 Alright, welcome everybody to the June 22nd, 2022 meeting of the Amherst Conservation Commission. First item on the agenda is comments from the chair that's me. I just want to say we have a very full meeting. I only have four attendees so far, so I'm going to have to repeat myself a few times on this. Thankfully, so right now we have I'm counting 12345. Permit hearings and one public hearing not to mention a fair amount of other business that's made it on this agenda. We have a packed meeting. Our plan is going to be like our standard hearing format and we might even have to convince it further if it seems like they were getting caught up on things. But just to reiterate that what we usually do is have a very short, like four to five minute presentation from the applicant on the, the application at hand, and then we'll have a report from staff. So usually Aaron or other commissioners that were part of a site visit, and then we'll briefly take public comment, and that will involve very comments and questions. Extremely relevant to the jurisdiction and the project at hand and we'll have to live with those to sometimes one to two minutes, and we'll try to be as inclusive as possible. And then realizing that we have a lot to get through on our agenda. And then we'll answer any questions from commissioners and figure out how to move forward with the applications as we move through these hearings. And I'll repeat that a couple times I'm sure but that was the one thing and then another is a reminder that we have a special meeting of the Conservation Commission scheduled for next Wednesday, which is June 29 that is at 8pm. And that's to hear the restoration plan for an outstanding enforcement order. So as a reminder that should be on your calendars. Sounds like based on the DP response to a recent repeat appeal we might also be trying to squeeze in an additional special meeting for earlier next week. So that will be on our agenda tonight but just letting you guys all know about that. And because it sounds like this is Leroy's last meeting thank you so much for your participation in time and steadfast, you know, I don't know, guidance Leroy throughout your time here but because it is Leroy's last meeting we really will need good participation from everybody to be in a tricky time of year. So that's what I wanted to say up front. Erin anything else I'm forgetting to say at the top here. One thing that Jen and I discussed offline was canceling the second meeting in August. Oh yeah, just to give commissioners a break and staff a break. Yeah, sorry. Thanks Erin I should remember that yeah and the other one was just if we could right now just quickly get a feel for if anyone would be if people would be okay with canceling that last, the second meeting in August and I can look at it exactly what the data is right now. It is August 24. So we would have our meeting on August 10 and then not again until September 14 so be a good month break from at least meetings will have a lot of going on in the background but is that okay with anyone or does anyone have a strong preference for the other August meeting or let me know now. Just and have schedules I won't be around the first August meeting I'll be overseas. So, okay, if it's a matter of, you know, I definitely will be able to join that one. Okay. Aaron it seems like with that information that Laura is not available on the 10th of August but is available on the. And you should check with Fletcher though. Yeah, right I was just going to say let's check with Fletcher if Fletcher can be there on the 10th and let's stick with the current plan but if not. We can consider flopping it. I know for me, we don't have daycare for that time so it gets pretty complicated and I have a feeling Michelle is maybe perhaps the similar situation. I already booked an Airbnb for that week so I really. Okay, all right. I'm sorry when we talked I was like I'm looking at now. Good good for you. Okay. Let's roll. We'll roll with that and do what we can. Okay, so no meeting we're officially canceling the meeting on August 24. Okay. Great. Done with that. All right. Next item on the agenda Dave. Any comments or yeah, let me just make a couple of quick ones I know how long your your agenda is but just a quick round around town. So lots of trail maintenance going on on trails all over town we have to summer staff and bringing on perhaps two more Brad and Tyler are the key, you know our permanent staff members out there and and you know you all probably use the trail like I do and and visit them but we're trying to keep up with grass growing and keep trails open. Lots of improvements going on along the Robert Frost trail continuing from last year we've got a good volunteer group led by some folks in Amherst Woods doing work along the Robert Frost trail. I'm going to start with Bob bridging and ramps from Bob bridging. I had a nice meeting out at Mount Pollack's a week or so ago with one member of a fledgling friends group out there at Mount Pollack's. So Aaron and I have a draft management plan and that we drafted about a year ago and things got kind of bogged down during the pandemic so Aaron and I hope to bring you that draft management plan probably in the fall with some input from neighbors of butters and and friends if you will informal friends of Mount Pollack's. We're a farm conservation area offer belch down road if you haven't been there recently. We're planning kind of a grand opening in late July for the community gardens there they're really coming along nicely. We're working with healthy Hampshire and other groups supporting folks in in the use of and the access to community gardens kiosk going up there and gardeners have plants in the ground so it's really exciting. I think it's a little bit more about Plum Brook pond and the culvert the customer trust culvert. So I will leave that to her but but I think that work is is beginning in earnest this week and and we're pretty pretty well poised for that. And then lastly we're, we're taking a little second look at the amethyst bridge replacement you may recall that project that you all permitted though you're an Africa or so. We have a few funds amassed to do that we have telephone poles waiting. We enlisted the help of our building commissioner Rob Mora, who is quite skilled and quite experienced in building and Aaron and I spent an hour out there with him and, and he's, he's playing around with the creative design that we might bring back to you again. We're keeping impacts to bank and impacts to resource area impacts to the riverfront all in mind of course, but there may be a hopefully a simpler way to do that bridge and and have it be there for the next 30 to 40 years so look for that somewhere later this summer. So those are just kind of a smattering of the kinds of things that are going on out there in the field but everything going well great to bring on young people to help us on the trails and get a little dirty and, and, and watch out for poison Ivy and Aaron seems to be going quite well already, you know busy but well, we're also trying to enlist the help of the ambassador program the Amherst ambassador program to have a presence with us out there at buffers pond. We will not have the staff presence we had in during the pandemic. Those resources are just not available any longer so we'll keep a good eye out at buffers pond as well. So it's kind of a quick round the horn here in Amherst and mostly good stuff and yeah, any quick questions before you all move on your agenda. And I'll try to stay with you. We really appreciate the trail maintenance. It's a lot of hard work and tough conditions. Yeah, I'm so used to saying 80 miles 80 miles. That's a lot of trails, and, and a lot of a lot of multi floor rows and poison Ivy and bridge work and whatnot so, and I will be with you as long as I can I'm on a bit of a deadline for something tomorrow at work so I'll stay with you as long as I can and, and yeah. Okay, thanks for being here Dave. So Aaron, I'm going to turn it to you the next item on our agenda is land management updates but let me know if there's other things we should cover in the interim. I did receive two land use applications for a filming project that's going to be happening in Amherst. And so what I'd like to do is there the applicant representative is on the call if you guys could raise your hand on the zoom call I'll make you a panelist so we can pull you into the meeting. And I'm going to kind of step back for this one because I feel like this is a broader conversation that needs to be had with Dave and Paul Backelman and others in town in terms of moving forward how this will be handled but just to give the idea of this is a five minute presentation to give the commission a sense of what's being requested and then we're going to have to carry this conversation on I don't think we're going to be making sort of a decision so much tonight as beginning a dialogue so. Okay, and if I could just, if I could just piggyback on that yeah I know Aaron will bring bring the representative in. But yeah, the company has reached out to to the town more broadly about using some other sites within town so Paul Backelman the town manager and I will be meeting with them I believe next Tuesday morning. So I'd like to hear from them tonight. Maybe we could pose the questions but for the sake of your time tonight and your full agenda. I think going into a deep conversation about some of these things probably isn't warranted tonight. So we'll take some of your questions from them and then we'll record some of your questions and then I'll bring that to the larger conversation about other sites in Amherst on Tuesday, and then and then we'll have them back in two weeks or however the schedule works out. Okay, great. So, Meredith Crowley. Okay, great, we can hear you. So as, as Dave just said, we have a really tight agenda tonight and it sounds like this is part of a long conversation or the beginning of what will hopefully be a productive conversation. And I think our first hearing starts at 730 so if you could give us like a four or five minute presentation and then we'll be sure to document any questions we have that would be great. All right, that sounds great. Thank you so much for inviting us to this meeting I also have Audrey, Gloria with me who is the assistant location manager. Hi. And this seems like a perfect opportunity to just give you a general overview of what we're hoping to do. I'll just give you broad strokes in a nutshell and then, as you said I'm hoping to have further conversations in more detail. But just the general strokes of it are that we are hoping to film a scene at Mount Pollux. This is a film that's going to be, as you said, in the area this summer. And it's written and directed by Annie Baker, who grew up in Amherst. She is a playwright as well. So we're hoping to film a scene at Mount Pollux and the further discussions that I'm hoping to have are ways that we can figure out how to do that logistically in a way that has a low impact on the site and do it in a way that's approved that our presence is approved there. We're talking about how our crew will access it, what kind of equipment will bring, how many hours we want to be there, specific dates and things like that. But we just wanted to start this conversation off just to let you know that we're really hoping to be able to film at Mount Pollux it's one of the most special locations to our director. Okay. Thanks Meredith. That's one thing that just Dave, do you have a, your hand came up to do. I just wondered, you know, again, could you give us a sense of timing what month, how many days you might need, how big your crew might be those kinds of things to just give the commission a sense. Yeah, absolutely. So we are looking for two days of filming on a weekday, two weekdays, sometime between July 20 and August 25. That's our window of when we will film this entire film. And as we're in the coming days we're getting closer to having specific dates I know on our original application, we put two dates down just to get the ball rolling. Once our schedule firms up if the dates work for you then it won't change again unless something happens like whether then we might request to change it. But to answer your question sometime between July 20 and August 25. The crew size question is a very good question. Our crew is about 50 people. We are adept at sort of evaluating locations where we're going and knowing how to adapt ourselves to make us fit. So, a scenario would be we would likely find a parking lot nearby that we would secure ahead of time to put the bulk of our equipment trunk trucks, and then bring the equipment that we need up the drive to Mount Pollux on smaller sites and drop off there. Another thing that we would discuss in further discussions is, you know, where exactly in Mount Pollux we're hoping to be, and where our crew it's sort of be staging equipment and standing by. Once we're at the site. I just interject we are looking at scaling back to what we call a skeleton crew. It's already on our schedule which is, I feel pretty good about saying that so although our general crew size is like 50 people. We are all aware that Mount Pollux needs to be maybe half of that, you know, like we're trying for as few as few of people as possible. Yeah, thanks Audrey that's. Yes, so our general crew for this film is about 50 but when when we're at certain locations, we know the reality of how many folks we can fit in a location and and do so without causing any damage, etc. Yes, thank you, it would be a skeleton crew, and we can have further discussions to give you the parameters that will stay within, you know, we can even name it and say X amount of people will be in this area. Yeah, thanks Audrey, yeah. Jen I was curious, I know we want it we're sensitive to time any other conservation kind of related questions from the Commission that I can take to the larger conversation that's going to happen early next week. How long a period of time would they be there. Good question. We, the filming between like prepping filming, and then moving ourselves out. We typically film for 12 hour days. We probably would not be there for the whole climb. So these are questions that we're still honing into. So it would, it would not be, we would be at a at more than one location each day so we would come for essentially half of that time. We're not going to be very vague in general but as we sort of wrap our heads around this. Once we have a very more clear idea, we go from being very vague to being very very specific. And, and we could really get bulleted points to you and once we all talk and agree to what you would allow us to do as well. So we do, you know, have a, we have a standard agreement, filming agreement that we use with all of our locations, and we would provide a certificate of insurance as well. And so all of those finer points, you know, we can send in an email or have another conversation soon but my guess at this point would be four to six hours probably each time that we're there. In the later half of the day. In the later half of the day. It's one day we're filming up by the tree, the beautiful spot sunset e times but you know we would need to set up before sunset. The next scene would be in the parking lot itself, and that's more dusk and night. But both days would be in the later for the day we would likely not be there morning early afternoon. Are you doing other filming in the Amherst area. We are yeah we're, we are still scouting for locations. And we're where we have a few other spots that we're interested in filming in Amherst. So just in the interest of time commissioners anything else like very relevant to the conservation commission the conservation area itself any specific questions that we should give mayor to the heads up about yeah so Leroy and then Michelle. Not a question so much as two areas of concern just to keep an eye on. We'd be concerned about trampling thinking about heavy equipment like a boom truck for the camera, or you started tracking on the ground for camera. Also, talking about July August would be worried about heat generation if you have a generator going there 12 hours we'd like it to not be on the tree branches for example, and those of my two. We would love to at some point to I think it would be helpful to maybe do a site visit with someone from your committee to to make sure we cover all of those concerns. Great. Yeah, and piggybacking on that really quick Michelle is just, there's a lot of poison ivy out there, just so you guys are aware of that. Thank you for that. I'm sorry. No, that's that's totally like, I did on the first time I went by. I'm okay Michelle sorry about that, go ahead. So specifically for my Pollock some other parties up there. I've had maybe porta potties or they're going to be like food tables or any kind of equipment set in certain places and sort of general footprints of your activity up there. I think maybe we should establish that and just try and keep it centralized to certain areas. Yes, we would. It would be extremely helpful for us to have a porta potty, and this is sort of one of those things where we would come to whoever would approve and talk about where specifically we'd like to put it and see if that works. And as far as food, you know, being a skeleton crew. It's not like we're going to have anything elaborate. We just really have waters and snacks and, you know, and again we can discuss the specifics but I would envision sort of just like a folding table with some snacks on it and a cooler to keep us hydrated. My only other comment, just regarding our conservation areas is that I noticed that you wanted to close down the parking lot and are you going to want no public access while you're up there because that that would be something we'd be making an exception with and especially the time at this broke I mean that's extremely frequented at those hours and there are, you know, a lot of people that would be trying to go there to walk their dogs during that time. So I just want that to come up for some discussion. And to that, not Pollux is obviously very popular around the sunset as well. So, I didn't know that the expectation would be that we would block off those areas to the community. And we're, I'm, we're certainly open to figuring out a way that we can be flexible to make it work in an ideal situation, because we're going to be bringing in equipment and people. I know that the parking lot at Mount Pollux is quite small. I would feel it seems like even if we weren't saying that we're officially blocking off that parking lot just for our use. Once we settle in, we're probably going to be taking up the whole space. And then at some point we would like to film in that parking lot as well while we're there. So I, I, I, you know, I'm hoping that we can figure out a way that we can make it work where we're minimizing how much we're taking away from public use of it. And then also Mount Pollux is by far our priority if we weren't allowed, if, you know, if we had to only choose one if we were only allowed to film at one of the places by far Mount Pollux is where we would want to be not that Amethyst Brook isn't also a gorgeous place but it's just very specific to our area of Mount Pollux. Have we ever closed off an area for public access in the past, I think that's by just looking at precedent. I think, yeah, it's a great question, Laura. I think through the years we've done different things. We've had weddings with signage that, you know, ask people to hike around a certain area. I mean, there's so many entrances to Mount Pollux I don't think we can realistically say you can't go up there but it would be incumbent upon the group, the company to really probably put up signs that said you know, filming in progress, please, you know, stay here you're welcome to watch, or have some PR people out there on the various trailheads while they're filming and want quiet etc etc. So I think all of those things can be worked out I share your concerns about Amethyst Brook I think Amethyst Brook is is just a much more difficult with so much traffic and and so much dog walking I think it's a much more complex situation to try to use that for this kind of exclusive purpose for a couple hours. So, so I have a really good sense from the commission and of course from my own knowledge about Pollux of some of the issues. My brother-in-law happens to be in the industry and just got back from filming in Newfoundland for four months and part of his crew this this is what they do the advanced team does this so I have a good sense of kind of what kind of things go into this so happy to take this conversation with the town manager on Tuesday and get more information. I do think time is a little bit short. Yeah, we want to get this approved by a late July date so yeah. Yeah, so I think time is also short just for our agenda. So I wanted to say, Mara, thank you. I'm an actually thank you for being here and giving us a heads up about this it sounds like there's more to be figured out. The one last thing I'll add is just in the past, and this is, I don't think we need to pull this apart right now, but in the past day when we've had somebody using a conservation area or town property for profit, we've like figured out how to get some sort of impact to the conservation area in the town. Yeah, that that is also a precedent that we're trying to hold on to just because a lot of different entities use this land and thankfully we're in a position to like, make sure it's used responsibly so. We're very happy to give a donation for sure. Thank you. Great. Okay, we'll have more next week, Jen, I think it's a great opportunity. You know, to it's an Amherst native who is doing this and coming back to their hometown and I think it's really exciting to be able to support this endeavor so we'll do everything we can and, and we'll have a report for you next week after the meeting with the town manager. Great. If you have any further information from us before that meeting, I'm happy to happy to put together an email and answer any further questions before your next meeting. Great. Thank you very much. It would be fun to watch a movie filmed at Mount Pollux. You just have to do our best to protect that land. So, thank you for us. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you. Good night. Thank you everyone for those succinct questions. That'll be interesting to see how that develops. So the next item on our agenda is a public hearing for viewing the final changes and hopefully approving the proposed amendments the town of Amherst bylaw regulations. So, I don't think I have to do anything it's already an open public hearing. I think Aaron the plan here was that you wanted us to give us first and overview or do you want to take public comment first. So if I could just give a quick overview. So, just to recap a little bit, we have a page on the conservation commission website that has the bylaw regulation amendments with all the applicable documents. It's the existing regulations section by section proposed changes section by section, and then the new regulations section by section I also uploaded Leroy's presentation and his talking points there. And then at the very bottom. There's some, there's three sections. Based on the comments that were, and also just sort of a final read through. I did make a few minor edits to three different sections of the document and I that's what I would like to review with the commission and the public quickly before we take public comment if that's okay. I think that makes a lot of sense. Okay, so can you guys see my screen. Mm hmm. So, we incorporated, and just to recap on this a little bit. Any definitions in the definition section. We removed all duplicate definitions from the wetland protection act so that our definitions now are strictly as they apply under our bylaw, if they're not already defined or if they're different than what is in the wetlands protection acts. And one of the things we felt it was really important to define was clear cutting. And so the commission had originally put a definition together. And then Fletcher sent me some comments feedback based on that definition and so I modified the previous edited definition that we had had up in the, on the website. So one thing that was important to Fletcher here was he didn't want us bringing up clear cutting on small lots or single family house lots. And I thought that it was very important that we say five acres or greater because typically agricultural land or land in agriculture is five acres or greater. And so I incorporated in that five acre or greater concept. Also, he felt like it was really important that we separate out. And that's done for regenerative civil cultural practice versus clear cutting that's done to convert the land from one use to another use and so that's what the this change in definition does. That makes a lot of sense. And I did send this to Fletcher and I said I edited our previous definition based on your comments and he said looks good so just sharing that one change. And one change was in the vernal pool definitions, which took, which takes out the no permanent flowing outlet and also no predatory fish populations, because there are certified vernal pools that have both predatory fish and flowing plants and so to a little backstory on that is we did vernal pools now have their own section in our resource area section and the definition is now much clearer and much more focused on physical and biological characteristics it's very clearly now. So this definition ties back to that section. So that's one area where now again this is changes in addition to the changes that were already made so we're revisiting this based on the public comment and the commission's overall review. The next section was this was relative to filing fees plan requirements and work conditions. This was actually an error that I found in and this was the final draft version that was up on the website. So you can see under plan requirements for request deter for determination it referenced notice of intent and under plan requirements for notice of intent it referenced request for determination so they were just switched out and so I switched them so they were in the appropriate sections. So that was just a catching an error that was in there that I hadn't captured that I hadn't detected previously. And then the third sections the procedures section and this is relative to the a butter notification discussion that was happening relative to request for determination. And there was a lot of public comment that we received over the last the last three meetings where basically there was concern about the waiver provision so this is how I change this to address this. To be clear so under D number two, we still have any person filing a request for determination with the commission so I'll comply with the a better notification requirements as discussions in section three be of these regulations and then what we're saying here is that we are not adding a provision to be able to waive a better notification for the RDA. Correct. Extra clear. So, I see this as us, you know, just an extra layer of public input commissioner input to try to sort of form formulate these bylaw regulations to suit the community and the commission's needs and so we have tried very hard to do that and to take people's comments and into consideration so that was those are the the additional changes from the final draft versions that were posted online and those were those last final changes that were made. Just as a point of reference before you take public comment. So still, I'd like to do just like a final read through through for great grammatical edits and also for final section updates like just to verify that section references are correct. But the content of the, the regs is what I would like to have the commission approved tonight if the commission feels comfortable doing so. It's hard to get to this point. LaRoy Michelle have spent countless hours working offline on this so if we can get this approved tonight we would be extremely grateful for that so with that said I'll turn it turn it back. Okay, thanks Aaron. So to public comment I just want to see commissioners is there any outstanding questions or suggested revisions, aside from small grammatical errors and references from one section to another section vice versa that you want to talk about right now. All right. So with that, we're going to open this up for public comment. And we're, please limit your comments and questions to two minutes at most and so that we can keep moving because our agenda is very full tonight. So with that, I see Becca Matthews. You should be able to talk although you're muted. Thank you. I just want to thank you. I appreciate your work on this and I really appreciate that you're not waving a butter notifications. I just think it's really important for members of the community to, who will be impacted to be able to learn about the projects and have an opportunity to ask questions and express their views and I just appreciate your work on that and you know that you're not waving the butter notifications. Great. Thank you. All right page. Are we just commenting on the bylaws or the whole night's proceedings. That's the bylaws. Okay, I just want to commend you on the work you've done. And I like the revisions and I hope you'll adopt the new wetlands bylaw tonight. Great. Thank you. All right. Janet Keller. I too would like to thank the subcommittee. This is an incredible and outstanding piece of work. It's a massive technical legal update of the, of the regs. And I greatly appreciate your modern modernizing them to reflect the commission's experience and the best practices of the Massachusetts wetlands law and the wetlands regs surrounding communities. And of course, offer a special appreciation for the restoration of a butter notices. It's a clear statement that you have have now placed in the regs, all around wonderful collegial effort on this very difficult work. Thank you. Thank you, Janet. Thank you for following along. And for your participation. I'm Rolf Carlstrom. Carlstrom, excuse me. Hi, thank you. First of all, I agree with what's been said the butters notification is critical because not just we need to know but we also have information that can be critical and helping with decisions so thank you for remembering that. We've been here a long time we know a lot about the land around us, and we can provide a perspective so that's important. The other item I just want to say very quickly procedurally, please remember we can't see anybody else. And I still really don't like this forum where we're doing a public meeting where I don't know who my, who other people in the audience are. Remember to please say our last names when you say we're speaking because no one else knows who we are in the audience, and you did that for me thank you and and just remember that if there was any way if there's any town person listening that we could move to a forum where we were more like an open meeting where we knew who was in the audience. I think we're doing a much probably better job of coordinating our comments and thinking about how, you know, you could get more out of us as as the community. So it's just a comment we're stuck with zoom at the moment, but if there's any way for us to know the list of participants boy would that make a difference how it feels to be in a meeting that is a town town meeting. Yeah, look at they can't look at the participants. Yeah, hold on a secondary. Yeah, so Mr. Carlstrom I just want to say so we don't always know the full name. So it's however people sign or call in is all that we can see. So I read the name that I can see sometimes I only see a phone number. Just so you know so like, we have a little bit more information and that's only the people hosting the meeting so that's Aaron and I. Yeah, yeah. Say our names and addresses because that we forget that so quickly so thank you for that that's important. Yeah, so I wrote Carlstrom 73 faring. Long time Amherst resident thank you that's a great point yeah. Great I appreciate that and noted we'll we'll see if there's any way we can switch around this forum it's tricky I agree. Appreciate it thank you. Okay. And I see page and Janet you still have your hands up. If you enroll. Okay. Looks like no more hands up. If you're here attending the Amherst conservation commission meeting and you have any questions or comments about the proposed revisions to our bylaw. Please raise your hand. And if I select you please state your full name and address. I will work on that. Give it 10 more seconds. All right. So it looks like we need a motion. I think you should have the honor. To approve the 2022 bylaw regulation amendments and close the public hearing line for mining grammatical changes and sexual reference updates to be finalized prior to the posting of the updated amendments online. Second. That was a second from Michelle voice vote Laura. Michelle. Hi, Andre. Hi. Hi. And I am an eye. That's yours absent. Wow. Thank you guys so much. Great work Aaron great work Michelle and the Roy. That just made our lives less complicated. You know for future things for future things they can't see the participants I can see all the participants. I can look at the whole list of all the names that are watching. Because you're a panelist. Yeah, and there are reasons for that. So like, for example, I'll just give an example like there are phone numbers and so if it was a public forum where all that information was on display. People's personal phone numbers would be posted in a. The public can't see that Larry because they're not panelists. So they don't have access to who the attendees in the meeting. And because there's just such a different amount of information you can get from whatever people enter when they enter the zoom meeting it's it's not like, you know, it's not a. It's just a general way of sharing information about the people in attendance. I just got a list of names. I get a list. Yeah. When you press on attendees on that list, Larry, the top one that I see is a phone number. That's true and that happens because of the way they log in. You know, that's true. But other. All right. Yeah, so Larry. This is Dave, but I am listening and I will take these comments back. This is a, this is a challenge for all committees and boards, including the town council and Amherst. So I heard Ralph's comments and concerns and, and they have been shared pretty widely by lots of other people. So we're working on it. We're not even sure remote meetings are going to continue. We may be back in person before you know it. So that's what I was just going to say is that I think that there we would need some legislation to pass pretty quickly if you were going to stay in this format much longer. So I think that's an unknown at this point to it within the state of Massachusetts. So, comments all appreciated. I don't think we're going to solve it now. Dave, if you wouldn't mind just keeping us posted on any changes or any avenues to change the format for a meeting that would be really, really appreciated. I will do that. Thank you. Okay, keeping us rolling. Next public hearing is a notice of intent. 735 minutes late we'll get there. So this is SWCA for 52 Fearing Street LLC for the relocation and reconstruction of a single family house with associated site work and preparation in the 100 foot buffer to bordering vegetated wetland at 46 Fearing Street. So, Erin, we have to continue this because of the open appeal period for the ORAD. Also on Fearing Street. Do we open this hearing or just continue it or open it and continue it. I would say I would say I would say opening it. Because I know there's, there are probably a lot of a butters present who received a butter notifications. Yeah, I would say that it's, it's totally up to you Jen with regard to once you open the public hearing if you'd like to have the applicant present just a general overview of the project and or whether you choose to take public comments tonight. I would recommend that we keep the proceeding to 20 minutes, just because we know that it's going to be continued anyways. Yeah. All right, well let's open the public hearing first because we know we have to do that. And so this public hearing is now called to order this hearing is being held as required by the provisions of chapter 131 section 40 of the general laws of the Commonwealth and act relative to the provisions as most recently amended amended and article 3.31 well and protections under the town of Amherst general bylaws. And so the reason that this hearing is being continued is because there's an open appeal period on another project which is relevant to this one. So, commissioners, I think it would be helpful if you would weigh in, if you think it would be useful, knowing that we can't close this hearing if you think it would be useful to hear information about the proposed work, or, and take public comment or that we should postpone any discussion of the proposed project to meeting this would be the next meeting. Once we know once that appeal period is closed, keep in mind we won't necessarily know the outcome of the appeal by the time that we should discuss this. I just think pragmatically, because we don't know who's going to be in attendance at the next meeting. I suggest we have the conversation at the same time and actually take action. Right, so the advantage that Laura is referring to is that Leroy will not be at the next meeting this is his last meeting as a conservation commissioner and Fletcher is not here. The advantage of the next meeting would be that Fletcher hypothetically would be here which would get us closer to our have a larger number of commissioners fully filled in and aware of what's going on in the project. Other commissioners feelings about procedurally how to handle this. All right. Am I taking that as neutral. I was hoping that we might know the outcome of the appeal by then but you're saying we might not. So I guess I don't really know. Yeah, we probably on neutral lines. Yeah. Yeah, we probably won't, I think. Well then I think Laura makes a good point. Yeah. Yep. So, applicant and members of the public present. Regarding this hearing for 52 fearing street. We appreciate you being here in order to be as efficient as possible in future meetings due to attendance of the commissioners and also an ongoing appeals period. That impacts this project. We're going to wait and take a discussion of the project presentation of the project details and then public comment in the next hearing. And so we're going to continue this to our next meeting, our next full meeting, which I'm opening my calendar is on July 13. Is that right Aaron. July 13 at 740. So if you were notified as no butter about this, this hearing and this meeting today, you will not be notified again. Instead, keep an eye on our agenda but what we're doing is rescheduling and we'll open public comment and discussion of this permit application. At our next meeting on July 13 at 740pm. So commissioners I need a motion. I'll make a motion to move to continue to 46 fearing street. The notice of intense to July 13 2022 at 740pm. Seconded. So that's seconded motion by Laura seconded by Leroy voice vote Laura. Leroy. Michelle. Hey, Andre. Hi, Larry. Hi. And I'm an eye. Okay. Next item on the agenda. Is this is another notice of 10 SWC on behalf of Ron. I'm sorry, I will ask about pronunciation of that for the construction of a multifamily residential building and associated site work and mitigation in the riverfront and buffers and to border bordering budgeted wetlands at 395 West street. Okay, so for this one we're still waiting for natural heritage Aaron. Is that do I have that one straight. Okay. And the applicant did want to present the project tonight and also seek the commission's guidance relative to a restoration area that they are looking to an area they're looking to restore of a wetland on the site. Guidance commissioner opinion as they move forward with a probably a plan revision, a potential plan revision on the site. Okay, I'll bring Mickey in. Okay. Great. Hi everybody, I'm Mickey Marcus SWCA and I'm an Amherst resident and also on the call is Tony summers whose project designer and run liberty or who's the owner of the Amherst office park. The area. Do you want us to bring allow Ron and Tony to talk or just if there are any questions for them. You probably want to bring them in so they have any add some color to the discussion. Okay. Okay. So this would turtle associated with Plum Brook. So we did file a streamlined permit the natural heritage they have 30 days to issue a response. We haven't gotten that back yet so we will just continue this hearing what I wanted to do is just give you an overall flavor of this project. And I do have a couple of questions I wanted to ask the commission for some potential plan revisions for the next hearing. So the project is taking an existing house that was previously used as a group home and convert that care that down and build a nine unit residential building. And there's the building is 50 feet or more from the wetlands there's no work in 30 foot buffer. There's no tree cutting involved in the project there's no wetland alteration but we do have a fairly extensive wetland mitigation plan. And I just want to just go through what that is. Plum Brook is right next to the site. So it is considered a riverfront redevelopment. I guess, I don't have to give you all the numbers now but the total additional work of impervious area is about 4,623 square feet. So there's an addition there's an existing driveway parking lot dumpsters building outbuildings. And that's a little over 10,000 square feet and the total project is a little larger than that it's closer to 15,000 square feet. The existing driveway that goes down to from the site to West Street we're actually proposing to remove the entire paved driveway. Instead, we're going to build a series of six rain gardens so some very small stormwater management for the site, and those are going to some of those are going to be built actually in where it's currently the driveway. So, you can see there there's within the driveway there's actually four separate rain gardens that spill out. There's a lot of ecological restoration, you know, call it mitigation enhancement, but there's the only lawn is that very light green area all that dark green area is sort of like native habitat. There's a lot of plantings that entire orange area is a restoration area it's over 18,000 square feet. And then one of the things that we want to do is like is removing the the roadway across a wetland so you'll see there. You were that light blue area near West Street that's a an existing driveway with an eight inch culvert separating a wetland and we'd like to remove that entire fill and driveway restore the wetlands. One of the things I wanted to talk to you about was the wetlands have cracked up onto the fill. So in the notice of intent we had about 1000 square feet of wetland alteration. It's really just to remove the, all the fill and restore that area to have a better connection for the wetlands so I have a couple of questions and one is, do you want us to do that, you know, do a full restoration which has a temporary alteration of the side slopes, like I say about 500 square feet on each side of the driveway. And there's frag mites on the north side that dark green area has a lot of frag mites didn't know whether you wanted us to include a plan for controlling that trying to keep that out because we don't want that to spread through the wetlands on the south side which is mostly cat town. And then, you know, the landowner around around the bird ear is had suggested that maybe we should create like a raised board walk through there so residents of the public can go from those buildings out to West Street. Through a little board walk through the wetlands wanted to see if that you think you thought that was a reasonable approach, and Aaron had also suggested maybe some signage if we do restoration there along the sidewalk on West Street. The lands currently include removal of for dying Norway spruce they're shown on the plan right next to the detention basins. One of the things that we noticed today during the sidewalk was that there's also a couple of dead white pines, and we think we should just remove those Aaron suggested just topping those but but they're, they're kind of dangerous where they are. And then just any other recommendations from the Commission, you know we're going to continue this we have time to make some changes. So, I just go through them. Do you like the idea of just removing all the fill from that former driveway even though it would temporarily impact about 1000 square feet of wetlands. These are the side slopes from the road. Do the idea of some sort of boardwalk or raised crossing across that area, little kiosk. If we want to top those white pine should we put those on the plan, and any other suggestions, the Commission or staff have. That's it for stormwater. It, like I said, there's we tried to do impervious pavement couldn't make that work with the groundwater levels which is why we have many, we have six rain gardens. So that was the original approach was to try to do pervious asphalt but that didn't work for the site and this this is the driveway that will will pull out that's existing house. So the site will be through the existing office park and not use that driveway. The house is on the right that will go in part of the restoration and that we're in front is a lot of not we multiple our rows. There's a lot of, a lot of stuff you don't want to have there. Plumber. That's the outfall that's run that's the outfall of one of the stormwater rain gardens. So this is the restoration area they're standing basically on the driveway between the two wetlands. These are pictures of the trees that are dying or dead along the driveway that they were proposing removal. Aaron, did you have any initial. Well, so I've met with Mr. Lavertier and or SWCA two or three times prior to this filing and they've incorporated basically every bit of recommendation that I've offered to them in terms of restoration native plantings. You know, pollinator plantings or meadow plantings, the restoration by the of the driveways was at my recommendation and urging. So, I think they've they have incorporated everything I haven't gone through this application with a fine tooth comb in order to offer recommended conditions but based on what I've seen so far. They've incorporated what I've asked for so I don't see anything that's jumping out at me as far as red flags that, you know, our problems right now with what they're proposing to do. I think they just want to make sure you guys are on the same page with the recommendations I've made and also just get a little more specific guidance relative to the big concern being if they pull all that fill material out are those frag mites then going to travel north or south rather into the the other wetland. They've thought about keeping a little berm in between also because they don't want to drain the wetland that's upgrading. So they want to make sure that they're preserving that existing hydrology as much as possible. And then the area proposing a walk or boardwalk over there I thought, you know, if, if that's useful for their residents that that could also be something like a public education component that could be incorporated into the site where we're saying this is an existing area filled very close to Riverfront, it's bvw restoration it's also very close to a floodplain, trying to incorporate some, you know flood storage and restoring the area and give people an opportunity to understand the educational side of what we do. And that was why I had suggested that because it's so visible right on West Street. But it's totally up to you guys in terms of your feelings about it and if you think it would be beneficial. Yeah. Yeah, hot take is that I think the plan looks really good and I can tell that there's been a lot of like back and forth and detailed kind of review of how to handle this. Yeah, I see you have your hand up. Do you have a question or an initial response to. I think the plan is really thoughtful. And I like the plans for restoration I think that my question was around the walkway and we don't have to get into this now Jen but the questions I will end up asking are going to be, you know, do they actually see anticipated use of that walkway. And, and if we don't approve sort of a boardwalk area will residents just carve their own path. So, and I don't have enough information about sort of the foot traffic around the site. Yeah, it'll be pretty wet but yeah I hear you saying if that's the shortest route to the sidewalk that might be my become a footpath quickly. Um, yeah. Mickey, if you don't mind I'm just going to like get everyone's kind of feelings and initial reactions and then if you have specific follow up questions give you go ahead is that okay. That's fine. Okay, Michelle. I think it looks really good. I like the restoration plans in the walkway if it's appropriate. I am concerned about the fragmite is encroaching, especially with all the disturbance so I think they should go hand in hand with the restoration of the bill. And my question is just how the knot weed is going to be dealt with like if it's going to be dealt with simultaneously with kind of digging up ground. I'm just trying to prevent it from spreading because it's pretty noxious especially can take over newly disturbed areas so I guess just the that the plan for controlling the knot weed and restoring the rest of the site is somehow coordinated to prevent more knot weed spread. Yeah, so like a phasing and understanding kind of the phasing Mickey I don't know if you can answer that now but just you know I think I need to give you a more detailed plan. Erin also asked about whether what the approach would be for the invasives is one fairly large patch of knot weed. I think I'd rather just think that through and give you better details next year. That's great. Thank you. If there's any other initial questions are like additional information we would need in order to issue an order of conditions and vote on this application just so we can get get as close as we can by our next meeting. We hear from natural heritage. Do you guys like the idea of removing the driveway and restoring that well and how long has that like how long has that been in place. A long time. I think the house was built, like 50 years ago they said so. Yeah I just wonder and people have more expertise than I understand obviously I love the idea of restoration but after something's been there for so long, is it more harmful to rip it up. I don't know the answer to that. I don't know if science knows the answer to that. I mean I think it's, it goes, it could go both ways right so removing that driveway means you connect to previously disconnected system, and there's so much fragmities in that upper system that you risk like lowering the water level and then like moving all that seed mass, or allowing it to transport of that seed mass into the previously disconnected wetlands. But that said, if you connect them then it's flood storage that whole thing becomes flood storage and like an active floodplain for Plum Brook so maybe, I mean everything about the hydrology of the site would change, which could also be for the better all of a sudden maybe water levels are variable enough that fragmities isn't as happy or thriving there. Better access for turtles trying to cross the road to get to more wetland area. I'm just not sure the unintended consequences so that's all that's just something that you know for discussion later on. Yeah, yeah I think those are great questions and concerns. Yeah, so it sounds like Mickey, as much as you can be able to talk about kind of phasing and any understanding of like how that hydrology will be impacted, I think would be helpful. Okay, and then you know the other unanswered question is I don't know how natural heritage is what their comments will be the plans may have to change significantly. They may want an open space plan. That's an unknown so I'll let you know once we hear from them. Okay. Okay, that sounds great. Thank you for taking the time to explain it now hopefully this has been helpful. Any other questions or comments. So I would say that I really like the idea of not going in from the road there I've been living in this area around there for a long time, and the idea of that that particular roadway and I've always objected to. So the idea that are coming in at a better location farther to the south. I really like. Great. Yeah, all right. Yeah, removal of that of the driveway is awesome. I think it's. All right, Andres for it. Okay. All right with that then I think we probably need a motion to continue. Yes. And I'll get that up for you. Bear with me just one moment. Yeah, so we just need a question. I moved to continue the public hearing for 395 West Street notice of intent to 713 2022 at 745 p.m. Thanks Larry. Who was that second was that you Andre. Okay. Voice vote. Larry. Hi, Andre. Hi. Leroy. Laura. Michelle. And I'm also an eye. Okay, thank you all for your comments. It's very helpful. So we'll see you on a 13th. Okay. Thanks, Mickey. Thank you, Tony and Ron. All right. Moving along. So next is an, our request for determination and RDA. In the green gardens and on behalf of Stephen and Stacy Gordon for tree and vegetation removal at the riverfront area and buffer zone to BVW at 21 East Hadley Road. Um, do you know, I think it's Steve Viano, Steve, because you, yeah, okay. He's there. All right. I'm just, let me get this open. All right. So it looks like we're pretty close on this one. I just want to give the commissioners a quick while Steve is coming on. So a couple months ago earlier this year, there was an application for very minor modifications to a home at 21 East Hadley Road. And in the course of that review, it was discovered that some trees had been removed without a permit. So this is a follow up RDA following to address those Andre, you were actually on the site visit with me. So you remember the site. So there are, there's, there's vegetation on the site additional vegetation they want to remove there's like a large bamboo patch there's some invasives there. So they'd like to do some additional work to remove that vegetation and then do some additional tree planting. So Steve is here to explain the project. And I'll pull up the plans if Steve needs me to share them and as far as site visit I didn't actually schedule a site visit because we just like two and a half months ago had a site visit there but I did add site visit photos to the one drive from our previous site visit and if you guys would like I can share those site visit site visit photos. During the hearing so you can see the site. Okay, thanks Aaron yeah if you wouldn't mind playing up the plan. Steve, are you there. Can you hear me. Yeah, great. Thank you for being here. Yeah, not a problem. Thank you for for hosting the meeting tonight. So, essentially what we're looking to do over here is on the left hand side of the driveway at our client's property, they're looking to to remove additional vegetation and it's going to include removing. I believe on here have four trees that are that are a little bit larger size they some of them had broken tops in them and some of them will become nuisances and some of them showed a little bit of rot. That will be a problem in the future. And so, right on the, the bottom corner of the of this photo right here that the Aaron just pulled up so that's essentially where all the trees and all the shrubbery is so it's more or less overgrown. And what we want to do is want to go in there. We're going to clean out about 30 feet from their driveway worth of worth of overgrown shrubs and then those four trees and then with the plan is to then replant with about 30 native species of larger evergreen trees to then create a windbreak and a border between their property and their neighbors property. The tree sizes that we plan on putting back in there are going to be trees between six and 12 feet tall so we're going to put some larger stuff back in there. I am aware that that that bottom right hand corner of the property is also a flood zone area. So we're going to do to mitigate all of the any potential silt or sediment wash away is we're going to extend the current area of the silt sock that is already going across East Hadley Road. We're going to extend that along the other two thirds of the property, which then would would serve as a way to if there does happen to be a lot of rain or anything that would wash away a lot of the sediment that would capture that and after we remove all the trees and shrubs that are currently in the area. What we want to do is then stabilize the property as well with with erosion control grass until we're able to then plant. Right now we're planning on planting this upcoming fall so probably September plant date and we're finishing finalizing plans right now on the landscaping for the rest of the property as well. And there's also a bamboo patch that's near the shed in the back of the property that's not yet encroaching on the wetlands but though it seems to that it will be in the near future so we also want to remove that bamboo patch to keep that from invading the neighboring wetlands and as for the rest of the property once construction is complete on the house we plan on then real landscaping everything with a heavy focus on a native and pollinator planting. And then I've also been talking with the homeowner as well about potentially removing the current asphalt driveway that they have and then we were planning on putting in a permeable driveway most likely a crushed stone driveway. Okay. Aaron did you have any outstanding comments or concerns about this plan. I do have some recommended conditions. Just try to zoom in on those a little bit. And I can also share state visit photos if that's useful but I definitely would like to inspect the erosion controls prior to earth work and vegetation removal. I want the limits of work clearly marked particularly pertaining to the wetland areas I don't want any encroachment into wetlands with the work that's being done machinery or trimming or anything for work in wetland areas. I think that there should be somebody who's assigned as a monitor on the site to make sure that the plan is being followed and that people aren't sort of going off the rails and taking out vegetation that shouldn't be removed, and that that person should contact information and basically be assigned as responsible for making sure the plan is followed site be fully stabilized and that I would like to come out and sign off before erosion controls are removed. I also would like to inspect the plantings once they're installed to verify that the plantings have been installed as per the proposed plan. So that's 50% success over a three year period for plantings, and that no fill is placed in the flood zone on the southeast corner of the lot. So those were sort of the conditions that I had spelled out, and I can also pull up photos. So this is the bamboo patch on the left that you can see. This is facing the wetland. So these are house photos these were relative to the house that was the work that was done around the house but it gives you a sense of what the existing vegetation looks like on the site. This is across the street is the Fort River. So you can see the site is pretty, you know, there's, there are, there's not a lot of vegetation on the site right now. It seems as though they're sort of removing all the vegetation and just replanting everything. Are these are all of these trees proposed for removal Steve that are currently none of those trees out of there on the street so where the photos being taken from there's just four trees that we're going to remove but all the trees that are behind that that are near the property line we're going to we're going to leave. And then there's also a few big trees that are next to the driveway that we're also going to leave so we're only taking down four. There's only four trees coming down. Okay. I just wanted to give the commissioner refresher what the site looked like so that you were familiar with it, but that those are my comments and the photos. Okay. Michelle, did you have any questions or concerns. I was just wondering what the large native evergreens you're going to plant more species. Yep, so we're planning on using a pretty wide mix so we're going to use cedar white pine Norway spruce. We're going to use some are providing possibly. Everybody in Norway spruce aren't native. So, I mean that was one of the things you said are we be requiring them to be native plantings in that order of condition. Well, the, that's completely up to you guys to, you know, if you guys want to say they should all be natives then absolutely. What are the trees that are being taken down the big trees. So the trees taking down one of them is a willow and then I believe the other three are red maples. And then I would also be able to then use other other varieties of spruce and stuff that I can look into as well for the, for the, for the proposed new windbreak. And I know that in my yard Norway spruce is pretty nasty, and it's kind of taking over so I'd, I'd prefer to see native plantings to replace the native cuts. So like this, the cedar and white pine it sounds like are more favorable than the Norway spruce and Arbivite. Yeah and juniper was probably an option to but not Norway spruce and Arbivite ease. I mean, red maple spawn maple sounds like it's a very wet site. I don't know if white pine will be as happy. So it might be worth looking into some of our greens or conifers that are happier and super wet environments. Hemlocks come to mind but that's a certain quiet taste so worth considering Steve. Yep, definitely thank you. Laura, did you have a question. Yeah, I just wanted to make some clarity on the condition so Erin you're saying the site must be monitored daily during work operations by an S basically an assigned individual. Are you asking them to send you photos during the work, or how do you intend on monitoring. Yeah, I mean, that's a great question. Laura, I wasn't going to require monitoring reports. Mostly what I wanted was somebody who was going to be supervising the work while it's underway. So that it's because my observation is that when I'm escaping going on and tree removal going on on a site or and or shrub removal going on on a site that sometimes crews that are working on a given site. A supervisor might leave and they might say oh we'll take this to and we'll take this to and they'll start to move into areas that are not approved to be worked in. What I thought is to on this particular site make sure that somebody is assigned to be in charge and supervising to ensure that those areas aren't crossed and also to have some type of limit of work established that could be like orange construction fencing or something. It may it could just be the erosion controls but basically that it's clear when I go out there to do my erosion control inspection. This is a line that we're not going beyond for any of the vegetation removal and the tree removal. I'm going to say I agree with you that sometimes you know when you have crews on site sometimes the message doesn't always flow down so I would suggest if it's if it's something we've asked for before just sort of somewhat regular photos being sent to you so you can ensure that the work is being done properly. I don't know if that's too much work for you and not adding too much. I think that's a great suggestion. Okay, so I think to strike kind of an in middle ground here since this is a single home on a pretty small residential lot that may be a very clear demarcation of the limit of work, Steve, if you think that that's feasible, and it could correspond with kind of the erosion controls it sounds like, but something that just makes it very clear where clearing is happening and that is like the only area that clearing is happening and if you can just document that with some photos you don't. I think any kind of daily monitoring is a little bit too onerous here is my instinct. I do hear the concerns that sometimes it can be work work sites can spread a little bit so Steve would you be alright with just making sure it's very clear where the limits of work are on the site and just documenting with photos when you can. I think that's very fair and then I had a question in terms of the person that's the supervisor that's more or less in charge of making sure that nobody on the crew or anybody else goes past those limits. Is that somebody that would be somebody from you guys or that be somebody that's like be somebody in my own crew that I could assign to be able to take care of that. I'm just talking about somebody in your own crew, but I can definitely do that. Just emailing from your from their phone or whatever photos to Aaron can be helpful just so we know what's going on but we don't need to require like report or increment just documenting is great. Any any communication is super appreciated. Great, I'll go and yeah I'll definitely mark all that out tomorrow and coordinate with Aaron to be able to do a site visitor whatnot and go over the final plans. Great Laura is that okay does that sound good. She might have had to step away for a second. All right, so commissioners, any further questions or comments. Steve does that order of conditions make sense to you. Yep, definitely so to just go over it again. I'm going to come out and inspect all of our flood control measures after we're after we're finished putting them in. Mark the limit of work. No encroachment past those areas and have a site monitor that's going to be sending Aaron pretty regular photos of the progress on the site. Yep, and then the entire site should be fully stabilized and inspected by Aaron upon completion of work. That she can sign off at the on the permit at the close of the project. And then upon completion of plantings Aaron must inspect to confirm trees were planted installs of proposed trees 50% successful over a three year period. That was her proposed kind of like planned to make sure that there's some sort of stabilization there. And then fill placed in the flood zone and native plantings. Perfect. Yeah, I could definitely make sure that gets done. Okay, and this will be in the permit language so you will have all of this in writing Steve you don't have to remember it all at this moment. I see Andre did you have one more question or comment. Just as I reiterate Michelle's concern about the native species and you just mentioned them. Now Steve when when Steve was talking earlier about planting native plant, planting the other trees there. And that they were native species but within when he started to enumerate or list the species. There were the two that were not native I think maybe listing of what trees they are or maybe defining the fact defining which ones are native and not so that Steve can stay within that those sideboards of what he had mentioned earlier. Great yeah so we've added native plantings to the conditions and so Aaron would you be comfortable just reviewing the final list of plantings at the initial kickoff meeting just to make sure that I'm I'm confident that Steve can use resources available to find native species but just a review of that Aaron. Okay, I'm seeing a nod. Yes. Great. Yeah I just yeah putting in those non native evergreens probably wouldn't make it there anyway if it's that way so yeah, we'll work to everyone's benefit hopefully Steve. Okay. It's quite a quite a list of conditions we appreciate you coming to us with this Steve. Thank you commissioners any other comments or questions. I'm just looking to make sure to see any nodding. Looks good. Okay, so it looks like I don't think we need to read through all the conditions again but if someone could just reference the, the previously discussed conditions and give us emotion that would be fantastic. I'll close public hearing and issue positive determination checking box five negative determination checking box to with required conditions noted above and discussed. All right. Motion from Michelle second from Laura voice Michelle. Hi, Laura. Leroy. Larry. Andre. And I'm also I. All right Steve good luck out there. Thank you. Have a good night. Oh, I didn't take public comment. Yeah, if anyone here is in attendance for that hearing I apologize I didn't ask if anyone has any questions or comments relevant to this hearing at 21 East Hadley road please raise your hand. That was my fault too I should have been queuing in there. You're going to get a bad review. Tough crowd, tough crowd. All right. It doesn't look like anyone again apologies if you have any questions or comments relevant to that application please raise your hand. Okay. All right, so. All right, notice of intent. I think this is our last one because 51 spalding is another is going to continue again. So last hearing stand tech on behalf of Massachusetts permanent of conservation and recreation for widening and resurfacing a portion of the Norrotech rail trail in riverfront area bordering lands subject to flooding and buffer zone ice to isolated vegetated wetlands at zero station road. So who would be here from stand tech it looks like Paul and Elise. Yep. Okay, let me open the hearing. Could you also Lisa Carosa is also here from stand tech and she'll be presenting as well. Thank you. Okay, yep. Lisa. Okay, let me open the hearing. This public hearing is now called to order the hearings being held as required by provisions of chapter 131 section 40 of the general laws of the Commonwealth and act relative to the protection of wetlands as most recently amended article 3.31 wetlands protection under the town of Amherst general bylaws. Yeah, so welcome Elise Lisa and Paul. If you guys wouldn't mind introducing yourselves and then if you would be willing to give us like a 45 minute kind of overview of the project and the application that great. Hi, this is Paul Janegi. I'm a trail planner with the Department of Conservation and Recreation. I am here with least enough for you and Lisa Carosa from stand tech. And I want to thank the Commission for having us and for the opportunity to be remote. I will say this is the first conservation Commission I've attended where I haven't been allowed to be a panelist as a presenter so that's a little distracting but I appreciate being able to be here. Again, I'm trail planner for Department of Conservation and Recreation. We are owner of half of this section of the rail trail goes from station road to Warren right road. This is the section that was not reconstructed back in 2014 or so when our other 11 miles through Amherst were reconstructed. So this is a project with mass dot to reconstruct this final mile and a half to Warren right road. It is a reconstruction. He also involves widening to bring it to the standards of the other sections of the rail trail and meet the current asto standards, and then also a few amenities and whatnot, some mile markers and things like that. And I will turn it over to Lisa to sort of get into a little bit of the well and filing piece. I'm having trouble hearing you, Lisa. You. I guess I'm a little confused you guys aren't able to share. And I'm more than happy to share the plans but it seems a little weird tonight like people here we go present. Here we go. Wait, let's try this. I just tried something now. Okay. Usually people are able to be panelists and present fine and I'm more than happy to pull up the plans to make it easy for you guys if we need, if you need me to I just wanted to make sure you had that ability if you wanted to. You should be able to share. Yes, now I have full screen now I need to be able to share. Sorry about that. It might be my fault. I, when we're taking public comment I allow people to talk versus turning them into panelists. So I think I just did my default, allowing people to talk instead of turning you into a panelist so I'm sorry. So can you hear me now and see my screen. Yes. We can see your screen we see you. You can't see. There you go. Coming up there you go. You should see a USGS map. Yes. All right. So, so as Paul mentioned this project in Amherst, it's one and a half miles between station road and then all the way through the Delta town to one right road. The piece that we're working on in Amherst is just over a mile. It's 1.1 miles. As you can see, it's right alongside the want to do river and warren swamp. So you can see it right here in an aerial view. So this is going to be a what we call a full depth reconstruction the existing path right now is eight and a half feet wide, and we're going to widen it to 10 feet, and similar to the piece that's in Belcher town already. So it'll make it consistent. So we started on the plans. So far, I know, sometimes it's helpful. So this is station room right here. This is the beginning of the project. And yes, there is a board of vegetative wetlands associated with this. And then we also have both sides of the trail. So we have UW. For the most part along the section, the first section. Okay, then this next section is very similar or in the 100 foot buffer zone, the wetlands are shown in blue on both sides of the existing path. No little further down, we're still in the buffer zone with this increased path. This is a simple pattern you see here, we're installing settlement controls on basically along the length of the portion of the trail that's facing the wetlands on the other side. And I know there are no landmarks along here so it's just basically my mile. So then we get into this section of the trail where we have watering land subjects are flooded probably better shown on this plan. So it kind of cuts in and out of this of the rail trail, and there's no sign elevation, it's just an a zone. So, because it's just a zone, we don't have the zone, even in a public share of the studies. We basically did a cut and fill analysis in the flood zone, and we actually came out with a net increase in blood storage by the time we create these shoulders. So we're actually creating one storage in the flood zone. So this is one area where there is an existing culvert. The existing culvert station 128 or the stones have become dislodged and basically the maintenance project. So we see our elected to add that work to this contract. So we think this can be accomplished on foot by a worker down on the side of the trail with equipment working from the trail itself, guiding those stones back into place. And we call that appropriations for sediment control, in case there are loads and it gets a little mocked up from the foot traffic, but we do expect only foot traffic then. So continuing on with little bits and pieces of the flood zone, intruding into the hurricane proposed layout. So continues on, and then we have just in the buckers on again. I think that's the end of the flood zone work. We should have been right. So this is the end of the line. So there's just that one stretch basically in the middle where we're in the flood zone. We also have a riverfront. That was estimated because that river such a fast system so we estimated the riverfront area which does extend on to the rail trail. We have for the record the impacts to the riverfront are 4143 square feet. The majority of that is temporary just the physical work within the flood zone, and permanent increase in impervious surface from that increased width is going to be 978 square feet. And I think I mentioned the water lines of flooding there's a net, and we have that increasing flood storage in the flood zone. 1315 cubic feet. So we do have select treat removal along the way. And that is to make sure those shoulders are compatible with the rail trail, and we they're going to be an arborist is going to go out. Prior to instruction to inventory those trees and to mark them so that obviously only trees that need to come down going down. So, with that I can open it up to questions. I'll just land somewhere here where it's a typical section through here. So if you have any questions. You guys want me to share sites of photos. Yeah, I think the next move if it's okay just we can get a sense for it. If you can just talk about the site visit. Aaron. Yeah. Sorry, I thought I had it queued up and ready to go I don't know why. Sorry about that guys bear with me just a second. Well Aaron's pulling that up I guess I can chime in a little bit. Yeah please do because I just lost my remote computer sorry about that. Um, so Paul Janice myself and then another colleague that helps with the permitting Lori went out there and we met with Aaron. We had staked out the limits of work along the corridor, essentially showing where the seating limits will go I'm not sure if anyone made it out there after the site visit but we had painted some white marks along the trail and we had a couple of leaks in there with white ribbon that denoted the limits of work to show that the limits the contractor would be in would be within the existing footprint previously in design. We had gone out there with DCR is arborist and identified trees that should be removed that are either causing root damage or again would be too close to the shoulder for the widening. Those trees are labeled on the plans that we anticipate for removal based on that initial visit, as well as trees that we want to retain. And then the idea would be to have an arborist go out there with DCR is arborist initially as well before construction. Thank you, Elise for covering for me there. I just just to jump back to the site visit photos so that this is just a site visit photo showing. You can see where the the wetland flag is located here and you can also see the stake that shows the limit of work line. And just to recap, it's could you guys just say it's, it's existing eight feet and going to 10 feet is that right. It's about eight and a half feet now yeah and we're, we're putting it to 10 feet so that it matches the remaining 11 miles that have already been widened. And then the belcher. Oh, had Paul. Well just to clarify the stakes are on the limit of work not the limit of paving so the living is is narrower than that. Right. So it's about a foot on each side of the bike path that it's extending over and then the, the seating area will extend over to where those white stakes are. It's pretty, I mean, I didn't really have any major concerns about the work as it's proposed. It's clear that the surfacing of this area like you can see in just in the short walk that we took there's like these huge root systems that are growing up into a bike path that make it difficult the surface difficult to ride on there. There's some areas of disturbance look like turtles digging also like this is this is the area that Lisa was referencing and it's absolutely frightening this structure that's here so it's a culvert that goes under the bike path and this is looks like a man made beaver some sort that was installed out here and it's like this cage around the inlet of the culvert and so they're pulling all of this out and re armoring the inlet to this this culvert so I think I see that there would be a lot of even though there is a slight increase in impervious associated with the bike path widening that number one I believe it's a limited project because it's a multi use path also there are very improvements being the net benefit and flood storage as well as this situation getting cleaned up I think is great. So I just wanted to put that out there is as my comments and then I do have some suggested conditions for this permit as well. I'll pull those up on my screen but we did talk about them in the fields and bear with me just one second I want to make sure I don't close out my remote machine on you again. Here we go. So, so the standard boilerplate conditions that we would use which are standard for for all of our local permits and state permits erosion control inspection at the start of work by the wetlands administrator pre construction meeting with DCR wetlands administrator and the selected contractor required prior to the start of work. There's a contact list that has the supervisors that are in charge of the construction project their name and phone numbers, as well as a estimated project timeline from, you know, breaking ground to stabilizations we have a general sense of the timetable for the project. Identify a material stockpile location outside of conservation Commission jurisdiction. We discussed this also weekly inspections to be completed during the construction phase of the work, but monthly monitoring reports to be submitted during the construction phase to the conservation Commission wetlands administrator inspections to be completed by DCR and an informal email just sent to us with a few photos and comments that might notate necessary repairs or comments on the condition of the siltation fence along the project limits upon final stabilization and inspection by the wetlands administrator. And then the just the final comment is the final inspection step can't be skipped here because the erosion and sediment controls, unless they're 100% biodegradable shouldn't just be left in place. Other than that, I really don't have any concerns on this project it's very straightforward well put together and I think that they've put together some good mitigation strategy. Okay, thank you everyone for that incredible amount of detail. Um, Dave, do you have a question right out of the bat here clarification. Excuse me no I just wanted to add that I've been working with Paul and Elise for months on this we we, of course the the rail trail. From station road to one right road does go through our water supply protection area and we've been working closely with go for moreing and his team down at DPW. The one thing I guess I would ask Aaron is whether in that order of conditions whether it would be appropriate to put something about just notification I would I would want DPW to be kind of notified and kept in the loop. Any notifications coming to the conservation department. And again, we've a great communication with with stand deck and Paul throughout the whole process of getting to this point but I just think it would be good to have inter departmental, you know communication going on since DPW will want to be, you know on the ground out there the engineering team or the water department to make sure everything goes smoothly as as the resurfacing happens down on the eastern edge. If Paul and Elise are fine with that. That's great and Dave do you want to include them on the pre construction and then to receive monitoring reports as well do you think those would be good. I think that would be great I mean it's as simple as just one one more email, you know, send it to and and I think, you know, it behooves us all to just make sure everything is going well and if there's any questions, you know DPW water or DPW engineering, you know, five minutes away. So, great. Thanks Dave. Yeah, I did. Yeah, Dave I'll just let you know we because we had submitted. Kind of final plans to mass dot for final review as we're simultaneously finishing up the permitting and I did add some upfront similar to what Aaron and I talked about in the field about just having some more language in the specifications and special provisions to make sure that Concom is notified make sure the access is maintained for DPW and contact Gilford I put his name and number in there a couple times so hopefully having it multiple places it will not be missed. Good and yeah you sent me an email just the other day with the plans and I of course forwarded that onto Gilford and you know it is it is a very important area for us as it as it relates to our well field so yeah we'll just take all precautions and make sure communicate lines of communication or maintain throughout the project. Great. Great. Commissioner does everyone anyone have any questions or concerns. Seeing a lot of knows. All right. Then I think I won't be able to vote because I work for DCR. Okay. Got it. We should take public comment on this one. Oh yeah. Thank you. Members of the public. Thank you for joining us if you're here and have any questions or comments about this particular hearing about the improvements to the rail trail from station at starting at station road heading towards Belcher town. Raise your hand. Not seeing any. All right. So, I think with that, Aaron, if you wouldn't mind sharing the draft motion. Aaron did thoroughly read through all these conditions so if a commissioner is willing to make a motion and just reference the previously noted conditions that would be great commissioners. Anyone willing to make a motion and make a motion sorry just tiny on my screen. Motion to move to issue the order of conditions DCR for zero station road bike path widening DEP number 080-0702 with noted conditions. I think I had Michelle on the second. Okay voice vote. Sorry. Michelle. Hi, Andre. I have stay. Oh, thanks. Larry. Hi, Roy. Laura. And I'm also an I. All right. Lisa, Paul, Elise, thank you for being here. And thank the commission. Thank you. Best of luck out there. Thank you. Bye. I'm just trying to. There we go. All right. That's everyone. All right. One more hearing, but this is just a continuance. Right. Aaron. Yes. Yep. Okay. All right. So we just need a motion to continue the hearing at 51 Spalding Street. Okay. Let's continue the public hearing for 51 Spalding Street to July 13, 2022 at 735 PM. Second. Seconded by Andre voice vote Andre. Hi. Michelle. Hi. Lory. Hi. Laura. Larry. Larry's gone. Okay. Larry's gone. He's somehow in attendees. I didn't do that. Larry, are you back? I'm also an I. I vote yes. Oh, thank you. Thank you, Larry. I saw it, but I couldn't say anything. Okay. All right. So that's the end of hearings. Okay. So other business. I'm just looking at. Oh, there you go. Okay. So it sounds like we have a certificate of compliance, Aaron. Yes. Yeah. It's like. It's from the early 90s. I went out and looked at the site, the site stable. I think it's completely fine to issue a certificate of compliance on. Okay. Great. So we just need a motion. Questioners. Move to issue a certificate of compliance for 63 Woodlite road D.P. File numbers 0890323 with ongoing required conditions as applicable. Thank you. I had Michelle in the second voice vote, Larry. Hi, Michelle. Hi, the Roy. Andre. Hi, Laura. And I'm an eye. All right. So. I want to be just put out there before we jump into this discussion. I don't want to discuss the. So we're at it all the content of it commissioner opinions on it. None of that. Basically what I just, I'd just like to present a couple facts to you guys just to give you some background and see where you guys stand relative to what we're going to discuss. So we're going to start off by talking about what we're going to do to schedule a meeting early next week for a. Executive session to discuss this. So. Back in November of 2021, the conservation commission. Denied. An order of resource area delineation. For 52 faring street. And we had had a third party peer review. Emily Stockman had done the review and found issues with the wetland delineation as well as. There was a review of the watershed area relative to the perennial versus intermittent status of the tan brook. DEP issued a superseding order of resource area delineation on the property this past Thursday. And it's not been worse for a variety of reasons. The Thursday night prior to a holiday weekend. When we already had a chuck full agenda the following Wednesday and a special meeting already scheduled. Within a week of this meeting. Which means that, and, and also the deadline for. A special meeting. A special meeting. A special meeting. Appeal. Submission to DEP is for all intents and purposes on June 30th. So that means even if we discussed it at our special meeting a week from today, it doesn't give us enough time to prepare. Written appeal to DEP on the matter within. A day. So. So, I would like to. Schedule an executive session to discuss the. So rad. And the commission's position relative to whether they want to appeal. DEP's decision. By way of just giving a snapshot. DEP deemed. DEP did not support the commission's. Determination deemed. And approved the commission's well and delineation. So. The finding was contrary to. The commission's. Decision. And so the question is, would you like to schedule an executive session. To review their findings and, or make a decision relative to whether the commission would like to. Consider an appeal of the permit. I would say yes. Simply. I would say yes. From my point of view, I think it's something that we should be discussing to see where, where we're going to take it. Quickly. They're commissioners. I would meet. That was simple. I think it's worthwhile dealing with it. How's it? I am. I would love it if it wasn't at seven. It doesn't have to be. It could be any time. It could be any time of the day. We just need to post it. And I need to get a, an agenda posted for us. The agenda can have only an executive session, right? Aaron. Correct. Okay. Go ahead. Sorry. This is just, this is for next week. Yes. So, and just for context next week, we have a special meeting scheduled on the 29th. We're going to have a meeting at seven o'clock to discuss the land use policy and zero Tuckerman. So this would need to be, need to be Monday or Tuesday. And I think. We don't need a ton of time to talk, but we do need you. You should ask butcher. I am out all next week. Okay. Well, Roy is, is out. So. We would need Fletcher. Jen, are you. Are you available Monday or Tuesday? I'm available Monday or Tuesday. I think my preference would be earlier. In the week, just to give more time. If we move in the direction of an appeal. One other procedural question, Aaron. Can multiple parties appeal. Yes. Okay. Yep. Okay. So the question becomes what time, and let's look at Monday. Let's start with Monday and say what time I can tell you, I will not be available until 11 o'clock. To do any executive session on Monday. After 11 a.m. I am available until three o'clock. And then my preference at that point would probably be. Seven. But just putting out my schedule and availability for you guys and see what other folks. Looks like. Yeah. So I'm in the field. Sucks. But I can like drive to sell service. If it's the middle of the work day. I mean, I said I didn't want to do seven, but if that's what's easiest for people, I think after work is probably easier for me. Yeah, it's hard. My only conflict is at two o'clock. For one hour. Andre. Yeah, I worked 10 to six, but I can. I can, there's some flexibility in, in what I could do during that time. So I'll make sure that I'm within cell service and. Whatever time it is. Yeah. But I propose a noon lunch hour meeting on Monday. 12 noon. You do that, Jen. If you're in the field and you have to like stop what you're doing and go get cell service. That's. That could go wrong. I'll just take back. I can totally do seven. I'm just feeling tired at the moment. Yeah, I know, I know. What about six 30? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Is six better, Michelle. Well, Andre works till six. Andre, do you work from home? I mean, do you need like a buffer? I'm, I'm. I work only 10 minutes from home. So the six 15, six 30. Does that get any better for you, Michelle? Or is that the same as. I mean, it was just a personal preference. Seven's fine. If seven's good for Aaron seven's good for Andre. Seven works for you. I can be seven. I can be seven. I can be seven. I can be seven. But in this case, it's like out of my control. And I have no cell service. Well, if, if, if that is what works, then that's what we do. The other question is, will we have a quorum? So. Yeah. So we'll need Fletcher like basically this. This. We need Fletcher to be able to do this too. Right. So Aaron, would you mind just emailing or I, I can't email him. So if you. Yeah. I'll check in with Fletcher. I'll check in with Fletcher first thing tomorrow morning. And I might just call Fletcher and. The first thing in the morning and let him know what's going on. But right now it looks like seven PM on Monday. We'd have an executive session. And that would be at seven o'clock. So Monday, June 27, seven PM, I'd say seven to eight PM would be. We'd keep it tight. We'd keep it. Keep it. Keep it. Keep it. Keep it. Keep it. Keep it. Keep it. Keep it. Keep it. Keep it succinct and. And basically that will be that. And we can have a quick conversation about it. And. I can do, you know, I can do the footwork. So. We just need to kind of get a sense from people what their feelings are on it. I forwarded you guys the decision. If anybody wants any additional documents uploaded for review, they'll need a motion. And I'll just, I'm just going to plug in. So let's, let's really hope that Fletcher can make. Monday. Six 27. Do you want to, could we say, is there any way we can give ourselves. Like, could we say move to schedule an executive session on six 27 or six 28. At this point, Aaron, or can we not do that? Well, the only issue is she's got to make a public notification. We can do that. And then she can. I know. That'll be okay. Okay. Let's, let's, let's do that. Jen. Let's say six 27. Or, or. Six 28. 22 at 7pm. And I'll check with Fletcher and see number one if he's available, either of those days or times. And if he is, then I will schedule the executive session and I'll send you guys an email and confirm. Okay. Okay. Awesome. Thank you. All right. Team. We're just looking for this motion. I am here to schedule an executive session. So the commission will be pursuing to GLC 30 a section 21 A3 to discuss strategy with respect to litigation at 52 faring street regarding recently issued DEP. So Rad. On six 27, 22 or 628 22 at 7pm. Yeah. I got Larry on the second. So voice vote Larry. Hi, Michelle. Hi. Andre. Hi. Laura. And I'm also an eye. Okay. What other business items. That's, that's all I've got for you this evening. I think that's enough. You guys really the fact that we wrapped this by nine oh nine, like. You guys, I mean, good job. And thank you so much for your. Yeah. We really did a good job getting through this crazy agenda. Thanks everyone. We're going to miss you, buddy. Do you want to do the, do you want to do the, the final, your final. Adjournment here. Roy here. All right. That's a good one. I moved to enjoy this meeting at nine 11, six, 22, 22. I can. Voice vote, Michelle. Oh, you're muted. Hi, and it was nice working with you. Andre. I take care of the right. Thank you for everything. Larry. Laura. Laura. Hi. I take care of the right. Thank you for everything. Larry. Laura. Laura. Hi, Laura. Good luck with future adventures. You live on through our bylaws. Yes. Good job. Thank you so much. All right. Bye guys. Thank you so much for your time. I have a quick question for you. I'll stay on. Okay. So I'm CC'd on all these emails with the 52 faring street. Like a butter. Yeah. Yeah, I'm sorry. That was a real. I'm not sure why that even happened because. Yeah. That was a blind copy on my email that I sent. So I'm not sure like what the heck is going on with that. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm going to discuss this with them. Right. No, no. So should I, I'm going to, should I reply and ask to be removed? Um, you can. Uh, the other thing is I'm going to be speaking to. Somebody tomorrow on, on the, a butter end. So I'll make, I'll make sure that it's clear that, um, You know, that was a, I'm not sure why that happened. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. To make sure that commissioners are not included on those emails. Okay. Yeah. I'm not doing anything. Yeah. Nope. Uh, that was, I'm not sure. What happened was I was forwarding that on because it came in late Thursday night. And I was trying to forward it to everybody. And in my blind copy. With the town outlook, it's really weird. And I plugged everybody in as a blind copy, but for some reason. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know how to function properly in the blind copy function. Everybody was in there and I'm like, what the heck. It's no problem. People also dig up my email and just CC me somehow. All the time. Yeah.