Conservation Commission - Regular Meeting

Okay, I'll call the meeting to order. Uh before we get started, let's introduce everyone on this meeting. I'm Sandy Brock. Uh when I call your name, please confirm you can hear me by verifying that you are present. We'll start with the commissioners. Travis, I'm here. Jonathan, present. Thank you. Noah present and air is not here. She uh couldn't make it tonight. Okay, we'll go to staff. Leah, I'm here. And is Jan here also? I'm present. Thank you very much.

Uh this open meeting of the conservation commission is being conducted remotely via Zoom pursuant to Governor Baker's March 12th, 2020 order as most recently extended on March 28th, 2025. Access information for the public has been provided on the town website. Uh this meeting is being recorded. Please remember to mute your phone or computer when you are not speaking. This is done on a phone by pressing star six. As chair, I will introduce each speaker on the agenda. Uh please note that you will not have screen sharing privileges, but staff can display any visuals per your queue. During periods of public comment, particip participants must use the raise hand icon in the Zoom menu bar to to indicate they would like to speak. Uh this is done on the phone by pressing star 9 and then star six to unmute when you called on. Participants who raise their hand will be recognized one at a time and will be promoted to speak. Finally, each vote taken will be conducted on by a roll call vote. As a reminder, the commission is concerned with state and town wetlands and stormwater regulations. Concerns out outside of this purview need to be addressed by the appropriate boards. For example, road conditions must be addressed by the sluck board and traffic concerns must be addressed by the planning board. All right. Okay. So, okay. So um do we have any times Leah or can we?

Nope. Okay cool. So we can start off with uh Wyman Gordon. Let me open the meeting pursuit to the Massachusetts Wetlands Protection Act. Um the Grafton stormwater management bylaw and the Grafton Wetlands Protection Act. Conser Conservation Commission will act upon a notice of intent application for Grafton stormwater bylaw permit and application for a Grafton wetlands bylaw permit for the construction of a solar array at 244 Worester Street. Um who is here to present that? Uh please unmute yourself and identify yourself.

Uh so I think it's myself, Adam Hartman, and then Nick Fasendola. Okay. And just in you are representing the applicant and you are the applicant. Correct. Um I am the applicant and Nick is is also assisting in representing us. Okay. Uh you have the floor. Um just uh let Jan know if you want to have any presentation stuff and go ahead and uh go go ahead with your presentation.

Absolutely. I'll go ahead and kick things off and then kind of turn it over to to Nick. Uh for me it's just giving a little bit of background about the facility. Uh the area in question or the the area where the solar would be located uh encompasses approximately 10.8 acres out of the 162.8 acre site. Um you know North Wyman Gordon North Grafton uh the plant's been there since 1982. It was originally designated as Air Force Plant 63. Uh but Wyman Gordon has always been operating it. Um, and then they did acquire the project back in 1982. Uh, today, uh, it houses one of the nation's largest forging presses and several of the world's, uh, most powerful hydraulic presses. Perfect. I apologize. I should have asked you to to put that up to begin with. Um, if we want to go to the next slide. Uh, the 10.8 8 acre portion uh contains several outbuilding support structures that once served the main press building but are no longer in use. Converting this area into a ground mounted solar array represents a significant investment in facil's future. Um you know that it also demonstrates a company's commitment to modernizing the site, approving sustainability and removing outdated infrastructure that no longer contributes to the operations. Uh next slide please. Perfect. You can see kind of the map here. Uh you can see the the main building and then Nick will kind of get into more of this, but then you can see the solar array off to the side. And then the last slide um again uh project size approximately 3 megawws, footprint again. Acres, number of solar panels approximately 1,750. Um, you know, what does this project really do? It's going to help us reduce

the strain on the electrical grid during peak demand, potentially improving reliability for areas kind of around the plant, generates both direct and indirect temporary employment opportunities, and as we spoke before, reinforces Wyman Gordon's long-term commitment to North Grafton, uh, signaling stability and continued investment, and again enables the modernization of the aging infrastructure that's no longer in use, uh, improving operational efficiency and positioning the facility for future growth. growth. U I'm sure you guys are very well aware one of the things that that um has changed in this world I feel like uh in the last I don't know 10ish years is the price of power and also the reliability of power. Uh and this kind of allows us to um you know be able to stay competitive in the marketplace also have um you know decrease our carbon footprint and and and so forth. But uh that's really about it for me. I I would really turn it over to Nick at this point. All right. Thank you, Adam. So, for the record, Nick Fasendol, I'm from Level Design Group. We prepared the site plans and notice of intent application that were submitted to the Conservation Commission for this project. Um, Jan, I guess if we could just uh pull up the the submitted site plan and we'll essentially just work through the sheets. Um I you know probably start with uh the third sheet which is that plan that essentially Adam just had up right there. So um oh right you you were on it that that first one there. So this is just an overview plan kind of gives a full look at the larger parcel that is Wyman Gordon. I'm sure the commission members are familiar with the facility. It's right off of uh Route 122 Worcester Street on your way to uh getting on to

the Mass Pike. Large large building. It's been um a staple in the town for very long time. Um so what we're proposing to do is as Adam said, install this solar array in the northwestern portion of the site. So our site plans, our scope of work really focused on that area alone. So, we didn't do we don't we don't get any detail on what's going on. Um, you know, in the front of the site with the office building or on the easterly section of the site. Um, there are additional resource areas far to the east, that blue area, that's a FEMA flood zone and there's a a large wetland complex located in that uh surrounding flood zone. We're not looking for approval of that wetland area, solely the area defined um on these project plans. Uh I guess go down to the the next sheet right there. So this is our existing condition survey of the project area. Um, this essentially starts at the property boundary uh located on the south and to the south of us is uh a parcel of land that was sold off that was in front of the commission a few years back 232 Worcester Street that was uh permitted for I believe was a 330,000 square foot warehouse facility. Um those project permits are still active uh but the project obviously has not been constructed yet. Wyman Gordon did sell the parcel, so they no longer have ownership of that parcel, but they do have an agreement with the current owner to maintain the access driveways, the uh guard shack, and um utilize some of the infrastructure until the property gets built. And once that development gets built, there's a uh proposed common shared driveway which will provide

access uh to a portion of the Wyman Gordon facility and a new main driveway will be constructed on Wyman Gordon's property on the um excuse me, far easterly side of the site. But now we're focusing essentially on this westerly property line. And you can see here, I don't know if anybody's had a chance to look at the plans, but what we pretty much have here for resource areas is a intermittent stream and there's some BVW um that is associated with that intermittent stream. Uh this wetland and bank was flagged by GZA environmental uh few months back before the snow came in and um it's a relatively straightforward delineation. got both side banks uh sides of the stream banks flagged and then uh there's a small pocket of if you zoom in a little bit Jen if you can do that kind of um where the buffer zone yeah right around in that area right there uh so there's a small wetland that protrudes out from the bank um right in that area and then GZA noted a small intermittent stream it's like three flags it's essentially a draining ditch, but we're we're respecting that 25 ft no disturb zone uh nonetheless right through that area. Um also in this area, something to keep note of the dashed uh gray lines that are moving uh going, we'll say Paige uh south to north, that's an existing waterline easement uh owned by the town of Grafton. There's a existing water line that provides water service to the uh I think it's Creeper Hill Road neighborhood that is located on the northerly side of the property across the railroad tracks. So, you can kind of scroll up a little bit. We just kind of see the existing area. Um in this area, you'll see that there's um some

vegetated wooded area where Jan has the cursor right now, but also to the right is where the more developed areas are. that metal that metal building the other existing facilities tanks all those structures are proposed to be removed. Um so I guess if we kind of go to the next sheet which is just a continuation so there's a match line. So, if you go down to the bottom, right, the stream, which is Bonnie Brookke, I forgot to mention that, uh, continues and it's goes through a series of culverts. As you could see, um, on the previous page, there there was a covertized section and then there's another culvertized section as the stream goes, um, behind an existing electric substation. That's uh, how the facility gets its power. So they're they're directly connecting to the um transmission lines that are directly located to the west of the site and electrical infrastructure goes into the the substation and is converted and the power then goes to the plant. There are no changes being proposed to that substation. That's going to remain as is. That's an integral component of the facility. Um so as we continue um north there's a noted BBW that's located on the uh wester off the site um in the national gridowned parcel that abuts the existing intermittent stream but it's essentially just bank of intermittent stream as you continue further up the page um and it goes into another set of culverts where it crosses under um the uh I believe it's the railroad tracks or no there's a excuse me there's a um it's another pathway that would provide access this whole area used to be interconnected so there are some

existing pathways that are no longer used but that provided access to the electrical um uh property owned by national grid to the west then the um intermittent stream then kind of turns right as as it goes through those coverts and then goes uh along to the east and behind the building where it continues on. But that's where we limited our our delineation work to uh as it's just defined to our proposed scope of work. Um it's hard to kind of without driving kind of show all this. I apologize if I'm kind of jumping all over the place without being able to zoom in on certain things. But that's a quick and basic description of the resource area delineation. Are there any questions on what exists out there for resource area?

So we'll go around afterwards and ask people for questions. So keep on going, get through your presentations and then not a

problem. Um, so the next couple sheets are uh demo plans. These sheets highlight what's the improvements that are going to go on to the site as Adam described the removal of aging in infrastructure that's no longer being used. So we have a series of existing buildings that are just no longer being used. They served a purpose for the facility at one point in time, but as operations have changed, things have modernized, they no longer need a lot of these outuildings um to uh satisfy their needs. There's also an existing uh parking lot. It's at the top of the sheet here, an associated driveway that provided parking to these buildings that were utilized, you know, 40, 50 years ago. That's no longer needed. So all of these existing imperous structures, parking, walkways, buildings, they're all proposed to be removed as part of this. And then there's some old railroad tracks that we're going to remove as well. Some small pump houses. Um you know, essentially we want to get this to be a nice clean grass field to install the solar um facility on. So, if you go up uh to the next sheet, this just defines a little bit more of the demo work that's occurring in this area. I do want to bring attention to uh the commission's attention to the long narrow building which exists um right at the edge of the 25 foot no disturb zone. So, that building's slated to be raised as part of the project. And as part of the application, we did request a waiver for some work within the 25- ft no disturb zone. And that's essentially to provide a little bit of space on that back side of that building and able to

complete the building removal. Um, we'll get into that uh as we um get further into the presentation, but I just wanted to make note of that building which sits essentially right on the edge of the 25 ft no disturb zone. I think it's uh about a foot into it. Um, you know, that's the nature of the proposed request for work within the 25 ft no disturb zone. Um, next sheet please. So now we'll move on to essentially this is the site plan. So overall it's a relatively straightforward site plan. Um in the center you can see where we have all our solar tables and racking. Uh we have a proposed gravel driveway. That's that um darker hatched filledin area uh that is located to the west of the array uh that connects to an existing driveway. You scroll down a little bit to the bottom of the page right there. So that'll be one of the access points to the solar array. The array is required to be completely fenced in um as it's an power generating facility. So, it'll need it'll have a a new fence installed around it. There is some existing fence that we're going to try and tie into to minimize the amount of required fencing, but um I wanted to bring the commission's attention to if you can zoom in where we zoomed in before, Jan, on that um small intermittent stream area. Yeah, right there. So we have a little bit of disturbance within the 25- ft no disturb zone just to install the fencing. So a few fence posts and in that area it's right at the edge of that we'll call it drainage channel or intermittent

stream. Those three flags that are right there a little bit to the north. Yeah, right there. So, we can't move the fence over any further to the right cuz there we have that existing um easement and it was a request of the planning board as well to make sure that we maintain access to that existing easement as you know it's a water line and things will inevitably go bad or will need to be replaced at some point which is why we were installing the fence line on the westerly side of that easement. So, it's just through that really narrow section, a few fence posts and um you know on a revised set of plans that I submitted yesterday. I know we're not discussing those as we didn't make the deadline, but I did add some additional notes um for additional erosion controls to be installed in that area when that fencing goes in and for those, you know, three or four fence posts to be dug by hand. it it's a simple request to not go in there with any heavy equipment and install those fence posts by hand. So, um that's one of the, you know, items I wanted to bring to the commission's attention. So, you can zoom back out, Jan. Thank you. Um and we'll kind of continue going through the proposed array. So, as part of all of this proposed development, and you can kind of see we're on the next sheet, um the the array is essentially broken up into two sections. We had the section north of the substation, which we have here, and then the section what we're calling south of the substation. Um, just a nice clean break as we're maintaining that existing driveway that provides access for maintenance to the substation. And we're tying our gravel driveway in um, which goes around the perimeter of the array um, into that existing driveway infrastructure. So, we don't have to create, you know, do any additional work. So, that's a little bit of impervious cover that's going to remain

um as part of the post-development conditions. The electrical substation, that's not even part of the project area. Nothing's happening with that, but that will remain. That is impervious coverage right there. And then there's an existing building at the uh call it the south easterly part of the sheet. So that building will be raised as far as the building will be demoed, but the slab that it sits on will remain in place and that's for environmental purposes. We were told that the foundation and the slab cannot be removed for that structure. That's the only structure that will be raised that will have the foundation left in place. um something to do with some sort of environmental um AUL item that is associated with that. So that slab has to remain in place. With that slab remaining in place, we're going to be utilizing that impervious coverage as a place to set our proposed equipment for this solar array. So we have transformers, uh DC converters. I'll let Adam kind of get into that stuff. That's not my area of expertise. If you guys have any questions on that, but all of these systems always have a dedicated area where you have a majority of the larger equipment. Um, so we're going to be utilizing um that existing imperous area to install the necessary infrastructure to run this proposed solar facility. Um, now as you go along to the north, we still have the proposed gravel driveway which goes around uh the facility. The driveway going around the facility, that was a request of the fire department. Um we met with them during the uh meeting process and that was one

of their main requests uh of the site plan that we include access around the perimeter of the entire array. Uh to the east there's an existing paved driveway that we're going to utilize that exists today. But as you go to the west um close to the um intermittent stream, we have to install a uh you know narrow gravel driveway. As part of planning all this, we you know made sure to keep that driveway outside of the 25 ft no disturb zone. And you know associated with that all the panels um are located outside the 25 ft no disturb zone. We do have some um obviously there's panels within the 100 foot zone, 100 foot buffer zone um in this northerly section and as you go down the there are some all um panels within the 100 foot buffers on the in the southerntherly portion of the array um storm water management. So as part of this project, we are not proposing any new storm water management basins or systems or anything of that nature. And the reasoning behind that is because the redevelopment of this is removing an acre and a half of imperous coverage and we're not creating any new impervious coverage with the proposed development. Um so we're drastically improving the existing site conditions with regards to storm water management and compliance with D standards. Um we did receive our um thirdparty review from Graves Engineering and they had a few minor comments and agreed with our

um storm water management design and calculations. We provided supporting calculations to detail that um peak rates of runoff and volume are being decreased through the removal of the imperous coverage um and converting that area to essentially lawn space underneath the array. Um all the disturbed areas are going to be um raked seated with um a solar farm seed mix. I think I suspect an Ernst um solar farm seed mix which is pretty standard for this type of application. Um and also as part of this development we are removing some wooded vegetated areas. That's more down in the southerntherly portion of the array where we are removing a approximately 2.4 4 acres of um vegetated area. I'm not going to call it woods because it's not a pristine wooded forest. This is a previously disturbed area that's grown in over the years. So, smaller trees, 6-in trees, 4in trees, but it is vegetated. So, um we we classified it as woods um as part of our analysis. Um let's see. Um we also submitted a phasing plan um or we can go to the next sheet uh which is erosion and sediment controls. So we have a you know erosion and sediment control plan where we're proposing perimeter erosion controls around obviously the um entire facility that's proposed focusing on the uh area adjacent to the intermittent stream. You know we have a construction entrance to

the to the south some material stockpile areas. We're going to utilize some of these existing um paved parking areas for contractor parking equipment um storage, fueling, things of that nature. So that that'll occur in that existing paved lot in that area. Um where we noted we had the paved parking lot kind of in the center where the array is going to go. that will remain in place and you know for the beginning of construction when we're doing the building demo and some of the tree removal work. So that'll we're not going to rip up that pavement right away. We're going to leave that pavement down so that area stays stabilized as we um complete all this demo work and tree cutting work and utilize that area as kind of like a an area to store materials, dumpsters, things of that nature, some of the equipment until we get into the real um detail work for constructing the array. Um let's see. I guess uh you can go to the next sheet. It just kind of details a few more erosion control items. Um we have a second construction entrance located at the top of the page. Um we're trying to keep construction vehicles out of that center driveway that would be going um providing access to the substation. That's why we have those two separate construction entry points um and able to keep a clear pathway to the substation. But um perimeter controls are going to be uh 12-in silt socks and um that's what we're proposing for perimeter erosion controls. And as far as um project phasing, we did submit a phasing plan after the initial submission. Uh as

Jan brought that to my attention. I don't know if you have that here, Jan. I can pull it up.

Okay. So, this kind of gives a detailed um look at how we're going to construct this. So essentially I broke it down into four phases where phase one is building demo cleaning up all that existing in on-site infrastructure and then um cutting of the trees. You typically you get your tree contractor in they'll cut all the trees and then we'll move into phase obviously we'll install the erosion and sediment controls first. That's the first line item on the um uh on phase one. And then we'll get into phase two, which is the southerntherly array. So the area south of that substation, that area is going to have a majority of the stumping and grubbing that's required. So that's where you're going to get a lot of your exposed um ground, right? So we're going to in phase two, after phase one's complete, we'll move right into phase two. pull those stumps, do any grading, um rough grade in the proposed uh get that driveway area graded in and then immediately seed this and then give that some time to stabilize and then move on to the northerly portion of the array while that area which is going to have the most exposed quote unquote um soil from the removal of the stumps um that will then move to the northerly section due uh the installation of the gravel driveway, minor grading up through there in that northerly section which is on the right side of the page. It's primarily all grass today. There's a two small pockets of some vegetated trees. So, we're going to leave that um existing vegetation being the grass in place. Obviously, it's going to get disturbed a little bit from some

equipment moving over it, but um for the most part, we're hoping to preserve that as much as we can. Um and then once that area, the driveway has been installed and we've cleaned up all the areas, we'll seat any exposed areas in there and then installation of the racking and solar panel infrastructure will begin and then they'll start on the southerntherly portion of the array. So, we're trying to, you know, this whole, you know, the intent of this plan is to minimize how much exposed soil we have at the site at one time, focus on getting uh the large portions of the site work completed, the grading done, and then stabilize it immediately and then come in, install the racking, the tables. there there's going to be some spots that get dug up that are going to need to be rad and cleaned up, but that's better than working in an area that's all mud, right? So, um, I've worked on a lot of these solar sites and this is a good way to go about the process where you get the site as stable as possible before installing the racking and then um proceed with that portion and then go in and clean up um any other disturbed areas for final seating as part of phase 4. All right. And last but not least, um, as part of our application, we submitted two waiver requests. I quickly touched on the first one, which is the work within the 25 ft no disturb zone. Um, you know, we have those two areas behind the existing building that we need to take down uh for some minor work in there and we have

the work to install the um that small section of fencing. Um the second waiver is uh related to the storm water requirements and you know this is a waiver related to the um MS4 permit requirements of um 80% TSS and 50% phosphorus removal. Um, so I did have a detailed discussion with Leah and the town's consultant on this and you know the goal is not to skirt the requirement. It's more or less to request a waiver to allow a different way to document compliance with this because the way the calculations work whether you use the UNH program that the BHB consultant recommended or you use the federal the EPA's um phosphorus removal calculator. They require an input of imperous coverage that's being treated by storm water management best management practice whether it's an infiltration basin whether it's a bio retention basin infiltration swale a slew of those item um practices provide you with removal percentages that would satisfy say you know 80% and 50%. We don't have that here. What we're doing is we are removing and reducing the phosphorus and sediment load through a land use conversion. Um so I did recently as of yesterday uh submit uh some updated calculations. I'm sure that

the consultant and and Leah haven't had a chance to go over them yet. Um but we will be providing significant um reductions in total phosphorus and TSS loading. Now this is TSS loading as it relates to the EPA's definition, not mass DP because they're two separate um ways of calculating it. Um so based on the federal regulations, the site as it exists today generates 4.79 uh pounds per year of total phosphorus. After we remove all the impervious coverage, the driveways, the parking areas and and convert this land to um primarily a grass area, the total phosphorus to be that will be produced is going to be 1.93 pounds per year, which is a net reduction of 2.85. So, a significant reduction in phosphorus, but there's no quantifiable way to give that a removal percentage as per the bylaw, the way it states it because the bylaw states that the percentage is based on the total um impervious coverage of the project. So, the phosphorus generated by the imperous coverage. And like I stated before, we're removing essentially all the impervious coverage except for that little strip driveway that goes to the substation and that existing building

foundation. Um, so there's a significant reduction in phosphorus, but it doesn't fall in line with per, you know, the bylaw requirement per se. So, um I did submit these calculations. I know they haven't been reviewed yet, but I just wanted to bring them up um this evening and I'm sure that uh the consultant will will have some uh time to take a look at them and we'll you know likely coordinate a little bit further on this topic as it is it's not a straightforward scenario like you would have say if I was developing a shopping plaza and I was putting in a 1acre parking lot that was going to drain to a new infiltration basin. extremely straightforward to satisfy those requirements. But for something like this where it's redevelopment, improving existing conditions, it's it it doesn't follow that straight line, right, to get to those exact numbers. Um so just uh one more item to close. So was with regards to the um TSS loading rate in pounds per year. Um the existing site generates, you know, 1,023 pounds of uh TSS uh per year. The proposed development conditions will be at about 420 pounds per year. That's a rem that's a reduction of over 600 lb per year. So significant reductions are being um realized as part of this redevelopment. They're just not quantifiable as far as um utilizing those tools that certain types of storm water management practices give you identified removal percentages. Um

so that's it. I feel like I've talked way too much and I apologize about that. Um so I'll open it up to questions. Uh let you guys go from there. Thank you. I'll yeah I'll take care of the questions and directing that. So all right so uh why don't we just start by going around um all the folks on the commission see if you have any questions. I have a whole bunch. Um Jonathan any questions?

So my main question would be when we're stripping up in this project all the impervious um are we doing a significant amount of regrading to repitch it? Is it relatively flat in there? Just my knowledge of the site from living in the area and driving by there, it looks like it's relatively flat. So, are we concerned if we strip off the impervious and any other storm conditions in there that we're going to have ponding water underneath these panels or is this going to be graded and pitched away? Um, I just I couldn't tell from the skim. So I guess that's my high level question is is there thinking of ponding water during heavy rain events and significant you know snow melt that type of thing how would that be dealt with on site is it through grading just to get spread out across the imperous I'm sorry the pvious area the you know the the new grass area under the panels or is this something that you would consider putting in additional storm um management structures within that to help handle it due to the flatness of the site. I don't know if that's something that's been considered or not.

So, let me Jonathan, let me add a few things to that question because I did look at the grading. It is it is there's uh minimal grading shown on the plans. There's a high point u my questions along with that. There's some areas of 10% grades. Um so, it's like okay, it there's some that have some areas that are flat, some that have some slope to it, some aren't bad slopes. there's only a couple areas where there's existing slopes where it's about 10% or so. So, I guess to Nick's uh kind of to make two questions into one um and to kind of build on what Jonathan is saying is the fact that um there's two components in my estimation is one um the question of how high are the panels above the ground. That's one question. That's an easy one. What's the height over the the actual existing conditions? Um, so I think I can answer that. Um, or I shouldn't say I think I'm probably the appropriate person to answer that. Nick, jump in if you feel like I'm I'm too far um out of my reach. Um, but you're looking at an average of I'm going to be conservative and give a range here, but you're typically like 24 to I'll say 38 in um from the the lowest part to the ground.

Okay. And the reason why I'm asking and and Nick can add to this is that D has given a a policy out as as the height of the the panels and how it impacts uh drainage and so forth. So to add to Jonathan's questions, depending upon the height, how how far the rainfall, so you you you are considered a pvious site because even though you have all of this impervious area of the panels, it comes off the panels then hits the ground. But to build on Jonathan's thing is if you have them up, say depending upon the uh the grading, depending upon the system, sometimes you can have them five, six, seven feet high for various reasons. Um, and then you have the water falling a certain depth to hit the ground. So my question always with that is is that are you doing a drip edge or anything else to kind of mitigate any kind of erosion at that because you always have a line at the bottom of the the solar panels. The and that is then coupled with like Jonathan's question about grading which was one of my questions is the fact that you do have certain areas that are steeper than others. you're concentrating the flow of the rain because you're you're putting it in a very narrow place along the drip edge. And then if it's really flat, you can usually do some things. Sometimes a drip edge is kind of warranted and other times it's not. So I would kind of take all those things and throw into one nick as far as if you have any consideration of doing a drip edge and if there's areas within the site because of the steepness of it, are you putting any drip edges in? We don't Oh, go ahead, Adam.

The only thing I was going to add is first and foremost, um I' I've been through a lot of these. Uh that's a great question and and and and uh very rarely are we asked that. Uh the generic answer that I would give is is we're going to maintain positive drainage. Uh because water puddling underneath the panels does me no good, right? it's it's going to attract uh animals, bugs, and and and and it's going to cause issues with with maintaining vegetation and so forth. So, um always we'll we'll work to maintain positive drainage, but I'll let Nick answer.

Yeah. So, kind of two questions here, right? So, we have the grading of the site and you know, when we do remove the buildings, right? Obviously voids will be filled. So for foundations, slabs, for buildings, things are pulled up. Um those will have to be filled in um to to to grade and to drain properly. You know, we don't want to leave any giant puddling spots or voids of things of that nature. Um we we do show some grading through uh the southerntherly section of of the array. Um where there's a larger structure, walkways, a few buildings. Um it's kind of yeah in the center of this page right now. That this page doesn't show the grading. You got to go to the site plan to see that. Um and then as far as the parking lot goes, that will just essentially follow the natural grade. any other areas that are being um having impervious coverage removed. We're trying to keep the drainage patterns the same um for what exists today. So, we're not drastically changing how the site is draining from today to tomorrow when the system's installed. Um so, that's what we're doing. So anywhere, you know, we're not going to leave any large areas ponded, um, any any giant voids. You know, a lot of that will be worked out in the field for the most part. We're not looking to change the drainage patterns of this area from what they are today. We want the storm water to kind of follow those same natural patterns um where it's running off from the site today. We want to continue continue to do that in runoff

um in in those same general patterns. Um now with regards to maintenance and um concerns with runoff from the um panels drip edge management. Um now we there we I did include some information on that within let me see uh the on andm plan that we provided I believe um just trying to dig it up here. So this would be in the storm water report uh operation and maintenance plan. Um, you know, there's a little blurb about, you know, little page about solar the maintenance of the site, not primarily the storm water the system, but vegetation management. Um, and there's a section in there that details, you know, inspect the arrays for um what I call um ruts, drip gullies, any areas causing um concentrated flows, right? That's the main thing we want to avoid. um and that that eventually leads to erosion. So I detail in there if if you do come across those areas that you are to those are going to be raked out and reseeded. And then I have a um section see um what I on the on&m plan called drip gully management. So, and it kind of details what to do if that's encountered cuz inevitably when you have these larger

sites like this, you're going to have some areas where the runoff is going to want to concentrate or you're going to have some small areas of of erosion. So, um you know, we try to get ahead of this by just having good sight maintenance, right? inspecting the site, doing visual inspections, um when vegetation management's occurring, and if there's anything that's observed from the maintenance crew that it gets addressed, um before it becomes a nuisance where, you know, if you're having a water shed off and it's creating a gully and then it starts to erode the soil, we don't want that to happen either. Um so we do have some notation in here as far as part of the management plan. um to on how to manage um what we call drip gullies, but that would be um you know runoff from the leading edge that's causing ruts.

Yeah, that's that's one thing to add too. Um you know, most um solar arrays that are out there um are are what I would call absentee owners from the perspective that you know there's not people around uh you know generally except your maintenance intervals or if there's issues. The advantage we have here is obviously the the the the plant is staffed 24/7 and um you know we will have regiments where um you know folks will keep an eye on it from an environmental perspective and then obviously we'll have maintenance intervals and different things like that but I feel like we will get some additional oversight here because of that. Okay. Thank you. Jonathan, could I ask an additional question? Sandy.

Yeah, I was going to go back to you if you had something else. Yep. Sure. Um are are the ballasts are these mounted on pre-cast ballasts or are they mounted on cast in place um concrete footings? Are they just I didn't see in the drawings the plans that is this some type of delegated design that you're looking to have the the solar person installer uh design that or is it I'm getting at where if they're cast in place that's a lot of concrete footers you know what are we thinking about wash out and then are we doing any excavation kind of for those items um to put in a a footer so these don't move or is it just a a surface set you on gravel um pre-cast block or is it some other type of system? I'm familiar with a handful of systems but not too many. Um I guess my first question there.

Yeah. So um we're in the process of still really I'll say finalizing it but we're we're we're 98% there. likely it's going to be piles uh that will be driven in the ground, which traditionally um seems like the best uh as far as disturbance. Uh it's the least amount of disturbance in my eyes. Um just from the perspective of um ballast solar, you're kind of hauling around a lot more heavier loads. You're trying to get them in place. You know, all it takes is one morning with a little bit of dew and you're you're you're disturbing things. Um and then obviously as you said concrete um the thing that always scares me about that is the wash out points right and how well those are maintained and serviced and that sort of thing but I can say with uh not 100% certainty but a very high level of certainty that um this is going to be piles driven

and I like helical pier that's what I was thinking more screw pile yeah yeah probably more common nowadays so okay anything else Jonathan Um, I don't I I don't think I had anything else. One point to clarify. Uh, you asked it in the very beginning and I feel like we didn't do a very good job of answering it. Largely, this site is fairly flat. So, I just wanted to make sure that was on the record because that was kind of your very first question and I apologize for not answering that. And there was and there are just certain isolated areas that have a higher slope

and that's what caught my eye. So, and and the the proposed grading, you're doing a site like this, doing all this demo. Um, this proposed grading is very sparse and then there's a couple existing contours really close together. I know that you're going to rip up most of this stuff and you're going to have to, you know, grade it out and so forth. It just was I was just looking to in certain areas you're going to have to um kind of stretch out some of the slopes and it just wasn't represented that way on the plan. So, That was my question. Yeah.

To kind of echo that, right? If we show grades and we're doing a lot of cutting, now we're exposing more more soil, right? And able to accomplish that. So, there's always a fine balance of let's grade the areas we need to grade and let's try and leave what's existing there today instead of, you know, like like I noted in the the northerly part of the site, it's all grass today, right? So, I'm not trying to recreate those conditions,

right? It it to me it's it's just where it needs to be done and and you know that's why you get paid the big bucks is to do that grading. So, so um but uh Travis um any questions? The waterway going through the site, I think you called it it's a brook. It's a named brook I believe.

Bonnie Brook. I can see that Bonnie Brookke has defined Bed and Bank in the aerial photos with inundation during all seasons. Looks like it also connects to Flint Pond. So I'm curious why it's intermittent and not subject to the Rivers Protection Act. So with Bonnie Brookke, we're going by the USGS, current USGS mapping and how it's been mapped for I think we submitted maps back to the 50s of this area. And um we also reference the um decision for the warehouse building to the south where the finding from the commission was that it's an intermittent stream. So, um, with that permit still being active, um, you know, that's that's what we went with, uh, on this with regards to the del, you know, the designation of the stream with regards to being intermittent being shown on the USGS maps as such and having a existing filing open current order of conditions uh, for the property just to the south for a 330,000t warehouse uh, that was recently permitted.

All right. Yeah, Travis, this this whole area is um there used to be, you know, major streams going through here and so many of them had are have been altered over the decades. Um and it's like, you know, there's some age here and there's pipes everywhere. It's kind of a mystery on some of them. Um because I have some other questions related to that, but yeah, I mean, that's that's reasonable. Yeah, I'll go back to our notes because I thought we had another site nearby that was Yeah, there's another one that's Yep.

Yeah. Anyway, um I'll put a pin in that. The uh So, you're clearing two and a half acres of natural area classified as woods within 100 foot buffer. I think you mentioned you're going to replace or you're going to reed with an Ernst solar mix. They've got about 11 different seed mixes. Some are just fescue. Some actually have native flora or forbes and grasses. So, it would be helpful if you could let us know which mix you're actually using. It's because that that native mix would provide a replacement for the uh the impact within the 100 foot, which is why I asked. Sure. I mean, if if there's a preferred mix, I mean, I think

which which one were you planning on using? Yeah, just digging it up right now. We have it noted on the plan. So, I don't think I can tell you which one to use. Just that I would be more supportive if it was an actual native mix with a mix of native grasses and Forbes. So, this is the Ernst mix uh number 186 solar farm seed mix. Um and and to add to what Travis said is is yeah you know we're more concerned with you know within that 100 foot buffer if there within 100 foot. Yeah.

Yeah. That hey if you've got more of a native mix that provides some and then it it also gets to how often you're mowing it and so forth. And there's that was another question where I asked how high I mean there's a whole maintenance I get it that you need to mow on a regular basis but you don't have to mow it every single week. So yeah the the 186 mix is just turf grass so it doesn't provide any native replacement value. Yeah we can definitely look into the utilizing the native mix. Um I'll pull the spec on it and see what that is. you know, the Erns mix or the um they've got quite a few.

Yeah. Or New England wildlife uh mixes as well. Um I expect those on plans all the time. So we can um we could look at something a little bit more um robust for the the buffer zone. Yeah. Those impacts. Yeah. And again, it would be, you know, be an upland mix and so forth. And there's lots there's lots of them out there. was just trying to get a little bit more um protection and a little bit more buffer even though it's not a true buffer but it's you know we understand the site conditions so that makes sense. Uh anything else uh Travis I'll let you have at the uh you and Jonathan can go at the storm water questions.

Sure. So um uh uh Noah any questions? No questions from me.

Okay. Um in in a lot of my questions I mean uh this is you know yes you are um removing some of what would be classified as woods and so forth but the overall is that you are taking out quite a bit of impervious um but I do have just uh some questions around the storm water and so forth. I have no issues with not adding any uh catch basins or anything else. Um, the existing intermittent stream is kind of really funky because you go through all these culverts and they're all different sizes and they're all different numbers. And I'm just wondering and just wondering if there's any issues on site historically of of a section flooding or anything just to see if you know what you're doing now is actually going to make it better. The other the other kind of uh question with the existing drainage, and I'm sure you had a hard time or whoever did the survey, man, it's really hard to follow where everything's going.

Generally, generally it's going to the north and it's wrapping around the building and it ends up on the east side and there's that whole big wetlands and flood plane. That's the general direction it's going in. And um and so my general question was I was just trying to look at where some of the existing catch basins and I know our peer reviewer mentioned that you had witnessed or observed that one of the drain manholes was full of of dirt and so forth. And so, uh, and again, if you're out there doing this work, you know, you're tending to allow the existing catch basins to still flow to places, but do they actually reach places? I mean, it's it's kind of tough because I don't know what's coming off the building. Uh, I'm sure you don't know what's coming off the buildings, what the buildings that you're demoing, if they went any place. So, I'm just wondering um if you've got a plan in place as far as figuring out what happens with the existing drainage system and where it goes and if if you're going to alter that in any way by this construction, not on purpose, but on this construction.

We're not looking to change any of the storm water management infrastructure that exists today. Um there are a few basins that are noted full of sediment. I think that's when the survey was done. This a little bit older survey. Um they had silt sacks in them. So this facility is under an active um nip industrial y

storm water discharge permit. So they're required to maintain silt sacks and all these older structures that get changed out periodically. So um I don't think the structure is filled with sediment anymore. this survey of this area is a little bit older, but um you know when we get into um site construction, there's a few catch basins in the uh I believe it's the northerly part of the array that exist in this area. We'll make sure to properly clean those out. Um we've been working with Wyman and Gordon on, you know, help, you know, having them dig through some of their record plans. It's kind of a hodgepodge of, you know, older infrastructure and back then people just kind of connected things and ran pipes in certain places. Um, there are some existing discharges to Bonnie Brook which were not going to change. Um, I believe some of those are roof drainage connections. um more or less on the northerly side of the property. And then as you go down to the uh on the site plan, maybe go to sheet 4.0. Um there's a major not going to it's more of less call it a major, but a central storm water discharge outfall that goes um into the brook. So that's

one of the main outfall points that's monitored um for

TSS for for metals for other things. It has um it's in the center of that page. It goes into essentially looks like a large concrete box um and there's two 24-in discharge pipes that leave that um structure. So, that's a major discharge point that takes a lot of the runoff from um what's known as that property south of of us that was sold off. So, there's storm water that's coming from the existing parking lots in there from around that um office building that's located in the front of the site. Um and this whole a lot of this infrastructure on uh we'll call it the southoutheasterly side feeds to that central point. Um now with regards to the remaining storm water um infrastructure that runs through here, there are some additional um discharge points um that discharge to the brook. We believe those to be primarily roof drainage discharge points. And then as you proceed um northerly as you kind of come around the bend there are some catch basins in the existing paved driveway that provides access. Yeah, you can see how that driveway on that right side of the page goes um all along the side of the building. So, there's some existing storm water management infrastructure located to collect runoff from that pavement through there that eventually makes its way into the stream. I believe it's the back section where it turns and goes 90°.

Yeah. Yeah. Like I said, I I just had trouble following it because it's it is what it is. Um uh and it was more just questions and it's and if you have these many of panels um and you're doing helical piles, you're going to hit one or two. That's definitely gonna a concern of ours. And we're probably going to do a LAR survey of the lines where we're going to be installing the um uh the screw um the screw posts in there because it's there's going to be a lot of utilities that are known and unknown. Um that's why we're trying to remove as much as we can. get those old railroad tracks out of there, any any of the existing infrastructure that we don't need. There's a bunch of old monitoring wells that are no longer needed. Um, so there's a lot of infrastructure that exists through there that can go.

Um, and then um then just a couple of general questions. You're not doing any battery storage, are you? No battery storage. Okay. No battery storage. Yo, no. And I don't know if I don't know if Adam I think he hit on this earlier, but this isn't your traditional commercial solar system that's sending power to the grid and they're selling it for for profit. Right. This is going to be utilized by the facility to Right. And that's why I asked the question because the reality is is that to have a you know an efficient flow of electricity you'll have a lot of um you know

facilities use the battery storage as a way to balance out and so forth because otherwise obviously you're going to have certain peak times and you may have a steady demand it doesn't usually match up. So it's from our perspective as far as the conservation commission that's more of just a general question because with battery storage um and fire issues and fire suppression issues it becomes more of like if you're close to the wetlands then we would be concerned. If you don't have it we don't have to go any further into kind of discussing that. That's all. Um, and then let me see. I think I hit Oh, and just the gravel driveway. Um, I don't remember if I saw um I don't remember if I saw a detail for it. Are you trying to make that somehow more porous or is it really just a traditional a gravel driveway that's basically impo impervious?

Um, as far as the material, let's see. We have a little section on the detail sheet of it. Let me get to that. Um I mean essentially it's just compacted gravel with um you know the dense grade base material. Um

and and that's yeah and I don't I'm not saying you should do one over the other. It's just it's even though it may not be you can argue whether it's impervious or non-imperous, it has a higher curve number. um that is not going to totally impact what's going on because that's what you have that's what I hope you have in your calcs. So um but just wondering if you're doing anything else to make it a little bit more porous. That was it. Yeah, I mean we could look to use some larger aggregate um mixed in. We could take a look at that. Um

and that's based on the use and so forth. That's up to you guys as design and so forth. I don't think it alternates it. You know, you have a big change, but it's just just a question. Um, and it's, you know, it's basically the F of the fire department and so forth. So, yeah, to echo Nick's point, we could definitely look at, um, placing like a larger aggregate as the base and then something uh, kind of as a top coat. Um, I've seen that done a number of different times.

Yeah. And you can be successful with that. That's up to you. Um, but that was just kind of a general question. I think that's pretty much what I have. I mean, it goes into the 100 foot buffer. You're staying outside of the 25 foot. I think some of our concerns is what's under our jurisdiction is u yes, we have the storm water component of it. You're making it less impervious. I would probably give you a hint as far as the phosphorus and as far as some other things. be creative. Look at some other sources. Um, because of the fact that you're having such long flow lengths of runoff over over vegetation, you may be able to get some credit for that. So, just think about not just what every single thing is in the MS4 charts or whatever, but just be creative. there's other ways of demonstrating especially whether it's TSS or phosphorus removal. Um you just might have to search a little bit as far as what agency is is using that and so forth. So just an FYI, it's always hard because you're doing the opposite of what those regulations are intended for. You're not adding, you're taking away. But there are some creative ways of of doing uh water quality assessments when you have such long runs of of water flowing over. I'm I'm talking specifically, you know, your source of your pavement areas and so forth depending upon how it's set up. So FYI, there's other states that have other um ways to an analyze that. So, um, as far as that goes, I'm going to go quickly around and then I'll check in with Leah on what her outstanding stuff is to see if anyone else has anything. Jonathan, anything else to add or ask?

No, I don't have anything else. Thank you. Yep. Uh, Travis, nope, nothing else right now. Uh, Noah, nothing for me. And Leah, anything to add from your report or I know that there's a revised plan that we haven't really looked at yet, but anything else?

Um, all I have to add tonight is we did get their D number in just today. Um, they did ask if alternative layouts have been considered, which would allow for existing portions of naturally vegetated buffer zone to be preserved to a greater extent while maintaining the project's goals. um knowing that was just today, I don't expect to button up that question. And the other thing is just that we um now that they've provided revisions, we are now waiting on Graves feedback of those revisions. But most everything else I had written out, we've already covered. Okay, sounds good. So, we're So, I'll go um I'll go first to if there's anyone online here has any questions, um please raise your hand. will be happy to uh call on you and you'll be able to either ask a question or or give your opinion on something. We're happy to receive that. Um and then Jan will monitor that and then we'll kind of go um Jan, if you watch that um then we'll actually kind of go back to the applicant. Obviously, we're still waiting on a few things and so the question to you is uh do you want to um extend this uh continue this to the next meeting um or any other further meeting in the future?

So, one quick question before we continue kind of going back to the phosphorus item. Yep.

I understand your concerns um about trying to make the numbers work. Um you know a detailed reading of the requirement you know states that the reductions are related to the total post construction impervious area. So where we're stating that we're removing essentially all the impervious in this area that we're redeveloping. It's it's a hard one to satisfy when you read the requirement

that's in the bylaw

versus generating numbers that you know aren't meant to be generated for for a development like this. So, I just wanted to to say that I I still have to coordinate with Leah and touch base with maybe their their um their consultant one more time on it. But um you know, I we did submit some more supporting information detailing what the existing total phosphorus is today and what it will be once we do our redevelopment. And it's a significant decrease. We're decreasing it by 2/3 of what is there today.

Right. And to be honest, I think you're decreasing it even more than that. Yeah. Like without looking at it, it's substantial.

And we have essentially no imperous areas in this. We have that remaining concrete foundation couple thousand square feet of imperous coverage that's remaining in this development area. So, you know, a literal reading of the requirement where it states total post construction impervious area, which makes sense because in enable to satisfy those requirements, you're sending that postdevelopment impervious to a storm water management practice that's been where you have established values where you have removal percentages that have been established by the EPA. So I don't know what type of um engineering wizardry I can do to to satisfy that requirement when there's essentially no impervious coverage remaining in our development area. So to me having done this for a very long time you know just go back to the intent of the regulation and it's intended for projects that are adding that it's I know what you're reading and I get it but again I think sometimes it is just it doesn't fit into that requirement. um and just all the other things that you're doing here. If you've worked on restoration projects, it's always hard because you're not doing a typical project. That's part of your um discussion on why you're you're not just meeting, you're exceeding the requirements. And it's more of an interpretation of the regulations and the fact that um that those regulations are just not

intended for a project like this and it goes back to the intent of the regulations almost as opposed to making certain numbers work. So, I'm just giving you a couple of different approaches to think about it. Um, and maybe look at some of the um, you know, the actual, you know, you're talking some of the regulations you're reading. But sometimes it's it's the actual um, you know, legal laws and so forth, especially on the federal level and on the state level, what the intent of the law is for. And if you don't meet that intent, you know, you have a good argument to say, "Yeah, this is the opposite of what this is for and we're well exceeding what the reductions need to be." I'm just saying go ahead and be creative. Um, as far as, you know, the commission goes, you know, we'll we'll kind of review that and understand that. You know, that's just, you know, it's interpretation of the boards that you're in front of that you're going to have to convince each board depending upon how you do it. I don't know if that's helpful or not.

Understood. All right. Well, I did submit some additional information, so I'll give you guys some time to Yeah. look at it and um we'll go from there. Yep. Okay. Um Jan, anyone from the audience? Nothing from the public. Nothing from the public. And again, just to uh go back to the applicant, uh do you want to continue this continue this hearing? I I believe so. Nick, please jump in if you Yeah. No. Um no, we're more than happy to continue the hearing. Um so just to just to clarify continuing for

you can choose our next meeting which is Wednesday.

Yeah we would definitely want to continue to the next meeting but we looking to get the final response from Graves. Are we looking to address anything specific? So are you looking for additional information on any particular topic? So, kind of some of the the comments that Leah originally had, and you can jump in, Leah, is hopefully they're addressed in the updated plans. We haven't looked at those. Um, I uh I mean, I I'm not looking for anything specific. I think we had the questions tonight as far as like maybe look at the um you know seed mixes to have something you know appropriate for within the 100 foot buffer or whatever zone that you want to do that includes a 100 foot buffer those type of things. I think um you know you have a discussion about you know having you know some you know potential uh minor erosion and in kind of the on and m plan that's something we'll have to look at that might be something that's conditioned or some a condition or something to say you know if you have you know extensive erosion then you're going to have to come back and do something those are the type of things but those to me are more conditions than having to go to another meeting. I don't know if Leah if you have any other anything else as far as what you have on your side.

Um I would say your other point about the detail of the driveway. Um we need the final grave sign off. We'll have to consider the waiverss and uh a response to the D comment. Look like the big items. Okay. What was the D comment, Leah? Um if if they've considered allowing uh greater portions of um naturally vegetated buffers. Okay. All right. I read that comment, but I didn't realize it was from D. Okay.

Okay. No, I appreciate that. It's always good to just have clear objectives, right? Um as part of the continuence, so we all know where you guys stand and where we stand. Um, and we should be able to address those minor items before the next meeting in a couple weeks. And I hope Graves can um do a quick review on the recent submission. Uh, I did get an email response back from um, Mr. Walsh saying he received the revised plans and that um, he was going to, you know, start taking a look at them and hopefully have it wrapped up within a week. So, um, fingers crossed. Yeah, we can't make any promises, but I don't see any big red flags um as far as having to continue again. I mean, at this point. So, all right.

We'll have to see what happens at the next meeting. So, you have requested a continuence. When would you like it to the next meeting? Yes, please. Is that the 17th? Yep. Okay. Do I have start here? Do I have a motion? I'll move to continue the hearing to the to March 17th for 244 Worcester Street. Second uh a motion in a second. Uh we'll call vote. Travis, yes. Noah, yes. Jonathan, yes. I am also a yes. So, we'll see you in a couple weeks. And then, uh if you have any questions, please reach out to staff to Leo Jan. I'm sure they can help you out with that. So,

thank you very much. We appreciate your time and have a great rest of your evening. Yeah. Thanks again for the time. Really appreciate it. No problem. Thank you. Thank you. All right, Leah. Next one up is uh continued.

Correct. Okay. I need to go back and read that in. Okay. So, let's get to this one. So, it's 21 Mebrook. Okay. Pursuant to the Massachusetts Wetlands Protection Act, a graft wetland protection bylaw, the conservation commissioner will hold a public hearing to act upon a notice of intent for the construction of a single family house at 21 Meadow Brook. The applicant has requested a continuence to March 17th. Uh, do I have a motion for continuance? Move to continue the hearing to March 17th for 21 Mebrook Road. Second.

We have a motion, a second. Roll call vote. Jonathan, yes. Travis, yes. Noah, yes. I am also Yes. The motion carries. Okay. And action items. Start at the top, Leia. Yep. Meeting minutes. Has everyone had a chance to read them? And does anyone have any comments or recommendations on them? I'll go quickly around. Jonathan, anything? No questions. No comments. Travis, nope. No questions. Noah, nothing from me. Uh, I also don't have anything. So, do we have a motion in a second?

Uh, move to approve the meeting minutes for February 3rd, 2026. Second. Motion in a second. Roll call vote. Noah, yes. Uh, Travis, yes. Jonathan,

yes. I am also a yes. The motion carries. All right. Request for partial certification for two Windsor Lane. Which one is that? So um Winslow Point is the um apartment complex right in front of uh what is their name now? Woodland Hill on Institute Road. Um so not the single family houses, but the apartments down the hill. um they are working on closing out that whole thing, but this one unit needs to sell in the meantime. So, we just need to give them a partial and I have no issues with doing that. Yeah. But it's it's it's it's one of the condos in the in the multif family buildings, right?

Correct. Okay, cool. Um we can uh does anyone have any questions on this, Jonathan? Travis? No. Noah. Nope. No. Uh, do I have a motion? Uh, I'll move to um issue a partial COC for two Winslow Lane unit 302. Second. We have a motion, a second. Roll call vote. Jonathan, yes. Uh, Travis, yes. Noah, yes.

I'm also Yes. Uh, the motion carries. Next up, High Fields. Yeah. Do you want to um I have two things for them and we have one other real quick. COC, I don't know what order you wanted to go in. We do have someone on the line for Highfields. You want to do Hawthorne and then I can hop off. There you go. So, we'll do Hawthorne first. Um, uh, short story on that one, Leah.

So, this is a super old permit before we even had D numbers, but it came up on somebody's title search. Um, we had in the files that we had issued a complete COC, but it never made it to the registry. So, we just need to give them an original so they can clean that up. Oh, okay. That's pretty pretty straightforward. Uh, do we have um a motion? I'll move to reissue the certificate of compliance for 29 Hawthorne Street. Second motion, a second. Uh, roll call vote. Uh, Noah, yes. Uh, Travis, yes. And Jonathan, yes.

And I am also a yes. The motion carries and Travis gets to jump off. All right. Have a good evening, everybody. Thank you. Nice. Hi. Um we uh uh let's go back to Highfields then. Okay. So, um we do have um a representative from their team in attendees. Um we can promote him to talk um if you'd like, but I can I can get us started. Um okay.

So, they have three three permits left outstanding um for the subdivision. The biggest one we're not looking to close out tonight because they still have some things they're wrapping up. That's 164591. So that one will still stand for the time being. But they also had 164371 and 164483. So 371 um came well before 591 and was supposed to have been replaced by 591, but nobody ever circled back around to actually close 371. Um so we all these years have been issuing everyone partials from both because both come up on title searches for any um property in Highfields on McGill Drive. Um, so I read through 371. It doesn't have anything outstanding in that that isn't also captured in 591. So I would be okay closing out 371 for now um since we are not closing out 591. The other um file number 164483 was for 10 specific house lots. We already closed six of them off of this order when we issued COC's for phase one of the subdivision. So the lower loop road, the remaining four houses, which I listed here, 82, 84, 86, and 88 McGill, they're construction's done. The lots are stable. There's no outstanding items in that permit. Um I'm okay closing the books on that one as well. All that being said, I'll just reiterate we are keeping 164591 open. We're not ready to close that one

out yet. That's the one that's dealing with the CR on the open space, the wetland replication. Um, a few other items that are tied to that, but we're just trying to march towards closing the books on this subdivision. And these are the pieces I would be comfortable doing thus far. Um, and we do have Audi Ogood on the line. Um, who's with the team if you guys have any questions for him. Okay, this seems fairly straightforward. Go around to see if anyone else has any questions. Jonathan,

I don't have any questions, but I'm looking at the I guess I do have a question. I'm looking at the report and I don't see a lot of the numbers and the things that you just rattled off. So if we are doing some type of a uh motion I might need some guidance there with all that um feedback or is it in your report? Yes, it's at the top of page two. Okay. So look at the report not the

Do you find it? Yes. Sorry. I was looking down at the um at the discussion items for Highfields. That's why. Sorry. Okay. No worries. Not quite there yet. With you now. With you now. I was just jumping ahead. That's all. I'm with you now. Sorry. No question. Okay. Yeah, I got it. Um Okay. I don't have any issue, Jonathan. Any issue now that we kind of have a better definition? No. No issue. No. Any issues, questions on that? Nothing for me. like I I don't I think it's it's continuing to clean up stuff. Um so can I have a motion?

I'll move to issue the certificates of compliance for 164371 two and correct me if I'm wrong. Um Leah 216 and D164483 and 329 for high fields. You are correct. I will just specify that the ladder numbers are our wetland permit numbers. So they go with the order. So 216 goes with 164371 and 329 goes with 164483.

Yep. Okay. Um any other further discussion on that? As far as the actual motion, I would just say the remaining lots uh for 483 um lots uh for 82, 84, 86, and 88 McGill are included. Other than that, uh don't have anything else to add. Uh do I have a second? I'll second that. We have a a motion and a second. Uh roll call vote. Jonathan, yes. Noah, yes.

I am also Yes. The motion carries. And we do have one abstension. Uh Travis. Okay. Uh next up, or is there anything left, Leah? No, there is. Sorry, I just had to plug my laptop in really fast. Um

okay the last thing um for high fields going back to the order that remains open um they are proposing the idea of the commission holding a bond for verification of their replication plantings and the plantings associated with the whole realignment that they did under an RDA with us. Okay.

Um, so this is in an attempt to um if they satisfy everything and the commission's comfortable closing 164591, they would get this bond for us to hold um should you know we get to spring and be able to verify plantings out there and find something inadequate or needing to be addressed. So, kind of like an insurance policy since we can't verify the 75% success literally right now, right?

Um, so they sent an amount um a little over 13,000. Um, I did send the figure to Art to get his take. He feels it would be adequate provided the bulk of the work was done and it's only a matter of some possible replacements.

Yep. At at my last visit, the plantings were in for the wetland replication area. The seed mix itself hadn't really well established just yet. And at the time, only preliminary prep work had been done at the whole realignment. I hadn't seen the plantings in, and I haven't been back out since. So, I did want to pull um Audi over uh give him the ability to talk if he can just speak to where we stand at the whole realignment project.

Um the only other point I had to make to the commission was just, you know, should should we close 164591 and then hold this bond? It is like leverage or our insurance policy if you will, but it does then put the burden on staff to execute anything that we find. Um, I just wanted to make you guys aware of that.

Yeah. Yeah. And my question is is I know we've held bonds before um and it's it's more just like the legality of it and making sure we do it in the correct manner would be the first kind of question that I would have. Um and then you know if it's and again if it's not a tremendous amount that you have to do they'll take care of it because they would then not get their cash bond back is what I'm thinking. and it is a cash bond and not a a standit construction bond.

Um, some folks have given us the cash, others go and and get a bond that's like the, you know, paperwork version. Um, but I do So to your point of I guess I guess maybe you're interpreting it differently than I am to your point of they would take care of it because they want the bond back. Yep.

You have a good point. I was thinking of it as, you know, if we closed 591, we don't have leverage to, you know, withhold a COC anymore. and the wetland replication is on the open space. Um, so I was thinking it was putting the ball in our court, but I think you're right. It's it's a little bit of both. Um, you know, cuz they could say, "Yeah, well, why don't you guys do it and use the 13 grand for it?"

Or, "Oh, we can go out and do it for 2,000. We want our other we want the whole bond back. So it it kind of can work both ways. It really gets into what um the actual amount is. Um Okay, got it.

You know, so that's kind of what motivates and so forth. Uh um I I would think I don't know, Jonathan, if you've got a kind of a sense of is the 13,000, you know, is that reasonable? I know you probably haven't looked at anything, but this is a a wetland replication type of thing. I it's it's tough to say. We normally see bond rates for construction projects that vary between 75% and 3 and 12% depending on the bond rate of who you're bonding, right? Um it just varies on the project, the scope, and the history of the person. But if they're putting up to Leah's earlier point, if it's going to be chasing, if there's going to be a lot of additional work for staff to do all this, I I just don't know how that is going to it seems like we're doing something that could help them and then as long as they satisfy it at the end of the day, they're going to get their bond back. But is there a time limit associated with that performance in the bond or in the in this or is it it could take years you could be looking back this

that's a really good question is I would think that it would be whatever the spring season is that's when it has to be done. Yeah,

I would think so too. I'm just thinking that if it doesn't happen and then they've got a bond for 13 grand or whatever it is, whether it's a cash bond or just a a construction bond of some kind, that if it's a year from now and we're still having the same conversation cuz whatever, life happens, something changes, um then if Leah and Jan, you're still chasing this and you know, meeting on it and whatever, um it seems like we I I'm just thinking if if there is a way to stipulate that we put some type of a time restriction on it that might help get it closed out faster and encourage not only on the cost side, but again, I'm not trying to put anyone in a situation where they can't achieve it. We just want to be able to have some type of a timeline, I think.

Yeah. And and yours kind of folds into what I am is like the legality of it. And I I don't know enough about bonds to say, hey, we can put a, you know, if you don't complete this by a date, whatever, like June 1st or May 30th or whatever it is, whatever is reasonable for the spring and then we would automatically get that bond. That's that to me is the motivation to have them do it, especially if it's not a lot of work. So, it's the bond number that kind of is the incentive. So, like retainage. Yeah, retainage on project. Exactly. Yeah. Exactly. And that's Yeah.

I'm just saying it's I've never seen constru in my in my time in the industry. I've never seen it a bond used like this, but obviously this isn't a typical thing, you know. Um it it it's a bond for permitting. It's not a bond for a retainage that you would have for construction.

Yeah. I mean, that's that's a whole different contractual thing, but it's similar. It's just because of how it's um and I don't and to be honest, I just don't know. I know planning board does the bonds all the time and that's the intent is so that if someone leaves, they can finish certain components of it. This is very specific. That's the only reason that's the only reason that I would even think about this because it's a set layer, right? It's two components. It's it's the replication and the realignment and

right and like you said we like planning holds some like that but we we have as well. We hold a handful on projects now that you know should they and we always get them for worst case scenario. Should they strip the whole site and then you know not put in any storm water infrastructure. what what would we need to stabilize it so that we don't have issues is the kind we're typically holding. Correct. Yeah.

But I guess so I I did want to um hear what audience take is on the status of plantings at the whole realignment um project. But the bigger picture for this evening is I was just wanting to know if the commission was willing to entertain this process and I can work out like the draft with town council and the figure in the background which is what we usually do with those other types of bonds as well if that's something you guys are comfortable with. I just wanted to make sure you would be accepting of this process. it is the goal that if it doesn't happen and sorry I'll just I'm going to ask a question hopefully it's reasonable is um is the goal that if it doesn't happen then we would pull the bond and then use that 13,000 or whatever the total value is to actually do the work and then you you'd be managing it Leah or

correct that's the worst case yes obviously don't want to get to that position but that's obviously the the true benefit bond if we get to that point. Um, right. And it's and I guess maybe that's what you were asking first Sandy is

I mean if we get an idea of how many plantings or how much area it doesn't include any other scope as part of that just trying to get what the backup is cuz if let's say that's $35,000 worth of work, right? You know, let's say the the market rate for that work is $35,000 to do that scope. I don't know what it is, but let's say it is. then we're sitting there with 13 grand trying to finish something that we hypothetically wouldn't be able to do properly. Um, so I don't know if there's validation of that scope versus a rough estimate, some type of feedback, you know. So I know in the past like we would have especially on some sort of like erosion control construction kind of uh bond that we do we would have sometimes have our peer review take a quick look at it you know and

right and I did run this by art since it's on the wetland side of things and he said that he felt it was an adequate number provided the bulk of the work is done and we it's just a matter of some possible replacement plantings, which is why I put my notes down here about, you know, I we saw Jan and I saw the plantings for the replication area. Those were in I mean, they were only newly in, so I can't speak to survival. The seed mix um itself wasn't well established yet, but I don't know about the status of plantings at all at the whole realignment because they were only prepping that area the last time we were out.

Yep. So, um, well, once you have, uh, the representative that's on, just to kind of give a a quick give them the opportunity to, um, you know, convince us or whatever or give us additional information. So, Audi, if you can hear us, you've been promoted to be able to speak. If you unmute, we should be able to hear you. I know he is listed twice in attendees. I don't know if you want to try promoting both. He might have shared the link with somebody.

No luck. Now, we can hear you uneched many times over. All right. All right. I need to figure out how to close one of these. How about same?

How about now? Still echoing. You've got two different devices on, so you got to mute one of them. How about now? There you go.

Awesome. Apologies for that. I don't use Zoom very often. Um, a couple of things that I heard that I' I be happy to try and address here. Um, the basis for the number uh was we took the actual cost for all of the plantings for both of those projects. We had actual receipts um from the nursery for those plants and they've all been installed. Uh I have no reason to think that uh that any of them weren't. Uh and we took that amount. We based it uh we took 75% of that and then added 10% for the change in you know costs over the last couple of years to make some sort of an assumption that the prices probably were going up on those plantings. Uh, I think that, um, and I'd have to go back and talk to, uh, the client about this, but, I don't see why he would be opposed to posting a, you know, a cash deposit as opposed to some sort of actual bond for this. It seems like a small enough number that it would be an easy enough thing for for him to just manage that direction, that fashion. And I think the your point about a time frame is is excellent. and I think he would agree to have some sort of um time frame in place. We believe that that the plantings are there and that we have a 75% survival rate now. So I don't think you know the timing of when the work would need to be done. Hopefully there's no work that needs to be done. So I don't think a calendar item would be a problem at all for that.

All right. Thank you. Um, so Leah, is there I mean obviously if we could do a a a cash kind of bond, that's the easiest and probably the most motivation to do that. Um, yep, that would be fine. Okay. I guess um I kind of feel like maybe we should have a vote on this only because normally when we're going to hold a bond, it's like voted on through special conditions. Um, so just to formalize it, I guess if you guys are comfortable, I' I'd want to have a vote that you're wanting to

I I think that's Yeah, I think that's reasonable to have it in the so it's in the minutes and everything and the the the amount is in the minutes and the the general discussion is. And let me quickly ask Jonathan any reason why you wouldn't want to kind of just do a motion and and discussion and vote on it. A motion to express interest in this approach with more research to follow or a motion to accept this approach with Leah to manage and and handle it after the fact because there seems like there are some moving pieces.

Okay. So, um, Leah, what do you think you I mean, this impacts you more than anyone else. Um, do you have do, you know, as far as like you'll you'll end up on staff's kind of plate if they don't do anything, we have to do something. Um, do you have any questions around that or um,

I don't think so. Um, I'm comfortable with this. I'm comfortable that, you know, Audi's probably right. Everything's probably fine. Um maybe not literally 100% of the plants, but I would think the bulk. Um I know they made good progress on things. We just, you know, because of the weather can't check it right now. Um so, you know, it's good to talk through worst case scenario, but I think I think this would be an okay approach. That's help you, Jonathan? So, I guess I'm going where where am I going with this motion? Is this a motion?

Right. Well, I think it's just I think based on your question, it was more of a discussion on the motion and then I just wanted to make sure everyone's on the same page of what we're doing. So, what I'm hearing here is that um when we do make the motion, because I want to check in with Noah, too. If we do make the motion, then it's fairly uh straightforward that a cash motion a cash bond for the re uh potential remaining um planting for the buyer the the replication and the relocation of the hole. I think is that pretty close?

Yeah. And I would just if if you're willing I would leave it a little more vague so that the the commission is the commission's willing to accept a bond to cover uh 75% success of the plantings on the wetland replication and the whole realignment. I wouldn't put the figure in it or anything in just in case we got to do any back and forth. Yeah. Okay. That's that sounds good to me. Um how does that sound Jonathan? Sounds good to me. Okay. And Noah, do you have any questions or comments on this? No. Okay. This is a fun part because I don't do motions as chair. I get to go back to Jonathan.

Um, I can say it if you want to say so moved. It's It's 8:49. I love it. Go ahead, Leah. So, I would say you'd be making a motion that the commission will accept a bond um to ensure 75% success of the plantings in the wetland replication and whole realignment areas for the high fields subdivision. So moved. Second. Second. All right. Uh roll call vote. Jonathan, yes. Noah,

yes. I am also yes the motion carries. So thank you. Thank you Leah for kind of kind of going through that you know hopefully we don't have to dis hopefully then you know it becomes moot and and we just move on but it's just good to talk about it and just make sure we everyone's on the same page. So appreciate that. Sure. Okay. Anything anything else? Oh no problem. Um anything else Leah? That's all I have. One last motion. Motion to adjurnn. Seconded. We have a motion. A second to adjurnn. Roll call vote. Noah. Yes. Uh Jonathan, yes.

I am also Yes. The motion carries. And Travis is already home and and already in bed going to sleep because he he had to abstain abstain from this discussion. So all good. Thank you very much.