 Aaron, if you could start. Oh, we are. Thank you. So welcome everyone today is June 23 2021. This is the Amherst conservation commission meeting. And so we'll start off with a couple of comments for me. One is just let folks know that we did have a couple of interviews a week or two ago for replacement folks for the commission. As we were just saying, I'll be stepping down in about a month. I should be stepping down now I'm just staying on to get through a couple more hearings and then I'll be stepping down. I think that the the interviews went well. And so I think that we'll have, we have strong candidates. The process works that the people who are for the interview process. So that was myself and Aaron, the town manager and then a woman from another committee who I can't remember who just works to help facilitate town committees was there as well. But after we make our recommendation, which we did, then eventually it does go to town council. And so they would be the ones who officially make it. And as we were just saying, it sounds like Larry is most likely going to be able to stay on if he so chooses. And so we just have to wait on a final word on that and then we can move forward. But given that we are that I will be, I will certainly be stepping down one thing that I mentioned last time is I thought it probably behoove us to have a vote tonight on who will be taking over leadership of our commission. We need a chair and we need a co-chair. So, looking for nominations for those positions. I nominate Jen Fair for chair of the conservation commission. Second. How do you feel about that, Jen. Thank you. I feel like it is a job I can do. I don't have any more time, like more bandwidth to give to this so in the thought of a co-chair, it might be good to have someone who does have the bandwidth to be available for site visits, and like I said, I'm not going to be able to run a fieldwork outside of meeting times. Because that's like my main weakness is that I really can't usually can't shake free to attend that sort of thing. So, I am willing and able to run the meetings be the chair, but I'm going to need help for a field presence. And if the fact that I can't be available for a field presence is a reason. If I can run a fieldwork job, then that is completely understandable. I'm totally happy with that. Yeah. And we've had that in the past. So the chair before me. So, Bryony, I don't think she was ever at a field visit. No, yeah. So there is some precedent for that. Definitely, I think the idea of making sure we have some minimum level of coverage for our site visits is good. Definitely not. That's not one of our strengths right now. We had one site visit this week and me and the person we had a nice visit but it was just the two of us. So, which isn't too uncommon, but as long as there's one person there I think we're good. Yeah. You do a lot of that and I just can't. I'm lucky that I have the flexibility and my children are old enough. So it makes a big difference. I mean, I think, well, Brett, I think the question for me is without some other folks here. Can we kind of delay half of this decision for a co-chair or vice chair? The only other person is really, oh no, I guess we have Fletcher and Laura. So, yeah. So that's right. So I was thinking, yeah, sorry. Well, I'm going to apologize to Laura who's not here anyways. Fletcher, he probably would not be a co-chair is my guess because he's going to be phasing off pretty soon, but Laura would be an option there as well. Does anyone have a strong desire to co-chair amongst the group here? Or co-chair, you can also think of it as a chair-elect so to speak as well. I can't say that I have a strong desire or even necessarily a strong skill set, but I do have a lot of flexibility for a skill, for a site business. So with Jen's chair, if you want to give me more direction when you can't see a site as to what you're looking for, I'm happy to go out there. Yeah, look forward to that. Good. Super. Excellent. So again, titles where that wouldn't want co-chair or anything like that, but I'm certainly helping with the sites. Yeah, and it's not even that I know what I'm looking for. It's like more being, you get a feel for it and you see things that you wouldn't know to look for. I think like that's the thing and the value of the site visit is what's not on the plans. So far, yeah. I've been on site visits with you, Leroy, and you seem, you're solid, like, you know what you're looking at and like, yeah, you're good. Pretty sure. Can we, I mean, can we make, can I make two nominations? Can we do that? Are we feeling vice chair or co-chair? Where are we at? Vice at best. Are folks comfortable? I think I'm vice chair, technically. Currently. Yeah, I was going to say currently. Yeah. Okay. So I nominate Leroy for vice chair. Second. Excellent. So we have two nominations that are on the table. I guess we'll take them in order. So the first one is for Jen to become chair after I step down, which again, probably August ish. But, and so all in favor. So we'll go around voice vote. So Anna. Hi, Larry. Hi, Leroy. Hi, Jen. Hi. And I as well. So congratulations. Go Jen. Okay. Team effort. None of you are going to let off the hook here. Oh, I am. Emeritus, emeritus. Okay, so a vote for vice chair for Leroy. So Anna. Hi, Larry. Hi, Jen. Hi. Hi, Leroy. All right. Well, so thank you, Leroy. So yeah, they'll go swimmingly and so fantastic. So thank you both. Yeah, I'll be off the commission. If there's questions for me, obviously, you know, just kind of let me know about obviously also being great hands with Aaron. Okay, so that was a little bit longer than I usually have from my side, but that is it at that at this point. So Aaron, do you want to move us along? Yes. Let me just see we have our first at 730. Yeah, so let's go right to minutes. I don't know if everyone had a chance to read the minutes I sent them out last minute. Yeah. I did. I did as well. I did not, but I'm going to, I'm a fast read them. Sorry, I was away from my computer for a while. I'll go really fast. Yeah. I dare you leave your computer. I was behind today. So rude of me. I'll make a motion that we approve the minutes of 6921. Thank you, Larry. Looking for a second. Sorry. Thank you, Leroy. Okay, so voice vote Jen. Yeah. Leroy. Larry. Aye. Anna. Aye. And I for me as well, minutes pass. Great. And I'm just going to jump to the end of my PowerPoint and we'll kind of go in reverse order here. I just contacted me that they're going to be doing a. Treatment for the utrophic eutrophication that's going on in the UMass pond. So that's just an FYI, they have a permit for that. 300 North Pleasant street is a residential property. And. I was basically asked to advise what type of permit. That they should file for it. And due to the proximity of the work to the resource area, I recommended that they file a notice of intent application. However. They are doing a significant amount of impervious surface removal. They're taking out a part of a parking lot. And they're taking out a part of a parking lot. And they're taking out a part of a parking lot. Away from the wetland. And so you can see. And the outfalls being pulled away from the wetland as well. But they're still within 20 feet of the wetland and they're doing work right up against. The wetland line here to pull the impervious surface out. And they're taking out a part of a parking lot. And they're taking out a part of a parking lot. And they're taking out a part of a parking lot. And they're taking out a part of an RDA for it. Or if you would in fact want a notice of intent. It's converting a previously commercial site to a residential site. So basically they're. Taking this property and they're turning it into a, a home as opposed to a. A commercial. Business. No. This is where the kennel was. Oh, okay. Got you. I sort of still lean toward notice of intent application. Usually due to proximity, like if something, my general. Rule that I follow is if something's closer than 50 feet, I usually require notice of intent. If it's further than 50 feet away, I would say. An RDA is okay. And then there are some instances, like if it was a tree, tree removals or if it was something that was a little less impactful, I might suggest an RDA, but. I don't know. I don't know. Anyways, it's entirely up to you guys. What you think is appropriate, but he asked for your opinion on what, if, if an RDA would be acceptable for this project. For my perspective, it does seem like an, oh, I would be more appropriate. I don't think that the workload is going to be hugely different on his side. It'll. It's definitely going to have some impact in the wetland. Granted, most of it's going to be positive. I agree with that. I agree with that. I agree. You know, once we moved through everything. Yeah, I agree with that. I agree. No, no, no, no, no. No, no, no, no, no. I mean, I was not adding anything new. I was just going to say, like, yeah, within a hundred feet or within, you said it's within 50. Right. Like that? Yeah. Okay. So it sounds like a general consensus to file an NOI. Alrighty. So we are tabling the discussion on the 61 a for right now, because that the review from town council came in after the agenda was posted. And we didn't actually have it listed on the agenda and we wanted to make sure that we gave a butters and opera or, you know, people who, who in the community who want to have an opinion on that to attend that it be posted. This week. Yesterday, actually, I was contacted by James Hurl, who is a ag producer out off of Southeast Street. And the backside of his field was being flooded as a result of a beaver dam that goes, there's the stream that flows underneath the bike path and the beaver dam was on his property. He met this morning out there with representative from DCR and they were in agreement that the dam was in fact on his property. There is a provision under the wetlands protection act for emergencies for ag producers if their farm fields are being flooded that they are allowed to, to breach the dam if it's being filled or if it's being flooded. And so I basically gave him the go ahead to incrementally draw it down so that his field was no longer flooded, but told him that he had to report back to us within three days with photos and basically just letting us know that it was done. And there, and I did talk to DEP there's no emergency certification required for that because it's an exemption under the agricultural provision. Yeah. And so this is a longstanding issue, Aaron and Jim Harrell, he hasn't been in front of us for a while, but for a while he was here on a regular basis. Okay. And we've even had this specific issue before us before about those beavers on the backside because they're just coming across the, the rail trail. This is not going to stop them. They're going to keep on coming. Right. Did he mention it all about how significant the flooding was? He doesn't want the beavers there. They're going to get rid of them for a while. So I just don't want to see it used as an excuse for doing. Yeah. I'm just wondering if the land's currently under production or what's going on. It's a hayfield. So yeah, that's, that's the crop that's grown there. So I, I was not able to get out there yesterday to look at it or today, unfortunately, but I could go out tomorrow and take a look at it. So I'm not sure and I haven't seen photos yet, but I do know that DCR went out and looked at it and they agreed that it was in fact, you know, an issue that they didn't have a problem with him breaching it. Of course it was on his property. So. It's kind of, if he feels that it's, that it's damaging his field, then he has the right under state law to, to remove it as long as he notifies us. Yeah. So it would definitely be good to just kind of double check to make sure that it is actually, you know, having a substantial impact on land in my opinion. Okay. Okay. I will definitely go out and take a look at it. Okay. Yeah. And he might want to think about long, excuse me, long-term solutions. Breaching a dam is not going to do much. See also actively trapping. I mean, he usually is certain. I don't, I don't think you can trap now, but usually during open trapping season, he is actively trapping there. Yeah. I know he has in the past. Yeah. And it's kind of weird. I think that he actually owns property on both sides of the rail trail. So it's a kind of funny property that's there. Yes. East side of the rail trail. That's not a gland, obviously. Yeah. And I, I did. He mentioned to me about, he, he cited a law about trapping them. And I did note to him that it is not beaver season right now. So, you know, removal of the beavers would require a permit from the board of health. But he didn't indicate any desire to remove the beavers, just that he wanted to breach the dam. So that the water was released a little bit. But, you know, if it's open season, they, you know, and you have a hunting permit, he could, he could trap them if he wanted to. But. I mean, I'm certainly happy to, you know, follow up with him and let him know that I informed you guys of the situation and what your concerns were. And just follow up with him and maybe have a conversation. And, you know, see what his long, you know, long-term, if there's a, you know, a long-term management plan. For addressing the situations. It's, it's tricky. I mean, it's tricky even on conservation land. We've had this issue, like the beavers, even if, even if you remove the beavers beavers, they'll come right back. And there are situations where. Beaver deceivers or gates around culverts and things just are not effective or not appropriate for a given site. So in some cases there's not a whole lot that you can do, but well, I'll follow up with him and see if there's anything. I'll take a look at it and see if I, you know, I have any ideas or. If he has any ideas, I'll follow up with him and see if there's anything I'll take a look at it and see if I, you know, I have any ideas or. If he has any ideas for a long term, something he wants to do. Yeah. I mean, last time we did DCR was involved. I can't remember who the wildlife specialists were, but they were definitely involved. And that's when the some of, I think additional beaver deceivers were installed over on the East side. I don't, I can't recall if that's on his property or. Exactly who's it is. That has been tried. Well, they're still there. So. But it's, yeah, once they come into his property, kind of under that bridge, I think that's where the issue probably is. Okay. So there was, there's a couple of emergency certifications. One of them was for 20 ball lane in Amherst. There's, it's the. Old Matusco repair facility. It's a potential 21 East side. And they got a demolition permit from. The historic commission and from the building inspector. And they basically had. It deemed unsafe. The building itself was deemed unsafe and had to be demolished. So. I got the order to issue an emergency certification from Dave, which I did. And basically they're, they're only allowed. For the emergency certification to remove the structure itself. They have to leave the slabs in place and they can't do any ground disturbance as part of the. The emergency certification is just to demo the structure itself. So I just would need a vote to ratify that emergency certification. Okay. Sounds like, yeah, I'm not sure that we have much say in this for, I don't think there's much that we can do in this. So. So moved. Second. Wait, what are we moving? Sorry. Yeah. All right. Second. Yep. So this is the emergency cert for a 20 ball. Yeah. Larry is throwing me with these so moves. I've been in too many committees. Particularly when they're recorded. Okay. So voice vote. Anna. Larry. Hi. Jen. Hi. Roy. Hi. And I as well. So that passes. Great. And then the other one is just more of an FYI. I haven't gone out to look at this one, but I'll go take a look at it tomorrow. This just came in late this afternoon. I've been in touch with the gentleman who owns the property. There. Several hazard trees. It's kind of a, from what I understand sort of like a hedge row that with a bunch of dead trees and then within the. The dead trees, there's a couple dying trees. And so they want to take them down because they're leaning up against the house or they're leaning towards the house. So I'll go take a look at them, but expect to see that on the next agenda. And then in the packets, there was a follow up. Monitoring report on 99 pulpit Hill road, which was an enforcement case. I don't know if anyone had a chance to look at it. I can certainly pull it up. What I took away from the report was that there was a couple follow up items basically that their. Inspector is suggesting that they. Complete on the site. And so I would just. Like to. Respond to the landowner and say, we would. Appreciate if you could follow your. Consultants recommendations on addressing these remaining issues in the restoration area. Yeah. I read through it and those recommendations seem to make sense to me. Seems like they did most of it. They tried a couple of things just need a little more work and they should be in good shape. And did anybody else have any sort of questions or issues with that one? Let me just. As long as we have a few minutes, I just want to take a quick. Oh, we got a couple monitoring reports. Just as an FYI. There's. The Aspen Heights project, which is out on North Hampton road. There have been a couple of issues with the. Level spreaders, which are the outlet devices for the storm water structures. Basically. They've been holding. They've been. They're designed to infiltrate water. And do sort of like a sheet flow situation to allow infiltration into the ground. And what's happening is water is just sitting there. And at the outlets. They are. Causing the vegetation to die. And so I've been working with the Hadley concom to. Try to come up with a solution. They're trying a couple. Different options for. Receding it possibly putting down turf to stabilize it. We're not at a decision point just yet, but we've been looking at that, but that's really the. Sort of the crux of that as well on the east side of the property. I authorized them to. This is at the part that's up against green leaves. I authorized them to remove the erosion controls there. Because it's, it's the work has been completed on that side. And everything was fully stable. And they're starting their planting plan. They're putting in a bunch of trees along that edge. So just so that the board's aware of that. And with the level spreader is any of the issue had to do with a height. Water table there. I think there's multiple issues going on, but that's definitely one of them. The other issue is. It's actually not even on the Amherst side. It's on the Hadley side, but it is relevant to the Amherst permit because. That level spreader actually handles stormwater that comes. Off of systems that are in Amherst. So it's relevant to me and I definitely have looked at it and offered my suggestions. Right now, I think one of the big issues or questions really is that there's. After the outlet to the level spreader, there's a. The erosion control sock. And so. It's acting as a dam, basically, to water that's coming out of the level spreader. And the. The concern is that water is damming up behind that erosion control, but we don't want to authorize removal of the erosion control because the area is not stable. There's no vegetation established. So it's like. It's a catch 22. And so my suggestion was, why don't they lay down turf there and take the erosion control sock? Out and see if it's functioning normally. But they had come up with at least one other idea, which was. Some planting or some seed seeding that would have. Been appropriate to put inside a detention basin. So, you know, basically a seed mix that's designed to, to do well in wetter conditions. So they might be doing that. But we're, we're in kind of a back and forth discussion of how to solve the problem. And in terms of the monitoring reports, we're almost at 730. No, but I'll just, before we jump into hearings, one sort of. Caution I have, I guess. For the meeting tonight. Is that we already have five hearings booked for the meeting on. Um, July 14th. And three of them are new hearings. Two of them are continuations. That were never really heard to start with. So it's going to be the next meeting on the 14th is going to be a really intense meeting. With five new hearings that are just basically, we're just taking testimony on. So anything that opens or anything that is being continued tonight. I would really recommend that we put on the. July 28th agenda, because otherwise we're going to be there. Really late into the evening on the, the 14th. Um, But I am concerned, particularly with Tiffino, because. Of where we are with quorum issues. And, you know, Brett, your only, I guess, going to be staying on to the beginning of August potentially. And. Um, that just doesn't give us much time to resolve it before you leave the board. So just kind of a word of caution. I'm not sure how exactly we're going to sort that out, or if we can resolve everything tonight or at the next meeting, but some action is going to need to be taken by the end of July. I think. Okay. Yeah. And at least two of the hearings tonight are being continued. So we have those as well. Yeah. And on those. Um, Well, One mayor may not be continued depending on you guys opinion. Um, but one of them will definitely be a continuation. When is the next meeting? So just to let you guys know the next meeting is going to be July 14th. There was a note in the PowerPoint presentation about the seventh. And the reason for that was because two of the hearings got continued to July 7th. But I talked to Dave this, uh, this afternoon, and I'm going to actually come on to zoom on July 7th. And. If anybody happens to come on for those two hearings, I will let them know that the hearings are continued to the 14th. Um, Because it was an error and that's not our usual meeting night. And also, um, It's just, I didn't want to mess everybody's schedule up and Dave's not going to be here. So just work better that way. Okay. Thank you, Aaron. And so I have just that for seven 30 on my clock. So I'm going to go ahead and, I'm just going to say that we can go ahead and, uh, let's take a look at our first hearing of the night. I'm Aaron and so I have just after seven 30 on my clock. So that means that we can get, um, our first hearing on of the night. Uh, rolling here. And so this is a continuation and this is a notice of intent for Tafino prop from to phenoh associates. This is for. Concord rate way, lots. Number one two, five, six, seven and eight. the ability to elevate people to panelists. I just promoted Ted to panelists and I don't know I see I know I think Blake is on a butter but I'm not sure if Jim is affiliated with the project in terms of presenting so if he is you can raise your hand and I'll promote you but okay and I don't see I see they promoted Ted but I don't see him on the screen which is kind of odd so Ted you should be able to yep you can at least unmute yourself okay and so why don't we start off with you Ted if you wouldn't mind reintroducing yourself and give us giving us an update on where we're at from your side of things and then I will hand it over to Erin for an update from her side great hello everyone I'm Ted Parker I'm here representing Tafina associates in these six notices of intent that have was submitted some time ago and have been you know continued number of times due to some uncertainty about the boundary of the vernal pool that's the center of the of the discussion and I guess at the last meeting which I apologize not attending I thought I had folks know that I wasn't going to be able to attend but apparently I didn't make it all the way through the message didn't make it all the way through incorporating art Allen's information the field visit that art Alan made I was there with him when you made that and the discussion of how exactly to define the boundary of a vernal pool I my submittal tonight includes a disagreement with art about how we define the boundary of the vernal pool I've done a deep dive into into both 310 CMR and into the embers weapons regulations and I believe that there's a bit of a conflation of two terms going on that may have contributed to the misunderstanding and I think it might be worth discussing that while we discuss lots seven and eight I think lot five is pretty even if I would just stipulate that art was correct lot five would still be all the work would still be well out of any buffer zone around of our pool regardless of how it's defined and lot six we did our best to keep everything out of out of the buffer all the work out of the buffer of the vernal pool so I don't know how you all want to proceed if you want to discuss the like take the low hanging fruit and deal with that or if we want to get into the meat of discussing the issues about the boundary of the vernal pool okay thank you Ted so I'll turn over to Aaron in just a sec and yeah I just want to reiterate one thing that Ted was saying that even though we kind of talk about all of these as one large hearing they are separate and so there's really no issues with us separating those and that's definitely something that crossed my mind as well granted if we separate them we'd probably just saving the harder ones for later but it's definitely something worth considering if we go in that direction so Aaron so I mean I've I've corresponded with you folks via email on some of these issues and I I am in agreement that if there are notices of intent that we can move through and get off of the board's plate then I am in favor of that from where I stand you know we've been we've been dealing with this with these notices of intent for some time and and my goal is to help us to achieve closure as soon as possible on them I think from the beginning there have been a lot of questions from from a butters and from the board and also just the age of the order of conditions it's a it's a very old permit I think it was issued in 2004 originally the subdivision permit and so the review by art I think was to give us a little bit of professional input on what the status of the vernal pool was and the boundaries of the vernal pool so that the board could be better informed to render a decision on the outstanding lots and the fact that that our third party consultant is you know their findings are being disputed really creates a complicated situation for us because I think that and that's really the main question that I think the Commission needs to make a decision on how to proceed with so for for example does the board want to duke it out in terms of who's right who's wrong on the change of the location of a couple flags does the board want to side with the applicant in terms of okay we don't want to argue about this let's stick with the original boundary does the board want to stand behind art and say no we've hired art we want to stick with the boundary that he's delineated so that's kind of one one main issue but from from my profession in my professional opinion as far as the the lots go I think that some of the requests for variants to allow some of the houses are reasonable in the sense of that they were originally planned for and those lots were originally approved as house lots by the Commission that order of condition has been continued and continued so I don't think that there's any harm in considering variances for the houses but I do think it's important that the boundaries of the resource areas are accurately delineated and accurately documented on the plans so okay so thank you Erin I also just want to bring up a point of order just so folks know LaRoy has not been on the commission long enough it's been on for a while but not long enough for this one so he needs to recuse himself tonight so there are only four of us on the Commission who are here tonight who are able to vote on this one the ruling that we got from general counsel a little while ago is what we need to pass a motion is a majority of the Commission so not a majority of the quorum but a majority of the Commission so that means that all four of us would need to vote in favor of of a motion to move it forward if one of us opts not to then the motion would not pass so not to put undue pressure on anybody but just kind of let everybody know that's the situation that we are facing and so Erin I was hoping that you might be able to start us off just with a little bit of visuals and so can you pull up the plan and specifically show us where the flags are where they're moved where they were originally where they were moved to ideally we'd be able to deal with these flags first and then we can move on everything else if we do run into a stumbling block with these flags then I'd suggest that we break apart the different lots and deal with them separately yeah so I don't I don't have any figure that shows the the flags from Art Allen on the overall I haven't nothing has been provided to me I think that it's that was sort of the last order at the last meeting was to map the locations of the flags and get them onto a figure so that we could see them I know I'm drawing a blank on her name I think it's Kristen the representative from SWCA had shared a figure with the board which was just like a very rough figure showing some locations but nothing has been shared with me as far as a change in the the location of the flagging just the all I have is basically the report from Art Allen and the photos from the field visit and then the information from Ted okay so how about we just put up the plan as is as was most recently submitted we can at least highlight on there where the flags are that are being debated just to make sure that we're all sort of reoriented reoriented with everything sorry this is a little tricky to get situated here for everybody and just to remind folks if there are for people who are here from the general public who are interested in making comments on this we're going to go through a little bit back and forth with the commission and then we will most certainly open up to general comments as well so I'm just going to open up the final report from Art Allen just so that we can get an idea of the flags that were moved okay so a 26 a 27 and a 28 and two of those removed fairly substantially 20ish feet hopefully you can read those flags yeah well so I can read it so if you I see a 30 whoop and then there's a 29 no you can't see where I'm pointing I don't know why I thought that would be helpful no you can you should be able to annotate Anna I think oh if I go in the document yeah if you go up to the top there should be an option to annotate all right so this is a 30 right there what do which one are you looking for 27 28 so scroll up it's up yeah but is that on the 27 is right here whoop yeah yeah I see what you see those numbers that art gave a wrong that there the actual flags as you moved are in the lot eight yeah that's what that was my understanding as well that's why I was confused this is a 67 a 66 right here so he was going off flags flags that were hung in the field but maybe the flags in the field don't match up with what's on the plan I'm not sure what's going on there but yeah that I know that the flagging issue was and it would have been really helpful to have them on the plan but that it was like right around where it was really jagged this boundary got really jagged is in his pictures he's got hmm oh I see a 59 yeah okay yeah yeah it's across okay yeah so there's one it was an issue I'll just it's gonna be hard for me to toggle on this but right about here and then thank you Anna for the other one was eight yeah a 28 and 28 are okay so obviously there's a little bit of confusion at this point with flag numbers so that needs to get resolved I mean so the underlying issue though that we're having is that there are two different potentially two different definitions that are being applied and so as Aaron was saying we did call in a third-party reviewer and we have his report in front of us and then Ted is disputing what those definitions are we got a copy of those definitions obviously we have them in general but they're also just sort of forwarded and highlighted to us as well I mean so commissioners I mean you having thoughts on the differences here which differences are you talking about the uh flagging so I mean so basically do we want to go with I mean the big question is do we want to go with arts flags do we you know throw those out and go with the original flagging or some combination thereof I'm inclined to go with arts flag would it be useful for me to explain what the substance of our difference with arts opinion is sure yeah you can do that and yeah we did see the various back and forth so we do have your report as well but yeah I I think that you know the words that are written in the Amherst-Wattons regulations and the words that are written in C310 CMR mean something they're not to be interpreted in some way beneficial to one side or the other I think that they mean something and so the the section that art actually references in his report 310 CMR 1057 2A6 it actually begins by calling by defining the boundary of vernal pool habitat not a vernal pool a vernal pool habitat and in the definition section of 310 CMR they don't define a vernal pool they define vernal pool habitat and it says it's very specific as the area around the vernal pool up to 100 feet around the bar pool I believe that what art has flagged is upland vernal habitat from the vernal pool the Amherst-Wattons regulations define a vernal pool very specifically as an isolated depression that holds high water for you know a minimum of two continuous months in the spring in most years I don't think there's any nobody is the presence of water stained leaves does not suggest does not prove that this area that art has flagged this additional area that art has flagged contains water for two months I mean we're discussing establishing a buffer zone around the vernal pool not around the vernal pool habitat so I think that a careful reading and comparison of of the Amherst-Wattons bylaw to 310 CMR is necessary in order to really make an informed decision on whether the additional areas that art has flagged are in fact part of the vernal pool proper or the vernal pool habitat okay thank you Ted yeah I mean so my reading on what was submitted to us from art is that he you know he thinks that that evidence that he saw does provide evidence that this is a vernal pool as he but he but he quotes the Amherst-Wattons bylaw right it's it's it's a little ambiguous sir these these indicators point to the presence of ponding water earlier in the spring season for two continuous months no no no I'm reading from arts letter and knowing you know my interpretation of what art is saying so yeah there's interpretation on all sorts of sides here but my interpretation of what art is saying is that he does believe that that is evidence of a vernal pool which is what we were asking him to do I respectfully disagree because he he says that's proof of ponding but the definition of a your definition of a vernal pool in the regulations is that it has to be for two continuous months in most years and and there is no evidence of that he presents no evidence that he just presents evidence of ponding fine nobody this is nobody's disagreeing that he's presenting evidence of ponding what we're just what we're discussing is whether it's whether what he has presented conforms to the letter of the Amherst-Wattons regulations as it defines the vernal pool so Aaron I have a question here for you I mean I think it's one of the things that's tough is because this hearing has been going on for so long we probably could have been watching us to see if it was full for two months or not you know many times but I think I'm curious about what is that something that's determined by continued monitoring through spring and summer how is that typically determined yeah well so and and I would definitely defer to Jen on on some of the hydrology issues but last year we had significantly lower than usual rainfall so even if we had done of a peer review last year it wouldn't have been a great year to really get an accurate idea of where the water was generally this year was also pretty dry in the early spring and then we had a couple of good rainstorms but I mean I know I know the area where art is talking about because I remember one of the first times I went out to walk there and remember seeing sphagnum moss beds in that area and wondering why those weren't included in the but at the time we didn't have the vernal pool report so it wasn't like we were going back and forth on the location of it and I believe that's one of the areas that that art flagged out in that area I think it's really tricky and I hear where Ted is coming from but I do personally think that ponding and holding water are essentially one in the same when we're talking about a vernal pool if the characteristics of surface water being there wouldn't be there if there wasn't ponding there on a you know any frequent basis so what we're getting hung up on is this two months measure right and so I think my question is how is that is that normally done through monitoring reports Jen yeah I'm looking at you yeah so I think yeah I think Aaron you're yeah I think all of your folks got the right thing and Aaron I think another way to say what you're saying is when we delineate a vernal pool staining on the leaves is a sign of ponding and ponding is considered to be for the two months a year necessary for that to be a seasonal a vernal pool slash seasonal wetland so it's not like we usually distinguish between are these leaves stained because they've been ponded for two months versus are these leaves stained because they haven't been that's not a distinction like stained leaves are delineator for a vernal pool habitat is that stated yeah so is the is that indicator um stated anywhere specifically in either the um mass law or or arabaya that I because I'm not where I'm just making sure I'm looking through the right to be in the mass I mean it's in the mass law right okay staining is definitely in there and a couple of the other indicators that art mentioned is yeah it did read these thoroughly through but now I'm using my search function yeah it's I I've read through these so many times and I think part of the problem is so and and we've talked about this before too so there there is a this is what's confusing about our local bylaw is that there is a there's a definition for how to delineate seasonal wetlands and and it goes through how to do that and for seasonal wetlands it can be stained leaves it can be hydrology it can be hydrophytic wetland vegetation you know over 50 dominant those things can all be used to define or delineate a seasonal wetland and then the subsection of that which is vernal pools the first line is vernal pools are seasonal wetlands so um any of those could be used and from where I sit the commission could call the entire bvw vernal pool because technically that's how it reads in our bylaw however I've talked to art at length about this and I've also read this bylaw 100 times to try to like take a really reasonable view of it and also something that would be legally defensible and to me saying you know the the delineated edge of where we have observed conditions of ponding and and using that as the extent to draw the 100 foot buffer is very reasonable um rather than using the edge of bvw I agree that I don't think that's productive and I don't think it would stand up in court so I think I think you know based on going over this 100 times that that that's kind of my opinion on it yeah yeah there's a number of places in sorry sorry sorry that get a little funky and that's one of the reasons that they have been rewritten not that they have been put in a place yet but that's something I'm sure somewhere in Aaron's very full plate so okay um yeah so I am in favor of as Larry was saying of you know going with what um arts flagging is and so um so I hear unless Larry has changed I hear two of us who are in favor of art um Anna or Jen do you have feelings one or the other yeah I think art's the expert and he was out set out to delineate the vernal pool and I think that's what he did I think we should go with his flags okay I agree okay so Ted uh I think you can hear where we're going with this one um and I realize that you disagree with that but you know that happens um I think it's actually it runs contrary to your bylaw and I'm willing to um it you know there's a lot at stake here for Torfino and they've told me that they're willing to uh to uh you know take that dispute further if necessary because um the you know your the bylaw is written very specifically the bylaw means something the words mean something and it's not uh at a discretion of the conservation commission to selectively choose to ignore a provision of the bylaw because it uh suits an agenda that they have to expand a resource area so I think that um that's that's all I can say okay and I'm also going to say that that was uh I don't know if inappropriate is the right thing to say uh your entire entitled to your opinion on what it is um we are obliged by a oath that we all took to abide by the laws as well as we are capable of doing uh obviously you are more than welcome to bring this to appeals and there definitely is another um you know another set of you know another level that happens after this but um just want to say that that is not appreciated so okay Jen you were going to say something I was just going to ask for clarification for the record can you just specify exactly which part of the bylaw you think that we are ignoring I don't think you have demonstrated nor has art demonstrated that this area that he has delineated holds water for a minimum of two months in most years okay I think he's shown that it holds water sure it can hold water for weeks and a number of years in a row and or for a portion of the spring and those leaves would be stained there's no doubt about that and but I don't think that there's been any any showing a clear showing that it conforms strictly to the Amherst wetlands regulations which say very clearly there's seasonal wetlands that temporarily for a minimum of two continuous spring months in most years can find water I don't think that you have demonstrated that nor do I think art has demonstrated that and it's very easy to slough that off but I I I don't think it's that quite that easy yeah so okay so so of course just it's not our job to demonstrate it it's our job to evaluate the information we have and to protect the resource so there's that just subtle note so one one possible route forward might be some further clarification from art of other wetland indicators to fortify his delineation of the wetland so that would be something like that so there is a potential middle ground here where we can both we can come to agreement on this you know should that be necessary I just want to make that I think that's a reasonable that's a reasonable position yeah we have two we have two professional closure I mean we've been I'm not sure what else we can do we have a third party review um he has been out there he has done his thing conditions are worse now than they were before I appreciate what you're saying Jen I don't really move us forward though I think that just might delay things yeah right so can I ask a question is a third party review always definitive no it is up to our discretion and so we have taken it under discretion so yeah we hire experts you know to provide opinions and then it's our job to try to interpret that so from from my perspective whether we dispute the accuracy of three flags or not is is not really I mean number one we need to see where they're located where the where the relocated flags are and I think that was the first question that we brought up at the last hearing was and I think when Christian was on the call and um to to get them on a plan so we can actually see where they are because when they're not on a plan you know it's just confusion where are they we don't know that the the flags that we're looking at here the flag numbers are actually the bbw flag numbers so that's what are called out on the plan the vernal pool flags are not called out on the plan so those those numbers aren't there so we can't even see where the relocated flags were at all even to try to guesstimate where they're located so that's number one and number two this is this is just my personal opinion the board is a completely autonomous decision-making body here but let's just say for the sake of argument that those flags were relocated picked up by survey and that the boundaries were redrawn from those flags I don't think anybody here is to say they wouldn't consider a request for a variance at that point in time once the boundary is redrawn I think we all recognize or at least I do as staff that this project was approved back in 2004 and all we're trying to do is just define where the resource area boundary is not necessarily to say hey you cannot go beyond this point and we're going to you know hold you to that letter it's more so we need to accurately show where the flags are so that we can move forward and consider the variance and so I don't want to get into a dispute about the definition in the bylaw I think we're being reasonable with the definition in saying we're just looking at where we think the extent of ponding is and we're going to draw the hundred foot from hundred foot from that boundary based on our bylaw we could draw it from the edge of the you know hydrophytic vegetation or from hydric soils if we wanted to but we're not going there because we're trying to be reasonable about this so I'm just trying to throw that out there is like let's I think we want to meet in the middle we want to see these projects go forward and we don't want to get caught into like this nasty back and forth litigation issue we just want to accurately define the resource areas and and see what's going on on the site okay and I do see that at least one person from the public has their hand raised and so I definitely will we'll get to you in just a second so yeah um only thing I want to add to that Erin is yeah I mean so this is a two-step process we definitely need to get to the borders correct uh growth at 100 how we move after that that's going to be a separate discussion um exactly and so but that is to be determined uh and you know I think we have a strong track hit strike strong track record of working with applicants to get stuff done where it's feasible but if things are not feasible there's you know there's nothing we can do there either but okay so um I'm going to go to the public so oh uh Erin can you allow Blake to speak of course she can hear me yeah we can hear you now great um I just wanted to make a few points as we decided in the fall that we're going to expert to come because there was the discussion of what should the boundaries be and um and I'm in an agreement that we should use what the expert is I guess you could keep hiring different experts but everyone agreed on art so it seems like that should be the boundary we accept and then I I'm not sure in terms of how much you should and this is clearly you're up to you but first you shouldn't be intimidated by Tefino and Ted Parker they're suing all of us in the neighborhood uh they do that as a technique uh they he's trying to he's trying to pressure you the other was we told them when we moved in we came in here uh boy 15 years ago and we told them there was a vernal pool here Doug Cole told me uh that they pay high end lawyers to look at these things we told Ted Parker later on about it and he said to stay off our property we wrote him an email and replied they they're not trying to protect any of the vernal pool they're just trying to protect their assets and I think your your job there as a governing body is to protect the wetlands and not to try to bend over backwards because they're you're being intimidated by Ted Parker and Tefino thank you okay thank you very much Blake um so Aaron can you give me permission to kind of manipulate what people can do or either that if you can oh yeah I'm sorry or you can yeah if you can lower Blake's hand and remove his ability to speak thank you okay I got it now thank you just a little more control okay um so if there's anybody else or Blake has something else to add um yeah feel free to raise your hand that's just not working okay there we go okay so um back to the commission um and so yeah I mean Jen raised the idea that their you know uh possibility is getting additional information be that from art or other sources um I think we have a lot of information personally and this has been going on for quite some time so um so how do people feel I mean are we comfortable moving forward with the information that we have or is there more information that we want to seek before we move forward personally I'm okay to move forward so am I yeah I agree I mean I I think I'd like to I'm combing through again I did read the sections in preparation for this meeting but I'm just combing through again just to make sure I'm really clear on the parts of the bylaws being referenced here so I think Aaron would I this is now kind of mostly for my own notification I'd love to see the parts that you're talking about where the reference is made um but I'm also um I'm in agreement around arts um sticking with arts assessment and and moving forward as you all have discussed and so Jen um do you have a a feeling and if you want more info and hopefully in a minute Anna um Aaron will be able to pull that up but just while she's pulling that up if Jen I appreciate it uh yeah sorry I know I don't think we need more information I still think we should stick with arts flags I just wanted to point that out that you know there is a middle ground route yep and LaRoy um obviously you're not allowed to vote but um you know you've been in a lot of these meetings about this um so I mean if you have an opinion or something it would be beautiful to hear uh we should definitely stick with arts flags and it's not much way to remember from me I was all agreed to ahead of time anything else is just more delay especially with you leaving the month and quickly grab some of these up to better great thank you LaRoy and it looks like Aaron found the the piece that you're looking for Anna thank you great thanks Aaron I would say just Aaron starts though that uh you can interpret our bylaws very broadly to incorporate a lot of things and I think we are to a very reasonable look at this and try to meet middle I think it's an honest attempt by most sides so far I haven't been here since the beginning of so Aaron you said that was page 29 right is that what I saw yep 29 okay thank you yep staying staying with where I'm where I was before okay um so I think it's fairly clear that we're gonna go with arts flags um we have a little bit of an impasse at this point because those flags are not on any of the materials that we have in front of us um and so and there's even a little bit of confusion at least from what I could see which specific flags we're talking about and so are we able to move forward on any of the lots at this point Aaron oh you're on mute oh Aaron you're still on mute I don't I don't have any documentation showing where the flags the former flags were located and where the new flags were located and I think that's what we had requested at the last meeting was to get arts flags on paper so we could see where those changes are located and then see how they impact the lots and the notice of notices of intent that are before us and to me those are pieces of information that we need in order to render a decision on the project um so I guess what it comes down to is whether the applicant is willing to put those flags on the plan so that we can render a decision and if they're not then it would be a denial for lack of information of course we're willing to put them on okay so if we could just see where they are and see you know how that changes things I think from there the board would be more equipped to render a decision okay and so just to reiterate um so without that information we can't even really figure out which lots are not being impacted because I mean I would love to at least get some of these off the books tonight but I'm just having a really hard time figuring out which lots are not going to be impacted at all right and I mean I I think we have a general sense of that but without seeing them on the plan and without seeing the redrawn 100 foot it's impossible to be certain because we don't have if we had the vernal pool flags I think we maybe could have somewhat of an idea but we don't we don't even have the vernal pool flags shown on the plan to be able to assess where art relocated the flagging okay okay um yeah so unfortunately yeah it sounds like we're going to need a continuation again um and I know we're all frustrated with that so um yeah so what we're looking for Ted I think hopefully that's clear is the revised flags to be placed on the map um if you want to show both sets of boundaries two separate maps either or fine an overlay would actually be good as well um so that we can see where the revised ones are and you know then we can move forward from that point I'll get Berkshire design on it tomorrow okay thank you so one question for Aaron and the commission though is when do we continue this too so the 14th is our next one that's already jammed packed that being said this one has been going a long time and we got to get through it so I wouldn't recommend putting it on for the 14th because you know we've got um you know six lots here to consider and um with six other new open hearings I just think that it's it's gonna not work out to get through it I would recommend that we put it on for July 28th with the expectation that at that meeting a decision on all of the lots is going to be rendered I mean so I appreciate what you're saying Aaron um we can do it on I just want to put it out there we can do it on the 14th um it would be a long meeting um in the past we've had meetings that've gone past 11 which isn't a lot of fun we want to avoid that where possible that being said there are no mandates for the meetings to only last a certain amount of time I think we have not quite a requirement but you know we have an obligation to move things through as quickly as we can um so I mean I don't know how others feel about it but I think with the current agenda that we have set for the 14th that we're looking at dealing with this after nine o'clock um and I just think that with fresh eyes and allowing this enough ample time when you know commissioners are able to really dedicate their attention to it that um that would be the way to go but it's really up to you guys um you know I get paid to sit here so you guys volunteers yeah my fear is that if we don't close this on the 28th um this will we'll have to have a new hearing so because at that point I will be off and I don't think that we'd have enough people on um to necessarily continue it at that point yeah it'll be my fear too loroy is that your fear because then you'd be voting you'd have to vote on it okay vote on it unless it reopened so just to reiterate what you're saying Erin is that if we moved it to the 14th we'd not we'd be late in the evening and we have a really packed agenda but if we move it to the 28th it's got to get totally solved or we're up a creek confirming correct well and I'm not even sure that I'm not even sure that's okay so taking a step back right we have a we have a seven member board okay um right now we have two members who can't vote Laura who's in a butter and we have loroy who's new who hasn't been present for all the meetings that leaves five of us right one of those members I don't know when your appointment is actually up Brett so and I don't know if that's being continued if your appointment's being continued I don't know for certain of that and the reason for that is because um we already have one person who's been identified who's going to be appointed to the board and I think Larry's term isn't actually expiring I think he's able to be reappointed but I haven't been able to determine that for certain so it could be if if Brett's term expires at the end of June June 30th which I don't know if it goes by fiscal year if Brett will be here at the next meeting I don't know that for certain um so whether we do it on the 14th or the 28th I'm not sure makes a huge difference other than the standpoint of it'll be earlier in the night and members will be fresher to look at it but I do agree that sooner is better and you know it's like all it takes is one voting member not being here like Fletcher tonight he had a work obligation couldn't be here so he'll have to review the proceedings but all it will take is one other member not being here and then we won't have a quorum so and we don't hold special meetings do we like we don't hold additional meetings isn't okay just checking we never have I'm not sure there'd be a lot of paperwork involved and making sure we have our notifications in time right okay thank you um the other thing about the 14th I mean we do have a lot of on our on our agenda it's not uncommon for you know new hearings to be continued but we don't know that so that's a complete crapshoot so it does seem to be our track record I personally am in favor of the 14th yeah it seems like we might just need to like tough it out and do a long meeting which is not ideal but that seems safer to me than doing then pushing it all the way to the 20 whatever the other day was 28 28 thank you so how about Jen or Larry what are your thoughts because we all would really need I mean Jen and Larry would need to commit to be able to be in there at least with Fletcher being an unknown right now um my my concern on it right now is that I may have a I may end up having a problem with the 14th that's that's that that's um and I'm not sure about it yet I've got a family thing is it is going on so I'm not sure about that one yet um that's my only concern in terms of that is that it might drop your numbers so we need four and yep as Anna was saying Fletcher is the other unknown so Ted how soon oh I'm sorry I was just gonna weigh in that I think either is I don't have a strong opinion how soon do you think revisions would be turned around from I I won't know until I talk to Berkshire and see what their load is um but I mean I you know I I would suggest that it get one option might be to continue it to the 14th and if either you lack a quorum or the meeting is going too long it could be continued again to the next date but if like someone suggested there are other folks who continue or aren't ready to present on the 14th and we might be able to get the whole thing done on the 14th or at least or at least most of them because there's six of them I think once we get through one hopefully the rest of them will fly I I I I agree with that so um in that case July 14th we have a slot at 755 and and again I'm only allowing five minute blocks for each hearing so that that is a very artificial timeline just in case we have a continuation so that we can keep moving so understood so that being said we could start as early as 755 though right yeah so we're sticking around late you're sticking around too Ted sorry yeah I got no worries no worries I've been here the whole time okay thank you everyone so looking for a motion for continuation to the 14th at 755 and move we continue the hearings for Tafino and Associates to July 4th June July 14th at 755 second thank you so voice vote Larry hi Anna hi Jen hi uh Leroy because you have to review yeah right here yep and I for me as well so okay Ted so um look forward to seeing the new documents and seeing you on the 14th thank you all good night okay so I'm trying to figure out where we are at this point um okay so the next one that is on our agenda was the railroad one and is that one being continued yeah so let me give you a little update on that so um they are refusing to do a peer review they're basically saying we're we're not going to pay for a peer review um to review the boundary line I did um respond back and I asked and I can pull up the correspondence but I respond back and I said you know this is the same plan that was submitted um I think it was six years ago for the previous RDA and it doesn't appear that any due diligence has been done in the last six years to check the line and the response was basically that when they're out there spraying if they see a change that they'll adjust it at that point and I'm like well I don't really think that that's uh a reasonable I don't foresee that the people who are out doing the application are going to say oh wait hold on a second there's a there's a beaver impoundment over here we should stop spraying now even though this is a spray area on the plan um so I would just my recommendation on this one quite frankly is that we um and actually I wonder if the could could you check and see if um if Keith Morris is on the call we have a gym and a tony okay and if Keith if you are on the call Keith Morris who's the applicant's representative he was supposed to be on tonight he hasn't showed up for a single public meeting discussion presentation anything on this um and the railroad is refusing to do a peer review to check the boundaries for accuracy that plan that was submitted to us what is the same plan that was submitted with the RDA six years ago and based on those factors I would recommend a positive determination checking box two which is not confirming the boundaries the resource area boundaries for the project and this is a utility I mean is this considered utility railroads I mean their transportation yes I mean there's certain um things that they're allowed to do I mean so they have to sort of ask permission but we're not allowed to to deny per se so if we deny this can they not move forward or do you know what happens on their side um well they would have to come back with a plan to us that has been reviewed in some form or fashion he he there I asked their representative if in advance of this filing if any due diligence had been done along the the line whatsoever and I was told no and I was told that I mean it's in this email I was told that he has not been out to um to check the line um and there's other correspondence in the folder which I can open up and we can take a look at but he said that um they're addressed they address address changes in the spraying annually um and that if they're out there doing the spraying and they see uh some change like a beaver impoundment or something else that they would then adjust the spraying at that time and I've never run into I've never run into this before to be honest with you where a plan has been so I'm not saying it's accurate or inaccurate it's just it's it hasn't been checked since the last application at all well looking at the things they said it sounds like they do this all over the state they do that nobody tends to bother them about what they want to do Erin did you get any feedback from the state on this one um from DEP yeah no but what I know is that um that we are completely within our right to ask for a peer review of the boundaries yep I think we are as well just kind of nice sometimes if we get that confirmation from the state just one more piece of paper one more yes to add to the pile so but that's fine I mean and if you guys are comfortable with what they've submitted that's completely fine I I mean I don't think anybody we can let that one go Erin I don't think anybody's comfortable with what they did so the question is going to have to move forward I'm I'm just not sure I mean to me it looks like somebody took a USGS topo with a sharpie and just drew drew a line spray no spray as opposed to like really looking at it to determine where the resource areas are I know in the when I did a desktop review just to compare apples to apples on what they had submitted there was at least one intermittent stream or a stream that went under the railroad tracks that was not accounted for in the spray or no spray zones okay so I think that we basically have two so what would be the reason for continuing I mean so they're not going to provide any more additional information unless they said that they were going to and he he this person said that they were going to be here they're going to try and be here tonight so obviously they didn't show yeah I don't think that they show up for any hearings for before any commission I think they just submit the plan and expect sort of a rubber stamp on it okay he hasn't he hasn't attended a single hearing so I think we can definitely give him a stamp tonight may not be the stamp you want but yeah and you guys are more than welcome to continue if you want but I just don't see I mean unless you're it's either going to be an approval of the boundary or a denial of the boundary if we don't have there's no other no other option I mean and like there's any point in continuing like they said I mean they said no to a peer review then like what do we expect to change to shift by continuing exactly we can continue to the 14th and see if he shows up and see how long he'd have to stay right you are full of the full of the witties today I'll have a slumber party sorry guys my internet keeps dropping off we delegated you to go walk the railroad line so can I make a motion I mean are we at a point where a motion is helpful or is it at is there something different that folks want to keep talking about this I just want to make sure that there's no more discussion than anybody wants to have so Jen or Larry or LaRoy I mean I'm leaning towards positive determination but okay so not hearing anything else yeah looking for a motion for a negative or I'm sorry positive determination on this one I was muted and I said the perfect one move we issue a positive determination of applicability checking box 2b not confirming the boundaries for the New England central railroad that's it okay voice vote LaRoy so Larry I Jen hi Anna hi and I from me as well so if you can forward that on to them Erin and then yeah see where we go from there great thank you okay so are we moving on to the um 622 University Drive now correct okay so this is uh a notice of intent and so this is a new hearing and so um oops that's not the right document okay a little document disappeared sorry just looking for my verbiage for officially opening and for some recent word is not my friend right now so I'm quitting word and I am reopening word hi Tony hi good evening how is everybody good I just figured we'd say hi well Brett was getting his document good um Erin maybe you can um I don't know if you want to bring Jim on that's my client he's a representative from Greenfield Savings Bank I believe yes I will we just have to wait for Brett to do the opening for the hearing yeah and first on my computer I can see the damn one on my Erin would you be able to resend me that document real quick I don't know what's or just paste it into a um into an email oh wait nope I see it now oh I found it it was hiding okay few here we go sorry about that whirlwind of emotions this public hearing is now called to order this hearing is being held is required by the provisions of chapter 131 section 40 the general laws of the Commonwealth and act relative to protections of wetlands as most recently amended in chapter 3.3 an article 3.31 wetlands protection under the town of Amherst general bylaw this is I had to close my other window um this is in relation to property down at university drive and Q remind me of that number Erin I just lost yeah let me um um oh I just or all um this one is being presented by SVE associates on behalf of Greenfield savings bank for proposed a ATM machine and associated site work and the existing parking lot at 622 622 university drive um map 20 so welcome Tony and so after that long sort of fumble on my part if you wouldn't mind introducing yourself and giving us a bit of background on the project I'm sure my name is Tony ones asking I'm an engineer with SVE associates and we're representing Greenfield savings bank um the the property um that we're going to be looking at is the new markets center it's at the intersection of university and amity and um the shopping center has been there for quite some time and I think back in 2002 Jim can correct me if I'm wrong they ended up leasing a portion of the northerly building to have a branch office in Amherst there at that location what they're trying to do now is to install an ATM and what we would be doing is we looked at a a few alternatives of where to locate the ATM and we chose the corner which would be the the the northwest corner of the parking lot um there were in my narrative I I describe why we chose that um we looked at other areas within the parking lot we looked along the the southerly part there's seven parking places in that area that were created we looked at that position we ended up choosing this position here because it allows for cars to enter into the ATM and also when they pull out to give them very good site distance down the aisle or um the um straight away to the aisle running north south along the westerly perimeter of the parking lot um just the most safe area that um we thought away from the main entrance where most of the traffic comes in and out along the frontage of the buildings but in doing so in picking that location we're within the 100 foot buffer zone to wetland that is a drainage way it's between university and the parking lot uh back um earlier this spring we had Wendell wetland services go out and flag the wetlands and you'll see that delineation and also there's a sketch within the the application that we submitted their flagging is one through 20 along there and you um we actually had hard time finding because when it was flagged it was pretty open but the the vegetation has grown quite a bit and the owners of the property Gleason John Joe they also own the the landscape company that maintains this so it's appears to me that they're pretty um uh uh have a pretty good idea have been educated very well on where they're allowed to know and not to know because they they're definitely away from um the wetland boundary and I'm not altered any of that so when we do this construction we are going to there's 13 parking spaces along that northerly edge and our goal was to keep the improvements for the most part within that perimeter curb at the very corner there's an existing new market sign it's a circle and it has new market center on it that existing freestanding business sign will be removed and it won't be replaced so with that um we saved five of the parking spaces plus the 180 ad accessible space there at the corner but we will be removing eight parking spaces and when we do that we actually create more impervious area um and and to match what's out there it's it's um on this corner you have the wetland vegetation in the buffer area that's allowed to grow in the remainder you have some trees large trees and and and lawn and just mainly lawn so we will have some grading along the edge of that curb and obviously where we make that new island so our goal is to go back and and loman seed that area to be similar to the area that's outside the existing curb right now um drainage in this area drains to um if you scroll down a little bit you'll see there's an existing catch basin there with an outlet pipe to the squail so we um we would not be changing any of that drainage and we'd have as you know with the with the there's the catch basin down on the lower left will um we won't be creating any point source discharges everything will be maintained as it is today um drainage wise and with the the minor change in um in in pervious area creating additional pervious area the the probably not even calculable but the would would very closely match what's there would be slightly less than what that catch basin experience is today we've shown on the plan um a double barrier of silt fence and straw water along the back of the curb and where we would do some tie-in grading to protect the um the wetland area um because the local regulation you have some setbacks there there's a 30 foot setback to a building and there's also a 70 set setback or 30 foot no disturb or disturbed zone and then a 70 foot setback for building obviously um none of and parking lot there's a 25 I believe setback none of these would meet that this would be essentially a grandfathered project because the parking lot as you can see is very close to the edge of the wetland in that area we're not going to be right there but it's very close to the back of the curb so we would ask for relief on that to be able to put the the the the ATM at this location the as I mentioned before Gleason John Joe their own landscape company maintains this because it's within the existing parking lot area the disturbed area we would anticipate that their snow removal and so forth would be the same as was before um Jim was able to talk to the property owner and essentially because I haven't seen it in the winter time how they do manage the snow but they have mentioned that they pile it up in the islands within the um within the parking area and also um actually and heavy snow storms take up some of the parking spaces so they don't um push the snow to the wetland area um also we asked the question about um whether they use herbicides or pesticides at this site and their maintenance of the lawn and so forth and and vegetation and they do not and so they would be operating under a previously approved maintenance plan that was granted you know that they submitted when they were their special permits were approved for this site um I guess that's a brief overview of what we're doing is a fairly small project but it would be add provide service additional service to the for the bank customers and also provide another service for just people needing to use an ATM in that area of town so um you know we're excited I think they're excited to be there and provide this additional service and um I think we'll try to answer any questions that you might have thank you okay thank you Tony um Jim do you want to introduce yourself and do you have anything else you want to add before we go to Erin? Uh sure hi for my name is Jim Loin and I'm with Greenfield Savings Bank I'm the facilities and security officer um one of the compelling reasons for this project is in addition to being a good community neighbor that Tony mentioned adding the service to the area we're doing so with the intent to provide an additional option for our customer and community safety in that rather than have to do in-person banking they'll have the option for safe social distancing to do banking from their vehicle without interacting with the public or barriers and I know everybody is optimistic that we're on our way out of um the pandemic but I think there's still some hurdles in that area and we would like to provide this option for the community. Great thank you Jim and so Erin I see you have something on the screen now so if you want to go over that and then also if you have any photos that'd be great sure yeah I'll I'll share photos first actually um this is these are a couple photos from the site right here of the where the work area would be and I did communicate with Tony earlier today about just some general questions I had on the property and he actually addressed several of them already as far as the herbicide and pesticide use the snow storage on the property um one of the um I guess questions that I had was in the the grading area that's around the ATM if there was any opportunity for because it said landscaped areas so that's where I was kind of going to with planting of native species or pollinator species in there and there they've sort of indicated that they'd like to keep it the way that it is um from from my standpoint I think this is a pretty basic project it's it's an existing parking lot um you know they're not really changing very much it's it's pretty miniscule in terms of the amount of change from what it was there before and what's their what they're proposing to do um if there's any opportunity to add plantings I think that would be wonderful but it sounds like that's not something that they're proposing as part of the project um and basically that's that's it I it's pretty simple I mean I would recommend that the board do our standard boilerplate um state and local conditions and um if there were any plantings I'd recommend that they'd be native species and preference to pollinators and then I think it would be worthwhile to have a permanent demarcation of the wetland boundary similar to what we do with other projects um maybe some rebar would be appropriate here since it's within the vegetated buffer but um I'll leave that to the commission to decide and then I would just recommend the conditions of no snow storage in the wetland and no herbicides and pesticides on the property for landscaping sounds good Erin and that you have that one about the herbicides and pesticides the only other one I had on my list so okay um so commissioners thoughts on this one I agree this seems pretty basic and and Erin recommended um oh my god the final brain cell everything Erin recommended makes a lot of sense to me especially around the um uh or what Brett said about the snow as well um but yeah pretty basic makes sense I agree if I'm just trying to think if there's anything else Tony what that we talked about when we were out there so um no the only other question that came up was whether the some of the mature trees were going to be um removed to make this happen and that's not our intention those trees are going to stay and essentially we're just going to increase some more lawn that's already there as you go farther to the east you'll see that there's evergreen planters there was um I don't know if it's juniper whatever low growing evergreens in that area um I think I I I think where our goal was just to keep for the visibility of the ATM just keep it the one and extend it over to the areas that we're creating um in per pervious area um just keep that one area um so that it can be maintained yeah one thing that we're looking at I was just remembering Tony in the field was the catch basement and um yeah it's kind of old and could definitely use some work but that's out of scope of what we're talking about here so but once they do redo the parking lot which should be fairly soon it looks like right that would definitely be something to consider at that point right I think that's the appropriate time to do that so anybody have any other comments or questions about this one okay if not we're looking for a motion I move we uh issue the order of conditions or sorry I move that we approve the project on what's the number and issue the order of conditions on something something university drive this is the DEP number thank you uh DEP number oh my gosh Erin you're killing it so far away I did so well before zero uh 0 6 8 7 did I get that 0 8 9 0 6 8 7 yes um with a uh with the boilerplate conditions under Erin I'm sorry it just opened it's delayed okay uh under the I'm not doing hot I'm not doing so hot today I move we order the order of conditions boilerplate conditions under the massachusetts wetland protection act in town of amherst wetlands protection bylaw with the additional special conditions are we including that one native species no thank you of permanent demarcation of the wetland boundary uh with either rebar wetland markers or boulders no oversight and pesticides with landscaping and then no no storage within the wetland area second sorry okay so looking for a voice vote larry I Anna I Roy I Jen I and I for me as well so thank you Tony thank you Jim uh paperwork will be coming quickly from or be coming soon from Erin great thank you all we really appreciate your time thanks thank you very much bye bye okay so moving on down um so this is the um gza application on behalf of lisa kittridge but I think Erin you were saying that this is going to be continued yes so we're just waiting on a contract from procurement to um to get art out there and I've heard that it's going to be tomorrow I'm hoping that we'll get art out there maybe by the end of the week but tonight we won't be able to take any action unfortunately and we did actually I talked with um with Adrienne and they are comfortable being on for the 28th so okay excellent and it will be at 730 that was just a last minute conversation so I didn't get to update this but they're comfortable being on for the 28th so that'll free up a little bit of time for us on the 14th sounds good so any discussion if not looking for a motion moving to continue the public hearing 12 for 29 no way to 720 and 730 second thank you so larry hi Jen hi hi sorry geroi hi Anna hi and I for me as well okay so that's the last sort of official thing that's on the agenda are there other pieces that we need to address tonight Erin nope that's the that's all I have for you tonight okay we're seven minutes early so we can bank it for next time so Erin if you can get in touch with whoever needs to get in touch with about if I will be here on the 14th that would be appreciated um I think I'll send an email to Dave okay I think larry would probably appreciate knowing what his status is as well and then we will move forth from there okay so with that looking for a motion to adjourn I move we adjourn this meeting at 8 53 p.m. hi larry larry hi Jen hi and I for me as well so thank you everyone and have a great night all right I think our dogs are going to start barking each other have a good night everybody good night guys thank you