 I never had on today. Hello and welcome to the January 24th, 2023 meeting, 2024 meeting of the Emmer's Conservation Commission. All members are present except Laura. We also have staff Aaron Jock and Dave Zomek here tonight. We're starting off with chair report. I have nothing today. So I'll give it over to Dave. Go ahead, Dave. Well, that was fast. I'm still writing down a few notes. Real quickly, just a couple of updates for the commission. We do have bids due for the trail work at. Hickory Ridge. They're due next week. So. Yeah, I believe they're due next week. So should be exciting to get those in. Let's see. Aaron and I are planning to submit. I'm going to submit a grant. Speaking of Hickory trails. As you know, the late, the park grant and the CDBG money will not fund all of the trail work at Hickory Ridge. Although you've permitted. The, the trail work there. We don't have funds for all of it. So DCR, the department of conservation and recreation. I'm going to submit a grant announcement. So we are planning to submit a grant. Or some of the other trails at Hickory Ridge. So Aaron and I will be. Pulling that together in the next couple of days. It's due February 1st, I believe. So that'll be a race to the finish line on that. I had a good meeting. I attended a meeting with Bruce this morning of the Fort River watershed association. We had a meeting with the city council. I'm going to say more about this later, but from the town standpoint, I think of 2024, 2526. Our work in conservation as well as. Our collaborative work with DPW. There's going to be a lot of focus on culverts. There's, there's quite a bit of money out there in. In municipal vulnerability. There's a lot of money out there. And it's, there's a lot of people who visit us, so our goal. Aaron myself working with Amy, Rosecki, and Beth Wilson and DPW will be. No, to try to get as much funding as we possibly can to address some of these under underperforming culverts, and DPW has got a couple. Beginning to be teed up and they, you know, of West Pomeroy Lane, Thought Wine, Pomeroy, and the list goes on and on. There's a lot of these culverts that have been in the ground and in the water for 50, 60 years plus, and a lot of them are rusted out, caved in, beaver damaged, et cetera. So we're gonna try to chase all the funding we can to get rid of these and get them out. And then of course, we have to meet the stream standards when we go to put things back. So it often means box culverts or bridges. So it'll be challenging to do, but DPW is in the hunt for funding and we'll be right there with them. The other thing I wanted to mention to you is that Aaron and I have been talking with a consultant group, Fustin O'Neill, about some exciting visioning for Puffer's Pond and the future of Puffer's Pond. As you know, we've really suffered up there the last couple of years with water quality issues. We have some challenges with the dyke at Puffer's, the dam at Puffer's. And we all know that Puffer's, if we wanna keep that resource as an open water resource, we either have to dredge it or not. But if we wanna keep it as a pond, it's filling in pretty rapidly. So we'll have more on this, in the coming next couple of months. I hope to be able to take some of time during one of your upcoming meetings. We have a nice PowerPoint going on some of the ideas we have at least begun to think about at Puffer's Pond. How do we address beach erosion deposition from the Cushman Brook filling in the Pond trail, trail issues, accessibility issues, parking, you name it. So we're looking at kind of a comprehensive plan to try to address those over time. So we'll be bringing that to you in the coming next probably 45 days. So those are just some of the updates around town. A lot of work going on kind of behind the scenes and we'll gear up for spring summer projects in 24 and 25. I think it's Dave, see your hand up, Alex, go ahead. Dave, on the water pollution you had talked about getting together with UMass or somebody to try and track down whether or not there's problems up Cushman Brook that faulty septic systems or something is there any movement on that? We're actually, we have a meeting coming up. It's either later this week or next week where we're meeting with a professor from the university who specializes in water quality and he and his students have been looking at the Mill River below Puffer's Pond particularly in the Hadley reach. And we're gonna see if we can work with him or twist his arm a little bit to help us out with Puffer's Pond and Cushman Brook. I do have a little funding in a few accounts that I might be able to redirect a little bit to some water quality sampling upstream. We did some years ago and really didn't find all that much. So I guess the short answer Alex is yes we're beginning to look at that because in the last couple of years we've lost so many swimmable days at Puffer's that it's really, it's kind of getting to the point where we need to do something there. So we'll begin that work in February, March. Go ahead. Well, just to follow up on that I talked to a water researcher at UMass probably knows and is affiliated with their researcher that you're gonna meet with and talk to him about maybe getting students involved upstream monitoring and he sounded very positive about making that happen. So maybe we could touch base offline about it just before I get, go ahead, Jason. Might be the same. Yeah, maybe. Oh, sir. Dave, you mentioned some funding for old culverts and things like that. Are we getting any funding from like the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act? Are we writing grants? Is anyone writing grants to try to get any money for that? And then also we had briefly touched on the MS-4 permit and what was going on previously. Any, and it's somewhat apropos since we have two sanitary sewer overflows. Any talk about like greenstone water infrastructure and things like that to aid in water quality for the entirety of the town, not just like at Pover's Pond, but maybe that's a good place to start. Yeah, maybe Erin can address some of the sources of the funding for culverts but your second question on MS-4, Jason. What I know is I think we're, and Erin may be able to comment on this too, but we're in the fairly early stages of data collection on that. I think DPW is taking the lead on that and not the conservation department. So it really originates with Beth Wilson and Jason Skeels and Amy Rusecki. But I think we're moving at some pace. I didn't wanna say slowly, but I think we're doing our due diligence on inventorying what is out there in terms of infrastructure along and between and among all of our major rivers and tribs. But there's not a, I would say honestly, there's not a comprehensive concerted effort to look at water quality town-wide. I think it's, Erin and I are working with some groups looking at water quality in the Fort River and likewise, we're initiating some new harder look at water in the Cushman Brook that feeds puffers, but there's no real comprehensive effort at this point to kind of coordinate all that. Go ahead, Erin, if you wanna jump in. So the DPW did get some funding and was selected to have a stormwater study done town-wide, which there's actually a meeting for like a kickoff on Thursday for that. It's with the assistance of also with Fus and O'Neill, I believe, and that's sort of somewhat of a comprehensive look at our stormwater and that Dave is correct with the MS4 stuff. There's not really like a dedicated staff available to do that, but I know that DPW has been relying a lot on interns. I know that some of the staff funding or some of the federal funding from the infrastructure funding has been sort of in the realm of FEMA and the FEMA funding, unfortunately, has been limited by or the town's ability to apply for it has been limited by the fact that we don't currently have a hazard mitigation plan, but the fire department did recently get funding from a grant for us to update our hazard mitigation plan. And so once, and that's being kicked off soon from what I understand the planning for the hazard mitigation plan. So once the hazard mitigation plan is in place, it will open up opportunities for us to get more federal funding, but there are some limitations right now because we don't have an approved plan. Thanks, Aaron. More on that later, I guess. Right, move on to minutes, do we have minutes? So I was not able to review the draft minutes this week just because I've had a lot of meetings, but we'll kick those to next week and we'll have probably three sets to approve next week because we have a set from Aaron that they finished before they wrapped up and then presumably we'll have two sets from the previous meetings. So we'll try to catch up next meeting. And I think I see Bruce writing, so thank you, Bruce, for taking minutes. Thank you, Bruce. Land management updates, the open space and recreation plan survey, Aaron, do you wanna give us an update on that one? Yeah, so staff were at sort of like the semifinal draft phase of the open space and recreation plan survey. I did circulate it to commissioners last week. If anybody has comments, please get those to me as soon as you possibly can. The target date for releasing that is February 1st. Staff is planning a mid-February sort of information session which the Conservation Commission will be invited to attend. Basically like giving a rundown of what staff have done relative to the development of the open space and recreation plan thus far. Some information that we're looking to gather from the survey and just taking any public comments or input on the process to guide sort of our plan development. So I'll keep you guys updated. It's actually, I think we're aiming for February 15th at noon and our next meeting is on February 14th. I'll keep you guys informed over email as things develop and it gets planned but just to kind of keep that in the back of your mind. And how will it be distributed to the public? So the survey? Yes. So the survey will be partially on the towns, they remind me what the name of the program is the town uses, Engage Amherst, is it? Okay, Engage Amherst, which is like a sort of on the town website, it's a crowd sourcing sort of software where you can do surveys and it harnesses that information to give us all kind of metrics of what the responses are. And then I believe there's also an opportunity for folks who don't have access to complete it online, there'll be a paper survey. And also for members of the community who wanna participate but need translation services, there's gonna be an option for that as well. So there should be like, I think a phone number to call for access to translation services. So that's an option. The phone number is accessible on the website or how are people gonna be generally informed that it's available? So I think on the Engage Amherst, if people need translation services, the town software is able to actually translate the survey into various languages. But if people are wanting to complete it with assistance or with a translated version of the paper survey, then there's a number to call and in various languages at the top of the paper survey. So people can, it's basically says in multiple languages, if you need assistance translating this language, call this number, but it's written out in all the different languages so people can gain access if they need to reach out for help. Thanks. Go ahead, Jason. Sorry, you're talking about the town of Amherst open space and rec plan survey? Yes. Okay, it has a QR code. It says there's gonna be a QR code there? Yes. Okay, and then how would you like to receive comments? Do you want like a scanned markup? That works, a scanned markup. I think Michelle responded just with like email comments. So either one is welcome. Okay. Hey, all good? All right, great. We've gone to Kestrel Lane, no vegetation maintenance. So this is, do we have people here for this? Are we just okay? Yes. Okay, I see Chris Co. So this is a private road. My understanding is that generally this is routine maintenance that would be covered by like an OMP with DPW, but since it's private, we're being approached by the HOA. Correct. For general culvert vegetation maintenance. Are you bringing in, okay. And just so everybody knows, I believe Kestrel Lane and I don't know if Hotbrook as well, but there's a couple of roads down off of old farms road, which are private roads. And so the maintenance responsibilities don't necessarily fall to the DPW. And so that's why these landowners are here tonight. They're members of the homeowners association. Hi guys, welcome. Hi, thank you for the time. I'll try, we'll try to keep it brief. I'll see if I can share my, try to share my screen. We'll try that. Can you all see my screen? Yes. Okay, so we're residents of Kestrel Lane. We're in the Meadow subdivision and we're proposing to do some clearing along Hotbrook Road. There are, the land is currently owned by the developer, which is Tafino and the common areas are being maintained by the residents, the HOA. And we approached the HOA president who suggested that we run it by the, by you folks before we start any work. So we're looking to do some maintenance to keep the sidewalk clear along the head wall. I'll show you an arrow of you in a second. And there's a sidewalk and we want to remove vegetation from the head wall that tends to overgrow onto the sidewalk. And then we're also, there's two culverts that go under the road and they, there's a lot of growth, vegetation growth around those. So we want to remove that. So this is the area in question. This is Kestrel Lane, this is Hotbrook and there's the road crosses this wetland and there's two culverts that run under the road and there's a head wall on either side of the road. This is an aerial view from 2004. You can see there's no vegetation growing in the head wall. It's trap rock, essentially that it's fairly steep and it's trap rock. And now there's vegetation growing up through there. This is kind of a picture from the ground level. There's a sidewalk here. This vegetation grows over the sidewalk pretty much annually and we've been the residents have been trimming it back. We'd like to remove all this vegetation down to the ground in this that grows up through this trap rock. There's two culverts. This is the output side of the two culverts. You can't see them, but they're down here. And this is the inlet side. These are the two culverts that you can see is a lot of vegetation growing around the culverts. So that's the area we want to work on. Thanks. Is there any public comment on this? Raise your hand. I'm just going to keep an eye in the room. Any commissioner comments, questions? I don't see any. When you say cut it down to the ground, do you mean cut it to the base of the plant or pull it out? That's my only question. Probably cut it down to the base. I think it would be difficult to pull it out unless there were smaller, some of the smaller vegetation we might be able to pull out. But I think we'll probably just cut it down to the base and then we'll need to maintain it at that level because it'll probably continue to grow. Sounds good. Otherwise it would be kind of disturbing the soil. Alex, I see your hand up. Would any herbicides be used, particularly around the wetlands, streams or pesticides? No. Oh, manual. Okay. Anything else? Anybody else? Are we looking for a motion on this one or are we just approving? I think I just wanted the commission to be notified on the record that the landowners were hoping to do this. And also that this is an ongoing sort of operation maintenance activity that the Homer's Association is looking to complete on an annual or semi-annual basis to make sure that those culverts aren't damaged and that the road is safe and passable and the sidewalk is safe and passable. So mostly just to get it on the record that they've come, that they've notified you and that nobody has any objections to them taking care of this, basically why they're here. If nobody has any problems with it, I was, I am completely comfortable with it and I think that they're fine to proceed. Right. Thank you for coming to us with it and keeping us informed. We appreciate that. Go ahead, Alex. Yeah, guys, I should have asked it just didn't occur to me at the time about beavers when you're down there pulling vegetation from culverts. There may be that some of the culverts have beaver sticks and things that are impeding flow. Will you be removing them? In the past, the HOA has, I think, employed beaver solutions and they have done the removal of, they're the ones who have done beaver maintenance. There's a small fence that they've installed at the inlet side to keep the beavers out. And they've been doing the maintenance, we're not anticipating needing to undo things that usually what we do wanna be able to do is be able to see down into that area. So if we see beaver activity, we can contact contact somebody to address the situation. So the short answer is no. Yeah, short answer is not anticipated, no, yeah. Thank you. Just as a note, if this is ongoing, I wonder if we could talk about like a longer term OMP for this or like a longer management just because the beaver activity and the maintenance of the culvert should include the conservation commission notification, but because we have some kind of standard operation span with DPW, it seems like maybe we could work something out for this road too. Andre, go ahead. Just a quick question. How do you plan to dispose of the vegetation that you're cutting? I think the president, Doug, we talked to him about it and he was gonna truck it away and probably take it to the dump, I think, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Thank you. Anybody else? Go ahead, Erin. Just in terms of the beaver maintenance of beaver structures, so generally speaking, if there's beaver deceiver, flow control devices or any like the fencing that's installed around culverts to keep sticks from getting caught in the culvert and also keep beavers from blocking up the culverts, if those are installed, generally maintenance of those is something that is just standard practice, but if they ever fail and need replacement or if new structures are needed, that's what would sort of trigger the concoms involvement. But what might be helpful is if the homeowners association sort of wrote up what their operation and maintenance is on an annual basis with the information about beaver solutions and that they have an ongoing maintenance contract to make regular repairs and or do annual cleanings and maintenance of the structures and also just your anticipated vegetation maintenance plan that includes information about where you're trucking the material to, like even just a simple one page or an email might be helpful for you to send to the conservation commission. That way we have something on record that just notes that this is what you guys do on an annual basis to maintain the areas of the homeowners association owned and maintained areas until it's accepted by the town of Amherst, it might just be a way for you guys to feel more comfortable doing the maintenance you need to do and keep the conservation commission informed of what your plans are. We could certainly bring that to the HOI. Great. Okay. I don't think we have any more questions about this. So you guys are good to go. Thank you for coming again. Yep. Thank you very much for taking the time. What do we have for time? We have four minutes. I don't think we can really do anything in four minutes. Okay. You know, I got a comment. Yeah, sorry. Go ahead, Andre. You can notify folks of all the hearings that are going to be postponed. Thank you. Let's see. If you're here tonight for Peer Sky Development on behalf of WD Coles, that will be continued. If you're here for SWCA for the University of Massachusetts for construction of gravel parking lot, that's going to be continued. Wendell Wetland Services on behalf of Kevin and Mary O'Brien for construction of a single family home on Leverett Road is also going to be continued. So if you're here for any of those, they are going to continue to our next meeting, right? On February 14th. And just check back at the website for timing on that. Yeah, go ahead. The other thing, I haven't scheduled a site visit for the Trillium Way enforcement order just because we've had snow cover and frozen conditions. And I feel like it's going to be important for the commission to get out there to actually see what's going on. So I'll be monitoring snow and temperatures to try to schedule a time when it'll be most effective for you guys to get out there and actually see the conditions. So just wanted to update you because I know you all requested a site visit at the last meeting, but it's been snow covered and probably not the time to go out and view the violation. That may happen as likely as next week. Sounds good. Thanks, Erin. See how the erosion controls are working. With our two minutes before our first meeting, I'll just report that I think a number of commissioners as well as Erin attended at MAACC, the Massachusetts Associated Conservation Commissions meeting tonight with an update of the new DEP regulation updates. And it was specifically focusing on climate resilience related updates to those. A lot of it was stormwater and how they're incorporating both, a lot of it was coastal. So not necessarily relevant, but some of it was how to incorporate rainfall measures, metrics. Interestingly, they're not using projected rainfall. They're using 90% quantum competence interval of the current rainfall. So that was kind of a big discussion. Doesn't necessarily come to us except in our reviews of the stormwater. What else? They're taking public comment on it right now. And I think we have some material that we could circulate things like do we feel there is adequate protections for renal pools or sort of what the regulatory challenges are for conservation commissions in administering the new rules. I see your hand up Bruce. So I believe you were there today. If you want to add anything, I think you're muted though. Go ahead, it was multitasking. When you're done. I think it would be valuable for the commission to just review the things they're taking public comment on to the DEP. They made a point about talking about the positive updates as well as the things that we think could be changed for the better, but anything that might frustrate you when you're reading through these regulations or sort of the confluence of looking at that with our bylaws and the challenge of administrating these, they want to hear from us and they're going to be submitting their own sort of collected comments. And I think there's a Google sheet by which we can include individual comments that they will review and incorporate into their bigger documents. So we can find that and circulate it to the commission. Okay, go ahead, Bruce. That's basically what I was going to say. They didn't record the session and they didn't really know how to capture the chat which had a lot of pretty fine-grained technical stuff that people like Jason might be capable of understanding. But I think sending the slide deck and these other materials would be valuable. Yeah, thanks Bruce. It was a good distillation of some of the sort of finer point updates to the DEP that specifically relate to the conservation commission and how we might sort of use them in our bi-monthly meetings. All right, it's 4.30. So unless anyone had any questions about that we can move on to our first one. 7.30. 7.30. Sorry, specific time. I did just want to make one comment if I could about that presentation and the changes. So we in Amherst already have a municipal stormwater bylaw and some of the requirements for the changes that are coming in the updated regulations are focused on bringing the regulations into compliance with the federal MS4 regulations. Much of that has already been incorporated into our municipal stormwater bylaw. So for example, the 90% TSS removal requirements as well as the, I think it's 40% phosphorus requirements. And so I've already been reviewing the permits for compliance with those things, with those elements that are required as part of the town plans. And certainly I'll make sure that DPW is aware of the updated regulatory changes for their project planning. But I just wanted to make sure that the commission was aware that I am aware of the updates and what the requirements are and that I have already been reviewing permits to make sure that they are meeting those requirements. So it's not gonna change a whole lot in terms of how we're reviewing permits in Amherst. It'll change from some of the regulatory updates and stuff, but we've already been holding people to these standards. So just wanted to make sure that I made that clear. I presumed that you're totally on top of that. I think what I just want to take the takeaway is that there's an opportunity for public comment, I think until March something first. So that's just what we'll follow up on with the commission. Okay, moving on stone. So this is our 730 notice of intent for Stonefield Engineering and Design LLC on behalf of the Valley Community Development for the construction of a 15 residential duplex structures and associated site work, including parking utilities, stormwater management and landscaping within the buffer zone at 20 to 40 ball lane map by bay lot 56. And we have C. Jessica Allen. If there's anybody else here, I see Josh Klein and Lee. There you guys are, welcome. So I'm just sorry, skip to head hearings. So our general procedure for fairness to all applicants, each hearing has 20 dedicated minutes on the agenda. It's five minutes of comment from staff. Five minutes of presentation or applicant representative, five minutes for public comment or two minutes per person, five minutes for conservation commissioners. And as of November 1st, the commission will be requiring all submitted and revised material to be submitted by Wednesday, the week prior to the meeting at close of business. Okay, moving on from that. Welcome everybody, we're going to give Erin the floor to give us a staff update. So the applicant provided a batch of revised materials as of the 17th of January, which I've had the opportunity to review. And I'm satisfied that they have taken staff comments into consideration. I've got everything teed up. I did draft an order of conditions. Speaking offline with Michelle, I did add some additional invasive species management conditions to the permit. So at the bottom of the special conditions for commission members, you'll see some invasive species management conditions, some conditions that are specific to the management plan on this site. The other thing I just wanted to mention was that the applicant may have some updates for us regarding whether or not they want us to move on the project tonight. So I just wanted to make sure that I preface with that. They are still before the zoning board of appeals. And so there may be some additional, you know, plan adjustments that they're making, in which case, you know, I'll let them make the decision as how they want to proceed with that. But I just wanted to make sure the commission was aware. Thanks, Erin. If there's any public comment, just raise your hand. I'm going to keep an eye on the room. I don't see any right now. So applicants who anyone like to go first, take it away. Josh, I see you're unmuted. Yes, perfect. Good evening. Thanks for having us again. Again, Josh Klein, Stonefield Engineering and Design. So yeah, we're excited to be back. Definitely some hard work happening in the background, working with Erin, you know, resubmitting kind of all the materials to kind of get to this point. We did want to, you know, where we want to kind of be open and I guess communicate with the commission kind of through the process. So we do anticipate in reviewing some of the feedback from the zoning board as well as some more recent soil testing that was done that the stormwater facility on site will have to be kind of modified, the shape of it and the height of it would have to be modified. So, you know, we were kind of, we met with Erin and spoke with her about it and we wanted to bring it up to the commission. All of the, and I wanted to just pull up a plan, basically any changes that would be present to the plan would be outside of kind of that 100 foot buffer outside of any, you know, kind of jurisdictional area in terms of what the commission looks like. So, you know, what I was going to kind of highlight in kind of reviewing what we anticipate is the stormwater facility that you kind of see here today. We do anticipate the shape of it will change and it may expand a little bit further to the right and we may end up having to rotate the sediment forebay and adjusting some of the elevations. We wouldn't be increasing any disturbance within the buffer areas. We wouldn't be changing any of the disturbance or plantings in the buffer areas. So, you know, I think we, you know, from that end are pretty comfortable that, you know, that it would, it wouldn't impact the order of conditions if the, you know, the commission decided to go through this evening and adopt it. And we'd be obviously happy to and I think one of the conditions is we would continuously share any plan changes, but we are sensitive if, you know, the commission feels that they'd rather, you know, wait and see the plan. I think our intent would be to submit and join the 214. I believe it's 214 is the next meeting. So we could kind of submit that plan prior and have that included in, you know, as the kind of approval plan. So everything else has been addressed. You know, again, we're, you know, we put together an invasive species management plan. We've kind of worked closely with Erin to put together a separate ONM plan for the projects. We do, you know, feel that I think all the conditions we were comfortable with. I think there was one Erin we worked with that maybe adjust one word. So kind of wanted to at least present that to the, to the commission. I mean, I'm happy to answer any questions, but that's really where we are as I think we would, we would be comfortable moving forward, but if the commission would feel more comfortable kind of waiting to see that, that change to the stormwater basin, we're happy to kind of continue to the next meeting. Thanks, Josh. Commissioners, any comments, questions? Alex, go ahead. Yeah, two things. Previously, we talked about a Monomo area. And I tried to find that on the plans and I got, I'm not quite sure where it is, but my concern was ticks. And if, if, if families are having that, and their kids come in playing in the Nomo area and their pets come in covered with ticks, they're going to mow it. And I don't know what we have to, to say they can't. Ticks aren't in our Bailey WIC, but if that was a condition that somehow the commission was considering important, I don't think there's a long-term way that we can enforce it even months out or years out if, if people are going to be bothered by ticks. So that's, and I'll pause and ask for some feedback. Then I have one other point, different point. Just to clarify, do you mean the, the knotweed area or is this a different like a pollinate? No, there's a, in the application, they have a Nomo area and there's a whole list of Nomo seeds or grass sources and, and I think it'd be best for Lee to address it because it's, it's a Nomo grass. It's not a Nomo meadow. I think is maybe potentially where the confusion is. And so I think Lee can address the plant characteristics of the Nomo grass and how high that typically gets. I don't foresee it as being a tick issue because I don't think the height of it is going to be long enough, but I'll defer to Lee to answer the question regarding the Nomo plant material. Sure, the Nomo seed mix is a mix of fescue grasses. And the idea is that it's not, it doesn't grow as quickly as other types of grasses. So you can only mow it once or twice a year. But if you choose to have a shorter, more manicured look, you can mow it every couple of weeks. And the idea is that that would be used immediately around the homes and in the limited use areas so that the homeowner can manage the property as they see fit. And then beyond those areas, we would have a more traditional meadow seed mix, which would get taller, but that would not be immediately adjacent to the homes. Yeah, well, I just thought I'd bring it up and it may be a bit outside our jurisdiction, but it's still the thought that occurred to me that might be an issue and thought I'd want to listen to what you had to say about it. Thank you. The other concern I have is has to do with contaminants and what may have happened when Matusko had their shop. And I saw the email that you folks wrote about drilling and contaminated analysis and not finding anything. And I did go and stand on the cement slabs where there's two big drains. And some questions were raised on the side about what might have been gone down those drains when in the early days when Matusko ran that shop. I can remember it being there, but it goes back a long time. So I thought I'd just say on the record that I called Mike Matusko who now runs Matusko trailer repair shop in Sunderland of 116. And he worked there during the 80s. He was very willing to talk. And he said nothing that he knows of got dumped down the drain. That oil was put in 55 gallon drums and either burned to heat the shop or it was shipped off for reuse. He could not speak to what happened during the 50s. He simply isn't old enough to have his history go back that far. But hold on, I forgot my notes right here. Anyways, it was a very pleasant conversation, cordial. And he talked freely in the bottom line is he didn't know of anything contaminant wise that would have been put down those drains. I asked him what the drains were connected to and whether or not they went out to the street. He said in the old days, there was no sewer in the street out there to connect to. I asked him if it might have been connected to septic field because there was a bathroom. He said he didn't know. He just didn't know. So I just put that out there for members of the public, the record you folks to know that I did have a conversation with Mike and nothing came of it. So I tried to follow up on a concern that was raised by a citizen who has trouble logging on and not all that computer savvy. And he appreciated my following up on it. So Aaron asked me to say something about it during this meeting, I'm done. Thanks Alex for connecting like that. And just for members of the public, a phase two has been conducted on the property and no contaminants were found. So all clear, although Josh, you mentioned some more recent soil testing. Is there anything to report in that regard? We just, again, nothing was reported but we were doing stormwater testing. Got it. Okay, Jason, you had your hand up. I don't see it anymore. Yeah. Go ahead. I was just gonna ask about this. Was the soil testing more for infiltration in the basins or was it more for pollutants? It was really more for stormwater in the basins. Will you be expanding your limit of disturbance? We don't intend to expand the limit of disturbance within any of the buffer areas. We, you know, if we look and may have to go right or left, we will, but again, there's no intention to expand limit of disturbance. Andre, go ahead. Just curious, is there, from your end, is there any, does it make any difference whether we go ahead with the proving or with a vote on this today or whether we wait until February 14th? Well, we think it might help. It clears the agenda for future applicants for you. It does kind of ensure that we remain on the timeline. I think our ZBA meetings on the 15th, but we do have the ability to attend the 14th meeting as well. And also I'll just add that the zoning board of appeals is waiting for this to be wrapped up and completed before they'll take their final vote. And we're at the end of the process with them. Our next meeting with them on the 15th is to review the decision and the conditions. Thanks guys. I think our general procedure is to have the plans in hand first before we make a move on it. So I suggest commissioners, unless anyone has any more comments that we continue this to the 14th and review the final plans first. If everyone's in agreement looking for a motion to continue. I move that we can go ahead, Andre. Sure, I move to, I move to continue the hearing. I thought you were ready. February 14th. Exactly ready, but let me come up with this. I move to continue the hearing for the notice of intent by Stonyfield engineering and design on behalf of Valley community development for the construction of 15 residential duplex structures at 20 to 40 ball lane. So we have to just note a date certain. So I would suggest February 14th at 755. Until February 14th at 755. Second. Andre on the motion, Bruce on a second. Alex. Hi. Bruce. Hi. Jason. Hi. Andre. Hi, and sorry about that long motion. Oh, good. Hi. I'm an eye. So if you guys are able to get me the plans, once again, we'll have everything teed up and it'll certainly be available to the zoning board so that they'll have it for the 15th and do our best to keep everything moving for you. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. And we will see you all on the 14th and have plans in hand to you by the 7th. Thanks guys. Thank you. Have a good night. Yep. Okay. Still not seeing any cancer in the public. So I'm going to move on to Pure Sky. So abbreviated notice of resource delineation for Pure Sky. Am I missing something, Erin? There's a hand up in the audience. Oh, it is, it's Lawrence. Lawrence, is this, go ahead. Do you want me to promote him? I'm allowing him to talk. Is this Lawrence with Fort River? Nope, someone else. Who's that? Welcome, Lawrence. Go ahead. Thank you. I appreciate everybody who cares about this so much and shows up every two weeks or whatever it is and works in between. Thank you so much. I'm hearing that there's been an investigation about what went down the drains, but I live next door and the drains themselves have not been removed. I would like to, I wish that the people who are going to do the building would volunteer to test what's under the pad that the drains are built into. The drains themselves were not removed and there were no tests done under the cement pad itself. I wish that they would say that as I understand they have said to people, I wish they'd say legally that they'll look again to find any oil or NFREs or asbestos or lead weights that may have washed down those drains. What were the drains for? So that's my request is that, and once again I'm so grateful that everybody is caring so much about this. And it is tick heaven out here. Unmowed grass will be full of ticks and the one other thing is the knotweed. I've never heard of getting rid of knotweed without using Roundup, but good luck and let's not use Roundup. So those are my concerns. Thank you very much for listening to the public. Thanks, Laurence. Erin, do you wanna address some of the water quality issues? Yeah, I understand from the applicant that their intention is to test under the pad once the pad is removed. That was something that was stated to me. So from what I understand fully committed to making sure that the site is safe prior to constructing homes there. So I just wanted to make sure that that was stated. Now, I think we should however ask that at the start of the next hearing just since it's been raised by the public so that they can confirm on the record, but speaking with them, I asked the very same question on my initial review and that's what I was told. So just as a point of information to respond to the public comment. Okay, maybe we could communicate with that to them before they get back to the next meeting. All right, I saw some other commissioner hands up. Did anyone wanna follow up on that? Go ahead, Bruce. Do we know Laurence's last name for the notes? Quickly. Sorry? Quickly. Quickly, okay. Thanks, Alex. Right, I should say to the public if you're gonna do public comment, please state your full name. Okay, and just to follow up about the knotweed, we did spend some time talking about more comprehensive plan for that which is going to be appended to the order of conditions and I agree, Laurence, it's a tough one. There's wetland-specific herbicides to yours but we're paying attention to it so that's what I can tell you. Okay, I don't see any other hands up back to our abbreviated notice of resource lineation for Pierce Drive Development Incorporated on behalf of WD Coles, Inc. represented by Goddard Consulting for the confirmation of resource area boundaries on site limited to areas that fall within the 100 feet of the proposed solar installation at Shootsbury Road, map 9B lots, 11 and 12, map 9D lot, 27. Okay, so this information came in fairly late past the deadline. Our third party reviewer did not have time to look at it before the meeting so we requested to a continuance. I'll take public comment if anybody has anything but just please raise your hand. Commissioner, is there anything? Okay. Can I say something, Michelle? Go for it. So I just wanted to make sure to state that and I think I forwarded to commissioners but I wanna say it was Tuesday, we received an updated plan from the applicant that has the additional wetlands which were found on the site by our third party peer reviewer. So those were flagged in the field, they were picked up and added to the survey document, survey plan document that has been forwarded to our third party peer reviewer who is gonna complete the final review of that and provide a report to the commission. Obviously we didn't have time to do that before this meeting but I will post the updated plan on the town website probably later this week so that anybody who'd like to view it can see it that hasn't already been shared with. Oh, sorry. Thanks, Erin. Any other questions, comments? Okay, looking to continue. I move to continue the public hearing for Shootsbury Road, A-N-R-A-D to 7.35 p.m. on 1, 2, 14, 24. I'll just say hang in there. Alex in the motion, I got Jason on the second. Alex. Hi. Bruce. Hi. Jason. Hi. Andre. Hi. And I'm an I. Okay. Next step we have SWCA notice of intent on behalf of the University of Massachusetts for the construction of a gravel parking lot and associated stormwater structures in the 100 foot buffer zone to bordering vegetated wetland at Lot 13 Olympia Drive, Met 8D, Lot 15, 16, and 3. Another continuance, I think they're needing more time on the plans for this. Erin, do you wanna fill us in on anything? Yeah, I did have a conversation with Kristen. I'm drawing a blank on her last name right now but the representative for UMass and I did let her know that there had been questions from the commission about when UMass planned to be back. They said that they were doing some internal planning meetings and she would provide an update to me as soon as she could. I do know that they were working and focusing a lot of attention towards the Colvert and the commissioners might recall that we issued an emergency certification because of the scour issues that were happening on the stream, which if you look at the latest report from that project, they've hopefully resolved that, it looks great. So I just wanted to provide an update that I did let the applicant know that the commission is questioning why this has been continued seven or eight times at this point. Thanks Erin, Chris, go ahead. Are we waiting for them to appear again before deciding about the third party review? I see a question, it's like the third bullet from the bottom there. Yeah, I think that they need to come before the commission and there was staff comments and they've only responded partially to the staff comments. So I think there are additional adjustments or responses that need to be made to the plans and I think it's just a resource allocation issue that they're working on it. Go ahead, Andre. Just in response to Bruce's question, I believe what happened was we agreed to hold off on requiring that third party review until our next meeting with them. We were going to do that on the last meeting that we actually had with them and I think they were looking to have us make that decision after they get the rest of the information. Am I right? Yeah, they were doing some additional site investigation and checking the resource area boundaries, updating the plans. Go ahead, Alex. Hi for one, I'm looking forward to hearing from them after being on the site two or three times. And the memory doesn't tend to fade too much, but is there a requirement for us to continue to have it on our agenda, taking up a space, or can we put it aside and simply wait to hear from them and then put it back on the agenda? Because every time we continue it, it uses up time. Yeah, that's a great question. So because it's a public hearing, because the butters were notified and there was a legal ad in the newspaper, we are required to schedule a date certain for a hearing, a date and time certain, and announce that at every meeting. So one thing I could do is check in with Christian offline and say, do you have a timeline of when you expect that you might have a response and we could push this two or three meetings down the line so that we're not doing it at every single meeting. I could inquire with her and see if UMass would be comfortable with that since it is taking up a time slot and we've had some pretty bulky meetings with lots of business. So I can check in with her and see if that's something that UMass is willing to consider. Oh, Chair, if I could just follow up on that. So could we change the motion so that we don't automatically put it on for the 14th and sort of assume that it won't be on the 14th since you're gonna communicate with her or do we really need to put it on for the 14th to let you take the time to communicate with her? I think we should put it on for the 14th and then if we can push it to March or April come up with a date and time with the applicant that they can be happy with. Okay, just trying to economize on our time. I appreciate that, Alex. And I guess just keep your eye on the next PowerPoint to see if there's gonna be any updates and we can shave off five minutes if not. All right, without looking for a motion to continue. So move. I'll move to continue the public hearing for about 13 Olympia drives notice of intent to 740 p.m. on 214 24. That went to Jason. I'll give Bruce the second. Alex. Hi. Bruce. Hi. Jason. Hi. Andre. Hi. And I'm an I. Great. Notice of intent for tetra check on behalf of Forever Solar 2 LLC for construction of an operation of a 6.35 megawatt direct current ground mounted photovoltaic solar facility and apper tenant components at 191 West Pomeray Lane map 19 D lot 10. I see Lawrence and I see Matt. Gonna bring you guys in. All right, Aaron, do you wanna fill us in? Yes. So town staff has met with Peer Sky and their representative a few times since the last conservation commission meeting. And based on our meetings and our conversations we sort of all concluded that the best approach would be for the battery portion of the notice of intent application to be removed until such time that we can get additional information from Peer Sky about the safety of the investigations from the fires that have occurred. One thing I did wanna make sure that I stated on the record was that at the last meeting I stated that there had been five fires from the power and batteries. And I wanted to just make sure I corrected that because I was operating on some misinformation. So from what I understand the correct information is that there's been four and that only three of them have been in the last six months. So I wanted to just make sure that I clarified that for the record and before I forget. So all things considered the applicant has investigations underway on the fires that did occur and the results of the investigations aren't fully available to be provided to the town yet. So we wanna provide them a little time to complete those and get the results to the town. And once they're available and given to the town and we're able to resolve sort of the outstanding questions at that point they'd come back to the conservation commission to present that. We're also working with the applicant to try to come up with an alternative emergency access and that's something that is gonna require just some sort of offline coordination with staff and another private landowner. But we're working sort of all parties working together to try to find a solution to that. And am I forgetting anything? I think I've covered everything but one just last minute sort of discussion that was had was because we didn't get updated plans seven days prior, a week ahead of this meeting. So this was all sort of agreed to on Monday. And so in consideration of that I was sort of trying to have it teed up for multiple different possibilities of what might happen tonight. I have an order of conditions drafted which has been sent to the applicant for their review. I did also include it in the one drive for commissioners to review. I also requested a 21 day waiver for the issuance of the order of conditions on the instance that the commission wanted to close the public hearing tonight but not issue the order of conditions. And the reason for that is because the February 14th meeting date falls exactly 21 days after our meeting tonight. And so if for example, the commission closed the public hearing tonight but wanted to wait to issue the order of conditions until the 14th when updated plans were available it wouldn't provide adequate time for me to be able to issue the order of conditions after the approval. So the applicant did provide a waiver but only for us to have until the day after the meeting which still isn't really enough time for me to be able to issue after approval is given. So just circling all that back is kind of where we are now. There was a draft plan that was provided which I have not had a chance to review because it came in about 430 this afternoon and the letter also came in 430 this afternoon. So that's where things stand and I'll take a step back and let commissioners and the applicant have a chance. Okay, so just to follow up on that the batteries have been removed from the NOI and the intent is to hopefully include them as an amendment to the NOI in the future. The amendment would include generally the same things as the NOI, a butter notification advertisement in the paper, just not procedurally. It would be a problem with DPW, I mean, DE, Mass DP to have four different permits on the same property. So that is the procedural outlook that we have. As far as tonight, the applicants would like to close the public meeting. The concern is that we don't have the final plans in hand and with a 21 day plus one day extension to issuing the order of conditions that puts us in a very tight spot for full review from the commission. So just to recap all that and I'm gonna hand it over to Matt or Lauren sort of would like to speak. Great, thank you very much, Erin. Thank you for the overview. You took my thunder there and filling everyone in. So yeah, it's the battery storage portion that probably has been removed. The only changes to the plans since the ones that were submitted back on January 10th are removal of note references and detail references associated with the best components. And we can take two minutes right now and kind of walk through the two plan sheets that reference the pad locations and just show that the removal of that equipment from the submission. So the changes that have occurred since the January 10th submission are extremely minimal. The rest of the requests that have been made by the commission were incorporated in the January 10th plans. So we were hopeful that the commission would be comfortable with the battery storage being removed to not only close the public hearing but issue the order of conditions. If that's not something that commission is comfortable doing tonight, I think us as the applicants team wouldn't fully be comfortable with closing the public hearing and then having another public meeting where you're reviewing conditions where we don't have an opportunity to speak. So I just wanna put that out there as you guys chat through any questions, comments tonight that it's really both or neither is kind of what we're hoping for this evening. I did wanna point out that in addition to removing the best from the plan there are no impacts to the stormwater management report. We conservatively, if you may remember we conservatively assumed that the pad areas those elevated areas would be entirely impervious which they are not. So the removal of those components don't change our analysis. If when they come back in later I noticed there's a condition in there. Similarly, it wouldn't change any of the stormwater analysis or components for the project at a later date. All that remains the same. The design right now is conservative and assumes full impervious and assumes batteries a battery pad would be installed at a later date. So I think that really sums it up between what Aaron said and what I just ran through would love to hear if the commission has any additional questions or comments on the project, does it stand with the batteries removed? Thanks Matt. Public comment, raise your hand if you have any. I'm gonna keep an eye on it. Not seeing any in a few seconds. So commissioners, comments, questions. Go ahead, Jason. Yeah, I wanted to make sure last time I asked the question about making sure that we're reviewing what we're able to review meaning we were having a lot of conversation about the batteries themselves. Again, it's my understanding we, the conservation commission cannot approve what type of battery per se is used. That's something that's up to the fire department. And I wanna make sure with the removal of the batteries if they're gonna be, it's my assumption that if in the future they're going to be put on via some sort of addendum, are we all, were we comfortable with the plan for, I'm gonna say secondary containment of any potential water for putting out fires. That's my understanding is that, that's what we were concerned with and that's what is in our jurisdiction to review or have reviewed. And I just wanna make sure that's correct. And then like you said, we don't have full plans then. So if you do an addendum, is that gonna come back in front of us to review that as well? Yeah, so the amendment would be new and it would be done presumably after you've talked thoroughly with the fire department and there was sufficient emergency access ways. So all the things there and said that is the reason why the best is being taken off is because there were just too many questions about flooded waterways. So that and there are a couple other safety issues that would be addressed. So it would basically be a new plan for the best with all of those address that would come back to us and we would review it the same way we've reviewed the NOI essentially. So we don't have to make assumptions about what we've already reviewed in relation to the best and what we're gonna be approving for the NOI for the solar only. Does that answer your question on that one? Yeah, yeah. Michelle, and if I may add a little color to that as well, you know, we heard the commission's feelings on the batteries over the last few meetings and discussing with the other town stakeholders. We felt it was in everyone's best interest for us to get more in line with what you guys are typically doing for a process where we're coming back to share the information and to show you we've received approval from the fire chief as opposed to asking the commission to approve anything prior to that approval. So the goal is to go get approval from the fire chief for any fire and public safety related concerns, come back and present that information to the commission and take it from there. Thanks, Matt. That's exactly what we'd like to see. Karen, I saw your hand up. Did you have something to follow up on that? Well, just relative to the containment, you know, it's possible that something about the pad could change. And if that was the case, that would be included in an amendment that came before the commission at that time. I think the results of the investigations might, could possibly trigger some change with the pad. And again, I think we sort of cross that bridge when we come to it, but the containment system that is part of the plan currently was for all of the original infrastructure that was proposed on the plan. And so without the battery storage, I think that the containment that is provided is from my understanding, meeting with the electrical inspector, the town engineer, myself reviewing it, that it's completely sufficient for the equipment that is proposed on the plan. And again, once battery storage is incorporated back in, there may be adjustments, but that would be presented to the commission at that point. Thanks, Sarin. Go ahead, Alex. I understood from the gentleman that the pad would not be constructed at this time. Did I hear him correctly? And I have one other question. You did. That is correct. Anything related with the battery storage and the storage pad is not part of the project at this time. Okay. Could you tell me that just, this is a matter of a definition of a word. What does a pertinent mean? A pertinent facilities, what's included? I looked that up. I looked that up because it's not a word that I commonly use. Well, it's gotta be an engineering term. Honestly, I get that question quite a bit. It's other elements of the project. So you've got the solar, the ground-mounted solar facility. And then we say, all pertinent structures, the fences, the pads, if there's bars, all those miscellaneous items that are associated with the project, that's what that means. So rather than listing out 30 minor little items, you just cover it with that pertinent structures. So one of the definitions that I found included batteries as a pertinent facilities. Is that true? I mean, it could be. Someone could roll it up in there. That's not the case here. We're taking the batteries out. So the battery storage component of the project has been removed. So would you have any objection for us clarifying that a pertinent facilities does not include batteries? That is perfectly fine. Yeah, in this case, it's fencing and gates and equipment pads that are shown on the plan. So your transformers, your inverters, those that type of equipment. So I have no problem with any clarification that the batteries are removed. I think it's a great word. I'm trying to figure out how to work it into my vocabulary. No one told me I was saying it wrong the whole time, but go ahead, Andre. Yeah, I think it's also a legal term that essentially, specifically to the Fourth Amendment and search warrants and so on, you would be looking at a house plus the appurtenances, which are the other structures to satellite to the main, to the main thing that they're talking about. Yeah, yeah, so some more idea. Okay, so we're looking for a definition along with the project plans, just specific to it, but thank you for clarifying. Thanks, Alex, for looking into that pertinence. I don't need the definition. All I really want to do is clarify that for what we're doing going forward, batteries are not included in a pertinence facilities. That's all. Per this NOI, right, okay. In fact, this NOI. So, yeah, no, I don't need a, I wasn't asking to include a definition, but asking him if he minded if we specified that batteries, because he's got a memo saying batteries are off the table for now, if we put in the order that we would look at that a pertinent facilities doesn't include batteries. Okay, heard. Lawrence, go ahead. Thank you, by the way, little humor. Yeah, just wanted to clarify the condition. One of the proposed order of conditions specifically says that batteries comes back to the conservation commission. So there's no ambiguity that there's, this is the full and final commission for the batteries that's not nobody's intention. We're happy to do it, but there is a condition that specifically says we come back. Okay, thanks Lawrence. So before us is a decision to, I think what you guys want is to either keep the public meeting open and not issue the order of conditions or to do both. I don't think we're ready to issue the order today without plans in hand, final plans in hand. Commissioners, you want to do a show of hands. Who wants to continue? Okay, let's see. Does anyone want to, okay, you don't want to close the public meeting. Lawrence, go ahead. What I want to do is just make sure that if we do kind of keep it open and go to the next meeting, we're coming back with absolutely everything that the commission wants us to provide. The update for plans, are there any additional conditions for any conditions that we can pose to get comfortable with or any other issues with the plans that you want corrected? Or is it just a question that we'll be coming back at the next meeting with the revised set of plans and just go through the formality? Okay, last chance commissioners. What else do we need from them so that we can move this forward next meeting? Go ahead, Alex. Yeah, I don't have a list. I have kind of a general question. So I have straight in my head, what we would be most likely to be approving. So this is directed to Lawrence and the others. As I guess it, we would be approving further construction of the project, putting in the arrays up to the sum limit. I think there's a specified certain amount of battery arrays and whatnot. But anyways, you would be constructing the project within whatever limits Aaron specifies, except for putting in the pad and the batteries and the electrical connection. Other than that, it would be essentially the same. Yeah, we've been looking at it. So I think that's right. That is correct, yes. So there's nothing else changing to the proposed project except for the removal of, so we had a battery storage pad here and some notes referencing it and a battery storage pad here. Everything else remains exactly as previously submitted up through the last plan set on January 10th, which incorporated responses to a handful of requests that Aaron had about additional dimensions, references to the reinforced turf across the sewer department easement. So it's literally just removal of a handful of notes, a few lines and a couple of details from the January 10th plan set. Well, I thought I'd just feedback in late terms what I understand you said, and it looks like I understand. And by pulling the batteries out of the project that gives time to resolve battery issues, come up with the North entrance, all bunch of stuff takes the pressure off. The project can go forward. You can keep on that schedule and we'll come back another day to deal with the batteries after the fire department approves it. Sounds great. Good, and I said it any better myself. Well said. Any other comments, commissioners, in regards to, okay, Dave, go ahead. Yeah, if I could, Michelle, I just wanted to come back to Lawrence's question, which I think is really important. He's just trying to clarify that really, if you don't close the hearing and in between now and your next meeting, you get the updated plan sets that Matt has referenced that at your next meeting, it would be simply a procedural vote to close the hearing and move forward. That there's no other concerns that the commission has now that the battery storage has been removed for the time being. I just think, I heard Lawrence saying, he just wanted clarification that that is what will happen at the next meeting. Is that what will happen at the next meeting? Go ahead, Andre. Just to be one person, one of the commissioners answering that question, from my point of view, that's the plan, but remember that there will be public comment as well. And so we need to take that into account. So my thought is that we should have everything then, but if we keep it open to public comment, then we need to keep an open mind to whatever the public is talking about. Yes. All right, I'm just gonna do a show of hands, commissioners. Who is in favor of continuing the public meeting? And, okay, Matt, do you want to add one more thing? Alex, before I take the show of hands, do you want to add one more thing? No, I was showing my hand. Okay, I'd like to do the visual show of hands and it's too confusing for me. Yes, visual show of hands, who's in favor of continuing the public meeting and having the plan set in hand to close this and issue the order conditions on February 14th, show of hands. Okay, that's unanimous. Okay, Matt, go ahead. I think what we all understand is that we've reviewed this in terms of the solar array enough times that we don't have any further questions. And I think we all understand what we're thinking about and this is sort of procedural so that we just have those final plans in hand before we actually close the meeting and issue of the order conditions and we have plenty of time to do that. So if that's satisfactory to you guys, we can just move ahead with continuing tonight. Lawrence, are you okay with that? Yeah. In terms of the procedure moving forward and do you want us to submit a full set of plans without the stamp? Or are we good to go to final signed and sealed and give them to you tomorrow? Because they're done. They've been done for a few hours now and I know that's not a ton of time but all we did was remove some line work and some labels from the plans. Yeah, yep. If you're, all other edits are incorporated and you're good to go, then that would be wonderful. Okay. And I can get everything drafted and have the final revision dates and get them to the commission, post them on our website so that everything is queued up. Okay, great. And the commission had an opportunity to review the January 10th set and we're good. Yeah, I mean, all revisions have been provided to the commission to date. Okay, perfect. So. Go ahead, Bruce. Sheller, are there any public comments? I see no hands up. Okay. Last call for public comments. I've been keeping an eye on it. Okay. Thank you. Okay. With that, I'm looking for a motion to continue and hopefully we just move this very smoothly next meeting. I move the pope to continue the public hearing for Tetra Tech on behalf of Fort River Solar to 2.14 and 7.50 PM. Second. That was Bruce on the first, who had the second? I did. Andre on the second. Alex. Hi. Bruce. Hi. Andre. Hi. And I'm an I. Okay. I'm an I too. Sorry, Jason. Felling off the board there. Jason's and I. All right, thanks for working with us guys and we'll see you on the 14th. We appreciate your time. That's coming together. All right. Have a good night. Thank you, see you then. Okay. So we have one last on the agenda, I think. Okay. 30 Kester Lane. I see Nate Wilson. No, we have one more hearing that just needs continuing. Oh, sorry. That's okay. Wendell wetland services notice of intent on behalf of Kevin and Mary O'Brien for the construction of a new 1200 square foot single family home and associated site work within riverfront area of Eastman Brook at 261 Robert road map three ALOT 50. This project is proposed as a riverfront redevelopment project replacing existing garage and chicken cube skull structure. The applicant has requested to continue this public hearing. So if there's any public comment, please use your hand fairly quickly. All right. Seeing none. Any commissioner questions or Aaron? Do you have an update for this town staff did meet with Mr. O'Brien today to discuss sort of an appropriate path forward somewhat of a complicated situation because there's a historic structure on the house that they're trying to preserve and also build a new home. So town staff have been sort of trying to guide Mr. O'Brien in the appropriate direction. And he's also been doing some additional due diligence on the site by way of park test and a septic design. So the initial plan that was provided to us was like a hand rendered drawing that didn't include a lot of the detail and requirements that plans require. So he's working to try to bring that up to the requirements that the commission would need to approve it. So he's doing his due diligence to try to come up to to bring the plan to where it needs to be. Great. Thank you. Okay. I'm seeing no hands. So looking for a motion. Wait a minute. I got a question. Go ahead. Have we had a site visit to this, Erin? And if not, could we? Yes, absolutely. Part of why there has not been a site visit was because the plans in my opinion were not adequate to describe the proposed work. And I don't think that the work area could have been staked out, identified and been accurate for the commission to review in the field on the site as it was presented in the initial application. And you're welcome to go on the town's website. And it was also provided in previous folders, but on the town website, town of Amherst Conservation Commission under current applications, you're welcome to take a look at the site plan that was submitted. It wasn't to scale. It was like sort of a hand drawn sketch. And so that's why I didn't even schedule a site visit. And quite frankly, I was gonna reject the application and tell them that they needed to come back, but unfortunately, DEP issued a file number for it. I don't think they even looked at the plan when they issued the file number. And once the DEP issues a file number, it starts the clock on 21 days for us to open the public hearing. So they sort of tied our hands with regard to requiring the plan to be submitted to the standard it needed to be. So that's why the hearing was opened because we had to, from a regulatory standpoint. Michelle, can I follow up on that? Go for it. I would prefer to have a site visit to continue this until we have a site visit. If Erin can arrange that, if for some reason or other, she advises against it, maybe she could provide pictures. I agree, I think a site visit once we have actual plans is basically the most efficient way to do this. So I think that's what we're looking at, right? And this is a riverfront redevelopment act. So I think that's a little different than things we've dealt with before. So just bone up on your, you know, mass regs before you head over there. Yes. Thank you. Thanks. Okay, looking for a motion unless there's anything else. I move to continue the public hearing for 260 Leverett Road to 214 24 at 745 p.m. Second that. Andrea in the motion. Just on Jason on the second, Alex. Bye. Bruce. Bye. Jason. Bye. Andre. Bye. And I'm an I. Okay. I am recusing myself from this next one and Andre has offered to chair it. So thank you, Andre. And we'll just be staying by. Yeah, well, the next up is a request for minor administrative change for a 30 Castro lane. Erin, do you have some words? Yes. So I just promoted Nate Wilson and Jeff Squire. So there was previously an order of conditions that was issued for this property. It's a single family home. There had previously been a approved home addition as well as a sort of lean to structure for a vehicle storage. There was mitigation that was required as part of that order of conditions for planting of blueberries. And also there was a contribution to the wetland mitigation fund. There was also an order of conditions which I included in the one drive folder. The current proposal before us is for a, and I'll let the applicant sort of explain the overall situation, but there's currently a deck structure which I don't know the exact dimensions of. So that would be something that would be great to clarify but a deck structure that's within 25 feet of the wetlands in the back of the property. And the applicant is basically looking to have this rolled into their order of conditions. I had suggested that we use the existing order of conditions because DEP does not like us to have two orders of conditions open on a single property or two permits open on a given property. So this would basically allow a review of the proposal under the existing order of conditions. So that's what I have. I might have some additional comments to add but just allow the applicant to explain sort of what's brought us here today. Okay. So the original permit was for the lean to structure. Correct. Now we're looking for a administrative change. Correct. Okay, Nathan. Okay. Can you hear me? And Jeff as well or whoever you wanna do. I'll chat. So, obviously we did have a site visit the other day. So at least I think two of you have seen the back of our property but the goal here I started building is a playhouse for my kids. And I found a spot in the back of the property and I measured it out more. It's more than 25 feet from the wetland marker where I started and started constructing it. I thought that was the correct setback as it was when we did the Oatshed project a year and a half ago. I called the town to see if I needed a building permit and they said no. And to, I got to that point as you can see and I had a neighbor come and question me about it. And so I asked Erin via email and she said, well, no, you are breaking the law. Well, not necessarily breaking the law but within 50 feet since they changed the wetland bylaws. So that's where we're at. I stopped constructing when my neighbor inquired and go over it in detail. It's just a 12 by 12 elevated structure of which eight by eight of it, I'm gonna build a little, or I want to build a little enclosed shed on top basically for the kids, a little playhouse. So I cited it there for a couple of reasons. There was no trees that needed to be removed. I thought I was far enough back from the wetland line but obviously I'm not. And it's trying to get back there, so. Okay, thank you, Nathan. It looks like Bruce had a question about what you were commenting. No, I wanted to just to clarify since I went on the site visit, just to make sure, add doubly sure that what the town building department told you was that you did not need a building permit because of the size of the structure. Is that correct? That is correct. I am under 200 square feet if it's a shed or a playhouse or, I don't know, there's a couple other things they said and there is no building permit needed. Okay, that's just clarifying. Okay, anything else from you or Jeff or Nathan? No, I would just add that, I think as Aaron pointed out, there's an open order of conditions for the construction of the shed structure off the side of the garage. They intended to build an addition toward the front of the house along the driveway that never came to fruition. So that part of the original permit didn't happen. And as Nate explained, this was the goal of what he's doing now was to locate a small fork for his kids to play in in an area of, he's got a very small area of upland in his backyard that is usable. And this was a little sort of peninsula of upland before he got to the railroad tracks that allowed construction of this elevated structure with minimal disturbance. And I think the intentions are really just to get the kids out there and appreciate that backyard and the wetlands that are adjacent to it. So yeah, I think the easiest way to do this was to amend the existing order. Thank you. Let me take a look and see if there's who's here from the public. In the meantime, Aaron, did you have a question or a comment? So I just wanted to note that the order of conditions was issued on October 26, 2022. So this was issued when our current June 22nd, 2022 bylaws had already been updated. So the project was permitted under our current bylaw. I just wanted to clarify that because there was a comment that the bylaw had changed and the bylaw was updated prior to this permit being approved. I also just wanted to note a couple of things which are that under the Wetlands Protection Act, there's a 50 foot setback basically and anything that's over 50 feet is considered to be a minor activity. So anything that's a accessory to a residential structure, deck shed, patio or pool, which I would consider this structure to be, if it's over 50 feet away, doesn't require a permit from the Conservation Commission. What's triggering this is because it is within 50 feet and also under our bylaw, this falls within the 50 foot, no disturb. So the combination of those two issues is what's basically triggering him to have to come back to talk to us tonight. The one other comment or just observation on the site that I wanted to share with the commission was that there was planting of blueberry bushes, which was a compensatory mitigation requirement as part of the original order of conditions. My observation on the site was that the blueberry bushes were built in sort of a constructed area, like a garden type thing. And it was stated at the site visit that the applicant is putting bird netting over it and kind of using the berries for their own consumption. And I think that the whole point of the compensatory mitigation was that it's for wildlife. So basically like we allowed them to encroach on the wetland and plant blueberry bushes to compensate for that impact. And the blueberry bushes are basically being treated as a garden and the wildlife is restricted from accessing it, which I think was kind of counter to what the purpose of the mitigation area was. So mostly wanted to point that out. I think it could have been a break in communication between the commission and the applicants. And so I wanted to clarify that tonight because it's really not appropriate to be blocking the birds from accessing them. The whole point is for them to be accessible to wildlife. So that was the comments that I wanted to share with the commission. Thank you, Erin. Nathan, did you get that point? Just to check. Okay, thank you. So I don't see anyone from the public with their hand raised if you are in the public and you have any questions or comments, please raise your hand so that we can include you. Alex? Yeah, I have a procedural question for Erin. Why is it open? Why does it remain open? And when does it close? That's a good question. So the order of conditions was issued on October 26, 2022. Typically, and I don't know when the work was actually completed, but it's really dependent on the applicant. Once work is completed, that's associated with a given project. Like let's say they completed all work that was associated with the project and they wanted to close out the order of conditions. At that point, they would come back to us with a request for certificate of compliance and at that point it would close the permit. And so we would no longer have an active permit on the site. It could be that just the landowner didn't know that and that, you know, or it could be that the site is still being stabilized. The work was fairly recent, you know, within the last year. So it could be that, you know, waiting for grass to grow in and waiting for vegetation to become established, final stabilization, usually we like to see achieved before the certificate comes in. But a lot of times landowners just sort of forget about it and the permit just expires and that's okay too. You know, again, we like to get a certificate of compliance to close it out because it makes it a lot easier for the landowner long-term. I think so. I learned that from Jeff the other day. So, but there is a few, there's like a little bit of work that I have to do yet on the boat shed, but I mean, the reality is it's otherwise done and we're not gonna do the garage project at all. So, thank you. Jason? Yeah. So, sorry. Can you confirm what work was done? In our property. So we built a long structure off the north end of the property and a little elevated, you know, it had to have a little bit of a retaining wall there. 18 inch high timber retaining wall. The proposed lean to structure were the nine winterberry hollies planted. The nine winterberry hollies. The berry hollies. I remember the blueberries. But I was happy to make that happen. For some reason, I'm having a really difficult time hearing Nate or Nathan. Are you guys having trouble hearing him too? Okay. Yeah, you kind of come in and out. For clarification, I'm looking at the 30 Castro Lane site plan 9822 that is in our folder here. Well, let me let's just, is it possible that that we suggested instead of putting something like a holly, which is not a native that we would have wanted something native like blueberries. And that was what we agreed to at the end. It's possible. I don't believe that I was here when I was involved when this originally took place. Yeah, I'm kind of bringing it up to Michelle and Alex. I don't think I was there when we actually did the approval of it, but. Yeah. And now that I'm thinking about it, I don't recall if the blueberries were in addition to the winterberry holly or if they were a substitute for the winterberry holly. Do you guys, it's been a long, it's been a couple years. I could certainly go through the folder and take a look while we're waiting. Do we have, can somebody sort of pinpoint where on this site plan, since I wasn't able to get to the site visit where this structure is actually being built or has been built? Yes. And then Nathan, can you confirm then that as far as like your ground disturbing activity, I see you put the posts in, like is that, you said you're going to build something on top. Have you completed your ground disturbing activity already? Can you hear me? Yes. Okay. I mean, this is not my world necessarily. So from the ground disturbing aspect, there's four posts in, there's nothing else that's going to go except for a, you know, proposed except for a ladder to get up there. So, you know. I would add, Nathan, that in your proposal, it does say that there would be some clearing of brush, I believe, or ground cover. That's for the lead to. So when I look at an email of yours, in the third paragraph, it begins, I'm hoping to get your approval to build a 12 by 12 structure with an eight by eight playhouse on it. A little bit further on, it says that spot is a nice high point of land and would not require destruction of any trees or large bushes, just some ground cover clearing. Yeah, if I could clarify a little bit, the one shrub that Nate noted that he removed was there's quite a bit of honeysuckle that has grown up in there. There's a fair amount of invasives just to the, I guess lower left of that image is the railroad track. And so the wetlands sort of wrap around the property. This is this little peninsula of upland that drops off on all three sides down into the wetland area. And it's pretty, there's a little, there was an old storage wood shed that the previous owners had built back there. So it's an obvious spot for a yard extension if that's what you wanna call it. But I think the one shrub that got removed was a honeysuckle, which in my mind, the loss of one invasive isn't a huge concern, but there was no tree removal. It was a fairly open area otherwise. Thanks, Jeff. Jeff, could you just clarify just for my purposes or anyone else's who has the same question? Are you, what's your association with the project? Sorry, I'm with the Berkshire Design Group and we helped Nate with the original notice of intent. And so just got asked to be brought back and to assist with this. Thank you, Jeff. Okay, I think Michelle is next. I was just gonna comment on the previous, NOI for the Bochette. Erin, do you wanna bring up the map? I can just remind everyone, since me and Alex, I think we're the only people on this, in regards to the nine hollies. So on the northwest corner where the dot dash line is showing, I think it's the, I can't see it, it's pretty small. The BVW boundary approximate edge of BVW underline it in the field. So there is a row, maybe a planted autumn olive there that we're taking out. And we had a long discussion about how to do that. And with the herbicide applications and spot treatments. So Nate did that. And I think there's a challenge in how to replant it with the winter berry holly. So that is a native. And I don't know that that got done, but I don't remember where the blueberry came in. So that's just a history of it. It was supposed to be a replacement for the removal. I think it was autumn olive on that edge. Great, thank you. Go for your clarification. Bruce, did you have a... Yeah, Alex and I were there for the site visit with regard to the spot where part of the structure has already been done. It was pretty minimal. It certainly comports with what we were talking about here in terms of it being a place that minimal disturbance was needed. The posts are in. He showed a picture a minute ago. And so it seemed appropriate to have a minor administrative change given what I saw. Thank you, Alex. And if you and Michelle can put your hands down, please. Yeah, if Nathan could bring up his photos again, it would help people understand the site. And Nate, could you share your photos again? And people were asking, where is it and ground disturbance? And those photos speak a thousand words. And I wanna echo what Bruce said in terms of, yeah, there we go. So there are the posts that he talked about. It's a substantial structure. And as I understand it, the stairs going up to it would be right here in the front on the left. Yeah. And he was gonna put an enclosure on the top which wouldn't entirely cover the deck, but it would have a roof, would shed water, a place for the kids to hang out, have fun, spend the night. And as you can see, the ground around it was lacked vegetation. And what you're seeing in the background is wetland that surrounds this property where there's hasbeavers in it and railroad tracks are in the back. So this is at the end. The end, it would be the west end of his property, I think. And so separating this structure from his house is the backyard. So I just wanted to echo what Bruce's comment that it doesn't seem to be interfering with much. And I personally didn't have a problem with it. Thanks, Alex. So I'm struggling to figure out how this is a minor administrative change, though, when it's a completely different and separate endeavor, if you would. Yeah, it has nothing to do with it. Yeah, so Aaron, do you think, can you help us out with that? Yeah, so frequently when there's orders of conditions open on a given property rather than filing a whole new permit for additional things that might take place on the property, folks will. So requesting a minor administrative change is at the discretion of the applicant. And it's really at the commission's discretion as to whether you consider it to be a minor administrative change or not. If you don't think it's minor, you can ask the applicant to come back with a permit filing. You could ask them to file a request for determination or you could ask them to amend the order of conditions to address the additional proposed work. Okay, and then one, I guess one more. I'm also struggling, Nathan, with understanding how you were not aware that it's covered under, that it's a protected area. I could, obviously I was wrong, but I thought the set point was that I could, obviously I was wrong, but I thought the setback was 25 feet. So I measured, you know, it's more than that. So that's what I remember from the garage project. And my, that's, yeah, so I think that's all I can say. So I think that's all I can say. And so I thought it was 25 feet and I started more than 25 feet away and I'm wrong. Obviously the structure can be removed. It's not like it can't be removed if need be, but that's, you know, that's the answer. Okay, and just I wanna cover all the bases here. Where else would you be able to put that on your property that would not be within that buffer zone? Not very many places, not unless it was sitting in my yard. So. And okay, could you explain why you wouldn't want it in the yard? I don't think that that really provides the atmosphere that we're going for, having a little playhouse up in the trees in the woods just sitting in the yard. So I mean, if this doesn't get approved or whatever, I will remove it and I'm not gonna put it someplace different. I'm not gonna just put it in the yard. So just to provide a little context, Nathan's property is this house here. There's a number of gardens in this sort of lawn space but the wetland edge wraps really around everything around his backyard. So there isn't much that's outside of that 50 foot. I think in Nathan's defense, having gone through the permitting process with the shed structure and understanding that that was permitted within 25 feet of the wetland edge just because of the existing conditions, he understood that that was where he needed to set any new work. And because of the minimum amount of disturbance that was required here, didn't and thought he had gone through the proper channels. Again, it's really there's very little space on that property that is outside of resource area. All right, thanks, Jason. Yeah, just out of curiosity, these wetlands exist. Just this is my opinion or just looking at the map here. Are these wetlands that hydrologically connected to the wetlands or the hop broke on the other side of the railroad tracks? Yes, there's a culvert under the railroad tracks. Okay. That just all got bisected by I'm sure by the railroad tracks. And then when that subdivision all came into play. Thanks, Jason and Jeff, Alex. When we first showed up on site for the site visit, Bruce, me, Aaron, and we walked back with Nathan and his consultant. One of the first things that Nathan said was I grew up on 150 acres and I put this back here so my kids could hang out in the trees and look at the birds and the beavers and have a sense of being outdoors. So I think his intention was to not have a tree house on his lawn, but to give his kids a more natural experience, a nature experience because he specifically talked about being a tree height and looking at the birds and the beavers. And he has beavers come up into his driveway because they're all around his property because they're in that wetland. So I appreciate the question about where else could you put it? But he was quite clear that his intention was to create a nature experience for his children. And I don't, I just offer that. And moving along from that, I would like to see if we can't move towards closing the permit. And in that process, take care of the blueberries and the blueberries are smack dab in the middle of his backyard. And he's got four by four posts around them and he puts nets over them so they can consume the berries. I don't have a problem with him having a blueberry garden, but I do have a little bit of a problem of saying it's mitigation that was asked for the lean to. So maybe he could, and they're high-blushed blueberries and they're maybe four feet tall. And so the guy likes blueberries, maybe he could keep his garden and plant some blueberries for wildlife in an area that where it would do serve another purpose, aligned with the permit. I wouldn't wanna ask him to move the blueberries that he's already planted and cultivated because his family already enjoys them. If we were gonna resolve the blueberry issue, I would suggest that he could perhaps volunteer to plant blueberries in another site that doesn't interfere with his use of his backyard and then ask Aaron to do whatever is needed to close the permit and give him the order of compliance once of all that's taken care of. And if people on the board need to go have a site visit, I'm sure Nathan would oblige people if they really can't understand what's going on. But I don't wanna make a big deal out of this. To me, it's not, we have lots of things to deal with and I wouldn't want to make more work out of this than it requires. I am happy to plant some blueberries in some other areas. I'm very happy to do that, so. And you're welcome to take a look and take a look at the property as well, so. Thank you. Aaron. Yeah, so I mean, I think as far as compliance with the original permit that the winterberry plant or the holly plantings and the blueberry plantings would be a good thing for us to basically round out the work that was already completed on the site that was previously permitted. And I do agree with Alex that once we sort of come to a consensus on how to move forward with this that once the site is fully stabilized that closing out the permit would be a really good idea. I guess a couple of things come to mind in terms of the footprint of the structure and the amount of alteration on the site. I know in the original order of conditions it basically, I think we were already at 20% alteration in the buffer zone. And so it was stated that the commission wasn't gonna allow any additional alteration in the buffer other than minor activities which this doesn't qualify for as a minor activity. So I guess the question becomes number one if it is additional the square footage of the structure which is alteration of the buffer, is there some additional mitigation that the commission would ask for to compensate for the structure? And I know Nate on the proposal had suggested that he was willing to contribute $250 to the wetland mitigation fund just as a sort of upfront negotiating point but there could be additional plantings proposed as compensatory mitigation. So this is just to sort of get the discussion going about what the commission would like to see and what the commission is willing to consider. I have seen this commission deny a permit that was proposed within 25 feet of a wetland when there was an alternative location farther away for the same structure. I've seen that happen. I saw it with a proposed pool on Southeast Street where the owner didn't wanna put the pool in front of their view. I don't think that this is hugely different from that. I agree they don't want it in their lawn backyard. I totally understand that and it's complicated just trying to think of like fairness across applicants and how we consider and how we sort of fairly administer the bylaw. But the commissioners may feel different. This is food for thought because it does open sort of a can of worms in terms of our no-disturb buffer and what we allow in that zone. Thanks, Aaron. Jason. Yeah, Aaron, you mentioned that the percent alteration in the original permit here but it's my understanding that garage work didn't get done. So then are we deducting that from the original percent and adding? Yeah, so the original expansion of the house footprint was on the garage existing, or excuse me, existing driveway footprint. So there was an existing paved driveway and I think the intention was to expand the house into the driveway footprint. So that existing impervious would be accounted for. That it basically be like essentially a swap of driveway for house expansion. But as Nate said, they decided not to complete that addition. And so it was kind of a, they just moved forward without doing that. So I would like to say that not doing that did decrease the amount of creation of impervious ground by a not insignificant amount because if we had extended the driveway out, or excuse me, the garage out towards the road, we would have had to increase the footprint of the retaining wall area and the boat shed on the side of the house. So obviously the garage portion would have been out on existing impervious ground on the driveway but we would have had to add more to the boat shed on the side. So we did not utilize all of the predicted or expected, I guess, creation of impervious ground. So, and at least, you guys are, I'm a physician. I have not anything related to this but my understanding is that this shed or this playhouse, the only impervious ground that it's creating is the posts, if I'm not incorrect. And that's a pretty 1.8 square feet. I'm not sure if I'm accurate in that but that's what I've been told from people who are more in tune with this than myself. Yeah, so I don't know if that's necessarily correct. I believe on the solar panel projects that we've been looking at, the solar panels are not considered impervious. Is that correct? Well, solar panels are actually exempt as being considered pervious under state guidelines, under our local bylaw. However, the commission can consider them to be impervious. Yeah, I think that this is a relatively minor amount of impervious surface. I think that the whole project, the reduction, my opinion is the reduction of the garage, impervious surface. And with, I'm gonna say four more blueberry bushes planted that are accessible by wildlife is enough compensatory mitigation for this project. I don't think, I'm gonna disagree with you Erin a little bit. I think a pool is way different than this. There's way more impact from a pool. This is literally four posts in the ground. And I'm for presenting a motion or something to say that we just accept this as a minor change, provided that Nathan, you plant four more blueberry bushes that are accessible by the wildlife and the winterberry holly that was required in the original permit. And then once you're done, you close the permit out. I will do that. Thanks, Jason. Alex. Yeah, first of all, Jason speaks my mind and I just wanna say that I was involved or present for the swimming pool episode. And I would side with Jason on that. I appreciate Erin bringing it up, but I was fairly firm about my feelings about this swimming pool. And I don't think this is exactly the same. And so I would like to see the mitigation straightened out, put in the ground, haven't finished the playhouse. It's gonna be where people build memories and have great time and move on. We got other things to do. Thanks Alex. Well, I was also present during the pool discussions and I do see the similarity in the issue of fairness across applicants. And speaking to all of you, I also see the value of, I can't, the value of having such a cool spot for children to learn and to become advocates for YLA, for nature, for the environment. At the same time, being weighing on the other end of it is the violation that's occurred. That having said all of that, I think that it's not a huge impact and I would agree to it being a minor administrative change. So I think, unless we have any other comments, I think we're ready for a motion. Do we have any comments first? Okay, looking for a motion. Is there a motion that goes with this, Erin? No, I mean, it's, I think it's really, this is sort of informal. So I think Jason kind of summed it up pretty well in his comments, it sounded like he was teeing up to make a motion. So like, I think including the mitigation that was required for the original project and then any mitigation that you require for the proposed structure, you know, and, you know. So now let's just kind of get this straight because in my mind, I thought that originally there was, there were blueberries, were there blueberry bushes and holly or was it one or the other? Have you been able to find that out yet? Erin, while we were talking. I did look back in the project folder and I wasn't able to, you know, let me just check one more thing. It did look like the applicant might have some more institutional memory about it than I do, but I will, I'll check back to on the, my presentation, because usually I track what the motions are and what the requirements are a little bit more for mitigation in those, but it, there was nothing in the project folder that outlined it specifically. What I do remember was a contribution to the, in Luffy fund. So I wasn't sure I, we had discussed blueberries. I had blueberries in my institutional memory as the mitigation that was proposed. I, I don't know if he changed from winterberry to blueberries or what, but I, maybe the applicant can speak to that. I think we had $500 to the fund and, you know, and we talked about planting blueberries and we also talked about removing the urban olive and putting the holly there. And I will be brutally honest in that the holly or the urban olive has not been removed. And I'm, I, my neighbor to the north asked that we don't do that because it, that protects their view. They don't want to look at my boat, but the hollies would probably do that. So, I mean, I think the right thing to do here is just to agree to put the hollies there and to plant blueberries that are not covered by our nets. Does that sound reasonable? It does sound reasonable. Okay. Yeah. How many, how many hollies and how many blueberries are we talking? Well, it's the original thing said nine hollies. So we've been nine hollies and how are many blueberry bushes you want me to put in? Come on, I get a question. What do you, what do you think, and for the blueberries or anybody? So Jason had proposed for, I mean, I think compensating for the footprint of the structure and, you know, what would you plant in the footprint of that structure? Realistically, I think probably four plantings in the footprint of that structure without, you know, them all killing one another, growing over each other. But just to compensate for that structure, I think that would be a minimum. Correct. Would that be then four from the original plus four for the structure or what are we talking about? Well, I, sorry, I proposed four for the structure plus the nine winterberry from the original notice of intent. Mm-hmm. Okay. Sounds good to me. And I pulled up on the screen. This was the, this was the original approval for a 30 Kestrel. So the $500 contribution to the wetland mitigation fund. You make it larger. Yes. The removal of the autumn olive with spot treatment herbicide on the stems. Yeah. All right. Well, it looks to me like we're gonna go with the nine and the four then. Alex, was there something that you needed to, that you wanted to contribute? Yeah. Nate was the $500 contribution made. Yep. Yes. I can confirm that. And how much room, I mean, I know the site, but I, when we went to look at the structure that's at issue today, I didn't pay much attention to what's between the lean to and the wetland. And I'm trying to figure out, well, where's all the stuff gonna get planted? And I presume it's between the lean to and the structure. And if that's true, how much room do we have? How much room we have is a limiting factor. And you say your neighbor doesn't wanna see your boat. So, I would propose we fill it up. So just to clarify, I just wanna make sure I understand what Alex is saying. Alex, are you asking if there's room to plant the winter berries between the bottom of the retaining wall and the wetland buffer? Is that the question? Yeah, I'm just wondering how much space we've got. We're talking about, we're making decisions about the number of plants and I'm wondering, well, where are they gonna go? And is there room? What? And if your neighbor doesn't wanna see your boat, then I would suggest we'd be robust. And generous with the plantings and use mitigation to create a visual barrier for your neighbor and benefit the wildlife. Yeah, I don't, I mean, I think, if you remove the urban all of there, there's room to certainly plant stuff. I mean, there's still about 20 feet between the retaining wall and the wetland marker. I guess my question would be, or I'd ask for a plant that you'd recommend that would get at a reasonable height. Does winter berry get at a, I don't know these things. So I would, if I had a ask from you as the committee, if there would be a plant that gets tall or you know, whatever 10, 15 feet, that would be probably better than a ground cover. Yeah, before Jason goes, I just had to throw in another thing and then we don't want the beavers to cut them all down. So I wanna be careful not to put the plants at risk of becoming beaver food. Otherwise that we won't achieve what we're looking for. So before I take my hand down, I know Michelle has recused herself, but she's a plant person. And if she could make some suggestions and still be recused, that would be helpful. I think that's a good idea. Can we let Jason go first? Yeah, no, I was just gonna say one, I just looked up the winter berry holly on Google here and it says it gets six to 12 feet tall. I'm rather bushy. So I don't, and you know, we're trying to do this to protect the resource. I see the beavers as part of the resource. If the beavers end up coming in and eat the plants, you know, is there really anything you can do about that? And should you be doing anything about it? If it's a native plant, we want it to be planted because it's native and then the natives come and eat it. You know, I don't think that there's a whole lot of issue there for me personally, but where the winter berry is supposed to be planted according to the original plan is right next to the lean to. Right. Which is where I think that, I mean, so it's my assumption that that is where they'll go as far as the four blueberries. I would say plant them, in my opinion, somewhere around the structure if you think they'll do well there. And that's what you're compensating for. And this whole project is to get your kids out in nature and if they can sit there and birds come around and eat the berries, like I think that would be a great thing as long as the bears don't do it. So, I think that that would be a good, I think those two areas are appropriate. Okay. Sounds good. I don't think that the beavers are gonna really go for that. They like, as far as I can see, they like bigger, they like trees, small pole, you know, pole size trees and other stuff like that. Willows and altars. Michelle? Well, the beavers didn't take out the autumn olive, so they're there. I would also say that the autumn olive, I think if they're cut, they're gonna need to be pulled out by the root. And I think that's actually kind of a substantial thing, which so, I don't know, but we do have a landscape architect here. So maybe if he's on site, he could maybe come up with something that would be appropriate to the actual land. Hollies get big, but you'd have to buy them big and there'd be a lot of work taking out those autumn olives. So maybe putting them somewhere else on the perimeter of the property would be appropriate. I wouldn't squeeze them all in there, Alex, because they're just gonna choke them out and then they won't be bushy and the neighbors will have to look at the boat and they probably would have some mortality. Not having been on the site really to look at it like this, I would, yeah, refer to the expert here. Yeah, I mean, I think there's a number of infill spots, you know, amongst the stuff that's long that edge for enough of those shrubs to fit into pretty easily without a lot of disturbance. Yeah. All right, Bruce. I think we're trying to micro design this too much and that we should let the consultant, the applicant and the staff figure these things out on site based on some principles that we have agreed to. That sounds good, Bruce. So, I think we're, let me just add one last thing, Nathan. And that is that we are, you know, once we're through with tonight, we are looking for at some point for you to close this out and to finish your projects or project with the administrative change, please. And I think it is time for us to, you know, if we're gonna do, so I guess we're not, we're not gonna do a motion. Is that where we're going with this now? I think there should be a motion, but I think we should have some recommended, you know, mitigation requirements. And one thought I had, and I'll just share this, is Dogwood might be a good suggestion because Dogwood can get higher. It has beautiful flowers on it. It has nice vegetation on it. So a couple Dogwood trees might achieve what he's looking for, but I'm not saying that we, if the commission doesn't wanna require that as mitigation, it's just a, you know, suggestion that they might provide a nice buffer between, in the wetland area, between the wetland and the boat. I think that's a great suggestion. I think it would be, I think we've all kind of agreed to go with the nine, the nine hollies and the four blueberries for now. I think we could use a motion at some point. You know, I'm wondering. Go ahead, Alex. We keep talking about four blueberries and I think that was suggested as mitigation for the play structure. But we've got the, and maybe I'm wrong, but somebody said that they thought that was appropriate for the play structure, but we've also got the blueberries that were originally required. And they're in the garden setting in the backyard and we're asking for them to be replaced. Eat the blueberries in the backyard and plant what was originally called for. So that would be four plus what was ever originally called for. Yeah, and I don't think that, I think when we were just reviewing things, we did not find where we had actually required those four. Is that correct, Alex? Well, then I would move, then I would suggest that perhaps Nathan is willing to keep his blueberries where they are and replace them in addition to the four for the play structure. So we're talking about eight, eight blueberries, round that off to 10 for a round number and then put in the other stuff. And so we could have a motion to provide guidelines that staff coordinate and administrate. So the administrative change would be that staff coordinate with the owner and his consultant to decide where these things are gonna go and then arrange for the order of compliance to be put together. And I assume that in order to close the order, the play structure has to be completed. All right, a quick show of hands among us commissioners. Frankly, I think he's gonna be running out of room. Like I think four and nine is good with me. Meaning four blueberries, nine of the alleys is okay with me. He also wrote that he was willing to put $250 toward the mitigation as well. Sorry. And so I'm sorry, go ahead Alex. Just trying to, just sorry, I'll let you finish, but I was confused that the 250 was and the 500, I didn't put them together. Okay, yeah, so I think he had originally proposed 500 and paid it and now he's proposed another 250. But I do think that that's plenty and I think we've massaged this quite a bit. I'm willing to go with just an extra four that would compensate for the ones that Nathan and family are using for their own harvest plus the nine alleys is just a show of hands. Who wants more than that or who is satisfied with that? Which one are you asking? Who is satisfied with more and yeah, all right. I'm satisfied. All right, Alex, let's just propose that as the, in the, as the, Can I ask Nathan how many he's got in his garden? How many blueberries does he have in his garden? We can't hear you, Nathan, you're on mute, sorry. Sorry, I just got some screaming going on. There's eight in the garden. Yeah, that's what I thought. I would propose that I'm not quite sure what the wildlife value is of the other plants, but I would propose that he replace the eight in his garden for this project and whatever else you folks want and that Aaron get together with him and his consultant and put it together. Thanks, Alex, Jason. Yeah, I would, I mean, can I make a motion then that we just plant eight instead of 10 or 10, just plant eight there. Nobody can seem to find any actual reference to these blueberry plants in any kind of document. The nine we have, the nine winterberry we have in the original NOI, I would propose the motion to plant the nine winterberry, plant eight blueberry, and then once the structure is complete and the plants are in place, the permit be closed. And that would that include the $250 additional contribution? No, I'm not proposing an additional contribution. He's already made a $500 contribution. I think with eight blueberries, nine winterberries with the size of this structure, I think that that is sufficient. A second to motion. Okay. So we have Jason with a motion and Bruce with a second. Aaron, you got that eight and nine. Yes. Nathan, are you good with that? I'm fine with that. Yep. Can I have a vote, Alex? Hi. Bruce? Hi. Jason? Hi. You know, I'm an I. Nathan, thank you very much for your patience. Thanks. What you're doing is wonderful, having your girls out there and enjoying and learning from nature. Wow. It's awesome. It was just the procedure was a bit of an issue. I understand. And I thank you for working with me. Okay. Absolutely. Thank you. All right. I'll sign off, bye-bye. All right, back to you, Michelle. Thanks, Andre. So I hadn't thought about this before, but maybe when we write those order of conditions that we somehow clarify what we consider to be minor activities in parentheses or something could be confusing when someone's reading their permit and then I guess be more explicit about intentions for mitigation. Anyway, I think that's it for the night. Yes. Any final public comment? Raise your hand now. Nope. Okay, yep. Go for it, Andre. Oh, I see someone up there. Go ahead, Scott. Yeah, I had a question about hunting on conservation land and I don't know if this is the form to ask it. I've tried to get an answer through email and have been unsuccessful. Great question. And it's actually being discussed in detail on our land use subcommittee meetings. So currently it is allowed on conservation land following general Massachusetts guidelines, but I'm gonna let maybe Dave or Erin talk more about that. Excuse me, I think your answer was accurate, Michelle. I think right now it's allowed as per Massachusetts law, but we are looking at the historic policy. I will say that going back some years, there were some areas, this was hotly disputed in Amherst for many years prior to me coming on board working for the town. And there were many public meetings, et cetera, et cetera. And there were some areas that were off limits to hunting, but I think we're trying to take a look at that for the future and see whether this commission would like to restrict hunting in any way or change any way we regulate the use of conservation land. We're also looking at fishing, trapping, and many other uses. So to be determined, but I think right now it's as per Massachusetts law. Thanks, Dave. Go ahead, Alex. Okay, there is a, sorry, go ahead. Yeah, go ahead, Scott, I need to just follow up. Well, I was just gonna say there is a website on the town has a website about hunting. It does say that it gives a list of about eight or nine conservation lands where hunting is permitted. It says all other conservation areas are close to hunting. So it sounds like that needs to be updated. Yeah, we can take a look at that. Many of those other areas are very small. So we do need to kind of keep in mind that we have conservation areas that are one acre and we have conservation areas that are 200 acres. So some of those may, I'll have my staff take a look at that. Erin and I can take a look at that webpage, but some of them are very small. So historically the commission, the previous commission might have said we just don't feel as though hunting should be allowed on a two acre conservation area with a budding trails or the rail trail or nearby houses. So that's, we'll take a look at that, Scott. Okay. Alex. Scott, that's a great question. Can I ask why you ask? Well, I recently moved to Amherst, our property backs up onto the brickyard conservation area. We saw quite a few number of hunters walking behind the house. I looked it up on the town website. It suggested that there was, you know, hunting was not allowed in brickyard. More recently, we've had a hunter that's driving on one of the recreational trails through the brickyard and causing quite a bit of soil disturbance. I would think that that would not be permissible, but I just, I don't know all the, you know, all the local, you know, bylaws and rules. So trying to get an answer. If you would be willing, in terms of the folks driving anywhere out there, that would be helpful to have some more information if you wanted to email Erin or myself on that. Were they riding on the, driving on the rail trail or on a dirt road back there? They were driving on the Ken Huddleback trail. We noticed, you know, just take, just walking on the trail, notice tire tracks and quite a bit of soil disturbance. And it just doesn't, I'm a biologist. So, you know, trails, you know, can be a source of disturbance to wildlife and, you know, vectors for invasive plants. And it just seemed like, you know, that probably wasn't allowed. You know, the town having to come in and rehabilitate trails that have been all torn up by trucks was probably not in the budget, but I didn't know. So, and I don't know what the enforcement action is, you know, if this is, you know, if I see somebody doing that sort of thing and who am I supposed to call or what am I supposed to do? Yeah, certainly reported to the conservation. You could send it to Erin or myself or Brad Bordewik, our land manager, all of us have emails on the town website or there's a general conservation email. But I'm wondering if, I'm thinking of a location which is near Castrol Lane and that area. And I'm wondering if it might be someone going in through that area. I do know there may be one secure, unsecured area there where somebody could drive in, but that's from the east going west to Brickyard. But I'm not aware of anybody, an easy way to get in from the west, but please email us with any of that information where you saw tire tracks and we can do a little research on that. Okay, great, thank you. And Scott, you can also, you can always call the police too if you think someone's violating the law. Okay. I'll say that there's a trail, just so you keep this in mind, there are some trails that have rights of way for people to access. So if you're to access to do their farming, for example, if you're accessing the trail off of Southeast Street that goes toward Brookfield Farm, people use that, they'll drive down that road to get to their cattle and to get to the fields over there. So I'm not sure if that's, and I have seen, by the way, the vehicle drive back in there and park there to hunt and they're parking on the property of that landowner there, that adjacent landowner. Yeah, it's a good point, Andre. Many of our trails are actually on private property where we are the guests. And so there are some shared use pathways, farm roads, woods roads where, as we walk, the public walks or runs or bird watches or whatever, we're actually on private property and there is a shared use agreement for farm vehicles. And then of course, conservation vehicles often are going down those trails, old roads, et cetera, to do maintenance or do mowing or fixed bridges or whatever. Yeah, so more information would be great. Anything you can send us, Scott, would be very much appreciated. Okay. If you're curious about what land is what in Hoon's Bayoon and your new mass mapper, the Amherst mapping, you can look at the plot lines and maybe if that road is on private property or just provide some clarity, that's good news. Okay, I will look at that. I mean, it's a walking, hiking trail. You gotta drive up over the sidewalk to get onto the trail with this track and drove it back away as part. I think he's hunting, I'm guessing he's hunting ducks back in the wetlands that are on the other side of the railroad track and didn't wanna have to walk as far. That's my guess, but I'll look at it again. Yeah, I'm almost positive. I know where this spot is, Scott, and we've been talking about gating it. I was in there as recently as last fall and October and November and we've been talking about gating it. And if people wanted to, they'd need to park on the road and walk back into Brickyard. So I'm pretty sure I know exactly where you're talking about going up over the curb and then getting back into the woods there. So that's definitely on our list to potentially put in a gate or a cable to keep anyone but town staff out of there. Except if they walked, of course. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sorry, can I just clarify the hunting on Amherst Conservation Land is only permitted large swamp, Holyoke Range, Atkins Flat, East of Brook only, Simmons Farm, Eastman Brook, Catherine Cole, Hottick, Houston slash Gage located in Shootsbury. So Brickyard is not listed there. It says all other town of Amherst Conservation Areas are closed to hunting. So some of the hunting in Brickyard sounds like they should not be doing that. I think that is accurate, Jason, but I will say our committee is looking at all of that right now. The other issue is just enforcement, the challenge of people, hunters included will walk in and enter and hunt, just like we have hundreds of people every month walking dogs off leash on all of our trails. So the challenge is really enforcement. Yeah, I would favor enforcement of the off leash dogs don't have firearms. Right, but they do have a great impact out on those trails. So it's just the point about enforcement is challenging. Yeah. So just to piggyback on the conversation, state law requires that if land is not open to hunting, that the landowner post it. And so that is also the challenge is that any land that we say is closed to hunting, we have to adequately post as no hunting and maintain that signage, which I don't believe has historically been done. So... Surely Erin, it has been. His story has been, yeah, we've done it for years. Really? I think it's waned in the last few years, but yeah, it's actually quite an endeavor to post all of the other areas that are off limits to hunting, but we do it on the trailheads. But I think it's all in flux right now, given that we're considering all of this with this subcommittee on land use. Yeah, and Scott, if you wanna submit public comment, that's always valuable because we are in the midst of revising it and thinking about it. So we always like to hear about people's experiences and thoughts on it, but I think everybody kind of gave you as much as we know and maybe calling the cops next time if there's no hunting, although it's not posted, right? So I guess that's sticky, nevermind. Okay, if there's nothing else, Scott, anybody? I think we're ready to call it a night. I move to adjourn. Second. On around the motion, Alex on the second, Andre? Aye. Alex? Aye. Jason? Aye. Bruce? Aye. And I'm an aye. Okay, thanks everyone. Thanks, Scott, for showing up and sitting through. Good morning, everybody. Good night, everyone. Hey, Michelle. Yeah. Let me talk to you.