Conservation Commission - Regular Meeting

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 or 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 and computer when you are not speaking. This is done on the phone by pressing star six. As chair, I will introduce each speaker on the agenda. Please note that you will not have screen sharing privileges, but staff can display any visuals per your queue during periods of public comments. Uh uh participants must use the raise hand icon in the Zoom menu bar to indicate they would like to speak. This is done on the phone by uh pressing star 9 and then star six uh to unmute when you are called on. Participants will raise their hands will be uh recognized one at a time and will be promoted to speak. Finally, each uh vote taken will be conducted by a roll call vote. As a reminder, the commission is concerned with state and town wetlands and storm water regulations. concern outside this purview need to be addressed to appropriate boards. For ex, for example, road conditions must be addressed by uh with the select board and traffic concern must be addressed with the planning board. Do you hear some background noise on my end?

No. Okay. I have a couple cats playing feverishly at my feet and they're knocking stuff around and that's all I can hear. So, just curious if anyone else is picking it up. If not, um, we'll continue on. All right. You're good. Good. Okay. So, they're just distracting me. Okay. Um, as far as action items or any or should we start with the continuence? Um, the two things I think we can fit in ahead of the 710 would be continuing toughs and meeting minutes.

Okay. All right. Uh, requested. Okay, here we go. So, we'll read this one in. So, it's um uh 200 West Road. Uh pursuant to the Grafton Stormwater Management bylaw, the Grafton Conservation Commission will hold a public hearing via Zoom to act upon application for Grafton Stormwater bylaw permit for the demolition and construction of a building at 200 West Road. Uh, the applicant has requested a continuence to uh December 16th. Uh, do I have a motion? I'll move to continue the hearing for 200 Westboro Road to December 16th.

Second. Do I have a second? Second. Uh, motion is second. Roll call vote. Uh, Jonathan, you're on my monitor, so you get to go first. Yes. All right. Travis, yes. Amira, yes. And Noah, yes. Okay. And I am also a yes. Uh, that carries. And the hearing is continued to 12:16. Okay. All right. All right. Which is the other item? Meeting minutes.

Meeting minutes. Okay. Did everyone have a chance to review them? And so we're looking at which meeting minutes I had it. I was just looking at them. Uh go back to here. So we have meeting minutes for uh May 6, September 23rd, and November 18th. Does anyone I will just do a quick round. Does anyone have any comments or any suggestions for updating uh for any of the meeting minutes? Noah, no comments. Uh Jonathan,

no comments. Amira, no comments. And uh Travis, nothing for me. Okay. I also have nothing. So if I could have a motion. Um motion to I'll move to approve the meeting minutes for May 6, September 23rd, and November 18th, 2025. All right. Second. We have a motion, a second. Roll call vote. Travis, yes. Amira, yes. Noah, yes. Jonathan, yes.

I am also Yes. The motion carries unanimously. All right, those two items are done. Uh, Leah, anything else for two minutes? I don't think so. Okay, then I am going to take a second because I'm going to throw my cats out of my office because they are making so much noise. They're distracting me. So, I will

I will be back by 7:10. Right. Thank you. Sorry for that interruption. All right. And it's 7:09. Anything else to chat about?

Not much snow out there.

No, I I shoveled about an inch and a half of slush. So, we just have to wait till 7:10 because it's a date. It's a time certain start time for the uh next the first public hearing. And my cats are trying to break into my office. 710. Now I can get distracted with this. Okay. So uh uh pursuant to the Massachusetts Wetland Protection Act, the graft wetland protection bylaw, conserate conservation commission will hold a public hearing to act upon a request for determination of applicability for the after the fact tree removal at 81 Milbury Street and Grafton. Uh want to fill us in on this one. Leah,

are you going to the applicant first or me? Uh, why don't we go to the applicant? Okay. So, who's here to speak to that? Hello. Was Marshad, uh, owner of Milbury 81 Milbury Street. You have the floor if you want to just kind of go through what this application is is for. Sure. Um, so, um, hello all members. This is my first conservation meeting. So I apologize for any mis format or not familiar with the format of this. So um going to um is is that just the what I wrote in the application? Should I give a detailed overview or Sure. So let me just kind of

Yeah, let me go through the process for you. So it's fairly straightforward. So typically the applicant just presents and yes, it's really just a summary of what your application is for. Um it's really up to you how much detail you want to go through. I would just give an overview of of what you're doing. Once we go through once you present that um and if you have any illustrations or anything else uh you know the staff can uh display them on Zoom for you. Uh after we do that I'll go around to each of the commissioners to see if they have any questions or comments on this application. Um then we get into a discussion at um at some point once we finish that discussion [snorts] we'll open up and give the public an opportunity to ask any questions if there's anyone here or if they have any questions on this particular application. Um once we go through that process then it's like this is um just for your information. Um so this is uh an application for determination of applicability. So for your for your kind of to you understand it uh on a request for determination of applicability we'll either say it's negative or positive you actually want a negative because what a negative means means you do not have to do a notice of intent which would be the next step. So that would be saying that uh we give a negative determination that you don't have to do anything else. If we give a positive determination, then you would be coming back with a notice of intent. But we're not there yet. But just to let you know when we do kind of have a vote that you understand a negative is not a negative in this particular case. It's actually what you're looking for.

So that's kind of give you an overview of of the process. Um, for this one here, I would just say just give a a general summary of of what you're here for and then Leah will kind of give uh her kind of what her take is based on being the uh you know the agent for us. So,

no, thank you Sandra. And I think this this commission with a lot of knowledgeable people here, I'll learn a lot more. Um, so I'll give a brief overview. Uh, we moved bought this property back in 2019. Uh this was our uh um second house. First we bought in uh Manchester, New Hampshire. We moved uh from there here for kids schooling and everything plus work. I worked for in Boston. So there was a Grafton train station. Um so for 19 uh 20 21 22 23 um several years uh moving into I noticed there was a fence but when I moved into the house uh it was just fence and lot of woods in the back. Um and over the years trees were fallen in when I uh I traveled and a big tree was fallen in a driveway uh blocked the whole driveway. Family was stuck. So I had to pay a lot of money while over being uh while traveling um to have somebody come in and get my um family access like you know resume the access on a driveway. Um neighbors fences were broken were getting uh um due to storms. Big trees fallen and broke their fence and trees were hanging over their um over their uh houses um both right and left. And um so I didn't do anything because I called up tree guy and they said they're going to charge few thousand for one tree and I was like okay. Then I called insurance after like you know it happened three two or three three or four years um where I was just like these these trees were falling and things were happening uh causing um hazard uh and insurance said now you told us it's not some if if there are dead trees in front of your house or there are trees in front we it won't be covered since unless you take care of

them. Then I called somebody back in um I think at the end of 24 early 25 don't remember but I called I was like let me there's something I had no idea about like you know no knowledge much much more about conservation land or wetlands but I heard there is some sort of a wetland uh and I had to call town so I called the city uh the the the the Grafton city town number and they sent somebody up um don't remember exactly what's his name was uh in my conversation with him uh he came up with an iPad and uh with a town car and he said basically when went through and he said nope this is not none of that is any wetland that's exactly what his words were and I was like okay you are feel free to and I was like if that if that town is going to because I was not like can you guys take care of the trees because they're a hazard to my neighbors and they're like no you are going to cut it down at your own expense Um then I didn't do anything still. Um well what I did at that time I called the guy after his and then uh tried to get the court was expensive. Then I called conservation department and tried to get more guidance from them. So like you know I did reached out couple of times um and uh I think in in the conversation I mentioned that there are few trees that I want to take care of in my conversation. As I mentioned in my application, I there are few trees I want to take care of and I want to take care of uh the um uh the bittersweet wines and because of the poison IVs got struck with my kids and myself several times and got a rash and had to go to ER. Actually one time I had to go to ER because of head injury because I was working in a yard and something from the dead trees fall on my head and got

caused concussion. So I had to uh went to ER uh got uh uh operated right there um for for that concussion. Uh then I straight called so so what I learned through the process is okay um few trees I could cut down and uh if they're hazard and uh bittersweet wines all of those can be out. Um, exactly that's what happened. And then I was handed over a map and then the map had red, yellow and green areas. The green areas where I can cut down trees. Yellow the way I understood is yellow areas are the ones where I cannot cut trees but the I can cut trees but cannot cut down any stumps because it will change the lay of the land and the red areas are the ones which are uh cannot be touched. So that was the status at that time. Then I called the go got multiple courts. Uh one guy showed up and he said he'll clean up the front and then he'll clean up the trees and in those areas in those green areas and he gave me very different price than any of the previous courts I've ever gotten. Um so I took some home equity out loan out and I asked him to cut down those trees that are hazard and I marked those trees in blue. original plan was to cut down in green areas but some of the there some of the trees in the even in red zone uh which were um like you know on the red line there were four trees in the red line uh which I marked it's they were quite dead right next to the driveway and I was afraid it's going to block the highway again left the stumps out um good amount of stump and cut down those trees so pretty much those There were like not every tree I would say is was dead. Uh there were dead trees and my

definition of dead trees were there were no leaves. Even in summer hard time some pure summer time there were no leaves on them. Few people have confirmed when they came to look at those trees that they're totally totally dead. Um all the wines and everything were were eating up those and there they they informed me that it's pretty common in New England that there's bittersweet wines when they eat up those trees. It's completely get dead. Um, so, so, so with that, uh, I went ahead and took out all the the gray circles that I've, uh, dotted down. All of those grades gray, uh, dots were, uh, bittersweet wines next to the all next to throughout next to the, um, fence, those were all taken out. Um, uh, and then the blue circle trees, which were which I thought in the green areas, I did not reach out to town. It Uh uh uh. Yeah. Okay. Sounds good. I'm at the airport.

Oh, sorry. You we're getting some other Can I continue? Yes, please.

Okay. So, so the green area. So, I I during that process I did not went through after this after having this map, I did not went through a formal approval. My intent was not not to get the formal approval but my intent was the safety and uh for my house my family and my my neighbors um was not but if I would have had during that time I did not been after looking at this map I thought that this is not something I need to go through with formal approval. Uh so I went through and cut down those trees which were marked in the blue circles and I tried to did then walk through several times and tried to make sure that these blue circles are that many trees and there were that many trees uh which were cut. The orange ones were completely if you see the those ones were trimmed on top because they were few of them were fell down directly on the house and they were they're already been fell down because they're pine trees very thin. Um, those were trimmed on top. When I say trimmed, they were cut down from top. They were not like not the not the not the stems were cut down, but the tree was cut down on on top. Uh, those were uh uh marked in the orange circles. Those were um the red zone uh if you see it in the back where the water was flowing. I learned online that the wetlands um what I knew at that time that the wetland state of the lay of the land cannot be changed cannot be touched or filled with debris or filled with everything. That's what I tried to make sure that when I do these things it's not going to have it should not should not impact those things. Um but that's that's all I um knew from my reaching out and also by learning some of it from online.

Yeah. So, just just if I could ask a couple of questions. Um, so, uh, you bought the land in what what year did you say you bought it? 20 2019.

So, you bought it in 2019. And when you went through your closing, did they go through and actually show you maps and plans of everything or I'm just curious because they're supposed to, you know, your attorney should have told you that you had wetlands, you know, on your site. The, you know, so I'm just curious why you got to this point and didn't realize you had wetlands on your property. Did anyone during your closing or during that whole process of buying the lot mention to you about the wetlands?

I didn't had the attorney. The attorney was from the seller side. They came in only to sign on on on the registry office to sellers behalf. None. Not even my my realtor or anybody. It was not even closed mentioned anything about wetlands. The only thing mentioned about like this is this was there there's a fence. this is a fence and then that the fence I noticed and when I came in when I walked in the land was so big anyway I didn't care what was the fence is doing and I was like I didn't even ask many questions no so so a second question I have is as part of your original prior to you bought buying the house

uh when it was built uh signs were added along what we call the no disturb zone and those signs actually indicate that you know this is a protected area. Did you never see any of those signs?

Not even a single sign has been there. Not even a single sign is there. In these some people have came from like you know one time um uh I was I had the land surveyor in in town and they were because we were I was asking the question about hey I have a ton of land in the back of my house. Is there any way I can sell it? And at that time they mentioned about there's some this this is there is some dispenses for you know if there there is a huge price of uh if there is a way to be able to cut down the road from here but there is also a wetland there might be some wetlands we don't they weren't sure about within the map but there were some wetlands that's when I knew something about like you know if I were to put down a road from street then that we're not going to have to deal with or get the approvals. But it didn't go too far because the frontage of the house was not enough anyway to be able to draw to put that down the road. So I didn't went through the whole lot of detail. That was the only time it was mentioned that there there could there could be some uh approvals that needed if we are pl if if there is a developer who was willing to put down the road they're going to have to go through this process because on the back of the house there's a there's a sign in on my house that I'm that then I was advised by my realtor hey why do you spend money with uh any land surveyor um to create the map let the developer do it if somebody's interested in buying the land in the back of the house which is about over 2 acres and they're then then they can work directly with town and come up with their own plan and they'll let them spend the money. Um so that was the only thing. So

so so just you know as kind of a life lesson um whenever you buy a piece of property um make sure you know what you're buying and whether that has a wetlands on it, whether that has easements on it, whether that has restrictions on it. Those are all the things that in the future you need to ask because you know this this particular we can see on this map here is that you have a very constrained lot. Uh you only have 15 excuse me I let me just kind of finish.

So you have a relatively small amount of frontage of 151 ft which me which meets all of the requirements but you're not going to have enough to do uh additional subdivision and so forth. Um, but it's just a good idea to understand what's on your property. And then, you know, we as part of uh, you know, our our responsibilities as far as protecting wetlands under both the state and local bylaw is that we, you know, have people actually add signs in. So, when I asked you that, I'm curious on why something that's not why a basically a single family home that's not that old wouldn't have those signs in there. And so just, you know, for you in the future, you need to know the property you're buying and you really need to ask those questions. And it's not just wetlands. There's a lot of other things. Um, you know, again, you have a water supply protection overlay on your on your lot. You need to understand all those things because it does definitely uh give, you know, constrains what you can do on your property. So just understand that in the future, you know, you need to kind of understand what you're buying and it's pretty, you know, just just a hint in the future that's what you want to do from our perspective. You know, uh what we're you responsible for is basically making sure we implement the state wetlands protection act and its regulations that we enforce the local bylaw and its regulations um and things like that. I don't know who the town who from the town came out here. I don't know who you talked to. I don't particularly want to go back through that process of you know what you went through and the fact that you ended up taking down all these trees. I'd rather start from where we are now and then move forward um to so that we

can you know kind of resolve this issue and be able to understand just kind of the impacts to the wetlands. Uh and when we say impacts to the wetlands, it that includes vegetation and so very specifically, you know, there is um a setback of under the local byar of a 25- ft no disturb zone. So when you're thinking about expanding your yard, you're going to be constrained to do that. And anytime you know based on looking at this particular plan that we have up here now you know you look at your house your house is totally within the 100 ft buffer zone. That 100 foot buffer zone is a jurisdictional line which means when you're within that area anything you're doing within that area you should be reaching out to the conservation commission to understand what the constraints are and what the process is if you want to do something. doesn't mean you can't do anything, but there's a process that you need to go through. Uh, and that includes removing vegetation. So, anything within the 100 foot buffer, which in this case here is shown in red, you know, that's kind of the area of jurisdiction for the conservation commission. So, you know, kind of instead of rehashing or or you know, just because unfortunately, and this is non unusual is people when they buy a lot or so or so forth, they don't always understand what they're buying. So, we're not going to go back and rehash that. What we do want to do is understand what has been done to date and then also you know what's going to be done in the future so that we can properly um you know go through the process and that we you know basically um you know are responsible to making sure that impacts to the wetlands don't occur. So an impact has happened. So let's talk about that and what the the

future is and so forth. Um, I don't know how many, excuse me, I'm not done yet. I don't know how many trees were actually hazardous. I mean, it's you have a hazardous tree within a wetlands. You know, we have folks come in front of us and a lot of times, to be quite honest, the f the folks who's doing the tree removal will give the heads up to the homeowner that, hey, you have to go to conservation. That's pretty common. So, you know, typically, you know, there's a whole series of of folks that would recognize that you would should have done something from a permit standpoint. Um, so, and typically if you have a hazardous tree, in fact, you know, even staff can help you with that if if there's an imminent danger to it. So we're used to doing that and you know obviously safety is a critical component and that that certainly trumps any kind of the wetlands protection. So so those type of things. So whether something was hazardous or not unfortunately we're not going to know because a lot of the trees are no longer there. So at this point what we really want to do is start from um where we are now. And so at this point, you you'll certainly have a lot more opportunity to speak. I'm just curious from our staff who's gone out and looked at the site if Lee you can kind of report out what the observations were from our staff on what you saw out there.

Sure. So I'm actually going to um throw it over to Jan because she went out and conducted a lot of work out there. So um she can give you guys an overview of what she observed.

Great. Thank you. Just one minute. [clears throat] Um All right. So, in the front of the house, there's a pretty clear or along um starting from the back corner here and moving northeasterly, there's a pretty clearly defined stream channel. Um and in fact, it this plan doesn't really clearly depict that. Um, but there's one mainstream channel that comes this way and then there's another one that sort of run parallel um and then converges. I would say probably down here around this point. Um, I would even say that this plan here that we're looking at doesn't fully capture um the the stream channel now and the current conditions. I would say that um the stream channel is probably larger than depicted on this on this plant. Um, so I went to the site last um the 25th and the 26th of November, so last Tuesday and Wednesday. Um, and the front yard is almost completely clearcut. Um, and the backyard I counted 17 trees total that were completely topped. Um, and most of the limbs were removed on most of those trees. Um there was signs of the recent tree removal, so what we can see now. But there was also signs of previous trees

being removed. Um I counted a total of 73 stumps. Um 51 of those being freshly cut and 22 being darker. Um were probably cut a while ago, although I'm not sure how long ago. Um, of these 17 of these, uh, 73 stumps, um, 37 I estimate to be within the resource area, so within the the intermittent stream channels, um, or directly on the bank. Um, 23 I estimate to be within the 25 ft no disturb buffer zone and then additionally 13 um, within the 100 foot buffer zone. And of these 17 trim trees in the back, um, three I estimate to be within the resource area, five within the 25 ft no notice or buffer zone, and eight within the 100 foot. Um, and one potentially being outside of the 100 foot. Um, when I arrived on Tuesday, there was still equipment. There was a small skid steer parked closely um to the stream channel and you could see tire ruting that vehicles were moving in and out of um of the sites and driving [snorts] um within the 25 ft and the 100 foot buffer zone. Um, and you I saw that the split rail fence was still standing. Um, which was the no disturb barrier required when the house was built. Um, but I did not see any signage. I could see posts attached like uh the the metal post attached to the split rail fence, but there was I didn't find any signage anywhere on on prop on the property. Um, a lot of the logs have already been removed. Um, a lot of clear clearing and cleaning of the site has already been done.

Um, and there's just piles of wood chips scattered everywhere. Um, and including between the stream channel. Um, so between the stream channel and the 25 ft here, um, you could see that this is all completely cleared and there's wood chips running the entire length of the 25 ft no disturb. Um, along with tire running. So it looks like there is vehicles back there. Um, and along with that, I also saw large piles of grass clippings and leaves and debris um, piled up around this front northwesterly corner here. And that's all I have.

All right. Thank you. So, um, as far as like next steps, um, and I'll get to like opening it up to our conservation commissioners, but to go back to the homeowner, is that, you know, do you have a plan of what you want to do? Because obviously, you know, there's been a lot of impact to the wetlands, not just the the resource area, the 25 foot no disturb area, and an additional work within the 100 foot buffer zone, which is the jurisdictional area. Do you have any kind of uh proposal on what you're going to be doing to restore this area?

Yeah. Um this is what I'm learning from this commission now as well as I did some research um while I when I submitted the RDA application when I was informed I'm going to do have to do those that that's when I did the researching before that what my thing was when it when I was taking down the debt trees and all those things is to um my next step at that time was to send another RDA application in future and I've mentioned that while I was talking to um Jan and thank you for guiding me through the process um that I would like to at some point put a an RD application see if there is a way for me to be able to put a uh uh drain pipe and I'm again not very knowledgeable about uh the the the the trend the way but the way we have it in a driveway there's a this the same stream is flowing through the driveway but there was a pipe that was put a drain pipe that was installed in been to create create a driveway and my at that time my plan was to submit another RD application to put if there's a way to be able to put down a a drain pipe um through some engineer work and somebody can design it and and then cover it and then completely do it the way it's in a driveway. That was my plan. Then I learned more and more in order to about vegetation and some some of those things how to do it. I was thinking about putting down [clears throat] the maple trees and um they call it hypervaries and which are good for the wetland and I am not knowledgeable. I recently learned in last two weeks how to what to what does the vegetation mean for the wetlands and what kind of things and I was even thinking even when I was putting down the thinking about the drain pipe is to put the grass on this one but I didn't knew that the grass is not compatible

with the wetland things at that time. So I was thinking about multiple things.

Okay. So so just let's talk about that for just a moment. So, um, under the wetlands protection act and its regulations, it generally says no net loss of wetlands, right? So when this house got constructed and they put that driveway in, they were allowed to do that because it's also a right if you have a a lot for a building and if you have the you know access to it which is off the street which you need to come in through to have a house that you can do it's called limited project or whatever but you have a right to cross a wetlands but whenever you do that you have to do replication which means you have do and I'll just give you a very generic thing. If you fill 100 square ft of wetlands, you have to create 100 ft of wetlands. So that's how that particular driveway was put in. So at the time of uh the builder when they built this house, they would have come in front of us um hence this is where this plan is coming from you know and then they would have had to do replication area and so forth to make sure that they compensate it for the filling of that of the wetlands that they went through. So again the regulations say no net loss of of wetlands. So that's that's a basic that's in the in the state law. And so the whole idea of of saying, hey, you know, putting in a a a pipe where the intermittent stream is going, that's not going to be able to happen. Um because you're you're basically reducing the amount of of wetlands and so forth. And it's important to understand, you know, you what is the values of the wetlands? And if you look up in the regulations, there's a list of values and and it has to do with providing, you know, flood storage. It has to do with the habitat. It had it has to do with the soils, the the fact that wetlands clean uh water and runoff.

There's like a whole series of how important wetlands are to basically, you know, all of the of of bas of all of the different things, whether it's rainfall, flooding, whether it's uh actually it's a great filter that cleans the runoff. It does all of these things, not to mention all the habitat and everything else that you provide. And the key things of a wetland is having um hydrarology which is typically in this case you have an intermittent stream but you probably also have groundwater within you know 12 in of the surface. Um you know that's one thing. The other thing is the type of soil. It's called hydric soil. So it's a very specific type of soil. And then the you know the third thing is the vegetation which provides a tremendous amount of of benefits to whether it's wildlife to you know just very simply helping to clean the the air and so forth. So wetlands have a set of values that the state has recognized and that's why you cannot remove the wetlands. Um, and it and there's a purpose to them and there's a reason why they're protected and you can certainly find out a lot more about this. I'm just kind of giving you the overview of it. And so because of those values, um, there are standards and the standard is is that we're not supposed to have any net loss of any kind of wetlands. Now that wetlands being lost is by cutting the tree canopy, by removing trees, you're altering and you could be reducing actually the area of wetlands. So that's a direct impact that's not allowed. Now that's not to say that um if you had again a hazardous tree that you wouldn't be able to remove that, but you need to go through a process. Um, so it it it is just, you know, it's it's if this is the first time of seeing any of kind of these

regulations, yes, there's a lot of them, but it it's, you know, it's pretty widespread. And if you've had the opportunity to buy houses before, you know, it's one of those things that you run into. [snorts] I do not have any wetlands on my house, but my neighbor next to me has a pond behind me that's all wetlands. That 100 foot buffer comes onto my yard. So when I did work, you know, on my yard, I had to make sure that I was a far enough away from the wetlands that I didn't fall into the jurisdiction. So, you know, it doesn't matter who you are. If there's wetlands there and you're within that jurisdictional area, you need to go through the permitting process. So at this point, so that didn't happen, you know, and the fact that you went ahead not knowing what was going on and what the, you know, kind of the value of the wetlands were or what the regulations were, now you've done an impact to it. So you now you're back in front of us and obviously uh you probably Leah and Jan probably explained to you is that if you didn't do an RDA then um you we would have done an enforcement order. So would much rather work with you to kind of clean this up as opposed to doing an enforcement order. Um so that's kind of where we're here now. So at this point kind of that gives a background and I understand that you're not you know familiar with these regulations. This does happen. So trying to kind of fill you in on on those regulations and what our responsibilities are. So, um, at this point, I would like to go through, uh, the the commissioners and see if they have any other questions and then we can get into kind of next steps and in what the next process is going to look like. Um, but let me just first touch base with all the commissioners to see if they have any uh any particular comments or questions on. So, Jonathan, you happen to be up on my screen. Uh any

other questions or any other kind of comments to uh lend to this uh hearing?

Sure. Um this seems like it's got a lot of timeline to it. So I think the timeline is important to understand with the intent and the conversations going back and forth. So it sounds like there was some authorization or some feedback given about a few hazard trees. Um, and then we're now in December and it sounds like, you know, sometime midfall, October, you reached out to Conscom again and they had notified you that you were beyond, right? I I don't understand the true conversation there, but to the applicant, what what has happened on the site from October when you had a conversation with conservation and now December? Has that

been when all of this tree, if there's equipment out there, you know, have you been cutting trees in the last few weeks, month?

No. Sure. The the equipment was out there because um uh not to cut the tree. the equipment, the skid steer was out there and again me without knowing that this skid steer cannot walk here because that was the person who was taking up the wood and I mentioned in my application that I put the wood out for people for take for free and people were coming in to cut the wood on their own and take it for their house and whatever they were doing with it. Um, so that was one of the person who was taking the wood and he brought the skid steer with him to be able to move the logs into his truck because he said he's going to take all of it and uh so he he came in with his skid steer. I wasn't aware that skid steer cannot be is not allowed and this is the first time I was made aware that all of that is a wetland. I was never aware that all I thought that this is the stream um is uh come in the dead. So if I would have knew all of that is a wet landline I would not even have allowed that skid steer to be in there. So he was not cutting the trees he was taking the wood.

That's okay. So when when were the trees actually cut? So the last work done.

Sure. The last time the trees were cut back in before October when I called because I wasn't sure about the red zone here and which are circled in the orange and I called and I was told no the trees cannot be cut but there was like they at that time they were already cutting so I told them not to cut any trees let's top off the trees I have was not aware that it will make the trees dead because there were two few reasons number one hazard number two I recently installed solar and it was going through the panel and the solar company said it's not going to be able to generate unless because the trees are blocking the sun. So they at that time when when I called town as well the the guys were already I told them not to cut the trees but just to top off the trees so it will uh unblock the sun for the solar. So that was the last thing that was done. Uh the orange circle trees which were back in the house those were the ones being cut on in October.

Okay. and from October December it was removal. It's like you know people taking up the logs.

Okay, appreciate that clarification. Um I I'm still in all the collaboration I in in my opinion it it's it's a little bit of a stretch to get from multiple conversations with multiple folks to where we are currently right now. Um, I I understand that you don't understand some of these rules and regulations, but it sounds like you've had guidance along the way from the commission to actually stop or or pause or, you know, given some guidance of remove a couple of trees, but it seems like it's spiraled. So

I thought the guidance was that I'm I can as I mentioned in my application the guidance was in the green areas I can cut the trees and most of the trees were cut in the green area. This is how I interpreted and this is how it was delivered to me. Um the green areas are the ones where I can cut the trees. The yellow areas are the ones where I can cut the trees but I cannot take out the stumps. And the red area is the ones which is no red which is no touch zone. So that's why in the back of the house I that's the reason I called again because I knew the guidance I was working with I was I I I had given the the orange circles the the ones I cannot touch those trees so I topped off on top uh and uh you know my this is when I the tree cutting guy I told him this is not something then he said you can cut off the trees on the top it should be okay I didn't knew that these trees will completely be dead and impact the land So during that so if if you're asking me the question about the conversations the I thought I was working as per the guidance as per this map yellow green and red as I mentioned in the application

okay guidance was clear that I can cut the trees in the green area I can cut the trees in yellow but cannot take out the stumps in red area do not touch it that And that was guidance given to you by the conservation commission agent or our staff. So, can I cut in here for a second? Sure, Leah.

So, the only authorization I gave back in July was the ability to cut a couple of hazardous trees were near the road where my first green dot is. and he mentioned some where my other green dot is in the lower left lower right of this picture. A couple hazardous trees that were posing an immediate threat I said could be taken down. I walked him through the different zones for the other colors and explained what kinds of tree removal or not can occur in those areas, but I did not tell him to go ahead and do it. I only said he could take down a few that were posing an immediate threat. out by the road and way behind the house is what we talked about. And I put the green dots on the plan and emailed it to him when we were on the phone to make sure we were talking about the same spots.

I appreciate that clarity. That was my understanding as well based on all the stuff that I've seen here on our on our data. So, I don't have any additional comments or questions, Sandy. All right. Thanks. Uh, I'll keep going. Um, Travis, any questions or comments?

Uh, a couple quick comments. So, the I did find the original wetland permit in order of conditions. It's on the Worcester County Registry of Deeds, so at least it was publicly available. It's really disappointing if it wasn't provided when the applicant purchased the property. Um, the aerial photos definitely show those large dead trees highlighted in green. You can see them. probably an old oak or ash that died. Everything else to me in the aerials looks like the trees were alive. Uh Google Street View confirms that most of the trees were alive, too. It's not like it was just full of bittersweet. Um kind of a question for Leah or the other commissioners. I'm concerned based on what I'm what I read in the application and the conversation. It is it clear that no more impacts can occur? I want to make sure that there's not continued impacts. And does the RDA prevent further impacts? Does that make sense, Sandy? Leah?

Yeah. So, so yeah, because I mean, uh I mean going through the RDA, I totally get what you're asking, Travis, is the fact that, you know, uh we're in a design, we're in, excuse me, a permitting process now, which is the request for determination of applicability. So, you shouldn't be doing any work through that process. The alternative was to do an enforcement order, which would have been simply no, you can't do anything else, including you can't clean anything up until we know what's going on here because just trying to clean up the chips would potentially do more damage to the the wetlands, the soils, the other things, you know. So, um, the removal of the canopies already done damage. So, that's that's that process. So, I think as long as we're underneath or or we're in a permitting process that it's safe to say that no other work should be done until we get through that process

because it also sounds like there's land for sale behind the property. There was mention of accessing it, talk with the realer. I just want to make sure that there's not some larger development planned. Um, I just want to get that on the record that we can't have more impacts. Leave everything there until we work through the permitting process. I totally agree and I think uh saying that is important you know for the for the homeowner to understand that we're in a permitting process. Nothing else can be done during this process until you know we make a determination whether this is negative or positive and then if there is a notice of intent required and there is a restoration plan required you can't really do anything to you go through that full uh you know process of permitting that.

Okay. as long as that's on the record and clear. Um I'll certainly have um opinions, comments, questions about the eventual restoration plan, but I don't think we're there yet. So, no, I I I agree with you. Yes. Yeah. Well, that's it for me at this point.

Okay. Thank you. Do you have any uh questions or comments or anything else to add? Um, I think maybe the only other comment is I I want to just make sure, you know, going off of what what Travis said that we're um pretty clear about exactly what isn't allowed anymore. Um, you know, like for instance, I think the applicant mentioned some folks were coming to collect some of the wood and cut it up um to take away. And so I I think maybe it would just be helpful if we're kind of like address specifically some of the things that have been happening that aren't allowed anymore just cuz I I don't want there to be any further miscommunications. Um but that's really the only comment I have.

Okay. I appreciate that. Noah, do you have anything else? Any questions or comments to add? No, I just want to echo what's been said by the rest of the commissioners that I think we need to uh the damage has been done. I think we need to look at what we can do to sort of remedy that.

All right. Thank you. Um, so going back to the homeowner, um, kind of, you know, I think you're probably hearing more and more of what the commission's saying, what our concern is. Um, to to kind of be honest, you know, it's not unusual for someone to go in and cut a couple trees or whatever. I'm disappointed in the real estate agent. I'm disappointed in the the company that's doing the doing the tree cutting. um those are usually folks who know what wetlands are and usually are good good source for people to get information. So, it's disappointing that there are, you know, real estate agents or, you know, folks doing the tree cutting um that didn't have any awareness of where this was and and what was being done because usually folks end up coming to us because they went and hired someone um you know to cut trees and they say, "Oh, no, you can't do that." So, that's disappointing. That has nothing to do you know with you. That's more just in general. There's usually a few kind of points during a process like this that someone is becomes aware that you know that um you need to go in front of the conservation commission. So that's a little disappointing. That's not on you, but that's just general kind of my take on this. And um you know and again I think uh to what was saying is we want to make sure that we're very clear in our communication so this doesn't get any worse and that we set up a path to how are we going to restore this and and to tell you the truth we're not going to allow any kind of reduction of wetlands here which means you're going to have to restore that to you know a condition where uh there's a functioning wetlands you know that you know that when you bought this piece of land that wetlands was part of it and because of state law

and because of local bylaw that you just can't get rid of because you own that piece of land that is protected under both local state and federal law. So just an FYI on that. So um so kind of the next steps we're going to get it kind of into conversation about next steps and where we're going to go from here. Before I I get to that, I do want to just open up Jan, open up to the public if anyone is online that has any comments or questions about this particular site, you know, please raise your hand. Um, obviously happy to answer any questions. Um, this is part of the process of an open uh open meeting and, you know, basically uh giving people the opportunity um to have any comments on this public hearing. So Jan will keep an eye to see if anyone is, you know, wants to have a comment on this. So So I'll go back to the to the applicant. Do you have any specific questions at this point based on all the comments from the different commissioners? No, Sandra, thank you to you and thank you the commission um for the clarity and I think that I'm learning a lot from you guys and willing to work with me on this one. Um this is this is I I understand now this is this is this is the beta are critical piece. Look this is um I have a my background is finance. I'm not Bland or any any of these guy even though I I I when I learned about this recently I um recently changed my job last year and started working for state housing department and um and it turned out I then I met because there there's a department who works design and construction people work in housing department with conservation I reached

out to many people to gain as much as knowledge in last few weeks as I could. Um I'm the person who's worked on the numbers and behind numbers guy, not like um uh in in in in in those property zoning laws or these things are new to me when I bought the house. Uh a friend of mine mentioned to me, hey, did you get the land, sir? Do you exactly know where your property corners are? And my response to him was like, I have enough land here, backyard and driveway. I don't know if I need at some point and he told me to it'll be good idea for you to get to know what your land is uh what your land corners are. So you exactly know because like you know as um uh Jen mentioned Jan mentioned that on the corner there are debris. I've never stopped my neighbor to put down all of their uh grass and leaves and everything on the corner of my house. I've never because it was all not clean anyway on that corner and it let them do it. It's like that that's fine. I didn't knew about these things and I'm learning the more I've learned in last few weeks. I've never learned before. Um and I'm willing to work with all of you here and take seek guidance from the commission. What how do we address this properly on next steps?

Okay. I appreciate that. And um and yeah, so and and again we want to make sure we're communicating with you and and staff is you know staff is there to help you, right? they're there to to to give you that and and uh you know please if this is new to you you know you all have we all have to go through a learning curve to understand what we're doing and if you've never been and kind of uh doing like land development on this end of things it's it is a lot of information but you know we're happy to help and and provide that so kind of next steps you know from my perspective and again I'll go around to all the commissioners to kind of make sure that you know they have their say in it and so forth. Is that um you know what we want to start talking about is um you know assessing what these impacts are to the wetlands and figuring out a way to be able to restore those wetlands so that they function and they have all of the functions that are identified in the wetlands protection act. Um, and so that we restore the vegetation, we restore the kind of the the canopy and so forth. Now, as far as, you know, the fact that you have, you know, soil in your house, I do, too. I have trees on my neighbor's yard that impacts my uh efficiency of my solar. I can't cut them down because I one, I don't own them, but two, they're also within 100 foot of a of a wetlands. So those are kind of constraints and and and again you have to work with those companies to understand that and and so I understand those things. You can't just randomly cut down things. Um you know you thought this was that it was your property and there was no issue with that. In this particular case there is the wetlands there. So it's not it's not straightforward. There are different regulations that do um

you know uh somehow it can also pro prohibit but also it gives you you can also come in and get permission to cut certain trees down or trim trees but again it's one of those things you have to go through the process. So, um, Leah, I know that you have kind of thought about this and as far as kind of giving some of the next steps to kind of, you know, kind of set up so that we can go to the next steps and figure out how we're going to kind of um resolve this issue and and get a wetlands back on this site.

Sure. Um, so sort of as an aside, we do have to figure out what to do with uh the waiver requested to be in the no disturb. Um, it's kind of an awkward thing to have to vote on after the fact. Um, I'm thinking it's probably best to deny that waiver because this is not disturbance we would have approved. Um, but that that's an aside. Um it's my understanding that we can't authorize um impacts or restoration to resource areas under a determination of applicability. If you're having impacts, it needs to be through a notice of intent which then receives an order of conditions. Um so along that note, we we would be issuing a positive determination if you guys are in agreement with that. Um longer term I think we need to get a handle on the impacts to the resource areas, size of those impacts, uh size of impacts to the no disturb zone. This plan is from 2015, so it's very outdated. Um so we need a new plan showing us where the boundaries are. Um then we need a a proposal to remediate all of those impacts. Um, as you touched on already, vegetation, um, you know, we're not letting any more cleanup of the site take place now, but it's also worth noting that longterm we want some of that, you know, stumps, logs, limbs to be left there for some understory. Um in addition to whatever plantings get put in place, uh we also need restoration of the no disturb and then of the protection of the no disturb. So the fence that has panels missing, the panels need to be put back. It needs to be a complete fence. It needs to have

the signage on it that belonged on it in the first place. Um, and that no disturb line might not even fall where it falls on this plan now. Uh, because again, this is from 2015, so things could have changed on that site. Um, so my my overall recommendation would be to issue a a positive determination uh requiring an NOI and I would set deadlines on that. Um, I would require that to be filed by uh we went ahead a few meetings uh deadlines and picked it would be by January 13 in order to be on the February 3rd meeting. We thought was a reasonable time frame if you guys need us to look at others. We can pick others, but I think we should have dates in place so that we know if action is not taken by those dates. We'll have to do an enforcement order to get the ball rolling on this so this can be restored. Okay, that seems uh reasonable. Let me go around to see if this if any of the uh commissioners have any other kind of other suggestions when it comes to kind of next steps. Uh so let's see here. So airra you are up on my screen so you get to go first.

Hi. Um so question just because I I am just want to make sure I understand. Um for the NOI does that I guess as part of that do we also or does the um the staff also like provide the the applicant with you know like guidance on consulting like a wetland scientist and things like that? Yeah. So, so the applicant will be responsible for hiring, you know, people who are qualified to do this. Obviously, uh our staff is is available to answer questions or give guidance, but we don't want to uh we we are not it is not appropriate for us to like come up with a restoration plan. we're here to help and to assist the applicant, but you know, but you know, they need to to have someone that understands what what a you know, [snorts] what a plan is needed to do the restoration. And so, but yeah, so and you know, there's lots of folks qualified to do that. Um, and we can certainly help by giving them s, you know, saying this is the type of person you want. We don't want to. We just there's a line there. So, we're here to help, but we can't do the actual work,

right? So, it so it sounds like we we probably recommend working with a wetland scientist and we can help like, you know, if they need if if the applicant needs a recommendation for somebody we know, but we can't Right. Yeah. We can give multiple people. We can't suggest one person. I mean, we have right we have to follow all the ethics and and make sure that we're fair and all that stuff, but so yeah. So, but there are a lot of qualified folks around to do that. So, but and we're happy to help in that process. We just can't do the work because it's it's a conflict. So, yeah, that sounds good. Yeah, I just wanted to to make sure that um Anyway, thank you. That sounds good.

No, no, those are good questions. It also helps the, you know, the homeowner to understand this effort and so forth. um and that they will have to have someone come in to help them. It's not I mean um you know wetland uh vegetation of a certain specific requirement and there's different uh wetland species that belong in different areas whether it's in you know standing water is in a very wet area or in a transition area you have all different plants that are appropriate for those locations. Obviously all of them need to be native. um to this area. So there's those requirements those are all that information is is really readily available and and there's a lot of access to that. So but it's a good kind of uh question to ask. So so I'll keep going. Uh Travis, anything kind of other things to add or or questions and so forth? [snorts]

You're on mute. Try that again. So for the motion we're going to make, we're not issuing any conditions because it's just an RDA. Correct. Aside from the time frames that Leah mentioned, correct? So, so yeah. So by giving, you know, if we have a vote and it's a and it is a positive determination, that means there's the next step which is to do the notice of intent. And then and to what Leah was saying and I agree with her is that we can't, you know, to kind of have this process, we can't do it under an RDA. It has to be under a notice of intent. Okay, I'm good. Okay. Uh Jonathan,

I don't have any further questions or comments. Okay. Uh Noah, no questions. Yeah, I really don't have any more questions. I just want to make sure uh the homeowner really understands what we're talking about. So, let me go back to the homeowner and if you have any questions, we're happy to try to explain what these next steps are and what we'll be looking for just so that you understand, you know, what we're trying to do to to kind of move this along.

Okay. Um a couple questions. Um what is the notice of intent? What does it mean? Number two is um the wetland scientist. I have no idea about the um uh wetland scientist is that just before I say like you know commit to it and a couple of things I will I want to work with you guys but it's is it like um I'm the one who's earning in the house. So is it like 30 $40,000 thing or is that a couple grand thing? I don't know what that is before I say. So

I just a reasonable question. And then the third thing is about the 13th date. I'm traveling tomorrow. I'm returning on the 15th of December. Um from that time to I'm not going to have like I'm traveling overseas. So I'll be back by 15th and right after 15th given the holidays and everything I'll reach out to people and I'll start while while I'm out I'll start reaching out to people on via email to see who is scheduled. But it all these things are going through my mind to be honest.

Yeah. No, no, that's why that's why I'm trying to get it so that you understand the process. So, so when you look at permitting um through the wetlands protection act, which also our local bylaw follows that is that um you know, so there's uh several different applications. um one is the one that you're doing request for determination of applicability which basically says as I explained before negative means you don't do anything else that whatever you're going to do underneath the RDA can do it in this case here bas you know and I agree with Leah that to kind of do a restoration we can't do that under an RDA which is has a fairly um kind of limited amount of of scope that you can do under so that's that's one there's another one called an ANRAD, an abbreviated notice for resource area delineation that is just there to delineate a wetlands. So it's a it tells you where the wetlands um resources are. There's a very specific way you delineate a wetlands. That's another one that's underneath uh the wetlands protection act. The next one which is the most common is called the notice of intent. A notice of intent can be done for a lot of different things. A lot of times uh I'll give you an example. When your house was built, they would have had to submit a notice of intent to do work where you working because you put a driveway across the wetlands. So, you would have to do a notice of intent to show that you're filling some of the wetlands, that you're doing replication, that you're proposing a house because it's all within the 100 ft buffer zone. And again, that 100 foot buffer zone is a jurisdictional area. So that's what throws you into the, you know, wetlands protection act and and its requirements and its actual different um uh permit applications. So notice of intent is the most common one and that notice of intent will allow you to be able to

submit information on how you're going to restore the wetlands. And so that's a process that comes through. It's another public hearing process where you submit it uh a little bit similar to the RDA but you submit it you submit with what you're doing for in this case would be the restoration and so you would have information so that we could review it and then we'll have to discuss if we you know um as an example I happen to be a civil engineer I am not a wetland scientist I may have worked in the area so I'm pretty well-versed in it but I'm not a wetland scientist wetland scientist is someone who that's what they do. They they look at wetlands, they do delineations, they do restoration plans. So, it's a it's a professional service, but it's it's a it's their specialty is wetlands. And there's a lot of folks with like different backgrounds, you know, in biology and and botany and and wetland science that are that would be considered a wetland scientist. And there's a lot of folks around uh that do this work. not going to get into any of the um kind of costs and so forth. I mean that's you know you know we don't mind we have to give multiple people like we have a lot of different wetland scientists who come in front of us and we're not saying one is better than the other as a public entity we can't do that but you know we can assist with saying you know here's the local wetland scientist you can reach out to them type of stuff um then you can have that conversation obviously staff is available to kind of give you you know what exactly they do and so forth. and their backgrounds and so forth, but we can't do that work, you know. So, unfortunately, I can't tell you how much that's going to be. Um, again, you got to reach out to them and talk to them and and see what that's going to be. And and to be honest, going

to two or three of them is probably the right thing to do. um depending upon the size of the company and who's doing it, but there's a lot of qualified people that do this work. So, it's not hard to find. So, that's kind of the big picture. And so, so for the next steps would be we would give a positive determination which is the only kind of um uh the only kind of um uh request that we will have is the timing of it. So the only kind of condition is is that we want to keep this going cuz if it doesn't like if if you say whatever that you know if we're saying hey we want to see a January 13th submission and for whatever reason you can't do that then we can have that discussion but if it goes a couple months we'll do an enforcement order and enforcement order is our way to make sure it gets done. um we want to continue to work with you and and keep it going in that direction. But you know those are you know we have [snorts] now that we are aware of this we have a responsibility to do this. When you do a notice of intent you'll submit that notice of intent to us. It also goes to the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection Mass D. That's the state. So what typically happens with that is they will issue what's called the D number. that's how they get involved. They will take a look at um the submission and they may have comments uh and so when the state looks at it, I don't know what they would have comments on, they would, you know, say something back to us and we get a letter, you get a letter that says their comments. So that goes through, you know, the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection and they're the ones who basically um they do all the wetlands regulations. So we as a conservation commissions apply the state

regulations on a town by town, city-byc city basis. They have oversight over the all of the wetlands throughout the whole commonwealth. And so they will look at any any notice of intent that comes through. it goes to the you you'll have to send a copy of that to the central mass uh you know uh DP which is in Worcester and you would send them a copy of it or two copies and then you know all those regulations and if you have a wetland scientist they will be able to tell you all of these things and then they would have a review and then they would you know sometimes there's no comments other times they have comments I can't tell you on that and then they will issue um a D number. Now, once you kind of go through that process, it doesn't stop there. So, you go through, we have another public hearing, and these are all public hearings. It's open to the public. Um it's the same type of public hearing meeting where we follow certain kind of guidelines um on how to hold a public meeting and giving people an opportunity to talk, giving the public an opportunity to talk, which I still need to ask Jan if anyone raised their hands, but um and then then we would issue what is then called an order of conditions. The order of conditions sets forth what the actual order is. And so when you submit a notice of intent, you know, you'll need to have some sort of restoration plan. And so we'll review that at the public hearing. And then we would issue any kind of um conditions. In this case here, typically there are standard conditions that the state has, i.e. when you do plantings and so forth, you have to go through two growing seasons. And there's some specifics just to make sure whatever you plant that it actually stays that way. we may have some other you know conditions that we put on this and again we're not there

yet so I don't even know what those will be and then once you um so once you um submit that we approve it and then the next thing is we issue the order of conditions then you get to carry out those order of conditions once it's completed once you've completed what the requirements are and then the next step would do what's called a certificate of compliance. So, you submit so that you close out your permit so that if you don't close out um all of these the the order of condition goes on your deed, it's registered at the registry of deeds. So, if you go to sell your house, there'll be that against it. So, it's tracked through um you know through the state to make sure that it gets followed up on. But once you you finish the work that you're going to do, you do what's called a certificate of compliance. You submit that and then we would that's what kind of ends the permitting and clears anything on your title. So whenever you do permitting, it gets put against your title of your of your property and your house. And the whole idea is at the end you're clear and yeah someone may know like you know Travis indicated that he found the original notice of intent on the uh on the um you know registry of deeds which is where all the land information is and so and then there's that process and then once that happens then that's it. I mean we're done you don't have to come back to us and those type of things. It just that certificate of compliance is basically saying yes, you've done it everything and your permit's done and you don't have to do anything else.

And that you said it's going to be two growing seasons that's going to be needed, right? So that Yeah. And that's just for veget when you do when you do plantings and two growing seasons. You have two growing seasons in a year. So you just want to make sure that if you plant trees, they don't die. You know, that's really what that's about. is really just doing that and that's all spelled out um uh for that process. Yeah. And if and if you had a wetland scientist, they would be able to explain all these things for you. Okay. Yeah.

Okay. And the um the timing thing uh because I'm coming back on 15th and I'll I need recommendations for wetland scientist who two or three. I'll reach out in the email. Well hopefully they'll be able to come and do the visit in my absence and but I don't cannot control the holidays who's going to be out and when they can do it and when they can issue the report with 13th. I don't know if you guys are saying 13th is not that tight I'm fine with it. Yeah. So, so I think what we would like to do is to keep the submission at the 13th

and then if for some reason based on who you hire or whatever the timing of it changes, we want to make sure that there's progress being done. So, you can always reach out to staff to say, "Hey, this is what we're doing." And I talked to and you can even have the wetland scientist call saying, "Listen, we're working on this. We can't get in on the 13th. We can do it." you know, we'll we can take that up and we're not looking to but we we want to make sure it doesn't get lost that we continue and there's a you know, kind of a process there and we want to make sure there's progress going on through that. So,

so I get the link for the application of NOI that I can submit and that can I submit that? Do I need to do something in in from now until like within next two days? Do I need to submit the NOI?

No, no. I mean, I I think you the the key thing that you want to do is try to find a professional wetland scientist to help you. I mean, typically, they'll complete the the notice of intent for you. And so, it's just, you know, again, you you need to talk to, you know, you'll be hiring that person. You need to talk to them about what what they do, what you do, and so forth. The thing is is they do them all the time. They know exactly what they're doing. But again, you know, that's a recommendation by us that you seek someone who has, you know, knowledge of that and that process. And so,

okay. All right. Just to be very, just to be um very upfront and uh transparent here, um I'll definitely reach out. I'll go through the I'll check with the piece. I have no idea about I know about land architects and land surveyores when they go through the mapping. It's it's a huge cost. That's the only thing I know um because I was consulted. But but I have no but if that's something and I'll do stretch myself out to do to to be able to cover that cost and but if something that's totally out of my budget and bounds and I'll report that back to you guys to work with you guys like well what do what how do I do this then just cannot afford right and again that's a whole another discussion separately

I don't want to go there but yeah so so you mentioned before that you're working for someone that does housing and stuff, right? Correct. And I can reach out to them as well. They can do it probably like that's what I was my next question was if what if they somebody do it like somebody somebody like them I reach out and they do it and they consult me and I write all the plan as they are guiding me through. Uh we don't we don't govern that. what we govern is when we get the notice of intent, we'll review it and so forth to make sure that it's meeting um the requirements of the of the regulations.

So, you know, so I, you know, I don't want to get into that part of it and you know, you may find someone who say, "Hey, go to so and so." That's up to you. And if you have folks that you know that are in that business or into development, they will know plenty of wetland scientists. It's time any guidance up front so I can keep this in mind like what are different areas in vegetation is it replanting the trees does it need uh moving because no work is being it's it's totally being untouched now right

right so it's nothing is going to be done and I want to make sure like this it's cannot move the logs cannot do anything cannot touch anything so so what I one of the areas I hear is about the vegetation when I'll be meeting with consultants I'll be talking to them what sort of restoration plan, what sort of vegetation do I need need in order to res restore it? And I think their next question is going to be if I consult somebody at work, the next question is going to be how many trees were cut or how many trees are impacted. Is there some sort of a multiplier with like let's say as Jen mentioned there's certain number of trees cover curt near the trench and how many vegetation per tree some is that some do you know what I'm saying is it something I can I'm preparing myself for their questions in my

yeah so again um that's where a wetland scientist will come into because they'll do because you have you know your herbaceous level you have your shrub level and then you have your your trees. So, you have your canopy. So, there's there's different things and there's very a a variety of ways to do those plantings. And so, um you know, yeah, you'll clean up what's been there. You don't want wood chips down on the ground, but those they will tell you. And then as far as that goes, we're not going to at this point specify what you need to do. Um because there's a very big difference. Say you cut five trees down and they all were 3 in big. You know, that's a certain growth. If you cut five trees down, they're all 24 in, that's a very different canopy.

So, someone, you know, wetland scientists, someone uh that has that background, um you know, they'll understand you, we're not looking for you to restore a 24-in tree. You know, that's just not going to happen. What we're looking for is the protection of that wetlands over time and that that that the restoration doesn't have to happen on day two. It happens over years and that you know that and again I'll leave it up to the person that you consult with or whoever to give us a better idea of what that is. You know Go ahead. Sorry.

Yeah. We're not going to we're not going to direct you on what you're doing, but we'll review it and most wetland scientists will have a very good idea of what we we're looking for. And the do I do I need the copy of the findings from from from the team? Uh because the site visit that was happened. Do are they is the wetland scientist are they looking for copy of the findings? Um,

all of that information is available on the website and we're more than happy to give that to you, you know, because so we, you know, as far as sharing that was what Jan's reported out. We're more than happy. That's all public record. We're more than happy to handle that. It's a very good question. That would be something to give to a consultant to give them an idea of what's going on. So, yes. Yeah, if I can get a copy of that, too. So just just you know if I show somebody at in the office they some they're going to need something like you know what am I looking at? So, right. And I think that's that's absolutely um absolutely we'd be happy to do that. We're the town. It's all public information. And so, you know,

I don't know where to go and look for it in the on the website, but I will ask Jen to Yeah. I I would say I'd say to to Leah or Jan, they could probably send you a link or something and and you'd be able to access it and so forth.

Okay. I'm sure I'm going to have more questions, but I'll ask them via email and reach out to them about like, you know, when to submit and um uh I'll I'll reach out to I'll I'll do everything I can in in in the meantime while I'm out. But once I come back, then I can actively reach out to people and have them come and visit and do this thing actively and if there is any delay on 13, I hope not because you guys are much more expert and experienced in this area I mentioned to you. And if 13 sounds reasonable, then it, you know, if if if if the land surveyor, sorry, the um scientist came over to property, I don't know how long it takes for them to be able to go back and design the plan. So that's something we we what we're looking for is to have progress and to understand that it's going on and so forth. And

I'll keep you guys informed. Unfortunately, we've had bad experiences in the past. So again, it's I'm not expecting that here. It's just that, you know, this is not a usual thing that happens that someone goes in and clearcuts a wetlands. That's not common for us to have in front of us. So, you know, so we're, you know, definitely want to make sure that we that we um are, you know, that this is our responsibility and we need to be diligent on our side to do that. But we would prefer to work with you than do an enforcement order. So, Okay. Okay. All right. Having said that, I'll ask Jan now. Does anyone um in the public uh have any questions?

Nothing from the public. All right. Thank you very much. All right, Leah. I think we're ready to kind of uh do a vote because I think we know our next steps is to do a notice of intent, do a positive determination. Have I missed anything? We got to do a vote on that waiver request. We do that separately. The waiver request. Yeah.

Okay. Thank you. Um and and so the next thing we'll do is is we have under our local bylaw is that you're not supposed to work within 25 ft. We have a 25- ft node disturbance. And what we're going to vote on now is is uh on the waiver to allow that. We're at this point going to deny that so that when it goes to the notice of intent, then we'll have another one and it'll be different because we'll have the restoration plan when we do that. So, I just wanted to let you know that we're going to do that. This is more this is in our bylaw. It's kind of procedurally we need to do this to make sure we have a complete record. So, again, where you saw on the plan there where you have that 25 foot, that's a no disturb. And then because this is kind of it was done and this is uh you know this RDA is happening afterwards, we just want to keep it um keep the record clean and we're going to have a vote on that um waiver request for work within the no disturbance um most likely will be a negative uh will be a no on that. But again, once you do the notice of intent, we'll come back and revisit that and then because then we're going to be in the whole process of doing restoration, not just where we're at now. So, having said that, do you have any questions on what I just said? It's a little confusing. It's it's procedure.

Honestly, did not understood the last part, but that's okay. I'll trust you guys. You guys are doing it because this is something I don't understand, right? No. And I get it. No, I I'm not I'm not touching or going there. The correct. That is the key part of it. You got that part correct. Yeah. Okay. Uh thanks Leah for that. So I would ask for a motion um on uh the uh waiver for working within the 25 ft notice zone. I'll move to deny the request to wave impacts to the notice buffer for 81 Milbury Street.

Second. We have a motion, a second. We'll do a roll call vote. Uh Jonathan, you're up. So, if I say yes, that's the affirmative to deny it. Correct. Based on the Yes, that is a very good clarification based on Travis's motion. Yes. Um Travis, [sighs] yes. Amira, yes. Uh Noah,

yes. I am also a yes based on the motion. That's uh a negative on uh allowing uh a waiver for the 25 foot notice. All right, Leah. So, that takes care of that one. So, the next vote um is to vote that um we will be issuing um a positive determination, which I had said at the very beginning, positive determination means we go to the next step, which is a notice of intent. So, that hasn't changed. So, do I have a motion on that? I'll move to close the hearing and issue positive determination requiring the NOI be filled by January 13th for the February 3rd meeting.

Otherwise, an enforcement order will be issued. Um, yeah, say it like that. We can always revisit it ahead of time if you know, just as as needed. Yep. Uh, do I have a second? We have a motion, a second. Roll call vote. Noah, yes. Uh, air. Yes. Uh, Jonathan, yes. Travis, yes.

I am also a yes. Uh, the motion carries unanimously. Um, so again, that means we're looking to do the notice of intent. uh please reach out to Jan and to um to to the office so that if you want any of the copies of the site visit or anything else uh we can certainly uh be able to give that to you um and feel free to you know reach out to staff um if you have any questions whether that's Leah or Jan uh feel free to do that um we want to assist you and we kind of want to work with you and get through this process.

No, thank you. And same here. And please if I can get just because of the um in essence of time, I like to tomorrow afternoon is my flight. I like to send out few emails to if you guys can send me the suggestions for the land scientists. Um I'll work like we can't suggest we can't suggest anyone. You need to just Google it. Scientists locally. Yeah. Okay. We can't even do a list. I I don't have one. We tell everyone to just Google it. Yep. And and you'll should be able to f there will be a lot of them. So

Okay. All right. So, can you guys send me the findings paperwork so I can I can use that send it over to them and see if there's somebody who can come in in my absence and be able to do the site visit and be able to prepare while I don't want to waste this time, but I'm not here until the 15th. I like to send them few emails so they can get it get it started. Um, of course I don't want to get it to the I'd like to work with you guys. I don't want to get to the enforcement side of the things. It's we I will work with you guys to get this thing um and we'll keep this uh team transparent um on the activity um with with that line scientist or if somebody I if I cannot

afford to go through them I mean this is my first priority. If there's a no no this is something too much uh then I will work I will talk to you guys as well and work with somebody in the office. I my preference is not to work work with somebody who has worked with Grafton Town before. Okay and that's absolutely fine and and just again just reach out to Jan or Leah and we'll be able to get you Jan we'll be able to get a link right? Yeah absolutely I can send that tomorrow. Okay sounds good. All right. Uh, good luck and we'll be seeing you uh, and safe travels. Thank you. All right. All right, Leah, up next.

Can I exit now? Yes, you're all set. We're We're moving on to our next hearing. So, all right. Thanks. Thank you. Good night. Um, Leah, next up, 162 Old Upton Road. Okay, there we go. Okay. Pursuant to the Massachusetts Wetland Protection Act, Grafton Wetland Protection bylaw, conservation commission hold a public hearing um uh for widening of a driveway at 162 Old Upton Road. Um who is here to speak to this? This is a continuence. Good evening. This is Norman Hill from land planning. You got the floor, Norman.

Yes. Good evening. So, we filed a notice of intent. A client has an existing driveway about 200 feet in length that we're talking about. Uh give you a little background. Uh this used to be an old road. So when this road was built, I imagine like any old road, they would have taken down all the trees and then they built a stone wall on either side. So there's a stone wall on the east side, there's a stone wall on the west side. Those stone walls are the property lines. So by mass law, we're not allowed to alter a property line. So we're not allowed to take down those stone walls. So it's about 26 to 27 ft from the face of one wall to the face of the other wall. Now over the years, I don't know how long it was a gravel dirt road, but for many years. And then uh they they've paved a portion of it anywhere from 9 to 13 ft wide. So our plan shows the portion of that driveway that is paved. Uh but either side of that pavement is an area that consists of dirt and gravel and and and and weeds. Uh I don't recall seeing any trees in there. So, so to the left of the pavement there's anywhere from 5 to 10 feet of gravel. To the right there's anywhere from 5 to 10 feet of gravel. And there are weeds growing in that gravel. So, in terms of uh slope, it starts on old road. It goes it's very flat. Goes downhill from old upton road to the low point where they have a catch base and and I don't know if you can see that catch base on the plan. And then it goes uphill from there into my client's property. I'm working for Boston Buddha.

So, this driveway, uh, the first 75 ft of driveway is shared by three homeowners. Then the next 150 ft or so is shared by my client and another homeowner who lives way up in the in the woods out back. Uh, neither of the homes out back have any frontage for a legal lot. That's why I say this was a road. This road must have created their frontage when their lots were created many years ago. So the first point I want to talk about is whether this is a redevelopment project or not. So this used to be a road was all gravel. The trees are all taken down. Now a portion of it is paved. We're asking to widen the pavement. To me that's a redevelopment project. This was a road. We're redeveloping the road. Now I I talked this about this point with Emily from DP. Emily believes that we are widening this driveway into virgin woodland, which is not the case. This driveway is not being widened into virgin woodland. It's it's being paved on on a gravel area that was once altered. To me, this is a redevelopment project. Now, when this first started out, um we had not filed a stormwater management report because it was a redevelopment project, but uh Emily wanted a storm water management report. So, we did a full storm water management report and we did everything we could to meet the standards that are required. Uh but because it was a redevelopment project, I was not required to meet certain of the standards and and there are certain standards that I simply cannot meet. I I'll explain why. Um as you can see, there's no room for a detention pond. So there's no way to mitigate the increase in runoff. So, in our storm water management report, we calculated the

pre- and post runoff, two 1000year storms, and there is an increase in runoff, but in the two-year storm, it's less than one cubic foot per second. That that's very minimal. And we feel that we we qualify under uh under the dimminimous requirements, which since we're less than one cubic foot of runoff increase, um there's certain status we don't have to uh fight to meet. Now it's a CBD type soil. We have wetlands very nearby. So we have high groundwater. Um but currently currently there is no storm water management on this site. The water just comes down the hill and pours into the brook and goes under the cul into Silver Lake which is an ACC and it's right across the street from the town beach. So, as cars drive this driveway and they leak oil or gas or transmission fluid, whatever, it all ends up in Silver Lake. There's no storm water manage protection whatsoever because and the catch basin that exists, the the grate is actually about 2 in higher than the driveway. So, the water can't get into the grate. It just spills into the brook. So, it's very poorly built. It It offers no protection to Silver Lake. no protection to the wetland nearby and no protection to the to the little brook there, seasonal brook. But we're proposing to put a barracuda where that catch basin is now. We would put a barracuda in and the inlet grate would be about 3/10en of a foot lower than the existing grade. And we would pitch the driveway towards the middle. So the driveway would slope up from the middle to the sides and all the water would drain down the middle and go into this barracuda which would remove 90% of your solids, all your gas, all your oil, all your transmission fluid would be trapped in that barracuda

which would protect Silver Lake, protect the nearby wetlands and seasonal brook would be a huge improvement. So I said to Emily, I said, "Emily, what we're proposing is so much better than what is there now." And she said, "Well, I don't care. you've got to meet all the standards. And I said, well, I can't meet the standards. I'm I'm close to groundwater. I've got a seed soil. I've got no room in which to to build a detention pond. It's too steep for for uh uh for pvious pavers. It's too steep for that. I don't know what I can do. So, um we we did do a full stormwater management report. In that report, I wrote like a two-page letter explaining why we could not meet all the standards of storm water management. So, today I talked with uh with Jan for a few minutes and I said, "Jan, I I I can't do what I can't do and and I want to improve this site and right now if I have to I can't do what D wants me to do." And I've talked to I've talked to Emily twice. I can't turn her head. So all I can do is appeal to you guys and and and just common sense. Let us put a barracuda there and provide some storm water management for this site. That's all that's all I have to say.

Okay. Uh Leah, do you have anything to add or have you talked to D about this? Not recently. I wanted to have the commission go through the D comments. I was hoping Norm would have a point for-point letter uh that we could go through. I don't know if you want that to have to happen out loud. Um but we need to see what the commission thinks of the outstanding comments from D. That's really the main thing that's left.

Yeah. In my storm water management report, there is a two-page writeup that goes through all of these same issues, addresses each and every issue in that report. Do we have that report? We sure do. Okay. Do you want it on the screen?

If you could, please. I'm sure Jan's finding it now. Thank you. Uh, just a question. Uh Norman, as far as um as far as a bar barracuda, what kind of uh testing has been done on that? Oops. All right. I think norm is frozen. [sighs] Can I ask a quick question, Leah? What was the reasoning for needing to widen the driveway? I missed that.

Um I mean we've been talking about this project for a few years now in development team at the staff level. Um the initial conversations were that they were looking to expand like like programming if you will at the meditation center. Hello. I'm back. There you go. So So Norm, I was just asking a question. What testing has a barracuda gone under to to give you those kind of uh removal rates? Oh, a state I believe it's state approved. There is no state approvals anymore. Uhoh. I don't have an answer to your question.

Okay. Yeah, typically a vendor will give you what kind of testing has been done. It's just it's good to know because it it's just again it's just understanding if if what they say it does, you know, it has to do with particle sizes and all that other kind of stuff, but there is no, you know, uh the step system actually isn't even um doing testing anymore. So, it's a little bit harder to get that information. So, I'm curious. It would be good to understand just exactly the system and what they've tested so that we have an understanding of when you talk about um you know removal rates that they're actually somewhat real.

Yeah, I will get you that information. I I I'll be happy to get that for you. Okay. All right. Okay. Um [sighs] so when you say that the slope is too much for um uh you know doing any kind of poor systems what is uh what's the slope on that roadway [snorts] between 8 and 12%. The first 75 ft goes down at about 1%. But the next uh 150 ft goes up between 8 and 12%. Okay. So you didn't look at um doing any kind of porous system at the beginning of the entrance where

we could do that. We could do porous pavement for the first 75 ft. We could

Yeah. And again that would be and again I'm just thinking of because you know D has given this long list. I mean we'll reach out to D and get their take on things and so forth. So, I'm looking for, you know, other potential um, you know, ways of doing it and and if it's if the the rates are so close, then, you know, doing a par system might do it. And there's even and I don't know, I know you're trying to widen this. And and there's so many things that you can do as far as doing edge treatment. Um there's so many different products out there for poor systems to do edge treatment and being able to even not do the whole roadway as a porous system. Um but do different um there's so many ways you can mix and match. Um I do understand about at 8 to 12% or 8 to 10% you're not going to be able to do a poor system, but where it's relatively flat you can definitely do a poor system. We could we could on the first 75 ft.

Yeah. And I don't know if that is sufficient or not. I'm just trying to look at what um the comments were from D and then kind of looking at you know um you know they're they're very I mean they're very definitive in their D comments. In fact, they want to see an updated um plan and and calculations also prior to us issuing it. So that's a little different than we usually see. So that kind of raised my eyes. So [clears throat] So yeah. So

I don't know if I could if that would compensate if that would mitigate for the increase in runoff. It might. I hadn't thought of doing that. S. It's a good idea. Porest pavement for the first 75 feet. That's a a change I'm willing to make and redo the calcs. Yeah. Um I don't know what you're talking about about edging. I know face to face of these two two walls about 26 feet and this this common driveway is supposed to be minimum of 24 feet wide. So I'm going to be within like a a foot of that wall on either side.

And again I'm just thinking of and just there's all different combinations you can do. You could do just simply um a porous asphalt and take that approach. But I I don't know if you're repaving the whole width of the roadway and and you know, I would recommend they repave it all because what is there now is in bad shape.

Yeah. And again, it's just different ways of doing it. I you're going to have to do a base anyways. Um but you can, you know, thinking that it's a driveway. I'm thinking that it's a traditional driveway where it's not that wide. Um, but you could do edging of like um there's a whole different whole bunch of different systems that you could do like a you know a grass pave or or you know something like that. To me, I'm not really suggesting any one poor system over another. That's really up to you guys. But at least there's an opportunity at the entrance um to try to do something, you know, as far as having treatment. Obviously, that would be something else that would be um required. And then it's really just about the the D letter and making sure that uh we kind of look at that and respond to it. And again, um we'll we'll reach out to D and see if we get any other kind of other different uh responses back from them and stuff. So uh Leah is there anything else other I mean that was the main issue.

So yeah so the sequence of events was you know previously it was a debate about meeting storm water standards or not when it was established that they needed to be met Norman made his storm water report. These comments were issued by D in response to that report. Okay. So, I did not go back digging in the report to see if it addresses them because in my opinion, it's up to him to to Yep.

say um and then up to the commission to say if they agree or not. So, I was advocating for a response to D comments type of letter like we've seen in other instances um to make the case is why I don't have more detail to walk you guys through this evening. Um otherwise we have on our side we have uh TSS and TP are um he has stated they're not applicable because of the dimminimous peak rate. So we need to decide if we agree with that or not as well. Um and then ultimately another waiver request for the no disturb. Um

okay those are the outstanding items. So, as far as total phosphorus and and you know, water quality and so forth for the MS4, uh, it it doesn't matter as far as the dimminus dimminimous rate increase, it has more to do with water quality. Um, and then I'm guessing, you know, when you look at that uh water quality unit, it probably has very low TSS, excuse me, very low phosphorus removal. So where a porous pavement you would have much higher uh total phosphorus removal. So

so so I would like to request the continuence of six weeks so that I can do some soil testing and change our design to call for pvious pavement u and get you that information on the barracuda. Yep. and then I'll I'll write a a new report and send that off to D. Maybe I should request an 8week extension because it takes about six weeks to hear back from DP.

Uh, that kind of works for me. Let me just go quickly around the commission to see if anyone else has any other questions. So, Travis, any other questions? Sandy, do your recommendations resolve the issue of the redevelopment project or is that still an issue that we have to decide on as a commission regarding

Yeah. So, we we would have to, but you know, based on the D letter and what they're saying in their interpretation of redevelopment, um they're looking for the storm water solution no matter what. So if the applicant is willing to go back and look at, you know, kind of, you know, trying to address that through a porous pavement system, that kind of takes off the table the um Okay. redevelopment. Cool. That's it. Nothing else for me right now. Okay, great. Jonathan, [snorts] I don't have any other questions or comments. Uh, thanks, Noah. No questions for me. Amir, [sighs] nothing for me. Okay.

Yeah, Norm, I I I think, you know, if you're willing to look at that and to address the kind of the specific things that they're talking about and if there's a way to do that. Um, and I think to what Jan, excuse me, to what no excuse, yeah, to what Leah said was [snorts] that, you know, we also have to make sure that we're meeting, you know, phosphorus removal, too. So, um, that you can be done, you know, you get a much higher removal rate with a a porous system than you do with some sort of of, you know, water quality unit. Uh, they usually have typically really low removal rates. So, yeah. Yeah. Okay.

And and so, let me just put this over to Jan. Um, if anyone in the public or attending has any comments or question, please raise your hand. We're happy to call on you. Uh, and answer any questions you may have. Um, Jan, if you can take a keep an eye on that, see if anyone does that. Um, uh, other than that, is there anything else, Leah, that we need to do right now based on this conversation? Nothing right now. Okay, that sounds good. Jan, anyone raising their hands? Uh, no attendees, nothing from the public.

I I figured that, but I wanted to ask the question and have it on the record. So, all right. So, so Norm, so you're looking for an 8week eight week. Yes. What's uh Do we have a date on that? I do not. I would say by uh your second week in March, probably. Second meeting in March. Uh, do we have that? Give me a second. Yeah. What was it? I just said give me a second. Okay. I thought you said the second and I'm like that doesn't make sense to me. No. [laughter] Okay. March, not February. Um,

yeah, I would say. Yeah. First March meeting is March 3rd. Well, how about the second March meeting? The 17th. Yeah, I I would make pass for the 17th. Okay, sounds good. Uh, so do we have a motion? Move to continue the hearing for 162 Old Upton Street to March 17th, 2026. Wow. 2026. You would have to say that. Do I have a second? Second. Uh, thank you. Uh, roll call vote. Travis. Yes. Uh Jonathan, yes. Amira, yes.

Uh Noah, yes. I am also Yes. The motion carries to uh continuence to March 17th. All right. Thank you very much. Thank you. Y All right, Leah. What else do we have left to do? Uh one action item. um the continued conversation about the request for certificate of compliance for three Leland Street. Okay. So, we do have the homeowner, his representative. I'm happy to give my notes as well. Um but you can start with them if you'd like.

Uh so, I would uh go with the applicant uh for free Leland Street if you want to give us any updates.

Uh sure. I'll speak up first. John Federico with Gurier and Helmon. Um Craig Johnston is present as well. Um as far as updates go, uh we've provided the commission with the invasive species removal uh report that we received from GDDARD consultant. Uh we have updated um our plantings um and added in a few extra notes uh regarding the area disturbance, how much uh we're proposing um to replicate. Uh and then based on some feedback um from Craig um after meeting with uh Leia and Jan, uh we have added in additional conservation signage at 20 foot spacing going all the way down uh the uh proposed uh or existing armored slope that's there. Um and we um have also provided the requested narrative uh for the plantings.

All right. Thank you on that. Leah, do you want to fill in on uh what you've seen based on your review?

Yeah. So, if we if we just back up a a little bit back to the invasive species management plan because I know that was left as sort of still a possibility that we've been exploring and we asked for the report last time. Um so, we received that report. I reviewed it. Um it would require two treatments the first year and potential follow-ups subsequent years. So, as we've been talking about, that would prolong this order of conditions. Um, it also aims for control of the six identified species versus eradic eradication they felt was not feasible. Um, and it possibly introduces herbicide into the no disturb. Um, given those items, I felt it was reasonable to go the planting route instead, but obviously that decision is ultimately up to the commission.

Thank you. Um so under the planting plan, they're now proposing um as mentioned a 1,190 square ft planting area to compensate for their 1,179 square ft of encroachment into the no disturb. They have plantings. They have a seed mix. Um they have the no disturb signage ahead of the plantings. I did just want to flag. I'm not sure if that signage is going to be ahead of the uh the planting area to the south. Um it's a little hard to tell, but if that's not the case, if that could just be a little minor tweak. Um we've also been talking about

the area that was showing some erosion uh near the corner of the barn. The homeowners put rip wrap down uh to get through the winter. They will reom and seed it in the spring. That's noted on here as well. Um, so if if everyone's in agreement with this planting plan and doesn't have anything they need to change or add, um, we would be uh instructing the homeowner to complete this plan come spring 2026 and then come back uh contact staff when it's complete. And then at that point, we can go back to uh possibly issuing a certificate of compliance is how I see that playing out.

All right. Appreciate the information. So, let's go around the uh with the commissioners to see what their input is. Is uh you happen to be first up on my screen. Amira, you have any comments or questions? No. Um that all makes sense to me. Thank you to the, you know, Leah and Jan for um reviewing their long-term um invasive species removal plan. Um I think the commission staff recommendation makes sense to me. Um and that sounds reasonable. So I don't have any other questions or comments. All right. Thank you very much, Jonathan.

I echo exactly what air just said. Very good. Travis, um, I'd like to the maple tree and the spruce tree could be non-natives. That's just a generic genus that's provided. I want to make sure that those are native varieties that are planted. And I strongly disagree with planting button bush in an upland area. That's an obligate species. I would recommend nine bark. I've grown those successfully in my yard. It's back wet. I think it would do better. I think button bush is a poor choice. And the maple tree and spruce tree need to be native species.

Okay. So, u we can resolve that. Uh let's ask that question right now to the applicant's representative. Is that is that a big change? Is that something that [snorts] um as far as it goes? I'm going to have to default to uh Craig and his arborist on the uh spruce and maple tree that's there. Um but as far as the swap for button bush. Um that shouldn't be a problem on my end to update. Um if Mr. Johnson doesn't have any objections to that, I would just like to have that just reflected um in a condition and I can always provide an updated plan at a later date. Um, if those are already uh Oh, sorry.

The maple and spruce are already there. Uh, yes. So, I'm just not sure if those are are already planted as native or if um those are um non-native plants, I'd have to confirm with Okay. But um if if there are any like conditions associated with this um I'd just like to request that you know instead of us having to come back or or keep resubmitting plans just to have anything um for uh the the button bush swap out to be uh conditioned. Um you know we we'll definitely make sure that we uh we get that taken care of. Um if you do need to see a revised plan um we can get something turned around a little bit later this week for you with a different

uh that's that's a reasonable request. I don't have a problem with that. Uh Travis, do you have any kind of problem with that kind of approach? No, as long as that works for Leah and Jan, Leah, is that okay? Just kind of So, it's it's interesting because we kind of aren't voting tonight because we aren't issuing the certificate of compliance or not. So, we're just kind of I [snorts] don't know reaching a conclusion. We can send a follow-up letter for sure like putting any items in it. Um, but it's not it's not really a condition.

Yeah. So, so just going back to the applicant's representative, uh, we do definitely want to document it so you have that so when you know you come back and everything, uh, we we just have a good, you know, documentation of everything that was said so that we we don't go around in circle next time. Sure. Is that sufficient? Yeah. No, I can definitely make any revisions there for you folks just so we're not spinning our wheels or anything. Okay, sounds good. Um, Noah, any kind of uh questions or comments? Nothing from me. I'm sorry, Travis. Did you have anything else to add? I would have chimed in. I'm good. Thanks, Sandy.

Okay, no problem. And um I kind of go with what Amra was saying. I I appreciate the looking at the um you know uh invasive species management plan. I think it's it's a balancing thing and I'm absolutely fine with going uh with the plant additional planting and I'm fine with uh documenting uh Travis's uh comments there and so that we have it so when we come back when the applicant comes back after everything's planted and so forth in the spring we can all have the documentation. So, um, again, I don't think we're voting on anything. Um, but we do want to document it and make sure that this is, um, in the record in the m minutes so everyone understands. So, is that correct, Leah?

Yes. I just want to ask um what the species was that Travis suggested instead and are we holding to that one or are we just asking for like a general substitution? General substitution would be fine, but I would recommend nine bark because it it's native. It looks good in residential settings. I think it's better than button bush and it will grow better. And that's by So Cararpus something or other. Can you email me that ninebark? Yeah. Okay.

All right. I'll go back to the applicants representative. Does that all sound good? That's uh perfectly fine with me. Um I'll just u let Craig uh chime in if he has any questions, additional comments. At this point, I have no objections to that. I'm not I don't know what a nine B plant looks like, but I'll certainly do my research on that. And just stepping back to the spruce and maple. Actually, my daughter brought those over from the um Arbor Day in town here in Grafton. So, I'm assuming they're native, but I'll do the research on that to confirm that.

I appreciate that. And again, I think what we're trying to do is is make sure we document everything so when you come back after everything's planted in the spring, we can all be on the same page and move forward. So, okay, sounds good. Any other questions uh from the applicant? Otherwise, I think we've Thank you for um being so diligent in following up on this. I wish all the residents were as diligent of you as you have been. So, we appreciate that. um doesn't always happen. So, thank you very much. Um you're welcome. And thank you. Thank you for all your help.

Yep. And obviously looking to uh have you come back in the spring and have everything kind of be signed off at that point. So, thank you. Agreed. All right. Have a good one. Thank you all. Thank you very much. All right. Leah, anything else left? That's all I have. Okay. I'm exhausted. Yeah. [laughter] So, um, uh, other than that, um, I think we only need one more motion. Motion to adjourn. Second. Roll call vote. Travis, yes. Jonathan, yes. Amira, yes. Uh,

Noah, yes. I am also a yes.