 You make me a co host. Absolutely. Yep. All right. Hi everyone. Welcome to the March 23rd, 2022 meeting of the Amherst Conservation Commission. There we go. First item on the agenda is comments from the chair. That's me. I think the most exciting thing we have is a new commissioner. Andre, welcome. Just since we all haven't met you. Just a quick introduction and we'll introduce ourselves. Just so we all are familiar. You spend a lot of time on here together. So I think it's worth three minutes. Just to say hello. Sure. I'm Andre. Let's see. I'm a graduate from Amherst High School. Moved away for about 35 years or so. And I'm spent a career in wildlife protection. I was a park ranger followed by a wildlife inspector at the airports in Chicago hair and then spent 22 years as a as a wildlife inspector at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. I think that mostly sums it up. I'm an outdoors person. I've got a degree in wildlife biology from your mass. And I'm looking forward to giving what I can to. To this commission and to the people of the town. Thank you, Andre. Thank you for being here. We're psyched to have you on board commissioners. Do we want to just do a brief introduction, maybe your name and why. You're on the commission, your motivation. Laura, do you want to kick us off? Yeah. Hi, Andre. I'm Laura Peggy Rolo, obviously. My background is in renewable energy development. So there's a lot of that going around here. My background is in solar wind and storage projects. My undergraduate degrees in environmental science, but my focus in my professional world is on solar wind and storage projects. Just going in a circle on my screen. I was actually less because we're the only ones who have met, I think. Okay. Okay. My name is LaRoy. Nice to see you again. My background is mostly in trees and that's that. Larry. My background is I'm a retired professor of mechanical engineering from the university. I've lived in Amherst for 53 or four years. So I know the town a little bit that I'm interested in the environment. My actual specialty area was energy in the environment. Larry, Michelle. I'm Michelle. I also went to Amherst High. I'm a natural resource. I have a wild life degree from there and natural resource. Natural resources. I work for land trust as an analyst and we do conservation of endangered species as our, as our main practice. Awesome. Thanks, Michelle. And I'm Jen. I am a hydrologist. Water resource engineer. My name is Jen. I work for the conservation commission side walks as a kid. Because in my hometown in eastern MASS, my dad was a long-term commissioner. So it was something that when my husband and I have finally settled is really important to me. I think it's a cool way to give back to the community. So I appreciate you joining us. It's great to have you on board and commissioners. Thanks everyone. For ongoing commitment to this. Thanks for the few minutes. Aside from that, our agenda is pretty fall and just letting you guys know it's going to get even busier in the coming weeks. We have some big hearings on the docket. So as you can make time and be available, we really appreciate it. Also along those lines, one thing that was on our agenda for tonight is talking about the mission statement. I just didn't get to it this week. So I think we're going to table it given how full our agenda is, unless somebody is really opposed to that. I think we'll save it and try to get to it in the next the first meeting in April. Is that all right with everyone seeing thumbs up and nods. Awesome. Thank you. And I know Dave isn't with us this evening. I think we'll next go to Aaron or we can just go straight to minutes. But let me just say for the members that we have six attendees from the public right now. Hi everyone. We're just getting through some other business and then we'll start hearings. The first hearing is an RDA for 21 East Hadley Road. Then we go to an notice of intent for 80 Pine Street and finally, the RDA for zero Takamine and zero Kingman. So we have a pretty full lineup so bear with us and I'll try to keep you posted on what what's going on. All right, with that, Aaron, should we do some minutes here. I don't actually have any minutes ready for this evening. Okay, cool. So that one's easy. But if we, we could jump into land use applications. Okay, I think a good place to start. Okay, cool. So the first one we have on the agenda, or we have one on the agenda but two in the. I'm in very last minute came in like a day before yesterday. Okay, so do you know let's start with a Fort River farm. Do you know if Madeline is going to join us. I believe she is that's raised there. Yeah. Okay, I'm going to move you in. So we should should rejoin us as a panelist. Madeline, we see her here, but I think you're muted. I was just going to ask you to introduce yourself and give us a brief two minute overview of your application. Yes, good evening. Can you hear me okay. Yeah, hi welcome. Hi, thank you. It's great to hear your intros and thanks for your service. So I am a certified nature therapy guide. And what I'm applying for is to do a two hour workshop on the land at the Fort River Conservation Farm, and it would be a very simple, slow kind of walk around the ground. We lost you. So, so Madeline if you can hear us sometimes if you turn off your video. Let's give it a couple of minutes. Switch to stargazing. Well I want to let's just give her a couple of minutes if everyone have a second to look at the land use application. Yes. So Dave Z did have a little bit of just because we're, there's no trails on the property and we just did the restoration the Fort River restoration there, he just wanted to kind of give a word of caution that, you know, it's not really, generally speaking we sort of like mark the trails and set up a kiosk and get everything ready prior to sort of welcoming the public to come and it's not that it's close to the public it's just that we haven't done any sort of introductory preparation of the site, which is fine it's mostly just to let her know that and that, you know, Aaron frozen. We're being attacked by the Neverland. Okay. I see your hand up there's there's other properties available as well that might several common not a problem just kind of an awareness thing I recall this correctly it's up to 10 cars parking shares requesting so that's fine but it's first come first serve if there's people there obviously can't have it. Yeah right. Madeleine I see you. I don't know. Okay, I'm back. Okay, welcome back. Okay, my apologies. So as a certified nature therapy guy. I'd like to invite about 10 people for a two hour very gentle walk just around the community gardens and in the walnut Grove. So this is a combination event from mothers out front which is a local climate change activist group, and also with healthy Hampshire who actually funded the community garden. That's on Sunday, April 3 from two to 4pm. So that's what we're doing and wondering what's next. Yeah, so usually for these land use applications we just go over things like parking and public access make sure that it's going to be safe for this size group, make sure that the footprint will be minimal. I think Aaron was relaying from Dave Zomac that while it is a public site we haven't established any trails or like a kiosk or anything there yet and there was just recently a lot of work restoration work done. Along the Fort River there which is super exciting. Hopefully we're restoring some great aquatic and like riparian habitat, but it's important that like we're really careful about the brand new plantings and vegetation and thanks to the localization that have gone in there. Leroy also brought up a good point parking for 10 people is going to be tough, like it's first come first serve so if there's any way to encourage people to carpool, organize carpools. It can just be tricky to get 10 cars in there for one event. So what are the two concerns we flagged any commissioners anything else. Any other concerns about this. No, I actually, I mean I love the mission. So, I don't know when you said when there's no defined trails though is there. I mean there's only 10 people so it's not like it's going to be a big event. So yeah, people hiking through the woods so I think it's okay. There's a strong word of caution like there's just been a lot of restoration work done there that is hard earned grant money and dollars and we're just really trying to restore the creek there, both for water quality and habitat quality. So if there's any way to kind of be really careful about the footprint. Sorry, I was just wondering how easy is it obvious where that restoration footprint is. I love this piece of land just so to reassure you I very tender hearted about this place which is why I'm doing this beautiful experience so people can connect with the land. It's very sort of, we're barely moving across the land we're going to sit in a circle of chairs right between the gardens and will not grow. And then they'll just, you know be gently wandering about, but I will absolutely I have a degree from the Conway School of landscape and so I do have a background and feel protective of this place and that will be part of the lesson is to be aware that this was from a riverine stabilization project and you know that we're guests here. We appreciate that yeah Michelle I haven't been out there since last fall so I don't know how obvious it is, but it sounds like Bible and has a trained eye. If it made sense, we could share like one of the plan sheets from that project so you can just see the footprint. That's all public information. So, if that would make commissioners feel better we can make sure Madeline gets that info. Thank you for listening. Yeah. Okay, so I think it sounds like we're all with those caveats. Happy to approve this application. And do we need a motion. Okay, yes please. Yeah so commissioners I'm looking for a motion to approve the land use application for Fort River Farm. I make the motion to approve the application for Fort River from I heard Leroy on the second voice vote Laura. Hi, Leroy. Larry. Hi, Michelle. Hi, Andre. Hi. Okay, and I'm an eye. So we're good. Thank you Madeline. I hope it's a great event. Alright thanks for your time everybody good night. All right. The other land use application was for stargazing at Mount Pollux. Aaron did we have do you know if we have anyone joining us. No, we don't. This is actually a continuation from a previous, a previous applicant had come forward with us for star approval for stargazing events at Mount Pollux and so this is somebody who previously had approval and is just coming back again this year for another approval. So I'm assuming that we would just sort of approve it under the same, the same conditions but it came in very late it came and I think the day before yesterday so I didn't get a chance to reach out to them. Yeah, I mean I took a look at the application I thought it was thorough and all of our usual concerns were addressed for mainly parking at Mount Pollux. So it sounds like there's only going to be one to two vehicles and they understand that that they should take out anything they bring in. I think it's a great mission and I have seen no problems approving the permit commissioners. They need to. Somebody need to tell the Amherst police they're they're approved windshield or something. Yeah they have to contact the police department and tell them that they have a permit from us, and then put the copy of the permit and the windshield and carry with them, just in case, so that they know on those specific days that they're approved to be there so that the police don't, you know, waste their time going after it as a, you know, because it's because conservation lands otherwise open only dawn till dusk. Michelle. All right, I need a motion to approve the land use application for stargazing at Mount Pollux. Second. Oh geez. I think I got the motion Laura got the second voice vote Laura. Hi. Roy. Larry. Michelle. Andre. And I'm an eye. Okay. That was that I have 720. Yeah, you guys do the emergent the Beltram Road emergency sir Aaron. That would be great. So I don't have any photos to share just on hand immediately but actually maybe I can try to pull them up. The. There was a washout on route nine. Between Fort River and the Fort River where it goes under Belchutown Road and then Stanley street. There's a little oxbow there. And the DPW contacted us and they're in the process of working with natural heritage. Let me see if I can pull this up the initial notification of with the washout. Cute up here for you guys. So this is showing the washout it was a failed catch basin, and they stabilized it with some riprap it's it caused a big sinkhole in the road. They're communicating with natural heritage to get there sort of after the fact approval for the work that was done to stabilize the roadway and the shoulder. And I, there was no, they were staying out of there was no equipment in the water there was no work in the water. They worked to keep the riprap up along the slope that goes up to the road so I didn't have any issues with it and Dave granted his approval to issue it so we would just need a vote to ratify that emergency certification and I can get the Sorry, I'm doing a lot of switching around here. I can do it. We just need a motion to ratify the emergency certification for route nine stabilization of a culvert failure on route nine slash belcher town road for the MRCPW. I moved. Got Michelle. You the second second. Larry's on the second voice. Laura. Right. Michelle. Hi, Larry. Andre. Hi. Roy. Hi. And I'm an eye. Douglas. All right. We still have seven minutes. Aaron. Any. You let me know what you want to talk about. Yeah. I'd like to just talk about Vista terrace for a minute. You might recall that I really apologize for this. This is my artistic rendition here. No, it's literally something I put together in three minutes just to demonstrate what's going on. I might recall that at the end of last year, they submitted a request for certificate of compliance out at Vista terrace. And when I went out to do an inspection for the request, the site was very unstable. It looked like they had seated it down basically right as the ground was freezing, and then mulched it and unfortunately then we got the ground was frozen we got this huge rainstorm and all the material just washed down. Can you guys see my cursor. Okay, let me see if I can actually annotate this. So there was water kind of flowing in this direction, digging down like this that kind of channeled out and then there's a lot of water coming down from this direction channeling down. Just a lot of bullying in the on the site where it was unstable and so I met with the owners contractor because we're trying to come up with some solution to address the water here because it's, you know, we need to stabilize it in some way and they need to get their certificate of compliance. What we had discussed in the field was just putting a very low gradient, very shallow sort of I called it I call it sort of a rain garden slash just infiltration basin there to hold water temporarily. It would be grassed something that you could just literally drive a lawn mower into to mow with a little low gradient spillway that's got like a riprap check dam and then a low gradient grassed swale coming down in this direction so just to capture the water, allow it to infiltrate and allow it to move where it wants to go without causing the gullying this forming currently. So they basically asked for permission to do this as a corrective measure to the field conditions that are happening right now and I think that it's, it's fine the erosion controls are still in place they've actually done quite a bit of reinforcing of the existing erosion controls and if I can pull up the photos to show you some pictures if you just bear with me a moment. So this is this is that corner. And this is like the location where the little basin would be basically and then there would be a check dam here and then sort of a swale that was directed down in this way. But there's they've reinforced with hay bales here they put hay bales along the channel that's caught being created and then there's a lot of hay bales down here as well just to keep silt from crossing over that barrier and I did look and there's a silt that's gone beyond the erosion control barrier so they've done a good job of keeping the material on the site and from moving down towards the resource. So it's basically asking the Commission would you consider this as a minor administrative change to address the site conditions and stabilize it. I'm certainly comfortable with that it seems like this will only improve erosion control measures already working at the site. Probably make it easier to maintain the cell fence that they have there anyway so certainly seems logical and protects the resource. Okay, thank you. I'm definitely with it. Happy to be able to do this. Same. Yeah, thank them for their cooperation with us. Absolutely. And so what I'd like to do is just to make it as a motion and then just grant them a correspondence and attach the plan send it to DEP so that DEP can see that we've made this field change and and that's about it. Okay, looking for the motion. I will make a motion to approve emergency certification for request for minor administrative change order of conditions for Vista Tara Tara. Oh, no, I'm kidding. I'm making a draft motion to approve minor ministry change to DEP number 089-0626 to allow remediation of runoff issue. Okay, voice vote LaRoy. Larry. Hi, Laura. Hi, Michelle. Hi, Andre. Hi. I'm an eye. Okay. Great. Okay. So a couple of things. I did reach out to foresters per Michelle's comments. It's a little bit of a back and forth and I actually had a good conversation with Andre in the field about this as well. One of the cuts, which is actually that at the forested part of the poor farm. They are very interested in trying to work with around Michelle's comments for ground nesting birds and they have discussed pushing the cut to basically they say they said August it wouldn't happen until August or it would be in the winter. That the cut would take place. So, but they're very conscientious there. They said that they do they are very conscientious of birds on the site or wildlife to try to make sure that there's no impacts. I also spoke with John Clark. He's the forester for the second forest cut plan, which had already passed its 10 day period. However, you know, I did talk to him and he his, his comments which I did understand were basically he saw this as a habit of more of a landscape habitat improvement that would benefit birds and it's apparently an old red pine stand that there's like very little in the way of low growing vegetation on the site and he he didn't think that it would be a real impact to to birds but you know it's an interesting discussion and Andre and I did talk about the fact that it might be interesting to get some guidance from the US Fish and Wildlife Service on this for the future just to make sure that any comments that we provide our that we take those factors into consideration and I'm kind of interested to hear what US Fish and Wildlife would say about the DCR cutting plans anyways because you know a lot of times the cutting plans do happen when it's nesting season so I don't know if there's any follow up comment on that or if there's anything the Commission wants to discuss relative to that. Michelle and Andre, you guys are have the expertise in this. Does that seem like a, are you guys comfortable moving forward with that plan. I could say that the first plan that was mentioned. Was to be in the in the fall or winter. I mean that's the ideal time in order to avoid affecting nesting nesting birds. And I think that's really good that they're looking to looking to do that. As far as the habitat improvement. That was mentioned with the with the red pine stand I can certainly understand that I would. I'm not an expert in habitat improvement so I wouldn't. You know I. I'm not sure how what how to take their word for it. If you would. And I think also that, you know, I can't speak for fishing US Fish and Wildlife Service, although I used to. Perhaps if they really want to do something in accordance with with the migratory bird Treaty Act, they could certainly talk to folks here in Hadley. I think it's a good thing that that the first group is going to the first cuts going to be done after the breeding season and nesting season. I think it's really good. Great. Something. Yeah. So the first plan that's great. I think that's why not, I mean, August and winter, ideally winter should just be the go to for, you know, leafless tree cutting. So the, the other one, what I remember reading that was a red maple stand and maybe that was a typo, but a red pine stand I guess I'd be less concerned about but a red maple stand I mean, that's, that's a native tree with potentially nesting birds in it. And just to correct what Aaron said it's not a ground nesting birds but late July and especially in June's a nesting season late July that's the post fledging season and there's you know, baby birds on the ground hiding in the bushes there. And what I remember reading is that they're also cutting the shrub surrounding the forest which would sort of be like the habitat where the birds could then escape to once they are cutting and disturbing the forest so I'm have to admit that I'm disappointed that they're not willing in a habitat improvement project just to bump the date to a time when it's not going to be harming the animals but then again if it's a red pine stand I'm I am less concerned. So what was really helpful actually Michelle was that you emailed me before and kind of expressed some concerns if you'd like you could do the same thing and then I could forward them to john Clark. And just see, you know, if the landowner was willing to consider those things. You know the other thing is I think it opens up a bigger conversation as far as DCR, you know because DCR is approving these forest cutting plans and the impacts to birds and I think, you know in the town of Amherst it's a consideration so maybe it's a broader conversation that we have with them about our concern with it and see what their feedback is on that or how they, how they respond to that especially relative to the migratory bird act. Yeah, I'm kind of shocked that in habitat improvement grant wouldn't have some guidelines for, you know, best management practices or mitigation for wildlife impacts in the process of that work. Okay, yeah, these. Thank you. These are great comments and considerations and it sounds like something we need to kind of position ourselves to be part of that conversation. Moving forward, Michelle would you mind. It sounds like the best thing to do is, is you if you can capture this in a correspondence to Aaron only that way that she can correspond with the to see if given see get some clarification on what kind of red tree we have going on here because I agree. Also read cutting in a red maple stand would be strange because that's usually they're also called the swamp maple would be pretty low elevation cutting, but yeah clarification on exactly what kind of tree we have and if there's any way to kind of combine forces between birds and other habitat restoration goals of the cutting. Okay, with you. Okay. Great. Thanks Aaron. Thanks everyone. And I'm going to let you. So it's 736. Should we open the RDA for 21 East Hadley Road. I think 80 Pine Street might be first in my. I have 21 East Hadley Road first agenda. Maybe I messed up the order so let me jump to that one sorry about that. I have to get my RDA language anyway. So, I'll open this hearing. This public meeting is now called to order this meeting is being held as required by the provisions chapter 131 section 40 of the general laws of the Commonwealth and act relative to the protection of wetlands as most recently amended and article 3.31 wetlands protections under the town of Amherst general bylaws. I'm going to open up the RDA for 21 East Hadley Road if you are representing the owner or the owner for this application if you could raise your hand. I will bring you in. Should be Lance Curley. Lance, I'm promoting you to a panelist. There's anyone else raise your hand and I'll bring you in. Lance we can see you're here but we can't see you. I'm working on start video here. Okay, awesome. I'm going to get this hearing. Select another video camera and settings. Sorry I'm working on a new laptop tonight. I usually work from my office but I'm in Maryland tonight so I may be limited to, let's see here. The camera is not cooperating at the moment let's see if I can try this. Let's see if that works. As much as we'd like to see Lance, it's really okay as long as we can hear you. I'll make sure to speak up. Okay, great. And if you want us to pull up any specific site plans, do you want to tell us which site plans to pull up and screen share. Yep, Aaron and Andrei, if I'm pronouncing that correctly and Ward Smith, our wetland expert all met on site on Monday and I shared some new documents that were slightly revised and updated from the original RDA submission made by Ward Smith about a month ago. Okay. Yeah, we're seeing that now it looks like. Yep. Yeah, so Lance, if you could just give us a three minute, just introduce yourself, remind us where we are in the arc of this project and give us a brief overview of the of the application that would be great. Yeah, sure. So we were. In one of the principles that classic colonial homes were designed build firm based in Florence mass. And we were contacted by the homeowner. Last year to discuss a potential renovation project on this historic Cape House. Which we were able to come to agreement on and took on the project. We are currently working through a construction project there, which is more extensive than we had originally intended. The project has kind of ballooned as we're discovering new things and kind of pulling away old bits and pieces of the existing historic house and kind of reconfiguring some areas that we had not intended when we first signed on with the with the client but knew that there may be some things we uncovered along the way. The purpose of the RDA we submitted was to obtain permission to expand slightly upon the existing footprint of the historic home. And that required drilling some holes for some ground contact. And currently Aaron is pointing out those specific locations. And the, I would say, in my mind the most kind of significant request was the addition of a mudroom entry in the larger lower blue circle that was going to infill an existing inside corner between two of the existing buildings, and to extend out beyond the face of the outermost building, requiring several sonnet tubes which are kind of cardboard tubes filled with concrete to support this addition. And that was the information submitted in this RDA. And in the last three weeks or so, we came across some other aspects during our renovation that kind of forced a slightly different direction. And essentially we've reduced the size of that entryway. We're now in line with the existing building not projecting out to the south of it, and only requiring one ground cord concrete footing, which is identified with that arrow in the lower kind of southeast corner of that little addition. We originally asked to include any landscape, hardscape or planting scope within this RDA submission but our client decided that he would prefer to tackle any groundwork around the house construction that's underway now. The second ladder phase once they take delivery on the renovated home and have lived there for a period of time, and determine what the best use for their purposes will be for that landscape and hardscape plan. And so, he's been made aware that there will be a second submission of that information to work with the town. And where we are presently is the house. There's, we're seeing pictures of it here. We have a silt fence up along East Hadley Road. And the main house portion that looks like new construction is actually housing a original timber frame. And currently we're working on the midsection of the house where the kitchen is located, and this roof is being removed and walls are being reframed and adequately insulated and will be basically bringing this whole building back together. Within the course of the next month and a half or two months, and then we'll be starting interior work on the structure. Okay, great. Thanks Lance. Erin I see you're flipping through site photos do do you and where other commissioners able to make it want to give us a report from the field. I'll just jump in on that so there, there is sort of the road sort of represents a berm in between the the site and the river for most of the most of the site there is an exception to that which is down in the southern most corner which I didn't know if there's actually dropped inlet there. So, I'm just going to stop sharing for a second. I did ask for the silt fence to be properly towed in and reinforced with a straw waddle. We also discussed a couple other conditions in the field which I think will work really well and the applicant seemed fine with. So, again, the first one was fixing repairing the silt fence so that it's functioning erosion control should be maintained and functioning through phase one. Once phase one is completed then the entire site should be stabilized and you know the manner of stabilization is less important than the fact that the site is stabilized so whether it's grass seed and straw would chip mulch or erosion control blankets or whatever they want to do as fine as long as it's stable. Once it's stabilized. Then I would do an inspection that they could then remove the erosion controls, and then there would be a condition and additional condition that on phase two which is the landscaping work they're proposing to rebuild a bunch of stone walls and do a bunch of plantings on the site that that be completed. And then I would do an RDA for that work as well. And I just set this arbitrary date of September 30 2023 because I believe Lance had said fall of 2023 they would be looking to start that work. And that is to compensate for some tree removal that was done on site, apparently. In the course of the renovation there was a bunch of rot on the front side of the house and they took out a couple trees around the foundation without approval. So, we would just like to have that permit as part you know conditioned as part of this permit so that they come through with phase two. And then just a condition for no additional vegetation or stump removal on the site unless approved by the Conservation Commission. Relatively simple and straightforward project really I didn't have any major glaring issues with it and the applicant was really cooperative to address my concerns so I would be comfortable issuing a negative determination under the Well and Protection Act. Thanks Aaron. Commissioners any questions, comments. I reviewed the materials everything was pretty straightforward to me and I agree with your recommendation. Thanks Laura. Yeah, just with the short amount of experience I have, which is practically none. But the paperwork and the, the actual site. It looks very straightforward. Exactly what Aaron said that was was the word that was in my mind. So it seems like a minimal impact, I think with these conditions, a negative RDA is appropriate, I agree Aaron that within this RDA conditioning that we make sure we get an RDA for the replanting is the good move Lance appreciate your cooperation organization on this but yeah it's important to get that second RDA for the planting and thanks for keeping the SNEC under control at the site and kind of up to snuff. Because I think it's going to be a wet, a wet few weeks here. All that exposed so I'll just pipe right into the adjacent well and so thank you. Yep, without a doubt. Thank you. Okay, great. All right. Well unless commissioners have other questions or concerns I think we're looking for the motion. Oh, Aaron has a comment. Just might want to check if there's any public comment on this. Thank you for reminding me. I'm not a member of the public of the attendees. So if you are here with any if you're in a butter or a member of the public here with interest and the RDA for 21 East Cadley Road, we have a comment or question please raise your hand, not seeing anyone. Thank you for the reminder I thought of that while Lance was talking and then promptly forgot. So I think we're ready for a motion. I moved to issue a negative determination of applicability checking box two with required noted conditions and a positive determination of applicability checking box five. Second. Here we have Michelle and the motion were on the second voice vote Michelle. Hi, Laura. Larry. Oh, you're muted Larry. Hi. Thank you, Andre. Hi, Roy. Hi. I'm an eye. Lance, thank you. Thank you very much everyone I appreciate your help. Yep, good luck out there and we'll see you in a couple months few months. Sounds good. Nice evening. You too. Right. Great work. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Let's see. Just checking the time. 750. Oh, yeah. So I'm going to open this is a new notice of intent. Checking in. Are we good to move on to. 80 pine street, Aaron. Yes. Okay. I'm going to open this. Oh, good. So this is the first hearing is being held as required by the provisions of chapter 131 section 40 of the general laws of the Commonwealth and act in accordance with the direction of wetlands as most recently amended and article 3.3, one well into protection under the town of Amherst general bylaws. So this is the first hearing for the first. Discussion of an NOI. I'm going to open this up. I'm going to open this up. I'm going to open this up. Renovation of an existing house removal of existing barn and restoration plantings in the riverfront area of Mill River. This is at 80 pine straight and Amherst. I'm assuming is. Consultant or applicant standing on being here. We know. So Allen. St. Gosh, I'm drawing. Yeah. And then Mike Lou from Berkshire design. I see Mike. I'll bring you in. I see Alan. I'll bring you in. Okay. Let's see. Aaron, would you mind stopping sharing? Of course. Yeah. Of course. Okay. Mike and Alan, I see that you guys are here, but we cannot hear you. Now I see you, Mike. Okay. And I can hear you. Okay. Can you yell? Great. Great. Thanks. I just got the controls on. Alan Allen's here too. Hi, Alan. We see you. And we can hear you. Awesome. Okay. So I would ask Mike or Alan to introduce yourselves and then give us a three minute overview of the permit application. Sure. I can go. I'm Michael Lou with the Berkshire design group. Um, on behalf of Allen St. Hillare with Valley Property Management, who is representing the owner killerine. Um, properties. Uh, for 80 pine street. Um, this is a project to. Basically reconstructing an edition. Um, that's on the back of the house at 80 pine street. Am I having control here? I have control but I can move it wherever you need to highlight anything you need. This is a survey that was done by our office and in the hatched area you see in the back of 80 Pine Street that's the existing footprint where it says one story. That's being removed. And the existing barn, which is closer to the Mill River there is being removed. The new addition, well let me just go through a real quick figure. The barn that addition and a small piece of the stone walk that's in between those two clumps of bushes at the barn is being removed. And that totals 1325 square feet. The proposed building which is on the next plan totals 896 square feet. So, we're getting a net decrease in impervious area of 429 square feet on the site. So impervious area is being reduced and there's the proposed condition plan with the addition shaded in. And then the area where the barn is to be taken down. The ground would be leveled out underneath the barn. It currently, the barn sits on pier so you can kind of see under it. Excavate from the from the new building or addition area would be used to kind of fill in and level out the ground under the barn. And we're proposing to plant a conservation wildlife seed mix there. Supplemented with 10 high bush blueberries, blueberry shrubs. We looked at the site I don't know if Aaron you want to flash through some photos of the site, but basically I think it's a pretty straightforward project. Generally, it's a, it's an improvement to the riverfront area in that there's a decrease in impervious area and we're doing the restoration plantings in the barn area. So we're creating a better condition there. There were some concerns that were brought up on the site visit and we can go over those maybe they're shown in the photos. That's the barn from looking from west to east. Behind the barn here that in that photo right there this is on the north side of the barn, and you can see where the top of the slope goes down and you can see the Mill River in the background there. But this area here there's some old debris and some concrete pieces and you see a set of precast concrete steps that are in the background there at the corner of the barn, this would all be removed. And then the, we'd be putting in the straw waddle erosion control from the across the entire length of the width of the lot across the top of the slope there. The barn will be taken down with an excavator the material put into a dumpster, most likely, and when that you know when it's filled to take it off site and bring back an empty dumpster and continue the process so that would be the process of taking down the barn and the existing addition and the back of the house. There's no basement proposed but there would still be some excavation to put in the foundation for the addition that would replace the existing. And so that soil from that footprint would be used as I mentioned to level out and fill in and level out the area underneath the barn. Aaron had sent ahead of time, some comments and draft conditions which Alan had indicated that he didn't have any problems with any of these. So, if we want to discuss anyone in particular or if any of the commissioners have other concerns or questions that we can hopefully answer those and provide responses. Yeah, thanks. I followed all of that thanks Aaron for the virtual site tour. And thank you Mike for the numbers on the net reduction in the resource. So, nothing pops to mind I see I saw the sediment erosion people at the top of the slope on the plan I agree with that I think everything we anything we can do just to protect that slope and as you said, restore as much as possible under that barn is great. Those would have been my questions but you guys have already answered them it sounds like stockpiling everything's going to be removed from the site as you go so we're not going to have anything sitting in that like fragile resource area. I've also read these conditions and I'm comfortable with them commissioners does anyone have any questions or comments. Just that I appreciate the thoughtfulness went into this thanks for taking us through the proposal in such detail. I think it overall it'll be a benefit to the site when it's all done. Agreed thanks Laura. Aaron, any outstanding concerns. My concerns were the that erosion that we saw around the barn, and I did ask that. Once they get the barn down that they put some erosion control blank it once they get the debris out and and sort of regrade to put some erosion control blankets on the extent to that slope to stabilize it. And then I think the seed on the flat part where the barn is sitting will will work great and I think that the you know there's going to be a straw waddle there and plantings there so I think that's going to be a really nice improvement. You know that the area, I wasn't quite sure what was happening with you know downspouts roof gutters foundation drains and things like that. But I did speak with them about that and they were willing to provide either stone at the outlets or the you know the concrete level spreaders at the outlets and we're going to make sure that there's no downspouts being placed in unstable areas that could cause erosion particularly concerned about putting it on the neighboring property or towards the slope in the back. Excavated material from the foundation as as Mike said is not going to be stockpiled on site it's actually going to be reused to fill in the hole that's underneath the barn so I think that'll be a really nice because we won't have to worry about stockpiles sitting there. And then you see here. During during the work, the excavator will be sitting in the area between the barn and the house to take everything down, and all that material is going to be taking off taken off site. So vegetation, no trees or vegetation needs to be removed from the site they said they might need to remove a little bit of two clusters of lilac bushes but they might try to repurpose those somewhere else on the property so I think it's a good project, I didn't have any outstanding concerns and all of my concerns were addressed so I'm comfortable conditioning it with conditions listed. Okay, thanks Aaron, I'm just going to take a second and check for any public comment. I see we have several attendees of the meeting if you're here with questions or comments about the notice of intent for 80 pine straight and Amherst raise your hand, not seen anyone. Okay. All right. Well with that, Aaron would you mind sharing again. Absolutely. Commissioners were looking for a motion. Yep, I'll make a motion to issue an order of conditions DEP 09697 with the noted conditions above the second that second from Andre. All right, voice vote Andre. Yes. Laura. Hi. Michelle. Hi. Larry. Hi. Roy. Hi. And I'm an eye. All right. Alan, Mike, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. All right. We'll leave you. Have a good night. Have a great night. Thank you. You too. All right. Okay. So we have one more hearing. Checking the time seven 40. Oh yeah, we're good. All right. So this is a continuation from the last meeting. Our quest for determination for zero. Herman Lane and zero Kingman road. So this is our plan for this hearing. We're going to ask for a three minute update from the consultant and the owner for the application. And then we will discuss it as a commission and figure out how to move forward. Oh, sorry. After we have the three minutes to update us on activities since the last hearing. Since the last meeting, including this hearing. And then I'm going to ask for a three minute update from. Sorry. After we have the three minutes from the. Applicant, we'll go to public. Comment. And I know I see a lot of attendees here. I'm assuming you're all here for this hearing. Thank you for being here and keeping track of it to be here again this week. Thank you. So what we're going to do is have a limit of two minutes per person and ask that you. Keep your questions and comments relevant to our jurisdiction, which is protecting. The wetland resources, namely the stream, intermittent stream looking at the bottom of the slope. Relative to this property. So. We're going to keep it a tight ship. And we'll do our best to make sure everyone's heard. So with that, Aaron, do you want to catch us up on activities since our last. Meeting. Sure. So. Immediately following the meeting the morning after the meeting. Myself and Dave Zomek and Jen met via zoom just to sort of discuss the outcome of the meeting. It was a pretty unusual meeting. And so we wanted to just sort of debrief on that. And I think all of us felt. That for this particular site that the RDA process was not working. To get compliance with the wetland violation. And that the. We basically felt that enforcement might be a good option there, but we wanted to consult with DEP. So I did contact Tom. Gross coast from DEP. And sort of explained the background of the situation and he agreed that enforcement order would be a correct course of action for us to take in order to get that slope restored that was cut. I also consulted the town attorney just to run by sort of the outcome of the meeting. And they were also supportive of. Issuing enforcement for the site. So I issued an enforcement order requiring slope stabilization and replanting. And then today. So I guess the thought is to keep the enforcement and the permit application separate as much as possible. Just I guess as a result of comments that were made by the applicants consultant, it just seems like it might be a cleaner way to do this. A lot of times the commission does use RDAs to sort of as an olive branch to resolve enforcement situations. But in this case, it just, it doesn't seem to be the right course. So we understand that. And that's why we took that action. And so with that said, we did get a revised plan this evening, which shows the work pushed out of conservation commission jurisdiction, which I think it's a really positive thing. So that is my update and happy to answer any other questions. Okay. Thanks, Aaron. So I'm going to quickly outline what are, what we, the kind of decision tree here, but first I want to see, does anyone have any clarifying questions commissioners for Aaron's update? Okay. So we have two separate tracks here. One is this RDA and the other is the enforcement order. The RDA is what is the, is the topic of this public hearing. So I'm going to stick to discussing the RDA here as a public hearing. Because the applicant has responded to our request and moved to the building envelope out of our jurisdiction. Really the appropriate move here is to have a negative determination. So they have responded to our request for information. They've responded to everything we've asked in terms of the RDA. So the slope stabilization in response to the violation of the Weapons Protection Act is going to be handled under the enforcement order. So just to clarify, I mean, this really isn't jurisdictional anymore. I'm going to go ahead. And if Dan Lewis or Erica, if you have any further comment relative to the RDA, please raise your hand and I can bring you in. And again, I just want to say if there's any interrupting or we're not able to discuss and talk, then I'm going to take people out of the, as panelists. So I'm Erica, I'm going to promote you for a maximum of a three minute update. I'm going to bring you in as a panelist. There's a delay. Oh, Dan has his hand raised as well. Dan, I'm going to bring you in. Hi, Erica. Hi, folks. How are you doing? You and here you, let's just wait for Dan. There's Dan. Hi, Dan. You can see you. And here, hopefully hear you. Can we hear you, Dan? I can hear you. Yeah. All right. Thank you for being back. So do you have any further updates? You heard me just say that because thank you for holding, pulling the building and blow up out of our jurisdiction. We appreciate that. And we're willing to issue a negative determination on this RDA. Do you have any further information relevant to the RDA to share with us tonight? No, no, no. All right. So with that, I think I'm going to. Move you guys out of the. And all and then take public comment. Yeah, go ahead, Erica. I'm so sorry, Jen. The only point that I wanted to make was that while the commission was discussing a negative determination, we were also asking for. The wetland line to be confirmed and I'm sure that you guys will figure that out in motions, but just so that we didn't skip that portion where that would be, you know, a positive determination for the delineation. I just didn't want to skip that portion. Okay. Thanks for the clarification. Yeah. We have to issue. Like three basically, but we also have to address both zero document and zero pigments separately. So I think we have that. I think we're ready. Thank you, Erica. So. I'm going to move you guys to attend these. All right. Now members of the public. I would. This is our moment to take any questions or comments. And just to clarify. In case this is kind of the burning question. I think we're ready. To. Like regulatory avenues that we're tracking in parallel right now. One is this request for determination. Which is going to be a negative determination, which means they do not file a full permit. And that is because they have pulled the building envelope. Out of the jurisdiction of the conservation commission. Per our request at the last meeting. I think we're ready to take any questions or comments. So. I think we're ready to take any questions or comments. I think we're ready to take any questions or comments. I think there will be discussed separately after the public hearing. And you're welcome to stay in the meeting and listen to that discussion. But that's how we'll go about understanding the course forward for the. Stabilization of the slope. That was cut in violation of the law and protection act. So members of the public, if you have a question or comment, if you could raise your hand, I can allow you to talk. I'm going to move the mic down. Charlie. They're back. Charlie. I'm going to promote you to a panelist. Sorry for the delay at night, folks. I don't know why it's slower than. Usual. Okay. Charlie, we can see like your picture, but we can't hear you yet. You're muted. Yes. Hi. I just want to clarify. My one question has to do with. The town wetlands administrator was raising last week, last meeting. About runoff. And what's going to happen on that. And so is that part of the enforcement. Discussion. We can go through the enforcement in detail outside of this area. So. Where we would really talk about runoff is if this went to a full permit for work. And because they pulled the building envelope out of our jurisdiction. We can't, there's the. There's not going to be an impact of runoff to the resource because they're outside of the buffer and outside of our jurisdiction. Sorry, Charlie. We can catch what I missed. So, and just to clarify, so the, it's out of jurisdiction unless there's another violation where material starts to move down the slope or into the resource area. So as long as we can avoid that from happening, then. It would remain the, the work that's associated. With the home construction at zero, Kingman and zero Tuckman would be non-jurisdictional. To address your, your questions specifically, Charlie. I think it would be worthwhile just to speak to the building department in town and just bring your concerns to their attention because they're going to be reviewing probably like the driveway permit and the building construction permit. And so they should be addressing that with the builder to make sure that there's no. Runoff issues that are happening associated with the home construction that's outside of our jurisdiction. Okay. My understanding of this whole process was that. Respectfully, this is a professional developer who I would think will understand the bylaws and I've looked at the bylaws and they seem pretty simple. And so there was a process that was skipped. Where we would have been able to talk about trees that slow all these things and that. Was bypassed illegally from my understanding, if I'm understanding it correctly. Yeah. So I'm frustrated about that. And now it seems like now. Okay. Now, because they've moved the footprint. We can't even discuss this now. It's not that we can't discuss it. It's that we're handling it under an enforcement order. So it's separate from the RDA permit application. So the fact that there was a violation of the Wellands Protection Act is, you know, has not been forgotten. And we can talk about it in the enforcement order portion of the agenda will put up the enforcement order so people can see. It's also publicly available. But that's how we're kind of going about stabilizing and restoring that slope. So we hear that concern. We were also very concerned with that after last meeting. The policy lever we went for, which was an RDA wasn't the tool that we should have used to best address this. And that's why we went forward with an enforcement order. And that's the best tool we have to kind of address the, the work that's already been done. Within our jurisdiction at the site. So, okay. Thank you, Charlie. I would encourage you to listen to the end when we talk of the meeting after this public hearing, when we talk about the enforcement order. Thank you. Yeah, thanks for being here. Your questions. All right. I don't see any other raised hands. Oh, Stephanie. I'm going to promote you to analyst. Hi, can you hear me? Yeah. Oh, I have to do video and this may just be a quick question. So is there a time for public. Input on the enforcement part. So there's not, it's not part of this public hearing. So we've captured everything we can about the concern for the risk to the resource within our jurisdiction in that enforcement order, which will detail outside of this public hearing. But because this public hearing is no longer in our jurisdiction. We can't, it's just not appropriate to discuss here. Okay. I guess I just want to say this anyway. First, I appreciate all the work you guys are doing. And I believe I'm in a butters a butter. So. But I'm concerned about the environmental impact and it just seems there's a real pattern in our state, if not our country that basically the thing of asking forgiveness, just cut the trees down and then find bureaucratic ways around it. I hope that the, your enforcement will have them actually replacing stuff with real native. Plantings that the trees are at least three foot diameter trunks and. You know, that's something's really done so that it, it doesn't all just slide down the hill into the swamp. So that was all I wanted to say. Thanks. We hear you. Thank you, Stephanie. Okay. Thank you. Okay. All right. Brenda. See your hands. I'm voting you the panelists. Hi. I just wanted to ask the builder. Because he broke the law and took down all these trees without any. Notice to the butters as if in a good faith gesture. trees along the train tracks on Zero Kingman. It's just a request. It is not part of the RDA or this conservation commission, but we would request it. We'd appreciate it. Okay. Any other questions or comments relevant to this RDA? It seems like no. Okay. Thank you, Brenda. Lily, I am promoting you to panelists. We can hear you, Lily. Thank you so much for being here, Lily, for making the time that was really well said, and I think we all take our responsibility to protect this resource very, very seriously. We're doing everything we can to try to protect this resource, and we're glad we have the cooperation of the builder to move forward with this. So thank you, Lily. Commissioners, any other responses or comments for Lily? Nope. Okay. Okay. Thank you again. We really appreciate you being here. Jen, could I just make one other, just I want to make sure that something's very clear. The plan revision came in at 4.30 this afternoon, or a little after four this afternoon. I didn't see it till 4.30. So I just wanted to make sure that members of the public are aware of that, that up until 4.30 this afternoon, we were looking at a very different plan. And so and our jurisdiction only goes to a 100 foot buffer beyond the wetland limit. And from a state and local regulatory standpoint, those are the only areas that we have jurisdiction to regulate or take action to protect. So I just wanted to make sure that that was clear to everyone because I think it got kind of lost. Yeah. Thank you. I did say jurisdiction, but didn't clarify that it's really outside of that 100 foot buffer. Thanks, Erin. All right. Lily, thank you again. I'm going to change your role back to an attendee. I see Brenda, do you still, do you have another comment or question? Okay. I think this is the last one, Brenda. It's coming back. Some reason it's not. Can you try promoting Brenda, Erin? I just, just did. Yeah. It doesn't seem to be reacting. I've had that happen to me before. Oh, there she comes. There she goes. There's a delay tonight on Zoom. Sorry. This just came in at 4.30. Then how does anyone have enough time to review this to make a decision? I mean, business practice, how can it come in at 4.30 for a seven o'clock meeting? To me, this is just more the same that we're seeing from this builder and this consultant. I'm really disappointed in this. Point taken for doing what we can with the policy levers we have here to protect our resource. And now that the project is outside of that 100 foot buffer, it's not jurisdictional for us. We are taking the enforcement order very seriously and that we can both discuss as a commission outside of this public hearing. So thank you for the point and for being here, Brenda. We certainly hear your frustration. I just wanted to pull up the plan so that folks could see the intermittent stream line in light blue, the wetland line in dark blue, and then the 50 foot and 100 foot buffers. And you can see that the building envelope was moved to outside of the 100 foot. So it's a relatively simple plan to dissect in that way. Thanks, Erin. All right. Public, this is our last call for any public comments or questions. We appreciate you all being here. The public hearing portion of this, we're going to discuss as a commission and then likely close that hearing. We'll talk about the enforcement order at the end of the meeting tonight and then likely in future meetings. So stay tuned to the agenda to keep in touch with what's going on. Again, we're doing everything we can to protect the resource. We're using the best tools we have to try to get this sorted out. So thank you for your attendance and for being here tonight. So with that commission, I'm going to suggest that we, well, Erin, should I go ahead and close the public hearing and then we can make our motions? Yes. Yeah, I would close the public hearing first on this one. Okay. Yeah. So commissioners, I think at this point we can close the public hearing because we've given everyone a chance to ask questions in the comments. So I just need a motion to close the public hearing. A move that we closed the public hearing for the RDA, Zero Kingman Road and Zero Beckman Lane. Second. For the second from Andre, a motion from Leroy. And so voice vote, Andre? Yeah. Leroy? Hi. Michelle? Hi. Larry? Hi. Laura? Hi. And I'm an I. Okay. So commissioners, you can read this motion quickly. I think this is a pretty clear cut situation in that the applicant has responded to our request to move the building envelope outside of our jurisdiction. So unless anyone has any clarifying questions or comments relevant to the RDA, I think we're looking for that motion. I have a comment. I assume that by doing this, by the fact that they've moved this, they've moved the building area outside, that the town planning board, et cetera, and the town itself will maintain that they do not expand beyond that envelope. Does that make sense what I'm saying? Yeah, right on the line, right? So we're pretty sure about that line. I mean, part of the issue here has to do with things like dex, swimming pools, et cetera, et cetera. So we've got the building envelope that's been reduced to a size that takes it out of our jurisdiction. But those kinds of things still fall within the town. So who is involved in making the decision about that? Yeah. And it's really the building department. So part of the reason I'm saying this is because the people in the, our people are out there listening to this and want to understand what's happening. And it's not, we are not negating what's happening. Just for shifting the responsibility to somebody else. Well, we're not shifting it. The responsibility is shifted by the nature of the fact that now out of our jurisdiction. So I hang on, Andre, I see you hang on a second. Yeah. So Larry, that's a great point. And Aaron made this point in a response to public comment. And that is, if you're concerned about moving forward, things like driveways, porches, runoff, really the building department or the people to contact about that. And I mean, Erin is swamped, but she can point you in the right direction. If you contact her, Dave Zomac, the assistant town manager can also be a great contact for who at the building permit to be in touch with to make sure that we're vigilant or understand what's going on as this site is, as this residential property is developed. So thank you, Larry, for that point, that clarifying point. Andre, what did I miss or further questions or comments? I just think that the come to expand a little bit for the public's understanding about the jurisdiction of the concom is that once it's outside of the 100 feet in this case, they've moved the envelope outside of the 100 feet, which is the jurisdiction of the Conservation Commission. Therefore, the Conservation Commission has no authority to impose any further conditions, et cetera, in terms of the actual building. And I think it's that the public needs to understand the fact that it is now outside of the scope of the authority of the concom. And that is, I'll just add, the project moving forward is the violation of the Well and Protection Act with the clearing inside the 100 foot buffer is still within our jurisdiction, and we are doing the best we can to have that stabilized and somewhat restored via an enforcement order, which we'll discuss once we've moved forward with this this hearing and moved on with the agenda in the meeting. So we have by no means let go of any violations. We are just using the appropriate policy tools to chase that down so that we can best protect the resource. Again, our concern here is stability stabilization of the slopes that we do not have erosion and degradation of water quality in the resource area. Any thank you, Andre. I appreciate that. And Larry, great points. We can't say that's enough that the commission really takes our responsibility to protect this resource very seriously and we're navigating this like as best we can. Miss anyone? Oh, Erin, go ahead. I just wanted to respond to Larry's comment about the boundary of that 100 foot buffer. And, you know, I drafted the enforcement order. I kept it pretty simple, but the commission can modify that enforcement order once we get to that discussion and requiring that 100 foot boundary to be clearly marked is something that the commission can require. And also the commission can require that area to be protected in some way that that area that's been cleared to be protected in some way. So we can condition that into the enforcement order. You guys can modify it however you like. And you can make a motion to modify the enforcement order I issued or ratify it or reissue it with changes, whatever you'd like to do with that, we can incorporate that to address that violation. But as Jen has said, let's close this out so that we can get there. Yeah. Thanks, Erin. Commissioners, any other questions or comments? Okay. Thanks, everyone, for your attention to this. It hasn't been an easy one to navigate, but we ultimately appreciate the applicant moving this building envelope outside of the 100 foot buffer. We think it'll be a better outcome for the resource here. So I think commissioners, we're looking for a motion. This one right here, Jen? Yeah. Yeah. So it's the negative. We have to do several, several parts. It's long. It's a paragraph. Yeah, because we have to address both properties. Move that based on the plan, sketch title, document, update, RDA, sketch plan, March 23, 2022. We move to issue a negative determination checking box one, not subject to wetlands protection act, positive determination checking box two, a BBW bank resources confirmed as accurate, negative determination checking box four, non-jurisdictional, negative determination checking box six, under Amherst wetland by law, four, zero, Kingman, map 60, law 79, zero, Techman, and map 60, law 80. Second. All right. Voice of vote, Larry. Hi. LaRoy. Hi. Michelle. Hi. Laura. Hi. Andre. Hi. Can I? Oh, no, I, uh, I'm gonna. You should recuse. Yeah. And I'm an I. All right. And with that, that's the end of that RDA. Thank you everyone for your attention to this. And then temple checking the agenda. Looks like what we have left. I'm sorry. I don't have the PowerPoint open in front of me, Erin, but it looks like we have a couple of, we have to discuss this year talking about enforcement. They can't have enforcement. What else? And in what order do you want to go? Um, well, just make a suggestion because we have people from the audience here. Don't we want to, um, do talk with her here? Yeah. Is that okay with you, Erin? Fine with me. Yeah. I mean, it's completely up to the commission. Okay. Yeah. Let's do that. Not too many people. Stay up later then. Stay on Zoom. Awesome. I'm going to stop sharing just so I can open it up and share it with you guys. I think I sent it to you anyways, but yeah, let's just, yeah, you need the enforcement order, Erin. Correct. Yeah. Okay. Then I think what we should do is review what we need to do, um, ratify or revise and ratify and what the procedure is for that. Um, and also make it clear what we can change and not change and then discuss that as commissions. So, um, it's pretty simple. Um, just notes the tree clearing disturbance in the buffer zone, violation of the wetland protection act and Amherst wetlands bylaw. Um, activity has been conducted in areas subject to protection. And, um, so I just wanted to point something out about this violation sort of right at the beginning. Um, I was contacted and I, you know, I deal with a lot of inquiries on a lot of properties. So this one didn't, um, when the permit, when the violation initially happened, it was 11 months later. So I didn't recall this, but I did look back in my email and found an email, dated January 6, 2021, where I had, um, gotten an inquiry from Dan Lewis, where he was looking to purchase this property and asked if there was any resource issues. And I did specifically look at lot, uh, six C80, which is zero, Tuckerman Lane, and noted that there was an intermittent stream, um, and that any work within a hundred feet of that stream would require a wetland filing. So I thought that was important to include because, um, I did notify the owner that a permit was necessary in order to do any work within a hundred feet of that stream. And then I just documented here that the complaint was received by the building department and passed on to me, um, in mid November and that, uh, it was documented as a violation, that the owner was advised of the violation and asked, um, to file an after the fact request for determination, which we frequently do, um, especially with single family home owners to try to avoid having to do enforcement action. Um, the owner worked to submit the RDA, but what was a little bit sort of confusing about this particular process was the application was supposed to be for addressing the violation. And when the application came in, it included construction of a single family home, construction of two single family homes. Um, and, um, so I just wanted to make clear that, you know, that the violation wasn't really addressed with the RDA application anyways, which is, you know, where we sort of ran into trouble in the hearing, um, with the restoration questions. Um, so I, I documented that in the, um, enforcement order and, um, that during the hearing process that it was made clear that, um, they didn't want to restore the area that was cut on the slope in the buffer zone. And so we felt that, you know, this was the best course of action to independently deal with restoring that area. And I asked for a restoration plan to be filed. Um, and the restoration plan was supposed to be submitted tomorrow, which was supposed to be today, but that was an error on my part in any case. Um, a state, a stabilization plan. And I think it's being ratified tonight. Anyway, we don't have a restoration plan in front of us, but I think that the point is for us, this is an opportunity for us to discuss what the commission would like to see in the form of restoration, um, in this form of stabilization, plantings, um, and also identifying that area clearly so that, um, any work associated with the single family home construction, um, is clearly demarcated from the restoration area. And then also I did indicate that erosion controls, uh, stake straw waddle should immediately be installed at the top of the slope because there is already material migrating, um, onto the slope. And, um, along the contour of the property that abuts the buffer zone with the intermittent stream and boarding vegetated wetlands. And that was the content of the enforcement order. Okay. And so I have a couple of procedural questions. Um, we have a, we have a raised hand, um, amongst the attendees, Erin. Yeah, I mean, I think we should give the commission an opportunity to discuss this. Um, and then the commission should decide, um, if you want to take public comment on it or, you know, obviously I think, um, the applicant's representative should be given the opportunity to address, um, the situation, but just that the commission might want to discuss it, um, as a body. Okay. Sure. All right. Commissioners, first, any clarifying questions about kind of what's included in the enforcement order? Yeah, Michelle. So yeah, just, just a clarifying question. Since we're not seeing the conditions or the restoration plan, if we ratify this, like, are we ratifying an advanced restoration plan? I just mean, my point is that I just want to see a restoration plan before they vote to ratify the enforcement order. If that's how it works. Well, so the way that it works is the enforcement orders really not legally binding until you ratify it. So if you don't ratify it, then it's not an enforcement order. So do we then get the approval process for the? Well, so let me, let me back up, Michelle. You can say, Erin, I'm throwing out your enforcement order. I don't like it. I want to issue a new different enforcement order. And this is what I want it to require. You can be very specific about what you want it to require in the form of a restoration plan, um, or response action that you want to be taken in response to the enforcement, you could require them to file a notice of intent to respond to the enforcement if you wanted to. There's multiple options and I'll show you on, excuse me, on the form. But one way or another, the if the commission wants the enforcement to stand, there's going to be some have to be some sort of motion that makes it a legally binding document. So these are the options when you're issuing the enforcement order. And this is a state form. So you can tell them to cease and desist, which basically means just stop all activity on the site. You can tell them just outright to correct the resource area to its original condition. You can require a restoration plan and you can specify what you want the restoration plan to address on the site. Um, you can ask them to file a notice of intent application with the issuing authority and you can specify a date by which they do that. Um, and then you can also require the owner to take, um, immediate action to correct the violation. The one thing I would caution the commission on is that if you, um, tell them to cease and desist, they can't do anything on the site. So they can't install erosion controls. They can't do anything to stabilize. So you have, just have to be careful that whatever message you're sending with this is consistent. Okay. So can we, so a restoration plan by tomorrow is not realistic if we're ratifying it tonight. Can we revise the date of the restoration plan so we can say enforcement order with the following revisions and then ratify it? Okay. With the following requirements, yeah, um, whatever you want to say. And you can even say we want, you know, 30 native shrubs planted. We want, you know, 20, you know, however many, you know, you can, you can require trees to be planted. You can require stabilization measures. You can require shrubs. Um, you can ask them to just put something together to propose, um, and run that by you. And then you can comment on it. So, um, there's a lot of flexibility with it. So does that address your question, Michelle? So we have to ratify this enforcement order and then their subsequent discussion of whether the enforcement order conditions have been met. So it's not over. We're just saying this is what we're looking for from the enforcement order. Is that makes sense? You can say I'd like to, this order's fine, but I'd like to modify X, Y, and Z and then ratify it as a board. Yeah. Or you can say I'd like to throw this, I'm not ratifying this. I'd like to issue a new enforcement order with new requirements. And this is what we want. Yeah. Okay. Sorry, Laura. One second. Larry has his hand visually raised. Just one second, Larry. I think you're muted, Larry. Keep the noise down. I'm all concerned about that letter that we got earlier today, having to do with the fact that we don't necessarily have jurisdiction on any of these things. Now, it seems to me that this particular thing we're talking about now, having to do with the violation of the request that they are supposed to indicate what they're going to do, that they violated, that that's not a situation anymore, that we have jurisdiction over that in terms of what's happening here. Am I correct? Yeah. So Larry, we have jurisdiction over what occurred on the property. Like there's two separate parts of the discussion now. There's been a clear violation of the Wetlands Protection Act and that's what we're discussing now. So basically the path forward is what we're discussing. So what Aaron's proposed and the documents that she shared with us are, you know, if you read it, well, I'm sure she'll pull it up at some point, but, you know, replanting native species, etc. I would like to just say one thing that I really would like to have the 100-foot buffer zone clearly delineated here. I think just to prevent, just to have extra clarity on where that is. So that's- Can we have a chain fence? All right, Larry, let's have Laura finish her thoughts. I was going to say I support the path, Aaron, that you've articulated, except for the fact that I would like that buffer zone clearly delineated as part of it. Yep, I agree. I mean, I agree with that. I think that the enforcement order as outlined is reasonable with the addition of like as permanent as possible delineation of that 100-foot buffer. But I think that that's proportional to the violation. Larry, did you have another comment or question? No, that was primarily it. I did walk the site and so forth. And I'm actually, when I look at some of the drawings that are here, they show the approximate limit of clearing. And I find that questionable because it looked to me like there were trees that were cut down, farther down that slope. Any case. And I think that's what we're enforcing here. Yep. Okay. Yeah, Michelle, go ahead. So I totally agree with a delineation somehow of the limit so that future homeowners, it's pretty loud and clear that there's a limit to what they can do. And I mean, in my tenure here, we've talked about boulders and rebar, but maybe a fence isn't too far off in this case. I am concerned that, you know, if there's existing stumps that they'd be tempted to want to remove those landowner, but I guess as far as the order of the for approving, like, yes, native plantings that I'd like to be a little more specific about that so that it's not, you know, just some low bush blueberries next to some tree stumps. So do we need to be more specific about that right now or do we get a chance and some control over the restoration plan later? Well, it really depends how long you'd like to carry on the discussion of this particular site. So if you'd like to carry this on for, you know, three or four more meetings and review what they propose and then comment on what they propose and ask for revisions and go through the motions of that, then we can definitely do that. Or we could say we want 10 mature, you know, you can say I want 20 mature trees planted. I want shrubs planted, you know, you can, you can say something. The only caution I would give you is it should be in keeping with what was done. So we shouldn't be asking for, you know, 1000 trees to be planted. I don't know exactly. I haven't accounted for every single tree that was cut in the buffer zone, but maybe we should ask for an accounting of that. How many large diameter trees were cut in the buffer and we would like those replaced with some, have some sort of a, you know, a definitive accounting and replacement for the trees that were cut. So I think having a metric for that might be a good idea, but I do think that as specific as the commission can be and wants to be, it would be a good idea to spell that out because it's not fair to the applicant to say come up with a restoration plan and then for the commission to say, oh, that's not enough or that, you know, we need more, you know, we should definitely specify. Yeah, Larry, hold on. One second. I'm going to underline Aaron's point that, you know, this should be a stabilization and restoration to what was there. So we can't turn this into like a multi-aged, like ideal habitat for pollinators. Like that's just not an equal measure here. So I do really like Aaron's idea to have like a solid metric for just, for replacing trees cut down, for example. And also like having been to that site, like it might be tricky to get certain natives to grow there. So just a blanket statement might not be as helpful to the applicant as something like replace trees that were cut down with similar native species of trees. So basically, Jen, just consistent with how we handle all these kinds of hearings. It's just restoring the land. Exactly. Yep. Very consistent with our usual protocol practice. Yeah, Larry, sorry, go ahead. So I was just going to comment that I'm sympathetic with the idea that the response we had from it in a butter saying, you know, they took down trees which sort of shielded them from the railroad tracks. So with the idea of us going back and suggesting planting things to replace the trees that they took out to help the other neighbors shield just the way that property used to do. We can't require restoration outside of our jurisdiction just to be very clear about that. 100 feet from the outer extent of the BVW is going to be our limit of what we can require. Now you could ask the developer to take that into consideration, but it's not our jurisdiction. And that was that comment about Zero Kingman earlier in the hearing. And we're really talking about Zero Tuckerman. Yeah. Slope that was cut within 100 feet of the resource. Okay. So it sounds like we have Yeah. I'll just I'll just second what Michelle was saying about the the stumps on on the slope. Those stumps should probably remain there. I did notice that one one root ball had been removed. It appeared there was one root ball that's sitting on the I guess the south side of the of the property and it might have come from right back there. But whatever it is, those roots are going to maintain the stability of that of the slope going down within the 100 feet buffer zone and maybe maybe putting in some some blueberry series of blueberry bushes along there might help to stabilize it. Okay. Just to clarify, there's no knowing where that stump came from. But point taken that not removing any of the stumps currently within our jurisdiction within the 100 foot buffer that were cut in violation makes a lot of sense. And Aaron, I thought that was I have like 700 screens open on my computer, but of course that included I can pull up. I would think we would look at how many trees were removed between the 100, the 100 foot and the 50 foot buffer. So there's one other point I would like to make on this discussion. And I think it's an important discussion for the Commission to consider. I'll just use an example from a previous position that I was in. In a previous job that I was at, if there was a slope over a wetland, the Commission under their local bylaw extended their buffer zone to the top of slope to protect the buffer zone and the resource areas. And the reason I bring that up is because the Commission does under our local bylaw have does allow for alteration of up to 35 feet from the BVW. Now, as staff, I recognize the fact that a steep slope very close to a BVW is an extremely, extremely important thing to keep stable. And I've seen it so many times that landowners go in, open up a slope, and then once it's open, that's the end of it. You get rills, you get gullying, you get slumping down into the wetland. And I've actually seen an entire hillside collapse into a perennial stream from somebody doing that exact thing. I think it's really important for the Commission to articulate that in this case, it is an extenuating situation because of the fact that there's a steep slope that is in the buffer and that ordinarily, with any permit, we look at it on a case by case basis. So there might be situations where, and I'll use an example, like we just were dealing with on 80 Pine Street, they are trying to protect the slope and not do anything in that area so as to minimize any impact to the river. And in this case, it's the same exact situation. So I think we're looking at on a case by case basis, we want to be reasonable, but we also need the owner and folks need to understand that in this particular case, it's a unique situation because it's a steep slope. And so there could be tremendous damage done to the resource if that slope is opened up. And so they could file a permit, they could file an RDA just like they did to open the slope up and do work there. And so it would be up to the Commission to deny that. And so if we're going to say you need to replant that slope, just to consider that as a precedent that we're setting that slopes over steep wetlands are important resources. And I think the key words from Erin just said were the biggest, you know, our largest concern here to the resource is failure of that slope. So the goal of the enforcement should be stabilization of the slope and that should be kind of a reasonable within reason. You know, we can't establish a habitat that wasn't there before. That doesn't, that seems less reasonable. So, yeah, so it seems like we have consensus that no stump removal, but I don't think that was part of the applicant's plan anyway. So we should make that clear in the enforcement order. It seems like we have consensus on some sort of the clear delineation of that 100 foot, the boundary, the 100 foot buffer from the resource. I think where it seems like we're still a little scattered is like how we handle any replanting. I think replanting as many native trees as we're cut is reasonable. I don't know that extending far beyond that is reasonable in this case, but I will, you know, we can discuss it for a few more minutes. Does anyone have, yeah, sorry, did somebody have a comment? No. Okay, Andre. Yes, there's your comment. I'm sorry. For them to replace with as many trees as they've cut, though, I don't think that it's that they're going to be able to replace them with trees of the same size and age as what they took. So we may need to consider that, consider a few more or what other possibilities there are there. And Andre makes a really important point there that the commission could, if you're requiring trees to be replanted, we should be very specific about what our expectations are for trees. So for example, somebody could cut, could plant a seedling, which is, you know, as high as, you know, three inches high, or they could cut a tree that's six feet high, you know. Yeah, one question I have there is, what's our ability to basically monitor the health and growth of these trees? So it's one thing just to plant them and leave them. Jen and Erin, I'm curious here, because I agree with Andre that, you know, you plant trees, maybe not all of them survive, you know, it's, it just takes time. But I'm curious, like, what's our, what's our ability to make sure that those trees are cared for, not just planted in? Yeah, usually, there's some kind of conditioning for monitoring. And sometimes there's conditions for inspections, like years or at certain benchmarks after planting. And in that case, there would be an expectation that there'd be at least 50% success of the species on the site after a three year period. Great. I say that's what I've seen is like percent survival after a given amount of time. I've more frequently seen that in NOI conditions, like fully farmer conditions and enforced monitor conditions, just, it's. Yeah. So. Yeah, my feeling is because it's a violation and, you know, whether it's an RDA or an NOI, whatever is the strictest in terms of ensuring that the trees grow, you know, like, yeah. So RDA and NOI are not on the table here. Those are all permits for the work. This is an enforcement as a result of the violation. So the distinction I was making is that often when you see things like monitoring and percent survival for replantings or plantings or restoration plantings, it's usually in like a full permit where you're like fully conditioning a permit. It's something that you're usually tracking with an enforcement order just. So we can't do that here, basically. Well, just one correction I would just make to what Jen just said is that we could, as a result of this enforcement order, require notice of intent filing for a restoration plan. That would give us more control, especially, particularly with a lot of the issues that you guys are talking about putting in fencing, requiring, you know, strict, you know, accounting of the number of trees, replacement of number of trees, the size of the plantings, the, you know, you can ask for something as you could see in the form like a restoration plan be submitted by this date. And this is what it must include. It's a pretty short sentence long of expectations. But if we have a longer expectation list of what we want done on that site, you could require notice of intent to be submitted, specifically addressing the restoration and stabilization there. That's only if we feel like we can't protect the resource with a standard enforcement order. Yeah, I mean, I think that'll be, I mean, I think that's that's where we need to hear from the developer and his consultant, because right now I think because there's been a violation, and I haven't seen movement to want to sort of correct any of the actions that have been taken. So that's, that's my, that's my position. Okay. Yeah, just for clarity, you know, Larry, I see you give me a second. Just for clarity. So we hadn't, we, you know, our first opportunity to ratify that enforcement order. So make it in put it in effect is tonight. So the restoration plan and the date on the enforcement order for the restoration plan was technically tomorrow. So that hasn't, there's not a problem yet, but the trajectory of the response to this enforcement order just for the record. Yep. That's good. Thank you. Larry, go ahead. I'm concerned about the idea that we impose something in terms of an enforcement order. But the fact that as time goes forward, the developer shifts that to the homeowner and who has responsibility afterwards if they can move that beyond where they have to deal with isn't that when you do an NOI, though, doesn't it stay with the home? That's true. But I mean, let's get this, let's get this straight, Erin. So you can, you can require an enforcement order to be recorded in which case that it would actually require that it be cleared before the property changes hands. What about your, your question is also like a perennial question. It's not one that's like particularly egregious for this site. I mean, that's something that's like pervasive throughout probably the state of Massachusetts. So I don't know that we're going to solve that with this enforcement. I think we should kind of stick to like, how do we move forward with this enforcement right now? Yeah, Michelle, I'll go ahead. So in just regards to conditioning of monitoring and like success of the plantings, does that go to the homeowner? I mean, because this house is going to get sold as soon as it's billed. So who's responsibility does that move with? So, yeah, I mean, the answer is it there's there's so many dependent factors on that question. Like if we required that the enforcement order be recorded, or if we required a notice of intent application to restore the area per the enforcement order, those could be recorded on the deed. And it would be made very clear to the person buying the home that there was an encumbrance on the deed that there was some outstanding issue with the property. A lot of mortgage lenders won't allow people to purchase a property when there's an encumbrance on the deed, they want clear title. So it really creates a pretty substantial hardship for the folks who own the property to restore it and get it resolved so that they can move forward with selling the property and moving on with their lives after the property is developed. So I don't know if that answers your question. Yeah, I guess so how long do we monitor the success of the plantings? Is that like a three year thing? Is it a five year thing? And does the homeowner then become responsible if they buy the house with an encumbrance for monitoring the success of that restoration? And I've seen it with notices of intent that there's a condition that the homeowner, if it's an enforcement case, that the homeowner is made aware prior to purchase of the enforcement and the requirements of the enforcement. And they actually have to sign a letter that states they understand there's outstanding enforcement and that they have to continue to monitor and, you know, they're responsible for resolving the situation with the Conservation Commission. So that's another requirement. But again, a lot of the specifics that you guys are getting into would be things that would need to be conditioned in an order of conditions. And that that's really the tightest way to require all of what you are explaining. Yeah, I was just going to say, I mean, it would be very atypical that we would do that through an enforcement order and say, okay, through this enforcement order requiring an NOI permit for a restoration plan. And then through that NOI permit, that's how we would condition all of this. And I'm not convinced that that's proportional to the goals of what we're talking about with this enforcement, which is stabilizing the slope. I mean, that is the main concern here is cutting into the 100 foot buffer. And, you know, we haven't given the applicant hasn't responded. You haven't ratified the enforcement order yet. So that we don't have any response from the applicant as to like, where we're going to go with this, you know, so I'm, I guess I'm hesitant to go ahead. Maybe we hear them out. And then we wait until tomorrow and make and then our next meeting we have one more person. Is that the best path? So that's what we have to ratify some sort of enforcement order tonight in order to have a response. But I think that's kind of what Erin outlined when she asked for a restoration plan in this enforcement order. If we ratify it, then in the next meeting, hopefully we'd have some sort of stabilization restoration plan, slope stabilization plan to review from the applicant. Yeah. I would just urge you guys that if you have additional requirements that you want to put on top of the enforcement order, I already issued that you specify those when you ratify the enforcement order, because like I said, it's not fair to the respondent to say, this is what I'm requiring. And then all of a sudden at the next meeting say, oh, wait, but we want this many more items. We can't be a moving target for that. Yeah. That's not really kind of all. So after we hear from them, we'll look at what Erin proposes and modify or do you determine that right now? I think we should get pretty close here. And I really, I think based on what Erin has proposed, the addition and all thing that we have kind of come to consensus on is this delineation of the hundred foot buffer. Erin, can you pull up what you proposed again so we can all look at it? Absolutely. So I think while you're pulling that up, I'll just mention something that we were talking about before I think Jen mentioned. A restoration plan shall be filed with the issuing authority on or before 324. We need to, I think, give a better date than that at this point. You know, what would that might be a quick point of discussion? Would it be reasonable for or to give them two weeks to have it ready before the next meeting or what would be reasonable for that? Yeah. So our next meeting is, oh wait, isn't actually we have three weeks until our next meeting. So our next meeting is on April 13th because we're on the second and fourth Wednesdays. So we actually have a three week gap here. Yeah, I agree with Roy on that. That seems reasonable to me. So I'm sorry, what was the date that you guys just mentioned? The next meeting is April 13th, Erin. If I could just make a couple suggestions. So rather than April 13th, I would suggest April 8th because that would give the commission an opportunity to actually review it prior to the meeting and instead of getting it at 430 the day of. And I would, if the commission is willing to ratify, I would be really appreciative of, you know, including that date and also whatever additional accounting that we're asking of the applicant, like accounting for the number of trees, accounting for the 100 foot buffer, those types of things I think should be incorporated. Yeah. Yeah, agreed. So it sounds like the first thing is the date for the filing of the restoration plan in response to this enforcement order would be Friday, April 8th. We cannot, I think we're, there seems like there's consensus on that. Are we okay with that commission? All right. And then it seems like another factor or request condition is delineation of the 100 foot buffer, clear delineation of the 100 foot buffer. You know, we've used boulders before. We've used, you know, stakes with bird houses. We've used rebar. There have always been a lot of different kind of options on the table. Usually that's something that we've discussed with the applicant here. I think we should air towards more permanent. But I also recognize, you know, it's a building site. So it's going to be tough to have giant boulders there. So do people have any kind of reasonable suggestions for what that delineation would look like? I mean, I like the boulders, but I think we should have a discussion with them about it. Okay. Yeah, that seems like a good opportunity to hear from the applicant who Erica, I see that your hand has been raised this whole time we're getting there. Okay. Other, so it sounds like we would like an accounting of how many trees were cut within the 100 foot buffer. What's the percentage of trees we want to play in addition to that? Just to make sure. Well, trees and size. I mean, you know, there were some significant trees that were cut down there. Right. We aren't saying put back a shrub for a two foot diameter tree. Yeah, trees grow. So it's a question of like, how many more trees then were cut? Do we feel like we need to ask planted and what size in order to kind of quick as rapidly as possible stabilize that slope? Keep in mind, we're also asking for a silt fence to be installed here. So we're not going to immediately have, you know, reeling down the slope. What percentage of additional trees is typical, typical gen like 20, 30% something like that? That's a good question. I've really seen it all over the board and it really depends on like where you're planting and what you're planting. Michelle, Andre, what is your I wish Fletcher were here. I'm not very well versed in the tree aspect of things. Yeah, it's tough. It totally depends on what you're planting and how big they are to start with. Okay, what about size? What sort of size trees are we looking for? Yeah, so we'd be like specifying like some sort of caliper tree, essentially. Leroy, any exposure thoughts? I'd like to say anything over two inches at least. Okay, so two inch caliper at minimum. About placement. Dispersed. Dispersed throughout impacted area. We want to remove the seed thing because we're specifically aren't talking about like reseeding it. Well, I think we should consider seeding it as well. Yeah, the seed will come in a lot faster than the trees and the seed won't outcompete the trees. So if you have an interim solution. We've lost a lot of big root systems in there and I know that they're still in place but might provide a little additional stability. As far as number of trees, I mean, I don't know. I don't do restoration, but you mentioned if it's like an assumption of 50% mortality. So is that a number to? It seems high. Yeah, but I have no data. I was also thinking twice the number cut, except if we are going to oversee it with some sort of mix that would serve the same function, I'd be all right cutting back to just as many cut or one and a quarter times. I think just as many cut if we're seeding with the native seed mix to let them come in. I mean, these are two inch caliper trees that we're talking about here. So for me, I think that would be reasonable. What else? I'd make sure to include that the stumps remain. Yep. Thanks, Andre. I think that's pretty extensive. I think that's good. Okay. So commission, Erin, would you mind stopping sharing for one second? Of course, absolutely. So this has been a great discussion. Thanks, everyone, for kind of working through this. The question here is so Erica Larner, who's the consultant for this, for the application that we closed, has had her hands raised. I think it's up to us whether we kind of take openness for public comment. So I want to get a read from everyone on that. We can keep it orderly and kind of give Erica a limited amount of time for questions and comments, but it's up to us if we want to do that. My instinct is that keep the conversation open and keep everyone involved is a good way forward. I see Erin. I just want to make one quick point. Pete Wilson scheduled like two weeks in advance to come to this conservation commission meeting to talk about Carver, his site on Carver enforcement that he's been working to resolve and he's in the audience and he's been waiting for quite a while. So I just want to make sure that the commission is aware of that in terms of time. Yeah, maybe we just make it really succinct, Jen. Yeah, which was my, so you're talking about Canna, right, Erin? Correct. What did I say, Carver? That's okay. Good. I did not know that he was planning to be here. Thank you for telling me. Sorry about that. Oh, no, it's fine. I mean, there's a lot of members from the public who are interested in this site, but I just want to make sure we're respectful of the fact that we're on the call as well. Yep. Okay. All right. So it sounds like we have consensus on how we'll specify this enforcement order. We're going to take a brief period of public comment. I would ask that public comments stay relevant to the topic at hand, and that is the enforcement order for Zero Tuckerman Lane, specifically protecting the resource via stabilization of a steep slope where some trees were cut. And I'm going to give two minutes for introducing yourself and making any comments or questions relevant to the topic at hand. So Erica has her hand up. I see you close behind Charlie. Erica, I'm going to promote you to a panelist. Sorry, there's a delay to make folks. There's Erica. I can see you. Hi, folks. Erica Larner. I'm here representing the respondent, Dan Lewis, for this potential enforcement order. And I do apologize because I know the commission just spent a good deal of time on hashing this out. But as Jen mentioned, the goal of this is stabilization. And as Erin mentioned, we could submit an RDA, which we did do. And you folks just approved earlier in this meeting to allow grass seed mix for stabilization in the slope with no stomping. The plan that was approved earlier this meeting specifically listed grass seeding for stabilization in the area that was cleared without the permit. And so we actually did that exact process, which was submit the RDA and stabilize the slope using grass seeding. So we've actually achieved the enforcement order. The permit was issued. So the enforcement order wouldn't be valid because the work was already permitted and determined to be non-jurisdictional under the MR SWAP and spy law. So I'm so sorry, folks, but it's you just determined that it was not jurisdictional. And it's on the plan that was approved and cited in the motion. Okay. Thanks for that comment, Erica. All right. So we'll move forward kind of with our plan for ratifying that enforcement order. I have another question or comment that looks like Charlie again, relevant to the enforcement order at hand. Okay, here he comes. Yes. Hi. I guess just in response to what was just said, the actions that occurred on the slope happened before any of this. And so my understanding is an enforcement order is about the actions that happened before anything was approved just now. That's one point. The second thing I'm wondering about is who surveys or verifies the 100 foot buffer to make sure that that 100 foot buffer is accurate. And then the third and fourth point I just want to make is one, thank you to the commission and for everyone in this meeting for their efforts on this. It's greatly appreciated. And I just want to signal to the developer because we really haven't had an opportunity to talk to him that I hope moving forward, we can establish an open respectful dialogue should any other issues arise. Thank you. Appreciate it, Charlie. Thank you for being here and keeping track of this. All right. Any other public questions or comments relevant to this enforcement order, Brenda? Promoting you to a panelist. Hi, I just had one quick question because the NI2 just echo, we thank the conservation commission for all the work that you're doing. We really appreciate it. But then types of trees, earlier discussion was in terms of hope, knowledge of what types of trees should be planted. I just wanted to point out that there were owls and whooper wills that were living in those trees, those mature trees, both oaks, maples, and different kinds of pines. So I'm really concerned about what types of trees would be planted. So I just would like to see some clarification on that. Thank you. Thanks, Brenda. All right. Members of the public, please raise your hand if you have questions or comments. All right. I do think that was a good point. We had mentioned native trees of minimum two inch caliper, but I don't know if we got that for sure as consensus on your bullet point notes, Erin. Is that okay? Native trees, mix of native trees, hardwoods and softwoods? Right. Or if you want to replace what's on site, I mean, what was cut, but obviously that's difficult to confirm. Yeah. I think some of them were hardwoods, some of them are softwoods, some of them woodstone sprout, others just won't. It was a real mix. So I think a mix and well dispersed throughout the impacted area, spatially, per Michelle's comment earlier. All right. So I think we have a plan. Sounds like wearing consensus on how to kind of amend this enforcement order and then ratify it and seeing, I'm not saying we had shaking or frowns. So we're going to go with that. How do you want to do this, Erin? Do you want to go ahead and tell me? I'm just drafting a motion right now. If you guys could just bear with me for three minutes and if there's any other thoughts while I'm typing, feel free to share. None. Any discussion on species? I mean, I saw pines, hemlocks and oaks that were cut there. A lot of hemlock, especially a lot of hemlock and some pine and yeah, exactly. Should we? I was surprised. It must have been I couldn't tell if it was like a red or wouldn't be a white. Okay. I'm going to share my screen here. This is just a draft here to get us under discussion. So motion to ratify the enforcement order at Zero Tuckerman. And I would say to include, let me see, Zero Tuckerman as drafted to include the following. Accounting for the number of trees removed, size, clear delineation of the 100-foot buffer zone in the field with flagging as a temporary measure but also a permanent measure to be determined. Re-planting of native mix of hard and softwood dispersed on the site, monitoring for three years with 50% success response of restoration plans should be submitted by 4822 and stumps must remain on the site. Just trying to clarify, Erin, maybe where you say, clear delineation of 100-foot buffer zone in the field, flagging as temporary measure and permanent measure TBD. Did that get it? Did that get it? Yep, changed temporarily to temporary. All right. I'll make a motion. Are we ready? A motion to ratify the enforcement order at Zero Tuckerman Lane is drafted to include the following. Accounting for the number of trees removed by size, clear delineation of the 100-foot buffer zone in the field and flagging as temporary and permanent measure to be determined. Re-planting of the native mix of hard softwood dispersed on site, monitor for three years with 50% success, response of restoration plans submitted by 4822, stumps must remain. Seconded. All right. I have Laura on the motion. The lawyer is seconded. Voice vote Laura. Hi. Leroy. Hi. Michelle. Hi. Andre. Would it be appropriate for me to vote on this one? Yes. Hi. Larry. Hi. And I'm an I. All right. So it sounds like thank you, Erin, for keeping track of all that and everyone for your patience to work through that. We have, I think, one more thing on the agenda and that's discussing the enforcement at Canton Ave. So if I could just jump in here. So there's an outstanding enforcement on Canton Ave for work that was done in violation and Pete Wilson has worked with I believe Berkshire Design to come up with a plan to redesign the site to accommodate the wetland which has expanded as a result of the enforcement on the site. They wanted you to have a look at the plan and there's a couple questions being asked here. So I think and and we'll obviously give Pete the chance but it's is the commission willing to lift enforcement because at this point he's followed what the enforcement order said and so he wants to get the enforcement order lifted. The order of conditions is on the verge of expiration. I believe in June it's expiring. So he's coming up on the deadline for when it I think it's June 6 early June it's expiring and there they need to basically request 30 days in advance of that and extension on that permit that permit I believe may I'm not to be honest with you I didn't have much time to sort of prepare the old plan to compare to the new plan so that you guys could make a decision but at the ultimate decision that they're looking for here from you is there's a permit that's about about to expire for a subdivision that had a violation. The violation has been resolved but the site conditions have changed and something needs to happen in order to approve the modification to the lot and the modification is significant enough that it's not a minor change at this point. So is the commission interested in having an amended order of conditions on an existing permit where plans have been vetted and we're looking at a change to one of the lots or are we looking for a new permit filing and I don't think that that decision needs to be made tonight I think but it starts the dialogue and I just wanted to preface with that so that you guys had some background because for Michelle and Andre it's a new situation and keep moving quickly. And just to clarify so Erin we would be like going through all this effort to amend a current order of conditions for it to then expire in June right so could we extend the permit through that amendment or well so I'm not talking about a minor administrative change here I'm talking about a formal amendment which would require notification of a butters posting of a legal ad holding hearing to review the permit in which case a new order of conditions would be issued and there would be a new deadline to the permit it's really a matter of do we want to keep caring forward an old permit at this point or do we want to start with a clean slate on the permit or the applicant the left is pretty much the same I mean that is my understanding pretty much I mean you're still going through the whole hearing process review process it's a existing DEP number versus a I think the filing fee might be the only distinction between the two okay thanks for that all right so relevant to this enforcement order what should we well so so Pete is here and he wanted to talk to you about this so I wanted to give him you know give him a fair chance to speak since he has been waiting okay all right um so it says patrice wilson but it's he goes by p mr I guess mr wilson uh go ahead yeah he just maybe signed in with somebody else's account maybe okay I'm sure um if you're here to kind of talk with the commission about the outstanding enforcement or zero can't have an amour so you could raise your hand at all move you in as a panelist okay uh okay here we go nice well so sorry it's moving in about the same suite as my brain all right one more time there we go Pete is that you you're muted looks like you're still muted on your end oh unmuted say something there there we go can you hear me yes hello sorry about that I'm not great with technology um yeah thank thank you sorry tonight I was trying to have Tom here and Ward who's our soil's guy both had prayer commitments uh and Fort St come up so Erin laid it out the question um we'd like to get the enforcement order lifted you know I have said this to Erin in email um the original owner of this lot had uh put a um just a house uh site and originally to do the wetlands act or to do the wetlands permit we have just refined it a little bit to include what we would like to build there um everything that's there is just a little in a little different space a little different place but it's all the same as originally was approved just moved around a little bit you can see the rain garden has shifted a little bit the house and garage are now attached versus originally was a house and a detached garage and you know my feeling is is um it would be the simplest if the commission would extend the existing permit everything that nothing else has changed out there and we could get underway building here perhaps even as early as uh later this fall sorry so Erin is the delineation the same as it was when we first permitted the project yeah so I think there's been a change to the resource delineation which is our jurisdiction which is our real interest in this project um yeah so uh so the only thing that's changed is as Erin had mentioned and you can see on the plan there was some additional wetland which is what moved the rain garden uh from its original location um but that's the only change everything else has stayed the same sorry my I'm just trying to pull up the plan Erin yeah I'm working I'm working on uh on both here so I apologize it just takes me a little while to queue everything up um yeah we're both just trying to um switch gears and pull up your plan so we can have it in front of us okay so um this is the original approved site I'm gonna share my screen hold the hold let me just queue up both the plans really quickly okay this is the original approved lot right here and let me just bear with me for a second um this is the original approved resource area boundary approximately I'm you know trying here to just give you a general sense okay and I gotta clear these so you can see the other page so might bear with me and this is the new one and it's at a different orientation so like I can turn it to make it a little bit more apples to apples um let's see is that work oh it's it the orientation of the plan is a little different so I'm not sure what is easiest for you guys as far as viewing and uh sorry I'm very sorry but I clicked something and now it's not letting me move it okay I can't I can't rotate it now for somebody oh here we go I don't know why it's not letting me rotate okay here we go there we go so um just looking at the old one the wetland was located here there was a stormwater basin there was a garage a house and there was a driveway access coming in here and then looking at the proposed new um it's driveway locations changed house locations changed garage locations changed this is a I mean I've it's upside down at this point I'm just trying to give you guys some level of you know this is the rain garden so previously there was a uh little rain garden proposed here and now the rain garden has been relocated um so what's the delineation on the new plan um new plan the delineation so part of the issue was that the wetland expanded um like out here before the wetland was it kind of came up like this but with the work that was done the wetland expanded into that green area the wetland expanded into green area the the other thing to tell you is the driveway is the same the only thing was bucky sparkle was the original um civil who drew who drew the first plan and his skit we we tried every which way to work with him but he's a one you know one person in the office and projects were other projects were expanding and so his timetable was rapidly just pushing back on us so we ended up uh he recommended um Berkshire so we moved to Berkshire so Berkshire's kind of heavily highlighted the driveway but the driveway runs exactly as it did originally um that's the only thing I think that Aaron had mentioned that wasn't actually now the garage is attached and now the garage is attached the house the housing garage run parallel to the rear uh property line the original house was tilted as you see at an angle yeah okay so I guess an issue here commissioners is how we feel about the fact that that there's like uh the the wetland has extended totally confused about cardinal directions here but to the right of the screen that we're currently looking at into where the former rain garden was but so it's kind of running along the driveway and the rain garden has been moved down um I'm going to spin it around so that it's a little bit better and you can actually that wasn't like yeah it was my own confusion no and it's it's the plan the way that it opened um it was and and also because their the existing plan is oriented exactly opposite of the proposed plan so nobody's fault it's just like that's what happens um so commissioners the question is are we need to can't do we feel like we can amend the current permit sufficiently to accommodate to condition and accommodate that change in the resource or do we think a new fact permit filing is appropriate here given the change in the resource does anyone have any clarifying questions for Pete or Aaron Aaron has a clarifying question for Aaron well it just calls to question this permit was when this permit was originally applied for and um you know this was from 2017 and you know we're making a lot of assumptions guiding the applicant right now as far as the existing site conditions like the wetland could have expanded on the second lot that's associated with this project like there could have been change in the wetland layout in the lot that's in the other location and we're by saying amend this permit for this specific lot we're assuming all the site conditions are the same on the other lot um so I just want to point that out because you know okay so given that this isn't a public hearing um Pete I'm just going to ask if you have any more comments or updates for us um and then probably move you out um of the panel so we can have a discussion as a commission um do you have any more kind of clarifying comments or information for us I don't okay we appreciate you being here and um go ahead Aaron thank you Pete for yeah and I was just gonna working with us and being kind we very much appreciate it yeah thank you and I realize that this is late um so thanks for hanging with it um and we'll do our best to get our heads around this and figure out the kind of most efficient way forward in a way that meets you know kind of our regulatory requirements um we'll do our best to get through this as as efficiently as possible okay thank you yep thank you another option here to Jen is for us to think about this we don't have to make a decision on the spot right this moment um I think it's a point of discussion and I think also Fletcher who was involved with this original permit filing could definitely his involvement I think would be really valuable on this yeah so I wasn't even the original permit filing is before my time on the commission um so it would be helpful to have Fletcher so how does that work though keeping in mind that Pete is trying to figure out how to move forward here um well we have time to issue an extension um it's it's only March I think he's got a little time and you know if in three weeks we decide that you know we're gonna issue we could issue an extension at that point if we felt like we were coming up against a deadline for um expiration but um I would like to put some thought to this and you know it could be resolved with something as simple as a site visit um so yeah let's think about it yeah I think I think I agree with that I think some information gathering I personally would like to be able to go back out there I think having Fletcher here who is here during the is familiar with the site and is familiar with the whole kind of like arc of this project would be very helpful I think it would ultimately benefit both the efficiency of the application and protecting the resource um so that's my my instinct on this I'm also admittedly a little bit fried in its quarter of 10 um so I know that we've all had to have a long sphere of attention to a lot of detail here and Pete I just want to give it a fair a fair look um before we make any decisions is that okay commissioners but we appreciate the fact that you have worked so hard to satisfy and I you know I think that we're we're at this point from the way I see it that that Pete is in compliance at this point because he has satisfied the requirements that were asked of him in the enforcement order I don't know if anyone feels otherwise but um no I think we're in compliance we just need I just want to give it the fair fair chance to get all the information possible so that we can kind of make a decision efficiently in the next meeting um yeah and I would just echo everything Erin just said um thank you for the cooperation Pete thank you for being here tonight um those plans look like they have all the information that we need um I think a site visit and making sure Fletcher way in is worth it commissioners seems I got a thumbs up from Larry oh Lori too okay okay so we'll keep moving on that at the next here next meeting that would be on April 13th all right I think that was the last agenda item Erin yeah okay is that yeah we don't have to continue that right because it's not okay no we don't have to continue anything I think as long as we know it's going to be on the next agenda for a discussion point yep okay so I think we just need a motion to adjourn I move we adjourn all right I second that all right voice vote Michelle hi Leroy hi Larry sec yep hi Laura hi all right getting adjourned thanks guys good job guys thanks everyone thank you Erin talk to you soon bye guys