 Okay, so I guess with that, I'd like to thank everybody for being here and call to order the sort of bylaw working group meeting of July 29th, 2022. And thank everybody for being here. I do see we have some folks from the public as well. So thank you for your attendance. We will have an opportunity for public comment at the end of the agenda. And I think we certainly have a quorum and I think we have everybody, which is fantastic. And thank you, Stephanie staff to be being here and maybe Crystal join us. I'm not sure if she's going to. She's running a little bit late. She's trying to wrap something up. She'll be joining shortly. Okay, so just as a quick rundown on the agenda. I'm going to review the minutes from last. Meeting, just as a suggestion, it's really helpful if people read the minutes ahead of time and have comments prepared. So that we can get through that process relatively quickly, but here's the minutes from last meeting. Before we do those. Before we jump into that, just to update everybody on the agenda and the public will have some staff updates, if any from Stephanie and from Chris. Okay. Are you prepared you can help us lead us through a discussion and overview of the PVP Pioneer Valley Planning Commission model by law and guideline. Fantastic. Thank you for that. And, and Laura were you. I hope you're doing well and are you able to provide us with a sort of an update on on some of the recent land court decisions that you flag for us. Sure. Okay, and then and then we'll have a presentation and discussion is as, as, as helpful with regard to the solar mapping tool. GIS tool that the town of Amherst has a bit of a correction there or an update for this week or this meeting that will not be an overview of the whole land use situation in Amherst by Chris, it'll be more a introduction to the GIS tool and and how that tool can be helpful to us. And that will be led by Michael Warner from the IT department in Amherst. And then and then we'll tee up for our next meeting, an overview of the land use maps that Chris can present to us at their next meeting. I want to go over a work plan and time schedule a schedule for where we are today and where we, and what happens between in my mind to sort of set out some key tasks in front of us, and a time frame to accomplish what we need to accomplish by May of next year. So I have had that sort of laid out for to bring forward for input from everybody and discussion. We'll get an update on the silver assessment. RFQ that the town is prepared or has gone out where we'll be going out shortly from Stephanie and and I can provide some input on that as well. So we'll have a bit of time to discuss the next meeting. Because there's some conflicts for next to Fridays from now. And then we'll have to have an opportunity for public comment. Okay, so with that, any questions or anything on the agenda before we get going. Super. Okay, so let's address. topic number one, which is review and a vote on the minutes. So, have people had time to look at the minutes and are there any comments or or anything that anybody wants to offer with regard to the minutes from last meeting. And that this would be the time to do that. Thank you. Yeah, Martha. Thank you for your comment. It might be interesting to include in the minutes how many members of the public are listening in. I know the minutes mentioned the three people who spoke but just giving a number of how many people were tuned in might be interesting to have a future to reference. Yeah, I mean it does. It probably goes up and down during the course of the meeting but is there any issues with that, Stephanie. So it just will be challenging to capture. I mean I can give a rough idea but as we noted it changes throughout the meeting so I can't definitively say how many people stay through the whole meeting. Okay, just I see Chris is in the lunch if you want to move her into the panelists side. Yes. Sorry, I just have to open up. Okay, and then just for people who weren't there last meeting was interesting and actually very nice because it was in person but hybrid. And so that created some additional challenges but also opportunities. We will remain remote for these meetings through at least March. And we can discuss that towards the end of the meeting that's that that's the plan so at this point. Okay, so if there's no other comments on the minutes from last meeting. Do I do we have a motion to accept the minutes as they have been prepared. Yeah, Robert. Yeah, I think you need to actually voice your motion. I'm only accept the minutes. I'll second. Great so we got Janet as a second. Okay, and I'll have to call a voice vote. So please make sure you unmute your microphone as I call your name, McGowan. Yes, yes. Paglia Rulo. Yes. Gem sec. Yeah, I watched the video so I think I can approve the minutes so you can. Yeah, thank you. Hannah. Yes. Corcoran. Yes. Brooks. Yes. Yes. And it's approved. Thank you. All right, thank you everybody. And who took the minutes I just want to thank it was Robert. Yeah, thank you for taking those minutes last time I know it was an abrupt to find out that you were selected as your first name fear your alphabetical order but thank you for doing that. My pleasure. Okay. All right, so moving on to. Let me open it up to Stephanie first. Sure, thank you, Dwayne. So very quickly. And this may cover a bit of item number seven as well. I don't know if there's any further assessment to go out the RFP went out on Monday. Dwayne was very instrumental in the development of that of the draft and the final version. So I think it included, you know, interests of this group as well and I know he'll be covering some of that information later and may have more to say an item seven. And I don't really have any other updates at this point. Great. All right, thank you, Stephanie. Yep, Janet. Could, could we see a copy of that to what went out so we know what you're looking at. So I did actually send it. I did send it to you all it's in your packet. And it's in the meeting packet online as well. I think Stephanie, you sent that just like, I sent it just before the meeting. Right. So, so it's in your packet and it on the in the online packet. It's posted. Great. All right, Chris, any updates that you want to bring forward from the planning side. We are working on a scope of services for a consultant to help us with the zoning bylaw. Great. And Nate has been talking to the building commissioner Rob Mora, as well as to Stephanie Chigarillo and he's gotten feedback from them. So we're hoping to have a scope of services that's finalized. Probably the second week in August. And then put that out to bid shortly thereafter. I think it is accounted for at least mentioned in my work plan and timeline. So when we get in item six, I guess. So when we get to that, maybe that's a good time to speak a little bit about where in the juncture of our 10 months to go or something that the technical consultant will be most helpful to us. And how that sort of fits into our work plan. But that's good to hear Chris. Thank you. And, Jen, is your hand up again or was it just remained up. It's actually up again maybe it'll be covered later but is that is the scope of services for like drafting the whole bylaw or just the battery section because I thought I've sort of heard two different things and different meetings. So I haven't, I have may I answer that. Yeah, I haven't seen the final scope of services that Rob Mora and Nate and Stephanie put together. So I can report on that next time and once we have the scope of services together. We can show it to you. I believe it does include more than just the technical things. As far as batteries and things like that I think it might actually include drafting, but Stephanie probably saw a later draft than I did and she may be able to answer that question. Could we see that and have some input on it since we're ultimately the ones who are going to be sending the bylaw. That's not common. The RFPs and things like that are sent out through the town manager's office. We can show you show it to you once it's finished, but it's not common to have the board give input on that and maybe Stephanie can talk about that a little bit. If I may Dwayne, so we are doing is reviewing these documents on behalf of the of the committee, but we don't typically share it with an entire committee. And the reason why Dwayne is being consulted is because this is his area of expertise. So we're referring to him as the expert on developing this particular document. So he'll be weighing in on behalf of the committee. And to that extent, when we get to the work plan and timeline. I'd be open to hearing comments and thoughts from the working group on on your, your thoughts in our collective thoughts in terms of where we could use the most technical assistance as we move forward. So, so the planning board there's an RP going out for design review guidelines that we've seen. And so I think it's sort of odd that the scope of services that's supposed to be advising our board on the bylaw that we wouldn't be looking at it and getting input on that I just find that unusual. And is there anything wrong with us seeing and giving input like what's the downside. Well, I, I can I speak. Sorry, I didn't raise my hand. I am, you know, I would imagine that having multiple people comment on this RFP, which I kind of look at as distinct from the bylaw to a certain extent would be cumbersome for the staff of the of the town. So I can see why having Dwayne I think it's great when that you're able to review it. And I, and I trust that you'll, you know, be looking at it for, you know, through the lens of the of the working group but I look at the RFP as quite distinct from the work here, just having been involved in a lot of GIS work for citing the wind and solar. So I'm, I'm comfortable with it but aren't we talking about the RFP for legal consultant. Is that we were, is that the Sorry, go ahead Chris. This is not a legal consultant. This is a consultant who knows about solar bylaws and the technicalities of solar installation. And we're seeking someone who can advise us as we write our solar bylaw and I'm that person may or may not get into the actual drafting of the bylaw, but it's an advisory to us who are going to be putting together the bylaw and as we move forward there may be issues that we have concerns about or questions about and this person will be able to do research and address. And in fact, it is unusual. Let me just say this for the public to get involved in the development of RFPs. It's, it's quite unusual. Usually those are reserved for the department who sends them out and then as someone requests the RFP, then that person is sent the RFP and and then accounting department keeps track of it all. So it's, it's not usual for the public or boards and committees to get involved in drafting these things. So I just wanted to say that. Thank you. Great. Okay, Martha, I think you have a finger up at least. Okay. Okay. Yeah, just to just to comment on that then maybe it would be appropriate and maybe Dwayne you said later when we talk about the work plan, but it would seem that we ought to at least have a few minutes where people could make suggestions of technical aspects we could think of that might we might later want information about. Or let me put it this way does the does the RFP define specifically what areas of expertise or what topics could be included or is it broad enough that new topics could be added as we went along. Thank you for your question. Yes, Stephanie. Typically when we draft these types of documents Martha we try to leave some room for fine tuning them with the consultant so typically it will say it will list some things but it will say will include but not limited to. So that language gives us an opportunity to expand if we want to. Because until you actually get the proposal by the consultant. You're not exactly sure how that will look until you actually have the conversation with the consultant and you work it out more so there's more refinement that can come and once the consultant is brought on board. You know there'll be an opportunity for for some input I would think. Yeah, it would seem that it would be appropriate for us to give input in that sense not to know having to read the RFP but correct just be able to say gee we think this particular topic would be important to have the expertise. Yeah, and that's what I'm excited I don't think we will know all all the things we don't know and want to know. Until we get into it, but at this point I wouldn't mind spending some time in topic and agenda item six to at least bring forward some of our ideas currently with regard to where we think we will need some technical support. And that can help me in in assuring that the scope of work is is appropriately as appropriate, appropriately specific or broad to make sure that we can cover those things. All right, thank you Chris, any any other updates from Chris or Stephanie. Awesome, thanks. So let's move on to agenda item three, which is for Jack to lead us, lead us here in a in a review or discussion of the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission model bylaw and, and, and it's more than just a model bylaws as sort of a whole guideline on doing model bylaws, or about bylaws. And, you know, I think it's a jack I don't think you were here last time but Martha provided a good overview similarly to to the Cape Cod Commission model bylaw and the, and do we are as model bylaw, a bit complicated but but useful as a reference as well. PVPC obviously, being our local planning authority is an important resource for us. And so, in my review of that it looked really, really helpful and thorough. And, and I know you, and maybe you can start off just by providing your relationship with PVPC which I know is you, you, you have a connection with them through through the town of Amherst and just make that clear as well. Thanks. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you, Dwayne. And again, I watched the video of the meeting from last week and, and, and, you know, heard Martha's summary of the DOER and the Cape Cod Commission I know the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission, you know references the DOER because it was at the stage. But anyway, I'm, I just retired off the planning board after six years. I was the commissioner to the Pioneer Valley Planning Commissioner I'm now an alternate commissioner on the Executive Committee there on the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission but I in no way, you know, I am an expert on this document but they have. They put a lot of effort into it I know. I forget the date of it but you know it was a few years ago but it was, it seems to be a very good document for us to lean on. And, you know with that said, I mean, I don't know how to summarize it but I, I'm just going to look at the table contents and then I highlighted some sections of the guide that I thought was interesting that I think I'll just mention. But, you know, with regard to how it's set up, you know, we have the, you know, some, some, you know, overview sections. You know the definitions, applicability that thing, that sort of thing, you know, standards for small scale solar arrays, the site plan approval process that again, Pioneer Valley Planning Commission really caters to towns that don't have the luxury of the town of Amherst, where we have staff like Chris and Stephanie that can do a lot of work. So, you know, this is, you know, when they do work they are geared to helping, you know, say municipalities in the hill towns and things like that, that just, they can't afford to do, you know, what they need to do from a planning perspective. But to go on, you know, they mentioned environmental standards, the construction maintenance monitoring and modifications associated with these types of developments, the discontinuance of removal, the financial, the repair, surty payment and a little taxes. And then the permitting process so they very thorough, very thorough. And they even speak to the battery storage and again I represent the water supply protection committee, and we are doing a white paper on, you know, water resources impacts from potential solar arrays and we're looking at the battery. It impacts as well. So that'll be forthcoming, hopefully in a, in a few weeks. So with that, I just, I'm just going to go through what what I, you know, this document is what's 183 pages but I kind of just went through and I'm just going to read certain sections I think that are salient and pertinent to what we might want to be considering during this bylaw development. So, first one is on page 10 of this document, and DOER's view given the plain language of the statute it is prudent to allow opportunity to cite all scales of solar energy systems, somewhere in the community. So that was interesting. And then, you know, not all towns are alike some are more forested. Others, you know, more, you know, agricultural, and you kind of, you know, it's not one size fits all so every community is going to be a little bit different. But this also on the page 10 there further it is possible that reasonable regulation could be context dependent. For example, barring forest clearing for more than two acres of land may eliminate the potential for most solar development on 90% of potential sites in a town that is heavily forested. While not doing so and another municipality with more unforested land is another matter. So constriction imposed by specific site siting requirements are worth considering carefully and development of a municipal solar zoning bylaw or ordinance. And then green community sad status, one of the five criteria to earn designation as a green community is passage of a zoning bylaw related to a renewable energy which provides for as of right siting of at least one type of renewable energy or generation facility, and at least one zoning district or designated location as follows to qualify as a green community and municipality or other local government body shall provide for as of right siting of renewable or alternative energy generating facilities, renewable or alternative energy research and development facilities are renewable or alternative energy manufacturing facilities and designated locations. And again, there's, you know, as of right, special permit. And there's, you know, this is on page 17. They are discussing components of a bylaw ordinance typically in the applicability section and some sample language. So certainly there are there are things that we know should be fairly easy to implement and approve. But they do have a section called not permitted. And there are three items they say set there and again this is this has no relevant relevance as an example they're putting out there but any solar will take installation of greater than 20 acres of previously upland in a fenced area could be not permitted, you know, it's just an example any solar will take installation requiring force playing greater than 10 acres. Any solar will take installation on slopes of 15% or greater as averaged over 50 horizontal feet. You know, is another item. So, and, and they do have a sample bylaw ordinance language. The municipalities may want to identify specific standards or criteria for the site plan approval of solar will take installations, and it's a related application requirements. And then they, this is on page 24. And again, just just excellent, you know, guidelines, a lot of work was put in to this. For me, you know, just a, you know, and I talked with Chris Brester about this is the most important part of this. I think is the construction monitoring, because that's where we see all the mistakes happen and all the horrible kind of natural resources consequences consequences so they have a detailed, you know, section here on construction monitoring the construction monitoring costs, maybe required to be covered by the developer as one of the conditions and the approved agreement alternatively approval may be conditioned upon having an engineer provide weekly reports to the supervising authority indicating the work completed and stamping it as being substantial compliance with the approved plans and I think the examples that we've seen out there that have been failures, I'm thinking Williamsburg, you know, I, that was all monitoring snafu in my opinion anyway. So, and I guess, you know, it just goes on but I think that's that's a should be, you know, very important part of what we're doing is to ensure that what is approved is properly installed with regard to stormwater prevention plan that would be implemented with it, and that it's monitored and it's documented. So what else we got here, and then they talk about financial sorority that that's not my deal but it's, it's certainly the, the boilerplate sort of language is there. And again, they, they, they reference the town of shoots very by law. As an example, I guess it was one of the earlier ones to go through, but again that every town's different. And basically, that's my, my, I don't know how many minutes I was my, my abridged version of that guideline. Thank you. Thank you, Jack has really helpful. Any, any thoughts or questions on for Jack on the PVPC guide. My impression is that the three different guides that we have are fairly consistent overall, you know they have one may have more detail than another on a particular section dude do others agree that they're fairly consistent. That there's no real outstanding differences and what they emphasize or I, I liked this one maybe best of all because it kind of talked about like more about in more detail about choices you can make. It reminded me the good parts of the Athol saying you know that you could do this you could do that. What does your community want, and you can tailor it so I felt like, you know in terms of a good roadmap for a bylaw this would be a great way to follow and help us guide, you know what sections we want or what problems you want to, you know, deal with or whatever or weird you know just I just thought it was like the more detailed more current, the best of the three. Yeah, I also like the Cape Cod plan in some of the environmental statements. I thought those those were good we might not agree with every specific in them but but the things that they called out I thought what worthwhile to as a recipe. So, I keep on thinking about like putting together like a skeleton bylaw, maybe putting in like too many bones too many provisions, like just a giant thing and then thinning it out or emphasizing things over another so I think these would be good, all of these would be good to see how many bones we can put on that skeleton and then start to kind of work through it through the community process and our own process. And then you know the consultants. Great that. Yeah, I would just add to that. That was sort of my thought as well that we can review when I, we look at the work plan with the idea that you know I similar to Martha I guess I was confident in some ways by looking at these three model bylaws. And there's definitely recognition that they all have similarity in structure and the different topics or issues that were addressed in the bylaw so there's some really good models out there. And what I think I'd like to think about in these different models and I would agree PVPC gives some really good guidance as well as just language is, is trying to within with the skeleton as you referenced it, Janet, what the structure is like, where, what are the, what are the key issues that we really need to deliberate on. There's probably a lot in there that we don't need a whole lot of deliberation on because there's pretty good models for those and they're not overly controversial. So some, some bigger issues that we do want to deliberate on as a body to provide some recommendations, and then also where the where we need some technical support to, to reach informed decisions or recommendations. And, and that's where in my mind the consultant would be helpful to us as well as some expertise we have on this working group itself. Great. Any other, and thank you for that Jack and any other thoughts or comments on the model bylaws generally before we go on. Great. Okay. So let's go back to the agenda and then look at at agenda item number four, which is an update and discussion on these recent land court rulings and then some other things that have recently come come our way but anything that Laura you might be able to provide a bit of a summary and some background I know you have a lot of perspective and work in this area so that I'll be really help. So just to give everyone. So I work more on the real estate side of things now when it comes to solar but historically, you know I've been in the industry for 17 years, wearing a number of hats from finance to development. And this recently came to light for me because I know there was a lot of developers in Massachusetts. Some notable ones like next amp, who were engaged in lengthy legal proceedings in certain towns where they had been trying to develop a solar project. So I found this, and it seems pretty and I went back and I looked at a number, you know a lot of these communities have recorded hearings on zoom, which was really helpful. And I listened to a lot of those but essentially, and there's a section and this is unique to Massachusetts, because it's not, it's certainly not the case in New York. You know, typically in this state, or you know you have home rule which is essentially communities can create their own rules for, you know, development of certain things but this Massachusetts general law 40 a section three, essentially says no zoning ordinance by law, shall prohibit or unreasonably regulate the installation of solar energy systems, or the building of structures that facilitate the collection of solar energy, except we're necessary to protect public health safety or welfare. And those three pieces, the word necessary has come up, and then protect public health safety or welfare so not not private health safety or welfare. So two, two rulings I sent you were from the town of Northridge, and the town of brain tree where special use permits were originally denied. And then the court basically said, you know, overrule that. It seems as own Massachusetts, they've designated a certain group of sort of public things where communities have been asked to sort of stand down. When it comes to their typical zoning interests. This includes things like education, agriculture daycare and solar is now is now a part of that because of the state's commitment to move away from fossil fuels. So, what I sent around essentially the summary of you can only deny permits. If you find that impact on public health, safety or welfare. So, an example that I heard which I thought was really interesting is that this distinction between a private interest versus a public interest. You know, if you, which is very interesting to me. If you are going to find that something was going to pollute your well on your property. That is a private interest versus a public interest which is, you know, polluting an aquifer, which I know that was a distinction that was made by one of the attorneys in this, in this ruling. So, in summary, you know, things like view sheds aesthetics don't qualify here. You need to find something. If you were going to decline a solar facility would have to be something that was going against the public welfare, not a private nuisance. So, in the words that were used where you need to be able to have essentially an intractable public health safety or welfare issue. So, that's, that's essentially what I, what I found when I was reading these and listening to the summaries online. That's it. I wasn't aware of these things honest to God. And it's, it's very unique for Massachusetts to be totally, totally frank oftentimes and you know, historically when we have developed solar projects and states like, I don't do solar development anymore but in the past when we develop solar projects and states like New York. We had to adhere to any bylaw that was put forth. And that was it, you know, just kind of shut it down. Whereas in Massachusetts, what the courts what the legislation is telling us is, you know, they view solar as a public good for the residents of Massachusetts and unless there's some sort of, you know, public risk. We're not in our right to say that it can't go anywhere. So that was important for our bylaw working group. At the same time, you know, I think, you know, I've been sort of vacillating on, well does it make sense to have a bylaw then and I think that, you know, oftentimes developers just the developer perspective is, they don't want to make the community angry. You know, this is not in their best interests. So if you have things that you want to see, because even in these court cases that I was looking at the developers, the good developers like next amp have gone above and beyond to meet the community's requirements, even though they're not required to things like setbacks and landscaping and, you know, things of that nature. Just because they want to be a good participant in the community, even though they're not required to bylaw. So that's all I have between. I see Martha. Yeah, thank you. Thank you for that. Laura, that was very helpful. And by the way, I'm in no way an expert on this. So if you're going to come at me with intense legal questions. I don't have the answers. Okay. Yeah, Martha. I mean, I'm certainly no expert much less than you, Laura. But you know, I read these things and it struck me that, you know, a couple of those cases were really kind of weird like wall fan well they didn't want to put a road through. And that sounds like, yeah, that was kind of extreme or, you know, they only had 2% of their land where they would allow solar at all. And so I didn't get the impression that things were quite as extreme as sort of maybe the picture that that you were painting here and in terms of the flexibility we'd be allowed. I don't know the couple that one of the other cases well it was because the planning board wanted, you know, higher, higher hedges or something in front for the visual appearance and that was ruled to be inconsequential or something. It seems that that yes, we have to make this all very seriously in the way we've been a word by law but we shouldn't be spooked by it. Yeah, seems like there would be a fair amount of flexibility, as long as it's quote, reasonable in public health safety and welfare Martha I think. Yes. But I mean I, you know you're saying if it's polluting one person's well it's not a public health issue I would really wonder about that. If somebody's not on town water, sure, that has to be on on the well, because there's just no, you know, waterline in that part of the community, or something that that would be a, you know, something that be a public concern. Perhaps that was a poor example I think that someone else from the community, and that was an example that the attorney gave when they were. There's a distinction between a private nuisance of public nuisance. But I think that you're going to start seeing more of these rulings, because it's in our, it's in our laws. And I know that I believe someone from the public. And something that mentions this exact same land code from the Supreme Court of Massachusetts as well. So I just want to, I want to surface it for everyone, I want to make sure that we're not all spinning our wheels here, creating bylaws that can, you know, be overruled. So, anyways, if there's a clarification for anybody who can help to clarify Laura or or Chris maybe it doesn't, it doesn't mean that you can't write up the right zoning bylaws for someone. But you can write, but if you do have a by zoning that allows for order to go in a certain area, and they seek a permit then it can be with it can be withheld due to reasons unless there's some argument that it's, it's hurting public welfare health or health. And I think it also means that just generally for the town, the zoning has to be reasonable to enable solar development, but it doesn't, it doesn't preclude us from from a zoning bylaw that gives guidance and directions in where there and how solar can be developed. Yeah, just can't be overly restrictive. Okay. Yeah, please I think Jack was up and then Janet. Yeah, I just wanted to like, push the brakes a little bit on terms of water supply impacts of solar development. I mean I think, you know, we're working on this white paper and we are just coming up with, you know, zero sort of with regard to type of the leachability of solar panels, the whole operation, again the construction monitoring is very important. And with regard to the erosion and sedimentation that sort of thing, but these solar panels and that they're fairly inert and so I just want to push the brakes on on when we talk about water resources impact for solar development. That was a really poor example I was trying to make the distinction from public and private but I completely agree with you. So, for example, struck from the record please. Okay, and then Janet and I think Robert might have had his hand up but no okay okay yeah. Janet please. So, so I have to say I enjoyed reading on these cases more than I expected. Because it's what I used to do all the time, we're going to appeal some things like that. And so I think the most important case is tracer lane because it's a supreme judicial court of Massachusetts, and they're interpreting chapter 40 a section as it relates to solar regulation by towns and so the land court cases were kind of all over the place they're not they're not presidential doesn't mean like so that so if a land court case, someone makes a ruling. So the next land court or judge doesn't have to follow it so but we all have to just follow the SJC. And so what I took from that, you know, I thought that the cases I looked at were sort of like extreme facts and so in tracer lane, some of them has one to 2% of its land, the zones for large scale so solar, and the rest of it is not right they could have you know rooftop and things like that. And what was going on there was, there was going to be an access road in a residential neighborhood, going to a solar facility in Lexington. You know, you could just see this seems pretty judicial judicial court could not get over how minimal that was. And so, you know, and you can see the same thing in some of the other cases where you know the hedges like these people had done every the facility had done everything they can to do the hedges and you know, you know the, the land court was like, come on, they, it's negligent impact and just went off. So, but the SJC doesn't go off on an extreme thing. It basically says, you need reasons for your regulation and they really the reasons have to have a rational relationship or reasonable relationship to public health safety and welfare. And those are really broad categories. And what I thought was sort of unfair is asking the planning board to come up with those reasons when actually it's town meeting or the town council, who's supposed to have those reasons when it's drafting or pushing that aside, you know, so I just thought that tracer Lane is the one that lays out the standard, you know, if you wanted to protect some area of town it's reasonable it's reasonable to say to protect neighborhood character neighborhood character so you could say no 20 acre facilities in, you know, residential zone, or, you know, limits like that but you have to explain how you get there and why. And so I think that it's an important case that when this bylaw comes out. It's the reasons for the choices that are made by the town council or laid out so nobody has to guess. And in case after case I read three cases. The planning board couldn't come up with any reason that you know they're not giving a reason and you know in terms of the aesthetics. Actually the Supreme Court has said zoning can be raised not based on aesthetics that could be part of public welfare. And I read a case that I can't remember the name of it. The North Bridge says the opposite of the case it's citing and so I wouldn't, I mean the Land Court is important but the SJC, I think has set out a framework saying, you better have some really good reasons that relate to public health, safety and welfare. You know welfare could be, you know, environmental reasons, you know we all, you know if you if you had a forest, the limitation on forest, you know, forest do a lot of good for the public and so just justify it and explain it and support it. But also all that said that's that's my interpretation but Chris, I think it'd be really, I did look up some consultants that have were, you know summarizing tracer tracer lane, but I wonder if there's like town town attorney can give us some guidance like, where can we go, where can't we go or what we need to do to justify, you know, our recommendations to town council. Yeah, please Chris. Normally when we're developing a bylaw, we do consult with town council, and we send them drafts to make sure that we're on the right path. And, you know, hopefully we will send them early drafts and not just, you know, rush them at the end before that something goes to our town council CIL. Yes, we do. We do involve our town attorney in developing bylaws, particularly ones that are that seem to be like they might have some controversy associated with them. Yeah, I mean this decision came out like a month ago so it's probably a hot topic that people are discussing and you know town towns and cities everywhere are going to be saying what can we regulate what can't we. I think it would be safe to say that we should should not limit one or 2% of our land to Lord solar. You know it was like these were the two three cases I went were sort of on the extremes, you know, let's not be on the extreme. Agreed. What one comment. What would be helpful I don't know if this is possible for the working group but Christine Stephanie and Dwayne, if it's possible to have to have the attorney for the town, just look at these rulings and tell us where we should focus but I don't want to have happen is we spend all this thought and energy developing these wonderful bylaws. And then we find out that you know aesthetics doesn't stand or you know I mean obviously environmental health like to the work on the conservation committee obviously you have to be very cautious with all that wetlands and so forth but but I would I would love to see you know so that the attorney who took some of these cases to court was actually based in Northampton. So you know I don't know if that's possible if that's a good use of tone resource but you know it would just be good to know sort of what our guard rails are. You know, versus where we can play where we can. Thank you. Yep, Jack. I just want to say, you know, viewing the, the last meeting us, you know what our strengths and what our weaknesses were, and I just want to say, one of my weaknesses is legal. And, you know, just being with planning board for six years, I know, you know, relying on the town, you know, council attorney was just came into play so often. And, you know, I'm sure that we're just that's just going to be a huge input for whatever we do. Yep. Chris, did you have your hand up. Yeah, I was just wondering if this group would like me to try to get or like Stephanie and me to get someone from KP law to come and give a short presentation about, you know, what they've seen in terms of what is supported and what's not supported. As far as, you know, towns regulating solar is that something that you'd be interested in and if so I can ask. Yeah, we can ask the town manager, if we can go ahead and schedule something like that. I see some thumbs up and I would put my thumb up on that one as well. Maybe maybe in, well, you work it out with the town manager and then and then KP law in terms of when that might be available to us I would think maybe you know in two or three meetings from now would be really timely. Stephanie. First we have to get permission by the town manager. And then I'll get in touch with you in terms of timing. Great. And Martha I think you're hesitating I think but yeah well I just say that the three model bylaws that we reviewed they were certainly all well aware of MGL 40 section three. And you know they did lay out a whole slew of types of things that we could include in our bylaws so I think that we shouldn't be, you know, hugely overly concerned I think that we should go ahead with modeling a bylaw after the types of concerns and so on and, you know, possibility of setbacks and, you know, possibility of sizes and so on I think it's the main concern really is what areas of town Chris's whole, you know, talk that we're going to hear about about our zoning layouts and so on. I think is the important thing in discussing what areas of town would be related to what kind of requirements and so on but we. I just don't think that we should be, as I said before spooked by these, these court cases I think I would agree with Janet that the ones from the Supreme Judicial Court were really rather extreme examples. Okay, any more. Comment or discussion on on the legal issues and the Land Court decisions and again thank you to Lord for her summary. Great. Okay. That's really helpful discussion and thank you. Let's turn to the next agenda item and I do see Mike Warner. Mike, if you're can confirm that you're ready. I am here and ready. Okay, we're a little bit before one o'clock when you said you would be ready but great to have you join us. So, Mike you can introduce yourself but Mike Mike is going to give us a tutorial if you will, and overview of the GIS mapping tool. It's available and I think something that we can actually use ourselves publicly, but how walk us through that. And again, the idea here, a little bit departure of what the agenda has is that Mike's going to walk us through the tool how to use it, what it does and so forth. And that'll be today and then I think next meeting, assuming Chris can make it. She will walk us through and give us a sort of a one on one on land use and in the town are using using the maps that she has available planning maps. Okay, so Mike, you can take it from here. Well, hi folks, my name is Mike Warner. I'm with the IT department here for the town of Amherst and I wear a lot of different hats, but one of my areas of expertise is in a technology that's called geographic information systems, which is a fancy way of saying mapping things. And, and all of the data that lives behind those things that we map. We have a very robust GIS GIS here in Amherst that's been built and developed over the last 25 years or so. It's being built upon and built upon and built upon and my predecessor, and then me have kind of just constantly been building and throwing things and making things available to the public, not just to Amherst residents but to members of the public around the world. And so what I'm going to show today is our Amherst maps viewer, and I'm not 100% convinced that it's going to be the tool that you guys are going to want. But maybe I can show it to you, and then you folks can say, hey, we're going to need something custom for what we're trying to accomplish. Just from reading your email yesterday, Dwayne, that was kind of where my brain started heading. But, and then the big thing is, don't expect to remember, write everything down here that we go over and discuss today. I'll try to send a follow up email to Chris and Stephanie and Dwayne that he can then share with you folks about how to access this stuff and how to get around it, if that makes sense. So, unless anybody has a problem, I will jump right in and start sharing my screen. All right. Great. Thank you. Okay, so I'm going to go to a web browser. I'm going to open I always use Google Chrome personally, but I'm opened Google Chrome on my computer here. I'm going to go to GIS dot Amherst MA.gov GIS stands for geographic information systems. And when I go there. It takes me to this nice little landing page. And what most people do is they come here to look up information about their property their assessed value and things like that at their home. But I'm showing you this because this little button right here is a really nice friend. It says townwide map. And when you click on townwide map. It kind of bypasses you having to look up your property or a specific address or anything and it zooms you to the entire town. So it's a nice good starting point for everyone. And feel free to interrupt me at any point in time. If somebody wants to say, okay, wait, hey, how did you do that or how do we do this. So, when you get to this tool, you can with your mouse or if you're using a laptop or with your phone, you can click to zoom in. And then these over here on the upper left corner there's a zoom out button that's a little minus symbol that you can click on to kind of zoom out. And you can click and grab and move around the town with this little hand icon. And I think one of the things that you folks were looking at is, is land that's currently protected by conservation, right, and like all the different types of conservation and wetlands, like, we have a lot of protected land and Amherst that is not undevelopable. So, we have these nice shortcuts that I'll be sending to Dwayne that he can share with all of you to our conservation map to our zoning map for the entire town, so that you'll be able to zoom in and zoom out if you have a particular property that you're interested in looking at, and quickly looking at the zoning map for that area, or quickly looking at the conservation map for that area. So on the conservation map you'll see all these different colors and shapes, and those are visible in the legend over here as conservation areas, or chapter lands, or AP agricultural protect protected land, or open space or conservation restrictions, or and I think one of the things you mentioned Dwayne was institutional lands like lands that the colleges own colleges or universities own correct. So that is also over here in the legend and is represented by the purple, the pink and the maroon colors here. So as you can see, just when you're looking at land that is protected under conservation. So a lot of Amherst is covered. So I'll be sending the conservation link to you the zoo, the zoning link to you, and then the overall kind of map that's more simple that doesn't have any of these colorful things on it so that you can pan around and zoom around. Is there, is there a particular property that you folks would like to take a look at to investigate a little bit or is there, what other functions would you like folks like to see. I would like to see the agricultural soils like how they're rated, I know, I think Chris has said that they're, we have a map where prime soils are distinguished from, you know, soils of statewide interest. There's a map that just is where our best soils are versus our average soils. So that is not a layer that's maintained by the town. That is a layer that's maintained by the state geological survey. And in some cases by the federal government. Historically, we would load those things in here but that became very painful to manage because they would never let us know when they updated things. So we've peeled back loading those data layers that we do not own into this viewer. But that I will make a note of that. So you're talking about I know exactly the layer that you're referring to. And see if that's something that maybe we can get in here or build as a customized thing for you folks. Is there some other other layers that you don't do for the same reason that we might be interested in. Oh my gosh, that is a very big question. I didn't mean to ask a giant one. What was that Martha I heard you say something the bio map isn't there a state bio map. Exactly. So it's simple or. Each one of those things. There's complicated issues with each with integrating each one of those into kind of the because the town doesn't own that stuff right those aren't the town slayers the town doesn't maintain them. And a lot of times the state doesn't allow you to tap directly into that so that if the state makes an update we would see it here. And what started happening is our stuff would be out of date with the state stuff, and then it would become a problem, because people would start saying, you know, I looked at the bio map and I can build this and then you look at the states layer and it's up to date and you can't do anything there. So, so I imagine that there's a lot of things that you folks would want that are not going to be available here because they are state or federal things. But you can certainly make a list of, we can make a list of things, and we can grab them from sources and pull them together in a tool that you folks could use. I have another question I hope isn't hard. If I, if I went on to this map and just clicked on things that are permanently protected, like not chapter 61 a lands EDU and things like that, could I do that. We have different filters. You're asking really good quest that's a really good question. Chris, what would be an example of something that is permanently protected like APR land I think or APR APR land and town conservation land are both permanently protected. Yeah. So there is the ability to come in here. And we can, I'm going to select every parcel in town that is a town conservation land slash the map. There's too much data. But it will think and it will select every piece of property that is town conservation land and it will populate that in a list over on the left hand side, and it will, you know, give you the information about each one of those. So that's town owned land town conservation land then there's also land in town that has conservation restrictions and that can be privately owned. The state or the town owns a conservation restriction on it. So those are kind of separate from town owned conservation lands. Exactly. So. So I can come in here and let me do town conservation areas. So here's 100, there's 155 parcels, and they'll eventually select over here on the right hand side. So what I can do is I can build these filters for you. And like I said I was going to send you a link for the zoning map and the conservation map I can send you and a map that's already hey here's all the time here's you click on this link and you're going to get a map of all the land that's all the parcels that are in the conservation area, or all the land parcels that are concert that are a PR. So Chris, can you help me so there could be town owned land that is being held for conservation purposes, but there's not a conservation restriction, or an APR and some of those lands like, are there town lands that we're saving for conservation but you could put solar on it because I know you can't do that on APR land. I don't know the answer to that question Stephanie may know because she worked in the works in the conservation department. But if a property, what I know is if a property is in private conservation there's a conservation restriction that is filed with the state, and it has limits on what can be done there, other than just allowing, you know, what is growing there to continue to grow. I think different pieces of property have different types of restrictions on them so we would have to look at the particular restriction that is on a particular property. And then for town conservation land, I think that's all covered by what is called chapter 97. And that governs conservation restrictions so you know we would be able to look at what kinds of restrictions are there under chapter 97. But again Stephanie would be the person who would be most knowledgeable about that. Okay, I would add to that just that conservation land can't be developed without some act of release by the legislature. So, it's not it's not automatically and it's not it's not easy to do. And we're talking about the state legislature, not a state council correct state legislature, correct. Well, I think actually the town council also has to rule, as well as the state legislature so it has to go through both channels. Okay. And I wanted to note that Jack has had his hand up for quite a while doing. Yeah, I saw that and Jack, go ahead, please. Yeah, I just want to go back to Piner Valley planning commission resource again. I'm sure Mike probably knows, you know, Doug Hall. I do. Yep. Yeah, yeah. So anyway, they have a great, you know, data based for the Piner Valley. It's Piner Valley data.org. Anybody wants to go there. It's useful but from my time with the planning board. Well, my pine with the pine, Piner Valley planning commission. I can say that Amherst has the most protective land of any community in the entire Piner Valley. So that. It's going to, you know, going to be a challenge, I think, but it should be recognized how much protected land Amherst has great. Can I ask a question. Hey, can you just go through the layers that you have available for this map again so I can take a look for the conservation map specifically or. It's interesting seeing. I know that when we built a map, very similar for Virginia with the Department of Mines Minerals and Energy years ago. And we had layers that I found very useful like of endangered or threatened species habitat like that, which I think, you know, is critical to setting any sort of commercial project. Right. We have those kinds of layers here. So those are layers that are maintained by the state. Again, you know, we don't have like a wildlife biologist who's going around for that it's employed by the town who's going around and doing that. So, can we get that layer from them to we can. Yeah, we can. And then, you know, so we're, it's also let's see. You know, it's, it's so helpful and I feel like even from a perspective of smarts for development. Those are the types of things that I feel like we should really be looking at to. Yeah, absolutely. So, I don't know and if anybody is familiar with mass GIS, but mass GIS is the data repository for the entire state. And just has is one of the best statewide resources when it comes to geospatial information in the, in the entire country they do an incredible job of pulling everything together and making it visible in one space. So, mass GIS, you can, you can pick your town, or you can just zoom to your town either one. And then over here on the right hand side in my zoom window might be blocking everything. See. So, here's bio map. Here's the bio map stuff. Here's vernal pools. Here's NHS priority habitats of rare species, rare wildlife. Again, this, we don't maintain these layers that it's maintained by and we could grab those and pull them in but my concern at the local level is I never know when this stuff is updated. Yeah, so you can be working with data that's a year old, and meanwhile the state has updated their stuff so I try to not pull that stuff into the local place. I try to refer people to this so that you're looking at the true source of things, which, which would, it means that you folks in your team, you're looking at lots of different things, instead of one one tool. But at least you know that you're looking at the authoritative source, and you're not looking at something that's out of date. Got it. No, that makes sense. And I think we have great sources, you know, and testing for vernal pools via the conservation commission, you know, and that's something that we do all the time but things like, you know, priority habitats endangered birds, you know, things like that. They're really in our purview. So, I think that's an important layer to some at some point included in the bylaws. So here I just turned on the priority habitats and as you see, I mean it's kind of tough to visualize it, but with a customized tool that I could potentially build for you if we came up with a list of. Okay, these are state layers that we would like to pull in. So I can see, I can work, I have some contacts who work with mass GIS I can see if they can provide me a way to tap directly into stuff so that we wouldn't have wouldn't have a lag between the data that they have that's updated and what we're seeing visually on a map. But it's, I imagine it's going to be a lot of layers. I think that you folks are going to want to see. And I mean, you know, my thought is also this is going to some of this and I'm not sure whether the solar the solar assessment consultant is also is going to be digging into this GIS work as well, or these GIS resources as well in terms of, you know, their work to provide a technical assessment of the where solar might, you know, might be might be good fits in Amherst not so much from a zoning perspective but just by a physical land perspective and working with these layers to recognize where solar just legally can't go. And, and give us inform, you know, our job is more not so much that technical potential but then, you know, based on priorities of the town and constituents of saying where solar should be it should and should not be able to go based on zoning rules not so much on legal rules associated with with the way that the state regulate solar. So, I think we'll also be getting a lot of information and visuals, mapping type of visuals from from the solar assessment study as well, in terms of how solar layer lays on and overlaps or you know, maps on to onto the land use and land characteristics that we have in Amherst. Sure. So, just, yeah, so you folks have hired a consultant who's going to be doing this work, who's going to be doing this work for you, or the town town has yeah. So, one thing, and this was a Stephanie or Chris thing probably one thing to be really aware of folks is that when that consultant is wanting to do this work, we need to make sure that they have, you know, that they reach out and that they get copies of our data. Right copies of, you know, I should probably have a one on one phone conversation with the with the geospatial expert for the consulting firm to see what what they want and what they what they've used in other communities and because we're going to have local experts that are far more granular in detail than what they should be would be grabbing from the state, or from any other source that they could have. So, that would be one. That would be one thing that I would say hey, if you get the sense that they're actually going to start, start doing the research. We should probably talk. And yeah, you'll, it's really going to be town driven Mike in terms of the work of the consultants. And Stephanie do you want to comment on that, or. Yes, I just wanted to say that at least for the solar assessment. It's written into the assessment RFP that they would be working with our GIS staff so that's you Mike. Excellent. I learned that today. Surprise. Yeah, there we go. And that's good. Okay, this looks like an awesome tool for us, Mike and really appreciate it seems like actually both the Amherst tool and the mass GIS tool just from your quick review of it both seem fairly useful and you can relatively user friendly for us. And your offer to potentially merge the two as needed in terms of the data from mass GIS into the into the town one to do more customized work is sounds sounds. Yeah, because because what ends up happening when you do studies and analysis like this and I've done this. This type of consulting work before is you know you start out with the shape of the entire town and you start plucking pieces away, right. You can't do something here because of reason a and you can't build something there because of reason be and at the very before you know it, there's two or three tiny little spots all over town that you can actually do something in. It's, it's very complicated and, you know, I think, I think, unless you're super comfortable with mapping programs it's going to be tricky to navigate with more than one tool. It's, it's nice to see everything super imposed on top of one another. So, I think that's probably ideally what we should work towards. But it would be really helpful if you folks interact with Stephanie and and Chris, like Laura the examples that you gave of and Janet the examples you gave of soils data and Laura of you know habitat information. You know, start just thinking about that and making a list of things that would be nice to see. We can start tracking that down and seeing if we can pull it together and all, all in one resource. That's great and really appreciate that offer, Mike, really helpful. Okay, did you have anything else that you wanted to offer to us or this has been great. No other than I will send links to what we have now what we have available, which are these tools and in the in mass GIS and I'll probably send some PBTA stuff as well. For Jack's reference if I can find something that I'm that I think would be a value, and I'll send that to Stephanie Chris and Dwayne and then you folks can share it out with the rest of the group, so that people can start poking around and thinking about things. I just want to ask one question about endangered species. I know that federal and state agencies don't like to specify exactly where a species is because of like, weirdly collectors. Like, you're like, Oh, it's really rare. I want to go kill it and capture it. I don't get that but so the natural like that information will be captured like this is an area of something rare, like, you know, plants or birds or whatever. That will be there but it won't be specific right is that my correct correct and it's usually very generalized, like, and you can't like. I don't think you can like click on it and say Oh, it's this rare beetle lives here or something it's just kind of like in on the Amherst College campus. There's something unique there. It would just require further studies really so if there's like if it's in the general vicinity you'd have to make sure that it was looked at more closely. Like all of it's really hard to see with the colors of this map here but like all of Lawrence swamp and South Amherst. The entire breadth of it all the way from the Belcher town town line, all the way up to the Fort River and then all the way over to the Hadley town line it's all an HESP priority habitat and estimated habitat of rare species. So, good luck traversing that and finding that beetle that you're looking for that you're hunting. I did see one, one bird. Yeah, I got a glimpse. I got a glimpse once. Okay. Excellent. Okay, any last comments or questions for Mike. No, thank you. All right, folks will reach out to Stephanie or Chris with with direct questions and they'll forward them along to me, and we'll get back and forth with you okay. Thanks Mike. Thanks Mike. Bye. All right, excellent. Okay, I think we're doing pretty good on time as well. And we'll move on to the next agenda item, which is for me to offer up what I came up with with regard to sort of thoughts on a just to help us map out what we need to accomplish over what time frame and to some extent what resources we have to work with. And we can have talk a little bit about what I see is these major chunks of work and have some discussion on that but then maybe also will then distribute this around in the in the to everybody. And then we can continue a discussion maybe hone in and finalize a work plan for the 10 months that we have or whatever at the next meeting. So let me bring that up on my screen, and then share it with everybody here. I have a lot of a lot of work on projects and so forth but I'm not, I'm not like an expert on project management if you will so I use a fairly simple way to mind map my, my projects just in terms of a fairly simple spreadsheet to visualize help visualize where what we need to accomplish so that was sort of my method of, of choice to sort of just lay this out in a spreadsheet if you will. And let me just restructure my screen here a little bit so I see everybody. Okay, so here I have a work plan and a work plan in terms of sort of key activities which I can walk through just quickly. And then over the. I'm not sure how many months we have but till May is basically where when the, our charge says that we will present our recommendations for bylaws to the town council, at least by the end of May. So we got, we got this time left I sort of started in August, and, and then sort of try to think about what are the key activities and issues we need to deal with so that's what I list here and I can go over those relatively quickly but I can give people time, quick discussion maybe on it now but then give people time to, to cogitate on it, and then bring it up for revisions and advice and suggestions for next meeting. So here first is where and some of this relates to conversations we've already had, which is helpful. So here is is sort of starting off as we start off here, we reviewing the model bylaws. And but we also have to start thinking about as came up already today so the gathering technical background and technical information on on things that we recognize is going to be important for us in terms of solar development storage issues storage as well and land use issues. So this is all sort of really about gathering information. As we've sort of noted today we sort of recognize there is a rhyme and reason and sort of some consistency with regard to the structuring of these bylaws. And the light I think was Janet's thought of this being sort of the skeleton of our of our bylaw that we need to write to some extent we can almost write that now, based on these models. And maybe, maybe that's worthwhile thinking about but my idea here was to sort of just at least outline what these made these bylaw sections should be, and and sort of in that process. We don't not yet jumped into all the deliberations and research that we need to do but at least identify the key issues and and criteria and standards that we have to deliberate on that we want to deliberate we feel like they're worthy enough. There are things in these bylaws that we can just sort of set along they seem pretty standard but then there's going to be a subset that are going to be the ones that in my mind we need to focus on and deliberate on and gather more technical information on and maybe make use of the technical consultant to help us. This process here over this sort of time frame September October would not necessarily be to make all those decisions but identify the big areas that we, the key areas that we want to deliberate on and and research further. We want to. And down here are the two to sort of resources that we have working in parallel with us. One is the solar assessment consultant study that we'll talk about a little bit in a moment. And the second is, as Chris had mentioned the technical consultants. That's serving the town but but is really helping us as a body in addition to the planning department with regard to coming up with with these recommended bylaws. For the solar consultant as they come on board and begin start to begin their work there will be an opportunity to help to prepare and provide input on the solar assessment. And particularly regarding one of their tasks of the solar consultant is to engage with the community to identify priorities and I think, you know, we would have the opportunity to provide some input into our ideas of how the consultant might go about going about doing that assessment of the community, community engagement and priorities. Towards the end of the of the solar consultants work will have the opportunity to review what they've come up with in terms of the solar assessment and the and the outcomes of the community engagement effort that they have provided. And that may be in the form of reviewing their, their findings and their report. They're going to be, we don't necessarily have the opportunity to engage with them on a, on a frequent basis at all, given given their, their budget and time time frame. Then this is in my mind somewhat of the crux of what we're going to be needing to work on is really deliberating. After we sort of identify the areas and start doing some research, deliberating evaluating and deciding on the bylaw criteria and standards that we want to put forward as recommendations and in our, in our bylaw draft. This would take course, make roughly in this, this time frame. Then with, with help and maybe even leadership of the planning department staff is to draft the bylaws and work with them with regard to incorporating some of our recommendations. That would take place sort of after this point after we're in the process of deliberating and making decisions on those recommendations. Again, I think up to up to Chris and her and her leadership of that department they may be starting to draft some of this ahead of time but this is when we could get more engaged. Here we have review the solar assessment mapping. Again, as, as Mike just laid out, and we just discussed also the solar consultant is going to use this GIS mapping exercise to develop maps of not necessarily where solar should go but just technically potentially could go with regard to not just the unbuilt environment but also importantly the built environment. And, and will be in, in the, in a position to really review that their reports and their mapping exercise as, as that will be critical to inform our work. And then we need to as per our charge, but, but really with the help of, of staff at the in the planning department primarily, I think, is to, you know, prepare a report on the process and guidance for solar siting permit, permitting and construction that is part of the zoning bylaws in my mind, but maybe separate from the specific standards and criteria that are in the bylaws in the zoning bylaw. And then, and we'll get help help from the planning department in preparing that report. You know, ultimately, all sort of getting to the end result of a zoning bylaw, coming out of this body that can be provided as a recommendation to the town council. And the, and just, you know, again, we have the solar consultant that's going to have a six month window to perform their work we'll talk a little bit about their scope in a moment. But my guess I maybe maybe that might be available, even starting sometime in August but after contract you know that let's think about starting and, you know might start about September and have sort of this six month window. We talked about the solar consultant that the RFQ is being prepared now and so maybe that work starts a little bit earlier. But we have to sort of incorporate and think about what we want what we what input we might want to provide through me to in terms of the scope of work for the for that technical consultant for the bylaw. So let me pause there and see if any thoughts or comments or suggestions on that. And, and let me, and then we can again will distribute this to everybody and take it up again at the next meeting to to sort of conclude to come to some conclusion on this work plan. Okay, open it to Chris. Thank you. So, thanks for doing this Dwayne this is really excellent, a good guide for what we're going to be doing. Two comments or questions and one of them has to do with item number it's it's listed on column or row nine. Yeah, it's not really item number nine but it says identify priorities. We have also talked about identifying values. And I think that's an important word to stick in here. It relates to, you know, we have a value that we want to preserve forests we have a value that we want to preserve farmland but we also have a value that we want to make sure that Amherst is going to be. We call it carbon neutral by 2050. Yeah, and that we have, you know, adequate solar arrays to move ourselves along to that goal. And so, you know, I think you could argue that those are priorities, but I also think they're values so I just wanted to stick that word in there because I think it's important. The other thing I wanted to ask about is, or say that I think, particularly with the planning board, the planning board is going to have to hold a public hearing on this. If it's a zoning bylaw, and I think it would be a good idea to keep the planning board informed as we move along. They're not surprised at the end and don't just have something dropped on them by town council that happens sometimes last year when we were working at a very rapid pace on zoning bylaws that something would arrive at town council be referred for public hearings and all of a sudden, the planning board would go like where did this come from. So, I think it's, it's a good idea and I'll talk to the planning board chair about, you know, updating the planning board of course Jen it will be doing that as part of her report. But it may also be worthwhile to show them drafts of things as we're moving through this so that was my comment. And, and I wondered if possibly the conservation commission would be in a similar position even though they don't have to hold a public hearing in the end but we probably want to keep them informed about what we're doing to them. That's really, really helpful. Thank you. And yeah, definitely. Let me know particularly when you think it might be worthwhile junctures or Janet with regard to providing information any any drafts we have up to that point to the planning department or conservation department. Or if there's even a need or interest in presenting to them at one of their meetings. Great. Yes, Stephanie, and then we'll go to Jack. Thanks Dwayne. Yes, there will be a process for other departments and boards to review this document as we go forward. You know, especially the energy and climate action committee very much are interested in the language of this bylaw so I think they will want to weigh in as well so I do think there'll be more of a process for that kind of broad dissemination, and that's something I would help coordinate. Great, thank you. Jack. Yeah, I was just going to say that it seems like the solar assessment, you know, study is most critical I mean it brings you know everything specific to the town here because that's our town is different than every other town. And I'm just in and I know it's largely a GIS effort and I'm just wondering why it's going to take so long because it seems like that should be done. You know, much sooner, so we can, you know, have more productive conversations and work on the bylaw itself. Well, I think it's, as we'll discuss in a moment on that I mean it's the RQ has just gone out now so I think it's reasonable to assume it'll be a few weeks at least before somebody, well, for responses and then and then to get somebody contracted will be about a month or more maybe. I guess your question Jack is, doesn't need to take six months. And we'll maybe we can defer that conversation when we get to the solar assessment because you know there's a fair amount of scope that the consultants being asked to, to provide including this community engagement and outreach, in addition to the mapping exercise if you will, and then some analysis with that mapping so let's discuss that when we look at the scope of work. Yeah, Janet sorry. Does Stephanie want to go first, or she is that. No, that's okay I just lowered my hand. I think we should pull out the community engagement process from the solar assessment, because I think that it seems to me as part of the community engagement process, people are going to want to know, you know, the information in the assessment. That just seems like it's, you know, it might be overlapping but it seems like people you know knowing this town, and how much we crave information. I think that's sort of a separate piece of the puzzle. I also from reading the from our charge I thought that that was a piece of the puzzle that we would be working much more on. And I think it's fantastic to work with a consultant on that and I looked at the RFP very quickly. And if they have that experience I think it'd be great but I saw our group is having a lot more input in that process. I'm not sure but I guess I think it's a separate piece and the timing might be changed and the who does what or have my question be like how would we work effectively with the consultant to make sure, you know, the values of the community are being identified. So that's one piece. We're also supposed to provide a map about showing sites that are suitable for are considered suitable for large scale solar large scale ground mounted solar arrays. And I think that I took that as a separate issue not just saying, where could they possibly go but where do we think do we as a group as a working group think it's suitable. And I, you know, not technically suitable but in terms of the community values. And so I just wanted to bring that up as another kind of deliverable that our group needs to show to town council. And so those are two pieces. Yeah, let's Martha. Yes, well, first let me say I think this is terrific. Dwayne I think you've given us all just a wonderful, you know, map here of our whole process all the way from start to finish so congratulations for your work. But I, one thing I don't see specifically I wonder if we wanted to to call it out somewhere to review is reviewing our town's master plan and the ECAC's car, the climate action plan I mean these were both plans put together with a lot of community input and representing community values as well as, you know, the work to be done. And I wonder if we should have a review of those sometime. And then just one other thing I would just add to what Janet said and I really think that we should work together with the consultants in planning outreach forums and so on because that's a very important aspect that we are really charged with, as well as having the consultants work on and maybe in this, you know, Jack was saying this is a sort of a long time for the consultants to be working but maybe part of that would be in order to interact with us and sort of mutually agree on how these forums might be handled. Yep, Stephanie. Thank you, Dwayne. The energy and climate action committee will actually be involved in this process as well so I think guidance from the carp will mainly come from them. So I don't, I guess just thinking that you all have so much that you're looking at and referring to. It's not that you shouldn't, but I think they're going to make very specific recommendations based on that document in their work. So I just wanted to provide that feedback. I'm sorry, what document. The climate adaptation and resilience plan, affectionately known as the carp. And that's, yeah, that was an output of the ECAC and a consultant that worked with the ECAC with ECAC that I would agree with Janet that's a resource we should all be familiar with. I'm not sure if we need to put it on our work plan per se but maybe we can add it. Well it's on the town website already but maybe it should go in our resource set of documents as well. I can add it. Have easy access to it. I'll also do the same for the master plan as well. Great. Yeah. All right, great. Anything else Stephanie, I still have your hand up but I couldn't remember if that was a new one or. Okay, and then Chris, a new hand up. I just wanted to mention that once a year we're required to have a forum on mass on the master plan so I have sort of a quick presentation that I give at the forum. I could give it to this group if this group is interested, or you could just attend the forum which usually happens in the fall. So just wanted to put that out there that there is, you know, kind of a quick overview of it. And I could give that to you if you're interested. I think is that is that I'm not sure if we want to take up your time and the working group time. Is that something that would be available sort of in a PowerPoint as well that we could just add to our resource. Yes, it's available in a PowerPoint and it's also the forum occurs at a town council meeting so you guys. You guys I shouldn't say it that way. You could tune into the town council meeting where they talk about this. So you can give us an update when that's scheduled. So we are alerted to that when that when the fall comes sooner or later. Yep, Janet. So I was also going to say, I hope we don't just rest our looking at community values at two forums but try to reach the different parts of the community, maybe with the survey. We can talk to our community participation officers and hopefully the consultant will have more ways to reach out to people then hoping that people will come to like one or two meetings so I think that's actually recommended by your Institute on the way into so just just adding that. Yeah, I think I think this is one of the reasons why it's important that the consultant is really taking this on. No offense to any any of us here in this in this working group we're all. I can speak for myself I got a, I got a day job. And, you know, and nor do I have expertise in running public forum. Where's the consultant, you know part of the criteria for selection and their demonstration and their applications that they have experience in doing this type of community engagement across diverse portions of the community so we are careful to understand the differences and priorities of across the diverse constituents we have in Amherst. Not those that just might happen to show up to a particular meeting, and that we will have a role to play in terms of helping to inform and design and and and make suggestions to the consultant with regard to the types of questions or issues we want to bring that will be up to them to to lead that engagement that will relate as as Stephanie mentioned both to this working group and to ecac and maybe other other parts of the of the town. Okay. Any other comments on that I'm going to stop sharing screen so we don't look at that anymore. And so I will I made a few adjustments I will get this off to Stephanie a little bit later today or maybe over the weekend. And then she'll distribute this as as a document we can all reference and maybe bring up for discussion at our next agenda. I don't want to dwell on it but it just in case people have some comments on it suggestions after having a chance to look at it a little bit in a little bit more detail on their own time. Okay. Great. Let me find my agenda again. Yeah, okay which which does bring us to the solar assessment. I think maybe what I like to do there is keep this very terse at the moment. Just because we're running out of time and we do need probably five minutes or so to figure out when we're going to meet next. And then I do want to leave time for any public comment. So, I think we talked a little bit about. We've talked on and off about the solar assessment. It's a theme that runs throughout today's discussion. Like to say is that it's going to be a really helpful effort that the town is conducting both for this group for the town as a whole and for ecac and others. And, and again it's going to be an assessment that looks at both the built environment and the unbuilt environment and the maybe not built environment but but disturbed environments. So a range of the full range of opportunities for solar but technical potential to give us and constituents around the town. A sense of what we're talking about in terms of the solar opportunities in town, both in the undeveloped and the built environment. It will also in terms of the scope of work will also then go into this community engagement activity informed by others as we've talked about to provide this information, not only to us but the town and the town staff and the town manager with regard to what can be clean from the values. And I like that word Chris values and priorities and preferences of the town constituents again making sure to the extent possible to really try to do make sure that we have a a fair and broad and reasonable statistical information across across all the diversity that we have in town, including including residents and businesses. And, and then, in addition, one of the exercises using this GIS mapping that the consultants will will provide is again not to suggest that any body any body within the town is emerging, or, or suggesting that the town should host a certain amount of capacity and Amherst, but just as an exercise of trying to figure out what would it mean if we were to host a certain amount of capacity in town, where, what would that really mean in terms of the landscape land use and and what might solar around town. So with input from EECAC, I believe, and others. There will be asked for the consultants to look at a couple different scenarios of what would what might solar look like an Amherst if we were to do X, Y and Z amount of megawatts. There's no single answer to that it could be all on buildings, potentially, unless we maximize the amount that's available on buildings, or it could be all in the forest, and we're not suggesting that you know that the exercise is not to suggest one's better or the other. But just what are the various different scenarios in which a certain amount of megawatts could be incorporated in town, recognizing also as part of this scenario that there's there's different outcomes associated with different ways in which to distribute solar around Amherst in terms of what we give up in terms of land use, but also what what it might cost in terms of installation costs, given the difference in costs associated with different types of solar. And so that that's also an exercise and a task that the consultant consultant will will provide and help to inform the town and the various bodies in the town. So let me ask Stephanie if she has any thing to add on the on the assessment. I don't at this time and especially given the time of the meeting I'm fine to hold off. Great. Okay, thanks. Okay, so let's let's leave it there at the at the moment and let's work on just quickly if we can when we might schedule our next meeting. So far we've done every other Friday. My, my problem is that next two Fridays from now I'm not available. And quite frankly two Fridays from then I'm then I'm also not available. So the fall hits, but I'm, I think if we could just go one meeting at a time at this point might be the best way to go. And so I am wondering whether there would be an opportunity. Instead to meet next time in two weeks but on Thursday instead at. That would be the 11th. The town until the 13th starting on Tuesday. Okay, so you couldn't make next Friday either. With the exception of Laura. Can anybody anybody else have a conflict with Thursday the, sorry, yeah Thursday the 11th at noon. Okay so that might be one option and apologies for that for Laura but the other option would be, at least for me just to throw out there is to go three weeks. So I'll stick with Friday the 19th at noon. Is there any. Anybody who could not make it then. Cool. How do people, Stephanie. Stephanie here. Sorry I'll be on vacation. But that's okay. Chris will be here I think or, and we can always get it to do the technical piece. So. Dan. I have to leave at 11, I have to leave at 130. Thursday 11th you would be available 12 foot only to 130. Okay. Could we do like 11 to one. Yeah, that would be great for me. Let me just. This is 1111. No, I apologize. I have something 11 to 12. That is hard. I can't really miss. So, how do people feel and I like the idea of waiting three weeks and we have everybody, but we have a lot of work to do so two weeks might be better and miss Laura and Dan for half an hour. Do people have a preference on that. My preference would be the 11th. Because I may not be here on the 19th. Okay, let's go with with the 11th at noon. And apologize Laura. Stephanie has. Okay, and it'll be recorded and. Yeah. Okay. Sorry doing I know you just went through this process, but I just wanted to throw out, and maybe this doesn't work for you specifically, but the possibility of the 10th from 10. From noon. I'm tied up all day on the 10th. Okay, so never mind. Yeah, just thought I'd add that. Okay. I'm sorry guys, I have a hard stop at two. So I have to go. Okay. Great. And sorry to go over, but I do want to, for those who couldn't stick around for sure. Open it up for any public, any comments from the public. At this point, and yes, Stephanie, you're still there to control that. So if anyone is interested in the public of speaking, please virtually raise your hand and I'll let you know that you're unmuted. Michael. Thank you guys. Great meeting again. I've got a number of comments there. They're kind of in chronological order because just took down notes as you're doing your, your meeting. One thing that I hope won't get lost and I have a feeling it won't, because I've heard jack say it at other meetings before when he talks about monitoring construction being absolutely critical I couldn't agree with him more. But any bylaw that you come up with has at least weekly monitoring with someone who's working for the town, but who's paid for by the contractor, so that someone is looking out for the town's interest on this. It's not a clerk of the works position like you'd have on a public building position obviously, but someone who's there to look out for the town's interest because it's too easy for things to go wrong really quickly. And that should be on the tab of the contractor not on the town. And I hope that'll become part of the bylaw on the comment about what's necessary to protect the public health safety and welfare. I think one of the big things you need to look at there is how you define the public. The public in some cases can be a couple of people doesn't have to be, you know, the entire population of Amherst. All you have to do is look at what went on with lever it. They had a different situation obviously it was leaching from a landfill. That's certainly not the same situation as a solar field, but in that particular case, the leaching from the landfill affected five households. The households led to the town having to pay two and a half million dollars to run a water line from Amherst to lever it. You could certainly say that that was affecting the public health safety and welfare, even though it was only five people on wells that happened to be located near the landfill. You can see that type of situation avoided in town. And it's also interesting that that landfill was kept in 1995, and yet the issue in the surface so many years later, and you hate to see a situation that looks okay now. It's not going to be harmful and then learn 510 years down the road that it is harmful, and it's affecting the wells of just a handful of people that happen to be close to a solar installation. So that's something to be able to look out for. The mass mapper presentation and the MRS GIS presentation. Both programs are fantastic. But I would say, if you want to do some quick work on your own now, go to the mass mapper program, because one thing it does have that the MRS GIS doesn't have is it has current aerial imagery. You can go there now. And unlike going to say Google maps or Apple maps, where you look, and you look at the solar installations and Amherst and you don't see them, where you see one tractor out in the field. They have, they have aerial imagery that's from nine, sorry, not 19 from 2021. And that's, I find that to be invaluable when I'm looking at these things. So when you're looking at the pulpit hill solar and when you're looking at Montague solar, you can actually see them they're there. Unlike Google maps when you go there and you maybe you see a bulldozer, you know, going through the field. So having that current aerial photography I think is critical. I highly recommend it for that. I also highly recommend it for what Martha was looking for, which is the bio map to layers. And also, there was someone else that was looking for all those endangered species areas. It has all those layers. They're not that hard to find. And I think they'll be invaluable whether you use the mass mapper to do it or whether Mike adds that to the MRS GIS, both of those will be eye opening to you. And one last thing, and I know it's kind of beyond your control is public involvement in, and I find these meetings fascinating. I think they've been great. This group is so well organized, but the meeting time is just so out of reach of many, many people that might want to attend. I mean, I can do it. I'm retired, I can sit at home and watch it. But there are, you know, lots of other members of the public that don't have this time available, they're out working someplace, and they're missing out a lot. I'm sure they can watch the recording, but you can't respond to recording. You lose that interaction with the public. And I think a couple different people today have brought up how important it is for public involvement in this particular process. So I would urge you whenever you can do it, maybe after the summer, you know, switch these meeting times to a time when more the public can actually be here and be involved because I feel like they're missing out some because it's been a really good committee so far. I think that's it for now. Thank you. Great. Thank you, Michael. Really helpful. Go ahead. You can unmute Lenore. Hi, everybody. Can you, you can hear me. Yes. Yes. So first, I just, my name's Lenore brick. And I just want to thank you. First of all, for your collective passion, intelligence and sincerity and service to the town and to, in this case, really the world. I want to follow up on, I have three points for now. I want to follow up on not just the importance of community engagement, of course, but I would I would like to hear a little bit more. This is more of a question of what are some creative ways that the committee can be engaged that you can be informed by lots of different educated and experienced voices. That, and that the consultant can also be informed and I missed some of the meetings so I don't I'm not sure if you're talking about the technical consultant or the solar consultant or some other consultant but regardless. We have a lot of expertise not just in our town but throughout the state and throughout the region about this the big picture that we're trying to address. I would be interested in a forum where there could be a presentation where there could be other consultants, not just people who know about solar but people who understand how that interacts with the environment, people like conservation restoration ecologists, forest ecologists, regenerative farmers, climate scientists that understand a little bit more about land use. And these are emerging fields and silos that have been separated but are now coming together in the climate movement. And let's not forget that the reason we're doing anything about solar is because of this big picture that we're trying to deal with climate. And so I, I'm asking about that community engagement I'm also asking that you keep in mind this big picture that that that there are guiding principles, even though you're just working on a solar bylaw, it's connected to the much bigger picture of climate collapse and biodiversity collapse, and that we wouldn't be even doing anything with solar if we weren't trying to heal the world that severely damaged, and that that be kind of always ever present this this holistic understanding, and that there are natural laws that we have broken and that we need to take into consideration, and, and to not and this is a, I think the third point to not be so married to the current laws that people make based on their current understanding, because the ground is shifting, the paradigm is shifting and, and the state is shifting we're going to have a new governor. We're going to have new state reps and legislators laws will be and that will be in process for the next three years and enacted two years later that might be a year later than will then your charge, but you need to be that kind of forward person to be ahead of the game and not rely on just what's been done, what's been thought of procedures that have come before you solar industry standards that have come before you, because things are changing quickly as they need to. I'm hoping that you can be nimble and that am Amherst can really do something a little bit different than what's been done before informed by what's been done before but with the bravery of doing something, you know, big. So I thank you and I offer myself up and the, and the network that I have, because I was part of co founding this regional wide group for connecting understanding of climate with ecosystem health regenerative farming forest food systems all of that and there's a lot of other expertise in the region that could inform what you're doing so thank you again. Thank you and or yeah those are good words. Anyone else who's interested in speaking please raise your hand virtually. Okay, I don't see anyone raising their hands Dwayne. Okay, great. Seeing none. Okay, thank you to the public for listening and participating. Just before we sign off I I'm just give Martha a heads up I think you're going to be on on tap for taking notes minutes next time. Just looking my alphabetical list. So that would be would be a good to know. Yeah. Are we going to mention at all agenda items for our next meeting or that's helpful. Yes. Was that on their agenda. I think so. Let's let's see I mean I guess we're going to have Chris do something more about the zone, the zoning. Right. Yeah. And I know Dwayne at one point you had mentioned perhaps giving a review of our of the state of the climate plan and or the the the rebates and so on and you know if you if you wanted to I'd be willing to do the review of the new 1922 climate action plan if you wanted to review the, what are the rebates and the rules, and that kind of thing I don't know if that's relevant now or opponent for a while. Yeah. Would people find that useful to sort of have an overview of the of the state. I think two things one is where the state decarbonization roadmap, as it means, as it pertains to solar and land use particularly. There's a lot more in there. And then a bit of an overview of the, the current solar program in Massachusetts. Okay. Okay, we, we, Martha and I can work on that. And, and have that on our agenda. I wouldn't mind just any additional feedback on the work plan. As we put that together. And then in that work plan I wouldn't mind maybe spending some time on our initial tasks. So I'm thinking, having a bit of a working meeting to some extent of how, and this might involve Chris as well, and the Chris is still here yeah, in terms of, you know, just this first exercise of sort of developing our skeleton or sort of outline as I called it but I think one of the, of the bylaw that we can start sort of hanging hanging the bones on I guess. And then we can use that to start saying okay within the skeleton here, here are some of the major issues that we want to deliberate on. I know I'm sending like a broken record but I do think I would, you know, if we're going to do work on the work plan I think we have to be really clear about what we're supposed to deliver to town council and what decisions, what tasks we need to do and what decisions we have to make as a group. Because I think there's some without being really clear on that there's, it's going to be kind of cloudy going. And I just think like you have a work plan to deliver x y and z and I think the charge is pretty clear about what we're supposed to decide and do but when I'm hearing things I don't feel like it's that clear in the group so I would love to, you know at the top of the work plan list what we have to provide to towns council like us our group, what decisions we have to make and what tasks we have to complete and that doesn't mean that we have to do it in isolation from anybody but that we're on the hook for people. I also want to volunteer my time because I have more time than probably most people here and so I'm happy to work on the skeleton. You know, and, you know, so that's one issue so I'd like to see that in the agenda, the, I don't know if this is for next time but I would love to hear two things like what have been problems at solar days because I keep on reading and hearing stuff, and then knowing what best practices are in the industry so the industry itself has probably learned stuff from what they've been doing. And I'd be interested in hearing from people who are in the industry, like what they think our best practices, you know the improvements they've made, and kind of what gets in their way because we don't want to buy a law that's so complicated and ornate that nobody can even understand what we're asking for. So that could be probably further down the road but I do think, you know, as an attorney, working on litigation it's like, that's all we saw were the problems you know and so I just, I think, if we know what has happened poorly, that will help us understand what we need to draft or work against. That could be another meeting but I just, it's always in my head like people keep on talking about Wendell and I'm not like I don't have any, I'm not sure about Wendell, you know. Okay, I do like maybe particularly for next time agenda item to really hone in on what what are our deliverables and and how, how, how do we, how do we anticipate them coming together. I don't know if that's going to be strictly on us, but most of it I think is going to be in concert with either the consultants or the planning, planning, planning department, or other departments. We need them. Yeah. Okay, great. And Lenore has her hand up again. Okay, and just before we go to Lenore any other thoughts on agenda topics. Otherwise, these are good, good ideas for sure and appreciate that and Stephanie and I can work on on fleshing that all out. Or if anybody wants to email me directly you can't do it to everybody. And Stephanie and Chris other other ideas that you come up with. And Lenore, let's try to make it super quick. Super quick. I'm unmuted right. Just just to Janet's point I had other points and that was one of them that Janet brought up and I just want to offer there are people around the state that are watching those projects and monitoring them and have information about that. There's a way that that can be offered to you in a presentation or in materials or whatever the best way to discuss that so that it doesn't form, because I totally agree that learning from the problems in the past can help us. I'm in the future and, and to the point of, of, you know, Jack and others that are that are rightly so talking about, you know, monitoring the construction. What is what goes hand in hand with that is anticipating what could be the problems and avoiding them so that it's not just that you have a police there, making sure don't do this don't do that. But how about we set it up so that that's not even going to, you know, we don't even have to worry about that, and doing this kind of understanding will will minimize that because you cannot. It is never as effective to do symptomatic, you know, relief and and and firefighting as it is to do prevention. Great. So thank you. Yeah, thank you. Okay, I think we're good and overtime. And unless there's any last comments holding. Let me officially declare this meeting adjourned. And thank you everybody and thank you for going a little bit over time as well. Great weekend. Thank you. Okay. Yep. Bye bye.