Planning Board - Regular Meeting

Okay, Mr. Marshall, you have a quorum of the board. Amherst Media is with us. We're recording and the attendees are joining us. I think you're good to go.

All right. Thank you, Pam.

You're welcome.

Welcome to the Amherst Planning Board meeting of June 3rd, 2026. My name is Doug Marshall and as chair of the Amherst Planning Board, I'm calling this meeting to order at 635 p.m. This meeting is being recorded and is available live stream via Amherst Media. Minutes are being taken. Brett KenCairn, Planning Board will be joined by the Community resource committee of the town council for agenda item to to continue the public hearing for zoning bylaw article 18 clean energy infrastructure, which is continued from may 20 2026. Pursuant to Chapter 20 of the Acts of 2021, extended by Chapter 2 of the Acts of 2023, and further extended by Chapter 2 of the Acts of 2025, this meeting will be conducted via remote means using the Zoom platform. The Zoom meeting link is available on the meeting agenda. posted on the town website's calendar listing for this meeting or go to the planning board web page and click on the most recent agenda where the zoom link is listed at the top of the page no in-person attendance of the public is permitted However, every effort will be made to ensure the public can access this meeting in real time via technological means. In the event public access is disrupted for reasons of economic hardship or despite our best efforts, we will post an audio or video recording, transcript, or other comprehensive record of proceedings as soon as possible after the meeting on the town's website. Board members, I will take a roll call. When I call your name, unmute yourself, answer affirmatively, and return to mute. Bruce Colden.

Here.

Thank you, Bruce. Fred Hartwell.

Fred Hartwell is here.

Thank you. Jesse Major. Present. I, Doug Marshall, am present. Angus McLeod. Present. Johanna Newman. Present. And Jarrah Smith. Present. Thank you all. Board members, if technical issues arise and the discussion needs to pause, it will be noted in the minutes. Please use the raise hand function to ask a question or make a comment, and I will call on you to speak. After speaking, remember to re-mute yourself. To the general public, when solicited, let's see, do we have general public comments tonight? It doesn't look like we do, so I'm going to skip that preamble for the general public comments. um when when we do solicit public comment uh please indicate you wish to make a public comment by clicking the raise hand button if you've joined the zoom meeting using a telephone please indicate you wish to make a comment by pressing star 9 on your phone when called on please identify yourself by start by stating your real your full name and address and put yourself back into mute when finished speaking. Residents can typically express their views for up to three minutes or at the discretion of the planning board chair. If a speaker does not comply with these guidelines or exceeds their allotted time, their participation may be disconnected from the meeting. Okay, time now is 638. And the first item on our agenda is an update from the staff. Jeff Bagg is here, Director of Planning and Economic Development, to update us on a couple of topics. Jeff?

Great. Thanks. Hi, everybody. Two topics really tonight are a brief discussion of a staff transition plan. and an update on Hampshire College. So for the staff transition plan, I did provide a memo to the planning board members. It should be available upon request or available somehow if anyone's interested in seeing that. It's dated May 28th. And it starts off by acknowledging that your April 22nd meeting is when Nate Malloy announced that he was leaving the town of Amherst for the opportunity as the town administrator Hadley. It's an exciting opportunity for him and we're very happy. In the lead up to that, we had some discussions about workload and capacity within the planning department and just acknowledging that Nate's last day was April 30th. It's a major loss to the town in terms of his skills, institutional knowledge, and his ability. He had a lot of projects that he was responsible for, including staffing your board. Um, the position is posted, we have several applications, uh, you know, it should be anticipated that this gap could exist for a little while. And so that that was really my. My need to kind of express that to this board is this. Could be, but I didn't write this in the memo. It could be 4 months or so to to get somebody. It could be longer. It could be 6 months could be 8 months really depending on how this all unfold. So. It's really important to me to come to you and just make sure that you're aware of that because we're all people working on the common goals to move Amherst forward, but there's some real constraints that this presents. in response to the loss of Nate, you know, we really can't sustain the same level of activity without that position. And I just, I know there's a temptation to feel like we can, but we really have to acknowledge that it's a gap. In the memo, I really highlight kind of four things professional staff support. So, you know, our early discussions with Walker Powell, who sat with you in the last meeting at least, is going to be the professional staff support. Walker has, you know, experience working with planning boards and other communities, and so it's a really good fit. But it really has to be kind of these statutorily required elements because Walker was a full-time planner with a full-time workload and is taking on a planning board extra to fill in to provide the professional staff support. Walker maintains our CDBG program, which has At least 4 different fiscal years of grants, it's millions of dollars. It's very intensely intense coordination of that. Walker is also staffing the historical commission in the local historic district. Amongst, like, other projects that water was was working on too. So this is extra work. It's important and water's agreed and we have it in place. um the administrative support so pam um field sadler has is offering a tremendous amount of uh support to the board and is really a great asset to the community um does the preparing of schedule agendas legal ads minutes um and also does a lot of kind of the behind the scenes scheduling of meetings and such so you know walker and pam will act as a team to kind of support you guys with the statutorily required elements The subcommittee that you had the housing and zoning subcommittee I think this got discussed at your other meeting and you know I think for the time being the request was to potentially consolidate Those discussions into a regularly scheduled plan board meeting I think there was some questions about the minutes and keeping up with the minutes of a subcommittee So this is a way we can be a little bit more efficient But also allow the plan board to continue those discussions And I think here I am sort of requesting that the board think about the details, the amount of details that are in the minutes. I know that there's a tendency and a desire to have really detailed minutes, like almost play by play. And I think we want to maintain that for some of the public hearing items. So something that's statutory required, I think that's fine. But something that's an hour-long discussion about a couple of different topics, I think we have to allow for a little more flexibility and summary-type minutes that capture the essence of the discussion rather than a real detailed breakdown. And then the fourth item is really about zoning amendments. And that's really more of the core topic. But I know the plan board has a lot of items on their priority list. And no part of this is to say you shouldn't be talking about zoning amendments or shouldn't be planning. It's just being a little more cognizant of how you fit into the bigger context within the town. You know, we have there's a staff person who staffs the town council and walks through those processes. So as soon as the planning board votes to recommend something, you know, it transfers to other people in town hall. And we want to just have a little more focus on coordinating that. So the memo tries to say that. if and when you feel like an amendment is fully developed and i i do have an asterisk here to talk about but then we just want to make sure that the other staff people and including town council members and and the crc understand that it's going to pop into their workload too um The asterisk is, you know, we want to make sure that certain people, other staff people see amendments before they're recommended out. An example is the mixed use building standards, you know, but the way that unfolded is by the time it was recommended, the building commissioner had then looked at it and saw some things that would be potentially problematic. And you guys were willing to send it back. So we just want to make sure we have a clearer feedback loop for the zoning amendments that you guys are talking about. Because there, you know, it shoots them into another process. And we just want to make sure that we're all aware of that. I think I covered that. Then the memo concludes with just really highlighting that there's a lot of work going on. And I realized that the plan board may not be critical to every single project, but we as a team are working on the Clean Energy By-law, the Downtown Design Standards, the East Amherst Zoning Study, the Hampshire College process that we'll talk a little bit about in a few minutes. the South Campus School, and then we have the Wildwood School. And those are just the, you know, the town projects that are churning about. And we, you know, for East Amersonian study in particular, we want the planning board to be like really highly involved. And we're just about to, the RFP went out for that. So we'll be selecting consultants soon. And we want the planning board to be the body who works through that process. um the clean energy by the way as you know is underway but there's a couple more steps after you're done and then the downtown design standards is something where we're still hoping that you will review it and provide comments and then have another opportunity for some discussions in maybe late fall that would actually be zoning amendments so we have a really full plate and so that's really what was causing me to come to you and just make sure that i'm airing that out a little bit of the dirty laundry but really important for for you guys to know that context So I'm happy to answer a couple of questions. I know you have a really full agenda with the Clean Energy By-law. And I do want to give you an update on Hampshire too.

All right. Thanks, Jeff. I know that your memo was posted in the packet this afternoon. And I know I was able to go look at it. And I think we'd seen it before. Jesse?

Thanks. And I'll try and be brief. Thank you, Jeff. I completely appreciate everything you said. Very much value of staff and what they do. Obviously, I guess I have a little bit. Concern about your request for us to. not putting forward that's not a complete memo after review by multiple staff after you come into the meeting to discuss with us because we are not the experts. The panelists here are not the right ones to finalize that memo. It needs to go through staff review. And you're trying to accomplish that. I see that. But the other piece, the way at least many times we've operated is That means we have to put in a huge amount of work before it moves on to then maybe just get a very quick note from the next step, whether that's from staff or you or the council. And so in the recent year, year and a half, we've taken a slightly different approach, largely at Nate's urging, which was, no, let's put things forward at a little quicker pace to see what the appetite is for that particular thing. And so it's really, you know, it's going to make that effort a lot more on our side. And I understand maybe that's needed in this moment. So I guess I'm wondering, is there any way the town can add temp staff to help staff, you know, ameliorate what they can so that there's a little more support for a planning board? Because to be, I'll just be perfectly honest, to get the message of, yeah, you might need to wait eight to 10 months before you're able to do anything other than respond is a little frustrating.

Yep. And I don't want to belabor it. I don't think we're saying you can't do anything in eight to 10 months. I just think it has to be a little more thoughtful, a little more thorough. You know, I think we can get certain staff, especially the building commissioner, who is also the zoning enforcement officer, would be good to roll in earlier. So that is an option. Temp staff, you know, I think, you know, I don't want you to take it for granted is that we have Walker and Pam together with you. It's just a matter of, you know, all it's going to take is a couple land use permits and You know, in addition to those other projects, you have a full place so we can keep going and have discussions. I just wanted to put this out there. You know, to temper it a little bit. And one thing that occurs to me, you know, you might be asking why I can't just come in and just sit and do all this. You know, I do think that it may be hard to know what was articulated in the lead up to you know, me being hired, but the position of director of planning and economic development is new. So it was crafted to be able to represent the town on a regional level, at the state level with UMass and with the colleges and to promote economic development and to, you know, really interact kind of as an overarching umbrella representation, and so I'm just really sensitive to not losing that. And so we do have to at least just triage for a little while. So we can have more discussion. You know, just one example would be having the plan board draft the report. So what I saw with the building, the mixed use building standards is the board voted on the language, which was great, but Nate spent three or four weeks drafting a report, which the plan board didn't have any involvement with. And so even just that exercise of keeping that with the plan board would really help. for this time being if you really feel compelled that there's an amendment that has to go forward just asking you guys to frame it out with the discussions that you've had and that would be that would be one way to really make sure that it's not six to eight months before there's another action from the lane board but this could be worthy of another discussion i just wanted to preview it today thanks jeff johanna

I was gonna suggest that because we're at a transition point on the planning board and this is probably my last meeting serving and we'll have some new members having this discussion or at least encouraging new members to watch the five minute presentation that you gave so that they understand the constraints of the board that they're entering could be really valuable too.

Right. Right. And then it's just not it's not permanent, but it is temporary. It's realistic for me to be here to express this, but it's not permanent. That's the that's the message I'd like to send is a permanent situation.

All right, Jeff, why don't you go ahead and talk about your second topic?

OK, great. And I, Pam, I should have asked in advance, do you think it would be possible for you to share that presentation? I can do it, but I'm afraid I have the one with my notes in it.

I think so. Hang on. I practiced.

Apologies for not asking about that in advance.

While she's bringing that up, Jeff, if we do develop a zoning proposal, is it reasonable for us to expect Walker to be able to circulate it to Rob Mora and see what his thoughts are?

Yeah, yeah, I think that's reasonable. And I think that would be great if we can build in that loop, you know, and potentially, I don't want to volunteer Rob, potentially he could come to a meeting to talk it through. But I think as an intermediate step is to make sure it gets to, especially the building commissioner earlier, would really be beneficial, I think, for everybody, including your goals to initiate things. Great. So, Pam, you can go to the next slide. Great, thank you so much. We're really pleased. We're pleased to announce that we have a collaboration with MassDevelopment. And the way we're describing it is an extensive but focused initiative to prepare for the future potential uses of the campus. I did a really similar presentation to town council on Monday night. So you're two days behind them. I apologize to the counselors who are here to hear this again. We are looking to start immediately. That's why the town put out a press release on Monday. We did the update to town council on Monday as well. And here we are tonight. What we are doing is getting access to a skilled team. So from mass development's perspective, these groups are called house doctors. Where they mass development has a team and they can just select them and work behind the scenes on a contract and then bring them to the town. So this is this is different than how like a grant gets applied for which takes many, many months. We don't need to do an RFP mass development has all this under their umbrella. And so what we're really doing is It's that third big bullet is create a process to collect information and community input and create a vision for the development portions of the campus. And ultimately, we want to enact zoning that would implement the vision over time. And so actually, if you scroll down just a little bit more, we're looking to enable the property to generate as much tax revenue as possible. Um, sorry, Pam, you're going a little too fast for me. Just the slide before this.

Okay. Well done.

Yes, thank you. We want to try to open up an opportunity to allow various kinds of housing again to be implemented over time and then really balance redevelopment with preservation of important resource areas. We want to embrace the cultural institutions that exist. So we have this theme that we're talking about and we felt like there was this urgency to send out a message that the town wants to be looking at the property and examining zoning options. As many of you know, it's all one zoning district, fairly limited in terms of what the uses would be allowed. And we really wanna embark on this with a team. So here, Pam, you can go to the next slide. Thank you. As I said, we're trying to launch this immediately. It's gonna start with really some background information, some existing conditions. We've never looked at this parcel. It's never really been part of exercises or examination. So we really need to start with some of the basics, the basic characteristics of the site, looking at what the zoning does now, what it doesn't do. understanding where there are wetlands is critical because if you know it's 690 acres but not all of it is developable and so really to quickly kind of get a lay of the land so to speak is really critical this will allow us to look at the market so the real estate market will be kind of considered we really need to understand what's happening with infrastructure and utilities. So we know that there's water and sewer connected to some of the buildings, but we really don't know what kind of capacity there is. Um, and that's going to be really important to any future discussion to understand that understanding a little bit about the building conditions. Ownership is pretty complex. There are easements and there are some areas that don't have access, you know, it's one large parcel. So we want to begin with that leading to educational materials. So we're want to stand up a webpage with the consultant team, a story map, very interactive where we can, um, put up that information. We want to start to understand some of the basic development potential. So lot area divided by a certain number of housing units equals x and really start that and then kind of cut sheets or information that's a little bit more digestible and that's going to lead us to July where we want to host a community listening session It'll present some of the baseline data so that we have a framework to operate within. Talk about the resource areas, the real estate market, review existing community goals. So think back to the master plan, the village center plans, the comprehensive housing policy and the housing production plan. How do all those fit into this discussion and collect community questions and concerns. So that is a really big kind of lift for the next two months. And then Pam, you can go to the next slide. That will lead us into what we're calling phase two. And we think that by July, late July or August, we'll be having stakeholder meetings and interviews. And that would be where the consultants would come to the planning board and talk to the planning board i think the consultants would come to the crc and talk to the crc and then there are other stakeholders that they'd be talking to in a lead up to coming back to the community this is a three meeting process where meeting number two would be a charrette um dotson and flinker is one of the consulting teams that was brought in they have a really great familiarity with amherst and they have a great way to lay out maps and have foam building blocks and really help people visualize what's possible on the site and we're kind of looking at um i guess we did have some discussions that is more than likely going to end up being a community meeting in september to allow the summer to clean up have labor day and then have people like back in town Um, talks about a walking tour and a Saturday morning kind of session. From there is when we really get into more of the nitty gritty and the team will really build a look at the overall size of the development areas of density. The extent of new development, the types of potential development opportunities over the focus on housing. This is like mixed use villages. This is. You know, some notion of if this is an educational institution, um, and then housing and really understanding what types of housing. Would be viable and fit on the property and this would come with illustrative plans, diagrams, cross sections and other supporting materials. And then we really are looking at a fiscal analysis to support. You know, rationalizing this a little bit to understand there would be some potential services that would be impacted, but there would be potential tax revenue under these scenarios. And those are all really critical things for us to have. Sort of it, everyone seeing. And really assessing followed lastly by the 3rd charrette public meeting, probably in October. And then from there, you know, the goal is to have a draft zoning amendment of some sort that would. Look at a vision plan where there's consensus and agreement and then what is the zoning that would allow that to occur and the target is November, December. So that we can be acting thoroughly with the community, but also fast enough to respond to what kind of this outside the outside forces that are out there. So the plan board would be maybe not involved. in the lead up to July, we would love to have representation at the July meeting. And then really right after that is when there'll be enough information to really get the planning boards concise and specific input on what you're seeing and engage in July or August sometime on that. And then hopefully everyone can kind of come to the meetings. And then of course, It'll all come back. So with a draft zoning amendment and a memo and a report, it'll go to town council and it'll go back through the process with the CRC and planning board and you'll be well-versed and aware of what's going on by that point. So this is a really kind of quick whirlwind update for you. Just to recap, we gave a really similar presentation to the town council only on Monday. You're getting it on Wednesday. We have a lot of meetings, a lot of coordination that is kind of happening just to set up the process. And we... PB, Harmon Zuckerman, Will have a contract signed hopefully tomorrow and a scope that hopefully is shareable pretty soon a week or two. PB, Harmon Zuckerman, And the website will be established soon. And then finally, we're got some feedback, which is we hope to identify the date and location for the July meeting as quickly as we can so that people can put it on their calendar. So I think with that, I'll happily answer a few questions.

PB, Harmon Zuckerman, Bruce

Jeff, just want to say that I think this is a terrific and laudable response initiative reaction from the town. Congratulations to you and everybody else. I think when I read this today, I was hugely relieved. I had a sense of my, whether I should try and get something like this together as a volunteer, you know, consent, the thing from various people in town who've like me, have retired but used to do this sort of thing. But this is way, way better. I think the fact that you put this together so quickly seems to me as though it's got a reasonable opportunity of influencing, positively influencing the parties that may be interested in this movement. um huge tract of land uh influence influencing them positively from the town's point of view and that's i think the the the hope and the the the i recognizes the possibility that this thing brings to the table and i think that's why i'm so uh appreciative of what the town has done here. I think you're to be congratulated. Thank you very much.

Thanks, Bruce. And I definitely understand the feeling of what are we doing was really driving a lot of this. And I just wanted to actually, Pam, would you mind stopping the share? You know, this is a tremendous team. So, and we have a lot of resources that are available to us. And so that is something that I'm really happy about and kind of short, quick, it was happening. It happened quick and it has a lot of robust consultants. If I didn't mention it, Horsley Witten Group is a really great planning firm and they're kind of like the prime, the the lead and then Dotson and Flinker who has a really great way to do charrettes and public information gathering. And then you three advisors who has experience in Amherst working both Amherst college. We have them doing a little economic development data now with the town and they have some familiarity with UMass. So we really, you know, I think mass development because they have the ability to look at teams who would be the best fit for this project.

All right, Shira.

I just want to echo actually what Bruce was saying. I'm really just so thrilled to see how quickly all this came together. I feel really encouraged by the team of consultants that's behind this. And so I just want to say thank you, Jeff, for putting Putting all this together, because, uh. You know, this is, uh, what, no matter how much influence we ended up, uh, we end up having over this project, it's going to have a tremendous influence over this town. And so I'm really glad to see, um. That we're taking some real steps to to. Take the steering wheel here, so thank you. Okay, thank you. I appreciate that.

Thank you, Jeff. Um, Andy Churchill.

Yeah, if it's appropriate, I thought I'd share at the same meeting, the town council voted unanimously a set of priorities for the land, which were in sync with this, this proposal, but I can share the if I if I could share the document.

I think that document was shared with us in our packet this afternoon.

Okay, so you have it. So, but basically, buildable land should be prioritized for housing, small business development, other appropriate tax revenue generating uses. Sensitive habitat farming or resource areas should be prioritized for preservation, creating a balance. Housing development to prior to the wide range of housing types is reflected in the various plans. And if components of the property can support identified town space or needs, those needs to be considered. So that messaging is I think consistent with what Jeff is talking about. And it was unanimous from the town council, which is quite a statement.

All right, thank you, Andy. And Jeff, anything else before we turn to Walker?

No, just that, yes, yes, that, you know, the website will go live. I would like the planning board to be aware of that. And then as soon as we can find the date, time, and location of the July meeting, I want the planning board members to know that. And we got a request from one of the town councilors town councilors to just make sure that we can get as much outreach about that meeting as possible. Because it is like a listening session. There'll be some framework, but also listening as the first shot out the gate. And then after that, I just want to reiterate that we will be coming back to the playing board for your detailed knowledge and your thoughts. it's just that this needs a little bit of that background data it really needs some kind of information to frame the discussion and so that was what the team wanted to do first and then and then we'll engage with you know other so like the affordable housing trust the crc playing board and maybe a couple others but then anyone else who wants to come who has knowledge like we have a lot of hidden gems in town a lot of people who who who have expertise and we want to get those types of people too at the meeting as well so um looking forward to it it's been a little bit of a nonstop sort of adventure over the past few weeks, but this is really exciting for me as well, and it's exciting for me to be able to share it with you guys.

All right, thank you. I just want to remark, we have a lot on our agenda tonight. It's now five after seven, so if you can keep your remarks brief, I want to make sure we have enough time for clean energy this evening. Bruce?

Brief. Jeff, is there any possibility that this meeting could be conducted or these meetings could be conducted in the Red Barn on the Hampshire College campus? I'll just put that out there.

Yeah, it's on the list. It may or may not be possible, but yeah, it's come up. Great. And I am going to leave the meeting. You're in great hands with Walker and Pam and Stephanie is here. And then obviously all the CRC members who are really involved in the clean energy bylaws. So I really appreciate, you know, carving off the now 35 minutes for me, but I appreciate it.

All right. Thank you, Jeff. Walker, I wondered if you could give us just a quick update on implementation of ADU bylaw in town. I've heard some concern about how things are unfolding.

yeah um i'm not gonna go into much detail i talked to rob mora and um as i'm sure most of you are aware there's been some um controversy over the size of some of the adus that are going into town and how they're being the size is being assessed by the building commissioner um and i'm not going to go into a lot of detail because there is in fact an appeal that's going to be going before the zoning board of appeals I think in July regarding one of these ADUs. So a really in-depth discussion is going to happen at that point about what the building commissioner was thinking and what we can do and what people can do and what's going to change moving forward. So rather than having that discussion now before we get all the information, I would recommend keeping an eye on that appeal if you're interested to see where that's going to go and then If there's any changes to the bylaw that are going to need to happen or anything like that afterwards, I'm sure it'll come back around. But is there any questions off the top of anyone's head about that?

Jesse. Thanks. Thanks, Walker. Just quickly, what's happening to applications in the meantime? Well, there are no applications, right? What's happening?

They are continuing to process the applications as they've been doing, using the same criteria for approval as they've been using.

and um when you learn what the date of that appeal hearing is can you mention that at our next meeting or or you know any meeting between now and the hearing that happens so that we are all aware of it i will keep everybody updated okay thank you All right, time is 709. I think it's time for us to welcome CRC and Pam Rooney. Let's see. Actually, Pam, I'm going to go ahead and open our hearing and then I will invite you to open yours. Brett KenCairn, Alright, so this is a joint public hearing advertised for 635 zone zoning by law article 18 clean energy infrastructure to consider amending the zoning by law by adopting article 18 clean energy infrastructure and associated amendments. to Zoning Table 3, Dimensional Regulations 5.11, Renewable Energy Accessible Solar Photovoltaic Installations slash Battery Energy Storage Systems Uses 6.2. planning board hearing is hereby opened or continued. This is a continuation from, was it May 20th? I think when we opened this hearing as a joint hearing. Pam, I invite you to open the CRC hearing.

I see a quorum of CRC members and we'll go around to see if everyone can be heard. Let's see. We've got Jennifer Taub.

Yes, I'm here. I can hear you.

Andy Churchill?

Yes.

Alicia Walker is with us by phone. Yes, here. Thank you, Pam. Excellent. Thank you. And I'm Pam Rooney, and I'm here, and we are missing Mandy Johanicki tonight. We also have Stephanie Ciccarello, who has offered to be available for the conversation since She's a driving force and has been involved since the beginning on this. If you want to welcome her in as a visible panelist, that would be great.

Yes, she can turn on her video at any time.

Okay, great. So just a little recap, especially for the folks who weren't here last time. We have worked through the document through Section 18.10.09. all the way up to section 18.11, which is additional design requirements for specific types of installations. I wanted to note that the CRC did receive numerous comments, many of them from Doug Marshall, that we were able to work our way through essentially up to the same point and that is the point at which the CRC referred the whole document over to the Council for public hearings. So because the CRC had not had a chance to discuss those additional suggestions, they are not incorporated into the document beyond this point and we shall just have to deal with them one by one as we come to those sections. So that's just a little bit of a overview. Are there any questions from folks that were not with us last round?

Jesse. Is your raised physical hand requested? That counts.

Yes. Go ahead, Jesse. No, sorry. I was just saying I wasn't here. Apologies.

Okay, I was just wondering if you had any questions. No, all good. So I think, and if Walker is willing and able, we would like to share the document. This would be version 11 as of 2026-07-27 as discussed at public hearing. Okay. And before we start, thank you Walker for offering to do this. We'll try not to overwhelm the system. So last time we went through section by section and basically are asking if there are questions or concerns or additions that need to be made in each of these sections, Bruce.

I don't have the document open in front of me. Are we beyond or have you yet to see the section on setbacks for private wells from solar arrays? Because if that's back above, then I'd like to revisit that.

We did pass that. It's in 1809 and we did make some comments on that at the last meeting.

I did some research on that and I want to strenuously argue for the elimination of the 250 foot setback from private wells.

Yeah, I think the comment that Mandy Jo had recorded was that the authors needed to consult with CONCOM and some of the other staff about that. But if you have information, it'd be great to share that.

I do, and I shared it with you and with Pam, but of course, because of the public meeting law, I didn't go beyond that. But I talked to some of my green building, high performance building consultant friends from the past, those that are still active in the field, and particularly Charlie Stevenson, who essentially has constructed a Red List Review Service, which is an internationally provided service. He's used by everybody all over the world. And he confirmed the observation that I made last time that these high-performance living green buildings are collecting water from PV arrays and feeding it in directly into drinking water. So basically, the drinking water for these buildings are collected from roofs, which are substantially PV arrays. And Charlie's considered opinion and research tells him that there's no threat to public or private water supply from water that flows from PV arrays.

Excuse me, I'm going to interrupt then. Walker, can you add a note, a sticky note, and just essentially summarize that some experts feel that current PV, yeah, there's no risk to drinking water.

I would change some to all without exaggeration.

All experts feel this way?

In my experience, yes. All experts have experience in collecting. There's nobody that I know who's ever had a concern about the discharge from solar arrays having any adverse effect, contamination of drinking water.

And I can say that's good. So that's so noted. And when we come back around, I think I'm going to continue to move through the document with those comments. And then when we come back around, I would also like staff and the clean water protection group to have discussed that.

Yes, I'm just concerned about the public wells and not the best because there's so few public water supplies, but the private wells could be everywhere and particularly in the outlying areas where these arrays, these large arrays are likely to go. So I think there's a real legitimate and serious concern about the 090103. I'm not so much concerned about the others because I think the adverse impact on reducing developable area would be much, much, much smaller. But this one is really potentially significant, I believe.

Thank you. Doug, do you want me to just go ahead and call on people? I'm going to call on Andy.

Yeah, one of us should. We've got three other hands.

Yep, Andy.

Yeah, I mean, I guess I was wondering if that's the case, then shouldn't we just also consider eliminating 1809-0104 since it wouldn't be needed?

That's another recommendation. Fred Hartwell. Johanna, your hand keeps moving backwards.

I'm trying to decide whether to speak or not. But in my mind, there are two things, right? There is the clearing of the land, which has the potential to contaminate water. And then there's the solar array itself, which, you know, all the Research that i've seen suggests that there is no leaching of any kinds of chemicals that comes off of solar arrays so. The maybe. So I think we should be clear that, like the solar arrays themselves don't actually pose a threat to the drinking water, but the clearing of the land if done. an irresponsible way and if the storm water isn't managed well it could create problems so i can't quite tell which problem we're trying to solve for here in this language um so that's what i wanted to highlight i think it was both fred hartwell yeah um i basically agree with bruce uh

I think that's not a major issue, and I would agree with that. And unfortunately, I also, I have to leave this meeting for about five minutes. I have been called out by, I've got a problem. I will be right back, but I will be out of the meeting for about five minutes.

Thank you. Thank you, Fred.

Can we go back to Johanna's question then? And is it a matter of, in the discussion with CRC, it was both with the expectation that there might be some contamination from the panels themselves. The disturbance area, the setbacks and no disturbance areas were primarily concern of the land clearing and disturbance of natural material within a protection zone of a well.

So is that something that's dealt with customarily when land is developed through the Conservation Commission regulations around erosion control and managing stormwater runoff? And isn't that sort of a matter, of course, regardless of what the land is going to be used for? So is there anything special about clearing land for solar Dave Kuntz, that's different and would cause contamination differently than some other use. Dave Kuntz, And if there's not then. Dave Kuntz, You know shouldn't shouldn't these even just be consistent with conservation Commission regulations.

Karen Hollweg, We call on stephanie sure.

Stephanie.

Hi, sorry. I just wanted to, first of all, just say that tonight, my daughter had a three-hour root canal procedure today, this afternoon. So I'm mostly off camera because I may be running around to help her. So I just wanted to let you all know that. As far as this issue, I really think this just needs to go back to the Drinking Water Protection Supply Committee group, because that's really where this recommendation came from. and other committee review have basically just taken their guidance. So I think that's really the group that needs to weigh in on this particular setback. Because I think everyone just sort of took their expertise as the guidance for this particular recommendation. So I would just, and I apologize if I missed half the question, but I'm just weighing in on what I heard.

All right.

Thank you. We will make sure that something gets crafted up and we'll send it to you and to Walker to make sure that it that it reaches those folks. Do you have any sense what their meeting schedule is?

I don't at the moment. I apologize. I believe they meet monthly. So I can double check. And I know that Jason Scales, the town engineer, and Beth Wilson, the town's DPW environmental scientist staff, that group. So I can check with them to find out their schedule.

Thank you.

Fred's back.

I am.

Fred, can we lower your hand?

Yes.

All right. Bruce.

To address Johanna's question or what, there's definitely an issue of separation distance and the second and I think essentially unrelated, hopefully, no disturb area. So I think that I thought we were talking about in the 1801 Oh, it's a no disturb area. It should be separation distance. Uh, in my view, uh, because I think there's an issue with no disturbed as well. And I mentioned this at the last meeting, I think, but I wasn't sure of my facts, but, um. Private wells, uh, have to be a 100 feet from a septic system. So we've already established that, uh, major disturbance can be a 100 feet away from a private well, because you can build a leach field there. So, clearly, if we're talking no disturbance, it shouldn't be more than 100 feet. And it probably could be less, but the separation distance in my view, could be zero or some practical thing related to as we've already done with setbacks of a different nature. So I think that the setback or the separation distance for a private well should be the same as the setback distance. There should be no difference between the two.

All right. Thank you, Bruce. Walker did that. I think you got that. So Well, it sounded like Bruce was saying the separation distance could be zero.

What I was saying was that it should be the same as the setback, which I think we said would be 20 feet. It's further up in the, we've already discussed it, and we had 50 feet setbacks.

No, you mean the setback from the property line and not a setback from a well.

That's right. It could be. I mean, if the well is on the property line, then the array should be set back from that well the same distance, you know, no different from this, because there's no risk. All right.

Thank you.

Yeah, okay, good. So we've noted that issue and that clarification will be sent to the clean water protection group for some feedback on that. And thank you both Bruce and Johanna for that information. Can we move back then to 1811 where we left off last time?

And so Pam, you're saying that if I don't bring up the comments that I made and sent off to you guys probably six weeks ago at this point, if I don't bring them up in this meeting, they won't be considered, is that right?

That's correct. I have actually transposed your notes onto this version 11 for myself as a reference. But I may not have caught all of your comments.

Okay.

So I hope you have your list.

I just, you know, we were invited to submit comments. Exactly. It seemed like much easier to do it rather than dragging everybody on a meeting through it.

As I was trying to explain, we accepted and incorporated those that we made our way through. And where we left off, we had not considered and not discussed, so they were not incorporated.

Okay. All right. So are you going to lead us through this or?

Sure. So section, this is additional design requirements. Were there any considerations or discussions about, let's just go for the first 11 18-11-01 and its subsections. Fred.

Yeah, this is where as long as you're inside the battery electric storage system, as long as you're inside the building, yeah, the state electrical code has some applicability, but the You've got to also capture, because these are going to involve direct utility connections, you've also got to capture the National Electrical Safety Code, which is going to be the actual code that covers those connections and not the state electrical code. And I say that as the person who is the secretary of the community that writes that code.

I know your expertise. Can you give us wording for that? Because we're talking specifically in this section, the following requirements shall apply to all best. So that's battery energy storage. It's it's. built its base, its confines and its equipment.

I can if you. I'll have I'll get exact wording in the next 10 minutes.

Excellent. Let's move on. 11-01-03, there was a comment there that says the blah, blah, blah test report for the product shall be made available to the fire department. And the suggestion was made that all components or each component report for each component be made to the fire department. Is there agreement with that? If we agree to something, it's okay to say yes, and then we can move on and incorporate it.

Yes.

Yep. Thank you. Let's incorporate it. 11-01-04, BESS will safely contain fires and thermal runaway. There was a comment that you can't contain that. Doug, why don't you explain your comment?

Well, I was just suggesting to replace BESS with BESS enclosing structure. Just because, you know, I guess I'm a little bit unclear about what is a VESA building with a container. And it itself is engineered to contain any fire from the batteries inside of it. I'm asking Pam, I'm assuming you're the expert, but maybe that's erroneous. Do we have any experts in the room? We do not. Okay, so that seems problematic. All right, so that was not a particularly consequential comment from me. We have Fred and then Angus.

Well, I was just going to say the definition in Article 12 at the end of the document says, battery energy storage systems best a system containing of one or more battery modules for storing electrical energy, any equipment needed, and one or more physical containers providing secondary containment to any of the above.

All right. So if the containment is part of the best, then I withdraw the comment.

Great. 18.0105, she'll be maintained in good working order. That is actually repeated in 18.16. And it's, I guess, in 18.106, I mean, excuse me, 18.16 is facility maintenance. This feels to me like Karen Hollweg, Oh 105 should go should be deleted here and just it's it's repeated in 18.16. Karen Hollweg, same with the next item, which is the site, shall be maintained, including snow removal acceptable to the fire department that's also repeated in 18.16. Karen Hollweg, Now we come to. Fred Hartwell her.

We're going to delete the next one as well.

Doug, can I ask, this is a point of order almost here, sort of point of procedure. Last time we did some editing as we went along and what Walker's doing is making all of the comments. So wouldn't it be prudent that if we have some simple edits that we all agree that we just edit the document rather than making notes about what other people should do?

Yes. That would be fine, yeah. Pam, are you all right with that?

Yes. Anyone else concerned with that? It'll show up as a change, so it's track changes.

So this document is a track change? Okay.

Yeah. I hope it's being done that way.

Mm-hmm.

So... Otherwise, Mandy Johanik will be very upset with us.

Yeah. Yeah.

The numbering will change, so.

Yes. Yeah.

Will need to be changed.

Yeah.

I don't see a, I don't see a track, like a strikeout.

Maybe we could just show markup.

What we were doing last time was highlighting stuff like that for change, if it's difficult or time consuming.

Walker, if you go up to where it says simple markup beside track changes to the right, And I'll mark up. Yeah. Perfect. Perfect.

Thank you. That's great.

All right. Going down to the next one.

Okay. And this comes back to Fred again. Facilities should be designed, constructed, operated in accordance with NFPA 855. So that seemed to me to be redundant with the very first item up at the top, which is best must comply with state electrical code. 527, state fire code 527, or subsequent standard. And I'm saying, should we just add NFPA 855 to the very top item 101.01? Does that make sense?

And it's simply for this- What do you do with A, B, and C?

It could be it could be deemed separate. It's separate from electrical code. This is now fire fire code. So I'm okay keeping it. I just was asking.

Well, it did seem super sort of repetitive to me to have 855 referenced in the header paragraph there and then also in a

Right.

Subparagraph A, yeah.

Again, wouldn't we just delete that as NFPA 85? And then, again, not make the comment, just delete NFPA 85 in paragraph A. Oh, I see. It's not. It continues. Right.

Angus?

Yeah, it seems like everything in this 07 section, including A, B, and C, are all part of 855. So I guess it's a question of does the town feel like it's really important to restate things from other codes? in this document, or is it something that can just be referenced earlier with the other codes? And then you could cut this entire section. I would vote for cutting, but I know that more has been wanted to be included.

It actually states in A that NFPA 855 requires an adequate water supply and fire water containment strategies. which feels like a fairly important element to take note of that isn't, it isn't discussed anywhere else.

Fred. Yeah, I have a, at least something to start with here on 1811-0101. Try this. The internal wiring of BSS- BESS structure shall comply with the state's electrical code 527 CMR 12 and the state's fire code 527 CMR 1 or subsequent standard. Wiring connected to electric utility, this is, that's pretty much what was there. Then I would add a sentence, wiring connected to electric utility facilities shall comply with The first letter is capitalized in the next four, the National Electrical Safety Code as covered in their operating policies.

All right. Walker, that was good. Can you go back to the beginning of the original sentence and just add the internal wiring of a bath? Yeah. Is that, Fred, does that look right?

Yes, it does.

Thank you. And then we'll keep 855 separate and no need to change that. That makes sense to me.

I think the verb should be shall.

Great.

All right.

Okay, any other comments? Until we get to a 109? This is the PFAS conversation.

Let's see, can we back up to sub paragraph C of that last section? Okay, thank you. Nevermind. You've incorporated that comment.

Any comments?

Just, and it's, I'm sorry, it's back on the ABC one, the one we just looked at. Are, and this is just sort of a, are, what's the fire department going to be looking at? Would they be looking at, would they be looking to see that, you know, that facilities would be you know, design, construction, and operating in accordance with National Fire Protection Association standards? And if so, do we need to specify what the fire department would already do, or is this above and beyond what they would normally do? I'm just trying to see if there's any extra stuff that we don't, that would happen anyway, you know what I mean?

Brett, is your hand up that you have a comment?

My error. Sorry.

Not for fire.

Well, Andy, I'm not sure there's anybody here who could talk about what the fire department would do.

The fire department is, per all of these recommendations, requirements, going to review the proposals, going to review the submittals. And I think this recommendation, so the recommended use of water as the primary fire suppressant agent might be redundant. I mean, the fire department certainly would know that. But where we are, I don't think it hurts to refer to 855. Karen Hollweg, It also reminds the fire department in case yeah let's let's not forget to ask for what's their water supply the emergency operations and an emergency training is an important aspect that the CRC. Karen Hollweg, wanted to make sure was incorporated here stephanie.

So staff did review, including fire, did review the draft of the bylaw. And so they have their own procedures that they have to reference when they're reviewing any projects that have to do with battery energy storage. So these are consistent with what they have required and I believe they even gave us the regulations to cite. So the citing comes from them, actually.

Thank you.

I guess my question is, could we do what Pam said and just throw the NFPA 855 up into the top and get rid of this other verbiage.

I've taken back my comment because the first section is specifically to electricity, and this is all very much fire protection. Okay. Can we go back to 09, down to, excuse me, 11-01-09, and this is PFAS. Applicants shall certify that non-PFAS fire, this is now fire suppression foams. This does not have anything to do with panels. There was a question. Go ahead, Johanna.

I was just going to say, I'm fine with this. There are still some PFAS firefighting foam or firefighting foams that contain PFAS on the market. I don't know how much they're used for BESS fires. If they occur, it seems like there are different applications, but I think it would be fine to stipulate that they use non-PFAS firefighting foam should there be a fire at a BESS facility in Amherst.

Great.

Any other comments on to that? Angus?

Yeah, I guess the question is, what does certify mean?

Give proof. Bruce.

It means they write the letter and they put their signature on the bottom and their organizational letterhead on the top. That's what it means.

Okay. And do we require this of any other, I guess, of anything in town?

You could ask the fire department that I do not know yeah okay well Pam.

So we're asking the applicant who is probably a for profit entity to write a letter saying that the phone they want to use. Is commercially available effective and compliant. And so this doesn't seem to totally exclude the use of PFAS fire suppression foams. To the extent that they are commercially available, well, all right. It just seems like you could end up with some PFAS foam because you're just using them to the extent you can. Okay, never mind.

Johanna? I guess I have a question about this. In the unlikely event that there is a fire at one of these facilities, is it the fire department that's in charge of putting out the fire or is it the owner of the best facility? because this almost makes it sound like the owner of the best facility is in charge of putting out the fire and determining what kind of fire suppression is used there. And I don't know, like if my house was on fire, I don't think I would be the person in charge of putting it out. I'd want the fire department to be in charge of that. So I just, I just, I truly don't know.

You know, I had assumed that these best facilities Dave Kuntz, assemblies had it has had some level of internal fire suppression. Dave Kuntz, As part of the product. Dave Kuntz, And that that's that was the phone we were talking about. Dave Kuntz, separate from whatever phone the fire department shows up with. Dave Kuntz, Is that your understanding, I mean like. You mean like in case of an emergency, like they have some... Well, you know how, I mean, buildings have sprinkler systems. And if you have a computer room, you may not use water. You may use some other suppression method. And so just like that at a battery, if there's a container around the best, it may have a an internal fire suppression system that relies on phone.

Yeah, it just strikes me as being contradictory to the NFPA 855 recommended use of water as the primary fire suppression agent.

Pam, do you know where this language came from? I do not remember. It's actually a very good question. When I read it again tonight, I was thinking a similar thing like the applicant is not going to be putting out the fire, but requires a little more work. Fred.

Yeah. These facilities, there's been a number of absolutely hellacious fires in these facilities. And it is very important that the suppression action begin as quickly as possible. And that means not waiting for the fire department to get there. Uh, and, uh, there's going to be something that is, it's, it's going to be some suitable chemical that has been very carefully selected to, uh, address the exposure in the, in the best. And, uh, Yeah. You don't want to wait for the fire department on one of these. And so it's quite relevant to include some specification here as to whether or not PFAS is an issue.

So maybe we would edit this to say the applicant shall certify that non PFAS fire suppression foam shall be employed as a part of the best internal fire suppression system. Then does that make it clear we're not talking about the fire department?

I think that's just, I think that sounds.

All right.

I guess, I don't know, I'm still a little bit, I feel like we're like, we don't have expertise in this. And there have been some horrific fires. My understanding, though, is that the National Fire Protection Association standards would Like horrible fires like the one that happened a couple of years ago in California don't happen under, you know, with systems that are designed to the current standard because you don't have, you know, system to system runaway problems. So you might have a installation with 12 containers and if there's a fire in one container, it can't spread to the others. So... I don't know, we could keep tinkering this with this language, but I also think that there's a chance that we should just delete 11109. And, you know, trust that the NFPA 855 standards and the fire department process is good enough. So.

Pam, what do you think about at least having Walker make a note about potentially deleting?

I think a note should be made. Yeah, and I think it would be very helpful to have the fire department confirm that 855 covers this issue. If we need to delete it, that would be fine.

Great, thank you. And that we can then delete this. Well. Fred.

Yeah. I'm happy to look into this also. I find as a longtime participant in the NFPA processes, they may, I'm sure that they have provisions to control runaway, but I can't believe that NFPA would walk away from an internal suppression system as well. I'm almost certain, not completely, but almost certainly that both are involved here

Thank you. Bruce.

I agree. I think that what it sounds like to me is that this is like you have over big stoves, gas stoves to suppress oil fires, grease fires, and you have the same sort of things, the different chemicals and so forth in gas stations. You have these systems in special places where particular fires happen and they have to have a particular mode of control. But I think the question was asked earlier, I think Johanna asked it, and I think we should ask for clarification between this particular section, which involves fire suppression firms, and the reference about water being the primary suppression agent, I think just asking for a clarification or reconciliation between those two apparent contradictory statements, I think we should reconcile those within this bylaw as we probably do keep this one. But keeping this, as we've discussed, doesn't solve, doesn't reconcile what seems to be contradiction between what was said before and what's said here.

That's great. And maybe, Walker, if you could, in your last sentence, reconcile this section with the section A above. So it'd be 11, 1811, 0107A. Thank you. Okay, we're moving on quickly. Oh, Bruce.

Oh, nope.

Fred.

One thing I know is that lithium, which is lithium ion battery lithium, lithium in contact with water is perfectly capable of causing a fire. And so if that's how the storage system is storing electricity, yeah, there's going to be lithium in there and you're not going to want, you're probably not going to want water on it. Again, I can look into this some more, but I would be very careful here.

Fred, if you want to talk to Chris Bascom at the fire department, he's been one of the leads on this topic.

Yeah, I actually had a chat with him earlier this morning about something related, but not quite the same. I'm happy to talk to him some more.

And one last comment on the battery fires is they're still using the products that cause fires. So unless they, you know, get rid of or somehow dismantle all of the product that has been built to date, we're still going to deal with that issue of runaway fires. Okay, moving on to 181102. There was a suggestion of making this a little clearer. Shall apply to agrivoltaic canopy SPI, SPI and BESS, oops, canopy SPI, SPI and BESS installed on prime farmland and farmland of statewide importance we would take out and soils. And a bit, yeah. Okay, mounting and foundation. So these are all just sort of miscellaneous items of additional design considerations. Is there anything in this paragraph that people have any issue with?

Not for me.

If not, so just kind of shout out or somehow raise your hand. Let's move to 1812, stormwater management erosion control. In all of the CMR references, we're trying to take out specifics like .00s and just make them generic like CMR 10s. So you'll see some of those changes already made. Any concerns or updates to that paragraph? If not, we'll move to hazardous materials. Hazardous materials is covered in sort of several sections. So this is hazardous waste. Any comments or considerations in this, in the first couple of paragraphs in 01?

Just a question, Pam. What has hazardous waste and waste management and so forth got to do with this? I'm not quite understanding why this is here.

Hazardous, well, because hazardous waste includes everything from herbicides to pesticides to gasoline to oil, you know, cans of lubricant. There's hazardous waste on any construction site.

Okay, so it's the incidental things. Okay, okay.

HAB-Juliette Boone, Johanna and then the the thinking of why it's important to include this in this particular by law is again kind of this idea that an applicant has a one stop shop. HAB-Juliette Boone, And they don't have to go elsewhere to figure out how they need to manage is that accurate and and so, then, can we just confirm that there are similar rules like this that apply to other uses that don't have to do with clean energy. I'm seeing Pam nod, but yeah.

Okay.

Fred? Do we need a definition of hazardous?

It is included in the definitions, if my memory serves me.

I just wanted to make sure.

Actually, we do not describe hazardous, but we describe disposal and discharge. But it's discharge of hazardous waste.

And then hazardous waste, I think, is included in the definitions, 18.3.17. 18.3.11 and 18.03.12.

18.03.15 is also referenced.

18.03.17 has hazardous waste as a definition.

Okay. Maybe I'm looking at the wrong version.

Or maybe I'm looking at an old copy.

You might be. I'm looking at draft 11, version 11, Johanna. Oh, yeah. I'm on draft 9.

Yeah.

Yeah. It's 18.03.15. I'm sorry. 1803 15. Yes, has a definition of hazardous waste.

Yeah. Does that answer your question?

I didn't ask it. But yes, I'm sure.

Well, sorry, I let Doug and Pam know that I have to leave to go to a family event tonight. So I just have to hop off.

Thank you, Angus. Brad, your hand is up.

Yes. I have the 180311 in front of me right now. And I can't quite make sense out of this because it, it begins with discharge or hazardous waste discharge. And then the sentence that follows it only applies to hazardous waste. So can someone tell me how this makes sense in the English language here? Dave Kuntz, I think it may be better as simply hazardous waste discharge. Dave Kuntz, Rather than discharge or. Dave Kuntz, Just discharge or come out of that.

Karen Hollweg, I think it was yes I. I mean, the action is the discharge or the action in number 12 is the disposal.

They're very similar and I would... Wouldn't we want... We're not talking about treatment. So what if we just deleted the words or treatment in the first sentence and the comma after disposal so that the discharge... or disposal of hazardous waste is prohibited. I mean, that at least makes sense. Whether it's right, I don't know. Because we don't define treatment, do we? Well, and we're not doing treatment of hazardous waste on our solar sites.

Any other, I mean, does anyone disagree with that? So it becomes the discharge or disposal And then cross out or treatment. Fred?

Well, I don't want to lose track of the wording of 180311, which has two extra words that I don't think should be there.

180311. So we're going back. To the definition of discharge.

Yeah. I think it should simply say hazardous waste discharge. I don't think it should say discharge or hazardous waste discharge.

Any disagreement with that? Let's get rid of the discharge.

Because I thought that discharge, I thought that was a kind of a concom world term of art.

Well, I mean, they do talk about discharge, but let me just look at the language again real quick. Discharge.

So I know there are sections that talk about, I mean, maybe it's the one we were just on that talks about discharge. Exactly.

So I think that's why that's here.

Yeah.

So I, you know, that is here because probably of that reference.

Yeah. So that, Fred, I don't think this is wrong. It may be a little.

Well, it's not making any sense to me. And the, The other places where it occurs, it occurs in the context of discharging of hazardous waste. So I think all you need here is hazardous waste discharge, accidental or intentional spilling, leaking, et cetera.

Well, I think, I mean, this seems to be defining discharge. So discharge can refer to other things besides just hazardous waste. So I don't think it's a blanket term for just hazardous waste discharge, at least in this definition. If you're referring to the language below, then I think we can look at that again. But discharge isn't specifically just hazardous waste discharge.

It looks like it is in this paragraph, though.

In which paragraph, Andy?

Yeah, and this I'm reading the language.

Yeah, it's either.

I mean, you could either you have a separate definition for discharge, because I'm thinking about, you know, discharge can be anything besides something that's just hazardous material. So I, I would maybe I would agree. The language in this does specifically refer to hazardous waste discharge. So maybe get rid of just discharge. But I don't know if we need to ensure that we don't have discharge defined elsewhere.

Can we make a note here in this 18.03.11 and just say, you know, is this reference somewhere else where we need to retain The word discharge or. Because in the next one, it's disposal and that's simply disposal, but it addresses hazardous waste. Perhaps 180311 should just say discharge. Discharge. as it's used in this bylaw only. It is the accidental spilling of hazardous waste. Fred.

Well, except that it goes on to limit this coverage to hazardous waste.

Right. Right. The definition.

Right. As does disposal.

Yeah.

Which references hazardous waste. Let's go back to this.

So Pam will have to circle back back to the circle.

Yes. So we're at 1813 oh one and oh two Any additions or corrections to 18-13-01 or 02?

Well, let's see.

I actually had one up above in 01, the last paragraph of 01. It says, hazardous materials and hazardous waste transported, stored, used, or generated on the site shall meet all requirements of the Department of Environmental Protection because the DEP already promulgates its regulations, do we need to repeat it here? Is a question for maybe Stephanie.

Okay.

Sorry. Forgive me for my distraction tonight because I've been up and down and not just sitting here the whole time. That's fine.

Repeat the question. The last paragraph of 1301, it says, all these waste transported, stored, used shall meet requirements of the Department of Environmental Protection. And I'm asking, is that paragraph necessary since the DEP already promulgates its own regulations?

Yeah, I don't, that seems superfluous.

I would agree.

I don't see any other hands.

Fred has his hand up.

Fred. I think I would keep it. There's any number of places in here where, again, the principle of one-stop shopping. I mean, I could argue that you don't need the statements that I edited around the state electrical code and the national electrical safety code and so forth. But I think they add something in terms of one-stop shopping. And I think this is perfectly harmless the way that it is. I would keep it.

Sam, it sounds like it's your call.

Yep. Now, then keep I mean, if there's if there's any call for it, I'd rather have it included then then lose it. Hazardous materials 181302. Are there any? Doug, you had a comment about wellhead protection area.

So the first paragraph in the paragraph that's at the top of what's shown here. I just wondered, Maybe it was added since that version that I was reviewing. I see it at the end of the section.

Your point was that the paragraph names water supply protection area or wellhead protection area. And you suggested that we include and wellhead protection area to the first sentence. So that it's supply area and well hit and or what or yeah. Does that make sense, Doug? Is that what you intended?

Yeah, it could be. Yeah, but in light of the conversation we had about wells and separation distances, I'm not sure how significant wellhead protection areas are really going to be anymore.

Well, this has to do with hazardous material.

Okay, that's fine. That was my comment. Yeah.

Great. Any other comments on the various paragraphs?

Let's see, just a second. So the third paragraph down, hazardous materials shall not be stored in a no disturbance area. I wasn't sure whether that term was ever defined. But that was my comment about that. Because I didn't see it in the definitions.

You didn't see no disturbance area?

Right.

That was at least in version 7. Bruce. You're muted.

In the second paragraph, that capitalized very small disturbance area, sorry, very small quantity generator of hazards. Is that a term of art? Everybody's comfortable with that? Because when I read that, I'm just going to tell this person to go away. You can answer the question.

I believe that came from state regs.

Okay. If being informed about the topic will eliminate the curiosity, then I'm comfortable.

And I think, so when we get through the 1813 section, I would like to call for a pause for seeing if there's any public comment. I have not opened up the floor to that at all tonight.

All right. So in the third paragraph, I did wonder if a wetland delineation is required to establish Dave Kuntz, The no disturbance area or to establish the hundred and 50 feet of wetlands. Dave Kuntz, Because some that could be outside the boundary of the property that. Dave Kuntz, is controlled by the applicant.

Karen Hollweg, The the wetland does not does not define let's say the the area of no disturbance is not limited to wetland setbacks.

Yeah. I guess I'm just puzzled on how that's established.

Okay. Could Walker make a note about that? I mean, this isn't the first time we've addressed no disturbance areas, but if we can put a comment here about better definition.

And how it's How it's established.

I'm just sorry I don't have my hand up, but I just want to jump in real quick. I think Erin Schock, the conservation agent, actually may have provided this particular comment. So I think it came from her. And of course, she's dealing with her language that she deals with with the wetland regulations. So maybe why it's phrased specifically as such.

and that in part was what drove the setbacks and the no disturbance zones. Good. Thank you. Thank you, Walker. Herbicides. So the first paragraph deals with only in the public right of way.

It talks about- Yeah, the first paragraph, the last sentence starts with the acronym CEIF, which is never defined.

SPIs. What's that?

Oh, really?

Well, the CEIF is the state definition for clean energy infrastructure facility.

Oh, okay.

And I don't think we included that in 1803 definition. Yeah, I didn't find it. It does not, it's not included. Johanna.

SPIs restricts it to just solar photovoltaic installations. Would we want to include BESS here as well?

Yeah, if I read this, neither the SPI or the BESS is actually located in the public right-of-way. And I think this application of herbicides is the preparation, you know, if something is built adjacent to a public right-of-way, we follow CMR 333. I think, yeah, if we add both, I think that's fine. Yeah. Fred.

Yeah. The SPI is plural in this. And I don't think it somehow seems wrong to me to write BESS in caps and then a lowercase s. But I think it somehow has to be made plural. like BESS facilities or something that can be made plural to match with the SPI.

Maybe we just take the S off SPI.

Sorry, I'm belatedly raising my hand, but isn't BESS battery energy storage systems?

Oh, you're right. I'll do an Emily Littella here and go, never mind.

Some of us know what you're referring to.

Okay. The last paragraph on herbicides was actually fairly convoluted. I attempted to make some sense out of it myself. I think what it's getting at is that pesticides and herbicides, well, first of all, the first sentence, clearing of natural vegetation should be limited to what is necessary for construction, operation, and maintenance of the facility. That's basically saying Don't clear any more land than you need to. Don't clear any more vegetation than you need to. It doesn't, yeah.

Why do we say that? You know, if I were doing a development on any other piece of land, there would be no restriction on what I cleared.

I think this is in part a reaction to the blowouts that occurred like in Williamsburg and other towns where the erosion that occurred was so horrific that, you know, it, it just, it sullies the name of, of everything.

But, but, but wasn't that a failure of conservation commission and, and, and construction monitoring and a whole lot of other things. I don't know. It just feels like if I bought a tract of forest land and decided I wanted to turn it into pasture land and cleared all the vegetation and planted grass. As long as I had all the, you know, the erosion controls in place that I needed to minimize runoff. nobody would tell me that I needed to minimize the amount of, I don't know, it just feels like it's more restrictive because of this use without particular reason.

I agree with you. And I think as you read that first sentence, it's like just this kind of statement plop down. It doesn't really have anything to do with herbicide application. And I was going to suggest that maybe the first sentence could be deleted. If no one has any issue with that, it sounds like there is not. The second sentence, I was going to start with the word chemical fertilization or herbicide pesticides should be applied only as necessary to get new vegetation or stabilizing vegetation established.

So the sentence would start with the word chemical.

Yeah. Yeah.

Well, now we have necessary twice within six words.

Should be applied. Should be applied. Only to establish stabilizing vegetation. Period. Then the last sentence, which is highlighted in pink, which the question was, how does this affect agrivoltaics? My suggestion would be that agrivoltaic installations adhere to Mass Department of Agricultural Resources

That's in lieu of the sentence that's highlighted in pink? Yes. Fred has his hand up.

Yeah, the sentence before that users should be applied Should is not appropriate in a regulatory document. It should be shall.

Thank you.

All right.

Emergency response, the last paragraph providing emergency response procedures following a discharge of hazardous waste will be developed by the project owner in collaboration with the Amherst Fire Department approved by the PGA. So we already, we've stated a couple of times emergency responses are needed. It's kind of a sentence that doesn't have a lot of weight right here. but it's reminding them that in some cases there will be an emergency response plan.

Yeah, I had suggested replacing this with a sentence that read, the emergency response plan shall include protocols for responding to a discharge of hazardous waste. That seemed clearer to me, but I'm not going to believe it.

I think that makes more sense.

All right. The emergency response plan shall include protocols for responding to a discharge. You're doing great, Walker, by the way.

I know. I'm just thanking you in my head.

to a discharge and the discharge should be capitalized because it's a term we've defined back in definitions. Discharge of capital H hazardous W waste period. And that would replace the other sentence. Great.

All right, we got through 13. Do you want to call for attendees and input, public comment?

Why don't we see if the public wants to make any comment. We have three members of the public here. Do any of you want to comment? We have a hand raised from Steve Roof. Pam, can you bring over Steve? Steve, you'll have three minutes after your introduction.

Great. Thank you. This is Steve Roof. I live in Deep South Amherst on Southeast Street. And first, just want to commend you all on your very detailed and meticulous review of this. I'm very impressed with your attention to detail. And I have, I guess, three particular little things that I've noticed that I want to just raise your attention to. First, in an earlier section, 18.10.04, it's kind of several paragraphs there, but towards the end, it references that applicants shall avoid siting in a manner that would require construction or tree clearing activities, a couple of other things, within 100 feet of groundwater monitoring wells. And that struck me as a little bit odd or confusing. I don't know what groundwater monitoring wells might be, but I can imagine that groundwater monitoring wells may well be installed near or on a site just to monitor the groundwater before or after any sort of development. So you may want to go back and just double check to see if that's something that you believe is still necessary.

Okay, Steve Walker, can you scroll back and just note that that was something to check? It's 18-10-04, I believe.

Yes, 18-10-04, near the end, there were several paragraphs in that section, I believe.

So, and your comment had to do with ground monitoring wells.

That's right.

Ground water.

Yeah, that, yep, that paragraph. So at the least, groundwatering wells might need to be defined, but I would wonder if this is really necessary overall. And then two other comments when you're ready.

And then the second question. Yeah.

Okay. The other two are definitions in section article 12. My reading of the definition of the best, the BESS. Do you mean 1812? um article 12 at the end the very end i don't think we've gotten to article 12 yet no you haven't but but you've referred to it okay um the definition for bess does not have a minimum size on it and if i read that strictly it seems like maybe my cell phone battery pack would qualify as a best under walker you need to go all the way to the end of this document

Curt Brown, All the way through all the way through 18. There we go. There we go. Yeah. Curt Brown, So battery energy storage systems. So there's no negative no minimum Curt Brown, No minimum size there.

And likewise, a couple lines down. There's the SPI definition. Curt Brown, Also no minimum Dave Kuntz, sizes indicated there, so it might include my solar powered garden walkway lights okay.

Dave Kuntz, So walker could you just highlight those and add a comment.

Karen Hollweg, let's let's continue he's got a third comment that's.

Dave Kuntz, Those are those are my three the first was groundwater. Dave Kuntz, Well, then the definition for best and the definition for SPI the latter to having no minimum size that you might want to just check on.

Dave Kuntz, All right, so since this is. Okay.

Yeah. Since this is public hearing, I think it's appropriate to try to respond to things that are brought up. So right there where it's blue highlighted, I would point out to Steve Roof that on the preceding page of this volume, there is definition of the scale and size of battery storage components and or SPIs. And we have tier one, this is a state, sort of the state example of how to create levels of scale. And tier one is your walkway lights, if you will, or your house mounted materials. It's essentially by building commission only. So that's where the minimums.

Okay. So there is no minimum on these, right?

There's not a minimum in the definition. There are maximums in the table 5.11. Okay.

So, Steve, are you saying, well, in this case, I might need to go to the building commissioner to get approval of my ground mounted sidewalk photovoltaic light?

Yeah, perhaps a strict reading might suggest that to somebody reading it very strictly. I think the context and the rest of the bylaw would make it fairly clear that this bylaw does not apply to such small things.

So, Pam, I think the question is, do we need a minimum of 10 watts or something to exclude those little accessory devices?

Okay. Maybe Walker could put a little sticky note over there.

I have a simple solution. Fred? Yeah. Turn the... less than arrows, both less than and less than or equal into what they should be, which is greater than or greater than or equal, which means the arrows need to point the opposite direction.

No, but we don't want to, like tier one is things that are smaller than 25 kilowatts.

Okay, but. Right. Oh, all right, nevermind. Emily will tell it again.

Okay. Greater than zero. Right.

And then I think this might be a little bit getting ahead of ourselves, but plug-in solar systems are increasingly a thing that consumers are interested in. The current UL code for plug-in systems is... Well, it doesn't really allow for plug-in systems, but a handful of states have set 391 watts as the threshold for a plug-in solar system that doesn't need utility interconnection. So if we want to set a minimum, I think we would want to set it at a level that would make it clear that small plug-in systems would not be regulated under this bylaw.

Oh, and if I may add, I'll make sure, perhaps, clarify whether residential, like Tesla Powerwall battery packs that might be installed as part of a rooftop solar system, if that falls under the BESS definition or not.

You might just use the word, and the electrical code does this in many places, use the phrase permanently connected.

plug-in is not permanently connected and that way you separate it and so add that to the definition of of say tier one yeah good that's that's a good thing to take into consideration thank you mr roof thank you

All right. Do we have any other public comments? We're down to three public members. I don't see any hands.

Could we go down to the first thing that he mentioned? Because I had a solution for that. Let me just, this is where it was, right?

No, this was the second. This was the same sort of minimum.

Now what yeah, it wasn't there.

The first was the groundwater monitoring wells which is 1810 or 4.

This is this is the this was raised by the member of the public. We were covering it just before we got into the the table.

Yes, Steve brought this up.

I think Fred means the definitions of this, uh, which we were covering just before we got into the table.

Yeah. Okay. So we're right back down to the bottom.

Yeah. Um,

Well, it seems like between the definition here and the table, it's really one question about should we have a minimum wattage specified? And if so, we could do it in either place.

I'm also wondering if in the applicability, like the first section or two, there's the applicability and it could be stated in there that it does not apply to X or Y. essentially, you know, the following. Bruce.

I was just saying that I think this is probably where the permanently connected phrase that Fred mentioned could be installed. And it's not there. It's the, well, both of them perhaps. But the best systems are probably going to be permanently connected. But the Canopy SPI or SPI generally, those are the ones that are, building mounted, it could be a plug-in. And so it's 12, we've got 12XX and 12XX, but they're the two definitions below the blue area. I think those are the ones where Fred was suggesting that permanently connected be installed somewhere in that definition.

Yeah, also in battery energy store BESS The third line, physical containers, I think the better word there is enclosures. Physical enclosures or just, yeah, one or more enclosures providing secondary containment.

All right. So Pam, I was thinking maybe we should take a break. It's been an hour and 45 or almost it's been more than two hours. So

HAB-Masyn Moyer- So I just have my hand up for one is in reference to. HAB-Masyn Moyer- 18 10 or four that came up the groundwater monitoring wells. HAB-Masyn Moyer- it's a very good. HAB-Masyn Moyer- yeah but I just wanted to say that there are established groundwater monitoring wells throughout town, and so those are established, so I think this is saying that. HAB-Masyn Moyer- You can be clearing and doing other thing that could potentially impact those established. wells that are throughout town. So it's not a random thing that just happens. They are specifically established in town now and are inspected and checked.

And does tree clearing activities affect them in some adverse way?

Well, I mean, all I can think of about that potential is erosion and sedimentation somehow impacting them in some adverse way. I don't know specifically why they said tree clearing, but Did this come from Erin? I think this, yeah, this may have been another one from Erin or the Water Supply Protection Committee. It may have come from them as well.

Okay. Well, it seems like we still have a number of things to check with that group.

To clear up, yeah. I would also agree that we have a lot of folks that have been patiently waiting through this. We could take a quick break.

All right. Okay. Okay. Stephanie, I assume you're finished and in your hand is just a legacy hand. Walker, I think we could take a break here. Take a five-minute break. It's 843 on my clock. Come back at 848. Folks, turn on your cameras when you come back and let us know that you're back. Walker or Pam, you have a slide you usually bring up when we're on a break just to let people know that we are on break.

I do have that. I just want to make sure, Walker, that we won't lose your work.

Why don't you do a save and then make sure we're on. It's saved.

It's still in my background. Okay. Great.

mm mm mm mm mm mm mm mm mm mm mm mm mm mm

Thank you.

Thank you.

Well,

all right it's 8 49 please turn on your camera as you return from our break Sam, as we all come back, I wanted to ask you, given the pace at which we're getting through this, do you think we're going to need a third meeting? Thank you. A joint? You're muted, by the way.

There we go. There we go. My that reaction is that we would need another meeting, if only to come back with some of the answers for things that have been brought up tonight.

Okay.

Sadly.

Yeah. Yeah, it seems like there's a number, like, we need to talk to the fire department, we need to talk to the clean groundwater group.

And we have, we have the 17th outlined, I I want to thank the CRC members again for, you know, agreeing to meet on an off night, off day and night.

Yeah. Okay. Should we pick it up and keep going? Okay. We stopped at 18. Should we, like, say we'll go till 930 and just cut it off there? Yeah. Okay.

Yeah, that sounds great. Maybe we'll get through.

All right, so Walker, bring it back up.

Bring it on. We were at 18.14, emergency response plan. Does anyone have any concerns or disagreements with what we're asking for? This defines sort of the response plan. We asked for it in submittals back in 1802. 408, I think. But this actually describes what it is and what it should meet.

So this says it has to be submitted and approved prior to system commissioning. So that implies that it doesn't have to be submitted with the application.

it's supposed to be submitted with the application, but maybe we could add the words, the final copy. Okay.

Well, I just thought that that was inconsistent. and be approved by the Amherst Fire Department. Okay. Well, maybe then that works. Okay. So it's submitted with the application and has to be approved before system commissioning. All right.

Then never mind. We'll leave it. 1815, building inspection. We don't really have too many buildings per se, but they're So we construct installed or modified without shall not be.

So, you know, this section is duplicated in 1804. Just as 1804 says, you know, whatever you do has to get approved and get the applicable permits. So it's just more words.

Any reason not to delete it?

I don't have a... Well, I wonder if because the building commissioner would be the permit granting authority for some of the smaller things that don't come to you all... the reminder that a building permit is something that is required it doesn't actually say that in the 1804 section it doesn't say go get a for 18 yeah i mean it just says you know it needs 1808 sorry

It says applicable building and electrical permits. I mean, it's not a problem. It's just repetition, right? That's your concern, Doug?

Yeah, yeah. Anybody feel strongly about keeping it?

At least note the question as to whether it is. The question is, is there a reason to retain this? Yeah. It appears duplicative.

Yeah. Great. Construction maintenance, I think, was suggested.

Before you do, Walker, is this necessary to retain? It appears duplicitous. Duplicative. Duplicative.

Okay, great.

Thank you. 1816, there was a suggestion to change from construction maintenance, which doesn't really make sense to facility maintenance. And given that, and given that everyone agreed, um, To get rid of some of the information back in 1811, 01, 05, and 06, this facility maintenance paragraph makes more sense. And that included maintaining the access for the fire department and maintaining the solar photo. Actually, this should be changed to SPI. We could change SPI. Caught one. or Beth, just plain old Beth in good working, you know, good condition. Great. Great, so this covers everything. 1817, I see solar voltaic. Does anyone want to know a little bit more about the modifications paragraph? And I, Fred, you have your hand up actually.

Yeah. In 1817, the, just a minute here. Oh, I just... Just a moment.

While Fred's deliberating, a simple one, it seems. The fourth line on the left, it says battery energy storage. Shouldn't that just be best? That's consistent.

Yeah, actually, what I'm looking at, is in the last line of 18.16, the comma should be deleted after road parenthesis S. Because unless accepted as a public way, that phrase only applies to access roads and not anything else. Nothing else is gonna be a public way.

So we should just cut it off at that point?

Just delete the comma.

Okay.

So any access roads unless accepted as a public way.

Thank you. 1818 waivers. There was one typo suggested in item number one. It's surroundings comma or the proposed design rather than the proposal design. We have number two. Yep. Thank you. She's quick.

She got it. All in favor of moving quickly, but I wanted to go back up to 18.17 really quickly. Sure. And this is probably just because I'm looking at an old draft, all apologies, but the change of use from agrivoltaic canopy SPI to ground mounted SPI. I guess I'm just trying to, number one, I want to confirm that we have a definition for agrivoltaic canopy SPI in the latest draft. And then my second question is what, I guess I'm trying to understand like a case study where this might happen. So like, let's say there's a farmer, they're doing agrivoltaics. And then for one reason or another, they stop crop production for, you know, like would that require a new permit in order for that solar system to continue to work? So I wanted to just dig into that a little bit more.

The way it's written, it certainly would imply that the agrivoltaic acceptance process might have been quicker, easier, lighter, And if you are going to let go the positive benefits, if you want to say that, the positive benefits of having agriculture, then you need to come back to the PGA and say, hey, you know, we've changed our tack and we're no longer doing agriculture. There may be some other requirements than levied on that project.

But are there different... Sorry. Is there a definition of agrivoltaic in the latest definitions?

Yep. It's 1803-01. It actually calls it out as agrivoltaic canopy solar photovoltaic installation. Okay. Where the land beneath the SPI is used for agricultural purposes in accordance with Chapter 128, blah, blah, blah. So they follow those requirements. They give it up and the PGA may want to work through some other permitting conditions.

Pam, may I adjust this?

Sure, yes, Stephanie.

Sure. So I'm thinking specifically, again, my background with wetlands, that there are exemptions for agricultural uses. And so in this case, if you're using... agrivoltaics in a farm setting and then you discontinue the farming practices, then it essentially questions the exemption. I guess it's more that they just have to then go back to ensure that there isn't sort of a change of use in terms of the landscape because there may have been exemptions that were granted as part of the farming operation. But if the farming operation stops, then there may be reasons why that system was allowed only because it was an agricultural operation that may no longer apply if those practices cease to operate.

Okay, thanks. I'm comfortable with it, I think. Andy?

So what would happen in that case? Would they conceivably be told, you got to take this thing down? I mean, or You know, you don't have permission unless you're growing something under it.

I can only say that because it's basically a review by the permit granting authority, they would make that determination. So this is just giving them the opportunity to, if there is, I mean, there may not be, there may be no reason for them to remove it at all, but it gives the, it affords the permit granting authority the opportunity to review it in case there is something that is relevant. We may not be aware of right now, but there may be something that is relevant.

And Andy, it might be as simple as requiring them to establish vegetation on something that had been plowed, therefore erodible. And they may say, you know, you're going to continue your SPI, but you're going to have a maintained ground cover so that you reduce erosion. I mean, it could be as simple as that. Speaking for the PTA as I am. Okay, let's move to 1819 if everybody's comfortable.

Yes.

General reporting requirements. There was a recommendation some time ago, if Mr. Marshall remembers this, in several of the subparagraphs, the third-party inspector is referenced and the phrase a third party inspector selected by an acting under the direction of the building commissioner is a phrase that could easily go into the first sentence paragraph, which is 1819011. And then that phrase would not have to be repeated. That's true. That was a comment.

Just trying to say it once and not have to say it five more times. Yep.

So...

The third-party inspector selected by...

No, just the third go up, go up to the 1819. Oh, 11, which is at the end of the first sentence there. Just add third party construction inspectors. And those are all capitalized, by the way, because that's a term of art, it seems. shall be selected by and act under the direction of the building commissioner. All right. And then you could put in parentheses or a comment can remove text and can remove similar text in subsections below. Dave Kuntz, And that way we don't have to drag everybody through that later. Dave Kuntz, And you want to move on. yep.

Karen Hollweg, Yes, so we'll take both of those out of oh one two and oh one three will. Tighten it up a little. Okay.

But we'll keep the third party inspector there. So during construction of SPI and BESS, the owner operator or third party inspector shall submit inspection reports on a weekly basis. Yes, thank you that's correct.

And the next sentence credentialing appropriate inspection credentialing is that required for the 3rd party inspector only or is it required for an owner operator to.

Inspection credentialing it would be for the 3rd party inspector.

Okay. Uh, maybe, I mean, that's, that's ambiguous at the moment. So maybe after the word licensure. Three words over from what you just highlighted. Yeah. You could just say of the third party inspector.

And then my inclination would be to move that whole section of inspection credentialing up to 19. Oh, 1111. Since we're not talking about the weekly reporting requirement, but actually the selection of the inspector.

Yeah. So 012 now deals with reports. Good. 013, again, we have solar photovoltaic installations.

And the second line, you could delete at the cost of the applicant because that's already been specified. Yeah.

And then do we include BESS there too? for one year post-construction of SPI and BESS?

Yeah.

All right. And then so on the sixth line down just after the acronym SWPPP, who decides if it's applicable?

Stephanie's department.

Okay.

Or just make a comment and move on.

Yeah. Great. 014, the debris cleanup. There was a comment about report to the town of Amherst rather than local government. 19.015 in the 1, 2, 3, like fourth line.

Yeah, it was just you know, I wasn't going to pursue a lot of these, Pam. Okay. That's fine. They're really minor. Yeah, you're right. Is it worth everybody's time?

No.

Okay.

1902 transfer of ownership. Who do they contact? Written notification to the PGA, the building commissioner and suggested emergency personnel. Great. Perfect. 182002. There's a suggestion that we add the words, the emergency phone number that is staffed 24 hours a day. And then we can take it out below.

You can take out the whole set, the whole first sentence. Yeah, in 1803.

Great. Financial surety and decommissioning. Any comments about that?

So this is another instance where we're requiring something that has never we don't require if I build anything else in town. And I'm sure we're reacting to some operator who abandoned the whole the whole installation at the end of their useful life. And walked away.

I think this is a good thing, and I'm not sure that we don't require it of the cell towers. I remember, and Fred was here too, 25 years ago when we first started having to do the same kind of thing we're doing now with cell towers. And I think we thought that this was an appropriate stipulation for cell towers. So I agree that it's not unreasonable to imagine that something like this should happen. And we have that fish farm up on 116 that stood there for 10 years, thoroughly unsightly and everything. So I think there's a case to be made here. And whether it's 100, what the amount is and everything, I guess it's got to be enough to do the job.

Stephanie?

I was just going to agree with Bruce and say that it's fairly standard contractually when you're contracting solar installations and certainly large scale. So I don't think there's any reason to get rid of this. I think it's important.

So moving to abandonment or decommissioning, were there any concerns? And I had none from the outside source who made the previous comments. Oh, actually, I'm looking at it.

Don't worry about it.

Removal shall consist of, does anyone have comments they would like to make about 182202?

Do we really want to require recycling, I guess, in Section B?

If I may, Doug, it's probably another one of those unnecessary things because that's what happens to construction materials these days.

Is that a given in the field of solar voltaics? Do they actually... I mean, is it possible to recycle a TV? Johanna's nodding.

It's possible, and then... You know, I think there's a little bit of a question like how cost effective is it like there might be some spots where there's a market for it and then. That makes sense for someone decommissioning a system, but if there isn't a market, then it might make more sense for them to dispose of it so I don't know if that's what all possible is. yeah.

Should we say, it says, it says recycle of all possible materials that that implies that some may not be possible.

Well, it's just like, how do you define, right? Like, it's possible. The question is, is it cost effective? Yeah. If we force them to do things that are not necessarily cost effective. you know, we're not encouraging, we're discouraging. So in my mind, I think the part A seems fine, remove the stuff from the site, but I'm not sure that we should dictate necessarily what happens afterwards. I think those are market forces larger than Amherst.

Is that a little bit like the leaning toward our net zero goals where we You know, we're asking that if and when something is dismantled, it actually, you know, gets distributed as appropriate. And Bruce says that standard practice, that's great. But often you have to actually ask the contractor to recycle the materials.

Bruce, uh, yes, I mean, I work with standard practices that these things go to places where the useful materials are extracted. Um, and I guess you're right. Not everything gets recycled, but perhaps, you know, it's hard to know. But I think that what Walker's got there is good. And I would just add the note that the concern is that recycling may not always be effective. The concern is that this obligation may be onerous or may discourage what we are trying to encourage. In other words, PV systems.

Google search found some EPA, US EPA data that says it costs between $10 to $45 per panel to recycle compared to $1 to $2 to send it to a landfill. So it's pretty significant. Yeah. I think my preference would be to strike it. Because we want to be encouraging, like the purpose of this bylaw is to encourage. And I feel like this doesn't do that.

What if we just left in recycling of all possible materials is encouraged? It's not a shall.

Well, this is a continuation of the header there that removal shall consist of recycling all possible materials. To the extent. I mean, you could say all to the extent feasible and cost effective or something, but yeah. So, after the word materials okay yeah. feasible and cost effective yeah.

extent.

Then, are we saying disposal of remaining solid and hazardous waste oh.

Sorry.

No, that's just the recycling.

That should move up behind materials, yeah.

Thank you. Great. Good catch. Okay, let's move on. Stabilization or revegetation of the site.

So paragraph E there, the reuse of the site wouldn't that be a new site plan review with the pga well this this isn't that the point well it goes to the building commissioner but it doesn't come to the planning board or zoning board

But the building commissioner would make a judgment as to whether there is appropriate zoning and so forth. And this can't be written in because it's a plan for reuse. So the building commissioner will make a judgment about whether the plan for reuse requires... I think I know where you're headed here. If the building commissioner decides that there is no permit granting, if there's no land use permitting agency required, Then this says that the reuse of the site voids A through D above. And Doug, I think what you're saying is the reuse of the site subject to further permit granting, subject to further land use permitting.

Yeah, I mean, or do we want to be, do we just want to say these requirements may be waived or modified at the discretion of the building commissioner and just leave it at that?

Yes, I would prefer not to give examples of...

It just feels like getting into the next reuse of the site is a whole new conversation.

Right.

Right. And abandonment, any concerns about abandonment?

It's perfect. Oh, Fred has a comment. Fred.

Yeah. 18-22-02. Just a minute here. Okay, so the the just the building commissioner waiver that only applies to the removal of structures and so forth. It doesn't apply to anything else, right?

Just that's the intent is just this section 2202. Okay.

Then that's fine.

Should we say the these the requirements of this section?

Yeah, that's probably useful. Yeah.

All right.

Great. I don't want building commissioner discretion extended any further than necessary.

Should section be capitalized?

You guys are under the microscope here. So we have gotten through the text and I want to just, yes. So this is next time. It sounds like this is a good place to stop unless in the next five or six minutes we can actually talk about these. Maybe we can talk about them generically and see if there are any concerns that we need to actually deal with. So this table is added to our would be added to our table three under the category of renewable energy uses. And this is where we're trying to identify the sort of the maximum size in different increments of scale. You can building mounted slash canopy SP eyes are under 25,000 kilowatts and you can see that it's generally. site plan approval with. And I think this was this, these are the accessory uses that right now no no that's table 511 sorry. sorry um the second section is ground mounted solar with or without co-located bests and these are the tiers of again, tiers of scale, levels of scale. And it would be really appropriate for you all to read these carefully and think about SPRs, SPs, building commissioner approval, and just see if these meet your expectations. This is what was developed primarily by staff and reviewed by CRC to this point.

Well, Pam, is it correct that under the Tier 1 for ground-mounted installations, the Ys that run across that column, that means it yes it's approved or it's a it's it's allowed and it's an administrative approval by the building commissioner correct it does not you know it's only if it says spr or sp that it comes to probably the planning board yeah and wait and or zba Okay. And then the no's, it's just not allowed at all. Correct. So end of conversation. Correct.

And so that first category, the building mounted and the canopies, that was also put right into the hands of building commissioner. So that goes to the the little battery up in the roof. Do you want to take time to three more minutes? Oh, Fred.

Just a question. The second column, I take it that is the standards and conditions column of the table three.

the sizes, it's the sizes of the arrays, or actually, it's the energy produced.

Which is a, I'm trying to fit this into existing table three.

And, yeah, I see what you're doing, Fred. And I guess, I mean, that certainly seems to be the way it aligns. And I guess you could say that the size are the conditions under which something is considered a Tier 1, 2, or 3. It's a little bit forced, but I think that certainly seems to be the way it was proposed.

If you open up the zoning bylaw to the end of Table 3, you're going to see and maybe ask the same question that I just did.

Let's see how this... Yeah. It seems clear.

So I guess, Pam, the question I'll have when I scrutinize this is probably whether all the no's that run across here, whether I would argue that we should be more permissive on allowing these around town than the relatively small number of districts that are allowed. But maybe maybe that's a conversation for later.

It could be. And so if you want to give it some thought in the next week or two, part of it might be if you think about the parcels that are in, you know, residential village centers, there may not be much opportunity beyond a small establishment. And it could just it could size itself, you know, out of competition. Right. Okay, red.

Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't put my hand down. But yeah, you're, you're quite right. That is something we should we should look at.

That's in the bailiwick of the planning board for sure. Bruce, and then I want to wrap up with just some thoughts for the next meeting.

Maybe I'll do this for the next meeting, but we should be cognizant of how big a 250 kilowatt array is. And I think when we know how big a 250, because that's like 10 or 15 house roofs. It's big. And it's quite possible that whether it's allowed or not, there wouldn't be the opportunity. So putting no is probably clear. My guess is that, and I'll make a little, I'll send an email out just saying how big an area of 250 kilowatt system applies. And at least we can know that as we're having our conversation.

Thank you. If you want to do it for the different tiers, that would actually be very, very helpful because I've never seen a comparison table of how many acres per, essentially per kilowatt. If you look ahead, if Walker would be so kind as to scroll down We have, this is the accessory uses table, very similar. We're still talking about different scales of construction. So give that table some thought. And then if you want to scroll down beyond that, we have the section on fences, which simply because we refer to it in this bylaw, we refer to Section 6.20. And then the definitions, as we talked about tonight, there are a number of definitions. They'll get their own numbers because they get added in alphabetically, and we don't know yet where they're going to end up. Fred?

Yeah, I'm going to have to look this up, but there are fencing requirements in the National Electrical Safety Code They're that are going to apply here and I want to check and make sure that this is not inconsistent.

Okay, good. Thank you. So sounds like we're going to have another shared meeting on the 17th of June. We've got this remaining chunk of material to go through. We should be able to do that fairly promptly. We will try to have some answers back. We may not have answers back from the Clean Water Drinking Committee or Protection Group, but we'll try to do that. Questions from the Fire Department and All questions that we couldn't answer tonight.

All right, so I guess we need to have motions for each of our groups to continue this hearing to. June 17th. At 635, I guess, just to be on the safe side. Do you agree with that, Pam?