 Okay, so we are now recording. Great. And thank you everybody and welcome to the November 4th, 2022 meeting of the town of Amherst solar bylaw working group. And thanks again for everybody working hard together on this. I'm, I guess, first order of business is to the regrettable. Information to Dan that you're a minute taker this week. And hope you're okay with that. Yeah, great. Thank you. And just to. Martha that puts you on deck for next, next time. Okay, super. According to my revolving notes here. Great. Okay. So. So great. Yeah, hopefully a few more people will join us. As we move forward, but I guess we have a quorum and we can start the. Business of the. Working group. In any case. And. Sorry. Too many screens open and looking for my agenda. Yep. Okay. Great. So. Great. So the first order of business. Is to review and vote on the minutes from. October 21st meeting the last meeting. Have people had a chance to review those. And prepared to vote on those. Were there any, let me ask if there are any. Comments or suggested. And it's to the minutes from last meeting. Look good. And appreciate. Bob, your minutes. Last time. All right. Hearing hearing none. Do we have a motion to accept the minutes? Don't move. All right. Thank you, Martha. A second on that. Oh, second. Great. I think we need a roll. Roll call. Yep. Voice votes. So. Yes. Corcoran. Yes. Hannah. Yes. Brooks. Yes. And Dwayne, I'm sorry. Chris had her hand up, but I did want to mention that. And I, this may be what she was. Going to comment on that was that. Jack Gemsack unfortunately had a death in the family and. He won't be joining us today. Oh, okay. Okay. Yeah, I think you might have mentioned that the last time. You had to go to California or something. Yeah. Okay. Yep. Okay. And Janet, I have the impression she might be thinking that the meeting starts at noon. No, whether it's possible, Stephanie, but you didn't give her a quick phone call or. Here she comes. You heard you. Sorry, I'm late. Sorry. Okay. Great. And actually then with that, everybody's accounted for, right? Yeah. Yeah, Laura will be showing. When she can. Yeah. Okay. Great. All right. Well, Janet. Please. We voted on the minutes already. So. Good. Things are moving quickly then that's fantastic. Okay. So let's move on to the next agenda item. Which is staff updates. And I'll first ask for Stephanie and then, and then Chris with, with note, noting Chris that we'll spend some time later. In the agenda for sure on the, on the draft. Section of the bylaw that you, you provided us. But Stephanie first, any updates from. Sustainability director. Sure. Yes. Just to quickly the. I'll just say that. I met with the. The GCA team met with the ECAC. At their last meeting and gave the same presentation that gave to you all as well. And then we had a. This may have happened before the last meeting. I'm sorry. I can't remember timelines. But we met with a small, with a small group of us met with the. We met with the ECAC team and that's where we, where we were being approached as a team. So that's where that approach is. And we're looking at. We've asked them to develop just a, an example of what it would look like using a parcel format versus. A grid format, which would be like of a, of a specific size. And they would go with the most granular size that they can where they can actually get meaningful data. So that's where that stands. And that's probably the most I have for an update today. In the parcel size, they'd be looking at just the entire parcel. So if you're looking at the feasibility for solar development on a parcel, there may be specific restrictions that apply that might make it appear that the potential for solar development doesn't exist. Whereas if you look at it just specifically on a grid size, so you basically just identify a portion of a parcel, then you're just looking at whether in that square of, in that sort of dimensions of that particular area, would you be able to put solar? Is there access to the grid and what's the slope and that kind of thing? So it's a more technical, just is it feasible analysis looking at a grid approach? So the grid will free up more sites for solar then because you're just saying in this spot, could it go? Exactly. So would it be able to? It's not, it's just what could potentially work. I think Dwayne has probably could speak to this more than I. So go ahead, Dwayne. I'm thinking there's probably trade offs either way, but the concern with the parcel level is that some parcels are very big. And if the idea is really to come up with sort of a yes or no or yes, no, maybe for each defined region, then there are sufficient number of parcels in town that are substantially large that have within that parcel itself, there's variation of types of land and suitability of land. And so it was a little bit, there's some concern raised, or at least the trade off is if we look at it at a parcel level, then we may not be able to get down to the granularity of saying, okay, on this parcel, here's an area within this parcel, the solar might make sense, but here's other areas that wouldn't make sense. Whereas if it's a grid based, I think there's, I think the idea was the grid based would be pretty relatively small. And so I think it has the advantage of being able to look a little bit more specifically at each patch of land, if you will. It has the disadvantage of not, and I'm not sure exactly how the GIS analysts do this, it doesn't necessarily know what's proximate to that piece of land and whether that land is maybe even crossing a parcel border. Yeah, I understand that because also parcels can change, like someone could buy parcels and buy them or cut them up. Yeah, that was another example. So then it sounds like the grid is more information about where solar can go. What about the interconnection piece? So what if it's a good spot, but it's far away from interconnection? Is that just noted? Like, oh, it's, you know, you could produce X here, but you're going to have hell or expense to get it there. Is that, will they present that information? I think that's part of what they'll provide in the report. So the, you know, the initial assessment, like this map that might show where solar has potential, it's, again, it's more just where it may be feasible, but it's not exact, right? It's just saying it has the potential to go here. And we don't know how things may change, you know, in terms of grid support, battery storage or any of that, you know? So it's just like here's a feasible location. It's really all it is. And again, we're talking about the feasibility for this analysis. And so whether it has the ability to be supported by the grid or potentially battery storage would be something they would likely address in the report. OK. Great. All right. Anything else, Stephanie, on your end? No. Great. OK. Great. Chris, any updates from the planning department? The only update I have is that the Maureen Pollock has arranged to have a training for the zoning board of appeals. It's expected that the zoning board will be reviewing solar applications in the next few months. And so she's arranged to have someone from KP Law give a training to the zoning board of appeals about, you know, what it can and can't do as far as regulating the solar installation. And that is going to be on November 17, I believe, at 6.18. Oh, no, sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. I was looking at the wrong date. OK. Yeah. Yeah. You got 17th, which is a Thursday at six o'clock in the evening. And the members of the solar by the working group are invited. Stephanie sent out an invitation and the members of the planning board are also invited. And as far as the planning board goes, I would like planning board members to notify me if they're planning to attend. So that I can post it as a planning board meeting if a quorum of the planning board intends to be there. So anyway, I think this is an exciting opportunity to hear from KP Law about permitting of solar installations, even without having a specific solar bylaw, what we can and can't do. And I encourage you all to attend. And Chris, that I would assume that's relevant for this group, too. If there's a quorum of this group, then we need to post that as a meeting as well. I would recommend that, yeah. Because they won't go ahead. I'm sorry, Janet. If it's just informational, can we just sit and listen? I mean, I don't mind posting it, but I just wonder if it's if people are just coming in to listen. If they're just listening, then we don't need to post it. But I think there will be a temptation to ask questions and make comments. Yes, you know us well based on based on lots of experience. OK, good idea. So just on that, Stephanie, for the for the this working group, solar bylaw working group, should we inform you if we plan to attend? Please let me know ASAP. I'd like to attend in all my respect, you know, various. Yeah, I also plan to attend. I'm not sure if do we need to let you know, so like more formally by an email or something or just find you could. I mean, if we have a quorum right now, if all four of you said or five of you say, we're going to attend, then I'll just post it. Precious on Robert. I mean, we also have Laura and. Jack, that may may also have to attend. OK, so I'll just post it. Yeah, it seems safer than not yet. Great. I guess just you mentioned KP law and obviously they are also we are we as a working group. We're also waiting for for them to attend and report back on the questions we gave to KP law. And I know that that's going to happen after. The legal counsel, the lawyer forget his name is back from family leave Jonathan Murray was the name again, Jonathan, Jonathan Murray. Yeah, can you remind us if you know offhand when when he'll join our next meeting? So the idea was the plan was that he would provide comment probably within the next week or so. OK, and then would attend the meeting I think on December 2nd, if I'm correct. Correct. Yes, that's a Friday. So I think the goal was to have him attend the December 2nd meeting, but he would provide responses to the questions prior to that date. So that when he comes to meet with the group, you can have a more informed discussion and sort of be a little further along. In the review of his responses. OK, great. Yeah, appreciate that and look forward to that. I guess Stephanie just abundance of caution just in terms of his schedule. We did move the meeting time to 1130. And it was one before do you can we make sure he's available. Yeah, we'll we'll check in with him prior to that. Okay, okay, awesome. Okay. Any comments or thoughts on for Stephanie or Chris. Super. Okay. Then I'd like to have a committee updates as well from any of us that have any ideas from the, from, from other committees. I can say for ecac, I was going to mention that GZA also presented to us at ecac that Stephanie mentioned. But other than that solar wasn't really on the agenda at our last meeting it's kind of in every other meeting discussion. And so nothing really to update from ecac. Okay. So we'll move on to some of the more of the core of the agenda. Which is. For the first time. Yeah. So we'll move on to some of the other committees. Nothing from planning board. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Great. And actually Jack and Laura, the other reps who are not, but not here. So, okay. Okay. Ready to move on to then sort of the. Some of them were the core of the agenda. So we'll move on to some of the other committees. So I'll be back in a little bit more time. Starting to look at some by law language. Which is, which is a wonderful milestone. And hats off and great appreciation to Chris and her team for getting us started here. What I thought I'd do is. Sort of break this up into. I think three things on the agenda. Okay. In the last meeting, we had a presentation or just a quick overview of the, of the outline. For the bylaw, the overall outline for the bylaw again, that's, it's not set in stone and it's not, it could be modified to some extent, but I just wanted to bring that back up for discussion. We didn't have a whole lot of time to look at it ahead of time or in the last meeting. So just wanted to raise the opportunity for any additional thoughts or feedback on that for, for Chris. Then I want to. Turn over to Chris for a sort of presentation or at least a brief introduction to the language that she's provided. Prior to this meeting that was part of the packet, which is laying out sort of this. Introductory section of purpose and. Justifications, I forget exactly the terminology that's used, but it sort of sort of present that. And then what I wanted to sort of figure out as a group is, what's going to be the process of, of then. What's the procedure for providing feedback to Chris for us to provide consensus review and feedback to Chris as, as from this working group on these on her draft languages, it starts to unfold over time. And I have some sort of thoughts on that, but would welcome a discussion on that so we can sort of, sort of start that process. My, my guess is we're, we're not prepared to offer Chris definitive and deliberated feedback on the draft she sent around for the introductory section at this point. So my sense is that, you know, it may be sort of a stagger thing where each section is presented. And then we have some process to review it and then, we have a discussion and some decisions on final edits, recommendations we want to send back to Chris at the following meeting and sort of keep that process sort of going, but want to sort of discuss that as we, as we get to that. So we'll spend some time on that now. And then we'll move on to the next agenda item, which is sort of the expert presentation. And hopefully Laura will be able to join us and sort of conclude her presentation on solar economics and development. And then we want to entertain other ideas for other sort of outside or internal information that we want to gather. And I know Janet had some ideas put together for that. So, and then we'll close out the meeting with some of the other standing items. Okay. So let's back up then to the, to the. Bylaw. And we do have, we do have the outline. That was in the packet from last meeting. I'm happy to share my screen with that if more convenience, Stephanie. If you don't have that readily available. Either way, I'm happy to. Why don't you do that? Cause mine, I actually, it's a little bit edited at this point. Okay. Give me a moment. Sorry. I don't think I have it in this packet. Hold on. Okay. Yeah, I can. I've got it. I just, here, I've got it. Let me know that you can see it. Yep. Yep. Looks good. Thank you. Okay. And I think we did, we did take a relatively quick look at this last time. But I want to get some. Opportunity here to hear any further. Input ideas. Importantly, I think Chris would agree. This is not immutable outline. As time goes on. We can, we can. Change things up a bit, but it's, it's really helpful to have this sort of starting point. And relative. Sense of, of what's the components of the bylaw. But I did want to. Entertain any input or thoughts of anything that might be missing. Or. Recast it in any way. And I had. And this is, and maybe it's subject to. What we hear back from KP law. Because one thing I, in, in, in, in some of the input, and maybe we can rethink this once we hear back from KP law as well. But one of the things I put in front of KP law for their. Legal opinion. Was to the extent that a bylaw could have any language with regard to. How. How solar developers. How we might hold solar developers responsible for demonstrating. Economic benefits to the community. And I don't know. And, you know, I don't know if that's a rogue idea to put in a zoning bylaw. Or whether that fits somewhere else. But I would just throw it out here as being, you know, maybe if it does fit in the zoning bylaw and, and if KP law says it's kosher. Then, you know, maybe we can have a section that. We can have a section that. Concerns. Language about. How the town will think about in request. Or could request information. Or options. With regard to. And demonstration of the, of the, of the applicant. Demonstrating that they have tried to some extent this obviously will be worked out to maximize to the extent feasible. Economic benefits to the community. That was one idea I had is some another section. That might be a bit groundbreaking. But also would have to have to meet, meet the. What, what's, what's, what's appropriate in, in, in zoning. As well as get the positive input from or approval from KP law. But. That was just one idea that I had. And just throw that out there either for any comments on that or to. Any other. Any other. Encourage any other. Rogue ideas to put into. Janet. So, um, so when I was looking at the pioneer valley planning commission one. Their draft by law, there was a section on payment in lieu of taxes, like usually called the pilot. And I wasn't sure that that would. Properly belong in a zoning by law or we be in the general by law. Um, but that, that was part of it. And it just, it struck me that it may not be like kosher to put it in the zoning by law, but I also, you know, thought that, you know, we should definitely make some recommendations. If we agree to town council of, you know, say we're saying we want to. We want, you know, solar to go first to build environments. We could recommend to town councils, like ways to, you know, lead by laws that would incentivize that in terms of. You know, um, delayed tax payments or, you know, that kind of thing. So, um, I wouldn't, I would love to encourage some other ideas and aren't like strictly within zoning to how to get us to where we want to go. So I'm not sure if a pilot would normally go in a zoning by law payment and lieu of taxes requirement or if that would be in the general by law, but I definitely think we should be talking about it and, you know, maybe drafting ideas for that or incentives. Um, that the town could provide like, you know, if we're building something new. And the town doesn't tax it for the first three years. That's kind of a savings for the, um, developer. And then the town hasn't really been expecting that. It's not really counting on that until year four or something like that. So, um, I was thinking about like having sort of like off zoning amendments that we could recommend. So. Great. I'm Chris. You have some thoughts on that. Oh, I wanted to say that I agree with Janet that this is a good topic to discuss. And I do think that it's outside of the realm of zoning. Um, in, in the past, when I've been aware of pilots being discussed, they're, they're discussed generally. They're negotiated at the level of, um, the town manager and maybe the assistant town manager and the, um, town attorney. And of course our, um, you know, finance director. And they don't usually come under the jurisdiction of either the zoning board of appeals or the planning board, um, who, you know, um, has jurisdiction over the zoning bylaw. So yes, it should be a topic that you discuss and then try to figure out how, how to fit it in. And does it go into a general bylaw or, um, and that is the question that I can ask, um, town manager. Okay, great. Okay. General bylaw, meaning, um, a bylaw that's not part of zoning. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Okay. All right. Very good. Um, any other, um, Jenna is your hand still up or up again? Oh no, sorry. Okay. Sorry. Yep. Um, okay. Um, so let's, um, uh, keep our eye on this outline as well. I think, um, uh, and we can sort of discuss as we go. Um, I think that's what she's, um, provided so far with regard to, um, the, the, uh, purpose and intent section of, um, um, sort of what, what, uh, I'd be interested in your thoughts, Chris, in terms of is, is the idea of basically to go step by step down this outline or their sections that are, um, easier to write first and, and others that are better to write. Um, uh, uh, the bulk of the bylaw. I think there are sections that are going to be easier and, and that's why I started off with the purpose and intent. The purpose and intent may not be an easy one to get through in terms of discussion, but I thought it was a good ground, um, to, to set a base to set so that all members of the, um, group feel like we're moving in, in a particular direction. I think applicability and definitions are going to be particularly easy. Um, general requirements are also going to be, um, relatively easy, but when we get to particular requirements, dimensional requirements, um, submittals, um, design, I think that's where we're going to run into, you know, differences of opinion and, um, you don't need to have a wider discussion. Um, I encourage you to read, um, the planning board minutes, which I asked Stephanie to provide for you. I don't think it was in the packet, but it may be a resource, but the planning board had a really good discussion on February 16th of 2022 and we provided that, um, set of minutes and between pages, I think it's pages two to five. Um, the planning board really wrestled with a lot of the issues that came up and Janet had provided some information from Palmer and we had provided information from other cities and towns and the planning board kind of just had an open discussion on what kinds of things need to be, um, considered when we're writing the zoning bylaw. And some towns take a fairly restrictive view of, um, of solar installations and some are more, um, flexible and lenient. And so I think, you know, we need to talk about that. But if you wanted to, um, you know, have a quick look at that discussion, I encourage you to read it. Is it in the resources folder, Stephanie? Um, I'll have to, I'll have to take a look, Chris. I'm not sure that I put it in there, but I certainly will. Okay. All right. Which is helpful because it was a pretty thorough discussion. Um, yeah. And so, um, so I'll just slowly work through this. I had hoped to do more for this, um, meeting, but I got a curve ball thrown at me by, um, Ben Breger who decided to go on to another job. And all of a sudden I had some work to do that. I wasn't planning on. You're down, you're down a staff person. Staff person. Yeah. And we're really going to miss Ben. Um, so that's my excuse. But anyway, I did manage to get the purpose. An intent, um, started and we can talk about that. Um, are there any more comments about the outline? Great. Okay. Thanks. And thanks for, um, considering that. Okay. So yeah, let's, let's then go to, um, the, um, uh, section that you did draft on the intent purpose and intent, I believe. Um, and, um, If Stephanie can show that, that would be helpful. Yeah. I'm horrible. At sharing my screen. I fail every time. I think I was successful once. Well, maybe it's because you're sitting in the lakes and mountains. There. Yeah. There's no wifi here. Right? I just have to go to the appropriate packet. So just bear with me one moment. Okay. I'm opening it up now. Okay. So, um, what I did here was, um, I looked at a number of different, um, Bylaws and Janet had put together some language. Um, she, she had started to write a draft. So I, I looked at what Janet had done. I looked at the Pioneer Valley planning commission. I looked at shoots, Barry. I looked at Wellesley and a couple of other towns. And I tried to. You know, put in, um, As many of those as many of the things that other communities had thought were important in their purpose and intense section. Um, But, you know, this is the first draft and I'm happy to rework it with your comments. Um, but I can, I can start to read it. One of the things that I found was, um, In the Cape Cod commission, um, guidelines or I forget what they call it, but, um, it's their effort to help cities and towns on Cape Cod to, to put together zoning bylaws with regard to solar. Um, they did, um, they did use the word promote. And I thought that might raise some hackles here, but, um, That was a word that was brought in. And I also noticed that in, um, KP laws analysis of the tracer lane, um, Decision that, um, That the judge called, uh, Waltham to task for being restrictive, but not promoting solar, um, Energy production. And so I think that the putting the word promote in here is, is a good idea. So in any event, um, the purpose and intent, the purpose of this bylaw is to promote and regulate the creation of new large scale ground mounted solar, both voltaic installations by providing standards for the placement, design, construction, operation, monitoring, modification and removal of such installations. Does anyone want to, comment on that first paragraph? Um, I guess. Let's go ahead. Go ahead, Martha. Yeah. I just wanted to say, I think it's great. Uh, I thought you were really clever to put in the word promote just because of the KP laws, legal analysis. I mean, uh, You know, then it's in there. We have that for our protection and we can still do just the same things. About deciding where we might cite them and where we might not. Okay. I was just going to comment. I presumed. Um, If it's anything like regulatory language that I'm used to these capitalized terms will be. Make their way into the definitions. Uh, as in the case of the large scale ground mounted solar PV installations. I am, I was wondering though that, um, Does our bylaw and our charge, I guess in this bylaw, I know it really is the focuses on ground mounted arrays. Um, Is there anything we need to say in this bylaw or, or dealing this bylaw that might be, you know, Larger arrays that may not like over parking lots, for example, That, um, Or maybe that's considered ground mounted if they're stuck into the ground. Um, but is there any, uh, Uh, any categories of solar that we really need to touch on in this. Uh, bylaw. Yeah. I'm sorry. What did you mean by that? Like. Exempting it or including it by name. Uh, like, well, it says, um, I mean, Bylaws to bro and reg, regulate, uh, Large scale ground mounted arrays. I'm just wondering, you know, Is there anything in our bylaw that needs to address other arrays? I'm not suggesting necessarily. Residential, but. On over large. Parking lot potentially. Um, I think, I think. So I think that, um, you know, I think when we get to the definitions that will be defined. And then, um, it'll be like. Um, probably I would. It's going to be like an acre or more as large mounted. Large, you know, that's it. Um, I don't think we should. So. So it'll be like, um, probably I would. It's going to be like an acre or more as large mounted. Um, I don't think we should. So. So it'll be anything that's over that, but later on, we can just exempt anything that's a canopy, you know, You know, we could later on say. If it's a canopy system. Um, it's exempt for many requirements, you know, other than maybe. We still may want to. Um, I don't, again, I'm not an expert on zoning. But I mean, in terms of the construct, the process of construction and making sure there's no runoff and everything from that construction area. Um, during construction, I mean, there's still maybe parts of, of the bylaw that we would want to apply to that. I think that your charge was really to address the large scale ground mounted solar arrays. And then you can decide what the definition of that is. And if that includes. Arrays that are over parking lots. So that's a discussion that you can have down the road when you're dealing with definitions and the regulations. Yeah, we could, we could figure out, oh, you know, that, that's a good point that, you know, there might be more runoff, especially for an existing parking lot that may not have adequate stormwater controls to begin with, because they're kind of old. That might be a good thing to, you know, include too. So I think, you know, once we get into the weeds, we're going to really be in the weeds. Or the, or the brambles really probably because it's more tangled. So should we move on to the next paragraph? Okay. This is one that I think I took from Janet's draft. The town of Amherst recognizes the urgent need to convert to non-carbon energy sources to promote solar energy development, as well as the need to sequester carbon to slow and reverse climate change may have changed a few words. But that's important to put in the front that, you know, we have this intention that we know that we have to provide an opportunity to convert to non-carbon energy sources. Any comments? Looks good. Okay. This bylaw aims to balance multiple needs. And there may be other needs, but these are the ones that, you know, I was able to develop for now. The need for alternative forms of energy generation and storage to meet climate action goals. The need to protect the health, safety and welfare of the people of the town of Amherst and the region. The need to protect the natural environment and minimize impacts on scenic, natural and cultural resources. The need to provide adequate financial assurance for the eventual decommission of such installations. And the need to recognize the rights of landowners to use their land. Any comments on that? Okay. Yeah, let's go with Dan. Yeah, just. The first bullet there. I'm proposing that we replace. Alternative with. Non-carbon forms of energy generation. Okay, thanks. Yeah. I'm sorry, Martha. Yes. Yeah. I would like to propose. The need to protect the natural environment, et cetera. I would like to propose. In. Serving the one phrase so that it reads the need to protect the natural environment. Provide for carbon sequestration and minimize impacts on solar natural cultural resources. Yeah. I think that's a good word. Because this is a bylaw that deals with solar. So it might be. And some other word. Cause we're not going to be providing. Okay. We will be. Assuring the. You know, continuation of. Or protection or something like that. Or protect. Maybe protect. Is that the good word? Sources of carbon sequestration or something like that. Yeah. I think that's a good word. I think it's just because we have to balance the two, the two sides of the equation of. Yeah. Okay. Otherwise it looks great to me. Great. I think Janet and then. So I think. You know, I think about this. This section as potentially inoculating Amherst. From lawsuits. And so. And I think, I think, you know, as we go down the road and decide like, yes, no, maybe, you know, in terms of sites or where we want to prefer to see solar. We'll come back to this and revise it. So I'm worried about, you know, the need to protect the health safety and well for the people of the town of Amherst and the region. It's like the general justification for zoning. And I think what I was trying to do in my much more wordy preamble was to, to make the connection between those very general terms. And what the bylaw is regulating. So, you know, the health of Amherst is, you know, like, so, you know, it doesn't have to happen in this. You know, session, but I think, you know, promoting the health and safety and well for other people of Amherst would be making sure we had, you know, you know, carbon sequestration makes it warmer, makes it cooler. You know, it, you know, so it's like, you know, how are we going to protect the health? Well, we're going to provide clean air, cooler temperatures for removing carbon, you know, so that's healthier and safer that we don't have, you know, terrible storms killing people and stuff like that. So I'm not opposed to this general phrase, but I think in the rest of the preamble, we have to be more specific about how we get, how, what's the link between our regulations and that, those general phrases. And so maybe we can do a little work in the next one saying, instead of saying, you know, to protect the natural environment, which, you know, a farm isn't a natural environment and our forest kind of, you could argue aren't, but I would say to need to protect the natural environment minimize impacts on scenic, forest, agricultural, you know, historic, I would maybe say more clearly what you're trying to protect or how these resources promote health and safety. So, so I had, I was adding words more specific like forest wetlands, agricultural lands, you know, or, you know, agricultural soils, because some of it may not be farmed yet. You know, so I think, you know, as we decide where we're protecting and why I think we're going to need to put in more clearly the connection between what we're trying to protect and how that ties into general, you know, health, safety, welfare, you know, things like that. Does that make sense? Do you want to send me some language? Yes. I would just maybe, and I think, yeah, sending language and then we can review that. I don't want to push back, but I just want to, you know, I think maybe some of that, this is a preamble, I don't know if we want to get into specifics of property types and so forth. But I'm also, the word protected, it seems a little bit, I think we want to address these issues, but I don't know if protection is the right word. I mean, if we want to protect this for the purpose of reducing climate change, then, you know, that sort of, that's the balance we need to strike. We want to protect the forest for sequestration, but we also want to promote solar because that itself is going to reduce climate change. And so I don't want protection sounds to me a little bit more, a little bit at this point of the bylaw at least, which is sort of more general and sort of talking about tradeoffs seems to mean a little bit more prescriptive in terms of, of sort of regulating lands that can and can't be used. So I think the reason to use language like that or be very specific is, you know, it's, it's like when you read the tracer lane decision, you know, they were kind of the courts like, hey, yeah, towns can, you know, regulate zoning to protect the qualities of, you know, their, the beauty and the quality, you know, of a residential neighborhood. And then they never, you know, and, but they can't prohibit everything. So that's a funny decision. And so the question is, what they didn't do is say, okay, you know, Walton doesn't want all these commercial trucks driving through residential neighborhoods, right? Because obviously that's kind of crappy if you live in a quiet neighborhood and, you know, industrial trucks are going white, like they never did that extra piece. And if they did that extra piece, they might have said, well, that's a reasonable regulation. But I think they were so aghast at how restrictive it was, they just kind of never went to the analysis. And so my thought is, if we're clear, you know, it's, it's no secret that Amherst likes to protect agricultural lands, right? We're the book in the plow, it's on our, you know, flag. And so we leave that in there. We were very specific about it. So later on, we can, our regulations that tie back into that, which might be, you know, whatever, whatever we decide. So I think that this is like an inoculation paragraph and not to, I think you need to be a little specific. Of course we want to protect our, you know, our forests. And it's not just because they sequester carbon, they have other things. So then the question is, how do we want to do that? How do we want to promote solar? How do we balance those interests? And the courts will say, well, hey, they had like five goals. And this is how they balanced it. And that's great. Because they, there's a connection between their balancing act, their regulations, their goals. They told us what it was. And so do you know what I mean? Like, does that make, I don't know if it makes sense. It's kind of like, like legal argument. Like how do you do it? But I think, you know, it's hard to argue against protecting the environment, but I think you need to be more specific and saying, how are you doing it? And we don't know what the rest of the bylaws going to say, but we're trying to do this saying to the court. Here's what we're looking at. We're balancing all these interests. We want to promote solar. We want to sequester carbon. We want to have farmland. We want to have pretty neighborhoods. Like in Amherst, we want a lot of different things. And here's how they did it. And they're fine. I mean, I think a good purpose and intent will give us something really solid to let us make our choices later. Anyway, I'm saying the same thing over and over again. So I'm sorry. Yeah, I'm just a little bit concerned about being overly restrictive in our preamble. Before we get into the, into the. The, the, the bylaw itself. Yeah, I don't think it limits us. It just frees us from, you know, it doesn't limit us from anything later, I think. Well, could it made have the opposite. Effective of people, you know, potential lawsuits saying, you know, this, this by this portion of the bylaw. Down in the depths of the bylaw violates your. The preamble, the language and the purpose of intent. Yeah, unless we strike that, you know, You know, strike the balance properly. In this, in this purpose of intent section. But go ahead, Chris. And then Martha, sorry. Yeah. I'm just noticing in the purpose of the buy of the zoning bylaw. In general, it uses the word promote. The bylaws enacted pursuant to the chapter 40 a in general law of the general laws for the purpose of promoting the health safety convenience and general welfare of the people of the town of Amherst. And to encourage the most appropriate use of land throughout the town. So we could use the word promote the health, safety and welfare of the people. That's good. And promote the natural environment. Yeah. And promote the natural environment protection or promote the, the some word that means, you know, ongoing life. Positive is always good. Preserve. Yeah. Okay. Okay. All right. So I also wanted to say that with regard to what Janet was the point that she was trying to make, I think that's an important point. Because I remember when we were discussing inclusionary zoning, we needed to show that door. This was a long time ago, but we need, we felt we needed to show that there was a connection between. Requiring this provision of affordable units. And the need for affordable units in our area. And they used the word nexus, the nexus between the requirement to build affordable units and the fact that we needed affordable units. So that's kind of a thought that I will keep in my mind as I go through this. Are we done with this third paragraph. Martha might have had one more. Okay. So I just suggest that maybe that Chris and Janet. Polish the wording a little bit. And then we recognize that after the, most of the bylaw gets written, we'll probably want to go go back and. Yeah. But I think that overall Chris, that this is great. And you're including, you know, most everything we've talked about. So I think that's good. And, and I agree that agricultural specifying agricultural will be good. And in fact, the carp report also has words about preserving the agricultural land too. So thank you. And just wanted to comment preserving and protecting doesn't mean that it's completely preserved and protected. It just means to the extent that you're able to do that. That's one of your goals. It doesn't mean you're not going to touch. The, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the agricultural land or forest land, but the, when you do touch it, you are going to have in the thought that you want to preserve and promote it. Okay. So the next one is this bylaws drives to regulate solar facilities and energy storage facilities in order to encourage solar installations to be installed on built and previously disturbed environment environments to the extent possible. So that's one of your goals. I think it's on areas such as forests and agricultural lands. Any comments on that. I had two. Comments, I guess on that or, or. Proposals, I guess for some word change. And one is, is. To the extent possible seems a little bit. It could use a little bit more. For. Quantification, I guess. So I was going to offer to the extent technically and economically reasonable. In terms of encouraging, you know, our principle is to encourage, encourage solar installations on the built environment and previously disturbed environments. To the extent technically and economically reasonable. Or feasible, I guess would be fine. And then. as and to minimize negative impacts. I think minimize struck me as being a little strong maybe there in terms of minimize may not allow for some trade-offs but to, I suggested end to control negative impacts of areas such as forest and agricultural lands. Yep. Okay. Martha. Hi. Yes, I guess I would respectfully question the words of putting in like economically feasible because I think everyone has different definitions of what's economically feasible. I wonder if we could just say to the extent feasible without any specifics or. I think you might get rid of the problem by just dropping the phrase. I mean, you're just you're encouraging solar installations to be installed on built environments, right? You know, it's not required. You know, do you know what I mean? You know, the economics will be kind of flesh out on this thing. Yeah. And strives to regulate and to encourage doesn't imply that it's, you know, a ham-fisted way of doing it. The intent is to try to do this. Yeah. I actually had another comment. I don't know. Martha, did you have anything else? Sorry. No, no, no, thanks. That was that was my comment. Okay. Great. I'm fine with striking the phrase actually just my own. Thank you. Yep. Okay. Janet. I don't like the phrase previously disturbed environments, although I can't think I'd love to think of a different substitute maybe later. I mean, we live in a place that people have been in for thousands of years and colonized since the 1600s. I would be hard pressed to find any inch of Amherst that hasn't been touched in some way. And so I think what you're sort of saying is like brown fields or that mine up in the holy ex or something like that. I mean, I think that's what you mean, but, you know, a farm is a disturbed environment. My front yard is, you know, which you can have by the way, but, you know, there's something about that that just seems too vague to me. And I'd love to think of a more narrow definition to capture more of what we're trying to say, but I can't think of me right now. About like managed environments. Yeah, it's, it's, it's hard. Yeah. Yeah. But you. Yeah. That could even be though the Native Americans were managing the forests. The leaders are at this point. I agree. I get the point and try to think of something. Yeah. You kind of like crummy lands that we've messed up and aren't really using well, you know, degraded that's a word that conservation commission the wetlands bylaw uses degraded landscape. I was just about to raise my hand to make that suggestion. Next, anything else on that one. Okay, next paragraph. This bylaw balances the critical goal of increased energy, increased solar energy production with reasonable regulations, thus serving to promote the health safety and general welfare of Amherst residents. Change that word on the fly. What do you think it's good. Okay. Next paragraph, this bylaw encourages the use of solar energy systems and protects solar access consistent with Massachusetts general laws chapter 40 a section 9b. Solar access 18 and green communities act mass general law chapter 25 a section 10. These things were taken. This paragraph was taken from the Cape Cod. Model bylaw and chapter 40 a section 9b deals with. And this is something that I hadn't thought about before protecting the solar energy system from encroachment so that something doesn't come along and get in the way of the solar rays getting to the solar panels. And so that's something that we may want to include. And I don't know exactly how we will include that but I think it's, you know, important to think about that. And then the Green Communities Act is, you know, putting out there that we have a, we, Ernest is a green community and I'm sure Stephanie can talk about that in a better, more informed way than I can but you know it certainly encourages cities and towns to have solar energy as one of, one of the things that we would host. So what do you think about this? I would be hesitant to agree if having no idea what these chapters say, although they all sound good. So I'd like to know a little bit more about them. So you could, they're pretty defined if you go online and just read those sections you'll have a sense of what they're all about. So I encourage you to do that. We can talk about that next time. Let's just welcome Laura to the to the group. Thanks for getting on. Hope your daughter's doing better. Okay, then the next paragraph. This bylaw is also consistent with the Amherst master plan, the open space and recreation plan, and the climate action adaptation and resilience plan. I think that's sort of a little bit of a response to the what Janet brought up before about having that nexus between what we're, what we're requiring, and you know what we've already said that we intend to do. So having this in here is important and there may be other plans that we have out there that I didn't think about that we also want to list here. So I haven't read the climate adaptation and resilience plan. So I, you know, I know the first two, have they all three been adopted by town meeting or town council or. Yes. Okay, so I'll read the last one. I wondered if you wanted to put the state state climate. I always get the name wrong their climate energy and climate action plan into. But then I, you know, I think people should, before we agree to know what these plans say, like we have a summary from Martha on that, and then I've read the master plan 5 billion times, and then the open space plan but not the other ones I'd like to read those. So everybody has homework to do there. Right. I'm just, it may be Chris you can enlighten us I mean would have these these the the plans you cited are all sort of under our control and Amherst, as opposed to the state one which is not under our control. We may be controlled by it I guess so is it would it be appropriate or inappropriate, or could be either way to include that. It's consistent with some plan that's out there that we don't necessarily have control over. We might want to refer to it rather than saying it's consistent because we hope that it will be consistent but we're not sure so. Great, Martha. I was going to agree I was going to say from what I learned from a class that I took that was kind of the rule is that our zoning is sort of required to be consistent with our town's master plan and, you know, any other plans that our town government has approved and so on and agree with you that since the state plan is subject to change and not under our control we should probably not include it in this language so. But I think it is worth referring to some set to figure out how to do that. Yeah. I may also. I'm just thinking whether it goes earlier just to, you know, say that we're, you know, this, the purpose of intent also is to be supportive of the Commonwealth clean energy and climate plan as well. Yep. I like the positive language. Yeah, it's nice. I'm always. Yeah. The last one is kind of a boilerplate that we usually put in sections that we're adding just to make sure that you know they don't conflict with other sections of the bylaw so the provisions set forth in this section shall take precedence over all other less restrictive sections of the zoning bylaw and the regulation of large scale ground mounted solar Baltic installations. And we've done this recently with our flood mapping bylaw and other things. So what do you think about that. What, when I read this. Oh, go ahead. Sorry. But then. Yeah, I just want to make sure I understand exactly what that means so essentially what are we saying that if the zoning bylaw is more restrictive regarding a specific regulation, then that takes precedent. If it's less restrictive than this bylaw takes precedent. I think if there's something in the bylaw that's more restrictive it's up to the building commissioner to determine whether it applies or not. But what we're saying is that things that are less restrictive do not rule, for instance, setbacks. So if you wanted to have a setback of 100 feet for a solar array that could potentially be in conflict with a less restrictive dimensional regulation and table three of section six, which says you only need to have a 25 foot setback so you want to be able to, you know, put restrictions on the solar array that makes sense for this solar array and not have to fall back to what the dimensional requirements say in another section. Okay. Okay. Yep, thank you. Great. Sorry, Jen, I said a hand, hand up again. Yeah, I always, this is kind of, um, I would like to know where that where they bump against each other and that I think that will come up as we, you know, different types of provisions so, you know, you know, the setback is sort of easy because we have a good chart on setbacks in different zoning districts but I think the zoning bylaw is really complicated and I wonder, you know, there might get, we might have conflicts that we don't perceive, you know, sort of in a, you know, open space, you know, purred and you know, whatever those things like that just kind of come up and so I wonder if we can just sort of, if Chris could just keep that in mind like oh this might be in conflict and stuff like that so. Great. And welcome, Laura, to the conversation. Yep. Sorry, I'm a late and Christine. I think this is a, I think this is really balanced language. One of the questions I have is going back a little bit I apologize that first piece about encouraging solar on previously you know disturbed environments. I think that's really good. I'm wondering if we, we also, if this is a time or if we can put it in a parking lot for later to discuss the ability to, you know, add some sort of financial incentives for encouraging that as well because if we set as a commission that we really love the idea of solar on, you know, you know, cap landfills or any sort of contaminated sites. Or even like working canopies it's more it's, it's meaningfully more expensive to build on those, you know, the land as opposed to greenfield so I would like me if it's I know that originally the question was brought up a few meetings ago as to whether or not we could provide some sort of incentive and just want to make sure we're talking about that. And just maybe expand a little bit Laura if you're so willing to be interested I mean obviously the state incentives are, you know, provide different incentives and more incentive to do it on a landfill for example or parking lot. Are you suggesting. Yeah, there's a reason why you still don't see a lot of that Dwayne, because the state incentives, not even in Massachusetts, you know, across the board are typically not valuable enough to really encourage people because let's let's take a cap landfill. There are a few solar developers that specialize in landfills because it's a different trade, you know, it's similar but you have to make sure they're ballasted you have to monitor, you know, methane, you know there's a lot of things that go with it. As opposed to just leaving it as a cap landfill. So, in my experience, it's been a lot of developers are like it's not, it's not worth it, you know, it just it's too expensive. Too much legal. It's not as straightforward as, as a building on a greenfield site. So anyways, I can, and I can provide not right now but if it's helpful for the group. I can start to reach out to the developers I know that really focus on those types of sites and figure out like, you know, what would make you want to come to Amherst and develop here like what are the financial incentives that, you know, for example, New Jersey provides lots of incentives to develop and in fact they say, we don't want solar on greenfields period hard stop as a state. And that's because New Jersey has limited greenfields. So they provide hefty incentives for this, this sort of development. And as a result, they've received, you know, all their applications on these types of sites. So, anyways, and then furthermore, you know, just to, I don't think we need to talk about this necessarily here but there's an equity component to this too. The state provides additional incentives. If you have, you know, the powers produced from a solar farm, let's call it community solar, you get additional incentives for low income subscribers to make it more equitable. But similarly, oftentimes the juices and worth the squeeze. So they go for like the large municipal or UMass or whatever that is because of the credit worthiness here. So just, there's a lot of things to consider as a group. Yeah. Okay, great. And we did talk a little bit about that earlier I think before you got on with regard to whether these in these extra incentives might might not naturally fit in a zoning bylaw but there may be some recommendations we come up with. So I think we can go into other bylaws or in front of the town council. Yeah, I mean, I think I'll let Christine sorry I know she has her hand up patiently but I think it would be like the ideal scenario and I think almost everyone on this call from various opinions would agree that if you could make it work on a previously disturbed site, that's the best. So, anyways. Great. Thank you. Yep, Chris. I wanted to note that Amherst did put through a piece of legislation with the general council of the state about or the general court excuse me. Having to do with inclusionary zoning and building affordable units, and it was what they call a home rule petition. They get it passed and it allows developers of affordable units to get a tax break over a period of 10 years. If they build more than 10 units of affordable housing at the state level. So that's something that could be considered but I don't really understand how these facilities are taxed in Massachusetts and I know I hear about pilots. So maybe that's something that Laura could inform us about, you know, in the future about how, how are these facilities taxed? Do they actually pay? Do they pay real estate tax? Do they pay tax on the equipment that they have on the site? Or do they negotiate a pilot with the municipality as opposed to having a tax? So, that would be something to think about. Yeah, I can put together some sort of presentation on the later date, as well as something on landfills to Brownfield. Okay. All right, awesome. Okay. That gets us to the end. And thank you Chris, really. This was fantastic to create this language and have the opportunity to go through it and start this whole process off. And really appreciate the thinking and work that went into this and the great draft that you start, you came out with, as was mentioned, so in my mind, well balanced as well. Any other thoughts or comments? What we're going to do is sort of discuss how we're going to go through this process, each and every time that Chris comes up with a new draft of a new section or parts of a section. I did want to offer one more thought on this preamble or what are we calling a purpose of an intent. And I did. I thought we might add or at least put out there to add one more purpose and intent just to clarify our wanting to encourage solar development in ways that are supports our dedication to equity and inclusion and justice issues in town in a vague but specific way. You know, there is there is concern or it could be concerned about citing solar that is in ways that is may not be as just an equitable as as could be, or meeting some of those principles, both in terms of impacts and the opportunities for solar solar beneficial impacts. So I did not in as nice language as Chris is capable of doing but I did draft a couple of sentence I guess similar to that could fit into in between one of these other paragraphs that I can just throw out there and read and see if people think it makes sense to include in this intent and purpose section or not. And it says that this bylaw strives to encourage and regulate solar facilities and energy storage facilities in a manner that supports the equity and justice. Supports the equity and justice of impacts and opportunities across all sectors of Amherst residences, residents and businesses with particular concern of our low income and marginalized communities. I don't I didn't see anything else in here that sort of obviously there there's language about the wealth and and or not the wealth but the the benefit or the general safety safety and welfare of the people, but nothing specific with regard to maintaining a focus on on equitable distribution of impacts and opportunities. Laura, and then we'll go with Janet who I think was trying to speak. Go first, it's fine. I was just, could you read it again, because I'm. And I, I'm not saying I nailed it as well as Chris. I kind of, I do better reading stuff than hearing it so I just, yeah, I'd love to put it in the chat but I can't so, but I could I could share my screen, if that's easier. Yeah. All right, so do you see this, it's the red with thing here. Can you see that. Okay, so this bylaw strives to encourage and regulate solar facilities and energy storage facilities in a manner that supports the equity and justice of impacts and opportunities across all sectors of Amherst residents and businesses with particular concern on our low income and marginalized communities. Can you send that to everyone, or can you send it. I'll send it to you Chris and then you can work on it. But any, any thoughts about whether this is appropriate and in by in a, in this. No, it's a great idea. I think so just one thing that I think about is, and all the, like how are we going to measure that. I feel like this is this kind of languages included frequently just across the board, private and public entities. And one thing I do know about solar and the way. So this concept of community solar is, you know, massive in New York and Massachusetts and basically what it does is, you know, if you go back in time like six years and almost all solar plants that were built, the power off taker the entity that's purchasing the power was like a large credit worthy entity and these still exists like a, you know, Amazon, a college whatever that might be. And what community solar did it was the concept was to sort of democratize solar and make it more equitable. It allows in Massachusetts, as I mentioned before, half of the power to go to consumers. As long as you pay your own electric bill, you can participate at a savings. And it's very popular it was, you know, messages with one of the leaders in this space. And you have this ability to offer. So in order to make it more equitable. What you can't do, or like we encourage facilities that would do things like not require a micro scores for participation. So micro scores are normally further wealthy and, you know, you know, a different subset. But I think like the more we can include measurable, you know, like, like specifics like, you know, no credit requirements. And then furthermore, like, and sent that because also on the back end, just having done this so many times, those types of projects are more difficult to get finance, because a lot of the typical finance like a lot of the owners, not all of them, but many of them will still look at low income subscribers and say, well, way too risky. They're going to drop they're going to cancel, you know, even though there's really no data to support that. So anyways, that's, that's my two cents. Yeah, and I guess I was, you know, had that in mind in terms of both the benefit, the economic benefits accruing, or, you know, having our eyes open to sort of having those benefits accrue to to those that need and to reduce some of those barriers, as well as, you know, being concerned with potential impacts of siting solar in areas that are disproportionately impacting lands and so forth associated with more of our marginalized communities. I might want to, I might, I think maybe you can put the last part of the second part of that sentence under the needs. I think that, you know, the, the need to ensure that the equity and the, the impact need to ensure the impacts and opportunities. You know, are across all sectors of Amherst with particular concern on low income and marginalized communities. That might be, I like this idea I think it's really, really a strong one. But I wonder if you can put it into our, our bullet list. In this bullet list here. Yeah. It's a great, it's great. Why don't I, why don't I send, send the language on to Chris and, and she can work on it and sort of put it in as a, as she thinks most appropriate in the, in the section. Great. Okay. This is great. Any, any, before we move on. Any last thoughts about the great work and draft that Chris provided and went over it. Just now. Great. Okay. Let me. I thought this, this, this worked out better than I thought. Chris, in terms of, because I didn't, you know, what I'm scratching my head in terms of like, okay, how you're going to draft these things and then how are we as a, as a working group collectively in real time. To provide feedback. And it's redlining. And so forth and, you know, to some extent, maybe this section is, is not a great example what's to come forward because there's going to be a lot of that's coming forward in some sections that are really going to be like, we got a research, we got a deliberate, you know, if it's 100 feet or 75 feet or whatever. We got to sort of work, work through that. And I think to some extent, want to see drafts and not respond sort of immediately but have time to think about them, do some research and then and then come together with some discussion and consensus feedback. So, I was just going to ask in this sort of next section of just some discussion here is to discuss how we as a working group want to sort of work with Chris in this procedure here, where she and her staff are going to be drafting, drafting these, these sections or parts of sections. So I look forward, providing them to us for review and and feedback and and to some extent deliberation amongst ourselves. And I'm just want to want to sort of have a sense of how what people think in terms of the process that we should sort of plan on for these meetings. And whether this, this process works okay. We get, you know, in this case we we received the draft language, a few days ahead of the meeting. We went over in real time, provide some feedback and and had some discussion and and gave Chris pretty much the feedback she needed to then do an iteration of a of the next draft. And with this section as we mentioned, there'll be sort of an iteration periodically or at least when we're done to circle back on it to see if, see if there's, if it still rings rings true and solid. But I'm wondering whether this if this is a process that will continue to work, or whether we should think more about Chris providing these things. Before before meeting, talking about it and presenting it to us as a group during the meeting maybe have some initial conversation, but then have some formalized mechanism where we all take some time in the, in the two weeks till the next meeting to review, do some do some editing, redlining, to some extent sharing coordinate coordinating that all together, and then having a conversation, a discussion item with Chris, the following meeting to review our comments and suggestions on the draft and and engage amongst ourselves and with with Chris and Stephanie on some deliberation on on specifics in the in the draft that need to be deliberated on or items that we can deliberate on but recognize that we need to research a bit more and and and have some some additional feedback. But I want to, I want to get a sense of how from the group how people want to work through this. And maybe I'm making it more complicated than it needs to be, but I'm interested in in in thoughts here. Let me go with you first Chris, and then we'll go with Martha. I just wanted to say that I think it would be cumbersome for me to, and I'm not sure that this way you hadn't mind at all but I just wanted to say, you'll be cumbersome for me to receive multiple redlined versions of this and then try to meld them together. So, if you all want to, you know, redline your copy of it and bring it to a meeting, and then have a discussion among yourselves as to whether you will accept this particular edit or not. That makes more sense to me because I don't want to be in a position of having to choose, you know, Jen, it's edit versus Martha's edit versus Bob's edit right. So, just wanted to put that out there. Thanks. Great. And, and yeah, and thank you, Chris for that and that was not my intent there at all. The idea in my mind was to, you know, based on the rules of the open meeting law, if people, to the extent people had any comments or red lines on the draft. And that would go, there would be, that would go, that would go to me and Stephanie, I guess it could include you Chris as well, but wouldn't ask you or Stephanie to try to merge all these things together I would take that role, and try to merge these things together into a single document, maybe with people commented on the same thing and had different versions I could have sort of multi versions that we have to go have to review and consider. But that that we that we would do as a group at the next meeting, and then have a singular red line version to provide to you Chris. Okay. Martha, and then. I think it's just going to depend on the section I mean I think Chris and our staff are the experts. And, you know, like we did today, you know, for next time you bring your next section that you folks have ready. And hopefully we could get it a few days in advance I think I didn't get this till yesterday but it was short. And then we have an initial discussion. And if everybody has general agreement. Well, you know, then we did today and Chris just, you know, does a little polishing. If it turns out we get, you know, have some serious concerns then we go with your step to Dwayne where we then all go off and think about it maybe in that case Dwayne we might send our comments to you before the meeting so you could organize them a little bit, in the second discussion so I think it just depends on the complexity, and maybe Chris if there are some sections where you read it down and then when you send your draft you say, Here are the three things that I would particularly like comments on and, you know, make it real specific like. So I think, I think it'll go well. Okay, I like that simplification. So the short version first and then if we see this as section that's controversial, then go for the longer procedure. Good. All right, great. Janet. Yep. There you are. You're muted. Sorry I'm popping in and I have a dog issue. I think that, you know, the process we were talking about and we just did is a great process. I just think we're way ahead of our work plan and where we, we can't, I don't, you know, you know, I just don't understand like that we're doing this now and making decisions now when we haven't done the community survey we there's all this information about sites and the community values, you know, if people are like, you know, I love solar, put it up to the street, you know, then that affects the set backs issue. And we could do this process pretty quickly starting in January, which I think was kind of the work plan and work because work through the stuff as a group and you know Chris bringing several sections to each thing I think that's the hard nitty gritty work that will come later, and we'll get better at it. But I think until we know what the community wants and what the assessment is and you know where we can have solar so we don't have to argue over something that maybe, you know, like, you know, we could argue over slopes but what do I need to know more information about slopes to actually say something, you know what a slope should be and so if we don't know what other problems towns have had in good thing then how do we know what we're writing so I feel like I think we could do a good kind of group workshop process and we can do that January, February, March, and it'd be great shape. But I think if we start it now we're making decisions in advance of the information from the assessment. There's a background information on what we're, you know, our town and solar, and you know, for us and all those good things, and way ahead of what the community values are. And that's kind of our job is to take community values, figure out the priority map and figure out the bylaw, and I feel like, you know, the cart is way before the horse right now. Great. Yeah, thank you. Stephanie, and then we'll go with Laura. Stephanie, did you have your hand up. I'm so busy muting everybody so that we don't just start talking and I muted myself to what I was saying was that to Janet's point I absolutely hear you Janet but I think what's really helpful for people is that you give them something to react to. So, if you give them a draft where people can say well, you know, I sort of agree with this piece, but I don't agree with that piece. So giving people something to work from rather than waiting because I think you might get bogged down more if you, if you wait further down the road I think you want to be developing this thing and have something to give to share. I know that, you know, the ECAC will be waiting to receive a draft copy at some point for their input on what you all have discussed and talked about. So, you know, and I don't think the community values piece is going to be fully thrust upon you all. I think the town council certainly I think at some point take a look at it and have their thoughts about some of that too. So, I don't think it's solely on all of you to determine what the community values are. Great. And Laura. Yeah, I was going to echo to a certain extent was Stephanie said, and that I think it's always good to have a draft, even if we end up modifying it. I mean I think the expectation is we are definitely going to be modifying the language based on, you know, the community survey and so forth but in any sort of I've had the experience of not leading focus groups but being side by side with third parties that do lead focus groups and sort of observing via that glass. And in every single focus group, they ask questions but then they do have people react to language, just to, you know, get their responses so. And I also love the idea personally of having some draft language in place so that come January and 2023 we're not all scrambling to put something new together. We're overachievers I like it. Yeah. And I think there's a I mean just, I think there's a, there's two steps of drafting and then deliberating on on on key decisions that I think will be helpful to have some some draftings of people, you know if we have a range of setbacks for example, that we need to hone in on that's something we can try to get some some feedback feedback from. And in my mind the drafting. I just like the idea of having this all organized and fairly well drafted out even though there may be a lot of yellow highlights or whatever showing specific areas that we need to go back and come to some consensus on based on further research community perspectives, and on some of the specifications that we ultimately will need to come up with. Chris. I just wanted to say a couple of things one is that I think that some. I'm imagining that many of the things that Janet is concerned about are things that don't need to be filled in immediately. Those are things that we can leave blanks for setbacks or, you know how much of a forest we're going to allow it to be cut or how I think something could be in a prime agricultural land, but getting the structure of this thing down on paper, I think is really important because it's a big job, and you know Janet knows how the planning board has labored over zoning for months. And, you know, even then has a hard time coming to a conclusion about them. And what happens in my world is that things come at us out of the blue like the solar moratorium came at us out of the blue about two years ago. Anyway, that's something that we ended up spending a lot of time on staff here. And you never know when something like that is going to come. And so, putting this off until January means that it could be, you know, on a collision course with some other thing that the town council thinks the planning department absolutely needs to work on. And then we won't have enough time to do it. So, putting together the structure and the framework now, and getting that organized, I think is really important, at least to start, and then filling in the details of it as we move along once we learn what the community values are and what the community input is going to be. Those are things that we can fit in and edit. And that's, that's my opinion. Okay. Jenna, one last thing and then I want to move on, because time is limited and I have a hard stop at 130 today. I really think if that's, I mean, I thought under the work plan that you would be doing that, Chris, like putting together the bones and like a draft or, and then in the, in the winter we would start having collected all the information from the assessment and heard the community and figured out, okay, this is where people want it. And then we were going to go section by section and do that. So I think that would, instead of doing that, and then doing it twice, I wonder if you could put together a working draft and highlight in some bright cherry non red color, like where the decision points are. And so, you know, a big decision point is like what's the level of review. Right. And so higher scrutiny for more important lands. So, Belcher town said no more than 15 acres like they had size caps. So there's all these different ways of whatever and so if you could put, I could see easily putting together a draft bylaw, and just in yellow or pink or some cherry color saying decision points. And so we would get used to, okay, this is the structure of the bylaw. I frankly think you can do that by just looking at the Cape Cod version. As, as committee members you'll see what it will be, like how it usually goes but I do think I don't really want to go through section by section with what Chris and the planning department could probably put together not quickly but you could put that in and present it to us and we could read through it and say okay we see where the big decision points are and how the structure goes but are we going to go through the definition section and then, you know, like, and then, and then I just, it seems like it would be better just to have a really good working draft highlighting the critical decision points. So at least we know what we have to do later. But you know, I just think there's so much information we need to know as a committee. Right there, you know, but if we want to do it twice I guess people we could do it twice I think be better to have a good working draft and kind of work off of that. I think that's more efficient. Thanks, I guess my own my own thought on that is I'd rather see this come in piece by piece by piece so we we we know. For those of us who are less familiar with planning and zoning. We have a head start and we can already start thinking about these gaps that need to be filled these decisions that need to be met and it's not like, you know, all of them together at once when we see a pretty much a full draft. But we see the evolution of it as it as it becomes available from Chris's from Chris, and that we can hone in on what are the, what are these additional discussions we need to have what sort of experts we need to bring in what sort of research we need to do all along the while as we see, see these gaps being being presented to us in various different sections, and just assume sort of get that going from going at the very beginning. Have people looked at the Cape Cod draft or the PVPDA kind of gone through that. But that's always, they're always saying you could decide this you could decide that so I would think that would, you know, if Chris could do something like that, and then I don't know it just seems okay. Alright, great. Any other thoughts before we move on. Great. Let me. I think we'll do and Laura, I apologize. I think I'm not sure if you were prepared to continue your conversation from or your just presentation from last time I'm, I think we may be running short on time yet again, because I did want to open the floor for, you know, five, five minutes or so. Five minutes or so on other topics. And this gets gets some on these gaps we need to fill in I think to some extent will be in a better situation to sort of really understand what some of this gaps gaps of information we need to fill in as we sort of see these cheery colored highlights in the in the zoning drafts that we need to fill in. I did want to spend a little bit of time on of trying to get ahead of that a little bit with with any other areas of expertise research experts outside experts or internal experts that we want to draw upon the one that you know has been sort of standing in front of us for a while is is the issue of these whether they're standalone or with solar projects. How to think about batteries in terms of their safety, citing fire protection, what the state of the technology is one of the state states of the of the controls with regard to fire prevention and so forth. That's one area that I understand we need some support on. I'm not sure if that's still in the works with a consultant to be hired, or whether that's whether there's an opportunity to bring in somebody with some expertise just for a half hour discussion to the committee or to the working group at some future meeting. So that was one I had has been on my mind. I know Janet has put together a bit of a list as well. And so I just want to spend a little bit of time on that. So let's open the floor to that but I'll start with Martha because she had her hand up there. So I jumped in. Yes. Okay, I agree with the batteries category and I would say maybe we need both me and Chris is getting the consultant and maybe we also could just ask some expert to give us a brief tutorial here in our meeting. And then the other thing that we had talked about some was possible, you know, site reviews, or I would really like to hear some specifics about each of the large ground solar projects that exist in Amherst. I mean, Stephanie, I think you'd offered to give us a, even a show and tell about the one at the transfer station would be interesting. We have the two at Hampshire College and then there's the one up on Pulpitill Road that I don't know anything about because I live down in South Amherst. So I would be real interested to see some information on each of those and some of the specifics of how they would develop what were the problems or challenges and anything else that's relevant to our understanding going forward. Great. Yeah, go ahead. Cindy Jones said her solar people would be happy to show us around their projects. Yeah, I would, I would think it would be helpful for all of us to see some of these projects up close and get some, some expert, you know, involved in the projects to, you know, talk to us a little bit about the design, the installation, the construction process and so forth. And so how I guess the issue is how do we organize that in terms of, of asking the appropriate people I guess in the case of the landfill projects it's Stephanie. But, but then she'd have to organize that with folks at the at the transfer station I presume. I think that's the one out in North Amherst that works for everybody. Now that it's going to start getting dark at five o'clock it's kind of a daytime thing. And then, and then the one out in North Amherst with Cindy Jones I think that's a real important one for us to look at as well I've never, I've seen it from afar I've never actually seen it up close either. I've had some brief summaries like from Stephanie and so on here at our zoom meeting and then also then have a site visit where we didn't have to have the whole explanation while we stood there. Stephanie. Yeah, I was going to actually suggest coordinating. You know, in all honesty, you know, a weekend day a Saturday or Sunday is really going to be more ideal to try to pull together something like this. And I, you know, it seems to me you could do a few sites in a morning or an afternoon. You know, I could sort of approach it that way. So and I, you know, I could get background information but you know and I can sort of reach out to folks but, you know, I could just sort of reach out and see how, how you want to do this. I mean I was thinking, as we started talking about this just sort of putting together a day where we had basically a solar site battery storage tour, and I know a few of the players for some of the projects but not everybody. So the info has battery right. Is there any other that you're thinking of the battery storage for Amherst. Um, right now off the top of my head I'm not sure if Hampshire has it or not. I could double check with Steve I don't know that they do. Yeah I don't think so. Okay. I mean just speaking for myself I'm not opposed at all to a weekend day. Not to do that but it's easy for me to say. Great Laura. Say Stephanie that I certainly know a lot of the owners of the projects around here so if you need help on tax I'm happy to. I'm actually arranging a solar farm tour and very for a different project. So just so everyone knows it's not very exciting just so everyone you know can ground themselves and the panels and the inverters and the silence but I'm happy to help so. I've been known enough solar tours to know they're a little underwhelming once you get there. When turbine tours are pretty cool. I was going to ask, you know, do we need to go to all of these sites or do we just want, you know, a few examples. So I mean that the solar landfill is probably the easiest, and it does have battery storage so, and I might even be able to reach out and see if the developer is available or willing to have somebody on site. Obviously, if it's the contractor they'd have to pay for them that day but I could ask. Who owns that site sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off just, you know, Stephanie who was the ones that owns the project is right now I think Carval. So they would be the have to be the ones that give you permission to develop. Well, yeah, I guess that's I meant Carval but they're they're currently the folks that I'm in contact with. I should touch on them. Is the shoots very site. Is that a slope, a one in forest on slopes because that would be good to see as an example of how that works. It's on property, I think, but I don't I think it's owned by someone else but. Yeah, if you want to see that site which obviously is an undeveloped site so if you're it. So I guess is this tour. Do you want to look at one developed site and one proposed site is that might be the way to approach it. Of the shoots very one was built is there another one. Am I am I wrong. I mean, I'd be quite curious to see. The shoots very one that was already built. It's in the town of shoots very not the, I think it was on Jones land I'm just. I thought it was, I had talked to Michael DKR about it and we were talking about the meadow and things like that so I thought it existed. Not not the one that's why because of the other larger proposed. If it's in shoots very, you know, I can't really speak to we'd have to coordinate with someone and shoot very folks to do that so I'm just thinking are there things here that are more specifically relevant to Amherst that you'd want to see and we could. It's it's a lot easier for me to coordinate something with projects that are here. Well, apparently everybody is inviting their things as Michael said that'd be he'd be happy to do that one too I think it's a slopes one but I'm, you know, speaking from what I don't know. There's a ridge here in Amherst trying. It's not developed yet. Yeah, yeah, you mentioned a future solar. Yeah, and that one's not that's fairly flat site. There's not much sloped to that site at all. I mean the one that's in North Amherst that just looking at it from afar there's some slope there isn't there. Could be wrong but who said they were in touch with Cindy Jones and she was a willing to get her for her solar folks to. She was very accommodating. Yeah, yeah good. I think that would be that would be good to take, take them up on that I mean they could send it Jones. The North Amherst one is send to Jones's property but also the shoots very also a send to Jones property, which doesn't surprise me she owns a lot. I'm not sure that she owns the arrays I think the shoots very home by somebody else and she owns the land. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm not sure she owns the yeah I'm not, I'm not. My knowledge is very limited. Right, so the, so she might own the land but the project itself so access to the project area itself has to be through another party it wouldn't be through send a. Yeah, she would put me in touch with the project. Yeah, she could put me in touch with the appropriate folks. So I can reach out to send a easily enough and and then I can talk to TPW and also the Carval about the solar project at the landfill. And would those two be sufficient or. You know, I think on a weekend you probably those two would seem adequate I would think to address what you're trying to achieve. Yeah. Okay, so I will follow up and get back to you and we'll try to do it sooner than later. It's been warm but it's New England this could change next week. So we have snow next week so Yeah. Okay. Okay great thank you. Okay, let me end it there and open it up for any comments from the public we have four minutes to go. And we have. Okay, so yeah, we have five people just I know that there's always interest in the number of folks that are here as attendees. If anyone from the attendees list here would like to speak please digitally raise your hand and I will allow you permission to speak to the group. Kathleen go ahead. You can unmute yourself and you can speak. Hello everyone. Thank you for another interesting meeting. It seems really important that there be a complete map and list of the projects that are are installed already that are in progress already, and that are being proposed. The one on shoots very road has been proposed with drawn and there's, there's a clear understanding that it will be proposed once again. All of these things should be indicated on easy to access lists and maps for your committee for sure, and for the public at large. I think that that should also include which projects involve batteries, how many kilowatts are being represented, who owns the land, who has leased the land, who developed those projects, who sold them to whom. I think this would be a really valuable piece of information, a survey of information for all of us, frankly. Thank you so much. Thank you. Yeah. Do you have a comment on that. Yeah, I just want to say there's a list you can access all of the projects in Massachusetts via the state list of those that are in construction and those that are operational fairly easily and find, you know, tremendous I'm happy to provide that link to the group. Yeah, I'll also add to that that for my role in ecac that I'm also creating, or I have to update I have a list but I want to update the list for all the projects that are in Amherst. Okay, and I can make that available as well but it's a bit work in progress but I'm doing that specifically for Amherst as well. So Lauren Dwayne if you want to get the information to me I can provide it in the resources. Great. Thanks. And is there anyone else. Great given the, the time appreciate everybody's attention and the public for for listening in as well in the comment. I appreciate that a reminder to the group that our next meeting is Friday, November 18 again at 1130 by zoom. And Stephanie. Could we could we just ask I mean, was there anybody that that had to be late or anything today because they just can't make 1130 or was that just a one time thing on a couple people's part. I thought it was at one. And so I just randomly. I sent a email and I was like, starting in one hour. What is she talking about. I have to drop down now but I'm good for the team doing 1130 works. Great. Okay, and I can. I mean after the semester I'm open to revise revision that time back but for now, let's keep it at the 1130. And I think everybody was good with that. Thank you. Okay, very good. Thank you very much. Yeah. Bye bye.