 Okay, and we are now recording. Great. Thank you, Stephanie. Welcome everybody to the March 17th. St. Patrick's Day 2023. Meeting of the solar bylaw working group parameters. Thanks. Okay. So today we're going to flip things a little bit around with. Going through some initial. Items that we are sort of quick, quick item agenda items, but then move to the assuming Chris is able to join us. Move to an update from her as was discussed and. You know, my hats off to Christine for the hard work that she's doing. That we, we don't have any new language to look at today, but I think importantly, we do have sort of what we would call a second review or second reading. Of the design standards with her edits based on their first review. At their last meeting. As well as a set of interesting. And I think helpful issues that she's. Bulleted for us to. There are at least amongst the issues that we will want to discuss. And we can look at that list and see if time permitting. Engage in some discussion on those issues. I think some of them might be better off. Waiting for our. Meet our subsequent. Agenda item, which is a. Discussion with Dave Zomac. Particularly around farmland, but also I think a little bit more generally about land use and conservation land in the town of Amherst. And then we'll. We'll close out with that. Agenda items and public comment. So, but before we get going. With. Apologies for. Messing up your St. Patrick's stage. I don't know what you're talking about. I don't know what you're talking about, but I think you're on, on the books for minutes this time. No, I'm, I'm emotionally prepared. All right. Good. Thank you. Hey, I, I, I have. I think she's getting an easy meeting. Prepare the one I had last week. So. My celebration is tomorrow anyway. So. Okay. Okay. And. So we, we, we don't have minutes from last week that Jack provided. Those aren't prepared yet for us to review. So we can skip over that agenda item. Ideally, if we can, we'll have two sets of minutes next time to review and approve. But thank you, Janet. For taking notes today and Jack for the notes from. From last meeting. Yeah, they're drafted there. But as of yesterday, so they need some processing. Okay. Yeah. No worries at all. Okay. Okay. So. I guess we can move forward. To staff updates. Which I think is you, Stephanie. Yes. Yeah, I know Chris is here and she'll be joining us momentarily. So a few things. First, I just wanted to say that we did have our. Public presentation through zoom around the solar assessment on Monday. We had 21 participants. It is recorded and posted. I think it's actually with the ECAC education series recordings was the easiest place for it to sort of. Plant that recording. So it is available. We've had the other day when the, when we actually had that presentation on Monday, we had 129 responses to the solar survey so far. Then on Wednesday before the ECAC meeting, we had 241. And as of today, we have 287. So we're really getting some great responses. You know, which is great. The postcards went out. So I know that people received them in their homes. 10,000 postcards went out to households in the town. So. Quite a robust effort to sort of get the word out. So we'll be collecting the data and then. We'll be collecting the data. And then on tomorrow, Saturday, we will be having that first workshop with. With the community from 12 to two. In the Woodbury room of the Jones library. And then Thursday, the 23rd, we'll have another one from six to eight PM. Also in the Woodbury room of the Jones library. And those are going to be very family friendly. Interactive people can just drop in. They don't have to stay the whole time. And they don't have to live in the city for a long time. They're not going to be in the city. They're just going to work on solar. They'll be some snacks and activities for kids. So it'll be really a fun, engaging space and people can leave their comments anonymously. So it's a safe place for people. If they don't want to have to engage. Around their V points, they can certainly do so anonymously. And then I do want to say. Relevant to this meeting and really all public meetings in town. the House and the Senate voted to extend the remote meeting option for two years till March 31 of 2025. However, they have different language. And so that has to be reconciled before it can actually go into effect. So as of right now, until we get the official word, potentially remote meetings will cease on March 31. So that means our April 14 meeting might potentially have to be live if the legislature doesn't sort of come together and reconcile the language and we get the official word that we can stay remote until March 31 of 2025. So I just wanted to give you that heads up because I know the ECAC the other night, I have to report back to them as well because someone was under the impression that they had actually passed it, but it really hasn't officially gone into effect. So just letting you know, and we can check in about that regarding a quorum. It just means that it just means that some folks can participate remotely, but it can't be a quorum. We have to have a quorum in person. The chair has to be in person. And you have to actually request to be remote. And the chair has to authorize you to be able to do so. Okay. Okay. Yep. All right. Good. Okay. So Janet has a question. Yeah, exactly. Um, does that mean that you have to be we have to hold zooms or just that we have the option to zoom station passes? If the legislation passes will be continuing through zoom, I think that's I mean, there there may be because we don't as of right now, we don't really have the setups to accommodate all of our boards and committees being in a sort of hybrid situation. So we're just going to be continuing remotely. We get more, we get more committee participation and we get more public participation when we're remote. Yeah, great. Okay, so but we're in any case, we're good for our next meeting, which is on the last day of the law. And maybe we'll have an update at that point, or maybe not, but hopefully, okay. Yeah, great. Okay. Thank you, Stephanie. Anything else? Nope. I think that's good for now. Okay, anything from you, Chris? I know you're next on the agenda on the on the itself, but any other announcements of usefulness? I think maybe the most useful thing I can say is that we are hiring a planner and he's going to be starting on March 29. Oh, excellent. So that is really good news because it's going to mean that we're able to not be sort of as overwhelmed as we've been. All right. Yeah, excellent news to hear. Chris, thank you. Okay, anything else before we go on to committee updates from any of us that liaise with any of the committees? I'll start with ECAC only to say and overlaps also very much with Stephanie as the, I think, coordinator of the sustainability festival on Amherstown Commons on Earth Day, April 22. ECAC is going to have a table there with some information to distribute or at least have access to. We don't want to have a whole lot of paper there, but we'll have some useful information and just wanted to alert everybody to that. April 22, it's a Saturday on the Commons. It's always a good place to mingle and learn about what's going on around town. We have some great entertainment lined up too. Oh, okay, great. Yep, added bonus. Okay, anybody else from a committee, other committees that we're on? I don't really have anything. All right, great. Okay, so again, with Dave Zomak assuming he can stick to a schedule is expected to show up around 1230. So we'll sort of work with him in sort of a Q&A format, I believe, for the second half of the meeting, leaving enough time for public comment and some discussion about agenda for the next meeting or next set of meetings. But let's move forward to Chris and however you'd like to work this and no worries whatsoever about emailing us last night as well as not having additional draft together. It looks like you've done some really good work on revisions to the design standards as well as really thinking through some other issues. And I mentioned I think before you got on that we can also take a look at those to discuss some of those or at least highlight some of those that we want to specifically discuss in coming meetings. So I wanted to say that I wish that I could have come up with a new section, but I wasn't able to. But I did go back and review the design standards that we talked about on March 3rd. And I have incorporated the changes and comments that were made. So if we want to go over those, that would be helpful. And then we can shift to that list of items that I put in my email last night. And those are things that I've been kind of mentally wrestling with. And I think they touch on some of the issues that the rest of you have been thinking about and, you know, wondering how are we going to, are we going to address some of these issues? And if so, how? So in any event, let's start with the design standards. And thank you, Stephanie, for putting it up on the screen. So we talked about access roads. And access roads shall be planned and constructed in consultation with the town engineer and the Department of Public Works and shall be planned and constructed to minimize grading, stormwater runoff, removal of stone walls and trees, and to minimize impacts to natural and cultural resources. At the discretion of the permit granting authority, roads should be curved to the extent possible to limit direct views into the project, especially from scenic roads, and to slow down stormwater runoff so as to limit or prevent erosion. This last phrase was something that Stephanie suggested adding, and I think it's a good idea, because that is one of the reasons why you might want to have a curved road, but as opposed to a straight road. So are there any comments on that section? Okay, I can't see all of you, but I'll just go on unless I hear from somebody. Lighting. Lighting of large scale, and I did try to make the language coordinated, so I'm referring to either large scale ground mounted solar voltaic installations, or sometimes I just put these installations. So in any event, this is the first instance of that. Lighting of large scale ground mounted solar photovoltaic installations shall be consistent with local, state, and federal law. Lighting of other parts of the installation, such as a pertinent structures, shall be limited to that required for safety and operational purposes, and shall be reasonably shielded from abutting properties. Where feasible, lighting of these installations shall be directed downward and shall incorporate full cutoff fixtures to reduce light pollution. Lighting of these installations shall be limited to nighttime maintenance and inspections by authorized personnel. Lighting controls shall be available for emergency personnel to turn on at their discretion during an emergency. I think that was something Laura might have brought up. All lighting shall comply with international dark sky standards, fixture seal of approval, certification requirements. There should be no illumination when personnel are not on the site. Are there any comments there? Looks like Janet. Yep, sorry. Chris, I wondered just about the language like where feasible lighting of these installations shall be directed downward. And the reason I thought about it, I couldn't imagine a situation where you'd be guiding the sky. You know, maybe sort of have a general look, everything's downward. I just, you know, it's not a huge point, but I just wondered, yeah, is there some point where you really need to like, you know, be pointing upward or I don't know? Yeah, I might say shall be downward face downward pointing unless not feasible. But Laura may have some insights on this as well. Yeah, good. Yeah, no, my only comment was we don't have any FAA regulated land at Amherst, do we? Not that I'm aware of, no. Yeah, so I would just say the only times I've seen very particular requirements for lighting is when there's FAA requirements or if it's near, you know, I would just say when possible, you know, unless otherwise, you know, unless otherwise approved by the permit granted. Yeah, exactly. Like there might be another larger requirement that we just want to, you know, we might have to bouse you. That's all. Okay. All right, signage signs on large scale ground mounted solar photovoltaic installations shall comply with the town of Amherst zoning bylaw article eight, a sign consistent with town of Amherst zoning bylaw article eight shall be required to identify the owner and provide a 24 hour emergency contact phone number of the installation owner or operator. Large scale ground mounted solar photovoltaic installations shall not be used for displaying any advertising except for reasonable identification of the manufacturer or operator of the solar photovoltaic installation. I feel like I'm speaking a different language when I say that. In addition to identification signs, the permit granting authority shall permit signs for safety such as no trespassing signs and signs required to warn of danger. Emergency signage for battery energy storage facilities associated with large scale ground mounted solar photovoltaic installations, including signs for emergency shut off procedures and signs related to fire management and fire suppression shall be required. At the discretion of the permit granting authority, exceptions may also be made for educational signs that provide information about the project. The permit granting authority shall determine the appropriate size materials and placement of such educational signs. To the extent possible, signs should be grouped together to reduce sign clutter. So those are the things that we, yeah awesome. Okay, Laura, you I guess that your hand was up from before. Okay, I wanted to make sure it included I mean the educational signage I thought might be cool if we ever had a need. Yeah, I mean I will say just as an example we have a if a project does get certified for pollinator friendly we give them a little sign to hang up there I don't think I think it would be under this educational category. Okay, so is that section all right? Yeah, I think you need to comment after the words fire suppression. Related to fire management and fire suppression. Okay, yeah, yeah, I see. Yep. Thank you. So just one other quick thing I just returned from conference in Phoenix where a lot of the largest battery storage experts attended. These are groups that are basically cutting edge and doing their own internal research, very large companies. And the general consensus is you know you don't touch a battery if there's ever a fire you just you let it burn and within you know like one to two days it'll put itself out so for what it's worth that's the that's the consensus I don't think it adjusts the language at all but I just wanted to share that with the group. So you think this language is okay the way it is but I do I mean yeah even if it's like you open up the box and it's like don't touch the battery. Okay, all right moving on. There were questions about this utility section utility connections so we put in the words where feasible reasonable efforts as determined by the current permit granting authority shall be made to place all utility connections from the solar photovoltaic installation underground depending on appropriate soil conditions shape and topography of the site and any requirements of the utility provider. Electrical transformers for utility interconnections may be above ground if required by the utility provider. So there were concerns about the cost of placing these things underground and Duane had some concerns about you know with this preclude some of the wires from being overground and that's why we said we're feasible. So does anyone have any problem with this language? Okay, let me just ask and Laura may have some insights here too and maybe it's more like what there's a lot writing on the PGA on this in terms of as as determined by the PGA if if he or she thinks it's feasible yeah and I think the feasibility is going to come in the form of economic feasibility. Yeah I'm wondering if it should say something about where technically and economically feasible. I like that. Okay, technically and economically. Right and then Laura do you have you I don't know too much about exactly what the electrical transformer is but I don't suspect that's really ever underground. No I'm not sure if we need that or it's just assumed that it's obviously you know wires potentially can go underground but a transformer you really isn't applicable to be put underground. What if we left off the first three words and just said utility interconnections may be above ground if required by the utility provider because the provider would be like ever source or somebody right. It wouldn't be the install installer or the owner of the facility it would be whoever's receiving them electricity right. Well our who owns the transformer is that the utility company depends on how you're interconnected so but I don't think I think we want to remain a little bit ambiguous here because it's not necessarily always prescribed. So if we said utility interconnections may be above ground if required by the utility provider would that be appropriate? Because the CBA can't override what the utility provider needs I would assume. Yeah. Or do you think we should just leave this sentence out? I think I want to take that one back if that's okay Chris. I want to think on that one. So you'll think about this so you get back to us. We're going to do a little bit of research yeah. Okay and then Martha. Yeah I mean my reaction is that the utility provider ever source or whoever might might start out with a particular position that they feel is minimizes their cost but there would be room to negotiate with the permit granting authority and so on. So I my sense would be to leave that out because the utility provider might set a whole set of requirements. I think we want to be flexible to have the permit granting authority be able to negotiate. Does that make sense? So in other words leave out that whole sentence starting with electrical transformers and ending with utility provider. That would be my yep sort of redundant anyways right okay glare um okay oh yes i'm a little i'm wondering if we should um i actually feel like i need more information about what's usually done and is usually overhead you know if you go underground is it super expensive or you know is that wise that better um because I can see situations where you don't want to put things underground because that might be more disruptive you know all the digging and placement when you're trying to like preserve topsoil you know or might be more have more impacts environmentally or to whatever. So I just kind of feel like I don't know enough to say oh this should be required. I wonder if it could just say that the PGA can require that you know like give it give the permit granting authority the authority to require it being underground depending on circumstances you know like the list you put there and things like that because I just don't know enough about what we're talking about um to say underground is always preferred because I don't even know what the impacts would be in different situations sometimes you know it seems like it might be easier to just go overhead and keep or it might be better in terms of disturbance um it might be visually better to have it underground so I don't know I think maybe give the PGA the the power to sort of decide where it should go given you know information it collects. Well is that helpful? I think that of the installations that I have seen the utilities the wires are underground until you get to a point of connection like near a roadway so I think that there is you know mitigating language where feasible reasonable efforts as determined by the PGA so it seems like it is able to be discussed and whatever turns out to be reasonable is what would be required and I think if we leave out that last sentence it kind of you know leaves it ultimately up to the permit granting authority but it's saying that the preference is to have the utility connections underground okay all right okay. Martha. It's just like clarification the permit granting authority that's usually the zoning board of appeals is that right? In our town right now it is the zoning board of appeals um that's another question or a discussion that we could have later on about who do we want actually to be the permit granting authority but right now for all of these facilities it is the zoning board of appeals. Thank you. Okay glare so we had a question last time about the concept of coming to the nuisance in other words if something is built that is potentially annoying or a nuisance and then someone builds a house next to it does the thing that was there first need to comply with um requirements that would make it less onerous to the person who came afterwards and generally speaking there's this concept of coming to the nuisance that if you move next to a farm or something that makes a lot of noise or a smelly or whatever that you've taken on that burden that you're not going to put the burden on the person who was there or the facility that was there ahead of time to alter their operations in order to please you so you know this is something that we would want to ask KP law about later on once we put this whole thing together they'll be reviewing this anyway but I'm just prefacing this talk about glare with that in mind because I think Dan asked last time well what if somebody ends up building a house next to a solar field is the solar field going to have to comply with these anti-glare procedures as a result of that and I think the answer is no but um that's a question that I think could be resolved by talking to KP law so anyway solar panels to the maximum extent feasible shall be positioned and screened so it's not to create glare and to minimize glare on surrounding occupied structures the large-scale ground mounted solar photovoltaic installation shall be positioned to minimize glare on any residents or public way the applicant should submit ratings and technical specifications for the solar panels to ensure minimum reflectivity the design of the installation shall prevent reflected solar radiation or glare from becoming a public nuisance or hazard to adjacent buildings roadways or properties design efforts may include but not be limited to deliberate placement and arrangement on the site anti-reflective materials solar glare modeling and screening in addition to required landscaping so do we have anything to say about that section yeah just expanding on my comment it's really more about zoning laws regarding airspace so property owners have rights to airspace above their land so if if you design a solar installation where there's no building on that land but it would create a glare where a building could be constructed are you violating the neighbor's property rights is a little bit more that's kind of specific about you know my concern that would be a something for a court to decide I don't know if we can resolve that here I do know of one particular instance of this happening where a resident in North Amherst who lives near the facility that's on off Sunderland road was bothered by glare in this winter time and we talked to the installers and you know they there wasn't anything they could do about it and so she just has to pull her shades down when when the glare becomes a problem she was there long before they were but in that case that it wasn't the issue was not resolvable anything else to say about that yeah is is there any definition of how bright something has to be to call it glare I mean what's glare to one person might be inconsequential to another I mean do we need any kind of technical definition or and there's also a time time period glare is going to be very time time dependent as the earth rotates yes yeah like only certain times of the year and times of the day yeah sun angles just right to actually glare into somebody's window or or space that they're they inhabit so I don't know whether there's ever been any kind of standard definition or I'm not aware of any but we could look into that yeah okay visual impact we talked about this a lot last time and whether it was reasonable to have these requirements and we said we needed to talk about it more so one of the issues we talked about was asking KP law whether the town can address issues of visual impact with regard to solar arrays because you know many towns may choose not to have solar arrays because they don't like the way they look so that's a question that we have to ask now one of the things that we may find out during our outreach process is what do people in Amherst think about solar arrays and how they look and we may find out more about that and I think maybe Dan mentioned this that he thought it would be good to see what people in Amherst think about this issue and then maybe write more into this section or you know leave it alone or whatever but anyway that it may become clearer to us as time goes on then we talked about Laura potentially figuring out or bringing us information about the minimum requirements that are commonly put in place for these installations with regard to visual impact and are there you know kind of generally accepted minimum requirements or should the end should the permit granting authority have discretion based on the view shed where these things are put so that's that's another question that we have still and then someone brought up the question of whether some of these analyses are too expensive too detailed and that they may be burdensome so those were all things that have yet to be resolved but we'll go through what the what the wording was that we talked about before you start that let me just um Lauren Janet are you um does it relate to these questions or are we better off going through the languages we have it so far my mind goes to the last question but should I just go go ahead um I when I I was looking at um this and I was wondering if we could get money from it like money figures from another town or like if if they have this requirement how it works for them it may not be really complicated or expensive and I don't know if there are visual impact consultants but maybe also talking to them like you know how much you know what does this entail is it expensive you kind of think so I thought you know some information from the the field would be good right Laura yeah and my comment was generally what you see in any kind of solar project are really landscaping and occasionally hard-scaping requirements but um you know I also I think talking to KP law is a good idea because you know I think we certainly can't make it overly based on my understanding of sort of how they weighed in we can't make it overly burdensome or expensive unless there's that you know detriment to public health and welfare so um you know typically what I've seen actually generally across the board across the country are landscaping requirements um if in certain design you know suggestions to minimize visual impact where there is visual impact basically you know obviously if you're you know siding a farm in the middle of the desert you know it doesn't really apply but when you're siding a farm you know in close proximity to residential or commercial establishments there are landscaping you know requirements so okay so there's more to be thought about here um so visual impact assessment shall be conducted that follows established protocols I don't know if we need to read all of this um we read it through last time and since we still have the same concerns maybe we don't need to read through all of this what do you think I would agree I don't think we need to read through it again we'll try to get some more information on this yeah all right um so go down to four visual mitigation oh that's part of the same thing so let's go just go to fencing so fencing um appropriate measures shall be taken to prevent the solar rays from being damaged or tampered with by individuals trying to access the area of the installation I think Laura brought up last time that the owner or the installer or operator would be more interested in preventing damage potentially than the town so it's maybe not necessary to say this but um maybe it's obvious yeah I mean the owners are putting you know multi it's a multimillion dollar investment where there's no you know owner on site so unlike a homes there's always going to be fencing requirements and things like that maybe we put something about um it is acknowledged that that the owners will be uh concerned about security or something like that and then say but the method of securing the site shall be subject to approval of the permit granting authority so reword the first sentence and leave the second sentence how does that sound yeah sounds good yeah could you say that again Chris I missed what you just said um the the first sentence here is saying you know sort of like the town is requiring that these things be fenced well Laura brought up the topic last time that um the installer and the owner is going to be very interested in having these things fenced so perhaps what we need to say is that we acknowledge that the owner and operator will want to take measures to prevent the solar arrays from being damaged or tampered with but then the second sentence is the most important the method of securing the site shall be subject to approval of the permit granting authority okay does that make sense yeah okay the need for fencing shall be determined by the applicant unless such fencing is needed to comply with town bylaws or as required per the national electric electrical code and state regulations I added and state regulations because I thought the state may have something to say besides the national electrical code um if installed such fencing shall be no more than eight feet tall unless permitted by the permit granting authority I think the Cape Cod regulations have 10 feet but typically here in Amherst we've had seven feet so eight feet seems reasonable here unless it's you know permitted by the PGA um and shall be placed at least six and then maybe say to nine inches off the ground to allow migration of wildlife because there is an instance in Amherst where we did have a requirement that the fence be nine inches off the ground I think they had larger types of critters moving through there um and nine inches was considered the correct height and shall have an emergency access system padlock or box at each gate the fence shall be consistent with the character of surrounding properties set back from roadway frontage and public areas and screened by vegetation I did notice that um two towns I looked back over some of the other towns that I've looked at previously in two towns required black fencing but black fencing is really expensive because it implies that it's um vinyl coated and so I don't think there's a need to do that here particularly in places where the fence wouldn't be seen it's possible that we might want to put some requirement like that along the front of a of a solar array if it's going to be um close to a road so that's something that we might want to consider go ahead Janet oh I had I have a question about like I don't know in a lot maybe a question for Laura or anyone who knows more is is are there you know in in arrays that are very large could there be issues with like migration or like just or letting wildlife move through so you like dividing an installation in half so or cutting it up a little bit so the fencing is sort of separated so animals can move through more more freely because you know I understand the eight inches but I think there's probably other animals that are taller that wouldn't help and so if it's a really big array it might be disrupting the movement of wildlife so I was wondering do in really large arrays facilities do they ever break up the fencing just to let wildlife move through more freely yeah I mean I think that what you're talking about would only be seen in very very large projects of which are not permitted in Massachusetts so not in the distributed generation size projects that we have in the state yeah I would I would I would offer that um at least from my understanding of the raising these fences six to nine inches off the ground is not necessarily done along the entire perimeter of the fence but I think and Laura may have better information but I think and it seems reasonable that that maybe some qualifying language of six to nine inches insufficient portions of the fence to allow for my wildlife migration I think there's designs where the fence is on the ground but every every three feet or something there's a an area where it's six to nine inches up to allow for migration I'm not sure technically why one's better than the other but okay and Martha yeah I have a question then in the opposite direction of whether allowing wildlife the traipsing through could really damage the solar panels or anything we we had a an incident when I was working at JPL there was a nice tall fence around a battery installation and so on well a young raccoon climbed the fence fell in managed to create a short circuit ruined the setup the raccoon was not killed but it ended up in rehab with a very burnt nose so I just wonder about you know if one allows too much space for wildlife whether one could have something big get in and and actually be destructive I think the proposal which I think I agree is only eligible for much larger arrays was to have like row spacing in between sections of the array that would be fenced in a way that that wouldn't allow the larger animals to get into the array but to pass through the array along certain rows I think Martha was even at questioning whether six to nine inches was too much because a raccoon could probably get in nine inches right oh yeah yeah yeah I think it's the ones that sorry I don't have my hand raised I'll go ahead Laura yeah I was gonna say I think it's really subject to like like the wildlife biology of the site it's certainly not done across the board so that's a funny story Martha I'm wondering if we if we should be vaguer about the inches yeah and let's say you know have spacing sufficient for as determined by or yeah I'm not sure who determines that but depending on the move you know to accommodate the movement of wildlife and well I would specify the wildlife we don't want deer and stuff going through there but but you know chick munks and snakes and little critters turtles I think particularly yeah I can ask um one of my colleagues does a lot of work in this area I can ask her what what what's a reasonable uh if she has a sense of what sort of standard practice there okay um screening large-scale ground mounted solar photovoltaic installation the large-scale shall be designed to minimize its visibility including preserving natural vegetation to the maximum extent possible blending in equipment with the surroundings adding vegetative buffers and or fencing to provide an effective visual barrier from adjacent roads and driveways and from abutting dwellings the installation shall be effectively screened year-round from all public and private ways and from adjacent residential lots the permit granting authority may alter or waive this requirement if such screening would have a detrimental impact on the operation and performance of the array where existing vegetation in the setbacks is insufficient to achieve year-round screening additional screening shall be provided including but not limited to planting of dense vegetative screening fencing berms use of natural ground elevations and or land contouring all depending on site specifics uh conditions tree cutting within the required setback area shall not be permitted if it would reduce to any degree the effectiveness of the year-round screening however if there are trees within the screening area that cast shade on the solar panels they may be removed that was an issue that Laura brought up last time um okay and then down keep going I guess this is kind of a long section right um does anyone have any questions or comments up to this point just one comment so one of the things that you always see in leases solar land leases is basically um um you know the requirement uh for quite enjoyment in the preservation of the solar resource itself so for example um you know I couldn't be a landowner and give five acres of solar and then build um you know partition off the rest of the land for housing projects that would cast shade on on the solar facility itself so I just want to remind everyone that there you know we can have you know things like preservation of the irradiation to the site is something that is going to be you know protected by the contractual language of the you know of the lease itself so um but I think this is fine okay moving on go ahead jack sorry yeah I'm just uh thinking how a lot of these the trees that provide a visual barrier they they actually need to be trimmed you know versus you know removed and that's just like an ongoing process that's a maintenance issue um so but you can't just do that you have to kind of keep up with it so uh we'd encourage the the owner to you know maintain their screen they would probably do that in order to keep the screen from becoming so tall that it was shaped by um panels right exactly yeah yeah assuming it was on the uh south side you know yeah anybody else yeah jen i don't really understand what laura just said i don't know if it's because i'm note-taking and i'm kind of writing and not thinking but laura are you saying that like the landowner who you know has a solar array shouldn't put something up that's you know shades it or are you saying that the people next door can't put no you can't regulate the people next door is the former okay okay yeah but that's a contractual language probably right from between the solar owner and the landowner that's right okay okay okay if it um we don't have to read through all this writing in black but then we did add a sentence applicants are encouraged to install plantings below the array including native species and pollinator friendly species and species that are supportive of wildlife rather than installing non-vegetative materials such as stone mulch i think that was something that dwayne brought up okay i would just make you say uh instead of below the array um within the array within the array okay you know um i wonder if we can just require that that you know i would assume that the permit granting authority could require plantings below the array you know and they might i mean instead of saying we encourage you to which is nice just saying we were you know the pga can require plantings below the array with a preference to native species and pollinators and things like that so kind of giving them pga the authority to you know require plantings below and not just gravel or something yeah so to to respond to that um i have not seen that as a requirement and any of the projects that i've done i think you have to be careful that anything you plant doesn't grow tall and above the uh pb panels themselves but also then you get into language of okay who's responsible for maintaining those plantings like once that fence in areas established the operation and maintenance you know i mean this gets more complicated because who's maintaining those plantings you know what's the i guess my question to you is you know what's the purpose of those plantings you have a solar generating facility unless you're intending on farming you know underneath it which is still kind of being tested and proven it's you know it's a kind of a sensitive topic because nine times out of ten right now that fenced an area is required to be you know to block out everyone except unless you have very specific contractual language allowing for you know the maintenance of a bees or or what have you i think i think it would be i think it's okay to say my suggestion is it's encouraged to plant you know native pollinator habitat um around the you know somewhere around the the solar panels i think this is good too because um there are cases where you might want to have stone mulch for issues of stormwater runoff so you can't really like preconceive all of the types of issues that may come up for this ground area below and around the array so here you're saying that you encourage plantings but you know in certain in certain instances it could be possible that you need to have stone mulch or something more inert so that you can maintain it so it doesn't get washed away i would think that most installers would want to plant something there because it's kind of it's not that expensive and it's relatively easy to maintain with a brush you know what do you call it a weedwecker or something yeah i would just add and i'm sort of trying to be careful with my two hats here because we provide um it's a clean energy extension we provide the state incentivized pollinator friendly certification so just to laris point there is you know uh there is very specific requirements and best practices that the state offers with regard to um pollinator friendly habitat around pvs and furthermore there is an incentive structure um of an uh within the smart program that offsets the cost associated with establishment and maintenance um so um i think yeah and this is fairly unique in massachusetts i think completely unique in massachusetts that there's actually an incentive so i i um and it's sort of a public service even though you're not farming you're providing pollinator friendly habitat generally wildlife friendly habitat for songs birds and so forth as well so it's something we're trying to encourage there's actually a lot of of projects that are seeking certification um again i don't not sure if it's um appropriate to require it um but maybe maybe encourage it or maybe to set it as the as the option of of uh that you have to opt out get get the okay to opt out from it from the pga yeah okay i i drain could i yeah oh yeah janet okay so i i agree like what about you know being giving the pga the authority to require it but you know also to not require it because i could see benefits other than wildlife and just having soil and roots and you know the array is going to sit there for 25 or 30 years that land could be sequestering carbon and you know water can be coming down and you know the soil will clean the water and it goes into the underground water supply so i i do see a benefit to that and it i would guess that it would slow run off but i mean i could see chris's point that maybe there's a situation where you would want to have stones but i think you know i would say let's default to grasses or plants and then unless it's you know impossible for some reason so give the pga the authority to that and assuming they'll do the right thing okay i'll try to figure out a way of saying that yeah actually i disagree with that um so i think that it's going to come down i think right now because to dwayne's point there's certainly an incentive and some farms it makes sense and some farms that economics it doesn't justify it so i i don't think it should be a requirement i think you know beyond what we're discussing now there is a very unique and defined incentive program in the state massachusetts only that basically encourages it economically so you would think that most developers would tend towards that but in some instances it's still not economic so um you know i think i think the word encouraged is appropriate but required i'm not i don't feel very comfortable with we could put strongly encouraged well i mean how about in um you know we're similar to what we had i think for um the wiring uh that uh you know assuming it's technically and economically feasible yeah go ahead martha yeah on that point i would i would vote for saying the word encouraged leave it at that because of the smart program is in fact encouraging it as laura says um but my other question is somewhere in this document and i don't know whether it's here or not do we want to say something more basic about preserving the top soil i don't know whether this is the relevant place to do so but it seems that part of the requirements for for plantings or this or that are really to to preserve the top soil and not you know scrape it all off and so on so is that part of this section or are we having that as a separate in a separate place that might be a separate place but it would be some it could be something like um not allowing um requiring balanced cut and fill so somebody would be discouraged from carting away all the top soil yeah just a balanced cut and fill and i think that i feel that's really important but maybe this is not the place but we we could say something about you know with the plantings and you know it one of the reasons for the for the plantings is to help preserve the the top soil you know and uh erosion we could even plant clover you know fix the nitrogen make the soil better but okay um so it relates to balance of cut and fill so the words balanced cut and fill mean top soil what does that mean it means that um well in some places you're not allowed to take soil away from a site right and they're also not allowed to bring soil in so you have to use the soil that's on the site to do the grading so in that case you would be dissuaded from carting away all of the top soil because that would be taking soil off the site but i'll i'll think about a way to um talk about that yes okay all right jenna um so palmer had a i think like 13 arrays and um they had a lot of problems with um soil being taken off site and a lot of erosion and just like you know falling on streets and so they made a rule just everything has to stay on site and you can't get away and so maybe we could find that language in their new bylaw um and i think i think it was i think that involved tree cutting but i'm not quite sure so i was going to raise that issue later that martha just raised her like what do you do with all the removal the tree stumps in the soil and you know where you keep it and i'd be interesting to see how different towns address that mm-hmm to deal with tree tree stumps and what do you call it grubbing clearing and grubbing clearing and grubbing all right and then um control of vegetation this is something we talked a lot about last time and some uh so anyway synthetic herbicides pesticides and fertilizers may not be used to control vegetation or animals except as otherwise approved by the permit granting authority and there was some language in the white paper about uh watershed protection committees white paper having to do with protection of water supply so that's one thing we need to kind of address in here but um it doesn't always uh these things aren't always adjacent to a water supply source um and then i think it was laura who brought up the question of do we are we treating solar installations the same way or differently from other types of development and we do allow synthetic materials to be used elsewhere in town so what does that mean as far as prohibiting these things in solar arrays so that's a question that i have not resolved and that probably should be resolved um then there were some other questions brought up about dual use and that may be something that would be in a section where we would talk about requirements and may not be in this section because this section is really about how do these places look and then someone else brought up the issue of maybe we should have a preference for solar installations that include agrivoltaics i'm not sure exactly how that would work because once because usually what happens is the um applicant brings to the permit granting authority what their proposal is you don't get a choice between you know this developer and that developer so there's really no way of giving a preference to um one over the other would and so wording may need to be developed here about looking looking positively on installations that include agrivoltaics or something like that so i'll have to work on that okay so that's all i have for um this section and i did have some questions related to other topics that if we have time we can discuss but i think Dave Zomek may be waiting in the wings right now so maybe it's time to bring Dave in and to stop this section so that's up to Dwayne to decide that yeah let me yeah great thanks Chris um yeah i think your set of questions or issues to discuss are really important for us um along with maybe what we can keep adding to that list as well but then we have to sort of get into discussion about it um and so let's put that on the agenda for next week but let me ask Stephanie in terms of whether Dave is available yep so Dave Dave is available but he's going to be a few more minutes he's just finishing up another um meeting so i would say you have like at least another six minutes okay um we want to talk about these questions or why don't we uh i'd be in favor of of um looking at the questions and maybe highlighting the ones that we want to uh maybe either have a quick discussion about at this point or that we want to uh dive into uh maybe at the next spend some time on at the next meeting okay so um i think i sent this email out to everybody um last night along with the section on design standards so maybe Stephanie could bring up that um email and we could look at those questions she might have stepped away oh Dwayne you could bring it up yeah if you want to or i could just talk about it i know i can bring it up i'll um in fact one i um time did i send it out it was six twenty four last night i have i copied and pasted them into my my agenda so one i just opened that up because it's right in front of me um so yeah so different um so okay so these were things that i thought would be useful to talk about because i'm not going to just start writing this stuff and then have people be saying oh we shouldn't we shouldn't even be considering what the maximum size of the solar array is or how much you know forest were allowing to be cut or anything like that i thought it would be good to have a discussion ahead of time about do we want to do this and if so you know what's the scale of it so the first one is um what what do people have thoughts about what the maximum size of solar array should be and various towns do have limitations on the size of solar arrays for instance belcher town says the maximum fenced area can be no more than 20 acres and maximum cleared area no more than 10 acres other towns have 15 acres as a limit um so it does amherst care about that are we interested in limiting the size of the solar array or do we think that you know if you're going to build one all right you build it as large as you can and then maybe you won't have to build one next door but i know that laura has told us that there is a maximum size um on a property and i think it's five is it five megawatts laura so it's it's and laura can correct me but it's five megawatts ac yeah which means that um it that means uh it can be large the more important thing in terms of acreage is dc capacity because that's uh sorry the array um a five megawatt ac project with battery store energy storage or battery storage um could probably go up to about 10 megawatts um and not put more than five megawatts ac onto the onto the grid at any given point of time but laura is that in line with your understanding yeah the battery storage footprint um is very small yeah yeah um but yes that's uh that's correct and you're right so the five megawatt ac would be equal to a 10 megawatt dc is that not necessarily no not not in messachusetts no way no okay it's 10 megawatt what i think what's all together yeah i think i think the if we're going to be consistent with how so basically you know rather than work on the ac dc conversion i think we should be consistent with how the state spells out their regulations of system size um which is ac so and they say that's how that's how utilities look at it that's how the state looks at it it's developers and asset owners who look at that dc conversion as well but when you are for example in the smart program if you are participating in the megawatt block program you are going to get your incentive based on the ac system size and did you tell us that the maximum size that you could have would be five megawatts per property per property okay so is that some is that even necessary for emmers to make such a statement if the state already has that requirement how big is that in terms of acres um it depends so um i'm gonna give you that quick conversion right now just give me a second i double check my figure before i go on record saying it's about 30 acres 30 acres of fenced in area 30 acres is the footprint of the project so fenced in area totally varies by project okay so when you say the footprint of the project you're talking about the area that's actually covered by the arrays plus whatever the pertinent equipment they need and a battery storage area a battery would make it a little bit larger but the battery footprint is pretty small i mean typically it's yeah typically it's like you know place you know between the panels or you know it's placed on site so if emmers said the maximum size would be 30 acres is that no i would my thought and everyone's gonna have a different opinion here my thought is i don't understand why we would we would create rules that are different than the state of massachusetts which has thought through these pretty intensely based on the resource in the state um in the land use i mean so for example in other states where there's you know so much more land you're not going to see a limitation on system size because for example in arizona or texas or north carolina there's a there's a lot more land much less densely populated so all right yeah um you know some thoughts too but um martha and then jack let's see well domain i think i'd rather wait till your thoughts because i was going to question this conversion and uh you know when you were talking about battery storage so let you and jack go first we'll go ahead jack yeah i i thought um the when it came to the size of the of the project uh the the the point i thought was interesting that we were discussing was uh phasing of the project and so maybe you know let's pick a huge one say it's a 50 acre project that we were going to encourage them to do it in phases of you know say you know 20 acre or or some increment there because of the concern of the you know going to the max for for very large insulation so i recall i was talking about that and i don't know um if that's something that we're still you know mulling over or not and and whether that's legitimate with regard to you know state projects and what's allowable but does anybody else recall that yeah i think phasing has to do with um tree cutting and erosion control right more than how much do you want in general to end up with okay there yes all right yeah so it's a different topic i think so so laura is saying why put a maximum size on a solar array if the state has maxims already there's no need for amherst to put a maximum size on and i i think i agree with that but do others agree with that yes i agree with that i guess my my thought there is is also i mean it seems a bit arbitrary to some extent i mean it may turn out that there's a wonderful spot that everybody likes an amherst that we can really focus our solar capacity on that's sort of out of the way and so forth is just sort of hypothetical and would we want to limit that if it means that we might say putting it somewhere else um i just also wanted to you know just hold transparency um that this five in lark i think i have this right uh this five megawatt ac limit the capacity limit uh that the state has there's two important issues there one it's it's with regard to the smart incentive uh and and which is driving solar at the moment you don't want to drive you don't want to build a solar project without the smart incentive but um that is again that's the ac value uh how much so how much acreage a project takes up is really based on the dc spec on the project which with battery storage allows you to almost have twice the ac size because you're running through the battery and then dispatch it all you know 24 hours in a day as opposed to eight hours in a day and that's limited to five megawatts with the total array size in dc which is really the square feet of the panels is probably up to about 10 megawatts but i think in that point when you're right but i think in that point the battery footprint is nowhere near as large as the solar footprint oh no no no yeah no no no yeah absolutely the the battery's minimal uh compared to footprint what i would also suggest or or provide is that there is substantial economy of scale associated with solar uh and so you know building them larger saves ratepayers money um and and makes projects more more affordable um uh and so that that's a factor here and also in terms of thinking about size limits yeah and that's just one more piece the 30 megawatts um excuse me the 30 acres is for a five megawatt ac project so just to be just to clarify i'm not talking about five megawatts dc no no so okay martha uh yeah okay so now join the confusion here so i think what you're saying then if uh 10 megawatts dc and i think one generally uses the conversion of each megawatt dc is about between four and five acres typically right oh so in massachusetts like in this area as panels become more efficient which is what we're seeing so if i realize i'm in the camera again um as panels become more efficient we're seeing 30 megawatts on average excuse me 30 acres on average for a five megawatt ac project yeah that does not include battery storage right 30 acres for five megawatt ac but but dwayne you're saying you could double that by by having the battery storage and then you know distributing the power over 24 hours so that would mean 60 acres no no we can double the production not the input that's what we're going to make sure we're doing your comment wasn't clear the the this is an important piece yeah the solar panel footprint requires far more land than the battery storage footprint battery storage footprint uh i gotta get this ratio but like i've seen you know i i don't but like you know 10 megawatts of battery in like a half acre parcel so yeah you got to think of battery storage in the form of like the eight like the mat like the 18 wheeler trucks they fit on those trucks so it's not like anyway sorry yeah yeah i understand that but but what i mean is uh you know the the state has a limit of how much energy one can put out over the wires at a certain time and i think if i understand correctly and so that's where that five megawatts ac comes from and i if i understand correctly dwayne is saying ah but you don't put the whole amount that you're generating out at during the daylight you store it in your battery which means that you could have a larger total output and then you know slowly dish it out over the 24 hours onto the wires and so that's why why i was asking could that then mean that in fact one could have a larger acreage of the actual solar panels generating electricity because you're going to store it and not have to send it over the wires immediately yeah and and so from from that i would say i would be in favor of stating a maximum acreage in our solar bylaw but that does not mean a restrictive one like shoots berries it would mean something that could be fairly large but still uh you know clear that if the state smart program changes its rules we would have some fairly large but still specific uh size limits so that's just my opinion but i think we've still got some confusion there about even within the state regulations um how large a solar ray could be in acreage as long as you maintain the state limit in how much you're sending out per hour onto the onto the wires is that right yeah i've made it more confusing i realize i think this is obviously a really important point for us to deliberate on and discuss i do see davis has joined us which i really appreciate and and want to use his time as effectively and and optimally as we can so i'd like to move move forward in the agenda we can return to this time permitting or this and the other list of questions which i'll now stop sharing that christ has teed up for us and we can add to as time goes on i think it is we'll need to return to that and want to return to that in subsequent meetings so um if if uh so let's move move on with the with uh with the agenda and move to dave zomac um who is the assistant town manager and the director of conservation development for the town of amherst um dav really appreciate you spending your time with our working group um and um i'll unless uh stefanie if you wanted to say anything as introduction but otherwise we'll move move on with uh with dave no sure okay great thanks dwayne and and thanks everybody for having me and and i'm happy to come back i mean this doesn't have to be a one and done i mean this is what we all do and i'm happy to be with you and and engage with with the working group and um yeah i i don't have anything formal what i do want to do is you know i i i did prepare some remarks and i think at some point i will um ask stefanie not yet but at some point we'll we'll take a look at the um protected open space map from the open space and recreation plan but again i'm i do i did get uh throughout the week some of your questions so i'm i'm hoping that some of the remarks i make will address some of the questions that the working group has but i want to leave enough time really you know and i'm happy to stay with you as long as you'd like today i'd really like to open up enough time for for a q and a uh for you to hit me with those questions and if we don't know the answers you know um stefanie and i will go back and and we'll we'll find them for you and either i can come back or we'll answer them via email but um but let me if i could i'll just kind of launch in and and then we'll take a look at the uh the map i think from generally from the questions that i saw coming from the working group there were kind of a lot of questions and and a lot of focus on you know what's out there what's what's available both uh as unprotected land but but then what are our land resources that are already protected so what i wanted to do is make a few remarks very briefly and and i can move quickly talk about kind of the history of land conservation and amherst and then um we'll talk about the map the open space map and then open it up for for a q and a um i did want to reference all of this stuff is online on our website the best resource really the last update to the open space plan was done late 2017 18 uh we've we've done a few update or updated a few of the sections since then but um the open space and recreation plan has all of this information all of the things i'm going to talk about they're all there in the maps the data is all there the management plans are all there so um it's all there if you miss something or want to go a deeper dive look at that open space and recreation plan um i'm going to talk i'm going to throw out some numbers today but they are not exact numbers you know please don't use these down to the acre because we have not updated those numbers in a long time they're they're going to be fairly accurate um but but you know if i say you know one category i'm looking at has 18 1828 acres we might have you know 10 more by now but it'll give you general uh general ballpark figures for the protected the categories of protected open space really quickly um i just wanted to you know take this opportunity you know so in the early years here in the amherst which i was not part of you know i haven't been with the town that long um but you know in the early years of conservation here um the focus was really on and the fear really was on the loss of open space subdivisions you know how quickly we were losing land open land ecologically significant land to development in the 60 primarily in the 60s and 70s and early 80s people like pete westover who was the conservation director here for 30 years was one of the the leaders in land conservation in massachusetts and in new england and you know through the work of the conservation commission the select board and ultimately town meeting uh amherst was a very early leader in in land conservation so that goes back you know we really started protecting land through gifts and and a proactive land acquisition program um probably 50 years ago or so so we've been doing this a long time but the early initiatives were about the threat the loss of of open space the loss of farmland a second pulse was really that protection of of farmland and the commonwealth of massachusetts has this very very successful program called the agricultural preservation restriction program and this is a basically a program where the state matches local dollars to bring together when a town a city or town would like to protect active farmland they can apply they with the owner of the land can apply for funding typically municipalities use community preservation act funds to match the state dollars and basically what this is is it's buying the development rights for a particular piece of farmland from a private owner these are all voluntary applications and amherst again i can talk numbers in just a minute we've been very successful in this program at acquiring the development rights for a few thousand acres of of prime farmland it's really important in that category to remember that the farmland stays in private hands so i'll talk a little bit more about that in a minute so early years were about threat to development ap rs came on the scene we also took early initiatives here in amherst to protect water supply land so those lands that help to keep our water clean and provide clean drinking water for all the residents and visitors to amherst so we have water supply land you know a few hundred acres of water supply land and again amherst was very proactive in in going out there and purchasing those lands and then more recently in my time working on land acquisition here we've really kind of focused more on strategic acquisitions early in the 60s 70s 80s even in the 90s the town was likely to accept for instance open space that came as the result of subdivision sub essentially subdivision open space and these were kind of the remnants when land was was developed into commercial or residential developments and during my time we've tried to be much more strategic in acquiring land for a lot of reasons one is that frankly a lot of the land that that has come before us in these more recent years may not fit into one of the important categories that it may not be important wetland resource areas or or provide protection for rivers or streams and it may not be prime farmland I think in the last couple of years our land protection program has been kind of plateauing and again we've been really focused on strategic acquisitions I think the hickory ridge project is probably the best example of that that's 150 acres that we purchased we just actually closed on that in 2022 but it was about a four or five year project to get there and that really provides kind of multiple town purposes and multiple town priorities but again we're very strategic in what we acquire for the town or what we support in terms of land conservation and honestly part of the reason for that is that we have a shrinking tax base right the more land we take off the the tax rolls the the larger the burden is for those remaining taxpayers before we take a look at the map I did want to point out that a point always that I make is that you know those those early folks in Amherst who were so forward-thinking you know really we're enjoying the benefits of all of the work that they did to protect this open space to protect the the critical farmland to keep farms active and vibrant and viable in Amherst but it also makes our jobs easier your job easier all of our jobs easier as we think of climate change because without those early efforts we would have far more homes to heat businesses to heat so our carbon footprint would be much larger than it is today at not those early folks in Amherst really thought how do we protect these important areas that provide farmland provide food but also connect our neighborhoods connect our schools with trails and and other natural features so we owe a lot to the the concoms of the past and town meeting and whatnot in fact Amherst just one side note Amherst was one of the first communities maybe one of the only communities in Amherst that protected land before the CPA was enacted the Community Preservation Act was enacted in about 2002 or three but we were protecting land you know decades before that and you know I attributed a lot of that to those those folks who who work so hard to to protect land back in the 60s and 70s and 80s so Steph maybe you could pop up that map very quickly so we're not going to go through this in great detail but I think this is your best resource for those members of the of the working group or for anyone you know out there in the audience this is map number seven in our open space and recreation map and this is really kind of the this is the puzzle right this is what we we all we refer to staff and committees and boards as we're looking at the town of Amherst and and I'm sure you all have seen this map but many committees look at it when when they have goals and objectives that they'd like to achieve where do we you know when we look for anything new a new school site a new DPW site a new fire station site if we're looking for you know in this case if we're talking about solar where can solar go and what are the restrictions on certain pieces of property where solar may not be able to go because those restrictions don't allow it so you know very quickly the major categories on this open space map and we're not going to go through all of them but I know you by your questions wanted to focus on you know the big ones are conservation which is in green the APR land is in orange if you will the yellowish yellowish orange water supply our water supply lands are all in Lawrence swamp in South Amherst because that's where our wells are and then conservation restrictions those are pieces of private property that are protected by a restriction that the town or the state holds and then lastly state land and we have a couple of categories of state land in town you're well aware that the university has about a thousand acres of land that they they call their own the commonwealth's land but the other important category is on the if stuff you go south if you could scroll for us you can see the brown that's the Mount Holyoke range state park so all of those parcels in brown are held by the commonwealth of Massachusetts in perpetuity for open space and ecological purposes so those are the major categories we've been proactive as I said buying conservation land just to give you some ballpark numbers so for agricultural preservation restrictions we're at about two thousand acres a little over two thousand acres in APRs now again those are privately held parcels those are taxed parcels but they're not owned by the town they're owned by private individuals farmers and others who continue to farm those two thousand plus acres the commonwealth is almost almost a thousand acres principally on the Mount Holyoke range conservation in green is about 1900 acres so all of those green parcels in aggregate are about 1900 acres we have about 200 acres of conservation restrictions again these are held by the town or the commonwealth on private land and then water department these are the water supply protection parcels which are in blue in the lower right hand corner thank you Steph those are about 300 acres and those surround our wells in Lawrence swamp so those are the main kind of categories I wanted to go through with you I know people asked about chapter land chapter 61 and chapter 61 just we shouldn't spend too much time on chapter 61 but chapter 61 is a tax classification that gives the owners of those parcels a reduced tax rate if they agree to keep their land open for a period of time it is not a permanent classification those parcels can be taken out of chapter we call it um and they often are they're they're sold they're purchased by developers they're purchased by other owners and those are removed from chapter um chapter lands on here chapter 61 a is the cross hatched kind of orangish brown stuff maybe you could find one of those parcels right in the center there we go um in in that area so why don't I stop here Dwayne I'd rather I'd love to get into Q&As and I'll do the best I can with with questions that the working group might have but I didn't want to take a long time on kind of the the broad overview great thank you Dave yeah it's been great let me open it up to the group for questions we have the questions that we I think Dave did a good job probably covering a lot of the questions we pre-submitted but we can look at those as well as any additional questions or more detail of what Dave put forward so far so Martha and then Jack okay I'm sorry Dwayne before you ask questions um or get questions do you want me to continue displaying the map or would you like me to close that I guess as the map will remain helpful okay okay well thank you Dave I'd be interested to know just a little more specifics about the type of farms we have and how big they are I mean my initial looking through looked like we have some dairy farms some horse boarding with hay fields and many vegetable type gardens I wondered if you could just say a little more about the types of farming because that kind of determines what types of solar they might be interested in yeah that's a great question Martha and I see it on the list and and I'm glad you you brought it back here um so yeah we unfortunately we don't have data on every farm in Amherst one of the questions was how many separate farms do we have I typically use a number around 45 but again what defines a farm is is a little bit amorphous you know you might have somebody who who you know is simply the owner of either a preserved or not preserved piece of farmland in Amherst and they might be growing things themselves they might be growing things for commercial or wholesale markets um or they might be leasing their land to another farmer so defining what a farm is is a little bit difficult for us here in Amherst but I typically say there's about 45 to 50 different farms and again what they grow is is pretty diverse so the best soils in Amherst for growing vegetables are really up in the north west corner of town and maybe Stephanie could could pan up in that corner because it's not showing now there it is it's up in those yellow off of Meadow Street those are the best soils in Amherst in the in the upper left hand corner in orange keep going stuff yes over in that area those are the best soils and those farms grow onions historically cucumbers many row crops are grown up in that area I should say that a major component of our farm system now are CSAs community supported agriculture operations and again there's some that are smaller where I think the two that are most prominent are Brookfield farm and of course some North Amherst community farm uh up in in the center of North Amherst so our best soils are up there off of Meadow Street and most of the land up there um and this map I can see is a little dated because we've actually uh some of that chapter 61 land since this map was produced is now ap rd so um so and then down off of northeast street and southeast street were historically dairy farms we had again we had 55 plus dairy farms in Amherst at one time a lot of reasons why dairy farms um don't dot the New England landscape as much as they used to but certainly competition and pricing you know had a lot to do with that um but a lot of those farms have now had to shift gears and try to find other ways to to make a living because dairy is very challenging in Massachusetts we only have one dairy farm left in Amherst um and that's over at J and J farm on Meadow Street so we are down to the last dairy um uh with with active dairy milking etc um so again tobacco is a major cash crop in Amherst to this day um but again things like as I mentioned before um you know certainly um certainly onions squash um you know wholesale and retail tomatoes we also have a lot of um new additions to the landscape uh in the form of of hoop houses basically temporary greenhouses as a way to extend the New England uh growing season so up in North Amherst you have great examples of that um uh at a couple of farmers off of Russellville Road and Meadow Street and they are very actively providing organic greens to to supermarkets as well as markets in Boston and New York so you you see farmers trying to be innovative and get grants for these uh temporary um greenhouses that help them extend their growing season and and be more profitable um what else other questions yeah from uh Jack so uh I want to wish you a happy St. Patrick's Day Dave you have a nice Irish name like me I can see um not exactly but but yes okay I'm not wearing any green today I might have missed the memo neither am I um so I have a couple questions for you but um the APR land and the Chapter 61A how are they uh exclusive of one another and and then and then how was how were all these things kept track it's just because the town needs to know with with regard to you know when they're assessing properties they need to know these these things are on file for the for the town so sure so I'll answer the second question first so um any permanent restriction be it an APR or a conservation restriction or when the town acquires a piece of property you know that follows a path through you know through a closing through recording at the registry of deeds and then our town assessor will get that information and then working with our our IT folks um the parcel will be recoded in our GIS system so again this is a static map from the open space and recreation plan but if you go to you know the parcel I I was just noticing up in North Amherst I know it's part of the Mitchell Farm and since this map was produced the Mitchell Farm um another 30 or 40 acres of it um was put into the APR program by the family and the town and and others contributed to that process so um if you go to our GIS system it'll have the most up-to-date information on what parcels are permanently protected and what aren't so we could we could we could pick this this layer you know the various layers that are turned on in the GIS and we could produce a map today this moment of what parcels are permanently protected either owned by the town uh already sold their development rights through the APR program or have a conservation restriction or any of the other categories here so that's the most up-to-date information and then that information then runs with the deed so the next purchaser the next person who purchases a say a farm a piece of farmland in Amherst they would presumably know if their eyes are open and they're going into something you know uh like purchasing a you know a 40-acre um piece of farmland in South Amherst they would know going in that that land is permanently protected they might approach the town and say what can or can't I do on that property um the most common thing we get is can I build a house on an APR um and unless unless there's a house lot excluded on an APR property it is very difficult to build a house on an APR um your second question was kind of jack how does the out of chapter 61a and the APR program um so I'm not exactly sure let me take a stab at that question but so from a planning standpoint we look at chapter 61a and we say you know if if we turn on that layer on the GIS we can see the conclusion we would draw is the chapter 61a properties um a are farmland and b are are unprotected they don't have a permanent restriction so that's where we look to say what are the remaining priority pieces of agricultural land that we think deserve and are worthy of protection and so there would be other layers that we would turn on if you will in helping us make that decision uh prime soils would be important contiguous to other APR permanently protected lands a willing seller right the town cannot dictate what the owner of property a or property b does with their land the owner if they come to us and say I'd like to protect the my property then we embark on a process with them we approach the state with them and we say hey this this property owner this farmer would like to protect their land um but it's a voluntary program and the owner has to be willing to give up some rights and accept a certain amount of money for those development rights so chapter 61a is a tool we use to kind of look at the whole town and um and see what other pieces of property are remaining that are not presently protected again i'm going to give you a ballpark please do not you know quote me on this but there are there are a few hundred acres of land left in chapter 61a that are unprotected that have prime soils and would fit some of those those characteristics that i just mentioned you know contiguous with other APR lands etc etc i'm not saying all you know three to four hundred of those acres would rise to the top of that priority list but there are some farms that you know we still would like to protect in town because they have prime soils um they're part of an agricultural block um and they're worthy of protection there are other you know five acre parcels or 10 acre parcels or 15 acre parcels that may not you know make the cut honestly but but 61a is really it's it's more uh for tax purposes for the individual property owner they will claim that 61a and they have to do that on an annual basis yes and if they choose to take their property out of chapter 61a a couple of things happen depending there's a lot of nuances here and i don't think we have time to get into them now but um a landowner would likely owe a certain number of years in back taxes and in some cases the town has the right of first refusal the town can step in if they're going to sell their property and develop it there is a mechanism by which the town can step into that that process and and uh it's called a right of first refusal so we would have a right of first refusal on some of those lands okay so i just one more question since i have here then and i think you're probably going to have to come back to it i got it but so my my question is when it comes to zoning uh and by-law protection um and i look at farmland i see this farmland conservation overlay district and it doesn't coincide at all it doesn't seem like it coincides at all with with this particular map that's up uh there so from a zoning perspective it seems like they're it's a different when maybe you could just explain what the farm land conservation overlay district is because that's the only actual oriented zoning designation that i saw i think you would find more correlation this doesn't have that overlay turned on on it is obviously a static map focused on what's protected in town and what isn't i think you'd find more correlation than you think i would defer to chris because she works every day with zoning and applicants more than i do but chris i don't know if you want to say anything more or or could help us more on the f's you know the farmland overlay may i do it um i think i'm unmuted um yeah so farmland conservation land is a zoning designation that um requires that if you are to develop land in that overlay zone that you develop it in a certain way which is by um uh cluster subdivision rather than standard subdivision and cluster subdivision ends up with some land protected either as um either as farmland or as conservation land or whatever there was a recent project that was developed in that way down in south amherst where where the developer gave land eventually gave land to the town so it's really the mechanism to control development more than and to control development to keep large areas of land open for farming or for conservation but it doesn't really mean that those acres would would be necessarily farmed so it's separate from what we're looking at now on this map that is related to the open space and recreation plan does that explain it yes thank you so i'll i'll pass for now with the great questions may i say something as long as i have the floor just briefly i wanted to point out that some of these lands that are in chapter are also owned by the institutions like some of the lands i think in the center of um it's a good point yeah you know Chris Amherst college has some of their lands in chapter 61a so when you see those lands with the cross hatching those are you know probably unlikely to be developed as i mean they might be developed for institutional reasons but most likely those lands won't be developed in the future that's all great um martha let's go with you and then uh i'd like to um move on and and and uh keep my dave's um suggestion that he could can come back yes yeah i just just ask it's my understanding then that for ap r lands the state then has certain requirements on the solar development that that uh the solar can only be i think something like twice as much as the farm actually uses or something like that so it's just the general answer is is it true that the the state then has rather strict limitations on the solar development for ap r land they do yeah martha they do and and we they have um a whole document agricultural preservation restriction program guidelines and this is available online essentially what the ap r program is saying is you know um commonwealth tax dollars all of our tax dollars fund the ap r program there's also federal funds that go into that program and cpa dollars are essentially from residents of amherst so all of those funds combined uh are brought together to buy the development rights from farmers from those farmers who are interested in protecting their land and so the ap r program is saying we're open to solar being part of an ap r but they have a process by which you go through to uh for the for the state and and actually the town gets involved in that i've been involved in a couple here in town where the the applicant the owner of the farm applies for um permission to put solar panels on their farm and clearly what what the state and the town doesn't want that owner to do is put the solar panels out in the middle of the most productive fields so it's pretty common sense typically what you would do is you would cluster you would figure out where to cluster the solar panels with the right exposure around your farm operations so we have farmers who process food who use a lot of electricity in that clearly there are electrical needs for their barns for their animals for their houses on ap rs or adjacent ap rs so the state has a whole process by which um you can go through that and and get approval so i think we need i would just put a plug in there for farm viability we need to be looking just like we do for our residences you know we need to be open to actively working with farmers to figure out ways to make their operations sustainable long term and so it makes sense to to come up with ways to add solar to these farm operations without compromising the prime farm soils uh which is why you know they're they're preserved in the first place but prime soils do no good if the farm itself is not viable so if we can cut down on electrical costs and and help these farmers keep costs down they can produce food for all of us that is reasonable and affordable so there's there's ways to compromise and plan these systems to support these farms so anything we put in the bylaw then we would want to have be consistent with the state guidelines mm-hmm yeah yeah the the other thing i would just say again as we run out of time um you know i think as we look at this map and as we look at the the town map moving forward i think the future of land protection and and you know it's always been about compromise and and so we've done a really good job amherst has been and continues to be a leader in land preservation we we got in the game earlier than many other many other towns in the commonwealth do we still have some land to protect yes we i think there are some priorities and we should look at those but there are ways to compromise we're doing we're doing this now with affordable housing more than ever that let's say you have a 30 acre piece of property and we have a couple of these that are kind of perhaps in the works are there ways to carve off five acres seven acres on the frontage use that for affordable housing or a combination of affordable and market rate housing or workforce housing depending on how you define that and then protect the backland along the fort river or the mill river and likewise i think there's ways to do that with solar um again we've we've as you look at the map you know and you have 2000 acres of protected farmland 2000 acres roughly of protected uh uh municipal open space conservation land and then the other categories the map the puzzle pieces of the map are filling in pretty quickly how do we find compromise in that there may be ways to do joint projects where you protect part of the parcel and then you put solar on the other part great thank you so much dave um and i think we may um uh deliberate on on this discussion a little bit next time and then maybe have some additional questions or follow-up with you uh if you're so willing uh would be fantastic were there any burning questions dwayne just that anybody that i didn't touch on or we didn't touch on that might help you as you move forward um go ahead janet you know so just from i'm you know i've only been in town for 20 years um but it seems to me just from you know walking around and looking around and is there seems to be more and more land in what i think of as active cultivation and you know there's more csa's there's you know you know in south amherst like on stanley street the wentworths are you know cultivating acres and i know who's doing amherst nursery um you know on northeast street there's just a million beef cows when they used to be like 30 you know and it just seems to me that the whole farm economy is growing in amherst and more and more land is being used um actively and then there's many acres you know i'm thinking maybe that along 116 like hampshire college land that is just sort of sitting fallow but so so is my impression like do you have a way of saying yeah 20 years ago we had x farms or i mean there's more land being farmed i know brookfield has been leasing lands and just bought some and and one farmer recently said you know most of the farmers you're looking at don't own the land they're on they're mostly leasing lands from the owners and things like that so i just is that impression accurate yeah um in general i think the those those those comments are accurate janet um a couple of things one land is very hard to get into onto in amherst but in the region in general so newer generations of uh farmers in in the valley are having trouble that's one of the the ceilings really is they can't get on land land values as we know are really high and whether it's an apr farm or a non apr farm uh non protected farm it is very difficult for newer farmers younger farmers if you will coming into the the field to get on the land i think your observation about creativity in amherst farmers are getting more creative than amherst recall that i said at one point amherst had about 50 plus dairy farms a lot of our soils are rather wet with a heavy clay content those farms don't necessarily lend themselves well to high product productivity with regard to row crops and higher value crops but we're getting more and more creative you know dan kaplan who who shepherded uh brookfield for so many years has done remarkable things down in southeast amherst with the soils there to actually help them be more productive so i think we are seeing more creativity in in uh activating some of these old dairy farms and some of these farms that may not have been as productive as as perhaps we would have thought they would be over the last 20 years so i think that's a that's a trend hampshire college does have a tremendous amount of of um they are the largest i would say they're the largest single landowner of remaining unprotected farmland in amherst so um they have the hampshire college farm center which is an active part of their campus and part of their curriculum there um but those those lands those fields off of west street you know are they are farmed they're mostly uh used for grazing cattle and grazing sheep and producing hay um so so that's a big part of the if you look at the remaining lands that could be protected certainly hampshire has some land amherst college as chris presto pointed out also has some farmland that is unprotected is it likely to go anywhere in the near future to development probably not but if you think about looking long-term in perpetuity yeah we probably should should have those conversations okay i think we need to have you back dildo yeah i'm happy to come back yeah this is so much information that we don't this is fun this is what we do happy to happy to come back next meeting or whenever you'd like so thank you all all right thank you so much davin we'll connect with stefanie on that to arrange arrange that but i think uh we'll probably deliberate a bit on this next time and then and then uh soon soon thereafter i think uh having you back would be um really helpful sure great thank you all have a nice weekend you too dave thank you okay um great let me um given given that we're actually now officially over time i did want to get give the public an opportunity to make any come providing comments or or questions for us if anyone from the public would like to make a comment please electronically raise your hand okay i don't see anyone okay and just for the record we have seven um oh sorry yeah seven seven people attending that's just great um and thank you uh for attending um okay um there was one one thing maybe to go over just real quickly and that uh janet brought up was the uh the idea similar to other quote unquote not quote unquote but real experts that we've invited uh to speak to us there is a um a proposal from janet on the table to bring in somebody that can speak specifically about force uh in forest land um the the uh recommendation with jonet jonathan um okay on the last name i think it's thompson but yeah yeah from harvard fars who i who i recognize uh i don't know him but i recognize the name um but um uh do people would people find that helpful um is that information that we think we need or could davis omack cover some of that um and is that worth um uh would people find find that useful um to us as we deliberate on the uh on the bylaw go ahead jack yeah i guess i'm i'm not knowledgeable on what he would provide maybe janet can so he um is at the harvard forest which is um on the other side of the quaban and they've been you know they're tracking the forest obviously and studying it they're also tracking um co2 emissions and he his area is you know you know obviously the forest the new england forest the role of forest and climate change and um so he he's just like an i've seen him speak he's just an excellent speaker and he could talk about the importance of forest or what they do in terms of sequestration and all the many benefits of forest because that's going to be sort of a piece of what we'll be looking at and i think he'd be good for questions great laura and then and then Martha sorry i didn't see the order yeah i'm i'm all for having subject matters come and talk to the group but i just want to make sure and jenna i don't know the individual that you're speaking about but i want to make sure everyone is balanced in terms of what they're bringing um the table because we have very limited time left to get our work done so i think that's my only caveat here you know i think when we're talking about you're not going to get any sort of pushback from this group of the value of forest lands but my personal opinion is also has to be balanced with um you know the climate benefits of solar and i think we're all mostly on the same page there so that's my two cents yeah i don't i don't know what he'll say i mean i've seen him speak and um i also was thinking it'd be good to have somebody who owns the forest and manages it um and so i could look around for that i've also been talking to different farmers in the area and some doing dual use and not doing dual use and just you know like when talking to dave just seeing what people face day to day and what you know different constraints and so i actually think it's better not to have somebody with like all opinions but people with different opinions and so yeah i mean if you want to get a summary of what farmers are facing there's plenty of you know um plenty of surveys out there from national farm associations that speak to that so i mean i just i think what my question is always going to be what is what does this group hope to get out of that call and if we have specific goals then i'm all for it yeah i think one suggestion might be to you know work through the bylaw a bit more in earnest over the next month or so and and identify specific questions that we feel like um experts could be helpful for us as we deliberate um i i would tend to agree that you know experts are great and you know who doesn't like listening to experts um um but is it real um you know again as as laura said i don't think any of us are doubting the importance of forest on on on carbon issues water quality uh issues and so forth um so what what what specific kernels of of information or questions um are we really trying to gain some expertise uh in helping us uh but let me go on to martha yeah yeah i just i would just say that i would be in favor of of having the mr thompson come and and speak to us i think that that would be informative i mean just like dave's telling us about farmland we get some information about forest land but i think my my biggest concern is that we can't really come to conclusions about our bylaw until we've seen the gga report which apparently isn't going to come until late april to to may uh i mean i've seen today that really you know we need people like me really need to go to our town maps and and study them a little more and so on but i think in the meantime having the somebody come and tell us about far as sooner rather than later might be helpful and then we get on to diving into our our mapping and our uses and understanding better of which areas are available in amherst so you know also i would be really uncomfortable in making decisions about solar amherst without talking to farmers it's it seems you know it's just odd to me you know and every time i've had a conversation with somebody i'm like oh this makes sense or this about dual use and you know all this stuff and so i'm having these conversations with people that are really helpful and interesting to me and i want to bring that to the group it just makes sense that local people would have local knowledge and help us craft our our decisions yeah i mean jan and i think that's the whole purpose of the survey because conversations with individuals i talk to farmers all day long just to preface this um and each farmer doesn't represent the group as a whole so you know i'm just very cautious of you know bringing one i mean bringing one person to the table and then extrapolating that it's the perspective of all farmers in the region so my understanding was that was the intent of the survey itself was to get the broader public opinion so anyways that's my uh i'm going to just jump in and remind people to please let dwayne acknowledge you to speak because people are jumping in and talking back and forth and you really should be acknowledged by dwayne okay thank you um okay um chris you are so acknowledged so i just wanted to mention the fact that um to make blanket proclamations or restrictions or whatever about farmland or forest isn't really useful because all the farmland isn't the same and all the forest isn't the same and there may be forests that we think would be fine to be you know sacrificed if you want to use that word to putting a solar array in but there may be forests that we think are sacrosanct and we really should save them and and how do we figure that out so um i'm i am cautious reluctant however you want to say it about making these blanket not these blanket because we haven't made any statements yet but making blanket restrictions about you know no forests can be cut no farmland can be touched so i just wanted to say that that we have to be judicious about how to how to make these determinations and how to describe these things and if there are people out there who can help us to figure out how do we describe a forest that we don't want to be cut and how do we describe a forest that we think okay that one might be allowed to be cut you know that's a question that we really need to talk about thank you great yeah and those are the types of questions i wouldn't mind being up for an expert as opposed to just having them come and talk generally about their research somebody had their hand up i'm sorry but maybe put it down so any let's not move on this quite yet and and give us the opportunity to i think without a guest speaker next time to make some headway assuming chris has the opportunity on the on the bylaw which is obviously really important and to keep sort of tagging or flagging these specific questions that we need to deliberate on further and or bring in some experts to help us out okay janet i can do is i can circulate i've been talking to different people and i don't know all their perspectives and but i can send you like little bios of these people like there's a couple of farmers there's you know there's some people at UMass who are studying forests and kind of like a matrix of like what's the most important you know how do you evaluate what to save and what not to save like people are looking at that it's and so i could just you know because it's not you know something we're going to decide on i can send that around to people because i don't want to i'm talking to people saying i think you have a lot to bring to the group people are willing to come they are in the trenches of everything and so i could i'll circulate that in a memo to you because i don't want to keep waiting you know and all of a sudden we're in may we're like well what do we do with farms and we haven't talked to a farmer i mean it seems and i'm not i'm not presenting like a point of view but i think a group of people like two or three people on each topic is going to have a really lively meeting and that's it all right i just want to be established that there would be a value added compared to what we can learn from with more questioning from dave who's kind of looking at it from a town perspective with some deep knowledge on farms and forests and in amherst but not but speaking more at the sort of a town level as opposed to picking out two or three specific citizens or or farmers or forest owners but let's let's let's let's work on this but again let's let's focus on meeting next time on the bylaw um and um and um through that process work on specific areas and questions that we want um uh some uh perspectives or experts to help us um help us get through okay uh jack lust comment i would i would say that you know janet maybe you uh invite these uh folks that you have conversations with to join the group and and offer a public comment at the end of our meetings uh if they are so interested do you want should i respond to that or yeah well they could could um you know if they want to share their perspective just through a written testimony or something to us i would be embarrassed to ask nathan thompson to watch a meeting and give a three minutes he's this is his whole life has been dedicated to the forest like that we're you know connected to so i i don't know i to me it's just this i don't understand how we would wouldn't want information from people who are active in the areas that we're going to regulate it's it's you know i don't know maybe maybe i'm barking up the wrong tree literally but i would be i would be amazed if we hadn't brought in farmers to talk about their needs and their experiences go ahead martha yeah well one suggestion then that i might make to follow that up we could maybe even prepare you know three or so questions for farmers and then for one of our meetings plan like a 15 or 20 minute public comment period or something and invite farmers to come and give their views on those questions we might you know then at least get some variety of responses that might help if we prepare questions with things we wanted to know but just let me ask stephanie is there at some precedent for doing something along those lines um i not i i think that would be fine i'm not sure i'd have to look into it yeah okay okay janet give you one more actually this reminds me that one of the farmers i talked to last night who has like a small five acre farm and has worked in on a farm in amherst for five years he has a presentation of like a show of like things he thinks that um for solar like things you can do site solar on farms and regulate it like what would be good you know he's he has a whole presentation on that so which i don't know what it is but i was like well you sound perfect for our group but okay um all right let's um pick spend a little bit time picking this up next time as well but i don't think we want to um activate anything quite at the moment um on this without further discussion um okay uh so with that we're well over time uh and let me thank everybody um for their um work today um uh chris for your work getting uh getting getting prepared uh stephanie for leading us through this um and um uh we will meet next time on the 31st um and um i just always like to give a heads up it'll be laura you're the note taker next time okay great okay um do we know i'm going to ask if you could give me a quick phone call at the end of this meeting i just need to check in with you about something yep okay um do i have your phone number i guess it's on my email okay very good okay we'll do okay thanks everybody thank you all bye bye