Okay, Mr. Marshall, I see attendees are starting to come in. We are live, we are recording. Amherst Media is here. Good to go. All right. Welcome to the Amherst Planning Board meeting of February 2nd, 2022. My name is Doug Marshall and as the chair of the Amherst Planning Board, I am calling this meeting to order at 635 p.m. This meeting is being recorded and is available live stream via Amherst Media. Minutes are being taken pursuant to chapter 20 of the acts of 2021. This planning board meeting, including public hearings will be conducted via remote means using the zoom platform. The zoom meeting link is available on the meeting agenda posted on the town website's calendar listing for this meeting. Or go to the planning board web page and click on the most recent agenda, which lists the zoom link at the top of the page. No in-person attendance of the public is permitted. However, every effort will be made to ensure the public can adequately access the meeting in real time via technological means. In the event we are unable to do so for reasons of economic hardship or despite best efforts, we will post an audio or video recording, transcript or other comprehensive record of proceedings as soon as possible after the meeting on the town of Amherst website. Board members, I will take a roll call. When I call your name, unmute yourself, answer affirmatively, and then place yourselves back on near. Maria Chow. Jack Jemsack. Here. Tom Long. Present. I'll skip Andrew. I don't see him yet. I dug Marshall and present. Janet McGowan. Here. And Johanna Newman. Present. Board members, if technical issues arise, we may need to pause temporarily to fix the problem and then continue the meeting. If the discussion needs to pause, it will be noted in the minutes. Please use the raise hand function to ask a question or make a comment. I will see your raised hand and call on you to speak. After speaking, remember to mute, remute yourself. The general public comment item is reserved for public comment regarding items that are not on tonight's agenda. Please be aware the board will not respond to comments during general public comment period. Public comment can also be heard at other times during the meeting when deemed appropriate. Please indicate you wish to make a comment by clicking the raise hand button when public comment is solicited. If you have joined the Zoom meeting using a telephone, please indicate you wish to make a comment by pressing star nine on your telephone. When called on, please identify yourself by stating your full name and address and put yourself back into mute when finished speaking. Residents can express their views for up to three minutes or at the discretion of the planning board chair. If a speaker does not comply with these guidelines or exceeds their allotted time, their participation will be disconnected from the meeting. All right. So the first item on our agenda this evening is approval of minutes from past meetings. And Chris, I know we have at least one set of minutes to review. Which, which do we have more than one? Or should we just proceed with the January 19th minutes? You just have January 19th. And I'm sorry that they were sent out so late. I think I sent them out yesterday at five minutes to five. Doug gave me a five o'clock deadline. And I did appreciate that you got them out by that time. I think it's good for all of us to have. An evening to look at them. I know at least my days on Wednesdays, I don't really have time to review anything after work on Wednesday before our meeting starts. So thank you for that. Are there any comments on the minutes as, as drafted and sent out yesterday. Jack. Yeah, I didn't get a chance to look at them. So. I'm sorry for that. I just want to say that. Okay. Thank you. Chris, I see your hand. We could put the. Adoption of the minutes off till next time, but Pam and I feel really good that we got them into you. In a timely manner. Yay, Pam.  So you might want to put it off, but there were two things that I wanted to mention. One is that Janet. She sent me an email. She emailed me about an issue about lighting. And it was something that Andrew had brought up during the Wagner public hearing. And it had to do with adequate lighting in the area where the farm stand is going to be. And I noticed that after I received Janet's email, I looked at the revised management plan, which the Wagner's submitted through Tom. It says that adequate lighting will be provided as needed during the business hours. So I wonder if we incorporated that language. Into the minutes. If Janet would be satisfied with that. That sounds great. Cause I was more worried about it going into the decision. So that sounds perfect. Okay. Cause we do make reference to the. Management plan in the decision. We say that it shall be done in accordance with the management plan. So, okay. Good. All right. Great. Oh, and one more thing. I did add a. Condition. To the embers college project to say that they needed to come back to show you the signs, because although you granted them a waiver under section one, I'm not going to do that. I'm going to go back to show you the signs because although you granted them a waiver under section 8.5. Of the zoning bylaw with regard to size and number of signs. I thought it since they've shown you all of the other signs that they're proposing that it would be good if they came back and showed you the signs that they're proposing for the Lyceum. And if you agree with that, then we'll incorporate that one last condition. Okay. Any objection to that? Not seeing any objection. And does anybody object to postponing the. Vote on these minutes until next meeting to give everyone a chance to read them. All right. Not seeing any objection. Okay. Any harm to postponing other than they don't become available to the public for review for an additional two weeks. In the past when we were in trouble, excuse me. May I answer that? Sure, Chris. When we were in trouble with our minutes, Pam was posting draft minutes. So we could. I can ask Pam to post these as a draft. If that would be suitable to you. Okay. We don't want to get in the habit of. You know, getting farther. Getting behind on minutes again. So. Okay. Let's just do we, what's the agenda for the next, next meeting look like? Is it going to be pretty full? We don't know yet. I don't know yet. Okay. All right. So why don't we just postpone this until the next meeting? Okay. One minute. Jack. Jack, you are muted. You are still muted. Yeah, regarding the next meeting. I, I have a scheduling conflict. Unfortunately, it's my wife's. Birthday. And I made plans. Way back in the fall. So. I'm going to see John mayor. Any John mayor fans out there. He's really good. Anyway, I will not make. Of that particular meeting. So. Okay. Are there, are there others who want two weeks to. Be able to read the minutes. Because if we're, we can either vote tonight without Jack. Or it sounds like we could vote in two weeks without Jack. So, so I'm kind of wondering whether we ought to just do it tonight. All right. I saw a couple of heads nod. So would anybody who like. To make a motion to approve the January 19th minutes with the. With the modification regarding the lighting that. Chris and Janet discussed earlier. Tom, I see your hand. So moved with the addition. Chris, do we need to add the Amherst signage note that you had as well? Yeah. And with that addition. So moved. Okay. Thanks, Tom. Anybody want a second? I'll second. All right. Thanks, Janet. Okay. So. Let's see any other comments on these minutes. All right, then we'll go ahead with a roll call. And Jack, feel free to abstain or. You know, just trust. Trust everyone else. All right, Maria. And. Tom. Approve. We'll skip Andrew. I'm an approved. Janet. And Johanna. Approve. All right. And Jack. Yeah, I'll just abstain. Sorry about that. Good. Okay. Thanks. All right. So that's, that was item one on the agenda for this evening. The time now is. 645. And we'll have our public comment period. And I will repeat what we said in the introduction that. These, this, this period is for comments. For items not on the agenda. So it will not include comments on. The demolition delay by law proposal. On the solar by law proposals. And so it does anybody want to make any public comment this evening? I do see 25. People in the attendees. I rubric I see your hand. And we will go with three minutes. As your limit. You need to come off of mute. There you go. Good. We should. Hi. I'm I rubric. Excuse me. 255 strong street. Just a couple of thoughts on what I would love to see as a change and how the planning board does their work. I would love to see going forward. More including questions in your deliberations. I would like to see more focus on what we do. What are the trends that deal with the unintended consequences, which of course you cannot know, but you can discuss. What is the cost of doing nothing? What are the trends and forces affecting Amherst? I'd like to see more focus on what we do. Want to attract into this town instead of just dealing with proposals and kind of nibbling around the edges of those proposals. You can see that these are trends and forces that are affecting towns, especially college towns and cities around some of which have gone very badly. I've suggested this before, but just to put our heads together in this university town with an architecture department to create a model of a profitable building that is three stories or maybe four stories with commercial on the first floor upstairs. There's a mix of rental and ownership with students, families, retirees and professionals with the proper setbacks, design elements and promotes community. And just even I remember walking into a gallery in North Hampton once and the architecture class taught by Steve Schreiber said, here's some kind of Frank Lloyd, right, you know, energy efficient houses. These are model homes. They don't really exist. There's not even a development, but here's what we're thinking. I would love to see that. Here's what we're thinking. The building, the planning department has what it takes to put together a couple of samples, a couple of models. Lastly, I would love to hear the board members routinely include their understanding what they're hearing from people that are opposing ideas. People like me and others that are taking the time to look at these meetings and stay abreast of the issues and express ourselves, often feel disregarded and often feel. I mean, I've heard many comments about how we're being disregarded even purposely disregarded. So I would love to hear from you what you understand that is saying that you understand about the people that are disagreeing. So thank you so much and good luck. Thank you very much, Aaron. All right. The next hand I see is from kitty, excellent Barry. And that hand, I believe just disappeared. Yep. There she is. Kitty. I think you're on mute. There you go. There I am. Okay. I just want to thank you all for appreciating the importance of taking minutes and of keeping the public. Well informed. You know, understanding that as a need and acting on it. So that's all I have to say tonight. Thank you. All right, thanks kitty. All right, so I don't see any other public comments. Any hands raised. All right, so moving on to the third item on the agenda, the time is 649. And we'll go into the. The discussion of the zoning article 13 demolition delay. This is not a public hearing at this time. I understand this simply to be a presentation. And Chris, please raise your hand if you disagree with that. I see your hand. I don't disagree, but I think it's important for the planning board to feel free to have an opportunity to ask questions and make comments, because we will learn from those questions and comments about how to make this better. So I hope that the planning board will, will speak. Thank you. All right. All right. So this is a presentation. This is a proposal by historical commission members, Jane walled and Jan Mark court. And planning department planner. Then breaker. So. Would any of the three of you like to make this presentation and. Cam, I assume Jane is in the. Attendees list and maybe we want to bring her in. I did bring her in. Okay. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. And I see. Then I see. Then I see professor Mark art. As well. I'm probably mis mispronouncing your name. I'm sorry. All right. So take it away. Okay. Thanks so much. I'm Jane Walden, the chair of the Amherst historical commission. And I'll be sharing this presentation with. I'll kick it off. And then Brett, Ben has a brief PowerPoint that he will put up on the screen as we go along. I think I just like to begin. Well, again, with, with thanks to you for. Inviting us to the, to, to, to this meeting and to, to be able to discuss the, the proposed revised bylaw. So I'm going to talk a little bit about the historical commission itself. It was, it's been in place in Amherst since 1972. And is organized under the direction of the Massachusetts general laws. It has a kind of a range of responsibilities and projects. It is in a sense kind of the steward of Amherst's. Historic assets. And it's also responsible for. Like we prepare and update a townwide preservation plan. The historical commission and in the past has also created a preservation plan for the town cemeteries. And it's been making progress against that. The commission is also responsible for. Generating listings for the national historic register. The national registered districts, there are nine of them in Amherst right now, as well as. Nominating individual properties to be listed. The historical commission has been the original driver, but behind study committees that have now created two local historic districts in the town of Amherst. The commission sometimes publishes interpretive materials. And it also creates interpretive signage such as the recent writer's walk. And can also nominate. Historic preservation projects by individual property owners for. Distinctions for the Amherst preservation award. And for awards at the state level. Perhaps it's. A little bit more specific to administer. What article 13 of the Amherst zoning bylaw, which is named the demolition delay by law. The purpose of that bylaw is that it is a tool. One of the few tools, perhaps the, the only effective tool, the historical commission has to. To consider alternatives when property owners wish to make changes to an historic structure. Or to take down an historic structure all together. Sometimes. Sometimes those, those. Projects can have some other kind of outcome. And the delay allows the historical commission to work with the property owner to explore other alternatives. So in this instance for this. For this proposal for this new draft of a bylaw, it. This came out of. Kind of a series of conversations in, in 2015, when the historical commission. Was asked by the planning department to. Think about how to revise the demolition delay bylaw to achieve greater clarity in its terms and definitions for applicants. And how it. And streamline the process for, for implementation. So we had numerous conversations with the building commissioner and. Staff and the planning department. To analyze what was working in that bylaw and what could be. Revised so that it better met the needs of. The cause of preservation in Amherst and met the, the needs of citizens, homeowners, property owners. With the, the sometimes opaque process of. Making their way through the conditions of the bylaw. So in the beginning we kind of tried to edit what was there. And found that it really needed some reorganization so that. The policy and the process were. Clear and divided. So each was, was separate and more intelligible. But we kept the old bylaw as a guide and we have been functioning under that bylaw since, since. Since it's beginning. But as we went along through this kind of study process, we looked at the bylaws of other comparable size towns in Massachusetts and there are a couple dozen that. Whose profile was similar to ours. Massachusetts historical commission, the state historical commission had also produced a kind of guide for. Demolition delay bylaws that has served as a good resource for us. We also had a kind of lengthy conversation and workshop with Massachusetts historical commission staff to get. Specific advice as we made our way through. And then we started thinking about what, what could change with the bylaw. I guess, you know, overall I income comparison to some of the other towns in Massachusetts, our bylaw is not the least restrictive. It's not the most restrictive. It kind of falls somewhere in the middle. As we looked at all of this information and. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that this, this, this has been a process that's taken us now a little more than six years. But we think we have achieved clarity and a good set of guidelines for the town of Amherst. One thing I'll just. Mention right now is that the. The previous declaration of policy and the purpose statements and. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good item in a, in a very brief PowerPoint. We combine those and simplified them. And we'll come back to some of those points later. I guess. One of the main things I want to say at this point is that. The name of the bylaw has. You know, we've tried to update the name of the bylaw. But we've also tried to update the name of the bylaw. We've also tried to update the name of the bylaw. The protection, the preservation and protection of. Historic assets in Amherst rather than. What can be. Can seem to be a more negative message. By. Focusing on demolition. The preservation is really. It's the past into the president and then advances. The protection of those assets into the future. And it is where we are wanting to think of it. In that more constructive. Manor rather than just really focusing on, on demolition. Let's see. I think you have this text available to you. I think you have this text available to you. I think you have this text available to you. Which this says a little bit more about what the impetus behind the. Proposed revision is. And what we found was that. This is back some years ago now that the definitions in our bylaw were vague to the point that they did not give sufficient guidance to the building commissioner. In. The definition of demolition. Approving what were clearly. Permissible actions. As opposed to those that were, that were really focused on preservation. So we wanted to tighten up those definitions. Demolition itself, that word was poorly defined. And it's vagueness created. Impediments for people who were applying for building permits. And so. Many, many. Demolition permit applications made their way to the historical commission when they. There really was no preservation purpose to them. It was. We found that there was a kind of. A clog in the pipeline. Where staff were not. Providing these applications. And the combination of. Of having. Having the building permit and. The consideration of demolition by the historical commission. Was complex and confusing. And so. I would say that. I would say that. Within the general bylaws is the case in most Massachusetts towns. And is in fact recommended by the historical commission. So I just wanted to make those. Few points. And Ben will. We'll take. Take it from here and. Say a little bit more about what the, what the new draft entails and what its improvements are. So I'm going to go through. I'm going to go through. I'm going to go through today. This evening. So yeah, I'm going to go through kind of some, an overview of the, our proposal. What is the, a new preservation by law. We're calling it the bylaw for the preservation of historically significant structures. Some of you might remember, I think I. Gave a similar, but a little bit longer presentation. I think back in June now. So it's been a little while. But I did try to get the text to you. So I'm going to go ahead and look at it, but I'm just going to kind of run through some of the. Broad strokes changes that were made. From article 13 to this new general bylaw. So. The first bullet point, we are proposing to move this from the zoning bylaws into the general bylaws. That's for a few reasons. First is just what is recommended by the state and how most other people use their property. Do you really think about it's not. Much really a zoning matter. It's more of a, you know, how people use their property sort of matter, which we feel is more appropriate in the general bylaws as opposed to. As opposed to the zoning bylaw. Sitting, you know, the local historic district bylaws also in the general bylaw. As opposed to zoning bylaw. So there's some precedent for that in the town. There's some precedent for zoning bylaws. Um, which is a really important, um, built-in appeals process. So. If zoning zoning bylaw matters, if there's an appeal. That is appealed to the zoning board of appeals, and they really look more at, you know, was the process of the. Bylaw followed. As opposed to kind of the substance of the, you know, was the term determination of significance. Correct. the ZBA to handle an appeal of a demolition delayed bylaw. So that was one, another reason to move it to the general bylaws in this case. So, and I guess that also does, in terms of process, maybe Chris can expand on this later. Really the vote from the planning board would be essentially to remove Article 13. But obviously we're here today to, you all the planning board needs to be comfortable that whatever we're proposing as a general bylaw, you feel sufficient to replace the zoning bylaw. So that's kind of one of the first major changes. The second is kind of a bit more nuanced, but it's to create a new certificate process for applicants, which kind of help separate the historical commission and the building department review and their timeline. So right now the way it's structured is that an applicant submits a demolition permit, and that permit is first reviewed by the historical commission through Article 13. And then we send, if it's approved for demolition, we send notification to the building commissioner to approve the permit. Or if we put a delay on it, then that permit just kind of sits in limbo for up to 12 months. And that creates an issue because the building department has their own kind of shop clock, if you will, where they need to act on permits. And so if we're putting a delay on the permit, it just kind of sits, like I said, in this limbo state, which is not great practice, I guess, because technically the building department is supposed to be acting on the permit one way or another. So we're proposing to kind of separate those processes. So first an applicant would, if they're intending to demolish a structure, they would come to the historical commission first, get approval or a delay, and then move on to the building department, as opposed to kind of doing them in parallel. And so this also, it's similar to how the local historic district operates. The historical commission would generate a certificate. We are calling it a demolition authorization or a preservation order. And so a demolition authorization would be required to get your demolition permit. And that would be a certificate granted to the applicant that's stamped by the town clerk and recorded. And we just feel like that's a kind of a cleaner way to do it that creates a record of the decision by the historical commission and also kind of again separates it from the building department. So we don't think that actually, it's more of kind of an internal process, I guess. It only really impacts the applicant in that they will get an official stamp certificate one way or another. And then thirdly, I think one of the major changes to this bylaw is what we're calling the two step review process. And so most demolition-delayed bylaws are structured this way where first, there's a determination of significance. So is the building historically significant? And there's a set of criteria that are outlined in the bylaw. However, the way our bylaw is structured now is that that decision is made at a public hearing by the historical commission. And it's at that same public hearing where the determination to put a delay is made and so what that results in is that for structures that are proposed to be demolished that don't necessarily, like Jane said, don't necessarily rise to the occasion of preservation. They are forced, if you will, to kind of go through them, wait for a public hearing, have notice to a butters and then only to have the commission run through the criteria to vote for that the building is not significant. So what we're proposing is kind of a two step process where a kind of a team of one staff liaison for the historical commission and one historical commission member kind of discuss, run through their criteria themselves to determine if the building is significant or not and then determine whether a public hearing is required. And certainly if there's disagreement then the default is just to move to a public hearing of the historical commission for that review. So our hope is that that kind of weeds out some of the high case load for the commission as opposed to sending every demolition application for a building that's 50 years or older to the commission for a determination of significance. And I think I would say, the planning department representative and the historical commission representative have 21 calendar days to make that determination. And there's a lot that goes into it. We, and this is what we already do already. We contact, do all the research that we can on the property, look through the deeds, look through who's owned it. Is it associated with any one notable in Amherst history? Has a contact Jones library special collections to see if it's noteworthy in that way and really just get a sense of the architecture who's it associated with and kind of its prominence in the streetscape. It's kind of the criteria we look at. So that kind of two step process is a change that's being made where there's first that determination of significance outside of a public hearing and then to determine whether a public hearing is required. And also it grants the commission time to really look deeply at the decision of whether to delay the demolition or not. So the public hearing will really focus on that bigger decision to place a delay or to not place a delay rather than the determination of significance. See, go to the next slide here. So I would say the fourth change, the fourth major change that was made was the clarification of the definition of demolition which you can look up in the dictionary, certainly, but it seems like every town in Massachusetts has their own way of defining the word demolition. So as it stands now, I don't have the text in front of me, but the definition of demolition is any act of raising, raising, modifying or what is it? Any act of raising a building and then there's this Teske clause which says four portion thereof. And so I think that clause has given the Historical Commission trouble probably since the bylaw was enacted in 1999 because there's no guidance given to the building commissioner or to the commission about how much of a portion of a building is warrants demolition. So I think that's been interpreted differently by different building commissioners over the years and it sometimes results in, yeah, it's just vague in how it's worded. So we kind of worked through a process of really clarifying what the Historical Commission deems to be demolition. And so we came up with a three part definition to be more specific. So section A is essentially total destruction of a building.  B is kind of more partial demolition which focuses on 25% or more of any elevation of a building. And so that can, you know, you can imagine a historic house in Amherst that would mean essentially removing a facade or major part of a facade that really contributes to the architectural significance of the building. And then lastly, section C is kind of more focused on specific architectural features like an important porch or a stoop or chimney or windows that really have important, you know, are an architecturally significant and contribute to the building. And the Historical Commission wants the opportunity to ensure that the demolition of those structures or those features won't kind of really detract from the significance of the building. Now I think I'm gonna hand it over to Jen. Is that correct? Yep, my turn. Thanks everyone. I won't take much more of your time. I know that you have better things to do than listen to us but we're calling this preservation of historically significant buildings instead of demolition bylaw. And this is where we really get to the crux in E where we designate the building is preferably preserved. The key here is that not all buildings that are significant immediately invoke a demolition delay. They simply are listed as significant. And then we decide whether or not they might still for whatever reason need to get a permit to demolish. So if it's not reasonable to us, if we feel that this is a building that would represent a loss to the Amherst community, if we were to grant demolition authorization, even if it's in a poor condition now, we apply this designation and then we weigh the factors that led to the building's designation as significant, including a repeat review of sections D one to three, which you saw the significant standards and work with the owner on their plans to consider reuse, reconstruction, restoration or perhaps moving it. We help them maybe find somebody who would like to buy it and move it. We help them find grants that would help pay for the work that would need to be done. We look at every kind of alternatives that is possible to avoid demolition. And we see this as not just for a visual, you know, some sort of obscure visual preference for the look of Amherst, but really it's an economic advantage to the town. If you think of other towns that have been well-preserved like say Concord in Massachusetts, they have a similar size. They have famous authors as we do, although we have more. They don't have a large population of college-age residents, but they are a bedroom community for Boston and they could have easily developed a dense infill of condos and apartment housing, but instead they kept a very strict preservation control for a long time and they have seen their tourism increase radically. Their income, for instance, in 2016, their hotel tax income was 334,000 and in 2019 it was already at 865,000. It only has gone up as people have been interested in visiting historical towns. So we've been doing as much as we can to support this. For instance, the Writers Walk Signs was one of the things that should help people when they come stay and look around and learn more is here than just the Emily Dickinson Museum. But it also offers a chance to consider things like saving the old materials from a building that does have to come down and reusing them or using the building for another purpose, of course. The concept of this environmentally friendly adaptive reuse is becoming popular and it suggests that we never raise and replace but we reuse as much as possible. It gives an economic value but it also gives an educational value. So this paragraph is rather general because we have a lot of, if you will, subjective personal feelings about how something may or may not fit the criteria but the key here is that it would be a loss to the town if the building were demolished. And then finally, some other things we considered for the bylaw, which we struggled with many of these for months, but you won't see in there. For instance, a lot of towns have changed the building age to 75 years rather than 50 years before it is considered for a public hearing. And this clearly demonstrates a preference for colonial and 19th century styles. Yet in Amherst, we had a really big building boom in the mid 20th century. And we have some of the earliest examples of mid-modern architecture. We also have a visitor attraction of the brutalist architecture on the UMass campus which may not be everybody's cup of tea but it derives from architectural pioneers like Le Corbusier and it's important to preserve. So we voted to leave the number at 50 years and it does mean that we're getting more applications that come under our purview. And that's another reason we wanted to streamline the process, how long should the delay be? Many places vary it from six months to two years. We're sort of in the middle at 12 months. We've had it that way since 2005. We debated increasing it to 18 months in order to have more time to help applicants do research and help them find alternatives. But we were concerned that it would be a burden to developers and builders and have left it at one year. Should we increase the penalty? There is a penalty you probably noticed in there which is if somebody demolishes before they get authorization or ignores the process of review altogether, there's a daily fee of $300. And this accrues until it's either replaced as it was or some other decision is made. We retain that amount as well because we're satisfied that it's pretty severe even though it's not as much as it once represented. We also kept the old bylaw limitation that said that if somebody did violate the process, their opportunity to get a building permit would be held up for two years. They couldn't return for a building permit for two years. Can the delay still be listed before the 12 months is elapsed? Yes, and we listed much more carefully in the bylaw exactly how that could happen. A person can come for a second public hearing to show what they've done and how far they've gotten on alternatives and other plans and we will lift the delay if it looks like there's no point in keeping it going for the full 12 months. And this wording is the same, we just moved it. So those are all the changes that we suggest. Most of it, the wording has simply been clarified. Things have been moved around to put them in the order in which they will happen in the process. And we are calling it the bylaw for preservation rather than for demolition. Thank you. All right, thank you. Thank you everyone, all the presenters. Board members, do you have questions or comments about the draft of this bylaw and its move from zoning bylaw to the general bylaws? Any hands? Maria. Thanks to all the presenters. That was really helpful. I think I was around for the 2015 version where I forget what we recommended but you guys basically sort of kept working on it and revising, I don't think it was passed or approved but I remember some of the issues from back then and it sounds like you have addressed them pretty well in my mind as far as, we had debated about the 50 year versus a 100 year and it sounds like that's kind of moved because of that more streamlined step you've added and where they'll first be determined whether it's worth an importance so that you aren't reviewing every house built in the 70s but only ones like you were saying that have some sort of significance of some way of some kind. So I feel a little more comfortable with that being only 50 because maybe it should be a date instead of a time that moves as we move into the future because hopefully we're doing good architecture now that will be worthy of preserving but it's at some points like it's historical or is it anyways? So I appreciate that. There was one of the slides, I don't remember which paragraph but there's still a lot of subjective stuff in there like there's this word important and then how you define what's important. Still is a little awkward in my mind but maybe I honestly I haven't read all the pages but I feel like there probably are enough criteria you've put in to be able to define somewhat what is important versus not important. So I guess words like that always make me wonder what important to who and what group and what, you know. So that kind of jumped out at me and I've worked on a lot of projects where local historic district that just popped up over at Sunset suddenly, you know the owners were unaware that their parcel was, you know enveloped by this new sort of hurdle and it definitely is a hurdle. It's not something that's just like a while we'll make it as easy as possible. It really is for homeowners like it's a daunting task and so I do appreciate that you're very aware of that and that you've made the sort of timeframe reasonable but if it's cost prohibitive and they didn't realize their parcel was, you know in this district is just, it's a difficult thing for me. I didn't fully understand it back in 2015 fully as far as, you know what it means to private property owners and this sort of extra sort of restriction in a way on the property. So I'm glad that you're being very careful about it and making sure that, you know preserving it's the best for Amherst but at the same time really think about homeowners, property owners and just make sure that, you know this isn't a burden because, you know, when you take on renovations it's already a big financial endeavor and then suddenly, oh we've got to add more costs to do this extra step and so anything you can do to help, you know homeowners and property owners with that is great and it sounds like you have really been thinking about that and I have no problem with it moving into the general by-law that makes a lot of sense. So none of those are really questions I guess they're all just comments about, you know during your presentation things that jumped out at me but I appreciate all the hard work you put into it for the last few years now and it sounds like you're sort of improving it so I really appreciate that. Jane, you are muted. Thank you. I just wanted to respond very quickly to the last points you made Maria I would appreciate your comments. The Historical Commission also wants to strengthen other kind of supplementary tools to aid homeowners and to make the process more transparent. So one of those is to update the inventory of historic houses so that just right up front it's possible to know that, you know your house if you want to make changes you may need to consider this process of review. Second is kind of is connected to that and that's more PR about it. You know, when we have appropriate lists good lists we can be more proactive in contacting homeowners at the outset. And then finally, you know I think homeowners or small property owners are if they enter a project and they're kind of unaware of these conditions or requirements. You know, what we would really like to have is available funding to assist them with whatever kind of research or evaluation or assessment would help them understand what the condition of their house is and whether, you know that would be a, you know I think that would be a service that we could do where the funding available. All right, thanks Jane. Next board comment from Tom Laugh. Sure, thanks and thanks everyone for your presentations. I'm gonna piggyback just a little bit on some of what Maria was saying and some of your comments Jane as well. I think I also do have a concern with and it's not a concern I actually really appreciate what you're trying to accomplish and it's very thoughtful. But I think like Maria there's a lot of vagueness and subjectivity and what is preserved and what is not.  Something that's falling down and has nothing to do with whether or not they wanna make their house bigger or better or do something different. But again, yes, that you can support that assessment of that but who's gonna support actually keeping this thing afloat? And I noticed in the bylaw there was this conversation about can it be moved and those explorations I think are fantastic. But again, like if the end burden falls on an owner who didn't know that this was something that was significant until the, you know your commission said so. I find that to be, that's a burden on the homeowners that I'd like to try to protect as much as possible. And again, I think you're doing a really good job of that but I do think there's limits to what this law is actually saying to actually support them. So that's just one thought and I think it's just piggybacking a little bit on what Maria was saying but my other question about the shift from zoning to general bylaw I guess I just need some clarification on what are the implications of that? And I don't, I guess I don't understand it enough to know what that means and whether this moves out of someone's purview and into someone else's or who doesn't have oversight over that. So I guess I'm just interested in knowing a little bit more about that as a board newbie. Well, I'm not newbie but relatively compared to some people. Do any of the presenters wanna respond to that? I will say I had a similar question which is if the appeals are currently held heard by the zoning board of appeals who would hear the appeals under this new regimen? I can answer that if you like. The Pioneer Valley Planning Commission hears a butters or reviewers who are concerned that's where the appeal would go. It follows the Massachusetts legislature general laws section eight and since it's not a zoning question it wouldn't really fit the zoning board anyway. It has to go to the regional planning agency according to Massachusetts law. And so since it would go there anyway there's no reason to really have it go through the zoning process. And then you can probably explain better where the placement, why the placement was in the, I don't know, you weren't here either. None of us were in the zoning bylaw to begin with. Do you know? I'm not seeing Ben's hand but I'm seeing Chris's hand. Chris, do you wanna comment on that? So what I understand is that we were one of the first hands to adopt the demolition delay bylaw and it was a long time ago. And when we did adopt it we didn't really have models to follow. And the people who were working on it were familiar with the zoning bylaw so they decided to put it into the zoning bylaw. And so that's how it came about to be in the zoning bylaw in my understanding of the situation. Thanks, Chris. Are there other implications of this that you could share with us that are kind of along the lines of what Tom was asking? You're asking me? I'll ask you or Ben or Jane or Jan. I wanted to kind of discuss something that Jan brought up. Jan brought up the issue of appeal and we understand that the local historic commission, local district historic commission. I don't know if I said that correctly. But anyway, their appeals go to Pioneer Valley Planning Commission. But my understanding of this bylaw is that appeals would go to Superior Court. And perhaps we want to call on Rob Mora to clarify that because he's more familiar with this type of appeal having worked in other cities and towns. All right, Rob, are you there? I am here. Yeah, so I think that's the way we understand it is that we are not prescribing the appeals process that is included in the local historic district general bylaw. So by not doing that, the, you know, the agreeing party would file their complaint in Superior Court against the decision that's made by the historic commission. Of course, that, you know, that's a decision that can be made now, you know, as we move along with how we want this bylaw to come together. But I believe that's what was done up to this point. Okay. And then as I understand it, that's the appeal of the either of step one or step two. I mean, there's, because not everything goes through the two step process if the step one evaluation is unanimous. I would say so. I mean, I think in either case, you know, an agreed person could file a complaint against the town for a decision being made at either level. And it would take that same process. Okay. All right, Tom, I assume that that's the extent of answers we're gonna get. That's fine. All right. Janet, you've got the next hand. I have a few questions and then sort of a long series of comments, but I'd like to start with my questions. First of all, I wanna thank Ben for the comparison chart that really helped me see the changes. And so I could kind of track them more easily. And then I would love to help the Historic Commission and their six-year odyssey on this bylaw. It looks like a lot of work went into it. And I listened to the meeting with Chris Scali, which I thought was super informative and it helped me understand what the Historic Commission was grappling with, how that the old bylaw or the current bylaw worked for you or didn't work for you. So I found very illuminating, although a very long meeting too. And Chris Scali was excellent. So my questions are kind of what Tom was asking. So my question was like, who appeals what when and who can appeal it? So it sounds to me like the Historic Commission decides or somebody on the Historic Commission and the planning staff decided it's not significant. So that can go to the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission and then go to Superior Court? Is that the path? I think what we've heard is that the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission is not involved and that any appeal by anyone of that decision, whether it's the owner or the abutter or some other party you have standing would go straight to Superior Court. Is that true, Rob? I see him shaking his hand. That's correct. So it's only inside of a local Historic District that the appeal goes, that an appeal of the decision by the local Historic District, not this decision would go to the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission. Okay. And then Rob, could somebody appeal your granting of a demolition permit? Yes. So the demolition permit, and that's what happens now under the current bylaw in order to actually appeal the decision related to the demolition delay, they'd have to wait for the building permit, the demolition permit to be issued and appeal that, which would be heard by the zoning board of appeals first. And then they could appeal that. Okay, that helps me. Janet, I'm seeing Jane's hand. She may have a comment on that particular question. Just a quick comment. In this two-step plan, certainly step one or step two could be appealed, but step one is really only a declaration of whether the building is significant or not. And so there's not a threatening action or there's not a, I think it's unlikely that that would be in practice would invoke an appeal. It would be when the permit was issued. Okay. I think that there are instances where we only have step one. So if step one were to require the delay, for instance, the owner might appeal that. If the, true, no? Step one does not involve a delay. No delay is issued until you proceed through step two. Okay. And if the decision is that the building is not significant, and who would have standing to appeal that? And a butter would, you know, the next door neighbor could, you know, take issue with the decision to not consider it a significant structure. So it can't just be some sort of random interested person who's interested as a hobby, you know, society for preservation of undistinguished mid-century houses. I think that's a legal question. Yeah. I think that's a, that standing issue is a sticky wicket. And it's, there are cases all over the place. Okay. The other question I had was, what happens during the demolition? So the demolition delay is issued. Nobody can build for 12 months. And the Coursera Commission sees this as a time for like, can we do a better plan? Can someone buy this property? Does somebody want to, do we want to move it somewhere? But during that period, can the person, can the property owner apply for a building permit and just start going through the whole process of either the ZBA, the planning board, the building commissioner and just have a second process going forward. Because that, because it sounds like, I thought the answer to that was yes, because it sounds like if they get all their ducks in order that way, they could come back and say, can you just make this shorter? Cause I'm ready to go. And that seems to be working against the 12 month purposes. Can, can that happen? Or does during the delay, everything gets static?  Rob? Yeah, during the delay period, everything does not have to stop. So the applicant can continue through all the other permitting, you know, conservation commissions on the board of appeals. And now that we're disconnecting the demolition permit and the demo delay or preserved, presumably preserved certificate, they actually could apply and receive a building permit if they wanted to, you know, go to that step. Of course, there's time limits to the building permit. It may expire and may not make sense to do that, but it doesn't stop their process with all the other approvals that are needed. Okay. I think, Janet, rather if they did that, they would probably just try to time it so that they were getting their building permit at the point when the delay expires rather than coming back and trying to shorten the delay. Does that sort of undercut the purpose of the delay, which is trying to work with the property owner on some other solution to, to, to how to preserve the building or the look or the porch or whatever. Just doesn't that sort of cut against that goal? That'd be a question for historic commission people. They could. I'm gonna invite Jan to comment on this too. But I think it actually works more in favor of, you know, we were talking about homeowners. I think this is more applicable to homeowners than perhaps to developers who can be, really inconvenienced by a lengthy, pointless delay. So I think it is encouraging to homeowners probably to allow the historical commission to work with them during that period to find alternatives. Sometimes the alternatives may be less about doing something different with the structure and more about doing something better with it. And that, I think the two procedures in that case would work hand in hand.  Yeah, I was thinking with homeowners we deal a lot without buildings. You know, barns and other things that you, somebody mentioned, I think Maria mentioned that they can't just always afford to keep something up. It's not that they necessarily want to get rid of it. They can't afford to maintain it. And often there isn't even a plan to replace it with a building. It isn't always about getting a building permit. Sometimes it's just about getting rid of something that's falling apart. And if we can find a grant or we can find somebody who wants to buy the barn and move it or reconstruct it elsewhere, that kind of thing doesn't have anything to do with a building permit. And if they are building they might be wanting to take say a porch off and put in, you know, a simple modern one. And if we can help them with funds or give them an idea of how to use the materials that can work within their plans as they're proposing. You know, it'll still be the same footprint, the same, you know, essential item. It's just that we're trying to get them to reuse as much as material and the look is possible. So I think what you're saying is true. It would be better for them if everything kept moving but I don't think this will get in the way. My thanks. Janet, I do see a couple other people that have hands. So why don't you do one more of your many questions and then we'll come back to you later. The other one I think is a quick question. Chris Kelly talked about creating a list of significant properties. And is the historic commission looking at that as part of their, you know, because if people knew their property was significant, it kind of helps cut to the chase a little bit. Are you putting that list together or thinking about that? Because I didn't see that in the bylaw, but. Yeah, that is a historical commission activity. It's not part of the bylaw and doesn't, I think doesn't really belong there. We have a, there is an inventory of historic properties in Amherst that is I think it's about a thousand or 1200 properties, something like that. Significant properties in Amherst are also entered into a state database which is easily and publicly accessible. So the job of the historical commission really would be to update the inventory list. You know, that was created, I think originally it was, well, the last time that it was really pulled together was the creation of the Amherst preservation plan and the historical commission is in the next year. So updating that preservation plan and you know, that's one of the priority activities in the plan. We've also been working with the PVBC, the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission on a list of outbuildings, doing an inventory and very specific information for them. And they've been doing 100 at a time. I think there's 200 plus and we've been every couple of years pulling money for that and helping do that list. So, and we would like to do more. We have a lot of ideas about what we'd like to have but we just don't have the time as I'm sure you all can understand. All right, thanks everyone. And Jack, why don't you ask a question or two? Well, I'm a little bit on a sidebar. I don't know if Johanna had her hand up and then it went down. Maybe she should speak before me. But, well, if you mute yourself, we'll go on to Johanna. Okay, Johanna. Thanks so much. Really appreciate the presentation and I agree that the side-by-side is really helpful and I feel like the flow of the bylaw is more logical and much more concise. So appreciating that aspect of it. I am still struggling a little bit to understand exactly what the experience of an owner of one of these properties would be. So I was hoping maybe one of you could actually just like walk through kind of like the play-by-play of what the experience would be for somebody who, let's say, yeah, has an outbuilding that is torn down and they want to get rid of it and just like walk through what the process would be. Anne, would you like to take that? Sure. So somebody prepares an application. It's a $75 fee to prepare for a permit for demolition. Goes to the planning department. According to the new system, member of the historical commission and a member of the planning department would look at what's being requested. And if it is something that is just like a lean-to on the back of a house or an old, I don't know, ice house that was rebuilt with cinder blocks or something. And they say, no, it's not significant. That's fine. Then they get the permit. Sorry, my cat keeps walking in front of the camera. And if they do determine it's significant, then the owner is advised that it's going to go to the historical commission for public review. And we set a meeting date. All the timelines are in the bylaw. And they come to that meeting and they present their project to us. I can't really, no. And we have, meanwhile, there's been researched on, on the history of the property, the actual building, that kind of thing. Planning department brings that information to us. We've looked at it before the meeting. Many of us drive by it or look at the photos or whatever and do our own bit of research. And then at the meeting, we listen to their proposal and discuss in front of them our criteria for what would make it significant at the next level, preferably preserved. And at that meeting, we determine it. So they know when they leave the meeting, whether or not we asked for a delay or we granted them the permit. And then that's it. If it's a delay, then that they know that they can go on as Rob said, but that's going to hold for a year unless they can follow the steps that we've suggested working with us for alternatives. And then if they find either that simply won't work, you know, like they're trying to sell the building for materials, they're trying to get moved. It isn't, or they do manage it. Then they come back to us when they feel they're ready and we can lift the delay. Otherwise it just runs the 12 months. Does that make sense? It does make sense. And then I have just one question about the very front end. They would know that they are one of these places either because they've been notified by the historical commission or... Well, when they go to get a building permit, they'll be told if they didn't already know. Is that right, Rob? He's gone. Ben? I guess that there's a few thresholds at the beginning. So first, if it's a building that's younger than 50 years, then it has nothing to do with us. It just flies through the permitting pathway. I would say the first flag is if it's a building structure that's 50 years or older. And then if it meets the criteria of demolition, which we have... Or if it's in a historic district, that's the other obvious flag. Yeah. If it's in a historic district.  So it doesn't even building, but planning people and historical commission people don't even talk about it that. Yeah. Really, it's that building permit stage that kind of triggers the investigation on the part of the town of weather. This would apply. Okay. Great. Those are all my questions. Thanks so much. All right. Thanks, Johanna. I wanna just ask, if it's in a local historic district, how does this process interact with the historic district's process? Because that seems like a kind of completely separate group with different appeal bodies and whatever timeline it sets for itself. So as it stands now, with the current by-law and the proposed by-law applicants in the historic district commission proposing demolition go through both processes. So it would be first, typically it's first reviewed by the local historic district commission because they have a bit more authority and are working in that smaller geographic area. And then the applicant would come before the historical commission. That's how it's been working for, and it's, yeah, I guess maybe one or two a year where it's a demolition in the historic district and it comes before both bodies. Okay. Thank you.  Is that a legacy? No, I wanted to address Janet's question about whether people can go through their land use permit process during the demo delay. And that is true. They can do that, but they can do it either with the current by-law or with the new by-law. It doesn't matter which one. So that's the question. That's the answer to that question. But I also wanted to address this process of going through the local historic district and the historical commission and just point out that the local historic district commission has absolute ability to refuse to allow someone to demolish something. And it's not a demo delay. It's like, no, you cannot demolish that. So presumably if they went through the local historic district commission first and that commission determined that whatever it is couldn't be demolished, then I'm not sure how useful or onerous or whatever adjective you want to use, it would be to go to the historical commission. They would probably still have to do it, but it may not matter. I mean, I don't want to make it seem as if the historical commission isn't very valuable, but the local historic district commission does have that authority to say, no, you cannot demolish this. Okay, that's it. Thanks, Chris. Jack, back to you. Yeah, I just wanted to say that I'm glad that the historical commission is leaning on and dependent on Planner Valley Planning Commission because I think it's such a good group that they have a lot of expertise. So I was glad to hear that. But I guess just from my observation, it seems like Amherst has been, well, by virtue, you know, mainly of Barry Roberts, very successful in terms of moving historic buildings. And I'm wondering, and that has, I don't know, it just seems to me like this, that option has happened more frequent than perhaps other towns for whatever reason. But I'm wondering how that figures in to the process. And again, it seems like people are very appreciative of the historic buildings. And if there's development that requires demo, then that becomes very much an option. So I'm just wondering how that figures into the proposed bylaw. Yeah, that is one of the options for, to work out with a homeowner. There are examples that, I mean, moving houses was kind of a fairly common activity in the 19th century, unless so now, but there has been at least one case where the historical commission reviewed an application for a house on South Pleasant Street. And after the historical commission heard that request, that's a time at which Barry Roberts came and moved to the house. So it has certainly been in, it's one of the alternatives of the historical commission that likes to explore with owners. So it's very much a part of the process. It would happen more now if we had buried cables and wires. It happened more in the 19th century because there was nothing in the way. And now it's prohibitively expensive to get all those overhead cables and wires moved or cleared temporarily. All right, thanks. Thanks everyone. Tom. Thank you. I just had a quick question. I was listening to your, the flow of sequence and everything made sense. And I just had a question and it's more general and it's maybe my own naivete, but the first thing you said was somebody submits for a building permit, right? And that's where the process begins, right? Essentially. The first thing I said was they apply for demolition. They make an application for demolition. It may or may not be simultaneous with a building permit depending on what they know. Okay. So my question is, is there a sense of a scale of things that one needs to know about whether or not they can be demolished or not? So I have a small shed in my yard. Can I just disassemble that if I wanted to or do I need a permit to do that? Or, and I guess I'm just curious, like do homeowners know that they need to see you before they take something down in their own backyard? And I guess are there projects where you won't have purview over because people aren't aware of that. So I'm wondering what the triggers are or what that process looks like kind of a little bit before that, like what's the awareness in that world and what are the rules around demolition, not so much building? Well, Jane, feel free to jump in, but a lot of people don't know that if it's older than 50 years, if it's visible from the street, if it's in a historic district or anything like that, that it would come to us, that it won't, they won't automatically just get a permit. A lot of people don't know they need a permit. But that we want to do more press about this. We'd like to, once we get this bylaw, we were hoping to use it as a trigger to put some articles in the paper saying, did you know your barn is an important resource and we can help you save it? Or did you know that the look of your house contributes to the viability of Amherst as a tourist destination or something like that? People don't necessarily think about that, but we would then have these rules, these breaking points listed for people to see and hopefully it would lead to appreciation of the community as well as maybe, oh, maybe I can't just tear down my shed without asking since it was built in 1920 and it's an absolute gem of a little structure. Yeah, okay. Yeah, I mean, I was just curious about process and awareness and that sounds like a brilliant strategy and super helpful, thank you. Now, in an ideal situation, we could get inventoryed and listed buildings onto property cards. And that would be, I think, really ideal and useful. The awareness question is a lot like, do people know that they need a permit to build a fence or do they know they need a permit to cut down a bunch of trees? Or request it to me on any house, people don't know, I didn't know that, who knows? Right, I agree, but I do think that the project you described of putting together this database and mapping out these structures and making people aware ahead of time is I think a really thoughtful way of approaching this, not that people are presented with surprises and that feel like roadblocks and so I feel like finding ways to get ahead of that is changes, as you're changing the language of this from demolition to preservation, I think getting ahead of it also changes the tone of this from being a roadblock to something to celebrate and I think that's a useful project that I think should be front loaded somehow and get done soon, thank you. I like the way you shape it, you can help us write the articles. All right, thanks Tom, Janet. So I went through this with a, I've combed through this several times and so I have some very nitpicky, very specific corrections or points where I don't understand what something's happening. I don't really, I don't wanna pull the whole planning board through it, but sometimes a few times there's like saying C section F and you go there and it's not the right site or it doesn't exist. And so those kinds of corrections I would like to sit down with maybe Ben or somebody and just go through. But I also had other questions like, I was confused about like decision points, like, if the historic commission is meeting and they find the building to be preferably preserved, is that the day of the decision or is it when they file, when they send their written decision to the applicant? Like what's the trigger date for the appeal? And so the questions about timing, whether the building commissioner gets written notice, how you notify the public, not just the butters, how can the town alert more people that you're having your hearing? So I have a lot of things like that and I don't wanna do that for the next 30 minutes, but it's kind of what I do as an attorney is that kind of very specific language or sometimes there were sentences or clauses that just didn't seem to belong, they're confusing. And so I would like to offer that kind of level of detailed analysis without burdening the entire group here. But I do have it like so, I'm not sure what how to do that. That's my first issue. My second issue is I do have sort of broader comments that might be useful. And I know, is it more useful for me to send them to the historic commission or to Ben or I'm trying to, I thought you should add streetscapes and neighborhoods to the purposes section, which is in the model bylaw for the Mass Historical Commission, things like that. Is that, I mean, how can I get you that information or comments usefully? Is it useful now or? Ben, do you wanna? Yeah, I was just gonna say, thanks, Janet. We, yeah, I do apologize. We found a number of mistakes in terms of how sections are referenced. And it just, we were, because we're adjusting to the new general bylaw format, I kept on having to change the way sections were referenced and numbered. So we have also found a lot of those mistakes. So I do apologize if that made it hard to understand. So I think, we're happy to have you send us those inline comments or meet with us separately. But I'm certainly interested in some of your broader comments and questions, I guess, that's how I would. So here's my big three broad ones. I like the old purposes section. I thought that like, that had like so specific and covered so much. And I thought it was a very positive thing. So I've always, it's kind of my personal favorite and I would stick with it. I thought you should keep the historic commission as the entity to decide what's significant. And then in an administrative section, allow yourself to delegate that to one of your members and the planning board staff member. Cause someday you may not want to do it that way. And that would give you the ability to go back and forth. It also said the language was historic commission member and planning staff, which sounded like a huge group. And so that was a little unclear. But I just, I thought that the administrative section from the mass historic commission model bylaw was super useful and you could give yourself some fluidity or ability to sort of change who the decision makers are if you change that. And then I thought that I did think the public needs some way to get notification. It could be on the town scroll, on the town webpage. And then I also wondered about timing issue. Like I know Chris Skelly was talking about the need to, for some, a lot of commissions like to hire independent consultants to determine what should be preferably preserved. And I wondered if there was enough time to do that. Or is that the habit of the commission to consult an expert? It seems like the valley is full of experts. They're all down the road in Deerfield. But is there enough time to have that kind of consultation? So I had timing questions too. All right. Any of the panelists want to respond to that or just take those under advisement. Jane, you are muted. Thank you. There are a number of comments and questions there. And I think it would be really helpful for you to share those with Ben and then with the commission. And we will certainly look at them and look at the best way to prepare the bylaw. I will take it. Yeah. And I really appreciate your looking at things in detail. I just have to say one thing is be sure you're looking at the most recent version because you said streetscapes and neighborhoods was out of the purpose it's in the first line. It may be that you're seeing an older, I know you've seen this a number of times and we've revised it over and over, but it is there. So just be sure. Okay, thanks. All right. Thanks, Janet. Johanna. Last question, I promise. I was just curious whether home owners or the owners of historic structures or those purchasing in a historic district are notified of that at the point of sale? Just as part of the closing documents. So in the historic district, which there's two historic districts in town, we send a newsletter every year to residents there. So that's, we try to notify folks at least once a year in the historic districts, but there's for the historic structures scattered throughout all of Amherst that we don't have a system of notification at this point. Real estate agents will not tell you. They don't want to tell you, so we can't count on them. Right. Okay. Okay. I don't see any more board hands. I see one hand in the attendees and we've just passed eight o'clock when we usually take a break. So I'm wondering whether we just listen to the public comment that we have and then have a short discussion about whether we're sort of finished with this item on the agenda or whether we want to continue after the break. All right, Kitty Axelson-Berry. Why don't we move her into the panelists so that she can make her public comment. Kitty, you are still muted. Kitty Axelson-Berry, are you there? Doug, that could be a legacy hand from her hand being up before. Yeah. All right. In that case, why don't we move her back to the attendees and we can take down that hand. And we'll take a five minute break. I see right now it's eight o' nine. Actually, before we do that, let's just have a quick conversation. Do people want to continue this discussion on this bylaw after the break or not? Can I see, just raise your hand if you want to continue the conversation? Not seeing any. Okay, so panelists from the Historic Commission and Ben, are there any other things you want to say to us before we conclude this discussion? No, I just want to thank you again for your attention to the draft bylaw and for really appreciate your recognition that we've continued to work on it with feedback from a previous visit with you and appreciate all your comments this evening. And we will continue to fashion this and shape it as can best serve the town of Amherst. And so Janet, we'll appreciate getting your questions and comments also. All right, thank you all. Chris, I see your hand. I just have a question for the board, which is, would you like to see this again before it goes to town council because what the normal course of events would be that the historical commission and the planning department would send it to the town manager to bring to town council. And then it would be referred back to the planning board and the CRC for public hearings. So do you want to see this again before it goes through that process? And it sounds like Janet had a number of things that she was suggesting that we may want to incorporate and give you another draft to review before it goes to town council. So is that something that you want to do or not? I'm seeing Janet shaking her head, yes, I believe. Anybody else wanna indicate or is that sufficient that we'll bring it back? All right, Johanna had a thumbs up on that. Tom, you have your hand raised. So in Christine's outline, it's going to come back to us eventually, right? Is that, it's just gonna go through. For council and CRC. Okay. Well, I would come back to you. I just wanted to point this out because last year we had some complaints about things going to town council before people on the planning board felt they were ready to go to town council. So I'm trying to make it more possible to have all of your things incorporated before it goes to town council. So that's why I'm asking this question. Okay, Johanna? I think it makes sense to keep it at the planning board for a little bit longer before it goes to town council so that ideally we send them as close to a finished product as possible. It's good. Okay, and why don't we plan to do that? All right, thanks panelists. And we'll take a five minute break and we'll move on to something else when we return. The time now is 8.12. Please try to be back at 8.17 and turn off your video and mute your microphone while you're gone. Thank you. Thanks Emma. All right, it's 8.17. Doug, may I ask a question? Sure, Chris. I have this funny remembrance in the back of my mind that Andrew may have said something at the last meeting that he was going to miss this meeting. Did anyone remember that? I was looking through my notes but I don't see a reference to that but he's usually, you know, usually lets us know if he's going to be here or not. Does anyone remember him saying he wasn't going to be here? I don't remember, that was a long enough meeting that I was pretty well fried by the end of it. Okay. Regardless of whether he told us, he is not present. All right. I am finishing up dinner so I'm going to turn off my video for a little bit. All right, thank you. Once we see that Jack's back paying attention, we'll resume. Hey Jack, Gemsec, are you back? So Chris, is it allowed for us to continue? I mean, we've certainly had people that have had to leave a meeting and go on to other things, so. We'll note when Jack returns, how's that? Okay. All right, so why don't we resume? The time is 8.20 and we're moving on to the next item on the agenda, which is item four and this concerns the drafting of a zoning amendment on large scale solar installations discussion by the board. So Chris, do you want to maybe give us an update on the conversations in town hall and other places about where this stands with your process? Sure, I'd be happy to do that. So there's a plan being developed for working on the solar bylaw and the solar site assessment. The plan is being coordinated with the town manager, Paul Backelman and assistant town manager, Dave Zomek. And so far, the plan is as follows. The solar site assessment will be kind of managed by Stephanie Chickarello. She's the sustained, yeah. Jack has joined us, it's 8.21. 8.21. Okay, so we'll, sorry to interrupt you, Chris. It's okay, so anyway, so the plan is as follows. The solar site assessment is gonna be managed by Stephanie Chickarello, who's the sustainability coordinator. And she's also the staff liaison to ECAC, which I always forget what that means, but I think it means energy and climate action committee. So she is currently developing an RFP to hire a consultant to work with the town on producing the solar site assessment. And that will look at land inammers to determine the best areas of town to site solar installations and where we do not want to site solar installations. The study will be based on numerous criteria, which will be developed by the town, by the public and by the consultant in concert. The study will aid the town in creating a map of areas of town where we want solar and where we don't want it. We're hoping that it will result in a map in the form of an overlay district that can be incorporated into the zoning bylaw. And then in terms of the solar bylaw, we currently are planning for the planning board and the planning department to work on the solar bylaw, which is the way it really should be, informed by the work on the solar site assessment. So the planning board members have been reading solar bylaws from other towns and they've been given PVPC's solar best practices guide. The planning department will be drafting the solar bylaw and bringing it to the planning board for review and comment. And all of the planning board meetings are public meetings. So the public will be kept aware of where the planning board is with the solar bylaw. The planning department staff is going to be interacting, we interact on a daily or at least a weekly basis with Stephanie and her contacts with ECAC. In addition to that, Chris, me and Stephanie are working on developing a charge for a working group to make recommendations to the town manager. So this would be a group that would be appointed by the town manager and maybe it would have five to seven members. And this group would be mainly overseeing the solar site assessment. And it would also advise the town and the staff on the planning board on the solar bylaw. And we're thinking that the working group would have people on it who are very familiar with solar installations but also familiar with some of the issues that are related to siting solar installations. So there are people over at UMass who are developing a methodology for municipalities and how to deal with solar installations. And we're hoping that some of them can, or at least one of them can be part of this group. So that working group would work in coordination with ECAC and the planning board and the planning department and we'll seek public input as the project moves forward. We're envisioning that there will be several public meetings or public forums in which members of the public will be invited to give their input and to comment on the bylaw and the solar assessment as we proceed. And the aim is to finish this work in advance of May 2023. If the moratorium goes through May of 2023 is the date on which the moratorium would expire. So we would hope to finish well in advance of that but I can't really predict how long it will take to do the solar assessment. I can kind of predict how long it will take to do the solar bylaw amendment based on last year's experiences but hopefully it won't take 15 months. So that is my update. And I understand that Doug prepared a chart that he may wanna talk about that compares what various towns and cities are doing with regard to solar bylaws. And I thought maybe we could use this time after you all make comments and ask questions but I would be interested in knowing the kinds of things that the planning board members are thinking about and that you would like to see included in a solar bylaw. Now, obviously this is a first conversation and you'll have time in the future to add to your comments. But starting off writing this solar bylaw I'm very interested in getting your input because I assume you've read some of the material that we've sent out. All right, thanks Chris. Board members, anybody wanna start off with thoughts? Do you want me to share my screen and show that chart I put together? I'm seeing one. Okay, well, I know Chris sent it to everyone. It didn't make it into the packet. Chris, is it reasonable to assume that you or Pam can add it to the packet when the packet is posted just so that the public has access to a copy? I may have already done that. I just can't remember. Yes, you can make sure. So why don't I share my screen? Let's see. Well, let me know how this... I believe I have it too, Doug. Oh, do you? So why don't you go ahead and do that? You want me to try? Sure, I think that might be better. But I can't remember as whether it was a... It was an Excel document? It was an Excel document. Not a PDF. But isn't this it? Solar bylaw comparison? Can you see it? Yep, that's right. Okay. Perfect. All right, so as I started looking through these, it seemed like several of the towns around us had very similar bylaws and probably used the same sort of... Somebody did it first and then the other ones kind of adopted it and made their own changes. I was mostly interested in characteristics that were not directly related to the geography of the site. So I think I was thinking sort of in parallel with what Chris has described, that these are the kinds of things we will want to talk about and certainly get input from the working group, but these are things that we have more... Probably have more input on than the extent of the overlay district. So I looked at the... Just some of the physical characteristics and parameters that towns were putting on solar installations. And you can see across the top, I looked at the DOER template and then at Belcher Town, Hadley, Pelham and Shootsbury's bylaws. So just going down the characteristics on the left, I just put the section in there so that I could find the solar section when I came back to it. Belcher Town was unique in that they were limiting the area of installations to 20 acres and that was the fenced area. And they didn't want to see forest clearing that was in excess of 10 acres. Pelham and Shootsbury had a map that created these solar districts. So they took their town and divided it into different districts and then they indicated that maybe within each district there was only one solar array allowed. So whatever owner got their installation first nobody else within that district was able to do it. Then setbacks, I think that's gonna be a prime area of conversation for us. And just as we've done with other zoning districts and uses, I'm sure there'll be a lot of conversation about that. So you can see that the DOE are template which I can't remember, it might've just been sort of a, why don't you just threw a number in? I don't think they really thought a lot about what they put in, but they had small setbacks. The next smallest was Hadley and then Belcher Town and then Pelham and Shootsbury had very large setbacks. And then there were special considerations for setbacks in particularly scenic parts of town like in Hadley where along Route 147 that was one of their scenic byways. So they had a greater setback. And then I think the other towns all had these other dimensions if the solar array was a budding conservation or residential land. I looked at the signage and I don't think there's very much variation there. Visual distraction, Belcher Town called out Galare and didn't wanna see a solar array obstructing people's view around a corner on a road, for instance. So that we might have some conversation about that. Pelham and Shootsbury wanted to see the fencing be black in color so that it recedes into the landscape. Everybody wanted their utility connections underground to the extent it was reasonable to require that. And that would obviously have some interpretation. Three out of four of the towns wanted to see 30 feet deep vegetative screening where they decided that it needed to happen. No, three out of four did not wanna have herbicides used on plant control at the array. Three out of four had this forest mitigation criteria that if you say your array was 10 acres, you needed to have another 40 acres that you set aside and did not agreed to leave intact as woodland. And then they all had the surety requirement for to make sure there was money to remove the array at the end of the useful life, and which kind of was part of it being a temporary installation in the end. So that's really all I did. Much of the rest of these bylaws were very similar. I would think the planning staff could practically pick any one of them and use that as a template because I didn't think there was a lot of other controversial stuff, but I'm sure we'll find other things that we can argue about. So I'll stop there. We can leave this on the screen if you want, but Tom, I see you have your hand up. Yeah, thanks Doug. And thanks for this work. I didn't realize that you had gone through the trouble of doing this, which seems a bit laborious and I appreciate it. Because my comment was that I think this really reflects that what we're seeing is some version of a template that is being constructed and reconstructed then varied based on specific interests and conditions of the community around it. And so Chris asked, what would we like to see? And my thought was, I think we're gonna see 90% of this be pretty boilerplate what I'm most interested in is how do we deviate from that and then a rationale as to why? Similar to the way we were talking about making changes from the old bylaw to a new, here's the rationale why we do that. I think if we can start with this boilerplate and get something really moving, we can then really focus on some of the more hot button issues Doug that I think we wanna touch on about making sure we're dealing with issues of conservation and these notions are about forest clearing and even setbacks in safety and water conservation or protection and all that stuff. I think those are gonna be the kind of things we really need to focus on and have a rationale as to why we wanna deviate from any one of these particular sort of best practices that seem to be presented here. So I think Chris was asking what do we wanna see? I think that's the way I feel about it that we can get started with this really rough roadmap and then talk about how we deviate from that for to meet amorous needs and the needs of our community. Okay, thanks Tom. Chris, I see your hand. Did you have a comment about that? Yeah, I just wanted to say and I think I might have sent you some of these documents, but perhaps not. There are issues of what the values of your community are and that's one thing that the working group is gonna try to work on.  And so what do we need to do to achieve that goal or we have a value of seeing beautiful scenes from the roadways and are we disturbed by seeing solar arrays from the roadways such as like Hampshire College's solar array on Bay Road. Is that something that people want to see? Hampshire College likes to have it front and center because they're proud of it. They feel like this is a really good thing that they did. Other people won't view it that way. So we need to have a community discussion about these things. We need to talk about the value of water and groundwater and stormwater and all of these things and how do we control it and how do we keep it from damaging any of our resources? And so one of the documents that the, what was it? I think it was the town council or maybe it was the CRC was looking at was a kind of a five part process to work through some of this and the first part of the process was setting up what are your community values that you want to work towards? So I think that's an important piece. All right, thanks, Chris. Janet. I wanna piggyback on everyone's comments. I definitely think that it's great to work off a template. I'm not sure that these four or five towns would be the template. I mean, obviously they have lots of different factors that we're gonna need to consider. So I always think like what are the best practices or what are the issues we wanna cover which is what Christine was just talking about. And I actually, I didn't read every page of the very, very long Athol document that you sent us, Doug. I appreciate this comparison chart because it's super clear. I thought the Athol report and bylaw and process which I think they did with Tufts was a great template because it is kind of walking you through your values and saying you could do this or you could do that or here's some language if you wanna do this. And I actually thought that would be a really good template to start working off of like, what do you wanna protect? Where do you know, where's your preference for where you wanna cite things? And so, I just thought that Athol example was an example of good process but also sort of opening up the whole discussion of different bylaw, they had language but they also kind of said you could say this or you could say that. And working through that bylaw using that as a template process would be really instructive because we're gonna wind in, Athol was concerned about scenic views a lot. We're gonna be concerned maybe about freshwater wetlands, things like that. But wouldn't you consider that a template for a solar study rather than a template for a bylaw? But if towards the back of that huge document they did have bylaws, they had bylaw language. Yeah, I thought that was a great document and I read through it. It's been several weeks ago now but it did seem like it got at a lot of the decisions and values that we would probably wanna talk about. And then I think we're sort of confronted with how do you write a bylaw as you're doing this values process of the solar assessment? And so, maybe we can use that as a skeleton and be thinking about language. One of the things I'm really interested in is can we have solar on farmland and still use the farmland for grazing or growing crops? Like that would be my preference. And so I did some research in that and people are doing that. And so that might be in our bylaw saying, yeah, they have to be high enough or far enough apart that you could actually raise crops or grazing animals a little easier as long as they're short. Those kind of things I think we could add in but you're only gonna add it in if you wanna add it in. Well, I guess the other, that raises another topic that's sort of in the back of my mind which is the state legislation that has basically says you can't have any, you really can't do very much to limit where solar installations go unless it's for public safety, health and welfare or something like that. And so, some of these provisions in these adjacent towns strike me as maybe not even holding up to a lawsuit. And I guess, so that's one question. And then, for some of these towns where you've got four times the land required to be set aside, there's an economic implication to that. And so in a way, we're setting up the parameters of the next generation of public utility and how much do we wanna be spending on electricity? And is that amount of charge or societal resource to generate electricity affordable to the poorest among us? And so there's a social justice aspect to it. So, I mean, this seems like a really kind of a big question and I'm not sure where we have all the expertise to do it but I hope our consultants can help us. So, let's see, Chris, I see your hand. So one of the big things I think we need to think about is what is gonna be the tone of our bylaw? Is it going to be a tone of welcoming solar arrays and installations and trying to figure out the best place to put them and how to deal with them? Or is it gonna be kind of a punitive or exclusionary or we don't want you here but if you have to come here this is what you have to do. And I think we have to talk about that attitude because I think there will be people who will push us in the direction of the punitive and the highly restrictive. And I think based on our climate action goals that's not really a direction that we should be moving in. So this is, we need to have this conversation out in the open and resolve at least what the planning board thinks about this. And hopefully we can also hear from the public and try to resolve what Amherst thinks about it. Great, Johanna. Doug, I really appreciate you sifting through the different bylaws and coming up with this comparison. The one data point that I keep pining for and maybe I'll do this myself is looking at the current bylaw that we have that guides energy siting in Amherst and just seeing how it stacks up to these. Cause let's say we do nothing that would be kind of the baseline that we're operating from and it would be interesting to see how it stacks up. Well, I think, I mean, I actually thought about putting a column in for what we have now but I realized that, I mean, I didn't get very far into that. I did this fairly quickly and some of these may not be quite perfect. I may have been moving too fast but it struck me that we have different setbacks for instance, required in different districts already in town and the solar installations are allowed in multiple districts. So there isn't one set of setbacks for instance that applies to a solar array. And in fact, I guess I'm not even clear on whether a setback intended for a building structure would even apply to a setback for a solar frame or panel. You know, so I didn't get very far with that. And, you know, I also thought I did go back and look at what Chris and the staff answered when we asked what the zoning board of appeals has required on the arrays that have been put in town so far. And I don't think I saw any uniform setbacks in that response. So, you know, I'm happy to share my document with you and you can add a few more columns to it, Johanna. I think we could take this off the screen. I think we could, you know, I hope everybody's got it and, you know, we can add to it or whatever as we see fit. Chris. I just wanted to say that we do adhere to the dimensional requirements of the zoning bylaw and we consider that the solar arrays are structures. So we require that whatever setback is required in the particular zoning district. But at the same time, we hear from residents and, you know, butters about what their concerns are. And if they think that the setback needs to be greater than the zoning board or the planning board would hear that and then make a determination based on that. So they don't necessarily strictly stick to the setbacks but at least they have sort of a benchmark to start with. Okay, great. Other comments. Okay, well then I guess Chris, you had asked about the tone that we want to take and I at least my inclination would be to be as welcoming as we could be. I think we have a lot of ground to make up, you know, it's been 30 years since we, since I first heard about climate change and global warming and it just feels like we're finally getting traction on the technology being feasible enough and enough people being worried and motivated to do something about it that gee, we're finally getting some action and that's good. So, you know, hopefully it's not already too late since the climate we're living in today is probably based on the carbon count from 15, 20 years ago. You know, if we did nothing, if we admit no more carbon it's still gonna get hotter for a while. So, but I'll try to be optimistic about all of this. So I'd be as welcoming as we could be and only exclude solar installations where public health, you know, safety and welfare are clearly at stake. So things like water resources would be, you know, a prime example of where I'd be very careful about what we're doing. But I'm personally less worried about the view, you know, and I think the economics is something we need to think about or at least be aware of even if we don't have really very good information. Personally, you know, I put solar on my house and I saw how much that cost. And so I do think that there's an efficiency from having fewer larger arrays rather than all of us putting $25,000 worth of solar work on our roofs. But I recognize that every little bit helps, so, but I don't know that that's a very efficient way to meet our need. And I don't even know if there's enough roofs to do that. And hopefully the solar study will help us understand that. So that's probably my two cents for the moment. Jack, I see your hand. Yeah, I just need to mention water resources. The Water Supply Protection Committee met last week and we are going to, you know, do a little bit of, do a white paper. Myself and Brian Yellen and maybe others will be looking at the impact of solar on, you know, water resource aspects. But, you know, my personal experience has been that the, the solar arrays do not bring on hazardous materials. That's, you know, the number one concern, you know, with regard to leaching and things like that. You know, and I think we all are understanding how important the construction phase of these are.  And, you know, that I really like the idea that third-party inspector being in there as being someone independent, making sure that the, you know, the, the, the SWIP, as we call it, is properly implemented. Because that's the most, you know, critical phase of the whole operation.  It's canals above soil and grass. So it maintains a grassland sort of environment with, you know, from a hydrogeologic hydro, you know, hydrology perspective. But certainly the construction phase is the most critical. And, you know, I think that the water resources thing is something that has kind of got blown out of proportion. And again, I just look at your chart one more thing. I feel like, you know, Pelham and Shootsbury are a little bit of, you know, outliers with regard to the offset, the 500 foot offset there seems a little bit untenable, especially, you know, compared to the DOER and, you know, what other towns have been doing. So I'm wondering, I'm not sure we would want to, you know, focus too much on those two bylaws. So thank you. Thanks, Jack. Johanna, I'm going to call on you next, but I want to, since Jack mentioned the towns that he wasn't sure we should follow, particularly, Janet mentioned she wasn't sure those were the towns we wanted to follow and did mention the Athol study. But, you know, I think it might be good for all of us to think about, you know, taking a few minutes and looking at other towns, you know, I haven't looked at Northampton. I haven't looked at Newton. I haven't looked at Arlington, you know, all of which are much more developed. So, you know, if they don't put it on roofs, they've got a problem. So, you know, I don't know what Lennox has. So maybe we need to find some other relatively affluent towns with lots of open, undeveloped land and look at them. I guess one other thing that just occurs to me is that we have a high percentage of our land that the town has purchased and put into conservation land. And so there might, you know, we could either decide to just completely exclude solar from all of our conservation land or we could say, well, we can do that in some areas where they're not highly sensitive habitats. So I think that's one conversation that whether, you know, somehow we need to get at that too because when I looked at the maps that Cinda Jones sent that showed how her properties related to the developed land in Amherst and the conservation land, you know, it was pretty striking how much conservation land there is. So if you take that away and you take all the developed land away, you're not left with very much. And so I'll stop there, Johanna. Thanks, Doug.  I agree with you that I think we need to be welcoming of solar rather than punitive. That needs to be the tone of this. I do think rooftop solar has a special role to play. It's unlikely to meet all of our energy needs in town but there are benefits to producing solar close to where you need it that are very real in the avoided transmission costs, the lost leakage of power during transmission and then they're just like resiliency benefits too. I mean, we haven't had a lot of blackouts in extreme weather events here but I know in places like Puerto Rico and wildfire ravaged California, people are really looking to rooftop solar coupled with energy storage as a way to, you know, maintain power in a more and more unstable world. And then even like connecting those with micro grids so that like one neighborhood that loses power can, or that doesn't lose power, can share power, you know, with other neighbors. I don't think our bylaw is gonna accomplish all of that but I do think, I mean, Amherst has a history of supporting rooftop solar with the various solarized programs. I'm honestly not up to speed on where our community solar program is at but I do think we should be encouraging rooftop solar as much as we can on the local level. And then I do think that there, I'd be interested to hear, well, I guess from folks in the solar industry about how much town by town variations in the bylaws affect their ability to, I don't know, do business efficiently and how important it is to kind of try to streamline that on a regional level or whether, you know, we should like, who cares what Hadley's doing? Let's just figure out what we think is best and do that. And then I'm also, I don't know. I mean, I guess this is probably a function of needing to build the bicycle while we're riding it when it comes to the clean energy transition, but I am struck by the overall lack of guidance from, I don't know, PVPA or, you know, some of the almost county-wide entities.  And they don't have the resources to offer coherent guidance. And so, you know, it would just be, we're gonna need that. Okay, I'll stop there. Thank you. Before I call on you, Jack, Johanna, since you mentioned residential areas, you know, it had, it also occurred to me that at least based on my experience with the size of the array on my roof and how much of my energy that generates, there is some sort of ratio between, you know, how many houses, an acre of solar arrays would support. And, you know, it might, let's say it's 25 houses. So, you know, if we went out into some of the larger subdivisions in town, I forget the name of them, but, you know, would we be okay with every 25 one acre lots? We'd be okay with a one acre solar array. And that, you know, then that community has its, has done its part, you know, could be isolated from the rest of the town. And, you know, if there's a battery, then they probably could generate a sizable proportion of their energy. So, I'm not sure I really, you know, the more I've thought about it, I'm not sure I really want to exclude solar from residential areas. And another kind of thought was we have high tension lines that run through Amherst right now. And a pretty sizable part of that route is owned by Western mass electric. It's about 150 feet wide.  You know, I don't know if they've thought about it, but, you know, we should be pushing them to think about it. But that's, some of that cuts right through residential areas, would we be okay with that? We've got people living next to high tension lines now and they knew that when they bought it. So, you know, Hannah, I assume you're done and you'll take your hand down when you're finished. Jack, you're next. Yeah, Doug, what a great idea with regard to the transmission line. And just, you know, the right of way it's there, they had to keep vegetation down as it is. So it requires maintenance, you know, oh, very good idea. And I'm wondering, you know, if your original thought there or you should get credit for it, but no, that is very good. I was going to say, like when the mass, Massachusetts came out with their, you know, incentives for developing solar, they knew that they didn't want to, they didn't want it to get forced, they didn't want to take up agricultural land and they prioritize brownfields, number one, which included landfills to the extent where they were giving 30% like credit for those types of things. And that was a make or break thing in terms of getting credits from the state, you know, for those areas. And, but, you know, the fact of the matter is that those areas are extremely limited. And so, you know, we're not going to meet our objectives. I think we need, you know, I see Steve Roof as a participant here, but I think, you know, we need a, you know, 200, 300 acres of additional solar to meet the goals. So that's just not going to happen, you know, in parking lots and rooftop and things like that.   So that's why that's happening, you know, it's, there's the need and it's just, it's where solar developers have to go to because there's aren't any alternatives, feasible alternatives. All right, thanks, Jack. Chris, Johanna had mentioned, it'd be interesting to know to hear from some solar developers about some of the economics and the obstacles that different towns present. You know, I think, you know, there is that developer that had proposed the project on Shootsbury Road that we could probably track down. And then there's people like PV squared who are local suppliers. And I don't know what their experience is with ground mounted installation, but I wonder whether we wanna start to reach out to people who might bring a particular perspective, you know, and, you know, I mean a wide variety of perspectives and whether it's proper for us to do that or whether it's something the working group would be doing or would it be part of the solar study? So I guess we don't need to decide that tonight, but, you know, I think it's something to think about is how do we gain some of the perspective of people who are quite knowledgeable and, you know, some of them will not agree with, you know, a lot of people in town and, but we're kind of building a new thing here. Chris, I see your hand. So that was one of the ideas that Stephanie and I had for the working group that we might bring in. I think there are two people that we are, we know about. And one is that attorney who wrote the article in the Gazette a month or so ago. Sarah Matthews. Yeah, and she works for developers of solar arrays and she might, you know, bring a good perspective. I think she lives in Amherst and there's another person who is involved in solar development whom Stephanie knows about. And we were thinking of contacting those two people and seeing if they would be interested in being part of the working group because that's knowledge that, you know, we don't have and forest ecologists don't have and groundwater people don't have. And, you know, we need to know this because it relates to how close these things need to be to the grid and do they need battery storage and where does the battery storage go? Does it go in the middle or does it go on the road or all these different things that we don't know anything about but people who are involved in the developments do know about. So I think that's a good idea to bring those people in. And, you know, we can talk about whether the planning board would like to have them one or two of them come in and talk to the planning board about things from that perspective. So yeah, it's certainly on our radar screen. Yeah. Okay, good. I mean, we don't want to demand so much time from them to talk to a lot of different bodies. So, you know, if the right place for them to make their contribution is the working group, I'm not sure I would personally insist that they came to us, but I'd certainly want to know that there was a wide variety of representation in what the working group brought to us. Janet, you're next.  Those are really squishy. And so that pretty much, I think it gives us free reign to do what we want as long as it's not really out there. Because the public welfare is obviously a very general, you know, concept.  So you could pretty much, as long as you have a reasonable basis for it and it makes sense to most people, you're gonna get through. We seem like the state law requires that some things have to be by site plan review, but not everything. And so we could have special permits for different things. So I don't think that state statute, it's not gonna be like a legal tether controlling regulations. The question I think for us as a community, what do we wanna regulate? I do wanna always focus on the positive. And then of course, bringing in the doomsday scenarios because that's what lawyers do and we deal with the doom. And so I would be really interested in hearing about what are actual problems that have happened that solar facilities large and small, probably on the larger side. And I was doing some research in that and it really depends on where you are. And so I think that's kind of important, like one of the big, the giant facilities they have in the Mojave Desert, they actually produce this incredible sort of heat vortex. Like they try to consolidate and bring heat to heat up the oil or the steam or whatever, but they're actually changing, they're producing a tremendous amount of heat because only 25% of that, the solar rays are used. And so those are really negatives, not just for the ecosystem, but actually turn out to be sort of heating up the planet. And that's not gonna be our problem in New England because we just don't have that weather. But I was really interested in like, when people from the public were talking to us about what happened with the cranberry bogs, I thought, I have no idea what they're talking about. Like what was the impact on this wetland? Is that something that we have to worry about in terms of our wetlands and things like that. And if we're monitoring, what are we monitoring against? Like if we're writing laws, what are we trying to prevent? What problems are we trying to prevent happening? And until I know what those problems have been, I don't really know what to write. And one of the issues I had was the batteries, if they're large batteries on a facility being stored, batteries, when they start burning, they're filled with hazardous materials and when they start burning, they have to be heated, they have to be cooled, they're temperamental. If they start to burn, they're really hard to put out and it'd be really hard to contain what's coming out of them. And I don't know if our fire department would be equipped for that. And so that's the kind of problem that I would, mostly because this is my husband's field, but I had also watched this long thing about Teslas burning up houses in California when their batteries spontaneously combust. And I was like, oh, this is a good thing for not having a garage. So those are the kind of problems, I think we need to foresee happening and write regulations or controls for seeing that that might happen. Like if we have a battery out on the field in a forest and it starts to burn, what then, how is that handled or how is that contained in terms of its discharge and stuff like that? So that's the kind of bummer legal stuff, but I do really think we should also focus on like, how to encourage solar where we want it. And that would be good to talk to people from PV squared about what's successful. There's an actual one acre lot in front of my house. And I was just thinking, well, we could just fire up and put panels there and Valley View would be covered. And I think the idea of the Wemiko lines is fantastic. I've been walking under those lines because they're upgrading, although they're huge. It's huge open space. And it cuts through Amherst and you don't even know it. That's it. Okay. Thanks, Janet. Jack. Yeah, just, you know, Janet brought up the wetlands and I do think that the existing wetlands bylaws are going to be protective of any sort of development. I think a solar field compared to like a parking lot or residential development is going to have much less impact.  And then thereafter just, you know, make sure, you know, it's going to be protected. But I think we have a hundred foot buffer, you know, some areas 200 foot because of the Riverous Protection Act. Those are, I think, I don't, you know, I don't think we need to override those for solar, but we definitely need to, you know, incorporate that. And the battery thing, actually, yeah, that's something I'm wondering, like, you know, these bylaws, do we take in, you know, do we include, you know, sections for battery?  But the battery one is a little bit of something that I'm not familiar with that I would like to get more information on for sure. All right. Thanks, Jack. So we're almost at 9.15. And I made the perhaps rash statement earlier that I hope we didn't go to 10.30. So I'm wondering, you know, we probably ought to provide for some public comment if people want to speak to what they've heard this evening. And we also hoped to have at least a brief conversation about where we stand with some of the zoning proposals that we were working on last year. Chris had an update spreadsheet for that.  So I guess I'm wondering maybe we do public comment now and do another maybe 10 to 15 minutes of board conversation if we need to, you know, I think, Chris, you might think about whether you've heard enough to get started this evening. And then we move on to our regular closing items and try to finish up, say quarter of 10 or probably 10 o'clock by the time we're done. Does that sound okay? Yep, lots of nodding heads. Good, okay. So why don't we go to public comment at this time? I'm hoping that all 18 of you don't need to speak for three minutes. And in fact, Pam, why don't we try two minutes just to see if people can be a little bit more concise. All right, thanks. Okay. All right, so we'll start with Michael de Chiara. Why don't we bring Michael in and Michael, please give us your name and your address. Yep, Michael de Chiara, actually 56 Pratt Corner Road. I live in Sheetsbury, but I'm on the Sheetsbury Planning Board. So a couple of quick points. One is just an observation. I wanna commend you guys. Reflecting on a few meetings ago where it seemed like there was a discussion about you don't need a solar bylaw, I think you're discovering the complexity of solar. So that's great. Doug, I liked your graph. I just wanted to give you some accuracy. So for Sheetsbury and Pelham, for Sheetsbury, the limit size is 15 acres, but Sheetsbury and Pelham are probably hidden in the definition section. It's not in actually the, so it's there. I've always thought it's a weird place to stick it, but and Pelham copied ours. So that's probably where theirs is as well. The other thing I would just say, I actually, I think I mentioned this, but in December, I went through and looked at all the solar bylaws that were available online in the state. And there's 206 towns and cities that have them. Sheetsbury and Pelham, it sounds like you're not gonna follow ours, but we are outliers. There is sort of a template. There's a whole bunch of them that are very vanilla. And if you start searching through, you'll start seeing them pop up. The last thing I would just say is in terms of batteries, it sounds like you're addressing batteries. Batteries are, they were called out specifically in the PVPC report for best practices that it can concern. If you look at existing solar bylaws, they're not there. The SMART program is just requiring them in the last year or so. So every SMART funded program is gonna have batteries now, but pretty much all the bylaws that are in existence don't have them. Sheetsbury is developing an energy storage bylaw, regardless of any energy generation source that we'll do. So just when you're looking, you probably won't find it, but it sounds like you're on top of it. So thank you. Thank you, Michael. And I'll look for the definitions of in your bylaw for the areas. All right, next we have Phil Rich.  Okay, can you hear me okay? Yes, we can. Okay, Phil Rich, 187 Sheetsbury wrote in Emma's. I'm gonna butt it to one of the proposals, the app calls proposal. You know, I'm just concerned like I've heard the word punitive a couple of times now. They're quite sure what that's about. I don't think the concern is intended to punish solar developments, just the opposite. It is intended however, to make sure that it's prudent and safe and has really no long-term detrimental effect either on the land or the ecosystem. That's one of the neighbors in the town. I'm one of those neighbors to one of these proposals. And so I'm hoping that the bylaw will take the time to take everything into consideration without being punitive, but being prudent. And again, that includes ensuring the well-being. It's like I'm thinking of a better word of people who are immediately abutting the access road and the development of a commercial installation itself. So I'm interested to hear what that term punitive has been used at least twice. So I certainly want to get off and be interested if there's any time to hear what people mean by punitive. That's it for me, thanks. Okay, thank you very much, Phil. We'll have to think about that. All right, next we will have Steve Roof. Steve, we need you to give your name and your address again. Yes, good evening. I'm Steve Roof. I'm in South Amherst, 1680 South East street. I am a member of the Energy and Climate Action Committee, otherwise known as ECAC. I'm also a professor, a researcher of climate change for about 40 years. And in the last 10 years or so, doing a lot of renewable energy development. I'm not quite sure what to say. I hope to be in the group that helps develop this bylaw going forward. I think what I'll say now is that I like what you guys said earlier that a lot of this is gonna come down to values. There's some technical aspects that we can work out. There's data, there's facts, we can work that out. But there's a lot of value judges that have to be here. And there's always a lot of concern when we're focusing on solar, what are the impacts of solar? How's it gonna affect the groundwater? How's it gonna affect the view shed? How's it gonna affect the wildlife, the forests? I just wanna, I guess, emphasize that we can't just look at the impacts of solar because what we're really trying to do is figure out how to become carbon neutral and how to stop burning fossil fuels. So whenever we look at the impact, potential impacts of solar, we have to compare those to the impacts of burning fossil fuels. If we don't do solar, we're gonna be burning more fossil fuels. Those fossil fuels are burned in low income neighborhoods throughout Massachusetts. They have huge impacts, health, economic impacts, ecological impacts from the pollution in addition to the greenhouse gas impacts. So let's not focus on solar by itself and look at all the bad things of solar, but let's always compare the solar benefits and impacts to the benefits and impacts of fossil fuels. So thank you guys. All right, thanks, Steve. All right, next we'll have Eric Bakrak. Please give us your name and your address. Thanks so much, Eric Bakrak, 277 Shootsbury Road. I'm hoping that the usual elements of that will be considered by four solar bylaws such as site placement and size, design, construction, et cetera, monitoring and ultimately removal that those will not only be the, that other aspects will be integrated into the consideration for solar bylaw, for the solar bylaw. I'd hope also that several things other than those would be considered such as number one, the Amherst master plan of 2010 calls for land conservation by keeping critical tracks of the highest quality habitats identified, undeveloped and permanently protected. Second, the master plan also calls for the identification and permanent protection of lands buffering Amherst water supply, its wells and reservoirs from development. I'd hope that the committees and boards working on this law will work together along with the town council. This might include the Amherst conservation commission water supply protection committee that we heard about, the Amherst health department and boards there, they have the sole jurisdiction of governing and regulating quality of private wells. I would hope that an in-depth critical analysis of where LSAs have gone wrong, gone bad such as ones located in Williamsburg and Conway and why they did. The issue of battery storage we've already talked about and those are so, so critical. Then when we take down far, it's ultimately, we understand that what we are losing, we are losing their highest and best use purposes, drought resilience, protection of wildlife habitats, protection of clean water, flood storage and management. By deforesting, we also release all the carbon that has been stored for many, many decades. But I hope that we make wise decisions of the town and that we do not jettison our local ecology and irreparably threaten the balance of nature. Thank you so much for considering my comments. Thank you, Eric. Okay, next we have Dorothy Pam. Dorothy, she'd give us your name and remind us of your address. Okay, Dorothy Pam, 229 Amity Street. And I was surprised when you said you'd been thinking about climate change for 30 years because I remember the 70s and it was big and all the school children were taught about it and they came home and they were cried and everyone was upset and then nobody did anything. But it was really, really big there for quite a bit. So after listening to the items you've discussed today, I just think how could anyone have not wanted a moratorium? This is complex and you have discussed so many issues that have to be looked at, examined, studied and decided on and so I know you've got a lot of experts already and I'm thrilled that you're gonna be drawing upon people from the university and I know there will be trade-offs. Nothing will be perfect and satisfy everybody but I think it's great to go into this having done the best you can of thinking about things ahead of time and trying to do things in the best way possible. So I really do applaud you in all your work. So thank you. Thank you, Dorothy. And it looks like our last public comment is coming, will be Lenore Brick. Lenore, please give us your name and your address. Pam, would you reset the clock? Thank you. Hi, sorry, Lenore Brick, 255 Strong Street. I might need three minutes. As we start this process of drafting the solar renewable energy law, I would like us to challenge some of our assumptions. Please do not assume that large-scale solar installations have all gone well. There are examples of severe damage from projects all over the state, the region, the country, like in Wareham, Plymouth, Williamsburg and these towns were not inferior to Amherst planning boards and they and some of them had solar bylaws. Please don't assume that solar companies are equipped to understand the impact on the ecosystems or to anticipate long-term consequences. Please don't assume that the town solar bylaws that you're looking at were created, informed by this influx of foreign corporations coming into Massachusetts because of our state subsidies and that is the reason it's happening on green lands, not just because there's not enough room on built landscape but because it's more profitable. Please don't assume that there's adequate oversight. The state agencies have not been enforcing that so who's going to do that here? And we can provide documentation on all of this. Please do not assume that our town's fair share of generating solar energy is, as the state and New England starts to look at regional approaches, let's incorporate that also and please do not assume that large scale installations are the only and best way to address climate and biodiversity collapse because it is a man-made technology. It is substituting for fossil fuels, which is great but it's not a substitution for nature's technology which through the miracle of photosynthesis takes the sun's energy and converts it to carbon matter which is our food and which perpetuates life on earth. Our technology and our laws are not perfect and they'll keep changing but nature's laws have been in place before we were here and we'll continue to run the show after we're gone. And I thank you for your time and efforts and your conversation was very interesting and very thorough and I look forward to you doing that more and more. Thank you. Thank you, Lenore. Eric Bakrak, I see your hand up again. If that is not a legacy and you do want to speak again, Ham, can we give Eric one more minute? It's, hello, can you hear me? Yes. Oh, it's not Eric, it's Rene Moss, I'm his wife. So we're just using the same computer. Oh, I see. Okay, I don't have much to say. I just want to add one thing. And again, as people before me have said, to thank you for the work you're doing around this but just in hearing the conversation this evening, I had one concern around, I think that I understand the importance of getting input from developers and people who do this work. But I hope that we will also get input from forest ecologists and people who represent a different perspective. You know, as Lenore said, things are in motion. This is science and we're discovering new things, more research, et cetera.  And I know there's different perspectives on it and I hope we get all of those perspectives when we consider this. And once again, thank you so much for giving it the attention you are and I'm confident that the time will move forward and have a good bylaw. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, so board members, any more discussion for this evening? Chris, do you think you've heard enough from us to sort of take a first pass at essentially a boiler, you know, a template? And, you know, I think one of the callers said she could send some supplemental information. So I forget which of our callers that was, but, you know, please do send information into Chris. She is, Chris and Pam are very diligent about sharing all the information they have with us. So our inboxes are always full of emails from them. So, okay, well, with that, why don't we end this topic for this evening? This is number 4A on our agenda. The time is 9.30 and why don't we move to 4B? Chris, do you wanna bring up the spreadsheet that you put together? I think it might be helpful for us to see just the list of what initiatives we were tasked with by town council last year. And where they all sit at the moment. So Pam is the talented person of bringing up her screen. I am hopeless at bringing up my screen. So I rely on Pam to help. This is towards the end of the packet. And I must say that Doug put together a much more readable version of this and maybe we'll send that out in the next packet or email it to you. His version has different colors. Actually, Pam helped me with this. This was nothing but a gray kind of dull looking thing before Pam helped me add some color to it. And then Doug made it even better. So, but we haven't shown you Doug's version, but we will. So anyway, this was a request by Doug to give you an update on where we were with all of the bylaws that we were asked to work on last year, or that we said we wanted to work on. And so the first part of the list is the town council priorities. And these are taken from the list that we went over with the town council. Perhaps some of you weren't there, but there was a town council meeting on March 9th of 2021. And we gave them a PowerPoint presentation. And they had given us a whole bunch of priorities that they wanted us to work on. And then we told them what we wanted to work on and we ended up with a list and agreed upon list. But anyway, here we go, town council priorities. One of the things they wanted us to work on was adding footnote B to the BL zoning district. And we did work on a version of that. Nate and Rob Mora worked on creating an overlay district for the BL district, but it got kind of, what should