 Okay, we're recording. Hey, good morning, everybody. Welcome to the October 10th, 2023 meeting of the town of Amherst solar bylaw working group. We have a quorum. And I think, in fact, we have a full house of members. We don't have Dan. We don't have Dan. Okay. Yeah, gotcha. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Missing. Are we expecting it again at all? Um, Stephanie, do you know? I didn't hear back. Okay. Okay. All right. Great. Well, this is a good, good. Membership turnout and for the record. At least starting the meeting, we have six other attendees from the public. So thank you. For those. Participants joining in to, to. List and then participate with any public comments at the end of the meeting. All right. So today's an important day for the. Working group to try to. Finish up for the most part our work through the, of the, of the drafting the bylaw itself. And then we're going to move on to the next item. And then we're going to take our hats off to Chris for all her work over the course of the last two weeks and pulling together the draft that will be reviewing today or the second half of the draft that we didn't get to last time. And for other members who have provided some comments to, to Chris. So let me call up the agenda. We have a few. Comments that we could get through first. Wayne, if I could, there was a revision to the agenda, which was an item to authorization of a member to approve October 10th, 2023 meeting minutes. So whoever is doing the minutes today. It's just a vote to have. I would think you as chair, but just to authorize the committee to authorize you to approve the final minutes. I would make it on to the official calendar posting, but I think I accidentally meant have sent you all the second revision versus this last revision. So it's the only change. Okay, I just wanted to make sure everybody saw that or are at least aware of that. Okay, okay, great. Yeah, that makes sense. If we, if it makes sense to the working group so that we can approve all the minutes. Okay. So we'll get to that after we review the meeting, the minutes of the meetings that we do have available as drafts. And so first, for the now somewhat historic minutes of, of what's a August, yeah, August 4th, 2023. Thank you, Stephanie. I believe for pulling those together. I just wanted to make sure that they were included in our packet. Do we have any comments? Or a motion to approve. Those minutes. Janet. I thought they were excellent minutes. You know, they were very long, but they really covered a lot. Like what Jonathan Murray said, which was very nuanced. And important to read again. So I'd like to make a motion to approve the minutes of August 10th. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. And. Excuse me. I think it was August 4th. Yeah. I revised my motion. We'll hold the second. I think, okay. Okay. So in no particular order, if you could please unmute and Laura, I'm sorry, I do need your camera on just for the vote. McGowan. Yes. Brooks. Yes. Breger. Yes. Tanner. Yes. Gemsuck. Yep. Taglia Rulo. Yes. Thank you. Minutes are approved. All right. Great. Thank you, everybody. And now we have the minutes from the last meeting. Which was just a week ago. October 3rd. 2023. Do we have any comments on those or a motion to approve those? Okay. Is it possible to display them? Yeah, I'm just looking for them now. Sorry. Yeah, they just went out. Yeah. Sorry, I was away for the weekend in New York with my girls. So I apologize. If you just give me a second, I'll share the screen. So you should be able to see those. Yep. Oh, you know, I have a few, two sections. I think we're ahead questions. I did correct one of them, Janet. Okay. Thanks. It's just this one question. I think was the only one that's left in the red. Yeah. I think it was Martha's comment. Yeah. I mean, I think I did say that. Have the. Permit granting authority approve. Importing soils because we don't. You don't want just junk stuff. Yeah, but there, when we get to that section of the real draft, there is a question about the keeping soils on site that was brought up by Scott cash and when we, when we get there, but that's not relevant to the minutes. So I'll just strike the comment. Yeah. They're not sure this is right. Yeah. Okay. Stop for a minute. Let us read. Okay. Any other thoughts or comments to people have. Or need a little bit more time. All right. Any final comments on these or any. But he want to make a motion to approve these minutes. I move to approve the minutes. Second. Thank you, Martha. Thank you, Robert. And let me thank Janet for. Dragging these minutes too. Welcome. Okay. Again, please have your cameras on the unmuted and in no particular order. Brooks. Yes. Brigger. Yes. Gem sec. Yes. McGowan. Yes. Tenor. Yes. Haglia Rulo. Yes. Okay. Minutes are approved. Thank you. Thank you, Martha. Thank you, Robert. And let me thank Janet for. Okay. Minutes are approved. Okay. Before we leave the topic of minutes. And get to the topic of the today's minutes, I need to. Find a minute taker and apologize. I didn't get that started. We missed the notes on the, on the approvals just now, but we can get those from the official record from Stephanie, whoever's taking the minutes. Okay. My record showed that it's, it's Dan's turn, but he's not here. And the second one up would be, would be Martha. I was kind of afraid of that, but yeah, I assume that, that, that if it takes a week or so, that that's okay. This is no real urgency then. Yeah. I think we need to, we need to, we need to, we need to, we need to, we need to arise someone to approve the final minutes. I'm assuming Dwayne is chair would make the most sense, but. Yeah. Do we, do we need a motion for that? Yes. Is there a motion. To. Enable the chair. To approve the minutes of October 10th. All right. Thank you, Robert. Bob. Is there a second for that? All right. Thanks, Jack. So are we authorizing Dwayne to be the one to approve them? Yes. Okay. So. Again, in no particular order. Breger. Yes. Gensack. Yes. McGowan. Yes. Can you just put your camera on real quick and say, yes, I'm sorry. Yes. Thank you. I think that's the last vote as far as I can talk. All right. Okay. Great. With that. Okay. So Martha, you're starting the minutes now. So thank you. Yes. Okay. Returning to the. Agenda. We have any staff updates. Stephanie and then. Chris. I do not have any updates. I do not have any updates. Okay. All right. Any committee updates from the committees that we are. Yeah. I have none from. I don't have anything from the planning board. Say again, Janet. Nothing. I'm nothing from the planning board. Okay. Thank you. Oh, though we did hear the shoots, Barry road. Presentation. Just relevant, obviously. All right. Any committee updates from the committees that we are. I do not have any updates from the planning board. Obviously. All right. Anybody else. Okay. So. The bulk of today will be to continue through the. Reading and reviewing and editing. And commenting on the. Solar bylaw draft. Again, thanks to Chris for. Pulling this together. We did. Review. And we'll continue through the reading of that. What might be about the first half of the draft last time. With some comments. And edits suggested that Chris, you have now incorporated in the draft that we'll be looking at today. Although we won't be going back to that. And we'll continue through. The reading of that. So is that sound good with everybody? Awesome. Okay. Okay. Stephanie, are you in a position to do this screen share? I am. I just want to ask Chris, I'm looking at the work we copy. I just want to know what page I know you, you have something. It's the October 9th version that I sent out yesterday. Right. And it's, I think page 11 is where we stopped. Okay. Just making sure. I just wanted to make sure that we had all of the changes that we made on October. Who weren't here last time. That we didn't review the next statement. And. It didn't review all the submittals. And that's it, I guess. Also, I wanted to just say that. I did incorporate all of the. Changes that we made on October. Third. But I wasn't able to incorporate the changes that were sent to the meeting. I just wanted to make sure that we had all the changes that we made on October 9th. Most of yesterday off, although I was here for a couple of hours, but I just didn't have time to incorporate all of the comments. I did receive comments from Janet and from Martha. And I received a comment from. Bob Brooks. And I think that was it. So. I will, you know, look at those comments and try to incorporate them after this meeting, but I didn't do it as of today. I just wanted to make sure that we had all the changes that were made on October 9th. So I might have to do some adjusting in terms of where we start. So you can just direct me. Okay. Yep. I go ahead, Martha. Yes. Question to Chris. I know that Scott cash and sent. A long list of comments from his. Perspective. Have you had a chance to look them over and incorporate them? Or is that still pending? No, I haven't incorporated them. I haven't incorporated them. Which was a few weeks ago, and I incorporated some of those comments. I have not had a chance to. Incorporate comments sent last week. I read through them, but I haven't incorporated them. It's, it was just. Well. I don't need to tell you, it was a monumental task. I mean, I just could not get all of those comments. I don't know. I don't know about your meeting. That's, you know, something for the group to decide, but I was not able to incorporate those just the comments that. We managed to put together. Last Tuesday. Yeah. Just, just for the group's information. And Scott cash in is the, is the one who's been listening to our meetings and who recently moved from California and taken an interest because he's a biologist whose head experience is really different from those of us who live in California. And so he's a biologist. We have a lot of personal analytics. We have a lot of solar bylaws. And so his comments will related to, you know, just kind of little specific things to tighten up. The by law and, you know, prevent exceptions, plus some. A specific biological insights. So it wasn't. You know, major policy or anything, but it was. A lot of what seemed to me to be helpful. Sorry, I have my hand up, but I can't buy my raise hand function and it was up. I was trying to get it before Janet raised her. So Janet, I'm just going to jump in real quick. I think it would be appropriate, especially at this point, given that the draft is going to be going to staff that the conservation staff review Scott's comments, because they're more relevant to their area of expertise. So, I think that would just be a logical progression, seeing that it's going to all of the department heads at this point. Chris is going to be discussing that at some point, I believe. In terms of next steps. Great. Thank you, Stephanie. Janet, go ahead. So, I'm sort of like a process question, which is so Chris is put in edits from our meeting last week, but not in response to more recent comments. So as we go through this document, you know, I had comments that I should bring them up now again because it makes sense that, you know, since we're decision making as a group that everybody hear it. You know, whatever anyone's comments were. So that's my process question. And then on the Scott cash in front some of his stuff was, you know, good comments about our draft and some of it was super detailed. And I was thinking about, you know, you know, he had like a whole section at the end. I mean, here we have this sort of sort of fortunate experience of having a wildlife biologist. Who has dealt with, you know, hundreds of solar arrays, and then we have the Kip Kalisankis, who is a soil scientist agricultural expert who also deals with solar arrays. But a lot of their comments are super like, I think Scott described it as granular and I wondered if we could incorporate you know, their comments, you know, very specific comments as kind of an appendix or an attachment saying, you know, these are two detailed, you know, to put into the bylaw because other, you know, it could be, you know, more pages long. But, you know, these are good guidance for any, you know, board looking at an array so that it's sort of an education for them. And also in education, I think sometimes the people deciding solar arrays may not be experts about compacting agricultural soils and how to avoid it or how to provide, you know, 24 inches of something. And so that was just an idea I thought to, you know, use that expertise in a way that would be useful for other people that, you know, aren't educated on that. So I think we could talk about that later by just, it just occurred to me like an hour ago. But I do wonder, do you want to hear people's comments that they made already so the whole group can kind of listen to them and make decisions on it? Are you referring to comments in what was the drafting that we've already done, the first half of the bylaw? I mean, you know, the comments that Chris received this week but wasn't able to get to. Well, why don't we hear them as we get to those sections. Okay. So that's one of the of the language. Yeah, go ahead, Jack. Yeah, I was going to say, I will, I think. I wanted to like go through and give Chris detailed comments and I just my, my week the last week has just been kind of crazy. But I'll go ahead, you know, if I can, it sounds like Chris, there's still opportunity for, you know, detailed. And that's that you can, that'll get filtered somehow in some other review past, you know, the charge of our group. So anyway, that's all that, you know, I feel like, you know, the detail that we're looking at, you know, we're not going to get this perfect. Right now I feel like we're in danger of making this more of like a policy type document versus just the bylaw, which is what's supposed to be. I mean, all the things that we're talking about are to have all of them spelled out just seems, you know, they may come into play, they may not, but I just, I just feel like it's getting way too cumbersome. As I did with so much of it is, I don't think relevant. I mean, compaction of soils on agriculture land when you have tractors that are heavier than any sort of equipment that would be coming in an aggregate. I mean, it's just, it kind of drives me crazy. Obviously, but that's just my, my opinion, but Chris, is that, is that okay if I send you something or would it would it not be used? No, you can send it to me. We're going to be going through other reviews after this group is finished with its work. Thank you. Yeah, thank you for that. And I would also provide that at least in like for the agriculture. If we're talking about the dual use arrays or agrivoltaics, the state has prescribed regulations with regard to issues around soil compaction and how to try to mitigate that. And I, I guess my sense would be not to set up two different rules that developers would and farmers and landowners would need to abide by, but be recognized that the state has, has rules already on the books that need to be met by the developers. Okay, Chris. Yeah, I just wanted to make a comment in response to what Janet said. I think a zoning bylaw, you know, can't really have appendices that are documents prepared by someone else. We can certainly make those documents available to people who are interested in, you know, having large scale solar arrays or battery storage or whatever, but I don't think it would be appropriate to put those into the zoning bylaw because what goes into the zoning bylaw becomes the town law and you know, and it has to be adopted by town council and reviewed by KP law and so it's really not an opportunity to have the type of, you know, comments that are in Scott cash in or kips documents. As I said, I will go through Scott cations and try to incorporate the things that seem to be relevant from him, but I think we've included a lot of what kip said, not the fine detail but again this document right now is 25 pages long. Most cities and towns have much smaller shorter solar bylaws and I think, you know, we're kind of running the risk of. Going overboard with this. So anyway, that's all I have to say about that. Thanks. All right, let's try to put this. Issue aside and then move on to the review that we have, but Janet one last comment. Well, you know, actually, I was, I think I was clear because I was thinking exactly the same thing. We don't want to put that level of detail into the bylaw, but I think capturing. Maybe their comments and, you know, somehow presenting it to a board later saying here is some expert advice on stuff. So I think it through more. I don't want to add that to the bylaws. I do think it's, you know, way too deep or detailed. All right, great. So let's carry on. When Chris is ready. With the language, I thought, well, we do, we do have a 3 hour meeting today. We'll try to take a break after an hour and a half to 2 hours find a place to find a time like 5 minutes. And then we'll resume. To break it up a little bit, but Chris, whenever you're ready. Okay. Yeah. Okay. I think we got through the visual impact and. I had made a comment about the wireless telecommunication devices in our zoning bylaw having something about visual impact. Those are really just line of sight requirements. People who are putting up mono polls need to provide line of sight. Details to the board, but they don't have to. There's not really a section on visual impact. So I don't know if more. Janet had a chance to look at that, but I just wanted to correct my statement from last time. I think we got through the visual impact and we were about to start on fencing if I'm not mistaken. So why don't we start there. And, and I have a question for Laura here. Which relates to this section. So anyway, I'll start reading. There shall be a fence built surrounding the solar array and ancillary equipment. The fence shall be knuckled salvage chain link fence unless determined otherwise by the PGA. The bottom of the fence shall be at least at least six to eight inches above the ground to allow wildlife crossing under the fence. Fencing shall not include barbed wire. It is acknowledged that appropriate measures shall be taken to prevent the solar rays from being damaged or tampered with by individuals trying to access the area of the installation. The method of securing the site shall be subject to the approval of the permit granting authority. I think some of this business in this yellow down below might be left out the first sentence for instance the need for fencing shall be determined by the applicant unless such fencing is needed to comply with town. Bylaws are as required per federal or state regulations. I think we're already saying in the first sentence that there shall be a fence and so then allowing it to be a decision made by the applicant. I don't think that makes sense. So I would cross out that first sentence unless Laura has a different point of view. Which sentence are you proposing? The first sentence in the yellow highlight the need for fencing shall be determined by the applicant. I don't think that makes sense to you. The only so depending upon who is financing the project. They might have different requirements, but I think this is just pretty, pretty general, you know, I mean if someone, you know is selling a project to next amp for example or next era, and they have particular requirements. Regarding fencing, you know, obviously it will be taken into consideration. Maybe we just include some, you know, some consideration of if like, essentially if different fencing requirements are necessary, you know, from the applicant will consider, you know, we'll consider making those modifications and then like that. Some modifications could be approved by the PGA. Yes, exactly. I think, but thank you, Chris. My words are alluding me at the moment. I'm noticing that this doesn't seem to be the latest copy of this document. I sent one out yesterday that was dated October 9, and this copy here doesn't seem to include some of the, what do you call them, track changes. Yes, this, so this does say October 9 at the top. So do you want to resend it to me and I'll open the one that the latest one. There was a version that I was trying to keep track so. Yes, so I. Let me see. I'm reading it wrong, but sorry for the wonder. I wonder if the track changes disappeared when I emailed it to you. It's saved as well. It's get saved as a PDF. Because this is from the meeting packet. So when it gets saved, sometimes I've noticed that sometimes it. Oh, okay. So when I email you the latest version. Okay, hold on. I'm just sorry for the. Yeah, so because when it when it gets saved as a PDF, then you can't. You can't incorporate those track changes because those are things that are kind of movable. Yeah. So let me, I'm going to stop sharing because I don't want to make everyone nauseous. So. All right. While you're doing that, we'll hear from Janet. You're muted. Yep. You're muted. Of course I'm muted. So more than I site visit at the solar, the dual use farm in Hadley. And we want, and so we, I don't know if we can update, but one of the questions we asked Jake, because he, the array, the panels where there was no fence around them and Martha asked that question, do you need fencing? And he said, and what, you know, my question was what's the purpose of the fencing and he said their panels were 10 feet high because it's dual use. And he said, basically the fencing is to keep people out from electrocuting themselves. And since they're so high, unless you really go up and try to kill yourself, it's not easy to do. And so they don't need fencing. He also thought the panels could be at eight feet and still be successful. So it does seem like there are circumstances where people just don't want fencing and they don't need it. So I think the origin, the beginning language works. Well, because it allows people to say, no, we don't need fencing because it's so high. Okay. All right. So you would leave that first sentence. Yeah, yellowed area in. Okay. Well, maybe it should be the first sentence of the whole section that's instead of saying fencing shall be required. It should say fencing shall be required unless approved otherwise by the PGA. I think it does say that, but I may be wrong since I'm not sure what we were looking at. Yeah, but I thought that flexibility was good. The question that, I mean, the phrasing that Chris used in response to Laura saying something about modified. I didn't write it down. That sounded good. But five minutes ago. Yeah. Okay. We'll get back to that when we see the language. Laura. Yeah, I don't want to belabor this. I think as long as, you know, there's there, I'd be very curious to know the insurance requirements. As long as Amherst, it's not on the hook for anything. If we don't have fencing, someone says we don't need it because there, you know, it is an electrical generation system. It's a basically like a mini power plant. So as long as, you know, I just want to make sure we're covered, we're covered there if we ever approve no fencing. That's all. I'm wondering if the agrivoltaic projects generally don't have fencing because you need to get equipment in there. 10 feet is obviously exceptional. Yeah. I see. Okay. So I should reword this to accommodate what we just talked about. All right. So Chris, I'm not, it's not coming in because I'm having to remotely access my email. And I don't have it yet, but, and I just went back to the one that was sent to the group. And when I opened it, it does not show the track changes. So I'm not sure how quickly I can get this up. I'm sorry, this is taking a while. When I opened the one that I sent yesterday to everybody, it shows track changes to me. So I wonder if Dwayne can share. Let me, I'm going to look again. This is the one that says working copy to. It doesn't say working copy to it just says working copy and it's dated. The email that I sent the document is date is called draft solar bylaw 10, 923 working copy. And I sent it yesterday at 329. I'm opening it up. Let me see if it's just. Yeah, I don't know why it's not showing track changes on my version for whatever reason. Okay, mine seems to have it so I can let me just get down the fencing section to see if. In fact, there's track changes here. Yes, there are you want me to share my screen then. Yes, please. Sorry about that Chris. I'm not sure why it's not showing up online. There we go. Yep. Okay, so I'm going to reword this to accommodate the idea that most of the time we want fencing, but there may be times that the PGA could approve a situation without a fence. All right, so we don't have to go through all the particular wording of that. So screening and planting the LG PI shall be designed to minimize its visibility, including preserving natural vegetation to the maximum extent possible. Adding vegetative buffers and or fencing to provide an effective visual barrier from adjacent roads and driveways and from a budding dwellings. The installation shall be screened year round from public and private ways and from adjacent residential lots to the extent extent that is feasible. The PGA may alter or waive this requirement if such screening would have a significant detrimental impact on the design operation and or performance of the array. The PGA may consider the provision of screening and buffers when reviewing a proposed LG PI to protect scenic vistas and view sheds and to protect views from residential uses public streets and any waterways or water bodies. Where existing vegetation in the setbacks is insufficient to achieve year round screening additional screening shall be provided, including but not limited to planting of dense vegetative screening, fencing, berms, use of natural ground elevations and or land contouring, all depending on site specific conditions. Tree cutting within the required setback area shall not be permitted if it would reduce to any degree the effectiveness of the year round screening. However, if there are trees within the screening area that cast shade on the solar panels they may be removed. I think the point of that is some trees grow taller than others and if some were to grow tall enough to cast shadow on the on the panels that would be a problem for the array. I think there was a question about that last time. Actually, it looks like we've reviewed these things already. So anyway, I'll just keep going. Planting shall include a variety of native trees and shrubs of varying heights staggered to effectively screen the installation from view during construction and operations. The depth of the vegetative screen shall be a minimum of 30 feet unless otherwise approved by the PGA. At least 75% of the planting shall consist of evergreens and shall be evenly spaced throughout the setback area. Additional plantings should include native plants that provide pollen food pollen and or shelter for native wildlife and or follow a food forest model. Integrating trees shrubs perennial plants and ground covers to mimic a native woodland that creates habitat for local wildlife and provides food for humans and wildlife. Use of invasive plants has identified by the most recent version of the Massachusetts prohibited plant list maintained by the Massachusetts Department of Agricultural Resources is prohibited. Cultivars of native plants may be acceptable if sourcing of native species is not possible. Applicants shall install plantings within the array, including native species and pollinator friendly species and species that are supportive of wildlife rather than installing non vegetative materials such as stone mulch unless otherwise permitted by the PGA, or unless the project is operated as an agri-voltaics project in which case the plant materials shall be appropriate to the agricultural purposes. Planting of the vegetative screening shall be completed prior to the connection of the installation. Plants shall be maintained and replaced if unhealthy by the owner operator of the installation for the life of the installation. Okay, are there are there any changes or comments there? Rain, I'm going to knock you off because I just found just figured out the problem so. Perfect. Yeah. Okay. And. Martha, and then I have a comment or question as well. Yep. Janet, go ahead. Oh, okay. I think there's a contradiction between saying that you have to have the plantings in before during before construction. Or operation and then later on it says the plantings have to be in before the project goes online. So, can you point to where those 2 things are? I could have. Give me a paragraph. What does the paragraph start with? I'm not, I don't have a draft. Let me find the old draft. Okay, I'll read. I'll read. Are you sorry. Are you serious seeing my screen or not? No, we're seeing a menu to enter a password with a nice flower in the background. I think I can find it. If I. I'm looking at an old, old draft. I just, I just reading it again. Here you go, Janet. Yeah. Okay. So it says, um, let's see. It was part of this one. Can you go up a little bit more like to the top? Um. Oh, it's planting. She'll include a variety of native trees and shrubs of varying lengths. I think the last paragraph says the planting of the vegetative screening should be completed prior to the connection of the installation. So I think, I think construction would be a bad time to put the, I mean. Everybody should be feel free to put in screening, but I think construction might be a bad time. I mean, I think construction might be a bad time. I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I think construction might be a bad time to put in screening, but I think construction might be a bad time. I'm deferred to Laura. So we should cross out the word construction. I get it. Yep. Yeah. During operations. Yep. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Just give me a second because I do have it. I just want to relieve Dwayne of having to deal with this. So just give me one. Because it is on the screen. When you're ready. Okay. And I guess I wanted to ask, um, you know, maybe Laura for her. I mean, I would say that we should say yes, but I'm not sure if they should make sense on this. In terms of the. The last paragraph also. Where the planting should be completed. The screening shelf. The screening shall be completed prior to connection of the installation. The connection of the installation. I'm not sure if we would. What we mean by the screening. I guess it's the planting of the screening. I think, so for example, if you are, it's very typical in the solar world to drive everything, to get it interconnected to the utility by the end of the calendar year, which is also a terrible time to plant anything new as far as like, you know, vegetation. So I think we just need to be mindful of like timing that just doesn't work out as far as planting goes because on one hand, you know, typically there's a delay. I think we need to include language, you know, planting should occur after the construction is complete and prior to interconnection and then something to the effect of like exceptions will be granted if, you know, basically you're trying to plant something in November, you know, an immunor or something like that. But typically there's a delay between when construction is complete, it's called mechanical completion before the project is reaches commercial operation. But you know, I just, I think that we're, what the spirit of this is we're not trying to get people to plant things when it's freezing out, but you know, maybe, maybe they just need to plant, provide a, you know, a plant. I'm assuming that will go to the planning board of when they're going to plant the required buffer zone. Yeah, yeah, I was concerned about, I mean, the interconnection is critical and you don't want to delay that on your end if the utility is ready for it because you haven't completed the planting yet. Okay, I can work out some wording for that. In other words, provide a plan to the permit granting authority describing planting sequencing. Exceptions will be granted by the permit granting authority in case of seasonal whatever difficulties. Chris, I'm sort of remembering this happened once with one of our projects and they just, we kind of said, come back in and talk to us after like everything went forward, the construction went forward. We just said, come back, talk to us, you know, after you've planted or something. I can't. It's usually a condition of the permit. So this would give, this wording would give the PGA authority to have such a condition. Okay. Okay. Great. Martha, before we get going and then Stephanie, if you could just, at least for me, enlarge the text a little bit would be great. Yeah. I mean, I think maybe what Chris just said answers it, but I think we want some kind of wording so that the developer can just not kind of walk off and say, okay, we're done before the screening is really planted. If there's some way that the PGA has to give some final stamp of approval, even after the thing has been turned on, just some kind of wording to indicate that the planting does have to be eventually done before the project is considered, you know, absolutely finished. That's that would be all because I agree with Laura about the practicality. Yeah. I mean, maybe some language about completed, the planning should be completed before interconnection unless otherwise authorized by the PGA, in which case it shall be completed no later than a year after the interconnection. Something like that. Yeah. It may have better wording right here. And she has her hand up, so it's Laura. No, I think that's good. The only thing I don't know if it's down here further along is it's one thing just to plan it, but obviously making sure that they maintain it and that it grows. Yeah. So I'm sort of like check in because obviously that's the spirit of this, not just throwing things on the ground. I think that sentence, plants shall be maintained and replaced if unhealthy by the owner operator of the installation for the life of the installation. Yeah, that's good. Because what's going to happen here is the developers oftentimes not the owner. So this, this responsibility to be passed on in the agreement to the asset owners. I think that's good. Okay. And it's unclear what kind of final document this gets from the building commissioner, usually like in the case of a building, the building commissioner grants a certificate of occupancy. I asked one of the inspectors here and he said, well, in this case, there would probably be a final inspection. So it's not exactly as strict as getting a certificate of occupancy. So I'll have to go back to the building commissioner and ask him exactly how to be the most, the best way to word this. And in fact, when we get to the point of talking about next steps, he's going to be one of the people who is going to be reviewing this and making sure that it all makes sense. So, so that'll be something that comes up at that time. Okay. Thanks. Yep. Okay. Slope and soils. The LGP eyes shall not be installed on slopes greater than 15%. That is three feet and 20 feet. And all soils must be kept on site. That was something that Martha was concerned about. Did you want to add a section about. At not adding soils unless approved by the PGA. Offsite soils shall not be added. Well, his I was actually responding to one of Scott. Cassin's comments. He said, Oh yeah. So you have a requirement that soil shall not leave the site. So they'll all be dumped in a big pile at the edge of the site. So he thought maybe there should be some different wording or. Not, not have that requirement at all. I mean, what we wanted to avoid was somebody just coming in and stripping all the top soil with a good stuff off and going and selling it somewhere. But it looks like we need some better wording altogether. Let's see if Jack has anything to shed light on this or another comment. Yeah. So. You know, this is interesting because soils are. Managed throughout the state. You know, based on their quality, number one, there's, there's. You know, rules and regulations in place. With regard to best management practices, they call it the soil anti degradation policy. But that's a different matter. I think what, you know, where you're talking about with, you know, soil being kept on site is. Yeah. You don't want the top soil. Leaving, but. So I guess we have to discuss that. But I was, I was just going to point out that the slow, I mean, people can ask for variances, obviously. But the one about the slope, I'm wondering if we can just move that a little bit and say, Hey, maybe it's. 15% as averaged over. So a certain length of. You know, certain footage. Could be 50 feet 100 feet. But just so they don't, we don't get in the weeds. With, you know, with 15%. And this is interesting because it differs from what the water should water supply protection. Committee said they said you could go up to 33%. They said 1 to 3, I believe. Or maybe it was 30%. For me, the 15% seems like. Really, you know, low. It's not like we're impacting. 30% definitely, you know, that's a hill, but 15%, I'm not sure we would recognize. That that is something that is significant, you know, certainly. We're worried about erosion and things like that 15% is. That's not that steep, but that was something that the, what was his name, Jonathan Thompson. Yeah, said, said he used eight degrees, which is roughly the same as 14%. So he said, you shouldn't plant on or put the installation on something that's greater than eight degrees or 14%. So that's where we came up with this. So, I could say, unless otherwise authorized by the permit granting authority. And then also as averaged over, you know, I don't know, 100 foot. Whatever distances. Yeah. And then I wouldn't mind seeing if Laura has any experience with, with this. I recall this was a recommendation of 15%. By Jonathan Thompson. And it seems, it seems prudent to me that you want to level the slope so it controls like runoff and erosion and stormwater. I did notice a different number in a different part of the bylaw and I thought we should just be uniform with the 15%. And I think, I don't know if there's some other place where it's like 15% over 100 feet. Which I think gives you some chance for some variation. And, you know, in the nature port, they did all these exclusions. They were looking at Amherst land for solar. And they excluded all land that had a much more gradual slope I came through with 7% or 6%. So, it does seem like a really important issue for stormwater management erosion. You know, probably optimally when you want an array you want it as flat as possible. So I think we should be consistent. I think we should be fact based too. So when you just think me, I'm actually going to quickly go back and look through some documents of various projects in the past and I'll get back to you so we can move on and I'll come back. Okay. Can there be openness to the language, give some out in terms of or approval by the PGA on this in some sites that might not be prone to erosion for various reasons that a higher slope could be tolerated for a site. Martha. I feel comfortable with Jack's suggestion of averaged over, you know, like a hundred feet or or some wording like that. Because I think that, you know, from other documents, I think other other bylaws do from other communities do have this in I'm not, you know, I've seen that 15% lots of places I think, but it is true that it needs to be over a big average. And I think, and I think in general, that's a good rule of thumb, but I'm also thinking, and I don't really obviously the goal is to prevent erosion. And, but at the same time, like, I'm just thinking about, for example, all those solar facilities that are built along the highway along the pike. That definitely have slopes greater than 15%, but it's a great use of land and it's, it's stable. So let's just, my suggestion is let me just get a couple more pieces of information. I think that's, I agree with Martha that it should be, you know, on average. But I always think it's good to, you know, for example, if you're building a site on a landfill, the slope is going to be greater than 15%. We all want it on landfills. And we don't want to prohibit that. So things like that I do think we just need to be mindful of. Yeah. Yeah. Stephanie, what about the our own one at the transfer station on the landfill is that that's on a slope, right? Yeah. I mean, Laura, that's a good example. Maybe we could clarify with Jonathan maybe he was referring to farce and we know that most farms are flat. So, but is Jonathan an expert on solar development. I thought he was an expert on forests. Yeah, okay. I mean, sort of this is, I mean, he doesn't. I want to speak to his expertise in solar but I know he's worked there about this a lot. So, I just think in general, like when we're considering the slope for solar projects, not just solar projects and forests. This is, this is a bylaw for everything. So we want to make sure we can develop on landfills. We want to make sure we could develop along busy roads that have, you know, I mean, I just think there's various, you know, as long as you're putting in place like the stringent stormwater controls that go along with building something on a higher slope. Anyways, I just think we want to give ourselves some room here. So I think as long, I think the 15% is fine. As long as we give this, you know, the committee, the ability to approve certain projects. That's a good exception. Sorry, Martha. I was having trouble with my mouse and yes, I would say, you know, just from my experience in a regulatory position that, you know, these things are done case by case. So sometimes that kind of a blanket restriction might not make sense. I think that's on the site because sites can be very specific to what types of soils they are, how stable they are. So, I mean, I'm not advising one way or the other. I'm just saying that, you know, if you get too specific, you might lock yourselves in in a way that we don't necessarily want to. Okay. Next next control of vegetation synthetic herbicides pesticides and fertilizers may not be used to control vegetation or animals except as otherwise approved by the PGA. So I don't know much about the difference between synthetic and organic of these things. I know that the water supply protection committee did not want to have these things used anywhere near water supply. I know that herbicides and pesticides were used or are going to be used at Hickory Ridge to tamp down existing vegetation so it can be planted with pollinator vegetation. And that had to go before the conservation commission to get that approved. I think it might have gone before the zoning board of appeals as well. So, I think we need to give, you know, some leeway here, but I don't know if we should be saying a blanket prohibition against synthetic herbicides pesticides and fertilizers but allow organic and maybe Jack has some insight into that. This is a point of reference our pollinator friendly certification process and requirement that's approved by the state and issued by UMass we do allow for and I agree with you Chris I don't know if it's specific synthetic or otherwise. Herbicides in limited cases for those particular reasons to get this the site established. There doesn't seem to be too many alternatives for that. But go ahead, Janet. I think last week I had one. I want, I think I questioned whether we were allowed to do that if we were preempted by the state state pesticides act from putting in more rigorous requirements so that was a Jonathan Murray question. And then I think I remember Scott Cation who's now sort of a star at this hearing. He was saying that some invasives just need the earth, you just need to eradicate using us, you know, inorganic or synthetic pesticide, you know, herbicide so there's some that are so virulent that you have to use that so I don't know. We can say preferred or encouraged or something but I don't, I don't know if we can say it at all legally, but I think we should be flexible enough to actually eradicate things that we need to. So maybe the wording that we have here is okay. The synthetic, you know, versions of these may not be used except as otherwise approved by the PGA, and then you'd have to come forward with the appropriate information to get PGA approval. Right. Okay. Yeah, Jack, before we go. I, this reminded me of the obligation that ever source has to maintain the right of ways there for like, you know, transmission lines. I don't know how it's evolved, but it's, you know, I guess, Chris, when you take this, you know, that might be a good thing to kind of look to parallel, you know, the practices that ever source is using, you know, for the right of ways. Thanks. I don't know if it's necessary anymore. It was kind of a vestigial sentence before we had gotten into more description of agrivoltaics. But anyway, what this says is that PGA shall look positively or favorably on solar installations that include agrivoltaics or dual use. Is that necessary anymore or should we just strike that. In my sense, since we have a whole section on that later, it kind of seems out of place and doesn't doesn't add much to the document. That's my opinion too. Yeah. Okay. Now, the next part is on special requirements for. Installations in forest lands and farmlands. Ready for that. Okay, special requirements for large scale ground mounted photovoltaic installations and forest lands. Ecosystem protection for all LG PIs. We know forest clearing on land designated as core habitat and critical natural landscapes on Massachusetts GIS bio map three 2022 or on land designated as priority habitat or estimated habitat as defined by Massachusetts endangered species act. Is that, is that reasonable. Any objections. Okay, forest clearing limitations and mitigation for land that is located in the RO residential outline or RLD residential low density zoning districts and that is characterized by the on the Amherst GIS viewer as tree and forest vegetation. The cutting of more than 10 acres of trees for the purpose of installing an LG PI facility shall be prohibited. Unless the landowner LG PI developer or applicant can demonstrate to the PGA that one of the following types of mitigation will be established. I think we don't need to say one of the following types because we're eliminating one of the types, but I'll deal with that later. So the main type that we want to have as a mitigation is preservation of forested area elsewhere for LG PIs that are five to 10 acres in size a minimum. Area equal to one time. The total area of forest land that is cleared is going to be preserved for LG PIs that are 10 acres in size or more, a minimum area equal to two times the total area of forest land that is cleared. We say must remain as natural forested open space for the life of the project. This natural forested open space may be on the same lot as the LG PI or maybe on another property in Amherst or on land in the town of Butting Amherst. This area shall be clearly depicted on a site plan prepared by a registered land surveyor. The land designated as natural forested open space shall be deed restricted for the life of the LG PI and the deed restriction shall be recorded at the Franklin County or Hampshire County Registry of Deeds, whichever is applicable. The deed restriction shall not be lifted until the solar array has been decommissioned or the land has been revegetated with native tree and undergrowth species or has been established as farmland and has been stabilized for a period of five years after decommissioning. I think that was something that Scott Cashin recommended. We're good with that. And we're talking about eliminating payment in lieu because people felt that that was too complex. Is that correct? Looks like Jack and Janet have questions. Yeah, Jack Lauren and then Janet. Yeah, I'm just, I'm just wondering about. You know, no, I'm just going back to the intro here. No force clearing and the, you know, from a practical manner. Um, you know, I'm guessing, you know, would there be an opportunity or a need for like an access road through, you know, one of these designated areas. And would that, you know, be something that we would be concerned about or not? But again, I know this is clearing for the, for the solar. You know, array, but again, there's features there. I'm just wondering how, how rigid. This is. Okay. And anyway, the trees that might have to be cut down for a road. Road access and access road would be included in the acreage. Under consideration. I don't do that's another good point. I, you know, it probably shouldn't be. But also, you know, they're, they're sort of clearing that is. That is peripheral to, to the actual project and I just wondering how rigid this is and. Yep. Yep, good point. Any thoughts on that? I might, my sentence is to leave it as the acreage of the footprint of the array. Yeah. The fence area. Or if there's a fence. There's always a fence that with some buffer work fence would be. Yep. Okay. Laura. I'm just going to go on record saying that. I. You know, I fully disagree with this part of the bylaw. And I'm not going to. Like to change it, but I just want to state my reasons why, which is. 1, if you're a farmer. Or a landowner and you want to put. You know, You know, whatever reason it looks like it's a viable location. And. You know, this is personal rights get impacted here. But also it strikes me as extremely. As a lead ism that you're requiring someone to do. A similar size parcel. Of land, whereas. I certainly wouldn't have that capability financially. And I'm sure many others on the same situations for my farmers. And I also, you know, just for the record. You know, the size system that most developers have to put in the ground in order to make it. You know, make economic sense. It's five megawatts and five megawatts require somewhere between 30 and 35 acres. This isn't even half of that. So again, I, I love our forest. We have a tremendous amount of forested land in Amherst. That is a, you know, protecting that land as a reason why I joined the conservation committee. But at the same time we are, in my opinion, overly prohibiting the construction of much needed solar facilities. And I actually really do question if this is going to come up in some sort of legal case, because the mitigation opportunities are. You know, extremely expensive that we're putting forth here. Unless I'm missing something. Appreciate that Laura. Bob. Yeah. You've heard this offer before for me. I really oppose this section. I don't believe that we should require mitigation. Which is unique for solar development. We wouldn't require that of any other type of development that would be of a similar size. I concur with everything that Laura said, this is just wrong. I appreciate that Bob, and we might have to discuss this a little bit more. Janet. So I was, I support this, you know, it for. You know, a million reasons that we sort of covered in other meetings. And I don't think it's actually going to cover that much land in Amherst. And. I mean, there's not, there's not that much forested land in Amherst and the person, the group that owns the land could easily meet the mitigation requirements. Since they have a lot of land, a lot of forested land. So I'm not that worried about that. You know, we know the whole state policy and the thinking has to do with that. And I think that's, you know, I think it's hard to, you know, I think it's hard to, you know, I think it's hard to be protected to protecting forests and not cutting them down for solar. And I think that's. Hard to accept, but it's hard to argue with, given the science and, and the state plans and. The, the amount of solar. Capacity on the built environment. But that's actually, that's a comment in response to what people were saying. But I also might, I was just going to add to this section. So I would just add a sentence saying, you know, it could be. You know, if you're setting the sign land for, you know, impermanent conservation for the life of the array. Why not also give them the option of permanently conserving it? So I would just add a sentence saying, you know, or a permanent permanently protected land. So I don't want to take away the suggestion and the opportunity that someone just sets aside a land with a conservation restriction or. So I just would add a sentence or a little clause into. I think the second paragraph, I can't quite see the whole thing on my screen right now. So I just thought if somebody wants to do it permanently, let's, let's give them the suggestion and the opportunity. And that would meet the requirement for mitigation. I could. Jack. Yeah, on that, on those lines, I think. You know, I think a permanent thing which is, you know, is a good thing is to be encouraged, but to incentivize. Sorry about that. But. But maybe make it like half the acreage. If it's permanently, you know, if we kind of take some of the burden off. So just adding on what Janet said, I don't know how people feel about that. Yeah. Yeah. Do you have anything specific on that before we go to Laura? Yeah. So I, you know, I, I don't have my chart right here. I've been kind of furiously think, but all the towns around us have a four to one. Kind of set aside requirement. And so this is probably the most gentle of the area. And I think that they've gone through one of them. I think Belcher towns passed mustard, mustard with the AG. And also they have a cap on how many acres you can clear, which is not to say the AG is not the SJC, who are the final people, but it's, it's show something, but four to one is the ratio used by Belcher town. I think should spare. I could, I might go off screen and just, you know, fair it through my files a little bit, but I know that four to one was like used by three or four towns around us. Right, Laura. Yeah. So Dwayne, my, my, what I have certainly seen, they suggested it early on, but I don't know what it was. And I'd be curious to hear Bob's feedback here. But why wouldn't specifically, rather than just say 10 acres and, and not defining what that is as far as like tree growth, you know, why wouldn't it be trees taken down class by diameter or something like that less than six inches is something, you know, 12 to 18, you know, something like that, I certainly see in, in a lot of, you know, in a lot of communities across the country, not just in Massachusetts, but I also want to point out that there are times throughout the, the bylaw group where I feel like I just want to make sure this is being constructed or drafted, not in response to, I know there's a lot of, you know, a lot of the land motion around the larger project proposed and a motion carried by Cowles. And I know, Janet, you had just referenced, but you know, but I'm just thinking about all the landowners, you know, I just want to make sure we're drafting this so that it doesn't prohibit or support any particular project because, you know, there could be other landowners who don't have the financial wealth at all to set aside another 10 acres of land. So. Thanks, Laura. I guess my own take on this is, is, I guess I'm very concerned about putting this out there without having as a, as a requirement for solar development where it's not a requirement for other developments of say 10 acres or more. It does seem to be unfair and potentially would encourage landowners who want to make, develop their land to go with options that might be more permanently destroy destroying the, the forest in the form of housing and so forth. So I think I've raised that before that wouldn't be appropriate in this bylaw, but maybe a mention to the side that the committees and the council should consider similar requirements for other uses of forest. I do have sympathy for the concerns about land, I guess landowners and their ability to make decisions on their properties. And also, I guess I wouldn't mind if anybody has information about what the cost is of this requirement. Laura, you sort of made some reference to that and whether it is a significant cost that would just raise the price of solar, raise the price of solar for rate payers or perhaps reduce solar development. I'm also, you know, the state definitely is, as we know, giving attention to maintaining and their own investment and programs to provide for the protection of natural and working lands. I guess what's unknown to us is what is the state going to be doing apart from solar development to keep that pace of sequestration up on natural and working lands and whether that is really their job as opposed to the solar developers job to do that. So I have sympathies on both sides on this. Laura. I was going to say, Dwayne, I think the economic analysis that you alluded to, I think that's, you know, we don't have time here to do any kind of analysis, but I think we can all agree that preserving an equivalent parcel of land in Amherst is going to be very expensive. But, you know, I don't think it would take long to put together fund-makers there. All right, thanks. Janet and then Jack. Just wanted to note that this bylaw will not affect the Schittsbury Road project since it's already been filed and it's going to go under existing zoning. I think that 10,000 an acre for forest land is a good rough estimate that was given to me by one of the land trusts. I want to ask, you know, farmland is more valuable than forest land. And then, you know, I don't think it's a huge amount of money in the context of putting an array when, you know, I was talking to somebody and their interconnection cost was $2 million. And so there's, you know, so even though it, you know, 10,000 an acre to buy the land, not just the land, you know, it would be cheaper maybe for the development rights, but in the grand scheme of financing and profitability, I don't think it's a huge thing. 10,000 acre meeting for 10 acres would be $100,000. Yeah, I think to buy. I think to buy some. All right. Yeah, Jack. Yes. I'm just wondering if we have a math problem with. The acreage. When we're talking about, you know, when you're including the, you know, the fence area, I mean, how clear is this in the bylaw in terms of when we're taking the same five acres. And then like in this paragraph, we say no, the cutting up more than 10 acres of trees for the purpose of installing the LDP. But if you're going to have a 10 acre facility to me, that's 10 acres within the fence area. And then there's no way you have to cut more trees than the 10 acres to put in a 10 acre facility. So we've got, we've got a math problem here that's going to and that's how I'm confused. But is that right for us? Am I reading that right? I think there needs to be some clarity about that. What I was thinking was that the L. GPI included the fenced in area, which would include, you know, all of the land that was cleared and not just the area of the solar panel. So that's what I am thinking about when I'm writing this, but it may not be clear. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, go ahead. I'm just, I'm just saying that that. That's making for some very small arrays. If that's what we're setting up. And I don't see it. Well, this is only applicable for raised 10 acres. Or more, right? Or is it five acres? Sorry. It's applicable to five acres or more. This is something we discussed last week as breaking it up into. Anything less than five acres wouldn't be counted, but anything five acres to 10 acres would have certain requirements and anything from 10 acres and larger would have other requirements. So that's what was being suggested at last week's meeting. We're also putting in, we're hardwiring in buffer zones. That suggests that that is part of the project. I think the buffer zone is outside of the fence. The buffer zone is, you know, the fence is starts at the 30 foot setback from the property line. That's my understanding of this. So anything inside of the fence is part of this measurement. And anything outside of the fence is not part of this measurement. The developer need to have control over the buffer zone in terms of ownership. No, I don't think so. Okay. Probably he would, he would either lease it or buy it. And he would have control over it, but it wouldn't be part of this installation. Because it would be a treat area 30 foot wide, right? Am I, are we counting the access? This isn't regarding my hand being raised, but a question on this exact topic. Are you counting like the interconnection easement? Sometimes you have to run a line and you have to get an easement in order to interconnect the system. What is counted here? Because there's, there's a lot of additional acreage. Sometimes that comes in addition to just the fenced in area. Yep. We're going to have a battery facility. Usually the battery is inside the fence. But I think Laura's right that. You know, to question. Is the interconnection easement and the roadway also part of this. And that's not something that I had considered. I think we can either put in language to kind of really. Define what acreage we're talking about. Or keep it an easily defined area like the fence area. And just use work with our multiplier to make it. A reasonable number that we want. You know, maybe it's not 1 to 1, maybe it's 1.2 to 1. To account for these auxiliary parts that are being. Cleared as well. On a rough basis, not necessarily project by project. I'm just not sure whether it's, or we could define, you know. Trees that are cut. You know, then it's like, you know, sometimes the access lines are going through areas which have trees. Sometimes the. They may not be trees. So it becomes a little bit harder to clearly define. As a rule. The way this was originally written before last week was that. It only applied to areas that were LGBIs that were 10 acres of size or more. And those were required to have. I think it was. 1 to 1. And then we changed it to be more specific. And so maybe we want to go back to 10 acres or more 1 to 1 mitigation. Let's hear from. I think Laura had her hand up and then Janet and then Martha. Thanks Wayne. You know, so I think there's a couple of things here. Given the fact. So this language essentially is going to greatly. Restrict solar development in Amherst. The fact that you're calling out an acreage of this size. The actual. And I don't know how we've defined for us here. I mean. You know, so I think that's a very important piece. But basically what it is saying is that there's a parcel of land. And again, there's not very many parcels of land where you can actually interconnect a facility. It's going to have to be quite a bit smaller. And then what we're seeing developed across the state in order to meet meet minimum thresholds in terms of Janet, you mentioned a $2 million interconnection. That is unfortunately the norm now that has nothing to do. That's just what the utility is making you pay to upgrade the lines. But the smaller the project size from 5 megawatts, the less likely it is to be developed. And that $100,000 fee you just mentioned is a tremendous amount. For a project that's that's two megawatts, 1.5 megawatts, whatever that is. That is absolutely not insignificant. And my other question is. And I kind of just, you know, for me, this is the town council will make their decisions, but I'm really not supportive of this language. I, anyways, I think, I think those are, those are, those are some of the, the bigger pieces to consider. I had another point. I forgot it. But if it comes back to me, I'll, I'll serve as that. Thanks, Laura. Martha and then Janet. Yes. Okay. I mean, this is, is, is clearly a difficult. Concept here. But so let me say several things normally. No, what this means and what the intention was when we started out with this section is the amount of forest land that is clear cut for the array. We're not talking about the array size. We're talking about the amount of forest land that has to be cleared for the moment. Never mind the access roads, but normally that's about two to one compared to the actual size of the array. And that was based on the report at the UMass solar forum. The survey that had been done over the past 10 years is the, generally it was about twice as much forest land cleared as the literal array size. So that's what we're talking about here is the amount of forest land cleared. So a second, second point being that. Clearly the commonwealth of Massachusetts is very concerned about the amount of forest that has been cleared over the past decade, both for solar and for development. And they're saying this. Should not continue in the same way. That was very clear from all the sessions of the solar forum at UMass and all of the state agencies, all of the research, the, you know, the Audubon mass Audubon's latest report, nature, conservancy, as well as the state documents. But then the practical aspect here in Amherst is really except for the one. Site that's under consideration now that, you know, we know of and not going to discuss is that there really isn't all that much clear forest land here in Amherst. That's going to be affected for size. Certainly there's no other place that I know of in Amherst, where there could be a large array such as Laura that you're referring to is the larger array. Being the more profitable ones per kilowatt or megawatt, whatever. And the, the, in fact, the bylaw is saying that the land that could be then set aside could be in any one of the surrounding communities. And as Janet pointed out, it could be land that then gets donated as a permanent conservation area for people. Which you then get some, you know, financial state rebate and so on. So I feel fairly strongly that this of language in these statements and the mitigation should be in here for the cleared forest land with the two to one greater than 10 acres and the one to one greater than five acres. And that is in fact, that probably won't be cases here right here in Amherst, where this becomes challenging. So I guess that's my state. I would prefer to leave it as the wording is now and make clear that we're talking about the amount of land that is being clear cut, not the size of the array. All right, thanks. Let me throw out one idea and I don't want to derail this direction, but just dawned on me and maybe it's a different direction. I guess I do have some, you know, just philosophical concerns, I guess, as these solar developers are the ones we are counting on to reduce greenhouse gas emissions substantially. Keep in mind, these arrays provide a great deal of carbon mitigation relative to the forest sequestration. And that just philosophically, it doesn't seem right to me to put the burden of additional sequestration on them. That should come from the community as a whole, taxpayers as a whole, the Commonwealth as a whole, and really work with the Commonwealth. The Commonwealth should really be doing this in terms of how they're going to go about protecting all this natural and working lands and not put that burden on solar developers who we need to really do the lion's work of meeting the greenhouse gas emission reductions that we need. My idea, I wouldn't put it as a proposal because I don't know if it's what all the objections might be, but as a different approach is to state that all land cleared, forest land cleared for solar development needs to be put in permanent protection, that land itself. So that after the array, the landowner makes their money off the array, after the array, it's either reestablishes an array or put into farming, but otherwise it needs to be permanently sequestered or protected, I guess, as natural and working lands. Just as an idea. And not bother with offsets. In my mind, the state should be really working on protecting natural and working lands separate from solar development. All right, so comments on that or anything I didn't mean to derail. Janet and then Chris, you had your hand up. Let's go with Chris first, please. So in terms of the definition, I was thinking that you could say for LGP eyes that are that involve five to 10 acres of clearing, or that involve 10 acres or more of clearing, and that would that would clarify what we're talking about in terms of the size. So I'm just making that suggestion. Great. Janet and then Laura, and then Martha. So I think the language in there saying in the first paragraph is pretty clear. It's not limiting itself to like the land under the panels or inside the fence, but it's talking about the cutting of more than 10 acres for the purpose of installing an LG PI facility. So that would include access roads and, and the like and so I don't know if we need to clarify that but what we need to do is agree on it, you know, and is, you know, and, you know, basically, I, you know, I, you know, I, and so I just want to make that point. The second point is Martha has a good point about there's a lot of federal, there's a lot of tax benefits to acquiring land and putting it into permanent protection. And the federal government will handsomely let you take, you know, whatever the value of your land is. And so it's not like, you know, if you're paying 10,000 for the development rights, it's not necessarily out of pocket. And so, and sometimes people put together CPEC and, you know, state funding arrangements and stuff like that. So pushing that aside, I do think that, you know, we know most of these arrays are going to be erased for 30, 50 years, especially the large ones. No one's going to put tens of millions of dollars into it. You know, I mean, wouldn't you just replace the panels as they age? And I, you know, so I think that this is really taking land out of use as a forest. And as Martha has said, all we've been, you know, all we have seen for the last year or two is in our state climate action plans and the no net loss of forest and farmlands policy. In our own town climate action and resilience plan says put solar on the built environment to protect natural working lands. And so I would love to say, you know, to the state of Massachusetts, you know, protect all those lands. You know, it's not going to be permanently, it's not going to be comprehensively protected by changing incentives, but there's nothing that stops for the town of Amherst saying in order to implement our own climate action plan approved by ECAC approved by the town council. We know the science is super important that that forests are sort of mega stars, not just in in sequestration, actually the mega stars are really wetlands, which are all throughout our forests. But they're they're sort of superstars in terms of mitigating climate change, modulating temperatures, you know, filtering water, producing air, you know, you know, mitigating flooding, mitigating drought, you know, providing habitat for us as well as species and plants and the whole thing. And so it's clear that these lands should be protected. And I think at the end of the day, we're not talking about that much land in Amherst. And so if you if we go on to the mapping, there's not that much forest land. Shootsbury takes Shootsbury road off the map. It's really not going to affect that much land. And so I don't know. I think this is, you know, to me this has to be done to for me to support this bylaw. I don't know, you know, you know, I don't I don't understand how we can go to the town council and saying forget the town action plan, climate action plan, forget all the state plans, forget all the science, forget the fact that we have barely put any solar on any commercial or town property. We have to cut down this forest and we won't even compensate or mitigate for it in this sort of simple way. Right. Yeah, Laura. So I think I'm just want to leave saying that, of course, all my comments now, you know, I have. I grew up in Berkshire County. It's like 90% forested. And from a personal approach, you know, grew up on this forest and there's certainly a desire to want to marry solar development with protecting forested land. But a few points that I think absolutely need to be raised in my experience with solar across the country. We regularly lose out to housing developments. So, you know, and I'm not sure the extent, so I hear on one hand that there's actually not a lot of land that this would impact. On the other hand, it makes me wonder why we're including it if that's the case. But it is very typical that when a landowner is seeking to develop solar, if that property has water rights or anything that could make it permissible for housing developments, I know there's this conception that solar, and by the way, the maximum size of a solar project in Massachusetts is in no way considered big solar, just for the record. If a landowner is looking to make the most amount of money by leasing or selling their land, solar doesn't even come close to what you would make from a housing development. So I do have a philosophical disagreement with putting additional restrictions on solar development, which is actually climate benefit than we do in any other types of development in the town. And hopefully that's rectified. I think the second piece is if we're going to include anything like this, we need to define what is clear cut, what's the diameter of the tree. I think we've heard from Bob and even from Dan that not all forests are created equal. And the last thing I'd ever want to do is put out by-law language where you have small little trees on a parcel of land, and we're defining that as clear cut. Because as we all know here, and we've heard from all the experts, not all forested land is created equal. And the third piece, which I think is an equity issue, is the mitigation requirements that we're requiring here. Who is responsible for doing that? So the landowner is not going to have money to buy another piece of land and donate it. The developer absolutely doesn't have money. I mean, if a landowner is approached, if a developer approaches a landowner and the landowner says, you know what, I don't want to lease my land, I want you to buy it if you're going to develop solar, nine times out of 10, the developer does not have the capital to buy the land, period. So I'm not sure at what point in the development process this would be a requirement, but in the rare exception of a landowner who's flushed with cash, and then in the very rare exception where you have a developer that has cash that can be used for real estate, this is not something that's achievable. So, you know, knowing that I'm all for protected forested lands, I think if, you know, if we're going to include anything like this, I would just need more it does require more work of which we don't have time to do. So Dwayne, I don't know at what point we take this to a vote, but we could spend, I think, the next hour and a half talking about this. Yeah, so let's get close to that, but if we think we're going to need a vote, I just wanted to, maybe before Martha just, you know, agree with Janet in that, you know, natural working lands, the forests are our superstars with regard to carbon sequestration. That being said, the real superstars addressing our climate crisis is renewable energy generation for which reductions in greenhouse gases that's going to account for 80-90% of where we need to go and 10-20% will be through carbon sequestration for the net reduction, for the net zero requirements. So we need renewable energy generation, that's our superstars to a large extent. And that is to replace our entire fossil fuel infrastructure for power generation twice over. And so, you know, these technical studies which have been coming out suggesting this all goes on the built environment has to bear obviously we want to push this as much on the built environment, but to the extent that we can meet our goals with only the built environment is very much up to question. I don't think, I've never heard the state say that they don't think we need any forest land to be used for renewable energy generation. So I just wanted to lay that out there for some consideration as well. So let's have one more comment and then maybe Martha and then see just as a consensus of the group of whether we need to sort of vote on this and exactly what we would be voting on. Martha. Thank you. Laura, I certainly sympathize with your points but everybody has made valid points but I think we are at the point where what we've learned is that over the past decade, 60% of all solar panels have been built on forested land. That's what several people said at the UMass forum and that this can't continue. So Massachusetts is really trying in their best way at the speed that the government works to change things, change the attitude toward where we put solar tried then to change the incentives which is really what we need so that there will be better incentives to building on parking lots and other places and so on and you certainly made this point that's what we need. But in the meantime, I mean we are part of Massachusetts the last I knew and so I think have some responsibility to where Massachusetts is going and also I believe we have a responsibility to our town residents who have come out resoundingly strongly opposed to cutting more forests here. And I don't think we can separate ourselves from that. And once the forest is cut it's not going to grow back. I agree with Laura that we really would need to define forest and tree size and so on more carefully but practically we're not talking about much land in Amherst and I feel really strongly that we need to include these statements here that I don't think there are very many landowners here in Amherst that would have five acres or more that they want to put into solar that's now forested and that the landowners that do have forest land would have land in surrounding towns and so on that they could donate so I do not see that this is a really huge financial impact and I really think we have to go in the direction that really benefits our community and Massachusetts so thank you. Okay Stephanie let me ask you just in terms of a process question we're just what were the consensus of the group do you should we I think the question with regard to potential consensus or voting of the group is this section that's up on the screen which I think is enumerated as one or I guess it's this whole forest clearing limitation mitigation section maybe Stephanie you can scroll just up and down a little bit on that to see the extent of that section and whether we would want to include that section in our bylaw with that section would require and maybe we need to also talk about defining these things but with this section would require the acreage of land clearing in forests that are specified was there some reference to a map here in terms of how they would be as tree and forest vegetation on the gis viewer as tree or forest vegetation that would be the definition of what land would be subject to this requirement and that if it's and the acreage in I think our minds is really the total acreage of land clearing I would sort of my personal opinion to make it relatively easier is to have that as the array the fence and any buffer beyond the fence but not including the linear more linear cutting of transmission distribution lines or access roadways because that gets a little bit harder to measure I believe and probably may not add up to as much and for acreage either in this 5 to 10 or 10 and above category so we could vote on either to include that language or to not have language at all with regard to this mitigation requirement any I'm not sure how we if we want to pose that in a motion more better stated than I just said but let's quickly hear from Janet and then Bob please I was actually raising my hand because I found my solar bylaw comparison so Belcher 10 has a maximum fenced area of 20 acres and a maximum forest clearing of 10 acres Hadley and Pelham didn't have any I'm not sure about shoots very it says no but I think shoots very might have changed that I kind of lost that process in terms of forest mitigation Belcher 10 had four times the clear forest Hadley had nothing which I don't think Hadley has any forest and then Pelham had four times the clear forest and shoots very had four times the cleared forest so we're actually allowing larger arrays and clearing and then where our mitigation is the lowest on approximate I'm kind of confused because I know some people have been missing meetings but you know I thought you supported these mitigation requirements and actually the language that's in red was from you and so are you changing your thinking from past meetings I'm just a little confused about why we've been kind of working on this language and mitigation for several meetings and also it looks like it's really up for grabs in a way that I thought was pretty settled except for the missing members yeah so I'm not sure I've been you know I personally I wasn't always fully on board with this need for mitigation I sort of felt like that's where I'm not comfortable going in that direction that that's sort of the consensus of the group again I do have concerns about it it may force as was born out before people going with housing development as opposed to solar development I do believe as a policy perspective it should be an activity that is born forest preservation natural working land preservation should be an activity and a policy that is born by the commonwealth and the constituents of the commonwealth at large not placed on the shoulders of solar developers who are our champions in fighting climate change and so those are my concerns those are my concerns you haven't really answered I mean I don't know I'm just surprised yeah I'm too like we settle this we didn't we're settling it now apparently and I've heard certainly some counter arguments and concerns and folks that are not approving of this language on our working group as well so let me hear from Bob just to bring this to a close I just want to say I'm opposed to the whole concept of mitigation that's unique to solar development yeah by Chris I just wanted to say that there's a lawsuit pending and I believe it involves Schuetsbury and Pelham and it involves the 4-1 mitigation and probably other things as well so even though you know that may or may not have passed muster with the AG's office the AG is just looking at this from a form and legality standpoint but it is being challenged in the court so I just wanted to say that so 4-1 is not a benchmark that we should necessarily look to thank you Jack yeah I just have to remind everyone that we all were on board with protection of these contiguous areas in the Biomap 3 which are that's a lot and so now we're looking at like fringe you know force I understand that we still can look at the individual trees and the quality in that but we are making a major I think as a group agreement that those large areas that are generally contiguous with large forest tracks will not be developed so that's a lot right there and then the other you know the other thing that I'm a little confused about again is the setbacks that we're putting in here just to develop these things 100 feet you know it's like we're further segmenting these forests when we're putting these huge setbacks but you know so Chris there's buffers and then there's setbacks there's you know I'm seeing these in here so I understand the setback is from the property line so it just seems you know I'm wondering like we're going in different directions with regard to what we're trying to do here like you know pushing a sort of development further into a forest just to comply with a setback an arbitrary setback but we can okay sorry Bob did you have something else to add okay maybe a hand still up you're muted sorry okay Chris I wanted to point out that yes Jack is right that we do have beyond this section there's a large area of blank page but if you scroll down I don't know who's in control now is this Stephanie or Stephanie if you can scroll down past the yellow and then past the blank to the next page at the very top it says setbacks for LGBIs and forest land for all the LGBIs located in forest land that are over five acres in size a 100 foot buffer of unclear land shall be maintained between the LGBI that should be and the public roads and residential properties so we did add that recently so that speaks to Jack's point just wanted to make sure you saw that because it's kind of hidden okay do we how would you like to proceed we could we could sort of take a bit of a straw pole first in terms of where we are I will let you know that I'm inclined to leaning against this provision for the reason that I've stated primarily because again I don't want to put this person over developers I want to put it on the commonwealth and all the constituents of the commonwealth and not set up perverse incentives for developers to think about housing development and more permanent use of their lands so do we want to take a vote on this then are we ready to do that I see Chris did you have another comment to make no sorry no worries Janet then Martha I think I just want to make sort of build on what Martha was saying we have a survey that told us that you know almost to the same every person wanted to protect forested lands that you know the state that they had the same thing we have our own climate action plan that Laura and you like served on and wrote and then it was approved by town council and it says you know I mean I'm quoting when these lands natural working lands are developed or degraded not only does the carbon stored in trees plants and soil gets soils get released but the future capacity that land to sequester carbon is significantly and often permanently limited therefore protecting our natural working lands is one of the most important things we can do to mitigate climate change and later on it says talks about the need for a town bylaw this can ensure the protection of highest and best use values of natural lands while facilitating emissions reduction and retaining co-benefits some of the ecosystem services values that a well crafted solar zoning bylaw can protect include drought against wild life habitat agricultural productivity flood storage capacity carbon sequester sequestration and more this I mean this is you know we are asked by the town council to do a bylaw we're implementing the town plan we're getting implementing state plans we're implementing state policies we're what the community wants and I don't know I just and these are these are the plans that you you and Laura helped draft and pass and recommend so I'm sort of at a loss of why we're reversing course and going against so many so many well thought out plans and ideas and opinions and science so I'm just you know I didn't create any of those climate action plans I didn't serve on any of those boards just yeah yeah for clarification there I mean I have and certainly that language is important to really assure and motivate the town of Amherst and the constituents with it in the town of Amherst to protect and conserve our open and working in forest lands the state the the town is doing a very good job on that historically and continues to do so do keep in mind that the carbon mitigation plan for the town also includes substantial needs and support for renewable energy generation to eliminate our green fossil fuel use in town and so that's the part of the climate action plan that you don't reference as much Janet and but also is critically important and we've done analysis in terms of what might look like in terms of of solar development and other renewables and energy efficiency in town and certainly EECAC will and is supporting solar development on the built environment and will continue to do so but we're not sort of looking to make it difficult and burdensome to develop solar in town as well all right Martha yes just a comment to put this in perspective if you look at the state documents and surveys the biggest source of greenhouse gas emissions is transportation that's almost 40% the next biggest source is our buildings heating the buildings etc etc the contribution of electricity generation to the fossil fuel emission in Massachusetts is less than 20% and going down so if we really care about reducing fossil fuel emissions we should stop driving we should be working hard on converting our buildings we should be doing the things that matter most and remind that in order to reach net zero we have to really increase the carbon sequestration now granted that's mostly wetlands but forests protect the wetlands we need the forests we see how the Amazon is burning I've just read an article that it may be past the point of of no return the combination of the drought plus the clearing may mean that our biggest sink of greenhouse gases on the planet is being destroyed beyond repair this is a much bigger issue than just read at the moment putting up solar panels which admittedly help and Dwayne I agree with you that what the town needs then is to have consistent rules about mitigation for all kinds of development that's beyond our purview but we can certainly make a recommendation to that effect and that would address your concern here that we're somehow singling out solar so that's my perspective we have to look at the big picture as well as what Janet said about our own priorities let me just add to the thank you for that Martha I guess two things one is I would not at all be opposed to making a recommendations that some mitigation is this sort is provided to all development I wouldn't necessarily suggest we single out solar at this point maybe put that as a recommendation coming out of this deliberation a second I would say that to the extent that we don't all stop driving and we don't all stop heating our homes all that fossil fuel is now going on in the plan is going on their electricity system and so that's whatever percentage of greenhouse gas is 20% that's currently coming from our electric power system it's going to be you know in order to drive electric vehicles heat our homes with heat pumps we need to have the electric system double in size and supported by renewable energy and so that's and again that's is accounts for 80% or so of the carbon mitigation plan for the Commonwealth the carbon sequestration is important important for many reasons beyond carbon sequestration but is still sort of there to net out well we can't scrub out with the fossil fuels okay that's sort of my perspective to add to everybody else's shall we move to a vote on this and are we prepared to do that can you very clearly state what we are going to vote on then very clearly maybe with the help of of any final language here from from the document on the screen Chris I think you're really voting on a concept you're voting on the concept of whether there should be mitigation for forest clearing so I don't know if the details are all that important that's just my opinion but I do have if you do decide you need the details I can add some words yep maybe that's a good point is that we don't need we don't need the details we need we need to vote on the concept here so should we put a motion on the floor the screen whatever we are can I just ask a clarifying question if we are in favor of mitigation for clearing forest and forest as being defined as something that's not currently included in this document but we also know that we're not going to have the time here to develop that part of the bylaw who does that so let's say if the vote is we're in favor of you know some sort of mitigation which I would be but I'm not in favor of what's outlined here what happens then good question well I think the as I'm reading this point if we agree on it it would be the land in question is fairly well defined that it's in this first paragraph it's in these two zoning districts and then it's characterized so we're voting on this language really yeah yeah yeah yeah to include this or not basically alright so is that a sufficient motion or should I turn that into a formal motion I think we need a clear motion I'm not really I'm a little lost so I mean are you proposing a motion Dwayne or just I'm lost let me propose a motion and we can amend it from there but the the motion on the floor the motion would be to to vote on whether or not so a vote is to include and a nay vote is not to include this language language in the solar bylaw in the solar bylaw that provides for the mitigation of forced that provides for the mitigation of forced land forced clearing for solar development in the form of preservation preservation of forced land elsewhere did someone read that back it might be more clear if you made a motion to include this language or exclude this language but I'm can you can do that that might be a better a more clear motion if we can I can read it back or you can change the motion okay which would you prefer Dwayne I can I guess I'd rather a motion on this specific language if we can just do that so the motion would be to include or not the language that is currently in our draft in this section that is entitled forced clearing limitations and mitigation okay just give me one second okay so your motion is to include or not include the language currently in the draft section entitled forced clearing and limit limitations and mitigation in the draft solar bylaw dated October 9th 23 I just added to be clear I don't understand the I just don't understand so I'd like to make a motion yeah he had to say so the motion is Jack I'm sorry you had your hand up go ahead sorry I thought there is a motion I was going to second it okay good good all right is there any discussion on the motion first now this is specifically the language that starts forced clearing limitations and mitigation and goes down for the land that is located in these residential zones goes down through there and ends with the statement the vegetated buffer may be included in the open space calculation is that right yeah what's below that I presume is a whole other section Dwayne can I recommend because it is confusing to say to include or not so I would maybe revise that to say to include the language currently in draft section entitled forest clearing limitations and mitigation in the solar bylaw draft dated October 9th 2023 yeah yeah let us see if there's anything just confront that yeah there's nothing it's a new section yeah there was one more thing having to do with setbacks that we talked about a minute a few minutes ago at the top of the page yeah I would like to not include that setback section in our motion right now I think that's a different section okay and I get is it clear that the track changes of that what's crossed out is crossed out yeah for the purpose of this voting okay so that's the motion and given that it's revised do you um I'm not sure do we have them you know do you want to ask for a second because I'm not sure I know Jack seconded it but I don't think it was a clear motion I think it's clear now and with with the language uh whether to include this or not the motion is to include this you had it well stated Stephanie does anyone need me to read it one last time just to be clear I think clarity would be a good idea thanks thanks Stephanie to include the language currently in the draft section entitled forest clearing limitations and mitigation in the solar bylaw draft dated October 9th 2023 right do we hear any comments or a second Jack I guess we never really got down to that lower part of the page but you know water courses lakes ponds wetlands and slope greater than 25% may not be included you know I don't agree with that so anyway I just think this this there's a lot here but again I lean toward just leaving us the town council if they so choose you end with the word decommissioning and with yes right there above the yellow and with that word decommissioning good idea because we haven't even discussed the other sections okay all right commissioning let's be really clear about what we're voting on and then if there's a second vote okay okay so the I think revised the motion to provide that the section ends with the words five years after decommissioning okay hold on one second and a yes vote means you want to include it in a no vote means you don't want to include it correct let me just finish writing this revising Stephanie I'm glad you're writing it because I'm certainly not as the minute okay yeah no worries I'm just revising how I was stating it myself I think I've got it to include the language currently in the draft section entitled forest clearing limitations and mitigation in the draft dated August 9th 2023 October 9th I'm sorry October 9th 2023 through to the sentence ending in of five years after decommissioning right do we have a check well I'll I assume they who moved it and I'll second it I don't know that we had someone actually move I don't have that recorded I think do I should move it okay okay yes I can also move the emotion the motion as articulated by Stephanie and I second okay I'm going to get you all on screen again for the boat so I'm going to stop sharing for a moment okay and people could ensure you have your cameras on when I call your name and again a yes is yes is included yes yes will be you agree with this language and want it included a no vote is that you do not want language included okay so Brecker but no hanner yes McGowan yes gem sec you have to unmute Jack I'll come back to you Brooks exclude no Paglia Rulo can you put your camera on please no and gem sec no okay so the vote is to not include this section in the draft I thank you everybody that was a hard conversation okay well now Dwayne we it's twelve seventeen you said our session would end at one we have a very big important section that we've never discussed and that's the battery storage I doubt we're going to get it done in the next half hour let's just get a preview from Stephanie do you still have I'm not sure if I yeah I'm just trying to get a quick yeah just trying to get a sense of how how many more pages we have here I think we have seven more pages this section you you didn't discuss this little piece here I think because you just excluded it from the vote so it's actually eight pages because you're starting on page sixteen and going to page 25 or maybe that's nine pages because you haven't done farmland yet yeah exactly well I'm not sure Martha why we would go out of order because there is storage stuff later here yeah I'm just reminding you that I don't think we're going to get through the whole thing today yeah I would agree with that we can always request another meeting date if you don't if you can't wrap this up today okay I would I would suggest we just continue and get as far as we can and then most assuming we don't get to the end see about another meeting and I do want to you know we have till about ten of one to open for some public thoughts I don't believe you discussed this to Jack's point you were not discussing this and this is somewhat orphaned now right yes that part's not it's not relevant anymore is what yeah maybe we can just decide to delete this so okay if you do if you decide to delete it then that covers the last motion so yeah Jack and then Janet we're discussing the two lines there okay so what I was saying before was I just you know these things not to be included just don't make sense to me seeing how important they are especially wetlands so yeah that's so you're fine with deleting it here correct yeah okay Janet go ahead I was just hoping for a five minute break um I think that goes without saying so um let's um I don't think we need a motion on that I think we can just decide to do that so it's 1220 um that's your time I think yeah okay um and so let's get back at 1225 can I just real quick before you adjourn um for a break do you want to do you want to come back to this or did you just decide that you're going to delete these last few sentences I just want to make be clear about that before you adjourn because you're right unless I hear anything otherwise let's um let's delete these two uh short sentences okay yeah they're not really relevant now that we got rid of the earlier part okay all right great so uh we'll zoom back up at 1225 all right when people are ready please put your cameras back on so we know you're ready Duane I'm here I'm just going to go off camera yeah I was going to give you an album okay there you look fine Laura appreciate that Laura are you sick I am I have a fever for the past three days and my eight-year-old just woke up and she's throwing up oh my god I don't know she has a fever too who knows it's just every summer I go into the fall thinking no one's going to get sick this year I'm going to get all these vitamins I'm going to add it to the smoothies with the kale and every year I'm thwarted to my plans too healthy too healthy a diet I know you're right that's true okay Jack are you back by chance let's assume Jack will get back real quickly and let's continue down the language and remind me where we are now basically here okay so this was really part of what we talked about before but you didn't vote on it setbacks for LGBIs in forest land we're all LGBIs located in forest land that are over five acres in size a 100 foot buffer of uncleared land shall be maintained between the LGBIs and public roads and residential property lines I guess this was the I think it was raised why if we should have it different which number 100 was open for question right and how that differed from our normal setback so the normal setback is now I believe 50 feet and we're requiring that 30 feet of it be green screening but in the case where you have a large solar array next to a residential property line or a public road you're suggesting that it should be a bigger area we discussed having 100 feet for those cases that you mentioned so is that something you want to stick with Bob's shaking his head any coming on that Bob or just a no I don't think we should be fussing around with buffers we have buffers to stick with what we have we don't need exceptional buffers here and exceptional buffers there I remember the 50 feet but if that's what it is that's fine I don't think we need another 50 this was the standard I thought say that again Martha I thought this was the standard I don't think we're changing anything well we're changing it from 50 feet normally we require 50 feet except in the case where an LGB is located in forest land and in that case if the array is 5 acres in size or greater then you wanted to require 100 foot buffer but normally you only require a 50 foot setback from property lines if these things are not located in forest land all right go ahead Jennifer so I don't know about my hand so I have a solo bylaw comparison chart and so in terms of regular setbacks you know not in a solar array in Belcher Town the front setback is 150 feet in Hadley it's 50 in Pelham it's 500 and in Shootsbury it's 500 feet the side setbacks Belcher Town is 75 feet Hadley is 50 Pelham is 100 Shootsbury is 100 the rear is in Belcher Town setback is 75 feet 50 feet in Hadley 100 feet in Pelham and 100 feet in Shootsbury and then there are different requirements for setbacks minimum setbacks when you're abutting conservation 100 feet in Hadley it's 100 feet at root 47 which I think is a scenic road in Pelham it's 500 feet in Shootsbury it's 500 feet and so it goes on like the side setbacks side and rear setbacks for Belcher Town are both 200 feet in Hadley it's 100 feet at root 47 it's 100 feet in Pelham it's 100 feet in Shootsbury that's a good load of our sister towns I I just have to say this this has been here for a long time we had the mitigation requirement for three or four meetings and I don't know it seems fine to me it seems like it protects forested land and kind of the look of it it protects the forest it creates a better buffer but I guess it might all be up for grabs I don't know. Yeah. Okay. Laura. No, I just had a question. So 50 feet is what we have for all other forms of development in Amherst. No, no. It's much, it's different in each district. And it's. Yeah. So this would only apply to solar. Let me see if I can tell you what the. Distances are normally. So I think the only, only comment I would add here is. In an effort to move on to other sections. I don't feel. You know, especially if we're not including buffer land in the. In the previous section that we just voted to remove. You know, I think that. We should always include language here that. Exceptions can be granted. Let's say there's. I mean, I'm just giving the example of the mass bike, you know, not a beautiful road. You know, no, no setbacks required because we're not protecting anything that's beautiful here. Beauty is obviously entirely subjective, but. I think you can all agree that. We don't have an eyesore where we're going down the mass bike. So perhaps we can include some language that. You know. Except other as otherwise approved by the PGA. I don't know how others feel, but I'm fine with that. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, if I recall correctly, some of our previous discussion. Was concerned about, you know, when you take out the trees, you are changing. The water flow. And there was a real concern that against residential properties. And particularly the ones where people are on private wells, but let's just say all residential properties. The concern really was, you know, potential for changing erosion patterns onto the adjacent property. And so we had kind of decided. Really that a 100 foot buffer of unclear land was, was reasonable certainly in residential zones. And as Janet just read, that's consistent or even less than our surrounding communities. And so if people want just something that's consistent throughout our bylaw, let's just say a hundred for the whole bylaw. Otherwise, let's say a hundred feet of. Of unclear land for the forested area or for the forested area. Yes. In. Against residential property lines. So I favor leaving the. The language as it is. Yep. I mean, just for myself, I'm fine with the language as it is. I would. To Laura's point. Maybe to add a caveat that, you know, subject to. Unless unless, you know, approved by the PGA. In the case where there's some situation where a hundred features doesn't make sense. So then the PGA could make it be 200 feet of somebody. If a adjacent landowner. Was interesting. Right. They can always stick into that anyway. Yes. Yeah. All right. Let's move on to the farm. Land provisions unless. Janet, when I thought. You know, in the, in, I'm looking ahead to the setbacks. For scenic roads. And it's a hundred foot setback that we approved. And I actually think that all the forested roads are scenic roads. We have like. Quite a few scenic roads and. In Amherst, I'm just, I can't say that authoritatively, but I was. I think that's the best way to do it. And I think that's the best way to do it. I think that's the best way to do it. Because there's like, there's a chart. There's a list of those roads. And I would think shoots Berry road and a flat Hills road. And think places like that are. Right. Think of the forested sites. Clearly. The Holy Oak range would be in Bay Road to be in there. Right. Good. So it's consistent with that. Okay. Let's go on to the special provisions or requirements for. Farmland. Okay. Am I muted or not? No. Okay. Agribald takes required for land that is categorized. Sorry. Sorry, Chris. Let me just check has a comment. Yeah, I'm sorry. I had to check out for a minute. So I missed what happened with the setbacks. We decided to leave, leave it the way it is stated here, except to add the phrase except as otherwise approved by the PGA. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Yep. Okay. So, that's it. Thank you. For land that is categorized as prime farmland or farm, farmland of statewide importance. In accordance with USDA criteria. And is being actively farmed or has been actively farmed in the last five years. Any LGPI that is over five acres in size shall be developed and operated as an agribald takes array. tariff generation units of the Massachusetts smart program or successor programs, unless the landowner or LGBTI developer or applicant can demonstrate to the PGA that it has analyzed the financial and technical feasibility of agriboltaics and has found that an agriboltaic installation is not financially or technically feasible on the property. In order to make such a demonstration, the landowner, LGBTI developer or applicant shall engage the services of a professional in agriboltaics such as a soil scientist, an agronomist, or other credentialed professional to demonstrate that an agriboltaics installation is not financially or technically feasible on the property in question. For all land that is prime farmland or farmland of statewide importance, regardless of current use or size of the array, soil shall be managed or conserved so that the land remains suitable for future farming activities. The PGA shall look positively favorably on solar installations that include agriboltaics or dual use. So what are the comments about that? All right, yeah, Martha. Yes, well, I was one of those who went out to inspect Jake's installation there in North Hadley with the broccoli growing and it seemed great to me. It seemed like it was a very good arrangement. And I really feel that every farmer knows their land well. They know where the crops grow best. They know the land that they would like to then put into agriboltaics or whatever. And so I think that this present wording sounds very reasonable because I think if there is a case where they want to put solar panels on some land that's not very productive, all they have to do is show that, hey, that's not where I'm growing crops, food crops at the moment. It's the non-productive area. I can put hay underneath and this would be great. Otherwise, I think it works very well for the food crops. Hey, that broccoli that was growing in the shade of the solar panels really looked healthy when we went to see it. I was quite impressed with the array up there. So I favor the current language. All right, thanks. Bob? Yeah, you already crossed out what I suggested this be. I'm opposed to requiring this. I do, I'm very much in favor of the idea. I just don't like the idea of requiring it. Laura? I agree with Bob's sentiment. I think we should encourage it, but I also know that anytime you go for an agrivoltaic certification in Massachusetts, we can either like what I, I don't know if the Bylaw Working Group has the option for this, but I, you know, so if you go for state certification, there are additional requirements that some farmers and asset owners may or may not want to undertake because it requires clawbacks of incentives. And I'm not as familiar with the particulars as Dwayne probably is. So I think if we are ever going to require this above and beyond what the state is requiring, I think we should offer financial incentives. And that's a discussion for town council. Otherwise, I suggest putting Bob's language back in there because I think it'd be great to see more agrivoltaic systems. I don't think Marley's farm is the example that could be applied across the board. But again, I support encouraging it, not requiring it. All right. Yeah, just in terms of the commit of the STGU adder, which is significant. And what the requirement is, is basically that the landowner farmer and solar owner work together to assure that farming is maintained, sustained throughout the lifetime of the array, or I should say of the smart incentive, which is 20 years, I believe. And so that's the commitment of the landowner is to maintain and sustain good productive agriculture for 20 years. And just to ask a question there, Dwayne, if the farmer was, let's say he's 60 and he wants to do this in the beginning, then at the end of the day, he's gonna sell or his son or daughter is going to inherit the land and they decide they do not want to consider farming, the underlying sort of financial modeling of the project changes, right? Well, then, yeah. Well, if they don't have a succession plan to continue farming, yes, the incentive could be clawed back, which leaves the project in a difficult situation, obviously, how that risk is split between the landowner and the solar owner is up to their bilateral agreement, I would imagine. All right, Janet, and then Bob, if you still have your hand up. One of the interesting things about visiting the farm was sort of understanding the dual use farm, which is quite small actually, is it was quite lucrative for the farmer. And so just by leasing his land, he was getting like $10,000 an acre. He got power at 17% less for electricity for 10 years. And then this probably doesn't happen to everybody. He also got some water wells on what was a very dry piece of land and then also power outlets because they had to be put in for the array. And so the adder the state is giving is really lucrative. And if they had just done a regular array, he could have leased it for like 1,000 to 2,000 an acre for a traditional ground mount. And admittedly, the dual use thing was more expensive and space farther apart because it had to be spaced so tractors could go in and the mounting was higher. And they also had a tracker system, which no one has to do. And so the economics are really there and apparently like a lot of local farmers and people from around the state and even Connecticut are coming to look at it. So you could sort of frame this as like an undue burden but it actually seems like you're gonna make more money with it than without it, which was interesting and kind of good to know. I think the question here is the purpose of this whole section is how to keep farmland in use. How do you keep the natural working lands working? And as Dan Kaplan, former farmer of Brookfield Farm for over 20 years said, we're not making more farmland. And so this is a way of keeping land in farming as farms producing vegetables and hay or whatever and also getting green power. And so I don't know, it just seems to me, it's not a complete requirement. There are ways out of it. And so I just really support it. And I think Amherst can be a leader in the state in terms of promoting agributics, the importance of farmland and just moving the needle to where we need to go. And fortunately the needle is moving because people are getting more informed by these live experiments, but I strongly support this. All right, good. Okay, Laura, do you have another comment? Yeah, just quickly. So the market for an acre of land to lease in Massachusetts without agributics right now is about $2,500 to $3,000 an acre. I don't know the size of Marley's array. I suspect it's fairly small, but those economics of $10,000 an acre would not necessarily translate to the broad base of solar developers who are out there. And some developers and asset owners are equipped to support this. And listen, Jen, I love the idea of having more agrivoltaic farms. I mean, I think we are a farming community. We have special soils in the valley. I just, I don't wanna sort of cut off our nose despite our faces here. So strongly encouraged means that we'll look more favorably, of course, on projects that haven't, perhaps incorporated some of the land for dual use, but I just think if we have a good solar project and maybe someone stopped farming it four years ago for reasons that are personal to them, I don't think it's our business to make them do it again if there's not the financial incentive, that's all. All right, I mean, I do recognize there is the language in there. Well, the language of strongly encouraged is struck out. There is an out. From the landowner and the farmer, if they can demonstrate that there's not sufficient financial incentive to make the project work. And so that's, was sort of the- We're putting the burden again on the landowner right and the developer. Exactly, to demonstrate that agrivoltaics would not be financially feasible. But if it is, so they do have an out, maybe part of that argument is they don't have a succession plan. So financially, they can't make this work, they can't take this risk, but that would be up to the PGA to assess. And obviously they don't need to go solar at all. They could settle it all for whatever other reason, but it would keep them from putting in a ground-mounted array and losing the farmability of that land. Okay, let's try to, I mean, personally, I'm happy with this language and not, well, requiring it unless they can demonstrate there's a financial reason that they, or technical reason that they can't do it. But I do see some objection to it, but generally any other comments or yeas or nays for leaving this in? Chris? I just wanna point out that we have 11 minutes left in this meeting and I have two other meetings this afternoon, so I'm not gonna be able to stay much after one, so I just wanted to point that out. Yeah. I have to go too. Okay, likewise, so. Could we just get a consensus one way or the other on this and then stop? On this one? Yeah, yeah. Let's move forward with this language in there unless I hear any sort of majority opinion otherwise. I've heard some nays, but not a majority. Okay, so let's continue. Well, let's, in respect for the public comment and the need to stop at one, let's put a bookmark right here. Chris, if we may, and Stephanie, with the full recognition that we need, we have a lot more to go, and apologies for that. And let's, before we go to the public, which will close out things are, Stephanie, can you just remind us of the process that we might be in front of us with regard to another meeting? Sure, so we'll just need to request another extension of the town manager for an additional meeting. You might want to, I don't know if you want to try to come up with a date now or not. I could just do a poll, another doodle poll, but you, or you could go back to your Friday schedule, 1130 to 130, which is what you had been doing, which seems most people had been available. If you don't get the majority of folks, then we can try other dates. I am totally unavailable on Friday, but I'm free almost all of next week. This week, I'm totally unavailable Friday. I could, if we wanted to wait till the following Friday, we could schedule that time, that our normal time then. And I also propose that we make it a three-hour meeting if we can, because we took the full three hours here. So that would be Friday, October 20th. You could do it from 1030 to 130 or 10 to one. I'm good anytime myself. Anybody have any restrictions on Friday, the 20th? Yeah, Bob, I have company. I can't just set her aside, so sorry. Did Laura say that she's not available any Friday? No, I'm available the 20th, but perhaps we look toward another date next week if Bob can make it. I think I should do a doodle poll because I think you're gonna eat up all your time here. Yeah, okay. Let's do that. I mean, we can include some earlier dates too. This whole week, I'm really out, but maybe next, a few times next week would work, for the doodle poll. Thank you, Stephanie, for that additional work. Okay, good. I think we'll just open it up for any public input. If anyone would like to speak, please electronically raise your hand and I will unmute Scott Cashion and go ahead and unmute. Thank you, Stephanie. I had a comment about the mitigation for loss of forest land. I know that the committee voted on that, so I don't necessarily need to rehash that issue. I don't know if we're sort of moving on at this point or not. You can certainly comment on it, but we are moving on. Okay, well, there's a couple of things I wanted to point out. I certainly understand the argument that private landowners should have the right to do what they want on their land, but I think it's important to recognize that a lot of the resources that would be affected by clearing forests for solar development are public resources. So we're talking about things like wildlife habitat, water quality, flood attenuation, other things that are public resources. So what the bylaw is now allowing is for private individuals and corporations to profit at the expense of public resources. Even with mitigation, the mitigation that was proposed in the bylaw, there would be net loss of forest land. And that's because the mitigation involved preservation, not restoration. So even with the mitigation, there was gonna be net loss. And now with no mitigation, you're gonna have doubled the net loss. It's really interesting to me because I got involved in California right at the very beginning of the massive amount of renewable energy development that occurred there in the last 15 years. And so I've seen how things played out. And a lot of the projects that were built were required to provide mitigation. And even with that mitigation, there are now several plant and animal species whose primary threat to continued persistence is additional solar energy development. So limitations on solar energy development in areas that have been designated priority habitat or circled on the bio map, that's not going to prevent Massachusetts from heading down that same path. So it's really sort of disheartening to me to see the town is sort of not learning from experience of what's happened elsewhere in deciding whether mitigation should be required or not. And finally, I understand the optics of requiring solar energy development to have to provide mitigation but other types of development not. I look at that as an opportunity to sort of rectify maybe mistakes in other bylaws or zoning ordinances, just because it was maybe appropriate at the time that particular bylaw was developed doesn't mean it's appropriate now. And so why would we sort of repeat a mistake that was made or why are we not adapting to where we're at currently with respect to the desire to preserve forest land and biodiversity? So those are my comments, thank you. Hey, Lenore, Rick Brick, you can go ahead and unmute yourself. Hi, everybody. My insides are feeling you. This is so hard. So I wanna echo what Scott was talking about, a couple of points that I had the same kind of response to is one, to be very careful that past experiences, past bylaws, past approaches to development, what other towns have done, what we've done, not be the reference point and the model. I know of course it informs everything we do but we are in a very different era. And what we're asking you to do is to be very brave, bold, echo climate pioneers, which I know is not easy, especially you're thinking about the lawsuit next door and things like that. But this is just the way it is now. We have to fight for what we need. And I just wanna point out again, building on what Scott was saying that we have to remember that the purpose of solar development is to address the climate crisis. It is one tool in our toolbox. This is not about protecting the rights of any one particular sector, whether it's the landowner or the solar developer or anybody, this is the team that we're building to protect and preserve and regenerate the world that we basically are destroying. And so it's a very different kind of approach that we need when we're thinking about even developing one simple bylaw in one town. And it's not just one simple bylaw in one town because people will be looking to Amherst as a model of it, just the way we look to other towns, they will be looking to our town. Like what did we do? How brave were we? How innovative were we? How informed were we? How holistic were we in our approach to this? So I'm just urging us, I know you've made these decisions already but just in moving forward or maybe even reviewing that we are entering a different chapter of our human evolution. And we need different criteria to move forward in a way that we've never, ever, ever done before, which means it has to be much more holistic. And I appreciate what you've been talking about that this lens should be a lens for all development, not just solar development. I'm not talking about burdening solar developers. I'm just talking about, this is like team humanity, not one particular lens to look through but the entire holistic lens, which is quite a pickle that you find yourself in is just this small committee. But as much as you can do that, we would all be very grateful in the future for that kind of foresight. Thank you. Steve Roof, you can go ahead and unmute yourself. Hello everybody, Steve Roof from South Hammers. Thank you all for your effort and putting tons and tons of time into this. I wanted to mention one thing that didn't get mentioned again with the forest mitigation issue. And that's that of all the forest loss, solar is responsible for less than 25% and maybe closer to 10 or 15%. The mass Audubon states that solar development has only been responsible for a quarter of forest loss. And John Rogan presenting at the solar forum a couple of weeks ago said it was, solar development was 10 to 15. So 80 to 90% of forest loss is from other kinds of development. I think it's really important to keep that in mind. So if you slow down solar development or burden solar development, as Laura mentioned, housing developments are going to be favored. So moving forward, what your committee, your working group might consider would be to suggest to town council that they come up with a plan that requires forest mitigation for all developments. Consider that as an option. And I think that would be very reasonable and it would level the playing field. So that may be something you want to include in your letter accompanying the draft solar bylaw. Again, that's all I have to say for now. Thanks for all of your work and see you next time, I guess. All right. Thank you for those comments. I really appreciate those. All right, we're over past one o'clock. So unless there's any final comments from the committee of which there is one from Jack and then we'll close out. Yeah, I really like Steve's comment and if we can tag on a message to the future reviewers of town council, that's something I could get beyond. I would too. Yeah. Janet. I'm really happy to hear you say that, Jack and everybody else, as Steve was talking, I was thinking, well, why don't we just draft it? It doesn't have to be part of the solar bylaw. It could be a standalone part of the zoning bylaw, a mitigation requirement for development, X amount of trees cut, whatever. So I could work that up based on this language and just broaden it. Because I understand people's concerns, like you can put a subdivision in, why would you burden someone that way? And so I think that would take care of that complaint. But I also want to say, zoning burdens everybody, I can't put an apartment complex in my land and that takes economic value away from me, but it also protects the value and the lifestyles of all the people around me. And so we could say, okay, forest land has to be treated differently, but I do support the idea of just saying, a solar array has its benefits, the housing development has its benefits, but we want to mitigate the harm that's done to the forest. So I'd be happy to bring that to the next meeting. And since we have some good draft language, I think we just brought in its applicability, not to solar, cutting for solar arrays but cutting for anything. So I could do that. All right, yeah, that would be helpful. You could include that in a cover letter as an appendix to a cover letter as an example in the cover letter. All right, Martha. Yes, I had sent it previously, and I think the way into you as well, I had gone through and studied the battery storage requirements and where and shoot sparing and the National Fire Protection Association and so on and made out a list of requirements that I felt we should include. And I would like then to, I'll just check it one more time, but then have it forwarded to our group. So at least that can be an example to consider for next time, you know. I can. We're gonna have to discuss it. Yeah, I guess I've lost track to some extent of what I've been away of, whether that got incorporated or considered by Stephanie and Chris. It was included in the packet for today. It was last minute because I was away all weekend. Yeah, I only got to it. I didn't see it in the packet. Oh, okay. It's on the online packet, assuming because what you asked me to do was to be able to share it. You didn't see it in the packet. I did put it in the packet. Oh, okay. Well, thank you. All right. So I'll just go on the next one. You know, again, it's just a reference, just a starting point or whatever for, yeah. Okay, thank you. Okay, great. Okay, Chris. Yeah, I don't wanna prolong this, but I just wanted to say that if you have this follow-up meeting next week, I'm gonna have a really hard time incorporating comments from people. So I got a slew of comments last week that I wasn't able to incorporate. So if you could put this meeting off, like another week that would be helpful. If not, we can just go back and continue reviewing the basic solar by-law and review the battery storage by-law. Maybe that's all we need to do. And then I will incorporate those other comments some other time. I just, you know, I have a limited amount of time and I have other things going on. So I just wanted to make that clear. Thanks. Quickly ask if people have conflicts two weeks from today at the same time? If Tuesday the 24th would work. I'm just throwing that out as a last ditch. I'm free. No, no. Are we talking about 10 o'clock Eastern time? Tuesday, October 24th, 10 o'clock. I teach a class. Today was different because it's a Monday schedule at UMass, but. Okay, all right. Well, just, I'll do the poll. I just- Noodle. One last shot. Okay. I'll do the poll. Okay. Or we could have two meetings. We could have just continuing from this draft next Friday and then another one to, you know, do the final things, you know, two shorter ones. We might folks have a conflict. So yeah, I think it's best to get all the, you know, the most recent things. We need to end this, folks. Yeah. Okay. I'll send out a Doodle poll. Perfect. Thanks definitely. All right. Thanks everybody. Thanks everybody for a productive meeting. Okay. Very good. Bye-bye. Bye.