 Okay, so we are recording. Okay, well thank you Stephanie and thank you working group for being here again on a Wednesday. Sorry Friday, Friday afternoon. Standing between you and the weekend so just to open up. This is the September 23. 22 meeting of the solar bylaw working group for the town of Amherst, and we can get get started. Again thanks everybody for being here, Chris good to see you here as well. And Stephanie thanks for getting us all organized. Okay so I'm getting myself organized with the agenda in front of me. This will be the version of the agenda that I have with my talking notes. Okay, so, well first order of business is to recognize that based on my notes, it's jack's turn to take the minutes for today's meeting. Thank you jack. Thumbs up. Good. Okay thanks. Okay and thank you. Janet right who took the meetings from the last meeting if I recall yet. That's my notes I've done it. That being said, those minutes are not available yet for us to review. I don't know if Janet's going to be working on that from what I understand in coordination with Stephanie. And so the good news is we do not have minutes to approve today from last meeting which means that we will likely do double duty on approving the minutes from last meeting as well as today's meeting at the next meeting. Gotcha. And why don't I take. Let me just see here. Okay, we'll at the end of the at the end of the agenda today we'll schedule the next meeting I don't think we have a regular time yet, and maybe time permitting, we can work to settle on a recurring time that we can all just get in our calendar is going forward. Sorry, Jack has his hand up. I see that so I'm getting to that right now. And I just wanted to preface that by saying. Well, this working group is collaborative and cooperative and all friendly. And let's let us do practice good conduct in in the meetings in terms of raising your hand and having me call on you and hopefully in somewhat in sequential order that I see your hands go up. And, and wait for wait for your turn. So with that, Jack, you have your hand up. And it's with regard to the minutes, you know, we're all kind of, I mean, I've taken minutes many times for different meetings but I'm just wondering about the process so is Stephanie going at, you know, so we'll get a draft. And then Stephanie you're kind of massage it, or how does this process go because I'm going to, I'm going to give you my minutes like within the hour after a meeting. Because I'm just going to be typing during this and give it my best I'm not going to watch, you know, rewatch the video or anything like that I'm just going to give it my best shot. Is that, is that reasonable. That's fine so what I typically do is when I receive the minutes because everybody does do them a bit differently. I watch the recording. And if there are gaps, I'll fill in the gaps. I don't do a lot of, I don't change the content or anything, you know, unless it's something that is completely irrelevant, or an opinion that doesn't fit into the context of the discussion. That might get removed. But otherwise, it's mainly just filling in the gaps of information. So, and I do listen to the recordings to do that. So that's fine. If you want to do whatever works for you and I'll, I'll format them to make sure they're consistent with the other ones as well. Okay, I'm just kind of taking the agenda and just fill in under each item. You know, what I perceive and handed over to you Stephanie so all right. Make that clear. Great. All right, thank you. Okay. With that, let's move on then to the next agenda item, which is staff updates. And Stephanie, hopefully you had a nice vacation and maybe not have too many updates. But, but we welcome any updates that you can bring us. Sure. So, as you noted, I was away for a week. So I, I don't have a lot of updates. I will say in terms of the, I know that Dwayne will get into it and maybe I'll just cover it quickly now doing if that's okay but the for the solar assessment. Dwayne and I did review the one proposal that we had. There was nothing that would lead us to reject the proposal, because there are certainly requirements of what we can and can't reject and why. And so they met all of the criteria for the, in the proposal that we had asked for. So, we will be moving forward, but that's the only update. There's no been no contract issued with this particular consultant. I can't name them until the contract is signed and executed. But then when it is, we'll certainly share the proposal and share the name of the consulting firm for that assessment. And then the only other update I wanted to let you know about is that I am actually now the director of sustainability. So I've had a title change. Congratulations. So thank you so much. So, it doesn't really change a whole lot in terms of my work with this committee or the work that I do it kind of recognizes the work that I've been doing mainly. So, so thank you. Great. Thank you Stephanie and it's to your credit of many years of service to the town and to sustainability that and your promotion of sustainability to the highest levels of town government. It's real recognition and reflection on your work that that position has been created. And that you've stepped into that position so congratulations and that's great for our work and the work of this working group as well to have you, you know reporting directly as a director. So congratulations on that. That's great. Thank you. Okay, any questions or comments for Stephanie before we move on to Christine. Super. Okay. Chris any updates. Oh, I just wanted to mention a few things. One is that I'm still working with Nate Maloy and our building commissioner. Rob Mora to refine the scope of work for a consultant to help us with technical aspects of the zoning of the zoning portion of this work, the solar by law. And I'm hoping to meet with Janet McGowan sometime soon to talk to her. She's been thinking about the framework or the structure of the solar by law and I wanted to hear her thoughts on that and then, you know, be launching into the writing of the solar by by law, at least a draft of it fairly soon. We had talked initially about waiting until the site assessment was well on its way but I don't think that is that makes sense because they're going to be, you know, running on parallel tracks and we're supposed to be finished with our work by May. So we'll be launching into that and we've been researching what other town bylaws say. So I think that's really all I have to say. That's all I have to update. Great, that's excellent Chris thank you and that actually we'll probably talk a little bit more about that if, if we can, in item five on the agenda, which was basically really for us to sort of discuss and fully have a path forward with to how we plan to outline, outline and start drafting the, the bylaw, not, not to jump right into it but at this point discuss sort of the process to get there. And, and amongst amongst that was was clearly, you know how this, how this, this working group works with your planning department to work together to move that forward so we'll have. If okay we'll hold some of that discussion for later it sounds like maybe some of that can then be reflected on your conversation with Janet later. Okay, great. Laura. I can hold my question until we get to that part of the agenda. Okay to the part I was just discussing. Yep. Yeah, okay great. Super. Okay, any further staff updates or comments on those staff updates before we move forward. Great. Okay. Thank you for that. Let's move on to the work plan as a working group item three. What I'd like to do is first, and we perhaps exhaustively or not discuss this at the last meeting. And what I have done is provided a somewhat edited version slightly edited version to reflect our decisions made on on the text. At the last meeting and as well to reflect adjust some of the text to reflect the discussion that we had in our discussion last at the last meeting as well. I just want to emphasize this is not a formal or specific scope of work. This is an outline in a guide for us. There is no doubt that the details of our work will depart from these rather broad categories and the way the text is described as we get into nitty gritty. We will start working and and and have the inputs coming to us and from the solar assessment consultants and from the technical consultant. So, this is not the last time we will, you know, talk about specific scope of work and action so this is really meant as a broad guide for us, as well as of the categories of work we need to do as well as the schedule that work so this does not need to be wordsmithed in my mind, but that being said I'd like to basically see if we can agree on this plan. If helpful I can bring it up on the screen, though it was in your packet. I'll be happy to bring it up on the screen need to find my notes. Yeah. So I can say I'd like to agree to this plan and move forward, unless there is anything here that any of us cannot feel are not comfortable proceeding on at this point, proceeding with at this point. Great. So you see that. Let me just get feedback you see see this on the screen. Great. Okay. Yeah, Janet. So I think at the last meeting we had, we covered some of the issues that I felt were missing from the work plan and this one looks much stronger to me. I think what's really missing and we didn't really talk about we just started talking about at the last meeting is the map showing sites considered suitable for installation of large scale ground mounted solar rays with a supporting narrative report. And I think it's the, you know, basically, we were looking at the charge and the solar bylaw working group is charged with prioritizing the locations for possible solar development including large scale ground mount rooftop and parking lot canopy so that all this is directly from the charge. And it makes sense to me because you know, you could see, you know, first we do the solar, you know, we're familiarizing ourselves with the issues. There'll be the technical solar assessment. They'll be outreach the public to figure out their valley values and what's important. And then sort of the hard work or the interesting work comes. It's like, so gathering what we get from the technical report in terms of sites. Where can solar go how much solar here, you know, there'll be legal constraints and technical constraints and shading constraints. What is the community value in terms of, you know, what it wants to protect what it wants to where it wants solar, you know, all these different things. And my question is taking creating basically a map of, you know, what had, you know, where are the suitable sites where the priority sites for solar. And then, as you're doing that also doing the bylaw. And so I have been looking at a whole bunch of different bylaws from different communities, and they're making all these different choices. And so, I don't think as a committee we can make those choices about what language going in the bylaw until we know where we think it should be and it should shouldn't be and how it should be. And so it's just a very, you know, it's sort of a good process that the town council has set out for us, but I really do think what's missing is the, the map showing sites and Emma suitable for the installation of solar, and what the priority is. And that just is, it's in our work, you know, it's in our charge it's just not in our work plan. And we talked about that a little bit at the last meeting. All right, thank you. I mean that language is specifically provided in the, what would be the final box here. Of our key key activities. So let me let me go to longer list that map and narrative. Oh, I'm sorry, I think I must be looking at an old version. Yeah, I just want to say really quickly Dwayne, I think one thing, you know, just I want to comment on, I think it's my understanding is this group is going to identify priority sites, which is in my mind very important than suitable sites. And I think it's an important distinction because, and I'm going to, I was going to suggest this before this meeting but I think at some point it would be helpful for me to take five to 10 minutes at one of these meetings and educate the group on the economics behind, you know, a solar facility and some of the driving pieces behind it that are not anything that we can capture here as a working group because we're not, you know, tax equity project finance whatever. I think that would actually be very, very valuable because, you know, there are limitations to what we can do and sometimes the way we speak it makes it, or I get the sense that in us prioritizing a site means that solar can go there when in reality it might not be the case at all. So, can I ask a clarifying question. Oh, let's go with Martha first. Okay. Okay, go ahead. I'm sorry when I read this, I don't see where we're deciding where we think the priority sites are and so is that in reviewing the consultant solar assessment mapping and evaluation review hosting scenarios and consultants like where's the step where we take that information and say hey we think these are the priority sites, because it seems like I don't know it seems like that would happen. I guess April May, but I don't really quite see someone anywhere it says priority map, showing what we think is suitable, maybe it's just a nomenclature issue but I just didn't see that language there or that process for us. So maybe I'm just. That would be in the last step. I mean, in my mind, it really needs to be done in cooperation in tandem with the solar assessment work. They're the ones that are going to be mapping all these potential sites out and their attributes and leading the effort on the actual community engagement on on establishing community priorities preferences and so forth in some rigorous manner. And part of their work will be to provide this mapping and potentially some narrative that we can use to provide this assessment and suitable sites and sites that in some regard reflect the priorities and preferences of the of the community. So that's going to be what we as a working group draw from to either adopt and submit in my mind to the to the council and to the town with regard to our deliverables, or that we provide some explanation and deviation from what the solar assessment says. Martha. Well, I would agree with both Janet and Laura. I think I think there's good points and so it sounds like there would be a fair amount of discussion about what we're going to say on solar sighting. So I would like to suggest that it be made a separate bullet there down around number 14. And the timeframe be moved up from May to to at least April, so that we actually would schedule a block of time to have this discussion before we are right in the throws writing the final report. Yep, I can see that I do, you know, I think in some of this is going to be going on in terms of discussion in what what is the Excel row, row 13 as well. Leading up to sort of that final deliverable. Okay, can I also ask the people put their hands down after they speak so I can keep track of who's who's in the queue. Thank you. Okay. All right, so let me ask. I would like to, you know, recognizing that this is not that this can that we can divert from from this work plan as as need be and is as conditions change. And, and available information comes to us in various different forms from the consultants, but at this point, just as a guide for ourselves moving forward, our people comfortable holding a vote either holding approving this without a vote and moving forward or moving to a vote to accept this work plan. So I have a quick question. I'm happy to vote to support the work plan is a question for Stephanie. Are we like a month behind because we think the assessment like what is the timeframe do you think the solar assessment will start and finish because that will. So much is tied up into that in the community process in terms of us are you know so many of these blocks of work. Yeah, I don't think we're, we're not a month behind I would say probably, you know, I mean some of this is outside of my hands, you know it's going to do with the folks who are dealing with the procurement process and the contract process. I think we can probably have them, you know, ask them to kind of move it along quicker and expedite that contract execution so I would say probably within like a couple of weeks maybe I'm being, you know, I'm even maybe even being a little generous there so I'm hoping that because there's only the one firm and we've already reviewed it exhaustively. So we should be able to get a contract with them we do have we had a few follow up items that were omitted from their contract that but we can't actually even discuss that until they're under contract to add anything more. So we kind of have to wait till that happens, but those things aren't anything that should delay what what they're doing or them moving forward. Okay. Great, thank you. Yeah, I'm not that people would notice but if you look very carefully between this version and the previous version I did adjust some of the boxes to reflect the fact that we're, it's now, you know, end of September. I didn't really impact things further out in the timeline, but there are some slight differences there that I didn't even think was necessary to really explicitly discuss but I did try to just update that a little bit given the the. I wouldn't say delay but just the reality of where we're at at this point. Okay. I don't think we need a vote on this work plan. But maybe we should should do so. Let's do so. If I have a motion to accept this work plan then we can have a vote on it. Yeah, I'll make a motion to approve the work plan. Great. Thank you, Laura. Is there a second to Lars motion. I'll second it. Martha. Thank you, Martha. You need to both voice vote. Okay, and welcome Dan. Thanks. Good that you can join us. Okay, so in no particular order. Breger. Yes. Peg Learulo. Hi. McGowan. Hi. Hannah. Yes. Corcoran. Yes. Gemsack. Yes. Brooks. Yes. Did I get everybody. Not get to vote. Sorry, I'm trying to do this with scrolling and everyone keeps moving on my panelists list. So they keep jumping around. So I think we got everybody. All right, thank you. All right. Thank you, everybody. And we'll. Have that to refer to. Over time. And reflect on how we're doing. In terms of time schedule. And, and, and as needed, we can make adjustments. If scopes and situations change. So great. Thanks for that. That away. Okay. So I'd like to move on to the next agenda item. Which is, you know, this great opportunity for us as the working group and appreciative of the, of the, of the town. Stephanie and Chris specifically to enable us to make use with town. We have set forward. Use of the town. Council, counselor legal counsel. To address some of the questions that we have as we set forward on the bylaw. And so we brought this up for discussion. Maybe two meetings ago and a briefly last time. But I don't think we had time to dig into it. What I'd like to do today is to really. I'm going to talk about the set of questions we want to put in front of the. Legal counsel who will then provide us with their. Legal opinions on these matters, which are going to be really helpful to us. As we embark on the. Bylaw drafting. Just to update folks. I'm going to start with Chris and Stephanie and myself put together sort of the first set of, of questions to move forward. And then it's been open for members here to add additional questions. We did receive a few additional questions. And, but at this point, we'd like to finalize this. We want to return it to the town. We do know that the legal counsel is waiting to have this list finalized so they can understand their scope and get to it. So with that, and let me before I show my screen, I want to. I did in the course of when, since Stephanie sent it out, I did the couple questions that I had in my mind that didn't come to me. Before I did actually pop forward in my head. So I added some additional questions. I don't know if that's too late or not, but I just assume include those or at least have had those four folks to look at as well. And let me bring up this document. Then, and I appreciate a few of you who did provide some additional questions. I think the original questions are all here in the, in the black text. And then there were a couple questions that were added. I know one by me and one by somebody else. And then, and then if possible, I brought these, these two additional questions 11 and 12 forward. And I'm not sure. I guess I'd like to open open the floor for any comments thoughts discussions on the, the set of questions. I do keep mine. There's also some specific questions that Stephanie and Chris had brought forward as well with regard to battery storage down here at down here as well. So any thoughts or questions or comments on on these, the set of questions. Chris. Thank you. It would be helpful to read the questions one by one. It would be helpful to me to focus on them because just seeing a list of questions in front of me makes it hard for me to focus on any particular item so I wonder if you would do that. And are you suggesting, including the ones that have you and Stephanie and I had brought forward. Yes, which people have have had time to review but I'm definitely happy I mean this is important this is really going to be really helpful information to us I'm happy, happy to do that for sure. And we can take it one by one to see if anybody has any thoughts questions, maybe I don't want to wordsmith too much given the limited time but any any thoughts on on how the question could be better targeted. Before doing so let me just see Janet you have your hand up as well. So, when I looked at this list of the questions, a lot of times I just said yes, yes, yes, yes, and a couple of them I was like, I'm not quite sure and so it you know I went back in red tracer lean again and the statute itself 41 a allows towns to regulate dimensional requirements for daycare educational institutions and religious religious institutions, and then it has, you know it's, it's so you can't prevent the use, but you can regulate the dimensions on it. The smaller facility language is much, much more loose and gives the towns lots of flexibility about what they can control. So the questions that are asking about dimensional requirements. I thought we're just yeah, you know we can talk about setbacks we could talk about size, how much can be cleared. Those are all what we think about in in zoning as dimensional requirements, the size of buildings, the size of a structure, how far back it has to be from the side of someone's property how much lot coverage how much hardscape is on there. So all of those things. To me, can be are in, you know those are those are yeses, you know because you could do that for educational institutions religious institutions. And the statute or tracer lane that says no you can't regulate the dimensional requirements and so that actually made me go back when I was reading tracer lane. I think that it's kind of it's kind of a weird decision but it basically affirms towns rights to zone and or regulate solar arrays about how they look where they go. You know what I'm saying you just can't have these blanket prohibitions. And what's weird about the decision is it kind of, you know goes down the whole normal legal analysis. And then the court doesn't apply its own analysis. And so it just says, Listen, this is an outright ban. It's bad. And so, but there's lots of language in tracer lane that says, you know, the interest that in zoning presumably advances the preservation of each zone's unique characteristics is legitimate you can preserve neighborhood character that's a legitimate zoning thing. And at the end, the last paragraph, it says, like all municipalities welcome maintains the discretion to reasonably restrict the magnitude and placement of solar energy systems. But an outright ban of large scale solar energy systems and all but one or 2% of a municipalities land area restricts, rather than promotes the goal of promoting solar energy. And then in the absence of a reasonable basis grounded in public health safety or welfare, such a prohibition is impermissible under the provision. And so it's not saying that Walton can't regulate solar array is in the normal way. It's just saying you just can't ban it almost everywhere and so I think. So I, you know, I think we can send these decisions to our town attorney but I think a lot of it is. Yeah, we can regulate that because we regulate that for other things, we could regulate, you know, so is that making sense to people. Yeah, I mean, it's realistic. No, and if you don't mind, Wayne, can I respond. Yes, yeah, Laura, please. So that was my question, Janet, and I think I want some clarity, you know, there's, there are actually far more rulings that consistent with this question and mass than what I forwarded over. And actually, there is sort of a fine line because I think you're right and actually I want to talk to an attorney who is an expert on this but I think you're correct in that, you know, of course you can have setback requirements buffer zones, all of those things. But other things like restricting the size of a solar facility or being really didactic about where it can and can't go. Those things actually could just kill a project all together. So, if you were a developer and I can tell you that maybe 100 megawatt or excuse me, 100, you know, 500 KW site wouldn't make sense but a two megawatt project would restricting the size in that situation would potentially just prohibit the project altogether. So I just think there's the request like I would love to hear from the attorney based on all of the legal opinions for all the cases that are out there. What is in, you know, our sandbox and what is what is outside of it. Because this is a suffice it to say that I've spoken to a number of groups who've been involved. You know, both from the town side and the developer side. And in these sort of Massachusetts rulings. And I think, you know, it just would be really good to know what is permitted and what's not. Corrective if I'm wrong Stephanie or Chris but the end of the day that the legal counsel, the town legal counsel will be reviewing the bylaw for its legal acceptability. So having their opinion at this early stage on these, you know, obviously these are all legal issues that are not necessarily black and white and need to be carefully crafted and so forth. But to have their opinion and sense on on on these, these questions or whatever we decide, which strike me as being really helpful, coming from our town town legal councils. All right, Stephanie. And Dwayne, I think, even though it may on the face of it seem glaringly apparent from some of the language, I think it's important to have as much clarity going in as possible, even if it's a, even if it seems like an obvious I think we definitely want legal counsel to weigh in at the very beginning. So, even if we think it's yes, having them confirm that it's yes will be helpful to the committee and moving forward, rather than finding out for some reason, through some little, you know, other, you know, additional language that we didn't read or know about or weren't aware of that we were in fact incorrect, better to know now right up front and have legal counsel review so I don't, you know, think having these questions. It's, it's not an exhaustive list and so it certainly doesn't help to include them. Thanks. Okay, Martha and then and then maybe let's let's go through the list. Yeah. Yeah, I just had a couple of points. One was that when we discussed the legal cases it was pointed out that the overriding case was really the one that went to the SJC, which I guess was the tracer lane one was that right. And the land court decisions were not really as much, you know, setting policy as the SJC. And the second question is, at the end when we get a zoning bylaw, does that have to go to the State Attorney General's office or somewhere to get approved. Is this some approval process. Yeah, I think Chris could answer that. Yeah, because we're now a city known as the town of Amherst, we do not need to have our bylaws, our new zoning approved by the AG's office we used to have to do that when we were a town, but now all we have to do is send the AG's office our latest bylaw and they keep it in their office. So we don't need to get it approved but we do want to get our opinion from cobalment and page. Before we send something to town council for a vote we want to make sure that in their minds it's water tight and it's not going to be subject to being overturned, you know, in court. So that's it. Perfect. Okay, thanks. So we start going down the questions. And we can maybe some of these issues will be resolved as we talk about the specific questions and again, we'll try to do this relatively quickly this this is probably the largest of the, well, we still have a number of agenda items to get to but we do want to resolve and finalize this list for sure. Question one, can the size of the solar array be limited for forested land and prime agricultural land. Can the amount of clearing be limited in the case of forested or prime agricultural land. That is the amount of clearing or forest land per installation amount of forest agricultural prime agricultural land impacted by an installation. Yeah, Martha, does the states climate action plan have any legal influence, you know, when I was reading the 2022 plan you know it talks about the importance of preserving, you know, forested land, etc. Is that something legal or is that just words kind of Duane, do you want me to respond to that? Sure, that'd be great. Yeah, that's a plan. It's not a regulatory. It's not a statutory document. It's not a regulatory document in terms of, you know, it doesn't set legal guidelines. It's just a basically a plan for moving forward. Yep. So we can't use that as an argument for You can certainly reference. I mean, I would say you can reference it as, you know, that that it's, you know, within the state's goals. I think, you know, what might be useful is the solar sighting survey that the state is currently underway that may potentially be available to you as you're drafting this bylaw at some point, you know, it might be a little while before that comes out but You know, that might be more useful. Yep. Okay, Janet. So I I think a related question to this is, can the town prohibit solar on certain types of land based on their characteristics like farmland, watershed, residential areas, you know, that kind of thing and so that's, you know, and I think sort of what Martha is saying is, you know, could the town say we wanted to protect our, you know, premier agricultural soils, or our forest because that's part of sequestering carbon under the state plan like I would put that as a rationale like the reasonable, the reasons for the regulation that a court would look at and so I think you know it's not just the size of the array can you just say no large scale arrays in these zones or these areas. I think it's like a corollary question. It'd be more important, I don't know. So I don't know if it's like, not just the size but the fact is, can you limit, you know, say solar rays can't go in these lands for whatever reason. A common, you know, Yeah, Jack. Yeah, it's tough taking minutes and. Yeah, I know. But I just want to say that it seems to me like the solar technology as is that a place where it is actually can be compatible with agricultural land, you know, obviously forest land is a change in use. But agricultural land that there's, there's numerous examples of arrays that are compatible, where, you know, you can, you know, grow crops and have animals and whatever. You know, and have the solar rays right there too so I'm not sure why we're beating on this particular topic for the you know, with regard to agricultural because that seems to, you know, it'll work itself out. Mm hmm. I guess maybe, maybe a, an add on question or corollary question here is that you can for projects on prime agricultural land can they be, can they be required to be, quote unquote dual use solar agricultural projects. That's available, available in the in the solar in the state solar program but I guess there's a question whether zoning could require that any projects put on agricultural land or prime agricultural land be in the form of dual use enable dual use. Mm hmm. Okay. Can I. Yeah, Laura, I'm sorry. Thank you. No, I was going to say that actually what I was going to say was supporting what what Jack had said is that the state actually has prioritized projects and has provided further incentives for solar developers when they include agriculture. And it's so there's a financial incentive but I also want to speak to the point that Janet raise and that if you like restricting things too much is the equivalent of a prohibition. So I want this, this is why I really want the attorney to weigh in on those land use laws, because I just don't want to be having spent a considerable amount of time thinking through these forest land agriculture. When we know that when we restrict things to a certain point. It's not for the benefit of public health and safety that it might not stand up. So, any more thoughts on on this first question. Okay. Second one. Can the overall size of an array be be limited. Chris. Two aspects to this one is a megawatt power of this of the array. And the other one is the actual acreage. So those are two parts of question two. And what is the desire here I can I can try to in real time do some track changes on these questions so that we can finalize this so that we can be sort of a bit rough. So you're saying Chris on this one by size capacity, or by acreage. Yeah, great. Good morning. Sorry just a procedural thing doing if you want to do that, you know, make notes and send them to me I'll clean it up, and then send out a final version to everybody after, and I'll post it in the resources packet. Yeah, thank you. You're welcome. Okay, very good. Question three, can an array be prohibited from being constructed in certain from being constructed in certain cases such as on steep slopes. Can there be a specified slope threshold defined maximum slope on which an array can be installed maximum slope on an access driveway, leading to an array. We've seen this in some of the, if not model, some of the town bylaws we've looked at. I guess the idea here is to get some opinion from our, our town council to give us cover and confidence to what to address this issue. Sorry, Stephanie is your hand up again or from the last time. Yep, okay. Apologies. Nope. Any thoughts on this question. Alright, that's progress. Number four, can there be a requirement for solar develop for solar developer for this little solar developer to cover the cost of third party inspections and reporting during construction. Yeah, this came up in some of our discussions earlier ago. And I think would be a helpful question to hear from. All right, great. How do you define public welfare legal counsel have fun with that one. Is there a threshold size that constitutes public. I can an individual property owner be considered public. Corollaries are our aesthetics considered a public welfare visual impacts requirements for screening amounts of noise produced by an array array or battery storage as as examples. Any thoughts here. Having this has come up I'm wondering whether. Are there any other things we want them to opine on other than aesthetics with regard to whether that's in the purview of public welfare. Jack. Yeah, I mean I could provide, you know, with regard to the Massachusetts contingency plan, which deals with the cleanup of, you know, way sites. We have this metric with regard to, you know, public welfare welfare and I can, you know, pass on that language. But I, you know, I don't, again, don't feel like we need to reinvent the wheel here I mean it public welfare is pretty obvious in terms of, you know, the noise and smell and visual and things like that. But certainly not does not necessarily include health and safety. You know, or environmental impact so. But I can provide that language to Stephanie if she wants to, you know, reference that but that's real standard with regard to what I do as a licensed site professional so. Yeah, I think that would be helpful for the lawyer to have access to if I'm sure they have access to all sorts of things but if it's if it seems applicable and relevant maybe to a different area but has some relevance to the solar and battery area, having access again with a lawyer to be able to reference or consult with I guess seems like it would be helpful. Yeah I'm wondering if like, you know, with, you know, Stephanie's involvement with the, you know, you know, wetlands law is are there existing, are there public welfare there or, or not but certainly I use this all the time. Dwayne if I might I would just say Jack just send it to me what you have and we would just send it on to the Council. Okay, they're they're going to be well versed in this I think. Sure. I think if you just send that information to me I'll forward it along as part of a packet of the questions and then other supporting documentation like the court decisions that Laura would like to be provided as well as your document. Okay. Thanks. Okay, Chris. I just wanted to make a mention of why we put this in here and there was a comment that came early in our meetings where we had a question about, okay, if water is somehow polluted or contaminated by some aspect of this. Is it considered public welfare if it just applies to one household, or does it have to be multiple households or the whole town so that's why we wanted clarity on what exactly does public mean and that's I just wanted to explain that to everybody who was here. That's a good refresher. Thanks Chris because obviously the, you know, solar collectors or any of the battery storage now can be applied and installed at the residential level. Janet. I'm just a quick thing there's a Supreme Court case that gives a very broad definition of public welfare and I can send that to Stephanie. It's just prosperity so like economic, you know, development and things like that trying, you know, so you can, so that we don't have to reinvent the wheel it's just been given a very broad definition in specific public convenience, comfort, peace, order, prosperity, things like that so I can send that to Stephanie and so. Sure. Yep, sounds good. Just to clarify is that the federal or the state Supreme Court. The US Supreme Court so there are ultimate overlords versus the as Jason, where the state state law overlords. We're doing that. Okay. All right, great. Any thoughts on that. Question number five. Great. Okay. Yeah, Jack. I've never seen prosperity. Well, I mean, for the development project, I mean, that's just But hey, we can sort it out. I have another. Yeah, Laura, sorry to raise my hand. Sorry, never mind just supporting. Great. Okay. Okay. Number six. Can there be minimum setbacks in excess of those pertaining to buildings. That is small towns have hundreds of feet of setback of setback required and distances from residences. Yeah. Any thoughts on this question or any further elaboration on this question. I don't know if this is getting at obviously there's setbacks in zoning as was talked about before, but can these be in excess of those that pertain to buildings. And. And to what at what point is, do they become overly restrictive. But on the other side, what, what, at what point do they become infringe on public welfare, I guess. Jack. Oh, I'm not muted. I'm sorry about that. But yeah, so, you know, we're producing this white paper out of the water supply and a protection committee. And, you know, we've looked at all these things and the setbacks, you know, I would think for buildings. They're innocuous sort of thing and the setbacks that we're looking at is more with regard to, you know, private wells standards set by septic systems. You know, setbacks to wetlands and things like that. So this one seems like it'll take, you know, the council, you know, five minutes to respond to but I'm wondering why we're including this but Yeah, yeah, okay. If it is five minutes, even in legal realms that's probably not too much money so it's probably a good to have have this stated by by legal counsel, so that we have some guidance there. Great. Number seven. Can there be mitigation stated for adverse environmental impacts for that is erosion pollution of water supply. For example language it says that in the event of this, the proponent I guess shall provide for why. Yeah, my sense is that this is really at least this particular question is really already addressed in local estate bylaws I mean if there's someone doesn't adhere to, you know, the requirements set up by the conservation there's a very clear escalation process. That happens with the state if you're in violation if you're, for example, if you're, you know, there's erosion and it, you know, ends up running into, you know, a body of water or you know there's. So I mean, I'm not sure what why we're keeping it there but we can, you know, if that's something that the group feels strongly about. Yeah, go ahead, Jack. I was just going to say yeah I, you know, to support kind of lower on this but I think I just feel like this is a little bit superfluous, because this is, you know, we're going to be hardwiring this in to the to the bylaw, I mean it's, I'm not sure why this is here but Chris. I think there are instances where we're not in a jurisdiction of the Conservation Commission, where this might be helpful. You know, if you're up high on it on a slope and the wetland is way down below well you may have adverse environmental impacts. Sometime before you get to the 100 foot buffer so I feel like having some clarity about this topic would be useful. Yeah, Janet. So, I read, I've seen bylaws which say, you know, if you're cutting down like five acres of trees, you need to protect like 10 acres of trees and that's seen as mitigation. And so that that was what I thought was in this question but I also think about mitigation is, I'm cutting down five acres of trees and the mitigation for that is planting five acres of trees because you know, to, you know, try to balance the carbon loss and things like that so I think it's kind of a good question because I, you know, and then I didn't think about Chris's angle but that makes sense to me also. I did one of the questions I added on at late notice was reflecting on that idea. We'll get to that. All right. Good. Jack is your hand back up sorry. Yeah, I guess, you know, we were talking about carbon impact of force versus solar, which is solar is a, is a field. You know, field. I feel like there's, there's some sort of assumption that we're making that that isn't correct that that we need to kind of clarify that when you replace force with a solar field that you're reducing, or you're increasing the carbon impact, which I don't know that is a fact. And we need to clarify that I think sooner than later, moving forward. Yeah, I think there's clear evidence and reasonable consensus that solar is is just from a straight carbon perspective, cutting down force and putting up solar that displaces fossil field generation is a net gain for carbon. Substantially, collector efficiency is a lot more efficient than photosynthesis. That that that being said, there's still some reduction from carbon than if you put the solar collector somewhere else it didn't have trees. So, you know, there still could be some mitigating desire to mitigate for for what you did lose from that from that carbon from from the forest. It obviously the carbon balance strongly depends on what you do with the trees to that to remove in terms of whether that sequestered carbon stays in finished wood products or find some other fate. And I will say that I think well may not be definitive I think the the scope of work that do we are has set out on for this statewide solar incentive solar assessment does also include a scope to look at that specific issue because it's raised around the Commonwealth. So I think we would probably be best, even though it may be sometime before that actually comes out. My sense is that we're probably good to wait for it for that analysis to come forward. Martha. Well, okay, okay, you kind of answered I mean I just wanted to push back a little and say that you know both are needed I mean we have to get to quote net zero, meaning we have to, there's always going to be some residual impacts and we really have to increase the amount of drawdown and the climate models indicate that so as best we can we have to avoid the impact of reducing or eliminating large tracks of forest by, you know, doing some kind of mitigation like there is here. All right, great. And I think these are discussions will get to put in pencil to paper and fingers to keyboard on on the bylaws so great. Okay, but still it seems like a good question to get some thoughts on from the legal counsel. Okay, let's move on to eight here and I guess this starts to get into some of the questions that have been added by members here. So the first one. Given that the SJC has affirmed that towns and cities can regulate solar rays to protect public health safety and welfare. Do you recommend that towns explain the connection between regulation of solar rays and public health safety and and or welfare. And if so, do you recommend this explanation in the initial purpose section purposes section bylaws tend to start out with this sort of introduction introduction and purpose. Section. And I think we've seen some preambles along these lines and some of the other towns, but I guess the members asking that it would be helpful and suggesting it would be helpful for legal counsel to give opinion on whether this is rec recommended practice and to put it into the preamble if you will. Any thoughts on that. All right. The second, the number nine now here may a town solar bylaw include requirements or encouragements for solar development to demonstrate economic benefits to the community. Now, for example, provision requiring that project financing provides an opportunity, for example, right of first refusal for local constituents to take an ownership stake in projects that would otherwise be sold to third party investors, or that are required to reasonably demonstrate that financial terms of the project lifetime maximizes the value to the local community through land lease pilot electric or net metering credits off taker discount terms, or buy out ownership flip options. I read that with some familiarity because I put that one in there. And so this is, you know, I'm curious about this. This is an area that that we're trying to pursue and move forward to get more community benefits from the solar development to stay local. My question really is not about the wisdom of that but whether there's any precedent or read or concerns about language like that being in a zoning bylaw. Yeah, I think the only piece that really pops out to me is requiring project financing provides an opportunity like a rofer. So in that cash waterfall, you have tax equity, you have debt, you have take out, you know, sponsor equity, and I have real concern with making that a requirement. Because I can, you know, like, you know, the US banks of the world who are providing tax equity, those types of transactions would actually a requirement would actually prevent a project from getting done. So that's, that's, that's the one that just sort of. I love the concept, right. But I think once it's baked, I think it's hard to go back. So, and sorry, Laura, can you, which was this, there was a specific provision requiring that project finance provide an opportunity like a rofer for local constituents take ownership stake in the project that would otherwise be sold to third party investors. So you know this Dwayne but you know 95% of the time a solar developer is selling the project at when it's construction ready. And that's just kind of how it goes. And then that flip option you're talking about and this is where I feel like I need to give like a solar development 101 that flip option is just has to do with tax equity, whether it's a partnership flip or whatever that might be. Anyways, I just think if it was encouraged. Okay, required. I would have a lot of concern with because I think it would be prohibitive for for an average solar project to require that they wouldn't be able to get debt and tax equity basically. Yeah, well first I look. I'm not familiar with the rofer term you mentioned is that this right a first refusal right a first. No, I'm sorry. All right, gotcha. Okay, I know a pilot, but I haven't heard that rofer. Okay, good. All right. Yeah, again, I'm not suggesting this as as something we want to put in the bylaw I'm just curious about whether it's something we could put in a bylaw. And obviously potentially with softer language with regard to encouraging versus requiring. Though I'm happy to sort of edit a little bit to soften it up a little bit. All right, Jack. Yeah, I guess I'm getting, you know, Bob down here with with the verbiage is this one if you can do like a layman's version of this paragraph for us Dwayne. I mean just really dumb it down for me. Yeah, well, I'm not helping this I'm sure but you know, and I'm not suggesting that the large multi megawatt scale. Solar projects would necessarily lend themselves to local ownership and financing because those are multi multi million dollar projects. That being said, there is a certain me as I shouldn't. There's certainly a sweeter spot of solar development, you know probably in the hundreds to close to a megawatt scale, where towns are are missing out that are, you know, almost always sold to third party investors, equity investors nationally based equity investors. Another is that to make solar more acceptable to towns and be more receptive to hosting solar. And gaining economic benefits that are retained locally in the community is a lost is currently a lost opportunity for in solar development across Massachusetts and the nation for that matter. And as Laura mentioned, I mean the momentum of the state state of the state of the art of how you go about solar financing is just, you know, go to the US national banks and get solar equity. There is reasonable community interest in challenging that that business model and opening up opportunities for business models that retain more local ownership and investment in these projects, or otherwise maximize the value of these projects to the local local community. So, this is really what I'm trying to get out here is is through this owning bylaw process is there a way to require maybe too strong, but to encourage that. A solar developer that get gains permission to develop a project in in in our town has to at least enable the consideration of potentially a rofer for local local ownership. I'm happy to edit this a bit to, to make it a little bit shorter and succinct and to the point but. All right. Janet. I think that's an interesting issue and idea, and I would be good to know if we can do it. It's not saying we should do it. So, I, when I read this I was thinking more along. Like, what about if we offer the town offered a tax break to solar developers who build canopies over parking lots because they're more expensive or, you know, things like that and I know we do that. We have a regular bylaw for people building low income housing that the town manager can negotiate like a 10 year tax break you I think we did this in North Square where, you know, year one, they're not paying any taxes and escalating amounts by year 10 and just trying to think about our own tax system to take the burden off of solar developers or a way to encourage solar development in the places we'd like to see it so I, I think we can do that I just it just I had that idea because I've, you know, as I was looking at different bylaws like, and I like I like the idea of clarifying like what can we do and not do in terms of these kind of local arrangements. I'll just comment first then we'll go to Lauren and Jack. I mean, clearly the state solar program is set up so that there's differential incentives for and higher incentives for parking lot certainly parking canopies and so forth. So, I guess there would be a question whether even additional incentive is necessary. I think we want to be careful to not offer tax incentives that is local tax incentives if that's even a feasible thing that the developers don't really need but just pocket at the expense of more local economic benefits because those tax revenues are important and local benefits and some of the relatively few local benefits that we get from solar development. So, so we'd have to consider that but just that I'm not at all suggesting that understanding what's the limits of zoning bylaw to address that issue that could be done not necessarily that we would want to. But Laura. I was actually going to say that I really liked this idea a lot. Because I mean there are incentives for canopies and low income offtake it through the state but frequently, especially with things like canopies and landfills and rooftops, they're not adequate. I'm not sure if that's permitted it might be a total, you know, no go but you know if we're really if the if the town becomes serious about really wanting solar development on certain sites. That's certainly a massive lever we could pull. Great. Jack. Yeah I was just going to say that seems to me like you know when we're talking about parking lots that we just we're talking as such men in school acreage. But I have to say that I'm impressed, you know, going up to UMass on University Drive and seeing all the, you know, the parking lot, you know, solar canopies there. And wondering maybe you maybe can shed some light with regard to how they got there because he's just like, I guess I'm been down. At the University Drive in a while I just saw that it's like wow that it's a great thing that UMass did. Wonder if you can, you know shed some light on that way. Yeah, well, from what I can tell you is that yet you when you say UMass did it yes, they open up their parking lots and prepare their parking lots to enable solar canopies. So one by the visitor center. The university does not own the projects. Their third party owned and the electricity is sold. I don't know exactly how that works but I think either the electricity because it is a micro it is essentially micro grid so I'm not sure if they sell the electricity to UMass or the net metering credits to UMass. But yeah, and I guess I would question Laura's comment to my knowledge they didn't receive any additional incentives beyond what smart offers. And so it seemed to be doable by the by the solar developers that we specialize in that solar canopy design. I know just to quickly respond it's not as though it's not financially doable. It's just like having done a number of canopies it's certainly less financially attractive than a standard greenfield ground mount. So that's all. Gotcha. Right Chris. I just wanted to let everyone know that when we did the tax incentive for affordable housing, we filed a home rule petition with this legislature. So it had to be approved by both houses of the state legislature but it was in fact approved so it is possible to do it but it's something that you have to get the legislature to approve. And just so in terms of putting this in front of the legal counsel. Is this, if we were to suggest something along these lines with this going as owning bylaw or would this be just a separate issue that the town would bring up and pass or not and then and then get do the home rule petition. Chris, I think the tax incentive would not be part of the zoning bylaw but it would be a separate effort by the town to make this happen via the state legislature. Okay. All right good. Are we good on this question. Okay, great. All right, then we'll get to number 10. Which is, will the solar bylaw stand up, given the master's statute 40 a section three, and see attached related land court decisions that Stephanie separately attack added to our packet that underwent several years of litigation. So, was that you Janet to put with this one forward. No, no, I think it's kind of a beast of a question. It kind of goes back to in a weird way, we're asking like every specifically all the issues that were probably in these cases. And so, it's kind of saying well all these bylaws stand up and I'm not sure that KP law can answer it but I understand I understand the intent behind the question. And just for my clarity is the statute 40 a section three the one that states that you know, no unreasonable restriction on solar development. I think yeah, yeah, but I don't know it's not my question. Okay. So I guess that's, yeah. I guess, I guess maybe whoever pose this question can maybe give us a little bit more information what what we're getting at obviously we're going to write it solar bylaw so it needs to stand up. It was myself who wrote this question. And I thought I already touched upon it earlier on. Sorry guys I just ran to the bathrooms if you're talking. I wasn't with you for a second. What I really want to get a handle on because I've really heard conflicting information than what we discussed here, which is like the definition of public health and safety is very narrow. And what I want to know is, are we like we're taking a lot of time and resources to develop this bylaw. And I know that in multiple instances across Massachusetts the bylaws have been shot down. Okay, and projects proceeded as as planned. And even if it wasn't just a moratorium. So I just want, basically, however you want to phrase this is fine but I want to raise the specific statute to the attorneys and provide them the material that we have I'm sure there's why no there's other rulings that are out there. And I want their opinion, basically on what that means for our bylaws. Yeah, Martha. And just going back to the day that we had the discussion of these different court cases. My impression was that some of these cases that came before the land court were kind of weird and rather specific. It wasn't the case of shooting down the bylaw it was a case of the particular interpretation for some particular thing I think there was one about the, the, the height of the bushes you had to have to block the view of the solar array or the one that went to the SJC was about whether there could be an access road to the solar array and the other community and so on. So, I don't think that those cases were really questioning the overall bylaw they were questioning very specific interpretations and again it's the SJC ruling that that kind of is the overriding one that's saying you just have to justify that really it's an issue of public health safety and welfare and a lot of these specific little ones, little cases that came up. You really couldn't justify that. All right, good. Janet. So I want to agree with Martha is that the cases that we got from the land court were challenges to planning board and ZBA decisions and I read two of those and they don't knock down the bylaw. Actually, I don't even think there's a solar bylaw in them but they don't knock down the bylaw they knock down the decision by the planning board or the ZBA in a very specific permit. And so, and even in Tracer Lane, the SJC in Waltham isn't knocking down a solar bylaw because there actually isn't one. It's kind of saying you're only you've only allowed large scale solar arrays and one to 2% of your land. You can't do that, you know, and so it sounds a little technical but I do think the issue that keeps coming up is what is public health safety and welfare. And I think those are really broad to me those are really fuzzy big broad words. And so that would be a good question I think to ask the KP law is like, what have the courts found that are inside public health welfare and safety I think it's going to be like a zillion cases saying this and that and the other thing. And so, I think that might be a good question, you know, but I don't know any case that where someone's bylaw has been knocked down on these kind of grounds so, and you know, so I wonder, asking about the definition of that term and how broad it is or how narrow it is I mean I think that goes to this earlier question. Yeah, yeah. Just to chime back in, I am. I actually would still really like an attorney who's an expert in solar to look at these materials, and actually I'll probably will forward additional materials, because when I read this. What's happening here, sorry. I actually think the definition of public health and safety is very what I've seen is very defined based on the recordings of the court cases I've watched and I'll, you know, can send those. So, I just, you know, I know that we had our own discussion internally, but, you know, no one here is an attorney that focuses on solar. So, I think it's, I think it's just important like this sort of the, I would like to know that the attorney is familiar with this Massachusetts statute, and basically all the questions were, were putting up on this board. You know, I want to make sure this individual understands that you know these this history exists. So, and I, and I say that because it's very it's very different than other states. This is only in Massachusetts. Largest and then we'll go to Chris, for my clarification when you say will will the solar bylaw stand up that's not. No, I want to know everything Amherst older bylaw that's not written yet but is it more like these older bylaws the one. Yeah, so for example, we say, we don't like you know we're going to have requirements on visual impact. And, you know, like, you know, and that and the developer makes a case that it's cost prohibitive, you know, can we require, you know, can we shoot down a project because or require something in the bylaw that limits development on certain sites as a view shed, or, you know, things like that, even cutting down trees. You know, like, is that something that we can even limit if, if it's not clearly defined as public health and safety. So, that's really what I'm getting at here. But it needs room. Yeah, okay Chris. I want to reassure everybody that Jonathan Murray is the person that we're working with a KP law and he was presented to us as a person who's very knowledgeable about legal issues with regard to solar installations. I feel like we're in pretty good hands. Rob more and I reached out to him during the effort to put a solar moratorium in place and so we've been speaking to him about solar issues now for quite a while, and I just wanted to let you all know that. Thank you. Yeah, thank you Chris yeah. All right, good. I can move on. And these these any input from Stephanie or Chris because I didn't share these ahead of time that I that I just put in. Well require that a ground mounted solar array over a certain size and land characteristic be be designed to enhance require that a ground mounted solar array be be designed to enhance pollinator and wildlife habitat consistent with the surrounding ecological system within limitation so as not to endanger the performance and safety of the solar installation. There is a adder, if you will for pollinator friendly solar. But there's also a lot of work going on on on on on that as well as wildlife friendly. There's, you know, ground based wildlife that does not necessarily interfere or need not interfere with the solar array itself but still provide some actually protected habitat for such things as snakes and turtles and those sort of things in ways that are advancing relatively quickly and good sort of habitat that also involves pollinator support. So my purpose this question within a bylaw can that can and require maybe too strong but can can projects be required or heavily encouraged to to assure that they're developed with these characteristics. Again, not to state that we would want to add that to the bylaw but just to know if legally, we can. Yeah I was just thinking, I mean I don't have intimate knowledge of the Hickory Ridge solar development but I remember when we're on the planning board, you know discussing how we wanted to enable, you know migration of a species. You know, through the area with regard to the fencing, you know not being down to the ground. So they're, you know, that sort of thing and, but I guess you know that was a ZBA thing that they had to handle so it seems, you know reasonable that the bylaw would, you know try to enhance certain, you know design considerations. In that respect. Any other thoughts or comments on that question. Okay, let's go to the number 12 then which is also one I added sort of late notice here. Can a bylaw require and this got to something we talked about earlier. Can a bylaw require that in the case that in the case that a solar development results in the removal above a certain threshold of acreage of trees that a developer demonstrate that a similar acreage, maybe it should be more, but a similar acreage of trees within the Commonwealth have been additionally and permanently protected from development through a land trust state covenants or similar method. So we should change the word covenants to covenants. That's all. I was struggling on what the proper covenant. I like the word covenants. It seems it seems like a harmonious thing. Martha. Yes, does that mean that this specific developer had to like contribute money to the land trust to buy the acreage or something, or can they. I mean, it sounds a little vague of a country can they just point that oh my look the Kestel trust just preserved 40 acres the other day can't we count that. Good question I guess my intent with the additionality here was additional by by this project from from a result of this project. I think that's where it offsets and maybe somewhere. But that's when you, when you introduce the concept of an offset, that's like a product into it's under itself it's, I get what you're trying to say good day and it's, and I love this idea where you're going to cut down some trees and we're requiring you to plant trees and we do this regularly in the conservation commission. We're required to plant trees of a certain diameter, you know, like, not all trees are equal certain kinds of trees certain size. And not, you know, I wouldn't use I only would only concern with offset because it's a product or like you could say equivalent to or something like that. Offsets, I tried to avoid that terms because there's a whole, I wouldn't say baggage but a whole discipline associated with offsets. That's a bit different. All right, good. Stephanie. Thanks to India harkening back to my work with the conservation commission. This question leads me to want to prioritize as much locating that mitigation if you will locally before we look out to the entire Commonwealth so I would say, you know, try to prioritize local mitigation first, you know, and then maybe expand to across the state. And local can be within the Pioneer Valley it doesn't necessarily mean just an Amherst but you know I would try to have some kind of a more mitigation that's sort of closer in proximity to where the project is. Yeah, I guess the, I added that if that makes sense that we can get legal opinion of whether we can do this. And then I think in the bylaw we can talk, you know, discuss language and develop language that we as we feel we'd like to do this for in terms of as making that that additive for sequester forest land as local as possible I think would make sense. Yes, and to Martha's question earlier about would this be, you know, just Kestrel land trust is, you know, preserving X number of acres and that's just part of it. You know, I, I agree that it's not, it has to be additional it wouldn't be. It wouldn't be something that's already being preserved it would have to be additional acreage. Yeah. Okay, any other questions on this. Let me before we go into the battery ones, which yet. Yeah, Jack. Yeah, I guess we know we're on this forest issue. I'm a little confused about, you know, where do we get our timber, our wood for construction purposes. And it seems like, you know, you know, I am a little ignorant in terms of, you know, protection of our force but it seems like it's a product. It needs to be harvested. And are we. I mean, I'm a little confused when we is it seems like there's like a no cut sort of mentality, you know, in the state and I'm just wondering like, so, where do we get our wood from, and, you know, I mean, there are protected lands I understand. That's that's very clear, but for lands that that don't have that, you know, I'm just wondering how much control does does a does a town or the state have over forest tracks that that are, you know, pretty much an agricultural product. So when it comes down to, I mean, we need, you know, so this is a little confused me and so maybe someone on the in the group can educate me with regard to the sacrosanct sort of standing of certain, you know, woodlands versus others. Yes. Maybe Robert can help us with that or any other any other thoughts. And certainly offer a little bit most of our wood right now probably comes from Canada. There is a lot of regulation from the state on cutting plans and regulating what can be done or where it can be done. I'm not really sure exactly how far you want to go with this but it. It's certainly reasonable to have regulations on personally. I'm not sure I would need this mitigation, but yeah, most of our wood probably right now probably comes from Canada and you see it coming through town all the time on the train. And, but else. Yeah, I mean, in, in, and there's in my somewhat limited knowledge. There are, and my, my, we can talk about this and when we get to the nitty gritties of a land of the language and a bylaw if we included something along these lines but in terms of the development from development, that would need to be defined as well. My thought there was protected from from, you know, land use change development into a housing or, or yet another solar project for example, but it wouldn't, it wouldn't mean that it couldn't be a permanently represented or protected forest area that would still be maintained as a working forest. Yeah, yeah, that was good. Because because I think, Jack, I think it's point I mean we, we kid ourselves if we think that we are we don't need our force for for wood products. And if we, if we make all of Massachusetts off limits, that doesn't do anything for climate, because we just get the trees from somewhere else. Okay. Martha. Yeah, that would just continue that of what is defined as a working forest I mean that means that one where you you harvest the wood for for wood and to make a profit for the owner of the land and then you, you replant or you, you know, are cutting selectively rather than clear cutting or, you know, I think doesn't it doesn't depend on what's your stewardship of that of that land and so on. Like, yeah, as as one of ancestors were farmers in New England and you know you had to have your woodlock because that was your source of fuel for the winter and it had to be sustainable, because you had to have it for this year and next year in the next year so, you know, great. Okay, let's we have a couple of questions also specific to battery storage, which obviously is in our purview as well. Maybe that wasn't the only one that saw saw something aligned with this and the is that this morning. In terms of battery storage development interest in our town. And so we have this set of questions. Can there be a limitation on the size of standalone battery storage on the minimum setbacks of this energy storage and excess of if it was a building and setbacks with regard to residential building specifically so let's address those first. And most I'm not sure if that had to do with the storage ones are prior but go ahead. I'm sorry you're calling on me. Yes please. This is this is where I feel like the answer is yes yes yes yes because these are all things that zoning normally regulates you know and you know we know by batteries are volatile and fiery things and make noise. So we, you know we have zoning that talks about noise produced by you know, blanking on the word the splits and screening requirements for that for you know, all sorts of things that we don't want to look at like trash receptacles. And so, you know, batteries have safety implications it has, you know visual impacts it has sound impacts so I feel like all of those things is going to be yes yes yes and I, and I guess the question in people's mind is, can we regulate battery storage that's related to a seller development because 40 a section three but I think the answer is just going to be yes, because you know something that produces noise can burst into flame. You probably don't you want probably don't want to have your house next to it. So I think that, you know, but I also feel like if people need that certainty we should just ask the question. So, yeah, Laura. Yeah, I was going to say, I have an issue with speaking about battery storage as though they're volatile noisy things because I don't know Janet if you've been close to the new technology that often accompanies solar development, and it is actually none of those things, certainly not noisy. So, I think that. So that's I think the first thing I think you know to the best of our ability it's important to sort of shed our own biases here, and perhaps even go visit some solar plus storage that's abundant all over Massachusetts. But I, when we talk about that first piece limitation on the size of standalone battery storage. I do think someone brought this up before there are two pieces so battery storage obviously is critical, because it allows us to sort of maximize the solar potential and deploy solar at different times of the day. But it's footprint is actually quite small, certainly relative to a solar facility. So I want to just be I want to think about are we talking about megawatts here for standalone storage are we talking about acreage required. Because I think we're at a point now where almost all messages projects are going to be accompanied by battery storage. So, and as well as you know what we see now is standalone battery storage as well. Yeah, I guess I also make maybe the questions here for the council is not so much just sort of yes and no but to get try to noodle out some insights with regard to what becomes overly restrictive. I think that it would be would be challenged. And so if there's some insights in terms of how to how to draw that line is it is it, you know, as long as it's comparable to how we provide offsets setbacks are with regard to other such things. Maybe it's it's that that's sort of the threshold to look at. I'm also curious as the tech, you know, to, as we sort of think about the bylaw and we talk about battery storage with such a quickly changing landscape of what that technology is of how we write about, you know, how can we write a bylaw that may may may not be over sweeping battery technology where some other battery technology that doesn't have the issues associated with stuff that we're thinking about today. Jack. I know, brought this up and maybe Chris Brestrup can, you know, remind me but I, there was a an interest in, in for these standalone batteries because that's going to be a thing, you know, moving forward and I'm wondering if that should be a sub sub section, you know, within this bylaw. Just for the sake of efficiency, and you know, I know the white paper that's coming from the water supply protection committee is going to speak to this in detail I think we're suggesting, you know, increase setbacks for the battery storage compared to, you know, standard, you know, solar array. With regard to the footprint of the of the battery storage. Facility, but where we go on, you know, with this it just seems to me I know it might not have been, you know, specific within the within the charge, provided to us from the town council. But I mean I just think like if we had to go back and do a battery storage bylaw. I mean it just seems it just seems inefficient to me but so I'm wondering if we can put a subsection in there for standalone battery storage because we're going to be covering the topic. So why not, you know, be efficient and go ahead and dress it within this bylaw. Yeah, yeah, go ahead Chris. I wanted to say I don't think we know enough about what the implications of battery storage are, and how those relate to or don't relate to the solar bylaw so I would keep an open mind about whether we need to sections or not. But I think we are going to be working on both of these things. So we will definitely work on battery storage, as well as solar installations but we're just not sure if we're going to put them together in the same bylaw or not, it depends. Okay. To, I guess with the set of these questions the other the others being similarly stated can you know can there be constraints on visual impacts in terms of screening requirements for battery storage and can the threshold of the amount of noise produced can there be a threshold for the amount of noise produced by battery storage. Whoever said I think it's right in that, you know, the simple answer is yes, across the board. I guess I'm, seemingly, I'm wondering whether there could be some addendums to these questions or, or, or nuances in these added to these questions that provide guidance to the council. There's a little bit more guidance on some of the nitty gritty that we're going to need to work out on some of these on some of these issues. Yeah, Chris. Sorry. I think the idea was that we were going to send him these questions and then he was going to come back with a draft of an answer to all of these questions and that the, the board here or the committee would have a chance to review that draft and have a conversation with this, this attorney, and then he would go back and come up with his final document that doesn't mean that that's the end of the conversation all during the time that we're going to be going through this process. We have access to our town council at KP law so we can continue to send him questions as as they come up. So that's my understanding of the process. Great, and then that let's let's draw this to a close because I actually just looked for my, my clock on my computer and we're like getting getting a time here so I think that's actually really helpful in terms of okay this is the path forward for us this is not the last time we're going to, we're going to get feedback from the, from the council will have the opportunity to probe a little bit further in some of these new nuances that were that over the course of the next number of months. We're going to be confronting. So let me ask if there is a consensus for allowing Stephanie Chris and I to review and do some massaging editing of these questions to reflect the input that we've gotten from the group today, and then we'll move these forward to the council through through Stephanie and Chris's offices to, to give us some answers, or at least draft draft their initial opinions are everybody is everybody okay with that or anybody dissenting from that. Okay, great. Thank you. So we'll Chris and Stephanie and I can can sort of work on that offline. Great. Okay, so let's see each other again. And say that we're at time that being said, I have two things. One is we will will will defer items five and six to the next meeting. So let's just spend as short a period as we can to schedule our next meeting. We even moved to a recurring time. I think as a group we decided that we're best off meeting every other week. And that would put us at if we wanted to stick with this time. I think we flip back and forth between Thursdays and Fridays. I'm not sure if there's a preference. I'm generally. Okay, either way as long as it's Thursday would have to be afternoon or at noon or afternoon. But would people be okay with with sticking with what we have now on Friday at noon, pretty much every other week. I actually prefer Thursday afternoon but is, but I can do this too. Let me just raise that is that anybody that really cannot do Thursday afternoons or would that Thursday afternoon is a problem. Would it still be 12 to two. Yeah, let's say 12 to two. Yeah, is that work 12 to two. That works if it's on off weeks from the planning board because I do a volunteer thing the morning. And would like, I could do after two or something on a Thursday, 130 or two. Any Thursday. But does that work for other people. I can't do later on Thursday. Let's stick with Friday at noon. Okay. We'll be done before getting into the real weekend. I have a, I have a conflict Fridays and noon. Okay, every Friday at noon. Yeah, every Friday at noon. Meeting. Okay. Just for this, just for this fall. Let's skip the meeting this week. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Well, I guess. Would Friday. Either earlier in the day or later in the day. Yeah, the meeting's noon to one. So before or after that. Okay. One to three. That's fine. Sorry about that folks. No worries at all. No, it's amazing that we've found. We've found the work. So let's go with the next meeting will be. October seven. One. To three. Okay. I'll just have to leave early for that meeting, but that's fine. Just that one time. Right now that one time. Yes. Okay. Okay. So let's stick with that. And so Stephanie, you can make note of that. And then, but all of us can sort of put that recurring every other week. Friday starting the October 7th. One. To three. Okay, great. We have agenda items for next time that carried over from this time. I do wonder about people's thoughts of, and it doesn't need to be next time, but having Laura present something to us or, or give us some background information with regard to. Solar economics. And development economics. To me, I think that would be helpful for us to hear and have that. As a consideration as well. As we move forward. Do people feel that that would be worthwhile for us. Super. Okay. So. Laura. We could put that on the agenda for the seventh, but it sounds like you may be a little bit. Waged in time and maybe so maybe it's better. Well, whatever would be the next time, the 21st. Let's do the 21st. Okay. Okay. Great. Okay. Okay. So we have a work plan for, for starting to draft outline draft. The bylaw. Okay. With that, let me just quickly go to the. Martha, if you still have your hand up or no, okay. But with that, let me. If Stephanie's. Able to open it up. If we do have some public comment, any public comment or, or questions. Okay. Hello, everybody. Thank you for all your great work. I've been following all your meetings, if not in real time, watching the recordings. One of the, make one comment about your questions for legal counsel today. Pretty much all of those questions about restricting solar development. And I suggest that perhaps you group, think about asking legal counsel about the possibility of allowing solar development. You can ask that question. If you want to do that, you just want to find out what the possibility of doing that is. So that's the one suggestion on that. Just want to add an editorial comment. Your group is focusing a lot on the, on how to do that. So that's the one suggestion on that. Just want to add an editorial comment. Your group is focusing a lot on that. So that's the one suggestion on that. Just want to also add an editorial comment. Your group is focusing a lot at this stage on restricting solar development in town. And I want to remind you that however much Amherst restricts solar development in our town, we are going to be pushing that development into other communities. Because as Martha noted in one of your August meetings, we need greatly expanded renewable energy capacity to meet the Massachusetts climate goals. And also remember, as we're considering the benefits of our forest and our view sheds and things like that, we currently benefit greatly from the sacrifices, real sacrifices made by neighboring communities that host the fossil fuel power plants that provide all the electricity we use. Those communities like Ludlow and Springfield and Chickapee have really high rates of asthma, reduced property values because of those fossil fuel power plants in their neighborhoods. So keep that in mind as you also think about maintaining the quality of life in the community. And also, I want to remind you that this is an important part of the development and character of Amherst. Thank you for all your great work. Thanks, Steve. Okay. Mike Lepinski, you're allowed to talk. Hi everybody. I'm Mike Lepinski, one six seven shoots very road Amherst. And usually I'd encourage you guys to stay focused on the task at hand, which is creating a strong solar bylaw. I'm going to talk a little bit about the project that Laura made today to give everyone a peek at the big money interest behind these large solar scale projects would be fascinating. I believe she mentioned that 95% of these projects are sold by the original developer to another entity. I'd love to hear more about that. Why does this happen? Yeah. Well, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know about the development and construction of these big projects, but it's also clear that there's substantial amounts of profit involved, having some sense of what the financials look like for a typical project and how much of that profit trickles down to the town and the form of pilot payments might be very eye opening. So please set aside some time for Laura to give us all an education on the subject. I think the developers seem to be very quiet about these details when they promote their projects as much needed pollinator fields. They tend to be very quiet about how much money they're making. Thank you. Thank you. I didn't know. I don't know if you wanted to respond to that. Quickly respond. Yeah. So my, my session is not going to be. Focused on exploring the big money interest behind solar. And I think the focus is going to be to educate the committee here on the development cycle, what goes into assessing a solar site, how the process works, not to go into complex financial models of partnership flips and so forth. So anyways, I just want to clarify that. Thanks. And Renee Moss. I've unmuted you. Hi, thank you. I just have a few questions sort of having nothing to do with the substance is substantive content today. I have one question I'm wondering if anybody can answer. I'm just curious as a member of the public is to how many members, you know, the range, how many people from the public. We're viewing the meeting. So that's one question I have the second question. I'm a little concerned public comment is after the official. Ending time of the meeting. And I think in some ways it dissuades public comment and as a committee that's supposed to be really engaging with the public, I would just urge you to have the public comment before the end of the meeting, not after the end of the official end of the meeting. And, you know, I appreciate, you know, the, the depth and the length of issues that you had to go into with the public time to talk within that two hour period. So thank you. Thanks for the work you're doing. Dwayne I can respond to the number of attendees. It varies throughout the meeting. The maximum we had was 16 at one point. Renee, I'll just comment. I'm the time manager for the meeting and I'll take full responsibility for not getting the, to the public comments along with other agenda items before the meeting. I do recognize how that's an. An ink, not just an inconvenience, but also not respectful of the. Public participation. Given that we post the timeframe for the meeting. So we'll try to make sure we get that in. Before the end of the meeting time, the formal end of the meeting time going forward. But thanks for raising that. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Did you please digitally raise your hand? Okay. There are no additional. Sorry. Nope, not from the public. No more comments. Okay. Oh, I'm sorry. There's one more. Yeah. There is one more. Kathleen. I am unmuting you. Go ahead. Thank you. And thank you for all the work you're doing. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. That would be the topic of. Of. Of how the. Work gets done. There still remains the issue of who is making money off of this. Who gets the electricity? How does the town benefit? How does the town get taxed? I think we are a town. We are a town. We are a town. We are a town. We are a town. We are a town. We have taxation difficulties that are related to having. Institutions in our, in our town that don't pay taxes. And that. This could very easily end up being another situation like that. In Irving, Massachusetts, where 50 years ago, they put in a hydroelectric plant. The people were very careful in the town to make sure. That the. The. Would be helped by the development of the hydroelectric plant on Northfield mountain. And for 50 years. That project has presented about 90%. I believe that's the percentage of the tax base of the town of Irving. And that is because it's not simply. It's a private gift. We will, we will give a million dollars to your, to your school. What they're doing instead is being taxed fairly. And, and carefully on the basis of the. The capital. Development on the land. And not just saying. We are going to give you something because you've permitted us to be here. We've been taxed on what the value is. Of the capital investment on the land. So I think that. That if Laura is not going to do that part, it's really important for the town to have somebody finding out. What are the big plans. For the next 40 years in the town of Amherst. Are we going to just have another situation where you have. Untaxed organizations like the universities are. That really. Cause a lot of expense. For the town, whether it's the roads or the firefighters or the police or what have you. So I think that this is part of develop deciding what is this solar industry that wants to come into Amherst. So I thank you very much. And keep up the good work. And Lenore, I've unmuted you. Sorry, I'm on my phone. And so I'm, I'm, I couldn't, I couldn't. Anyway, I'm having tech trouble. You can hear me. Yes, we can hear you. So thank you for all your good work and the time that you take to like the weeds here. There were a couple of, I understand that, that a lot of the. Okay, let's wait. Can you hear me? Yes. Oh, sorry. I understand that a lot of the conversation was about points to bring up to legal counsel. And that's just about what's legal. Right. And to keep in mind that legal counsel is going to counsel you on the past. And not on history, right? Because our laws are our history and they're man made. They're not going to be count. They're not going to be counseling you on our future. And they're not going to be counseling you on natural law, which is really has to be taken into account with what you're doing here, because what you're doing here. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I have to interrupt. Lenore, can you introduce yourself and. I'm so sorry. My name is Rick. You want to know my street, strong street Amherst. Is it, and it's BR, your, your logo there doesn't say. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah, sorry. Yeah. Sorry about that. Yeah. No, no, no, I'm not anonymous. So. The, the, the greater I, and I, I understand in what Steve was talking about how you, you as a group are charged with, with drafting a bylaw to find appropriate places for solar, which we of course need and we need to get our fossil fuels. But the reason you have this charge is because we are at this point in history where we're dealing with climate, a climate catastrophe and a, and a biodiversity collapse. So that always needs to be in the background here. And one of the things that I'm noticing is that there's these knowledge gaps, which I hope will, will. You know, I'm hoping to get a committee together to present to you. This, this information about, for instance, someone was talking about how you can replace five acres of forest with planting new trees. And that that would be a carbon equivalent. It isn't or the assumption that the fact that clear cutting far as that there's a net gain in, in the, in using energy renewables, that's also an assumption. So the latest science that I am privy to, and all of the scientists, climate scientists, scientists, forestry colleges, biodiversity experts, the people that are really working on the, the holistic approach to this climate issue are urging society as a whole to protect our, our forested land, to protect our farm lands, to protect our green lands, building a wildlife and pollinator friendly habitat under solar farms is not the same thing. And, and replacing a tree plantation is not the same thing as the ecosystem of a forest was, which is a sociobiological community that, that, that contributes more than we even know to, to our wellbeing. So I just, I just think we have, you know, it's not the comparison between photosynthesis and, and collection. It's not just about photosynthesis. We just have a lot and it's not just about sequestered carbon and that mathematics. We have a lot more to learn. And I'm looking forward to hopefully being part of bringing some expertise to your group so that you can hold all of this. I know it's so much to hold, but to hold all of this as you draft, I'm hoping the best bylaw that has been drafted thus far. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Stephanie, I don't see any more. No, I don't see any other public comment. Great. Okay. We do have one last panel panelists comment or question or thought. Jack. Oh, I'm just, I'm just wondering. Okay. Laura's. You know, presentation in October. October 21st. What, what is that? I'm just trying to get the right verbiage. I can, I can help you with that, Jack. I'll, I can tweak that later. Okay. Okay. And I think to the point that was raised, you know, if there are other. Areas of expertise or knowledge gaps that we want to fill. You know, you know, you know, you know, you can get that on the agenda next week. Or in any week. And then think about, you know, are there. People amongst us or people that we can bring in. To bring us some, some, some of this knowledge as we, as we move forward. Okay. All good to adjourn. Great. Okay. Hearing no. Opposition. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for running over. The meeting is here by adjourned. Thank you, everybody. Have a good weekend. Thank you.