains for the storm water at the front of the site it's while those kind of the driveway has its own but ties into the same one for the overall which is the retainage system so what you're saying is the driveway catches in deep sunk catches then goes to oil water separator and then at that point it ties into the system that captures the runoff from the walkways and the remaining part of the property is that accurate I just want to make sure the commission understands sort of the drainage cycle of what's happening right and then there's a separate system off the I guess east side of the property which is the route which is clean roof storm water right this combination infiltration and detention and that detention basin is almost entirely in the buffer no it's only half in the buffer oh I see I see there's the 100 foot okay yeah your foot's like right here but it does drain to that storm water what did you call that I can't read the right a storm water garden yep with okay which is the low point of the site where the water existently discharges from okay Alex I see you have a question yeah there's on page three of six and on the north side the water comes down this next to the building and as you get close to the project boundary there's no mark on the on the drawing that says that water is being controlled and that leads me to believe that it's just going to continue down the hill off the property and could you arrange for that water to come around the corner and down to you have a storage tank or you have that brown the black thing right next to the boundary yeah right there that's the that's the storm water garden yeah so your mark your landscape architect or whoever drew it has the water flowing along the bound along the building until it gets to forgot what the scale is here 20 feet equals an inch equals 20 feet so that it's about a little more than 20 feet to the edge of the building and all that water that's coming along won't be guided around the corner to the basin and could you correct that so that the water doesn't leave so the water doesn't leave the property the water naturally goes that way it goes down that does a this is all sloped down from this corner and it naturally swears around the building yeah so see alex it um there's a high point right where mark has his cursor and it would drain kind of in a southeasterly direction there into the storm water garden if you look at those topo drawings yeah I um I have a hard time imagining that and all I'm asking is that they can put something on the drawings that shows that they are in fact causing the water to turn the corner to the basin yeah can you zoom in a little bit mark so that we can see the topo better because it's really difficult to oh yeah there we go yeah so at 352 351 and 350 you've got the water coming along the edge of the building and your arrow shows that it's going from left to right and regardless of the topo it would be nice that the drawing has some instruction for construction that the water needs to turn you've got an arrow headed towards the boundaries at the water flow right below 349 there's an arrow is that water flow no that's pointing to something that's 10 foot setback excuse me yeah I spend some time with a magnifying glass looking at the thing so that's one request I'd appreciate it if there was something on there that causes water to turn the corner to the retention basin so it's not forgotten during construction and also on a larger the project calls for a very large alteration of the wetland buffer and I'm wondering what you can do to give some of that back by either shrinking the building making it smaller and I I sort of wondered why we have two buildings with a courtyard maybe that's so that each apartment has windows to the outside but if your buildings were the distance from one corner on the on the west side it's all that's only about 20 feet between buildings and so could you tell me why we how we could give back some of the wetland buffer and I think if I can just insert some framing of this I think what Alex is touching on is this kind of a maximum build out scenario where again 87% of the jurisdictional area on the property is being impacted by the project as proposed and so it would be great for the next meeting if you could be prepared with a little bit of kind of the scenario planning you did or will do in the future to reduce the impact to the jurisdictional area on the property and that's in addition to it sounds like a lot of commissioners raising concerns about flow of water off the site towards the conservation area thanks Jen that's said much better than me no that's we're all pulling in the same direction here I'm just trying to mark I'm trying to give you clear actionable kind of information to come back to the commission with and Cameron I see you have your hand up go ahead I had a bit of a similar question if I'm interpreting it right the building that's currently there is that going to be knocked down all right and that has a bigger portion of it up against the in the buffer zone now that's the adjacent building to the north okay so so that white one Cameron that you can see is existing and then drop down to the middle structure that's the one that's existing and that one's completely out of the buffer okay so okay so the proposed buffer okay that makes sense thank you yeah good questions but Cameron to your question the building is going from a small structure outside of the buffer to a very large structure encroaching on the buffer I think that's kind of what what you are trying to understand yeah thank you I see Kyle has a question as is raised his hand raised I'm going to bring him in as a panelist oh one point I did want to make and I'm sorry I didn't before Kyle speaks is that Kyle did send me housing plan document from the town of Amherst which I didn't distribute to the commission and the reason was just because it's you know for the conservation commission we can't look at a housing plan in terms of rendering decision based on wetlands impacts but I just wanted to make sure that for the record that that Kyle did send that along to me I can provide that to the commissioners if you're interested in reading it just that for the sake of decision making relative to the conservation commission performance standards that it's not something that we can consider and I'm going to say this in another way as well if you'll just allow me Erin I think this is one of those situations where ideally we would look at this from a more holistic planning standpoint but unfortunately that's not the position we're in here at the commission we have to deal with our jurisdiction and review the proposed project with from the lens of protecting the wetland and water resources in Amherst so that's why the focus on storm water management and reduction of impact to the jurisdictional area on the on the site is is our main focus for better or worse sorry Kyle so I think you're here yep hi Kyle did you have a question or comment no and you guys both touched on what I was going to speak to which is that you know this is one acre within 17,000 acres of Amherst it's the one acre that is owned RF that is privately owned that is a tax-paying parcel that supports the type of housing that our community very much needs so we as developers have to operate at all of these scales we understand your purview and the scale which you need to operate I just need to wave my hand and say you know it's important if we're going to achieve the housing objectives that we have to build housing where we can I think Mark the site runs itself very well to this type of housing I think the work that Mark has done to manage this redevelopment project and do better than what we've done five six years ago north of here on the property next door is great and I appreciate the work he's done I appreciate the work you guys are doing and I'm hopeful that we can satisfy all the objectives as we try to improve this site and better the better the wetlands and the buffer zone and build the housing we need yeah thanks heard loud and clear so I think on that vein commissioners given that you know we really need to give Aaron and hopefully Jason the town engineer a chance to provide a review of the stormwater management plan and everything else going on the site I just want to give you one more chance to ask any specific questions or flag any more information you need from Mark to make to move forward with this this application so so he has a clear path here we can't just disagree because it's a large building in no or we have to give him something to work with no I think um what's been said makes sense Jen but I I am really looking forward to seeing Aaron's review of the plan so really that's a pretty pretty critical missing piece 100% yep and and Mark I know you've done everything you can to respond to comments and get things moving and unfortunately this is the time we live in where we're a little bit stopped in our tracks with with Aaron out knocked out sick and from my perspective I just would like to say that we really appreciate the fast moving responses to the comments because a lot of applicants don't do that we've waited months and months for revisions with open hearing so we do appreciate the fact that you're making a tremendous effort to respond quickly and and take the action necessary to address comments and make revisions that yeah agreed the fact that you have you know percent area of jurisdictional you know percent of jurisdictional area data available just the amount of detail you have on these plans there's nothing left to question it's just that we have to complete our staff review I will say one thing about the buffer area that's on site and I'm sure Aaron noticed this when she was out on a sidewalk it's not it's very overgrown with Ivy and the trees are being suffocated so I feel like us cleaning that area and replanting within the buffer area with pollinating plants and native trees will substantially help and increase the livelihood of the wetland buffer within the property I can confirm that there is substantial poison ivy out there yeah I think that's a yeah I think that's a question that science hasn't answered like what is the quality of the buffer necessary to protect our wetland resources but a great end point taken mark that native plantings and removal of invasives could be valuable for this site okay so with that I want to briefly take public comment just because we have some real diehards who have been here throughout this and I want to give them a chance to ask any questions or make any comments if it's about this hearing and then what we'll do is need a motion to continue this go from there so if you're here in attendance as a member of the public and you have a question or a comment about the proposed project at 47 Olympia Drive please raise your hand not seeing anything all right so I think we have a plan and I think what we need at this point is commissioners motion to continue the notice of intent SB associates on behalf of Archipelago investments at and 47 Olympia Drive LLC for redevelopment of 47 Olympia Drive we need a motion to continue to you can say 750 Gen because we were able to close the other hearing okay okay to 7 to October 26 at 750 PM motion to continue 47 Olympia Drive LLC for October 26 750 PM seconded okay that's Laura with the motion Cameron seconded voice vote Alex aye Cameron aye Laura aye and I'm also an aye so that's unanimous Mark Kyle thank you for your time and an effort on this we will keep it moving to the best of our abilities thank you yep thank you have a good night yeah thank you you too okay so that's it for our agenda I think we should call it Alex thank you for being here I know that you are also probably not feeling as you said tip top so as you've witnessed if you hadn't been here we wouldn't have been able to move either of those hearings forward at all so thank you for that and Laura's shout out as always because you are always on the road and always doing your best to call in so I really appreciate that especially in this instance and again Erin I don't know how you do it we really appreciate you I feel better to everyone yeah thank you and Dave thank you for keeping us updated and with that I think we just need a motion to adjourn motion to adjourn I second I second and that's a second from Alex voice vote Alex yes Laura I Cameron I and I'm also an I unanimous Erin get better thank you I'm getting there all right all right thank you guys have a great night night all bye thanks