 So thank you guys for agreeing to participate in this fun adventure. Do either of you have a preference to serve a sort of chair person acting chair person to run the meeting. What is it involved. It involves opening the meeting announcing this is the bylaw regulation subcommittee of the conservation commission it's January 7 2022, and we're going to be discussing the bylaw regulations. We'll be reviewing various sections to revise will be taking public comment if there is any. The proceedings are recorded will be taking minutes and then just sort of going through the process as we would during a regular conservation commission meeting but it's not as formal because we don't have public hearings. I'll do it unless the room is to. All right for that. Okay. So, give it a go. All right. I don't know what to say about you. What'd you say. Should I say what you just said. I don't think I need to just say that you're, I'll just say in the notes that you were appointed, you know, chair person to run the meetings and. Yeah, I think that's fine. Okay. Okay, so let me just I'm just going to pull up the agenda because I forgot what I even put on it to be honest with you. So, the meeting of chair was, okay, open meeting, a point share review existing bylaw regulations. So, Leroy, before you joined, I was just kind of explaining to Michelle, the history of the bylaw and the regulations so I'm not sure the exact year that the bylaws were created but there was a bylaw created which is which is part of the wetlands bylaws part of the town's general bylaws. And then, as part of that, the conservation commission held public hearings and drafted created a the bylaw regulations and the bylaw regulations basically promulgate the bylaw so it tells people who want to file a permit with the conservation commission what is required that's more strict than the state in the town of Amherst, and so that was created and it's it was created I'm not sure who created it but it was created and then it's since been revised a couple times. The latest version is from 2014. That's the latest amended and approved version of the bylaw regulations. If you analyze any revisions that we're making to this, the bylaw regulations, the conservation commission will hold a public hearing and make the document available for the public to review and take any public comment on it, and then they would motion to approve it and then they would come they would then be amended again, and they would come into full effect. So the current version from 2014. Let's start there because that's what we're working with. Beth Wilson, who is the former wetlands administrator worked with Briani Angus who is the former chairperson of the conservation commission, as well as it looks like somebody named Rob I'm assuming that's Rob Mora our building inspector went through and edited the document. Bylaw regulations with like track changes and when I started in September of 2019 I was handed the markups and Beth and I have gone through the markups together, and we did. I think prior to you starting Leroy we held one meeting with the conservation commission where we reviewed some of the documents that Beth and Briani and Rob had made the document. At that point we kind of hit this crazy point where business exploded and I lost track of it up until now and so this just seems like the perfect time for us to take another look at it. So, I just wanted to give a little history. In case anybody's watching because this is going to be recorded and posted and just so that people have the, the history of the whole process. When that that one meeting was on you said maybe right before I started so a couple years ago. Yeah, I want to say it was late 2019 early 2020. I guess I'm just kind of wondering like is that process, the open ended we can just continue and should we, is this starting fresh and new. We're going to start fresh for a couple reasons. The whole point of that was basically exactly what we're doing right now. And what what was determined by that was basically, we don't have enough time during conservation commission meetings to go through this line by line and also a very different complement of board members at this point, as well. At that point in time, the intention was really sort of, let's just approve what's been done thus far. And since that time, two years of over two years have passed. I've had a chance to work with this bylaw and I see that there's some very glaring errors with it, as well as some very glaring errors with the revisions, not that there's anything wrong with the revisions that were done per se, but that looking at it from a holistic standpoint there are some legal issues with some of the language and I'll go through that with you and if we can dig in I think you'll start to see what I'm talking about. But yeah, we're just going to start from scratch beginning of the document. Now, I've worked with myself three different wetlands bylaws for three different. Well, the actually Amherst is my fourth community that I've worked in. It's different bylaws bylaws and bylaw regulations that I've worked with. And I've also reviewed bylaws from several other towns to get a sense of what their bylaws are like. Okay, so my goal here is to organize, get these bylaws so that they're legally defensible, should we have an appeal, and make them succinct, short and sweet, there's a lot of, I'm going to have trouble saying this word, there's no superfluous, superfluous language in here, extra things that really we don't need. So for example, duplications of definitions that are in the wetland Protection Act. We can refer to all definitions are as stated in the wetland Protection Act with the exception of the ones noted below and state the ones that are specific to our bylaw we don't have to restate everything that's in the wetlands Protection Act. We're going to go page by page now this morning I met with a town attorney to review this and he had a lot of the same comments that I did, which was very encouraging, made me feel like okay I'm on the right path here. I'm going to cover some of what he did my goal is to go try to get through 10 pages today. This is a 40 page document. If in the course of two months we can get through the entire document. What I'd like to do is get my markups to the town attorney then have him mark them up. And then once he marks them up we'll have sort of a clean version that we can review again. And then if you guys have any additional changes you want to make at that point or if you want to make any changes now. Let's do it. Okay. Does that sound like a good plan. Yeah, I like it. Okay. I'm not a lawyer but I was at the same mindset my first major complaint was just a lot of redundancies. Yeah, yeah and this this document has a lot of redundancy. So, the first is there was no table of contents at the beginning of the existing bylaw regulations and so there's a table of contents added now this is going to need to be edited because we're editing all the sections at this point. But that's one thing that I think is really important a table of contents. And also, I would recommend that we break this document up into sections now if you guys want to take a look at like the North Hampton. Wetland Protection bylaw regulations or the self Hadley wetland protection bylaw regulations you'll see what I'm talking about. Very similar to the way that they do mass general law and it's basically, if you want to look at a specific section, it's hyperlinked so you click on that specific section and it takes you to that specific section as opposed to just having it written, like one large document which makes it really difficult to scroll back and forth between sections. If you guys have a problem with that we don't have to do it but it would be my recommendation just to kind of keep things really tight and organized. The other thing is, we need to do some checks and balances with the bylaw regulations against the bylaw. So like the first thing we did this morning, and this is this is an example. A lot of communities regulate in their wetland bylaw and bylaw regulations regulate buffer zone just as we would a resource area. So for example, we regulate bordering vegetated wetlands and bordering vegetated wetlands has 100 foot buffer under local bylaw that buffer is supposed to be regulated in the same exact way as the resource area itself in that it has you know the definition, the general performance standards and those things are all sort of our expectations for work that's done in those buffer zones. So that's one section that we might need to add to these regs. But again, we're going section by section so let's just handle it that way. So this is the new table of contents. Now just in the first paragraph. The superfluous wording is an issue like here it says compliment and amplify the bylaw, you know, that's not necessary language. When these regulations are adopted, they have the full force of law period. There's no amplifying or complimenting or anything like that. So that's what a lot of the markups are now my markups are in pink, the blue markups were done by others. Can I just interject for a second. Please, please stop anytime. I know that you wanted to save us from having to review it but I think for future meetings. It would be helpful for me to be able to see the markup so I could consider them sort of in my own pace, rather than just the scroll down like I don't I don't have any problems with what we're going over yet. But, you know, we're trying to be expedient in our one hour. Yeah, so it would be helpful for me to just flag anything that I had questions about beforehand and speed through it during the meeting. Okay. Okay. So that makes a lot of sense. That was my understanding that that was coming and it just wasn't quite ready yet. But yeah, if that wasn't coming the novel of the same opinion I would love to have a copy of what you got going on. Okay, so my only suggestion on that is because it's it's a working document and there's so many markups is if I send you a version. And you have edits to it that in that next round that we cover all of your edits and we can incorporate into this document I know we can merge in word edits. So like if you have an edit Michelle has an edit. We can merge those onto one document, but my preference would be if you have a change that we talk about it collectively and make those edits and I think for the next. The next meeting what we should do is I'll send you this today as it stands right now and just focus on pages one through 10. You guys mark it up if you want to and we can cover those markups at the beginning of the next meeting before we jump into the second section. What if instead of markup we use just comments to. That's fine. That's completely I would probably be cleaner and I'm assuming we're not going to have huge changes so. All right, that sounds fine I think my only it's like workflow is my worry because I'm, I'm scheduled to meet with the town attorney at 930 before we meet. And the reason we didn't get to this before it was just a workload issue, like I could never so I'm, I'm going through this as we meet. So it's a little bit like putting the cart before the horse. I would love to have all this marked up before we even met, but I have to do it kind of in tandem. Okay, so like as per next week we'll be going over 10 to 20. Would you be able to send us what we'll plan to do next week Michelle just to give you a chance to address that comment. I'll send it to you immediately following this meeting and you can see the edits you review. If you could review one through 10 or one through 20 whatever you want and then just bear in mind that pages 10 through 20 I'm going to be marking up with the town attorney prior to our next meeting. So, like immediately priors for our next meeting. Yes, yeah. So if you, this is how I would recommend we do it. I'll send it to you now you can look at one through 10 at our next meeting will review your comments on one through 10 because you're going to get kind of a thorough overview right now we don't have to mark it all up. We'll review one through 10 sort of just based on your comment areas and then we'll move on to 10 to 20 after that and then I'll send that to you after you can comment and then we'll do the same thing at the next meeting. So that you have a chance to really have a broad view. We are after the fact comments. So, um, yeah, I guess that's none of that's very ideal is it. Well, I mean the other thing is I can just send it to you and you can mark it up but bear in mind when I go through it with the town attorney, entire sections are getting swiped out like for example, for example, exception exemptions, which right now is called exceptions. It should be exemptions that should match the wetland protection act regs. And so that section is going to come out and just refer to the wetland protection act because there's a legal issue with the way it's written right now. Yeah, we can just do as you suggested but maybe give us a heads up on like we're completely revising this section at our next meeting. Bear in mind or something. Yeah. I don't have any problems with this, this text change on this page. I didn't, you know, I guess we have to figure out how we're going to move through this but. Yeah. Well we have, we have plenty of time we actually so that for meetings is only two months worth of meetings. We have an additional two months. I just want to get very intimately involved with this document. My, my suggestion is, let's go through it first pass. Look at just the general changes, then let the town attorney have at it, let him remove the superfluous language, let him remove entire sections, then let you guys really dig into the document and if you want to make changes or think something's off, then we'll do it in those second two months, if that makes sense. This document would be what we send to the conservation commission as the finish mark up. Okay. Okay. Okay, so I just want to talk about it because you guys are fairly new to the commission and this document is supposed to sort of follow the same format of the wetland protection act now under the wetland protection act we have eight interests that the conservation commission is charged with protecting. These interests are repeated here but there's also additional interests listed. So let me see if I can remember the wetland protection act once public and private water supply protection of groundwater flood control storm damage prevention. Fish and wildlife habitat. And I think rare species habitat. I might be missing one. There's eight interests one of them is protection of shellfish which actually refers to coastal. But you can see there's a couple additional ones like erosion and sediment control is an additional interest. Storm storm damage prevention is well and protection act protection of water quality which to me is duplicative of the top one. And then agricultural value, aquaculture value and recreational value those are specific to Amherst. Okay. And then there's jurisdiction. So what this seeks to basically say is, these are the resource areas that we have jurisdiction over as a conservation commission. And it basically puts into a tidy package what qualifies as say BVW or IVW so bordering vegetated wetland or isolated vegetated wetland. And some of these are different than what's covered in the wetland protection act. So for example, vernal pools are not regulated the same way under the wetland protection act they're actually not jurisdictional under state law which is very interesting. There's other examples of that. But the again these blue edits were made prior to me. One comment I have is vernal pools we should insert whether certified or uncertified because a lot of people will point to certified vernal pools only and in this case, both should be regulated. Also, this is where the issue with us having jurisdiction over the 100 foot buffer just as we would a resource area under our bylaw regulations and that's very important, because let's just use an example, a clear cut of a slope forest, the buffer zone only is being impacted. There's clear impacts to the resource area and so treating that buffer as a resource area is very important. I'm not going to go through every single change I'm just kind of going through this generally speaking first time through. And I'll, I'll touch on the big major changes. Exceptions and variances. The first thing is these, this needs to be broken into two separate sections because what they call exceptions is actually exemptions under the wetland protection act and so my suggestion would be change exceptions to exemptions so that language is not with the town attorney's recommendation as well, so that they are, the definition is the same for the same for the both. So break them off into separate sections because variances and exemptions are two very different things exemptions is something where you do not need to file a permit. The variance is where you're asking for an exception to the rules. And so that's why coupling them in the same section is very confusing. Again the comment about exceptions versus exemptions. This entire section needs to be revised as highlighted in pink. You can see the markups previously in blue from Beth the former chairperson. This is this is the section here and I'll send it to you so you can have a look at it. This, this one down here section E this is the one that really caught my attention as being something that was like, what are they talking about. As stated in these regulations, exceptions provided in the wetland protection act and regulations shall not apply under this bylaw from our attorney he stated. Let me see, hold on one second, I want to get his exact language on this. As a matter of law, the town cannot wave a state exemption. So we, this is not legal. And this is really important because it's it really questions the credibility of this bylaw as a whole. Somebody, if we denied something or if we didn't allow something or whatever the case, and we issued an enforcement order let's say and that enforcement order went to court, the court system would throw it out. And it would just, it doesn't look good for us. We got a lot more to look at talk about next time. But as to that one being major, I'm in total agreement that's pretty basic why we can't overall the state. Michelle, you feel the same way on that. Definitely. Yeah. I'm just taking notes here as we go. Okay, so variances. Here's another issue, major issue with this and this was something that actually the town attorney brought up. The variance as it's put in here and part of this it says it says edited by Rob. So Rob is the building inspector who is the zoning enforcement officer. The zoning enforcement officer looking at this is going to look at this very similar to his owning bylaw. The way that this is written is written exactly as a zoning bylaw for a variance for zoning law and variances under wetland bylaw and variances are different. And so, the town attorney said his name is Alex by the way Alex Y site from KP law, couple minute page law in Boston, who's the municipal attorney for us. And so we need to find language that is appropriate for a wetland bylaw to insert here because as edited as originally drafted, this is not appropriate for a wetland bylaw. And I know, you know, how I noted like there's a long run on sentence here. There's like so many examples throughout this bylaw, where the way that it's written needs to be tightened up shortened made succinct the grammar the grammar needs to be improved problematic. Again, here's another comment the variants shall expire on a date specified by the Commission no later than three years from the date of issuance of the permit and maybe reestablished only after notice of a new hearing pursuant to this section. If a variance is granted under the wet under the wetlands Protection Act and or under the wetland bylaw, it is it runs with the permit period. So if for example, somebody gets an order of conditions will say UMass because we just issued the UMass order of conditions for the housing product or the student housing project that's a long tan Brook. Let's just say we granted them a variance their permit is good for three years. Let's say they don't finish construction, but they're three quarters of the way through construction. And they come to us and say we need an extension on this permit extending that permit would automatically extend the variance that was granted by the Commission. So the variance is not a separate permit. It is tied directly to the wetland Protection Act permit and the conditions of the bylaw. It is different from zoning because in zoning a variance is an actual permit. And so that's why it's confusing here and clearly somebody who was involved with zoning was assisting with this bylaw construction. Is there any intent there to maybe like, you know, have additional oversight after three years to maybe reevaluate what the variance is initially issued for or do you do you assume this is just sort of a zoning language thing. And I guess I'm questioning what the intent was of this or if it was just that somebody most familiar with zoning wrote it was possibly their intent to have some more oversight to monitor the conditions of the variance. So, so similar to okay, I'm not sure I understand your question entirely but I'm going to try to answer what you said. When we issue a let's say so we get a notice of intent filing and we issue an order of conditions right so the order of conditions is our permit. In zoning, when somebody files for a variance, they're granted a variance by the zoning board, and that variance allows them so and it, it harkens back to the sections up above that I was talking about that are specifically coming from the zoning bylaw. The reason that that variances are granted are so for example if under zoning. There are certain lot setbacks so you can't build within let's just say because I don't know exactly what the setbacks are and they vary by zoning district, but let's say there's a 20 foot setback from a property line. You couldn't build your house right on top of your property line, and your neighbor couldn't build their house right on top of the property line because your houses would be like this right. But let's just say you have some feature on your property, owing to topography or let's say there's like ledge over 90% of your property and there's only one place on the property you can put your house. The zoning board can override those property setbacks and issue you a variance so that you can build there. Because if you don't do that if they don't do that then it's basically a taking of your property, right. And I'm talking about this all in theory just to explain specifically to answer your question Michelle. I'm not a zoning specialist by any stretch, but the reason that they issue the variance is so that people can in very select and specific situations override the bylaws. So that people don't lose all value of their property if there's some condition on the property that they have no control over. I'm talking about people creating their own hardship here. So for example let's say you have a large parcel and 90% of it is wetland but you have only like one little sliver which is upland access. Somebody carves up that lot and sells off their upland access. That doesn't mean all of a sudden they have license to carve through the wetland to access the property they've created their own hardship. So that has been created since 1900. And that's the only way to access their property because it's a, it's a grandfathered situation so to speak. It's complicated. It's a very complicated situation. I think maybe I understand that the variance sort of refers to static conditions and the conditions of the permit would then refer to more like ecological conditions and would have to be reassessed every three years. And this is why I think it's important for our review and you guys spending your time, personal time reviewing this that we wait until after I go through and KP law goes through because this variance section is a section that's going to change dramatically. And I don't notice me through it then. So competent source I inserted that we should define this and this is really important, really, really, really important competent source, and we should repeat this again and again wherever we can because I can't tell you how many times, since I've been doing this that somebody will come along and say oh I can delineate a wetland no problem. And I'm like well what's your experience. Oh well I took a class, you know, or something like that and even people who've been doing this for 20 years sometimes there, there have been instances I've run into where people who have been in this industry for 20 years can't identify well and plant. And so a competent source for us to have a solid definition of that I think is very important because the commission could say if an application comes before them. Who, who did this delineation, and what is their experience and if they come back and say well they, you know, they didn't graduate high school, they, you know, took a field class in botany in 1962. Yeah, yeah that's their experience, then you can say well I don't think they're really qualified to be doing this and ask for somebody else, or a peer review or something. This section, very, very tough section. Again there's consistency issues with the bylaw, some of the terminology that's used doesn't correspond to the bylaw and also there are definitions here that differ from the wetland Protection Act that from an accuracy standpoint that need to be corrected. So really what we should be doing under definitions the first subsection under definition should state all definitions are presumed to be to be the same as the wetland Protection Act definitions and less otherwise noted. And then we should have a very short section of definitions which, again, going back to vernal pools, right when we say vernal pool, the example of vernal pool would be certified or potential, you know, so that it's clear that we're taking a step further than wetland Protection Act in terms of protections. But there's a lot here. There's a lot of I, this is another example I added in clear cutting a vegetation and conversion of land cover types as a example under altar, and that's very important, because we recently had an example of a proposed clear cut. And when people clear cut for development they're going to say there's no alteration taking place to the landscape. And clearly there is a very huge alteration taking place to the landscape and so I feel like it's important for us to include that here now. And if we include this here, that also means that we have to go back to our other section of exemptions, and specifically state that clear cutting is allowed if it's part of a an approved DCR forest cutting plan. Not for development that that would constitute an alteration. I agree about that. And I'm just wondering from like a forestry terminology perspective, if we should have a clear cutting and or, I mean I actually don't know what the right term would be but clear cutting is one type of cut but then there's cuts that are like tree cuts or it's basically a clear cut like five trees left standing. Yeah, I wouldn't want like too much wiggle room so maybe getting someone to weigh in on clear cutting and or like removal, you know, x% of vegetation or I don't know something that doesn't call out clear cutting is like a standalone definition, you know what I mean. Hold on one second I'm training this down. I, that sounds, that's a phenomenal suggestion. Okay. So, weigh in on forest cutting in terms of, so you're talking about under the agricultural exemption specifically state. So these types of cuts are cuts that can be approved under DCR forest cutting plan but not refer to it specifically as clear cutting, like more the industry standard of what the definition of clear cutting would be under the forestry standards. Well, I think under forestry standards clear cut does mean something but yeah, like if I'm I guess I'm saying in respect to like these exemptions, what the example you're talking about where someone wants to clear cut for development. They may say that it's not a clear cut that it's like a nurse tree cut but it's essentially a clear cut with five trees left standing but if we call out clear cutting as the thing they can't do, could they potentially get around that by leaving doing a nurse tree cut. That makes sense. So I guess, okay can you scroll up what's the name of this section I mean we're, we're definitions. Yeah, it's definitions of alteration, and I don't mean to imply that you couldn't do a clear cut, it just means that if you clear cut you're altering right, but I guess I want to make sure that it's not just clear cutting that would alter resource it's like, what you mean by clear cutting is like the removal of the majority of vegetation on a site right that's kind of what you're referring to. So something. Yeah. And we would probably have to be more specific than majority because yeah yeah no, I, I'm picking up what you're putting down and I think that the that using the term clear cut is the problem here. We need more specific about what a clear cut is or. Right or less specific than clear cut because clear cut itself is a term that means a specific thing. So if we say clear cut that excludes things that in the spirit of this one line should be there such as the removal of 90% of vegetation or something that come in through and and Leroy is a forestry guy so. Not really. I am wondering though are we not. The reason I really like this line which are because we're not very well covered by the end of the conversion land cover type. It would cover everything from a clear cut to an extra cut to any majority change in the forest is going to change the land under even if you just left it there and grow back as meadow whatever for another 20 years. So, I don't know, I mean I think I'm with you incentive to show but I think we might be covered by that second half. Yeah, and I'm with him maybe we should drop the specificity of clear cut but I think that keeping the conversion of land covered kind of opens it up to a lot of things. Yeah, I think that's an excellent point. Yeah, I don't know I mean I'm not in forestry but I mean let's let's let's explore both I'll see what I can find. So somebody interpret that, you know, like a nursery cut the intention is that it reforested itself so it's like a temporary conversion of land cover type. Not a permanent one. So, right, I guess I'm just trying to like find the poke the holes through there, because of the potentially large implications but it. Yeah, if someone. You guys are awesome. This is like exactly what we needed to do. That Michelin could we, if we're looking at the line right now version one cover types could we say temporary or permanent without I think I think that's good language to to put in there and we can get other people to like weigh in on it. Yeah, so I'm going to flag this one. And I will look into this more I actually know somebody who is like a who has decades of forestry experience who is really really well respected in the forestry community and I could ask him his advice on this like how to word Smith it and come back with suggestions when we revisit this section. Okay, so there's some issues like okay so I didn't make the edits in blue, but I'm asking why was this section removed I guess that there's a couple issues with this and I just want to point this out so these definitions again should harken back to the Well and Protection Act definitions and also be consistent with the Well and Protection Act and this is one of the examples areas subject to flooding. There's no areas subject to flooding under well and protection it's either bordering land subject to flooding or isolated land subject to flooding so having something inconsistent like this opens up a lot of holes in the regulations. Sorry, I just want to just make sure that if there's any attendees. I'm going to Michelle I'm going to make you a co host so that you can see attendees because when I'm sharing my screen I can't see if there's any attendees and if anyone pops in from the public. We might want to seek their, you know, if they have events on anything. When do we do that at the end really five minutes the end for that or what. And however you want people could raise their hand throughout as we're doing reviews as we go through this and people become aware that we're reviewing the bylaw people might join. You could say people can raise their hand throughout or you could say save 10 minutes at the end for questions it's totally up to you. It's just us for now. It is yeah. Okay. And remind me to make you co host if you can at the beginning of the meetings. So here's another example best available measures. Best management practices that is a standard state term for using the best possible practice for whatever we're doing and that refers back to everything stormwater site management everything best available measures is just inconsistent language so we want to eliminate that wherever possible. Um, this is another one and we're going to my, the town attorney is going to help me with this one but the buffer zone, the area of land extending 100 feet horizontally from the boundary I want to get some clarification and and refer to this exactly how we're defining it and see how the wetland protection act defines it because the boundary should be measured perpendicular from the boundary. It shouldn't be measured. Horizont I mean I don't know I don't know exactly how that the language refers to it but I want to make sure that we're consistent with state and also that it's written defensively. All permit types should go back to well and protection act. Some of these are just, you know, there was literally over 800 edits to this document already, just to give you a sense, and 40 pages over 800 edits. Okay, extension permit. This is one that has created a ton of confusion in my two years of tenure. I've had people come to me and ask for extensions on determinations and replicability. Those are permits that cannot be extended. There is no extension to a determination. If we are providing a definition for extensions it should be extensions on orders of conditions and extensions on orders of resource area delineation. Hold on I just thought of something I need to make a note of for later. And to that point I just want to mention something. So, we can't extend just any permit, it's only very specific permits that can be extended and we should be being explicit about that in the regulations. The other thing is, I'll just use abbreviated notice of resource area delineation as an example or orders of resource area delineation. And actually it would apply to orders of conditions as well, it really depends on the context of the permit, but this is a place we may want to put a placeholder for further discussions when we come back to this sort of in the second round of reviews that we do and I would really recommend that you guys put this in your notes to comment on. This happens a lot. I'm trying to think of a good example. I'll use Amherst Hills. I don't know I think Leroy you came in on the end of that that was the Tifino application out near Amherst Woods. This was a permit Michelle that was issued in 2002 that is still valid. And the commission just kept issuing extension after extension and I'm talking just no looking at the property whatsoever just issue an extension just issue an extension and the permit is still valid and what's happened is, over time, a vernal pool developed in the middle of the property. And under our bylaw we have 100 foot no disturb around vernal pools, but a lot of the lots house lots were within 100 feet of that vernal pool. And so, I would read highly highly recommend that the conservation commission if they are ever going to consider extensions of any sort on an anrad or or add or an order of conditions. It requires a review process, not just an issuance of a permit and I would never allow that to move forward he like as in my tenure on the serving the board I would never allow that to move forward without checking it. But there are so many instances where that the reason that permits are only valid for three years is because resources change let's say a beaver moves in and builds a dam and then all of a sudden you have a huge that can happen within six months. And so, four years after the permit is issued, if the, if, if the commission just goes oh yeah issue an extension and then you all of a sudden have a huge expansive wetland in the middle of the site it really impacts things. So, I think that would be a place where we might want to add some additional conditions as far as if extensions are issued, these would be conditions upon which we would issue, you know we would consider those things and it would include making sure flagging is still in place on the site. There's a review process by the commission to conduct a site visit, and also making sure that there are specifically conditioning, no changes to the resource area boundaries on the site in any situation where a permit is issued. And if there are any changes to the resource areas on the site that an extension can't be issued, or an amendment needs to be filed. I have you on that that's sort of where I was going with the variance discussion. So, it's covered elsewhere I see my concern. And that extension issue might not necessarily be in covered entirely in definitions there might be a subsection but that's something where we need to flag extensions on permits, just making a note of these things because it's hard to keep them all straight. So, isolated wetlands are defined here now. Okay, I'm sure you were in on this as well because when we were talking about the Hills subdivision isolated wetland versus vernal pool. There was some semantics there and like, and I think that's another area that will flag as we get further down in sections that needs to be addressed it's a major major hole in these regulations. And Michelle I'll just give you a quick as long as we're looking at the definition here. So, we're saying the isolated wetland this is its definition. It's greater than 500 square feet soils are saturated support predominance of what when indicator plants, but there's a separate definition for vernal pools. So, there are instances where people have said, this is an isolated wetland but it's not a vernal pool, and they've really tried to play that to the point where an isolated wetland would not have that 100 foot protection around it but the reality is they are essentially one in the same and so provided that the isolated wetland has vernal pool species. My computer just told me it's out of battery vernal pools have to be inundated for like two months of the year something whereas, perhaps an isolated wetland would not be. And also, if a isolated wetland contained vernal pool species that could be documented that might also be another kind of trigger on that so those are definitions that we might want to be very, very specific to address when we make another pass around at this. I'm making a note of it. I'm making this clear though you're in support of just like giving more attention and focus to this isolated wetland definition that's okay got it. Yeah, to make sure that we're very, very crystal clear about what which is which and when they're one in the same because they can be, they can be one in the same and they can be different. These are all changes made by others. And again, we don't have to put in linear shape project is defined by 310 CMR 10.04 all we have to say is, we're referring to the definitions under the wetland protection act unless there's specific ones, where we're, where our definition is different. Language written, this just needs to come out. It's a written application. It's just, it's the permit period. There's a lot of changes like that that needs to be that need to be made permit. There's no reason for us to define a permit here that was the attorney's recommendation. This is all kind of extra stuff that is just not essential for us to have in here. Yay, we made it to page 10 by one o'clock. I actually had a comment on page 10. Okay. Yeah, we're on. It's for a butter notification. So it's past the section so I guess it's probably a yeah, the document I was looking at it was page 10 but it was in a butter, it's section 3B. Maybe just after this. Is it the definition of a butter notice. Yeah. It's the, the criteria. No, it's not the definition. It's, I guess, like the. What's up. It was under the procedure section. So I think it's the very bottom of the next page actually going down. Thank you. Oh, stop me if you see it anywhere. Let's just get to section three. Oh, okay. I think it's at the end of this. There we go. Okay. Got it. Better notification. Maybe it's already been changed. So it says. It's at the end of this first paragraph and it says mailing at least seven days prior shall constitute timely notice. I think it should be seven business days prior. Yes. Absolutely. You're right. Right on the money. Okay. Right on the money. I require that I require seven business days and as does DEP, it's just not written into the regs. So anytime they refer today, they expect it to be business day, but. Okay. But I specified in other areas, but not here. And I thought those could be a little sneaky. So. No, that's a very good catch Michelle. And as long as we're here, I mean, I haven't gotten to this section, I haven't even gotten to this section yet because I'm so busy with the first 10 pages. But just so you know, these changes here are accounting for a change that was made in the wetland protection act, these red changes here, but we'll, we will dive into that next time. Okay, because we're at one o'clock and I want to respect you guys time. But that was extremely productive. Thank you guys so much. And we will figure out the workflow of the edits. I think, I think going through it sort of first pass just section by section talking about it my suggestions, town attorney suggestions and then once those have all been made, let's revisit it again and go through it more with a fine tooth comb to see things that you guys. And again, you can, we can make changes at any point, but I'll send you this version now. So you can see it. Just bear in mind, there's a lot of changes to the first 10 pages that still need to be done. And as we go section by section there's going to be a lot more changes so Okay, do I move to adjourn. I don't, I don't think we really need to make motions or anything like that I think just, if we have the consensus of everybody to adjourn and then Michelle could, you could just say we're adjourning at this time. Okay, no public. No public. No, I don't see anybody attending. So thank you everybody. We will adjourn this bylaw subcommittee meeting at 959 am on January 7, 2022. 959 am. Oh, sorry. Time 1259. I'm on Pacific time sorry. Michelle works Michelle's job is in California Leroy. Everybody. All right guys. Again, all right. Thank you for your time. See you soon. Happy weekend.