 There's a new park there. I know that the new playground there. So I know that's not our land, but it's still pretty exciting to see that. And so I know some people have a question about what the hell they're doing there. But it's a new playground. And so that's great. Okay, so Dave, do you want to go next? Sure. I'm just, yeah, I know you've got a pretty full agenda and Aaron always has her, her PowerPoint. Yeah, just a quick, a couple of updates. I know that Beth is Beth Wilson from DPW is going to join us later. Is that correct, Aaron? I'm just going to talk about the faring brook project and their upcoming or our, the town's up anticipated notice of intent for the floodplain restoration project along the faring brook. So that's really, really pretty exciting that that is getting going. And I'm sure Beth will have more information for us tonight is, is just really an informal discussion. But that's exciting to, to anticipate the work. And I think we would be, the town would be putting that out to bid in the late spring, hopefully with construction starting in the early fall of 21 of later this year. So that's exciting. Probably at your next meeting, I will be giving you an overview of Pete West over the former conservation director for Amherst has been working with a couple of landowners in North Amherst up near Akins Reservoir off of like the Bay of Plenty. And we've been working with the other landowners on the House of Chels Roy, that area. On a couple of conservation restrictions that some, some residents are willing to donate to the town. So these, these dovetail nicely with some of the land that we've purchased up there for conservation purposes. I will provide you with those maps and we'll work probably at that point through Stephanie and we'll get you those maps prior to your next meeting. The other thing that is on our agenda tonight in your packet is the assignment of conservation restriction and I'm not sure if any of you had a chance. This is a fairly simple administrative matter. The long and short of it is the we are a co-holder the town through the conservation commission is a co-holder of conservation restriction in the town of Amherst. Those conservation restrictions were formally held by the Valley Land Fund and the town of Amherst. The Valley Land Fund no longer exists. They were excuse me they were merged with the Kestrel Trust. So in essence they are asking for a signature from Brett to basically formalize that process that Kestrel would now be the the co-holder of that conservation restriction. So it's a fairly simple administrative matter. The conservation restriction does not change in any way shape or form. It simply is transferred formally legally over to the Kestrel Trust. So perhaps we can when we have a break in the action later we can talk a little bit more about that and and if you have any questions we can we can go into more detail but I think those are the only updates I have. We are continuing to do field work out there. If you've been out hiking as I have been at least prior to the snow there is a tremendous still a tremendous amount of activity out on the trails. I was at Wentworth Farm the other day on Sunday and I was just blown away by the the foot traffic. People running, walking dogs, family groups, social distance groups, skating, ice fishing. It's it's really impressive. I mean I I don't think in my career with the town I've ever seen our trails used more than in this pandemic year. So that's a real positive that people have all of this space to explore and be safe in. So that's really exciting. Brad continues to do he has been brush hogging as much as he can right up until this last snowstorm yesterday. So he's actually kind of getting caught up in some areas that we could never brush hog before because they're so wet and the ground is solid. So that's actually a good thing. You know, in terms of reptiles and amphibians they're all hibernating for the winter. So it's kind of nice to get some of these this old group early successional habitat in good shape for the for the spring. So hey Dave I have a question for you. As we go forward into the spring anticipating that that traffic is not going to slow down and will in fact speed increase is there a way that we can kind of be a little bit more proactive around information with responsible trail use as we go into mud season and as we get into kind of the times when the trails might be a little bit more sensitive to more use than they're used to the word use was said a lot. But I'm curious if there's like I don't know and I'm coming to you with a problem and not a solution which isn't what I love to do but I'm wondering if there's a way about signage of you know yeah working with Brianna who does most of our social media. Yeah no that's a good idea because we certainly still are going to be messaging social distancing. I am anticipating the town manager will want to talk about Puffer spawned again this year. We had such a I think successful year doing outreach and and safety outreach at Puffer spawned. I think that'll probably be in place again this year. So yeah that's a that's a good idea. One of the downsides of all this use is I am finding a tremendous amount of waste along the trails. Plastic waste, masks, things of that sort. So Brad's got his work cut out for him there. I will also say that Stephanie speaking of Brad and our field staff, Stephanie is one of the members of the search committee for the assistant land manager position and we had a tremendous response this year. Almost 50 applicants that probably doesn't surprise most people given the economy and the you know employment rates but almost 50 applicants and the search process is well underway and interviews are beginning. So we we hope to have I would say probably by the end of February my goal would be to have hired an assistant land manager and get some help for Brad out there. Lots of trees still down. You've probably seen them all over. Brad has done a nice job trying to clean some of those up at Large Hill and some of the other spots but there's still my guess is there's still probably 50 50 to 65 down trees over trails all over town. So we'll get caught up on those as soon as we have some some additional help. And feeding off of what Anna was saying the other place that there's obviously a lot of consternation just related to parking but I don't know that's an ongoing thing. I mean like Amethyst gets disgusting sometimes. Yeah I was by there the other day and I was just you could not fit a smart car in that parking lot. I mean it was it was just packed. Yeah they're parking along the road and yeah all sorts of creative places. Yeah I think it's just the unprecedented you know use it's just it's just wild how many people want to be out there and it's it's an outlet that they feel is safe and and we want to encourage them but they do need to be careful. I found out on Bay Road some of the access points to our land and the Mount Hoyok Range on Bay Road. People just pulling over by the side of the road and parking where they can. So we need to use some care and caution but that could go along with your suggestions on about just being smart about where you park and you don't want to get towed because some of those places are not safe. So thanks and I'll turn it over to Erin. Thank you Dave. So John Root is is going to be presenting like a five minute presentation on a proposal at the Hitchcock Center. So I'm going to go ahead and promote him to panelists and I believe Felix is also going to be it's John it's Felix right who's who's presenting with you okay yes I wanted to make sure okay I'll promote him to panelists as well right and then you guys can take it away. So I think I'd like Felix to start out he has a can you share a presentation? Mm-hmm yep and John if you and Felix can also just introduce yourselves very briefly I'd be great. Sure John Root I started a group called Amherst Area Friends of Pollinators and we've already begun work with supervision of the of the town of renovating the the pollinator gardens at the Old Hitchcock Center large hill area and there are a couple of different areas one the gardens surrounding the building and there's another large tract south of the building that we had started to do some selective clearing from and some planting as well and and Felix has been proposing community orchard in that in that same tract of land. Sure can can everyone hear me? Yes I agree um yep uh so seeing up with John here as part of a area 501c3 help yourself and we essentially promote and plant public access community orchards of varying size from little isolated trees to dozens of trees and the um there's some good potential over at large hill so we are proposing a a community access orchard of mixed species something like six to six to ten trees uh that we'd ideally plant this spring and then as they come to term uh folks from the community can harvest from them and uh we would you know maintain them with our volunteer pool and plant them with companion plants and all of these in addition to the number of pollinator plants that we hope to plant will uh in addition to supporting us people and humans uh support pollinators in other wildlife as well. They're um this file has that map in there right? So this is the pollinator garden I don't know is this is separate from um the other area or is this oh here we go I see planting area one right there was a even a former kind of derelict pollinator garden that right now is would fall under the yellow kind of dotted rectangle and then what we're proposing sort of revamps that add some fruit trees all in area one and then if that goes well uh it was definitely room to the south that both of us were interested in planting after our pilot project was deemed to be successful. And just to understand where this is this is the is that the trail on the left coming from the parking area down um into the hitch car into large hill? Okay Felix and John maybe I could jump in here I've had a couple of meetings with with uh John and and at least one meeting with Felix out there and Brad border week as well and um yeah I'm I'm very supportive of of you know kind of a pilot program out there John has been great he's been as he mentioned he's been uh working to try to bring back some of the lovely gardens that were part of the Hitchcock Center the former Hitchcock Center site around the building and as we looked at the site we really kind of zeroed in on planting area one as a logical spot for kind of a first phase of of the work that John and Felix proposed. I had I had recommended that we not do anything in what's called the construction area um I think in large part because we really don't know what what the fate of the old Hitchcock Center building is going to be and I really didn't want John and Felix and other volunteers to uh expend a lot of time energy and perhaps money planting there if that at some point if that building comes down they'll certainly need to be an area around it for demolition etc etc we just don't know the the fate of that building yet so it made sense to try to do something here it's a it's a prominent conservation area it's an area that has been lawn or open um for off and on for a long long time it has recently since John and Felix and I were out there uh fairly recently has been impacted by the uh the blowdown of two very large white pines so it's um it's a little bit uh it's a little bit challenging right now I know Brad has a plan for those white pines and and I'm supposed to talk with him about that tomorrow afternoon so it's a spruce and a pine and the spruce fell fell towards the the building and that's the one that that's in the way the the pine doesn't necessarily needed needed to be dealt with uh now that now that you've cleared the trail uh I also wanted to comment in the planting area one um the northern part of that area is where there's uh an old um uh garden bed a fairly fairly sizable garden bed uh that that's been that was overrun and we did quite a bit of clearing of that you know taking out brambles and uh there's also a lot of golden rod that kind of takes over there and but there's some there there's some really pretty high value pollinear plants already established there um so uh I think it makes sense to to continue with that project as well as the um uh so I just wanted to to suggest that perhaps we could look at planting area as uh the northern half and the southern half planting area one and and even uh considered planting area two moving into that somewhat with the uh with the community orchard if we want to if you want to follow my suggestion of maintaining that uh pollinary garden as as a garden and rather rather than having that uh be transformed into part of the community orchard again this is an area that has adequate parking it has its rail right next door it's fairly central to you know near downtown um and it gets a fairly fairly high amount of traffic foot traffic and and uh of course dog walking and and joggers run through there and I think it's part of the larger area of bramble hill um which over the past 10 years has really increased in terms of uh visitorship there so it seemed like a logical first step and and John and Felix um you know have presented a what I think is a reasonable starting point and so um a couple of comments or questions I mean one this sounds great um so a lot of good stuff going on here are there going to be any negative consequences to native plants that are already established there or are you going to do your best to maintain and enhance those we're looking mostly at lawn okay that's where where the community orchard is going to be okay and that we don't need any more of so okay um and in regards so I noticed that you are planning on native pollinator plants which is great uh what about the trees that you're planning on I assume that it looks like some of those are non-native have you thought about concentrating more on native trees or am I missing something uh we have um certainly some of them are the beech palms the juneberry erronea paw paw persimmon that kind of stuff we're limited a little bit by space um though it's though it's generous uh and thus we uh as we actually do in our other in most of our planting projects focus on semi dwarf uh size stop uh tree stalk and and um some of the native fruits are a little bit on the bigger side tree wise and uh you know we could only squeeze one or two of them in there uh in in instead we could do a good dozen or so of these semi dwarf ones and then we'll definitely and include what native berry bushes we can as well as the paw claws which I'm quite a fan of um regarding the the sort of obviously non-native ones the peach Asian pear and apples those are not really dispersive if we're thinking about like their impact into the larger ecosystem they feed pollinators native and introduced alike and are really um user friendly easy to identify easy to get excited about in terms of the public uh there's a little bit of sort of um uh it can be a little challenging to excite people about some of the more obscure and potentially bitter like or sour uh native berry so it's good to have some crowd pleasers in there and um uh at the same time we've we you know we recognize the importance of native so we we definitely like a mix and we were told that there might be some possibility of having some educational signage so should that ever transpire we can um we're also looking at this site as a teaching space and including all sorts of fun empowering inspiring ecology tidbits that absolutely will touch on uh the sort of complex um issues of native and introduced plants and and food plants and where they fit into that and so hopefully the real uh the real benefits of the site are I'm imagining the human takeaway and the passersby and the users of the space that the folks who walk the trail walk their dogs who see this sort of diverse planting sites uh as as part of a sort of common ecosystem that they're part of and participate in and by harvesting from it and learning about it and and maybe volunteering they sort of uh are nurtured in their sense of connection with the land and and maybe inspired to do something in their own backyard or garden or something like that that so hopefully the the impacts will be of the site will be beyond this smaller kind of modest geography okay great thank you um so Aaron and Dave or I should first say are there other commissioners who have thoughts or comments on this yeah um so then for Aaron and Dave is this more just for what are we trying to do tonight so I mean this is great I think there's a lot of positive things here obviously you know it's going to be a lot of work and give me some monitoring I'm sure things will change but are you is this more informational are you looking for a vote tonight I would like a vote um I think you know I think we're staff are supportive of of um moving in this direction I think the logical next step would probably be if the commission is favorable to moving forward is you know as we move into February um we could work on kind of an MOU with with John and Felix and whether it's a group or or or just the two of them we could work on kind of an MOU just a simple MOU that kind of outlines the parameters the area we'd have a map um and any of the you know expectations as you just uh elaborated on um Brett you know the the preference for as many natives as possible and and the general area and so that's I think what we're looking for and then um you know as as the weather turns a little bit we could also mark out the areas so that if commission members are there I did commit to John and Felix that I would find some money for signs so I think I can I can find some money for um I'm signed somewhere in the budget so I'm committed to doing that and as far as um maintenance of this area is concerned I assume that it's going to be no chemicals none of that sort of stuff I mean obviously this is all for pollinator so you know it's going to be very pollinator friendly so okay okay cool um is there anybody from the public so if there's anybody from the public who has a comment you can use a little raised hand icon okay if not I think we are looking for a motion um for us to support the public orchard and pollinator garden at Larch Hill I move that the conservation commission support the pollinator garden and orchard at Larch Hill second thank you so uh voice vote and just to be clear since we only have four commissioners tonight all four of us have to vote in favor of something otherwise it's not going to pass I don't think this one's contentious but who knows where we'll end up later so Anna I Leroy I Jen I and I for me as well so we are good Dave and John and Felix good luck sounds great and I look forward to visiting in the future thank you thank you and thanks Dave okay so um Aaron should we move on to our 730 or do you want to cover something else first um um no I think I think we should probably just jump jump right into it by the time we get our attendees in to the meeting and plans pulled up it'll probably be 730 okay so uh I'm not a co-host so I can't like let people in or out let me let me point you a co-host just in case so I think Meredith is here Meredith is there anybody else here with you tonight presenting on this um hi everybody uh Joseph everyone might be coming zooming in um not sure if he we have a Brian Beck and a Mary Anderson so I don't know those folks okay I might just be by myself so why don't we get moving and so this is a continuation of a notice of intent for 84 East Levitt Road and I know that there's been a little bit of back and forth and so Meredith you can just briefly introduce yourself again and then give us an update about where we're at hi yeah I'm Meredith Bornstein I'm working for myself under Divine Wetlands Consulting my the applicant is Joseph Amiwa he's the um engineer and contractor on this project it's a single family home on um a lot that was created off of 84 East Levitt Road and we were here a couple weeks ago just going over that um you know the driveway so it's across the street from Cushman Brook the driveway is the only area of impact in um and that's in the outer 200 foot riverfront area and we've had some back and forth we had some good feedback from the neighbors and Erin and we um updated the plans with some of your comments so I can go through those if you'd like all right I'll just share my screen we now have three sheets and they just got stamped so now everything I've sent you Erin you just throw away because we're gonna have new sheets so hang on one second um new sheets that are stamped okay so can everyone see this screen yes okay so one thing that came up last meeting was there was a question about the location of the riverfront area and was that based off of actual flagging and yes it was we just we didn't have the mean annual high water um flags shown so now see these little green it says MHW that's mean mean annual high and those are the flags that's Cushman Brook um so then you see that the then those were from the surveyor from when you guys approved the delineation he just brought them into this plan so these are surveyed and then the lines here indicate the 200 foot riverfront area and then the 100 foot riverfront area and then to orient you this is the there's an existing barn house and another house dwelling here and so north uh I should zoom out I'm sorry I jumped right into plan changes um so this is east leopard road and then there's an existing driveway here which we're going to be utilizing um but during construction that's going to be a gravel wash rack so that trucks going in and out don't track mud into the street so okay so the stream flags were one thing that we've added um the we added a riverfront mitigation area this is this square right here 1300 square feet and that's to compensate for this the driveway which is in the riverfront so we're proposing to plant 36 shrubs and I just put a list on here because I wasn't sure what was going to be available um I got the plants Aaron sent me a really nice document of um it was like pollinators poly shrubs that are good for pollinators so these all have flowers at some point um high bush blueberry new jersey tea shad bush raspberry um dogwood and or choke cherry so I was thinking based on availability they would choose a smathering of these of these plants um another comment that came up was how are they going to make sure they're not going to mow this area so we added boulders to the edge so that area can be marked permanently uh let's see oh yeah okay so a question came up about the driveway being um I had to be 12 feet wide because of a zoning bylaw so we did update the plan first we had it 13 feet wide and that was a little too big and then we made it 10 feet and it turns out that's too small for zoning so the happy medium is going to be 12 feet wide and um so that still gets us under 10 percent of the riverfront area on this prop on this parcel so we're still meeting performance standards for riverfront area and the zoning bylaw um we had talked about doing a grass swale and I didn't realize this before but the driveway is going to be a cut so we have we have a little cross section oh sorry it's on this one um the driveway is going to be a what it's not going to be a cut oh a cut a cut sorry yeah so there won't be this it's going to be a little bit of a slot a side slope and then a 12 foot wide drive paved driveway so we can't have a grass swale adjacent to the the driveway so um Meredith I'm just going to jump in here on a couple things that you're mentioning um just before I forget because of the change in the driveway width I'm going to need to see a revised application form that has the revised riverfront numbers and not proposed alteration numbers and then the restoration area included in there with as a replacement and then I guess for this what I'm wondering is so you're just envisioning that this is a sheet flow down this driveway you don't you're not concerned about that becoming uh I mean there's no there's no swale on either side of this driveway to capture water yeah so I think so it would just be sheet flow from the driveway alone because I forgot to add this other so all the roof drainage is going to be directed to the north I'm going to change plans um let me see where which sheet is on here um oh yeah this is yeah this is it um oh not that plan I'm sorry so we added here we go um roof drains to take the runoff when it rains from the house and direct it over here so I guess I'm envisioning clean just rain water going down the driveway um so what's going to happen in the winter with snow storage I mean how um I mean there's no place to push snow on either side of the driveway because it's going to be inside of a like a embankment on either side and there's no swale on either side to provide any kind of storage of any sort for water or anything like that I just envision this becoming like uh I mean it's not a conservation issue but I'm just wondering I mean or I guess is the snow going to be taken off site that seems like a plow truck wouldn't do that I don't know well I would envision they would just I mean I'm not a plow person but they would plow it and plow it up here where it's going to be flat um is that flat though isn't that a hillside it's going to be carved into the house will be the the area up here will be leveled out okay um and yeah I should find out what well I guess now they have like what these people do they um if their driveway is flat flush with the it's not going to be a steep embankment let me go back to the profile so I'm not it's not like a huge cut um he's imagining it's just a yeah it's a one-to-one so that just should be a foot on either side so I would think the snow would be able to just go on either side you know it's not like a six foot wide a six foot tall slope or anything um sorry this is my first time seeing at like actually being able to look at these plans because they just came in last night so I'm just just thinking you know as we're looking at them so yeah I totally understand and if you guys need more time to review that's okay too since we didn't get them in until last night Erin could I could I interject are you looking at that driveway and the and the design from a from a jurisdictional standpoint of the commission or just hearing standpoint practically speaking well it's really up to the applicant right well from a from a water standpoint I guess it concerns me um you know that it's going to be I mean so so here's what I see like if if there's no way to get the snow off the driveway then what's going to happen it's going to turn into an ice sheet and then what's going to happen they're going to be out there with ice melt and sand and salt and everything else and then when it washes down it's going to go right into those catch basins at the bottom of the hill and then right into the river so like from a practicality standpoint yeah I'm like it's it's ringing a bell for me but like it's more so like what the impact of that would be ultimately be the you know because it's it does go up a slope that driveway and it's you know it's a pretty good pitch down to where the catch basins are so mm-hmm and we do have conditions in our boiler plate about not using certain types of ice melts and salts and things so I just trying to think about that now present yeah particularly because yeah I'm glad I um maybe I can pull up some photos of the hill and see I mean it's not a this it's a gradual hill you know it's not um like a vertical slope but I get that snow storage could be an issue do you have any thoughts on alternatives well I mean I think having a small grassed swale on either side of the of the driveway is is always a good idea anyways I mean any any road driveway that you see that doesn't have some kind of country drainage built into it turns into an issue with water because there's nowhere for the water to go other than down the driveway and in the winter time it's where what's going to happen is it's just ice and seeing as that's in a riverfront area that's really kind of my big concern but I mean we we could say snow storage has to be up by the house um you know in in the turnaround area um here it does look like on one set of plans that the turnaround is within the 200 foot but on the other set it's outside of the 200 foot that little turnaround pad up at the top and it did kind of look like there was two separate configurations of that maybe yeah that looks different than the other one see like the turnaround looks like it's partially within 200 feet there but on the other plan it's shown differently am I the only one seeing that yeah I know I mean you're seeing it I just I think he was trying to maybe show something else but do you but do you see what I mean the driveway footprint there with the turnaround is extending into the 200 foot versus on the other plan it looks different it's shown outside of the 200 foot on the other plan that you were just toggling yeah see it's shown outside it's like the riverfront line moved or the pad moved for where the driveway is going yeah the pad looks a little different between the two of mine I mean it's it's it's a small difference but it's I mean what's what is the difference I guess I'm wondering there and in terms of snow storage it does you know the other driveway is shown as bigger I mean it's outside of jurisdiction but it's just a different configuration and bigger and this one shows driveway I think this is showing this like the stairs going up to the second level okay let me see my look at the other I don't know these are all different and I didn't I didn't do the plan so I don't I don't know why they are I think we're just trying to show different things in each on each sheet but nonetheless we would still be under the 10 percent so 10 percent of the riverfront area all the property is 1,670 feet so with a 12 foot driveway we had 1,200 about 1,274 so even if here where's the other little thing was this little corner was in the riverfront but that's not going to be 400 feet 400 square feet but it was my understanding that this was the ultimate this was the way out because they want to pull into their garage and be able to turn around and maybe we put on here like snow storage has to go up here yeah and yeah and you can't use that I mean they're going to have a garage so they don't need to turn around well your car is not going to be covered with snow I don't know I think that but they can always push it off of the pavement too I guess so then it's on lawn and doesn't so it has time to infiltrate hopefully don't don't want it right next to their well though maybe they do anyway yeah I mean that I think that adding a designated snow storage area would be it would be a good solution and also as long as we condition the you know that they're aware that in that area that there's going to be restrictions on the types of things they can use for snow I mean for ice control on that driveway and Meredith do you know why a so I see in the in the plan that there's a cut but do you know why it needs to be a cut and there can't be a swale there as well I think he's just based on the grades um but to Brett's point could he grade in a swale so cut so angle it back and gentle or slope or have that steep cut wider out and then you know further out from the driveway and then make room yeah I mean I think these guys are all making excellent points because what I see happening here is water coming down that driveway going on either side of the driveway washing out gullies on either side of the driveway and then you've got erosion kind of happening yeah I could see it as a water quality concern heading into kushman brook sedimentation um but I mean the degradation of the driveway and this water quality issue go hand in hand so it's probably to the best interest of the applicant to think about controlling erosion and and allowing for slowing the velocity of water heading down that driveway even if it was a narrow stone swale on either side or something to capture it because I mean I'm assuming it's not going to be perfectly flat it's probably going to be you know something like this where there's like a slight peak in the middle of the um of the driveway so water is going to sheet flow off on either side yes I think what we're asking for is if we can get some feedback from the engineer on what is feasible with the road that'd be very helpful and some alternatives and maybe there's something that we don't understand and it's not feasible but it seems like there should be some possibility and I would be surprised where if if that's not what the applicant was thinking of doing anyway and that's and the standard the section that they put in for the driveway is just kind of super duper standardized yeah I wouldn't be surprised if you say really no no swale on the side and he'll say oh yeah you know so we just need to see that because I think it it would be pretty standard practice right and Meredith you said for the 12 foot wide driveway the alteration was 1274 square feet yes I think that's what I wrote down okay we have a little chart here's my chart here we go yeah just 12 12 foot driveway 12 foot yeah it's 1274 okay so maybe they was thinking you couldn't squeeze it in under the 10 riverfront area but I don't would that matter because it's a grassed swale it's not being paved so that wouldn't count right towards being a permanent impact I mean if it was like a stone on either side I would say it would count but if it's a natural vegetated swale and and what I would recommend is I mean what what I think would function the best is something that's not just like a a deep swale that somebody's you know going to drive into but more like a very low grade you know very low grade swale that kind of runs alongside the driveway that they could just grade in to capture the water and it would almost act as a water quality swale that they could just mow with their lawn mower if that's all being maintained as grass as you know lawn yeah it's almost like the driveway needs to be shown as 14 feet but just a swale on either side right rather than a slope what a one foot no that's not gonna work well two foot wide grass swale on either side added to this cross section and you would still have a side a little bit of a side slope but um it won't be very still going to be a foot so that's not tall so that seems like a good solution yeah and I mean quite frankly you could even put plantings you know if you you could do grasses and plantings inside it um that were you know oh rather than the mitigation area well no I'm saying um in addition I mean yeah if you're calling it it's it's tricky because it's not a storm water structure right but it's it's it's a benefit to the site it's a benefit to the riverfront area but but there are native grasses that are you know better than using just like a like a standard grass seed mix that you could put in there like a a conservation mix that would you could still mow but that would provide some value and then and some stabilization um and I think that would be something I would look at as not being a adverse riverfront impact it would be like a you know a water quality swale with some potential habitat value and would still be able to get have a good amount of snow sitting on it throughout the winter yeah okay I have yeah I get it great I have a good report back well I'll have to get Joseph to update the plan again um was there anything else I mean does anybody have any comments on the planting area that seems in line with what we talked about last time with the addition of the stone so thank you for that oops I'm zooming in there we go yep and that mix seems yep anything native and yeah that's all great I just want to um go to my notes on the um from the last meeting um and we will open it up to the public in just a minute so and the the paver issue um I guess there was there was a concern that that wasn't going to work on the slope is that right Mary are you getting plowed can you plow pavers um I think there was a concern about that and then maintenance as well yeah and you can't can't sand them right oh that's pretty that's yeah sand pavers probably not impervious yeah you do have to use I think a vacuum periodically like the vacuum truck sweeper on them periodically to keep them clean um but yeah I mean everything I have like um I mean I could do a little share screen but basically we were talking about downspouts directed on the north side of the house grading of the driveway to sheet flow north away from the property um the properties to the south and and so I mean my recommendation would be to keep that swale on the north side of the property to catch the flow just to keep the water from being directed down the slope towards the neighbors um but um I think the main goal is to keep the water clean and to keep it on your property um and then um there was a concern about potentially if a groundwater seep was exposed in the course of construction since there's a cut happening in that hillside that if that comes about that it's something that um corrective action would have to be taken to address it there's a question about the stamp and obviously we've got a stamp on it and it's a it's an engineer stamp or a surveyor stamp yep it's an engineer civil engineer okay perfect okay and then top of bank flags were added um pervious pavers I guess were ruled out as an option stones were added to demarcate the restoration area and that there's a note that it's um it'll be conditioned that it's undisturbed in perpetuity and then the riverfront flags I think I already mentioned were picked up so those are the comments and so it sounds like like most of the comments or all of the comments were addressed with the exception of that swale issue okay okay so um do any other commissioners have any comments if not I want to open up to the public real quick okay so if there's anybody from the public who would like to comment or have anything they'd like to add you can use the raise hand feature should I stop sharing or sorry sure okay I think we're good I didn't mean to talk so okay so I'm not seeing anything um so it sounds like Meredith that there is some additional you know feedback that we would like particularly related to the swale so if you can get back in touch with um with erin or with the town that would be great and then yeah hopefully next time we can move forward on this okay yeah great I will update the plan again okay and so so the swale and snow storage too just maybe designate that snow storage area and Meredith if it would be at all possible to get it to get the revised plan by the 5th of February okay just so that we have a chance to review it in advance that way we can be prepared to potentially approve it on the February 10th meeting got it yep every fifth that's enough time for you Meredith oh yeah we'll make it enough time I'm not updating the plans but I will I'll put the order in sounds good so erin can you give us a time and date that we're looking for yep so February 10th at 7 40 p.m okay so looking for a motion for continuation no to continue sharing to February 10th at 7 40 p.m second thank you so Jen hi Anna hi all right hi and hi from me as well so we will see you then Meredith okay thank you so much have a good night you too bye bye thanks okay so we are moving on to our 7 35 which is the Amherst college but they have a request for continuation and so are we looking for what time are we looking for that one erin um so that would be February 10th at 7 30 p.m I have a point of order question if I'm abstaining from this because I work for them can we still do the things is an abstain still counts no so I can't vote on this one correct but but I think I think per open meeting law and Dave correct me if I'm wrong but one person could theoretically announce a continuation if there wasn't a quorum I thought that continued kind of either way it's just whether or not we vote to do it or not and we can't so we can't vote to do it so we just automatically do it well I think that we might as well go ahead and vote um yeah I mean just kind of administrative thing at this point and not much else that we can do so I know that we've in the past when like for example if they're if we didn't have a quorum and this was like in a in a open meeting venue like in a town hall that if the con if we knew there was no quorum and con com members didn't make it I would literally sit there and if anybody showed up I'd say the hearings continued to this day at this time and that was sufficient but um yeah yeah it's not like we could vote on anything tonight anyway so right exactly that'd be even worse so okay so um looking for a motion for a continuation from anybody but Anna I'm going to continue the Amherst College hearing to February 10th is it 745 730 730 I think you're the second Jen second then okay so Jen I the Roy I Anna Dane and I for me as well so okay so a little funny there but I don't know we're good okay Erin um so what would you like to move on to next um so if we could jump to Beth Wilson I'll make her a promote her to panelists and she'll just do a brief presentation on the faringbrook um on the faringbrook project for us hello Beth and you just have to hit the unmute button so hi hi okay can everybody hear me I'm using my kid's uh microphone and I'm not quite sure it's like a handset but you have to hold it's great yeah you're a little soft but we can hear you all right I'll just talk really loud um how is everybody good good how are you I'm good I'm good um yeah which is this is just an informal discussion for Fearingbrook you all are pretty familiar with this project I know Brett and Jen are I'm not sure about Anna as much but um yeah we are hoping to submit it for the hearing on the first meeting in March if we can get to that point but anyway this is just sort of an informal discussion to get comments from you guys on the plan set so that I can make any changes in the next two weeks before submitting the application um this is going to be submitted as a ecological restoration limited project um so you know a lot of the application is really going to be explaining what that means and meeting the thresholds of of being that kind of a limited project today I just wanted to go through the plan set and go through sort of the specifics of the design of the project with you and see if you have any comments on it um so Erin's got the plan set up and yeah so that's that's the site we can go to the next sheet yeah so this sheet shows the limit of work um there's a an area on the south side of Fearingbrook and then there's a area on the north side of Fearingbrook where there's going to be work being done this is the area where there's going to be the floodplain restoration this is going to be a stormwater drainage improvement that's included in the project but this is just a good view of where the project is going to be and sort of the extent of the project this area is about 40 feet by um 450 feet um this is I'm not sure the area but this is basically it's an area that doesn't drain very well um this is part of our elementary school soccer field softball field um low area that tends to hold a lot of water causing issues the soccer field and then what's happened is um drainage during storm events has actually caused quite a bit of erosion on the bank of Fearingbrook so we're including that in the project primarily because a preliminary review by DEP um commented on the erosion of the bank there and wanted to see this included in the project um but anyway that's about all that that sheet really shows so why don't we go to the next sheet all right so this sheet um this is just existing conditions um so there's not too much to really talk about on this sheet either next sheet all right so this sheet shows um the area that's going to be cleared which is this hatched area this sheet shows the erosion control which is going to come along all the edge here the compost filter tube is proposed for that um this sheet shows the stockpile area which um we talked about is sort of flexible that's going to be dependent a lot on where community gardens parking and what happens this summer this but there is going to be a stockpile area on the site tracking pad um and this may be a good point to sort of talk about the progression of the project um the idea would be that they would clear this area first um they would put down erosion control they would clear the area then any in-stream work they have to do which there's some boulder clusters and some core log um locations along the bank that would all get done before they do any excavating of the floodplain area um because vehicles are going to need to get across here to get in to do the wet work so that's kind of how the construction sequence is going to go then once the wet work is done erosion control would get closed up again and then they could start the actual excavating of the floodplain area removal removal of soil from the site um comeback grade topsoil um do all the plantings um and the seeding so that's just sort of a sequence and I thought this the sheet shows that well um we can go to the next sheet Aaron so this sheet shows the locations of the boulder clusters and the core logs um and you can see here where the the trail that we have found at Fort River Farm right now is going to get moved a little bit to the south it's going to get reconstructed regraded um and then the grading lines for the floodplain project um like I said 40 feet wide and you can look at the lines but the the depths depending on the location and the long here is generally zero to three feet of um material is going to get removed it's going to be about 2000 cubic yards of soil total is uh going to be removed from the site is a the screen is really small on my screen so I can't quite see um okay next sheet she's right so this sheet shows the work that's going to happen on the north bank which is it's going to be a vegetated swale with a with a perforated pipe coming through um again the swale at its widest is four feet or so um and it's to try to get some of the ponding that's happening in this area to drain um drain down into it's kind of it's kind of an outfall and just to improve the drainage over there is that a level spreader at the outlet there Beth yeah okay there's a stone pipe end to it and it's more of a of a basin you know a vegetated basin mm-hmm well I have about that right now and this is the planting plan there's uh planting of trees and shrubs I think there's 12 um see the numbers let me pull it up online there's what 20 or so trees proposed I believe um a number of shrubs um and then and then general seeding uh to really create this flood plain so you know the idea is that to lower the bank there's still there will still be a low level bank to keep the channel in place there still will be a stream channel um but the bank on this side is is obviously going to be a lot lower than it is right now so that during storm events um the water's going to be able to flow into this area and and slow down and the sediment's going to settle and all the vegetation and the soil bacteria are going to be able to really absorb the contaminants that are coming down the you know the sediment itself but also nutrients and bacteria that are in that storm water that's the whole idea of the flood plain creation um and so these plantings are are very important to the project and if you look through in the list it's a nice list of um wetland plants and yeah we're going right up to the edge of the Fort River I think I forgot to mention earlier that when they are doing the in-stream wet work um there will be erosion control you know down at this end protecting the Fort River and we need to talk about that a little bit but we are going to propose something so you said there's going to be vehicles in the water yeah I think we're asking the same question sorry yeah are they working in the wet or are you diverting flow bath they're working in the wet just to place these boulder clusters the proposed boulders are um 24 inch diameter boulders so they're so they're they're big and so I'm assuming um that some kind of a vehicle's going to have to get down there be it just a backhoe or something to carry those rocks down there um so so I'm going to have you know we're going to have them do that before they start excavating in here just to try to limit um you know limit or limit erosion and destruction of the area but it's really just placing those rock clusters and there's there's three of them and building up the core logs they have um they have like a rock toe to them the core logs but those boulders are smaller than these boulders are but there is just a little bit of work in the stream and right on on the bank um that should happen basically before they start doing any any of the excavating so I guess to follow up on Jen's question is there going to be some something actually in um faring brook to like a turbidity curtain or something to prevent sediment that's stirred up from getting into the fort yeah I'd like to see something like that right right down at the end closer to the fort river okay and I mean it depends on the time of work right so when they get to do this project if it's a low flow season it might not be an issue but sometimes on projects like this you'll see like a little bit of like a like a natural stone dam just to divert flow onto the far bank while they place those boulders um it's pretty unusual that they would just like be on the bank with an excavator and they're gonna want to be in the dry to place those boulder clusters I know they are so it's just a matter of like where how you do redirect flow during that time I think yeah um well we will be doing it uh the expected date is starting September so September to November ish so it is definitely low flow um again throughout the this plan set there's a number of discussions written in about being aware of the weather that's coming up and taking all precautions for for erosion but you know if the water is high enough they may just not be able to put the boulder clusters in at that time I if you go out to Faringbrook there are some days when the flow the flow is pretty low um yeah I've seen it I've seen it roaring and I've seen it trickling it really depends yeah very flashy yeah I yeah I'm surprised they don't want to put something on the SNEC plan just showing how they're going to divert the flow when they're placing the boulder clusters they probably have thought about it I don't see it on the plans they're also really hard to get to load on my computer so it's possible it's in one of the notes and I just literally can't see it but it might be worth mentioning to them I'm sure they thought about it yeah I know it's definitely not in the plan set but it is okay we can talk more about and like we can you know we can include something about you know but obviously we'll be accessing from this side so if if there is a way then I'm sure there is that we can you know divert the flow sort of around where the boulder clusters are generally going to be placed centrally in the stream channel we can divert the water around those those few areas while we're doing it right the other thing is they might have a note in there that says like they'll you know probably the on-site engineer is going to make a call about where they put the boulder clusters so maybe they'll being able to work in the dry will be part of that decision too um yeah yep yeah those are things yeah we should talk talk a little bit more about that and have have that figured out by the time we come to our hearing all right next slide this slide is really uh shows all the resource areas um so it's got riverfront on it it's got um BLSF on it it's got the buffer zone lines on it and it's got the impact volume quantities on it too which again i'm so small i can't really see but so these are impact numbers for BLSF and riverfront and again because it's a limited project you know we are we are allowed to to hit some of these higher numbers um one thing this reminds me of is that just if you're people are thinking of other uh permitting that had to be done um we're not hitting any of the MEPA thresholds so we don't have to file with MEPA we're also not impacting over 5 000 um square feet of land underwater so there's no water quality cert required we are submitting to the army corps we're in the process of probably getting that done this week so really the notice of intent and getting the notice of intent to natural heritage um is is the primary permitting and i don't know if you guys are aware but with the ecological restoration project you actually have to submit to natural heritage before you submit the NOI to the concom for sort of a preliminary review so part of the NOI application that you guys will get will have that natural heritage preliminary review that might be helpful okay next slide this slide um basically shows the planting plan again but it shows where the cross sections are that are um in the upcoming slides that that we can look at yeah so these are the cross sections sort of shows you at you know different areas of the stream what's actually being excavated um you can tell them that those the slopes change a little bit um you know right here there's there's there's still going to be more of a bank even after the project is done there'll be more of a little edge of a bank and then the choir logs and the rock rock toes are also sort of meant to reinforce and create a little bit of a bank whereas at this cross section you get more of a slope and the water will more easily flow into the floodplain well those are all interesting they show the um 100 foot floodplain elevation which is that um I think it's about 171 and a half or so is that elevation and so then you can see how that's that's all going to change with the project how that's going to change but how we're going to get um good good flow with even like the 10-year storm yeah and then this this is really just a site access construction slide um we've already talked a bit about how speaking with property owners a budding property owners may change a little bit of how this looks um when the project actually happens I don't this gate's not going to be there um and we may be accessing a little bit differently but there certainly will be a construction pad um and we will tie and limit erosion we're going to harden the road here most likely harden this patch up to where the um pavement starts I think it's more of a gravel parking lot there between the gravel parking lot and the limit of work is a grass area that we're going to have to access through and so we're going to harden that up a bit and these are just the specs on the filter tube so fence will probably go around the stockpile soil stockpile area and the tracking path and those erosion control blankets would be on the on the bank until the veg gets established is that kind of yep nice gets into the specifics about powder it's very detailed it's great gets into the details on how they're going to lay out the boulder clusters so that they're pointing in the right direction with water flowing in this direction of a point toe um gets into all of those details about how those things will be constructed and this project will get it's going to get contracted out and um we're looking for environmental company similar to Malone in my room or somebody to be the oversight for the project so that's about it so we're just looking for any comments that you all have uh no comments personal observation looks like we just lost jen so maybe he's coming back on but um but i was actually i do have comments but um that was so um i think that's really impressive bet it looks like you guys have thought out a lot of details um and yeah the overall on the system should be really nice it's gonna be good yeah my major improvements red i had a couple of quick comments one is that i've been in touch with um brian yellen who's a professor at umass and brian is actually interested in kind of studying before and after um i don't know the specifics but he's he's considering seeking some grant funding to to kind of look at before and after conditions in this area in the focus area that that beth just described so i'm going to be talking with him in the next couple of days and see you know kind of more specifics on that but you know any data collection that we can do um would be kind of interesting to see uh i think he wants to focus on water quality the other thing i was going to mention is beth we're we're still having conversations stefanie who is coordinating uh some of the farming activities at for river farm erin and beth and i still having conversations about um you know aspects of this project which um are relate to for instance parking at the community garden so so that's there's still some things to be determined on that beth is that accurate yeah i think so um right we we met the other day about it yeah we need to still figure out you know where that stockpile area is going to go and then right we had talked about doing something more to the um to the west there um right along the fence line and having that be the stockpile area and having this project sort of harden that which then that area would convert into the parking area once this project's over um and we'll look at yeah we'll look at some of the the the threshold or the challenge is really comp storage and this project that beth described the faring group project will create a lot of um compensatory storage right because you'll be excavating the bank the accumulated bank there so we're gonna we're gonna look at that in the next month or so you said there were you're gonna your target submittal is when beth middle of february or yeah we're shooting for the first meeting in march so now that i know that you have to submit three weeks ahead of time um it's it's in the next couple weeks yep okay great just those couple of things and we'll be doing quite a bit of outreach um we're gonna have to talk to folks on the school side we'll be talking to some of the abutting landowners on the way in there's still some access um issues that we need to clarify so but it's exciting and stephanie is has been working on the community gardens and we are making progress on those as well in fact some raised bed gardens are being uh fabricated in the next couple of weeks so exciting stuff happening yeah that's great um just on a note with with brian yellen um cindy del papa so she's with uh d-e-r and we're partnering with her she actually had reached out to a woman anna martini who works at amherst college about just getting college kids involved in the faring book project and anna responded that she was working with brian on what you're talking about and so um we're gonna send cindy and i are actually gonna have a phone conversation with them tomorrow with brian and anna about the sampling that they want to do um in the faring book you know i i don't know much about it i'm not sure where along the faring book they're proposing to do it but i think it's through anna's hydrogeology class this spring um so that could be great like you said it could provide data before the project and after the project and then also depending on where else along the book they um want a sample it's just more more data on the faring book which is really great yeah and as the commission well knows i mean 2020 was not a good year for a lot of things but it was not a good year for water quality in the fort river um and you know i would just put an asterisk near that because in my years with the town last summer was the first time we were sampling and and really looking at the fort river more closely so i say that the water quality was not good in 2020 but i have no idea really what it was like prior to that because we weren't sampling so but what we did find is very high bacteria counts at particularly jump bridge at stanley street which is just downstream not not very far from where the faring meets the fort so um it's probably not a huge leap to say the faring is a major contributor to you know um some of the the certainly some of the more significant pollution in the fort so anything we can do to clean up the faring i think is a good thing so more data more data and then we gotta figure out how we address some of those issues so jumping from that comment the only thing little piece i'd add is so i think the water quality is is a really important thing to get a handle on but to do that really well you also have to monitor flow like discharge the amount of water that's coming through the system and what's super relevant here is the velocity of the water so not only how much but how fast is it going because the compensatory compensatory storage or creating more floodplain storage the idea is it slows down flow you know and so you have these hydric species that are saturated for longer periods of time stronger bank less erosion less sediment in the system you should have a grading sediments so um i i'm happy to help in in my capacity as a you know usds hydrologist if that makes any sense um in any way but that's one thing when you're looking at research plans for monitoring conditions before and after that's one thing i would like it sounds so easy but it's it's not always easy and sometimes i think it's looked over and then later you're like wait we have these discrete water quality samples but you can't measure the loading like the total amount because you don't have the total amount of flow um yeah i know that that's good to know because i i don't know what what she's planning for her yeah class i know they're doing it this spring which is a little doesn't match up quite with when we're doing our project you know our project is september november but still if um they can get some background um you know that i don't know what they're sampling for but and actually you know we we did do um melona mic room did a basis of design report for this project where they really did a in-depth look at hydrology and flows and all that that's kind of what the sizing of the floodplain project is based on that study but um but i hear what you're saying in the next fall when it's happening when we're doing the project or right after the project happens if we can monitor changes in flow you know from the project that was created would would be really great maybe we can get another class to do more work next fall yeah yeah um yeah and so then i had i'm sorry i dropped off for a second because my computer battery died so i'm sorry if i like missed when we were talking about feedback on the specs and the plans but just like two small thoughts if if i may um one is the root wads where you guys get did you say where you're gonna get the root wads like the big trees with root wads for those those in bank yeah we're we're gonna try and reuse um on sites because we're doing so much clearing and there are yeah big trees so that we're gonna try to reuse yeah okay yeah so one thing i was thinking about on that is that so like you know climate change in new england we're seeing more of both extremes like more intense floods but also more intense droughts and one thing i noticed when i look at those plans is that they look like they're real they're really well designed for the high flows um to reduce kind of sheer forces on the bank reduce erosion slow flow um which is great but we also have these periods as you guys know in the fearing but increasingly kind of hydrochromatically a really really low flow so one thing i don't see in there is like a cross typical section that allows for kind of enough heterogeneity to have pool kind of riffle structure in the stream itself um so that might be worth asking them like if there's any plan for helping or like accelerating kind of arm ring of the bank and things that would encourage habitat you know connected habitat at low flow um because those root wads chances are for most of the year will be high and dry you know um so and then the other thing i was thinking along those lines is if you can use sycamores or there's like a few species of like our big flood plain trees that grow around here that will stump sprout so not only will they have that really cool like structural integrity on the bank they also will create more vegetation so at low flow you can have more shading over the stream um so that's one thing to think about is like look for um london plains or sycamores or poplars will stump sprout a lot of them um so maybe worth thinking about for when when you're harvesting those big trees for the root wads well i'm trying to remember if we have any sycamores out there yeah we should yeah i know i know um downstream there are on the fort river yeah yeah but so yeah like the low flow design there i think is um i don't see it reflected in the plans that well and i think it would be a good thing to think about so your your meaning in in channel in stream channel improvements to i mean i realize when i say that it means it's it's interpreted i mean if they're already going in for the random boulder clusters then like just make sure it's not going to end up in a situation where we float slow down flow so much it's just dropping a bunch of sand and then at low flow it's going to be one continuous very very low like very homogenous habitat situation yeah because we know in in the fort river there's you know a really healthy ecology in some places so the chance you know the hope would be right that you if you build it they will come um but in order to do that you have to kind of establish kind of some heterogeneity of the bed form in beringbrook yeah yeah that's good and that the those guys will know yeah yeah yeah megan will know yeah exactly yeah her yes okay sounds good thank you i just thank you jen but that was like there's a whole course that was amazing thank you they're my computer battery working so is there anybody from the public who would like to comment on this okay so anything else from the commission or do you have what you need at this point beth and you'll be um formally submitting in a few weeks yeah no those were some great great comments and and sorry if i was a little vague with the presentation but like i said we're we're still sort of developing um the narrative and and the rest of it so but um yeah i just that would be helpful to share the plans and yep good comments yep and it's always great to see it before it's formally submitted so that's great thank you all right yeah and if anybody has any more um comments that they think i'll feel free to email me sounds good thank you beth all right thanks have a good night good night okay maren what should we move on to um yeah so uh i'm gonna go in kind of a funky order but i think uh it'll just help us to move a little faster um so i'd like to start with this emergency certification request um this is a basically just under our bylaw it was one tree in the buffer zone uh located at 22 Hawthorne road they got a arborist out there the tree was leaning over their home um it's a really large tree and they requested to have it removed because it was a hazard to the house so um i got the go ahead from dave that it's okay to issue and um just looking for the board to ratify that order or that um emergency certification okay that makes sense um i just want to also note that there are at least a couple people here who i think are here for can ab so if we did that one soon too yeah yeah we can maybe jump to that one next okay okay so um yep and so they had that letter from the arborist it looked like yeah yeah and i did condition it they did um spread some wood chips around the base of the tree but it was all outside of the wetland um and then there was some other trees that were blown down in the yard that were where the um the stumps were tipped up and they just cut the tree and the stumps fell back into place so but those ones are already dead and down so it was just this one tree that they got approval for okay that makes sense to me i don't see any issues does anybody else no i was going to make the motion please ready to jump um i i moved that the conservation commission ratified the emergency certification at 22 Hawthorne road seconded okay jen hi maroy hi i know hi and i we are good on this one okay so yeah all right so let's jump to enforcement um so i'm there's a couple enforcement updates but um there's there's nothing substantive for me to share on canton ave really uh the board had basically kind of taken a no action stance on this one um at the last meeting and i mostly just added it as an administrative follow-up because um the order of conditions expires on february 23rd and um there was some back and forth about whether or not we should reach out to the landowner and condition that they need to make take some actions as far as the outstanding enforcement prior to that expiration date if they want a continuance or if we would again take a no action standpoint and just kind of not proceed with any communication until they reach a point of expiration and so i just wanted to follow up and make sure because um um you know it's a it's a big deal to have it expire for them and then have to come back and refile and also because um there's been no action on the enforcement and um that's also a big issue i think we should stay the course yeah i'm fine with that as well um yeah and so i mean i guess one thing will be what happens if there is no movement on the enforcement though yeah and i was going to actually recommend that if there is no action on the enforcement that once the order of conditions expires on the 23rd that we notify the landowner in writing that finding will begin if action is not taken by a certain date um because we do have that authority under the local bylaw um i believe it's finding up to three hundred dollars a day and i just know for a fact that they could get a surveyor out there and and start addressing this right now and they're not so yeah okay so i think yeah we had no action last time it sounds like we have no action again this time um okay so you guys want to just kind of cross that bridge when we come to it okay that's totally fine by me i know there's a couple um of butters um that have reached out to me since the last meeting and i see a couple of them on i don't i'm i think they were just kind of wanting to be you know see if there was any updates but i don't want to speak for them if yeah so if anybody is on the call from the public who would like to speak if you just raise your hand and there's nothing you want to say at this point that's fine as well obviously okay um so i'm not hearing or seeing anything so yeah i think we are good on can now i'm ready for the next one okay so um as an as a follow-up there was um some tree cutting that was reported on 562 south pleasant street it's been a real um task trying to get in touch with those folks i was i tried stopping by twice knocking on the door no one came to the door even though those cars there then i finally was able to track down a phone number um and i've left several messages and finally got a call back this afternoon um so i'll just kind of give a an overview of the conversation so first it was um one of the owners that i spoke to and she denied that there had been any cutting on the site other than a hazard tree that had been removed last year and i said well i was out on the property line where it meets the dpw barn and i did document several trees that had been cut in the wetland and at that point i was turned over to the other homeowner who admitted that there was cutting and they said they were trying to improve the land and improve the aesthetics of the land and um you know they're they are i don't believe english is their first language so there was a little bit of a you know they're not maybe not um aware of the law um in massachusetts perhaps they they did not know that there was any wetlands laws they the guy said basically oh i thought it was my property i could do whatever i wanted um and then kind of went on to say well can we fill in with some dirt can we do additional work and i was like absolutely not um i got his email address and basically said you can come forward with a plan to replant the trees that have been cut as an option or you can file an after-the-fact permit um and come before the concom for you know because it sounds like they wanted to do more back there um but i sent him um all of the regulations i sent him a list of consultants um i think it was one of those situations where they maybe didn't know but then when they got the letter from me certified letter from me and also phone calls and follow-ups that they realized something they had done something wrong and um so anyways so i'm trying to work with them to to resolve it without an enforcement order um um and i asked them to basically via email to provide um some comment to us by way of response let me just see what the date was on that uh the 5th of february so i asked them to respond by february 5th via email with are you filing a permit are you replanting and if you are replanting what species are you replanting and where and i also requested a site visit once um the snow is no longer on the ground so that's an update on that one um some of you may have seen um 214 palmeric um palmery lane this is the poor farm property um so you may recall the last meeting there was some talk about the deadlines they did end up meeting the deadline which is great for a submission of an initial plan the initial restoration plan was basically replanting of blueberries in nothing but blueberries in the wetland and the riverfront area that had been cleared and grubbed so my response back was basically you know planting a monoculture crop in resource areas um for agricultural purposes by as a means of restoration is not going to work and that they had to come up with a more comprehensive plan with diverse species and you know overstory understory um and some some herbaceous options as well and that um they could include blueberries in those plantings but they couldn't just exclusively plant a blueberry crop in there so they agreed and they said they're coming back with revisions so that's where that stands and just double checking oh um the cr for dave i think we need to look at and other than that i don't have any additional business so let me pull that up okay and let me so so really this isn't the cr itself it's the assignment of the conservation restriction so the conservation restriction this is on a property um it's off of southeast street it's not visible from southeast street but it's a conservation restriction that was put into effect uh i think back in 2009 and essentially let me just pull up one document here on my phone um is um in essence um kestrel is they're transferring their assets from what they were before which was a charitable trust and they've become a non-profit corporation so this is really um nothing changes about the conservation restriction the town of amherst through the conservation through you is a co-holder of the cr with the kestrel trust formally a charitable trust now that they've become a non-profit corporation they need to move their assets an asset being an interest in land which is a conservation restriction from the old charitable trust to the new non-profit corporation so in your packet were the official um the official assignment of conservation restriction and this really it doesn't even really appear to need a vote i mean we could take a vote but it's really authorizing brett as chair to sign the assignment of conservation restriction from for the town of amherst so that's it's really a a fairly minor legal document that we're going to do once and never do again because they only become a non-profit corporation once from their former legal um legal um they were a charitable trust now they're becoming a non-profit corporation so they have to do this with all of their crs that they hold in any town every town in i think they have an 18 town um focus area now 18 or 19 towns nothing changes about the cr the land is protected in perpetuity it's just now protected by both the town of amherst through the conservation commission and the kestrel trust as a non-profit corporation so david a motion would be to authorize brett to sign off on the assignment of conservation restriction and i would i would maybe put in the motion um assign me yeah exactly those words and then assignment of conservation restriction for um you know one one one for southeast street and then we could insert in the motion later the you know the the book and page from the assignment the assignment itself erin okay we would just need somebody to make that motion second and then authorize brett to sign and so dav this all makes sense to me seems just like kind of paperworky type stuff um is this like a a real legal type document where it needs a pen and ink and a witness and all of that i mean it does say we are yeah we're gonna have to figure out how to do that brett because it does need your signature notarized okay so we can figure that out um my week is a little jam tomorrow and friday but we can figure that out next week i think we could do a socially distanced um notarized notarization with angela mills from my office i've done it before yeah okay okay sounds good to me so does anybody have any questions on this by the way this property is adjacent to mccloud field if you know where mccloud field is off of station road um if you go down to the bottom of the hill on station road and you take the first trail on your right you you head out in and the big open field is mccloud field and this is to the south of that and it's it's called the johnson cr and so the johnson's in the mccloud there's family connections between them and um they donated this cr to the town back in 2009 i think it was yeah 2009 granted to kestrel trust in town of amers there's the book and page yeah book 9874 and page 107 does somebody want to make that motion or i think 9874 and 107 so i could just i could restate it and then somebody could say so moved if that's easier um okay i move okay approve the uh chair of the conservation commission signature for assignment of conservation constriction um of uh the cr at station road something 11114 southeast street that's book 13570 page oh book 9874 page 107 uh what else for the johnson cr basically we approve brett the chair of the conservation commission signing this document second oh you got sorry sorry okay thank you so laroy hi jen hi anna hi and i assume i'm allowed to vote on this i so i'm authorizing myself i don't know so okay so i think we're good and so davie if we can just be in touch to figure out um when i can meet up with angela we'll do thank you okay are we good for the night so that is all i have okay so looking for a final motion move to adjourn there we go second i got the second that's fine i will settle for a second jen hi laroy hi anna hi and i for myself so we are officially adjourned and erin we probably won't see you next time so have fun enjoy good luck good luck this way i hope you don't see me next time i saw you a couple of weeks ago so we see you next time good fun erin thank you so much thank you so much thanks again to stephanie we'll see stephanie in two weeks i won't be there bye guys take care