 And we are recording. All right, thank you, Stephanie, and welcome everybody to the April 28 2023 meeting of the town of Amherst solar bylaw working group. We do have a quorum. Presume. Yeah. And we have our agenda. Let me just ask before we start going down the agenda. Stephanie was the idea was really to kick off with with Adrian to use her time wisely. Yeah, exactly. I think that would just be considered. Yeah. Okay, so let me just pull up the agenda. Okay, great. So, and just for for the rest of us we have six folks from the public that have joined us at this point. So thank you, everybody that has joined us from the from the general public appreciate your interest and attendance. And we will certainly have opportunity for public comment later in the agenda. So with that, let me pass it over to Adrian, a dunk from GZA. She's obviously talked to us before so she doesn't need an introduction, but she's going to present to us the the results and findings from the town outreach efforts. So thank you, Adrian. And Dwayne, I'm happy to be back and share these results. Right. I'm sharing my screen and so I'm here to share the results of our public outreach efforts for this townwide solar assessment. I've previously been before you to share the map based assessment results. So this is the second half of our effort. So today's presentation has quite a few numbers and statistics in it, but there are more in the report which will be forthcoming so not every piece of data is in this presentation. I think that would make it a little too lengthy. So, so we're just going to hit some of the high points here. Overall, we had really good engagement across the town. We got 16 responses on the engage Amherst site, as well as two additional email sets of responses into Stephanie. We had 508 people respond to the public survey. And we did host two interactive workshops they were the same and total we had about 30 participants. At our Saturday workshop than our evening workshop, but we did, we did have attendees at both. So on our engage Amherst website, we asked, you know, what are you most excited or concerned about and we asked that really throughout our survey process to try to just understand broadly what people were thinking and feeling about solar development. And so our responses fell into one of three categories broadly so things people are excited about where we're solar generally heading to net zero using roofs and parking lots first. And also, people were excited about the social implications and the level of engagement across town, and really being a model town for this transition to renewable energy. The next category was concerns. And so there were concerns about agricultural and forest conversion which we did anticipate and some of these concerns were voiced mildly and some were very strong so there were a range of how strongly people felt. But other concerns that were raised were related to pricing and logistics for the town, and also some some concern that there may be underutilization of existing tools that could help increase solar uptake. And finally, some people did include kind of what they want to see more of which I think is is great and so there was calls for more consultation with farmers and foresters as there's discussion of farm and forest land. And throughout the process there were requests for more education on on ongoing developments and also solar options and an interest in seeing more decentralized solar installations versus fewer large scale. Next we'll go through our survey responses and before we do I want to start with some of the demographics. So 95% of our respondents were homeowners. Most of them are single family homeowners, but we had about 10% who own condos or multifamily homes. And then the remaining 5% of respondents were renters. Residents also skewed towards longer term residents as you can see, you know, 93% of our respondents have been here at least two years, but most have really been here 10 years or more with very few respondents being new to town. And 2% don't live in town. So, I'm glad we had that option to capture this demographic these people may work in town or own businesses in town or just be interested in solar regionally. And then our respondents did did skew older with our largest proportion being greater than 65 years old. And second, most common respondents for 45 to 65 years old. So, very few young respondents but we did have a few actually that were under 18 so so some engagement of the high school crowd. Generally on our community survey about attitudes so we did ask who was aware of the town and mission targets, and about 60% of people coming to the survey were aware that the town had goals so that means that the survey was a teaching tool for 40% of respondents about the state and the town target. And even though 40% of people just learned about the targets because they were taking the survey. Almost 90% of our respondents thought that greenhouse gas emission reduction goals are important or very important. We also asked our respondents kind of what they think the top benefits of solar are and there were many, many options to choose from the top three were really reducing fossil fuels, balancing renewables with natural areas and slowing climate change. And then on the top concerns you see again this this common theme of conversion of forest land conversion of farmland and upfront or initial costs. So they asked about small scale development. And so this is primarily about residential area. You can see that almost that a little bit more than half of our respondents use solar and some, some capacity. So this, this is very encouraging but we also do note that respondents to the survey are likely people already more interested in solar than maybe the general public. So, so 35% of our respondents have solar on their roof, but there are others in town who have selected renewable energy through their utility for our community solar member. Yes, I'm sorry, sorry to interrupt. I do see Jack has his hand up I'm wondering if you might have your questions along the way. Sure, yes, I can't see you all so if you can just direct that traffic doing I would appreciate that. Hi, I just I was wondering, you know you show you're showing percentages. So I missed what were the total number of respondents. And then some of the percentages will confuse whether that's a subset of, of, you know, there was one slide back there that, you know portion was feeling one way and then there was a percentage so was the percentage for the people that answered positively. There was a percentage of the total respondents sort of thing. So, So, 508 people took the survey. None of our questions were required. So, not everyone answered every question. But in general, there were at least 480 responses to each question. So, some of our questions were. So here in terms of like 88% thinking the targets are important that that would be out of 100%. So this was one where people answered, you know, agree strongly agree agree neutral disagree strongly disagree. Okay, so and then the 28% is of the 100% or of the 88%. Okay, so then these are our of total number of responses so so the benefits and concerns here were select up to three. So what are your top three concerns. Okay. And so, for 21% of respondents, reducing fossil fuels is a top benefit. And so the percentages are out of different different totals because sometimes we let people select one or multiple options and then later on there was one where we let people select all that apply. So, you could select up to seven options on that one. Okay. So, these are, these are the top. So these were the most selected options. I can call that out as we go through and that is, you know, in the report it has the question so it's been more clear about you know that people can select up to three here. But the total divisor number does change per question just based on how many responses there were and then, you know, how many people answered and then also how many options they selected. I appreciate that thank you. Absolutely. So right here do you solar at your residence you can only select one option. So, so we do see quite a bit of solar use by our respondents. And then asked, if you said no, so our 47% of people who said no, we asked, you know, why don't you and here they could select multiple options because it could be compounding factors. The most selected options for why people don't have solar installed at their homes yet were that their their home or your doesn't have adequate solar exposure for solar panels, and or that the upfront costs of insulation are too high. And then 16%, I think it's still pretty significant said that the overall cost process is just too confusing. There can be plenty of interplay between these options. But I think there's there's opportunity here for the town and maybe your group and or UCAC to develop some education or there was a request by someone to have a list of approved solar installers that could potentially make the process a little bit less confusing. We also asked for for about community development community solar. And so this was a very broad hypothetical, you know, would you be interested in purchasing shares of a community solar project, we're obviously not proposing a specific project so so there are no details to share. I do see that most respondents said that they, they would be interested either strongly or probably yes, and then 30% would need more information, which is entirely understandable. And then a pretty clear outcome here should the town assess lower income individuals in developing solar on their property with 74% of respondents saying yes. Okay, so this question was one of the ones that said that that asked our users to rank so you could drag and drop to rank where what land type would most like to see solar on. Each of these bars does add up to 100 so the most preferred locations, we can see our canopy in blue and rooftop and yellow and so those canopies most preferred, but rooftops pretty close second. And if you see those those add up to pretty similar total percentage of boats. And once the built environment was exhausted and in the first and second most preferred slot. We see that semi developed was really the broad third choice, representing 81% of third choices. And we had defined semi developed in the survey to include areas like medians and next to roadways, maybe in parks that but associated with existing infrastructure, so not open meadows and not really intact forest lands or conservation dance or anything like that these were semi developed as a fourth choice that's where you see it start to be mixed there's, there's about 60% who voted for agricultural fields at that point and another 30 for open space and here that open space doesn't include forest land so that was that was clearly included in the question. So the agricultural fields would be more preferred than for us another open space from this question from there because we did expect to see pretty broad support for development of the built environment. Yeah, go ahead, Janet. I'm sorry, Adrian do you mind if we go back to the previous thing. I, you know I don't remember the survey I have it somewhere in piles of paper so open space and semi open space included forest land. Yes, and then fields, like what was included, there was no like forest question right wasn't broken out as far so that is on the next question so this was just looking at. So this is a question of land and very broad categories and so it did say, you know, open space, ie, you know, forest meadows and the semi developed did did say, you know, associated with existing buildings. So the forest in the meadows would be an open space so it was so agricultural fields in open space including forest and fields were the least preferred over 85% of the people that chose that as their least preferred. Is that am I reading that right. Right so yeah. Most people chose those as their least preferred when looking at the environment, holistically. Okay thank you I just wanted to. And that that wasn't anticipated result we know that the town that in the town there's broad support for using the built environment first. So we did ask that question to confirm what we what we anticipated. And then we asked the secondary question, which was asking users to rank where they most prefer large developments on the unbuilt environment and so here the unbuilt environment was divided up a little bit more finally than on the previous question, because the intent here was to go a little bit deeper. So here, we see that respondents. Primarily would look to dual use agriculture first that's their most preferred use of the unbuilt environment. The 31% of respondents did say that they, they would most prefer no development on the unbuilt environment at all. And I'm sure you all remember there was discussion and written writing that question about. You know, including a statement about knowing that that climate change is occurring where where would you most prefer to see solar development and would that was included in the intro did see 31% say no development on the environment. But most, most respondents, most, most preferred the dual use agriculture, and then their second choice was really. Traditional use of agricultural fields for solar or dual use. And so we see we see the agricultural component present really in the first through third choices and forest land which is yellow doesn't show up as a as a larger component of preference, until really the fourth and fifth choice. And so that whole category open space was there and so open space here was clarified as you know meadows non forest. So I would that was actually maybe you anticipated so when I'm looking at this chart, I see that the open space was just meadows was like, you know, it's 15% as most preferred and then it drops down to 27%. So, okay. All right, and then. Okay, I'm just it's a this is sort of a confusing chart for me, but there was a lot of data you know to ask people what what they prefer and ranking. And so it does take, you know, it certainly takes a little bit of looking at and thinking through to. I struggled with the no development as the most preferred and the least preferred in a funny way like, does that make sense like so. Most people preferred like 31%, am I reading, they preferred development, and then the then 34% least preferred no development, or do you know what I mean. Yeah, so I, the users who with this represents to me or how I interpret this is is 31% said no development, but then for the 34, where it's at the bottom. Right because it was a ranking and you had to put them in order that is, you know, they want development of some kind they want solar over no solar. That would be what that 34% at the bottom is saying that given their druthers they would like to see solar on these other landscape types. Okay, we're seeing no development. I just found that confusing what I actually when I answered this question, you know, instead of just reading it and thinking about it. I struggled with it because I had to to like that were equally weighted and I was like well which one do I put first and so you know I think I would have preferred to say, here are my two most preferred, and yet not particularly ranking them but just giving an opinion so I had a thing where I just sort of sat there and I froze and I'm like oh I don't want solar here I do want to hear don't want to hear in here. And now I have to pick. And you know so I guess it was a forced ranking but it was just the survey forced you to make a choice that I wouldn't have made so I just went to remark that as a possible conflict but okay. All right. And Stephanie. I was just going to also ask Adrian for clarification that the results will also have a narrative to support these charts so that people aren't just left looking at the charts to figure this all out there's going to be an explanation of what all this means. Thank you. Maybe some some some more information about the charts I mean we specifically are, you know our purpose in this with the town was to conduct the survey and to share the results so so we are not making, you know, conclusions or recommendations about what the town should or shouldn't do with this data how, you know, they should or shouldn't interpret in a quiet, we're really here to share what the community responded with. Sorry, let's go with Jack before we run this way. Well, I just wanted to say I think this is fascinating with the point that Janet with. A third that, you know, prefer no development and then a third that, you know, like the press with the prospect of no development that the least. And then there's another third that are in the middle. I wonder, you know, I'm wondering about the third. If we just took the third that that were not included in the top 31 and the bottom 34 I'm wondering what what that graph would look like I guess, because they seem to be more in the middle, I guess. Yeah, to track that that middle third and see what they where they draw the line. Because they seem to be more the undecided, you know, but I just want to mention that thank you. Yeah, these results. I mean, we're, we're going through them pretty, pretty quickly here but the more time you spend looking at these graphs yeah that there's some really great questions and some some really interesting information in them. As we continued through the large scale development we asked several hypothetical questions about, you know, possible items you all may be considering in the bylaw. And so I didn't include them all here because it is, it is a lot of information. But I wanted to highlight something that that stood out to me when looking at this that I thought was was pretty interesting. So this top one was about if the bylaw should create, you know, strict regulations on where solar can be constructed. And we see about 75% of respondents agreed or strongly agreed with that statement. The next statement, which is about if the bylaw should create a new layer of review, you know, or a new process. In addition to what the town currently uses that amount of agreement really dropped down to about 50%. So still, you know, significant support but, but markedly less than creating, you know, regulations on where the solar goes. We actually see that same pattern in the bottom we asked some questions where agreeing was, you know, more restrictions and somewhere agreeing was fewer restrictions. And so here again we see the question of solar project should be reviewed the same as other land developments. And about 40% said, yep, it should be reviewed the same as other developments. And when we said there should be no additional zoning regulations. Only 20% agreed. So we see that pattern here where maybe the people feel there's a pretty robust review process, but maybe there should be more clear requirements on where the zoning goes, or where the solar goes within a site. And then I did include these two in the middle, because there was broad support for those as well which is that the agreeing with the statement that the bylaw should set a progressive level of review. So that larger projects received more oversight than smaller projects, and that there should be a minimum size that's regulated by the bylaw. So projects under a given threshold would just go through regular processes that currently exists without new requirements. So there's a lot to tease out here but but those were a couple of striking patterns to me between the two top and the two bottom questions on on delving into site configuration versus process. As we move into the municipal projects you know when the town considers its own future projects. We asked the public when would you like to be informed about the project, and this was a select all that apply because you know some people may want to be engaged throughout the entire process and want updates and want to, you know, attend meetings and others may only want to be involved at certain phases so here these presents are, you know the total number of who selected that item out of the total number of respondents. I do see that about half of respondents really want to be informed upfront. They want to know about the project really as soon as it's conceived, as soon as the site's been selected, when there's a conceptual plan. There's maybe a little bit less interest in when the grants are applied for when the funding secured, but then that interest ticks back up when there's a actual development plan there's a design, and it's going through permitting. But this was interesting to kind of throughout the survey we see about five to 7% of respondents saying I'm not interested in solar. I'm not interested in being involved in this process. I don't have a preference on where it goes. So I did think it was interesting that you know 7% of 500 it's about 35 people took the survey to say, don't involve me. So that, I don't, I think it's interesting that they cared enough to participate. And we also asked what are your, you know, what do you want to know when the town is proposing a new solar development what information do you want to know. And so the most selected options were people wanted to know how this project would advance the town's climate goals. They also wanted to know about the responsibility for the long term maintenance and decommissioning of the project. And then they want to know finally how much the project will cost the town and how much it will save the town. So then that that was the survey questions. We also had our interactive workshop and I know several of you attended which was great. The first activity, we called it how do you feel and participants based on different pictures of different types of solar development could submit feeling words. And so this is to get a general idea in a pretty pretty inclusive and simple way. The first was cutting for us for solar development. And we do see that most participants responded here that they were angry or worried, maybe, perhaps sad and frustrated. Interestingly, there's four participants who were happy or neutral and and I think this must be happy about the panels. And maybe neutral about the trees, but I suspect not not happy to see the trees though. So the second option was dual use and here we see again, most people are pretty happy with dual use. There was a lot of interest about dual use a lot of questions during the workshops about it. And we see that reflected in the, you know, curious. There were some definitely, I guess, opportunity for education around what is truly use and what would qualify the traditional, you know, single use of eggplant for solar had really mixed responses. So here you'll notice that the why access is much smaller solely out of five instead of out of these other ones around 12. And that's because there just was a lot more diversity of of answers here. So the town is pretty split on use of eggplant. And then canopy. I don't think anyone will be surprised to see that most people were excited or happy to see canopy. And really even curious for some other other options. There were a few questions about that during the workshop that I received about canopy generally how it's done and what its limitations are, but generally seemed like there was a lot of consensus that that's a great use of space. Again, we asked people here to prioritize based on this graphic where they'd like to see solar. So you see canopy and rooftop, really, really topping the charts as the most preferred, most highly prioritized site with dual use and coming in third and then a fair amount of interesting ground mounted but not forest. There are also some other kind of write in comments in here about preferences and so all those writing comments are included in the report. This was an open ended activity where people could write down questions they have about solar generally and then solar and Amherst and some development related questions. So we did see again right how can the town make sure to prioritize rooftops first. Where is financial support we see I saw consistently through here questions about how is this being funded. And then questions again like what, what about homes that aren't in the best location for solar, which leads right into the next one which is how does community solar work. So some questions around that and what people can do if they can't support it on their home. I know the ECAC is working on understanding how many megawatts we as a community use and then how much area do we really need to meet that goal. And then some questions about what bylaws do we need. And I know you all are working diligently on that. There was also statements about thinking of Amherst as a region and not just the town of Amherst and thinking about how Amherst could work with Hadley how there were some pointed questions about using the Hampshire mall parking lots for solar questions about protection of private wells and then calls for just more coordination in town and also between towns and with the states. And this was a sunny days and rain clouds was another open ended activity where people could write down, you know, free form what they with their hopes and concerns related to solar are. And so we see, again, just a lot of excitement about solar, you know, happy our community is doing what it can for now and for the future weaning ourselves off fossil fuels. So some hopes maybe for requiring bonds from developers and putting in safeguards so that as projects move forward, there's recourse to make sure they're built in sense environmentally sensitive ways. And then again looking, looking for funding and support from outside of town to develop parking lots. So rain clouds I think it's really interesting and it highlights the balancing acts that that this whole transition to renewables necessitate so we had, you know, one participant say careless or hasty decisions they're really worried about and somebody else said we're not moving fast enough. So I think concerns related to forests and farmland use impacts on aquifer, and others saying, you know, I don't want to put too many restrictions on it so I think this really, really highlights the tightrope that we as a society are walking and that you all are trying to strike with the bylaw to, you know, facilitate this transition while while protecting the landscapes and resources in town. I was also asked broadly. Oh, I see, Jack your hands up. Yeah, I was just wanting the impact on groundwater and aquifer I'm just wondering, you know, we did the white paper. I'm just wondering where that comes from. I'm wondering, because you do you have any, did you gather that reference specifically We, we didn't and we are, you know, we're just kind of conveying what what what the concerns were said we're not you know, agreeing or disagreeing with them. So it may just be that the, maybe there needs to be, you know, broader dissemination of the white paper, because in multiple avenues drinking water was was raised as a concern. Certainly out there in the community. Okay, it seems like we need to do a better job of presenting the results of that. All right, we asked, you know, a broad based values question so on this one and the next question we had a few seed ideas and then people could also write in and add their own. And so here we see that people really value, you know, diverse wildlife, had the most votes by itself, but if you also include, you know, conservation had a lot of votes, and I just personally love this somebody wrote in and added their own standards and that garnered additional votes. So there's obviously a lot of appreciation for the natural environment and Amherst fresh food and agriculture will represent it, as well as appreciating that they people live in a strong community with great neighbors and have good education system and value equity. So those were all all pretty highly rated. And back up or is it still. Put it down sorry. Okay, just wanted to make sure I wasn't I wasn't missing anything I can't see everyone but I can see when your hand goes up. And then our final question was, we call it reasonable requirements and it was, again, very broad statements for people to kind of agree with, you know, or to to vote or to not vote for these were kept intentionally to avoid any implication that these are, these are in the bylaw or have been decided on already. So, so they were pretty pretty wide open. And so we do see a lot of votes for requiring solar on non residential buildings and on parking lots but nobody wrote in or voted for requirements related to new residential construction. So I do know one of our engage Amherst questions was concerned about new requirements for residences and homeowners and so we don't, we don't see anybody volunteering that that option here. And again and there's multiple as this was a write in. There are multiple variations on on tree removal and so quite a few votes for, you know, either not clear cutting for us or for only allowing limited tree removal or no tree removal so some some variation on where people's thresholds are but support for limiting limiting overall tree removal. I'm sorry. That is all of the great questions I know it was a lot so as Stephanie said we are finalizing our report, and that report will have all of these results and more results in there. And so that'll be a. I'm sure an easier medium to kind of for over. Go ahead, Jen. Janet your unit. I have a slide before the thank you. Are those comments that people just wrote in or were they things they could pick. I think you told me that I think I didn't hear it. Oh, yes. So we had a few seed ideas to get people started that they could vote on and then many lines for writing. And so, okay. Some of them were yet were starter ideas and others were volunteer ideas from the public. Okay, thank you. Yeah, Martha. Well, thank you Adrian for your presentation. And can you tell us when the report will be available and then to you or Stephanie how it will be available. Will it be part of our resource package? Will it be on the town website where anybody can access it? What's the plan for when and how the report becomes available. So we're working on finalizing report so it should become available in the next few business days from me to Stephanie and then my understanding is that it'll be available to the public as a whole. But Stephanie, do you want to elaborate on that? Yes, absolutely. Yeah, so both the solar bylaw working group in the ECAC will each receive it directly as part of your packets. I'll just make sure you all get it directly. But then I was talking to our communications director and I think we'll, we may have it in a few places. I think it'll show up on the engage website. I was thinking that it might be good to actually keep that page up and have that as a resource there and it'll likely be on the sustainability section somewhere we'll probably add it there too. So it'll be in a few places. So if people search for it, they can find it too. But I suggest that when it first becomes available, know for the first week or so when it's out in public, that you put a notice right on the town announcements. Oh, yeah, well, yeah, we'll do that. But following this would know it's available. And then also, you know, you haven't mentioned the land survey. That's the other part of what's going on. And so when will that be available and how So I can take that question. So that actually we have our GIS expert is working on developing that tool still so because what what GCA provided was sort of the base map. And then our IT department is going to build on that that gives people the options to look more closely at a parcel and see what things like, you know, one of the things you would all asked about was, you know, soils. And so there's a USDA layer that exists that would be able to be turned on as part of that. So that just has to get more fully developed. And when we have that developed and I think we've discussed this already, that we'll do a session during this meeting which would then be available to the public to learn how to navigate that. But, and I don't know exactly when that will be ready. I mean, we have one person working on a lot of, you know, all of this GIS information so it's a lot for him so I know he's doing his best to get it as soon as he can. And I will certainly let you know as soon as it's available. Yes. Okay, well thank you. And Jack. Yes, I saw I'm intrigued by the solar canopy idea. And obviously we have limited, you know, asphalt within the town that is, you know, under the control of the town anyway but I'm wondering if, you know, if we can, is there a way for the town or other to, you know, develop these parts and lots of say the big why or thinking, what's the former Amherst brewery wings or not wings but where am I going to go in help me where Amherst Brewing Company used to be. Yeah. And the victory market. So, and then, would there be opportunities for us to lease Amherst College or UMass, you know, pavement areas to kind of address this need even though they're not within the area of the survey, the solar assessment but those are just some things are just because I haven't really thought about the solar canopy to the extent. And I don't think the group has really talked about it too much. I don't know if you have any ideas on that Chris or Stephanie. I haven't thought about that. But that's an interesting idea to explore. Yeah. I mean there is certainly substantial adder incentive in the state program for parking lot canopy so there is the incentive. There was a question that was, there was a comment in the survey about shouldn't there be, or can the state support canopies and they do, you know, explicitly, whether it's enough is another question. But so there are, you know, then it becomes a private decision of the shopping center or whatever owner of whether to do it or not, and solar developers to find it attractive. And I was just going to say, to follow up on what Dwayne just stated that, you know, if it's a private landowner we certainly don't have any authority to sort of tell them or direct them but I think, in developing the bylaw you have sort of talked about the possibility of incentives. So those might be the kinds of things you want to think about when you're developing this, because certainly they would have to look to the bylaw for guidance on that development. So I think that's kind of the point of what you're doing this gives you some direction as to what the town is, you know, folks seem to be responding with that as a priority. And then how do you, you know, regulate that kind of development moving forward. Good. Thank you. Great. Let's Janet and then let's sort of focus on questions for Adrian so she can she can be on her way when when we're done with that and then we can go on to some of these other things to deal with the zoning. Janet, was that you okay. I was going to support what Stephanie and Jack said is that, you know, you can't solve all problems by zoning. And, but I think we can make suggestions to town council about, you know, tax incentives. You know, it's one thing to say other state will give you something but if, say we said, for everybody who has rooftop, you know, you get $500 off your taxes for two years or five years or something. Or for the big why I'm sure is being taxed and so just like a little inducement to get people to do that, because really we can't require anybody to do anything, you know, except even the town and so I think if we have ideas of other non zoning ideas I think we should collect those and send that to the town council because, you know, we're going deep here and we should use our information and knowledge. And also thanks to Adrian. And any other questions for Adrian before we let her go. Martha, would it be possible to allow listeners to ask any questions at this point. Stephanie, do you have any no requirement and I don't think we've done that in the other meetings so it seems a bit inconsistent. I think if people have comments or questions they can certainly channel them through me but at this point you have public comment at the beginning and you have a lot of information you need to get through. I mean you're going to easily take up an hour of your next. Well, you could easily take up an hour or more. Moving on to the zoning bylaw issues. I don't recommend it I think you should keep it to where you have it in the agenda. Yeah, okay and certainly would entertain comments on the presentation at the end as well. So with that, let me thank you, Adrian, for the good good work and presentation and useful information. And we'll be in touch I'm not sure if there's going to be another opportunity for you to join us maybe with the mapping at the end but, but really thank you for for the for the work for the town. Thank you and thank you all for your input through this process. Super. Okay. All right, good. So, let's carry on with the agenda then and get through some of the sort of administrative items first, which would be the review and voting on the minutes. We had the meeting the minutes in the packet from last time for 14. I think the 317 minutes are they still missing. Yes, they're not ready yet. Yeah, right. I think I had stated I wouldn't have them for this meeting but I'd likely have them for the next one. Okay, great. Okay, so have people had a chance to review the meet minutes from April 14. That was the meeting with Jonathan Thomas, Jonathan Thompson, as well as some other business. And any comments or motion to accept. Janet. I had some questions and comments or like sort of revisions on page one. The bullet that says carbon flux show steady increase in oak pine forest since 1982 hem like decrease with HWA. I didn't know what HWA meant. Okay, I think we should say that. I can see. Okay. Or the forester. Could you, could you please repeat that for the, for the minutes? I didn't catch what the, what Bob said. Thank you. And then on page 2, it says something like Janet McGowan. Like, asked if, you know, I basically was asking Jonathan Thompson, are you saying that the carbon reduction benefits. The increase the, the green or the grid gets, and I kind of feel like that is what he said. So we should just attribute it to him and said, no, so I just, I just thought it was. And so I just, if we don't want to just say this is what he said. I think I was going to have an ad that says Thompson answers. Yes, as to diminishing carbon benefit as the grid greens, and that he hasn't looked at the carbon loss for other green energy sources. So I was going to add that in. I know he had so much I guess I would qualify that because there was some discussion after that with regard to the appropriate that he was using the average emission factor. And we, we brought up the issue of whether it should be more aligned with the marginal emissions factor in making that sort of assessment. And I think he was, he said he would go back and think about that. Yeah, so I'm happy to put his words in his mouth. So I just wonder if that section could be more relating what he said. And because it, when I read it, I was like, well, I'm not any expert, but it does. I'm sort of saying, are you saying this when no one said what he said. So, does that make sense. So I wrote, I typed some edits into that, but just, you know, with, you know, Dwayne, like what you said, he said, isn't in the minute. So it's, and it's a fine. It's an important point, I think. And so I don't want to get picky, but I just thought. I wanted his statements to be brought out more. Janet, can I ask so because you're saying a lot. Yes. So can you, I think for the purpose of voting on the minutes and the fact that you're making these amendments, I think they need to be clear. They can't just be I wrote this and, you know, we accept them they need to be voted on as stated. So I think either. You summarize them and say exactly what you want them to reflect or we put this off till the next meeting. I did write something in, but Dwayne makes me feel like maybe we need to put it off and add more. I can, but you wouldn't be adding them in what you would be stating them to the group right now exactly what you're saying that they should say. The language that you want to use and then they would be distributed either read aloud to the whole group so that the group can accept them as the amendments. Okay, I can do that. So why don't I'm suggesting Dwayne that we put this off because it sounds like there's a bit and I think it's going to all get lost in translation here and they need to be clear. Okay, okay. Okay. Okay. So, just to be clear, what is the process and for Janet to offer some amendments prior to the next meeting. I think what she could yeah what you could do is just a state your suggested edits they would have to be read at the next meeting. No, and then so that they would be clear. And then you would all vote on accepting the minutes as amended or not, because you don't have to accept them. So, but you just have to be clear about what they are, rather than having discussion about them. I think you need to have your suggested edits clear. I can email them to you and then maybe if Dwayne has ads, he could do that too. That's why I was sort of suggesting that that's possible. Yeah, because I could then potentially amend or add to what Janet has. And then we can vote on that in totality. Yes, and I can, and I can, and I think then I could, if we have them amended. Clearly, I can have them up on the screen so people can see them so it's clear. Okay, okay. Yeah, he had a lot to say so I appreciate the effort by the minute taker. Yeah, absolutely. And yeah, I should acknowledge who took them these minutes are far stir right Bob did. Yeah. Okay, yeah, thank you. All right, great. Okay, so we won't vote on the minutes today but any other comments on the minutes that we should be also taking the consideration for next time. Great. All right, so the next agenda item is staff updates. So, Stephanie. Yeah, I don't really have anything that's relevant to this group. I think, you know, Adrienne's reporting is kind of where we are in that process I think I stated it during her presentation that the mapping is being worked on and developed. And that when we have it we will make it available. Great. So anything from you other than the meeting on the bylaw. Yes, I wanted to say that the zoning board of appeals held a very interesting and thorough meeting last night with a proponent for a battery storage facility on Sunderland Road. The 515 Sunderland Road, which is the location of the former Annie's Garden Center is being proposed as a location for a fairly large battery storage facility. And I would say that in general the proponents did a really good job of explaining what it is they're proposing. We had a consultant there that they've been using with regard to emergency response. Captain Chris Baskham from our Amherst fire department was there and listened to the presentation and appeared to be and even stated that he was pleased with the amount of information and the way that the proponent was handling the presentation and the application. And so if you wanted to watch it you could watch the recording of the zoning board of appeals meeting for April 27. I think it would be worth worthwhile watching and becoming familiar with that type of facility, even though we're not directly covering it in our solar bylaw. And that public hearing will be continued to Thursday May 25. So the zoning board will be taking that topic up again on May 25. Great. All right, thank you Chris. Anything else before we go to Martha's question on that. Great Martha Martha. Now you're muted. What's the purpose of the battery storage is not associated with a solar array then. It's a standard loan battery storage facility which will be seeing more and more throughout the state as more solar fields are developed. It's a way of evening out the load because the solar panels and the system. They can take in energy from the solar rays during the day, and then store that energy in the batteries and then at night, they can distribute it to people who need it. So it's a good way of evening out the load. It also helps with. I understand that it helps with the cost of energy since when the load is distributed at a time when the energy is less expensive. It helps in a number of ways. But it's not a solar array that's right adjacent to it then. There's no solar array right adjacent to it. It is in the vicinity of the electrical substation up on Sunderland Road, and there are solar arrays that are generally speaking in the vicinity there's one on pulpit Hill Road and they're So anyway, it's in the vicinity but it's not directly linked to those solar arrays that exist. Yeah, something that we're seeing more and more and it's very interesting to become familiar with it and also to become familiar with how emergencies are managed and whether emergencies will occur or not so it's it's a very informative educational kind of presentation I think they're particularly helpful during during the sunset hours where as the amount of solar starts to ramp up and all that starts ramping down together. Then the create that otherwise creates a large strain on the electric grid to ramp up fossil generators to make up that difference where as if you can have energy storage to help during that ramping period. It's really important, as well as further into the night. All right, Jack. Yes, I was wondering Stephanie could send the link to that ZBA hearing that focused on the batteries for us, please. Stephanie. Yeah, sure. I'm happy to. Thank you. All right, thank you Chris anything else, or questions for Stephanie or Chris. We'll move forward to a community committee updates. Janet, except for your committee. I don't have much to say about my committee. Chris, the new our new planning person just did a battery storage bylaw for where right and so is is that worked with the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission on battery storage bylaw. Yes, he did. Okay, so. And then I think I have it in my, my files but if I don't I can get it from him. I actually read it in my legal like way, and it seemed like a lot of the requirements in there would be sort of repeating what we would have in the seller bylaw. And I know our charge says to handle bar battery storage and I just wondered if we could utilize him in some way or. Oh, sure. Yeah. Definitely. In fact, he's been a staff person who's been dealing with the CBA's review of this case. So it's, it's interesting and, as I said, very informative. Okay. Great. Any updates from the committees that some of us liaise with. I'll make one announcement for ecac more of a promotion their announcement. We are holding a heat, a panel on heat pumps, particularly residential heat pumps, a panel with a, I forget the name of the vendor but one of the vendors of heat pumps in the area. As well as a Q&A and some comments from ecac members on their own experiences with electrifying their homes with heat pumps. And that is at our Wednesday, May 10 meeting at 530 on zoom. And the vendor just so you know is Scott Surnac. Yeah. I think it's a western mass. Heating and cooling. Is that right? Yeah. Yeah, that sounds right. Great. And if you're interested. Is that our normal zoom zoom link I presume for our meetings. It's the normal meeting. It's your regularly scheduled meeting. It's another in the education series. Well, twist on it, but because it's a panel discussion, but it's at 530 to 630. Yeah, so it's, it's our meeting is 430 to 630, but that'll be the last half of our meeting. Correct. Okay. Any, Martha. May I suggest that you email the flyer for that to us so that we can help distribute it to the editor. That'd be great. That flyer just became available. Okay. Any other, any other committee updates. All right. Good. So now we have a good. Hour and a half, right. What time do we go to 130. Yes, I know. Can I just remind you doing before you launch that I know some members expressed concern about the length of this meeting. Yeah. And it might be a good time to literally just take even just a couple of minutes till 12, 12, 10. Yeah. To give people an opportunity to take a quick break and grab something from the refrigerator. Exactly. So why don't we, why don't we do that? And I would suggest, and then we'll, we'll jump into with Chris. The bylaw language and editing and review. So why don't we take a break until 1215. And be back here at 1215 to do that. Okay. Chris, do you want to tell me where you're going to start so I can tee that up. You're muted Chris. Did Stephanie just say something. Yes, I just asked, do you want to let me know which document you're going to begin with so I can tee it up for the group. Yeah, I've changed a bunch of them, but why don't we begin with dimensional standards and the talk about that. And then we can talk about the other ones that have also been changed. Okay, additional standards. The one that I sent you last night. April 27th. Yep. Got it. Great. And I did also want to remind people that we will stop. I'm probably at 115. For public comment. Okay. Great. Welcome back everybody. Okay. Chris, do you want to take us through your drafting so far? So that'd be great. So, I guess what I would like to mention, first of all, is that you've received a number of different sections in your packet. So, you know, I'm going to start with the agenda today. Stephanie had sent out sections in when she sent out the agenda. And then I sent out, I think it was three updated versions last night. So you're beginning to have a more complete picture of the bylaw. And I know that there are still things that need to be added, but having all of those sections together, I think is going to make it easier for you to understand where we are with this because I know that it's been a lot of work and hopefully we can start to make a complete document now that we're, you know, so far ahead. So anyway, with that in mind, let's look at dimensional standards. So we had looked at this a while ago. I think we looked at it. Not the last time we met, but the time before that. And I was just beginning to think about this. And I was basing some of what I had done on looking at other cities and towns, but going back and reading through the other sections of the Amherst zoning bylaw it started to make more sense to do it this way. Anyway, we're talking about setbacks here. And I think all you, you all know what that means. It means a structure is set back a certain number of feet from a property line. And in this case we're talking first about the front setback. So for large scale ground mounted solar photovoltaic installations, the project area shall have a minimum front yard setback of and I've changed this to 50 feet. I had said 100 feet last time. I looked at the Hampshire College solar array on Bay Road, and that has about a 30 foot setback from the front property line. This business in brackets is not something we would include in the bylaw but it's a thought process that I went to went through to get to 50 feet. In any event solar array at Hampshire College is about 30 feet setback from the front property line that right away there is a little. It's fairly wide, but in any event 30 foot setback the it's in the RO zoning district and the RO zoning district has a standard front setback for buildings of 25 feet so the solar array is set back farther than 25 feet. In the RLD zoning district that has the largest front setback of any district, and that's 30 feet. But in order to accommodate what we had said previously in our design guidelines we had asked for a 50 foot buffer 50 foot vegetated buffer and in order to accommodate a 50 foot vegetated buffer. It seemed reasonable to have a minimum front yard setback of 50 feet. And now there are also town roads that are considered scenic roads, and I think I sent you a link to the scenic road page on the town website last night but there's a map associated with that scenic road page we don't have to look at it right now. But it's, it has roads on it that were designated by town meeting back in 1974. And I know the last time we looked at this Janet suggested that we take out the phrase as designated by a vote of town meeting and I agree with that I just forgot to do it in this run through. But in any event I'm suggesting that for scenic roads that we should have a front setback that would be larger than 50 feet that would be 100 feet. So, do we want to talk about this now. Give me your thoughts on what's in this first section here on front setbacks. I'm sorry I was muted. Go ahead. It's okay. It was a moment of peace. So I was, I've been looking at the chart that Doug Marshall put together for the planning board. We did this. Jack might have Jack was on the board. When we were looking at the solar by the solar array moratorium. Yeah. And so I've been looking at that chart and then sort of updating it with, you know, badly written hand notes. And so 50 feet would put us in the kind of an outlier of, you know, so in terms of the other towns around us. And so, you know, Belcher town has a front setback of 150 feet. Hadley has 50. Pelham has 500. Berriesbury has 500. That all has 200. And I think Palmer has 250. And so, you know, a bunch of these other towns made revisions to their bylaw after having quite a few arrays. And so, when I've talked to some planning directors I've been saying like, you know, why did you do this. And in Palmer's case. You know, they, they were getting. Is there a lot of someone. I guess if somebody could mute themselves. I think Chris, it's unfortunately, I think it's yours. So if you could mute while you're not speaking. So these are towns that had a bunch of solar arrays. And, you know, that they kind of increase their setback. I know when I talked to shoots Berry to Michael D Chiara. And this may also be the thinking of Pelham the 500 foot setback is that they're a very forested town and they wanted to put it back so you really couldn't see it along at all from the road. Palmer was sort of overrun. Ethel was having a lot of they didn't want to look at the basically want to see the, the arrays and they wanted them, you know, to be screened off and so like that so I think 50. You know, it's a minimum but I think maybe we should set, say like at least 100 because then you could have, you know, the buffer zone and access road that might curve along and things like that I don't know. But just wait, we just, it looks kind of thin to me. We're short. All right, any other comment, Jack. Yeah, I was thinking that, you know, if you don't want solar you're going to have a large, you know, say 500 feet. You know, I think there's some of the guidance documents there from the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission and the EO EA one arm or minimal they, they, they may be as small as 25 feet I remember looking at it before. So 50 is an increase from that. Yeah, I'm just, I'm just trying to get a feel for 50 feet. Think my house maybe 50 feet back. But I don't, I think 50 feet seems to be, you know, that that is a genuine setback, whereas, whereas more that just kind of gets it a little bit, you know, smaller I think it. I think you get the effect with 50 but I understand what Janet is saying. In terms of, you know, variances, whether you start with the bigger number. And then they they're asking for, then they ask for 50 and then then it gets discussed by the decision making board. And I think I think the larger number is, is sending a no solar sort of vibe to it. Because I think visually 50 feet is pretty far back 100 is very far back. I would just add, I guess, that's 50 feet. Within that 50 feet would be the screening sort of plantings as well. Yeah, it's not an empty 50 feet it is a 50 feet that contains some screening measures. I guess I'd also, we did determine Chris at the Hampshire College one was, quote unquote only 30 feet. And based on your scenic road map that's actually on a scenic road as well. Bay Bay Road. Obviously this wouldn't impact already built projects but Yep, so, so, Janet, did you have something. The other point I was going to make was, even though like in RLD, you know you have this setback of, you know, X fee. It's difference between like saying okay on a lot you have a house that's two and a half stories, and the arrays like, well pretty much it's not like there's just a width of houses, a lot of arrays it fills up the whole field and so, or the whole area and so the visual impact of many many many many rows of arrays is greater than just having a house that setback, you know, 30 feet from the road or, you know, 50 feet from the road. My house is actually 50 feet from my from Southeast Street. And so I think if it was just twice that amount it would do a lot in terms of screening and just kind of like a less of a visual impact overall. It's not, it's not just like, you know, a house has a setback of 30 feet or 50 feet. It's like this is a whole pile of rays kind of like a, it's not an industrial building either it's something in between that and so sort of thinking of visually. It's filling up the whole lot or whatever you know it's a big it's a big looking thing. Yeah, unlike a home it would have screening to add that though. Yeah. Okay, I mean my my thinking is sort of either 5075 or maximum 100. I think my concern isn't so much. Scenic roads per se as it is residential areas if you have a patch of forest or or farm or something that's in an area that's mainly residential. I guess that the impact on people is more than if it's just a scenic road that you're driving by, like for instance where the Hampshire College array is. And so I guess my question so whether it's possible to differentiate it all for residential areas that have more than some certain density of housing or or whether we could make a limit of 100 feet but give some guidance to the zoning board of appeals that with certain discretionary conditions they could lower to 50. But but that's the range that I feel comfortable with 50 to 100. And as I say my concern more is more with the impact on nearby residences than just scenery per se. And also before we go to Jack next. If I recall our definition of large ground mounted arrays these are any arrays that are over an acre and what was it 250 kilowatts. That's right. Yeah. So I'm also trying to think if there's any differentiation of importance with regard to this setback as a function of size, because you know, an acre. A large setback on a smaller parcel may just not for even a relatively small, but ground mounted project that would fit this definition might not be practical if there's too much of a setback and it's the properties not that large to begin with. Jack. And remember to put your hand down. After you've done your comment unless you have another one. Yeah, go ahead. Yes. So, I'm just I'm just looking at the guidance documents but then the thought came, you know, when you mentioned the screening that say you have a 30 foot tree. I mean, that's going to cast a shadow that's 45 feet so the 50 feet one seems to fit in, you know, maximum shadows that, you know, would preclude it from being developed anyway. So it seems like a good practical number to me but I, and I think, you know, but I understand the mechanism where there might be situations where you want. A small setback, maybe based on topography or something like that. Or, you know, setting the view or something like that, but we have that. Yeah, you said 100% growth. So, Yeah, that's that's I just want to mention the shadow thing. Thanks, Jack. Janet is that up again. It is I was just going to agree with you doing because I think it does matter the size of the array and it kind of comports with the survey where people said the bigger the array, the more regulated, they wanted to see more regulation and it does make sense that 20 acres is different from one acre so I don't know how you write that in but I do think, you know, proximity to houses and then size of the array and then Jack's point is topography if you if the land is slipping down, you're probably less likely to see it so I don't know if Chris can get all that in language but I think that would be good. I mean is is. I know obviously rules like this have to be fairly precise. But is there, is there precedent for language that says something to the order of like 50 to 100 feet at the discretion of the planning department or zoning, the zoning office based on site specific situations. Maybe at the discretion of the board of the zoning board where they could waive the requirement for certain reasons. But what I wanted to say is that we don't have very much land available or feasible, I should say, for solar arrays. The third of our land is considered feasible based on the study that GCA did, and you'll be seeing more about that map in the coming weeks, and I'm concerned about fact that we don't have a lot of land that, you know, meets the requirements. So putting large setbacks on the projects is going to diminish further the amount of the area where these can go and so that was in my mind as I was thinking about this. Thank you. Martha. Yes, I'd like to follow up Dwayne on on your suggestion of dependence on the size of the ray and see if we might agree to do something now let me just make a suggestion for us to discuss a suggestion would be 50 feet set back for an array of let say one to 9.9 acres in size and a setback of 100 feet for an array was that's greater than 10 acres in size just as a possibility is that is that type of language anything that our committee would agree on. Can you repeat that Martha. Okay, I'm making a suggestion here for discussion purposes that we say a 50 foot setback for a solar array of size one to 10 acres or one to 9.99 acres, and a 100 foot setback for a solar array of 10 acres or greater. Do people have reactions to that. One reaction, especially given the curiosity and potential interest of the public on dual use solar or agrivoltaics. Agrivoltaics tend to be for the same amount of megawatts, they tend to take up more acreage, because by definition they have to be spread out quite a bit. I just would want to think a little bit Martha about whether there should be, whether this should be more on a megawatt basis as opposed to an acreage basis, or if there should be something that cars out something a little bit different for dual use applications. I agree to that I'd agree to to making a kind of separate statement for the agricultural dual use case which I think should be a separate discussion anyway. All right, Jack. Yeah, I guess I thinking about Martha's suggestion. And I guess I'd have to think about it. I guess it seems like it might have a place but it but then again it seems like we're not talking about. We're talking about something low to the ground, basically, and I just don't know that you need more, you know, you need 100 foot for a larger array. I'm not sure, but I just wanted to, in addition, I'm going to stress the KP law. I have a refresh from memory about these, this setback discussion that they said, while the town may adopt specific setback requirements for solar uses, the setback requirements must be narrowly tailored, not overly onerous or serve to unduly discourage solar installations and see exists were necessary to protect health safety or welfare. I just want to make sure we loop that in on this because this is probably one of the more important sections of the bylaw. Good reminder. Yeah. Very good. Janet. So this is actually like when, you know, when I hear about Martha's suggestion, then I think, okay, let's look at some renderings like what is a 10 acre one look like versus five versus 50. And I don't think we're going to get that out of the planning department with our current thing. Then I, my second thought is like what if we, if we could, you know, it, you know, can we visually can we see some arrays that are 50 acres or 10 acres or five acres or one acre and so, you know, that will be instead of having a rendering we actually have a live subjects that would be useful to me to visualize. And I'm very conscious of what Jack just said. And then, and also what Chris said, which is, you know, when we get the actual GZA assessment we're going to be looking at parcels like I live next to a field that drops way down. So, you know, if you were driving by, you probably wouldn't see them from the road and stuff like that. So it might, it might come down to I would think in a way you might say 50 to 100 feet, or more, depending on topography, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and giving the permit granting authority, like specific factors to look at. In terms of the, the, the screening, you know, I remember it very conscious of Laura saying, we don't want tall trees because we don't want to shade the arrays and one of the bylaws, I read a bunch of bylaws on the train this week was very specific about screening like the, you know, it has to be 75% and evergreen at least 15 feet high. But they also recognize that you wouldn't want things to keep going and going. So, I feel like this might be something that we want to be specific as to factors but give the PGA some authority to kind of look at a specific proposal on a site and have some discretion but that also makes it more tricky to write. And can also make a little trickier for the developers to deal with risk. And a channeling Laura there I think. Are we ready to move on to the next section. Yes, I did have one one comment on this Chris. First, I think just in this is not a final draft but so like when you say for large scale ground mounted solar photo take installations that should be capitalized so it refers to that defined term. But then also, I scratch my head a little bit in terms of for a solar project. This is always clear what the front is, and the sides are. Is that have to do with with the orientation of the of the road. That sort of defines what the front is, and then there could be a raise that are sort of there's wrote it's at a corner or something and there's so there's roads on both sides. So, is that what is there. So, do we do we know what the front is. Yeah, so the front is the side that has the road. And if the road is on two sides, then it has two frontages and if it's on three sides and it has three frontages so that would be something to keep in mind as well. So if you're thinking about larger setbacks, if you're on a corner, and you have two roadways that you're dealing with then you're taking away, you know, a large chunk of the property. So, you know, that's also something to consider the building commissioner is the zoning enforcement officer so when push comes to shove he's the one who decides where the frontage is but most commonly it is considered to be the side on which there's a roadway. Okay, thank you. Yep. Okay. Any, anything else before we move forward. Super thanks Chris. Okay, side and rear setbacks for large scale ground mounted again I'm noticing that this is not capitalized so it will be ground mounted solar photovoltaic installations I think I'll have to come up with an acronym for those. The project shall have a minimum setback of 50 feet from all other property lines and this includes side and rear property lines. So Hampshire College is solar ram Bay Road is about 25 feet from the side lot line. On the right on the West, the properties in the RO district and the RO zoning district has a standard side and rear setback for buildings that's 50 feet. And the RO zoning district has the largest side setback requirement of any district which is 25 feet 25 feet. Yeah. So anyway, I'm suggesting 50 feet for side setback again because of the need for a buffer planted buffer. I have a discussion about whether you agree with that or not. Let's see what else did I say, oh, this was something I picked up from shoots very the side or rear setback, maybe waived or reduced in all districts when but a bunny rower tracks upon approval of the PGA where side conditions allow for reduced setback without a negative impact on screening. So that was something that they included. So what do we think about a 50 foot side and rear setback. It sounds good to me. Maybe there, there might be, you know, some, some individual cases, you know, depending on a slope or some other specific thing with a specific property that was next to a house that might require a change but that is as I understand would be at the discretion of the permit granting authority. The zoning board of appeals which would be the permit granting authority I believe in these cases has the discretion to ask for more of a setback than what is absolutely required or what the minimum is required. Yes, so if a homeowner was concerned because of the way the slope when topography went or drainage or something they could they could appeal for a larger setback is that right. Yes. Okay. Then it sounds good to me. Janet. So, are we having a 50 foot vegetative buffer around the whole fence. Is that what we were talking about last time I kind of lost. And so, so we are you visioning like the road, the buffer for 50 feet, like starts at the road and then suddenly you're at the fence like that. It seems to me I need more space. So, you know how a road has pavement and then on either side of it it has right of way. So, generally speaking the right of way in Amherst is somewhere around 50 feet. So you have a road in the middle that's 24 feet, say to 12 foot lanes. So that means that on either side of it you have fairly large areas between the edge of the pavement and where the property line actually is. And what would that be that would be 26 feet so 13 feet on either side something like that. So then at that point is when you start the 50 foot buffer and or the 50 foot setback. So, we could consider that you need more of a setback than 50 feet because the buffer is required to be 50 feet and I think that's in the design and we can look at those later. But it may make sense to make the setback a little bit larger than the required buffer zone. Yeah, now sometimes don't have a 50 foot buffer zone they have a 30 foot buffer zone so we could diminish the size of our vegetative buffer in order to fit within the 50 feet. So that's a discussion that we can have about how those two things relate to one another. And so that I think that's a great discussion and then I was just going to read off the other town so for right rear inside setbacks belcher town is got 75 feet Hadley has 50 elements 100 shoots Barry has 100 at all had 200 with like flexibility on that. And then Palmer came in at 100. So I just wanted to First in the case that a property owner owns two adjacent properties. Would they and they wanted to put up an array. Would they then need to have sort of a substantial gap in between, because of those setbacks on that property line or is that, and yes. Yeah, okay. Protect protect the sale of that property at some that parcel and some point in the future that that new owner would have protections. That is true unless the owner decided to do an a and R, which is a count combination of the properties. They would have to respect the setback. Any more comments on this section. No, okay. All right, moving on to open space requirement. So some towns have, you know, one for one requirement if you cut forest you have to then preserve an equal amount of forest. Sometimes have one and a half I think Palmer is one that has one and a half to one ratio and shoots Barry has a four to one ratio which is really large. Anyway, in this case I'm suggesting a one to one ratio. So for all projects where there is clearing of forest land, a minimum area equal to the total area of forest land that is cleared must remain as natural forested open space for the life of the project. This natural forested open space may be on the same lot as the large scale solar photovoltaic installation, or maybe on another property in Amherst, or on land in a town of budding Amherst owned by the same property owner. This area may be clearly depicted on a shall be clearly depicted on a site plan prepared by registered land surveyor. The land is designated as natural forested open space shall be deed restricted for the life of the large scale so solar photovoltaic installation, and the deed restriction shall be recorded at the Franklin County or Hampshire County registry of deeds whichever is applicable. I'm using that some of the towns that about Amherst are in Franklin County and summer and Hampshire County. Then, here's a suggestion that was made in answer to a question well, what if a person wants to develop solar on his property but he doesn't have land elsewhere that he could put a deed restriction on so someone mentioned the possibility of a payment in lieu. Of fees in lieu of setting aside natural forested open space may be allowed payable prior to granting of a building permit for large scale ground mounted solar array. And I know that that's different language from previously so I've got to clean that up such payment shall be based on a per acre cost, ie for each acre of forest cleared, the payment shall equal. So we would make some statement about what that amount would be. And the money from this payment in lieu would be deposited into a town fund held for the purpose of planting trees. I contacted the town tree warden Alan snow and he said they do have a fund for planting trees it's mostly for planting but it is a fund that is running low and so they could benefit from payments of this type. The fee in lieu value for each acre of forest cut shall be blank as determined by the town of Amherst assessor, based on a portion of the value of the land that is to be cleared. I should say based on the portion of the land that is to be clear. Anyway, what do you think of this idea of having the requirement for mitigation for if you cut forested land and you have to preserve forested land. And if you don't own more forested land that you would then pay a payment in lieu. I guess just to start the discussion I think I might have been the one that first sort of suggested this idea and then there are some comments that I that I also noted in that. Do we, I don't think we do but do we require this of any other development when they take some forest land. To build a house to build a shopping a commercial buildings, or even to turn forest into agriculture. If the concept is really about trying to preserve that carbon. And so there's something that enamors me about this, but I, but perhaps it should be a broader zoning thing for everything, as opposed to solar. There are some issues. So that that was one comment I guess for discussion. If we were to go to something like this. I do wonder whether instead of a payment and Lou, it could be that they work with some, some other land. Why, why wouldn't they be able to work with some other landowner that it's not them, but somebody to put land or forest land in preservation for the duration with a landowner that agrees to do that. But it's not the individual individual landowner of the solar project in and conceivably wide wide just in Amherst or adjacent areas. Why not elsewhere in Massachusetts would be a question for discussion. Okay. Robert Bob. Okay, first, I'm just generally opposed to the whole idea of mitigation. So I won't be able to support this. Now in questions just about logistics, your design is his natural forest land and it's for the duration of the life of the cycle of the solar voltax and not presumably it's released from any kind of restriction. And then with the payment Lou, if the land is going to be returned removed from natural forest is the money get paid back to the person at the duration of the solar installation. And just the whole thing is just a can of worms to me and I don't support it. Thanks Bob. Jack. Yeah, I guess I, I go along with the bomb on this, but I, and I'm looking at the template bylaws. And I don't remember how this even kind of came up in our outline maybe Chris can refresh. But I don't see it in the finer valley planning commission, and I don't see it in the EO EA, you know, model bylaws, and I'm sure that the are surrounding neighbors probably have this and that's no doubt but Yeah, this is, this is kind of seems punitive on a developer, but so maybe somebody can refresh me on why we're considering this. I could say that we're considering it because other towns do this and so my attempt here is to kind of put things before you and see if you think those are good ideas, and if you don't then we'll delete it but if you do then we'll keep working on it. So that's where it comes from. Yeah. Okay, good. Martha and then Janet. Janet go first if you. Okay, and then Martha. Thank you. Thank you, Martha. So I think we have to talk about this can of worms because one of the, when I read this one of my question was like well what's forested land. And so I just kind of wondered, you know, is it just obvious or do we need to define that. The second one is after the survey about the town values and what people wanted to see is a huge majority of people did not want to see us cutting forested land for solar. And so I think the committee has to talk about that or a group has to talk about whether that's going to be just off limits because of the many benefits of farce and all the all the things that Jonathan Thompson was talking about, and also the community values. The open space plan sees the forest in North Amherst as a potential forest reserve. And so I think that's part of that's, that's, that's the big worm I think. And then a lot of the towns have limits on the percentage of land that can be, or like if you had a 20 acre parcel only 10 acres could be used for an array, or 10 acres of land could be cut. And so I, you know, I, I could send this. Hopefully, if I can figure this out I could sort of send Doug Marshals out with adding information from other towns, some of the towns required, you know, if you're using, you know, agricultural land you have to set aside 1.5 acres, you know and stuff like that so I think we have to like finally face the question is, do we recommend that we cut forest for solar in the face of the fact that that was a very, very strongly held value and, you know, in the survey you could see that most, the majority of people who answered that did not want to see that. And the other thing, the final thing to add to the worm, the warveness, pushing aside mitigation issue is lot coverage and so if you go into the different zoning districts there's limits on the amount of, you know, how, you know how much of the your parcel can your building and your hardscape cover. And so when you're in RO or RLD, it's very small. And so I think that is another issue to look at so, you know, you might want to have, you know, five acres of if you're going to cut the forest, and then you know, five acres of forest around it to kind of mitigate the impacts on that on the, you know, the water, the wildlife, the recharge and all that good stuff. And so I think this is, I don't think we can say, yes, cut it all. And then I think we should consider saying, you know, in Amherst we have very limited forest and we'd like to keep it and so I think we need to talk about this quite really at length. Great. Jack. I'm sorry, I just get, I don't know, Martha. Oh, sorry, sorry, I forgot. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah, it seems to me that this is a question that we can't really make a decision on until we see the GZA land survey and really see where are they identifying. You know, if we are saying that there's only one third of the town is not conservation or otherwise built up or something. Well, how much of that is forested how much of that is agricultural land that has potential. When we see that, I don't think that we can really conclude, you know what we want to do about the forest and land I mean I myself sort of favor the one on one mitigation in some sense, but I really think that we have to see the facts first see really where solar is potentially possible, and then decide to what extent we want to, you know, restrict the forest land or, or, you know, have the one on one mitigations and so on so that's my two cents for the moment. Let's just jump in real quick with a response to that particular point. So GZA is mapping was not definitive if you recall it's just where it's most feasible. So it all is going to require more in depth analysis anyway it doesn't mean that because it's on the map it's, it's absolutely buildable. I just want to make that point because it's a helpful guidance and I agree it could give you some idea, but I just want to caution you not to use that as a definitive map layer. But I assume that we are going to then have a presentation of the GZA map, plus some of the overlays that that are wonderful town staff are working on now right. Absolutely. Yes. That's the point at which we could then have this discussion we'd be able to say oh it's, it's this section of town. And yes indeed it's forested or oh it's got, you know, open fields or whatever. But I don't feel I can make a decision until I see all that. And I think that needs to be in a public discussion session. I wouldn't mind maybe a little guidance from from Chris maybe in terms of, I mean the scope of zoning of zoning bylaws in terms of I mean we're not, we can zone like parcel by parcel words on your we're providing rules and regulations with regard to, to, to restrictions on development but it's not like, you know, in on this parcel. You're not allowed to do it on these specific parcels. It has to be somewhat more generic than that. So either the regulations apply townwide, or they would apply based on the zoning district that things are located in, they wouldn't be parcel by parcel so you're right about that twin. Okay. Jack you ready now. I was going to say what Martha was saying, it'd be nice to be able to be a little bit better informed in terms of, you know, how significant would this one to one requirement be to Amherst's ability to, to get any sort of substantial, you know, ground mounted solar in town so. Yeah, so thanks Martha for that. Janet. I want to add two more worms to the can. Thanks to Robert Bob for this. So Amherst climate and resilience plan, and the state plan both say to protect and expand natural working lands and their town plan says you know put solar on the built environment so those are two things to kind of look at. The other thing is like way back in the beginning, I know we talked about this and Chris had brought it up is, you know, having overlay districts for large scale solar so, you know, after we look at the mapping maybe we're like, Okay, this is a overlay district area, and this is what can happen here. And, you know, do you know what I mean and so that might affect if we go that route it might affect what we're doing here too. Great. Yeah. I guess on the one on the one to one or the mitigation, I guess I just want to, you know, have us further think about what is the purpose there. I mean purposes. Go ahead Bob saying this is the preclude solar development we know that and that this community survey and the documents that Jen. They're saying well we want both we want solar we want no carbon power, and we want forests and fields, we can't have both somebody has to choose. And I think canopy and rooftops are great but that's a finite resource, we're going to have to put them in natural environments. And we, you know, we have to be able to allow that, and all this mitigation anything else we know the purpose is to preclude power solar power from Amherst that's really at the base of it. Sorry. No worries at all. I guess what I was going to start to try to ponder is that you know if the purpose is really to make sure that we are also meeting this, the contributing to the state and town. So one of the objectives of protecting and preserving natural lands. Is this the mechanism to do it. There are other mechanisms mechanisms going on in town we got a lot of conservation land we're continuing to pursue conservation land. The states will have its own programs and efforts to increase the amount of land that is preserved for natural natural working lands. And so, is that, is that sufficient to meet our, our collective desires to have both clean energy and natural lands, or do we have to. Does it make sense at all to put this burden on the solar develop or the solar developers who are trying to create this clean energy to put that burden directly on them or is this coming the efforts and increase in natural working plans coming from other policy mechanisms is what I was going to put forward. And let's keep in mind we have about 10 more minutes and we want to open it up to public comments. So let's try to get. We're almost through this section. Jack and then Janet. Yeah, I'm just, I'm just thinking about this whole concept is essentially barring in terms of mitigation barring from the state wetland. Regulations with regard to that resources, and how that's dealt with like okay you're going to build on a wetland you got to reproduce it somewhere else so is that kind of the thinking. Stephanie or Chris. I think the thinking here is recognizing that we do need these natural and working lands. And if we're going to take some away. How can we make an effort to preserve something elsewhere so that's kind of my thought process, but other people may have thoughts on this. But, but don't I mean I just I'm confused because force we we we use wood products, and I don't we need to harvest. Yeah, for us. I mean, our word is has to come from somewhere to it's a resource that's used, whereas we don't harvest wetlands. Unless the live muck. Yeah, so I know I'm more confused. I'm definitely like. We're Bob Bob is. I can speak to the wetlands issue a bit, Jack, and just quickly, I mean, the wetlands regulations very specifically have seven interests where they have protection over those interests. It's a state regulatory guideline and guidance and it's very specific as to what those interests are, for instance, protection of drinking water supply habitat values, etc, etc. So it's very defined. So I think in lieu of that, and I think something that I had said to Chris before was, you know, when you're doing this exercise. What are the resources that you are looking in the community to protect, but why, what do they offer as value so I think you have to not just say we like forest. I mean, that's kind of a given but what are the things, what are the reasons why you need to preserve that is it, you know, absolutely fundamental that you preserve those for a specific reason. You know, I think that's the kind of discourse you want to have. Yeah, so on that. So, you know, clearing up, it has to be an amazing horse track. So I can imagine, like, where are you going to take down this particular like old growth for us. You're going to need to, you know, mitigate that some you got to like preserve something for you know eternity. All fours are not created equal so there's there's a real, this is this is, you know, we really need to qualify. When we even kind of consider that a particular force that has some special by I don't think all fours are created equal and and we do need what there's a harvest thing and there's there's owners, you know, that that we're going to get in a little trouble to I think with going down this path to so in terms of, you know, owners right so. Thank you. Thanks, Jack. Great. Thanks, Janet and then and then scroll down certain I think we're at the end of this section aren't we or is there. Yeah, it's a bit more than yeah exactly okay. So I have to express some frustration. And, you know, we have a climate action and adaptation and resilience plan that literally says what natural lands do our forest wetlands farmlands grasslands and soil store and sequester carbon drawing it down from the atmosphere through processes like photosynthesis and microbial activities. The one these lands are developed or degraded not only does the carbon stored in trees plants and soil get released but the future future capacity that land to sequester carbon is significantly and often often permanently limited. Therefore protecting our natural lands is one of the most important things we can do to mitigate climate change. This talks about the ecosystem services of air and water quality improvements flood mitigation cooling on hot days local food production and more healthy undisturbed natural systems can better withstand or adapt the impacts of climate change and should be prioritized for protection. I mean this is all been decided by the client our own town's plan. The ideas are in the state action to the state climate action plans. And it's not saying we don't want solar and, you know, it's saying we want for us and so, you know, where should we put solar well let's put it on the mind in, you know, the Holy, you know, on, you know, that's when it's when it's at a thing let's put it on lands that are already degraded let's put it on very marginal soils and not on prime farmland. This isn't something I'm making up this is this is the result of the thinking of the ecac the town council state people like Jonathan Thompson. You know so I don't think it's, I mean, I don't know I just feel like I, you know I read all this stuff and I present it and I just don't feel like people are absorbing it. You know wetlands are phenomenally important in terms of ecology but also in terms of sequestration. In Massachusetts was one of the leaders in adopting a wetlands act before you know it's just in my to have people read these plans or am I, you know I just don't been decided by our by our action plan and so if we're saying don't cut down because of these things we're just implementing the plan adopted by the town council and written by ecac. And if we, you know, where can we get solar we don't need to get, you know, solar on every part because we have the state the university is in the college, you know, picking up the tab for 45%. We have hydro we have wind power we're going to have solar we have tremendous amount of people have solar on the rooftops. We can, what are our goals will the plants tell us the goals are to do both. Yeah, Chris you had a. Oh, I just wanted to say, I think we're going to need to face the fact that we will need to cut forests. But I think that Janet is also right that we need to preserve forests. I would love it if Janet would write up what she just read as part of a nexus statement, which would support us in requiring that there be mitigation, or a fee in lieu or some compensation for cutting forest. So if we value forest so much based on our climate action car plan, then we can require mitigation one to one mitigation. I think we need to figure out how to do it. And in order to support that, we need some kind of nexus statement which is very close to what Janet just read so I think we can work together on a compromise and allow some forest to be cut. If forests are cut, we have this mitigation, and we have support for it because we're going to write a strong statement as to why we value forests. That's my opinion. Yeah, I would, I would just offer a couple of things one is, you know, when ecac wrote that it wasn't to suggest that. Jack, I cut out. I mean, sorry, sorry about that. No, no, no worries. Okay. When, when, you know, ecac put that together, it was, it was not to suggest that we shouldn't build solar and potentially face confront this trade off between solar and forest. I think that we, we, we recognize as everybody does that force provide all these services, carbon including that Janet had read had had articulated or read off from from the carp report. It wasn't to suggest that ecacs positions that we should not consider using any forest land for solar. And then trade offs. And I guess the, the other issue is, again, I'm not sure why we're zoning should call out solar in particular with regard to this issue of development and force. And then second, as we do need both and both provide very important public goods in terms of climate benefits. I, is it, is it, is it appropriate to quote unquote penalize or put it on an extra burden on the solar developers to do this mitigation, or should there be more of a mechanism to that socialize that cost, as we as a society develops more solar potentially enforce other land and have some some mechanism through the state through the town to, to provide that mitigation. So it seems like we're, we're, we're, we're penalizing the other good parties that we want the solar developers to, to what to develop solar that we need at scale by adding this extra burden, but directly on them. What, what, what's the report that you and Janet are referencing again. It's the ecacs. Carp report. Which is climate action adaptation and resilience plan. Sorry, I thought I'd get it for you quick. Yeah, I appreciate it was adopted by the town council as a town's plan. Well, they, yeah, adoption is, I don't think they ever specifically adopt plans. They kind of approve them but they, they're very clear about their language about around that because we had wanted them to adopt it. And we got some pushback about that specific language, but however they did support it. So, and, and my point that I made earlier was to what Chris just said was really the point I was trying to get to is that what Janet is referencing is exactly what you should be doing, like if you're again if you're identifying these things as priorities. If you're referring to the documents that have been published in town, or some of the actions that have been taken in town to protect these resources. That that's all I was saying earlier so Janet you're, you know, what you're, what you're doing and saying is, is, you know, a pathway that makes sense. Okay, great. Jack is your hand up again. Oh, I'm just, I'm just looking forward on the web here and but that it'd be sent to all of us again just a surprise I don't have it, but I'd like to have it again. I summarized it in a memory sent and I can resend that and it has links to the different plans. Okay, thanks. And do keep my kneecap is also, you know, expressed its opinions or thoughts of the need for solar development, obviously, considering highly considering the built environment first, but then also some assessment with regard to sort of what sort of scale of development we might need to consider or want to consider for the town which is, we'll see with the gza map but likely above the amount that can fit on the strictly on the built environment. If okay with everybody, and we have one more short section on energy storage but maybe hold that for next time because I do want to give any of our public participants an opportunity to offer some comments on today's discussion. If any members of the public are interested in making a comment or asking a question, please raise your hand. Eric, you can go ahead and unmute. Thank you, Stephanie. I appreciate the earnestness which we all are struggling with the solar placement of solar in our community. I am have to say I'm as Janet McGowan expressed just now I'm equally frustrated dismayed by the, the effort to kind of measure the what the town values what the community values. And in terms of the environment and placement of solar and the disconnect that when the rubber hits the road the discussion on where we should put solar. That occurs in the solar by the working group discussions. So I have to say that it's the disconnect between what the survey purportedly was to reveal about what the town values, and what and how that gets implemented and the fact that the solar by law is kind of stunning. I also would like to say that there was another kind of survey that was created in the form of the Amherst town master plan in 2010 that went through a kind of a very long and elaborate process that came up with how much the town values the natural and cultural resources, and I could go into the strategies for for conserving the land in sufficient quantity but I would suggest perhaps that we look at and add to the discussion in the form of the master plan, the community in 2010 valued and what and it was adopted in 2020 by the town council. And finally, I would also like to just represent one of my neighbors I live on shoes very low road, and one of my neighbors regarding set this is a regarding a setback issue. His well head is right on his property line. This on the other side of his property line was the beginning of the proposed solar array that was proposed in 2018 2019. And I would say that if you're so one, I'm not suggesting your cavalier, but their real life issues at stake here, not just about visibility, visual aesthetics. The border issue right on the border the beds. Well head is right there. So I think it's not it's this this kind of very difficult discussion really needs to be this, this labyrinthine discussion really needs to be had, because their real lives at stake here. So I do appreciate the, the concern and, and the kind of kind of the difficult conversations we all are having regarding these subjects. Thank you. Okay, Steve, you can go ahead and unmute. Great. Thank you. This is Steve roof from South Amherst on Southeast Street, speaking as my own person. Folks have summarized the most Amherst plan and the statewide plans they, they kind of, I've heard it sounds to me like they're implying that saving forest is the most important thing to do to fight climate change. And that's wrong. The most important thing we need to do is stop burning fossil fuels. That's clear and the Massachusetts plans all those plans and the Amherst plan. One of the next important things to do is to preserve as much working land as possible. But remember working lands at best are absorbing only 10% of our carbon emissions so they're a small sponge, trying to mop up a huge amount of pollution. So I think the priority has to be to get rid of fossil fuels, and that means turning to renewable energy, and the renewable energy that we can build out in the next couple of decades is wind and solar. Maybe beyond the few decades there'll be other alternatives but that's what we need to develop now. Amherst has done really well with that land preservation goal. We have at least 30% and it may be closer to 40% of land within Amherst is already permanently preserved. And maybe after I'm done Stephanie or Chris can confirm that number. So we have actually kind of achieved even what is proposed in the 2050 plan which is 40% of land area and water, Land and water and Massachusetts be preserved so we've achieved that land preservation goal or very close to it at least. We've done a great job on that front. What we haven't done is produce that renewable energy so we can stop burning fossil fuels. And as we've pointed out or as Dwayne has summarized, it doesn't take much land to do that one to 2% of land area so keep that in mind where the proposals are one to 2% of land to generate renewable energy, and we can still have that 40% 40 plus percent land preserved. And another thing about remember the fossil fuel impacts it's not just about global warming problems. It's about health related problems. So there are hundreds of thousands of people affected every year in Massachusetts by fossil fuel pollution. That's the particulates it's the poisons released to the air. And there's billions of dollars of costs in terms of health care costs and lost labor and shortened life spans, all associated with that burning of fossil fuels. So, it's a huge, huge health impact on us right now, right now. And that's something we need to get rid of. And those renewable energy sources will do it. There'll be an impact on the landscape, but it's not going to kill hundreds of thousands of people or cause billions of dollars of damage as our fossil fuel burning does now. So, thank you very much. Okay, and Renee Moss, you can go ahead and unmute. Hi. I sort of don't know where to start. There have been so many good points raised and I have so many, so many questionable ones I, I want to just thank Janet so much for reminding us of the the carp. It's so important, you know, that has made these statements and we have to honor them. And I know Steve Roof just mentioned how there's nothing more important than developing more renewable energy. I want to remind everyone about the 2030-2050 roadmap that Martha has presented to this committee that shows there are four pillars, and all four pillars are important. And, you know, we can't do one without the other and it's really I think we have to have a broader perspective. In terms of the mitigation, which I think mitigation is an important issue. I think Dwayne said that we can't penalize solar developers. Well, for solar developers who are, you know, these are multinational corporations, it's the cost of doing business. And I think that, you know, all businesses. There's the cost of doing business when you're doing something and this is part of the cost. And maybe it's about, you know, if there's 40 acres that you're looking at, only 20 can be developed because that other 20 is preserved. You know, there are many ways of dealing with that. But, you know, I feel like this committee needs to be here to hold and to protect this safety, the welfare and the general wellbeing of our residents and, you know, to be looking out so much for, you know, protecting the solar developers who are, you know, there's nothing wrong with making money, but that's what they're there to do so they will be able to, to weigh, you know, you know what what makes the most sense for them so I hope we're seeing this through the lens of protecting our residents and not through the lens of protecting the solar developers. And I also, the other little thing that I wanted to talk about is, and it's been mentioned, it's how do we think about this without having these maps in front of us how do we think about how do we move forward. You know, I think Chris mentioned a third of the, maybe only a third of the land, a third of Amherst land is has potential for a solar development. Well, you know, third of the land that that's a lot. So maybe we, I mean, it feels to me like we're groping in the dark. And I feel like as a member of the public who as you know, I, we've been very involved all along, you know, we read all this we read the carp we read, and we want to see those maps and I know Chris refers to them Stephanie refers to them, but we haven't seen them. And if we really value the public like we say we do, we can't just disregard the results of the survey why did we spend all this taxpayer money to hire a consultant if we're going to ignore the results of the survey, as to how people would feel about it. Anyway, I think that's it. Oh, and one more thing I want to say a fee in lieu. Instead of mitigation, a fee in lieu of mitigation. To me that makes no sense, because the reason we want mitigation is because of the sequestration and the power of the forest. And if we have a fee where we can plant a few new trees that doesn't replace it at all that's not mitigation from my perspective. Thank you and thank you for working so hard on this I know you all are and I know we all have the best of intentions, and we'll get to the other side of it. Thank you Renee. Anyone else want to make a comment or have a question for the committee. See any hands raised seeing none and we're at time so final thoughts or comments from the members here. Go ahead Martha. Yeah, our agenda for next time and we're going to talk about that. I think you can just assume that everything you didn't get to this time is going to be covered over carried over to the next is quite a bit. Yeah, I'd like to say, I see two important things that I'd like our committee to do over the next month or so as we try to get this all put together. One is really a good informed session on seeing the maps we could, you know, project the GZA map, see what areas they said and then project some of our zoning maps or our conservation maps or we don't compare them and really get to the nitty-gritty of that I would like to see that be one of our big agenda topics as soon as the maps are ready. You know whether that's next time or the time after and the other is something we didn't talk about today and that is for the farming you know we've talked about dual use, and that certainly is intriguing and as possibilities and so on and the way that I know you're at UMass is being worked on, but I think we really need to understand what our local farmers need. You know they don't raise sheep that can happily graze under solar panels. They raise cattle or they need to have their tractors to mow the hay fields or, you know, they have their orchards whatever so I really think we need a session where we hear from a few local farmers as to specifically what their seeds are and whether dual solar is something that's even appropriate for them before we write any specific section of the bylaw referring to the agricultural lands. So those are the two things that I would like to see over the next month or so. So thanks. I think thanks Martha. Jack. I'm wondering, you know, we keep comparing to, you know, bylaws prepared by Shoot'sbury, Pellum, Palmer, all these other stuff. Now, have they done the type of solar survey and assessment and things like that that that we're doing here in Amherst. Because, you know, again, Amherst is different but I just. I'm just wondering what those towns have in terms of, you know, available areas that are locked up. We've got to be in, you know, protected areas and things like that. And we're going to have a very good sense of what we can do. And I'm just wondering if the other towns really bothered to do that stuff. Good question. Good question from the public. I see Eric has his hand back up so maybe we'll do that and then we can adjourn. Thank you, Dwayne. My question concerns the state survey, solar sighting survey that's supposed to be released in July, and how that will correlate if there is any correlation between the survey that GZA has done with this with the survey that the state is doing. And I don't know the level of detail at which the state is approaching it, but I would think that it would be an opportunity to fold that survey into the GZA survey. Dwayne, if I could. Yeah, please. Yeah, I think they're looking at different exclusions and criteria. It's not an apples to apples. So it wouldn't. I mean, there might be some information that can be gained from it, but they they're not the same. They're not looking at it in the same way. And just the level of detail at which they did the analysis isn't the same, the scale, if you will, isn't the same. I originally thought their report was going to be available by the end of April. Has it been postponed? Dwayne, do you know, because they were doing not only the an online survey but they also were doing a whole report on solar sighting. They're doing a GIS mapping of the whole state. But I don't, I don't have an update on when that's going to be available. I heard April two, which I guess they have like a day. Work hard over the weekend. Yeah. Okay, very good. I think we want to, you know, certainly spend time. I think these types of more robust discussions of the worms we need to get into is it's really helpful for us. I think we can continue doing that is as Chris sort of takes us through the drafting and then and work on it work through it that way. So I think that will be the bulk of the agenda next time we'll be continuing to work with Chris on on the drafting. I'm quite confident the mapping from GZA won't be available in two weeks. Yeah, well, what about the farming then we could talk about that at some point there. I think we can talk about it I'm not I'm just not that keen on, on, you know, unless you have some recommendations of, of bringing in specific farmers I know we can bring in some experts on dual use that sort of work on do use I can talk about what I what what I know and what the state is doing on dual use or overvoltaics, but I could bring some I have some farmers and I definitely know at UMass, is it Dr. Hebert who's been working on that be great to have come in to come in and talk. I wouldn't necessarily recommend him but we certainly could but I'm quite familiar with what's going on at UMass on on on dual use and in the state. I'm more concerned about, you know, trying to really understand what our local farmers grow, I mean I see some orchards around. Now, do they want to consider putting solar over their orchards or is not not not feasible at this point, and if so then it has to solar panels will be really high up, and we would have to have an Arizona and we would be asking about limits or do they grow vegetables and if so do they want to crawl around underneath the harvest of vegetables, or would it mean really spacing the solar panels or the state I mean for. Things I need to picture if we want to say anything about dual use and our zoning. I don't think farmers will know. Too much about it yet, but or some some will but relatively few, but there's a whole guideline on dual use that for eligibility for the state. There's a whole guideline that's very specific with regard to what a solar array needs to look like and do to be considered as dual use and get the incentive that dual use is provided in Massachusetts. I can speak about those issues. I don't know. Well, Martha I agree with you because I often wonder, you know looking at the size of farms, if we have any farmland that's big enough for dual use and also farming so like I went over to Brookfield farm. And I was like how big is this field and it was three and a half acres they actually have 50 acres of land that they cultivate they leave 15 resting. They have little fields all over the place and I don't you know we're not like the Midwest where the field is like a square mile so is it really feasible to do dual use here with with smaller plots that are very fertile. There's projects in in Hadley that have small dual use farms. One of the notable companies in Massachusetts that's doing dual use agrivoltaics on small scale is located in Amherst. So, let's get, let's get, let's get that info in let's let's talk to those people that we need to hear about then, but but maybe we could maybe we could have a session where we could, you know, have a couple of the, these types of experts come but invite farmers to, you know, listen in, and then give them a chance to do a little Q&A at the end or something like that. Maybe I'd sort of built more inclined to start getting through some of the bylaw language that we need to understand what sort of questions we might want to pose to the farmers for some nuances that we might not be able to figure out ourselves. Okay. Okay, we're over time so thank you everybody. We will be back in two weeks at our normal starting time I presume Stephanie at 1130 and just as I'm doing that I'm making sure yep, it looks good to me. Okay, so very good. And we'll one thing is Janet you're going to just update the minutes or make that amendment to the minutes and share that. And then we'll be good to approve minutes next time as well. Okay, with that, thank you everybody and have a good couple weeks and see you in a couple weeks. See y'all.