 start from the top. We, I guess we can't adjourn and then restart, but it is now 7.05 and we're going to start for real. I think we've had the minutes may reflect a certain amount of stumbling around. I am, I'm Zach Sullivan on the planning commission share. Mark playing Gold Hill Road. Scott. Scott Hess, planning commission member, remotely watching. Lauren Oates, center road, also planning commission member. Shiana Petito, horn in the moon road, planning commission member, and I'll pass it to Spencer. Hi, Spencer Hardy, planning commission from Dale and road. So I'm sorry, I'm up on North Street, if it matters, actually in California, but residing in North Street. And so for members of the public, I see we have Alice Agni and Alice, who do you have with you? My almost 60 year husband, Richard. Well, welcome. Thank you. I see is that Ron cost? Yes, it is. Hi. I see someone labeled as Gregory Weimer, who is still connecting. I don't know if that's Gregory Kerry. I know I've corresponded with you, leading up to this. So I have some sense of who's there. We'll confirm who we have in a moment. So we are, the way we're going to run this, just you may have seen the agenda, we're just going to quickly introduce ourselves and see who we have here. I'm going to do a brief overview of the proposed changes. We will then take, the primary purpose of the hearing is to take public comment. So we will take public comment at that point. We will then adjourn the hearing and immediately open a meeting at which we will, which is for the planning commission members to discuss the feedback we've received, in large part to decide if we do, do want to make changes to the proposed amendments before sending them to this, which you should be able to see on the screen. This is also available on the town website. So there are really two big sections that we've, well, one section that's entirely new, and then one section that we've changed, and then there are a few minor edits. The first really big set of changes is we have added this action to chapter six, which deals with infrastructure, that guides development of telecommunication towers. We are primarily thinking about cell towers in this regard, but it's not exclusively cell towers. This could be towers that hold other radio equipment. If unlikely someone would put on a TV tower, but radio equipment is certainly a possibility. Anything else for telecommunication that would go on a tower would be covered by this. We have a background section to show, to sort of talk through what is going to guide the town actions. We then have criteria for preferred siting and criteria for areas that we want to restrict. This very much mimics what we did in the energy section, which immediately precedes this, which deals with preferred siting and areas to be avoided, particularly for renewable energy. We also made some corrections to the scenic resources section, which is in chapter nine. This is, in my case, we did some minor updates around just clarifying some of the thinking behind what constitutes a foreground area. There were also some areas where some residents discovered errors in the town plan. Pieces where we had left certain things out and when the original town plan was adopted. And so those have been put in. There are also then new goals, policies and actions. Those go into chapter 11, but they are also parts of the new sections. So to go through a little bit of the background, as of now, there are no freestanding cell towers in town. There have been two proposed over the years. One fairly recently, one a few years ago now. We have maps of cell reception quality that were produced for us by the Central Vermont Regional Planning Commission, which show for certain carriers, there's some areas of good, some that are really, that are much more mixed in terms of cell reception quality. We also looked at some of the data statewide that's shifting reliance on cell phones. And there's particularly over the past 10 years, there's data showing a really significant shift towards families that are either primarily or solely reliant on cell phones for their telecommunications. Particularly among younger people, a real increase in the numbers that don't have landlines at all. Finally, we provide an overview of some of the regulatory process, particularly around health. This primarily deals with federal law, though it does, it does talk a little bit about the process before the Public Utility Commission. This is primarily for future planning commissions and for the townspeople to help us understand what we are and are not able to regulate. So that when, if there's been turnover on the commission, if there's, if there are new people in town who haven't gone through this process before when a tower is proposed, we will have that as some basic guidance of what, where we can act or where we can't. Looking at areas that we have, that we are proposing as preferred sites. This is a lot of this is taken from, from what was done in a lot of other town's plans or as just proposed for land use planning generally. Obviously the first choice is to co-locate on an existing tower. So if there is an existing tower and there's actually a law about this as well, that if the carrier needs to attempt to co-locate there, if there is existing infrastructure, that is also a preferred site. Historically, people have talked a lot about using farm silos, if a cell tower and there is one farm silo that is having a, is having a receiver put on. We also know that there are, the silos are being used less and less and actually being taken down. And so this is, this is maybe less viable going forward, but there are still some pretty significant barns in town. There are, there may be other commercial infrastructure that or other large infrastructure that would be able to host a tower. And then finally areas where we can use the topography and we can use tree cover, to really try to shield the view. So even when there is some pretty, even when the tower may be significantly prominent above tree line to look for places where that can be hidden by other tree cover, just based on where you would be standing to look at it. We've actually provided an example, a visual example of that. You can see from this that you sort of have a, if you're looking up from the road, if your view is shielded by trees going back beyond those trees, a tower could extend above tree line and still be hidden. Looking at unsuitable areas, the first big one is the village areas. This is specific to towers, not to transmitters. So there are, in most urban areas, or even smaller urban areas included, transmitters tend to be on top of buildings, they tend to be hidden. The city center in Montpilier, for example, has a transmitter on, I believe most of the hospitals have transmitters on them. So you can put a transmitter in the village, but we're asked that it need to be hidden. The second piece we're trying to restrict are significant scenic views, particularly in the foreground of those views. The foreground is defined as the first half mile. And the reason for that is that the, there is research on visual perception showing that within a half mile, you really see detail. If you've got one of those fake tree cell towers in the first half mile, you are gonna really know it's a fake tree. And then depending on how prominent it is, as you go farther, you start to lose that detail. We are looking to avoid ridgelines, which is also something that I think early on, a lot of towers were built on ridgelines and many places are moving away from that. And then finally, because you're talking about a very tall piece of infrastructure that could potentially fall, to avoid any areas where the tower could damage homes, sensitive environments, other people's property, if it were to fall. Is that, can you hear me? Yes. I don't know if you intend to do this, but would you mind screen sharing your presentation? I know it's publicly accessible, but it might help with folks online to follow along. Oh, sure. I'm sorry. I had it up on the screen in the room. And so I thought, was that being captured or is it just hard to see? We can't really see the screen from here. And so we thought maybe if you could share it. Okay. I apologize for that. I will put that. You're being descriptive and we knew the presentation, but maybe for others. Thank you. How is that? You're looking at, okay, good. Great. And actually sort of good timing because this is where it gets really small and hard to read. And this is something that you were probably, you may want to look either at the presentation or these are in the documents themselves. I have put the full text of the new goals, policies and actions. So specific to cell towers. The first goal, you know, the goal for this section is to enable all areas of East Montpellier to have adequate cell service coverage to meet the needs of residents, businesses and emergency service providers while protecting the town's scenic and natural resources. And then the policy that goes with that is East Montpellier supports cell service infrastructure that enables adequate cell service coverage in all areas of town that is cited and designed to protect the town's scenic and natural resources. I realized those two were almost identical. I think in terms of thinking about how we would approach the PUC, you know, in a case where we were intervening, you know, I think, you know, the thinking was that there is value of having this both as a goal and a formal policy, you know, because sometimes we would need to come in with a policy statement. Is that, is that, why don't you share that one? We still have this suitable, just to sell towers on suitable areas. Do you want to put up the new goals? Sure, I'm sorry about that. I thought it had advanced and it clearly had not. Okay. I don't know why that is not advancing when I, so are you looking at that there? We got it now, new goals, policies, and actions. Very good. I just did a terrible presenter thing and read my entire slide. So you do have the information, but you can refer back. For the actions, the first action is to file for intervener status and or submit public comments on section 248 A, abletons before the public utility commission that do not meet the siting and design criteria designed in the town plan and in the zoning. And so the basic thinking behind that action was to bind the, you know, this planning commission or future planning commission to say, these are our rules and we need, we do need to step up and defend them. The second action is to consider whether conducting an inventory of suitable seller facility locations would be beneficial for both the town and seller carers and whether grant funding for such a study is available. This is basically to, you know, we opted at this point to not conduct a full inventory, you know, and shoot and essentially choose places in town where sell towers could be placed or would be advised. The thinking is that that is a, that's a significant undertaking. That requires a lot of expertise. You would take a lot of time. It would probably take a multi-town effort, but at the same time, it is an idea that we didn't want to just let drop. And so the thinking here is that this will be something the plan for the planning commission to deal with when we adopt the next town plan. And at that point to, to decide whether it is in the town's interest to conduct an inventory, you know, you know, or to, you know, you know, and to actually identify specific locations that would be beneficial or not. So did the slides just advance to scenic views updates? No, okay. Yes. They did for us. They didn't for the people watching at home. They have now. It's just a delay. Okay. Are we on scenic views now? Very good. Okay. So the updates for scenic views, the corrections we made, there were, you know, the town plan has both a table and a map showing, you know, where, where the significant scenic views areas are, there was once, there was one section that was included in the table, but not in the map, which was on County Road. That has now been added to the, you know, to the map. There was another area on, you know, at the intersection of Jacobs Road and Horn of the Moon Road that was in the map, but not on the table. And so that is now on both. We also, we have not designated the Eastmont Hiller trail system as a patent, you know, you know, as formal scenic view areas, but we did, we did add some language recognizing that those are areas that might be considered scenic views and that should probably, you know, because those are permanently protected, you know, for use by the public. And so while the, while the, while the, while the existing language only points to road sides, you know, we wanted to include those as public areas as well. We, as I mentioned before, we put in clarification of the reasoning for the foreground definition, you know, talking about why, you know, what the research is on why half a mile is important. And then also in the review with the, from the Regional Planning Commission, you know, they flagged the fact that their, you know, the scenic view language, you know, doesn't apply so, you know, just to, you know, the communications towers, there are also some significant concerns about large, you know, large solar power projects and that we needed a better definition of what constituted a large solar project. And so that has been, you know, updated. That is based on the kilowatt hour, you know, that is based on the power output, which are the criteria that Public Utility Commission uses as well. Sorry, I'm gonna go do my manual, you know, updating, yeah, advancement again. That's not advanced. Are you looking, you're not looking at the new? Yeah, we saw the new actions act. I think it's just a delay on our end. Okay. A different thing showed up on my screen. So I apologize for that. You would think that this far into the pandemic, we would have this down, but I am sorry. No worries. Okay. So in the last, no, on my screen, it keeps going to the, okay, we'll just keep it there. You know, the last new action is, you know, again, this is another one that we're not taking, not making a change now, but essentially putting something on the to-do list when the next, when the town plan is next updated, you know, in a couple of years, which one we'll start, is to review the, you know, to do a really solid review of the scenic views and to particularly consider permanently conserved trails as potential scenic views as well. We know that a lot of that, the trail of land is pretty heavily forested. There is some that's real working landscape that comes out right by the town garage and goes under power lines and such, but there are also areas that are really, that are significant views there. So to include that as an essentially part of the public infrastructure and to consider whether that's something that we want to be protecting as well. That concludes the presentation. I don't know if people have specific questions on the presentation itself before we move into taking public comment. All right, not seeing any. So do, you know, so at this point, I will now open the floor. There aren't too many people on, so we certainly have time to take public comment. We don't need to do this in a super formal way. We don't need to take a list of who's gonna speak when or whatnot. So I guess I will just take hands. You can also use the raised hand icon within Zoom in order to ask to be recognized. Yes, Ron. Hi, everyone. Can you hear me? Yes, sir. Thank you for doing all this work. I know that it's been a process. I was somewhat involved last year and I live in the Horn of the Moon area off of Sander Circle. And I have a, maybe a few questions. Ron, where's the audio problem in the room? What's that? I just switch it to my mic. Okay, can you hear me now? Give us one moment. We will get this back up. I'm sorry. Yeah, we hear a fine online. I apologize for that, Ron. You should be good to go now. That's okay. Can you hear me? Yeah, yes. Okay, good. So one question I have is, has the reception maps that you showed, have they been validated? I mean, they're representing AT&T and Verizon in the town. And I'm just wondering, have they actually been, has there been an evaluation to validate the accuracy of these maps? I don't know if validation is the right, I mean, these don't feel like planning commission has not validated them. What I will say is that those were, those maps were not produced by the carriers. Those were produced by the state. I forget which agency did it. It actually came out of a conflict between the state and the carriers, where the state did not believe what the carriers were saying about the cell reception. And so they sent someone around basically to drive every single road in the state with a car equipped with, I think six cell phones and a computer that was logging their reception all the time. And so I think if your question is really about, did this come from an independent source? That is how that data was collected. Okay, I mean, the reason that, I think obvious reason that this is really important is that when a tower location is considered, you know, one of the critical reasons to locate that tower is to serve areas that are poorly served. And I just think that that it's, you know, I think it would be interesting to, like in the Horn of the Moon here where I am, I really, I question whether what was being represented on that map was accurate. So anyway, I'll just make that comment and ask that question and leave it at that. One thing that I think is missing that I think is very important. And I understand that some things may be outside of the jurisdiction of the planning commission, the town, et cetera. But I think that to not identify property values as a variable or something that needs to be or should be considered in the sighting of a tower, I think is a big oversight. I mean, many, many people have their primary assets and their futures tied into their real estate. And the impact that a tower could have on property values is significant. And I just think, I don't really understand how it could be completely, at least not acknowledged in some way, even if it falls outside of some jurisdiction. That's one comment. Thank you, Ron. Do we, do we have, do we have other people who would like to comment? I just say, well said, thank you. And is that Carrie? Yes, that's me. Thank you. Great, thank you. It's a different name on the screen. I just want to confirm who we have giving us feedback. Oh, sure. Sorry, it's my husband, yeah. And do we, do we have anyone else who would, Alice and Richard, I know you've been on as well. I didn't know if you would like to give comments as well. I think that Ron's last point is, it should be considered. It's important. All right, thank you. I also think that we have to be very careful about our scenic views. They are the one of the drawing cards for the state of Vermont. We have, we have gone around the horn there. We're not, we're not going to put a hard prohibition on what Ron has done, I was just going to say, I was actually just going to say we have time for more. So, yeah. I have another comment. If there isn't anybody else who, who hasn't spoken, who wants to, I understand that safety is falls outside of the town's jurisdiction. And I understand that it's part of an FCC rule that goes back to 1996. My comment here is that even though I understand that it falls outside of the jurisdiction of the town and is directed or guided by this 1996 regulation, this is almost heading towards a 30-year-old regulation. And I think that, I think that there should be something in the town plan that acknowledges the, you know, the jurisdiction issue, but also acknowledges that, that the town should, you know, in the event that there is some concern that becomes an issue or raised that the town will consider it. And I just think that, you know, in this day and age to not acknowledge or in some way, just drive a small stake in the ground and say, yeah, we understand this safety thing is not our jurisdiction, but we are also concerned for the safety of the town. And sometimes things that are, you know, from another jurisdiction are dated, overlooked, or ill-considered. I just think that the town should have some sort of recognition of safety in some way that doesn't conflict with the jurisdictional thing. The last, my last comment is, you know, I think there was a reference to two tower proposals that have happened in this town so far. And the last one was last year. And, you know, I was involved in that. And, you know, and I know that they're new planning commissioners now. And I just want to say that in the Horn of the Moon area on Jacobs Road, that process costs this little area, 40,000 bucks to stop the tower. Basically we bought, we had to raise that money in order to address the issue. And I think that it would be very interesting. And I wish that the planning commission would use the Jacobs Road situation as a opportunity to see how it would use the regulations and everything that's new in considering whether the town would be an intervener in an application such as the one that happened here. I really think, I think it's an incredible opportunity to really see whether, you know, the town would have approved the location of the tower. And I'll stop there. Thank you. Thank you, Ron. Do we have anyone else who's like, you know, who's thought of additional things they'd like to add? Not seeing any? I'll give one more chance. I don't know, you know, you know, Allison, Carrie, if you just want to come off mute so I can make sure that I'm not just skipping you for because of technical issues. Yeah. Oh, hey, I'm sorry. I did come up with something. This is, this is Carrey's husband, Greg. And we, you know, a few years ago, we also had a potential tower going in where we live in the center, you know, an East Montpellier center and the neighbors all got together and we were able to figure out a way to keep it from happening. But what was shocking to me was that one person, one landowner who ironically doesn't even live, you know, right in the proximity of where the tower was, had the power to affect other people's properties, their well-being, potentially their health, their mental well-being and there was just, and property values, I think I mentioned that, but with no way of checking that, you know, we were, in a way we got lucky and some of our neighbors stepped up and really did everybody hear a favor and we were able to stop it from happening, but it very easily might have happened and the tower would have gone up if memory serves about 800 feet from our house and from our kids and it would have been a massive eyesore for everybody here in the East Montpellier center area. And what, and I've said it already, but you know, the thing that got me was, you know, how can one person who doesn't really even live in this, he lives in this area, but not right immediately here, how can somebody just arbitrarily take, you know, accept an offer from, in this case, I believe it was AT&T and without any real way of checking that, of stopping that, you know, our lives, our day-to-day lives, and I know that it's been deemed safe by everybody, but that's a question mark, you know, a lot of things were deemed safe years ago that have proven to not be safe, like asbestos, lead paint, on and on and on. So there are things that we just don't know about it yet and also the property value issue. And what got me was like, well, how can one person who doesn't really even live here affect our lives so negatively? You know, I mean, I got to live with this thing in my backyard, I mean, literally in my backyard, with who knows? I mean, I was worried about my kids' safety. If my kids, God forbid, get cancer, you know, in 30 years, you know, what I have said, well, what is it from the cell tower, you know? So anyways, the shocking thing to me was that one person could have so much power where the rest of us who have to live with it more intimately than this other person did, we have to live with it and there's nothing we can do about it. Go ahead, Karin. Oh, yeah, I don't know if I remember what I was gonna mention, but I don't remember, sorry. So anyways, I've said my piece and that was what got me and it's gonna keep coming up. I mean, I know we need better cell reception in Vermont and I know we need... Oh, I remember what I was gonna say, but just everyone, the landowners and everyone in this area that would be immediately affected by that, none of us were complaining about the lack of cell service. There isn't great cell service, but we took that into account about living in Vermont. You know, we made our own adjustments. It wasn't an area where, as far as I knew, anyone was concerned about it. So it wasn't to meet our needs. Yeah, I think that's it. It's just what was, I found shocking when I found appalling was just that one person, it could be anybody, it could be a landowner that doesn't even live in the state of Vermont, theoretically, can just throw up a, can accept an offer from a company like AT&T and do all of his or her neighbors a real disservice. And there's more to it than just the property values, although that's a big one. We have to live with this thing looming in our backyard, not really knowing. Sure, people say it's safe, but not really knowing that it is or not. And I've got to live with this for the rest of my life. And that's what really got to me. And that is what I would like to see considered before, these are just thrown up in somebody's backyard. And I realize that they may be in somebody's backyard. And it's always gonna be maybe in somebody's backyard, but I think more thought needs to go into that. And I believe you were hitting on that earlier in the meeting, ways like let's not just throw them up on a ridgeline because it's a high place to put one, but I felt very powerless with something that's going to affect my life very, very profoundly. So that's all I have to say. That's probably enough. Thank you. Thank you, Greg. Do we have any other comments before we adjourn this portion and move on to the next portion of our meeting? I would just say thank you for the work you've done. It's a wonderful start, it's an excellent start. I think that the comments from Greg and Carrie and from Ron have underlined the fact that there are, there's more to consider than just having service available on every square inch of Vermont. Thank you. I'll put a last call for any further comments. And if not, I will accept a motion to, if there are no further comments, then I will actually need a motion to adjourn the hearing that we will not be going away. We just have to formally adjourn and then formally call the meeting, the next meeting to order. Okay. We have a motion to adjourn the hearing. Do we have a second? Claire, all right, it looks like Gianna seconded. Not an items for discussion. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? No. All right. So it is, you know, 743, the formal hearing relating to the town plan amendments is now adjourned. So now at 743 we have a motion to adjourn the hearing. Now adjourn. So now at 743, I will call the planning commission meeting to order. Do we have any, I realize this is a funny format, I apologize. Do we have any changes to the agenda? Not seeing any changes. Do we have any public comments? Not seeing any public comment. All right. So the one, the one substantive item we have on the agenda for today is to discuss the public feedback from the town, from the hearing that we just helped. So I think at this point I will just open it up to see who would, you know, if anyone would like to start us off, you know, in thinking about how to respond, you know. Or do we, do we want to just immediately open up? Or actually, I'm sorry, we, let me, I do also want to mention that we do, we have also received some comments in writing, which I have forwarded to everyone. So we received, you know, we had received comments in writing from Kara actually back in February, I forwarded those at that point. Those were primary, that was primarily research village property values. I forwarded those then, I've resent them, you know, just after our last meeting. So a couple of weeks ago, so everyone's got a chance to, had the chance to see them, just sort of connect the dots. That's the same, same person. We also received a very short comment from Andy Shapiro, just saying, you know, he's, you know, thank you for the work and the supports, you know, the amendments as proposed. And then, you know, today at about five, so hopefully people have had a chance to see that we also received a comment from Julie Potter, you know, also expressing support for the, you know, for the work. You know, we did the one other comment that I'll make before opening up. So we, you know, at our last meeting, knowing that we had the written comments about property values, we had also considered the question of should we, what was you can consider the question of, should we include something about property values in the regulation section? And at that point, we thought, some of us thought that their property values were not something that we were allowed to consider. We did, Clarice and I both went back and did some research. We discovered that was not entirely true. The criteria that the Public Utility Commission, you know, is tasked with evaluating are entirely silent on property values. So we really don't know what that, you know, whether that is something that they can take or not. We do, we did also find in the meeting, in the minutes of our meeting on February 4th, 2021, which is the meeting that Dan Burke, who was the attorney from the public service and attended, you know, he, you know, he had been asked that issue about that issue explicitly and said that the property values are not something that the Public Utility Commission, you know, considers. But it was certainly a weaker statement than his statement about health concerns. The statement on health concerns was that the public, the PUC is not even allowed to take testimony. Whereas on property values it was simply that they don't, you know, they don't, you know, as a matter of practice, they don't consider that. And so I don't, you know, you know, I think in terms of, you know, in terms of do we want to include in the regulation section, it's probably still an open question. But I wanted to get, get everyone up to speed on the research that we had done. Zach, can I ask a clarifying question on that? I thought there was a distinction on what the Public Utility Commission considers and what's allowed in like the town plan, like what deference is allowed in the town plan. So do you mean that if it's in the town plan, they'll ignore it or is that a separate thing? Like they're not going to consider property values, but if it's in the town plan and they're giving deference to that, maybe it would be clustered in. I got the strong sense that it was, that they would just ignore it either way. Is that clear as you're nodding? Is that your recollection as well? And if you look, you know, I don't know that this has really been, it's not nearly as settled an issue as the health, as the health issues, which is pretty clear laid out in federal law. But if you look at the criteria that they have, that you know, Vermont law does state out the, lay out the criteria that they need to look at. And it's a number of environmental factors. You know, look at, you know, at areas with historic value, look at areas with significant scenic value, that is all spelled out in the law. And so, you know, the fact that we, the fact that we're proposing something that puts, you know, it has strong language about historic area, about scenic area and has defined this, it has a section of this town plan, defining those scenic areas, that is something that they would give significant deference to. You know, the fact that it's, that we're protecting the village area, that's the, you know, the more historic town centers, that's something that, you know, is, you know, where the plan that we have clearly matches Vermont law in terms of what they, you know, what they need to consider. And I think the, I think there's just not much said about property values, quite frankly. Yeah, that's interesting to know that change or slight update. And I guess I'm curious if other towns have addressed property values and how they have, because I, you know, I think in my head, I'm wondering how do they, how would they quantify that? Would they have someone come up and, and say, well, that's not visible from here, you've got some trees behind your house. So no, this won't impact me. You know, like, I guess just like, how do they, yeah, measure that and how towns sort of written that language. Can you hear a sack? We'll ask you. Hello. It was such a great comment that the world froze. I know. I feel like I'm weight with baited breath. What is the answer? Well, maybe they went back to Bethel just like the, like the little icon says from work, I guess. Such, such a good plan to have a, you know, have real cameras in here. It's, you know, the room is not cooperating. So we did look at a number of other town plans when we were starting this process, to see what other towns had done, to see what we could take and really did not find much. I would, didn't find much in general. I would say that the plan, that the, the chat, the section that we are putting forward is far more comprehensive than anything else I've seen. And I don't remember seeing anything related, related to property values in those other plans. I'm trying to be quiet so that I give the rest of you a chance to speak, but it means we need, you know, the point, the point of it out of town or although it rubs us all wrong, and I'm in total agreement, it hasn't stopped companies or outside investors coming in with, with PVs for, you know, for putting a raise in and getting the tax write-offs and whatnot. It's a great point and would certainly earth me too if somebody had a piece of property and they came for one month a year at the most or a week and put something up that adversely affected me. But from that aspect, I don't really know if there's really not much that we can do for somebody that's a permanent resident in East Montpelier versus somebody that's part-time or owns a vacant piece of land and wants to just buy it to put that up, I assume. Claire, is there anybody else? Say it on that point. Personally, I'd be hesitant to start trying to get into regulating based on where someone had come from. So we've talked around the property. So as I see the comments that we received, and there was a, initially, there was this big section of property values. We also have the written comments on that. We have some questions about safety as well. Do we think we're gonna avoid that for the moment? But I think to, so we did address the regulation of safety in the property values, either to the regulation section to speak to. Exactly, you froze for a little bit. Do you wanna go back and say how we address safety? Yes, so I was just saying, so we have spoken to the question of regulation of safety in the proposed amendment. We have not spoken to property values at all. Do we want to speak to property values either in that regulation section or somewhere else? Well, I think to Gianna's point, she made two points. One was do other towns mention this and the other was how would we even quantify the impact? And I imagine like most assessments, it would be based on comparables, which might be really challenging just given the general lack of this type of infrastructure. One in our town, but also across the state. So I don't know if we do try to address it, how we do that without knowing what the actual metric or quantification measure would be. Yeah, there have been some study, I mean, there have been some studies done on it, honestly, not many. Of the studies that I have seen, I would not call any of them particularly high quality. There was, and some of them in fact, say a point on aggregate to an increase in property value, you know, when a cell tower. I don't know if he knows anything about it, Gianna. In terms of the evidence that I have seen so far, I don't know that it's strong. Sorry, Scott, you were gonna say something. You, we lost some of your verbiage there. You blanked out a little bit. Oh, sorry about that. I was just saying that of the studies that we have seen, methodologically, a lot of them are not great. And some of them in fact point to an increase in property values with the addition of a cell tower. Not huge impacts, but it's, you know, but that's the direction some of them run. And so it's not, it's really not clear to me what evidence we would point to, you know, if we were going to make an argument that a tower would decrease property values, particularly if the guidance looking at visual impact had really been addressed. I mean, I think there is an interesting, we all know this in these sort of, in these issues, in these planning issues where there's like the pocket of immediate adjacent neighbors that are directly impacted, and then the broader who aren't impacted, but may benefit. And so there is this, like there's always this tension between those two pieces, right? And it's an interesting question if maybe we don't necessarily have to put it in sighting, but some consideration of net benefit, you know, that we would support some consideration of net benefit. And maybe that's documenting like how many more people would get cell service versus the, like, I don't know. I don't know if we would need to dictate that or even have a way to suggest like how that is quantified back to Lauren's point, but maybe that there is something in the narrative that could be placed there, that we recognize the tension and that we support projects that can offer net benefit to our residents. We've lost our audio again. You're back, can you hear me? I can hear you, yes, sorry about that. That's okay, I can see your chat, that's good. I don't know where you are. I guess I was saying maybe it could fit in the narrative that we recognize the tension and that we would be more supportive of proposals that can demonstrate the net benefit for town residents. How do we measure that? Well, I don't know. I don't know if we would have to dictate that or we'd have to say like convince us. But it's interesting that people have been silent on it and it strikes me like the health one is very clear. Like we're not allowed to do it, we shouldn't do it. And I did hear prior planning commission members that if we put it in, it sort of makes them question the strength of the full plan and so we don't wanna risk that. But if they've been silent on this and there's like requests from the citizens to explore this, that's sort of, I guess that's just the tension that's in my mind, right? The tension is the trade-off, the cost-benefit trade-off and the interest in sort of en masse to the residents benefit. Gianna, we, sorry, we lost you again. No, she can't, cause I am using myself weird. That's so weird. We can hear her online the whole time. Do we wanna, maybe we should have just two separate meetings. Those of us online and those in the rooms. They should leave the room since there are no members of the public there and just join Zoom independently. Got a good point there a lot. I think it's cause Orca's recording that they have to do something about the room recording. This is gonna have millions and millions of hits from Orca. It's just gonna overrun their servers when everybody gets into this. YouTube is gonna explode. I have seen some really interesting like public town meetings. This is not one of them in terms of getting onto YouTube. I've been signing into, I've actually been signing into the East Montpelier who we're listening to. Well, my wife's on the select board, but even if she doesn't, it's hanging out over the beer. It's what you do in East Montpelier per excitement. Okay, they probably can't hear us, but it's also almost a NIMBY thing. It's, you know, hey, if they had the cell phone tower, it would be great for me up on North Street. It would be good for you, Gianna. Gianna, you'd probably have better cell phone service, but you couldn't see the tower and it'd be far enough away from the increased in property value or those that really wanted it. But if it was, if I had to look at it, I, you know, that would be too happy. Yeah, I think that that's a, maybe we're not allowed to talk. If there's not a core, I'm actually just gonna, I wanted to talk, but I'm like, oh, I'm allowed to. They're clustering around the computer. Are they moving the deck chairs on the Titanic? Hi, since I'm not sure what's happening, I just want to say that this whole NIMBY thing is a really unfortunate framing for people who are, for people who are, you know, live in a neighborhood who are expressing concern. As soon as someone starts framing it as NIMBY, those people are judged, you know, very negatively as people who are kind of like, just protecting themselves and not really concerned about anybody else. And maybe some of those people are like that, but I think it's an unfortunate framing. And I don't think, I really think that it. I agree with you that it's, and I didn't want it in the neighborhood either. I live on the other side of the mountain. I don't, I didn't want it, you know, on Jacobs or Horn of the Moon. You're right. I'm just saying that I was reacting to what Gianna said, about some people want it, the silent majority or the silent, those that are silent rather. And I use the wrong phrase, but I just was referring to that. Yeah, you know, another thing is that, I mean, imagine if you're a homeowner and let's say that the, you know, that your property is worth $400,000 and there's a cell tower that's, you know, 300 feet from your kitchen window and, you know, you have appraisers from the bank or professional appraisers come and they say your $400,000 house because you really can't enjoy the property the way you did, blah, blah, blah, is now worth $300,000, okay? Who, where's the liability life or something like that? If it's unclear whether property values can or cannot be part of the town, you know, plan, it's like, does the town have any liability for not driving a stake in the ground around this? If it's unclear, it just seems like it creates a liability for the town one way or the other. And I can tell you, at least on Jacob's road, the tower, the 250 foot tower, whatever it is that was proposed would not have improved property values here. And it would have been significant, you know, downside for everybody who lives in the Horn of the Moon area. So this is a big deal and I understand- I am taking notes for what you're saying, but I just wanna make sure that our other planning commissioners can hear you and that they're back on board. Yes, okay, I thought I was- Just hold on, okay. Yeah, well, I'm taking notes that they will see them. So you are on record, we're capturing it, but I just wanna make sure. Zach, Clarice, you're nodding. Are you with us again? We are back and we think we are, we're gonna try plan B and hopefully this will, yeah, this will be stable. Great. So I'm sorry to interrupt you, Ron, you can continue now. I pretty much said, you know, I'm not sure who heard or who didn't hear. So, but I think I'm just trying to make a point that I understand that there are questions about how to determine the impact on property value. And there may not be a clear answer tonight, but I think that it would be an important question to answer from people who do that for a living and try to see if there is a way of determining that rather than having it being an open-ended question because I do think that towers can have potentially adverse effect on property value. And I think it does create a potential liability for the town. I have a question as the newest least tenured member of the Planning Commission. So hopefully it's somebody more tenured than me can answer this, but carrying that maybe like an analogous example forward, Ron, if you have an adjacent private property owner who say decides to clear cut their property and they are part of your view shed and that would technically potentially impact, do we have anywhere in our town plan that would limit what a private property owner could do if it impacted an adjacent person's? I mean, just trying to think of like, I don't think that we would be able to do it for one type of infrastructure or use and not the other unless it's captured somewhere else or if it is captured somewhere else it would be great precedent set for this, Ron. Are you asking me that question? I'm asking anybody who might know if that is in the plan. There's a good example of that in the Horn of the Moon. A number of years ago, there was 40 acres clear cut on the ridge of Long Meadow and the owner of that property was in the current use program and they were fined for what they did because it was outside of what was part of their forest management plan. I don't know if the town has any regulations but I think it's a really good question that you asked. Ron, I am not aware of anything in the town plan or the zoning that would address that. Okay, what else is? Besides just your basic setbacks and building heights and residential versus industrial uses in different parts of town. Yeah, unless there's a statewide environmental regulation like current use or just forest best management practices I can't really think of anything. Yeah, I don't think there's anything. You talk about something clear cutting but about that adversely affected your property where all of a sudden now you had these run-offs that you normally wouldn't have because the forest was absorbing it but I don't recall anything in the town plan but it would be detrimental. So in a DRB there is a part firstly affecting your property but not your deal or that kind of deal probably like same thing over a big, a fireman next door, it builds a big barn in this field that was blocking your deal. You can't do nothing about that either. What's up a silo? Can't stop them. Yeah, so I do want to get us back to the question of would it be helpful to do a straw poll just sort of where people are and do we want to make changes to address property values? I say just one more thing first. Yeah, so I know that some of these, a discussion about some of these issues can be pretty unsatisfactory based on our limits as a town but when I get back to thinking about what the amendment to the town plan is for it's maybe two parts it's one is an educational piece town folks and for people who are on the plan and commission in the future but it's also because there are these specific criteria that the PUC can take into consideration when they get an application for a new cell tower and those criteria are specific and property values and health are not on there. So if we want, I feel like we could potentially talk about property values as an educational piece but it's not necessarily going to be it's not gonna be considered by the PUC anyway. So if that's the leverage that we're trying to exercise I don't think that's the reason to add it to the amendment. Hi, it's Kari. Is there any value to adding it just to indicate that it's something that property owners have a concern about just as a starting place? So yeah, maybe I was on the educational side of things. Maybe that is a possibility. I still think of what Zach was saying earlier about there just being methodological issues with some of the studies, they're just gaps but maybe there's a place for acknowledging that folks are concerned about this. I mean, if we're gonna talk about property values, I think we also have to be able to talk about the impact on property value to the land owner who's trying to construct the tower. When the land owner on Jacob's road who was going to put in that tower sold those rights for $40,000, they gave up a development right with a net present value of somewhere between two and 300,000. If we're gonna talk property values that's gotta be part of the tip. I would also imagine we'd have to include something about property values or Jason properties that didn't have adequate cell service and would be improved by having a cell service. Yeah. Yeah, I think I'm hearing from members of the public here a desire to have the voice heard in the plan. And I'm also hearing from the commissioners like some of the complexity of these issues or concerns. So I don't think we can resolve it tonight, but it does flag for me like maybe that is some language that we do need to explore a few sentences around and in the educational side. Property values and the impact of cell towers on property values can be mixed. And we have some members of the public that are concerned and some of the public that could benefit. And we recognize that as a planning commission. And maybe we can leave it that, maybe we need to massage that, but I think staying silent when we're hearing from the public that they would like that reflected somewhere maybe is not acknowledging what folks are asking. But we should also walk the balance in the line of reflecting sort of the other considerations that Spencer and Zach brought up and how do folks feel about that? Hi, this is Kari again. I think it's nice to have that acknowledged somewhere that there's a piece both for some people it could improve their property values with cell service, but for others it could be very detrimental. But I think what really rubs me the wrong way is that when you have something endorsed by the town that's been researched as serving the best amount of people doing a benefit and it's kind of like eminent domain, this we've decided your government that this is good for the town versus a single person just saying, I wanna do this on my property. And it hasn't been something part of the town plan. That's really, I think, I'm sorry if I bring this conversation to a different place again, but that really bothers me. It feels like vigilante, I'm doing this for the town, I'm just gonna get the cell service going. And it just feels like this should be something that is organically driven by the town, by the townspeople to resolve their problems and not having individual property owners take it upon themselves. And I understand there's money to be made there, but I don't know, there's just something about it that just feels very problematic. So balancing these sorts of things is the entire purpose of having this in the town plan. And that is the entire purpose of having better sites and worse sites to be able to try to steer towers to areas where they would be have a smaller impact. And so I guess my question to you guys, so what would you put in the plan that would accomplish that in a way that it's not being accomplished now? Well, and I'm not well versed on how things work, but in a fantasy that I have would be that, I don't know whether it would be people in the know who get appointed to, like you had said early on, one of the actions was to scout the town to see where the dead spots are, is there an agreed upon place that would, you know, I think maybe there'll be dead spots in Vermont that it's maybe part of how Vermont is gonna be, but I think there's potential, I think to resolve a lot of dead spots in the state by finding places that aren't offensive to anyone. There's so much undeveloped land in Vermont, I can't imagine there's not a way to explore something that would have agreement by a lot, almost all parties about a siting for a cell tower, like to have something, I don't know, more professionalized, I guess, in the decision where the sites should be. There is, Zach, you had mentioned it in your presentation, this action that we've put in the plan to consider whether to do a more systematic review of preferential sites, correct me if I am using the wrong terminology here, and Kari, we talked about that being made beyond our capacity at the moment, but it's definitely captured in the plan as a potential next step to do more intentional and collaborative community-based planning. And I wonder if that is reflective of something that you're hoping is in the plan, and I'm saying actually maybe is in the plan. Yeah, so I'll stop talking there, and is that correct me if I'm misrepresenting that action step? No, I think that's a pretty fair representation of it. Are you willing to take people's comments because I understand this is purely, it should be just the board. So are you willing to hear other comments? We've let a bunch of other people comment, so it would be unfair to not let your comments. Okay, Zach, I think the point you just made, and G, Anna? Or... Hey, Anna, but it's fine, whatever you wanna say. I think you're the point you're making that by moving forward, finding appropriate sites, that doing that in a systematic way has the potential for addressing Kara's concerns because it locates those spots that Kara is talking about. The best we can. The places where it will spread out the availability of the signals and be least intrusive to our views and our neighborhoods. So I think maybe those last two comments, for me, move us in the direction of the next steps that will, with what you have proposed and provided for us tonight, help us move forward. Thank you, Alice. So I think I'm trying to keep us on track. So I know we did discuss the possibility of doing the study at some length. The conclusion at that point was that this would, yeah, this would be such a significant undertaking that we didn't want to basically put this amendment on hold for probably a year or two while we tried to secure funding, secured experts did the work we were going to need to do. Clearly that could, if anyone would like to, if anyone in the commission would like to challenge that, there is a forum to do that, that is what we'd like to do. Zach, this seems like a perfect action item within the town plan for either revision or I don't know whether we can put action items now that need to be addressed going forward in the town plan. We have that whole list, but that seems to be the perfect place for it. And then it's, yeah. So Scott, we do have an action item to figure out whether we want, whether we want to do this kind of study. Are you talking about having an action item specifically to do the study? Yeah, it's not always, it's not always acted upon, but it would always be up to the select board probably with funding or, yeah, a little stronger teeth. I think this all makes a lot of sense. What is the least obtrusive place with the most coverage that's just all been mentioned? I did. It's my recollection that another reason why we are leaning toward leaving it as consider is because it was worth a longer conversation. One of the points that I remember being brought up is concerned that the year after that study is concluded, it will be out of date because of the next cell tower that goes up in a neighboring town or in town. So, yeah, I think that we also didn't necessarily haven't necessarily talked through what the true scope of that would be or who does that kind of work in Vermont. So I'm just trying to recollect why we landed on consider instead of making it a definite. Fair enough. Yeah, and I don't know if I was suggesting any edits yet either. I think I was more calling folks attention to the fact that that is a new action item that we've put on there. And then mentioning to the commission, it sounds like there's interest from the public that we should consider it. We should take that action and talk about it and put it on our agenda because there might be interests. Like Zach said, we don't really want to hold up these amendments because the tower could go in tomorrow. We'd like to have some standards in there. So like maybe we could process these with whatever feedback and get them to the select bird, but then have this consideration of, do we want more explicit standards of preferential sites? Do we want that to be sort of a public participation process and explore that as per that action item, whether we want to go down that road or not. But it sounds like having that action item and highlighting that that maybe is as to asking some of Alice's concerns and maybe some of Kari's, I'm not sure. Yeah, so I would like to try to keep moving us along. I don't know if we, I was hoping to see if we would be able to have a chance to see if we'd be able to vote this out to get tonight or not. I'm not sure though, Bill. We continue to go around in circles on the question of do we want to put something in on property values? And so I would like to come back to that, do we, I think it probably makes sense just to get it. I don't have a good sense of where we are as a whole. And so I think it might be helpful to do a straw poll of just do we, yes or no, do we open things back up to speak to property values? And yeah, Margaret there is doing start us. I don't know, I don't know, okay. I'm in now as well. Lauren? No. Spencer? No. Gianna? Yes. And Scott? I'm gonna say yes. Okay, so we've got, it's not unanimous, but we do have a pretty strong lead. Yeah, yeah, on the commission. I would propose having to do something that gets, gets considered with the next town plan, but that maybe not open back up right now. Do we, I know we did receive some comments on health impacts. I know we also talked about that as length and initial process and that that was a pretty, that seemed to be pretty cut and dry that we were not, that that was the sign that we could touch. I don't know if, are there any other issues that people think we need to discuss on the health question? I'm seeing some shaking heads. So we still have the question of, I'm just going back through my notes to see what else we're going to look at. Do we, do people feel, do we want to continue looking at reopening the question of a placement study or are we, do people feel good with what we have for the action item right now? With the way the action item is now? Yeah. We've got a, I'm not sure that was a totally clear yes or no question. So is this thumbs up for as it is now? Okay. So are there, so we're actually maybe closer than I thought. Are there other issues that I have missed that we want to address where we might want to make changes or do we want to send the proposed amendments to the select board as is? I'm not, have we been going on too long and have we beaten everyone down? Take motion to send them as it is. Okay. We have a motion on the floor to send the amendment to the select board as it is. Do we have a second? Second. Clara seconds that. All right. Motion for Mark. Clara second. Do we have any further discussion on this? Not seeing anything. I realize that we have talked around this while I will give you any, one last chance. Do we have any further discussion on this? I mean, we really want to get some of the things on the books. I mean, you don't know what's coming up next week, next month and to keep delaying it for another two weeks, four weeks, six months, it's important to get some more language into our town plan, which is I think the reason why we want to move this along. So I'm not seeing any further discussion. So I'll take it all in favor of the motion. I any opposed? Any abstentions? All right, eyes have it. All right, so this can, this can move on to the select board and move on towards approval. Hopefully. And they'll have their own hearing. They will have their own hearing. That's, yeah. That's right. The select board will also then hold hearings on this. So we are not, you know, the planning commission's portion is done for the moment, but this will move on to the select board. They will hold hearings and we will have more work to do if they send it back to us requesting more work. I want to thank you for having this hearing and then your meeting and the thoughtfulness with which you process the comments. And I totally support your moving it on. Thank you. Thank you very much, Alice. We've given this a lot of thought and a lot of us have internally given a thought. You know, some of us are neighbors right around the block and it's serious and it's weighing on us and we're really concerned and value your opinions and those that are not joining us tonight. So we do appreciate all your feedback and your attention. That was clear. Thank you. I wanted to say thank you too. Thanks. Thank you very much, Kari. All right, so I think we will move into the very boring part of the meeting now. Do we have any updates from the capital improvement committee? Oh, this is my favorite part of life. No, we have not had a capital improvement meeting since and I'll save you some oxygen and we'll move on to the next topic. No, we have not had an energy committee meeting since either, and I'll rest at that. Thank you very much, Scott. Mark, anything from us on the road? We've had three meetings in the last two weeks. First two actually just would work. Don't worry, you started to clean it up where they took the ash trees out, cleaned out the shrub underneath, from the trees in the parking lot, and then they had a meeting and I go to that Michael, Michael, on you? Quite a few people showed up. Thank you, Michael Dwayne, yeah. Bruce Jaffold, Colin Blackwell, and some others came and I think maybe he's going to be spending some more time revising the plan. Apparently, it's a change in the plan. That's what we're talking about today, it's me against it, so I'm gonna refine it a little bit. Thank you, Mark. Thank you for saving the update so that we have some updates. Clarice, I do have some for the Regional Planning Commission. Clarice, do I think the Regional Planning Commission? There's a meeting on the 10th. Spencer, I will forward you that agenda. I don't know if it's officially, sorry, Bruce just pricked up in the back of the book. Bruce looks like a puppy that's just, where someone just put some bacon on the stove. But on the agenda is a presentation on S148, which is a bill on environmental justice presented by Senator Brown-Hinstell. So Spencer, you are a rep? Not officially, at this point, I don't believe. Oh, well, congratulations, thank you. Seriously, no, I missed the last meeting. I'm usually very facetious and I like to make comments, but truly, thank you for representing us. That's wonderful. Thank you so much for stepping up. No, I'm being very sincere. You really have to do it now, Spencer. Yeah, I guess so. Yeah. We'll camp outside your house if you don't. We're not gonna threaten people to get them to join committees. Yeah, the one other update I do have from the Regional Planning Commission is that there is a, there are gonna be running a workshop on energy planning on May 18th from 12 to 130. I forget which day of the week the 18th is, like it's a Wednesday. I think that's, yeah, because the fourth was yesterday, so that would be two weeks from yesterday. I will forward the information about that around, but that is obviously open to anyone. I will also forward that to the energy committee. But that's all I have there. So we can move on to the ZA DRV report. We have a number of, I guess it is, it is permit time of year as a test. I don't know if there are any comments on anything, you know, interesting here. DRV had a meeting this week. They can say it. So we do have an update from our, from the ZA DRV. Looking good right now. Lauren was also there. But yeah, we had an application for two dugouts at U32. And after the fact permit for the ZA DRV, that was approved. Next to use approval. Also approved an application for a barn and site, barn and site improvement. At Orchard Valley Waldorf school. And also approved two new buildings that land care materials on Townhill Road. We also did a sketch plan. We also did a sketch plan. We also did a sketch plan. We also did a sketch plan review for a two lot subdivision on Quaker Road. And I gave that a thumbs up. So you guys have been busy. Lauren, I don't know if you have anything to add that you wanted to add since you're actually there. You are. We don't, we sort of forget that, oh, we have a new DRV member. So I want to not overshadow you, but you don't have to. No, no, thanks for our covering class. All right. So that's, you know, I believe that is it for our updates. So the next, the last piece is to look at the minutes from. So we talked about the, we talked about a certain data needs for the. Energy plan. Zach, I will make a motion to accept the minutes. Thank you, Scott. Do we have a second? Second. All right. Any discussion? We are still able to get changes. If there is any discussion or anything else. Not seeing any. All in favor. Hi. Any opposed. And it's pass. Thank you very much. So last item is other business. So I forgot on the CPC updates. I did also speak with Sam Lash. Last, you know, last week. So we are moving. I can, I can do further updates at our next meeting. No, I'm not seeing any other business. I will defer to Mark for the last piece of business that he hadn't been in a few minutes. I will defer to Mark on this last. Mark makes a motion to adjourn. I'll second it. It's got seconds. Not a letter for discussion. All those in favor. Hi. Any opposed. All right. Thank you very much, everyone. I'm just gonna give you a second. I'm not sure it is. Eight four. Not a single the mile. Have a good one, everyone.