 Yeah. Are we. Welcome to the. Butland bylaw review subcommittee meeting. We see we have one public attendee. So I'm just going to present a plan for this meeting. So the point of this. Subcommittee and our, our point of this meeting and the next few months is to give Aaron a chance to comment on the current. Bylaws to give the town attorney a chance to comment and then the subcommittee will be reviewing those comments. Following that in February, Aaron's going to be incorporating all the her comments, the attorney's comments and previous comments made by others into a single document, which will then go to the conservation commission for review. And that's when the public will also have a chance to review the entire document. So for this particular meeting, our agenda is to review pages 10 to 20 of the document. And it's a fairly ambitious thing to do within one hour. So in terms of public comments today, we're going to ask that if you have any kind of interjection or comments while we're reviewing, please just keep those to two minutes and just raise your hand and I'll. Let you provide a comment. Otherwise we'll leave 10 minutes at the end for any comments from the public. So if you, if you feel any need to interject at any point, two minutes, otherwise save it for 10 minutes at the end and we can review them. And with that, I will give it over to Aaron. Thank you. So I was supposed to meet with the town attorney this morning, but I had something pop up, which prevented that. So I'm going to go through what my comments are. And then at the next meeting, the town attorney is going to go through basically this section and the next section. And I'll give you, provide those comments to you as soon as I have them so that you can see them in advance. And like I said, we're going to have plenty of chances to comb through this document. This is just our first pass. This is just to remind everyone. Comments from the former wet wetlands administrator comments from the previous chair of the concom. My comments and then the town attorney's comments. And then once we have those reviews or edits all made, we're going to have basically a document with track changes and comments. We're going to turn that into a clean document and then starting in February. And then the subcommittee will comb through that document again and make additional changes in. We're hoping that that that will be completed. We're hoping this subcommittee effort will be wrapped up in April. And then at that point, we'd open a public hearing with the conservation commission in early May and go through. We're not going to go through change by change. We're just going to kind of have a punch list. These are the issues. These are the changes. So anyways, there's lots of chances for comment and whatnot. I'm going to make sure that's clear. And Aaron. Am I going to be able to see raised hands or do I need to? I made you a co-host Michelle. So if you could just keep an eye out for. If anybody. Wants to jump in at any point. All right. So let me get to page 20. Or sorry, page 10. I'm just going to. Try to rattle through these. So. These are continuing with definitions here. One thing that we're going to want to revisit. Once we get through sort of the first round of edits is. How we handle, or if we want to keep the same, or if we want to change our quorum requirements, because. So right now we have a seven member board and. A majority of that board constitutes a quorum. So you have to have at least four members in attendance. Now under the current bylaw regulations, it is basically meeting. Four members to vote in favor of a project to pass it. So. If we only had four members. At a meeting, which is constitutes a quorum. All four would need to vote in favor in order to pass an item. And we may want to keep that the same. The commission may want to reconsider that like a majority of the board. But that's just an item to call to your attention. And that's. This quorum question here. Again, you know, we talked about this a lot at the last meeting that. Like there's definitions of requests for determination. We shouldn't have to be. Redefining those terms. Those are terms that are. Defined under state law. So. I think we're going to just refer to the state process on those. The state permits. And I had a comment on number 55. Do you want me to see it? No, go. So I noticed that rare species was edited to specify animals only. And I didn't see any. Definitions or calling out of plants. Or even, I don't know if habitats would qualify, but it does seem to exclude plants under this definition. Catch there. Thank you. Now, how would you reword that, Michelle? If you were to make that. I would say, I mean, so vertebrate and vertebrate animal. Species and plant species. I don't know how plants exactly are regulated. They're regulated exactly the same. Exactly the same. It's like not the NA and SHCP or whatever. It's still the same 321. I mean, I guess just to confirm that they're regulated under exactly the same. Laws. And if so, we can just add plants in there. But I would want to confirm that there's no. Additional. Maybe like non-hard legal, but like whatever the natural heritage species might be. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. In any case. Plants need to be included. Yeah. Absolutely. No, that's an excellent point because we do have an endangered fern in town and we run into it all the time. Climbing fern, I believe is the plant that we have in town. I mean, I'm sure there's more, but that's just one example. Okay. Do you guys want to keep rolling? Yeah, let's do. Okay. Okay. Hey, river. I don't want to open a can of worms with this, but. So. Riverfront is something we're going to have to spend a lot of time on river, the definition of rivers and riverfront. And I'm not sure. I want to delve into wordsmithing that right now. But. Here's the thing. I don't want to get into this. Come back to this. So. Right now there's a different definition under our bylaws. There is under state law. And we have to be very careful and also very. Calculated, I guess, is the word of how we want to deal with rivers. And I'll give you a couple of examples. So recently. And Michelle, I think you came in on the tail end of this one, but the one on faring street. Did you, were you around for that one? Briefly. Yeah. Okay. So. We may want to. Incorporate. In our bylaw, the ability to. Re-designate an intermittent stream as perennial. Because right now. As you may recall from wetland protection act issues, it's, it's. It's very difficult. To redesignate from, from intermittent to perennial from perennial to intermittent is much clearer in the regulations. And so. Because of that, we may want to. We may want to. Re-design. The other thing is how we. Define and regulate riverfront. So. We have a broader definition of river under our bylaw than the state does. And. If, if and when that is the case, when, for example, we say. If it's flowing out of a bordering vegetated wetland into another water body or resource area, then it's considered an intermittent stream. However, under our bylaw, there doesn't need to be an upgraded bordering vegetated wetland. And so that does create some. Sort of disharmony in the regulations. You know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, sort of disharmony in the regulations in terms of like people and how they, how they define things. And that's another example at 52 faring. There was a, there was a wetland there. That are. peer reviewer saw and. stream under state law. So I think one thing with this bylaw is that we need to very, very clearly define where our bylaw is the same as under the state and where we deviate. And so I will work on that to try to define that a little bit better and come up with some suggestions. But I know it's been a problem in the past that has been appealed and overturned. And that's one of the issues with this bylaw is that we really need to make sure that we see like riverfront area, see how it refers back to the Wetland Protection Act. But our definition under our local bylaw is different. So if we're calling something a river that the state doesn't call a river, can we regulate it the same way as they do under state law? And if we do, then we've got to say that if that makes sense. Does anyone have any questions about that? No, I think that's good, clarifying the differences and triggers. Okay. And this is a heads up to you, Michelle. One of the issues is definitely how we label streams and rivers per annulment, et cetera. The other issue is how we regulate things done to them. We had a case of Zamora's College, I think they own that porcelain. Yup. And they wanted to do some stream crossings that by state regulations look like they could do one by our bylaw regulations. Looks like they had to go steal. Big difference there. Yeah. And that's an excellent point, Leroy, that we should get in these regs is, and I'm not sure where, but I'll just put that as a comment to this comment is it would be helpful for it to be clear that a notice of intent is required for stream crossings. Just make it very, very clear, because there are folks who have argued and even folks who, you know, surprise, it surprised me that from a regulatory standpoint would argue that a stream crossing doesn't require notice of intent. They would just say it's an RDA and there's just so much potential for alteration of a resource area with a stream crossing that to me it's a no brainer to require that. Oh, and also to your point, Leroy, I'm just going to put a little asterisk here to remind myself any work within 50 feet of a resource area requires an NOI. And again, that's assuming that there's not that it's not a minor activity or that it's not falling under state exemption. So just to make a note of that, I didn't want to make sure I didn't interrupt you. Was there anything else you wanted to say about that, Leroy? Okay, great. All right, I'm going to keep moving through this. And I'm sorry, I have a, on my screen, the font is extremely small since I'm remote it in. Okay. All right, I'm going to try to fix that a little. So again, these these blue edits are all done by others. Okay, so vernal pools. Here's another here's another big one that I think we need to adjust. And actually, I think we talked about this briefly is that whether a vernal pool is certified or not, the commission should consider it to be certified. And the same requirements should apply as far as setbacks. It's because we have 100 foot no disturb. So whether it's a potential or certified vernal pool, and I'm not just talking about as defined under the state vernal pool and potential vernal pool layer, I'm talking, if we look at it and we say we think that's a vernal pool and we want to protect it as such, then if it meets the definition under our, our bylaw, then I think we should protect it as such. In regards to that, so one of the criteria is that it supports obligator faculty species of amphibians and or non transient macro organisms. So if it's a potential vernal pool, does it still have to, I mean, do we have to have confirmation of that because what if this is off season? That's a great point, Michelle. And I think that that's something we should clarify. And this has come up again and again, where, and again, and this is another thing that off season issues right now we're dealing with it. People want to file permits, people want to build houses, people want to get certificates of compliance and how do we handle these situations in the winter when we, or in the off season? I mean, the only time to find the obligate or facultative species that live in vernal pools is when they're in them, which is between what May and June, like a one month window. What do you guys think about that? Like, if we suspect it's a vernal pool, would we just treat it as such? And Well, I mean, does it have to, I mean, it could have like hydrologic or geologic indicators that would be very strong supporters that it's at least a potential vernal pool, which, you know, maybe depending on snow and frozen ground could be investigated off season, at least if it's not the dead of winter. But like, I mean, I'm no expert in vernal pool hydrology, but there must be like some kind of criteria list that's independent of biological factors that, you know, I mean, like bedrock, you can look at things like drainage, bedrock, like the leaf staining. Yep. Yep. And we do, we do have some of those. We do have some of those definitions. And that's another issue that we need to correct in here, because right now, vernal pools are a subset of seasonal wetlands. And I do think that vernal pools should be standalone, because the case has been made as was in the gosh, I can't think of it. I want to say Turbino, but that's sugar. Tafino. Tafino, the Tafino projects out in Amherst Hills, they, they had a vernal pool, and they were making the argument, because a lot of those definitions that you're describing those biological feature indicators were under our isolated, isolated wetland definition and not under a vernal pool definition. And so they were saying it's an isolated wetland, not a vernal pool. And, and we fought that and we ended up being successful making that case. But do we really want to fight that fight every time? Is, is the actual criteria for vernal pool that it does support the amphibians and other macro organisms? I mean, is that, is that actually, by definition, what the vernal pool is? Or can it, is there some other, yeah, non biological criteria? So can we, let's, let's put a, we're going to put a note here on that and let's move forward once we get down to that. So we're going to get into the thick of it with resource area definitions, and that's going to be one of them. It's a resource area only under a local bylaw. And we're going to have to really spend a lot of time on those and making sure that they're, that this issue is addressed once we get there. Absolutely. Totally agree with Michelle that we should have some distinct non biological features to denote it. But on the biological side, this is a straight up honest question because I'm a no way an expert. Are there things you can find off season carcasses? I don't, any sort of remains from these types of creatures because they never leave the pool area, right? That's the whole field. Oh, they do, they do, they do leave the pool. So they only come into the pool for a month for the breeding season. And then when they lay their eggs, and then once the eggs hatch, and then they leave the species leaves the pool. I knew that was the case of some species, I didn't realize. Yeah, yeah. I mean, microorganisms like dry up, and I don't think that we'd be able to find them. Yeah, I mean, swimming around. Yeah, like fairy shrimp, they're they're teeny tiny things that are difficult to see and find anyways. So once they, once the pool dries up, you're not going to find them. But I mean, like, so the presence of fish would exclude it being a vernal pool. So that that would be an off season indicator, I suppose, unless it's iced over. Like if you see fish, it's not a vernal pool. So right, right. Yeah, maybe so maybe we could incorporate that incorporate some exclusions if there's fish in the in the in there, no free of fish. Right, right, right. But but I'm not just talking about number 71. I'm talking about once we get into the resource area definitions to make sure that both vernal pools and isolated wetlands have consistent definitions that are independent of one another. Because you can have an isolated wetland that's not a vernal pool, if it doesn't contain or support vernal pool species. For example, fish might be in an isolated wetland if there's like a channel, a seasonal channel that allows fish to come into it or something, but a vernal pool wouldn't. So we just have to make sure that we are very exacting and how we define those once we get there. So should I keep rolling or do you guys want to talk about that? I think we probably and I will do this, but sort of dig into what the definitions of vernal pools are like held by the state, etc. And just make sure when we get to there. Yeah, maybe how the state would suggest looking at biological factors in the off season. So I just wanted to point this out, Michelle, because this was a comment that you had made last time around. Okay. And that was related to business days only that we require business days. And one exception that I've allowed, and I don't know if that's something that this commission wants to allow or not, is if they do hand delivery of the notices and they actually are able to hand it to a person. In that case, if they're a day late sending their notices, I've allowed them to do it because that person was notified. And usually it's only if it was like a day late on the notification, I'll allow them to do it. I've done it in very rare circumstances where they were late getting their butter notice out by a day and they ended up doing hand delivery instead handing it to a person. So again, it's been very few and far between that I've allowed that, but I agree, it should require a signature though. Yeah, absolutely. Yep. I had a question about the changes in blue. I know they're not yours. I didn't understand what the purpose was of that. Yeah, we were going a lot. Yeah, no, I'm glad you brought that up. So back in, this is crazy, but back in like 2016, the Wetland Protection Act was revised. And the reason for this specifically was because previously, it's confusing, but like, okay, so let's say we're talking about a parcel, right? And I could give you a visual to show you this, but it's so a parcel of land. So let's just say Michelle owns her property and she knows where her property boundary limits are, right? So there's that. And that's that's like fee ownership. But there's also issues with rights of way and corridors that are owned by utilities. And that's why they came up with this, because what was happening is, let's just say a utility corridor goes through, I mean, it goes, one example is, is Eversource recently had Montague de Fairmont Project Notice of Intent come through town. And instead of being able to notify from 1000 feet from the corridor, if they had to notify everybody within 300 feet of a parcel that they touched on their work, they would literally be notifying almost the entire town. And the reason for that is because some parcels are enormous, like you might have a parcel that's 1000 acres. And so you're notifying within 300 feet of that. And it was not fair to the utilities to have to do that level of notification as it is, they're notifying within 1000 feet of the utility corridor, which is very, very, you know, an extensive list of thousands of people. So this was a change to state law that we are now incorporating into the town laws for a butter notices so that they're consistent. So, I mean, is it trying to say like if the activity is like in the core area of a particular parcel, you don't have to notify the greater correct, it's within 1000 feet of the work area, and that's on a linear project only. So, and it's if it's greater than 1000 feet, so really the only time that would come into play is on a utility corridor or a railroad corridor. And that's when they notify within 1000 feet of the work area for a project location. Okay, I guess, right. So the first sentence an applicant, it seems the first sentence about a lot with, okay, work solely within a lot greater than 50 acres is required to provide notification only to a butters whose lot is within 30 feet of the project location limits and limits, which those could be confusing. But so it seems like an exception to the thing about, you know, like, you have to still notify people across roads or rails or other rights of ways. So, I guess, it doesn't say is, why is it making an exception because a lot of 50 acres, I mean, 50 acres could be good, but it's not saying if it's in the middle of 50 acres, I mean, it could be in the corner of the 50 acres. So why should they get an exemption? If there's a, you know, a lot across a highway or something, I don't know, a road. I guess I was just confused about what this exception is. And it wasn't clear about within a lot that 50 acres, like where in a lot of 50 acres. I hear that point, Michelle, but it might work out because if you were in a corner of a lot, it would be three other lots you'd have to notify because it's still within a thousand feet of their project. Am I reading that right now? You are. You are. So if it was in the middle of the lot, if let's say they were, the lot is greater than 50 acres and all they're doing is replacing a single utility pole, right, square in the middle of that 50-acre lot, they would have to notify people within 300 feet of that project area. But if they were putting it in the corner of the lot, they'd still have to notify people within 300 feet of the project area. Now, in this case, that's for a project that is on a huge lot. And so likely it's not going to have overarching impacts on, and this is, and this is, Michelle, let me check the language on this and come back to it because, so for example, this is intended specifically to address utility work. And the way that this reads, I agree with you. It's like, if somebody has more than 50 acres, they would just notify people within 300 feet of the work area, and that's not what it's intended to be. This would only apply in very specific situations. It wouldn't apply. It's not a blanket application that would apply to any applicant. It would only apply in a situation where there's a utility issue, where they're putting a single pole on a 50-acre lot, and it's not going to impact people who are on surrounding lands because there's a huge area in between the work area and abutters. That's why that provision was created. But let me check this against the state law and what we can do is, and I'll also go over this with the town attorney to make sure it's apples to apples with the language in the state act, because I do think that they cut out some some parts of the language here, which need to be incorporated back in to make sure that it's very clear. Okay. Yeah, I guess the exception that I saw was just, it's in a different area, but it has to do with just making sure that the butters across the road are notified that the road doesn't, you know, a couple roads don't necessarily count in that 300. Yeah. So I just would want the spirit of that exception to be captured adequately. Yeah. So it's not misused. Yeah, I think that I think that there are some issues with the language from see and in here it's within 100 feet of the project site. So we have that extra additional 200 foot under our bylaw. But I'll do a I'll check that so do a side by side comparison and make sure that we're capturing that accurately and also incorporating our bylaw stuff. We also do one thing to keep in mind is we don't have to, we don't have to require this change. This is to make it consistent with the wetland protection act, but we don't have to do this if you guys don't feel comfortable with it. We can keep it as it is, but they still have to I mean I'm not necessarily against it I just need some clarification. Okay. And maybe we just if it's not completely clear based on adapting to the state regs we can work Smith it a little bit to exclude situations where we don't want it to be applicable if that makes sense. Okay. Okay. So this is another issue that comes up quite a bit. And Michelle have we I just want to make sure you're you're watching attendees to make sure no one's raising hands you're watching. I'm looking at the attendee list and I think I would see a hand next to a name. Yeah. Yeah, you would. Yep, you would. Okay. Okay. So under the state regulations when a butter notice goes out, they only have to say we're filing a permit and you can find out when the hearing is by contacting the town to find out the date and time and location of the public hearing. That's all they have to do. They just notify and say you can contact the town to find out the date and time. One thing that I might suggest as a change for this is to require them to include the hearing date and time on the notification. And the reason for that is because this is this happens all the time people get a notification it has no specific information about the hearing what what's being proposed what time it is what date it's on and they throw the card aside and they forget about it and then they don't attend and and then in other occasions I get literally 30 phone calls from people saying I got a notice about this project but there's no hearing date or time on the project and I get so frustrated and I'm like why didn't they just put the hearing date and time on it would save so much staff time and energy and also it would really encourage public participation to a much greater degree in my opinion. So I'm curious of you guys I'm totally in support of that I think a butter should be given as many opportunities and rights to be made aware. Okay and then this is the delivery signature that if it's hand delivered I think a signature should be required of a butter notice. Totally down with both those Aaron my only concern would be for applicants do they always for sure 100% know the time and date before they send out these notes I don't want to give them a yeah I mean good point. Well so here's the thing here's the thing for us to post a legal ad the legal ad has to be posted a minimum of five business days prior to the public hearing and for that to get in the newspaper it has to be provided to the newspaper 48 hours in advance so when you're posting a legal ad you know seven days in advance what the hearing date and time is going to be and and quite frankly we post we post our agendas way more than 48 hours in advance we post them usually the Friday before our scheduled meeting which is almost an entire week so they're required to send out a butter notifications a minimum of seven days prior to the public hearing and to me we already know when that deadline approaches we already know what the hearing date and time is going to be typically three weeks in advance of the meeting I know when that time is going to be so it seems like yes they they should have an idea when they as soon as they submit the application they should have an idea of when their hearing is going to be held. As someone that doesn't get a newspaper is what about including like the website where the hearing date and information can be found like instead of calling you that's a great point Michelle so and and that's something that we might so just in the face of COVID what I did was so let's talk pre-COVID pre-COVID they would submit one electronic copy two paper copies and if someone wanted to see it they had to come into Town Hall to see it if they wanted to see the application and that happened quite frequently we'd get people come to the window and they'd say I'd like to look at this application it's completely changed the game with COVID because now I put the applications online and anybody can go click on the project and review it and to me that's been a tremendous just like Zoom meetings it has been a tremendously huge benefit to a butters and community participation so if we want to make that a permanent change to our procedure I think that that would be a really beneficial thing to do I mean I I certainly think there should be some kind of electronic trends like information source yeah I'm a hundred percent down with it my question not a concern just a question would be like you said this came up during COVID is there going to be the funding around to back this IT wise in perpetuity yeah so yeah yeah no I hear you it's so IT doesn't post them I actually add them onto the website and I I think that it's a if anything it streams streamlines my job because I get less people coming to the window and it means less sitting down with people face-to-face to go over everything because I can literally just send them a link and they can have a look at it from home so I don't think it's going to be a big effort from that standpoint I'm trying to think of what a detractor would be I mean we'd still detract it's a good idea I just wanted to make sure it can keep going right like we should modernize this process now that we've already made the steps to do so yeah yep okay so keep the abutter notification form as was modified maybe that should become a policy a policy so that you know your successors keep doing it right yeah no I it's definitely been a game changer as far as a butter involvement and comments and I feel like it's really helped with sort of civic engagement on projects especially large projects where it's impacting a lot of people so do we need to say like these documents are going to be will be updated are we going to write it into this or it becomes become standard practice um so let me show you what the actual um a butter notification form looks like and then I think we should probably give me just one sec so this is the temporary abutter notification form um and you know it it doesn't have to be like if meetings go back to being in person this doesn't have to be here but you can see um applications may be viewed in the conservation department webpage or by clicking uh conservation commission web page current applications right hand side of the page so yeah yeah so what we talked about is where I requested was that there be some information about where to locate the hearing date and time like is available on yeah so I mean this I ask applicants to write it in here okay um and they don't always do that and they're not required to sometimes they say see conservation department um so anyway I think that that that would be a huge game changer to require them to put the date and time and also you know this this um work located at a work description as well probably not be a bad idea okay I'm going to try to keep moving so that we can get through I'm sorry I have I'm having a really hard time um seeing this tiny text in the comment boxes because I'm virtual because I'm remote it into my machine all right are we really only on page 13 wow um okay I'm gonna just keep going um okay so here's here's a question something we need to discuss determinations of applicability and notices of intent one of the problems with um our current bylaw is that we require people to file notices of intent for bylaw only work and we can't do that the other thing that's inconsistent with state is that we tell people if it's bylaw only you have to file a request for determination and you have to get a negative determination under the bylaw there's no negative determination option under the bylaw on the state form so how we handled this in stirbridge which is a place I formerly worked was we had a separate town permit for work that fell only under our local bylaw so imagine a project where let's say somebody wanted to do work within 100 feet of a vernal pool and there was no other state resource areas around it wouldn't be appropriate for them to file any state permit for that work it would only be a town jurisdiction issue because they're in the the buffer of a vernal pool I would love to see us incorporate a specific permit that is just for town of Amherst bylaw issues it would it would make my life so much easier it would make my job so much easier it would make your job so much easier and in situations like that are a butter notifications required are legal ads required I mean if somebody let's just say for example somebody wants to put in a shed within the 100 foot no disturb of a vernal pool a small shed in their backyard or a small patio and maybe we don't allow it right maybe it's just denied but do we need to have them post a legal ad for $300 in the newspaper do they need to spend a couple hundred dollars notifying a butters and a wetland delineation a plan an application form spending close to a thousand dollars just to be told no you know it seems very unfair to me in some cases to require people to go through that much for something that literally under state law is just a by right thing to do in some cases to me it would give us the flexibility to review have mitigation for prevention of erosion and give us an oversight process to to the whole project without costing them an arm and a leg in my opinion these bylaws are weighted very heavily to negatively impact small residential homeowners while benefiting large development so people can you know like like a single family homeowner who wants to put in a deck shed patio or pool has to file a state permit they're going through the same permitting procedure that like a huge multi-use development would be required to file and it just seems like why you know other communities don't do that so I think it's something that we should really seriously consider okay that's a big one we're obviously going to have to come back to it and do some digging but as a concept I'd be among the same lines very strongly in favor of town only permit for town only things I think it'd be you called it over say I think it'd just be easier to have conversations with yeah local things absolutely really done faster to your point too chamber I mean we'll see in the end how many things we still do want to require like right off the top I might still require bottom notices maybe not so much a legal notice to the entire community because if everyone who's immediately around is notified that's that would be good but we'll look it back I like the idea of a town permit what do you think though Michelle right off the top yeah I mean can we um you said we can't do NOIs I mean are you mean legally we can't do them if it's a if it's a bylaw only issue a notice of intent is strictly for work that is jurisdictional under state law and technically a notice of intent is only supposed to be filed if there's a potential alteration to a resource area so it's it's it's highly inappropriate for a notice of intent to be filed for something that is not jurisdictional under state law yeah I mean it's a state form you you make a very compelling case I guess I would just want to be sure that we could like have triggers for mitigation that had some legal standing with the town that we you know we could make something that was solid and wasn't you know just paperwork I guess so yeah absolutely sort of a big undertaking that's going to be written into law well it technically so I hear what you're saying Michelle it it would have no more legal standing as a like let's just say a letter permit somebody writes us a letter and does a hand drawn plan that says what they're going to do that's what we've done in previous communities when there's a bylaw specific resource they write a letter saying this is what I'm planning to do they provide a plan and then the commission writes a letter approving it with conditions there is no more legal authority to that than there is on a bylaw only notice of intent because a bylaw notice of intent or order of conditions is invalid because it's not it's a state form being applied to a town project and it it it has no state um authority whatsoever so the state can't back us up on it it's only defensible under the town or if they want to appeal to go to superior court and it's the same appeal process so so yeah sounds like an efficiency so I mean I'm for it I just as long as we you know can call back to those um those security measures with like bonds and you know easements into the D and all that as long as we can tie into the T so I think it would make it stronger actually if we did if we did a town permit I'm excited to develop that then okay all right so there's two different sections for uh determinations of applicability so we need to tie those sections together um there's there's a couple things here which are kind of weird um hold on just one second like right now this is a it's a requirement um that these boards and committees be notified um this section here I'm sorry uh town engineer board of health planning board I'm the one who does those notifications um and it's mostly just for my comments but applicants have not been doing this and so if this is something that we want applicants to be notifying these folks we should probably require that they be notified with a return receipt card and that they're actually mailed or some kind of evidence that they've electronically notified these folks but right now people aren't really doing this and it's not really an you know um something that people follow and um the other thing that's kind of interesting here I need to get town attorney a comment on is what is this referencing the open meeting law issue the notice shall be given per the open meeting law um we post an agenda so I'm not sure if what they're saying is they the applicant has to send the agenda to these parties um to me these parties are they're they're copied on the application prior to the meeting for comment so that's just sort of something to think about as we move forward and it was just a comment that I called out we don't have to make any edits to this right now I'm just sort of running through it um I see that we're at 1250 and we're only on page um at the end of page 14 do we want to see if the public has any comments and if they don't then we can keep rolling that sounds good so public if you have any comments please use the hand raised function if I don't see a hand raised I think we'll just continue try and get through some more content in our next but um we will stop if we see a hand raised and I see no hands raised oh I see a hand raised okay all right Janet I'm going to allow you to talk and I'm going to ask you to unmute so I think you're still muted Janet you're still muted so we can't hear you okay well I'm not sure I'm sorry I'm sorry Janet Hill or public Hill wrote it um North Amherst um just thank you um for this opportunity and I won't keep you um but uh is it useful or not where there's something that you're saying you want to do for me that I think is a great thing to do to just send a sentence to that read point at this point or are you so deep in this complicated document that you just want to truck on and unless I have something that that is cataclysmic just kind of keep keep posted on what you're doing thank you I I would say that if you're you know in support and you're giving us encouragement we really appreciate that and that's really great um I think the best way to support us moving forward is to let us keep trucking on as you said and if you um you know have other thoughts that you want to add later I don't know can I send text to mess or no okay yeah no no uh no your any edits Janet that you anything that you're in support of anything that you want um to comment on you're more than welcome to shoot me an email and say I like this idea I like that idea I like that idea um I would like to see changes here here and here and I will look at those sections and and highlight that we've received comments from the public about these sections requesting changes or modifications and incorporate those so if that's helpful okay I'm good thanks a lot sure thank you thank you Jen all right so it looks like we have a couple more minutes so I'm just gonna jump right back in here for a second um okay so this is just referring back to the issue I was just talking about there's no negative determination option under our bylaw only a positive determination that's the only thing that the so basically what you're saying is it's either a positive determination or it's not applicable at all under our bylaw there's no option for we're going to approve this under our bylaw with these conditions there's no such option under a negative or under a determination of applicability so I was just pointing that out to you guys there uh so it's kind of duplicative but it's very important because it's written in here um and then again the commission should not require an NOI for bylaw jurisdiction only that's big no no so we'll have to make sure that we address those items um this is really odd um this section down here under public hearings may be continued in as follows um so this is interesting age with the consent of the applicant to an to an agreed upon date which shall be announced at the public hearing which is very normal but then there's another with the consent of the applicant for a period not to exceed 21 days after submission of a specified piece of information or occurrence of a specified action date and time in place of continued meeting shall be publicized in accordance with the bylaw and notice shall be sent to any person at the hearing so this is it's you know like this Michelle you'll have to help me with the pronunciation again sir perfluous superfluous superfluous okay superfluous if you don't continue to a date certain which is age if you don't do that you have to re-notify period so it's kind of like that though those are the only two options um I don't know what this 21 days issue is um it's it's a little bizarre to me um so it's interesting like I wonder if the if the intent of this might be Leroy you've dealt with this many times and Michelle you're starting to get into the game where we say we need this information within 30 days if you guys didn't submit it we need additional information within 30 days and if you don't provide it then we can deny the project right I almost wonder if that's what this provision is for for a period not to exceed 21 days so if the commission said the same thing Aaron and yeah I'm happy to strike the whole section it's confusing we already have a solve for it okay okay yeah because 21 days is not a reasonable period of time for anyone to turn anything around and that's just the bottom line like if if we said that DEP wouldn't back us up usually 30 days is like a minimum um so 21 days I don't really understand the only 21 day period that's really applicable is an appeal period so after we issue a permit under state law there's a 21 day appeal period for the public to appeal a permit and it seems like that 21 days got pulled into here for um submittal of additional information but um there's no validity to that really uh so this is another issue that I have is and this is just my personal opinion this is how I a lot of times there's a lot of discretion involved in decision making with projects um so for example and this is just a this is a good example for visual purposes right if somebody is 75 75 feet away from a wetland building a house or 90 feet away from a wetland building a house I would tell them you can file an RDA because you're you're such a far distance away from the resource that you know you wouldn't necessarily need it but if somebody's proposing to build a house within 40 feet of a wetland chances are there's going to be impacts to the wetland and so it shouldn't require removing filling dredging building upon or alteration of a resource area to require an NOI filing in my opinion if they're within 50 feet of a resource area they should have to file a notice of intent if they're within 50 feet um so that's just my opinion and that's the guidance I always give people I say if you're within 50 feet just file an NOI because we're not going to go through the whole RDA process just to say you need an NOI to do this work um yeah so that's that's kind of my discretion how I apply it in guiding people with permit filings but I don't know if we want to write that in specifically or if we want to leave it as is um it seems reasonable to me so we're sort of avoiding future complications and permit complexity by doing that up front yeah I mean it's just it's just it it helps because sometimes people and and I think the Amherst College situation is a really good example if you're building a bridge over a stream you're within feet of the bank like a couple feet and the chances are really high that the bank is going to be impacted by the work no matter what you do during construction seems reasonable to me LaRoy any comments on it yeah I mean I'm just trying to give myself some you know reasons why it might not we shouldn't go with a hard hard line but yeah I guess I'll go with 50 you know um so one example which might be a where we wouldn't take a hard line is if it's a stormwater improvement where there's an existing problem that is being addressed to for a repair like I'll give you an example there's a situation where there's a stormwater outlet that is causing scour and the DPW is putting in um a device to try to clean the water and slow it down before it's discharged they are within 50 feet on that one and I said on that one you can file an RDA because it's a it's a repair of a problem and why would I make them pay a state fee when they're trying to fix something that's wrong it seems like it would just deter them from doing the repair so I agree with you LaRoy in very specific situations we might make exception which we might want to state okay okay sorry I thought you were done no no that's okay um so we made it to the end of page 14 so we'll pick up at 15 next time and we'll just keep barreling along did we talk that one out though right I'm fine with it I'm fine with it okay well we'll have another chance to think about it I suppose okay so it's one o'clock so we will adjourn this meeting at page 15 page 15 at 102 all right you guys good good one question yep order the meetings here do we have to keep minutes for these or vote on last one or anything like that yeah so I will be doing minutes um I'm I've been trying to dedicate a day to catch up on minutes um and I haven't quite gotten there but I'm hoping that next week because we have our meeting canceled that'll give me a chance to catch up on our minutes and what I would do is send those to you and um I'm not quite sure the approval process for those if those would be approved by the entire board or if they would just be approved by you guys but um I'll keep you posted on that and one way or another I'll share the minutes with you and we'll figure out if they need to be approved by the full board or just if we can just keep them and that's it either way we'll be posting them on the town website and these recordings will be posted on the town website as well um in the coming weeks does it for me Michelle are you good I'm good thanks guys all right thank you guys for your time I appreciate it thanks for joining oh she's gone all right bye see you bye