 It is March 26th, 2024. This is a regular meeting of the CRC, Community Resources Committee, and it is 631. I'm going to go around and see if everyone can hear us and be heard. I'll start with Councillor Haneke. Present. Jennifer Taube. Present. Pat DeAngeles. Present. Pam Rooney is present and she can hear herself and everyone else. And I have Dave Zomek, our host, Christine Breastrup, Director of Planning, and Stephanie Ciccarolo, Director of Sustainability. And here is our last member. Okay, can you hear us? Yes, I can. Excellent. Good. Good. So, we are going to go to, there are no public hearings tonight. We are going to go to public comment and then we will get into our agenda with Christine and Stephanie. Let's see if there are folks in the audience. And I am not, here's my list. Okay. Hey, so we'll open this up for public comment. You are, you have the opportunity to speak for three minutes. And oops, I forgot to hold on. I forgot to do the pursuant to chapter 20, the acts of 2021 extended by chapter 22 and 107 acts of 2022 and extended by chapter 2 of the acts of 2023. This meeting will be conducted via remote means members of the public who wish to access the member, the meeting may do so via zoom or by telephone. No, no in-person attendance of members of the public is possible, but every effort will be made to ensure that the public can adequately access the proceedings in real time via technological means. As we go to public comment, public comments are strictly on matters within the jurisdiction of the CRC and folks are welcome to express their views for up to three minutes. We will not be able to engage in any dialogue or comment on matters raised during public comment. Are there folks who would like to speak? Please raise your hand if you would. I see 16 participants in the audience. I do not see any raised hands yet. Jennifer. I think there's eight in the audience and eight of us. We're not seeing any hands either. Thank you. We are going to proceed then with our action items. And we have a quick topic of just an update for CRC members on the ZBA. Jennifer, you want to do that. We will then move on to the solar bylaw. Okay. We have seven interviewees that have confirmed we had eight CAFs and one of the applicants is indicated that they are pursuing, they're applying to other committees, so withdrew from ZBA. So we have seven candidates that will be interviewing a week from today on April 2 at 6.30pm. Unfortunately, we could just not find a date when the seven candidates and the five of us could be there on the same time on the same date. Mandy very graciously agreed that she will listen to the, so next week we will do the interviews, but we will not deliberate and we will not vote. And Councillor Hanke said that she would listen. Time out actually Jennifer I'm sorry. I got an email from from. Oh, there's an update. There is my, my conflict as of today I got notified is getting moved so I can actually make next Tuesday's meeting. That's a mirror. Oh, so we do have 12 people make it at the speed at the same place at the same time. Okay, that's great because I hadn't informed the candidates yet that we would not be deliberating next week so it'll be great. Although, so we'll probably need the full 630 to 830. If you could make that time available. Great. We will have the interviews we will deliberate and we'll vote. As of now that's great. Thank you. That is good to actually get it all. In one evening while all our recollections are fresh. Yeah. Okay. I would like to introduce again Christine Brestrup director of planning. And Stephanie Ciccarello director of sustainability who very nicely offered to give us an overview of the process that they have worked through with the solar bylaw working group. To put together the draft solar bylaw that we've received. And I want to turn it over to the two of them to give us the information that they'd like to share. Thank you so much, Pam. I'm going to start and I will give a background of the process what led us to this process and then Chris will take over and actually talk more about the actual development process of the bylaw. So there was a there was a project that was proposed on shoots very road, which was kind of an unprecedented solar project in terms of scale. And it proposed 50 acres of clearing. And at that time there was a movement to impose a solar moratorium on solar development. And that motion had failed was defeated it didn't pass. So there was concern regarding forest and other land use impacts that prompted some investigation into development of an actual solar bylaw. And there were many entities that were creating drafts kind of simultaneously so several different folks were working on drafts. So staff recommended that there be a more unified process with various groups being represented so that it would be those groups that had an interest in solar development could be represented. And so that prompted the town manager to establish a working group, a solar bylaw working group, and worked with with me specifically to develop the charge. And the charge was then shared with the planning director Chris Brestrup who also commented and added and amended the charge. So I'm going to very quickly read the charge which isn't very long I'm not reading the entire thing just kind of the crux of the charge. The charge of the solar bylaw working group is to develop a solar zoning bylaw and establish a clear process and guidelines to support the permitting, the citing and construction of solar projects including battery storage in a way that protects the health, safety and welfare of community members, the environment and natural resources to develop the solar zoning bylaw the solar bylaw working group. We'll engage the community to ascertain community values, identify criteria and standards to be used in reviewing and permitting proposed, proposed solar installations including battery storage and identify and prioritize locations for possible solar development including large scale ground mount rooftop and parking lot Cannabis. The solar bylaw working group that convened consisted of seven members representing the planning board energy and climate action committee, conservation commission water supply protection committee and three unaffiliated community members that had relevant knowledge and or expertise. The solar bylaw working group met from June 22 until November 23. Additionally, their charge was to disassemble by May 31 of 23, but they required extensions and were granted extensions to continue the work. The town and guy engaged GZA G environment geo environmental Inc. to conduct the community wide solar assessment various outreach efforts included dissemination of a survey both online and in person. The sessions were held at the Jones library with interpreters childcare and snacks. The survey of community members yielded over roughly 500 responses. And we want to acknowledge that while this was a healthy response rate, it did lack diversity in terms of the respondents. The reports that were provided as required by the charge were the time, townwide solar assessment report. As well as a mapping tool. It's an interactive mapping tool that was developed that shows the feasible location for solar development in town doesn't say exactly where it can go. It just shows the feasibility of solar development. Both these tools can be accessed on the town's sustainability dashboard under reports. And then also the 3rd and final requirement of the charge was to develop the draft solar bylaw. And with that, which came out in December 23. I will turn that over to Christine Brestrup and she can continue with the process. Hello everyone. I'm Chris Brestrup planning director. And I'd like to talk to you about how the solar bylaw was drafted. The solar bylaw working group met week by weekly, but for about 18 months. And we began by reviewing solar bylaws that were developed by mass DOER, which is department of energy resources. By the Cape Cod commission and by the Pioneer Valley planning commission. We also reviewed about 12 to 14 solar bylaws from other cities and towns to get a sense of what other communities were regulating and how they were organizing their bylaws. We were also mindful of the Massachusetts general laws chapter 48 section 3, which states that no zoning ordinance or bylaw shall prohibit or unreasonably regulate the installation of solar energy systems or the building of structures that facilitate the collection of solar energy, except where necessary to protect the public health safety or welfare. This section of the mass general laws is similar to the protections given to religious and educational institutions. So one of the first things that our group did was to draft a list of topics that we thought should be contained in the solar bylaw. In general, we focused on large scale ground mounted solar installations, as opposed to smaller ground mounted installations or solar on rooftops or on parking lot canopy so we did not focus on those. The large scale ground mounted installations are considered to be no less than one acre and to have a rated name plate capacity of 250 kilowatts DC or more. During our drafting, we consultant an attorney at KP law, which is the town's legal counsel to determine the types of things that a solar bylaw can regulate and the things that we should refrain from regulating. And the attorney was guided by recent case law. Among other topics, the solar bylaw working group spent a lot of time thinking about and discussing two relatively controversial topics. The first one was how to regulate large scale solar installations proposed on farmland. And the second was how to regulate large scale solar installations in forested areas. We consulted experts on the topics of agriculture, agriboltaics, forestry and water quality. We drafted the bylaw section by section and reviewed sections in an iterative process where we reviewed a new section at a meeting and then went back and confirmed the review of a previous section. We heard comments from many members of the public. Among these were Scott Cashion, an expert on the impact of solar installations on the environment. He had recently moved to Amherst from California and he had worked on a lot of large scale solar projects out in California. We also heard a lot from the residents of Shootsbury Road, who did a fair amount of research themselves and they sent us the research that they found. They are in the neighborhood that Stephanie mentioned earlier where there is a large scale solar installation that is proposed and that is still being considered by the Zoning Board of Appeals and also the Conservation Commission. In addition to these people, we heard comments from a resident of South Amherst, Steve Roof, who's a professor at Hampshire College. And he helps to manage the solar installation at Hampshire College and he's a member of the Energy and Climate Action Committee. So we heard from a wide range of individuals. A lot of the comments that we heard and received were incorporated into the draft bylaw. The draft that we presented to Town Council and that you're beginning to work on was really developed by the solar bylaw working group and the experts that they consulted, but it was not reviewed by the Building Commissioner, the Administrator, who also advises the Conservation Commission, the Fire Department, the Sustainability Director, even though Stephanie was part of all of our meetings, she didn't really, you know, there wasn't an opportunity for her to offer comments on this bylaw. So we think that we need to get comments from Stephanie and also the town attorney from KP Law. So KP Law provided advice and answers to specific questions during our process, but they haven't had an opportunity to review the entire bylaw and make recommendations. So we recommend that review of the draft and comments by all of these entities, as well as by the Planning Board, the Energy and Climate Action Committee and KP Law be incorporated along the way. So that when we bring the bylaw back to Town Council, it has the benefit of the review and comments from all of these entities. And we look forward to working with you on this important project. Thank you. We look forward to working with you on this important project. Appreciate your expertise in it, having worked on it for 18 months or so will be really beneficial. Does anyone in the committee have specific questions before we talk about perhaps rolling this out and our strategy for accomplishing it? I have a question. Oh, Andy, go ahead. I guess I don't have a question per se. I have a lot of concerns as it relates to, and this I hope the council will talk about more tomorrow's retreat. But my concerns are based on how much time. I'm not just reviewing this, but frankly rewriting a lot of it might take, given all of the recent Attorney General's minutes pull law unit opinions that have come out and the need for what I see a KP law extensive review. In reading this. I'm not sure if I was a ZBA member how I would go about making a determination on it. I think there's things that conflict in it. So I think it needs a whole lot of work. And I'm concerned about the amount of time that will take and whether the council in particular and this is where it goes to tomorrow's conversation and may go to tomorrow's conversation. Where the department should be spending or where we want the department to be spending its time, given that I know this is listed as one of the goals in the manager's goals, but so is a lot of zoning for housing and stuff like that. So I guess I'm, I guess one of the questions I have is how much time does the department think it will take to get this bylaw into anything that could be reasonably enforced, because like I said, I'm, I'm not sure it. There's, I think that I don't know how I would actually make a determination if a project was proposed under this bylaw as to whether it complies with the bylaw or not and so how long does it think. How much, how much work does the department believe is needed on this bylaw before we could even bring it to hearing. So by the department I assume you're meaning that conservation and development department. Yeah. So, I guess I would like to say that we already have a good process for reviewing solar installations. We've reviewed about five of them. And I think four of them have been built. And there's still one under construction. I feel like the zoning board of appeals, you know, does a pretty good job with this right now. They have said through their chairperson Steve judge that they would like to have some guidance. And that's what this bylaw could offer them. But they have pretty stringent submittal requirements and they have a really good set of rules and regulations and they work alongside the conservation commission. And in fact, on this certain project that is still before both groups, they're, you know, kind of going in tandem, working on this project. I think that's a roundabout way of saying I feel like we're sort of okay as we are. And that this bylaw is going to add value, I think, in certain places where things might not be as clear, but the zoning board of appeals, you know, does many of the things that are talked about in the bylaw and puts conditions on installations that reflect a lot of this material. So I don't personally, I mean, I think that the bylaw is too long. It's got too much in it too many requirements for submittal that are all already duplicated in the zoning board of appeals and planning board rules and regulations. So some of that could be cut out. I think it certainly could be shortened and made more succinct. But I think in the end it's going to be useful. How long will it take? Gee, we thought it was going to take, I don't know, Stephanie and I thought it was going to take nine months to a year to get the solar by the working group on the same page. So it took 18 months. So I really can't predict how long it's going to take and it sort of depends on the differences of opinion that people have. And that was one of the things that kind of drove the discussion with the solar by the working group. There were some people who felt very protective of the environment and really, you know, wanted to be very limiting on where solar installations could go. There were other people who felt very clearly that we need more solar installations. We can't worry too much about where they're going to go and we just need to promote them. So there was constant tension and discussion among those groups. And I think that kind of prolonged the discussion. So I think if this group reflects that type of tension, it could take a long time. If this group is more unified in its goals or its concerns, it probably won't take so long. So I guess that's kind of a roundabout way of saying it depends. Thank you. Stephanie Ciccarolo. Thank you. I would also add that one of the things that prolonged our process was also the desire to have expert testimony around certain aspects of the development of the bylaw. And so that added quite a bit of time. And I will say, I know that's come up. I do want to mention that those are recorded. Those sessions are recorded. And you do have a summary document that was submitted to the town manager from the chair Chris Breschrup and myself that actually has the names and the dates of when they provided expert testimony. And so you could, any of the members could refer to that if you so desired in this process, rather than having to call people back in. I think there's a lot of information provided there that could save time. Also, I want to reiterate something that Chris said in terms of the length of this document. It reads more like regulations, rather than a bylaw. And I think that's, you know, something that needs to be addressed. And it might be a sort of lack of understanding the language of bylaws, but I think it could be thinned, you know, to be more sort of general and referencing rather than very, very, very specific as it is in several places. So, and I think some of that came from recommendations from outside the group as well. And those probably could be edited in quite extensively. Thank you. Dave, you have your hand up to. Yeah, thanks, Pam. Thank you for echoing everything that Christine and Stephanie said, I just wanted to add something to the response. Mandy, I think, I think you bring up some very important points, you know, what, how much staff time is this going to take how much time does the CRC and the council want to spend on this. I just wanted to reference, there was mention of tomorrow night tomorrow night for those folks who don't know in the audience is a council retreat talking about the town managers goals and one of the goals has to do many of the goals have to do with sustainability, and solar bylaw is referenced in those goals so Paul and I have had a couple of conversations about this. Clearly, you know, Christine mentioned the confidence we have in our current process with the ZBA with the concom. But at the same time, you know, many, many people spent 18 months working on this. I think Christine and Stephanie and conversations we've had clearly pointed out to me that they know when this was presented to the council, it needed a lot more work and and I liked what Stephanie just said that it, it reads a little more like regulation than bylaw so I think it's a good conversation to have with the full council what does. What level of priority does the full council put on this work, and then Paul can also through staff the three of us really meet the council at some point and say, okay, what level of priority do we put on this clearly does many, many months of work ahead of us if we want to perfect this, this bylaw so if we're going to do it we need to roll up our sleeves and, and do it, but there are many other priorities as, as counselor Hanna key pointed out. Thank you. I wanted to address a different issue so if Jennifer is still talking about time and things like that I'd rather have you go first. Yeah I just wanted to ask I mean, would it change how we do our work if we were to separate the bylaw from regulations. I mean a bit like we did with the nuisance. I'm not the nuisance the rental property bylaw. So that's just a question I mean this. Could this document be separated out because we have a bylaw and then pull out what would be regulations. Does that make sense or is that a question for me. In any one of you. Yes, anyone. I think that this the planning board rules and regulations and the zoning bylaw rules and regulations already have a lot of requirements in them for submittals and different things and. So some of that could be put in regulations. What that would mean is that the planning board and the zoning board of appeals would have to hold their own public hearings. They would have to revise their regulations, but they could certainly do that. So that that is certainly a way of making this bylaw less lengthy. Thank you. I was going to can I follow up on that. So was there discussion within the working group of creating regulations at all. There was not no. We're so caught up with the topics that I mentioned the farmland and forest protection that, you know, that was the really the focus of most of what they talked about. And so, you know, I feel like. Well, I'll stop there. Go ahead, go ahead. I have a couple questions, but they have to do with the content. Okay, well, yeah, this one I'm, you say that the emphasis was on large scale ground mounted solar installations as the groups worked on this. And from what I understand there was also disagreements around forest protection. And some of the criticisms was since we cut land down, we cut forests down to build housing and things like that. Why can't we cut down forests for solar. And so and I from looking at the decarbonization roadmap and things like that, which talks about protecting the natural working land. And, and possible risk changes in zoning around how building housing and stuffing building debt more densely redevelopment of already cleared land and said, I'm curious about why there isn't real work around the forests and and finding some kind of balance between the need for ground mounted solar and the need to protect forests which according to the carbonization roadmap and almost everything we've looked at is is critical to our environment. So, I'd love it if I could get some understanding about why that's been overlooked in many ways. I don't think it was really overlooked. It was, we actually came up with language that would have required mitigation. So if you cut, you know, 10 acres of forest, then you have to mitigate by preserving X amount of forest somewhere else either on the same site or on land owned by the owner or, you know, in another town is adjacent and that idea was discussed for a long time. It was sort of a slightly toned down version of what shoots berry and Pelham had. They had a four to one mitigation. I think we ended up with a two to one mitigation. But in the end, there was a vote taken among the members of the solar bottle working group and they decided that they didn't want to do that they thought it was too limiting for solar projects and they also use the argument that you just referred to Pat, which is that, you know, we cut trees to build houses. You know, how can we say we can't cut trees to build solar so it was a vote that was taken by the solar by the working group. You all are working on this bylaw, if that's something you want to put back into it, you can do that. So, you know, you're creating the bylaw that's actually going to go to town council so it kind of up to you to what you want to put in this draft kind of gives you a framework for things that you might want to have in it. But you don't have to stick exactly to the draft. I also had a couple, just a couple questions. You mentioned the GZ someone mentioned the GZA survey and the 500 responses I and I wonder if you can point us to where that is actually available to look at. The second item that someone mentioned was the interactive mapping tool, which I haven't talked into yet, which would be, oh, you said it's under the sustainability website under report. The sustainability dashboard. So both those items are included in the dashboard. I believe the GZA solar assessment is under reports. And I think the mapping tool may be there as well. If you scroll, it's basically just a list of reports with links. And if you scroll down, I believe the mapping tool is there. It may be under renewable energy, but I'm pretty sure that it's under the reports like we tried to keep that all in one place. Okay, that included the responses from the public survey that was done as well. The assessment report includes the results of the survey responses. That's basically what the report is, is an assessment of the, well, a summary of the assessment that was disseminated throughout the community. Yeah, I just like to make an observation. And the observation is that. And I don't think we should talk about, you know, one particular project, because that project is in a public hearing, but I wanted to make the observation that people are not chomping at the bit or breaking down our doors to come in and build large scale solar installations in Amherst. The one that we have right now was first proposed in, I think, 2021. And here it is 2024 and it's still going through its process. So this process, the process of reviewing these things is very labor intensive and lengthy. That may be a reason why people aren't, you know, flocking to Amherst to do these things. They seem to be flocking to Hadley and other places that have more open land. So I just wanted to know that I don't feel like we're under siege. So we shouldn't feel like we're under siege about this topic. And I forget the other thing I was going to say, but just, you know, consider that. Thank you. Yeah, Jennifer. Yeah, so I guess picking up on Chris just said, and in terms of the amount of time we as a committee, maybe staff, when we're going to be discussing priorities tomorrow. So we do have to complete this bylaw. Correct. I mean, so. So how do we, I mean, we have to come, and it's going to, so I, I guess, you know, we can talk about how we want to organize it. And I know Pam's given it a lot of thought, whether it's going through the bylaw section by section or it's doing it topically, but we, we do have to get bring this bylaw back to the council. I guess they'll refer it to the planning board and the conservation commission, then it'll come back to the council but it's here and we have to. Right, we don't, we can't say, well it's going to take up too much time. So we can't do it this year. And I would say that's certainly something we should discuss tomorrow in terms of what priorities are. I'm not sure my answer to Jennifer's question would be, yes, we have to do it. Given that the ZBA seems to be reviewing these projects pretty well right now. But I wanted to ask a couple other, which is why I said, we might have a lot of this discussion tomorrow about where does the council want the manager to focus the council's off times on council priorities which ones are higher priority than others, right, especially since so many of them fall to our planning department. Did my question for Christine and Stephanie. Did the bylaw that did the working group look at and review other bylaws from the state. In particular and I have not actually looked at Douglas's bylaw, but in reading about 20 municipal law unit decisions about bylaws. It was one of the bylaws that was proposed in full and adopted in full at a town meeting that was that the attorney general said except for one small issue in the bylaw it could not it approved the whole thing with some caution that that caution was cautionary basically for every single municipal law unit decision out there in the last two years of if this bylaw ends up resulting in, you know, what did they tend to use. If the bylaw provisions are used to deny solar projects or otherwise applied in ways that make it impractical or uneconomical to build solar energy systems and related structures, such as structures that facilitate the collection of solar energy such that the application would run a serious risk of violating 40 a section three, but that that Douglas is on its face. And that's all the AG's office was looking at found that it appeared to promote the use of solar energy systems so I guess one of my questions is, did the solar bylaw working group look at other towns bylaws. What of that language was incorporated into what we're looking at now or did we were we just drafting new language completely, and also did the solar bylaw working group actually look at the municipal law unit decisions that are published. I know some of them came out, especially shoots very impelled them after we had the bylaw in hand. But there were a whole lot that were out before that so were those looked at and were was all of that concern from the AG considered or anything that they, the AG sort of past muster on put into what we're looking at now. So we, we as staff looked at many bylaws that have been, you know, accepted. Amherst is a city so it does not have to present its bylaws to the AG's office and if it were challenged it would be more likely to be challenged in the court. I think we have a pretty good idea of what can and can't be regulated. We did speak with Attorney Jonathan Murray twice during our process and we got advice from him about, you know what we could and couldn't put in and he kind of steered us away from the idea of having this very large mitigation that I've talked about earlier where, you know, there was a four to one mitigation if you cut forest. So he steered us away from that and I think that, you know, many members of the group heard what he had to say. So I think we were pretty careful and I, I do not see anything in our bylaw that would prevent solar installations from being approved. But again, it hasn't been reviewed by KP law in its entirety. And it was never approved. It was not reviewed by KP law because it wasn't really finished until the end of October or maybe it was November 9 of 2023. So, yes, I understand the concerns that you have Mandy. I don't see anything in our bylaw that would really, you know, keep it from being a reasonable bylaw. Pat, you've got your hand up. Thank you. And like Jennifer, I feel very strongly that this needs to be worked on and be brought before the council, particularly because we're being told, oh, well, we have good guidelines and ZBA is doing a good job. And I remember back just a year or so ago when the ZBA was crying for a solar bylaw and felt that they did not have all of the information that they needed. And I want to give an example of a reason why we need to do this work, not just for the ZBA but for the town's health and safety. Hickory Ridge, we know there is a solar installation going in there. And it consistently in the last few years has been flooding dramatically, making access almost impossible. And there's talk about battery storage being there. And battery storage comes with complications and there can be fires and things like that caused by batteries, just sort of spontaneously igniting, often in connection to water infiltrating the battery storage system. So if we have such wonderful guidelines, how come we have a site that is consistently flooding and poses, I think, a real danger to the community? So I feel very strongly that we need to be working on this bylaw. You've got your hand up. You might want to respond to the Hickory Ridge comment. I may not. You know, Pat put that out there. I'm happy to have it just be out there. I think she raised some important points. I was going to speak more to and she referenced something that I think is important for the CRC and everyone to recognize too is that the, you know, battery storage definitely does add a level of complexity to all of these projects. So our early projects in town were exclusively just solar panels. And so what we're seeing now, I think we've seen a 100% solar battery storage facility permitted out on Sunderland Road. And I think the boards and committees did a very nice job with that. And then what we're also seeing, so what we're told by the industry is we'll, we probably won't see any projects that are simply solar panels, they'll all come with battery storage and that has many benefits for us as consumers of electricity. And what we're also seeing is some of those projects come back through the process and saying, we'd like to add battery storage so I just want to put it put it out there that, you know, a good point was raised that, you know, the kinds of projects we're seeing are more more complex than they were a year ago, three years ago, five years ago, or more. I did also want to just put out and I did meet with the solar bylaw working group to talk a little bit about forest protection and, and firm land protection and we'll get into this later but I did want to just kind of put out there for consumption that is something to think, you know, there's often comments, some of them positive some of them negative about how much land Amherst has protected permanently protected, you know, through through various means. But in fact, you know, if we look at we have thousands of acres of protected conservation land, thousands of acres of protected farmland, many of which are forested, and then we have hundreds of acres of water supply protection land. And those acres are growing trees. And we do not know cutting but virtually no forest management on the town lands we are letting trees grow so we'll get more into that as as we go but I just wanted to. It's important to think about that as we think about carbon sequestration what is the town doing to sequester carbon on our public land, we're doing a lot we're letting trees grow we're really not doing much active forest land. Or excuse me, for us cutting harvesting. So we'll get more into that later. But I do think some of the issues around complexity of battery battery storage, you know, need to be considered as we, as we, as the Council thinks about what level of priority this is. Thank you. I had a question wondering if there was discussion at least within the working group of separating out the, the battery storage as a by live for this mentioned a couple of times regulations and or a separate bylaw. There's very much discussion about that and, and I realized that within what was provided us as a draft there's very little, there's very little on battery storage. What was the conversation within the working group on that. Yes, at first, we thought we would incorporate battery storage into our solar bylaw and we did to some degree. But later on, it became clear to me that we probably really needed a separate battery storage bylaw. So I did draft one but the solar bylaw working group was not in business long enough to review the battery storage bylaw. But if you would like to have that I can send it to Pam and she can distribute it to you if you're interested in that. I think that would I think that would affect how we craft the rest of it if we have a separate bylaw for battery storage. There are some references to battery storage in the bylaw that's been drafted but it's not as full as it would have been if we had had this separate bylaw. So, looking forward, I'm hearing that there might be some concern that this not be a priority for both CRC and for town staff to spend a lot of time and energy on. But in fact, we do have it on our plate. There was a moratorium of X number of hundreds of people who signed saying that we either needed a moratorium or a for a bylaw to to sort of set the guidelines and and and and side side guards or whatever you call them. For Amherst going forward as we come around in the discussion and we decide that it is a priority that it is something that we want to work for I would like to have in mind how we might approach organizing it. And I think in the in the email that I sent to Christine, I had, I had simply taken each of the sections that was listed in the draft bylaw. And from my own perspective and from from conversations had identified the different departments and or committees and boards that might have had either experience with or some information on the different topics like the submittal requirements that was listed. And mentioned as being fairly redundant with what ZBA and and and or planning board already adhere to and and or design standards again, what what is already on the books and what can be paired off or kept or enhanced. There were some pretty, pretty important sections in my in my mind which is section 1711 protection of drinking water supplies I know a lot of the folks that are on the northeast side of the town. It's a small percentage of the population here, but they, they are on town well are there on private wells and and do back up against areas that are potentially available for for solar production. And what are the, what are the setbacks, what are the drinking standards and how do we, how do we manage for that. So there are there are a number of groups that that could stand some staff input. And there are also some topics that certainly require and and ought to have input from different committees in town with a vested interest. Chris, do you we Chris Christine and I did talk through what a logical timeframe might be if we pursue that route. And I think it's worth talking about. We may have to adjust things if somehow the council itself doesn't feel that it's a high priority. But we had, we had looked at reaching out to the boards and committees in town, via their staff liaisons. And Stephanie was there of course and Jennifer was also there and David was also there just to talk through the impacts to staff that we that we looked at reaching out to the different committees, different boards, and asking for feedback. Within a couple of months, toward the end of May, to try to get feedback from these different entities. At that point, the CRC would have a tremendous amount of information to to work through, it would have not only the draft by law that we have today, it would also have, and has already all of the resources that have been provided for reading for, you know, consideration. And we would then have input from the staff and committees to complete that that input. We could really max out on input is what I'm trying to say. I think we need to know the outcome or an idea of tomorrow's discussion potentially of priorities. But if that outcome keeps solar at a higher priority than the department drafting housing measures, or any other measures that might take department time or if that outcome of that discussion results in the department being able to put both on the burner, as it were and work on both or three or four things at a time I just don't know what the department's capacity is. I, while I don't object to the outline that was just outlined or the plan that was just outlined. We just heard both Christine and Stephanie say that they think this could be shorter. They think this is much more written as regulations and not a bylaw. And I would rather see us get a new draft of something that is closer to a bylaw before we start farming out this draft or a draft to other committees for comment. We don't have a desire to utilize committee time on something that might look hugely different when we get rid of all of the regulations that are in a bylaw or when, when we potentially end up with a draft that looks more and is more like a bylaw than it is now. I'd like to see a draft. This was extremely hard to read and part of why it was hard to read and understand is because there are certain parts of it, where the requirements are listed like in four different locations and I'm not sure which ones apply. And I'd like to see it consolidated, you know, there are setback requirements in special requirements for ecosystem protection under forest lands there are setback requirements. Under water supply protection there are setback requirements under the dimensional regulation section there are setback requirements and like five different on on so many different pages of this there are vegetation requirements on so many different pages that I don't know whether they're duplicative, whether one goes over the other and I would love to see a bylaw. Before we really start talking and getting into the weeds of a bylaw if we are going to get into the weeds, where we're not paging back and forth amongst 21 pages to find all of the different say setback requirements, where all of the setbacks are in the same section. Where all of the vegetation requirements are in the same section where all of the application requirements if we're going to keep them in a bylaw and not put them in regulations, or if it's recommended to be in a bylaw, although I heard Christine say that. It's part of something that the planning board or ZBA would put in regulations if they're going to stay here, where all of them are in the same section, because right now they're not where all of the reporting requirements are in the same section, along with what they need to include because there were like seven different reporting requirements throughout this bylaw on seven different things, but on seven different pages in seven different sections that I couldn't even follow it. Did you have to report the same thing in three different reports on a yearly basis or a bi-annually, like there's just a lot there that I think is duplicative and hard to manage that I'd prefer before we start asking for feedback from all of these different entities, which is important if we're going to go forward with this, that we have something that looks like or is closer to something that could reasonably have feedback in a meaningful manner versus you know I've got a marked up copy that's like all about well didn't you just discuss this three pages before which one actually applies and how do they interact with each other I'd rather and I'm not sure how we could say discuss dimensional setbacks ourselves or that that section within one section when they're in six different sections, for example, although I'm slightly confused as to where they are but like how do we even have that discussion when they are amongst seven, you know, three or four different parts of it. So I'd like to see something much more consolidated before we really start getting into the weeds. Thank you Jennifer. I was just kind of thinking out loud but I mean would it, and I don't know if we can have a subcommittee, but I mean to look I mean would it make sense and I guess I'm really asking staff, this to try and take this and pull out what would be the regulations, like it sounds like to have, if we're going to, if this might work, have a solar bylaw have regulations and then have a battery storage bylaw. If that, I mean, could a, I don't know if we can have a subcommittee of two I mean does it make sense maybe working with with one staff to look and I don't know how, you know, could we just kind of pull out what would be the regs and what would be the bylaw and come back to the group and start looking at it that way if that would be easier to kind of wrap our hands around. I'm going to look at Christine Breastrop so much of that would come to her desk. I think it would be relatively easy to pull out things that are regulatory. But that's not the only thing that makes this really long. Another aspect that makes it really long is that people who are in the solar bylaw working group felt very strongly that they needed to come up with kind of an example for the bylaw from challenges. And if we said anything about certain, you know, ways that solar could occur on farmland or forest we needed to have fairly lengthy strong statements about why we value farmland and forest and why we want to protect it so a lot of the beginning of this bylaw is, you know, that type of material it's like a defensive language in case someone were to come along and say well, you know, you can't regulate solar on farmland. Well, already in the front we've put it in all these reasons why we value farmland. And so that is supposed to be protective of our regulations. So, yes, there are a lot of things in here that are regulatory but there is also a lot of defensive language to keep this bylaw from being subject to being overturned or thrown out as a result of being too strict. So, that's just one thing. Thank you. I'll go to Dave and then Stephanie. Very briefly, I just wanted to echo Mandy's concern I really, I agree that I am concerned that putting out something at 20 plus pages that this group already is seeing needs some work. I guess I'm just questioning the wisdom, our collective wisdom of putting it out there to the concom water supply protection Board of Health planning board etc. So, you know, the feedback when it, you know, when in all likelihood they're going to see many of the same things that concern us at this stage so I from an, I'm not trying to slow anything down but I actually think it would be more efficient if the CRC and the staff worked this in committee right here for a while and as we said, got it down to the bylaw components separating out the regulatory components before we, you know, it's like having a draft and sending it out to a whole group of people and kind of writing by committee it just worries me that we're going to send this out, and it's not ready yet and so we're, they're going to those boards and committees are going to spin their wheels a little bit. We're going to get feedback that maybe we already know we need to work on so I would rather see this group the committee with staff support work it before it goes out so I'm just agreeing with Mandy about her concerns. Thank you. Thank you. Two points I wanted to make one is that all of that language at the beginning was somewhat under the guidance of Jonathan Murray from KP law that in part because if the language was written to restrictively. It was something to reference to identify a community value and again this is where the community values piece came in was to identify that in the beginning so I just wanted to frame where that came from and why that's there. So I just wanted to say that. And then also, I do agree that, and I felt as we were working on this that it was feeling more like regulations than a bylaw. So, it would make it, I agree with everything that Dave just said and what Mandy Joe said that it would be so much easier for staff to work on something that was actually a bylaw. And not this kind of mix of bylaw with regulations. I think that would just make a lot more sense because otherwise, I feel that there'd be a lot of redlining and people pulling them out and saying the same things that we're saying. So, I was going to ask, I was going to ask if staff, and I've heard, I've heard now a couple of people say that maybe the CRC should work on this, pare it down and send it back to the staff for working on. I was going to actually switch that around and ask if staff was interested and and had time to actually do that since you are the ones with the expertise in many of the topics and categories that we're talking about. I do, I do understand completely the concern about sending something out that's that's bulky and not not pared down. I mean, it's been packed with as much stuff as was assembled by the working group, things that may or may not actually end up in an actual bylaw. And I, and I totally get that you don't necessarily want to send that off to concom or planning board in this shape. On the other hand, it feels important to get some input from these groups. So that we have knowledge of what to what to keep in the packing and what and what to unpack and to start. Just quickly, though, the other thing I was thinking about the, the, the topic such as community values. It's, it's interesting to me that that it was felt that it would be useful in an actual bylaw. I don't know that I've ever seen bylaws with that kind of language in it that it's the kind of thing that I guess I would feel would go in a report, even though once something submitted and approved. It's like you never you never marry those two things back up again you never marry the report with the with bylaw but but I but I think it seems that that's kind of where you would handle that sort of material. Thank you. I think there's a lot of good stuff in here in this bylaw this mesh of bylaw and regulation. And like you Pam I'd like to see it echo or do in a sense duplicate what we've done for rental was registration where there's the bylaw, and there are the I don't think we should just pull the regs out and not deal with them. And I like Jennifer's idea of a subcommittee of this committee. Meeting to work on this somewhat and and whether or not we could have that subcommittee of two people work with one of the staff to do this in some way so it doesn't take everybody all of the time. I'm going to remind us as a CRC that if we formally create a subcommittee, or any type of informal committee where we're saying, assigning people to go work on something and work together. It is a public body that must notice public meetings and meet in public. And if there are only two, those individuals can never talk on their own together about the bylaw, not in a public meeting. So I think the most efficient would be and again this is why I caution I'd like to wait until for for assigning anything or saying anything formally until after tomorrow when we get a better idea of where the whole council is on priorities for the manager and staff time, but that it would be staff, it would be most efficient for staff to bring drafts back to CRC for discussion. The other thing I wanted to say about regulations I think Christine hinted on that. Unlike rental registration that is in a general bylaw that we were creating and assigning who gets to do regulations for zoning bylaws have already assigned who does regulations to implement zoning bylaws and it is not the council. It is each individual body, the ZBA and the planning board and so I would be very cautious and hesitant as a counselor to be drafting regulations that the council does not have any right to pass. That does not mean we could urge each board to adopt appropriate regulations to implement any solar bylaw we might adopt. But I would be hesitant to as a council spend as a committee of the council spend a lot of time on the regulations when the council has no authority to adopt those regulations. And I guess I withdraw my suggestion to separate out the bylaw then they I mean the regulations have to stay in the bylaw because that's the only way we can pass them. So there goes that would save me a lot of save us a lot of time. But we can consolidate them etc. Yeah. So, on that note though, Mandy, if, if, if regulations were, were built to doesn't mean that the council necessarily has to adopt them, obviously. So, it would be something that could be offered up to the entity that would be enforcing it ZBA and let them mull it over and adopted themselves. I think it would be presumptuous of us to create regulations and hand that to a body that has already adopted regulations for their governing without asking them first, whether they would like us to do so. Because maybe they want to do it on their own. Right, maybe they would take our help but I would be hesitant as a committee member to do anything like that before asking that body if they wanted us to do that. And you still need the solar bylaw first. So if we're going to do this. The time our time should be spent on the bylaw, not on the regulations and I would fight a lot back and say it's inappropriate to put regulations in a bylaw. And so for my own edification, I probably need to read through and become clear on what is a regular, you know what in this substantively as a regulation versus the bylaw because it sounds like we want to have, we would want to have as much in here as we think is important. Because we, you know, we can't assume that, oh, this is, you know, let's leave out these regulations now because the permit granting authority may or may not want to adopt those regulations. So we better have in our bylaw everything we think needs to be there. I would like to have an opportunity to meet with one member of this group to get a sense of what might be considered regulations versus bylaw. And I would invite Mandy to meet with me to talk about that if that would be appropriate for the rest of you, if you would agree to that. Mandy, are you willing, knowing that it's a high priority. I wouldn't agree with the high priority until tomorrow when we see what the whole 13 counselors say, but no, I think Christine knows that I am always willing to meet with the planning department about zoning. And this is a zoning bylaw, whether or not on whatever part of zoning that that if if if Christine or anyone in the department reaches out and asks to meet to discuss, I'm always willing to do so. Thank you. Maybe I'd just say something. I think that the way, you know, there's kind of like an invisible wall between staff and council members. So I think that having an agreement from this committee that Mandy could meet with me would go a long way to kind of piercing that wall, rather than having me just call Mandy up one day and say hey Mandy you want to come over and meet about this bylaw. So Mandy I know wants to hear from the retreat, but the results of that are about the priorities. But then I think, you know, she's got a really good sense of the difference between a bylaw and a regulation and could help us to sort through that, and, you know, help to pair this thing down. So with your blessing, after tomorrow night, if this is still a priority, I would be, I would be happy to meet with Mandy to do that. But it would, I feel like it would need to have the blessing of this group. And let's take a straw poll. How many people support Mandy. Hold on. I just want to, I don't know whether Dave was going to say the same thing I worry about a formal blessing creates a subcommittee. Just one. I don't know. And we don't have Athena here to help us with that that that's why I worded my response how I worded it, because I'm, I don't want this committee to accidentally create a subcommittee that puts us in violation of open meeting law. I'm going to take a hand vote. No wait, Dave is trying to raise his hand. Dave you're muted. Yeah, I guess I'm just wondering. This is not a long term assignment. This is really kind of one meeting so I guess the formality of this it seems just too formal to me I don't think we, I would recommend you don't need a vote or anything to really say, this is one meeting because we were Chris and Mandy to spend an hour together and tease apart, you know, the 20 some odd pages and really kind of start to get some categories of what falls in bylaw what, what falls maybe in regulation and then are there areas of questions so I'm just cautioning to say let's not make it too formal that wasn't the reason I was raising my hand but I'll turn it back over to you Pam if you could recognize me in a moment. So again, I was good. This was sort of a tongue-in-cheek, you know, a show of hand saying, we all support this happening that gives Chris some cover. So if someone scolds her for, for going directly and talking to counselors, we encouraged it at her request to speed up the process and make it more efficient. We gave her our blessing. So I think I think you've been blessed, David, your, your hand is up. A couple of things I just wanted to add notwithstanding the discussion tomorrow night and I actually, I think tomorrow night at the retreat is important, but I think there's going to be a lot of discussions like this, among and between the council members and the manager as to how many things, you know, we would like as a community to get moving accomplished, completed by the end of this year because it's really focused on the manager's goals between now and 1231-24, which isn't very long from now. But notwithstanding that conversation, two things I wanted to say. I think there's also a discussion to be had among this group. What are CRCs priorities? You will see on the town manager's list other things that you all, other things that will likely come to you and through you. Zoning related to higher density and village centers of, you know, perhaps an on East Village Center or University Drive as the planning board is talking about. So I think that's part of the equation. It's not just what does town staff have the bandwidth for, but it's also what you all have the bandwidth for. The other thing I think just to add to the equation tomorrow night is I think there are ways to work on things at a pace. So we might pace ourselves differently for one zoning process versus another, and that's where the prioritization. So for instance, you know, I would look at these and say, well, I know things we're going to talk about tomorrow night. One is the solar bylaw zoning. The other is, just as I mentioned, density, say an overlay district on University Drive that the planning board has been talking about. I see both of those as important for the town to work on, but maybe our pacing is different with one than the other and we're working on them simultaneously. It may not be every two weeks that you meet with Stephanie and Chris or Rob and Nate Malloy or however this shakes out. So I would just ask you to think about that pacing for staff, but also for yourselves. I think that's one of the two things I wanted to just put out there. I don't think these things have to be mutual excuse exclusive we may say some of this, you know, clearly might not get done in 2024 it's going to bleed into 25 in some way shape or form. Appreciate that. Any other comments. So we have a we have a very tentative and very limited scope. Looking forward here. What we have agreed so far is simply that there would at least be a discussion to to identify those pieces that might be regulation versus bylaw. There is a great deal of information in our packet that has been provided. At some point as we go forward. I think it would be then important to the pretty pretty substantial pretty substantial input from certainly town staff and I'm thinking specifically planning sustainability fire. And I think that's one of the things that I want to make sure that we have a clear consensus that that's the route that we should take right now. Any other thoughts on structuring without I'll come to Chris in a second without dropping this and and letting it lag for too long. I just wanted to suggest that you also when you get back together again to talk about the solar bylaw that you have a conversation about your priorities as far as encouraging solar installations. In support of action against climate change versus your position on protecting the environment and I think you know it's not either or but it's very hard to have a discussion. When you know some people in the group are very adamantly in support of the more solar the better put it wherever it can go. You know this is really important versus. We don't want to cut forest or farms or put it anywhere except in a you know in a former gravel pit or someplace so I think you should have that discussion about you know what are your values as far as these things go because it will influence the outcome of this. You know, is are you trying to regulate and limit solar power, like some cities and towns do, or are you trying to encourage it as a countermeasure to climate change. Thank you. Good food for thought. Pat, you have your hand up. Thank you. I want to encourage solar. Not about ending solar early. I am concerned that we that a lot and not enough attention has been spent by this group, not not CRC but the solar bylaw working group on other alternatives to putting it in forest, etc. So if you look at any of the state mandates if you look at the decarbonization roadmap they talk about the importance of sequestration. So, and I'm not even saying we shouldn't put some in some in forest so don't hear that people like to hear that but what I am saying is that we as this group and this bylaw should also be addressing issues about where where we can additionally put solar installation and how we would fund that how we can make it accessible to as many people in town as possible. And really begin to look at zoning even though the planning board doesn't like anybody except themselves to deal with zoning. We really need to look at density and how you know clustering development and stuff like that and some of that has been looked at, but we really need to look at how we build what we do we want zone for duplexes and triplexes, which take up less land, which use less materials that are easy to do, etc, etc. And that's something that the planning board and the planning department have been incredibly resistant to, but we need so we need this is a, this is not. This is so interconnected. And I really, we really need to look at other aspects that the committee has not paid attention to, to see what kind of regulation or what we can do to support other kinds of solar development, whether or not anything that is built has to have canopies over their parking lots things like that we need to look at that too. And it's a shame that the emphasis stayed where it was in this group, as it could have been much broader and richer whining complain sorry, sorry about that but you're not complaining. Interestingly, it occurs to me that that parcels of land that are good for housing development are also good for solar development. And at that at some point we, we will end up having to choose perhaps between those, or, or, or make it true as you just said that it's layered on top of whatever gets built. If you're going to if you're going to cover the land with impervious, then add the solar to it to capture both. So, it feels like we sort of run this conversation down. And I don't like leaving at this point because I, I feel like we, I wanted to come out of this with sort of a strategy to get information flowing and moving. We will have a meeting tomorrow night. And I would plan then as far as a, as far as a next agenda preview beyond April two, which is now the ZBA interviews and deliberation. I think we need to come back with some, some consideration of how we want to move forward on this and do a lot of reading. That's your homework assignment. Jennifer. And. Councilor Hanneke and Chris breast drop will probably have had their conversation. I hope that would be great by the next meeting with some hold on the next meeting is. Well, April 9th. April night. Mandy, will you be at that meeting do you think. If not, we would put it put it to a different. Well, we wouldn't need to get until April 30. But be it would be. It'd be helpful to have feedback. I'm not sure whether I'll be at the ninth right now. Okay. Fair enough. Dave. Yes, ma'am. So yeah, I was going to suggest I mean that meeting based on Mandy schedule and Chris is they can connect. I think you and I can connect the staff liaison working with the chair. I can connect with you after tomorrow night's meeting, maybe not tomorrow night, but in the days following tomorrow. I think we can see the outcome of that discussion and then, you know, we could chart a path forward with regard to your next agenda. And we could incorporate what Chris and Mandy work on and then, you know, form an agenda, whether it be on the ninth or the meeting after that. You know, what, what is the path forward for this and how kind of aggressively or how actively the, the, the council and CRC with staff support are going to take it on. So, I think we have a little time actually after the retreat to figure that out. Yeah. And we can, we can bring, you can bring the feedback you and other counselors from the retreat to that meeting as well to share with the public. Yeah. So another, another, a future topic, another CRC future agenda item is, in fact, to bring up the housing productive production plan and to start thinking about that. And are there other tools that that we want to pursue to help some of that come to fruition. So we certainly aren't lacking for things, but, but this is clearly front and foremost at the moment. Yeah, I just wanted to say that I know that Martha Hanner would be happy to speak with people, but I think, you know, there, there were seven or eight members of that committee. And I have a feeling that they would be willing to talk with individual counselors about issue, you know, as you're reading and as things come up. It would be important and possibly to reach out to them informally as individual counselors. That's a great idea. Just to get, get your own heads organized on how they, what they were thinking as they developed it. Yeah. Good idea. I have no announcements. I have no minutes. And I have no items that were anticipated 48 hours in advance. Is there anything else anyone wants to add before we agree to adjourn Jennifer. Just to remember that we're meeting again a week from tonight. I'll send out a reminder. Athena will. Yeah. That brings up a point. Dave, do you know if, if you are available on the second to host that meeting, or is that something that maybe we, it's not going to be a public meeting. It, it's, it's, there's no, I mean, people can attend, but there's no public comment period. There's nothing that could be set up and one of us could manage and host it. Yeah, we'll, you and I should talk later this week. I did speak briefly with Athena about it. And, and I think she volunteered me. So we'll, we'll work on, we'll work on. On that for, for the, what is that? That's a Tuesday, right? Yeah. Yeah. We'll work on that. It's likely to be a good hour and a half to two. And staff set us up and then get off. I wondered, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I had one other question. I know you took public comment at the beginning. I didn't know whether based on the conversation you've had, whether you would take any more tonight or not. I'm willing. Absolutely. Folks. Is there anyone in the audience that is interested in weighing in on this subject? You have seven attendees. I'm not seeing any hands go up. I think this is just an opener for us. We will certainly have more. So I would, I would suggest if people are trying to follow this, that you look at the, the CRC agendas. And I'll try to get those agendas posted as early as I can. Hopefully a week ahead of time. So that you have a sense of what's actually on that agenda and can participate that way. Thank you. Yeah, it also seems like we need to pay attention to what's happening in the attorney general's office around this issue that it's going to be critical for our work. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. We have, and we have Mandy watching that. She's our ears on the ground. If that's the phrase. Okay, folks, I think, I think we've run it to the ground. I would like to adjourn the meeting. It is at 802. Thank you. And thank you so much. Oh, hold on, Jennifer. You have to unmute. Do we have to vote now to adjourn? Oh God. Oh, no. No, just the council does, I think. Council will from now on. Yes. But the committees don't. Okay. Never mind. Just say without objection and pause. We are. Sorry. We are that's a formality, but, but I think the chair can adjourn at any time. Right. Sorry. Good night. Good night. Yeah. Thank you. Thanks. Thank you, Stephanie. I'll text you. I'll text you. Okay.